What KICKSTARTER(S) are you BACKING and WHY?

southernman wrote:

Shellhead wrote: Every time I visit this thread, I tell myself that I will never back another Kickstarter. Less than an hour ago, I told myself that again. 15 minutes ago, I just spent another $77.00 on Kickstarter, to back an expansion and an upgrade pack for Vampire: Chapters. The game tells an engaging story, and our four-player group has had perfect attendance for every monthly session so far, about 60% of the way through the campaign. But the game is flawed, with 4 pages of errata in 6pt font, so I am not entirely at ease with this purchase. I know that our group will definitely enjoy the expansion, which includes 3 new characters. The upgrade pack includes some new items, corrected cards and booklets, and storage bags for the 150+ standees.

You aren't tempted by the upgrade pack with all the corrected cards and books ?
I'm thinking if I see a 1st edition pledge going cheap in the next couple of weeks I may get it and then pledge for an upgrade pack ...

Yeah, I went for the upgrade pack. But not the app. With all the errors they made in the original game, I would be surprised if the app even works. I hope the expansion pack with the three new characters is more than just 2 chapters each of solitaire play, because my group doesn't usually enjoy the solitaire chapters. One player plays, one reads from the chapter book, and one keeps an eye on the errata and rule book. The fourth guy just plays with his phone during the solo chapters, unless he is playing the solo character.

The neoprene mat is also huge. I got fired up to play again while I was sorting the new booty. I'm five mini-card sleeves short of protecting the whole mess, which feels like a specific kind of karma.

Shellhead wrote:

southernman wrote:

Shellhead wrote: Every time I visit this thread, I tell myself that I will never back another Kickstarter. Less than an hour ago, I told myself that again. 15 minutes ago, I just spent another $77.00 on Kickstarter, to back an expansion and an upgrade pack for Vampire: Chapters. The game tells an engaging story, and our four-player group has had perfect attendance for every monthly session so far, about 60% of the way through the campaign. But the game is flawed, with 4 pages of errata in 6pt font, so I am not entirely at ease with this purchase. I know that our group will definitely enjoy the expansion, which includes 3 new characters. The upgrade pack includes some new items, corrected cards and booklets, and storage bags for the 150+ standees.

You aren't tempted by the upgrade pack with all the corrected cards and books ?
I'm thinking if I see a 1st edition pledge going cheap in the next couple of weeks I may get it and then pledge for an upgrade pack ...

Yeah, I went for the upgrade pack. But not the app. With all the errors they made in the original game, I would be surprised if the app even works. I hope the expansion pack with the three new characters is more than just 2 chapters each of solitaire play, because my group doesn't usually enjoy the solitaire chapters. One player plays, one reads from the chapter book, and one keeps an eye on the errata and rule book. The fourth guy just plays with his phone during the solo chapters, unless he is playing the solo character.

Now I've looked at the campaign properly I see that there's a Digital version, basically the game without all the books and map tiles but with all the story in an app.
Mike - if all the errata is added to this edition is the game fun to play (I understand that the combat is a bit on the light side), and would it be replayable with different characters (some player comments say so) ? I am thinking about the app version.

southernman wrote:

Shellhead wrote:

southernman wrote:

Shellhead wrote: Every time I visit this thread, I tell myself that I will never back another Kickstarter. Less than an hour ago, I told myself that again. 15 minutes ago, I just spent another $77.00 on Kickstarter, to back an expansion and an upgrade pack for Vampire: Chapters. The game tells an engaging story, and our four-player group has had perfect attendance for every monthly session so far, about 60% of the way through the campaign. But the game is flawed, with 4 pages of errata in 6pt font, so I am not entirely at ease with this purchase. I know that our group will definitely enjoy the expansion, which includes 3 new characters. The upgrade pack includes some new items, corrected cards and booklets, and storage bags for the 150+ standees.

You aren't tempted by the upgrade pack with all the corrected cards and books ?
I'm thinking if I see a 1st edition pledge going cheap in the next couple of weeks I may get it and then pledge for an upgrade pack ...

Yeah, I went for the upgrade pack. But not the app. With all the errors they made in the original game, I would be surprised if the app even works. I hope the expansion pack with the three new characters is more than just 2 chapters each of solitaire play, because my group doesn't usually enjoy the solitaire chapters. One player plays, one reads from the chapter book, and one keeps an eye on the errata and rule book. The fourth guy just plays with his phone during the solo chapters, unless he is playing the solo character.

Now I've looked at the campaign properly I see that there's a Digital version, basically the game without all the books and map tiles but with all the story in an app.
Mike - if all the errata is added to this edition is the game fun to play (I understand that the combat is a bit on the light side), and would it be replayable with different characters (some player comments say so) ? I am thinking about the app version.

The digital version is not completely digital. For example, it still has the maps, but it sensibly replaces the double-sided cardboard maps with a map book.

Is the game fun? Yes. Is the combat fun? It's okay, kind of mediocre. The stealth system is also okay. The real fun is the choose-your-own-adventure chapter books, and the nice-looking maps and minis really help establish mood and setting. The very best part of the game is the occasional deduction scenarios. You gather clues and make skill rolls to interpret the clues, and eventually are offered some very plausible multiple choice options for your final theory. The game offers leveling up for the characters, different ways to acquire better equipment, and you periodically gain temporary status cards that give you bonuses or penalties for specific die roll situations.

