Franchement, pour le moment, ils mènent vraiment bien leur barque sur ce KS, je trouve. En dépit de l’ajout des figs et des rajouts imprévus lors de la campagne (tous les nightmare decks rajoutés à la demande des backers, et les tests supplémentaires que ça implique, plus le lore qui devrait être bien plus développé que prévu), ils sont bien partis pour avoir moins de retard que sur ELO Darkness…
Reste juste cette histoire de frais de port, faudra pas qu’ils refusent de rembourser les pledges (minus frais KS) si ca douille trop pour certains
Mais sinon ouais ça a l’air vraiment au poil
La DA est toujours au top
Tout à fait. Mais pour le moment, ils ont l’air de tenir le planning annoncé en novembre. En ce moment, c’est quasiment un exploit.
Hello, Il ferme quand le PM? s’il vous plait
on ne sais pas…
la new 29 de novembre dernier précise la fermeture près de l’étape de fabrication… on en est loin…
Nouvelle update avec notamment un collaboration avec KoA pour les figurines…
Update #33 - Heleren & Karah + A Special Collaboration!
Today it’s time to delve a little bit more into the design of the two characters in the Chronicles of Mount Havoc expansion. As you know from our previous updates, we decided to spend much time during the development on characterizing the hunters to give them a unique and distinct feel. Heleren and Karah are no exception and while working on their mechanics we focused on creating something really new and different from the characters in the base game. Ready for a sneak peek?
But that’s not all: today we are also excited to reveal a collaboration we recently started for this project and that we are very happy to announce
There is a lot to say, so, let’s go!
Characters Update
Background Notes
Heleren is a character of exceptional intellectual talents and creativity. She was turned away from engineering studies in Alborea because her inventions and designs were often considered to be dangerous. Then, a member of the Central Command who had noticed her talents selected her to be assigned to the Hunter squads where she also received combat training. In this new role, Heleren gave vent to her inventiveness by creating equipment and designs for weapons that became useful for hunting and exploration. The invention she is most proud of is the gunbow she uses in combat that utilizes a leaf spring mechanism and can shoot bullets at impressive speed.
Gameplay Overview
We imagine Heleren alternating shots and recharges with her powerful weapon. To translate this in terms of gameplay, Heleren design has been centered around a special resource management mechanism: not only she has to handle cards and stamina like any other character, but she also has to manage a bullet economy!
New Mechanics: Bullet Track
To make her weapon really special, we introduced a dedicated resource: the bullet. Heleren starts the game with 3 bullets and she uses them during combat in order to boost her actions, activate abilities and optimizing her damage output.
The bullets are directly tracked on the character sheet (see the special Bullet Track in the image above) and can be recovered through reload actions. As you can see from the action cards below, the reload keyword comes with a number that indicates the bullets you recover through that action. Balancing the amount of reload cards in your deck is a key element in the character’s deck construction strategy.
Here below you can see a mastery card, Crosshair, that shows a clear example of a tough choice for the player, having the possibility to draw 1 or reload 1 at the start of their turn.
The idea behind the development of this character was to create a new direction in the design space to generate branching situation in which the player is challenged to choose between a type of resource or another.
At the same time, the possibility to choose opens to a more potential versatility during the game.
Speaking of versatility, bullets can be converted in multiple different resources or effects: from additional damage to draw effects (for you or your allies) or even struggle removal. However, the limited number of bullets available poses a real challenge that characterizes Heleren’s game.
Despite she has a general offensive approach, Heleren can also be built to have a more defense or even control oriented playstyle. Here below you can see Mothergun, that allows you to spend bullets in order to cancel damage, but also cards like Not This Time! and Cover Fire that are suitable for a control strategy.
Finally, another interesting synergy that helps identifying Heleren’s style is the one that focuses on powering up your weapon damage. You can see an example with a Ignis deck where cards like Line of Fire and Infallible Aim, together with the weapon ability, allow for a very powerful damage boost.
At its core, the concept of Heleren is all about the power of its weapon and the importance of managing the resources that come with it.
Background Notes
Karah belonged to a special order of hunters, the Human Jaws, established during the first years after the landing on Thyrea when humans had to defend themselves from the monsters that inhabited the island. From one generation to another, these hunters were chosen and tempered by a very hard training. In the tradition of Alborea they have always been considered the most skilled hunters, but also the most ruthless and dangerous. The philosophy of the order was: « To kill a monster you must become a monster yourself ».
Karah is the last survivor of the order after the recent clash at Mount Havoc. She is always silent and in search of a personal vengeance.Gameplay Overview
From a gameplay perspective Karah’s playstyle represents her explosive aggressiveness as well as her exceptional mobility and swiftness. The character has unique movement abilities and focuses on playing long card sequences and lining up multiple attacks in a single turn.
New Mechanics: Battle Dance
The absolute highlight of the character is her Battle Dance ability which allows her to deal extra damage to the monster if she manage to put together a series of attacks and manoeuvres in her sequence.
The Battle Dance track in her character sheet shows the amount of damage you deal (which scales with your weapon level) corresponding to the length of your sequence. In facts, you unlock bonus damage that increase as you play more cards in your sequence.
