Jed Litwiller
United States
McPherson
Kansas
-
So on the Dice Tower podcast, I heard Tom talk about a variant he likes for Thunderstone; something about mixing village cards together and mixing the monster cards together???
Anybody know what I'm talking about?
Jed
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M Singleton
United States
Alpharetta
Georgia
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I played Launius' version at one of his monthly game events and it's awesome.
The village is broken down into 4 piles. He did have them sorted into like piles so it isn't soooo crazy difficult. Like food and magic items in two piles and all the rest of them in two piles.
Monsters are mixed as well and the first ones you pick (30, 40, ect. based on the game play you want) are the ones that go into the dungeon with the thunderstone. Throw the traps in there too.
All level 1 heroes are put out to buy. They too are randomly placed in 4 piles.
You can only get what you see on your turn, and you can only get to a level 2 or three hero but upgrading the previous one of them you had.
He may have changed it since the new expansion came out and I might be butchering a bit, but that's what I remember from when wrath of elements first became available.
Hope this at least helps to get ya started.
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Shawn Ridenour
United States
Spanish Fork
Utah
-
It was described in the podcast as:
Thunderstone Variant by Richard Lawnius
Shuffle all level 1 heroes into 4 piles
Shuffle all light items into 2 piles
Shuffle all weapons into 3 piles
Shuffle all towns people into 2 piles
Shuffle all food into 2 piles
Sort dungeon by monster experience
If two village decks ever have the same card on top, shuffle both decks
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Jed Litwiller
United States
McPherson
Kansas
-
Thanks for your help guys!!! Waiting for TS and WotE in the mail and can't wait to try it out!
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Richard Launius
United States
Johns Creek
Georgia
-
Actually - I am pretty familiar with the variant.
To me Thunderstone is an epic adventure game and as such should be set up with a broader world (and many more Heroes, items, and weapons and magic than the base game rules provide, so I use the following set up and I have special boards that represent the Dungeon, the Inn (where Heroes appear), the Blacksmith and the Market that holds the Food, Items, Light, Townsfolk, etc...
My set up is a follows:
Epic Thunderstone
When playing Thunderstone as an epic game, the cards are shuffled into the following groups for easy set up and play.
Heroes: All Level 1 Hero cards are shuffled together and broken into 4 even groups and placed on the 4 Hero locations of the Village Tavern.
Note: All level 2 and Level 3 should stay divided in the game box and the box located nearby for easy access. The only way to upgrade the Level 1 Heroes is to spend Experience Points to so.
Monsters & Dungeon Features: All of these cards should be shuffled together. When playing Deal out 10 Cards per player into the Dungeon. Do not use Hordes, but do add Traps and Treasure. Last, add 1 or more Thunderstones to the bottom 10 cards and shuffle them.
Magic Spells & Magic Items: All of these cards are shuffled together and when playing broken into 2 stacks and placed on the Magic locations of the Village.
Weapons: All Weapon cards (not including the starting Dagger cards) are shuffled together and broken into 2 stacks and placed on the Weapons locations of the Village.
Townsfolk: All townsfolk cards are shuffled together and broken into 2 stacks and placed on the two Townsfolk locations of the Village.
Food: All Food cards (not including the starting Iron Rations) are shuffled together and placed on the Food location of the Village.
Light: All Light cards (not including the starting Torch cards) are shuffled together and placed on the Light location of the Village.
Militia / Torch / Iron Rations / Dagger: Each of these cards are placed on their respective locations. Each location identifies how many cards the player will start with.
Special Action when playing Epic Thunderstone: When the players take a Village action before making any card purchases, they may discard the top card from any location.
Note: As more sets come out I reduce the number of each type of card included in the decks to ensure more different things occur.
That is it - but I will say the town boards make the game very organized and look great. If you like random fantasy, then this is the way to play, but if you prefer the more structured strategy of Dominion, then stick with the base rules. Regardless of how you play this game - Thunderstone is excellent and for me the best of the deck building games.
Thanks - Richard
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Rob Bell
United States
Frenchville
Pennsylvania
-
This variant sounds awesome and I will definitely be giving it a try! Thanks for posting and sharing it, Richard.
Now if only I had some files to make these special town boards... 
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Michael Sweazey
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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Playing this variant with Richard is how I was introduced to the game, and what led us to get the game a few weeks later.
Thanks for taking the time to type up the changes so I don't forget anything! I agree...those boards were really nice!
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Richard Launius
United States
Johns Creek
Georgia
-
Now if only I had some files to make these special town boards...
Sorry Rob - I don't think I can get rights to all the artwork or I would post them. Most is from Thunderstone, but some are basic fantasy pictures (like the Blacksmith, Merchant and Inn backgrounds) so I don't think I can post.
