[Kickstarter] Shadows of Brimstone

[TheMix]

I thought there was a "Whoo Hoo!" smilie. But I came up empty. Hopefully those are sufficient to get across the sentiment.

[hentzau]

Oh yeah. Found out last night that I was missing my Night Terror card. I wrote FFP about it, but I'm not holding my breath.

[hentzau]

Played our third game of SoB tonight. One of the three players couldn't make it to the game, so we just did a 2 player basic game with new characters, just to get a feel for them. Played the Outlaw and the Lawman. And, like our first two player game, got our asses handed to us during the final encounter. We have just had no luck with that final encounter room (except for the one time that we played 3 characters.

Plus, we were playing kind of sloppy. I forgot to apply all of the darkness cards we had drawn up to that point, so the monsters were a little weaker. Didn't matter, though, they still kicked our asses. Got them down to two stranglers and a void spider (out of 5 tentacles, 5 stranglers, and 6 void spiders.) My lawman just couldn't get any grit (and I was having some really horrible dice rolls) so he had no re-rolls and minimal healing (took the ability that allowed for healing by spending a grit.)

Still had a good time, but 2 player is HARD.

[Zarathud]

Need dynamite and someone like the Priest to do swarm control.

[hentzau]

Need dynamite and someone like the Priest to do swarm control.

We did have dynamite. It was less than successful. And I'm playing the priest in our campaign game, this one we were trying different characters.

[baelthazar]

Dear goodness... I got my copies at 5:00pm today and it took me quite some time to assemble the figures for just one core set (City of Ancients)! The best investment I made was to buy those Xuron Micron Flush Clippers - I would have gone insane without them! My stupid Loctite gel glue was just not working (despite the stated 10 second dry time, it took way longer and allowed the pieces to move), so I had to pop down to Lowes to the get super-glue variety (which is thinner and faster drying). I actually ended up finishing my models with some unopened Krazy Glue I found in my junk drawer and that worked fairly well. As a backup, I have some Gorilla gel glue, but I wonder if it will have the same issue as the Loctite one.

I am a little disappointed in the figures. Not so much the detail or the way they look, but in the inevitable gaps you get when you assemble them. Also, the bottoms of many of the figures were not overly flat, so they did not fit on the bases well. I could/should have spruced up the bases before I put them on there, but I want to play the game in the near future and did not want to mess with that. I also thought about painting them before basing them, but - again - I wanted to play before taking on such a large project. I hope the glue holds up if I need to do a quick wash before painting, I regret not washing the parts before gluing them (I may wash the Swamps of Death sprues).

Overall, I'm excited. I'm even more excited to get the Wave 2 stuff, because that is just MORE.

[hentzau]

I used straight up Gorilla Super Glue (not gel) and that worked pretty well. It worked even better after I got a bottle of accelerant, but even that is not perfect for every application. Plus, it's a little messy. It would probably work better (now that I'm thinking) if I would not use it as a spray but dipped a brush into the bottle so I could apply it directly where it was needed.

Hmm...

[hentzau]

Need dynamite and someone like the Priest to do swarm control.

Zarathud, I've been puzzling over this statement all night. How does the priest do swarm control exactly? My priest has the default healing blessing, a blessing that can zap a single creature pretty hard, and a shield blessing. His skill lets him re-roll one die for his "healing" blessings.

Did I miss something with him?

[LawBeefaroni]

Need dynamite and someone like the Priest to do swarm control.

Zarathud, I've been puzzling over this statement all night. How does the priest do swarm control exactly? My priest has the default healing blessing, a blessing that can zap a single creature pretty hard, and a shield blessing. His skill lets him re-roll one die for his "healing" blessings.

Did I miss something with him?

I played a priest with Shockwave as one of the starter...spells or whatever. I also picked the skill that allowed a reroll on that spell category, as opposed to blessings. I got swarmed and fired off a shockwave and pretty much killed everything (all the 1 HD spider things) within 2 squares. And then punched faces of the remaining non-spider beasties.

It seemed to me that that was the standard use for the Preacher but I guess starting skills really define capability/play style. Another plus for the game.

[hentzau]

Just looked at the Shockwave spell again. I looked at it this morning and didn't see that it was that big a deal, until I re-read tonight and saw that it did 1 hit, not 1 wound. That'll hurt a bunch of guys in a hurry.

I'll have to confer with the rest of my posse and see if they want me to be more offensive or defensive. My starting skill was in blessings, so that would seem to be the route to go.

