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We’re huge fans of Elder Sign, and play it on our iPads! When we had the opportunity to review the Omens of the Deep expansion, we leaped at it! If you’re unfamiliar with Elder Sign, don’t worry. We’ll explain the mechanics of the core game, because you’ll need the base set to play Omens of the Deep, which will replace or add to the existing components.
Both the original and the expansion are cooperative games. The players are investigators trying desperately to seal away a dormant, ancient being before it awakens. If it does, you still have a chance to fight it, but it becomes very difficult to win!
The one nice rule of this game is if your investigator is devoured (dies), you don’t have to sit there watching everyone else play – you rejoin with a new investigator.
One main difference is in the original you’re in a museum searching for clues and “elder signs” to defeat the monster. In Omens of the Deep, you’re aboard a ship looking for clues in the deep of the Pacific Ocean. But, the focus is the same —get that ancient one sealed up before it gets you! The best part: Cthulhu is one of the potential ancient ones!
How’s it Played?
The components of the base game and expansion are beautiful, and well crafted. Setup takes mere minutes, through there’s a lot of components. In the expansion, you use the following components of the base set and noted expansion components. Most are laid out in the playing area.
- Clock – used to track days within the game; when the clock strikes midnight – watch out!
- Entrance Card – the original game card is replaced with ‘The Ultima Thule’ card; this is where the investigators start, and may return to regain stamina, sanity, and other things.
- Clue Tokens – enables the player to re-roll dice when needed.
- Monster Tokens – the expansion uses the base set monsters, and adds “deep one” legion monsters and “mission markers.” The mission markers are mixed with the original monsters, and deep ones are in their own separate pile.
- Doom Tokens – used on the ‘Ancient One Card; to track when he may awaken, as well as when he makes monsters appear throughout the game.
- Elder Sign Tokens – these are what you’re after; get enough elder signs and keep the ancient one from awakening to win!
- Tokens: stamina, sanity, and the investigators themselves to show where they are – each player, depending on their investigator, starts with a certain amount of stamina and sanity. If either runs out, you’re devoured! Each investigator also gets a card that describes the character and any special abilities they have.
- Item Cards – common items, unique items, spells, and new cards from the expansion called ‘Skill Cards’. The expansion adds three more unique, spell, and common cards which are shuffled with the original cards.
- Staged Mythos Cards – these replace the original Mythos Cards (explained shortly)
- In the original, there are ‘Adventure Cards’ and “Other World’ cards – for the expansion you replace the Adventure Cards with staged ‘Pacific Adventure Cards’ and four staged ‘Special Adventure Cards’.
- Ancient Ones – the expansion comes with three to add to the collection – we chose to use one of the new ones for our game play. The card will reveal how many elder signs are needed to win, and there’s a doom track for the time before he awakens and causes monsters to appear.
- Scenario Card – this new card is used to track an ‘Omen token’ forward or back as game play dictates. Events will occur if it moves to the left or right ends of the track! Once you’re in the second stage of the game, the card turns over, and now tracks a broken amulet for which you are trying to find three pieces (three amulet tokens are used for this)
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The basic setup of the game is placing the clock, entrance sheet, tokens, and items in everyone’s view and reach. Pick an Ancient One to defeat, and place it in the play area. Each investigator takes their stamina, sanity, and any start items according to their card. It’s also a good idea to share what each investigator’s special power is, and read the Ancient One's special power, if any.
In this expansion there are two stages, hence why there are Adventure and Mythos cards per stage. In Stage One of the expansion, place a row of three Adventure cards face up on the table, and a second row of three face down. Place the first Special Adventure card, and the Stage One Mythos cards, too. Everyone starts on the Entrance card and play begins! Play is similar to the original game, except where noted. On your turn:
- Movement Phase – Choose to stay where you are, or move to an adventure card to try and gain items and elder signs. If you’re already on an Adventure card, you can also move back to the entrance. If you choose a face-down card, there may be an action you must perform first, detailed on the back of the card. The color of the skull and bones symbol on the back tells you if the card is easy (green), normal (yellow), or difficult (red) to resolve – so you know before you choose. (This differs from the base game, which only has one-sided cards)
- Resolution Phase – Here’s where the fun begins! You may choose which Adventure card you want to try. Some are harder than others to resolve, so choose wisely. If you succeed, you gain beneficial items, and hopefully an elder sign or two! Remember the primary goal to get enough elder signs to keep the Ancient One down – we needed 10 to defeat it! Each face-up Adventure card shows the tasks you must perform, sometimes in order. To perform those tasks you roll dice from the dice pool (six green dice) and try to match the symbols you’re looking for on the task. Some Adventure cards might lock dice, so make sure to check for that as new cards are revealed. The tricky part is once you roll the pool, if you failed to accomplish the task you must eliminate one die to roll again, so it gets increasingly harder to complete the tasks. You may also spend a Clue token to re-roll. Some of the cards have a terror effect which occurs if your roll fails and a “terror” die face shows up. If you complete a task, those dice are out of the pool, so you can only use the remaining ones for any other tasks. Sometimes part of the task is to lose stamina or sanity, so make sure you have enough! If you complete all tasks, you gain the rewards shown on the card (items, clues, and, hopefully, elder signs), and you may choose to keep the card for its trophy value to gain stamina, sanity, or other items in a later turn on the Entrance card.
- When the turn is over the clock moves to the next three-hour increment. When it strikes midnight, a Mythos card is turned over and resolved. These usually activate something unfavorable, like add a Doom token to the Ancient One's track.
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Make sure to read any items you’re attained and understand their abilities. For example, you may have a card that allows you to add a red or yellow die to your roll, increasing your chances to complete tasks. The red die has a wildcard on it which is very useful. Use Spell cards to hold dice for a future task, or Ally cards to help you complete tasks.
During the game, monsters or legion monsters may appear. Each will overlay a task with a white border on an Adventure card, typically making it more challenging. If there are no white-bordered tasks, just add the monster as an additional task for the card. If you resolve the monster without resolving the whole card, you get to keep it for trophy points.
There are two ways you can get to Stage Two of this expansion:
- Omen token on the scenario card moves all the way to the right – you may choose to move to Stage Two
- Resolve the two special adventure cards in Stage One to automatically go to Stage Two.
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When you move to Stage Two, you begin using the Stage Two adventure and Mythos cards, and the Scenario card flips over to the Amulet track which can cause monsters to appear or be removed from the game!
Hopefully, the team gains enough elder signs to overcome the Ancient One. If the Ancient One awakens, you must go through an attack phase to meet a battle task on the Ancient One's card. If you succeed, you remove one doom token from the track – you keep doing this until all doom tokens are removed and you win! However, if everyone is devoured, you lose!
There’s a lot to this game, but again, you just must be mindful of the cards you are playing, the items you wield, any special powers or abilities you’ve retained, and help each other out. After all, it is a cooperative game!
Timing of the Game
This game can take an hour or more to play; with the two of us it came close to 90-minutes. More players may increase the time a bit. But, Omens of the Deep is so much fun you don’t even realize the time has gone by... and you'll probably want to play again!
Fast Facts:
- MSRP: $25.00
- # of Players – 1-8
- Age Range – 14+
- Duration of Play – 1-2 hours
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