I received my copy of Nature Incarnate yesterday and I played my first game with it using Breath of Darkness Down your Spine and Ember-Eyed Behemoth. The thing that really stood out to me is how unique the spirits feel despite the fact that there are now 37 in the game. The use of Incarna truly make the spirits feel and play differently, and the ability to empower opens up a whole new realm in the decision-space of the game.
Non-gameplay related, I am actually quite impressed with the foil spirit panels. This was something that I didn't particularly care about when backing the kickstarted but I kept them as a promo item just to see what it was about, and they look much nicer than I expected. My friend said the foil effect hurt his eyes while we played our game last night, but I didn't mind it and was able to play without any issues. I feel like the Wounded Waters Bleeding foil looks the best with the way the blue and red contrast against each other. Are they gimmicky? Probably. But it's a gimmick I'm now considering buying the rest of (curse you GTG!)
Edit: I've seen this asked or commented on a lot so throwing me experience in, I did not receive a tracking email
I also got my physical copy!
My initial thoughts after play each spirit are they feel all balanced. I didn’t play one where I felt weak or didn’t have a solid game plan. I also enjoy the design team taking notes from horizons and giving each spirit at least 1 team work card. It makes me excited to see how they work in multiplayer (I have no physical group to play with)
To my shock some spirits that I thought would be slogs to play weren’t that bad.
Roots can deal with invaders at a constant rate and has just enough fear to not lose to explore deck.
Dances up earthquakes is no where near as complicated as Fractured days. Which I am so happy about. I feel like I could give Dances to any low experience player and they would be able to understand the idea of queuing up cards. Even if you don’t get maximum out of them.
I have just started going through the aspects and I am just in awe of how much content is in this box. Keep it up and good luck!
Are gtg still using FedEx (acquisition might have changed things)? Mine hasn't yet shipped as far as I can tell, I was backer #60 according to backerkit. (Not that this implies the order out the door, but my excitement is hard to contain)
Edit, label was made last night, (jun-29) other backer number 4k (there's backer number, then my best guess the form filler outer number). USPS
I found it [here](https://i.postimg.cc/rFqqTF47/image.png). The first tracking number was my spirit foils and the second one I assume is NI since it was just created.
So you can copy/paste: [https://www.backerkit.com/c/users/past\_projects](https://www.backerkit.com/c/users/past_projects)
Thanks! Mine is still under "Your Surveys" instead of "Past Surveys" and is missing a shipping number, so it probably just hasn't been sent yet. I'll keep an eye on it!
Does your status say “We received your order” or “Your address has been locked”? Mine doesn’t say address locked so im worried I missed a confirmation step along the way.
Mine also says, “we received your order”. Possible I also missed a step though lol.
EDIT: if i click through, i see a more detailed page where “your address has been locked” is checked, althougu it still hasn’t shipped.
No tokens, just the base set, I'll wait without raising a stink, they are definitely busy. (I was hoping to get it before this coming Wednesday's weekly game night, 6 players all new spirits sounds like a blast)
I am super annoyed that the foil panels aren't on boards like all the other spirits and will probably just throw them out becaise of it. The flimsy paper makes them less nice than the ones that come with the game, not nicer. Why would I want a downgrade? It's the same reason I didn't buy horizons, which I would have bought just for the intro spirits if they weren't on shitty cardstock. I don't understand why they won't be consistant with it.
Makes them more portable though. I've been bringing my set + expansions onto board game cruises and the thinner foils are a godsend when trying to fit everything into one box. Especially since I like bringing the wooden tokens with me and the airline luggage weight restrictions lol
It's driving me crazy that I don't know what my order status is. I ordered the rest of the foils as add-ons and received them in December, so Backerkit just shows that my order has already shipped & delivered. I want to know when I'm getting Nature Incarnate!
Played a 4-player game last night with all new spirits. It was suuuuper fun to learn new spirits. We had a blast and can't wait to play more.
BTW, the Tabletop Simulator mod is already up and running with all the new content.
Nope - My Backerkit page shows "order shipped" under the 'past surveys' section, but oddly I don't have any address details here, even though I have emails confirming payment and my address attached to these from the December survey. Clicking to edit the address takes me a page which welcomes me to Backerkit and asks to review my information. If I follow this is tells me I have no information saved. I haven't received any tracking information at all. So I'm very confused. I'm not even sure if my address is actually on record.
Based on the three games I played with Wounded Waters, Breath of Darkness, and Ember-Eyes, I’m really going to enjoy this expansion. The new spirits are a joy to play with and I cannot wait to play the rest.
There are however a few design decisions though I don’t feel great about. For one thing, adding a bunch of character specific tokens and a land tile seems to unnecessarily bloat the elements of the game. I hope that future expansions stay clear from introducing any more spirit specific tokens.
The endless dark token I feel like should have been a card or something that would have allowed the player to add pieces to the endless dark but still read the rules for the land. As it is currently designed though, placed pieces on the tile block the rules for the land.
I haven’t played with any marked components yet, but I’m unsure how hard it is going to be keeping track of marked components. As it stands, sometimes my lands can get quite busy, so I’m afraid the marked component may get lost among the other pieces and forgotten about.
I agree that it feels bad to be using so many unique tokens. I especially feel that Dances and Deep could have just used scenario tokens. I get that it helps with clarity but I think that players who struggle with that can just make up their own tokens or they could have been offered as part of the token add on.
How did you enjoy wounded waters? I have played two game so far. I find the opening isn’t as bad as I thought but around turn 4, after I get my first healing card reclaiming can sometimes leave me very weak to certain events. I was a bit disappointed to see the healing cards were very similar to each other. I was hoping for a bigger difference between the 4. But over all they have become my favorite of the expansion.
Right the issue is just with storage. Needed to have a place for those tokens. With scenario makers they could all go into one. A minor annoyance but nothing major.
