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 hotsauceman1 wrote:
So, the whole point of The Last of Us is its character and story driven. There is nothing interesing about the world to explore it in different ways.ITs a generic zombie set up with a twist on how zombies where made.
Why a board game? Its not like im gonna gonna hear Ellie make quips or anything during the game.

Well they could do with apps? I think some games use mobile link ups - not for me but heard its a thing?

> each player will take control of a faction of survivors who are in competition for ressources / want to kill each other

Thanks for the post. Only know the video game by name. Of course, factions were in Z1 under Angry Neighbors, and Last could be a way for them to reintroduce these rules in Z2.

CMON seems to have a number of pet projects (eg. HATE), so that could also be a reason. They released Night of the Living Dead, and I guess you could make the same arguments against Night that you could Last, although Night was a classic.

If they were going to do ANOTHER zombie game, couldn’t they get it based off of something like Kingdom? (zombie apocalypse in feudal Asia). At least we could get some different designs then.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

Why a board game? Its not like im gonna gonna hear Ellie make quips or anything during the game.

To appeal to the video game fans, I'd say. It's like Dark Souls : taking the license to gather as many backers as they can for a load of money.

The world of Last of Us is nothing really special from other apocalyptic worlds full of zombies. Fact that the zombies are infected with a mushroom parasite is actually treated like any other "zombies turn livings into zombies by bites / injuries" mechanism. Sometimes they use spore clusters as dangerous environmental as well, but it just means you have to wear a gas mask or avoid the place so that you don't get infected. Ellie is immune to this and that's the point of the first game - she's targeted by an organization who hopes to make a cure by dissecting her (the second is just a revenge story), but I can't really see a boardgame focusing on this unless it's for solo or it just wants to tell the same story but with a boardgame. I mean, there's only one Ellie for the players to play, unless CMON makes a really surprising move.

I'm not really holding my breath for this project, to say the least.

SCOOBY-DOO, LOONEY TUNES, AND TEEN TITANS GO! SET FOR MULTI-GAME KICKSTARTER

Nov 12, 2020
Some of the most iconic characters of all time will soon be hitting your tabletops. After the wild ride of 2019’s Wacky Races: The Board Game, CMON is teaming up with Warner Bros. once more to bring you the CMON PRESENTS: THE ANIMATION COLLECTION Kickstarter campaign! The campaign will debut three all new fast-paced, family-friendly games: Looney Tunes Mayhem, Scooby-Doo: The Board Game, and DC’s Teen Titans GO! Mayhem! Each game features incredible, highly detailed full-color painted miniatures.

Looney Tunes Mayhem puts players in the role of classic characters such as Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck, and the Tasmanian Devil as they bash, bop, and drop anvils on one-another, looking to knock out the other players using CMON’s new Mayhem System rules set. In Teen Titans GO! Mayhem, play as characters like Raven, Robin, Cyborg, and Starfire competing with each other over things like the last slice of pizza, the best spot on the couch, and being the one to bring down the villain. The game uses the same underlying Mayhem rules set, modified to fit the Teen Titans Go! setting. Meanwhile, in the previously announced Scooby-Doo: The Board Game, players become the Mystery Inc. Gang as they attempt to trap and capture the monster that’s terrorizing the town before everyone gets scared away. Jinkies!

Scooby-Doo, Looney Tunes, and Teen Titans Go! set for multi-game Kickstarter
Each game will be available individually during the campaign, so backers can choose the games they want. A bundle of any two or three games will be available at special, discounted Kickstarter prices. The campaign will also offer daily character unlocks and special surprises for each title.

When asked about the games, Geoff Skinner, CMON’s VP of Entertainment, said, “We are beyond excited to be working on these beloved characters for the tabletop. Warner Bros. and DC have been incredible partners in making sure that each game pays due respect to the original series they are based upon and gives players the opportunity to experience these characters in all-new ways. These are truly beautifully produced games, with easy-to-learn yet deep rules sets, and I think fans, gamers, and collectors are in for a real treat.”

The CMON Presents: The Animation Collection Kickstarter campaign is slated to be CMON’s next campaign. Stay tuned for more details!

That’s all, folks!

Automatically Appended Next Post:
he interesting bit here is the full color painted minis,

yeah and based on the images on the box, they're atleast done to a reasonable standard

https://www.miniaturemarket.com/black-friday?p=sale&filter[]=categoryPath1_fq:%22Table%20Top%20Miniatures%22&filter[]=manufacturer_uFilter:%22Cool%20Mini%20or%20Not%22&filter[]=categoryPath2_fq:%22Table%20Top%20Miniatures%3EA%20Song%20of%20Ice%20and%20Fire%22

a fair bit of ASoIaF in the miniature market black Friday sale, not bad for those in the US who can get free shipping

Bit of an update on CMoNs issues it looks like they expect to resolve the issue and publish the 2019 results by the end of this month with the company being relisted sometime thereafter.

https://cmon-files.s3.amazonaws.com/pdf/cmon_file/file/545/2020093001542.pdf

Regarding the 2 issues

Issue 1 - The Distribution agreement (I assume this is with Asmodee).

