***Corrections*** Regenerate cannot be exhausted, so it will always have a chance to trigger (that's why there is a box around it). I forgot to roll for the chimera to potentially guard when I attacked in round 3. The ultimate card for the boss counts as a ready spell, which means many cards that I thought were "dead" in this play mode are actually useful. Should open up deck construction options even more!
Hey Mike! I'm on the playtest team for Ashes and I just wanted to say this was an *excellent* demonstration and review. Thanks for all the kind words you had to say and for being so thorough and entertaining throughout! There were only a few small things that were missed, the potentially most impactful one being a missed guard roll on the Anchornaut attack in round 3. Also wanted to point out that Regenerate's ability is inexhaustible because it has the yellow box around it. That means its ability would trigger even if it is exhausted. The Aspects that have status abilities (the Green Box abilities) are also considered to be inexhaustible, so for instance an exhausted Stormcall would still tick away turn after turn even if it is exhausted. Re: Dead Cards -- we made it a very high priority to make sure that as many of the player cards in the game would be compatible with Red Rains, and technically speaking there's really only one card in all 29 preconstructed player decks that is not compatible at all, although like you said there will certainly be some cards that are less useful in this mode than in the PvP mode, so that's why Channel Magic is in there. Anyway, hope you don't mind these notes! Again, I think you did a fantastic job :) Thanks for demonstrating and reviewing the game! Glad you had a good time with it! (Would love to see a co-op playthrough at a higher difficulty at some point from y'all!)
Thanks so much, and great job to the whole playtesting team! I’ll add some notes to the video description with corrections. I knew about the status effects being inexhaustible, but didn’t realize regenerate was too. I’m… not sure I love the idea of a monster potentially staying alive over and over and then giving the boss a red rain token at the end of the turn, but I can always houserule that for my own plays ;)
@@OneStopCoopShop Well, remember Regenerate only comes back if you roll a Basic on the Rage die, which is a 50/50 chance. So, you could get unlucky and it keeps coming back, but at least you're still doing damage to the boss every time you kill it, and it's not too hard to kill!
@@iredmondwm Eugene is right -- Copycat, Victoria's signature card, is the only card that is not compatible. Unfortunately since the Chimera doesn't play action spells or have a "Phoenixborn ability", she can't copy anything with it. However, Victoria will be getting a new signature card in a future Red Rains expansion so look forward to that!
This should be coming in any day now! Super excited. I've held off on playing Ashes because I don't have anyone to play with but now with solo-able content I'll pick it up.
So pumped they developed a solo mode for this. I’ve done some plays to get a hold of the game but didn’t have anyone who wanted to play it. Now I have a solid alternative to the money pit MTG tends to be
Thanks Mike - great playthrough and review! My copy is arriving today. I’ve been avoiding this because it was only two player so when they announced this new expansion, I was on it. Thanks again!
Cool , love Ashes Reborn and have subscribed so Red Rains is on it's way. It includes a ceremonial deck, this means it uses symbols of the single colour(mono) ceremonial magic dice and the included extra cards for 4 of the 6 Phoenix Born in the Master(core set), which can be added together to create 6 variations to face off against the Corpse of Viros. In addition to the 6 preconstructed decks in the master set. You can use any 10 dice, even some with non basic symbols that are not useful for your deck build just for their basic and power abilities. Great overview, probably should be less trigger happy to discard to level up your dice, it's best to wait until you need to, otherwise like you found it's a waste of cards.
This is awesome! My Ashes reborn will get a new life with this solo mode. Can´t wait to hold those dice in my hands again, one of the reasons I love this game. 😀
Thanks for showing this. I picked the game up and I have to say I love it. It’s hard to find in Europe but I managed it, and it is well worth it. Brilliant game, can’t wait for the next expansion.
@@OneStopCoopShop oh so like for example if a player card put an exhaustion token on the chimera ready spell (Ultimate card), then you would increase the ultimate value making it harder for the chimera to level up. (Page 11 in rules). I don't think there is a player card that discards a ready spell.
@@OneStopCoopShop another cool thing is that you can target the chimera dice with player card effects or the illusion dice power that lower dice, making it harder for the chimera to get those red rains tokens
JS is correct, there are no player cards that discard Ready Spells (and you can probably expect that we'll never print any now 😅). There's a segment of the Chimera Rulebook on pages 14-15 that talks about how some effects that don't directly translate from PvP actually work in the mode and it covers nearly all of the edge cases so that player cards are compatible. The result is that 99.9% of the player cards in this mode are indeed compatible, including stuff like summoning debuff units to the Chimera's battlefield, cards offering the opponent choices, cards that affect an opponent's hand, etc.
