News from Emerald City ComicCon

[Old Dwarf]

From BBG
Author: R_b_bergstrom
I had a chance to talk with Scott and Jason Hill of Flying Frog Productions at Emerald City ComicCon at the end of March. They told me some exciting details about upcoming Shadows of Brimstone products.

The most enticing part for me was hearing about how involved some of the new monsters will be, and how much that will shake up the fights. Some of the new monsters are coming in Deluxe sets that have more cards than normal, of entirely new deck types.

For example, the Void Sorcerers cast random spells each round, drawn from a deck of spell cards. One of the spells is a wave of mutation that does Corruption Damage to all the heroes on their tile. The other spell that was mentioned was just a chanting or a ritual (or something, I forget the name of it) that makes the next spell cast grow in power. You draw a different spell for each Sorcerer each turn. Each card has two different effects listed, depending on whether its a normal casting, or was empowered in that way.

Something similar exists for the undead gunslingers. Its not even remotely the same mechanic, but its another small deck of cards specific to a monster type. Sometimes you'll just face the normal monster sheet (or the brutal version, with or without Elite abilities as normal) of the undead posse, but sometimes you'll face a named gunslinger or gang of ghosts which have a special power depending on which infamous undead they are. If I understand correctly, the Threat card lists whether or not you draw from the infamous deck or not, with there being both versions available for at least some of the threat decks.

Jason confirmed for me that the serpentmen box has the shaman in it as well as the warriors (there was a photo from GAMA that had a glare where the shaman should have been). I believe he said it was one of the deluxe sets as well, so I suspect that means the shaman will have a magic deck of some sort as well (but I forgot to ask, so I could be wrong there).

The Tiles for Cynder look great (as do the new mine rooms on their flip-side). As has been mentioned elsewhere, the Cynder Tiles include a mechanic where you can take damage if you pass over certain firey spaces. If you have a high Agility you get to roll two dice, so swift and nimble characters are less likely to burn. Cynder also has mechanics where Clothing items make you succeptible to heat exhaustion and burning, so there's some interesting decisions to be made about how many items to keep equipped from turn to turn.

They told me a little about the new Heroes as well.

The Prospector is a low-initiative high-damage character, designed to take on monsters with a lot of wounds, but not be so great when fighting swarms. He can ignore the Tough ability on Epic creatures. Low initiative makes him a little challenged on the XP front, so to compensate he has a special ability that increases the amount of Gold and Dark Stone he collects whenever he finds some from Loot or Scavenge. He may not level-up terribly fast, but he'll be able to afford good equipment.

The Orphan comes with a small deck of Orphan Missions. The only example they told me was one where you had to get vengeance on the Rail Baron that killed your parents. Basically you have your own plotline that has a small chance of advancing every time the posse finds a Clue Token. When it eventually does, you get to advance from the Orphan class to one of the other classes. At character creation, you draw two Orphan Missions and keep the one you like better.

The Drifter well, Jason started telling me about the Drifter, and then had misgivings about spoilers, so for now my lips are sealed. Let's just say he's a really tough tank style character, and leave it at that.

They had four expansion decks available for sale at the convention (plus the blank card sets). These are two of the add-on decks from the pledge manager and two of the decks from the stretch goals. These were Artifact decks for Targa and Jargono, and the Dead Man’s Bounty and Treasures of the Void expansions.

The expansion decks are awaiting approval on BGG, and I'll probably post some pictures when they make it through the submission process. To tide you over in the meantime, here's card lists:

Dead Mans Bounty Gear Pack:
* Dead Mans Boots x2
* Canteen x2
* Sawed-Off Shotgun x2
* Dead Mans Vest
* Dead Mans Dice
* Dead Mans Buckle
* Mining Lantern
* Gold Teeth
* Rusty Badge
* Outlaws Gun Belt
* Jack of Hearts
* Bandana

Treasures of the Void Artifact Pack:
* Vial of Brimstone Ash x2
* Jewel of the Void x2
* Hell Bullets x2
* Void Lantern
* Ring of Corruption
* Hellfire Ring
* Void Ring
* Trederran Trench Pistol
* Void Hound Tooth
* Amulet of Bâlorn
* Amulet of Trondo
* Tome of Rokal

Jargono Artifact expansion:
* Bogbat Ichor x2
* Terri-Terri Leaf x2
* Dark Stone Club x2
* Sacrificial Dagger
* Totem of Denar
* Hunting Net
* Statue of a Serpent God
* Stone Tablet
* Swamp Parasite
* SeParri Flute
* Tribal Armor
* Trophy Shield

Targa Artifact expansion:
* Warp Crystals x2
* Holo Recording x2
* Experiment Canister x2
* Isolation Field
* Shadow Bracelet
* Cryo Pistol
* Plasma Sword
* Gate Rifle
* Trun Gladius
* Control Crystal
* Ancient Tablet
* Dark Orb

There's a lot of good items in these sets, and rather likely they'll be in wave 1.5, I assume. Scott said he hated selling these before he could send them out to backers, but he had to pay for the convention booth space somehow. Gotta keep the business going, lights running, etc. As you know, the kickstarter funded roughly three years of releases for the game, so no matter what some amount of stuff is going to make out into the market before the last bits are ready to ship to backers. He had some humorous anecdotes about coordinating such a large production with overseas factories. Weekly video conferences to make it happen. So be patient folks, there's great stuff just over the horizon (well, arriving hot on the heels of GenCon anyway).

[Old Dwarf]

I did take advantage of FFP Backer Offer to get these Sets by just paying shipping
(for under $4.00) & they came in a couple of days ago. Can't wait to get these
into the Game.

Thought for the day.... Don't fill your coffee maker cup with instant coffee, it comes
out liquid crap. Also make your fully awake before making Breakfast .

OD