Mazars investigated and sought a confirmation letter from both parties. They concluded both parties acted within the terms of the confirmation letter and agreement. CMoN received $1.5million upfront in a non-refundable payment and products were supplied to the distributor on a sale basis. Mazars did not uncover evidence that suggested misconduct by the Group’s management or employees with respect to the matters within the scope of the Investigation. Ng Chern Ann personally negotiated the deal and executed the agreement which is in compliance with the groups internal procedures. Mazars have made recommendations that these procedures be changed and the board have full oversight of contracts over $1 million. Legal council should also be retained in relation to preparing legal documents. Basically it's poor governance to have 1 person negotiate and sign off on the deal but not misconduct under the current procedures.

Issue 2 - The prepayments

CMoN front load their KS expenses due to ongoing design and development costs. 3rd parties are often paid in advance of a KS for design, development and production (sculptors, artists etc.) CMoN anticipated an increase in its sales in financial year 2020 and stepped up its development and production activities resulting in the prepayment balances paid to suppliers in 2019 increasing as well. The anticipated sales for 2020 don't appear to be as forecast due to the pandemic with a decline in Q1 (Marvel United) but recovering in Q2 (Ankh. Comics) and Q3 (MD2), Q4 has had no KS to date. Zhonghui are currently auditing this.

Basically these prepayments are significant enough to raise questions about CMoN as a going concern - they've spent money in anticipation of a return that hasn't yet materialised or not to the extent forecast. It sounds like they have a lot in the pipeline they just need to bring it to KS and realise the return if that doesn't happen or the KS underperform there is a risk of them going under. It will interesting to see the 2019 report and see to what extent they made prepayments and what risk it puts them at.

It goes some way to explaining why they have been reusing older already paid for assets in recent KS - like the MD2 dragon that was an unused WoK sculpt.

Good to see the first issue was pretty benign. The second issue I think is pretty much what most of us expected.

Saw this in an email today. Start of a series of articles for changes coming to ASoIF:

https://cmon.com/news/visions-in-the-flames-what-the-future-holds

2021 will see the release of full Faction Packs for each army. This will not only give players the full opportunity to own a physical copy of everything for their faction (released up till that point), but it also allowed us to do a full pass on every individual Unit, Attachment, and Tactics card in the game. As we mentioned, we are happy with the core system and dynamics, so first and foremost we don’t want anyone to view this as some new edition of the game or anything-this was just a chance for us to do a full balance pass and consolidation across... Well, everything. It was a huge undertaking, but we are supremely satisfied with the result. As mentioned, we took this time to evaluate every-single-individual piece of the game. Every Attachment, every Unit, everything.

Now, that might seem like a scary prospect to some: “Everything is different andscary now!” but, to set expectations here - most things didn’t change. As we mentioned, we were happy with the majority of items, and the passes we did were mainly to balance some numbers and, most importantly, streamline a lot of things. It’s quite a lot to cover, so we’re going to have more articles released talking about specific points and whywe’re doing them, and their overall impact on the game. Each article will focus on its own topic, with some examples into the process and reasons for the changes.Again, usually its minor numbers tweaks, but in some cases an existing design just clashed with where we wanted things to be, so a more dedicated “revamp” had to be done. This was rare, however, but again we’ll go into the specifics in greater detail when their time comes.

Just to give some insight into these topics which you’ll be seeing in the coming time:

- Faction styles and roles (“what makes this faction cool and how can it do it better?”)

- Impact of Tactics cards and free Actions. (You gotta earn it!)

- NCUs, Attachments, and the focus of Combat Units. (Levels of power)

- Combat Math (How “killy” is “too killy”?)

- Elements of Control (Do what you want, when you want... Or not?)

-Streamlining Usage (Refining “game language”)

 Monkeysloth wrote:
Saw this in an email today. Start of a series of articles for changes coming to ASoIF:

https://cmon.com/news/visions-in-the-flames-what-the-future-holds

2021 will see the release of full Faction Packs for each army. This will not only give players the full opportunity to own a physical copy of everything for their faction (released up till that point), but it also allowed us to do a full pass on every individual Unit, Attachment, and Tactics card in the game. As we mentioned, we are happy with the core system and dynamics, so first and foremost we don’t want anyone to view this as some new edition of the game or anything-this was just a chance for us to do a full balance pass and consolidation across... Well, everything. It was a huge undertaking, but we are supremely satisfied with the result. As mentioned, we took this time to evaluate every-single-individual piece of the game. Every Attachment, every Unit, everything.

