Seattle 1.5 Release, and 2.0 Preview:

[gavindowning]

I attended the 1.5 Seattle pickup yesterday, and I had a fantastic time. I'd like to thank the FFP folks for putting this gathering together; it was spectacular. I'd also like to thank Brian Snoddy in specific for helping people with miniature assembly: while I snipped them from the sprues, he filed things down and was generally a huge help.

The 1.5 stuff is great. One pleasant surprise is that the various stretch goals have their rules, adventures, etc, all put into a single rulebook. So those little rulebooks we've seen for Masters of the Void and the Serpentmen are all put together into a single volume. Personally, I like this -- fewer books to peruse.

One thing I did discover while putting the new heroes together: the plastic cement I used on other figures did not seem to work so well with this type of resin. I ended up using superglue gel instead, and that was much more successful. The plastic cement still worked just fine with the monsters, though.

Beli'al is a BEAST. He's definitely a terrifying Big Bad, and his miniature is taller than even the Burrower. In addition, there are less powerful shards of him that can be encountered as standard threats -- his health limited by the size of the party, and with several of his more deadly abilities turned off. Add in a deck of Shadow Magic, and he becomes a fantastic foe to threaten the party with. He also gives some new Encounters and Artifacts to Cynder.

I was also given a preview of a few upcoming things, and I thought I'd give a taste here. While I did see enemy sheets, etc, I'm afraid I don't tend to remember specific numbers as much as I do overall flavor, and even if I did, Jason did ask that specific numbers not be revealed, because until they are finalized, there's always a chance they could change.

Trederra is close enough to being done that they ran demos set in the world, with Trederran Legionnaires, Mutants, Field Marshals, and Z4 Grenadiers (who hurl explosive grenades every round -- ouch!). The drawback to Trederra as an otherworld is that whenever you fail to Hold Back the Darkness, there is an increasing chance that you will be discovered and ambushed by a patrol, and the larger the party, the harder it is to avoid being spotted. On the plus side, when you scavenge, you can draw two cards, and you draw from a special Trederran scavenge deck instead of the standard deck. The Trederrans have factions, much like the Serpentmen tribes, which can affect their gameplay, and they can even have special weapons such as shatter grenades or machineguns. While the machinegun and some of their other weapons are currently tokens, Jason did mention that they hope to eventually do sculpted versions that people will be able to get separately, to further enhance their game.

While no demo was done, I got the impression that the Derelict Ship also has quite a bit of progress completed, and what Jason mentioned made me quite excited. This is a ship that was powered by a massive warpcore of Dark Stone, and whoever built it wasn't aware of the negative properties of the stone. Now the crew is all dead, shambling about as Necronauts (and the minis look gorgeous!), with a big theme of terror. The Necronauts all have Terror, so everyone on their map tile takes horror hits, and there can be up to 6 of them at once. The BEACON drones attack people's sanity, projecting gruesome images of horror into the minds of their targets, and when they are taken out, the Derelict Ship (but not the Mines) shake in response.

ALLIES! Yeah, Allies look incredible! They actually can work in a few different ways. In a basic style, allies could work like equipment. You buy the Dog, and he helps you scavenge. You buy the Mule, and he helps you carry stuff. Etc. Or, you can choose to use the more advanced rules: add another miniature to the board. The owner of the ally controls them as a second figure, who gets their own attack during combat and acts on their own initiative. A separate card will have rules for leveling that ally up, as well as rules for mutations for the ally. Most allies are one-time purchases, but henchmen are designed to be disposable. They even have a lovely d36 table for gruesome deaths, so your henchmen can go out in memorable ways (each of which has a separate game effect). You can also pay less to get a less skilled version, or more for a specialized version. Allies are definitely going to add a lot to the game.

I heard a bit about a couple of the new classes, too. Samurai will build up fury throughout combat, then unleash it in cool signature moves. Doctors will be able to attempt surgeries, get a bonus to using bandages, and come with a doctor's bag that auto-refills with bandages every adventure. Cowboys will be able to lasso enemies, to mess with their stats.

Jason also talked a bit about the Mission Packs. He noted that, since you'll be fighting mostly the same monster, they have a way to keep each encounter unique and different, so it doesn't feel repetitive. For example, one group of vampires might be sensitive to light, so they'll take penalties as long as they're close to the lantern, but they'll also get bonuses to attack the lantern-holder. In addition to the stories and missions involving the monster, they'll also come with normal threat cards, so the monsters can be encountered in other missions and games too as a typical threat.

I also saw quite a bit of the upcoming enemy sheets. The following enemies have at least a draft done of their standard enemy sheet, so they're closing in on complete.

