In Godsforge you play an elite spellweaver battling for control of said Godsforge, the last source of magical energy in a crumbling world. This is accomplished by summoning creations and casting spells to pummel your rivals into submission. Every round players simultaneously throw their dice and select a card to play based on the roll, cards are then revealed together, damage is dealt and effects resolved. The last player standing is the winner.
We first reviewed Godsforge back in 2019, but since then a revised “Second Edition” has been released which comes with a smaller box and a few other minor streamlining features. Most importantly though, are the two expansion packs that featured alongside this new version – and that’s we’re here to review today.
Each of the two expansion packs adds fifty five cards, a sprinkle of new mechanics and the components to accommodate an additional player round the table for a maximum of six combatants. The expansion cards are marked with their own symbols so you can easily mix them in and out of the core deck to suit. We enjoyed playing with both expansions together for maximum variability and surprises in the deck.
Twilight of the Great Houses brings one of my favourite new twists to the game with its asymmetric player powers. At game start players are randomly assigned a great house card which will give them unique powers to leverage during play. These include perks such as gaining life every time you cast a spell, turning a die to a chosen face once per round or a bigger hand limit. We found these cards add a lot of excitement and unpredictability to the game. However some combinations did feel a little unbalanced and led to some very one sided matches.
Twilight of the Great houses also adds some cards that deal unavoidable damage to those enemies that like to focus on defensive card combinations. It also features a smattering of cards that prevent rival mages playing a creation unless through a spell, significantly reducing options that round in a game with a usual hand size of four. With so many powerful cards added, it really adds some tension and excitement to the game with every draw.
Return of the Dragon Gods offers a plethora of dragon themed options that increase your destructive arsenal. First among these are upgradable cards, veilstone crystals can be spent to increase the stats of these cards. Some cards can even be upgraded multiple times if you can keep the crystals coming every round leading to some real powerhouse creations. This leaves the player with an interesting choice: go wide and play as many cards as possible or focus on generating veilstones to build up a few cards into game breaking titans.
Return of the Dragon Gods also adds synergy between certain card keywords. Zanthra, Dragon of Night for example gains a bonus for each other dragon in play while another might add defence to all cards of a given type. Chasing these card synergies can lead you to focus on hand size and drawing as many cards as possible but it’s risky.
Overall these two expansions add a good bit of strategic depth and unpredictability to the core game without much additional complexity, however there were a couple of card interactions and effect orders which could have used tighter wording more akin to a TCG. We played most of our games using both expansions at the same time for the biggest range of options to keep rivals guessing. It also feels like a bit of a shame that a few of the expansion cards recycled some of the artwork by changing the colours, stats and titles. That said these additional packs are a great option for lovers of the core game looking to deepen the experience by adding more variety and strategy. I also found it really handy for travel that all the expansion content easily fits into the core box.
You can find both expansions on Asmodee’s website.
