Black Rose Wars: Rebirth

Apocalypse - New Schools
over 3 years ago – Sun, Sep 05, 2021 at 04:31:53 AM

Hello, Magisters!

Yesterday we described how the new Constructed Mode works, today we present more in detail the 4 New Apocalyptic Schools of Magic, we will do it with the direct help of the author Marco Montanaro!

The Great Magister himself will describe below the new schools, as we said those are closely linked to each of the 4 Horsemen. Let's now Marco speak!

Death School aims to end everything, it will bring your enemies to their final destination. With the Traps and Protections, mages from the Death school can shape the game in different ways reacting to everything that is happening. Killing your opponents is just a small part of the strategy; death cards will play with Quests, Events, and Power Points. Thanks to Death School you will also be able to change the end-game mechanics and be part of everything that your opponents are doing. Spells will also reduce the stats of your opponents and take advantage of their drawn energy.

Famine School aims to starve your opponents. Reduce their resources and use them against them. The new Starve mechanic of the school will allow you to place opponents' cube in a special pool outside the board and then trigger them in a powerful explosion. The school will also aim at Instability and how natural events can destroy your opponent's expectations of victory.

War uses the strategies of famous military commanders of all time, and the strength of the legendary weapons to annihilate his opponents. Thanks to ware you will be either summoning equipment that will add new actions to your Actions token or playing strategically with the Black Rose and the evocation to win the battle. War strategy focuses on destroying the other mages or taking advantage of the numerous combats of the Arena. At the end of the day who does not want to summon the William Wallace Bastard sword to crash their opponents?

Pestilence will infect your opponents. It plays on 2 main mechanics, the summoning of Plague Rats on the board that carries your damage and Infection Cubes that will pile up on the board of your opponents to trigger powerful effects and explode in a purulent mess.

There is no limit on how many Rats you can summon, those little sneaky creatures will go around the arena under your control and bite the feet of your opponents or just explode in infection if hit by any of the other mages spells, whoops! Infection tokens can pile up to 3 on the mage board and will make your opponents lose Power Points if not healed on time. If you die before the removal of the infections, you will carry them with you and be back in the arena infected!

We thank Marco, the Great Magister, for his words of wisdom! He gave us all a taste of the new mechanics of these Apocalyptic Schools!

After reading Marco's words, what is your favorite School? Give us your feedback!

Fireball!

Red pill, red light, red mage...
over 3 years ago – Sat, Sep 04, 2021 at 08:44:11 PM

You no longer understand what is driving you, instinct or madness, you choose to go down. 

You walk fast through the long tunnel, illuminated just by very few torches on the walls. You turn back after each step, fearing that the terrifying entity may reach you again. 

Dai Jin sacrificed himself for you, now you have to honor his sacrifice by getting out of here alive.

After the descent you find yourself in a large, dimly lit room. As you approach you hear someone speaking, with a strange hard accent. You observe the room from the corner of the entrance, your eyes move on the various objects you can see, until a tall and massive figure appears in front of you.

You jump back in fear, then his broad smile "Pyotr, nice to meet you", with a rapid movement he holds out his hand to you. Still frightened you stare at him, trying to figure out whether or not he is a threat. 

Slowly you raise your arm to shake his hand ... "Irene" you whisper.

"Finally a good face ... you are good, right?" he says.

As you try to figure out if he's thinking of eating you, he asks if you're hungry, pointing to a nice little fire behind a pile of rubble.

While eating dried meat with some bread, Pyotr tells you that he too is a Perceiver, that he too has heard the call of the Black Rose coming from the ruined Lodge. The winds carried the feeble voice of Magic to his home in the far East.

While with open eyes you dream of distant places, accompanied by the words of Pyotr, you fall asleep.

Pyotr is a new mage, hailing from the cold Russian steppes. 

Proud representative of the Cossack people, like his brothers he is a brave warrior. 

With his austere aspect, Pyotr is an imposing but good-natured man. In addition to his physical prowess, Pyotr is one of the most feared and respected Magisters of his lands. 

Thanks to an innate predisposition to the School of Chaos and Alchemy, despite his good-natured appearance, he is capable to twist the minds of his opponents, dragging them into a world of madness and devastation ... always with a smile on his lips!

Pyotr wakes you up, you haven't slept very well and finding yourself still alive almost surprises you.

You don't understand what time it is, it's been too long now since you last saw the sky. 

It seems you are in a room with no way out, you start to look around, hoping to find a passage in the wall, maybe a crack, like the one in Rubedo's room.

You find old books on rotting shelves, a few bottles covered with dust, worn tables and racks with rusty weapons.

Pyotr impatiently intones a spell and suddenly a portal opens before you,  he too wants to go back to the surface. As a purple light begins to swirl, revealing a richly decorated room, you find a secret passage similar to the one that led you here.

Do you follow Pyotr into the purple vortex (Teleport) or go up the dark stairs of the secret passage (Stairs)?

In this update we are happy to celebrate with you the new LMS record, today we broke the result achieved by the KS Campaign of the first Black Rose Wars chapter!

To thanks you for your support, as promised the fantastic Rotas box becomes reality. 

