Talisman Expansions Ranked

Talisman is one of the best fantasy board games out there. It has been around forever and has a rich backlog of editions and expansions over the years. It’s so popular in fact that the game itself and it’s expansions continue to sell out making it a true treasure to pick up. Today we are going to give you our ranking of all the expansions out there for Talisman 4th Edition revised.

Before we get started though let’s quickly go over what Talisman actually is. If you could imagine a fantasy world with wizards, elves and monsters, and throw them into a monopoly meets dungeons and dragons like game, you would get Talisman. By the role of the six sided dice, players will take turns traversing the board, gaining items and powering up their characters to eventually take the crown of command at the center.

The expansions to the game add all sorts of amazing things to expand on this already massive game, new areas to explore, new themes to encounter, even new end games scenarios and bosses. So with that brief explanation, let’s start the ranking list.

We will not be including the base game itself as this is required to actually run any talisman game. We will also be combining the nether realm and deep realm expansion under lost realms as this is the current release version of these two expansions.

Looking for updates on Talisman reprints? Check out our article here: https://www.dickwizardry.com/articles/2019/5/29/everything-about-talisman-4th-edition-revised-reprint-2019

13. Sacred Pool Expansion

Sacred pool has some really cool ending cards and some higher power cards as well. This expansion does not change a whole lot to the core mechanics of the game and is a decent small expansion if looking for more characters or alternate ending cards.

The main notes for this expansion though are the reward cards that can be taken in lue of a talisman from warlock quests. The set also comes with stable cards. These are similar to the cards in the City expansion stable that we will get to later on in the list.

The set comes with 4 new characters including the Dread Knight, the Cleric, the Magus and the Chivalric Knight. Finally the alternate ending cards are the Sacred Pool, Judgment Day, and the Demon Lord.

Sacred Pool ends up here on the list because there is not a really neat game changing mechanic really developed in this set aside from the warlock quest rewards.

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12. Lost Realms Expansion

Lost Realms was the combination of two smaller sets called the Deep Realm and the Sacred Realm. This set now combined creates a decent sized set. One thing that stands out is the Deep Realm portion of the set that contains the bridge between the City and the Dungeon expansions. So it goes without saying that this set requires those two expansions to be in play to get the bulk of use out of this set.

The set does not come with new characters but does come with some realm cards to go along with this board space edition between the city and the dungeon. There are also other cards that get added into the base adventure deck that are a little ramped up in overall power.

The Lost Realms ends up at number 12 on the list due to the rather small feel of the set in general and that the set tends to not get a lot of use when on the board. It’s still a great set though and could see more use if using the City and Dungeon and not other corner pieces to the board.

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11. Frostmarch Expansion

Frostmarch is an expansion that just does not offer a whole not of new content. When I think of this expansion, I relate it to just simply adding on content that didn’t fit into the base game.

The set comes with a bunch of new warlock quest cards and some new alternative ending cards and some new characters. But aside from the alternative ending of fighting the ice queen, really the only thing special here in my opinion is the characters.

The leprechaun is one of those off balanced characters to the game that if you play as him can be really fun, but playing against him can be a pain.

On the other hand the warlock and the necromancer are really cool characters that are relatively balanced as far as expansions are concerned. The ogre chieftain is not one of my favorites, but he is relatively balanced as well.

At the end of the day, if you are looking for a set that does not change up the gameplay but gives you more characters and a couple alternate ending cards, this is the set for you.

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10. Firelands Expansion

Firelands introduced some new mechanics to the game. It comes with 4 new characters and 3 new alternate ending cards. One thing that is really cool about this set is the including of the fire tokens and the terrain cards.

The main theme of this set was burning cards and placing terrain cards. The terrain cards constantly update the board which is a really cool feature that gets implemented in later expansions as well.

The fire tokens act as an extra danger to the board. If ending a turn on a space that has a fire token that has been placed there, the character loses a life.

The alternate ending cards in my opinion are not the most fantastic ending cards that expansions have released with.

