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Patrick Korner interviews Eric Hautemont, CEO of DoW
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GG&G Boardgaming Roundtable interview with Eric Hautemont and Mark Kaufmann of DoW
Tom Vasel MP3 interview with Eric Hautemont
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Our first press mention! Boardgame News
The Rules for BattleLore: heroes are now available to download from the Fantasy Flight Games BattleLore Support page. Also, the expansion comes with a pad of Hero record sheets, but you can download more directly from this page.
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Fantasy Flight games has announced that the Dragons and Creatures expansions—yep, two separate expansions—will be available before the end of the year.
See the video of CEO Christian Petersen’s GenCon speech here at the Fantasy Flight website (click the Friday clip). The announcement is about three-quarters of the way through.
You can see the spectacular multi-headed Hydra, which comes with the old hill giant and earth elemental figures, here, and the packaging for both sets here.
According to information on the FFG forums by people at GenCon, Dragons comes with three figures: the Fire Dragon is a red banner creature, the Ice Drake is blue, and the Forest Wyvern is green. You need two hits to trigger your critical hit roll, and always roll one die less than normal. They all have the Fly ability and have a 4 dice attack.
Creatures will include the Rock Elemental and the Forest Giant (the same figures as before but renamed) as well as a Hydra with modular heads. The Hydra is a blue banner figure and comes with 6 different heads and necks—every time it takes a a banner colour hit it loses a neck, but if it rolls a Lore, it gains a new one!
The Elemental and Giant will have modified rules, plus modified rules for a new version of the Spider called a Blue Widow Spider will be included.
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An unexpected treat to be included in BattleLore: Heroes are artifacts, special items that can support or augment a hero’s abilities and skills. There are seven types previewed in FFG’s latest Heroes news article.
The first type of artifact is Armor Enhancement. These artifacts, when equipped, increase the defensive capability of a hero against a particular type of attack. Examples given are Sapphire Armor, Warding Bracers, and the Orb of Deflection.
The Orb allows a combined unit (hero and the troop he is leading) to ignore one helmet color hit from a ranged attack. If the attacking troops have just moved and don’t hit on Bonus Strikes, this makes you immune from their ranged attack.
The second type of artifact is Equipment. These are generic items that don’t fall into any specific category. Examples include Mount-War, Beaker Box, and Backpack.
The Backpack allows a hero to trade in the backpack to equip a currently unequipped (“under his character sheet”) artifact in its place. Heroes are limited in the number of artifacts they can equip at the start of the game, but the Backpack doesn’t count towards this limit.
The third type of artifact are Enchanted Items. These items are imbued with magical powers that can give a hero additional bonuses when moving, additional dice when attacking, additional defensive powers, and more. Examples are Maelstrom Cloak, the Snaring Rope, the Rabbit’s Foot, and the Lore Stone.
The Lore Stone allows a hero to ignore all Lore hits in combat; pretty handy, especially against Lore-based enemies, though Lore results still count unfortunately.
The fourth type of artifact are Potions. They are normally discarded after use so players have to be careful to use them at the right time. Examples are Philter of Fear, Goblet of Blood, Tonic of Trap Detection, and Wine of Warping.
The Wine of Warping potion is similar to the Rogue skill Pathfinder: +1 movement and no terrain restrictions. However, you can move through friendly and enemy troops!
The fourth type of artifact is Weapon Enhancement. These are mostly used to boost an attack by adding battle dice, though the type of attack the weapon can be used in is dependent on the type of enhancement. Examples are Mace of Fright, Lore Blade, Sword of Command, and Emerald Charm.
The Emerald Charm powers up a green combined unit so it attacks like a red unit, so you get the movement of green and the attacking power of red! The perfect hero plus troop combination.
There are two other artifact types that are slightly different in that they are not really artifacts as such: Services and Instants.
There seems to be only one Service: Master Physician,, which allows you to heal your hero in exchange for one Treasure and 4 Experience tokens.
The mention of Experience and ‘After Adventure Actions’ implies that there will be some form of continuity for heroes between games. A fledgling Campaign system perhaps?
