Veiled Fate: Tribunal Expansion Review

My first entry into the modern board gaming hobby (aside from epic monopoly childhood clashes with my friends and family) was the kickstarter sensation, Veiled Fate. Originally delivered in 2022, this game opened a door for me that now is almost an essential part of my life. 3 years later, Veiled Fate is back with a series of modular expansions all packed into a single box titled Tribunal.

IV studios, the creators of this title, have also become something of a symbol of my love for this hobby, and with each new title they inspire again and again with fantastic production values and innovative ways to play.

Contained in the Tribunal package are:

Renewal Dice – A separate micro expansion from the kickstarter campaign, this comes as a single metal die which replaces the effect of travelling a token through the pools with 12 random effects which is rolled after each use.

Providence Cards – Additional chaotic options are added into the base voting card deck. Personal favourites here include being able to

Hadria – A jealous and vengeful new God enters the fray. Hadria comes with their own token, renown tracker and makes a big impact on the game for every player. No player can win if their token is ahead of Hadria’s in renown (which is increased by smiting players and decreased by completing quests in Hadria’s presence). The Abyss now also provides a series of cards providing “free” God Powers, but using them more than other players also means you will lose renown at the game’s end. Hadria brings in the flavour of player’s making a deal with the devil to try to turn the game in their favour.

Celestial Cards – Veiled fate brings in asymmetry with a series of 7 unique roles, each with their own win conditions and new powers. A single player each game can take advantage of these benefits, which brings a new level of chaos to the party.

Servants- These are three additional tokens to place on the board which require a new free God Power to move (costing only one of your turn’s actions). These token’s presence in quest regions at the point which a quest is completed add either additional votes, or double the effects of those quests.

Adventures – These are single slot quests provided uniquely to each region wherever Quest cards are not provided. These provide an additional layer of strategy into where players place those quest cards, along with additional routes towards extra points or other effects.

Additional Age and City Cards – Adding to the variety and replayability with new city card tracks alongside new Age conditions and end votes for every Age.

As is standard now with IV studio’s offerings, the production values of the package here are some of the best in modern board games. The tokens are incredibly detailed, the art is stunning and evokes a wonderful sense of fantasy and mythology, whilst leaving clear iconography making this chaotic game remain a simple teach, even with more and more moving parts.

Overall I would say that this cluster of expanding options are an almost essential package for any Veiled Fate fan, however some of the constituent parts are more essential than others. Whilst a number of the Celestial roles are interesting, it is disappointing that only one player (potentially out of 8) can one of these roles. I would have much preferred to steer into the chaos of having multiple roles in play at once, but many of their victory conditions do not lend themselves well to this, providing the need for almost a trump card ranking of win conditions so players know who they need to work against as a priority. Despite this, the package includes a number of improvements and changes which I cannot see myself playing the game without going forward.

Veiled Fate as a universe is also expected to return again at the end of this year with a currently live kickstarter containing not one but two titles designed to bring this social deduction genre and universe into a two player only sphere. With my order already in, I cannot wait to keep coming back to this universe time and again.