This box will not just allow you to organize the 6 SGs boxes inside, but, thanks to the beautiful drawings by Cristian Casado Otazu and the UV spot decorations applied by our Graphic Designers, it is also a fantastic decorative element, to be well displayed in your bookshelf!

Another great news to share with all our backers today! 

We are very pleased to announce that we signed a new partnership with... Pegasus Spiele, one of the largest Companies in our industry!

Pegasus Spiele deeply cherishes their partnerships with other companies, and so they are happy and excited to start a new cooperation with Ludus Magnus Studio as the German partner for Black Rose Wars, Black Rose Wars: Rebirth as well as other projects in the future.

We are particularly proud of this new partnership, this will help us improve the quality of the German version of our products, and it will help to expand the LMS community in Germany, Austria and Switzerland!

We can anticipate you that we are already working to close other solid partnership all over the world.

Tomorrow we will talk more in detail about the four new schools of magic included in the Apocalypse expansion... and now some new pictures about the first BRW:R tournament at Modena PLAY!

Apocalypse - Constructed mode
over 3 years ago – Sat, Sep 04, 2021 at 08:41:10 PM

Hello Magister!

We've been pleased to see all your enthusiasm for Apocalypse expansion, you repaid all the effort we spent to develop it!

One of the most innovative features of Apocalypse is definitely the Constructed mode, today we are going to explain it in more detail.

Create your Mage

The first thing to do when playing a Constructed game is to choose between the Mages at your disposal, take their 3 Personal Spells, one of the customizable Mage Cards from the pad included in this box, and take a pen.

On the Mage Card, you write your name (especially in Tournaments), the name of the Mage you have chosen, and the basic characteristics from which all mages start. To create your custom mage you have 14 experience points (XP), you can use them to add Talents and give additional points to the Characteristics, following specific tables.

For example, you can bring your Mage's Health stat from a base value of 9 to 12 by spending 4 XP points, a good choice if your Mage will go a lot on physical combat, or if you just hate going back to your Cell too often!

You can change all Health, Physical attack, Hand, and Movement values, and also increase the maximum number of Quest cards you can keep, or increase the maximum number of Schools of Magic to use in your deck.

Be careful! Spending too many XP points on stats will leave you few XP points to add one or more Talents (each mage can have up to 5), which are just as important!

Talents are special abilities that will enhance your mage an additional level of customization and better planning of your Strategy for the game.

There are 3 types of Talents:

•  Passive Talents - These talents activate automatically or depending on specific conditions. For example, the "Enhanced Undeads" talent provides +1 to the Physical Attack of all your evocations with the Undead trait.
•  Library Talents - By adding these talents you will be able to modify or cancel some of the deckbuilding restrictions imposed by the Constructed mode rules, more on that later.
•  Action Talents - These talents are activated by flipping the Physical Action token in place of the normal actions. For example, the “Teleport” talent allows you to place yourself in any room in the Lodge instead of making a normal movement.

Once you have chosen your Talents, your Mage is ready to fight!

Constructed Library

Using this game mode you create a Spell deck that will be your personal Library. So in the Study Phase, you don't have to draw cards from the School of Magic decks that normally make up the library, but you will draw 4 cards directly from this custom deck. As usual, you can only keep 2 cards to add to your hand, while the other cards go back to the bottom of the deck.

After that you build your Grimoire as in normal games, from the custom Library you have just built, you will be able to manage your strategy in a more direct and effective way, limiting the element of luck.

What rules do you need to follow to build your Library?

Simply follow the restrictions provided by the rules of this mode, which you will find well detailed in the Apocalypse manual. For example, your Library must be composed of Spells from 2 different Schools of Magic, must contain a maximum of 5 Attack Spells and 5 Contingencies, at least one Trap and one Protection must be composed of a maximum of 36 Spells (excluding Personal Spells of your mage, which must be kept aside and added as usual); for each Spell, you choose you to need to add all of its 3 cards to your deck.

By following these and some other simple rules, you can build your Library quickly and easily. As already mentioned, thanks to the Library Talents you can override or modify some of the restrictions. For example, the “Aggressive” talent will let you include up to 9 Attack Spells, the “No Traps” Talent will let you ignore the rule to include at least 1 Trap to your deck.

Once you have created your Mage and your Library, shuffle the Library, draw 6 cards and add a Personal Spell to create your Grimoire, shuffle it and you are now ready for the challenge of the Black Rose!

And the Four Horsemen?

The Horsemen have a special double-sided Mage Card. On one side you have their Standard version, while on the other you have their Constructed version, ready to be used with Constructed mode games. Each Horsemen is therefore a Preconstructed mage, optimized to use its School as a personal Library in Constructed and Apocalypse mode.

Playing the Apocalypse mode with the 4 Horsemen is a great way to familiarize yourself with this new model... using epic overpowered Mages! What do you think? Do you already have in mind how to build YOURS?

The most important Italian game convention is taking place today in Modena (Italy), LMS has a fantastic stand where we are running the very first tournament using the Constructed mode rules! It is also possible to try Rebirth in advance, we hope to meet those of you who will participate in the convention. For all the others we will be happy to tell you everything about the event!