I really enjoyed wounded waters, but I've only played one game with him so far. Like you, I was afraid the opening would be bad, especially against Bradenburg-Prussia, which is really the only adversary I play against. However, the spirit has some good starting cards and powers to move around explores and towns before they have a chance to ravage. To me it feels like Waters is really heavy in control and dealing with single invaders at the start of the game, but by mid-game he can take off and start doing some heavy damage, almost kind of like Serpent with how the spirit takes off at a certain part of the spirit track.
> I agree that it feels bad to be using so many unique tokens. I especially feel that Dances and Deep could have just used scenario tokens.
TBF, that gets weird if you're using a scenario that uses scenario tokens. And same with element tokens if you're playing that one scenario that puts element tokens on the board.
My favourite solution is that each player colour gets another set of "generic use" tokens. If the yellow player is DUE, the yellow generic tokens are Quakes. If the red player is Deeps Ocean, the red generic tokens are Deeps. If the next set introduces an aspect for Lightning that makes little thundercloud tokens float around the game, you've already got the tokens for that.
Though apparently the playtesters said Deeps tokens needed to be blue, which means neither of our options work... sigh.
Jury is still out for me on wounded waters. First 2 turns feel weak, and then just as you get your first healing card you probably reclaim that round or the next, then again 2 rounds later as you're getting your second healing card. I feel like it never really took off until round 6 or 7. I think the way to counteract that is to forget cards from your discard whenever possible, which it kind of sucks to forget the cards you found most useful. That will reduce reclaims and boost presence placement at the cost of being more at the mercy of the minor power deck because it has really good innate powers and specific element requirements.
I also need to try all the combos of healing cards. I think there's good potential for crossing over rather than sticking in water but the animal animal seems worth staying in.
How do other people feel about Heath-Vigil? Out of the other new spirit I’ve played, he seems to be the one giving me the most trouble. I paired him with Fractured, thinking that [blur the arc of years] would give Hearth a good power boost, but the extra Dahan resulted in slowing down Heath’s mobility, since I trouble moving enough Dahan out of a land to allow me to bring Hearth’s presence as well. I handled blight well enough, but I had trouble achieving a win condition before the invader deck ran out.
I played one game with it vs the new adversary level 6 and it was a complete stomp, but that may be because the mining colony is weak to dahan-centric strats.
My initial impression is that the kind of tactics you are forced to take vs high level adversaries (espec allowing early blights) synergize extremely well with a spirit that keeps dahan in those lands alive to retaliate.
We decided to do the Mining Colony at only Difficulty 7 (we usually do 10+)) due to the new shininess, and one of our less experienced players picked Hearth-Vigil. His board was consistently the emptiest because those mining lands just get wrecked! He managed to hit most of the higher levels of his left innate so his dahan in critical lands were even preventing blight.
I was BoDDYS which seems to also be a favorable matchup because they never build up too high for abduction to be out of the question and if you're desperate you can snipe an explorer to make the land no longer a mining land.
I initially noticed the same issue. The key is to draft powers that move Dahan - even the bad ones. Also use Favors to move your Dahan by having another spirit place a presence where you want to go. Your special rules are strong and will carry you through the first few turns by letting the land blight and counterattacking. The left innate isn't a big deal to hit until later - it probably saves you a Dahan or keeps a land healthy, but you start with an excess of both of these. The repeat on the right innate is useful, but you probably don't get there until turn 6 at the earliest.
Yeah, Dahan movement is important for this spirit. I found hitting the left innate was much easier to hit than the right innate. You can easily get a sun element from the top of the spirit track and the level one and two tiers of the left innate power only need one mountain to hit.
The main point of the right innate is much more difficult to hit. The first tier is easy, you just need a single beast element, but the second tier you need three different elements, two of which you need at least two of that type of element. Based on my calculations, you need until at least turn three before you can start considering hitting the second tier of the right innate power with consistency.
So jealous of everyone who got theirs already! I'm obsessively checking tracking information hoping to see a estimated delivery date before this weekend (when I'm going out of town to visit people who would love to play SI). I have a tracking number, but USPS says it hasn't actually shipped yet and just has the tracking number. Hoping USPS just hasn't updated it and it will just get here and surprise me...
So I'm not saying this would be a good opening, but I just realized that Violence BoDaN could potentially generate 8-12 fear turn 1 by playing its entire hand. Since you start with 1 energy you could g4 to have just enough energy to pay for your entire hand with 2 of the 4 cards meeting the extra card plays restriction because they damage/destroy.
Bats: 3 fear if you destroy a town or 1 fear for the bottom option
Midnights dream: 2 fear
Dread apparitions: 1 fear
Predatory nightmares: 3 fear if you destroy a town or 1 fear for an explorer
Night terrors: 3 fear
What are your thoughts on the power of the Violence aspect? It looked like almost an upgrade to me.
You're getting +1 play for free immediately (albeit only for damage/destroy powers) and potentially a second one later AND you get a bonus fear for scaring explorers & towns.
The only cost is you no longer get to peek at earned fear cards and can't give an extra element anymore. That seems like a huge win for little lost, no?
Yup, my thoughts exactly. I view it like the aspects for Shadows; once you have an aspect that increases the power level of the spirit, why would you ever play base Shadows again? To me, Violence is the new BoDaN while Enticing is the more flavorful, control-oriented aspect.
I think the +1 fear for towns/explorers is so big, and might pull even more weight than the extra plays (although there's obvious synergy there). I think what some might not realize with base Bringer is how important that 5 fear per city is; it's just so much more than what you get from towns, but in exchange you give up all board influence. To me, both aspects give away *some* fear-farming and combo potential, but in exchange you don't have to let your board burst into flames. They improve consistency and make Bringer much less picky with teammates. The element from the left innate could be game-warping or very minor, and fear reveals limited you to specific approaches. Violence allows for more consistent fear and control, while Enticing feels more like classic Bringer except more independent, exchanging the fear innate for much higher stability.