NICE! Always wanted to give Ashes a try but being only a solo player made it a bit tough.... until now lol I don't see a date for an Australian release but researching around from other countries it may be perhaps June??? I'll start buying the odd pack here on there where I see specials in anticipation. Thanks for showing off the solo version Mike :)
Thanks for the playthough! I really enjoy some degree of randomness in games as it makes them more unpredictable, replayable and fun in contrast to deterministic games.
I watched this playthrough and loved it. Bought Ashes and Red Rains. I'm really enjoying it. But i was wondering why i was getting so manh Red Rains tokens. Turns out I was rolling ALL the rage dice that weren't locked in. The thing was getting his rage dice locked in so fast and then getting his RR tokens. I guess i made the game more difficult than it needed to be. 😅
If your iron worker attacked the boss like you said it could have, it woukd have been exhausted when the Lurk attacked. Can the Chimera's aspects attack an exhausted unit? Can exhausted units be targeted by attacks?
Hey mike, in my rules it says I can’t use the channel magic cards, I am using the deck that came with the Red Rains set maybe that’s why, wasn’t sure if you knew why I can’t use them.
How does the Chimera's Ultimate Phase III work for "add a face down aspect to each of the chimera's battlefield..."? For instance if his battlefield is 4 and he has them all filled with faceup aspects already do you add additional face down cards underneath each one? I'm even more confused how this works if it happens during the recovery phase... would you have have two face down aspects in each battlefield space? Thanks!
You add "a face down aspect", as in a single card. And it clarifies that if it's the recovery phase you do this after replenishing aspects. So to give two examples, let's say it's the middle of a round and the Chimera has 3 aspects in their battlefield, 2 face up and 1 face down. The ultimate would add a 4th card, face down, to the battlefield. Let's say instead it's the recovery phase against a 1-player, standard level 1 chimera. It would replenish to 4 face down aspects as normal, THEN it would add a 5th aspect card. Hope that helps!
@@OneStopCoopShop thank you for the clarification ! That explanation was just what i needed to get outside of my head from thinking too hard about it 🙂. Another great video btw.
It really made no difference but I notice that your Phoenixborn had a Spellboard value and the ready spells said "spellboard" on them, so I assume this means that you could only have four of those in play. unless the extra copies stack? I haven't played Ashes so I'm just guessing here.
Yeah, they have another set (the frostwild scourge) coming out, I think later this year - boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/383633/ashes-reborn-red-rains-frostwild-scourge
Could you just buy a set of Ashes dice and have everything to play in this box w/out needing the Master set? You touched on it at the end but It does look like a 6 dollar set of dice would do the job.
You would be limited to just the exact player cards that come in this set (and the 4 include phoenixborn), so it wouldn’t necessarily be the best experience, but yes, with some dice you’d be good. But plaid hat just announced a bundle deal for this and the base master set for what seems to be a reasonable price, so I’d suggest that for more variety and content
In addition to what One Stop said, it's important to note that without any other player decks in your collection, you would not be able to play the Campaign mode, since it involves deck building from other preconstructed decks as you go. That's why Plaid Hat Games says that the Master Set is required for Red Rains.
$69 for 1 enemy with 2 aspects? Marvel is 5 for $30, aeons end, Arkham horror or LOTR 9 for $50… same for spirit island. It’s a weird product, with a bit of content for both type of players in an overpriced package.
Apples to oranges comparison. The solo/coop expansion is only $20 out of the bundle price. And you are also getting the master set for competitive play with tons of construction opportunities. Now yes, if you only want this for solo/coop and have no interest in competitive play, it’s going to be less of a good value compared to the games you mentioned, all of which are exclusively for solo/coop
The master set contains 6 PBs and their decks, which can be used for PvP AND solo. Then the CoV box contains a new ceremonial player deck, and 4 new PB uniques. There aren't 2 aspects, but two types of aspect. There's 36 aspects (the Chimeras goons).
