Black Rose Wars: Rebirth

Memories of the Ancients
about 1 year ago – Wed, May 03, 2023 at 02:08:10 AM

Update Contents

• Antiquities box Spotlight
• Printed Miniatures
• Modena Play 2023

Hello, Magisters!

Here we are with a new update dedicated to the wonders of the Rotas Box! Today we will turn our gaze to ancient times by showing you the material from the richest of the boxes that make up the Rotas: Antiquities!

Why is Antiquities the richest? Well, certainly because of the presence of a voluminous guest who arrived in the final moments of the Rebirth Campaign, the Giant Cacus, one of the largest Avatars in the game!

Cacus will unleash his destructive fury in the Lodge, relying on his physical prowess, picking fights with players, and trampling Magisters and Evocations indiscriminately. Defeating Cacus will enrage him even more, so when he re-enters the Lodge he will be even more powerful and deadly than before. However, when he is defeated, all Mages who have dealt at least 4 Damage to him will be able to immediately draw a Forgotten Spell as a reward for their bravery. 

These two rules will put players in front of really entertaining game situations. Will you agree to defeat Cacus even though you know he will be even stronger once he's back? Will you trust the other players? The Black Rose can be truly diabolical at times!

As with many Avatars, Cacus can also be played as a Forgotten Evocation, thanks to a new Forgotten Spell. You will then be able to increase your collection of giant Evocations and make the Lodge more and more the scene of a Kaiju clash!

Cacus is not the only Avatar of Antiquities, the treacherous Parcae are ready to sever the weave of your destiny. The Parcae (in addition to being one of Rebirth's most complex miniatures) will exploit the Fate Tokens mechanic, which will basically trigger deadly Trap Spells against Mages who enter rooms containing at least one of these tokens. The powers of the Parcae will be even more deadly if you play the Legendary Scenario dedicated to them: Strands of Destiny.

Another highlight of Antiquities is definitely the new school of Magic: Oracle. 

This new school takes you to ancient Greece and introduces two new mechanics that will allow you to manipulate the Event Board to your advantage. With an effect that includes the Prophecy Keyword, you will be able to draw and place a new Event. Conversely, the Revelation Keyword will cause you to discard a number of your choice of Events in play, activating a certain effect for each Event discarded. For example, the Spell "Pneuma," carries the effect "Revelation: Heal 2," so for each Event you discard from the Event Board, you can heal 2 Damage on your Mage. 

With the Oracle School, you can thus charge the Event Board until the moment you want to unleash a truly devastating Revelation effect! However, you will have to be very careful of schools that have similar effects on Events or if there are other players who are playing with the Oracle School! In addition, this School adds a new Evocation: the Aruspice, little piper Spriggans that increase their attack value based on the number of Events on the Board... Do you see a nice synergy with Prophecy? You're right!

As for Cassandra, she is a new Magister. Like Tessa (BRW), Cassandra is also a proud member of the Primaevi and she too came to the lodge to redeem her people's role within the Lodge. Her Personal Spell "Pythia of Delphi" goes perfectly with the Oracle School of Magic, since it allows you to perform 2 Prophecies or summon 2 Aruspices and activate them immediately!

Finally, Antiquities adds an additional Forgotten Evocation (along with Cacus and the Parcae there are 3 in total) and a New Lodge Room.

The Majestic Grypas will enhance itself and your other Evocations according to the Events in Play, and can be summoned thanks to the Forgotten Spell "Ruling the Heavens." 

The Ludus Arena can be used to replace the classic Arena in any BRW/Rebirth game and will allow you to Summon an Aruspice!

What do you think? Antiquities really add a lot of material to the already extremely rich Rotas Box! Let us know which of these contents you will try first in your BRW/Rebirth games!

Let's move on now to talk about Production. In the following photos, you can see the first PVC prints that came out of the Factory molds a few weeks ago. Don't worry about the color of these models, as these are the first test prints and not the final product, which will instead be consistent with all of BRW's existing production. We are looking forward to receiving photos of the mass production currently in progress; in the next update, we will surely be able to show you the long-awaited buckets filled with miniatures!

In the meantime, the process of reviewing and approving drafts of all cardboard materials continues so that we can proceed with mass printing that as well. Production plans received from the factory indicate the completion of all mass production between late July and early August. We will keep ourselves aligned with the factory so that we can proceed with booking the ships in advance and get everything going as quickly as possible.

