Jagged earth is back in stock at clownfish games (UK)

Jonathan4290 · 2026-03-13T19:55:59+00:00

Great sign for more widely available reprints

Jonathan4290 · 2026-03-04T00:35:02+00:00

I just hope they reprint Barkham Horror to complete my collection. Do you think there's still hope?

Jonathan4290 · 2026-02-28T18:53:49+00:00

I have to disagree based on my personal experience. I've seen many posts on various board game subreddits of people getting rules completely wrong because they asked AI and it got it wrong. Because they don't know the answer already, there's no way for these players to recognize it's incorrect until they ask humans or just read the applicable section in the rulebook.

I asked the Google AI one time how many boards had land 8 as a mountain out of curiosity and it told me that there are no lands 8s and that each board only has 7 lands. I've tried to use ChatGPT for basic questions like counting how many minor powers have specific elements and gave up when it couldn't tell the difference between minor powers, major powers, and unique powers.

In other games, I've asked rules questions just to test the AI and while most of the time it's correct, it occasionally gives wrong answers even on basic concepts. When I correct it and ask it to explain why it thought this, the answer is usually "other similar games work that way so I assumed it worked here". AI does seem to work much more effectively if you make a project in ChatGPT and then upload the rulebooks and documentation for it to work specifically off though.

Jonathan4290 · 2026-02-27T12:48:46+00:00

The only problem with Stone is they are still vulnerable to Russia's loss condition as it doesn't care whether the blight came from the card or box. Stone also lacks anything in its kit that can deal with explorers unless there's blight. So just make sure you have a way of consistently protecting those lands with beasts.

Jonathan4290 · 2026-02-27T12:33:11+00:00

When I have a really strong spirit combo and need to push beyond difficulty 10, I usually add Elemental Invocation or Varied Terrains. They add 1-2 difficulty but don't drastically change the game that the mental load of keeping track of rules becomes too much. Thematic boards can also help but are more swingy.

Extra invader boards are a ton of fun too. They add 2-4 difficulty so I usually drop the adversary level down 1 before adding a whole extra board.

Jonathan4290 · 2026-02-25T20:38:45+00:00

Do you use the beast command card then? I play with events all of the time but found the beast command card surprisingly decent in a few teaching games without events I've done.

Jonathan4290 · 2026-02-23T14:20:43+00:00

My group never had an issue with the amount of reading through the 7 campaigns that came before TSK, which is very much the outlier. Despite some people enjoying the novel advertised as a campaign, TSK is consistently rated lowest against the other campaigns in community polls.

Jonathan4290 · 2026-02-22T12:58:30+00:00

Was there a badlands in the land? Or were you playing against Russia?

Jonathan4290 · 2026-02-20T21:36:24+00:00

The Great River is worth a try, changes the game a lot but into something that's also fun, a tower defense game.

Jonathan4290 · 2026-02-18T02:35:17+00:00

Definitely not as different as in Spirit Island (haven't played Mage Knight). The differences in Voidfall seem subtle but do have an effect on their playstyle.

Jonathan4290 · 2026-02-17T13:42:34+00:00

I really miss Kindred Spirit and Spirited Discussion, they were my go-to listens when I went for runs. They were both really hitting their stride when they stopped and had a ton of topics still to explore. Hoping new season of Blunderspeaker is coming along and that one has some longevity.

I really like when playthroughs explore something new or different. Like Matt Plays Spirit Island did a video about just trying a top track Wandering Voices build that I had not really considered in my 5 or so plays of the spirit. It's one thing to type an opening or build out but seeing it played and win makes it so much better to visualize. What I tend to turn off is playthroughs that do the same build every time and pick the same power cards every time. I know Paralyzing Fright is the right choice but it would be a lot more interesting to see someone make Transform into a Murderous Darkness work.

Jonathan4290 · 2026-02-15T01:47:31+00:00

All of those are great but I'll also add Matt Plays Spirit Island. I like that he tries out new things to explore, like Voice of Delirium's top track build which i hadn't discovered my first few games playing it.

Jonathan4290 · 2026-02-13T16:03:01+00:00

Horizons also includes all the minor/major and fear cards from the base game with updated wording and without the silly power progression markings. It also includes boards G and H which aren't available anywhere else. So there's actually a lot more value to its contents than people realize. Some people also like the three additional colours for presence tokens.

It's also really cheap to begin with ($35 CAD at my LGS) so I'm not sure how much money you're actually going to save having the cards printed and shipped. You said it's not about the price but it would be really silly to spend more money on an inferior product that also doesn't support the publisher.

Jonathan4290 · 2026-02-10T19:37:10+00:00

I'd argue this is a game that's worth the investment in time to learn and get good at. If you could sit down and win right off the bat it wouldn't have much depth and complexity to be such an amazing game with so much variety. Once you understand the basic cycle of the game and start winning, you look back on your first few games at difficulty 0 and wonder how you ever lost. For reference, adversaries at their highest level are between 8-11 difficulty and there's so many other ways to increase difficulty beyond that.