If someone out there is energetic and wants to redo the files with artwork that can be posted they should contact me.
Richard
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Rob Bell
United States
Frenchville
Pennsylvania
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Richard Launius wrote: Sorry Rob - I don't think I can get rights to all the artwork or I would post them. I figured something like that was the case... but I was hopeful!
One question I have on the variant. Some Food and Light cards are also Magic Items - how do you generally distribute these into the stacks?
Thanks again, Richard, for posting the details of your variant. It does sound epic. 
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Richard Launius
United States
Johns Creek
Georgia
-
One question I have on the variant. Some Food and Light cards are also Magic Items - how do you generally distribute these into the stacks?
All Light (even Magic Light) go into the Light stack. Magic consists of spells mostly. magic Weapons are in Weapons stack, Feast, Goodberries are in the food stack, etc...
Richard
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Matt Bush
United States
Shrewsbury
Pennsylvania
-
Richard Launius wrote: Actually - I am pretty familiar with the variant.
Special Action when playing Epic Thunderstone: When the players take a Village action before making any card purchases, they may discard the top card from any location.
Note: As more sets come out I reduce the number of each type of card included in the decks to ensure more different things occur.
Wow Richard,
This is a very cool concept. I am excited to try it! Quick question for clarification though, with the special action of discarding a top card, can you discard as many top cards as you want? Or is it one per player? I understand that this helps prevent undesirable items from getting "stuck" on top. I play this solo and wasn't sure if I could be removing so many cards at once.
PS: Arkham Horror is an amazing game 
Matt
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David Anderson
United States
seattle
Washington
Two Time Cancer Survivor - Never Give Up. Never Surrender. -Jason Nesmith from Galaxy Quest (1999 movie)
After losing my Father, Grandfather and childhood best friend to suicide, My message is simple: You are not alone.
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Richard Launius wrote: Actually - I am pretty familiar with the variant.
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S Marstiller
United States
Los Angeles
California
-
Richard, any chance we could see those town boards?
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Tom Vasel
United States
Homestead
Unspecified
Top 100 Games of all Time
Dice Tower Convention, July 2012!!!!
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The Tom Vasel variant of the RL variant.
I put weapons in three stacks. There are SO many now, and weapons are a big part of the game, that it's fun to have more variety at the "weapon shop."
I shuffle the monsters into three decks - separating them by how many experience points they give. I put ten "level" ones on top of ten "level two" monsters on top of three "level three" monsters. I then shuffle one Guardian and one Thunderstone in with the last seven cards. We add treasures and/or traps as desired.
I love the rules that lets you discard the top card from any location, but we also play that if the same card is on multiple stacks, you can discard it from all stacks it's showing on.
There are a few monsters/heroes that don't work so well. Horde and Phalanx come to mind. And some weapons are better or worse, when using this variant, just because of the cards that become available.
Thanks to Richard for this good idea - it's the only way we play now!
Richard Launius wrote: Actually - I am pretty familiar with the variant. To me Thunderstone is an epic adventure game and as such should be set up with a broader world (and many more Heroes, items, and weapons and magic than the base game rules provide, so I use the following set up and I have special boards that represent the Dungeon, the Inn (where Heroes appear), the Blacksmith and the Market that holds the Food, Items, Light, Townsfolk, etc... My set up is a follows:Epic Thunderstone
When playing Thunderstone as an epic game, the cards are shuffled into the following groups for easy set up and play. Heroes: All Level 1 Hero cards are shuffled together and broken into 4 even groups and placed on the 4 Hero locations of the Village Tavern. Note: All level 2 and Level 3 should stay divided in the game box and the box located nearby for easy access. The only way to upgrade the Level 1 Heroes is to spend Experience Points to so. Monsters & Dungeon Features: All of these cards should be shuffled together. When playing Deal out 10 Cards per player into the Dungeon. Do not use Hordes, but do add Traps and Treasure. Last, add 1 or more Thunderstones to the bottom 10 cards and shuffle them. Magic Spells & Magic Items: All of these cards are shuffled together and when playing broken into 2 stacks and placed on the Magic locations of the Village. Weapons: All Weapon cards (not including the starting Dagger cards) are shuffled together and broken into 2 stacks and placed on the Weapons locations of the Village. Townsfolk: All townsfolk cards are shuffled together and broken into 2 stacks and placed on the two Townsfolk locations of the Village.
