It's been a long time coming, but the second expansion to the Definitive Edition of Sentinels of the Multiverse has finally reached me.

I backed the crowdfunding in March 2023, having had good experiences with Greater Than Games' previous two for this edition (for the core game, and the first expansion Rook City Renegades). The first one was two months late, the second one absolutely on time, by the original estimates. This one should in theory have reached me by July of 2024, and I think most people were expecting it to be a bit early.

But then the principal designer, Christopher Badell, got ill (and since he's in the US that meant financial stress too). Then Greater Than Games were sold to Flat River Group. Then the tariffs happened, and Flat River closed down GTG. Badell kept posting updates to the crowdfund, but it's clear that nobody at Flat River was telling him much. In recent months, he's vanished, and an anonymous Flat River employee has been posting updates instead, carefully not answering questions like "where is Christopher".

Then a few weeks ago FRG tried to charge my credit card for extra shipping, without asking me, which meant the card got suspended until I could sort that out. (I think this is against UK credit card regs, though it's probably fine in the US, land of no consumer protection.)

And then the package was shipped—from Kentwood in Michigan (a "city" that's functionally a suburb of Grand Rapids), to Indianapolis, to Santry (Dublin), to Stansted, to Dartford, to Slough and then to me. Measuring the straight-line hops, that's about 6900km over a span of three days, so an average of 60mph.

Everything seems to be there.

Indeed it is.

Foil cards. (These are the only bonus for being a crowdfunding backer, presumably apart from getting the thing a little earlier than other people; I haven't been keeping track of that.)

Inside the box.

Punchboards. One hero HP tracker, nine individual ones for the Ennead, and some miscellaneous other bits.

Under the punchboards. Top left is storage bags and spinner centres; top right is the large hero, villain and event cards, and the dividers; bottom centre is all the small cards (hero, villain and location decks).

All the decks.

And after a lot of sorting, it does all just barely fit into the two boxes of core Sentinels and the Rook City Renegades expansion. Left box is heroes, hero HP trackers, and some of the Ennead trackers; in the black box are the rest of the Ennead trackers and all the tokens, in 3d-printed trays. On the right and below, villain and location decks; hero, villain and event cards, and villain HP trackers, are at the upper left.

With the core box and Rook City Renegades, that's a total of 24 heroes, 70 hero variants (including First Appearances for everyone), 30 Principles to generate more variants, 24 villains, 16 environments, and 48 Events and Critical Events, in effect villain variants (Events change the rules a little, Critical Events give you a new villain card to go with their usual deck). Not counting the variants, I think you could generate 2024 combinations of three heroes (ignoring order), so that would be 777,216 combinations of heroes, villain and environment.

Given that Christopher's been denied access to the crowdfunder, I suspect we'll only see more of this edition of Sentinels if he's able to buy the rights back from Flat River. But we shall see.

So what have we got?

Heroes

Chrono-Ranger is a time-lost Old West sheriff and hunter of legendary monsters. His main gimmick is his Bounty cards: put them on targets, take down those targets, and get rewards.

K.N.Y.F.E is a tech-powered fighter of cosmic threats. She has two Ongoings which help with damage-dealing, with options to draw (power up) or play (hit things) extra cards.

Parse is powered up by Omnitron's analysis code. Her gimmick is looking ahead in decks.

Omnitron-X is the ultimate iteration of the robot villain, turned good. It has protection against specific damage types, and Febricate and Exterminate modes.

The Visionary is a psychic experiment with a Dark Side deck, I suspect in the vein of Alpha who can end up attacking friends if things go wrong.

Darkstrife & Painstake have two character cards, with separate hit points; lots of hand and resource management here, I think.

There are more variants for the core game heroes (everyone is now up to at least two variants) as well as the new ones.

Villains

La Capitan is a straightforward time-travelling pirate who steals heroes' cards, then flips to enjoy her loot.

The Dreamer is a young girl whose nightmares have taken form—but the heroes have to be careful not to injure her, or they immediately lose.

Miss Information is an alternate-reality version of the Freedom Five's admin assistant, who sends them after distractions while advancing her own plans.

Iron Legacy is an alternate-reality version of the do-gooder hero Legacy, turned to grim intolerance of any possible evil after the death of his heir, and with unstoppable Ongoing powers.

Apostate is a dark mirror of Fanatic, with Relics to boost power, Demons to do the actual fighting, and Lies to distract the heroes.

The Ennead is a set of nine Egyptian gods who can swing in and out of the fight—yes, each with its own villain card and hit points. Argh? I'm looking forward to trying this one, though.

Grimm is a former host of the horror comics of the early days (something like the EC Crypt-Keeper), now a villain in his own right. He assigns Roles, which you can follow (and damage your friends), or not (and get damaged yourself). I get a certain amount of Fey-Court feeling off this one.

Necrosis is a scientific necromancer, spreading decay and sending Husks against the heroes.

The Ruler of Æturnus is a nest of demon princes, changing powers as each one briefly claims the throne.

Environments

The Block is an interdimensional prison for supervillains. Naturally an escape attempt will be going on. This ties slightly to K.N.Y.F.E.

Silver Gulch, 1883 is the Weird West, with bandits powered up by equipment stolen from time travellers. This ties to Chrono-Ranger.

The Tomb of Anubis ties to the Ennead. Mummies, traps, and Trials.

The Final Wasteland is the desert after all the legendary creatures destroyed humanity. Post-apocalyptic feel, plus cryptids.

Æturnus is a hell-alike; it ties, of course, to the Ruler of Æturnus, and the decks synergise, but it can still be played separately.

Principles

Finally, we get the Principles, which are in effect hero variant generators. It's suggested you draw three and pick one; each one will modify the hero in good and bad ways.