u/TravVdb

I know a lot of people were disappointed at the cost of the mercenary packs and probably passed on picking them up, but let me take a second to sing the praises of Hail.

The designers nailed the theme with this character. The "Irritation" cards force you into really specific constraints such as "make sure you loot each turn", "end your turn 2 spaces away from others", "can't attack", etc. so that you can gain powerful Resolve tokens. I'm constantly feeling like I'm actually Hail, hanging out in a corner because I can't move, backtracking for coins, annoying people into attacking before or after me, and pestering people to enchant their cards so I can get gold. I've had several useless turns where I'm fiddling with things, followed by blasting two different enemies for 12 damage each.

The mechanics are also incredibly fun. Teleport is such a crazy way to move around the map and it feels great not caring about immobilize, traps or even walls. My favourite moment with teleport was when I skipped 12 spaces worth of movement by teleporting through a gap between the tiles. I had to literally lay out hexes on the table to make sure I was counting the distance correctly but it was hilarious seeing my teammates faces.

The character has excellent support abilities and I've been playing it primarily as such. I remember my teammates being super surprised that I had a heal 7 + safeguard or an AOE heal 2 at level 1. I knew from the moment I peeked at the level 3 "can't attack" Irritation card that I wanted to build around supporting and avoiding attacks, and I've had a lot of fun doing this.

The most enjoyable part of this character, however, has been working around the solo item that you get at level 5. For those that don't know, it's a pair of boots that are double-sided. On the one side you can trade an active Irritation card with one from your card pool, letting you switch your Irritations on the fly and gain extra Resolve tokens. On the other side, you can recharge it back to the original side by spending three Resolve tokens in one turn. Playing the dance of swapping Irritations to meet the condition you're currently in has been incredibly interesting and allowed for me to go aggressive or change for more mobility depending on what is needed. It really helps you play those big turns where you're getting huge value from your cards as well as tons of experience and prevents you from having dead turns where you're playing down Irritations (which I had tons of pre-level 5).

Hail has a huge skill ceiling and I'm still learning the class. But I've had so much fun charging up Trial and Success to huge levels (currently an attack 13 loss card), cheering when my teammates get hit with a "+1, gain a Resolve token" modifier, and shoving my allies into a pile of enemies with a free attack. This is probably my favourite class that I've played in GH1, FH, Jaws or GH2 so far and I'm excited to get even further with the class.

I recently received Everdell: Emerland. Given that the developers plan to move away from the regular Everdell format for future games, I thought that this might be a good time to compare the versions of Everdell for recommendation purposes.

For the sake of this comparison, I've included both Everdell and Everdell: The Complete Collection as separate entries. Note that I've left out "Welcome to Everdell" as it's the only entry in the series that I don't own as I'm not the intended audience.

6. Everdell: Farshore

In last place is the only Everdell that I've sold. While there has been some praise for this version and it did a great job of changing some problematic aspects of the original Everdell, I have a few concerns with Farshore. The way that maps work where you are incentivized to go all in on them or not do them at all due to exponential scaling is a huge issue and is the worst implementation of events in this series. The windrose mechanic is a great idea, but since everyone is incentivized to go for the same cards, it adds too much competition for specific cards in the bay in my opinion. Farshore was interesting the first couple of plays, but its faults became too apparent for me to enjoy playing it and I got rid of it after five plays.

5. Everdell

Base game Everdell is a decent game. Playing without expansions is generally not the choice I would make, as even adding some small things like player powers or Legendary cards adds a bit more spice. There are some balance issues with certain cards like Crane or Innkeeper essentially being free resources, and other cards being incredibly weak for what they give you. That being said, there are a variety of ways you can play the original, and the simplicity of it allows for an easy entrance into the Everdell series. This would be my go-to choice if I were playing someone who didn't have a lot of experience board gaming.

4. Everdell: Silverfrost

Silverfrost is a great step up from base Everdell. The fire mechanic adds some interesting counterplay and the cards are a lot more impactful. Having quests(?) that are hidden events for you to complete gives a variety of objectives for players to take part in and incentivizes trying different things each game. Similar to how Spirecrest had weather that was something you needed to play around, the snow can feel bad at times if you're getting overwhelmed with it or you don't have a good solution for it. For that reason, this might not be the ideal version for someone new.

3. Everdell Duo

What I love about Everdell Duo is how tight of an experience it is. You only have 24 total actions in the game so you have to make really important choices about what cards you play and when. If you want to play a card that discounts other cards, it's a sacrifice of one of your actions, rather than just a freebie like in Everdell. There's also some ability to counterplay by denying an opponent an event, action space, or even an action if you are sneaky. The fact that every card in this game is unique allows for lots of replayability, and the campaign mode is a nice addon, even if it's not something that appealed to me as much. The downside? You can only play with two players. Almost all of my Everdell play has been at the 2P count so it's not an issue for me, but it's obviously an issue for some people. Finally, this is the cheapest, smallest and shortest version of the game which can be appealing.

2. Everdell: Emerland

The newest addition to Everdell is also my favourite of the standalone games. The addition of "helper" meeples that either enhance locations, let you enter occupied spots, or let you do helper-specific actions was a great idea that adds tension and tough decision-making. Stalling in progressing seasons can be punishing because others will beat you to locations, forcing you to waste your helpers to go to shared locations. Also, the upgrading of cards is an interesting mechanic and one that adds extra value to red and brown cards that can sometimes otherwise be a little weak in other versions of the game. Finally, a new category of cards (orange: where you discards underneath them to activate) breathes a bit more life into the Everdell formula. While RNG can sometimes be a bit overpowering (some of the artifacts/realms are much stronger than others).

1. Everdell: The Complete Collection

While I still prefer Emerland over playing with almost any individual Everdell expansion, having access to everything available in the Complete Collection with all the replayability of the different expansions causes this version to win out. Bellfaire in particular is fantastic as it can combine with any other expansion and the player powers are such a powerful way to give you a different experience every time you play. Aesthetically, having all the different meeples for each critter and large critter is a really fun addition. I've played this almost 100 times by now, alternating between expansions to help keep it fresh and still enjoy it. The obvious downside of this is that it's the most expensive version of the game by far.

So which one should you get?

Budget isn't an issue --> Complete Collection

Newer to board gaming --> Base Everdell

Best single entry --> Emerland

Small, cheap and quick --> Duo