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I got my set , was there supposed to be a dragon in the base pledge, Because if so then I am missing that. I didn't get any expansions, just the $100 pledge. Lots of gluing to bases and bending needed, but nothing glaring that is broken. They put so much effort into the stupid box, but then not everything fits inside of it . Even the big sheet for the Dungeon master is too large to fit inside and mine is bent on the edge from poor packing. Oh well, at least it is here. THe skeleton archers are great from what I saw. I like the dwarf and dog figure too. Valandor looks like a gw/mcdonalds toy, such soft detail.

You needed to add the Tyrant of Halpi expansion for the Dragon.

I'm currently trying to work out the best way to organise all of my stuff - I'd like to keep the expansions separate and the cards nicely organised, too.

The base game looks after itself, but three (or is it four, maybe five?) expansions get a bit complicated.

I know that Mantic are reopening the pledge manager so we can buy extra book-boxes, so that should work, but I'm wondering what to do with the cards. Is it a good idea to keep all the expansion cards separate, or merge them all? One idea that I came up with was to buy a bunch of plastic card deck boxes (30-40p each) and have every type of card separate for each expansion.

I think everything can be mixed together, except the "Overlord" decks. - They need to be kept apart.

However, I also think they're labelled separately (EG Orc overlord).

Or at least, that's how I did it.

Good to see some American backers getting their packages! You guys have been waiting a while now.

Supposedly chewing through the carton BS now. Fingers crossed. Enthusiasm flagging though lol.

 Compel wrote:
I think everything can be mixed together, except the "Overlord" decks. - They need to be kept apart.

However, I also think they're labelled separately (EG Orc overlord).

Or at least, that's how I did it.

Ah ha. Thanks!

I wasn't too sure how the cards worked out - I haven't actually opened them yet, too scared because of the insane quantity of them!

 Chillreaper wrote:
I'm currently trying to work out the best way to organise all of my stuff - I'd like to keep the expansions separate and the cards nicely organised, too.

The base game looks after itself, but three (or is it four, maybe five?) expansions get a bit complicated.

I know that Mantic are reopening the pledge manager so we can buy extra book-boxes, so that should work, but I'm wondering what to do with the cards. Is it a good idea to keep all the expansion cards separate, or merge them all? One idea that I came up with was to buy a bunch of plastic card deck boxes (30-40p each) and have every type of card separate for each expansion.

Thanks for mentioning that about the pledge manager. since I was a later backer I don't get the E-mails/updates. I'm not sure about getting another box, but I would like a real copy of the rules not the misprinted ones.

No kidding...

I hope they let us pick up other stuff so I can get five or six more of those excellent dice bags. I wouldn't live long enough to enjoy them though, due to acute sarcasm poisoning.

So, most recent update says that Carton A should be on it's way to people now and Carton B is next but is likely to not make it to everyone by December 7th, and more likely to be December 11th, so Mantic ask people not to hassle them until then. (For American backers who don't have access to kickstarter updates.

Few months late by now, for sure.

Got my package today. I only got a few resin models and a pair of Ba'el', but I'm not really all too impressed with the models.

Got the Legendary wizard, and the staff is so thin it's almost able to move freely. I'm nervous about cleaning up the flash and snapping the resin.

The paladin's casting quality isn't that great either. The way they designed the shield to connect is baffling.

And of the 2 Ba'els I ordered, one looks to have been assembled quickly, leaving a number of gaps in the seams. Really would have preferred to have been able to assemble the models myself.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:

Your narrative about the evil/indifferent Chinese seems to omit more than a few poor decisions made by Rackham, but hey - you're welcome to believe what you like.

I will, because it makes sense. You highlighted Rackham alone out of the several companies I mentioned which show a recurring pattern.

I highlighted it because I'm reasonably familiar with the fall of Rackham, and it's a good example of you being wrong.

Keeping positive is its own reward, this project is hardly a turkey, or a bad deal. Beyond a very bad personal experience wih the delivery, which can happen, I cant see mush to complain about frankly.

Can't see much? gak, you're a perfect corporate customer. Because you seem to forget that people pay money for these things and tend to expect that the quality or design of the things that they paid for would match or at least be a very close approximation to what was promised.

