

You’ll also find two more sealed Case Files, loosely based around the events of the Conqueror Worm comic… and both featuring possibly the scariest Boss yet, the Conqueror Worm! This colossal space-maggot is utterly terrifying, and has a reputation amongst the playtesters as being something you don’t want to get within several areas of. Enough said!

The set also contains a bunch of new room tiles, Deck of Doom cards, Encounter Cards, Requisition cards and Boss Behaviour cards. With all the expansions, the aim is to include cards and components that can be used elsewhere, not just in games that use that specific expansion’s Case Files. For example, there are a couple of Deck of Doom cards that will only be used in Case Files that feature the Conqueror Worm, but most of them can be shuffled into your main deck, meaning you can play through the core game Case Files again and face a bunch of new challenges!

Finally, the set contains some cards that allow its components to be used in the BPRD Archives expansion… which I should probably explain now.

BPRD Archives

Unlike the other Expansions we’ve currently got planned (Conqueror Worm, Darkness Calls and Hellboy in Mexico, the latter two of which will be shipped as part of Wave 2), this one’s a bit of an oddball. Instead of being thematically linked to a specific story arc, it gives players everything they need to generate random Case Files using everything in their collection. If the Case Files included in other expansions are “story mode”, this is “arcade mode” - an endlessly replayable shuffle setting where you can switch up the settings to suit your group and face off against a new combination of challenges each time you play.

The “Case File Constructor” is the heart of the expansion - a Case File uber-deck split into seven Elements. When you sit down to play, instead of choosing a Case File deck as normal, you construct one at random, each Element providing one part of the deck. For example, you’ll draw a card from the Environment Element to determine how the map is laid out, and how the Deck of Doom is constructed, and you’ll draw a number of cards from the Twist Element to introduce unexpected plot twists during the game. Putting a deck together takes less than five minutes and has minimal decision-making (you choose a rough duration and challenge rating, but everything else is random) so you can get on with playing the game with minimal fuss. If you like, you can even construct a deck ahead of time - if you’ve got some friends coming over for a game, you don’t need to bore them with the details and can just get things set up and ready to go.