We know you all can't wait to get your hands on the wonders of Rebirth, in a few months you will be able to!

Meanwhile, those of you who will attend this year's Modena Play (May 18-21) will be able to visit us at our booth and touch the very first production copies that we will show during the days of the fair! Obviously, it will be possible to play with the final Rebirth material and participate in the first Tournament where, for the first time, you will be able to play in "constructed" mode with the Black Rose Wars cards! We are waiting for you! 

That's all for today, see you at the end of the month with a report from Modena Play and more updates from Production!

Fireball!

The Road to the East
about 1 year ago – Fri, Mar 31, 2023 at 10:53:20 AM

Update Contents

• Silk Road spotlight
• Rulebooks live
• Production Timeline

Hello, Magisters!

Let's continue our journey in the Rotas Box by getting to know more about the Stretch Goals with the most oriental feel: the Silk Road box!

Let's begin with the menacing Avatar within this expansion, the gloomy Devi.

This Avatar bases its mechanics on directly eliminating other Mages, and she will do so tremendously effectively. Getting defeated too many times by Devi will not be very wise for any of the Mages in the game, as the charming 4-armed lady will gain Power Points for each Trophy gained in each Clean-up phase.

Another mechanic Devi plays on is Duality Tokens. Devi assigns Magisters these special tokens with many of her Avatar Cards (usually the evilest ones). The Tokens represent the duality of the Black Rose and will actually help players facing Devi. A Mage with two Duality Tokens will be able to use two special Physical Actions: Punishment (to convert damage on opponents) and Absolution (to convert Instability in Rooms).

When facing Devi you will also have to be very careful about the Rooms you Rebuild, since if the Avatar is in a Room at the time it is Rebuilt, she will gain 2 Power Points thanks to the Dominion skill.

Will you be able to adapt your strategies to this Avatar or will your head end up being part of her skull necklace? You can find out very soon!

We continue on the road to the east, meeting as many as 3 New Magisters!

Alisha, with her Personal Spell, will be able to assign a new (and exclusive) Jinx Card called "Divine Dance." A Mage with this Jinx Card will take 1 damage from the Black Rose every time they enter (voluntarily or not) a Room. A very annoying Jinx also in the way it can be discarded... basically, you will have to be defeated twice! Alisha will be a good alternative to Gramigna if you want to play with a Hex School-based deck.

Dai Jin, thanks to his Personal Spell "Fulu," will be able to gain useful persistent effects (effects that last until the Clean-up Phase of the turn), either to draw more from his Grimoire or to gain additional Quests. Dai Jin, compared to Alisha, is more eclectic and can adapt to many types of decks, but it's probably best to keep him away from the front line, where damage is falling like snow!

Finally, we meet Piotr, who thanks to his personal Spell "Dictat," will allow you to launch into the unrestrained use of Evocations and the allocation of upgrades. If Technomancy is among your favorite schools you can use Piotr to make the most of Upgrades and accompany your Evocations to the center of the fray!

Silk Road also adds two new Forgotten Spells!

"Manifestation" will allow you to summon Devi as a Forgotten Evocation, which will be no less deadly than her Avatar counterpart. Attacking Devi will unleash her swift and deadly counterattack; think twice before hitting her with your precious Evocations!

"Awareness" will instead make you summon Sun Wukong, the mythical Monkey King himself! This Forgotten Evocation is probably the most mobile in the game since he can move anywhere in the Lodge, both before and after performing his attack.

Finally, in Silk Road, you will find a new Room, the "Zen Garden," which you can substitute for the Classic "Garden" Room of the Core Game, and which will bring an enhanced effect that allows you to perform 2 movements. This Room will be an essential part of the Legendary Scenario "Nirvana" along with the Avatar of Devi.

As with all the boxes that make up the Rotas Box, Silk road will add a lot of Gameplay elements to your games, let us know what you think!

Let's continue this update with some important news! 

First of all, on our Web App, you can find the final rulebooks of the Core Game and the Apocalypse expansion! So you can start right away to try the new mechanics and especially the Tournament mode (or Constructed if you prefer) in your home games! We look forward to hearing about your builds for Mages and Grimoires created with the BRW material! Bring on the Decklists! Next week we will upload the final versions of all the other rulebooks.

Another important communication! We already submitted the final quantities for mass production a while ago, so we are at the very last opportunity for those of you who have not yet completed your survey on BackerKit. You will have until Sunday (April 2nd) to complete it. After that date it will no longer be possible to do so, orders can be adjusted only by our Customer Service, and products may no longer be available.

