Tranjis games - Virus Halloween Special Edition Card Games, Multicolor (TRA449035)

The expansion pack that I received for the Virus! card game is genuine.I feel like this might need to be said for anyone considering purchasing but they are worried about the fakes that are being resold from the likes of Ali Express etc.The expansion pack itself is quite small with only a total of twelve playable cards. With the others being instructions cards in non-English languages.The expansion pack comes in a small cardboard box/envelope rather than a sealed foil booster pack that you would probably expect from the advertised pictures.There doesn't appear to be many UK sellers for this expansion pack with this listing coming and going from time to time, so I would encourage you to grab it when you can.That being said, whilst the base price of the pack is £3 pounds which would be fair for a few cards, the shipping price being £7 pounds does mean you're effectively paying almost £1 for each card in total, which feels a bit expensive for literally some bits of card and ink.The included cards in this expansion pack have quite a large impact and I believe address a bit of an oversight or problem with the original Virus! 1 and the expansion pack Virus! 2 games.Both the base game and the Virus! 2 expansion focus a lot of infection and curing cards but towards the latter parts of the game, most organs will probably be immunised by that point and become very difficult to play against without relying on the few limited number of Treatment cards / Purple cards that can effect immunised organs such as "Medical Error".I believe this expansion pack helps focus on that problem by introducing some more cards that give you counterplay options against organs which have already been immunised, rather than focusing on preventing players from immunising organs in the first place:The organ thief cards, one for each organ colour Red/Blue/Yellow/Green allow you to outright steal an organ of that colour when you play this card including immunised organ.The Alien Transplant allows you to switch any organs around with another player, regardless of if they're healthy, infected, vaccinated or even immunised.The Trick or Treat card allows you to place the card on another player which prevents them from winning the game even if they have four or more healthy & immunised organs in play.The failed experiment cards can be quite useful at times getting to choose if they act as viruses or medicines helping from more complex strategies or giving you counterplay options.The apparition / phantom card is quite useful if you keep it in your hand to reuse a card that another player has already used & discarded, helping you form other strategies that relied upon drawing that rare specific card from the deck on your turn but someone already drew the card before you for example a Joker / rainbow medicine or Joker virus etc.You can also chain the use of this card in a combination with other cards.For example as when you play the apparition / phantom card, you get the option to choose between immediately playing the card you picked up from the discard pile or keep it in your hand to play later.If you pick up a card from the discard pile such as "Overtime" or "Second Opinion" from Virus! 2 expansion pack and immediately play it, this then would let you then either play your other cards from your hand or if you picked up the latter card, swap your hands with another player and then use a card from the hand you receive from that player.The mutated organ card (orange tentacle) is unique and I consider a sort of "in-between" balanced card which can only be affected by Joker / rainbow medicines and Joker / rainbow viruses and treatment cards / purple cards.I feel like it's a good form of balance where you still have a few cards that can effect it & counter play against it (rainbow viruses & treatment cards that steal organs etc) however you can also build further defences for the card if you play a rainbow medicine on the mutated organ itself to vaccinate or immunise it. thereby making it harder to target due to the rarity of the Joker / rainbow virus cards.If you compare it to the "Joker" rainbow organ from Virus! 1 base game which is both powerful and fragile as it can be affected by all viruses & medicines and the very powerful Grey Bionic Organ card that cannot be affected by any viruses & medicines, only Purple treatment cards which feels a bit overpowered since it can only be stolen from other players using these purple treatment cards, essentially acting as a pre-immunised organ.If I had any criticisms to give on the expansion itself it would be that it would be nice to include a physical English set of rules.I understand that the game itself is made and produced in Spain but with the English language being the most commonly used and understood language across the world it seems a bit odd.That being said, they do include a QR code on one of the cards to scan so you can get the rules in English from their website, so if you have a printer you can print them yourself so you don't need a phone or laptop by your side when you're playing.The Trick or Treat card's rules explanation is a bit vague and left open to interpretation which can cause some disagreements mid-game if it hasn't been discussed in advance. Which is strange, because just about every other cards' rules in the pack are explained to the point that do not leave them vague or open to interpretation & clarify when they can be used or what other cards can affect them like the Mutant Orange card included in this expansion pack.The English official rules from the website for the Trick or Treat card states: "To get rid of Trick or Treat, cure, vaccinate or immunise another player’s organ and then put the Trick or Treat card on that player’s body."However this doesn't mention anything about the Purple Treatment cards from Virus! 1 that swap bodies with other players such as the "Medical Error" card or even one of the new cards included in this expansion pack, the "Body Swap" card.I assume that the "Trick or Treat card" would also be swapped to the other player's body you're swapping with, since the card's description specifically mentions that it's played on the body of a player, not an organ, so whilst it wouldn't be affected by cards that swap hands or organs, you're not doing this, you're swapping bodies.However some might disagree and state that the only way to remove it is to cure or vaccinate or immunise another player's organ since that is all that is mentioned on the card's rules.I believe that you will probably find this quite difficult to do within the latter stages of the game when most organs have a higher chance of already being immunised.It's a useful card to help slow the game down a bit when someone is clearly about to win with three healthy organs in play on their body and buy you some additional time to form a counter strategy. However using this card in your Virus! deck when you only have two or three players can feel a bit tedious passing the card to each other.I would encourage you to have at least four or more players if you're going to include this card to your deck and agree on how you can remove the card before starting the game.Overall the expansion is quite small but has quite a big impact on the gameplay when the cards come up and are played.Personally I would say that it might be worth purchasing two copies of pack if you've merged the Virus! base game and Virus! 2 expansion pack together already since there are only twelve total cards when compared to the total number of cards in a merged deck containing Virus! & Virus! 2 being near one hundred cards. Or if you have merged multiple Virus!/Virus! 2 decks together so more than six players can play at the same time.If you can find the expansion pack sold by a UK retailer to avoid the shipping costs, I would definitely recommend it.