Castle Panic is a tough game, and takes cooperation to complete the game let alone have any chance of winning. Players try to win by having the most points of mosters defeated, but the caveat is if the monsters manage to take out all the defenses and castle towers, all the players lose. I really like Castle Panic because it is a cooperative game and does offer up a fair challenge. Now Fireside Games has released The Dark Titan, the second expansion to Castle Panic and… well, that challenge has been taken to a new level.
One of the first things you notice about The Dark Titan expansion is the titular boss monster requires 8 points of damage to be taken off the board. And you don’t get to claim it as a trophy. In Castle Panic players play cards to deal damage to monsters as they approach the castle, each being worth a certain amount of points to tally up at the end to determine the winner. The Dark Titan not only requires a massive amount of damage to be done necessitating full scale cooperation, but nobody gets the spoils.
Players do not immediately put The Dark Titan into play through the regular mix of monsters to draw from. Actually, this “mega boss” sits out in his (the rules use male pronouns) own card. There are heralds placed into the draw pool of monsters, and the first herald drawn gets placed on the card with Agranok (and a bad thing happens to players). The second herald drawn is placed alongside Agranok, and another bad thing happens to players. A third herald will eventually get drawn and… you can see where this is going. After the third herald is drawn Agranok is put into play.
Placing Agranok into play should put players on edge. This is an eight point monster which can easily wreck havoc on the playing field. It is worth holding onto those massive hit cards during the game to use when Agranok comes into play. And when he does, things are not nice. Different difficulty levels are present in different cards for players to choose from at the onset of play. At the lowest difficulty level nothing happens when Agranok comes onto the field but at the highest the game could easily be over in a couple of turns even if all the castles and walls are standing because the special abilities can be devastating.
Fortunately this time around we have more support. Along with some interesting cards there are token that are placed in with the monsters to draw from. If they make it to the castle their aid becomes invaluable. Perhaps most interesting of the cards is the Cavalier. It places a fighter on the board each player can move (or not) to use against the monsters as they advance towards the The support tokens don’t move like normal monster tokens on the board. Players need to discard cards to advance them towards the castle. It is a small sacrifice, but well worth it to draw extra cards, rebuild walls or simply deal out some damage on the board. And yes, the Cavalier and support tokens can take damage as well as deal damage.
Included in the rules for The Dark Titan are rules for adding this expansion to Castle Panic to play along with the earlier expansion The Wizard’s Tower. Unfortunately I don’t have The Wizard’s Tower, but it is on the short list of things to pick up at our local neighborhood game store.
What we found out including The Dark Titan into our Castle Panic game was the game is equally hindering and helpful on the lower difficulty levels as presented on the Agranok cards. The higher difficulty levels are definitely for more experienced players, and definitely not for small groups. Players really need to work together to defeat The Dark Titan, and that simply enhances what makes Castle Panic such a great game. There are so few cooperative games out there and that Castle Panic is one of them that also allows players to select a winner if they choose simply makes it all the better. So y
Bottom line? The Dark Titan enhances and underscores Castle Panic’s inherent cooperative play making it a fantastic addition to the game. Buy it.