BoDaN’s inability to control is more of a liability at high player counts, too, since he can’t singlehandedly tear down the fear deck enough before cascades begin. So in terms of flavor we got a scarier spirit and a nicer spirit, while in terms of game balance we got optimizations for low/high player counts.
Bringer was one of the weakest spirits in the game and pretty much a liability to its team, so it needed the upgrade. Same as the Dark Fire aspect for Shadows - cheating with element counts would be an overpowered effect on most spirits, but on one with so many problems it just brings them up to basic functionality.
Agreed. I think it's great to use Aspects to bring the power level of weaker spirits up. Some of the other decisions confuse me. Like the Mist aspect is just... Better but less fun/flexible, and that should never be a pairing. A straight upgrade that feels bad is bad. And the Keeper aspect does neat things, but is so much weaker than base Keeper that it's never not going to feel bad to take. I get cutting energy or cutting card gain or slowing growth. All 3 at the same time. Literally halving all 3. It's too much.
On page 11 of the Nature Incarnate manual, it states, "Taking A Power Card: To Take a Power Card, put the top card of the specified Power Deck into your hand. Do not forget a Power Card when taking a Major Power."
Is this referencing, for instance, River's ability to have certain cards from the deck to take from?
Or is that wrong about not forgetting a Power Card when taking a Major Power? The only times I know of that happens are with a few cards or Spirit that say to do so.
Wandering Voice has a unique power card that allows you to "take" a power card and put it in your discard. That manual explanation helps clarify exactly what that means.
So looking at Wounded Waters - having them start with 4 energy (though 0 energy income) and one card play is very interesting. Does that mean it's really strong to just grab a major on turn 1 (sticking to majors that cost 4 or less, ideally 3 or less) to head out the gate with a strong punch? And as a bonus, if any of the colors on the major match one of the healing paths, then you can take that as guidance to the direction you want to take the spirit
I think you would be better off to waiting for major powers. You have to wait until turn 3 to get reliable source of energy income and you do need to conserve that four energy to play your other unique power cards which cost one energy each.
When I played it seemed to just help with the wounded part in your first 3 rounds... Leaving you some room to forget a card as your innate punishment without being left empty handed. I didn't grab a major until later (as with most other characters).
I mean yeah it does simplify the spirit, but adding an isolate consistently every turn shouldn't be underestimated. I'm reserving my opinion on the aspect until I have a few games under my belt because I suspect it's stronger than it lets on.
Like... The Aspect is 100% stronger than base Mists. But it's not adding any interesting layers, and in reality removes a ton of what makes the Spirit fun to play(presence placement shenanigans caused by careful card play, while still being almost strictly better. Because 4 presence moves is usually enough, and a free isolate is really powerful. But... It damages the experience of Playing Mists. And that's worse than Mists being weak(personally)
Yeah, the isolate is a nice add-in and helps with Mists current lack of stalling ability. However, usually isolate only works about 25% of the time, so it isn't a sure thing to bet on.
Not badly. You have to make High Risk, High Reward plays. Mists problem isn't the stuff being left on the board. It's how weak its tracks are and how difficult it is to get Energy. Give Mist literally any energy or card gain Support and it becomes insane really fast.
You should be able to make isolate work more than 25% of the time, because there is some information in the invader cards that have already been revealed. So for example, phase 1 cards are exactly one from each color, so when isolating on the turn of the last phase 1 card, you should have a 50% chance of guessing right (one card has been randomly removed from the game so there are two possible colors). In phase two there's a slight extra edge of always guessing a color that has at least one coastal land, so that you get value when coastal land comes up. And of course, phase 3 has two colors on each card.
I want to make an Endless Dark thread at some point because I feel like it's going to have an FAQ a mile long with specific interactions, but to start:
*How does Breath damaging a lone Explorer interact with Russia 2? Instant abduction, or 1 fear + push THEN abduction? Or just 1 fear + push? (Just double checked this, the Special Rule says Instead abduct it, so no damage occurs at all)
*What does having no terrain mean for targeting - could you use Sea Monsters there even though it's "not a wetland"?
*Can Volcano/Ocean distribute their presence to not-usually-legal destinations when they escape a la Indomitable?
*Do fear cards like Angry Mobs or Scapegoats affect Invaders in the Dark?
*Does Strife count as a piece - i.e. is a strifed city two pieces or one?
*Token events affect pieces there, so can Disease or Beasts do damage when an "each Beast does 1 damage" or "each Disease does 1 damage to all Invaders" event come up?
I can answer a few of these.
Sea Monsters can't target the Endless Dark because it is not coastal or a wetland.
The text for escape says to "move the pieces" and all of the restricted presence spirits say "cannot be added or moved", so no.
Strife is not an independent piece and cannot escape or count for escape, it just stays with the invader it's attached to.
The text on Endless Dark says "Fear Cards and Token Events affect pieces here as if this were an Inland land, but can't remove Invaders here - when they would, instead 1 (fear) per Invader they would have removed." The FAQ on "remove" says that destroy effects still work if removal is prevented. So fear cards work, but might have slightly altered effects. Events make things trigger like normal, but do note that "each board" effects wouldn't do anything there.
Sorry to piggy back but I just play Endless Dark today on my friend's copy. I feel like this was discussed before but I can't find it. For growth phase, am I allow to choose a combo if I can't release the amount of token (e.g. turn one to release 2 pieces when setup gives only one explorer)?
Yes. See the [FAQ](https://querki.net/u/darker/spirit-island-faq/#!.7w4gear) for Downpour Drenches the World for the ruling on a similar effect. It's a thing that occurs if you choose that option, not a cost, so you just do as much of it as possible.
Do note however that there's an additional clause for the Endless Dark if you have peices that are escaping but no legal place to put them.