Is there replay value? Yes. The base game offers 8 playable characters, but you can only use 4 characters at any given moment in the game. Playing through the game with different combinations of characters can definitely change the way certain chapters play out. In a broad sense, certain characters excel at combat or stealth or social skills or investigation. And sometimes there will be a special result available only if a specific named character is present. Counting the upcoming expansion, there are a total of 7 additional playable characters.

I bit the bullet and went all-in for the Street Masters campaign. We got my girlfriend's brother and fiance into the hobby, so we'll give them our extra starter.

I missed the original Aftershock campaign and that box has been running for $275+ by itself on the secondary market, so $360 for the four-box collection feels like a good deal.

They announced a Millennium Blades Kickstarter for early April. Seems to mostly be reprints for the Collusion expansion and the mini-expansions, plus a new small expansion. Considering I've been tempted to buy $300 postings for a complete collection on GeekMarket...this will probably be the first Kickstarter I ever back. The first main expansion, Set Rotation, is due to be put into print and brought into retail sometime this year as well. This is the most excited I've been about a board game announcement in a while considering my collection has stabilized at this point.

Firefly veteran pledge arrived yesterday. The storage box is great, but I don’t need it, since I already have another solution.

Mythic Battles Ragnarock arrived today, missing one expansion - but they will send a replacement.

I’m really out of room. I cleared up lots of space by putting all of my Conan miniatures in stackable trays and consolidated other components, gettIng rid of so many unnecessary boxes. It’s just a bandaid, though.

One of the things I find annoying with these miniature heavy games (and I do love miniatures) is how spread out the pieces become and that equates to more setup time hunting down pieces (sometimes just one thing) in different boxes. Putting Conan’s miniatures into the trays not only saves space, it also alleviates this other problem.

My Firefly 10th Anniversary set is in such a massive box that I can't put it with the rest of my games in Billy bookcases. Maybe I just get a stone altar and display it on top of that.

Shellhead wrote: My Firefly 10th Anniversary set is in such a massive box that I can't put it with the rest of my games in Billy bookcases. Maybe I just get a stone altar and display it on top of that.

Sounds like my Aeon Trespass: Odyssey core game ... makes the Gloomhaven box look small ... and I've got the expansion box arriving in a few months

n815e wrote: One of the things I find annoying with these miniature heavy games (and I do love miniatures) is how spread out the pieces become and that equates to more setup time hunting down pieces (sometimes just one thing) in different boxes. Putting Conan’s miniatures into the trays not only saves space, it also alleviates this other problem.

One thing I've emphasized in multiple BGG threads is that, in the vast majority of cases, you do not need the pretty, form-fitting trays that come with those miniatures and which force you to store them in separate boxes. They're PVC. You can put them under a fair amount of stress before they break and far more stress than you would ever put them under by packing them in the same box. I have all of Rising Sun, including all the KS exclusives, in the original (non-KS special) box. Each clan is in its own bag and the monsters are just laid in where they fit. I've had zero damage in the years that I've played and unpacked and re-packed that box. When someone wants to play Dragonfly, I just hand them the Dragonfly bag and then I grab monsters from the pile as soon as I've sorted out the season cards. Done. Similarly with Ankh, I have all of the factions in their own bag and all of the gods stacked like cordwood (one layer with bases going one way, next layer bases going the other way.) There's an insane number of Guardians that came with the full KS copy, so Ankh takes up two boxes, but all of said Guardians (and the Pharaoh rules and pieces) are in one box, so I just pick from the enormous pile once the cards are dealt.

I realize that many Mythic contraptions are even more mini-heavy than CMON stuff, but if you are having space and setup issues, I can't stress enough how simple it is to just pile/bag them all together. Even if you're a painter, that's what varnish is for. As someone who keeps 8000+ points of fully-painted Skaven in a single container, where many of them are just piled on top of each other on their movement trays (with more trays underneath), I've never had a single problem with damage or paint chipping.

yea any of those big minis games that i intend to keep long term get condensed into a single box asap. its rare for me to actually keep one long term though tbh, but thats just me.

I should consolidate Borderlands down to one box, it hogs a lot of space with vacuum form trays.

Edit: I'm also very tempted by the Nexus combat arena Kickstarter, but I just don't know how much it would actually get played.

Probably going to stick with my base (standees) pledge for Dying Light, it's different to most games I have and looks fun to play - plus is a reasonable price (with reasonable shipping), unless I add an expansion or two then it may get a bit out of hand. I mention the shipping as it was less than half what Glass Cannon are charging UK backers for Vampire the Masquerade; Chapters digital edition that is about the same size/weight, so I didn't back that (I have enough of a games backlog for a couple of years play and if I can always look for it then on the secondary market)

I'm backing Baseball Highlights 2045 new edition. I'm glad that it comes with all of the expansions as I'd hate to have to figure out which ones I'd want. Or chase them down outside of this.

gamefound.com/en/projects/eagle-gryphon-...ection/project-story

I had a lot of fun with the BH2045 app several years back, but the physical game was very hard to get to the table. Baseball is not a very popular theme to begin with, and if people like baseball, they generally like actual baseball, not nerd baseball with robots and cyborgs. Plus the challenge with 2p games generally. I'd be very interested in a hypothetical Baseball Highlights: 1945, that was mechanically identical but ditched the sci-fi elements.