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Good luck Necros! I'll add my pledge to it in a couple days. Looking forward to trying it out.

Any chance getting more information about the adventure mode? Unfortunately the rules preview does not give any information.

Sure .. I didn’t get a chance to add that to the rulebook just yet, in fact I need to update survival model rules too with a few tweaks (not to mention all the pictures and diagrams). So I was going to wait until I did the next rulebook version and then do a big update post about adventures. I was originally planning to do adventure mode as a PDF for like an extra optional way to play, but since it’s only a couple of pages I figured I could fit it into the main book.

First, you need a GM for adventure mode. You can play one of our premade adventures, or make your own from scratch. The game is still objective based like Survival Mode, you one primary objective and then have a number of spawn points equal to the amount of Heroes in the game, usually 4, plus 2 bonus loot tokens go on the board per hero, so usually 8 and the Villain player can place them anywhere except the Hero starting tile. Adventure mode uses all 6 board tiles, rather than 4. The Heroes can start out on any space on one of the board tiles in the corner, and the objective will be on the far opposite corner tile, so there’s a little ways to travel to get it.

If you don’t want to make up your own story, there will be a list of objectives you can roll on. The Heroes might have to recover an ancient evil relic that some unwitting miner dumped off at the Assay office, or get to the jail and kill the guy that just turned into a werewolf before he breaks out of his cage and goes on a rampage.

Instead of drawing encounter cards each turn, the villain player just uses them as stat cards for reference. He builds his beast pack starting with 1 boss monster, and then for the rest of his pack he can add 1 additional boss per hero, or 2 Fiends (normal skinwalkers) per hero, or 4 Minions per hero. He can have up to half of his pack start on the board in the beginning, and then he will have 1 spawn point per hero where he can spawn up to 1D6 reserve beasts per turn. Spawn points are basically holes in the ground where the beasts are crawling out from the caves below.

Combat works the same, except all heroes and beasts roll to hit, and make defense rolls when they’re wounded, rather than beasts automatically dying like in survival mode. Also, beasts don’t add their attacks all together in one big hit, each one can roll to hit for each action they have, same as Heroes. And since they don’t add their attacks together, each everyone basically has a +2 attack power bonus. So you roll to hit, and you need a 4+ to hit anything, like normal. If you only get 1 hit, your power would be 3 (most weapons just have 1 Power, so 1 + 2). Each additional hit you get adds to your power, so if you rolled 3 hits, you’d have a 5. Whatever your power is will be your enemy’s target number they need to get on their defense roll. If they fail, they take a wound.

Your score / Fame is figured at the end of the game, same as was in the video. Common loot is worth 1 point, uncommon 2, rare 3, infamous 4, legendary 5. Each minion you kill is worth 1, Fiends 3 and Bosses 5. Whoever gets the highest score wins, or the Villain player wins if he kills all the heroes In campaign games, your score becomes how much Fame (xp) you earn, and as you gain levels you can add 1 extra point to any one of your attributes. There’s just 5 levels, first is at 25 Fame, then 50, then 100, then 200, then 400. At 400 you become Infamous and you can learn a 2nd profession.

So, it plays a lot like Blackwater Gulch, only adding in loot and mixing in some RPG elements, but played on the board with spaces so you don’t need to measure things

What would a survival or adventure game be without lots bad guys to kill? In Curse of the Skinwalker, your primary villain is going to be a faction of sorts, simply called Beasts. In time, I hope to have several other boxed games based on other factions, with Undead things planned for the next one, and also mixing in lots of other folklore critters along the way too.

We call all bad guys "Villains", and there are 3 types. Minions, Fiends and Bosses.



Minions, like this Chupacabra, are like Villain foot soldiers, or cannon fodder. They are weak, but numerous. In a 1 on 1 fight with a hero, chances are they will be squished pretty easily, but if you aren't careful and allow them to group up around you, you'll be in for a world of hurt. Minion cards have a green border, and most of their stat lines are going to be pretty much the same as what's above. But, each one will have a special ability to set it apart from his minion cousins.