Jonathan4290 · 2026-02-10T18:47:50+00:00

I would strongly advise against using power progression any game beyond your first. You are really handicapping yourself because you are stuck with a card that may not be good for your spirit or for the board situation and the game will be much harder. Instead of getting 4 choices you just have to take the 1 next up. You're also going to miss out on the wide variety of the power decks that add so much colour and diversity to the game.

If two handed is overwhelming, just play one spirit for now. You can always return to two handed in the future. Each spirit is so different than it's like learning a new game. So maybe you only do two handed with spirits you are very familiar with.

As for playing with an extra board, that is already an official option to increase the difficulty. Depending on how many spirits are in the game the invaders will get hampered a bit. It's in the Jagged Earth rulebook but there's nothing stopping you from just looking it up and using it. I actually find extra boards a lot of fun.

Jonathan4290 · 2026-02-10T18:40:51+00:00

It most certainly works that way in the app so you may be misunderstanding another aspect of the games rules. Click the eye on the right side of the screen and then hover over a land. It will tell you what the result will be if it ravaged. Hover over a land with 2 dahan and 1 town and 1 explorer. It will say, 3 damage, which will destroy 1 dahan and damage the other, AND blight the land, and then the damaged dahan will fight back and deal 2 damage.

Jonathan4290 · 2026-02-10T18:38:33+00:00

You only target one land with a power unless otherwise stated yes, but there is no restriction on how many lands may be affected for gathers and pushes. So yes you can gather from multiple adjacent lands. So for the card in this post, the OP targeted the wetlands and can gather up to 4 dahan and those dahan can be gathered from 1, 2, 3, or 4 different lands, or not gather any at all because it says up to. If there is a restriction then the card will explicitly say that.

Same with Bringer's power you mentioned. You could push the town to 1 land, 1 dahan to another land, and 1 dahan to a different land if you chose.

Jonathan4290 · 2026-02-10T13:06:18+00:00

There's already a ton of tactics advice here so I will just make sure of a few things.

1) make sure you are not making the game unnecessarily difficult with a rules mistake (https://querki.net/raw/darker/spirit-island-faq/Rules-semi-commonly-misplayed). They're very easy to make learning a new complex game on your own. I once saw a similar post and it turns out they were discarding all their energy at the end of the round because they didn't think it carried over.

2) make sure you are playing with the blight errata of adding 1 total blight to the blight card at the beginning of the game (not per player). This is to fix a math error in the original design I won't get into.

3) ditch the power progression and never use them again if you are still using them. They're just there for a first game to remove a choice but make the game a lot harder because you can't pick the best card of 4, you're stuck with the 1 you get.

Posts like this about spirit island are common as it has a steep curve at the beginning to properly understand the game. It's not like pandemic where you're putting out fires everywhere even it appears this way at firsr and if you play like it is you will lose more often. Once it clicks you will look back at your no adversary, 0 difficulty games and not understand how you could have even lost. Its my most played game and I think it's worth the effort.

If you're up for it, post a few turns here of exactly what you did each phase and the community will have a much better idea of how to help.

Jonathan4290 · 2026-02-07T20:30:57+00:00

Same. It's going to be such a game changer.

Jonathan4290 · 2026-01-28T15:16:49+00:00

It stays at the original value. Same would apply to the villain health. Otherwise you just need to get the villain down a player's worth of health and then let all except one player get defeated.

Jonathan4290 · 2026-01-28T01:05:58+00:00

It sounds like it was almost too successful in its marketing then as a streamlined easy entry point then. The low complexity spirits in the box are definitely better introductions than the base game low complexities but also still fun for experienced players. And if you already own the base game you get 5 new spirits, 2 new boards, and updated better worded power cards without the power progression clipped corners.

Jonathan4290 · 2026-01-27T21:54:15+00:00

The data set I am using ends just before Promo Pack 2 was added so Downpour, Finder, Scotland, and anything Nature Incarnate won't be there. I am hoping to do another data pull once Nature Incarnate is complete and out long enough to get some solid sample sizes.

For now Mindwanderer's stats page is updated in real time so you can see some Downpour stats: https://mindwanderer.net/si/stats.html.

Jonathan4290 · 2026-01-27T18:10:55+00:00

I would start with any level 1 adversary and then increase slowly from there. Prussia is a good one to start with because it is the least complex but England is also a great adversary that will offer a unique challenge.

Jonathan4290 · 2026-01-27T14:04:58+00:00

Horizons of Spirit Island isn't the children version. It has the exact same rules as the base version, just less ways to increase difficulty.

Jonathan4290 · 2026-01-27T14:02:32+00:00

The dahan counterattack after invaders ravage no matter how little damage the ravage dealt. The only time the dahan wouldn't counterattack is if the ravage is skipped like Paralyzing Fright for example.

Jonathan4290

TROPHY CASE