Travel across the Valley and encounter all sorts of surprises and living creatures in the beautiful world of Earthborne Rangers.

My new campaign in Earthborne Rangers continued! With a number of expansions in play, I hoped I would get a chance to see some of the newest cards. But returning to the main campaign again seemed like it might stir up memories of what had already happened during my last adventure. Still, I was excited to find out what might be just around the corner!

Spoiler Alert

I’ve done my best to avoid any major spoilers in terms of the campaign or specific outcomes. You’ll mostly see a sampling of cards that might come into play around the northeast or north central area of the map. Skip on by if you’d like to!

Too Soon to Play a Campaign Again? Or… What?

It didn’t feel like my first campaign ended that long ago, but it was well over 2 years ago that I last visited the Valley. That seemed like plenty of time to forget a lot of the details. Yet I recognized the main humans early on, and most of them have a single storyline or mission arc. So when I spotted Lunn, for instance, I already had an inkling of what to expect.

This can be a tricky thing to balance. I don’t mind it so much in campaigns that aren’t meant to be played over and over again. Indeed, I played through my first campaign and completed nearly everything so I didn’t miss out on any stories.

Some of the new expansions, like Spire in Bloom or Shadow of the Storm, specifically expand the base game campaign. A few cards can work anywhere, but the majority of the new content comes up within the original campaign. I’m not sure how I feel about this, especially with another pair of these expansions still in the works. Would I play this campaign again?

Part of me is still enjoying a lot of aspects of gameplay, which may improve as I move further into the world and explore new areas I never saw before. At the same time, I have a few elements that are taking me out of the game more than I thought they would… Only time will tell where this campaign goes. Maybe I’m just distracted, like Oru was… Ha ha!

Reusability

Achievement & Enjoyment

8

Variability

Distinctness & Randomness

6

+ Pros (Positives)

• Each card provides stunning artwork that ranges from beautiful, to adorable, to mysterious in bright colors.
• Stories come about not just from the paragraphs provided by the game, but from the interactions between cards.
• Creating a Ranger and understanding how to use a custom deck is interesting with managing what to do each turn.
• The world is open-ended to go practically anywhere and do almost anything, either following the storyline or not.
• Flipping over the next path card is often very exciting with the possibilities and surprises that show up randomly.
• Violence and combat are rare or even non-existent, and encounters are more about non-violent resolutions.

– Cons (Negatives)

• Playing through the base game campaign again to see new expansion content can be fun, but also very repetitive.
• There are a lot of rules to check and paragraphs to pause to read in the middle of play, which can break the immersion.
• It’s easy to overlook an important card during a specific step or situation with the amount of text that can be in play.
• The card quality is acceptable, although cards can easily warp, and a lot of the tokens are noticeably printed off-center.

Goals and Milestones

Continue the Conversation

Have you completed a campaign in Earthborne Rangers? Do you have a favorite expansion? I’m more torn about my second time through this campaign. That doesn’t diminish how excellent it was originally, though, and I’m still enjoying my plays! Just interesting to understand how I tend to remember things… Need to keep that in mind for future campaign games.