The complete pledge was called Full Moon and contained, aside all expansions already listed above, also the KS exclusives: Reinforcing this aggressive behavior is one big rule for how enemies determine targets: aggressive and intelligent. Simply put, if you draw the attention of monsters in this game, their movements and their priorities must be ones that put you at your greatest disadvantage at all times. These are not mindless beasts, but creatures controlled by some greater inscrutable intelligence, and they will think tactically. If you love painting figurines, your time has come. Bloodbourne: The Card Game is based on the Chalice Dungeons in the video game Bloodborne — the ever-changing labyrinths and tombs carved out by the Great Ones beneath the fallen city of Yharnam, where horrifying creatures reside. Players compete to kill monsters and take their blood. Says designer Eric M. Lang, "My goal with Bloodborne was to channel the intensity and frustration of the video game into a contest between players. Lots of death."

Hunter’s Dream: an expansion without campaign that allows to introduce new rewards and challenges to any campaign. The KS version had 7 extra enemy Hunters.The announcement of the Bloodborne: The Board Game dared fans to dream once again, and all signs were hopeful, including it being delivered by a different publisher to Dark Souls: The Board Game. And, having tested the murky Yharnam waters with the card game, Eric Lang returned to design the board game joined by his co-designer on the A Song of Ice and Fire: Tabletop Miniatures Game, Michael Shinall. Bloodborne plays really well, weaving risk and reward into almost every decision you make. Should you enter the hunter’s dream now and bank the little you have collected or risk it for a biscuit and try to collect some more first? If you add the expansions, not all are available on retail and would increase the price considerably. We suggest getting the base game before to make sure you like it before making a big splurge.

Bloodborne The Board Game is a game made up of four campaigns, each hosting three chapters. Each chapter will contain an initial three enemies as dictated by the setup, and there are four Hunters for players to choose from. Each chapter contains a main Hunt mission to complete alongside several Insight missions. Players discover these progressively throughout the chapter as new tiles are revealed. Completing Insight missions often rewards players with Hunter Tools, consumable items and new firearms. Players can choose who gets what, with a limit of two Caryll Runes and two Hunter Tools Each. The questions below currently have no official answer and aren’t covered fully by the rules as written. While some people have come to their own conclusion we could still do with an official ruling on these points. 4.1 When do additional enemies activate? The miniatures produced by CMON are always of a particular quality. We’re fans, but know that there’s such a thing as miniatures for the sake of miniatures. Bloodborne the Board Game is a game that we feel needs the minis to embed that theme further. There’s a real sense of scale with them, and comparing your Hunter to the likes of Vicar Amelia or a Church Giant really brings it home for how small your Hunter is. How outgunned they should be. And yet, through clever card management and some great enemy manipulation, you can take these beasts down. Final Thoughts

Core Sets

If you are into deeply narrative games, this is not the game for you. While there is a gripping narrative behind each chapter and all the side missions, you cannot complete all of them in one single hunt and you are more likely to fail a campaign and restart from scratch than to win it. Every element of the game oozes that theme of simple town blighted with the scourge of beasts. Dabbling in the unknown, the mysterious Healing Church and blood-coloured sky all aid this... But what coins it the most is the chapter cards and narratives. The pleas, requests and chatter among the common folk really embed the concept of there being a Hunt for beasts, and that, on this night of the Hunt, something else is out there. The facts that all these cards interact with each other providing various outcomes depending on your decisions, makes the game compelling and interesting to explore. The grim, almost horror, world in which the game is set makes for an excellent setting greatly accentuated by the use of grey colours and fantastic designs.