We have begun to receive Digital Samples of the cardboard material from the factory in order to do our Final Checks. As you can imagine The files are indeed a lot, but we are working hard to finish these checks as soon as possible so that we can start printing all the cardboard material. This is in any case a very delicate job since after this step we will no longer have the possibility to correct the files. 

However, these steps were counted in our time estimates for the end of production, so we are on track to concretize the delivery of all material by summer 2023. Once we finish this checking phase we will have more elements to give you more precise dates!

That's all for today!

Fireball!

The Wind from the North
about 1 year ago – Mon, Feb 27, 2023 at 09:39:10 AM

Update Contents

• North Winds box preview
• Production update

Hello, Magisters!

After last month's rich update, which showed you Apocalypse and made your mouth water for the fantastic Tournament mode, let's start a series of updates to get to know the 6 expansions that make up the huge Rotas Box, starting with the wild North Winds!

The main protagonist of this expansion is definitely Odin, an Avatar in search of his new champion and with very original mechanics. When included in a game as an Avatar, the Lodge will also feature his nemesis Vitnir, the monstrous wolf destined to kill the lord of Valhalla. Odin will test you and you must prove yourself worthy of becoming his Champion by facing both him and Vitnir. You will thus have two great threats roaming the Lodge, and you must make the most of your Grimoires to get the better of both!

To gain Odin's favor, you must collect Champion tokens, which can be obtained in a variety of ways, the most effective (but also the most dangerous) being defeating the Wolf Vitnir, who, however, will become stronger and stronger each time it is defeated... after all, becoming a god's champion is a dangerous job!

Both Odin and Vitnir can also be summoned to the Lodge thanks to two new Forgotten Spells, in matches where Odin is not used as an Avatar.

The other star of the expansion is the new mage, The Druid Kormak, who brings along the Druidic School of Magic.

The Druidic School is designed for Magisters who enjoy close contact. It introduces two new Evocations, the powerful Ursa and the very useful Crocodilus. It also introduces the Transformation mechanics in BRW:R.

As compared to BRW, Transformations have undergone a substantial change. A Transformation Spell now has no light or dark side but, once revealed, is flipped to provide all the rules of Transformation: either Bjorn (the bear) or Loki (the crocodile). During the next Clean-up phase, a Transformed mage may decide not to discard the Transformation spell and move it by keeping it revealed in the third slot. This is to indicate that they will remain transformed even in the next turn, in which they can only play 3 spells instead of the usual 4. A Mage remains transformed until they are defeated or until they discard the Transformation Spell.

While Transformed, a Mage cannot use Equipments, so be careful when mixing the Druidic school with schools that make extensive use of them, such as War or Forge!

Another thing you'll have to be careful about is the availability of miniatures, since Transformations use the same miniatures as the Ursa and Crocodilus Evocations, and you won't be able to Transform if these are all already in play. This is a limitation that serves to balance the considerable power of Transformations, which allow a Mage to become truly powerful physically while being able to continue casting their Spells.

In addition, North Winds adds a new Room, the Abyss of Hel, which you can use in any game by substituting it for the Abyss, or in the Legendary Scenario dedicated to it.

In conclusion, like all the Rotas Box Expansions, North Winds truly adds a lot of material to make your BRW:R games unique.

As always, let us know what you think!

Before we say goodbye, here's a quick status report. We are currently nearing the end of work on all the ENG and ITA files of all the printed material and expect to start sending the files to the factory within a few days. FR, GER, and ESP translations are still underway, but we have decided to start printing the material in ITA and ENG in advance of the other languages, in order to reduce downtime and optimize production of the other languages as well, by the time the files are ready. According to our plans, this should be done by the end of March.

Summer is approaching, and so is the arrival of Rebirth on your tables! 

In March we will share all the rulebooks in ENG and ITA. With the Apocalypse rulebook you will be able to try the tournament format right away, and, for those of you coming to Modena Play 2023 in May, the chance to participate in the first official tournament!

See you in the next Update!

Fireball!

Into the Apocalypse!
over 1 year ago – Tue, Jan 24, 2023 at 03:26:01 AM

Update Contents:

• Apocalypse expansion deep preview
• Project advancement

Hello, Magisters!

Welcome to the first update of 2023!