It is.
Mantic even offered you premium quality seperatly via exclusive resin miniatures. They were also up front about Dungeon Saga being made of single piece boardgames quality plastic.

We know how well Mantic's offerings of premium quality exclusive resin miniatures worked out in their following campaign, don't we? Still, I digress since we have yet another case of you either misunderstanding what I'm complaining about, or being wilfully ignorant. I'm not especially complaining about the miniatures. It'd be nice if they weren't broken, were packed properly and weren't about 50% warped, but those are not the basis for my complaints and yet again you seem to be trying to put words into my mouth or strawman my argument.

The miniatures would be fine if they weren't damaged and warped due to poor quality control. The KS brown paper box packaging is a joke, but they never explicitly promised anything better, so I can let that past as well. Still, there's this:
http://twilight40k.blogspot.com.au/2015/11/dungeon-sagas-missing-missions.html

 Azazelx wrote:

It's fine that you place little to no value on your money or the time that it takes to earn it, but I value my own a bit higher, it seems.

And you are wrong to do so. They never offered you premium plastic models in the boxsets, as boardgame quality sculps they are well above average for the most part. Superior to the sculpts for Descent at least.
You have the entirely unrealistic expectation of what you are getting, perhaps you should have read the Kickstarter description when you backed it.
When you add to that the quality of sculpts available for the premium resin miniatures, which were provides as an optional extra you have only yourself to blame. Exemplary sculpts of most pieces were provided for you. Not all I must admit but you cant crucify Mantic for that.

Once again you attempt to focus on the miniatures, and not what I actually care about much more and am complaining about. See, I have plenty of miniatures already - though more nice miniatures are always nice, they're not the focus for me in this game. If you look through the KS thread, you'll see that in there I make the distinction to others more than once that we're talking about boardgame plastic game models, not "miniatures" and so people's expectation of both quality - and especially value - needed to be tempered. This was mostly in response to people SQUEEEEEing about how many "miniatures" you get in the KS deal. So if you're going to continue trying to argue with me over the disappointing quality of this KS, please remember that while the quality of the supplied figures is disappointingly poor, this is due to warpage and needless breakages. The sculpts are just fine, except that the orcs seem to have little relation to any of Mantic's other Orcs. But that's a sculptor/lack of art direction issue. And I have plenty of superior GW orcs to replace them anyway. I'm not happy that my models are warped and broken, but I trust I'll eventually get replacements for the worst of those that can't be fixed with boiling water. That lack of QC will hurt them more at retail with the BG or even toy store crowd than it will me.

My main reasons for backing were for the non-miniature components: the game itself, the campaign system (including the hardcover compendium that was to have everything in one place), and the other ancillary items. Sadly, these are the areas where they have skimped majorly while seemingly not giving too many feths. I'm glad I also have no interest in printed fiction, since that's an area that Mantic manage to fail on time and time again. Protip: Stop promising novels!

And please don't ever try to tell people that they are "wrong" to have high standards. You're most welcome to live your life with low standards and low expectations, but don't try to project your own low expectations onto others. Realistic expectations are best, but I'll grant that you appear to be labouring under the misunderstanding that my posts are an endless series of complaints about the model quality. Either that or you're attempting to stawman everything I say, but at this point I'll consider it an honest mistake/misunderstanding.

 Azazelx wrote:

Your little snipe about broken glasses is telling, since you appear to be the kind of guy who will take any old gak you're given and thank them for it. People who get pissed off and vocally angry about things that aren't up to scratch are the ones who actually force change and backpedalling when companies decide to feth over their customers.

^ Please dont throw the rattles out of the pram ^

With minor exception what you got it what Mantic promised. If it sucks now in your opinion then it sucked during the pledge funding and its your fault for backing a project that was clearly from the description given not worth buying. If you are upset over the exceptions to this like the hardback book then take a chill, Mantic didn't provide 100%, who does?

