Barzam wrote:

 Hanskrampf wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Super curious that Steamforged isn't doing that one...

Seeing how much Steamforged cashed in for Dark Souls, I think Sony might have upped the licence fees. That and Steamforged is nowhere near completion 2 years after the promised delivery date for Dark Souls and simply won't have the manpower to take on another big project for the next 2 years.

What are you talking about? They just completed Resident Evil 2, AND got it deliveredas planned around the same time the remake of the video game hit shelves. That wasn't exactly a small project and what delays they did have were pretty minor.

Not sure how I feel about CMON announcing Bloodborne. They already have multiple Kickstarters than need to be fulfilled with several more planned to launch soon. Them pretty much dumping all of their own IPs makes on top of that makes me kind of wary of sending more money their way.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:


wonder if this means they've decided to carry on as an online seller or whether this will transition into no more webstore except for their own stuff

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
I do too, although I don't have a huge amount of hope for WoK as whoever was pushing that within CMON doesn't seem to be around any more

Dark Age probably has a better chance as the people who push it are still there (and might just decide to go off on their own if given a chance to take the IP with them)

 Alpharius wrote:


CMON isn't doing too well, and they've really decided to double down/go all in with Kickstarters now - outside of maybe only SOIAF?

Only time will tell if this is a wise decision, but it isn't like they tried or cared about their actual tabletop wargaming properties for a while now.

Gallahad wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:


CMON isn't doing too well, and they've really decided to double down/go all in with Kickstarters now - outside of maybe only SOIAF?

Only time will tell if this is a wise decision, but it isn't like they tried or cared about their actual tabletop wargaming properties for a while now.

Alpharius, I'm surprised to hear you say that CMON isn't doing well. From my perspective, they are really the one company thriving under the new age of Kickstarter. They can dredge up a million plus dollars pretty regularly on KS.

What makes you say that CMON isn't doing well? You seem to know more about coming and goings there than the average consumer. Just curious what I don't know/see.

Sacredroach wrote:CMONs financials for last year were terrible. ASoiF license cost them dearly, and the HK market responded accordingly. I don’t think they finished out 2018 in the black. All of that is public under their financial section on their corporate web site.

Will they sink? No, too many streams of revenue. Do they need to find out what kind of a company they actually are? Most definitely.

Selling dark age to someone that gives a damn would probably be a good start towards generating revenue and reducing non-ks gaming obligations. As for WoK, I would love to see more expansions, but I think that it might be finished.

DaveC wrote:Yep they reported a loss of $4.1 million for the 9 months to September 2018 from a profit of just over $1 million the previous year

http://www.tabletopwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/cmon-report.pdf

Kickstarter accounts for 59% of their income 35% is wholesale sales and the balance is their online store (3%) and conventions so the online store isn't really adding much to their business. Kickstarter didn't perform as well as expected in the period. Their long term goal is to focus on the Chinese market so expect anything that doesn't fit that market to be dropped.

 DaveC wrote:
I had a further look this morning as I wanted to see how 2018 ended. CMON actually turned things around in the 4th quarter of 2018 largely due to KS income and will record a profit for the year.

https://cmon-files.s3.amazonaws.com/pdf/cmon_file/file/323/e_08724_AD_1___CMON__ESS.pdf

I’ll be interested to see the financials (due this month) as the 2 KS in Q4 wouldn’t overcome a $4.1 million deficit by themselves.

 Hulksmash wrote:
Wrath of Kings......

Whenever the Warrior’s Sons have been tested and found worthy (i.e. – pass a Morale Test), their commander may add a Faith Token to the unit. Faith Tokens can then be spent as a temporary boost to their own Attacks, gaining a bonus to Hit and the armor-cleaving Sundering ability. Alternatively, their Faith can also offer an enhanced Defense against the Attacks from their enemies, whether from swords, axes, or arrows, adding +1 to all of their Defense Save rolls from the impending attack! Whether their Faith is guiding their sword arms or helping them ignore otherwise crippling wounds, it is perhaps their mightiest aspect.

Occasionally leading the Warrior’s Sons (or other allied infantry) into battle is their veteran Champion of the Faith unit Attachment. A seasoned fighter that has the perfect parable or battle cry to pour steel into the veins of his fellows, the Champion turns a moment’s possible weakness into raw, zealous tenacity. When the unit passes one of its Morale Tests, the Champion of the Faith can Order them to Stand Resolute, forcing all enemies in contact with them to become Vulnerable. A Champion of Faith can, with the right words, turn something as terrible as being completely surrounded into a way to prove his unit’s faith in their blessings from the Seven.

The Warrior’s Sons are a powerful unit to add to a House Lannister force that is ready to pay the point cost for such mighty heroes of the faith, with or without their Champion. When combined with some of the other House Lannister units, Attachments, and tactical assets, these shining examples of what the Seven can do for the people of Westeros can be all that is standing between a crushing defeat and a joyous victory. Now is the time to bend the knee to the heavens, shine your seven-pointed-star, and ask the Warrior to keep your blades sharp, your aim true, and your plate mail unyielding.

The Warrior’s Sons unit box will be available March 28.

BLOODBORNE DESIGN DIARY (PART 2)

Design Diary (Part 2): Cards, Combat, and Deckbuilding

A key component of the Bloodborne video game is how you manage your stats. They determine which weapons you can use, how powerful said weapons will be, and manage your Hit Points, Stamina, and… Bloodtinge (don’t worry, if you don’t know that last one, it’s fine). When leveling up, it’s a careful balancing act of choosing between dealing more damage and upping your overall survivability.

