In the interest of transparency, I received a complimentary copy of Doomlings – Legends of Enderas for review purposes. This did not influence my assessment, and the opinions expressed here are my honest and unbiased reflections on the game.

Legends of Enderas is the second Variety Expansion released for the Doomlings card game.  This expansion not only adds three (technically four but we’ll get to that) new categories of Trait Cards but also sees the introduction of Treasure Cards, powerful weapons and accessories, inscribed with magical glyphs that give the Doomlings even more helpful abilities.  If you haven’t played Doomlings before, check out my review on the base game here or my YouTube video here as I’m not going to get into all the nitty gritty details here.  You can also check out my review for the first Variety Expansion, Imaginary Ends, here. 

Suffice it to say, players will be playing Trait Cards from their hand (into their Trait Pile) and taking the actions on the card.  Players will take turns back and forth, revealing a new Age Card at the beginning of each round.  This card will impact what players can, and can’t, do during that round.  Eventually, a Catastrophe Card will show up and wreak havoc on all players.  Once the third Catastrophe Card shows up, the game ends and everyone counts up their points from their Trait Piles to see who wins.  Trust me, there is more to it but that’s a good summary to bring you up to speed for this review.

Now let’s dive right in and take a look at the mysterious Treasures hidden around the world of Enderas.

When opening Legends of Enderas, I went right for the Treasure Cards and their Player Aid Card to learn what this card was going to be all about.  If you’ve read up on my review of Imaginary Ends, you’ll know that I was (slightly) disappointed with that expansion’s inclusion of Magical Merchants and Trinket Cards.  Naturally, I was eager to see if the Treasure Cards were going to fall prey to the same failings but I’m glad to report that these 26 cards are really fun to add to the game!

The Treasure Card deck is shuffled at the beginning of the game and all players are dealt one card at random.  Each Treasure is inscribed with one of six glyphs that informs which abilities are available.  The majority of the Treasures come stocked with two abilities, but there are some that run on the more powerful side and only have a single ability.  These Treasure Cards don’t impact players’ hands nor affect Stabilization.  When a player is ready to use one, they discard the Treasure and enact one of the abilities listed.  Players would do well to ensure they use them throughout the game as they are immediately discarded when the final Catastrophe Card is revealed.  As each new Age is presented, any player with fewer than two Treasure Cards can draw a new one and multiple Treasures may be played per turn, though players can still only enact one ability per card.

The glyphs unlock a wide span of abilities so let’s quickly look at each one:

Rush: these can be played before the start of a player’s turn, mostly to draw additional cards though some enable you to discard cards from hand or even play a card into your Trait Pile out of turn.

Mutate: these Treasures have two colors listed and allow a player, at the start of their turn, to move a card from their Trait Pile to the bottom of the Trait Deck.  The player can then replace this card in their Trait Pile with a Trait Card of one of the listed colors.  This is a really great way to mutate those negative cards into something more useful.

Echo: much like the Mutate Treasures, the Echo Treasures have dual colors listed on each card.  Players who play a Trait Card of one of the specific colors can then follow it up by playing another Trait Card of the same color.

Adapt: unlike the previously mentioned Treasures, the Adapt Treasures allow players to interact with other Trait Piles around the table.  When activating this Treasure, a player can play a Trait with an Action listed but get to ignore the Action’s text.  Instead, they can pick any Action, that matches the original color, in any Trait Pile and activate said Action.  This opens up some really cool possibilities of doubling up on a great Action that you played earlier, or copying a powerful Action from an opponent, all while ignoring an Action that might not be all that great for you.

Cloak: these Treasures supply some protection to players in that they can be used to prevent any effects from either Age, Trait, or Treasures.

Gold Glyph: a few Treasures have the golden glyph printed on them but honestly, I don’t know why they’re in their own category.  This glyph isn’t listed on the Player Aid card and I can’t find a correlation between these cards.  Some only have one effect listed, while some have two.  They all have Rush effects, but I’m not sure why they are golden and not just treated as the normal red Rush glyph.

