Too Many Bones: Age of Tyranny Expansion – Campaign Progression, New Cards, and RPG Adventure

Too Many Bones: Undertow is a smaller, more compact variant of the core box of Too Many Bones (TMB). It comes with two characters/gearlocs: Duster and Stanza and is fully playable out of the box.The gist of TMB is that it's a dice building RPG. While not a simple or easy-to-learn game, TMB provides oodles of strategic gameplay.You play through a series of pre-determined days, racking up progress and experience points to take on an evil tyrant. The battles occur on a 4x4 mat. Your gearlocs, cute little troll characters, skirmish with various enemies with lots and lots of dice. Attack dice, defense dice, skill dice, etc. After battle, The exp you gain from victories can be used to increase your gearlocs stats or buy new dice. Rinse and Repeat. When you reach the final boss, your scrappy little warriors better be ready to throw down!TMB is a difficult game to grasp. All the enemies have different keywords that you need to learn, and your gearlocs all play differently. There's a separate sheet for every gearloc, with skills and strategy tips to help you, but the game will still take some time to grok. Clearly, it's not beginner-friendly, but for those willing to put in the time and effort, it shines brilliantly.For one, it's fun. Chucking dice never gets old, and upgrading your character over the course of your campaign is easy to get invested in. The skill trees on your mat won't always be filled in the same order, so there's plenty of room for experimentation and replayability, even through some routes clearly top others.This specific edition changes small details of the game, but mostly plays the same. Duster and Stanza, the two included gearlocs, vary in difficulty. Duster plays easily, but Stanza asks for a While I'm fine with this, it might make it difficult for two beginning players to bring to the table.The components are top-quality, as is always with Chip Theory. You get waterproof neoprene mats, plastic dice, and a box just the right size to store it all om.I have no complaints, I love this game! If you're looking for a tough, unique, and hilarious dice chucker, pick this one up!

Great game! However the box was busted up and some plastic pieces were damaged.

This is an absolute must after you buy the base game AND after getting another Gearloc or two.

Every game will be different as you choose your adventure, gain skills for your gearlock, and hopefully defeat the villain. My only regret (and it's not worth reducing a star) is that the health (red) chips are a little flimsy in this set - but only by comparison to the high quality chips used for everything else in the game.

The material is good, fits along with the main game, and doesn't feel like it was an addition more as a fun new part of it. I was mostly worried it would not fit in with the feel or have the same quality, but it's perfect for the main game.

Excellent quality, exactly like the original game so it blends seamlessly with everything.

The box was not in the best shape. One of the corners of the lid was completely ripped up to the top and the bottom of the box was dented in on one entire edge.

Overall, this is a straightforward simple add-on that adds a few new game mechanics. The addition of scars, boons, new campaign cards and campaign mechanics change the variety on how day 1-3 encounters work and allows multiple games to be strings together via a campaign where players take their characters from one game to the next. This all works really well within the existing base game and ruleset, and from my initial playthroughs so far, adds quite a bit of flexibility and additional tactics to consider for progression.In the box are (25) Boon/Scar cards, (21) Day 1-3 Encounter Cards (which is great for even adding more variety to the base game without having to play the Age of Tyranny ruleset), (10) Campaign cards, (7) Epilogue cards, (20) Scar tokens inside a nice clear dice case, a neoprene snapshot mat to save progress if taking a break between campaigns (basically place everything on it to snapshot and take a picture), and a reference sheet for the rules. All of the parts within this add-on are high quality and water resistant. The card stock itself feels good to hold and is PVC to help it withstand lots of use and the occasional wet surface.The best thing about this expansion for me is the added campaign cards and snapshot mat. The base game's replay ability really benefits from some additional variety there. And the snapshot mat is just incredibly useful when playing the game for short intervals instead of fully through. The scar and boon system is also an interesting addition that adds additional challenge as you progress through multiple runs, carrying over skills from previous games but also scarred from battle or training fatigue. A scar token essentially takes up a skill slot on your character's sheet, preventing that stat from being increased or enabled. The nice thing about the scar system, is that it challenges players to think of different approaches and explore skill trees they have not considered before. When battles are lost, boon cards can be drawn which have an opportunity to remove scars. This is my only complaint about this system as the consequences for losing are somewhat more rewarding than they should be, which could incentivize losing on purpose just to pull a boon. This might be a part where some additional house rules could help prevent that scenario.All in all, I really enjoyed playing this expansion. It is a small kit, and I think the box could have been a little smaller to hold everything, but it does bring a few much-needed additions to the base game. Some of which, in particular the campaign cards, would have been nice to see by default in the base game. But it is good to see them here as an add-on as well. The price does initially seem a little on the high end for what is included here, but with the materials in mind, being below $35 is reasonable as Chip Theory Games produces very high-quality parts that will last many gaming sessions.I have included a few photos I took while playing through a campaign. I have noted on those photos where components of the base game are also mixed in. The game itself is officially rated for ages 12 and up but may be higher in practice for full enjoyment. Once the basics are learned from the base game and this expansion however, it is very intuitive and easy to play. The included instruction sheets do a great job referencing the rules.