Nice ad hominem. Actually, it's a weak one, but hey. I beg to differ on "minor exception", but as I said, it's telling that you have such low personal standards.
CMoN are pretty much on track with this at this point. Have you backed any of their recent campaigns and gone anywhere near "all in" on extras? They do a tremendous job with it all lately. Soda Pop's SDE FK campaign seemed not to have any issues, and I got most of that. It might be a personal difference between you and I, but I don't look at poor performers and rate my own targets on simply being slightly better than those. Since you now want to talk about other campaigns rather than holding this one in isolation, please do take the time to have a look at how well Dead Zone :Contagion is going.

You are entirely as an artistic opinion not to like Dungeon Saga, it is entirely subjective whether a models is awesome or sucks. I for one don't like the barbarians axe, the horned skull at the back just seems to get in the way and look ridiculous. Someone else might think its awesome. However what you are doing is flatly denying that Mantc have delivered what they promised i the KS to deliver. The fact is by and large they have, there are exceptions, resin counters, acrylic counters and the hardback book especially, but they are a small percentage of the project. For the vast majority of items we get a clear reresentation of what Mantic promised in their text and showed in their images when the Kickstarter was active.

Again with the models.
My complaints are not aesthetic. Well, Mantic badly need an Art Director, and the dragon looks like a child's toy, but I have enough dragons that I can safely give the DS one away tomorrow and use the better one from <insert any one of the better dragons here> without too much worry at all. Even the trolls look roughly 1000x better than the garbage they supplied with the 1st KoW KS. Too bad they alienated their best sculptor so badly.

From what I understand, Mantic did a reasonable job with the core box. Unfortunately, pretty much everything else appears to be cocked up to some degree and their response (even after the update) is poor and remains inaccurate.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Theophony wrote:
Valandor looks like a gw/mcdonalds toy, such soft detail.

I'll be giving away the seriously sub-par models and proxying them with better ones. Valandor looks like he wants to be replaced by a suitably heroic Sigmarine!

 Azazelx wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:

Your narrative about the evil/indifferent Chinese seems to omit more than a few poor decisions made by Rackham, but hey - you're welcome to believe what you like.

I will, because it makes sense. You highlighted Rackham alone out of the several companies I mentioned which show a recurring pattern.

I highlighted it because I'm reasonably familiar with the fall of Rackham, and it's a good example of you being wrong..

So reasonably familiar you wont actually post anything on it. Just declare me wrong by right of wave of hand.

Meanwhile gave explanation that the AT-43 lines and Confrontation lines had critical supply shortfalls due to late production and more critically unavailability of core parts.
A good example of this was UNA Steel Infantry attachments, which are as critical to availability as the space marine devastator, yet simply not available for sale anywhere because the suppliers couldn't get around to batching more.

ackham had other problems, this is true, but they were surmountable. They did however have a reasonable product with growing popularity, just not the availability.

 Azazelx wrote:

Keeping positive is its own reward, this project is hardly a turkey, or a bad deal. Beyond a very bad personal experience wih the delivery, which can happen, I cant see mush to complain about frankly

We know how well Mantic's offerings of premium quality exclusive resin miniatures worked out in their following campaign, don't we? Still, I digress since we have yet another case of you either misunderstanding what I'm complaining about, or being wilfully ignorant.

Those who react with anger for others failing to match their jaded viewpoint on a very well received product have no position to call others ignorant.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Azazelx wrote:

......Once again you attempt to focus on the miniatures, and not what I actually care about much more and am complaining about. See, I have plenty of miniatures already - though more nice miniatures are always nice, they're not the focus for me in this game.

.......but I'll grant that you appear to be labouring under the misunderstanding that my posts are an endless series of complaints about the model quality. Either that or you're attempting to stawman everything I say, but at this point I'll consider it an honest mistake/misunderstanding.

It was how we started this disagreement
Well I can only go by what I read from you as to what you are saying:

 Azazelx wrote:

At this point I only have the extras, and they are a pretty big disappointment so far. Including the minis, as I have a good number of them either mangled or broken, and more than half at minimum are warped. Nice sculpts on poor quality figures, and that's with the "boardgame figures, not miniatures" caveat. Or perhaps they would be decent but corners were clearly cut/QA was poor. Also not counting my missing stuff, because that's par for the course with Mantic.

If Azazelx is un unreliable source for information as to the opinions of Azazelx then what is?

