Thanks. I've got some bits to paint first, but I am hoping to do some more on this game. Obviously lots of other stuff to cram into the channel as well, so I'm not sure on timelines yet!
Wow, such a great looking book. I love the layout. I'm glad you didn't share the missions, I appreciate you not spoiling them. I'd enjoy seeing more of this if possible. Thanks for taking the time.
I think it's the nicest rules book I own, which is pretty high praise considering I have D&D books and Burrows and Badgers. I am hoping to do at least the first mission on the channel when I have everything I need painted up.
Cool. I have the previous hardback edition and it’s a good game. My top tip would be: whilst it’s fun, it’s not terribly challenging, so worth considering the new Challenge Level or have house rules of, say, increasing the number of monsters introduced during the Event Phase. Feeling slightly overwhelmed by them advancing on you is more fun!
In which case I will tell you that Rangers of Shadow Deep is terrible. I'm lying, but I'll tell you. Make sure you check out Games Workshop on 13 June as they are revealing the contents of the new 9th edition starter box.
I have the Print on Demand version and some of the expansions. I have been looking for a review of the Deluxe ed for months already, wanted to see if I wanted to upgrade. Probably will. Thanks.
Glad the video helped. If there's anything you would like to ask about this edition before you take the plunge, feel free and I'll do my best to help out.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring I've read good things about the minis and it's such incredible value, just means I'll be at the painting table until I'm 80 :)
Love this book! Have to give you the credit because I bought it after you mentioned it in your Elder Scrolls preorder video for some solo play. Makes me feel much more invested in the system than a pdf because otherwise I've used stuff from LOTR, Warhammer, DnD, Star Wars, etc. Hope you have fun with it!
Nice book. I had a bit of fun with this game when it came out but the subsequent expansion bloat has pretty much stopped me from doing much with it. Sort of the same issue I had with Frostgrave in the end and the reason I did not buy in to Ghost Archipelago. I also much prefer playing a game two sided without an AI.
I thought you really liked Frostgrave. I'm sure there must be a way to ignore the AI in Rangers and just move the enemies based on what you think they would most likely do. The book has three missions, all with multiple scenarios. Seems like more than enough content to be going for a while before I have to think about any expansions.
I do like Frostgrave but information is really spread between all the expansions. A certain hireling will be in one book, the scenario you want to play in another book, and a specific spell in yet a third. Then there are revisions to old systems and new treasures spread everywhere. It just gets to be a pain. Plus the rules between all three games are so similar, I can't see much point in pursuing all three unless you really like building terrain. I did loads for Frostgrave that also works for Dark Ages stuff. I would never, ever build all the tropical island stuff Ghost requires. Rangers seems geared towards using a general set of fantasy terrain, which is good, but there are lots of specialty pieces in there. Lots of Frostgrave required very specific terrain pieces that you usually had to fudge. Who has a frozen river with multiple wrecked ships frozen into it? Or a full board of ancient library shelving? I have one wrecked rowboat and three dodgy bookshelves. I found that after 4-5 games of Rangers I'd explored most of what the base game offered and that many on the scenarios were pretty generic. Basically you choose if you want the main dude to be a wizard, a Ranger, or a fighter/cleric ish dude, and go with the game that does that option. Frostgrave also has some serious power curve issues and the ability to stack multipliers for combat into absurd levels. Early on the d20 is really swingy but later on is seems to barely matter. It's why there's a second edition coming...likely with even more books. Now Ghost and Rangers have incorporated some of those changes, but the jury is still out on them.
@@johnmiddleton4291 That makes sense. It's annoying when rules are spread across different books. It's bad enough with board games. Rangers of Shadow Deep seems to be pretty easy in terms of terrain. Couple of buildings, couple of trees, a river, and the interior of a keep seems to be the most important stuff. I also don't mind doing stuff like using some board tiles to make the interior of a building, or using wooden tokens or glass beads to represent points of interest. My least favourite part of Rangers is how swingy the opposed D20 combat can be at times. You can smash a rat to pieces, or get ripped to pieces.
That swingy-ness disappears later when you start stacking modifiers and abilities onto the rolls. It can get so bad that the die roll almost becomes negligible for many combats. There are also lots of edge cases and loopholes that require much more thought than say the ability cards in the D&D boardgames. It's not as bad as Frostgraves spells, but close. Expect to GM yourself through combats that do anything unusual. Needles to say, most of Josephs rules succeed on the campaign structure and the ability to use whatever minis. The actual rules are just workmanlike and nothing special or innovative.
