What KICKSTARTER(S) are you BACKING and WHY?

Hands In the Sea, a Punic Wars game based on the "Few Acres of Snow" system, just went live. Some BGG comments go on and on about its greatness, but I guess we'll see. Click here for info.

Thunderbirds Are Go! (link) and I haven't pulled the trigger yet. No exclusives, everything available at retail (or promos from their site at a later date) meaning I can likely get it cheaper later, a strange staggered shipping (at an additional cost) for US depending on the expansions that get released. And to be honest, gameplay that didn't latch onto me as I was hoping it would.

I love Thunderbirds and Gerry Anderson and at this point that's what is keeping me interested. From what I watched of the gameplay video all I saw were three guys sitting around a table putting their heads together to solve an efficiency puzzle. Which isn't a bad thing, but I enjoy those puzzle type games more as a solitaire game rather than a group. I'll keep following though because if it gets high enough it will reach a point where the value is there, right now I'm not seeing it though.


Then in less than a week Blood Rage is going to be launching. This is a supergroup of Eric M Lang doing game design, Adrian Smith doing the artwork and Mike McVey doing the model design. Here's the Facebook link that has some generic overviews and tons of mini pics.
As CMoN has been hitting it out of the park for me as of late, I'm likely in on this one as it sounds pretty good:

Fellow Vikings! Eric here to give you a little taste of game play.

In BLOOD RAGE, each player becomes a powerful Viking Clan, released from the halls of Valhalla to pillage the remains of Midgard during Ragnarok - the end of the world. Two to four players battle it out over 60-90 minutes in this action-packed strategy game, gaining Glory for both pillaging, fighting and dying magnificently while the world crumbles, region by region. After three Ages, the end is here, and the Clan with the most Glory wins!

The Clans
Your Clan gives you access to powerful Viking warriors, a Ship and a Leader, as well as tracking three stats:
- Rage (your ability to summon Vikings and pay for upgrades)
- Axes (your Glory award for slaying enemies in battle)
- Horns (the limit to how many Vikings you may have on the board)

Card Drafting
At the beginning of each Age, players are given Gifts from the Gods, represented as a hand of eight cards, which they must distribute among themselves in a draft format. These cards are everything from Quests (which grant Glory for conquering provinces or having lots of slain Vikings), Upgrades (which improve your Vikings, add powerful new Monsters, or give your whole Clan a new ability) and Battle cards (which give your pillaging forces a powerful bonus in battle).

Actions
Following this, each player takes turns spending their Rage to Invade the board with their Vikings, play powerful Upgrades, commit to Quests, and Pillage the regions of Midgard to improve their Clan Stats.

The heart of the game is Pillaging. Choose a region on the board with an untouched resource and declare your intent to pillage it. Beware, however, for if any opponent has Vikings either in that region or nearby, they can join in and force a battle! In this case, each player adds up the strength of their Vikings and simultaneously plays a battle card from hand (from all those cards they drafted earlier). The player with the highest strength defeats all opponents, sending them to Valhalla. If the pillaging player wins, they upgrade the Clan stat indicated by the region.

Beware, however! Some players will have drafted gifts from Loki, the Trickster god, which reward them for losing battles and punish their victors. Take heed and watch your opponent's play style to judge if they are actually trying to win, or lure you into their trap.

This is just a basic overview of the epic action to be found in BLOOD RAGE. The game contains over 100 cards, with endless replayability depending on which Gods you choose to follow (in the draft). We'll talk in more detail about specific game elements in the future.

Until then, happy pillaging!

CMoN back together with Mike "Sedition Wars" McVey? Sign me up!

Thankfully McVey isn't doing the rules, just going back to what he's good at which is model sculpting and painting of models.

Eric M Lang, who has a much better resume, is doing the game design.

I'm so glad that I missed that train wreck.

The models for Sedition Wars weren't anything to celebrate, either. The scale on some was so far off as to be laughable. I agree, Lang is usually pretty solid, but given the issues that seemed to exist between CMoN and McVey the first go around, I'll wait until retail for anything he is involved with.

THUNDERBIRDS GAME & EXPANSIONS (Approx $99 / €88) plus shipping

Anyone else getting tired of $100 games on kickstarter starting to charge for shipping? I was fine with Conan doing it because I was getting around 180 miniatures and the value of the pledge was there, also it was only $90. It feels like a ripoff for most other games though.

I imagine they're all tired of taking a bath on shipping as their minis-heavy campaigns balloon under the weight of so many stretch goals.

I agree with you that it's kind of nuts, but I usually think it's nuts to back a game nobody's played for $100+, so paying to ship it is only a little extra nuts, and it's justifiable.

Chaz wrote: I imagine they're all tired of taking a bath on shipping as their minis-heavy campaigns balloon under the weight of so many stretch goals.

I agree with you that it's kind of nuts, but I usually think it's nuts to back a game nobody's played for $100+, so paying to ship it is only a little extra nuts, and it's justifiable.

Often times these $100 kickstarter games will go on sale for $50 on a CSI daily deal. I've seen Dark Darker Darkest for $30 on CSI and Myth for $35. Since kickstarter cuts out the middle man I would imagine that asking them to pay for shipping is fine in most cases.

It just seems like a lot of new games now just automatically charge $100 on kickstarter whether the game deserves the price or not.

Chaz wrote: I agree with you that it's kind of nuts, but I usually think it's nuts to back a game nobody's played for $100+, so paying to ship it is only a little extra nuts, and it's justifiable.

I as well think that all the people that already have the entire first wave of Star Wars: Armada preordered and paid for are crazy also.
Oh wait...That comment was supposed to apply to Kickstarter backers...My bad...Carry on...

Wetworks, remember that your $100 is also going towards the labor to individually pick and pack yours and hundreds of other custom orders. And the KS Exclusives have to be paid for somehow. So yeah, the age of free shipping is over, especially since stuff is coming often in two or more waves now.

Right now Thunderbirds just isn't showing me the value. Once in distribution I can get it much cheaper and with free shipping so that's why I haven't backed yet. I hope it get there, but we'll see.

I've pledged top tier for Thunderbirds because Thunderbirds. But like you VonTush I'm also keeping an eye on it to determine if the value is there at the end. I'll make my mind up on it at the 48 hour mark and may end up cancelling my pledge if I don't think the value is there. Gameplaywise I'm obviously expecting something Pandemic-like but hopefully some further previews will highlight something extra to lift it above Pandemic. For me, evidence that it can produce a good narrative will be key.