Instants are like potions except they must be immediately returned to the deck. They come in two types, Experience and Treasure. Treasure allows you to take a Treasure token in exchange for the card, but what Treasure tokens do, we don’t yet fully know.
Well, lots and lots to chew on there and it really looks like BattleLore is gaining a whole new level of complexity and interest with theis long-awaited expansion. Rob Kouba, FFG BattleLore Developer and author of the latest articles, mentions he will be at GenCon 2009—the question is, will advance copies be available?
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The final preview of the BattleLore Heroes Expansion characters has just been posted over at Fantasy Flight Games—the Warrior hero, who, as expected, is an aggressive hero and a good choice for newbie players who don’t want to bother too much about subtle tactics!
I’m a bit surprised to see that the Warrior illustration is female, for two reasons. One, with the exception of Joan of Arc, woman weren’t involved in warrior roles in battles during the Hundred Years’ War, which is the historical period BattleLore is ‘based’ in (with fantasy additions, of course). I have nothing against more sexual equality in gaming stereotypes, but this seems to underscore the fact that BattleLore may be getting a bit more Dungeons & Dragons and a little less ‘alternative historical’, which I personally think is a shame.
Two, my pre-production figure of the warrior seems to be male. Of course the figure may have since changed, or the plate armour is just too heavy to really tell!
Anyway, back to the skills. The Warrior doesn’t muck about on the sidelines, but takes on enemies, whether heroes or troops, face-to-face, and she has no interest in Lore either. She has six skills to choose from up front; no prerequisites.
Of course, she has Riding like all our other heroes. It is recommended that this skill is avoided until her other abilities are developed, however.
Path Finder is the same as the Rogue skill, and allows her to ignore terrain movement restrictions and move one additional hex.
The remaining skills are combat-oriented. Assassin–also, somewhat strangely, a Rogue card—adds a die when battling an enemy Hero in melee combat, and adds damage when a hit is scored. I think this would have been better renamed for the Warrior, but that’s a small nit-pick.
Blademaster is another shared skill with the Rogue, adding one additional die in melee combat, while Hack-and-Slash (yay, a unique Warrior skill at last!) gives the Warrior two additional dice. That’s more like it!
Her last skill is Bruiser, that allows each Sword-on-Shield (Bonus Strike) result to be rolled again until no new Sword-on-Shield results are rolled. Lore results rolled on the extra dice are ignored.
All-in-all I found the Warrior to be a little uninteresting, with her reliance on Rogue-type skills, and I think the visual treatment would have been much better suited to a burly medieval warrior-in-armour-type, even though it’s a bit of a cliché. Personally I’d like to see BattleLore’s unique Hundred Years’ War setting retained and emphasized, rather than see this generic American fantasy look creep in. Still, it’s going to be a great expansion!
Of course we have yet to se what special Artifacts—probably weapons—the Warrior can wield. Hopefully Artifcacts will be the subject of the next post!
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The BattleLore Heroes Expansion news continues with a look at the Wizard hero, who harnesses the arcane arts for death and destruction.
We certainly have a different look for the Wizard hero here; a flamboyant pastels-and-armour-garbed woman with a strange bird familiar, fireball, sparkling wand and a riding beast that’s a cross between lion and horse! It’s a little much for my taste, a bit too Dungeons & Dragons, but others may disagree.
But the important thing is what she brings to the BattleLore battlefield. And it looks pretty tough. The Wizard uses offensive strategies and is best taking on enemy heroes or normal troops. She can also take more equipment into battle by summoning a servant or utilizing her skills in alchemy. For the player who wants to get his hero up in the front lines dealing damage, the Wizard is a good choice.
She has five skills to choose from at the beginning; one requires a prerequisite but is only a support skill.
Of course, there’s the usual Riding skill, apparently not as useful to the Wizard as it is to other players, unless she is wielding an artifact that requires quick movement around the battlefield.
Of the remaining skills, two allow the Wizard to equip differently before the game, while the others are offensive spells.
