Deliverance Review
A Christian Dungeon Crawler that isn’t preachy!
With a 14 mission campaign and an endlessly replayable skirmish mode, Deliverance has 1-4 players duke it out with demons to save saints and drive back the darkness! With 9 playable angel characters to choose from, this biblically inspired kickstarter dungeon crawl offers low randomness and action optimization gameplay for players of all skill levels.
Video published Jun 20, 2024
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Pick an angel and build a loadout!
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Fight unique demon enemies!
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Battle to protect saints!
Playtime: Completed campaign solo on challenge mode, can’t remember how many skirmish games we did but most were at the 2nd hardest difficulty at 3p, and I’ve solo completed hardest difficulty. I’ve tried all angels and bosses at 2nd hardest difficulty and above.
Component Pros
Token insert has tons of different slots
good overall insert, pyramid board stacking works very well, holes in holes for fingers, more than enough slots and plastic bags
designed by Matt Healey, same dude who did Frosthaven
and the one issue i thought i found with random extra space, turns out, they do get filled in eventually from the campaign
Strong graphic design, great embellishment borders, clear bolded keywords and layout to separate text, clear boxes to separate text types from each other like campaign setup and rewards, never had any issues with stuff blending with each other
Pretty good use of redundant rules on components, found I didn’t really need to explain a lot of nuances to newcomers, like with prayer card action types, talents saying upgrade/passive, constant reminders on things that reveal darkness cards how they work: discard on lightning but dont if circle, exp of enemies on tiles and battle cards
Generally strong iconography, darkness cards, boss icons (also what’s the point of normal enemy icons, never used, but cool that they’re there), courage, stats on treasure and angel tiles etc.
Double sided token denominations, and active/exhausted action tokens, light/shadow, saints
tokens have words on them to make it omega clear, newcomers dont have to memorize or hug player aid
tons of damage token denominations
Every ability is named for all combatants and their talents, oozes aesthetic and lore everywhere overall very evocative, prayer and treasure at gates of heaven and not on darkness board
back of prayer deck is sick, top tier flavor text
ridiculous amount of different card backs in general, every angel talent, darkness bosses, boss talents, etc.
Big numbers and names on standees
Minis come already washed
Darkness board has player count icon for exp requirement skirmish mode
Intercessor cleanly sits next to player board
Stat blocks on back of angel boards and suggested builds and play styles, which are either reasonable starting blocks are just straight up some of the best things you can do with that angel, I mostly agree with what’s here (maybe except azrael who I dont find to be a 4 star unless im just stupid cause he does good damage sure but i haven’t found a way to do absurd stupid damage that one shots bosses like other angels)
Big player aid card
Plenty of map tile art, not too much generic this is a forest, rocky area, dungeon area, snowy area, etc, it’s all just snippets of the locales of a small town
Rulebook qr code for how to play
Gameplay Pros
Really easy teach, simple at core, sprawls out in complexity and depth from its effects
Max 5 of prayer, shield, courage, easy to remember, 5 darkness too
Draw 2 keep one easy to remember for level up
Pretty accommodating for solo play either true solo or multi pilot works
intercessor works very well for letting one angel be on board
Satisfying synergies to find and build
lots of talents and treasure combinations, lots to go through when figuring out how to min max ur angel
demons also have funny talent combos
Pray action good toolbox catch-all to deal with ailments of any kind
Every angel is decently versatile, no highly situational abilities, can be pretty general when interacting with boons and afflictions
root isn’t obnoxious cc, goes away after 1 move
yet you can also build each angel to hyper focus into their strongest role like tank/healer/damage
No hard crowd control, everything gets to play the game
Because of alternating turn order, bum rushing an early demon so they dont even take a turn is harder to do
Absurd amount of prayer and darkness cards
lots of different types of darkness with permanents and instants
lots of different types of prayer actions
Darkness track a good natural timer idea, tying to saints is a great gameplay objective to weigh against killing things faster to consider how to reduce incoming damage
bosses double dipping into this track a cool way to sneak in more boss mechanics
Tons of difficulty options and permutations of enemies from talents
Moving through all figures and being able to end movement on allies is really free form and makes moving around super convenient and easier to play for people who are more casual with the genre and dont think a few turns ahead for positioning
Excellent starter dungeon crawler and pretty good for experienced players
Lots of varied map setup, all double sided tiles different barriers
Each boss has very strong individual identities to play around them differently, further strengthened by their talents
Campaign Pros
Campaign has alternate art enemy stats built into book, works well as stat card replacements for one-off encounters designed in a specialized way
Strategy guide on back
Favor is good mechanic for if you’re stuck
Good that talents given example since it works differently
Faq in book
Map setup orientates the tile name so you know its rotation
During the rare times angels are mentioned by name, there are some pretty fun moments like angel Micheal freaking out about a dude named Micheal
Content warning on mission 12, nice inclusion not normalized yet in board game spaces
Spoiler mission takes heed of not making you page flip constantly for multi boss stats
This is where the more unique gameplay is located
Much more finely tuned encounters with crazier special rules that could never be generalized to skirmish mode
Challenge mode excellent for taking difficulty beyond what skirmish could ever do while you’re also super juiced
Gameplay Cons
Without talents on demons, it seems like you can just farm exp, prayers, and courage by leaving one alive, move them back and forth over a saint if ur team comp has healing
even without grinding exp, if u hav the heals and enemies arent juiced up threatening talents, no reason not to max out courage and prayers and health going into final battle
usually the first battle harder than final battle which feels wrong