[Zarathud]

We had the following group:
Indian Scout Tainto, who kept a lookout with a nice rifle (distant range)
Saloon Girl, who seemed well-rounded with a hold-out pistol (melee and 1-time ranged per combat)
US Marshall, with his rapid-fire Shotgun (close range)
Preacher, with his devastating Shockwave (melee and clean-up)

Tainto and Saloon Girl had the option to decide who went first. Usually, Tainto would get in a shot and Saloon Girl would close and fire. The monsters would move, then my Marshall would kill something to get another shot with his shotgun. Preacher would run clean up, which sometimes involved a bunch of monsters.

Looking forward to getting another game under our belt this weekend!

[LawBeefaroni]

One important limitation on Shockwave is that you can't use if you moved that turn. Fortunately I rushed into a room headlong and the monsters spawned around me after fumblefingers explored.

But if your tanks are blocking the hallway you can come up behind them, heal who you can, and fire off Shockwave next round.

[Zarathud]

Once we realized how Preacher worked, we would move him into a room to get swarmed alongside the Marshall.

[baelthazar]

I got to play this with my dad and we loved it! We were the Marshall with the grit healing ability and a bandito with a dynamite satchel. We did alright, but we had several ambushes and adds that piled up. It was a group of tentacles and stranglers that got us. Still, we managed to level up and get some good stuff for the next try.

One question, if you draw a "remains in play" darkness card, does it add to or replace the other remains in play cards? We drew two of the same card, the one giving +1 die to Void beasts. So does that mean they are +2 or does the second one replace the first? Not finding anything in the rules, we added them, making void spiders a real pain!

[TheMix]

One problem I've noticed... the game is too new. I have been unable to find any kind of F.A.Q. online.

Played a couple games with Tao on Thanksgiving. Managed to win both. I'm sure we missed a couple of things (like I'm trying to recall if I used Shockwave in the second game after moving).

The first game we played with all 4 characters. But we didn't get to see much because the first two tiles were both rooms. And both had the clue icons. We did get to "experience" the flooded room card. It is currently my least favorite card. What a royal P.i.t.A. So much so that when we drew it in the second game, in probably the largest room tile, we opted to use a mulligan and remove it from play.

Second game was a lot longer. I think we ended up on 8, with the Darkness on 7. That game we played with the Lawman and the Preacher - who had Shockwave. We finished in good shape. Though I suppose it got a bit hairy. At one point I was at 10 wounds out of 12 health. And then fielded an attack from the final "boss" monster. Which did 2D6 damage - and my defense was 5+ on the Preacher. However, I had the rabbit's foot (I think) which allowed me to prevent all the damage from one attack once per adventure. Next turn I used some herbs I'd found and restored 9 health.

I think that was the closest we came.

But there are some things that I'd love to get a better explanation of. Like the whole switch from regular turn to combat and back. That doesn't always seem to flow as well as I'd like.


On Friday we also played a game of Castle Panic. This one got a bit closer. Got down to one remaining tower (partially due to two unlucky Boulder rolls in one turn). I'm definitely liking that game. It's really easy to teach and quick to play. Definitely going to need to pick up the Wizard's Tower expansion.

[hentzau]

I don't know the definitive answer to your question, Bael, but we've always played that they add up. I did go out and do some searching for an answer for you and found something that we had been playing incorrectly.

I had assumed (incorrectly, according to the BGG created FAQ) that combat turns were different than standard turns, and you do not do a "Hold back the Darkness" roll at the start of each of those turns. That is incorrect. Doesn't matter what kind of turn you're taking, standard or combat, you start each turn with a Hold Back the Darkness roll.



I think this game just got WAY harder.

[LawBeefaroni]

But there are some things that I'd love to get a better explanation of. Like the whole switch from regular turn to combat and back. That doesn't always seem to flow as well as I'd like.

I recall we had some issues with that. Like if a scavenge card starts combat. Does that end the turn and start a new one? Insert combat in the middle of the turn? And yeah, like hentzau we didn't roll against the Darkness every time.

[baelthazar]

Yeah Hentzau, we checked that rule specifically and saw it said "roll every turn regardless of being in a fight." As we got ambushed twice, that really hurt. Nothing like fighting a mob when, suddenly the darkness advances and pulls a card making all demons +1 to combat.

We were unlucky, drawing passage map cards one after another with no exploration tokens. That slowed the game, let the darkness rise and got us jacked when we entered an encounter called "steam pipes". We never had the chance to fight in a larger area, as most of the mine was a series of passages acting as choke points.

