Black Rose Wars: Rebirth

From the Ashes
over 1 year ago – Thu, Aug 11, 2022 at 02:31:27 PM

Update Contents:

• Expansion Spotlight: Seal of Fire 

Hello, Magisters!

After the spoilers-tsunami that the Great Magister gave us in Update #44, we begin to take a closer look at the work we have done in recent months, showing you the materials from the expansions that we consider finalized and which are about to be translated.

Let's start with the latest of the BRW:R expansions, but certainly the hottest one: Seal of Fire!

This box will add to your Lodge a new Magister, a new Forgotten Spell and its (epic) Evocation, plus 3 Pets, all linked by a common theme: Fire & Rebirth!

Prospero is the young son of Nero, one of the legendary Magisters who faced Lucifer before the fall of the Lodge. From his father, he inherited an unbridled ambition and a true talent for Destruction, which guided him on his path to becoming a Magister and which has already earned him a bad reputation... as they say: like father, like son!

His Personal Spell "Alchemical Fireball" perfectly shows his thirst for devastation and will make you shout "FIREBALL!!" with even more emphasis than before!

The effect on the light side of this spell has a "vintage" flavor and if activated after playing other spells with a "fire" element, it will allow you to inflict an impressive amount of damage, and your unfortunate target will not be able to activate any Defense spell. The dark side effect instead aims to inflict damage on as many targets as possible within a Room, in order to fill it with your Instability.

This spell can be easily integrated into decks created to inflict damage or to place Instability and therefore based on the schools of Agony, Alchemy, or Shamanic.

Let's move on to the (big) protagonist of this expansion, the magnificent Phoenix, a symbol of rebirth and therefore the perfect addition to the theme of this new chapter of BRW! This majestic Evocation can be summoned in the Lodge thanks to the new Forgotten Spell "Ancient Rebirth".

Both sides of this spell will summon the Phoenix of Rebirth under your command but will also add an additional effect. The light side deals 4 damage to all Mages within 2 Rooms from where you will summon the Phoenix, while the dark side will deal 4 damage to all models in the room where the Phoenix is ​​summoned and will also place 3 Instabilities there! WOW!

The Phoenix of Rebirth is a very powerful Evocation, capable of dealing 3 damage to all models in her room but has only 4 life. But don't despair! Each time she is eliminated, you can spend 2 of your Power Points to summon her again and keep her fire burning!

Finally, we have the 3 tender Phoenix puppies who, through a special Red Room, can be summoned by the Magisters in order to take advantage of their useful skills. The veteran Magisters of BRW already know the potential of these particular Evocations called Pets that use different abilities depending on whether they are hooked to their Mage or if they go around on their own in the Lodge.

In particular Cinder, Pyre, and Rebirth (aka the weird-pup-phoenix), will stay in theme with the rest of the material in this expansion by dealing damage and placing Instability in various ways.

What do you think? Don't you feel a searing heat spreading through the cold ruins of the Lodge?

Let us know in the comments if this Seal of Fire spotlight has warmed you up enough!

That's all for today! See you in early September for a new update and a complete review of project status, and of course new spoilers!

(Alchemic) Fireball!!!

A General Overview
almost 2 years ago – Fri, Jul 29, 2022 at 06:55:07 AM

Update Contents:

• Global Situation
• LMS Strategy
• LMS Project status

Hello, guys!

This will be a slightly different update than usual since its contents will be shared on our 3 ongoing projects: Nova Aetas: Renaissance, Black Rose Wars: Rebirth, and The Breach.

As we all know by now, it is a difficult moment for boardgame projects on Kickstarter and for those who love to support them, certainly, the most complex period experienced to date.

Many publishers, who operate here on Kickstarter and other crowdfunding platforms, have had and are having problems in the realization and delivery of their projects due to the various global crises that have hit hard, directly or indirectly, the entire boardgame industry in the last two years.

In recent days we have received several messages of concern, many of you have asked us if this situation will also have direct repercussions on the production of our games, possibly leading to further delays in deliveries, or, worse, additional costs due to increases in the prices of raw materials and shipments.