Some overwhelming talent combos like spirit pact and egomaniac, or spirit pact on imps that are pumped on health while an abomination has guarded and explosive
A lot of the difficulty seems to just come from initial luck before you can overpower obstacles via raw stats, cause talents are definitely not built the same both sides, like Sardius earthquake is obviously just better than desolation, Christine’s forked lightning 90% of time better than imbue lightning
Not good sense of progression, very swingy cause you level up power spike as things die and threat decreases, once you stabilize, it’s like the enemies lost their opportunity to kill you and you scale past them, angel with 8 level ups is definitely always stronger than demons all with maxed major talents, never a moment where both you and the enemy are at full power unless it’s campaign
then again, maybe the design is forced to be like this? Cause you can’t kite or otherwise outplay a lot of enemies via positioning, so the solution often times is to just stat chump, pretty much all angels one of the highest total damage builds you could be doing over the course of 1 game session is to pump up the stat of your basic attack, and then find a free action courage dump that throws in free damage
Hardest difficulty weakens you instead of powering up enemies, could be less gratifying for those looking for hard content to challenge their max power builds, cause one you’re lvl 3 talents and 5 treasures, maxed out talent enemies still isnt enough
Game is sometimes secretly a point salad not a dungeon crawler, has the typical issue of both parties stand next to each other hitting until other side is dead
too often raw stats outshine all, and utility is too often useful in one brief instance the whole session (usually burst movement next to enemies to be efficient) before it just devolves back into standing there in a stat check numbers fest
Prayers dont seem to scale late game, especially ones that either gives buffs (you probably already have), or raw numbers arent as good as your stats, less an issue for 4p since global effects do huge totals
Darkness cards that do damage based on stats have a tendency to be absolute bs, but while you can discard treasures anytime before hand it’s not a good answer, and huge stat-based spike damage can often be a run ender
Playing intercessor is in general harder than just playing 2 angels because you lose damage and can’t threaten 2 different places
Heavenly treasure has a lot of duplicates
At max difficulty you always see 3 boss talents, makes bosses feel the same every time cause it’s never a different combo from a bigger pool
Too many bosses strategy is bum rush them because they keep spawning dudes
Wish minor talents were used more, like maybe inferno mode could’ve been everything gets 2 major 1 minor keep the 3 levels, but i guess at that point enemies are more noteworthy for their talents and not their actions, and it causes even worse messy complexity sprawl
Component Cons
Dice hard to see depending on lighting angle, either too shiny or black blends
Angels arent distinct enough for minis, all just humanoid with wings and weapons, cant parse easily at first, especially from non front angles cause u mostly just see wings
wings also block spaces
In multiplayer, there’s pretty much bound to be people who can’t see the darkness track
Low quality image resolution in rulebook intro text, and mission 14 fallen seraph, low res symbols on map tiles
Stacking mini on saint doesnt work well, should make saint bigger, if it’s an issue of blocking darkness/light tiles make those bigger too
Really small icons, works for colored ones, not for the action types or lightning bolts
Color stat icons should always be sorted top to bottom by default attack, heal, and super order on character rather than always red green blue, easier to consistently visualize across all characters when switching around
Like if someone asks, what does discipline do? You cant answer, would be better if each one did a definitive thing like basic, special, and heal. This would also make it easier to balance item distribution if you’re trying to make sure certain stats are more represented than others based on characters. If you have clean design in the first place, everything else is smoother and falls in place so it’s easier to account and design for
Map tiles peeling corners
Some standee bases have a huge protruding line going down the middle that causes them to overly wobble, already these are small and can tip easily without this issue
Boss tiles have only 2 talent slots yet they can legally equip 3, bad conveyance
Talents can easily become annoying to track everything, would benefit from further symbols like this one is a damage ping, this one affects movement, this one affects stats, etc, not always an issue imo, but wanna help out for people who arent used to tons of effects everywhere trying their hand at harder difficulties of a spawn spam boss like legion that adds tons of different enemies
Rulebook doesnt immediately explain campaign and skirmish until pg 30
Setup says place treasure and prayer on heavenly gates tile, which hasnt been setup yet
Setup battle 1 battle 2 not clear what these are for talents until later
Rulebook doesnt hard define terminology like skills and destroy/defeat, have to figure out what they mean when keep reading
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3205490/if-saint-moves-near-angel-protected oops played this raw instead of designer intent for a while
Rulebook doesnt mention component limit light/dark tiles
When gaining a boon, not clear that you may gain light, similarily, saw a card that afflicts shadow from Baal. Also saw a prayer that specifies affliction from character or space, which would imply that normally characters don’t gain these spacial afflictions, the space does
Intercessor important key rules found only on bgg https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3208476/solo-play
Rulebook doesn’t specify playing where you left off or jump back to beginning of darkness phase once final battle happens
Rulebook doesnt mention that if you stage both copies of the same demon type, after setup you discard one of them https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3244162/doubling-minions
Engagement targeting RAW says do move, stop moving any further, then complete the remainder of action, so what happens if you interrupt with backslidden prayer card that can move them immediately after their movement? RAW seems to mean they stop the action since it’s now out of range after moving (engagement and targeting pg 22)
Generally i decided to rule the game as finish the action cant do free stuff or triggers in the middle
Adjacent also means current space not just next to, read this on bgg but some random effects in game clarify this and others dont
Do discarded talents go back in the pool/bottom of deck or a separate discard pile?
