The clock has struck and it’s time to check out Queen By Midnight: Quarter Past, the first stand-alone expansion to Darrington Press’s Queen By Midnight that features four new Princesses you can add to your base game or play on their own. Just like the first, they’re darker spins on classic princess tales with gameplay that reflects their flavor in fun if sometimes opaque ways. The game is set around different rounds and works similar to a deckbuilder, with each princesses strengths and abilities dictating how you add to your deck.
What’s In The Box?
- 20 page rulebook
- 2 Six-Sided Dice
- 1 Grow/Shrink Token
- 1 First Player Token
- 24 Loyalty Tokens
- 30 Level Tokens
- 6 Clout Markers
- 6 Health Markers
- Clock Board
- 4 Princess Repertoire Boards
- 80 Bazaar Cards
- 60 Princess Vault Cards
- 8 War Chest Cards
- 4 Ultimate Art Cards
- 4 Inner Circle/Ultimate Cards
- 10 Princess Trap Cards
- 40 Starter Cards
- 24 Declaration Cards
- 4 Clout & Health Trackers
- 9 errata cards reprinted from the base game
New Girls On The Block
Azil With-A-Z
Best as I can tell, this Fey trickster is essentially a quirked up version of Lewis Carrol’s Alice (ten years old, tea obsessive, lots of wordplay and size changing). Her unique thing is in that she can be either big or small, with each form representing her ability to switch between Caster and Brawler, though she’s got some Schemer thrown in to. Her style relies a lot on adaptability and unpredictability. Very cool concept and not too hard to play, though more limited than the flavor would imply.
Elise LeKraken
Elise is very clearly Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, though with an expanded trinket focus that owes a lot to the classic Disney film. She’s one of the two late game characters featured in this expansion thanks to her reliance on her Grotto. She banishes cards from play in order to add them to her collection and the larger her collection grows, the more powerful she is. She plays similar to graveyard-focused decks in CCG’s, which means not just a radical change in how you approach her but also means your opponents will need some different tactics to slow you down.
Kahurere Skyfisher
I’ll be honest, I have no idea who this is supposed to be. Her backstory mentions a Queen Morrigan, the Dawn, and a rebellion but for the life of me I can’t find a fairy tale that has elements like this. She’s a cool character though as a militant anti-monarchist fighting to destroy authority however she can. Like Elise, Kahurere Skyfisher plays with your basic mechanics by adding traps to your draw pile. This means a good Skyfisher player is going to be able to mess with opponents in ways they can’t easily predict while hurting their ability to pull off combos. She’s meant to hit fast and frequently compared to other, slower princesses.
Qasima Al-Basar
Qasima Al-Basar is generally a reference to the Arabian Nights but more specifically the tale of “Aladdin” what with the magic lamp and all. Even though the Lamp plays into her abilities, she’s based more around her thieving and connection with animals. Combined with her supernatural senses, Qasima’s goal is to accumulate enough power through her daring-do to unleash it in a big final wish that will, in theory, win the whole game. THE late game princess of any we’ve seen so far, she requires a TON of patience to pull off but is incredibly rewarding in the right hands.
The Verdict?
Queen By Midnight: Quarter Past is a fun addition to the base Queen By Midnight with characters that really stretch the mechanics a bit and reward players who know the game well. As a stand-alone, however, those traits that make it a good expansion hurt it a little. While none of the characters are hard persay, they all are clearly designed to be a next step in creativity for the game rather than characters that can teach you the game well. The original Queen By Midnight has a few options that are straightforward to learn on whereas this is a little trickier. But if you want something a little quicker, a little easier to get out onto the table, this is a fantastic option. But it really will be better mixed together with the original.
You can grab a copy of Queen By Midnight: Quarter Past from Darrington Press, the Critical Role shop, or your FLGS at an MSRP of $39.99
Images via Darrington Press