What do you get with Aventuria: Arsenal of Heroes?

The Arsenal of Heroes expansion for Aventuria was designed by Michael Palm and Lukas Zach. You will need a copy of the Aventuria Adventure Card Game core box to use this expansion. This boxed set has an MSRP of $34.99.

The main purpose of the Arsenal of Heroes expansion is to expand the deck-building options in Aventuria by providing a complete set of cards matching those from the core box so that, with this expansion, you will have two of every card. In addition to this, it also comes two copies of five different cards that were previously only available as promos. There are also some cool custom dice, an official set of tournament rules, a number of rules clarifications, an official FAQ, and variant builds for each of the Heroes from the core box. 

If you haven’t checked out Aventuria yet and are curious about the game, head over to our Aventuria Adventure Card Game review for the lowdown on this very cool fantasy card game. 

For a look at what you get with the Arsenal of Heroes expansion check out our Arsenal of Heroes unboxing video on YouTube. 

This expansion comes in a small box that contains a nice plastic box insert, under a surprisingly thick, nineteen-page booklet. The insert holds a set of four twenty-sided dice plus five-six sided-dice and a sealed, rather thick deck of cards.

The quality on everything here is excellent and I was pleased to see at least some form of useful insert included in an Aventuria product. I’ve actually taken this insert and put it in my core box as a way to hold some cards and the dice.  The booklet is well written and well translated. 

Using Arsenal of Heroes with Aventuria 

Despite being marketed as an expansion for fighting competitive duels in Aventuria the components in Aventuria: Arsenal of Heroes are actually useful for both modes of play, either duels or cooperative adventures. 

Let’s start with the dice. These are well-made, etched, custom dice that are colour-coded and feature unique symbols on them on the ones for the d20s and the sixes for the d6s.

The D20s are meant to be used for attack rolls and dodging. They are colour-coded based on the roll type, so you have a red die for melee attacks, a green for ranged attacks, a purple for magic attacks and a yellow for dodging. Along with the colours, the 1s on the dice feature the icons for the various check types. For example a sword for melee or a bow for ranged. 

The D6s are less obvious as to what they are meant for. During a game of Aventuria, I’ve only seen D6s used for damage, so I have to assume these are weapon damage dice. Supporting that theory four of the dice feature icons of weapons on the six side. There’s a flail, a fireball, a bow and a sword. These dice are also colour-coded. They are black dice with orange, red, green and blue icons. The final D6 die is red with white pips and features the Aventuria A on the six side. 

Next up, let’s look at the booklet. It starts off with a number of rule clarifications, including rules for discard piles, detailed timing rules, clarification on what fate points can be spent on in the two modes of play, deck construction clarifications, and more. This is followed by a Questions and Answers section featuring a number of questions from fans of the game and more rule clarifications. 

Official Aventuria tournament rules are also provided, including three different formats, details on how to set up and run a tournament and a section on etiquette that includes this gem:

“Please make an Etiquette roll and use a fate point if necessary, Aventuria is a fast and action-packed game, so there might be the occasional heated moment.”

The final section of the booklet from the Arsenal of Heroes provides a variant deck list for each of the four core heroes along with some information on how the deck was built and why as well as strategy tips for using it. While these new builds seem to be focused on winning duels there’s no reason you couldn’t try them during a cooperative adventure. 

Finally, we get to the cards. The main thing you get here is a complete set of cards matching those in the core game. It’s noted that with this you can now build every possible deck combination from the core box. In addition to this, the expansion also comes with two copies of five different Aventuria promo cards, so you do get a bit of new content as well.

One important thing to note here is that this expansion only provides enough new cards for one player to make every possible deck combination. If you are sharing this set with multiple people you still may need to cannibalize one or more of the decks from the core set in order to build the one you want. 

Why you should consider picking up the Arsenal of Heroes for Aventuria. 

Aventuria: Arsenal of Heroes is a rather useful box of expansion content for the Aventuria Adventure Card Game. While marketed as an expansion for the duel mode of play, there’s plenty in this box that will be just as useful for groups playing cooperative adventures. 

I thought the component quality here was excellent. I appreciate that the dice are actually etched and not printed which means I don’t have to worry about the numbers and icons wearing off and as noted earlier I appreciate seeing an actual box insert. 

The nice thing about this box insert, that I didn’t mention above, is that this expansion box and insert can be a great way to transport your Aventuria duel deck along with your dice. Perfect for playing duels at a friend’s place, or at an FLGS or taking part in a tournament. 

While there’s no actual need for the dice they are a neat addition. Though with our set the yellow dodge die seems to roll terribly all the time. My only real issue with these is that they are obviously meant for a single player. One person is meant to have all of these D20s and to roll the appropriate one for each check, and then roll the appropriate damage dice to go along with them on a hit in combat. Of course, you could share the dice, but for games like this, I prefer to have my own set. 

This is my main disappointment with this expansion, something I noticed even when doing the unboxing video. This entire set is designed for a single player interested in deck building and competitive play. It provides you with dice for one player and the ability for one player to use the cards in this box combined with the cards in the core box to make every possible deck combination possible. Even the new hero builds listed in the booklet are for making competitive duelling decks and not for cooperative adventures. To really get the most out of this expansion every member of your game group will want to pick up a copy of this set. 

Now, to be honest, it does say right on the box that it’s a Duel Expansion. The thing is, duels are neat and all, but what we’ve been really enjoying in Aventuria are the cooperative adventures. I was really hoping this box would include enough cards for everyone to be able to customize their decks in any way they wanted and I don’t want to incur the cost of picking up three more copies of the Arsenal of Heroes to do that. That said, doing that is a much cheaper alternative than picking out three more core boxes. 

All that said, there is still plenty in this box that a group mainly interested in cooperative play will be interested in. While there may not be enough cards for four players to customize their decks in every way possible, there are still plenty of cards here for customizing decks. Having a set of cards from Arsenal of Heroes will mean that each player can do some deck building without having to steal cards from the other hero’s decks. Depending on how many players you have you may not need to steal cards from other decks at all. 

If you are interested in playing duels in Aventuria, especially if you plan to play competitively in tournament play, you are probably going to want to pick up the Arsenal of Heroes expansion. Not only will it give you every possible deck combination, you also get access to five new promo cards, get a cool set of dice and a way to transport your deck. 

For those just interested in cooperative adventure play, I think picking up one copy of this box is worth doing. In the base game if you want to customize your hero you are forced to cannibalize the other decks, by having extra copies of those cards the need to do this is lessened, especially if you are playing with only two or three heroes. Along with that, you get a cool set of dice you can share, or split up amongst your group. 

While it’s true that, to utilize this expansion fully, you need a copy for every player, I appreciate that it’s a much cheaper alternative to buying multiple core sets, which is something many other non-collectable card games expect that you do. 

If Arsenal of Heroes sounds intriguing and you want to learn more about this game check out my Aventuria Adventure Card Game Core Set Review.

If you are already an Aventuria fan, I would love to know if you picked up this expansion and what you thought of it, and perhaps more importantly, did you pick up more than one copy? You can tell me about that in the comments!

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