[TheMix]

I had assumed (incorrectly, according to the BGG created FAQ) that combat turns were different than standard turns, and you do not do a "Hold back the Darkness" roll at the start of each of those turns. That is incorrect. Doesn't matter what kind of turn you're taking, standard or combat, you start each turn with a Hold Back the Darkness roll.



I think this game just got WAY harder.

Yikes!

[hentzau]

I had assumed (incorrectly, according to the BGG created FAQ) that combat turns were different than standard turns, and you do not do a "Hold back the Darkness" roll at the start of each of those turns. That is incorrect. Doesn't matter what kind of turn you're taking, standard or combat, you start each turn with a Hold Back the Darkness roll.



I think this game just got WAY harder.

Yikes!

Apparently I'm not the only one.

[baelthazar]

Huh, that rule was the least of our problems. Fighting a hoard of 6 stranglers with +1 combat die in a steam-filled room that prevented ranged crits and made ranged attacks only hit on a 6+ was far more troublesome!

[Zarathud]

We played two sessions this weekend, but I had to leave about half way through the second mission. There were definitely more Darkness surprises and bonuses with the "roll to Hold Back the Darkness every turn" rule. It would definitely make life very hard if you have a string of bad rolls.

When we hit the steam-filled room, we retreated and tossed in a dynamite. Dynamite is your friend.

[baelthazar]

Ok, I got a chance to play this with my Dad (two PCs) and solo (3 PCs). Here are my assessments.

1. The game takes a long time to play. I played the "short" version of A Fistful of Darkstone and it took us the better part of several hours to get it done. Part of this was due to poor storage, having to hunt through various tokens, and constant consultation of the manual. Both times I got somewhat unlucky because the 50% chance to get a clue icon just did not come up in my favor. By the end of both games, the mines were fairly large. All the rolling tends to slow the game down a bit as well - roll to hit, roll for defense, and roll for armor (if you have it) - that is three rolls just for one attack and you tend to get at least 6-12 attacks per fight round (not to mention the hero activation where you roll "to hit" and then roll for damage).

2. The game takes up a TON of space. Both times I overflowed my fairly large dining room table (which has its leaf in to expand the size). The table can comfortably seat six for a Thanksgiving meal... but it can't handle the SoB mines!

3. The game is brutal. I felt like each draw of the Darkness deck was like getting punched in the scrotum. Those cards range from the disastrous to the catastrophic. You know it is bad when I actually felt relieved to see the "Void Monsters have +1 damage" card come out, because it was less serious than some of the other possibilities. Threat card draws are also bad - at one point in my solo game I had all 12 voidspiders out, they were elite because I actually needed 17 spiders, along with all 6 stranglers. Dynamite saved the day, but without the "might of 'Mite," I likely would have perished.

4. The game can be feast or famine. In my first game, my dad and I found tons of money, but not a lot of gear. This made it a little more difficult to progress, and was likely why we lost the match. In contrast, my second game was money poor, but we had tons of Darkstone, Gear, and even a few Artifact draws. It worked out that my Gunslinger picked up the Judge pistol artifact (6 range, 3 shots, uses the d8 and crits on 6,7,8), which was pretty much a godly epic draw. My Preacher also got some artifacts that mitigate damage (a DS eating 4+ shield, a rune that blocks damage for a grit, and an amulet that deflects all damage from one source) - so he is now nearly invincible with his Blessing Sermons. That means different campaigns will progress very differently.

5. The game has disappointing components. The tiles are fine, but the cards are cheap feeling and need sleeves. The models were hard to assemble and made out of somewhat light plastic. In many ways, I would say the components are a little worse than Castle Raveloft/Wrath of Ashardalon and a tad better than Mage Knight: The Board Game. Not serious, but just a little disappointing. The gaps in the assembled models will make painting more difficult.

6. That being said... the game is what I have been looking for in a dungeon crawl for a very long time. In many ways, SoB blows the WotC dungeon games out of the water. It provides a coherent campaign that can be played like Descent (with character skills, levels, and persistent items) and makes you invested in characters both on the board and during the town/frontier vignettes between maps. I would go so far as to say that SoB succeeds where Myth failed - it provides a real analog to tabletop RPG that can be played without a DM and in a shorter, more compartmentalized, time frame. The rules are complex and it is easy to miss some of the more important ones, but that is to be expected in a game that provides this sort of persistent RPG experience. I would say, after only two games mind you, that SoB is set to rival Eldritch Horror in the top spot for co-op adventure board game, and it close to beating Caverna and Arcadia Quest as my favorite gaming experiences. Despite all the criticisms above, this is an exciting system and well worth the price of admission.