This degree of customization and progression, of course, had to make it into Bloodborne: The Board Game.

Before we eventually settled on the deckbuilding aspect, we tested many different variations of utilizing cards as your overall resource. Versions where you had a set hand of actions (effectively becoming a Hand-Building versions), an Action Board sort of system, and probably more that I can’t even remember at this time. Eventually, however, we decided on utilizing deckbuilding as a means for players to progress their Hunter over the course of the campaign.

Rather than delve into the nuts and bolts of how we got to this point, I figured today I’d give a run-down of exactly how this system works, so let’s get right into it!

When you start a Campaign, each Hunter will begin with the same generic deck of Stat Cards: Twelve cards spread across four stats: Strength, Vitality, Skill, and Endurance- stats taken directly from the video game. There are a couple others that players could technically build (Arcane, Bloodtinge) but they function more as secondary stats than anything else (listen, Bowblade fanatics, I’m sorry, but can’t fit everything!)

Vitality is a Hunter’s ability to mitigate damage/their overall health. Strength is raw damage. Skill manipulates how quickly you can attack (and some other various damaging effects). Endurance reflects how many raw actions you can perform before needing to recover. That’s a very simplified rundown of the Stats, but should give you the general idea of each of them.

Now, as mentioned in the beginning, your cards are basically the resource you’re going to be expending to do pretty much everything in the game. It would be an entire article just talking about that, so I want to focus in specifically on how they’re used in combat:

Bloodborne Design Diary (Part 2)


Each Hunter has a specific Trick Weapon (a melee weapon that can transform between two different forms). This is the most important aspect of each Hunter’s kit, as it determines their overall play-style and “feel.” Each weapon form has its own unique attacks, featuring variable damage, speed, and an ability unique to that form. When you make an attack, you’ll place a Stat Card from your hand onto one of the attack slots of that weapon, modifying it in some way. For example, Ludwig’s Holy Greatsword has a high-damaging, but slow, attack.

To use the attack, you must select a Stat Card from your hand and play it into that attack slot, but that Stat Card will grant the attack some additional benefit. Say you just want to deal more raw damage. You’ll obviously play a Strength Card down. But say you’re going against an enemy that also has a slow high-damage attack. Odds are that theirs is much scarier than yours, so you might utilize a Skill Card, upping the speed of your attack so you strike them first (hopefully killing them before they get a chance to make you dead!). Or, as a final example, you might decide you need to use an Endurance Card, which allows you to immediately clear the attack slot once you complete the attack. Oh, did I not mention that? Yeah, you can’t re-use an attack slot if it’s been used until you clear it (which we’ll cover another time).

So that’s the basics of combat: Choose an attack, play a Stat Card down (modifying the attack in some way), and go slay some enemies… Hopefully, anyway.

In your initial deck, you’re going to have 3 copies of each of the basic Skill Cards, same as the rest of your hunting companions. At this stage, your weapon(s) will be the main difference between you. Of course, that alone is already going to create a large amount of diversity, as a hunter utilizing the Threaded Cane/Serrated Whip is going to have a drastically different move-set than one playing with the Hunter’s Axe.

That’s not all, however. As you slay enemies, you’ll acquire Blood Echoes. Upon returning to the Hunter’s Dream, you can spend these Blood Echoes to purchase Upgrade Cards. These are enhanced versions of your basic Stat Cards that replace cards in your deck (so, yes, your deck will always be 12 cards). Something to remember though is that you do not have to replace cards type-for-type. This means that if your weapon and/or play-style doesn’t suit, say, Vitality Cards (you’re just not into healing/blocking damage), you can begin replacing those with something more to your liking, like Strength Cards for more raw killing power.

It’s in this way that, even if you were to play the same Hunter across multiple campaigns, you could choose to spec into different stat-builds and your experience would drastically change.

Let’s look into another example, going back to the previously mentioned Ludwig’s Holy Greatsword Hunter. Base-line, the weapon features a number of slow, damage dealing attacks. You could begin spec’ing into Skill cards, which up the overall speed at which you swing your weapon. Suddenly, your attacks are coming in much faster, while still dealing a good amount of damage. Next campaign, you could invest in Vitality cards, meaning while you am hitting the enemy rather slowly, you am going to be healing based on the damage you deal (Rally Mechanics!). The natural damage of the weapon means you’ll heal that much more.

Those are just some quick examples of potential builds. Beyond that, you’ll also need to decide if you want to heavily invest into one specific Stat, or perhaps spread across a few to give yourself some greater access to combos and a more balanced playstyle (Maybe you take advantage of that sweet, sweet 2x Stat Card slot… Vitality + Skill? Vitality + Strength? Double Skill??).

Well, we could theory-craft an entire article on just utilizing the Greatsword… And we still wouldn’t have even covered the fact that it has an entire other form to factor in as well! But this should give you a good primer into just some of the elements that set the Bloodborne Boardgame apart from any other out there.

Now get out there and hunt. It’s just what hunters do, after all…

By Michael Shinall

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
That Hunter looks nice. I'm really curious as to what bosses end up being included!

I too though would like official word on both Dark Age and Wrath of Kings, even if it's just to kill them off.

Wasn't there a Brood book due out that never materialized? And the models that were supposed to go with it?

The distribution deal will go into effect as soon as the operational transition is completed this spring. CMON will continue to design and create games, and run their own Kickstarter campaigns, Asmodee NA will take over customer service support for non/ post Kickstarter related issues.