Now, that might seem like a scary prospect to some: “Everything is different andscary now!” but, to set expectations here - most things didn’t change. As we mentioned, we were happy with the majority of items, and the passes we did were mainly to balance some numbers and, most importantly, streamline a lot of things. It’s quite a lot to cover, so we’re going to have more articles released talking about specific points and whywe’re doing them, and their overall impact on the game. Each article will focus on its own topic, with some examples into the process and reasons for the changes.Again, usually its minor numbers tweaks, but in some cases an existing design just clashed with where we wanted things to be, so a more dedicated “revamp” had to be done. This was rare, however, but again we’ll go into the specifics in greater detail when their time comes.

Just to give some insight into these topics which you’ll be seeing in the coming time:

- Faction styles and roles (“what makes this faction cool and how can it do it better?”)

- Impact of Tactics cards and free Actions. (You gotta earn it!)

- NCUs, Attachments, and the focus of Combat Units. (Levels of power)

- Combat Math (How “killy” is “too killy”?)

- Elements of Control (Do what you want, when you want... Or not?)

-Streamlining Usage (Refining “game language”)

I'm excited to hear about the faction card packs. I've been managing with the phone (really good free app with all stats) but nothing beats the convenience of cards.

I'm hoping for some subtle nerfs to Stark direwolf spam and FreeFolk raider spam. The former being much more urgent than the latter.

I got the impression from an interview that Michael Shinall did that they might be dropping down some 8 attack units down to seven at full ranks. I expect this for Bolton Cutthroats who reliably punch well above their weight.

As more factions come it doing a pass like this to make them all stand out more and be a bit more balanced is a good idea. Too many companies wait until a new version to do it and then let it sit for years with whatever issues arise from the new rules from the new version.

As long as the packs are reasonably priced I see it as a good thing for the game.

The Animation Collection hits Kickstarter on Jan 13th!

Featuring 3 games based on some of our all-time favorite cartoons: Looney Tunes Mayhem, Teen Titans Go! Mayhem and Scooby-Doo: The Board Game. Stay tuned to our channels tomorrow at 3 pm EST to watch the trailer!

And sign up to be notified on launch! https://cmon.co/animation-collection

Looks like it could be a fun family game. I was bummed about no Beast Boy, but happy to see he's a stretch.

I'll be watching the Teen Titans one. Hopefully the game isn't too complicated for an 8 year old.

I hope these do well for CMON. I absolutely love ASOIAF, I'd be crushed if CMON went under before the Martells came out

Project fully funded in, let's say...10 minutes away from the launch. Why bother, CMON fanboys will rush in and throw their money blindly at whatever CMON will do.

Even if the games suck, at least you can give the miniatures to your children so that they have their own fun fighting the Teen Titans with Scooby team and the looney tunes.

I hope it overfunds enough to get me my Ankh pledge.

Honestly, I assumed Beast Boy wasn't on the cover because of packaging limitations. Him not being part of the core game at all makes it seem like they slapped the license on some nonsense rather than anything true to the characters. Of course, its also one of those "always intended to reach" stretch goals, so its not really an add on either.

 Red Viper wrote:

I hope these do well for CMON. I absolutely love ASOIAF, I'd be crushed if CMON went under before the Martells came out

Oh man do I hear you on that. I still don't have Mother of Dragons or Mammoths in hand, so I'm still antsy about getting those.

I also really want Greyjoy and Martells. They better stick around!

> Scooby-Doo

Picked up Mystery Mansion which comes with standees, and toys to replace the with something 3D are about $18, out-of-stock. Teen Titan action figures, colored, are under $25 for six toys. Still, not exactly rational to blow $100+ per franchise for unpainted plastic figures.

> CMON fanboys will rush in and throw their money blindly at whatever CMON will do.

Should mention that, during BF, I picked up three CMON base games at 1/2 the price of KS. (OLGS free shipping vs. KS shipping.) I think I've bought half of my CMON games this way, with the other through KS.

> SCOOBY-DOO, LOONEY TUNES, AND TEEN TITANS GO!

BTW, Normally, a KS with an IP is a yellow flag, and this is CMON's largest IP licensee so far. CMON has worked before with WB for their Wacky Racers boardgame, but this was a retail product.

I'm a sucker for all three IP's and don't have toys for 'em, so there goes my money. Any news on the audit, other than CMON switched auditors? Any CPA's in the audience?

Pretty big change coming for ASOIAF:

https://www.cmon.com/news/visions-in-the-flames-non-combat-units

I really like the change personally. Having a "free" activation was a problem and it helps balance some scenarios.