@@johnmiddleton4291 It'll be interesting to see how I feel about the swingyness once I've got into the campaign and have some advancements. I'm not worried about edge cases. As you know, I happily wargame solo so needing to tweak an AI from time to time isn't going to be an issue.
Race discussion reminds me of how gnolls and cultists and such are treated in frostgrave where they are not really different in the game. Just cool new models.
Yeah, in his games Joseph just seems to want it so you can use whatever miniatures you have. Rangers of Shadow Deep seems to use gnolls quite a bit and I feel that’s only because of the assumption people might have come from Frostgrave so already have those miniatures. I am using orcs in place of gnolls
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring I have some gnolls and have thought about getting the frostgrave ones but dnd style gnolls are larger than man sized while frostgrave ones are very much man sized.
@@bradp6452 I do really like the look of the North Star gnolls, but I don't own any so I wasn't really aware of a size difference. I was going to get some (and still might eventually), but ended up using orcs to save a bit of cash for now.
You mean the Rangers of Shadow Deep Standard Edition (red cover)? I'm not sure that's any different to the deluxe version. I think they just rebound it for a retail release. The description for the standard edition marries up with the edition of the deluxe edition, just without the faux leather cover. I just spoke to their customer support team, and they have confirmed the new retail edition with the red cover has the same contents as the deluxe edition with the faux leather cover. Just different binding and a few corrected typos.
Great review and worth the wait. Please do some more content on it. Maybe a video play through of the first mission.
Thanks. I've got some bits to paint first, but I am hoping to do some more on this game. Obviously lots of other stuff to cram into the channel as well, so I'm not sure on timelines yet!
Wow, such a great looking book. I love the layout. I'm glad you didn't share the missions, I appreciate you not spoiling them. I'd enjoy seeing more of this if possible. Thanks for taking the time.
I think it's the nicest rules book I own, which is pretty high praise considering I have D&D books and Burrows and Badgers. I am hoping to do at least the first mission on the channel when I have everything I need painted up.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring Sounds like a plan. I'm excited to see how it turns out.
Cool. I have the previous hardback edition and it’s a good game. My top tip would be: whilst it’s fun, it’s not terribly challenging, so worth considering the new Challenge Level or have house rules of, say, increasing the number of monsters introduced during the Event Phase. Feeling slightly overwhelmed by them advancing on you is more fun!
I'll have to see how I get on. If I feel it's too easy I'll ramp things up. Thanks for the tip.
Mate you're just full of temptations...I'm trying to save up for the 9th Edition of WH40k.
In which case I will tell you that Rangers of Shadow Deep is terrible. I'm lying, but I'll tell you. Make sure you check out Games Workshop on 13 June as they are revealing the contents of the new 9th edition starter box.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring I will be tuning in to your channel for the review, but thanks for the heads up for their reveal.
I have the Print on Demand version and some of the expansions. I have been looking for a review of the Deluxe ed for months already, wanted to see if I wanted to upgrade. Probably will. Thanks.
Glad the video helped. If there's anything you would like to ask about this edition before you take the plunge, feel free and I'll do my best to help out.
Great video! I'm jumping into this and Frostgrave...hard...Just back Lasting Tales Series 2 and got the first series of minis of the way :)_
Lasting Tales looked like fun. I was thinking of picking it up when it goes to retail. The Blacklist miniatures look really good too.
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring I've read good things about the minis and it's such incredible value, just means I'll be at the painting table until I'm 80 :)
@@stephenoshea3471 I know that feeling. Still, we wouldn't want to get bored, would we?
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring always board, never boring ;)
Love this book! Have to give you the credit because I bought it after you mentioned it in your Elder Scrolls preorder video for some solo play. Makes me feel much more invested in the system than a pdf because otherwise I've used stuff from LOTR, Warhammer, DnD, Star Wars, etc. Hope you have fun with it!
It's a fantastic book. I'm really looking forward to getting into it.
Yes!!!!
what type of measuring device do you use?
Just a good old fashioned tape measure. I'm a traditionalist.
I hope you show some solo missions. Good video.
Thanks for watching. I think I might at least make a video on the first scenario. A few people have said they want to see more of this game.