Alchemist allows the Wizard to use a potion more than once (they are usually discarded after use). The maximum number of usages per turn is always one, however, and the skill only alows two ‘repeats’. Potions appear to be included under the heading of ‘Artifacts’. We learn that heroes start the game with a single Artifact, and that the usual maximum number a hero can carry is two.
However, Unseen Servant allows the Wizard to take three Artifacts into battle. This seems very handy, as artifacts appear to be quite powerful—and the Rogue has a skill that allows him to steal one from the Wizard.
Now it’s time for a bit of offensive magic!
The not-so-subtly-named Destruction lets the Wizard destroy an opponent hero’s Artifact, if they are in melee combat and the Wizard gives up all Lore rolled (minimum 2). This could really annoy your opponent, taking away a powerful item from his arsenal early in the game.
Ball Lightning allows a Wizard in melee to cause a hit by using all the Lore symbols she rolls. You can add the skill Lightning Arc to this and share the ability with a friendly adjacent unit!
According to the article, the Wizard is therefore more powerful when leading a troop, and they recommend keeping her with a red banner unit so her powers can be best utilized with the larger offensive dice pool.
Only one left: the Warrior!
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More BattleLore Heroes Expansion goodness this week with a preview of the Field Commander hero.
Our new commander is a rather flamboyant blonde warrior in red and purple, somewhat younger and less encoumbered by armour than we’ve been used to. I liked the old white haired, hard-bitten character myself, but a change is good.
The Field Commander is for those players with a focus on their army; he uses his skills to help other units. He seems to be quite a fighter in his own right as well. Like the Rogue, all of his 5 class-specific skills don’t require skill prerequisites, but are available from the start of the game.
Like other heroes, he has the Riding skill. This seems to be an important first choice for the Commander so he has the mobility to effectively use his other skills where they’re needed on the battlefield.
Outflank is another movement skill. Your Commander can be ordered out-of-section of using an order from a section Command card. This means that if you have the Riding skill, your Commander will always been on the move.
The Blademaster gives a bonus to melee battle dice—though no additional casualties like the Rogue skill of the same name.
Call to Arms requires that your Commander be adjacent to a supporting unit, and adds two dice to his combat roll (though the supporting unit can’t battle that turn).
Now, a couple of skills that improve your Commander’s Command!
Scouting lets you draw three replacement Command cards and keep one after your Commander is ordered by a scout Command card, giving you some extra flexibility in your command choices.
And finally, Lead by Example allows the Field Commander, when ordered by a Scout card, to order up to 3 contiguous units (as long is one is adjacent to your Commander).
Great stuff to reduce the vagaries of luck and put the control of command back in the player’s hands.
Coming up next, the Wizard.
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The lead-up to the long-awaited release of the BattleLore Heroes Expansion continues with a look at the Rogue hero.
New artwork for the Rogue sees a male version dressed in purple-lined cloak, mask and rather fetching thigh-high leather boots. All the rage in Uchronia this season, I’m sure!
The focus of the Rogue is targeting and disrupting your opponent’s hero—but of course, in a sneaky way. He’s not going to last if you go up against your opponent’s Warrior in combat.
Unlike the Cleric, who has a skill selection limited by rerequisites, the Rogue has a full complement of skills to choose from.
The Riding skill returns, a skill that all heroes have in common, though it appears its effects can vary for each hero. In the Rogue’s case, it increases his movement to 4 hexes, but is also required for the use of other skills (just how it does isn’t clear at this stage).
The Pathfinder skill allows the Rogue to treat all terrain—even impassable terrain—as though it was clear countryside. He still can’t end his move on impassable terrain however. Very handy indeed. Like Riding, it also sets up the use of other skills.
Right, onto the all-important combat skills!
Assassin gives your Rogue an extra battle die in melee combat against another hero (hero versus hero combat—excellent!).
Blademaster gives you the extra battle die in general melee combat. In addition, if you roll at least one hit, you roll an additional die when making the Casualty Check.
The article’s suggestion for these skills to wait until you can see how your opponent will utilise his hero—whether they come to the fore to offer combat, or stay hidden in the ranks instead.
