Talisman 3rd Edition

[WillOhio]

 
 Figured I'd get a Third Edition Thread going since this is the one I have...and all the others are covered.

   

  First off let me say I love this era of Art & Design that Games Workshop was pursuing. Somewhere between old school European (think Heavy Metal Magazine) Line Art (pen and ink shade) to a more Modern realistic depictions with a loose sketch like quality to some.  A bit of an Albrecht Durer and Hieronymus Bosch meets the 70's/80's era comic inkers.  The skull and skeleton work that adorns the boards are nice, evocative and moody. The cover of the Instruction manual looks like the Album cover of some metal band from the 80's.  Great stuff.  Wayne England's work on the (expansions)Character sheets are some of my favorites.  His hyper active-over the top comical approach to the characters facial expressions with lots of details worked in contrasts nicely with the darker or more somber elements of the board. Thematically it is the Olde World. Gritty and grim and dark humored.  
  The card art itself though, is hit or miss for me. Mostly a miss.  A lot of it is really loose, sketchy, colored basic illustrations.  But there are more than a few excellent ones (The Werewolf is particularly gruesome!) but they serve their purpose and fit into the style of the game.  But.. I can't help but wish Wayne, John Blanch or the brilliantly detailed penwork of Stephen Tappin(currently does a lot of MagicTG card art) had been commissioned to do these as well.

 The figures are the standard heroic Citadel designs characterful and evocative with their exaggerated proportions and poses.  Iconic for this period of time.  And still some of my favorite!

 Having never played (only seen) the original or 2nd edition versions of the game. I can say this one really ramped up the production value exponentially. And from my understanding streamlined the rules(very typical for GW at this time - thinking of 2nd Edition Space Hulk) but in this case speedup (improved(?)) gameplay.  

 I've played the game a few different times now and find it immediately accessible to everyone. Even non-gamer gaming friends and family.  It works very well as a social/beer-pretzels game that isn't real "thinky" but scratches the RPG/adventuring itch fairly well.  Providing a wealth of adventure cards that (as the game plays out) changes the landscape of the board each game...  Sometimes there are magical wells you can visit... sometimes a nasty Dragon sits and guards the Entrance to a Cave.  It never plays quite the same way...though always similarly. And with the plethora of card choices & heroes you probably won't tire of this game too quickly.  
   The goal is to thwart the evil Dragon King by gaining entrance to his tower by way of a Magical Talisman. But come well armed-equipped and skilled and with legions of followers because you will likely loose most to magic traps and other perils as you climb the tower in hopes of acquiring the Crown of Command and restoring the realm thus becoming the winner.

 3 Official Expansions were released :  The Dungeon of Doom, City of Adventure and The Dragon's Tower. As well as free extra characters from 3 White Dwarf issues that further expand the Realm and its denizens.  All are recommended as they are more variety to game play and avenues with which to win. But I would say City of Adventure and the Dragons Tower should top the list of must gets!  The latter particularly because it sort of evens out the end game by providing a fantastic 3r card model tower which you must now physically traverse up to a real Dragon model.  All the way drawing from a special deck of Adventure cards.  Great stuff!

 Now I lament that I missed this game back in the heyday... but I am glad, none the less to have it now. And this version in particular...  I love that FFG took the license and made it their own... but I prefer this retro-style look to my GW games.

Cheers,
Will

[Quests-of-legend]

I own the 2nd edition and all the expansions....I love the art work for this version and have never played 3rd edition

I know the games were always long with our longest game lasting 24hrs before we ended it. I loved the card characters in this version, but the miniatures for them depicted them perfectly, shame they were so hard to get hold of, and are now expensive to get from e-bay

[WillOhio]

 
 Those old metal mini's are really great. Very characterful!  
 I love the old Dungeon Quest ones as well. And have been
 considering picking up the GW DQ Edition simply for all the
 cool minis in it and it's expansion.

~Will

[Kaal979]

TALISMAN werent what it is without the
unique 3rd edition so i made a collection package
with all findable print stuffs from the web:

https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=858C2800949A324E!105&authkey=!AKV2sA4vm_xNE9c

[Kaal979]

I updated the package (now 700mbs!) with hires
stuffs from freegamemanuals.org - link as above!

[Fenryz]

Awesome, thank you - blast of nostalgia looking through all that stuff. I used to have all the expansions for 2nd edition, iirc.

[Kaal979]

Also a creat source to make a homebrew new baseboard - someday
when i find the time and a reasonable pdf editor i must make this!