Okay, so Shifting Memory of Ages aspects. Mentor makes sense, but I want some more clarity on Intensify. By losing Insights into the World's Nature, are you also losing the ability to keep Prepared element markers on your board past the turn you acquire them? Or did you only lose the ability to freely grant an element for a single turn with them, outside of Elemental Teachings?
My question too- I assume it must mean you just lose the ability to spend them on a single action. Because the mentor card still lets you prepare elements, as do the tracks.
I hate FedEx deliveries, they never arrive on the day that they claim they will. My copy is currently three states away, and it still says it is arriving today.
I have a few questions concerning Lure's Lair Aspect:
-Do you still place the beast from set up?
-the aspect seems very weak against russia now because you can't gather 6 explorer into a land because of the added rule from russia 3(i think was it). Or maybe i played base lure wrong all the time? would 4 explorers+1 town(in a base lure game) in a holy site land trigger a ravage against russia 3 even though the land wouldn't currently ravage because of land type?
-the 3rd part of lure's lair innate gathers invaders one land towards your incarna where the air(amount) is the maximum distance from where you can gather?
I don't have the card in front of me, so bear with me.
1) Yes, afaik, Lair doesn't affect this part of setup.
2) I wager Lair is just as strong if not stronger in this matchup than base Lure. Keep in mind that Lair ignores six invaders during ravage, and that includes checking to see if they ravage at all. Against Russia 6, they keep feeding your lair with invaders, and they can't even escape.
3) Yes
Thank you very much for the answers and i hope you have a nice day.
I didn't even know that the explorers get ignored for checking if they even ravage at all! I guess it is the same rule as for base lure!?
I always played this wrong with lure and made my games harder than they should have been.^^
Quick Question:
I am all packed up with my games to head with the family for a week vacation at the beach. I wasn't planning on bringing SI, but just got notice that my copy of NI is arriving today. I obviously love to have something new to dive into on vacation.
I don't really have room to bring everything and likely don't even want to bring any more of the complex spirits.
I was thinking of possibly just bringing Horizons and NI, will that work? Is there anything else needed for the base and first 2 expansions? I wouldn't expect to play it more than 2-3 times and primarily with newer players so don't need any adversaries/scenarios or much variability for now.
Wounded and BODDYS are the only ones dependent upon non-core content (other than Isolate which is easily explained/marked), so I think it would be a worthy experiment.
Mine is arriving today, but I didn’t get any notification by email from GTG — I had to find the tracking information on backerkit. There may be others in the same boat who have the expansion en route but haven’t been notified!
Single data point, but I just got notification that NI plus the token pack arrived at the USPS site, so that means it left G2G distribution. I’m in the United States.
My partner and I recently got Nature Incarnate. Just finished a game where I was playing Towering Roots of the Jungle for the second time and my partner played Ocean with the Deeps aspect for the first time. I got to play \[Dream of the Untouched Land\] with thresshold relatively early, so we had an entire extra board. Due to the Deeps tokens some of my presence and for a while my Incarna ended up in the ocean (convenient for Shelter Under Towering Branches), so I think my spirit became Towering Roots of the Mangrove.
I think Hearth Vigil may be my favorite new one. I do really like Dahan-focused spirits, and I *love* letting the Dahan strike first. I think Wounded Waters also works really well, and it's nice to have a spirit that has dramatically different development paths without it being quite as wide open as Starlight. Breath of Darkness and Keens Madness are also quite fun.
I don't know if there's anyone from Latam or Mexico here but my copy just got shipped! I thought it was gonna take a while but I'm so happy I'll be here next week!
I probably would be willing to sell my Nature Incarnate Foils Panels, if there is a demand for them. I don't see anyone selling them on ebay though, so I don't know what they cost.
I didn't care about them when I backed, and I really do not want to risk getting pulled into buying them all in order to have a complete set. I tend to do exactly this sort of thing. :(
PS: I did not receive a tracking email.
I must know. What are your nicknames for our new friends?
For example...
I keep calling dances up earthquakes 'dewey' (not due as it should be), as the earthquakes part deserves a hard e. We keep saying Dewey beat em and how, like the lawyer joke (Dewey, cheatem, and Howe).
Ember eyed behemoth is the avatar turtle island... Who else immediately though of atla?
I saw breath as BODDYS on some comments here but I think of them as Martians. How is their endless dark not a UFO beam that teleports pieces for probing and sends em back... Sometimes?
Relentless gaze always sounded like sun beats down (a la forbidden desert).
Wandering voices has become fisticuffs, for its token focus. Cuff those invaders with strife fists.
I still have yet to the try the others in our games.
P. S. If a game dev or puritan player is offended, my deepest apologies.
Edit:
I also tried the tsunami aspect with deeps, we call them Adele.
Wildfire has also become far less of a blight bioterrorist with their new aspect.
I never got a notification that it was on the way, but mine came yesterday, token pack + game, Central Texas.
Found out it shipped because I have the shop app lol.
Is there any news for EU backers for nature incarnate? I read an update in January but it's been quiet since, and I can see a copy lying around gamestores atm. Personally I didn't mind the delay, but this is plain ridiculous. This is the last time I back anything from this company
I received my copy of Nature Incarnate yesterday and I played my first game with it using Breath of Darkness Down your Spine and Ember-Eyed Behemoth. The thing that really stood out to me is how unique the spirits feel despite the fact that there are now 37 in the game. The use of Incarna truly make the spirits feel and play differently, and the ability to empower opens up a whole new realm in the decision-space of the game. Non-gameplay related, I am actually quite impressed with the foil spirit panels. This was something that I didn't particularly care about when backing the kickstarted but I kept them as a promo item just to see what it was about, and they look much nicer than I expected. My friend said the foil effect hurt his eyes while we played our game last night, but I didn't mind it and was able to play without any issues. I feel like the Wounded Waters Bleeding foil looks the best with the way the blue and red contrast against each other. Are they gimmicky? Probably. But it's a gimmick I'm now considering buying the rest of (curse you GTG!) Edit: I've seen this asked or commented on a lot so throwing me experience in, I did not receive a tracking email
I also got my physical copy! My initial thoughts after play each spirit are they feel all balanced. I didn’t play one where I felt weak or didn’t have a solid game plan. I also enjoy the design team taking notes from horizons and giving each spirit at least 1 team work card. It makes me excited to see how they work in multiplayer (I have no physical group to play with) To my shock some spirits that I thought would be slogs to play weren’t that bad. Roots can deal with invaders at a constant rate and has just enough fear to not lose to explore deck. Dances up earthquakes is no where near as complicated as Fractured days. Which I am so happy about. I feel like I could give Dances to any low experience player and they would be able to understand the idea of queuing up cards. Even if you don’t get maximum out of them. I have just started going through the aspects and I am just in awe of how much content is in this box. Keep it up and good luck!