When you’ve played all your weapon and item cards, you have no choice but to return to the Hunter’s Dream. The benefits of healing and protecting your points are too important to pass up - creating a high risk, high reward gameplay. It's similar to the video game’s ‘rally’ mechanic. Death in this game means you lose all your unbanked blood echoes and enter ‘The Hunter’s Dream’. You also lose the chance to gain trophies, should the monster die that round. The Chalice Dungeon expansion for Bloodborne The Board Game works as an alternative style of play for the core game. It runs a similar system of exploration and combat, but without an overarching story. No campaign and a more streamlined style of play. You enter, complete a single objective, then take on the boss. The gameplay’s core mechanics are the same for players as they would be in the core game, with players running Hunters the same way they would in a campaign. This objective doesn’t change for any Chalice Dungeon experience, but whole system works with any enemies, bosses or Hunters chosen from any module or expansion. What’s more, is that this expansion includes five bosses unique to the video game’s Chalice Dungeons and unavailable to any other expansions. There’s even scope for a competitive mode. Differences Bloodborne narrative is described through numbered cards that have to be read only when certain triggers are reached. The fact that you are unable to complete all side missions in a single hunt increases re-playability on one side, but decreases your understanding of the context on the other.Bloodborne's theme is a mash of Lovecraftian horror meets a disease turning men into beasts. That which can't be comprehended and the darkness within man caused by one's own weakness. It's tremendously gothic and dark and executes the theme fantastically. Does Bloodborne The Board Game manage that level of the theme? Can it? Well... I'd argue so, yes. The board game counterpart to the video game does not follow the same story. You are not the same protagonist, you're just some Hunters on a night of the Hunt. Your Hunts entail familiar characters, enemies and bosses, but the overarching story and focus for these campaigns are different enough to keep you guessing. For the fans of Souls video game series, the experience of their beloved game transformation into the physical format of board games has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride. The anticipation of the Dark Souls: The Board Game was sky high and it came crashing down. The following smaller card games based on both Dark Souls and Bloodborne have been fine, good even, but they could never compete with the expectations of a miniatures heavy big box game. Blood is essential to win but don’t neglect trophies, as if you manage to max out one or more of the three types that’s another eight points a pop. It is also another thing to take into account when playing the Hunter’s Dream. On the contrary, failing after 6+ hours of game is pretty brutal and you need to have the stomach for it. If you are a fan of Dark Souls series, or you may already have played Bloodborne the videogame, you will know that feeling and maybe you are here for this. It is extremely satisfying to complete a hunt knowing what you went through and you were always just one step from complete failure.

Not content with the results of the Hunt, or perhaps desperate for more of the forbidden knowledge many seek, the Hunters crave more. The Blood Moon still hangs high, and the Hunt must go on. For some, the need to spill blood and vanquish beasts drives them mad. Others are driven to seek challenge in deeper locations, including the hidden depths beneath Old Yharnam. Once home to the ancient race of Pthumerians, those who were thought to commune with Old Ones, the Chalice Dungeons are now all that remain there. Treasures and trophies await, alongside unspeakable horrors and terrifying beasts. The Chalice Dungeon expansion adds a new host of opportunities and challenges to Bloodborne The Board Game, and takes around 60 minutes to play. Gameplay Concept Then it’s the hunter’s turn. Starting with the first player everyone performs the effect on their card, which could be as simple as doing damage to the monster or as devious as damaging the monster and everybody else too. Why would you want to hurt the rest of your hunter buddies? Because blood echos that aren’t banked are discarded when a hunter dies. If after each card is resolved the monster isn’t dead, it escapes and the hunters earn no trophies. The boss monsters, however, never escape and must be defeated. The Hunter’s Dream On top of the list above, the original KS campaign contained two pledge levels. The Blood Moon pledge, the basic one, added to the core game a new box of exclusive rewards (sometimes called the Blood Moon Box) like 6 new Hunters, 1 boss, 18 enemies and miniatures to replace some in-game tokens like the Lamp, the Chest and the Doll. It contained also an expansion with a single campaign called Mergo’s Loft. The game is a campaign-based adventure game for 1-4 players entirely played without dice. Instead, your abilities all have a speed and are resolved comparing with the speed of your enemy. You choose which actions to perform with cards.What a Hunter does between the start and end however is up to them. It seems trivial to say it’s “complete” free choice, but there’s no punishment for exploring other than the time constraint. If anything, you’re encouraged to look around and discover things. To fight enemies and dare to venture to the Hunter’s Dream. It’s part and parcel of the game, and it’s inevitably going to aid you in gaining that win. We Embrace the Old Blood The miniatures for this game are delightfully accurate to the video game’s characters. It even includes some who don’t always serve a mechanical purpose. This could be a boon for collectors, but a bit of additional clutter for gamers. Bloodborne is set in a grim fantasy world where a plague spreads across the land transforming people into beasts. Your role, as a Hunter, is to discover the source and stop it once and for all.