@@Grolik i understand there is tons of player cards. And value for PvP. But if you are a solo player like me, it is disappointing. I would have gladly pay double for 0 new PB and 5 enemies with vastly different mechanics to overcome and probably a more inspired way to crank up the difficulty.
@@batmansmk I have the entire Ashes collection, so for me it's $20 to add an entire game mode and one that will continue expand. If I was to be buying in new, I'd be looking at it as 7 PB precons vs 2 Chimera aspect decks, for 14 different matchups, and that's ignoring the deckbuilding you can do for both the player and chimera, and if ignoring the difficulty modifiers. If that's not enough value for you, totally cool. I just don't want it to appear that it's 69 for 1 baddie; that's not a fair simplification.
***Corrections***
Regenerate cannot be exhausted, so it will always have a chance to trigger (that's why there is a box around it).
I forgot to roll for the chimera to potentially guard when I attacked in round 3.
The ultimate card for the boss counts as a ready spell, which means many cards that I thought were "dead" in this play mode are actually useful. Should open up deck construction options even more!
Hey Mike! I'm on the playtest team for Ashes and I just wanted to say this was an *excellent* demonstration and review. Thanks for all the kind words you had to say and for being so thorough and entertaining throughout! There were only a few small things that were missed, the potentially most impactful one being a missed guard roll on the Anchornaut attack in round 3.
Also wanted to point out that Regenerate's ability is inexhaustible because it has the yellow box around it. That means its ability would trigger even if it is exhausted. The Aspects that have status abilities (the Green Box abilities) are also considered to be inexhaustible, so for instance an exhausted Stormcall would still tick away turn after turn even if it is exhausted.
Re: Dead Cards -- we made it a very high priority to make sure that as many of the player cards in the game would be compatible with Red Rains, and technically speaking there's really only one card in all 29 preconstructed player decks that is not compatible at all, although like you said there will certainly be some cards that are less useful in this mode than in the PvP mode, so that's why Channel Magic is in there.
Anyway, hope you don't mind these notes! Again, I think you did a fantastic job :) Thanks for demonstrating and reviewing the game! Glad you had a good time with it! (Would love to see a co-op playthrough at a higher difficulty at some point from y'all!)
Thanks so much, and great job to the whole playtesting team! I’ll add some notes to the video description with corrections.
I knew about the status effects being inexhaustible, but didn’t realize regenerate was too.
I’m… not sure I love the idea of a monster potentially staying alive over and over and then giving the boss a red rain token at the end of the turn, but I can always houserule that for my own plays ;)
Very curious what you consider the one card that is incompatible?
@@iredmondwm Copycat from Victoria’s deck.
@@OneStopCoopShop Well, remember Regenerate only comes back if you roll a Basic on the Rage die, which is a 50/50 chance. So, you could get unlucky and it keeps coming back, but at least you're still doing damage to the boss every time you kill it, and it's not too hard to kill!
@@iredmondwm Eugene is right -- Copycat, Victoria's signature card, is the only card that is not compatible. Unfortunately since the Chimera doesn't play action spells or have a "Phoenixborn ability", she can't copy anything with it. However, Victoria will be getting a new signature card in a future Red Rains expansion so look forward to that!
I bought Ashes just for this mode!! So happy it's finally here
I was excited too :)
I’m enjoying my kids’ toddler phase - but these are the kind of games I look forward to playing with ‘em.
This one is SLIGHTLY over my 10 year-old’s head, but he will be there soon!
This should be coming in any day now! Super excited. I've held off on playing Ashes because I don't have anyone to play with but now with solo-able content I'll pick it up.
My situation too! Hope you enjoy it :)
Nice to learn that something like this is incoming!
Thanks for the insight, Mike. Top notch demonstration and delivery, as usual.
Thanks for watching!
So pumped they developed a solo mode for this. I’ve done some plays to get a hold of the game but didn’t have anyone who wanted to play it. Now I have a solid alternative to the money pit MTG tends to be
My thoughts exactly. My big box of cards was collecting dust ;)
Thanks Mike - great playthrough and review! My copy is arriving today. I’ve been avoiding this because it was only two player so when they announced this new expansion, I was on it. Thanks again!
Oh cool! Hope you have fun :)
Really enjoying the variety of games Mikes been playing!
I’m doing my best. My pile of games to cover is frighteningly large at the moment 😅
Cool , love Ashes Reborn and have subscribed so Red Rains is on it's way.