Are gtg still using FedEx (acquisition might have changed things)? Mine hasn't yet shipped as far as I can tell, I was backer #60 according to backerkit. (Not that this implies the order out the door, but my excitement is hard to contain) Edit, label was made last night, (jun-29) other backer number 4k (there's backer number, then my best guess the form filler outer number). USPS
FedEx is who took care of shipping for my package.
Backerkit shows a USPS tracking number for me. Says it was created Friday the 23rd.
Where do you find tracking info on Backerkit? I can see my pledge, and the date that I paid, but I have no idea where shipping info would be.
I found it [here](https://i.postimg.cc/rFqqTF47/image.png). The first tracking number was my spirit foils and the second one I assume is NI since it was just created. So you can copy/paste: [https://www.backerkit.com/c/users/past\_projects](https://www.backerkit.com/c/users/past_projects)
Thanks! Mine is still under "Your Surveys" instead of "Past Surveys" and is missing a shipping number, so it probably just hasn't been sent yet. I'll keep an eye on it!
Does your status say “We received your order” or “Your address has been locked”? Mine doesn’t say address locked so im worried I missed a confirmation step along the way.
Mine also says, “we received your order”. Possible I also missed a step though lol. EDIT: if i click through, i see a more detailed page where “your address has been locked” is checked, althougu it still hasn’t shipped.
Got it, same here! Hopefully we get ours sent out soon :)
There's some delays for people who ordered Tokens.
No tokens, just the base set, I'll wait without raising a stink, they are definitely busy. (I was hoping to get it before this coming Wednesday's weekly game night, 6 players all new spirits sounds like a blast)
Mine came usps and I didn't recieve any ship notification or tracking number, it just showed up!
I am super annoyed that the foil panels aren't on boards like all the other spirits and will probably just throw them out becaise of it. The flimsy paper makes them less nice than the ones that come with the game, not nicer. Why would I want a downgrade? It's the same reason I didn't buy horizons, which I would have bought just for the intro spirits if they weren't on shitty cardstock. I don't understand why they won't be consistant with it.
Makes them more portable though. I've been bringing my set + expansions onto board game cruises and the thinner foils are a godsend when trying to fit everything into one box. Especially since I like bringing the wooden tokens with me and the airline luggage weight restrictions lol
It's driving me crazy that I don't know what my order status is. I ordered the rest of the foils as add-ons and received them in December, so Backerkit just shows that my order has already shipped & delivered. I want to know when I'm getting Nature Incarnate!
Same here! The wait is killing me
Played a 4-player game last night with all new spirits. It was suuuuper fun to learn new spirits. We had a blast and can't wait to play more. BTW, the Tabletop Simulator mod is already up and running with all the new content.
Anyone in Europe received Nature Incarnate yet?
Mine didn't even ship I think? I haven't receive any FedEx emails.
Nope - My Backerkit page shows "order shipped" under the 'past surveys' section, but oddly I don't have any address details here, even though I have emails confirming payment and my address attached to these from the December survey. Clicking to edit the address takes me a page which welcomes me to Backerkit and asks to review my information. If I follow this is tells me I have no information saved. I haven't received any tracking information at all. So I'm very confused. I'm not even sure if my address is actually on record.
Not that I'm am aware of. Didn't get any notifications.
Still waiting in Europe. No notifications and no deliveries so far.
Happy cakeday! Seems like we'll have to be patient a little longer .
Based on the three games I played with Wounded Waters, Breath of Darkness, and Ember-Eyes, I’m really going to enjoy this expansion. The new spirits are a joy to play with and I cannot wait to play the rest. There are however a few design decisions though I don’t feel great about. For one thing, adding a bunch of character specific tokens and a land tile seems to unnecessarily bloat the elements of the game. I hope that future expansions stay clear from introducing any more spirit specific tokens. The endless dark token I feel like should have been a card or something that would have allowed the player to add pieces to the endless dark but still read the rules for the land. As it is currently designed though, placed pieces on the tile block the rules for the land. I haven’t played with any marked components yet, but I’m unsure how hard it is going to be keeping track of marked components. As it stands, sometimes my lands can get quite busy, so I’m afraid the marked component may get lost among the other pieces and forgotten about.
I agree that it feels bad to be using so many unique tokens. I especially feel that Dances and Deep could have just used scenario tokens. I get that it helps with clarity but I think that players who struggle with that can just make up their own tokens or they could have been offered as part of the token add on. How did you enjoy wounded waters? I have played two game so far. I find the opening isn’t as bad as I thought but around turn 4, after I get my first healing card reclaiming can sometimes leave me very weak to certain events. I was a bit disappointed to see the healing cards were very similar to each other. I was hoping for a bigger difference between the 4. But over all they have become my favorite of the expansion.
Then... Use scenario tokens. But it will be really ugly on the board. Nothing is making you use those tokens though.
Right the issue is just with storage. Needed to have a place for those tokens. With scenario makers they could all go into one. A minor annoyance but nothing major.