Fiends are a bit tougher than Minions, but still not too difficult 1 on 1. Again, they rely on outnumbering hapless Heroes, and some like this Werewolf with his Pack Hunter ability will be even more formidable in greater numbers. Fiend cards have a yellow border.

(You may notice he's not called a "Skinwalker Wolf" anymore. I decided to just stick to were-whatever for these beasts, just feels more natural that way.)



Lastly, we have the Bosses, denoted by the red border on their cards. Bosses are as tough as Heroes, and they all have two different abilities. For Skinwalkers, they will always have an animal aspect ability, in this case, all Werewolves have the Pack Hunter ability. His second ability, Throat Ripper, will make sure a fallen Hero stays down. Smellin' Salts won't work if your jugular is missing!

Perhaps you would like to know more about the Skinwalker Curse? Here is a page taken from the church's definitive guide on Lycanthropy, by Dr. Samuel D. Manchester III, Esq., Monster Hunter Extraordinaire.



That's all for today! Next time I'll show off some loot, because what would a survival or adventure game be without lots of loot?

I'm happy to announce that this campaign is now EU-Friendly! Sorry we didn't start out that way, but there were some details that had to be worked out first. Good news is EU shipping will be a little cheaper than the rest of the world, pretty much the same as the Canadian price. I've created a new pledge level for EU shipping, even though it's the same price as Canada, just so it won't be confusing. If you're in a EU country, feel free to switch your pledge to the new one I've gotten more than numerous requests for a EU-Friendly option so I'm hoping this will bring in new blood! As usual, go tell your friends about Bad Lands

Next up, I've also gotten a lot of requests for info on more stretch goals. So, I added the goal for the Wererat beast pack, which will also include a bonus Epic Boss added to the core game, the Jersey Devil. Epic Bosses are even tougher than your average alpha skinwalker. The wererat pack will be a $41,000 goal. We basically need $8k for each new beast pack. I've also got plans for lizards (werecroc?) and insects (Mothman?), but I don't have any art for those yet.

Last but not least, I'm also going to start sculpting the Beast miniatures for the eventual Blackwater Gulch beast faction expansion. Just like the gang members, you can also use the beast minis in your Bad Lands games if you want. It will take quite a while to sculpt everything, I'll just be doing 1 or 2 new sculpts at a time and selling them on my site. The first sculpt I'll be doing is the Alpha Werewolf, he's being sculpted by Clint McLean, the fella that made the infamous Sharktipede! Best of all, I will include a free copy of the Alpha Werewolf miniature for all backers who are pledging to receive a copy of the game (basically $55 or more), and I'll also offer him separately too. I'll make a more official announcement about that around the web when I get some screenshots to show off, but I'm not sure when exactly.

Thanks again for all your support!

Reaper is where you want to go for the Werecreatures.

You should seriously get in contact with Reaper miniatures and discuss what they already have running. There would be a real prize to link the cowboy range and were creatures that are already available to the Blackwater game world...

Excellent looking game so far. I want!!!!

Yeah reaper has everything you could ever need you can use almost any minis for bad lands. The board spaces are 1.25". I mad them that big so they would fit 30mm bases good and that gives us 8x8 spaces per tile.

We're gonna be doing our own minis for every beast too though, but they will be under the Blackwater Gulch brand, but both games are compatible. It's just one is a board game and the other is a skirmish game

Here is the first screenshot for the Alpha Werewolf miniature that will be free for all backers getting a copy of the game

So far he’s unposed, and lacking a lot of detail like hair and a tail and other things, but still a great start. I'll post new pics as I get them.



He’s going to be “a head or 2” taller than your average man, but I want to try and still keep him on a 30mm base. Most of the men we have are a bit small for our 30mm bases, so he should still fit good. Once he’s all done, we’ll be tweaking and reposing and shrinking him down to make 2 different normal werewolves too, those will be normal man sized. I love 3D sculpting

I’ve decided to postpone this campaign until mid-March. There were several issues namely with the cost of the game and not having EU-friendly shipping at first was probably the biggest complaint. I’m going to be getting a new printing quote for more copies of the game, printing more will lower the cost and make for a much more affordable game. The funding goal will be higher, but I do think that dropping it to the $40-45 range plus offering the right shipping options and bonus miniature right from the start will be much better than applying band-aid fixes to the current campaign. Then there was also the issue that Game Salute dropped the prices on the BWG miniatures and people were already adding them to their pledges, so I want to have accurate prices for those in the new campaign too.