 Red Viper wrote:
Pretty big change coming for ASOIAF:

https://www.cmon.com/news/visions-in-the-flames-non-combat-units

I really like the change personally. Having a "free" activation was a problem and it helps balance some scenarios.

Yeah, no more NCU commanders makes sense.

I'm interested to see what they do with the High Sparrow.

I also like where they are going with house affiliation clearly being an intrinsic (heart) ability so it can't be blanked by effects and where NCUs with powerful effects only get to use them 2-3 times a game, not every time they activate.

It is good to see them thinking this way about activation economy. Hard to know without playing against some cutthroat opponents, but this seems like the 1.7 changes could take the game from "really good" to "Great!"

High Sparrow should be easy enough to design. They've shown pretty great creativity in attachment design and he's not all that odd to put on the battlefield with some of the more zealous units.

Definitely a good thing to get rid of. I liked them in theory, but they really messed with activation advantage. I suspect this also means Bond is going to change a lot. Curious to see what the state of activation control will be.

Not seen it mentioned in the thread but a couple of weeks ago a Swedish store has updated with some previously unannounced products.

The new units are -
Stark Karstark Spearmen
Lannister Clegane Brigands
Night's Watch Ranger Vanguard
Free Folk Frozen Shore Chariots
Targaryan Heroes 2
Baratheon Thorn Watch
Greyjoy Silenced Men
Lannister Red Cloaks
Stark Mormont She-Bears

And, as frequently requested -

Stark Starter Set
Lannister Starter Set

Largely waiting on the new rules before I buy anything more. Likely pick up Targaryan Heroes 2 just because.... well, they're probably essential. I'd be more excited if I could actually buy the dragons though.

Curious what the deal with Night's Watch Heroes 2 though. :(

No shortage of who could be in Targaryen Heroes 2, but I wonder if it's actually the dragons, the same way Lannister Heroes 2 is King Joffrey and the Kingsguard.

Very keen for She-Bears, and the Frozen Shore Chariots sound great. I just hope they put a bit more effort into them than they did with the Dothraki Hrakkar, the least they could do with such unique units is not duplicate single sculpts.

 Tim the Biovore wrote:
No shortage of who could be in Targaryen Heroes 2, but I wonder if it's actually the dragons, the same way Lannister Heroes 2 is King Joffrey and the Kingsguard..

The Dragons have there own separate box which was due for release in November but pushed back due to shipping issues (along with the Mammoths) -



(spoiler due to size)

Ah, righto, completely forgot about that

I'm glad Starks and Lannisters still have some new units coming, I wasn't quite sure what their future was. She-Bears and Karstarks both sound promising.

Well that's a surprise,

It looks like Massive Darkness 2 (PM invites just going out) is going to have an extra 20% slapped on top of it for VAT for both UK and eU backers

despite deliveries going out from hubs in their respective territories

CMON say

Hello everyone. To clarify the VAT situation: Changes in the laws of both UK and EU require that we prove that we have collected and paid the correct VAT. These changes have been enforced starting in 2021. Please note that is regarding the delivery of the project, so the fact that the Pledge Manager launched in 2021 and not 2020 has no relation to the charges, we would still need to charge them as we’re doing on the system. We apologize for not communicating in advance. Please note that the project will still ship from EU (EU friendly) and UK (UK friendly) and therefore no additional customs will be charged.

which is pretty dubious as VAT should always have been being paid (as the importer CMON would have been being paying it) as part of the goods being brought into whatever EU port was used

Haven't got access yet but I'm waiting to see if they've separated out the shipping and VAT into separate charges which still more or less amounts to the same cost quoted during the KS or if the the VAT is extra on top, for example I was expecting shipping to be around $60 to $65 previously this figure was inclusive of any other charges due, if it's just separated out to say $25 shipping and $40 VAT that's fair enough as the VAT needs to be separately accounted for now if it's $60 shipping plus another $40 VAT then I'll be asking for a refund.

The question of how CMON accounted for VAT has always been a bit dubious with Brexit and other changes in VAT rules this year I guess they can't use creative accounting any more and are shifting the cost to backers. I think the days of getting EU backers for CMON KS are numbered.

Also VAT isn't a standard 20% it varies by country so hopefully CMON have allowed for this as the correct VAT may not be collected.

Also to note Zombicide 2 might be affected by this issue it should have shipped end of last year but now is shipping in 2021, VAT is due at the time of delivery (point of first entry into the EU) not the time of payment (although generally that's when it's collected) so there might be a surprise bill when it's delivered to us. If the paperwork does not show VAT paid then local customs will charge it before it is released for delivery and the backer is liable for this charge. The paperwork may already have been printed and attached to parcels in 2020 under prior rules without VAT listed . CMON won't be forthcoming with that info until it's too late.