Let's kick off the new year with an update dedicated entirely to the expansion that will most significantly shake up the way you play BRW/Rebirth: Apocalypse!

We've previously dedicated a lot of space to this expansion, but now that we've completed all of the work on it, we can show you the final material.

As you all know, this expansion adds four New Mages, in the form of the Four Horsemen, and each of them adds their own School of Magic, dedicated to their "sphere of interest."

Bellum will bring the School of War, a mix of destruction and Artifacts that will make you turn anything that dares face you into dust. With the new keyword "Restore," many of the War spells will regenerate your Physical Action Tokens, allowing you to do many more Physical Actions during an Action Phase! This is a School as direct as it is effective.

Mors, with her School of Death, will add the Destiny Tokens mechanic. These new tokens will interact with many of the Spells of this School and, in some instances, will allow you to gain Trophies easily or eliminate as you please a Mage who has earned at least 3 Destiny tokens.

Pestilentia will bring the...well the School of Pestilence. Pestis (the rats!), a new special Evocation unique to this School, will roam the Lodge, disseminating Infectio Tokens. These tokens progressively consume the Mages who possess them. Moreover, the Spells of this School inflict other purulent effects! In a nutshell, this is a school for those who don't have a weak stomach!

Finally, Fames, with his School of Famine, will experiment with the new Starve and Feed mechanics. Through Starve, you will deprive your opponents of their valuable cubes from their pool, slowing (and sometimes even blocking!) their strategy. Feed will return the cubes to their owners, but it will also significantly improve your Spells!

Each Horseman has their own double-sided Mage Card. On one side, you will find the "standard Mage" version to play in a normal BRW/Rebirth game. On the other side, you will instead find the version of them to play in Apocalypse Mode. In this mode, each player will control a Horseman and use a "pre-made" deck consisting of all the cards from their school plus their Personal Spell.

Apocalypse mode will serve as an introduction to the real novelty of this expansion: the Tournament Mode! In this mode, you will be able to create the Mage of your dreams and their own personal Grimoire!

By spending 10 Creation Points, you can decide on characteristic values and give them special feats, creating your preferred build. Feats will give you new Physical Action or allow you to ignore some of the restrictions on building your Grimoire.

That's right because, in addition to your Mage, you can also create your own Grimoire, inserting the Spells you like, creating unprecedented combinations and game dynamics.

Finally, we have included a whole series of Options to create your favorite Tournament Format. The tournament organizer can decide which of these options to include, creating ever-changing tournament formats! Of course, many of these options are also perfectly usable in a regular BRW/Rebirth game. This mode will change the way you play Rebirth, and it's one of the features that make this Expansion a must-have for all BRW and Rebirth fans!

The Apocalypse material is being proofread, and we will make it available for download in the next update so that you may give us feedback and... why not? Try out the new mechanics already with your copy of BRW.

Concerning production, we confirm that we are meeting the timeline we shared with you last September. The game design of all the game material is finished! The massive Rotas Box has also been completed, and the ENG and ITA files are currently being finalized before being submitted to the various language translators. We will be able to let you appreciate all of its contents, box by box, as soon as the next update.

As of now, we can confirm the time range we gave you in our previous timeline, and we believe that next summer will be extremely hot in the Lodge!

As always, we look forward to your feedback on Apocalypse and its amazing content!

That's all for today, see you next month with the first update on the Rotas box!!

Fireball!

A Special Christmas Present!
over 1 year ago – Fri, Dec 23, 2022 at 09:11:32 PM

Hello, Magisters!

Did you know that Christmas is celebrated also in the Lodge? That's why we created a little surprise for you!

By following this link you will have access to a new Print & Play DLC for Black Rose Wars, which gives you all the materials you need to play a new, crazy School of Magic: the Christmas School!

This new school, with all its Spells and Evocations, created by none other than Jukas (in his Viking version from Runar!), will allow you to give a strong Christmas flavor to your games, making you laugh a lot with your friends!

Don't waste time and go immediately to download the ENGLISH or ITALIAN version of this new crazy School of Magic!

Let us know if you like this type of material and if you would like to see more in the future, eventually having fun together working on it!

Mid-January we will give you more details about the last developments, in particular going into the details of the new mechanics introduced with Apocalypse, Gaea Reborn, and Dreadforge.

In the meantime, we just have to thank you as always for your support and love and wish you a Happy Holidays and a fantastic 2023!!

#ChristmasFireball!