After a slight delay, I got my Battle for Faerun gravity feed yesterday - wonderful thing to come
home to after a long day at work!  Unfortunately, despite having all kinds of techno gizmos with cameras in them, I don't presently have anything to mount them on to make a reasonable video, so sadly unboxing footage isn't present.  Probably for the best; my cat was off napping, so it'd be just me opening them up anyway...much less exciting than Randy's!  Still, I tore through the box, and boy howdy do I have some thoughts.

What I Got

Like Randy, I got 22 rares, though in my case three were duplicates (Pit Fiend, Purple Worm, Prismatic Spray - P for Pundetta, or something).  Not complaining about that at all, as that means I'll probably be able to do some swapping to help fill out the set.

About The Set

The cards look as gorgeous as previews made it out to be.  The new card text font is...different, but not in a bad way?  I'm just not used to it, I think it's actually easier to read at a glance.  Rarity bands - particularly common vs. uncommon - are still as hard as ever to distinguish, though.  Randy mentioned that the new basic action dice tweaked the colors to make them easier to tell apart (I'll have to take his word for it - my starter will be here in a couple of days); I wish they'd give the rarity bands the same treatment.  Minor issue, though!  Slightly bigger issue was that the cards seemed a lot more curved than previous sets.  This could have just been luck of the draw, of course, but it was to a degree that I wound up noticing (because it made my card stacks fall over constantly) so I thought I'd mention it.

Speaking about the dice themselves...they just keep getting better and better, really.  My reaction to the Unicorn die was 'this looks like a delicious candy, I want to eat it'; I oohed and aahed over the nice pearlescence of Half-Dragon, Tarrasque, and others; my grin at seeing the squidhead on my first Mind Flayer die must have split my face.  Outside of skinny numbers on Mind Flayer and maybe one or two other dice, and some minor warping at the edges of my Gelatinous Cubes (which are otherwise *perfect* - dark to the point that you almost don't realize they're transparent), all the dice I got were great in quality, and overall they're just fantastic.

Notable Cards

• Uncommon Kobold - 1Fist, Swarm, has to attack if an opponent has adventurers, at least one adventurer must block each kobold - looks like it's going to be all over the place.  Yeah, it has no stats, and that means adventurers can bop it in the face for experience easily, but remember that a) your opponent doesn't get experience for monsters killed on your turn, and b) given the forced attack it's probably not surviving to your opponent's turn very often, so it's pretty risk-free for doing its job: tying up your opponent's dice so your big guys can get through.  Does make it a little harder to get swarm rolling,  but still looks like a prime choice for an include...especially because they're equippable which can lead to all kinds of shenanigans.
• Rare Mummy will be very popular for fighting the experience mechanic - it spins down all adventurers and removes one experience token from each when it is fielded.

• The common Prismatic Spray removes card text for a turn.  Played at the right time, this can prevent your opponent from using PXG!  I'm sure there'll be a lot of applications for that.
• The common Manticore is a beefier Pyro - SJA with a somewhat higher fielding cost and a slightly more powerful ability (it deals its damage when it assigns to attack, not when blocked); I get a bit of a dark horse feeling from it, as it's strong but unassuming with all the other flashy stuff going on.

• SR Stirge has the Canucklehead 'can't be blocked when Stirge attacks alone' ability (and Swarm).  The common Invisible Stalker has the same mechanic - unblockable when it attacks alone - but it specifies 'one die.'  Could this mean that the intent is as long as you attack with just Stirges, they're all unblockable?  If so, I forsee Stirge Rush becoming a thing.
• Pit Fiend buffs fiends.  It is the only fiend in the set.  Maybe the next D&D expansion will be Blood War?
• The uncommon Purple Worm is about as smashy as you can get, with a TFC of 4, 8/7 on its level 3 face, overcrush, and an ability that lets it knock out something when it attacks and deal damage based on its level.  Expensive at 7, but it might be my go-to pick for an endgame bruiser.
• Rare Unicorn gives all good characters +2/+2, and the Rare Treant prevents good characters from taking damage when blocking.  I think we could both in a lot of adventurer-heavy teams.
• Elven Wizard + Red Dragon = Rolling Around In Action Dice

Overall Card Abilities Impressions

First off, I have to say - I was concerned that Experience would be way too strong a mechanic, and people would be afraid to play with monsters as a result.  With the set in hand...I don't think it'll be an issue.  There's so many ways to plow adventurers off the field, or just hard counter Experience with Mummy, that I think it'll be easier to keep in check than I feared.  I think it'll be strong, but not insurmountable; there are a LOT of monsters in the set, and many of them are quite good!  Actually, side point - I'm a little disappointed that all the SRs wound up being monsters, I'd have thought they'd get in at least one adventurer for parity.  It'd be like if all the UXM SRs were Avengers, or something.