We, therefore, want to give you some more visibility on our current and future strategy, and have a look more in detail at our ongoing projects, to give all of you who support our projects more information and reassure you about the actual situation. 

For our major projects, the risks essentially come from two factors, we will analyze both down here.

1. Projects that do not achieve the desired results during Crowdfunding.

We believe it is strategically too risky to entrust the solidity of our business solely to the results of the Crowdfunding platforms. For this reason, over a year ago we started new commercial policies, aimed at establishing long-term strategic partnerships with various publishers around the world, in order to increasingly reduce the risks dictated by factors beyond our direct control. We will continue to include elements in the campaigns that will not be distributed, in this way we aim to always give an excellent value for money ratio to thank those who support us during the crowdfunding campaign.

2. Conditions that change in the time span between the collection of funds and the delivery of the games.

To reduce the lead time (between the end of the campaign and delivery) we have included new people both in the graphic team and in the game design team, changed internal processes, and enhanced playtesting. However, we want to keep the possibility of interacting with you during the creation phase of projects, so we will aim to share information with you and ask for opinions and suggestions well before the start of the Crowdfunding campaigns, so that the journey together is divided into two parts, before and after the Crowdfunding campaign.

To further reduce the risks, it is our standard procedure to proceed to block costs with the factory, paying an advance on future production, in order to avoid unpleasant surprises when starting mass production. Unfortunately, we are unable to implement the same practice for shipments, and it has already happened with projects that have just been delivered or are in the final phase of delivery (D.E.I. and wave 2 of Dungeonology) that the cost differences are therefore over at our expense, going to significantly reduce project margins, but still allow us to manage the situation by avoiding asking you for extra contributions.

It is possible that extra funds may be needed in the future beyond what was budgeted and collected, as game creators we believe that the best way to remedy this is through the creation of new products to offer our fans.

A brief mention of the status of the individual projects.

Nova Aetas: Renaissance

It is our most ambitious project, a game with many elements and a strong narrative component, which is taking more time than expected to be able to deliver a solid and high-quality product.

From a production standpoint, we are pleased to inform you that the Kickstarter production has already been paid for in full to the factory. We have chosen to divide the project into two waves, the extra costs will be absorbed by us. The production of NAR Wave 1 will be finalized by the end of the year and includes the Core Box, most of the Stretch Goals, and 4 expansions (Hyperion, The Mediceo, Minotaur, Draco) in the 5 languages ​​provided. Wave 2, which includes the 3 expansions Vesuvio, Under Siege, Catacombs, and the remaining SGs, will be finalized in the first half of 2023.

Black Rose Wars: Rebirth

The second chapter of our most successful game is in development and testing, as announced we are aiming to ship it by the first half of 2023. With more than 15 new Schools of Magic, and many new Mages and Avatars, the tuning and playtesting for a card game like Rebirth is long but necessary to deliver a game that is both fun and well playable. A first advance payment has been made for Rebirth to fix the production price, and we have already paid in full for all steel molds for miniatures.

The Breach

Our latest project, the campaign ended just over a month ago, at the moment we are working on its development. In September the production of the steel molds for the miniatures will start, we are now closing the final agreements on the production costs, in order to block the costs before the end of August. This is one of the first projects to have received much greater processing before the Crowdfunding campaign, also given the more "compact" nature of this project, we aim to respect the delivery times given during the Kickstarter campaign and deliver all the material within the summer of 2023.

Projects in Fulfillment

In addition to the 3 projects we have just talked about, Divide et Impera and Wave 2 of Dungeonology are currently in the final phase of delivery, by August the shipments of Chambers of Wonders, the second game of our Lite line will begin. These 3 projects have suffered significant delays for various causes, both dependent and independent of us, but after so many vicissitudes we are proud and happy to bring them to our backers' tables.

We hope that this information can reassure all our backers of the work we are doing, on the commitment and passion with which we are carrying out our projects!

Next week we will come back to you with a more usual Rebirth update!

As always, thank you for your support and love!

#Fireball!#Firewall!