Nice book. I had a bit of fun with this game when it came out but the subsequent expansion bloat has pretty much stopped me from doing much with it. Sort of the same issue I had with Frostgrave in the end and the reason I did not buy in to Ghost Archipelago. I also much prefer playing a game two sided without an AI.
I thought you really liked Frostgrave. I'm sure there must be a way to ignore the AI in Rangers and just move the enemies based on what you think they would most likely do. The book has three missions, all with multiple scenarios. Seems like more than enough content to be going for a while before I have to think about any expansions.
I do like Frostgrave but information is really spread between all the expansions. A certain hireling will be in one book, the scenario you want to play in another book, and a specific spell in yet a third. Then there are revisions to old systems and new treasures spread everywhere. It just gets to be a pain.
Plus the rules between all three games are so similar, I can't see much point in pursuing all three unless you really like building terrain. I did loads for Frostgrave that also works for Dark Ages stuff. I would never, ever build all the tropical island stuff Ghost requires. Rangers seems geared towards using a general set of fantasy terrain, which is good, but there are lots of specialty pieces in there. Lots of Frostgrave required very specific terrain pieces that you usually had to fudge. Who has a frozen river with multiple wrecked ships frozen into it? Or a full board of ancient library shelving? I have one wrecked rowboat and three dodgy bookshelves.
I found that after 4-5 games of Rangers I'd explored most of what the base game offered and that many on the scenarios were pretty generic. Basically you choose if you want the main dude to be a wizard, a Ranger, or a fighter/cleric ish dude, and go with the game that does that option.
Frostgrave also has some serious power curve issues and the ability to stack multipliers for combat into absurd levels. Early on the d20 is really swingy but later on is seems to barely matter. It's why there's a second edition coming...likely with even more books. Now Ghost and Rangers have incorporated some of those changes, but the jury is still out on them.
@@johnmiddleton4291 That makes sense. It's annoying when rules are spread across different books. It's bad enough with board games. Rangers of Shadow Deep seems to be pretty easy in terms of terrain. Couple of buildings, couple of trees, a river, and the interior of a keep seems to be the most important stuff. I also don't mind doing stuff like using some board tiles to make the interior of a building, or using wooden tokens or glass beads to represent points of interest. My least favourite part of Rangers is how swingy the opposed D20 combat can be at times. You can smash a rat to pieces, or get ripped to pieces.
That swingy-ness disappears later when you start stacking modifiers and abilities onto the rolls. It can get so bad that the die roll almost becomes negligible for many combats. There are also lots of edge cases and loopholes that require much more thought than say the ability cards in the D&D boardgames. It's not as bad as Frostgraves spells, but close. Expect to GM yourself through combats that do anything unusual.
Needles to say, most of Josephs rules succeed on the campaign structure and the ability to use whatever minis. The actual rules are just workmanlike and nothing special or innovative.
@@johnmiddleton4291 It'll be interesting to see how I feel about the swingyness once I've got into the campaign and have some advancements. I'm not worried about edge cases. As you know, I happily wargame solo so needing to tweak an AI from time to time isn't going to be an issue.
Great game. Amazing next level system.
Agreed. I love Rangers of Shadow Deep.
Race discussion reminds me of how gnolls and cultists and such are treated in frostgrave where they are not really different in the game. Just cool new models.
Yeah, in his games Joseph just seems to want it so you can use whatever miniatures you have. Rangers of Shadow Deep seems to use gnolls quite a bit and I feel that’s only because of the assumption people might have come from Frostgrave so already have those miniatures. I am using orcs in place of gnolls
@@AlwaysBoardNeverBoring I have some gnolls and have thought about getting the frostgrave ones but dnd style gnolls are larger than man sized while frostgrave ones are very much man sized.
@@bradp6452 I do really like the look of the North Star gnolls, but I don't own any so I wasn't really aware of a size difference. I was going to get some (and still might eventually), but ended up using orcs to save a bit of cash for now.
There is now another THIRD version of this out. Different cover, more art and revised rules. Sigh.
You mean the Rangers of Shadow Deep Standard Edition (red cover)? I'm not sure that's any different to the deluxe version. I think they just rebound it for a retail release. The description for the standard edition marries up with the edition of the deluxe edition, just without the faux leather cover.
I just spoke to their customer support team, and they have confirmed the new retail edition with the red cover has the same contents as the deluxe edition with the faux leather cover. Just different binding and a few corrected typos.