I have to wait until mid-March to relaunch because the printer is in China, and they just started their New Year so they won’t be back in the office for a few weeks. But this should also work in our favor as several news sites and bloggers have print-n-play versions of the game now and will be posting reviews when the new campaign is ready.

I’ll continue to post news here as I get new things to share

Sorry to hear you cancelled it for now, but hopefully it'll have a bigger launch next time!

That route worked fine for Mechadrome, so hopefully the same happens here! I am still so impressed with the Mechadrome components I received from your last campaign, so I hope this one does really well (even though it's not really my genre, I'll definitely be keeping an eye on it).

I think the next one will go much better I’ll be addressing all of the concerns many people seemed to have. I just wish I didn’t have to wait till March for my new shipping quote, but I have to wait till after the Chinese New Year is done. Why can’t we have 3 weeks off for our new year too? :(

So next time we will be EU friendly from the start, I’ll have a free Werewolf mini included, cheaper BWG minis for add-ons and a cheaper price for the game itself, but we will have a higher funding goal. Hopefully it won’t be too much higher.

Also I decided that rather than doing an add-on pack for the first stretch goal, I’m going to add in a whole extra punchboard sheet to the core game. That can hold 18 new monsters, or even more. So that will add a lot more variety and value. It will end up raising the retail price because of the extra contents, but not the Kickstarter price since that will be set in stone. I’d like to try and add in extra board tiles too, but I have to be careful not to let it get too heavy or shipping costs will spiral out of control.

Anyway I was planning to have the new sheet focus on some other creatures I had planned, more undead stuff like zombies, ghouls and wendigos which will be like native american vampires, not the usual gothicy kind. And other things like the Mothman, tall/slender/dark/shadow men, rakes, yetis, rugaroos, brujahs, etc. I thought it would be better to have a nice variety of villains rather than just all animal things. That will also give players the option of building their own Encounter deck of monsters around a theme if they want, or just mix them all together.

At first I was going to do the undead things as a whole separate boxed game, but I think it will be better to include more and have one big core game, and then maybe do small add-on packs later.

Hey folks

Got some more sculpt screenshots Now we have the Alpha Werewolf with the totem staff, and 2 regular werewolves without weapons. I just asked if we can add in the detail to the staff like we have it on the artwork, and to vary the ripped pants a little so they aren’t all the same. But we’re almost there

Wadaya think?








Also, here’s a wall of text about the new campaign, from my previous update:

I’m still waiting on the final prices from the printer and don’t expect to have them for a couple of weeks, but I do have some guesstimates I can use to prepare for the next campaign. I’m mostly just waiting on the costs for sending a shipment to the UK. What I’m planning on is a new funding goal of $30,000 for the next campaign, but the price of the game will be $45 USD ($60 CAN/EU & $65 ROW). And all pledges $45 or more will get the Alpha Werewolf miniature for free. We’re still looking at mid-march for the relaunch.

I have stretch goals planned that will all add in something new to the core game permanently. The first goal will be to add in an extra punchboard and more encounter cards for a wider variety of villains and will include things like zombies, ghouls, wendigos, witches and more (rather than doing them in a whole separate expansion later on). Then the next goal will be to add in 2 bonus board tiles and some new heroes & loot. The 3rd goal will include a printed “Adventurer’s Guide” book, that will have all of the rules for custom heroes, adventure mode (having a GM control the beasts) and a multi-part campaign. If we don’t hit that goal, the Adventurer’s Guide will still be done as a free PDF and print-on-demand book, the stretch goal is to be able to include the nice printed book in the game box.