For example, let’s say you are at level 1, if you play a sequence of two offensive cards, you deal 2 extra damage, as it reads on the character sheet. Then, if you go on and manage to get to 4 offensive cards in a row, you deal other 4 damage! Basically the Battle Dance mechanics work as a reward for stretching your sequence and lining up multiple hits in the same turn. Do you preserve your attack card for the next round, hoping to build a longer sequence, or do you go for that damage now?
But the Battle Dance poses a question: how can you constantly build such a long sequence?
Here comes the Chain ability: a card with the keyword Chain [Color] can be played for free (no stamina cost) if it is played after a card of that matches [Color]. Yes, this allows for some satisfying chaining combos
but at the same time, remember that Karah’s attack cards generally do not benefit from significant damage bonus like other characters’ cards do. She focuses on small damage at a high rate!
Last but not least, Karah’s concept is also characterized by her exceptional mobility. That’s why we introduced overrun as another signature ability for this character.
Basically, when you overrun the monster you directly move into the opposite sector on the board. Thematically you are moving through the monster thanks to acrobatic skills; from a gameplay perspective this can be very useful to remove the threatened condition and have a great tactical control over the board and the monster’s exposed fronts.
Of course, there are builds that focus on overrun to trigger effects and combos. Into the Jaws is a great example, especially if coupled with Voltrage to generate a very interesting synergy.
Finally, let’s have a look at some other interesting weapons from the Dual Blade armory. Can you see anything that might interest you?
Collaboration with KOA
We are excited to announce our collaboration with Michael King, « The King Of Average » - you certainly already know his Youtube channel
- who is helping our team with 3D files modifications with the goal to reach the best miniature quality for this project.
We have been in touch with Michael since our Kickstarter campaign and in multiple occasions we had the opportunity to get in contact with his expertise as he gave us valuable suggestions and feedback like he did for many other publishers and creators in the last years.
We have great ambitions for this game and we are doing everything with the aim to deliver an amazing product. KOA’s consultancy is a precious added value and we are happy to reveal the game will have his « Minis Consulted » badge
We think it is important to underline that our collaboration with KOA is completely dedicated and limited to the quality of the miniatures and it will not affect his review/opinion about the game. In case you wanted to know more about KOA’s consultancy, he recently published a video on his channel in which he explains the process and the thoughts that brought him to the decision of providing this kind of service to creators (link to his video here!)
But, what are we doing exactly?
During this step of the process we are working closely with the factory on the 3D files to optimize each sculpt in view of the tooling creation and the injection process. This is crucial because some models need slight modifications in order to be printed correctly and avoid issues in the final minis (adjust the pose, reinforce some thin parts, enhance details that could be lost during the injection etc.).
The skills of the manufacturer is essential here - and that’s why we took all the necessary time to find the right partner for this project - but it is also important for the creator to maintain the control over the art direction of the models to make sure that the final result is faithful to the original design and represents the quality we need for the game. As you might expect, multiple rounds of analysis and modifications are required to obtain the best result. This month we have been right in the middle of this process and we spent much time reviewing the modified files, talking with the factory and discussing ideas and solutions to optimize each model.
We are very satisfied with the process so far and we cannot wait to share with all of you soon the images of the final sculpts
What’s Next?
While the back and forth with the factory continues on the manufacturing front, we are approaching April with the game development and playtest entering its final stage. However, there is still a significant amount of work to be done as we are still refining some cards and testing multiple runs of the entire campaign at different player counts. These final stages are incredibly exciting for us, but at the same time they require the highest level of attention and intensity to fully achieve all our design goals.
Speaking of the other development fronts, the writing process for the campaign scenarios has been stretched a little bit and in the next few weeks we will also focus on some new pieces of art that will enrich the campaign book.
There will be a lot to talk about and share with you in the next few months: miniatures details, narrative content preview, campaign design and lore.
Expect more news from Thyrea coming soon in April!
Ca sent le retard de délai d’on verra plus tard.
Je comprends pas trop l’intérêt pour Koa mais bon. Le tenant pas en super haute estime ça doit jouer.
Je pense que c’est plus pour le remercier. Du plus loin que je me souvienne c’est KoA qui le premier a teasé le jeu longtemps à l’avance. Il en parlait et faisait un suivi du projet régulièrement dans ses videos dont ses videos en début d’année où il présente les projets les plus excitants à venir selon lui.
il est aussi connu pour s’étendre en longueur sur les figurines a la limite du supportable…
De toute facon ca va etre une pub deguisé pour les 2 parties…
Pour ceux qui ont pu tester le jeu, est il assez fluide à 4 joueurs ? Niveau Downtime ça passe ?
J’hésite vraiment car j’ai du mal à estimer le jeu en hors campagne
J’ai peur que l’intérêt de la chasse aux monstre s’essouffle de partie en partie.
Les extensions valent le coup ?
Merci pour votre aide
T’embêtes pas et prends tout !
Le PM est toujours ouvert ?
A priori oui, faut juste cliquer sur le lien du KS dans l’entête du sujet pour vérifier
On a une idée de quand ça ferme ?
De mémoire ca devait fermer en janvier, puis rajouter les fdp en avril pour prélever… là rien n’a bougé en fait donc autant attendre a quelle sauce on va etre mangé avec les FDP
J’espere qu’on va pas se manger un gros 100 balles de fdp à la CMON xD.
Pas les moyens pour ça (enfin, techniquement si, mais ça serait pas raisonnable)
Je pense je risquerai de pleurer ma mère comme on dit ^^.