Destinies: Witchwood Expansion

So here is the rub. If you read my review for Myth and Folklore, I eluded to loving mythology and everything associated with it. And that that particular expansion was the one I was most interested in. That wasn’t a lie, for the original crowdfunding campaign that is. But a few years later, the Witchwood expansion campaign dropped. And my nerdy little brain went into overdrive. An expansion for one of my favourite games, which doubles down on folklore theme, and my favourite folklore at that? Sign me up immediately! Only immediately wasn’t immediately as I could not afford to back it, but that is neither here nor there.

Witchwood is based on Slavic mythology. If you know anything about this particular mythos world, you will recognise the Baba Yaga’s walking house on the box immediately. And if that is true, then my excited ramblings will be falling on deaf ears. But, needless to say, Witchwood falls into a niche theme that I never see often enough. But was it good enough to hold itself up against my expectations?

As with my review for Myth and Folklore, I will mainly use examples from the first scenario as to avoid as many spoilers as possible.

If You Go Into The Woods Today

As with all expansions, I feel as though it is necessary to first and foremost tell you what is in the box. After all, you already know the ins and outs of the game itself. So, in Witchwood you get a new stack of item cards that will be used in conjunction with the base box’s deck. You will also get a stack of new tile locations to accompany the four new scenarios included in this expansion. Alongside this you will also get a handful of new minis and one not so mini in the form of the Baba Yaga’s hut. Which is truly the star of the show out of all minis in every box for Destinies so far. 12 Destiny (character) cards are also in the box along with 12 Bound by Fate cards. These cards are included so that you can add the Bound by Fate expansion to this experience.

Did You Come Here Of Your Own Free Will?

I will skip over talking about the mechanics and the way the expansion functions. As, after playing the base game, you will already know all about it. Instead, I will talk about what new things this expansion brings.

Slavic folklore is rich in stories, lore, death and the macabre. It is fascinating. I love that it doesn’t have a ‘traditional’ pantheon of gods like the Greek, Aztec, Norse, Egyptian etc but instead has a group of earthly figures that are bound to the land. They are basically glorified cryptids, and I love it. They aren’t gods or deities of specific domains; they are simply beings without morality that simply do as their own whims dictate. The only game I have played that has used this theme is Stworze, and I had my gripes with it. So, I went into this super hyped. Which is why you can understand my disappointment when the first scenario barely touches any of this rich content. It was enjoyable. But it felt more like an introduction to the game and its systems than anything else. Which I did not need. And you probably won’t need. On the flip side of that point, I was playing this expansion with someone who was new to the game as a whole. And seeing them getting really into the game and exploring its card scanning mechanic was worth the somewhat slower paced start.

The scenarios get more and more interesting as they develop and unfold. One of the interesting things about this expansion is that the scenarios, NPCs, characters etc can change based on your decisions, choices, and outcomes in previous scenarios. It has been quite some time since playing the base game and so I can’t remember if that is the case for that. And I can’t tell you if that is a thing for Myth and Folklore as it does not include a rulebook (which I am totally not still sour about, honest). I also haven’t got to the Sea of Sand expansion yet. I haven’t played through the campaign several times so I can’t say for sure how much is effected either, but I do like that it is there to offer some replayability.

Witchwood implements some new features to the game play. The two things it changes up from the core experience is the introduction of mazes (that comes with its own iconography) and travelling merchants. I think one is much more relevant and enhances the gameplay more than the other. One of the things that let Destinies down was the shops. With them being static, it meant a lot of backtracking if you find yourself in a situation where you need an item they sell. Travelling merchants alleviate this burden a little. As running into them at random encounters whilst travelling can help you pick up some needed items easier. There is nothing worse than being at a challenge that requires a shovel for example, and the merchant is on the other side of the map that has a shovel. And then seeing that one of your opponents is on that tile and could easily purchase the shovel on their turn and aim to steal the challenge from under you. This helps mitigate that a little. And the mazes, well, I will speak about them in the next section. Spoiler: I hate them.

It also introduces the concept of travel points. This is the game’s way of trying to convey the idea of a bigger world space to interact with. I have no thoughts into this as it essentially makes no difference to the gameplay other than introducing ways to introduce random encounters, travelling merchants and more mazes.

Her Hut May Spin On Chicken  Legs, But Her Heart Is As Cold As Winter

This expansion holds a lot of joy for me. But it isn’t perfect. Nothing ever is unfortunately.

So, lets talk about mazes. Mazes are great. In real life. In Witchwood, they are the bane of my existence. These things single handedly reduce my rating of this expansion by quite a margin. The rulebook expresses mazes in a way as though they are fun, interactive and adds reasons to keep coming back to them to further explore. This is because there are ‘several treasures to be found within each maze.’ What they actually are, are time dumps that force you to interact with the same spot over and over. All whilst your opponents are making leaps each turn to hit their objective. There is one maze that I wasted three whole turns in. This is because you go in a maze and are presented with a split path and you choose which way to go. If you hit a dead end, your turn ends immediately. I HATE THIS. Wasting three entire turns in order to gain 2 gold just feels like an absolute kick in the teeth. Why would I even try to go back in the maze to potentially get a better reward when my opponent has already randomly found a map to a maze, 2 gold of their own and have that maze immediately present itself to them during a single travel interaction. Thus, leading them straight to the treasure, which happened to be an item they can use for their quest. The whole concept, implementation and interaction with these mazes are random for the sake of prolonging your time. I actively avoid these.

I also need to mention that certain interactions don’t seem to work as intended. There was one interaction my opponent was having with a guardian of the forest. It was an encounter that had them making choices as they ran through the forest together. They succeeded the checks to keep up with the guardian and their turn ended abruptly mid conversation. In other instances like this, the encounter would resume upon the start of your next turn. The turn came back to them and the game did not pick up from that encounter. Instead their turn was wasted interacting with the guardian again only to have the base interaction with them as if nothing had happened and they were finding it for the first time.

The only other thing I want to touch on is the characters you can play as in this expansion. This is the first one that comes with cards in the box for the Bound by Fate expansion. What that essentially means is that there are extra characters that you can use if playing the 2v2 version. But it means them characters are locked behind this other expansion and are not usable unless you have it. And some of them look really damn interesting. In comparison, some of the base expansions characters are really damn boring. In the first scenario for example the three characters are a warrior who wants to prove himself, a different warrior who is cursed with bad dreams, and a woman who simply just doesn’t want to get married. What an absolute snore-fest. They get better as the scenarios progress, but still, it is worth mentioning.

And finally, like I said with my Myth and Folklore review (and will definitely state a third time in my Sea of Sand review), this expansion should have been standalone. Separating everything from the base game and expansion gets tedious. Especially if you have All That Glitters added too.

Final Thoughts

There is a lot to love about Witchwood. I have some gripes with it for sure but overall this has been my favourite of the Destinies’ experiences. Whilst it is true you won’t get everything out of the expansion (or the base game) unless you have the Bound by Fate and All That Glitters expansions, you still get a great gaming experience with this expansion. If you enjoy Destinies and are still hungry for more content, then Witchwood will surely help you get your fill.