Food: All Food cards (not including the starting Iron Rations) are shuffled together and placed on the Food location of the Village. Light: All Light cards (not including the starting Torch cards) are shuffled together and placed on the Light location of the Village. Militia / Torch / Iron Rations / Dagger: Each of these cards are placed on their respective locations. Each location identifies how many cards the player will start with. Special Action when playing Epic Thunderstone: When the players take a Village action before making any card purchases, they may discard the top card from any location. Note: As more sets come out I reduce the number of each type of card included in the decks to ensure more different things occur. That is it - but I will say the town boards make the game very organized and look great. If you like random fantasy, then this is the way to play, but if you prefer the more structured strategy of Dominion, then stick with the base rules. Regardless of how you play this game - Thunderstone is excellent and for me the best of the deck building games. Thanks - Richard
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Jed Litwiller
United States
McPherson
Kansas
-
Quote: Actually - I am pretty familiar with the variant.
Quote: The Tom Vasel variant of the RL variant.
This is madness! I've played a few solo and 2/3 player games so far and I'm just barely getting into the WotE cards so it blows me away how many different ways you can play the game.
Do you guys think playing this way make the game more tactical, and less strategic?
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Jed Litwiller
United States
McPherson
Kansas
-
Quote: I shuffle the monsters into three decks - separating them by how many experience points they give. I put ten "level" ones on top of ten "level two" monsters on top of three "level three" monsters. I then shuffle one Guardian and one Thunderstone in with the last seven cards. We add treasures and/or traps as desired.
I was trying to think of a way to structure the dungeon deck in a way that is a little more leveled. Played a solo game earlier where I wasn't able to beat the first 5 or so monsters that came out. This sounds great!
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David Anderson
United States
seattle
Washington
Two Time Cancer Survivor - Never Give Up. Never Surrender. -Jason Nesmith from Galaxy Quest (1999 movie)
After losing my Father, Grandfather and childhood best friend to suicide, My message is simple: You are not alone.
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Richard Launius wrote:
Note: As more sets come out I reduce the number of each type of card included in the decks to ensure more different things occur.
Thanks - Richard
I have the base game and two expansions. How many cards of each type would you suggest using?
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S Marstiller
United States
Los Angeles
California
-
What about having an equal number of cards in each purchasable deck (heroes, townsfolk, weapons, etc) and removing the top card of each deck not purchased from at the end of every village turn? Thus you only have a certain amount of village visits available each game. Could that be added to ramp up the tension? What should that number of cards in each deck be (could have different levels of difficulty)?
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David Anderson
United States
seattle
Washington
Two Time Cancer Survivor - Never Give Up. Never Surrender. -Jason Nesmith from Galaxy Quest (1999 movie)
After losing my Father, Grandfather and childhood best friend to suicide, My message is simple: You are not alone.
-
We tried this today. I used 5 of each village card. The variant adds a lot of variety to the mix of cards. Now that I have the decks organized set up should be quicker next game. Even quicker than the standard way of playing the game. All you have to do is shuffle the decks. No need to search for particular cards.
The bad part is that if we decide to go back to the original set up rules it will take a long time to reorganize the decks.
We didn't play with traps or treasures this time. Does anyone have a suggestion of how to integrate these? I used Tom's way of organizing the monsters by experience point levels and I'm not sure how we should shuffle these in.
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David Anderson
United States
seattle
Washington
Two Time Cancer Survivor - Never Give Up. Never Surrender. -Jason Nesmith from Galaxy Quest (1999 movie)
After losing my Father, Grandfather and childhood best friend to suicide, My message is simple: You are not alone.
-
Since you cannot purchase an upgraded hero, experience points become crucial. We ran into a sticky point when the level two monsters started coming out. Next time I think we'll deal in more level 1 monsters just so we can gain more experience before the real baddies come out.
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Chris Miller
United States
Huntsville
Alabama
My Dog Has Fleas
-
BRILLIANT!
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David Anderson
United States
seattle
Washington
Two Time Cancer Survivor - Never Give Up. Never Surrender. -Jason Nesmith from Galaxy Quest (1999 movie)
After losing my Father, Grandfather and childhood best friend to suicide, My message is simple: You are not alone.
-
Tried the variant again tonight. This time we used 20 level 1 monsters and 10 each of levels 2 and 3. We didn't have as much of a stall problem this time as we were able to level up our heroes, but the extra level one monsters did clog up our hands a bit. The game took about 2 hours for the two of us.
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Chris Miller
United States
Huntsville
Alabama
My Dog Has Fleas
-
Good idea - I may try 15, 10, 5 next time.
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Scott
United States
Wisconsin
-
I like the game a lot, but the setup times has become daunting, and it's seen less table time.
Thank you! This variant is absolutely great for this game.
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Dave T
United States
Indiana
-
Just discovered this thread and can't wait to give it a go this weekend! Thank you to those who contributed ideas.
Dave
EDIT: How many cards and which ones do you start with again?
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