For add-on items, we’ll have the Blackwater Gulch miniatures again, but Game Salute has just dropped the prices on them, so they will be much cheaper. Gang sets will be $15, solo hired guns will be $5, and the BWG rulebook $10. I’ll also have separate copies of the Alpha Werewolf plus 2 different standard werewolf minis, and I’ll see if I can get some more sculpts done too, but I’m not sure how much they will cost yet.

I’ll also have Hero Mats done for add-ons as well, they will be a 9.25” x 7.75” custom printed mouse mat for $10, or a pack of 4 for $35. They’re designed for you to lay out your Hero Card and loot and kills to keep things more organized. I wanted to stick to that smaller size so they can fit inside the 10x10” game box for easy storage without folding or rolling them up.

So that’s where I’m at now. I’m waiting on pics of the final werewolf sculpts, and new art for the Wendigo, Rake and Zombies so I’ll share that as soon as it comes in

edit: Hmm, looks like Kickstarter won't let you link their images anymore :(

Today I got the concept sketches for the Rake creature and the Wendigo. Both of these will be undead, rather than Beasts.

The rake is a more modern myth (like the Montock also, which is based on the Montauk Monster), but I wanted to include it because it's so creepy. He'll be a mid-level Fiend. There will be lots of different Wendigos, this first one is more of a Native American, but there will be cowboy and girl wendigos too. In Bad Lands, they are basically vampires.. but much more savage and brutal than your usual vamps, and they definitely don't sparkle.

I'm also making progress updating all of the cards to the new look. I should have them done in the next few days, then I'll send them off to get printed so I can take some new photos. I might try and redo the how to play video too.

Lastly, it looks like there are a lot of big companies planning campaigns in March. I'm a little worried that they will draw a lot of attention and backer dollars, and it might make things harder for us. I haven't decided yet, but I may wait and reboot more around early April now. That will also give me more time to get more done so the game will look even better. But we'll see how it goes.

Here's the new art! First, the Rake:



And here's the Wendigo



Here's an update for the card pics, the cards I showed last time were just mockups, this is more of the final version. Also, for the Chupacabra encounter card, the little wolf icon at the top shows it's a Beast. Undead will have a little skull over there, demons will have a little devily head, etc. It's so you can tell which race they are, because some Heroes or special weapons give you bonuses against them.



That's all for now.. back to work!

Still waiting to get my new printed cards so I can make my new how to play videos. (I’m impatient)

Wanted to share this new Zombie pic. He’ll be combined with the Wendigo and Rake from before and I’ll use them to tease the Undead stretch goal in the next campaign.



I’m still putting together my thoughts on how the undead faction will be made up, for both Bad Lands and Blackwater Gulch. Humans are pretty diverse with all of the different professions, and Beasts are too with all of the different animal aspects that give different bonuses. For undead, I’m thinking of having 4 different types of villains making up the faction, each one with 3 unique levels of toughness, same as the beasts.

So we’ll have Zombies, Ghouls and Revenants. Then Cannibals, Wendigos and Ancient Wendigos. For witches we’ll have Cultists, Brujahs and Posessed. The 4th will be Creeps, and this is where all the creepy things will go. Rakes, Slenderman, Mothman, demons and other things like that. The highest level types will all be unique named characters.

I’m planning on having 2 different Encounter decks if we make it to that stretch goal, 1 for beasts and 1 for undead. Each pre-made scenario will say what villains you are fighting so you know what deck to use. If you make your own you can pick the deck you want, or mix them all together. You can also tailor your deck to a specific storyline too if you want, rather than making it completely random.

You’ll have to build your Encounter deck for each game. You pick a final boss monster for your story and set that aside, then you draw 5 cards for each Hero (usually a total of 20 cards with 4 heroes), shuffle em, and stick the final boss at the bottom. I’ve also decided to change the way they spawn, where you roll 1D6 to see how many cards you draw each turn to make the encounters a little more random, but instead of letting you choose where they spawn, they will always spawn at the objective closest to the Hero that won initiative.

So that’s where I’m at now. Hoping to get some final sculpt pics for the werewolves soon so I’ll share them when I get em