Tribal Ghost Warriors always attack from Ambush. They gibber and move in strange, disturbing ways, as they're possessed by demons from beyond.

Vampires can potentially bite heroes. If you're unlucky enough to get bitten by a vampire, you get a curse which has both good and bad effects. For example, you might get stronger, but you can no longer enter the church (or even the church tent in the expanded town), which makes it much harder to get rid of corruption. But if you get too much corruption, that could cause you to become a full vampire (which I believe removes you from play).

Werewolves can similarly scratch heroes, primarily through KO'ing them. A hero scratched by a werewolf will get a curse that can cause them to occasionally lose control.

The Lost Army looks great. They won't get placed in checkerboard patterns, but in blocks -- but they actually gain armor when adjacent to other members, so explosives don't work so well for them. In addition, while they don't have a great ranged To Hit, when they target someone, ALL the Lost Army with line of sight to that target unleash their guns all at once. So you could end up with like 16 dice targeting a single person all at once. Gruesome.

The Succubi actually have different responses based on the gender of the hero. Male heroes are distracted and are down dice to attack them, while female characters are unaffected -- but the succubi gain bonuses to attack them, since they are seen as a particular threat.

The Black Fang Tribe will start with tokens of Dark Stone on their sheet. As the fight goes on, they will consume a piece of Dark Stone and gain some sort of effect. If you take them out quickly, you may be able to grab the remaining Dark Stone.

The Cult of the Crimson Hand gain a bonus to attack whenever they're wounded. And while they don't have a ton of health, they do have Endurance, so they can't be taken out too quickly. And whenever you encounter the Cultists, they also draw a random Artifact which grants them extra health... and it can even potentially be used against the heroes. But when the holder is taken down, you can attempt to salvage the artifact and take it for yourself.

Swamp Raptors will be able to be encountered as a standard threat (as a young Swamp Raptor) or as an epic threat with extra cards. Are you one of those people who wanted to face off with a pack of them? Guess what: it looks like you might end up facing off with up to three of them as an epic threat. (I'm gonna want to get extras...)

The only remaining material from the Kickstarter that I didn't specifically see anything new about: the Flesh Stalker, the Blasted Wastes (and the Wasteland Scavenger), the Sand Kraken, the Wasteland Terralisk, the Ancient One, the Hell Cannon (though the miniature was there), a couple of the upcoming Hero classes, and the various card sets. And even with those, I have no reason to suspect they're not just as far along in development as the other things I noted. They look like they're heading rapidly towards the finish line, and I, for one, am pleased with what I've seen so far.

If you have any questions, please feel free to shoot 'em my direction.

(Crossposted a few different places.)

[Old Dwarf]

Great Info- I remember some concern about the Succubi not being family friendly sculps, so do they have nipples?
(or do I need to get out my modeling putty)

OD

[gavindowning]

No nipples.

[Old Dwarf]

(03-06-2016 06:08 PM)gavindowning Wrote:  No nipples.

Of all sad words of tongue or pen
the saddest are those...
It might have been

Sic transit gloria mundi

OD

[Anim8r]

Awesome information! Looking forward to all of the new items.

[jlafan2001]

This will be slighty off topic. How many waves are SoB are being released this year? My understanding is that IFOS: Scorched Earth won't be released until FFP gets caught up on the kickstarter campaign.

[Old Dwarf]

(03-12-2016 05:25 AM)jlafan2001 Wrote:  This will be slighty off topic. How many waves are SoB are being released this year? My understanding is that IFOS: Scorched Earth won't be released until FFP gets caught up on the kickstarter campaign.

I'm not sure if any "set in stone" date has been given beyond
Fall of 2016 for Wave 2. Wave 1.5 was off by a few months so
I just hope Wave 2 delivers by Christmas. I hope it doesn't
run into 2017.

OD

[gavindowning]

Nothing is set in stone, but they are aiming for Q4 of this year. I think they can get their stuff done in time for that to be a reasonable goal, but of course any production delays that might occur are outside their control.

[Raynor]

Lol. I think it's absurdly optimistic. I mean here we are half way through march waiting on 1.5. I understand setbacks but how are they going to get that much stuff ready in time if it took this much time to complete 1.5? Especially considering how long it's taking them just to box and ship stuff. It's been what? A month since they announced they had started International shipping? If not, it's close. I still haven't received a shipping notification.

It's not a big deal, but after the pace of things so far I will be pleasantly surprised if they actually manage to finish up the kickstarter by the year's end.

[gavindowning]

You're assuming none of it is even close to ready -- which is clearly an inaccurate assumption.