The last two skills are Leech and Thievery.
Leech allows the Rogue to still the Lore that an opponent rolls when attacking a Rogue. Yeah, not that exciting, but we have yet to see how Lore works in relation to heroes. And you have to be attacked to use the sill, so as the article suggests, you should postpone selection of this skill until a bit later in the hero development process.
Thievery allows the Rogue to steal one artifact when in melee with an enemy hero, after spending a minimum of 2 rolled Lore. This is the first mention of artifacts, which sound exciting. Each hero begins the game with one, but it appears that more can be taken as a hero develops.
Next up for discussion is the Field Commander.
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A lot of BattleLore fans have been waiting for this one for a long time. I’ve got a set of Hero figures I’ve had for ages that I’d love to show you, but can’t (it will be interesting to see if they match this release). People were beginning to wonder if it would ever happen. But at last, Fantasy Flight have announced the BattleLore Heroes Expansion.
Coming this Fall, Fantasy Flight Games is proud to release the long-awaited expansion for BattleLore, BattleLore: Heroes. In this expansion, leaders and champions will be called to the fields of battle to aid their sides with new skills and artifacts. The road to adventure and glory is never easy and fledgling adventurers will begin their campaigns with only the barest of abilities and must survive the harsh realities of war to become a legendary hero.
The first review looks at the Cleric, and it’s notable that Fantasy Flight has moved away from the ‘classic’ goblin Cleric to give us a human version. It certainly is strange to finally see new artwork for BattleLore, but happily, the look is very similar to past illustrations, so there’s been no jarring change in the game’s graphic style.
It would appear that Heroes start with an initial skill selection, which are either bought or played with the expenditure of Lore tokens.
The Riding skill tells us that each hero will come in mounted and unmounted versions (something I already knew from my figures).
It’s also clear that Heroes develop over the course of a game, and that certain skills require other skills as prerequisites.
The Chant skill allows the Cleric to force attackers to roll one less battle die when attacking the hex he is in.
If players learn this skill, they have access to a stronger version called Battle Hymn, which extends the effect to adjacent hexes.
The skill called Herbal Remedy, similarly, is the prerequisite for two other skills. The skill allows the troop a Cleric is leading to ignore a hit. Prayer for the Dying and Healing Hands expand on this skill; one for when the Cleric is alone and one for protection of an adjacent troop.
We are told that the Cleric has the potential to shine in the early game, especially against an offensive hero that is still undeveloped, “since the Cleric can potentially be able to stay off the field of battle longer and accumulate more experience.”
Obviously getting your heroes in amongst it at an early stage of the game can slow their rate of development, which implies some interesting strategic choices.
BattleLore: Heroes is coming Fall 2009. Listed price is US$39.95.
Here’s the information from the FFG product page:
BattleLore: Heroes introduces player-created Leaders and Champions to augment your camp’s forces in battles.
As with all journeys, the beginning is never easy. As a fledgling adventurer, you begin with a bare minimum of skills and artifacts to help you combat the enemy. Adventures have the potential to reward your intrepid Hero greatly if he performs well. But beware, battlefields are not without peril, and taking too many wounds may force your Hero into an unwanted early retirement.
Prepare yourself for the journey of a lifetime!
BattleLore: Heroes includes 10 unique Hero figures, a Rules booklet, 110 Skill, Artifact, and Landmark cards, and much more!
Next time, we’ll be getting a look at the Rogue hero. Great to see BattleLore back in action again.
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It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything from Fantasy Flight concerning BattleLore, so hopefully these two tidbits are the precursor to some new announcements.
Advanced Training: Field your armies with boosted Dwarven Cattle Riders and the improved Goblin Sling ammunition designed by BattleLore creator, Richard Borg! Commanders can print out the following altered cards that take the place of the existing cards of the same name.
You can download the new unit cards here.
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A little late with this news (I’ve been on holiday) , but Fantasy Flight Games have at last revamped and modernised their website. Lovely stuff! The BattleLore section is here and the new forums are here.
There’s also a new Troll scenario available for download, to go with the For Troll and Country expansion pack.
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