Ghost Stories

[Brel]

GHOST STORIES

Number of Player: 1 to 4 players
Duration of game: 60 minutes
Age: 12 and up

"Wu-Feng, the Lord of the Nine Hells has found where the funeral urn containing his ashes is kept. His hordes are already marching upon the small village of the Middle Kingdom hiding them". Players are taoist priests, who will have to defend the village from the army of shadows preparing to invade it. Each of them has different special powers which will help them in this mission.

The village is represented by nine tiles, each of which illustrates a different area. Around that are placed the tiles for each player, where the ghosts will appear on their starting locations.

The players, as a group, will have to exorcise the specters which will appear as the game goes on, often faster than expected... As at the beginning of his turn, a player brings a ghost into play and places it on a free spot. And more than one can come in at the same time. There are many types of specters which will need to be sent back to hell more or less quickly, as some can haunt the village and "destroy" tiles. If there's too many of them at a given time, the players risk losing some of their life points (Ki points).

On his turn, a priest can move on a tile in order to exorcise adjacent ghosts or to benefit from the power of the villager living on the tile.

To exorcise, he must roll three dice (the Tao dice) and end up with enough face up colors of the ghosts' color. Thankfully, one of the dice's face is a wild color which can be used as any color. To exorcise a black ghost of power 2, you need to roll three black or white (the bonus color). The players also benefit from Tao tokens which can pad out the dice roll. They gain these by entering certain village tiles, by exorcising certain ghosts or thanks to their special powers. When they are on the same tile, a priest can give Tao tokens to another priest in order to help with his exorcism.

Each tile of the village allows the players to benefit from a different bonus. The cemetary allows, for example, to bring a dead priest back to life, while the herbalist allows to recover spent Tao tokens, etc. It will also be possible to get traps or move ghosts.

The priests have three or four Ki points (depending on the difficulty level of the game). They also get a Yin-Yang token they can spend in order to make two actions in a single turn. Exorcising certain powerful ghosts allows to recover a spent Yin-Yang or Tao tokens. The special powers available to the players allow to recover Tao tokens, move more than one square or move another player, to benefit from an extra Tao die, etc. They strengthen the required collaboration by giving each priest a specialty.

To win, the players must defeat the incarnation of Wu-Feng, a boss who arrives at the end of the game, once the players have been worn out by the hordes of ghosts breaking in since the beginning of the game. And if you decide to play on a harder difficulty mode, there will be many incarnations, each more dangerous than the last.

The ways to lose are, of course, even more numerous. The players lose if three of the village's tiles are destroyed, if the draw pile is emptied while the incarnation of Wu-Feng is still in play, or, simply, that all the priests are dead.

Contents:

4 game boards
9 village tiles
3 tao dice
1 special Tao die
1 curse Die
55 ghost cards
10 incarnation of Wu-Feng cards
20 tao tokens
20 Qi tokens
4 taoist figurines
4 Yin-Yang tokens
8 haunting figurines
2 Buddha figurines
1 marker for inactive Taos
1 enfeeblement mantra token
4 inactive Power tokens
3 neutral Power tokens
1 rulebook
2 play aids
1 sheet to record your games

Source: asmodee-us.com

[Brel]

3D Version of Ghost Stories

[Brel]

GHOST STORIES
VIDEO REVIEW & TUTORIAL

Part 1 of 4

Part 2 of 4

Part 3 of 4

Part 4 of 4

[Brel]

Chuck No-Rice (Bonus Card)

Click here for PDF file containing rules.

[Rolf]

omg.  The Chuck! 

[Brel]

Ghost Stories - The Guardhouse Expansion

Adds one village tile (Guardhouse) and five ghost cards (4 ghosts and 1 Wu-Feng) to the original game. 

This expansion is included in the German magazine Spielbox issue 6/08.

Pics from BGG

[Alger B C Lim]

Ang kunti lang pala laman ng expansion. Any idea how much it would be costing to get a copy?


-alger

[aerolb]

I think Asmodee is coming out with an expansion near october - a little around the new Okko expansion.

Finally getting my copy tomorrow if adrian pulls through.

[Brel]

Ang kunti lang pala laman ng expansion. Any idea how much it would be costing to get a copy?


-alger

The German magazine is around PHP 600.  The expansion includes English rules... but not sure yet if I can get this item.

[Alger B C Lim]

Ang kunti lang pala laman ng expansion. Any idea how much it would be costing to get a copy?


-alger

The German magazine is around PHP 600.  The expansion includes English rules... but not sure yet if I can get this item.

ooooh...

hmmm haha well at least its not a whole new box... hehe

-alger

[Brel]

ooooh...

hmmm haha well at least its not a whole new box... hehe

-alger

Yeah it's a bit expensive for just a few cards and a tile.  It's more for the completist I guess.

[Brel]

If you find the game a bit difficult, the Guardhouse expansion is a boon.  The tile allows a player to look at the top four (4) cards of the Ghost deck and rearrange the cards in any order plus he picks one Tao Token for free.

Using the Guardhouse tile, we were able to finally defeat the game at Initiation Level with two players.    We opted to control four monks and each of the players gets two monks to play.  There were only 3-4 cards left in the Ghost Deck when we defeated the Creeping Horror.  We lost the Red monk and the Yellow Monk almost died.

The expansion also comes with five ghost cards but you are not required to use them at all so we didn't. 

[aerolb]

Is the expansion still 600 pesos? lol

[Brel]

Is the expansion still 600 pesos? lol

I'm not sure.  But that price includes the Magazine.  My expansion was given to me as a bonus by one of my sources.  I'm not sure though if they're selling any or if they still have some remaining.  I can ask them if anybody is interested?

[Talismanic (Mark)]

I played this just today after getting it from Fortress. Thanks Mangsky! We played 2 Player using only 2 Monks, I chose the Blue Monk with the ability to Exorcise and Obtain Assistance from the Townsfolk. Seline played the Green Monk with the power to be unaffected by curses and to roll an additional die. For the Neutral boards I chose Flight and the Tao Token ability.

It actually went quite well as we managed to put paid to over 30+ Ghosts, unfortunately, two tormentors haunted 2 village tiles succesively and ended the game (Damned Curse Dice!!!). The next ghost to appear would have been the Wu Feng Incarnation, kaso it was Hope Killer, so I guess we would have had little chance to defeat it.

The Blue Monk's ability is quite powerful together with the Green Monk, I think we can probably beat the game next time with a little luck.

All in all, it was pretty fast paced, and the tension really mounts as ghosts appear every turn, and you have to dash around putting them down. What really got us was an auto-haunter who zapped the Taoist Altar, so there was no way to un-haunt tiles. Next time I'll probably place the Altar in the center.