The characters in this set are the Nomad, the Dervish, the Jin Blooded, and the Warlord. Overall these characters are decent but none really stand out a whole lot to me. Especially when so many characters exist in this game that have much more interesting characteristics.

So overall this set is known mostly for it’s terrain additions and burn tokens that it comes with which add a new, always changing landscape to the board that is not so difficult to understand and utilize in your game.

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9. Highlands Expansion

This expansion comes with six characters. Being the first large expansion on the list, let me explain what these sets tend to come with.

We usually see a new board piece that gets added onto the base game. For this set we get a corner piece that adds the Highlands region to the board which is mountain themed.

The set comes with a separate version of adventure cards that are only drawn in this region of the board.

There is a boss at the end of the board piece called the eagle king in which players need to defeat. If you win, you get a relic and you get to move where you want to go on the board.

The expansion is really neat for the characters that it comes with and the larger amount of trinkets that are available which are items that do not count to your total item count.

The Alchemist is really good when utilizing the city expansion. The other characters are really neat as well. The rouge and the vampiress tend to be my favorites from the set.

The set also comes with some alternative ending cards. So at this point you get the idea that the large expansion boxes are indeed large and give quite a lot more to the game. So if that is what you are looking for, these types of sets are the ones for you.

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8. Blood Moon Expansion

Blood moon felt to me like a sequel to the reaper expansion, it has a werewolf mechanic and night and day cycles to it that really make it stand out though.

The expansion comes with 3 new characters, the doom slayer, the grave robber and the vampire hunter.

There are also some new alternative ending cards with this expansion.

The main draw though is the day and night cycle that this expansion enables. During the day, all creatures are minus 1 attack roll. But don’t be fooled, the game is not easier, because at night they get a plus 1.

This day and night changes when an event is drawn from an adventure deck.

If the character fails against the werewolf, they become lycanthropic and get an effect on them for the rest of the game. There is a seperate deck to draw from these abilities.

Pairing Blood Moon with reaper doubles the effect of a threat always present on the board that can be moved by players to take you down. The reaper expansion is much simpler, but this set adds another level of complexity that many players may enjoy.

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7. Dragon Expansion

I didn’t think I would enjoy the dragon expansion so much. I also heard that many people think this set really bogs the game down, but, since I am still waiting on my physical expansion to arrive in the mail, this is based off my digital edition version of the expansion which is really fun.

Now don’t get me wrong, I read what comes in the physical game, I love the idea of drawing tokens from a bag and fighting dragons with the new center board piece that goes over top the crown of command in the inner region.

This set offers challenge similar to the dungeon with power and really drives home the dragon theme and looming threat as the game gets about halfway through.

Once this expansion gets in my hands physically and not just digitally, I will be sure to update the rankings based on my overall opinion of the set as a physical set.

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6. Dungeon Expansion

The Dungeon expansion is the next large expansion to hit the list. This expansion is full of difficult monsters and powerful items.

I found this set to be thematically cool, but it’s a big challenge to actually attempt to get through this set and get to the end. If you are farming trophies there can be high reward with this expansion, but it’s a risk.

This expansion comes with some really cool characters though. The Swashbuckler is my favorite of them all. When I played him for the first time, I was skeptical, but really enjoyed him very early on.

The boss battle at the end of this corner piece to the board is challenging and offers really good rewards at the end and will teleport you basically to the end game stage so this path could be an alternative route to victory.

This expansion was the first expansion that was for me a must buy, which is crazy since this is only number 6 on the list. But for good reason. These expansions are all really well thought out and unique and the large expansions come with so much cool stuff. I couldn’t bring this any lower.

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5. Woodlands Expansion

Woodlands was the last corner piece to grace the Talisman 4th edition game. This expansion was all themed at creating a use of light and dark fate and how fate and destiny plays a role in the game.

The destiny cards are epic and very powerful and are achieved by navigating through this region of the board. The challenge is getting to the end of this region as monitoring fate is really important in this expansion.