The Great Magister has spoken!
almost 2 years ago – Fri, Jul 01, 2022 at 11:07:11 PM

Update Contents

• Design Update by the Author
• New Schools of Magic Roundup
• More Miniature PU Samples

Hello, Magisters!

As promised, this new update will be entirely dedicated to a  BRW: Rebirth design report, written directly by the Great Magister Marco Montanaro, who will show us his progress in creating the new schools!

However,  we couldn't miss the opportunity to even show you some new PU Samples from the factory!

But let's not waste time and immediately leave the floor to Marco, with 2 words of recommendation: Spoilers Alert!!!!

"Hello, my dear scholars! At the library of the Black Rose, after a considerable amount of instability to repair it, we are working tirelessly on new spells and formulas. As we proceed with the numerous tests, the powerful mages of the Italian Lodge (Black Rose Wars Rebirth Academy ed.) are eager to test the new spells. Death, destruction, and power are the lodge specialties. Once in a while, a special guest enters the lodge, bringing pain and suffering to the mages or just to suffer their powerful spells. 

 Enough with the chit-chat, let's start digging deep into what's cooking and what's cooked. I'm delighted to announce that all the schools of magic are done and are undergoing tests to balance their effects!
Well... except for one... the Chaos school (Nomen Omen) is proving to be a real challenge. I'm working on its 7th revision! The incarnation of Chaos, the Vastum, shreds several lodges, opponents, and other evocations. Thanks to the Magister Daniele (aka Furt) there has been no rest on re-shaping the school to give enough of the "Chaos" experience.

 It is pleasant to see the Apocalypse schools fighting in the lodge and releasing that end-of-the-world taste. When War it's on the battlefield damage is the keyword. The school mechanic aims to arm the Mage with Weapons. Those Weapons allow the Magister to spend Physical Actions Tokens for a different purpose than just activate, attack, or explore. The Claymore of William Wallace, i.e., allows to target a model within a range of 0 and inflict them damage equal to the strength of the wearer +2!

 All of this while Famine starves its opponents... How you are asking?
What's more precious than stealing your opponents' cubes and storing them where they cannot be used? But do not worry you will be more than willing to satiate your opponents..at a price obviously. The school contains 3 new key mechanics: Starve, Satiate and Distribute. Starving your opponents removes from their reserve as many cubes as indicated by the Starve number. Those cubes go on the Famine Card for later use (there are ways to take back cubes if you are out of them! e.d.).

 Death in the meantime counts your destiny, literally! The mechanic of the school allows the mage to assign special tokens that mark your death clock. Death is the cancellation of effects and appropriation of the others' defeats. Each Destiny Token assigned will convert damage on the mage.  If 4 tokens are assigned, during the Clean-up Phase, the mage is defeated... no matter how many life points he had left. Oh, I forgot to mention it can be used to kill evocations...

 While War beats their opponents, Famine starves them and death makes sure it claims their death... Pestilence sprawls the lodge with filthy Rats, those miniatures come with a little one of your Instability in it. When accidentally killed (watch out with those fireballs ed.) or removed on purpose, they either drop the Instability in their Room or release the Infectio to all Mages in the Room. Those infections will be assigned to the Mage and during the Clean-up Phase will assign damage and make the opponents lose precious power points (2 Infectio = 1 Power Point, 3 Infection = Power Points). The rats also allow winning Room Instability count, in fact, the Instability they carry counts when you are deciding who is the biggest contributor to the room's reconstruction (Destruction for BRW ed.)
 

 But the lodge has not been only an Apocalypse. Geomancy became one of the most used and preferred schools in the Lodge. Maurizio (aka Akira.1974) nicknamed it the parsley school, just because it fits with every dish! A bit of Geomancy gives more taste to any of your strategies.
Geomancy brings the mechanic of Geoform: depending on the color of the Rooms where you are casting the Spell becomes more powerful.  The double cards half Trap and half Contingency or Combat are another nice addition to the school.