The game does desperately need a FAQ, however.

I did solve some of my storage/access problems by consolidating the two core sets into one larger set. One of the core set boxes I am using for cardboard bits (now in a plastic tackle box/crafting container) and the cards, with the other box holding the tiles and the monsters. I did not mix the two sets of exploration tokens, although they are identical so it should not affect the percentage draw by adding them together (it could, however, mean that you get two of the same tokens, which is not normally allowed with only one token set). I also kept the different card sets separate, but I think it may be superior to mix them together to add more options for Darkness, encounters, growing dread, gear, and artifact cards. It would also be cool to play scenarios where you do not know if you will end up in Targa or in the Swamps. I look forward to more Other Worlds.

[Zarathud]

Next time we play, I'm going to bring the Hold It! card sorter I picked up for Settlers of Catan in 2006. It lets you sort 14 sets of cards pretty easily and pass them around the table. It's great for games with tons of cards.

[hentzau]

Well, this was kind of interesting until I saw the prices.

Hero Forge Custom Miniatures

Was thinking how fun it would be to create custom versions of the characters we're playing. But then I saw the $25 for a "fragile" miniature that would be suitable for painting. No thanks.

[hentzau]

Been continuing to play the hell out of this game (heh.) We're up to the 4th basic mission in the book, and all three of us had reached 3rd level.

Our game last night was really interesting. It was the "Find the Missing Person" mission. We were doing fairly well, having found the first clue in about the 5th tile explored. But that tile was a double encounter tile, and I was really surprised by the encounter we pulled. I'm going to spoiler it, because it was actually pretty funny.

Spoiler:

The encounter we pulled was "Mangled Remains". The first part of the card says that if you are on a mission to find someone, well, you found their mangled body. Mission over, with reduced XP as a reward. You had the option of proceeding on to find who killed your person you were going after, but we took the cowards way out and skeedaddled.

Our rancher has been having a rough go of it, though. He's been lagging behind the preacher and marshall in XP by a considerable margin. In addition to that, he's been having really rough rolls in the game. In the course of the 4 missions we have done, he's had 2 injuries (crushed arm, -1 Combat, and broken collarbone, -1 Grit) and one mutation (Glows in the dark, not affected by Voices in the Dark but enemies also hit him on 1's) hit him, and after multiple missions to the doctor, the only healing he was able to get made his glowing mutation permanent, much to his disgust. That last one was the last straw, and he's decided to abandon the Rancher.

Now, our question is, do we start him out at 1st level with the indian scout, or should we raise him up to 3rd level so he can stay competitive?

[baelthazar]

I have decided that knowing when to "cut and run" in a mission is almost as important a strategy as knowing how to win a battle. When things look dire, it just does not pay to try to get a party wipe (with all the injury and madness rolls).

One question, do you roll on the injury chart when you use your revive token? I have not been, because I viewed the revive token as an "extra life." But I am likely doing this wrong.

[hentzau]

I have decided that knowing when to "cut and run" in a mission is almost as important a strategy as knowing how to win a battle. When things look dire, it just does not pay to try to get a party wipe (with all the injury and madness rolls).

One question, do you roll on the injury chart when you use your revive token? I have not been, because I viewed the revive token as an "extra life." But I am likely doing this wrong.

When you use a revive token, you do not roll on the injury chart. But now that I'm thinking back, we did roll for injury the last time he was knocked out, so he would not be missing a combat.

And so far we haven't lost a mission, nor needed to cut and run yet. We've actually been doing pretty darn good, overall. His horrible rolls at the doctor notwithstanding.

[LawBeefaroni]

That last one was the last straw, and he's decided to abandon the Rancher.

Now, our question is, do we start him out at 1st level with the indian scout, or should we raise him up to 3rd level so he can stay competitive?

That's sad. It takes the best role playing elements out of the game. Continuity is a good thing. I mean I guess the game should be about having fun and if he's not having fun he should reboot but having a glow-in-the-dark rancher bitching about how his collarbone hurts every time it rains seems so excellent.

[hentzau]

That last one was the last straw, and he's decided to abandon the Rancher.

Now, our question is, do we start him out at 1st level with the indian scout, or should we raise him up to 3rd level so he can stay competitive?

