Aftermath - undervalued

So I received my cheap copy of Aftermath and progressed on the question why it is so cheap. There are two main reasons: One is that the first wave of customers who played the game only had the rulebook to find out how the game plays; and as the rulebook isn't great, and some rules are not in the rulebooks but distributed over the adventure book or some of the cards, some people had a really hard time with their first playthroughs of the game. Obviously not a great situation, and one that is likely to seriously dent the user ratings of a board game on BoardGameGeek. However, that was back in 2019; today there are multiple videos on YouTube explaining in detail how the game plays, and you can even follow playthroughs of various people through the first mission. There is even an Enhanced Rulebook on BoardGameGeek, plus other helpful files. So, in 2021 it has become significantly easier to understand the game and play it without stumbling over the rules.

The other potential reason for Aftermath being so cheap is that the original developers, Plaid Hat Games, lost the right to the game when they split away from the giant overlord of the board game publishing world, Asmodee. Aftermath went to one of the Asmodee companies, Z-Man Games. While the new owners duly posted the usual corporate speak announcement of "The entire team is thrilled to be the new home of the Adventure Book games and continue to support them as well as explore new possibilities in that space.", the simple fact that the developers of the original game are still with Plaid Hat Games makes it unlikely that the planned expansions for Aftermath will ever see the light of day.

As I said in my previous post, you can pick up Aftermath today on Amazon for $50 in the USA, or €60 in Europe. That is not only way below the MSRP of $84.95. It is also dirt cheap considering the number of sundrop washed, large sized miniatures the game comes with, as well as the quality and quantity of the other components. And even if there will never be an expansion, the core box of Aftermath has 18 missions and 5 side missions in a kind of open world sandbox campaign that can keep you occupied for many hours. So if narrative dungeon-crawler campaign board games are something you like, I would really recommend picking up Aftermath.