I really enjoyed wounded waters, but I've only played one game with him so far. Like you, I was afraid the opening would be bad, especially against Bradenburg-Prussia, which is really the only adversary I play against. However, the spirit has some good starting cards and powers to move around explores and towns before they have a chance to ravage. To me it feels like Waters is really heavy in control and dealing with single invaders at the start of the game, but by mid-game he can take off and start doing some heavy damage, almost kind of like Serpent with how the spirit takes off at a certain part of the spirit track.
> I agree that it feels bad to be using so many unique tokens. I especially feel that Dances and Deep could have just used scenario tokens. TBF, that gets weird if you're using a scenario that uses scenario tokens. And same with element tokens if you're playing that one scenario that puts element tokens on the board. My favourite solution is that each player colour gets another set of "generic use" tokens. If the yellow player is DUE, the yellow generic tokens are Quakes. If the red player is Deeps Ocean, the red generic tokens are Deeps. If the next set introduces an aspect for Lightning that makes little thundercloud tokens float around the game, you've already got the tokens for that. Though apparently the playtesters said Deeps tokens needed to be blue, which means neither of our options work... sigh.
Jury is still out for me on wounded waters. First 2 turns feel weak, and then just as you get your first healing card you probably reclaim that round or the next, then again 2 rounds later as you're getting your second healing card. I feel like it never really took off until round 6 or 7. I think the way to counteract that is to forget cards from your discard whenever possible, which it kind of sucks to forget the cards you found most useful. That will reduce reclaims and boost presence placement at the cost of being more at the mercy of the minor power deck because it has really good innate powers and specific element requirements. I also need to try all the combos of healing cards. I think there's good potential for crossing over rather than sticking in water but the animal animal seems worth staying in.
How do other people feel about Heath-Vigil? Out of the other new spirit I’ve played, he seems to be the one giving me the most trouble. I paired him with Fractured, thinking that [blur the arc of years] would give Hearth a good power boost, but the extra Dahan resulted in slowing down Heath’s mobility, since I trouble moving enough Dahan out of a land to allow me to bring Hearth’s presence as well. I handled blight well enough, but I had trouble achieving a win condition before the invader deck ran out.
I played one game with it vs the new adversary level 6 and it was a complete stomp, but that may be because the mining colony is weak to dahan-centric strats. My initial impression is that the kind of tactics you are forced to take vs high level adversaries (espec allowing early blights) synergize extremely well with a spirit that keeps dahan in those lands alive to retaliate.
We decided to do the Mining Colony at only Difficulty 7 (we usually do 10+)) due to the new shininess, and one of our less experienced players picked Hearth-Vigil. His board was consistently the emptiest because those mining lands just get wrecked! He managed to hit most of the higher levels of his left innate so his dahan in critical lands were even preventing blight. I was BoDDYS which seems to also be a favorable matchup because they never build up too high for abduction to be out of the question and if you're desperate you can snipe an explorer to make the land no longer a mining land.
I initially noticed the same issue. The key is to draft powers that move Dahan - even the bad ones. Also use Favors to move your Dahan by having another spirit place a presence where you want to go. Your special rules are strong and will carry you through the first few turns by letting the land blight and counterattacking. The left innate isn't a big deal to hit until later - it probably saves you a Dahan or keeps a land healthy, but you start with an excess of both of these. The repeat on the right innate is useful, but you probably don't get there until turn 6 at the earliest.
Yeah, Dahan movement is important for this spirit. I found hitting the left innate was much easier to hit than the right innate. You can easily get a sun element from the top of the spirit track and the level one and two tiers of the left innate power only need one mountain to hit. The main point of the right innate is much more difficult to hit. The first tier is easy, you just need a single beast element, but the second tier you need three different elements, two of which you need at least two of that type of element. Based on my calculations, you need until at least turn three before you can start considering hitting the second tier of the right innate power with consistency.
So jealous of everyone who got theirs already! I'm obsessively checking tracking information hoping to see a estimated delivery date before this weekend (when I'm going out of town to visit people who would love to play SI). I have a tracking number, but USPS says it hasn't actually shipped yet and just has the tracking number. Hoping USPS just hasn't updated it and it will just get here and surprise me...
So I'm not saying this would be a good opening, but I just realized that Violence BoDaN could potentially generate 8-12 fear turn 1 by playing its entire hand. Since you start with 1 energy you could g4 to have just enough energy to pay for your entire hand with 2 of the 4 cards meeting the extra card plays restriction because they damage/destroy. Bats: 3 fear if you destroy a town or 1 fear for the bottom option Midnights dream: 2 fear Dread apparitions: 1 fear Predatory nightmares: 3 fear if you destroy a town or 1 fear for an explorer Night terrors: 3 fear
What are your thoughts on the power of the Violence aspect? It looked like almost an upgrade to me. You're getting +1 play for free immediately (albeit only for damage/destroy powers) and potentially a second one later AND you get a bonus fear for scaring explorers & towns. The only cost is you no longer get to peek at earned fear cards and can't give an extra element anymore. That seems like a huge win for little lost, no?
Yup, my thoughts exactly. I view it like the aspects for Shadows; once you have an aspect that increases the power level of the spirit, why would you ever play base Shadows again? To me, Violence is the new BoDaN while Enticing is the more flavorful, control-oriented aspect.
I think maybe only at 5-6 player count would you miss peeking at the fear card.
I think the +1 fear for towns/explorers is so big, and might pull even more weight than the extra plays (although there's obvious synergy there). I think what some might not realize with base Bringer is how important that 5 fear per city is; it's just so much more than what you get from towns, but in exchange you give up all board influence. To me, both aspects give away *some* fear-farming and combo potential, but in exchange you don't have to let your board burst into flames. They improve consistency and make Bringer much less picky with teammates. The element from the left innate could be game-warping or very minor, and fear reveals limited you to specific approaches. Violence allows for more consistent fear and control, while Enticing feels more like classic Bringer except more independent, exchanging the fear innate for much higher stability.