It includes a ceremonial deck, this means it uses symbols of the single colour(mono) ceremonial magic dice and the included extra cards for 4 of the 6 Phoenix Born in the Master(core set), which can be added together to create 6 variations to face off against the Corpse of Viros. In addition to the 6 preconstructed decks in the master set. You can use any 10 dice, even some with non basic symbols that are not useful for your deck build just for their basic and power abilities.
Great overview, probably should be less trigger happy to discard to level up your dice, it's best to wait until you need to, otherwise like you found it's a waste of cards.
Thanks, and yeah, still learning to be better here :)
This is awesome! My Ashes reborn will get a new life with this solo mode. Can´t wait to hold those dice in my hands again, one of the reasons I love this game. 😀
Yeah, they are fun!
Thanks for showing this. I picked the game up and I have to say I love it. It’s hard to find in Europe but I managed it, and it is well worth it. Brilliant game, can’t wait for the next expansion.
Sadly they didn’t have the expansion in time for GenCon, but I’m excited to play it too
So jealous. Still waiting for my copy of red rains!
Hope it comes soon!
Can’t wait for this!!!
I've been waiting for some news on this. Pretty keen to try it out as soon as I can actually buy it somewhere locally
They just put it up for order on their website, but not sure when retail is happening.
@@OneStopCoopShop I saw, but the shipping to Canada is a bit steep
For sure!!
@@AdamJorgensen are you in Ontario?
Ashes is amazing and Red rains are a great tool/mode!
One thing to remember is the ultimate card is actually a ready spell that alot of player cards can interact with
Wait it is? So how would a player power that discards a ready spell or something similar work? They just… don’t have an ultimate anymore?
@@OneStopCoopShop oh so like for example if a player card put an exhaustion token on the chimera ready spell (Ultimate card), then you would increase the ultimate value making it harder for the chimera to level up. (Page 11 in rules). I don't think there is a player card that discards a ready spell.
@@OneStopCoopShop another cool thing is that you can target the chimera dice with player card effects or the illusion dice power that lower dice, making it harder for the chimera to get those red rains tokens
I knew about the dice one, but good to know that fewer player cards are “dead” for this mode :)
JS is correct, there are no player cards that discard Ready Spells (and you can probably expect that we'll never print any now 😅).
There's a segment of the Chimera Rulebook on pages 14-15 that talks about how some effects that don't directly translate from PvP actually work in the mode and it covers nearly all of the edge cases so that player cards are compatible. The result is that 99.9% of the player cards in this mode are indeed compatible, including stuff like summoning debuff units to the Chimera's battlefield, cards offering the opponent choices, cards that affect an opponent's hand, etc.
This game has such amazing art.
For sure!
@@OneStopCoopShop The graphic design is also clean and minimalistic...unlike many card games.
NICE! Always wanted to give Ashes a try but being only a solo player made it a bit tough.... until now lol
I don't see a date for an Australian release but researching around from other countries it may be perhaps June???
I'll start buying the odd pack here on there where I see specials in anticipation.
Thanks for showing off the solo version Mike :)
Thanks for watching!
Thanks for the playthough! I really enjoy some degree of randomness in games as it makes them more unpredictable, replayable and fun in contrast to deterministic games.
Oh absolutely, especially when it comes to solo/co-op, where there are no living opponents to change the game up with their choices.
I watched this playthrough and loved it. Bought Ashes and Red Rains.
I'm really enjoying it. But i was wondering why i was getting so manh Red Rains tokens.
Turns out I was rolling ALL the rage dice that weren't locked in. The thing was getting his rage dice locked in so fast and then getting his RR tokens. I guess i made the game more difficult than it needed to be. 😅
ULTRA mode!
Glad you are enjoying it :)
This maybe what I need to get Ashes out of shrink!
Haha, that’s pretty much how it worked for me
22:50, isnt the hammer knight supposed to become exhausted after the counter attack?
Its "Alert" ability allows it to counter without exhausting.
@@OneStopCoopShop thank you for the reply :)
If your iron worker attacked the boss like you said it could have, it woukd have been exhausted when the Lurk attacked. Can the Chimera's aspects attack an exhausted unit?
Can exhausted units be targeted by attacks?
Yes, units can attack exhausted units, and when they do that unit has no way to retaliate back.