The characters in this set are fantastic, they all have very unique abilities that most come with tokens that need to be used for things such as teleportation.

My favorite character in this set is the Spider Queen, she can place webs on the board that stops opponent characters from advancing when they land on them or herself.

Woodlands can be a confusing set as the rules are more intense on this set then anything we have discussed so far, but the depth that it provides and the power at the end along with the fantastic characters make this an awesome set.

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4. Harbinger Expansion

This was a tough one to place down this low on the list. The mechanics and the characters are really good for this set. The Harbinger is all about the end of the world and working to stop it from occurring. IT comes with a character mechanic similar to the Reaper and the Werewolf with a miniature that actually traverses the board along with any of the players.

The set comes with terrain cards just like in the Firelands that was discussed before. There are also omen cards that will be run through during the course of the game. When an event type card is played, the Harbinger will land on the space where the player character how caused the effect is.

Now throughout the rest of the game, when a player lands on the harbinger, they roll for this character similar to the reaper. If players are in the same region as where the character lands, they instead of drawing from the adventure cards, they draw the harbinger cards, which are rather unforgiving.

Overall this is a cool standalone but really complicates things to the game and is not particularly new player friendly. If this integrated with larger amounts of players.

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3. Cataclysm Expansion

This set is bonkers. Replacing the entire regular board, but still requiring the base set for adventure cards and other pieces that are needed to play the base game.

This is the freshed and most advanced way to play Talisman, containing everything from terrain altering cards to the center of the board now being iced over.

This set has so many different mechanics that I recommend that when playing it for the first time, to limit the other expansions being used.

With that being said, this set is crazy in the changing effects of the board and the spaces not being what any Talisman player is familiar with. I rank it so high on the list because this set really changes play style and how each space is approached.

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2. City Expansion

The city expansion is the highest rated large expansion to the game due to everything that it provides. Take a deep breath cause there are a lot of things here.

Contract cards can be picked up and players get rewarded when accomplishing them like warlock quests but with gold.

There are many shops that are specific in nature that players can frequent to get specific items such as weapons, potions, or even pets and horses.

The characters that come with this set are all fantastic, the Tavern maid, the merchant are my personal favorites from the set.

This set ranks so high on the list because it’s almost a demand at this point that regardless of the game, everyone at the table wants this set to be utilized. My players spend A LOT of time here, and for good reason. There just is powerful stuff in this set and a really good reason to go. It also acts as a really solid movement since as entering any shop immediately stops a characters movement.

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1. Reaper Expansion

Anyone that has played Talisman needs to have this expansion. This is the closest thing to attached to the hip expansions come.

The Reaper expansion adds so much depth to the game so easily that it’s crazy.

Rolling for the reaper after rolling a 1 to move is great and there becomes a whole new meta to the game as players get to move a reaper miniature around the board.

The reaper is not very forgiving, and can even lead to instant death so managing fate levels becomes more important.

This leads to even more fun situations when the woodlands in on the board and light and dark fate apply.

If wondering at all what expansion should be your first, don’t wonder anymore and just pick this one up. I promise it will add so much to the playing experience for a much smaller entry price than the other expansions on the list.

Want to know more about the Reaper expansion? check out our review!

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There you have it. We have ranked all the Talisman expansions for the game that have physically been released. I hope you found this list both entertaining and informative. Comment below and let us know how your own list differs from ours.

At the end of the day Talisman is my favorite board game and it’s a treat every time it gets the chance to come out and be played with my friends. I have yet to find someone who doesn’t enjoy their time playing the game. If you have never played the game before and are wanting to give it a shot, now is a great time to do so.

Throughout the article we placed affiliate links for each set, so if you found this helpful and want to support what we do here, you can use our links to pick up your copy. We appreciate the support.

Want to paint your Talisman miniatures? Check out our article of our paint schemes organized by set here: https://www.dickwizardry.com/articles/talisman-revised-4th-edition-miniature-painting-guide

Here’s hoping for new expansions to come for this amazing game!

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