Have Fun Storming the Castle! – Doomlings-Castle Glass Bolster Pack Review

In a lot of card games where cards just keep getting issued and issued and issued and issued and…

Oh, sorry. Thank you for that.

Anyway, in a lot of card games that keep getting cards added to them, it’s not always that you get a brand new mechanic added as well.

Doomlings – Castle Glass, however, is that bolster pack that does it.

Castle Glass is another 37-card bolster pack (like the Shadow Puppets one) to the whole Doomlings card game franchise.

That’s because, for the first time in this game system, set collection has become a mechanic.

If you read all of my Doomlings reviews, you’ll see my concerns about deck bloat and adding too many cards.

Castle Glass just takes that to the extreme.

I’ll try to be less dense about it than Inigo.

Almost all of the Trait cards featured in Castle Glass also have a set that they’re in.

There are three types of sets: Coral, Fish, and Shells.

If you manage to get at least two of a set in your trait pile at the end of the game, then you will get extra points for them, on top of the points the cards are worth.

Regular ones are one point. Curious ones are two points, and Exotic ones are worth three points.

That’s pretty major!

That’s the major conceit of this bolster pack.

Otherwise, it’s a bunch of cards, but with some rather unique abilities that Doomlings hasn’t had before.

Countershading above lets you play it from your hand rather than stabilizing.

If you’ve managed to draw cards during your turn so you have to discard at the end of it, playing this and keeping the cards in your hand is pretty cool!

Spiral Motion lets you play an additional trait. Hopefully it has a nice action, because you then return it to your hand (unless it’s a Dominant, in which case you have just had a chance to play a free Dominant).

Sandy lets you move the next Age to the bottom of the pile.

What if it’s a Catastrophe?

Woo! You go, girl!

I do like the cards in this one.

I have noticed that a few of them have things that adjust how you stabilize at the end of your turn.

Countershading above, and then Harboring just lets you stabilize to six rather than whatever your Gene Pool is.

Not bad if it’s the end of the game and you have a trait whose scoring depends on how many cards in your hand!

The main thing about Castle Glass, though, is the set collection, and that’s where my concern comes in.

In my opinion, you should not play this bolster pack with any other expansions at all.

There are over 100 cards in the Doomlings base set. Most of the major expansions add a bunch of cards as well.

None of them have this set collection mechanic.

If you have a deck of over 150 cards, what are the odds you’re going to draw too many Shells or Coral or Fish?

This is where deck bloat is a major concern.

(Though Sunny would fit in any deck configuration)

Even with just the base set, you’re looking at the Castle Glass cards making up only about 25% of the deck (I’m guessing as I only know the base set has “100+” cards in it).

This will mean that they don’t come out too often, but in our plays they came out often enough that you had to be aware of them and at least some of us scored some extra points.

As with all the other bolster packs, Castle Glass comes with two new Ages and one Catastrophe.

The Catastrophe is brutal (-2 Gene Pool) unless it’s Worlds End and your Gene Pool is so low that you will score 8 points.

Even the Catastrophe affect itself isn’t horrible for that initial turn, since you don’t have to stabilize at the end of your turn.

The Ages are quite interesting, with one allowing you to stabilize to 5 even though your Gene Pool might be lower and another that lets you discard and draw cards to try to get those sets.

Card cycling will be very important for the set collection aspects of the game.

Is Castle Glass a necessary bolster pack to get for your Doomlings collection?

Not necessarily, though it is definitely a fun one.

If you’re ready to play just the base game, then Castle Glass is a great addition to the game because I love the new set collection aspect.

But I wouldn’t use any other expansions, unless some future booster packs also have the same set collection mechanic (with the same sets, as different sets would just have the same problem).

If all you are interested in is the base game, then this is a great expansion!

Give it a try and see what you think.

(This review was written after 2 plays with the bolster pack added)

(Many thanks to Doomlings LLC for the review copy!)