1. Thunderstone and Thunderstone Advance, Board Game Review
Thunderstone is a deck-building game by Mike Elliott, published in 2009, one year after Dominion
hit the market, creating a frenzy with the introduction of a hot combination of game mechanics:
deck building and card drafting. In games using these mechanics, players choose cards from a
common pool laid out on the table, and try to gradually built the best deck of cards with which
they will acquire the most victory points. The theme of such games may differ but the main idea
remains the same. With this review we will look at 2 games, the original Thunderstone released in
2009 and the new Thunderstone Advance, which is a new improved implementation of the
original game.
Game Overview
In Thunderstone, you are the leader of a heroic party of adventurers arriving at Barrowsdale, near
Grimhold Dungeon where the first Thunderstone, an artifact of evil power, is kept. You seek to
find the Thunderstone but in order to do so, you have to battle powerful monsters that guard the
dungeon. You must build a deck of cards, consisting of adventurers, weapons, magic spells, food
and other items.
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Before beginning the game, you have to setup 3 different kind of decks. Remember that in each
game of Thunderstone you won't be using all cards available in the game but each time the cards
you use will be different:
On your turn, you can choose to do one of the following actions:
At the end of your turn, you discard all cards in your hand to the discard pile and draw six new
cards. When your deck is depleted, shuffle all cards from the discarded pile to form your new

2. draw pile.
The game ends when a player collects the Thunderstone (by defeating a monster in Rank 1 thus
causing the Thunderstone to move to that open rank) or it enters Rank 1 because a monster
wasn't defeated. Players count up victory points from cards they have collected throughout the
game. The player with the most victory points is the winner.
In 2012, a new updated version of Thunderstone was released: Thunderstone Advance. The first
set of the new version is called "Towers of Ruin". Cards from original Thunderstone and
Thunderstone Advance can be mixed together. Here are the most important new features of
Thunderstone Advance:
First Impressions:
Upon opening the box of Thunderstone, you see a number of cards and some xp tokens. Artwork
on the cards is beautiful and detailed. And then comes the difficult task of reading the rules.
Although the rulebook is well written, there is so much information in it that one needs some time
to absorb it and put it into use, especially if you never played a similar game, like Dominion. But
even if you have, Thunderstone provides advanced mechanics along with extensive terminology
and may at first discourage you from playing it. Of course things get a lot better if there is
someone willing to explain the basics to you, this way taking away the burden to read all the
24-page manual.Thunderstone Advance makes a better first impression by providing a board (it's
also a double-sided one), which helps you to easier get involved in the game and understand
what's happening. There are slots drawn on the board for monsters in the Dungeon Hall as well
as village cards and all seems better organized and gamer friendly. The two-sided board serves
as a way for both novice and advanced players to enjoy the game experience. When you reach
the point of understanding how the game works, gameplay is smooth and you will soon find
yourself very engaged and captured by the theme, striving to find the right combinations of cards
to build a working, and hopefully winning, deck!
Components:
The components of Thunderstone are only cards and some xp tokens. Cards have beautiful and
carefully designed artwork. In Thunderstone Advance, things get even better. There is also a
gameboard, which gives a sense of organisation and cards are redesigned with more variety in
colors, even more detailed graphics and more clear card layout. (Thunderstone: 7/10,
Thunderstone Advance: 8/10)
Gameplay:

3. Gameplay is interesting and gets you really involved. The game mechanics are well-thought,
blending the theme with game actions and abilities. I think the idea of using the light / darkness
element is a really brilliant one as is the ability to level-up your heroes with xp won from beating
monsters in the Dungeon Hall. There are many more small details that enhance gameplay like
dungeon effects and spoils, and all prove that gameplay has been designed very carefully.
However, during setup, it is possible that weird combinations of village or monster cards will
come up, making the game hard to beat, or somewhat uninteresting. Good news is that this
problem has been eliminated in Thunderstone Advance, which provides specific number of slots
for different village card types, as well as monsters of different levels. In Thunderstone advance,
the extra option of "preparing" as a game action, allows you to design your next hand and
provides more flexibility and the ability to utilize better your strategy. Moreover the replacement
of Militia by the more efficient Regulars is a very important improvement, allowing players to
enter the dungeon quicker and somewhat reducing the existence of "dead cards" during late
game. The power of the game lies in developing the best strategy to win, by using the best
combinations of cards and in the right amounts. (Thunderstone: 7/10, Thunderstone Advance:
8/10)
Learning Curve:
The game has a rather steep learning curve. The first game will last a lot more than 60 minutes
and you probably will have to go back to the rulebook and look up some details throughout the
game. However, after this first game, things will run smoothly and you will probably feel glad for
all those small details in the game, that make it a bit complex but, in that way, more interesting
too. 6/10
Theme:
The element of theme is dominant here, in contrast to Dominion, and you constantly feel the urge
and anxiety to reach further down the dungeon and beat those despicable monsters. There are
many elements that contribute to the sense of immersion like the light/darkness element, curing
diseases/curses with Clerics and more. 8/10
Replayability:
With dozens of different heroes, monsters and village cards, no two games will be the same.
Randomizer cards can be used during game setup, to randomly choose heroes, monsters and
village cards that will be available in the game. If you like the deck building/card drafting
mechanic of the game, you will probably spend many hours playing this game and enjoy it a lot.
A number of expansions have been released and more will be released in the future, bring to the

4. game more heroes, monsters and village cards as well as new card types, thus enhancing
replayability. 8/10
Fun:
The game offers many thrills and can be fun, although there is little player interaction. Maybe an
improvent in this field, should be included in Thunderstone advance, with village cards that would
mess more with opponent's decks. 6/10
Pros:
Cons:
Overall: Thundertone: 7, Thunderstone Advance: 7.3
Find out more about Thunderstone Advance at:
http://www.boardgamemaniac.com/Games/By-Genre/Strategy-Games/Thunderstone-Advance-To
wers-of-Ruin-l102.html
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