Do you redraw demon discarded ones in between battles in skirmish? Was confused on if a demon type gets a replacement talent in between battles because of major egomaniac
Rulebook repeats itself a lot, makes more sense with like an appendix, not re explain demon movement for the 3rd time
Speaker’s scroll treasure vs gabriel talent special delivery is a good example of clarity issues, im pretty sure both are the same effect, but raw the Speaker’s scroll just straight up gives you additional prayer card cause it doesnt say “instead” or “would”
or like how Christine conduction doesnt exclude itself so RAW it would infinitely proc
Mikko suggested build lvl 2 card drift is lvl 1?
Sandman nightmare vs major talent abusive doesnt say what to discard, example of why do some things clarify and others dont?
Dont think i’d haphazardly shove favor explanation in between the talents and exp multi page explanation
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3226746/mission-4-can-angels-revive
Mission 6 rulebook reference wrong pg 21
Oops https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3227498/mission-8-legion-movement rulebook doesnt explicitly say if no target dont move demon, it says attempt to move
Campaign rules say dont use regular talents in challenge mode, had a double take cause in lots of missions this made the normal enemies really easy? But then the final mission has no challenge talents, which wouldnt make sense for the boss?
Alternate art frog bosses in mission 12 for setup icons, these are from mission 13
Faq for mission 14 contradicts bgg thread about euphrates frogs how to setup round 1 darkness, i thought you get all the darkness cards at once then place to not mess up frogs https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3221114/mission-12-three-clarifications-required
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3225901/chains-of-the-dragon-spoiler Final locked boss darkness cards do not say to do this wtf
Campaign Cons
Dont know what the exact layout solution would be, but would prefer if the blue setup box was on the same page as special demon stat block in case you need the table space to see special rules at the same time as stats
Not a fan of how Og mission 2 boss immediately breaks rules to newcomers not yet familiar with boons not stacking and empower, or how Wandering Spirits oppressed contested saints
Campaign book last page keeps falling out
Battles aren’t really integral to story, they’re just kinda there
Bosses never talk except at the end with frogs, at most you get random imp inner monologue, they never feel like a big deal just randomly there
You literally only save girls
Imo i do feel like some of the spoiler surprise is ruined because the campaign sheet lists 14 missions, i think it wud’ve landed better if they weren’t there, not sure what the solutions to tracking exp and the missions wud be then, maybe screw it u get a big boost of exp anyways just for opening the spoiler instead of getting more exp at mission 13, or maybe a sticker goes on the sheet that gives u more space for mission tracking
Spoiler booklet mission 13 randomly has story intro text after setup, which the prior campaign book never did, I thought this was conclusion text and skipped it as a result until the fight was done
Recommender Score - 6/10 Above Average
Deliverance fits the Christian board game niche incredibly well, and is probably a MUST BUY for anyone who’s a Christian that’s looking for content that isn’t overly preachy and borderline shovelware levels of quality. Especially because even as a dungeon crawler, it manages difficulty sliders incredibly well, and can be thoroughly enjoyed for players of all skill levels.
However for the rest of us out there looking for another kickstarter board game with minis running around slaying enemies on map tiles, Deliverance is definitely a good game at heart, but there’s enough component jank like unclear rules and wording that drags it down enough to be notable. For the score to rise beyond good even if the component cons were fixed, I’d argue that the campaign mode should be further expanded upon since that’s where all the coolest content is. Meanwhile skirmish mode has the potential to get repetitive quickly with some fundamental flaws in not just the mode itself like the possibility of exp farming, but also because of foundational issues in pure Deliverance combat without special rules modifiers found in campaign mode. For instance, battles oftentimes devolves into stat checks with two opposing sides standing in each other’s faces trading hits until the other side dies. When objectives and unique rules are thrown into the mix, so many more gameplay avenues open up and simply out damaging/healing the enemies doesn’t become the end-all-be-all.
Hopefully all that and then some becomes reality in future printings and expansion releases!
