Daniel (@dungeondive) unboxes The Iron Chest, billed as the final big-box expansion for Jason Glover’s Iron Helm. It bundles four mini-expansions and one new level-four dungeon, and Daniel walks through each component to show how it slots into the base box.
The headline addition is the Spire of Zogar — a final level-four dungeon with a new boss, plot deck, enemies, and loot, giving the light campaign a proper capstone above the original level-three caps. Beasts and Burdens adds three mini-bosses, six new enemies, and afflictions that the player draws when poisoned — uniformly raising difficulty, which Daniel notes he’ll use sparingly. Realms and Relics introduces an Environments deck that twists each dungeon level (bogland, frost glen, sanctum, watch, plateaus, death grotto) and an Artifacts deck of powerful items gated behind blessing tokens. The Lonely Inn adds a deliberately under-powered character (Manlac the Beggar), a deck of hireable henchmen with their own art profiles, and eight new trappings.
The expansion also bundles a Random Encounters table for between-floor events, new dividers organising every adventure pack by level, and three small plastic minis that Daniel admits he’ll never use. Card quality from The Game Crafter is, as ever, the part he praises loudest.
The Iron Chest deliberately closes a game — the final expansion. Do you prefer games that declare themselves done, or do you want the expansion conveyor to keep running indefinitely?