For those that like flavor text, the cards are jammed packed with text, possibly too much.  The text doesn’t add anything from a gameplay perspective, and I think I would have rather liked some larger or more involved artwork, but it doesn’t take away from the cards in anyway so not a big deal.  All-in-all, the Treasure Cards are a real hit and I can’t imagine playing without them moving forward.

The Legends of Enderas expansion is also packed (21 cards of each) with three new types of Traits: Techlings, Mythlings, and Dinolings.  Let’s look at how these unearthed Doomlings will impact your game.

Techlings

Techlings bring a new effect to the Doomlings universe called Attach.  This effect allows players to Attach a Techling card to another card that has already been played into a Trait Pile, turning that card into a Host.  The Host now gains benefits, or Victory Point modifications, based on the Attachment.  The Techlings are nice as once Attached, they can’t be targeted for removal, but they still count as their own card for total color and total trait counts.

Mythlings

The Mythling cards are all about empowering the player through discarding cards.  A “sparkly new spell icon” is present on a majority of the Mythling cards, allowing players a chance to discard these from their hand and capitalize on effects or force an opponent into a sticky situation.  Players will want to make sure they have ways of discarding the Mythlings with the spell icon as they all come with negative Victory Points so keeping them around in the Trait Pile till the end of the game is not going to be a winning strategy.  The artwork on the Mythling cards is an added bonus for anyone who loves fantasy tropes, Greek and Roman mythology, or people who just love the idea of a tiny wizard’s hat on top of a kidney!

Dinolings

Similar to the Mythlings, Dinoling Cards are going to play off of the discard effect but in a slightly different way.  Where Mythlings have players discarding themselves for an effect, Dinolings are going to have you discarding other cards in your Trait Pile to gain large Victory Point counts.  A card like Carnivore is going to be all about timing.  Its Action has the user discarding all Dinolings from their Trait Pile but is worth six points.  Get this out early enough, and you’re not sacrificing much but wait too long and it’ll cause all your Dinolings to go extinct.  Some of the Dinolings also give the user the ability to dig through the discard pile which can be a great way to re-use a card that you might have been forced to get rid of earlier in the game.

I do think that the Dinolings and Mythlings feel a little too similar to be packed up in the same expansion.  If the Dinolings had swapped with the Glitterlings from Imaginary Ends, I think that both expansions would have had a better mix of new Trait Cards.  Of course, if you buy both expansions, this little observation doesn’t really matter so take it with a grain of salt.

Fuzelings and Extra Age/Catastrophe Cards

Rounding out the cards you’ll get in the Variety Expansion are Fuzelings, cards featuring a mash-up of the three categories introduced in this expansion, as well as a few extra Age Cards and Catastrophe Cards.  The Fuzelings are fun additions but don’t really stand out in their own right.  On the other hand, I do really like the extra Ages and Catastrophes that come in the expansion. 

The Age Industrial Revolution rewards players for playing Attachments while the Age of First Ferns helps out those players who might have played one of the Dinoling Cards that “ate” up a majority of their Trait Pile.  The Catastrophe Cards seem extra punishing this go round, with Titan’s Call forcing players to discard their whole hand except one if they have a Dominant in their Trait Pile.  I usually really like the artwork on the Catastrophe Cards but the four included with this expansion are pretty dull with mostly black backgrounds or shadowy figures emblazoned on them.

Legends of Enderas is a fantastic expansion that I’d highly recommend to any fan of the Doomlings universe.  If a player wanted to choose from the two Variety Expansions available (as of this writing), I’d tell them that Legends of Enderas edges out Imaginary Ends solely because the Treasure Cards feel much more impactful, and better implemented, than the Trinkets in Imaginary Ends.  After playing Legends of Enderas, I can’t wait to see what the Doomlings team has up their sleeves for the future of the game!

Ratings are based on 5 main criteria: rulebook, setup, components, art & graphic design, and gameplay.  The first 4 criteria are rated 1 to 5 and the gameplay is rated 1 to 10.  These scores culminate in an “overall satisfaction” score that is rated from 1 to 10.  If the reviewed game has both a solo and multiplayer mode, I have assigned scores separately to give context to which mode we enjoy more.