Bloodborne: Forbidden Woods Expansion

Adds more goodness to an already great game.

Great expansion, shame it's limited print.

If you like the core game, this only adds more goodness to this challenging, but fun, board game.

Forbidden woods is a limited sale expansion for bloodborne the board game. If you like the core set you should certainly pick this up before its too late. It adds 2 boss fights (Shadows of Yharnam and Witches of Hemwick) + the tiles and enemies needed for their campaigns + a unique side chapter that can be added to any other campaign.

Forbidden Woods is one of the two large-scale expansion packs for CMON's Bloodborne board game, and for sixty dollars, it offers a good amount of content. 21 new miniatures to represent 5 new enemies and 2 new bosses, 12 new map tiles, 2 story campaigns to play through, and a bonus chapter that can be added to the middle of any other campaign, provided you're willing to take the time to find it and kill the enemy guarding it. While the bonus chapter isn't anything too special, just a quick race against the clock (or Hunt Track as it were) to complete as many Insight missions as possible, the rewards you get for it will add a lot more spice to your games going forward. The campaigns however, are much more interesting. Den of Vipers offers a romp that's not too dissimilar from what you can find in the base game, albeit in a new setting, which is hardly a bad thing. For players wanting something more adventurous though, Dark Rites introduces a load of new mechanics, like randomized rewards, Ritual Materials that can expended for unique effects during specific battles, and a new deck of Dark Rites cards that can potentially call forth enemies on your position, including the boss itself. Speaking of which, without giving too much away, the boss of this campaign operates a lot more differently than anything else in the board game, though in a way that veterans of the video game will find very familiar, and slaying it will require a more cerebral methodology. Heck, even the story of the campaign goes against the grain, as it doesn't so much involve your hunters going on yet another nightly hunt, but getting captured by a cult from which they now have to escape. In terms of components, everything is on par with what the base game offered, for good or ill. The miniatures are grotesquely detailed as should be expected, and will look even better once you paint them, though the the snake part of the Snake Parasite enemies might require some extra effort on your part since they're lacking things like eyes, scales, and texture overall. The map tiles don't fare quite as well, since they're made of relatively cheap cardboard that will quickly show wear around the edges, just like the base game's. The print quality is good on them, though, better than the base game's in fact. They just seem to have more grisly details put into them, and marshy forest floors are a lot more interesting looking than cobblestones. Overall, this is an excellent expansion pack to an already excellent game. If you didn't care for Bloodborne, this won't change your mind, but if you did love it, then Forbidden Woods will give you even more game to play, more material to enhance all your games going forward, and even more wonderful miniatures to round out your collection. Highly recommended!