Hey mike, in my rules it says I can’t use the channel magic cards, I am using the deck that came with the Red Rains set maybe that’s why, wasn’t sure if you knew why I can’t use them.
In my rules it said you can use them to replace any other card, at least in the campaign mode…
How does the Chimera's Ultimate Phase III work for "add a face down aspect to each of the chimera's battlefield..."? For instance if his battlefield is 4 and he has them all filled with faceup aspects already do you add additional face down cards underneath each one? I'm even more confused how this works if it happens during the recovery phase... would you have have two face down aspects in each battlefield space? Thanks!
You add "a face down aspect", as in a single card. And it clarifies that if it's the recovery phase you do this after replenishing aspects.
So to give two examples, let's say it's the middle of a round and the Chimera has 3 aspects in their battlefield, 2 face up and 1 face down. The ultimate would add a 4th card, face down, to the battlefield.
Let's say instead it's the recovery phase against a 1-player, standard level 1 chimera. It would replenish to 4 face down aspects as normal, THEN it would add a 5th aspect card.
Hope that helps!
@@OneStopCoopShop thank you for the clarification ! That explanation was just what i needed to get outside of my head from thinking too hard about it 🙂. Another great video btw.
It really made no difference but I notice that your Phoenixborn had a Spellboard value and the ready spells said "spellboard" on them, so I assume this means that you could only have four of those in play. unless the extra copies stack? I haven't played Ashes so I'm just guessing here.
Yes correct you can 4 different ready spells in play if you have 4 spellboard value.
Akmal got it, but yes, stacked spells only count as one spell
Dude! Lotion!🙂
Cracked skin = crackin’ playthrough 😜
@@OneStopCoopShop We Northerners have this issue in common.
I thought Lurks couldn't be targeted by spells. How does your One Hundred Blades get him?
It doesn’t target anyone. It just hits them all for 1 damage. So it naturally avoids lurk’s ability
any news about additional solo content for ashes?
Yeah, they have another set (the frostwild scourge) coming out, I think later this year - boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/383633/ashes-reborn-red-rains-frostwild-scourge
Could you just buy a set of Ashes dice and have everything to play in this box w/out needing the Master set? You touched on it at the end but It does look like a 6 dollar set of dice would do the job.
You would be limited to just the exact player cards that come in this set (and the 4 include phoenixborn), so it wouldn’t necessarily be the best experience, but yes, with some dice you’d be good.
But plaid hat just announced a bundle deal for this and the base master set for what seems to be a reasonable price, so I’d suggest that for more variety and content
In addition to what One Stop said, it's important to note that without any other player decks in your collection, you would not be able to play the Campaign mode, since it involves deck building from other preconstructed decks as you go. That's why Plaid Hat Games says that the Master Set is required for Red Rains.
$69 for 1 enemy with 2
aspects? Marvel is 5 for $30, aeons end, Arkham horror or LOTR 9 for $50… same for spirit island. It’s a weird product, with a bit of content for both type of players in an overpriced package.
Apples to oranges comparison. The solo/coop expansion is only $20 out of the bundle price. And you are also getting the master set for competitive play with tons of construction opportunities.
Now yes, if you only want this for solo/coop and have no interest in competitive play, it’s going to be less of a good value compared to the games you mentioned, all of which are exclusively for solo/coop
@@OneStopCoopShop yes it’s an apple in a market of oranges. Competitive players looking for a splash of solo is a concept I don’t resonate with.
The master set contains 6 PBs and their decks, which can be used for PvP AND solo. Then the CoV box contains a new ceremonial player deck, and 4 new PB uniques.
There aren't 2 aspects, but two types of aspect. There's 36 aspects (the Chimeras goons).
@@Grolik i understand there is tons of player cards. And value for PvP. But if you are a solo player like me, it is disappointing. I would have gladly pay double for 0 new PB and 5 enemies with vastly different mechanics to overcome and probably a more inspired way to crank up the difficulty.
@@batmansmk I have the entire Ashes collection, so for me it's $20 to add an entire game mode and one that will continue expand. If I was to be buying in new, I'd be looking at it as 7 PB precons vs 2 Chimera aspect decks, for 14 different matchups, and that's ignoring the deckbuilding you can do for both the player and chimera, and if ignoring the difficulty modifiers.
If that's not enough value for you, totally cool. I just don't want it to appear that it's 69 for 1 baddie; that's not a fair simplification.