Greater Than Games Beasts from Beyond Board Game

New Ancient Ones and extra monsters are a fine addition to a fun, unique game.

There's not a whole lot to say about this expansion that the reviewer Wickdawg01 didn't already say. I would like to add that I have played the expansion once, yesterday in fact with three players and by turn 4 I had a monster out. In total, I think three monsters were summoned the whole game, 2 from me. So as with a lot of the game, it's really just up to RNG. Obviously, the more players you've got the faster you go through the deck, the faster you get the monster summoning spells.For buyers who don't own Fate of the Elder Gods yet, I'd suggest not buying this expansion until you've played a game of the main game to see how you feel about the RNG aspects to the game.

A few months ago, I shared my thoughts on Fate of the Elder Gods in a lengthy review. The team at Greater Than Games has released an expansion, Beasts From Beyond, and I picked up a copy at GenCon earlier this year. This expansion adds fifteen new spell cards (2 of which can be used with the base game even if you don’t use any of the other expansion components), four new Elder Gods that cults may serve, and eight monsters who enjoy tampering with the cultists that can be called by the new spells or through Elder God powers.As with the base game, the artwork featured in the expansion is beyond extraordinary, given the retail price point. The monster minis are rich in detail. The only improvement possible would be for GtG to offer a release with pre-painted minis for those of us with no painting skills.The new figures are not only beautiful but also sturdy. They should endure game after game with little wear or tear.Each new monster provides strategic advantages to the summoning cult such as constraining or hindering other cults, movement of one’s cultists around the main board, or destroying investigators on the board. I made use of the Hound of Tindalos twice to prevent one of my opponents who was well ahead of me on the summon track from edging closer to a win before I could catch up, so I’m going to have to grant it the honorary status of my favorite monster.Byakhee is another favorite. It allows the controlling cult to move cultists two at a time to another location, making it easier for the cult to gain control. It’s especially powerful when paired with the Elder God that offers the ability to roll dice based on the number of cultists in a location and use the results to advance on the summon track. We’ve played two games incorporating the monsters so far and I’ve still got plenty of experimenting to do with the rest of the monsters to learn the best ways to use them.Beasts From Beyond is a great investment for fans of Fate of the Elder Gods. It offers a challenging new playing experience.-------------------------Publisher: Greater Than GamesPlayers: 1-4 (We played with 2 and 3)Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About 90 minutesGame type: area control, dice rolling, worker placementRating: OUI OUI OUI!Jenni’s rating scale:OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

This is a good expansion to an already great game. The new spell cards are interesting enough (some can only be cast by a gate card symbol!), and the new elder gods such as Dagon and Yig are fun to use. The only issue I have is the monsters might make the game unbalanced in some places. The rulebook is good, and the monster minis are nice, but you may have to house rule them to keep the game from getting lopsided.

Beasts from beyond is an above average expansion. It comes packaged with a number of new elder gods to play as, a small amount of new spell cards and a fat batch of monster minis that you can utilize with the corresponding monster cards.So beyond the extra plethora of gods that expands the playability of the base game considerably, you are looking at what the monsters can add to this already stellar game. First off, the monsters are reallllly cool! They each have a completely different ability that you can use to wreak havoc on your opponents or help you in some way and they each add a nice twist to the gameplay. Here’s the downside…..you don’t get to summon them very often at all, at least on a 2 player game.To summon a monster you have to have the particular spell card that allows you to summon one and there are VERY few of those mixed into the already bloated spell cards pile. So if you happen to get one of those cards AND have the specific colors available to ready the spell then you can summon the beast. However of the two games I’ve played with this expansion (both 2 player) I was only able to summon once and at the last 2 turns of the game. The second game I played I had the spell card in hand but didn’t have the required color/symbol combo to summon it and the game ended before I could.So the bad part is that you really cannot focus on summoning these really cool beasts if you ever hope to win the game. I spent the whole game trying to summon one and completely neglected my strategy of winning. Which makes them more of an offhanded addition to the game. Like play the game to win and forget about them AND IF the stars happen to align in your favor then you can summon one. And this is such a shame because when you can actually get a monster on the board it really makes the game more fun and exciting. I think a good way to balance this is to remove some of the spell cards so you can draw summon monster cards more often. I haven’t tested this yet but might be worth a try to bring the beasts out more often.As far as single player goes they recommend not to use the beasts or the majority of the new gods that come with the expansion. Which makes sense since the beasts are more of a multiplayer addition. So if you only play single player then I would not recommend picking this up unless you are a collector and need those precious minis to paint and display.Other than that there is a god that you can play as that uses one of the beasts as his special power and I did find that very enjoyable. All in all if you loved Fate of the Elder Gods then I would suggest picking this expansion up as it does add quite a number of new gods to play as not to mention the awesome beasts when you get to play them.