*shrugs* I'm inclined to agree with Azazelx (apart from on the quality of models, having not received my pledge yet I have no basis for comparison).

Won't be backing any more Mantic KSers.

If I were making a miniature wargame from the DS minis and wanted them arrayed on a tabletop, make a really good job of painting and basing them etc. I'm not sure they would be acceptable. But, for a boardgame I think they are fine, and actually better than a lot of the stuff I have for other games. Probably about 20% of mine were warped in some way, just got a bowl of very hot water and 15 minutes later job done. A few of them needed a dab of super glue to keep the foot down but that was it.

As for the game itself got to play for the first time last night. First impressions are that it's very fast to play (even while learning to play which is definitely a bonus, you could even get some games in on a 'school night'). But, after playing the first 4 missions or so it seems much easier for the side of the heroes. I admit I was a little dubious about Orlanth's comments above saying the Necromancer player should go full out/no holds-barred (I've played loads of D&D style games where you have to pull your punches a bit) but now see he was completely right about that. The dwarf and barbarian seem to waltz through armoured zombies and revenants with ease, and even the zombie troll (which the mission guide makes a fuss of when it appears for the first time) was one-shotted by the elf's multi-shot ability in a single turn.

Now need to play some more games to work out if it were my gakky (vs. very strong) dice rolling that made the game seem a bit easy for the heroes. It's definitely fun and we have booked some continued playing, and I might now have a look at getting the adventurers book for the campaign style play.

I think that you are right, in so much that the heroes can in many ways wade through the opposition, but in most scenarios they are against the clock. So as the overlord you are generally not looking to make kills, but simply delay them or get them to lose focus on the objectives.

Often , if the dwarf or barbarian gets carried away, swinging down the dungeon you can exploit it by focusing on the wizard or elf

Neverthless, so far it is fair to say in our gamesthe heroes are slightly on top, but it may be as you say the tendency from D&D to try and be helpful rather than outright nasty that is doing it

The game has two stages.

First when the heroes try all the different things they can do, liie stand on bone markers etc.

Second when they realise to win they must ignore all that and rush the objectives.

Winning as Overlord prior to the epiphany is easy, afterwards it is more difficult.

1. Wound the elf. As the ranged unit robbing Madriga of an attack dice is very useful as she wont have enough bite left to do much. She is also an easy target.

2. Stalk the wizard. Your easiest chance of a kill-win is to gank him. You dont need to succeed, you only need to positon yourself to do so to get the warrriors to have to make where you want them to and not the other way around.

3. Delay the Break Ward spell. Oftimes this is needed to win, make the wizard run a gauntlet of attacks of opportunity and this becomes more difficult. Anyone can smash a lock, only Danor can dispel a magical lock.

4. Block the warriors. Dont waste your time trying to kill the barbarian or dwarf, though if you get lucky you could threaten either so they have to hold back. Rushing a fighter and attacking is fine, but you do just as well if you ove close enough the warrior must go around or get bogged down.
It is a worthwhile use of a skellie to make Orlaf only move one space and attack as his whole turn, You might also get the skellie back.

I've got to admit, ever since I've played the demo game at the games expo, the main thing I'm worried about is actually the other way round.

It seems entirely possible for the game to be unwinnable by the heroes against a skilled overlord, pretty much no matter how often you play.

 Orlanth wrote:

Winning as Overlord prior to the epiphany is easy, afterwards it is more difficult.

In that case I am most certainly in trouble!

I've just realised actually that I was accidentally playing armoured zombies as skeletons (didn't realise they were a separate entry). I'm sure that made a bit of a difference.

Also, need to read through the magic and magic items rules as the wizard seemed to just be spamming crystals and using quite a few spells each turn (need to make sure I've got a grasp on those rules).

He can cast two little spells on one big one. Crystalise is a little spell. To spam it he casts it and one other.

Generally speaking Break Ward comes first whenever needed, and crystalise while doing so. Once you have a crystal use it to boost a burn spell which is used every other turn. The longer range Firebolt is almost worthless unless you add a crystal to it. This you can do on the same turn but the odds are not too good unless you have a powerful crystal.

There is enough in the ruleset to make Danor interesting and tactical to play.