 All of this while helped by Alberto (Aka Velys) we brought Classical Egypt into the Lodge (Alberto is our historical expert). The Heka school with its famous Pharaohs and jinxes unleashes the rage of the desert. It is always great to summon Tuthankamon in the Lodge and shift the mages on your Traps that unleash new Jinxes on your opponents. Probably one of the best matches so far was a 1:1 between Gramigna and Seba, Hex vs Heka.

 From Egypt, we move to Greece-Delphi with the Oracle school. The "school breaker" Alessandro (aka King of Jokes) had enough Spells to foresee the future and complete 11 Quests in a single match!
If I'm planning to find some broken combos, he is the man.
Oracle itself brings 2 new mechanics to the Lodge: customized Oracle Events that you can place on the event boards and the Oracle's Tarots, a set of custom triggers that you can apply at your traps as you predict what the future will look like in the Lodge.

From Greece back to Italy, at the forge of Etna where we find another Equipment school: Forge. The school brings new powerful Artifacts like its older brother Enchantment (Black Rose Wars e.d.). Furthermore, you can summons little cuties, the Pupae, that can be boosted with new Upgrades coming nothing more than from the gods. Thanks to the spells you can either arm yourself and beath your opponents to the death, or have an army of upgraded Pupae to do that. 

 At last, the Druidic school. A concentrate of power and arena control. In the 2 builds of the Druidic school, you summon Bears or Crocodiles and can become either of those!
The new mechanic of the school is the Transformations: thanks to these Spells your Mage will transform into either a black Bear or a vicious Crocodile, a favorite of Paolo (aka CrocodileDundee-Pollondon). The transformation card gives you an additional Physical Action token and some more powers that you can use to spend your Physical Action tokens. At the end of the turn you can choose to remain in the current form by simply keeping the spell in position 4 of your board and reducing your Spells' playability to 3... but who cares, now you have 3 Physical Actions and plenty of new ways to use them."

 -----------------------------------------------
     *Someone knocks at the door*
      M: I wonder who disturb me during my studies...
     *The magister walks slowly to the door*
     M: Who is there? I'm busy, so if you are here for new spells...Go away!
     L: It's Landolfo here... we have something to discuss dear magister...
     M: I was not waiting for you, but since you are here... let's see what the Chaos school can bring again...
 -----------------------------------------------

"Dear scholars, I think it's enough information about the tests. Next time will reveal more of the created Avatars: Odin, Gaea, Magma, Jukas, Rubedo... and more!
Well, we need to talk also about the Scenarios...the additional Forgotten Spells..."
 

We thank Marco for this amazing journey into the new Schools of Magic, and we can't wait to read what his evil mind has given birth to for all the Rebirth Avatars!

In the meantime, tell us if his words have exalted you as they have exalted us! See you in July for a new update!

As usual, stay safe and Fireball!

PU Sample and Pledge Manager update
almost 2 years ago – Fri, Jun 03, 2022 at 09:43:16 PM

Hello, Magisters!

Quick update to show you some cool stuff and information about the Pledge Manager.

Today we show you the first PU Samples received from the factory. These miniatures samples are shipped from the factory to allow us to check the quality of the molds, therefore they match exactly the final quality and level of detail. Let's go to see the first 3 models!

We start with Kormac, the Magister of the new Druidic school, included in the North Winds box! His model, rich in details, perfectly embodies the imagery of a Druid. The grim and determined face leaves little doubt about his intentions... personally one of my favorite Magisters!

 We continue with two models from the Madness box: Albedo. With its imposing appearance, it will intimidate your opponents, and summoning it will surely guarantee you a lot of Trophies! The friezes on its armor will look great on anyone who likes painting.

 We end this first roundup with another oversized miniature: Nocturnus!

The Umbras King really looks like something from our worst nightmares. The miniature details enhance his primal-horror appearance, and painting lovers can have fun painting them to make Nocturnus even scarier!

We are really satisfied with the quality of these first samples, did you like them?

About the Pledge Manager, as mentioned in the last update, mass production should start in September, so we have decided to postpone the official closure of the Rebirth Pledge Manager to August 31st, 2022. We hope the news will please those who have yet to complete their Survey. For those who have already completed it, it can be an opportunity to add more to their order; in this case, we remind you that you can make changes to an already closed order by contacting our Customer Service.

