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Buying Spirit Island and expansions

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AdamH
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Buying Spirit Island and expansions

Hi.

I recently discovered Spirit Island and I'm hooked. I got a few friends hooked as well and I'm planning to show it off to some other regulars at the board gaming group around here.

I'm having trouble actually buying a copy of the game and its expansions. None of the local places here have it in stock and when I look online for it, it's hugely expensive. I'm assuming it's out of print but I haven't seen anything really official on it, despite some cursory Googling. For now, I have a friend who owns a copy and I borrow it when I need to get my fix.

But I'd like to buy my own copy and get a hold of the expansion and new spirits. Ideally I'd like to have it by GenCon in early August, and if I have to buy it there that's OK. What I don't want to happen is for me to not have a copy to play at GenCon, and I'd really like to not have to pay $150+ for the base game and $60 for an expansion.

Is there any official word or at least some good speculation on when there will be more copies of all of these things? And what is the best way to buy them? I can get my local game stores to call me when they get a copy (which has already been set up) but I don't know when to expect that.

Thanks!

-Adam

Powerhound_2000
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This probaly is the best info we have so far https://greaterthangames.com/forum/topic/state-of-gtg-may-2018-11414 which is that they another shipment incoming.   


Crush your enemies, drive them before you, and laminate their women! - Guise, Prime Wardens #31

 
AdamH
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Oh nice, thanks for replying so fast. I didn't check the parts of the forum that weren't Spirit Island.

... so that board, general discussion, and posts about State of GTG are the best place to keep looking for updates, I assume?

From the looks of things, the game and the expansion should be available shortly, but the promos, who knows how long that will take -- does that sound accurate? Would it be safe to say that I should focus on trying to get the promo spirits? I'm not even sure how I would get them if the store here is out of stock...

dpt
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I know that the fifth printing (the one coming with the promos) is much larger than the previous ones. I'm also sure that GtG very much wants product in hand to sell at Gen Con (especially the promos), and I expect they're arranging the production schedule to make that happen (and perhaps reserving some copies from distribution as well).

Based on what you say you're looking for, I think you should be fine buying it at Gen Con, but you might have to get to their stall first thing when it opens.

In terms of where to look for information, I might also check BoardGameGeek. There's a pretty active group over there, although official announcements get posted here first.

AdamH
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I looked on BGG before coming here, it seems like there's a lot more info here :-)

I won't be at GenCon until Thursday and I heard they're doing stuff on Wednesday... hmm... I may need to find someone who's going up early and bribe them.

carnilius
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For the promo Spirits, it is very simple to print and play, as the unique power cards and spirit mat is never shuffled or transferred so even a cheap black and white print is sufficient.  The game creator has posted all the necessary images on BGG.  Certainly it's better to have the actual promo spirit copies, but definitely not necessary if you just want to play with them.

Paul
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All of the information we have right now suggests a very high probability that we'll have a bunch of Spirit Island, Branch & Claw, and the promo spirits at Gen Con. I'll post more info in subsequent State of Greater Than Games posts as I have it!


“Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.” ~Obi-Wan Kenobi

AdamH
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My birthday was this weekend and my wife managed to find a copy of Spirit Island and its expansion at a reasonable price, so I just finished putting everything away last night. I'm excited to play the new expansion, which I haven't tried yet!

dpt
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AdamH wrote:
My birthday was this weekend and my wife managed to find a copy of Spirit Island and its expansion at a reasonable price, so I just finished putting everything away last night. I'm excited to play the new expansion, which I haven't tried yet!
How many times have you played? I don't generally recommend breaking out the expansion until you're reasonably comfortable with the base game and can comfortably beat the base difficulty (no Adversary). That said, have fun!
AdamH
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I've played several times (15-20 is my guess), I was borrowing a copy from a friend and playing with other people who had found the game. But now I have my own copy.

We haven't lost in quite a while. I'll frequently ramp up the difficulty when I'm not teaching the game to the point where I'm sure we'll lose but we manage to pull through. I had a 2P game where every single land on the board had at least one blight but we still won with one blight left on the card. Yeah the fire guy was responsible for that one.

 

EDIT: I added some pictures of the storage solution I had come up before the expansion. I managed to fit in everything from the expansion into that same box last night with placeholders for the promo spirits, but I don't have any pictures of that yet.

dpt
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Awesome! It does sound like you're ready for Branch & Claw. Your experience sounds like mine when I started playtesting: I kept ramping up the difficulty, expecting to lose, and kept winning. Keep going!

AdamH
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Played a game last night, 2P with both of the new spirits and the new adversary, difficulty level 3 (which turns out to be really hard) and we forgot to put the new tokens on during setup.

We almost lost. We were going to lose but got bailed out by one of two fear cards, but we managed to pull it back and come out with a dominating victory. Keeper of the Forbidden Wilds is very slow and I did some things that turned out to be not smart.

Anyways, here are some pictures of the storage solution with the expansion added and placeholders for the promo spirits. I had print-and-played them before but I gave those proxies to the person who originally let me borrow their set so I need to make new ones.

Attachment(s): 
Bunston
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AdamH wrote:

[...]We were going to lose but got bailed out by one of two fear cards[...]

Hurray for eucatastrophes!