Ok the extra missions are coming via digital gamebooks always were digital the sculpts aren't that's bad game can be winnable with a skilled overlord as long as the players, that's like any game. The biggest cockup was the adventurers companion but game is playable and those who didn't get mats, yer fair dues that was bit of a mistake by mantic but I understand what they were trying to do by synching characters to expansions, they should of done that retail not ks but otherwise been gravy for my group

Overlord definitely has a huge advantage the first time through, and new players take things very slowly. The time limit *always* gets hit.

I ran demos yesterday and decided to scrap the time limit and only allow myself victory via crippling a hero.

The time limit via overlord deck is one of the aspects of the game I'm not as much of a fan of, would prefer it if the time limit was determined by other factors, such as an increasing amount of reinforcements, like Space Hulk where if you try to camp out you will get overwhelmed.

I deliberately removed the time limit for the Blaine missions and one of the Keldan ones. The other one I kept it in because it fitted the story.

Yer where it's relevant to the story time limit is fine, but I have found it's easier to scrap it specially when mission doesn't need it

It wouldn't be hard to work in a "time limit" based on ever increasing minions if you have the models - it's a cool idea for a quest, actually!

Was reading the "build your own dungeon 'rules' " while waiting for a burger today.

Pretty bad. I've seen better blog posts on dungeon design available for free online.

When I've played enough games I'm going to have a crack at writing my own guidelines.

Heroes could buy extra turns by 'mocking fate' and calling on the evil Overlord to do his worst.

Every time the heroes do this the Overlord draws two cards either from the unused cards or the discard pile, placing one into his hand and the other shuffled into the Overlord deck.
The Overlord player also gets 1d6 reinforcement points. After the Overlord has enough stored dice he may roll them and buy reinforcements in level equal to the total (it would pay to save up for a Moloch or troll). The Overlord player must spend all the reinorcement points, losing any excess, but need not roll all the reinforcement dice he has saved.

The heroes may mock fate as often as they like so long as there are cards to stack. Mocking fate takes up a heroes whole turn, like popping a feat does.

I have found rather than completely axing the time limit, the card mechanism is handy to help out new players - add a few cards as needed.

Helps get them into the game a little easier and then you can up the ante.

Warlord of Galahir doesnt use a timelimit, it uses reinforcements instead. Just in case anyone wants to see some alternate options.

Got my stuff today. Too tired to really check it out top to bottom. Initial responses:
Hooboy, a lot of models to work through, yay. It's a good thing... I'm just a bit inundated with minis atm
The bases look cool, now to remove them (where necessary) so I can use clear acrylics like always.
Valandor really isn't giving me the same mcdonalds toy vibe other people seem to be getting. I mean, even happy meal toys come with straight weapons! Ba dum pish.
But really, Valandor, Be...demon guy... both look fine to me. Not super amazing, but not bad. I think Val will be reasonably fun to paint because he's reasonably simple but there's still some filigree on the armor I can work with, just as soon as I get him a spear shaft replacement.
Demon dude is a bit i dunno if it's shallow or simple.. but it's not bad. He doesn't look like an end boss of an epic level dungeon, but he would be pretty terrifying in your lower levels imo. I'm alright with him.
Dragon looks fine. I think if you could take the sculpt and stretch it out into a normal walking/sitting dragon pose he would look better proportioned. It's just that he's got his back half in a squat/sit/walk and his front half is reared up as far as possible while he puffs out his chest and strikes a pose. Maybe he's breathing in to spit fire or something. I like him just fine, he's especially good at fitting into that smaller footprint.

The book boxes are awesome, I don't care if everything ends up fitting into them at the end or not... they're gonna look sweet on the shelf.

I need to quality check and do a headcount but so far so good. Which book is it that has problems, the dungeon journal or adventurers companion? The companion had the corrections sheet in it so I guess that?

The art and layout of the books seems sweet though. Way more than just over a white background, really fitting for the fantasy theme.

Looking forward to digging into this when i've got a bit more time.

Got my stuff too.

Somehow had a couple of tiles missing from the frames, even though they were (badly) shrink wrapped.

Overall the stuff looks fine though. Just got a few repairs and reposing to do.