Aeon’s End: The New Age – Hints & Tips for Game 2

This is one in a series of posts regarding the board game Aeon’s End: The New Age. You can access all my other “AE: The New Age” posts HERE. This post offers Hints & Tips before the second Game, and will contain **spoilers from the first game**. You have been warned.

Deck 1D

After Battle 1, you get to add some resources to the Barracks, before you prepare for Battle 2. The first cards from deck 1D introduce Level 1 Treasure cards. These are 0 cost gems and spells that give a little more kick than the basic Crystal or Spark. If you’ve played earlier sets of Aeon’s End, you will recognise some of the names in these Treasures.  Each player replaces one of the Crystals or Sparks in their starting hand, with a Level 1 Treasure.

Aeon's End: The New Age - Treasures Level 1

They should be replaced like for like. So you should give up a Crystal for a Treasured Gem or a Spark for a Treasured Spell. But occasionally that won’t be possible. Claudia’s starting hand is all gems, so in her case, you can choose to give up a Crystal, in order to get a Treasured Spell.

Envelope 1D

The Envelope contains a new Mage, Rhia. Deck 1D contains her unique starter card, and enough extra Crystals, to make the starting cards, for any 4 Mages.

Like Claudia, Rhia does not have a Breach I, and has no open breaches at the start of the game. She has the gem Planar Pocket, which is worth 1 aether. Plus another 2 aether that can only be used to purchase Relics.

Aeon's End: The New Age - Mage Rhia

Her ability requires only 4 charges, and it is a way to upgrade cards to your hand. First you return a card from your hand or discard pile to the market. Then you take a more expensive card from the market, directly into your hand. Rhia, being a Relic Hunter, will give a better deal if you returned a Relic initially.

Replacing cards from your discard pile, is a great way to get an extra card into your hand. And cards that are purchased are immediately placed in your discard pile. So Rhia can buy a card, and then use her ability, to replace it with a better card, and put it straight into her hand. Planar Pocket and 2 Crystals, would allow Rhia to buy a 5 cost Relic, then trigger her ability to return that Relic, and place an 8 cost spell straight into her hand.

New Market Cards

The remainder of deck 1D is new Market Cards, which are to be placed into the Barracks. When setting up for the Market for the next Battle, you must choose your 9 supply piles from the 13 that are available. Those not chosen will be placed in front of the Banished Supply Divider, and not used for the rest of the expedition.

Aeon's End: The New Age - Deck 1D Market Cards

Battle 2

The rest of this post is about the prep required for fighting the next Nemesis. Deck 2A and Envelope 2a contain the mat, cards, etc for the next Nemesis. I will keep those elements under Spoiler Tags, for those that don’t want to know before they have opened those parts in the game. When you are ready, read card 5 of the Expedition Deck to continue with the story.

Envelope 2a
Contents of Envelope 2a
This envelope contains everything you need to fight Arachnos, the second Nemesis in The New Age. Similar to Maggoth, there is a Divider card for organising the cards in the box, and the Nemesis Mat with Arachnos vital stats and setup. There is also a punch board of nemesis tokens, which are a generic token, used by several Nemesis in Aeon’s End. If you have played another set of Aeon’s End, you have no doubt seen these before.

There is also an Arachnos token in that punch board, and another Mat which tracks The Ritual. The Arachnos Unleash keyword means to move the token forward on the track, to signal the approaching completion of the ritual. Each space after the Start position has a cost in aether, which any player can pay, to move the token to the previous space. Keeping the ritual at bay is important, whilst you work on dealing damage to Arachnos.

Aeon's End: The New Age - Nemesis Arachnos

However, you cannot prevent the Ritual completely. It will trigger if Arachnos collects more than 8 Nemesis tokens, or when the players would have normally won the game (Arachnos at 0 life OR the Nemesis deck completely dealt with). If the players would normally have won, remove a Nemesis token from Arachnos, and complete the Ritual. This is explained in the Deck 2A section.

 Deck 2A
Contents of Deck 2A
Deck 2A has the cards required for fighting the Arachnos Nemesis. You will have separated the 9 Maggoth cards and the Basic Nemesis cards, and placed them in front of the appropriate dividers. Just like previous sets of Aeon’s End, the Basic cards will be randomised to build the Nemesis deck as required. However, the Expedition Mode in The New Age, introduces a new type of card: Upgraded Basic.

Upgraded Basic Cards

These are first found in Deck 2A, and add an increased difficulty, compared to regular Basic cards. You should add all of the Upgraded Basic cards into the Nemesis deck, and then make up the required numbers with Basic cards. For example, Deck 2A has 1 x Tier 1 Upgraded Basic Card. So checking the table on Page 10 of the rule book, a 3 Player game would have a Tier 1 consisting of

  • 1 x Upgraded Basic
  • 4 x Basic
  • 3 x Arachnos

Still the expected total of 8 cards.

You will get more Upgraded Basic cards as the campaign continues, so each Nemesis you fight is a bigger challenge. However do not add more Upgrade Basic Nemesis cards of each Tier, then the total asked for in that table. A solo game will only ever have 1 Upgraded Basic card added to the Nemesis cards.

Aeon's End: The New Age - Arachnos Cards

World Devourer

As well as the 9 Arachnos cards used in the construction of the Nemesis deck, there is a selection of cards labelled Minion – Nemesis, called World Devourer. These are labelled from Tier 0 to Tier 9+. These are to be left in a stack, face up next to the Arachnos Mat.

When the Ritual is complete, you replace Arachnos with one of these World Devourer cards. Specifically, the card with the Tier number that matches how many Nemesis tokens are on Arachnos. This is the new Villain you have to defeat. So if Arachnos has no Nemesis tokens when the Ritual is complete, you would choose the top card of the stack; the Tier 0 card. The World Devourer comes into play with the current life of Arachnos +5, as it’s life. So a total of 5 life if you defeated Arachnos, or 75 life if you didn’t damage him at all. Likely, it’s somewhere in between. Although, it’s actually likely that the Ritual will not be completed with 0 Nemesis tokens on Arachnos. Because there is no way to remove them once they have been added.

You can look through the World Devourer cards if you want to know how bad things can get. The important thing to know, is that the amount of life you add to the World Devourer, increases with each Nemesis token. And once the ritual is complete, each Nemesis turn becomes 3 damage to Gravehold, and 3 damage to a player. Once the World Devourer is in play, it becomes a race to eliminate it, before it eliminates you or Gravehold. So keep those Nemesis tokens to a minimum, and do as much damage to Arachnos as you can, before the Ritual is complete.

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