2 years later, they have 4 unfulfilled Kickstarter campaigns. Receiving infrequent updates and a delivery date is nowhere in sight. If you are thinking on supporting Blacklist Games, think again.
I'm in at the 225 level. Sorry to have missed the last one, but it's still a huge deal. Plenty of miniatures that are either hard to get or expensive if you buy them on their own. And the game gives me an excuse to build that dungeon and fantasy terrain. From what I've seen, I will prefer this greatly over rangers of shadowdeep and frostgrave.
This is like a dnd players dream, thing isn't haven't been using minis for dnd since I have been doing over discord since the pandemic, and have been using online stuff for the board and minis.
The fantasy minature line is very attractive to table top roleplayers who are increasingly growing segment. I suspect this kickstarter will do as well or better than fantasy series 1 once word gets around the various d&d news outlets, forums, groups etc
I slightly regret not getting Series 1 with the great price. However, it didn’t come with game and I do not do anything with miniatures only, so decided not to get it. Same is mostly true with Series 2. The game type with terrain and ruler is not really my thing. I do like idea of co-op focus and use any miniatures.
1 year later and Alex has proved himself a prophet: "This is going to follow the same trend as the original Blacklist series miniatures line." Yep, another dumpster fire of a Kickstarter, infrequent updates full of questionable statements if not lies from Blacklist Games, and non-stop drama with production, shipping, and fulfillment. Having only backed FS1, I'm glad to finally have it in-hand, thanks to QML stepping in to save the day (though we had to pay an additional $30+ per backer for the last leg of shipping). Good luck to all the FS2 backers!
It is really a great deal (especially season 1, loads of classic monsters and heroes there). Even more if the backer do not have any fantasy miniatures :). But if you already own loads of fantasy miniatures carefully hoarded during the last decades or even huge similar pledges (looking at you, Massive Darkness 1!), chances are you don't really need it because it would probably be redondant. And the missing figures could probably be bought somewhere else (Nolzur and Pathdinder Deepcut range for example). I personnally got a lot of fantasy miniatures (20 year of wargaming helps ^^), didn't backed it but with regrets. The Lasting Tales game, for what we can play of it (not much), is a bit so so for the moment. Rangers of Shadow Deep or Sellswords&Spellsingers to name only two are more enjoyable imho. What hirked me during the campaign is that there was no pledge level for lasting tales rulebook PDF only. It seems like a missed opportunity :/.
Think FS1 got a big push from a mention or shout out from the Frosthaven KS at the same time (I might be remembering that wrong) It also got a bump from offering Altar Quest as an add-on at the same price as the original campaign. I backed for 2 sets of FS1 and 1 of each FS2 and HS1 so that's about 750 mini's that I have no real need for but I'm sure my 8 year old will love playing with them so who cares :)
At this point, I wish I hadn't backed it. I'm in $155 between both fantasy campaigns and over half the backed sets have been sitting in the storage warehouse since November or earlier. Had friends of mine in other countries not sent me pictures of their unpainted and painted miniatures from the first series, I would not have backed the second set. Maybe they are great quality and a great value. It just looks like a lot of backers might never see the last few Blacklist Games products depending on where they live. I suppose it's the risk of backing through Kickstarter. Anyway, thanks for sharing. Your review was quite comprehensive.
I've now backed all three of their miniature campaigns. It's great. That is a funny point you make about people saying they want something different. I never say that myself, I wonder if it's just a loud minority of people, who may or may not live up to their own complaints. Or if it's just one of those sentiments that people find it easy to agree with but don't actually mean.
These are really just miniatures for the fantasy RPGers, which is a far bigger community than the classic era horror one. To me the game is just a rules set to make the most of those miniatures without having to supply components to make it a more dedicated boardgame. A classic tabletop miniatures war game, hopefully with the best ideas refined further from those before it.
I think the miniatures are amazing , but between fantasy series 1 which I got today and with which I’m very satisfied with and altar quest , I would love to buy more environmental minis , chests , bookcases , tables etc , rather then more heroes. It temps me for the price but it just doesn’t feel necessary. Shame there is no pdf version of the game I believe.
I'm in for the game only. I like the system and the designer. He's got a lot of freedom on this one, since he's not constrained by an IP. I've playtested it and am really looking forward to a good solo skirmish game.
I'm one of those people calling for original things, but Blacklist Games wins me over on level of detail and price per mini. It's the reason I decided to back this over Arena/Tanares Adventures. They're both generic heroic fantasy but this is MORE generic heroic fantasy!
I already have tons of minis and a resin 3d printer, so I was only interested in the rulebook. There is hardly any information about the gamebook content, which is not pulling me in for a $40 rulebook where I just have to hope its worth its price.
