Aeon's End War Eternal - Cooperative Sci-Fi Fantasy Strategy Deck-Building Board Game for 1-4 Players Ages 14+ 60 Minute Playtime by Indie Boards and Cards

War Eternal is an excellent evolution from the already fantastic Aeon's End. As a stand alone game, it largely improves on it's predecessor with better and more challenging nemeses, more interesting mages, and still excellent market cards. It's only relative downside is that a sizable minority of the content is geared towards higher play counts and doesn't scale as well for 1-2 player games. As an expansion to Aeon's End, it elevates the original game, and the combined content eliminates most any deficiency in either stand alone product. Bottom line, buy the game; you won't regret it.Aeon's End is a cooperative deck builder. You and your fellow players are mages, defending Gravehold from the evil Nemeses that are trying to snuff out the last bastion of humanity. You all start the game with relatively similar starting hands and positions, the differences of which won't be as apparent until you've got a few games in. There is a market with nine different cards that you are able to purchase to add to and improve your deck. Each turn, you play cards from your hand to purchase new cards, prepare spells to attack the nemesis and its minions, or use abilities. In an interesting bit of strategy, you (almost) never shuffle your deck, allowing you to plan out future hands and purchases turns in advance. The nemesis serves as your antagonist and is controlled by a combination of its unique mechanics and a semi-random nemesis deck. Player and nemesis turn order is randomized each round. Generally speaking, the game ends when either all players, Gravehold, or the nemesis are reduced to zero life.Indie Boards and Cards has had some endemic production quality issues. Thankfully, if you have any issues with your copy, they respond promptly (within a week or two) and will replace any problematic or missing pieces (within a month or two). As of the AE: Legacy printing (Jan 2019), these quality control issues seen to be resolved, so I wouldn't expect that anyone has this issue unless you're playing an older copy from a smaller retailer.War Eternal is a great starting point for getting in to Aeon's End, and what I'd recommend for most people. Better nemesis replay-ability gets it the nod over the original Aeon's End, but the game really shines once you pick up both stand alone games. If you want a simpler/easier play experience or play exclusively with 1-2 players, then Aeon's End might be the better option. The point is, you should buy one of them. Then the other. Then the small expansions...

War Eternal seems great. The cards can be mixed with the base Aeon’s End (2nd Edition) without noticing any difference from the backs of the cards, thus giving endless market and nemesis combinations. There is as much variety and as many cards as the original game (6 mages, 4 nemeses, ****loads of spells and gems...).My main complaint would be that they included Mist again as a mage. However, her charge requirement, ability, and starting card is different. The remainder of her starting hand and deck is the same, as well as her starting breach orientation.The card quality is equivalent to the base game. Pretty good, but some nicks along the edges.Also, the cardboard divider inside the box sucks and came bent, as was the case when I bough the base Aeon’s End. I freaked out because I thought I was short a bunch of the basic nemesis cards, but found them hidden under the crappy, white cardboard divider.My last complaint is that it appears some of the artwork is inconsistent (i.e. the Hollow Crown’s “acolyte” deck seems to have blurry artwork, and Dezmodia does not look like she was drawn by the same artist. It looks as though 3 different artists did the artwork for the mages).Yet to play, but the cards seem to have a similar feel to the base game as I skimmed over them - but not too similar, which is good. Can’t wait to have a new market, new nemeses and new mages - minus Mist ;)-Brant Shalek

Tremendous game! I've been hearing about Aeon's End for a while now among the boardgame community. I was hesitant to buy the game because I was worried about the complexity. My family enjoys complex games but those games are hard to get to the table, thus reducing their return on investment. I also hate having to do a rule check for every game turn/action (I'm looking at you Mage knight). This game does not have that problem. It offers a ton of variety and one you understand the basic set up and mechanics you can throw away the rule book. It really is that intuitive.This game is simply brilliant regardless of player count! I've played it solo and multi player and like it equally as much at all player counts. It's my favorite deck builder and currently my favorite solo experience. It offers so much!It's relatively easy to get to the table and offers a big game experience in about an hour and 15 minutes - that is casually playing at any player count.I highly recommend this game! SO GOOD!

A couple months ago, we played “Aeon’s End: The New War” and we loved it! Each nemesis was quite different, and the game offered perfect amount of decisions. Loving this so much, we preordered the new coming “the Legacy of Gravehold.”While still waiting for our late pledge to arrive, we revisited our beloved Aeons End with “War Eternal” expansion. It has interesting mages and items with good synergies! What about nemeses? They didn’t frustrate us either!OK, time to be honest, the first nemesis seemed easy at first, but oh my God, it turned out to be such a challenge! It had another lose condition and the only way to avoid it was receiving damage to our beloved city Gravehold. Luckily one of our mages was incredible in healing the Gravehold! So, we won at the last minute! This game feels so rewarding!

Aeon's End is a very fun cooperative deckbuilding game and this is the 2nd big box that was published. The content itself is similar to the base game so the main draw is the variety of new Mages, Nemeses, and supply cards to choose from. War Eternal is generally considered to have the hardest Nemeses so that is another factor to consider.I would only purchase this when it is discounted or if you're a collector and just want to have the entire Aeon's End content. If you are a new player I would recommend the New Age (4th) box instead.