That's sad. It takes the best role playing elements out of the game. Continuity is a good thing. I mean I guess the game should be about having fun and if he's not having fun he should reboot but having a glow-in-the-dark rancher bitching about how his collarbone hurts every time it rains seems so excellent.

Yeah, I get it, but he's been getting more and more frustrated falling behind and having every last bad thing happen to him and watch the preacher and marshall skate through everything. I personally wish he would continue with the rancher, just to see what would happen to him next.

[baelthazar]

Don't forget that PCs can level up during the adventure. So, if he isn't far behind, I would say that he should not worry if he starts the mission at level 2. The level-ups are useful, but I wouldn't say he won't be competitive. Surely he has gathered some nice gear/artifacts? I have found that gear is far more important than level abilities anyway.

[TheMix]

Ran the starter mission with a friend that is in town for a week.

Somehow we managed to squeak out a win. I had a serious brain-fart at the beginning; though I'm not sure that I helped or hurt us. I actually spaced that there were encounter cards.... So when we flipped 2x Encounter tokens on the first two rooms, I grabbed 2x Medium Threat cards. We did go back and look at the encounter cards that we should have used. Debatable which would have been more challenging. Our first room spawned 3x Slashers and 7x Zombies. So it was pretty tough on its own.

Our Hold Back the Darkness rolls were not helping. We were one clue in and sitting at 12 on the Depth Chart. Then we got lucky and pulled the second clue. And lucky again when we only popped 6x Hellbats, 9x Zombies, and 3x Corpse Piles. The big fears were that we wouldn't get them down before the Darkness escaped the mine, or that the Corpse Piles would spawn more Zombies than we had figures and they'd bump to elites.

Oh, and we had the Grit to skip the first Growing Dread. I'm spacing what it was, but we figured it would result in guaranteed death. The second Growing Dread caused everyone to lose a Grit - which wasn't bad since we'd just spent one each anyway.

We were making good progress. Even held the Darkness back... and then the Nun (who was holding the Lantern) rolled double 3s and caused the Darkness to jump two spots.

Somehow we managed to hold on with the Darkness as 14.

Lots-o-dark-stone was accumulated. And probably a bunch of XP. Though we weren't keeping score there.

Definitely looking forward to starting a campaign at some point.


As for the Rancher, I think I agree. S/he looks good on paper, but so often ends up being useless. We were able to improve the odds because our Rancher was the only one collecting gear and picked up a second rifle (with 2 shots and +1 dam) as well as 2 pistols. That allowed him to make more successful attacks.

I ran with the Outlaw. Definitely digging him.

[hentzau]

Well, crap!

Just discovered that we've been playing our XP/Level gains wrong. The XP listed on the level chart isn't the amount of XP you have to HAVE in order to level up, it's the amount of XP you have to SPEND in order to level up. So from Level 1 to level 2 costs 500, 2-3 is 1500, 3-4 is 2500...that's going to slow things down considerably.

[Zarathud]

Yep, that's how hepcat made us play. Second level was easy, but it took twice as many missions to get close to making third level.

[baelthazar]

Yep, that's how hepcat made us play. Second level was easy, but it took twice as many missions to get close to making third level.

Yeah, this is certainly a way to slow down progression. I knew this rule from the get go, but I wonder if it might be a bit better to play one-off scenarios at a variety of levels. Some classes really open up when you get up that tree.

[hentzau]

We've been enjoying the speed of advancement as is, so we may continue to go with advancement as we've been doing it.

[MonkeyFinger]

So recently I bought Prison Architect on Steam, specifically the "Name in Game" edition. Do I still get the Kickstarter bonus or am I too late?

This isn't a general Kickstarter discussion, so you really should have posted over in the existing Prison Architect discussion. And it wasn't Kickstarted so not really sure what bonus you are asking about... the actual 'name in the game' part? Since it's still in Alpha, I would imagine it's not too late for that.

Sheesh, now that I'm poking around more this morning, you've just joined and posted six times so far but only one of them (the Skyrim post) is actually on topic based on where you decided to randomly stick them. What the heck is up with that?

[hentzau]

So yeah. Now Flying Frog is having a 4th of July weekend sale on components we Kickstarter backers haven't gotten yet. That's special...

(And I know this isn't the thread to bitch about how much FF sucks for not delivering our stuff. But it's the one I grabbed.)

[hepcat]

Apparently they're entertaining the thought of a Gencon pickup for backers. Whether or not that's for all of wave 2, I do not know.

[Chaz]

Wow, that's spectacularly awful. I'm continuing to be real glad I didn't give these guys money for this.