@@1AngelAlita Yes, the mechanics are there, I will be giving them a go today. The Demo mission is very similar to the first one in RoSD, gut tells me I will have a similar take away. I have redesigned Frostgrave from the ground up (mechanics wise) as well as developed my own homebrew DC. The Mechanics are the easy part to develop and balance. The greatest effort is designing the scenarios, enough to reduce repetition and with enough variance to keep them fun when you do play them again, all while keeping them balanced. That takes hours and hours of testing to get right. There was a video that stated there was a "personal goal" of 18 scenarios. Is that before of after the stretch goals? I see artifact stretch goals,,,but how many are in the game without? What about gear and other magic items? Is what's in the Demo rules it, or will more be defined? How are dungeon scenarios generated, like AHQ (in video developer stated that AHQ was a inspiration) with 20 dice tables? The other area that is always tough to get right is AI of the monsters, and from what I have seen in the demo rules, its extremely basic, my homebrew DC crawler is deeper, is so not really excited on that front either.
The minis make excellent (and cheap) toys for kids. I much prefer them to play with (and paint) their own minis instead of pilfering (read mixing, misplacing) from board games.
Unfortunally, if I'd get anything I'd get Series 1 and 2. I don't need just the archers, cats and stuff; the package isn't complete without series 1. But the price hike from 65 $ to 125 $ for series 1 is just too much. Don't get me wrong, 125 $ for 200 minis is still a good price, and 75 $ for series 2 is insane, too,l. But paying double for missing out the first time feels shitty, so I'd rather not get it at all, as illogical as that is. No real interest in the game itself btw. If I'd want this style of game, I'd rather get Frostgrave or D&D or something.
I'm saving my pledges for monster hunter world and mythic battles: ragnarok. I suspect they are going to gobble up a lot of pledges from other worthy games.
The game is a bit interesting. I have a number of rulebooks for skirmish games but none of them are cooperative. The minis I don't need at all. Still, more intriguing for the game's sake than I thought this campaign would be.
Backed the original and its very late... yet somehow I find myself backing this too... am I crazy? May need someone to smack my hand every time I want to buy something.
You may want to watch out for that...it could lead to a point where everytime you stub your toe or endure any kind of pain you will feel the need to back something on KS.
Use literally how you want. It originally meant what happened in writing, on the page, not in the real world. It only became an intensifier when written proof was considered one of the highest types of evidence. Indeed, writers were admonished into the 18th century for literally to mean something that truly, really, or actually happen.
How did you know that male erf cleric and his beer companion are my favorite questing party? 😋 Don't feel too bad, I goof my words while streaming pretty regularly. I think it's a case of the brain functioning faster than the mouth. It happens.
BL banned posts on their Fb group from people wondering why their pledge still hasn’t left China. But they are happy for repeated posts from the few that already got it. Altar Quest fell extremely flat, and their webstore was terrible over The New Year. I know it’s cheap, but I’m not confident about Blacklist Games right now.
@@nicksatin not quite true. European backers got their stuff already, and that all went through the UK. But the stuff for UK backers still doesn’t have a container. BLG saved cash by waiting, not by being stuck in a queue. If the entire world’s shipping was backed up, then all the other Kickstarts would not have fulfilled, but many of them have.
@@riChchestMat I don't know the logistics and what hubs each region's deliveries shipped from, but it feels like all you hear about or read on BGG are games running late on delivery. Anecdotal to be sure.
I"m not sure I agree with you on the 'people want something new and keep buying the same old.' You're implying that people support the same-old and are adverse to supporting the new. I think we keep paying for things that are the same because those are our options. I'm not going to pass on a good game with zombies to prove a point. Etherfields, Tainted Grail, Hostage Negotiator, all of the Omniverse games, Vast, and Pandemic are all in my collection. I'm trying to think of a well produced game that looked fun but I passed on because of the theme...that wasn't a worn out theme like Cthulhu (horror), or zombies, or pirates, or animals/nature. It is the fault of, and one that from a business perspective I completely understand, publishers that we don't have more variety.
My point was with specific examples though. When "different" is offered.....fewer people choose to buy it. Funding levels for new and innovative themes generally underperform. There are exceptions of course, things like Wingspan come to mind....but most of the time the standard fare outperforms the new themes.
Short answer, NO. All of their fulfillment experiences have been bad and the first series is over a year late and the communication has been vague and misleading and shockingly bereft of of actual accountability. I was very excited about their offerings but am now very sick of being jerked around with conflicting updates and white lies.
This KS is perfect for everyone who has never played a skirmish game and wants to try it or just want to collect fantasy miniatures for generic RPG games like D&D. For people like me, who already have tons of miniatures and game systems, this looks soooo generic and uninteresting. Great value, but the sculpts are so, so boring.