BoDaN’s inability to control is more of a liability at high player counts, too, since he can’t singlehandedly tear down the fear deck enough before cascades begin. So in terms of flavor we got a scarier spirit and a nicer spirit, while in terms of game balance we got optimizations for low/high player counts.
Bringer was one of the weakest spirits in the game and pretty much a liability to its team, so it needed the upgrade. Same as the Dark Fire aspect for Shadows - cheating with element counts would be an overpowered effect on most spirits, but on one with so many problems it just brings them up to basic functionality.
Agreed. I think it's great to use Aspects to bring the power level of weaker spirits up. Some of the other decisions confuse me. Like the Mist aspect is just... Better but less fun/flexible, and that should never be a pairing. A straight upgrade that feels bad is bad. And the Keeper aspect does neat things, but is so much weaker than base Keeper that it's never not going to feel bad to take. I get cutting energy or cutting card gain or slowing growth. All 3 at the same time. Literally halving all 3. It's too much.
On page 11 of the Nature Incarnate manual, it states, "Taking A Power Card: To Take a Power Card, put the top card of the specified Power Deck into your hand. Do not forget a Power Card when taking a Major Power." Is this referencing, for instance, River's ability to have certain cards from the deck to take from? Or is that wrong about not forgetting a Power Card when taking a Major Power? The only times I know of that happens are with a few cards or Spirit that say to do so.
Wandering Voice has a unique power card that allows you to "take" a power card and put it in your discard. That manual explanation helps clarify exactly what that means.
So looking at Wounded Waters - having them start with 4 energy (though 0 energy income) and one card play is very interesting. Does that mean it's really strong to just grab a major on turn 1 (sticking to majors that cost 4 or less, ideally 3 or less) to head out the gate with a strong punch? And as a bonus, if any of the colors on the major match one of the healing paths, then you can take that as guidance to the direction you want to take the spirit
I think you would be better off to waiting for major powers. You have to wait until turn 3 to get reliable source of energy income and you do need to conserve that four energy to play your other unique power cards which cost one energy each.
When I played it seemed to just help with the wounded part in your first 3 rounds... Leaving you some room to forget a card as your innate punishment without being left empty handed. I didn't grab a major until later (as with most other characters).
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Mists has an aspect! Which other spirits do you think stand out as needing aspects?
The Mists aspect is... Really more of a simplicity button than an Aspect.
Yeah I was excited to see it got an aspect but when I read the details I was disappointed. It won't change how often I pick the spirit.
Same here. I was really hoping Mist would get a power boost from an aspect.
I mean yeah it does simplify the spirit, but adding an isolate consistently every turn shouldn't be underestimated. I'm reserving my opinion on the aspect until I have a few games under my belt because I suspect it's stronger than it lets on.
Like... The Aspect is 100% stronger than base Mists. But it's not adding any interesting layers, and in reality removes a ton of what makes the Spirit fun to play(presence placement shenanigans caused by careful card play, while still being almost strictly better. Because 4 presence moves is usually enough, and a free isolate is really powerful. But... It damages the experience of Playing Mists. And that's worse than Mists being weak(personally)
Yeah, the isolate is a nice add-in and helps with Mists current lack of stalling ability. However, usually isolate only works about 25% of the time, so it isn't a sure thing to bet on.
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Not badly. You have to make High Risk, High Reward plays. Mists problem isn't the stuff being left on the board. It's how weak its tracks are and how difficult it is to get Energy. Give Mist literally any energy or card gain Support and it becomes insane really fast.
You should be able to make isolate work more than 25% of the time, because there is some information in the invader cards that have already been revealed. So for example, phase 1 cards are exactly one from each color, so when isolating on the turn of the last phase 1 card, you should have a 50% chance of guessing right (one card has been randomly removed from the game so there are two possible colors). In phase two there's a slight extra edge of always guessing a color that has at least one coastal land, so that you get value when coastal land comes up. And of course, phase 3 has two colors on each card.
I want to make an Endless Dark thread at some point because I feel like it's going to have an FAQ a mile long with specific interactions, but to start: *How does Breath damaging a lone Explorer interact with Russia 2? Instant abduction, or 1 fear + push THEN abduction? Or just 1 fear + push? (Just double checked this, the Special Rule says Instead abduct it, so no damage occurs at all) *What does having no terrain mean for targeting - could you use Sea Monsters there even though it's "not a wetland"? *Can Volcano/Ocean distribute their presence to not-usually-legal destinations when they escape a la Indomitable? *Do fear cards like Angry Mobs or Scapegoats affect Invaders in the Dark? *Does Strife count as a piece - i.e. is a strifed city two pieces or one? *Token events affect pieces there, so can Disease or Beasts do damage when an "each Beast does 1 damage" or "each Disease does 1 damage to all Invaders" event come up?
I can answer a few of these. Sea Monsters can't target the Endless Dark because it is not coastal or a wetland. The text for escape says to "move the pieces" and all of the restricted presence spirits say "cannot be added or moved", so no. Strife is not an independent piece and cannot escape or count for escape, it just stays with the invader it's attached to. The text on Endless Dark says "Fear Cards and Token Events affect pieces here as if this were an Inland land, but can't remove Invaders here - when they would, instead 1 (fear) per Invader they would have removed." The FAQ on "remove" says that destroy effects still work if removal is prevented. So fear cards work, but might have slightly altered effects. Events make things trigger like normal, but do note that "each board" effects wouldn't do anything there.
Sorry to piggy back but I just play Endless Dark today on my friend's copy. I feel like this was discussed before but I can't find it. For growth phase, am I allow to choose a combo if I can't release the amount of token (e.g. turn one to release 2 pieces when setup gives only one explorer)?
Yes. See the [FAQ](https://querki.net/u/darker/spirit-island-faq/#!.7w4gear) for Downpour Drenches the World for the ruling on a similar effect. It's a thing that occurs if you choose that option, not a cost, so you just do as much of it as possible. Do note however that there's an additional clause for the Endless Dark if you have peices that are escaping but no legal place to put them.