Fireball!

Lady in the Dark
over 3 years ago – Sat, Sep 04, 2021 at 03:39:16 PM

Your instinct guides you into the tunnel on your right, the noise of the bells in the dark did not reassure you at all.

You quickly turn the corner and head towards a heavy metal door, completely covered by lichens. Opening it doesn't seem easy, but with Dai Jin's help, you can force it. You enter the room and immediately close the door behind you, the bells suddenly stop ringing. The wild smell is very strong in the room. You create a tiny sphere of light to take a look around, from the darkness you hear the sound of hooves approaching. A magnificent royal deer appears in front of you! Its size is remarkable... and an ethereal-looking woman is riding it!

The woman stares at you slyly. "You seem lost my friends," her voice echoes in the room. Trying to hide your surprise at this strange encounter, you try to answer "Yes, someone... something is chasing us... who are you?".

A malicious smile appears on the woman's beautiful face "I'm Janara, I've been wandering around these places for a long time. I know who's chasing you". Only now do you notice the bells around the Deer's neck, could this Janara be your pursuer?

"Don't worry girl, it's not me who threatens you, but something far scarier. Now it won't enter here ... he fears me, but I can't protect you for long from him, Nature has to take its course, however cruel be it."

Janara arrives in the Lodge, along with a new Forgotten Spell that will allow her to be summoned. This powerful entity, coming from Italic folklore, is strongly connected to the forces of nature and to witchcraft. Summoning her in the lodge will unleash her fury on all the mages in play, and a terrible curse will fall on the entire lodge! Janara's Model is amazing, it embodies all the power of this creature, giving it a fearsome and glorious aspect at the same time!

Dai Jin seems to be much less surprised than you and asks "My Lady, do you know a way out of this tomb?". Janara's gaze lingers on the old man, then with her sickle indicates a direction to her right "From here the road will be more impervious but shorter".Then she turns the sickle to her left "Here the road will be easier, but the darkness will accompany you all the way".

You and Dai Jin look into each other's eyes, it's time to make a choice. Will you take the longest route (Skull) in the dark, or the shortest (Chain) but more difficult route?

Today we added a new Social Stretch Goal: Help us spread the word, once we will reach 1000 shares on this Facebook post, Maelice will be unlocked and added to Rebirth as a mage! We will reveal some more about her as soon as you will unlock it!

Waking Nightmare
over 3 years ago – Sat, Sep 04, 2021 at 01:54:26 PM

Your instincts guide you down the short but steep road. Dai Jin follows you, you feel the tension in him, but having him next to you still reassures you. The corridor doesn't seem to be very long, it immediately opens onto a new, dimly lit room, full of cold and fetid air. On the north wall, lost in the dark, you can see two passages. Another crossroads, could it be the difficulty Janara was talking about?

While you search the room, looking for some clue to help decide which direction to take, the cold air suddenly becomes icy.

The shadows generated by the torches now seem to merge in the center of the room, a huge black mass begins to grow, dominating the scene, hunched under the ceiling. The sound of hundreds of small bells surrounds you, your pursuer has finally revealed himself. Two red eyes, from the inside of a horned skull, stare at you. You remain petrified, terrified, like in the nightmares of when you were just a child.

"Nocturnus!" Dai Jin shouts, attracting the attention of the being.

"Fly you, fool!"

The entity, with its black robe, seems to constantly go from solid to ethereal, it turns towards the old mage, and after a second, in which everything seems motionless, attacks, swallowing him.

The Nocturnus is the "father" of all Umbra, the entities related to the Nightmare School.

It is a Forgotten Spell that will allow, not only its summoner, to cause a lot of damage to its target. During each Activation Phase, this special Evocation will do damage (a lot!) to the target mage. The target mage, to his advantage, will be able to use the power of the Nocturnus to manage all the Umbra already summoned, as if they were under his control and no longer under the control of the Black Rose. When the target mage is defeated, the target mage will assign the Nocturnus to another mage in the Lodge, starting a new "cycle of terror".

The only way to permanently eliminate Nocturnus from the game is that there are no more valid targets (mages) to assign it to.

Awakened by Dai Jin's scream, you run to the two openings on the north wall. You slow down just a second when choosing, on the right you see a blue, cold light (Blue) while on the left a dancing red light, like a torch (Red), and the road going down.

What pill, uh ... tunnel will you take?

This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back.

You take the Blue tunnel, probably the exit from the dungeons, you go back in the Lodge, this nightmare ends, and you believe whatever you want to believe. Red tunnel, you stay in "wonderland", and you see how deep the white rabbit hole goes.

Today we also reveal a special Stretch Goal that we really care about, The Rotas Box!

This beautiful box allows you to store the 6 SG boxes in a single big box.

The size of the Rotas box is designed to be easily exhibited in some libraries of Swedish origin, just like for the Core Box, or where you think is more appropriate for such a spectacular Collector's item!

The 6 SGs boxes are designed to form the Rebirth logo on the front of this box.

This special SG will be unlocked by surpassing the result of the first Black Rose Wars Kickstarter Campaign (2018), exactly at € 1,112K !!

We really hope you like it :)

Fireball!