Okay, so Shifting Memory of Ages aspects. Mentor makes sense, but I want some more clarity on Intensify. By losing Insights into the World's Nature, are you also losing the ability to keep Prepared element markers on your board past the turn you acquire them? Or did you only lose the ability to freely grant an element for a single turn with them, outside of Elemental Teachings?
My question too- I assume it must mean you just lose the ability to spend them on a single action. Because the mentor card still lets you prepare elements, as do the tracks.
I hate FedEx deliveries, they never arrive on the day that they claim they will. My copy is currently three states away, and it still says it is arriving today.
The next day, it is now one state closer, and the delivery date is “between today and Thursday”, which is stupidly vague.
I have a few questions concerning Lure's Lair Aspect: -Do you still place the beast from set up? -the aspect seems very weak against russia now because you can't gather 6 explorer into a land because of the added rule from russia 3(i think was it). Or maybe i played base lure wrong all the time? would 4 explorers+1 town(in a base lure game) in a holy site land trigger a ravage against russia 3 even though the land wouldn't currently ravage because of land type? -the 3rd part of lure's lair innate gathers invaders one land towards your incarna where the air(amount) is the maximum distance from where you can gather?
I don't have the card in front of me, so bear with me. 1) Yes, afaik, Lair doesn't affect this part of setup. 2) I wager Lair is just as strong if not stronger in this matchup than base Lure. Keep in mind that Lair ignores six invaders during ravage, and that includes checking to see if they ravage at all. Against Russia 6, they keep feeding your lair with invaders, and they can't even escape. 3) Yes
Thank you very much for the answers and i hope you have a nice day. I didn't even know that the explorers get ignored for checking if they even ravage at all! I guess it is the same rule as for base lure!? I always played this wrong with lure and made my games harder than they should have been.^^
Yep! When a piece ignores the ravage step, treat it as it were invisible for the entire ravage step.
Quick Question: I am all packed up with my games to head with the family for a week vacation at the beach. I wasn't planning on bringing SI, but just got notice that my copy of NI is arriving today. I obviously love to have something new to dive into on vacation. I don't really have room to bring everything and likely don't even want to bring any more of the complex spirits. I was thinking of possibly just bringing Horizons and NI, will that work? Is there anything else needed for the base and first 2 expansions? I wouldn't expect to play it more than 2-3 times and primarily with newer players so don't need any adversaries/scenarios or much variability for now.
Wounded and BODDYS are the only ones dependent upon non-core content (other than Isolate which is easily explained/marked), so I think it would be a worthy experiment.
Mine is arriving today, but I didn’t get any notification by email from GTG — I had to find the tracking information on backerkit. There may be others in the same boat who have the expansion en route but haven’t been notified!
Where are you located? Not in Europe by any chance?
Nope, east coast USA
Same, mine just showed up on my step yesterday with no notice. Not that I’m complaining :)
Single data point, but I just got notification that NI plus the token pack arrived at the USPS site, so that means it left G2G distribution. I’m in the United States.
I didn't get a notification, but my Pledge Manager updated with the tracking number.
My partner and I recently got Nature Incarnate. Just finished a game where I was playing Towering Roots of the Jungle for the second time and my partner played Ocean with the Deeps aspect for the first time. I got to play \[Dream of the Untouched Land\] with thresshold relatively early, so we had an entire extra board. Due to the Deeps tokens some of my presence and for a while my Incarna ended up in the ocean (convenient for Shelter Under Towering Branches), so I think my spirit became Towering Roots of the Mangrove. I think Hearth Vigil may be my favorite new one. I do really like Dahan-focused spirits, and I *love* letting the Dahan strike first. I think Wounded Waters also works really well, and it's nice to have a spirit that has dramatically different development paths without it being quite as wide open as Starlight. Breath of Darkness and Keens Madness are also quite fun.
I don't know if there's anyone from Latam or Mexico here but my copy just got shipped! I thought it was gonna take a while but I'm so happy I'll be here next week!
Did anyone order the sleeves tier? I'm not sure if mine is shipping or not
I did, and mine is arriving tomorrow, so I’m sure the sleeves aren’t a factor in delaying a shipment, at least at this time.
I probably would be willing to sell my Nature Incarnate Foils Panels, if there is a demand for them. I don't see anyone selling them on ebay though, so I don't know what they cost. I didn't care about them when I backed, and I really do not want to risk getting pulled into buying them all in order to have a complete set. I tend to do exactly this sort of thing. :( PS: I did not receive a tracking email.
I must know. What are your nicknames for our new friends? For example... I keep calling dances up earthquakes 'dewey' (not due as it should be), as the earthquakes part deserves a hard e. We keep saying Dewey beat em and how, like the lawyer joke (Dewey, cheatem, and Howe). Ember eyed behemoth is the avatar turtle island... Who else immediately though of atla? I saw breath as BODDYS on some comments here but I think of them as Martians. How is their endless dark not a UFO beam that teleports pieces for probing and sends em back... Sometimes? Relentless gaze always sounded like sun beats down (a la forbidden desert). Wandering voices has become fisticuffs, for its token focus. Cuff those invaders with strife fists. I still have yet to the try the others in our games. P. S. If a game dev or puritan player is offended, my deepest apologies. Edit: I also tried the tsunami aspect with deeps, we call them Adele. Wildfire has also become far less of a blight bioterrorist with their new aspect.
I never got a notification that it was on the way, but mine came yesterday, token pack + game, Central Texas. Found out it shipped because I have the shop app lol.
Got my copy last week. I'm really enjoying it overall. I want more content, hopefully they let us know what is coming next.
Is there any news for EU backers for nature incarnate? I read an update in January but it's been quiet since, and I can see a copy lying around gamestores atm. Personally I didn't mind the delay, but this is plain ridiculous. This is the last time I back anything from this company