We take this opportunity to remind you that The Breach Kickstarter Campaign is online and that it contains some tributes coming directly from the Lodge! For this new Kickstarter, we have decided not to include crossover game material with BRW, but we just enjoyed adding some old friends.

At the moment Nero, Arianna, and Rebecca have appeared, with their virtual version, to bring some of the magic of the Lodge into the Gene.sys Database! Very soon another old friend will be appearing in The Breach! 

As mentioned, these models have no rules to be played in Rebirth, but obviously, no one will be able to stop you from using them as alternative "skins" for your beloved Magisters! :)

If you want to take a look at the project... you are welcome!

Let us know if you have tried playing The Possessed (released in the last update) in the first chapter of Black Rose Wars, and what are your first impressions about this first Avatar!!

See you soon for the second update of June, where we will give you news about game design directly with the Great Magister Marco!

Fireball!

#Firewall! #SaveJukas #TheBreach

The Possessed is waiting for you!
almost 2 years ago – Sat, May 21, 2022 at 12:24:32 PM

Hello, Magisters!

Here we are with the little surprise we promised you!

Have you followed our advice and read the Possessed rules in the new Rulebook? Because we have just created for all of you a Print & Play version with all the material concerning the first Avatar that you will face in the Lodge: The Possessed!

FROM THIS LINK you can download the pdf file with all the material to play it immediately using the core box of the first chapter of BRW (you remember that the two chapters are compatible with each other, do you??), using the rules contained in the new BRW:R Rulebook which we released last week.

Talking about the new Rulebook, we want to thank all the Backers who jumped into the new Rulebook, leaving us a lot of helpful feedback. Your participation has been great and we are proud of a community that loves this project so much!

Going back to The Possessed P&P: download the file we have prepared, get a pair of scissors and some sleeves, choose the miniature of one of the Mages in your collection to represent it, and you will be ready to try one of the most important innovations introduced by BRW:Rebirth!

Remember that Avatars are excellent for playing solo, but also very fun in multiplayer games, to create asymmetries and unpredictable situations, where everyone must be ready to react to be able to win the game.

Regarding the development of the game, as we wrote to you last week, the last external playtests on the Apocalypse material are underway, it is the most delicate of the expansions, being linked to the tournament mode. 

Here is a quick summary of the state of the work of the entire project:

•  In Development: Rotas Box
•  Internal Playtesting Phase: Gaea Reborn, Dreadforge, Jukas, Irene the wanderer
•  External Playtesting Phase: Apocalypse
•  Completed: Core Box, Seal of Fire, Deadly Masks

The Great Magister Marco is currently working on the Rotas Box material, which thanks to all the material we have unlocked together represents a considerable part of the project. The 4 new schools of Magic and the 7 Avatars present in the various boxes that make up the Rotas, in order to be qualitatively equal to all the rest of the material, require careful design and tuning. We think we will be able to complete our work by the end of October 2022, in order to start mass production of all paper material immediately afterward. To optimize time, the translations will be carried forward as the various expansions are completed.

As for the development of the miniatures, we are completing the final review of the models with the factory and the approval of the PU samples, so that we can start mass production by the beginning of September.

Given the quantity of material involved, we are quite satisfied with the progress of the work.

We are pleased to share with you the first photos from the Play 2022 fair in Modena! We are attending the most important Italian games convention, and of course, Rebirth is present with the latest (and definitive) version of the Core Box. New and old Magisters are already in the Lodge dueling to death!

Those of you who are at the convention can come and visit us at booth A23, to try out Rebirth, Nova Aetas Renaissance, D.E.I., and the brand new: The Breach!

As many of you already know, The Breach Kickstarter campaign will start on Tuesday (May 24th). Set in the Nova Aetas: Chronicles universe, The Breach takes place in the near future, just before the climate catastrophe in which D.E.I. is set.

In this future, you play the role of the Breachers. These digital rebels will compete with each other, infiltrating the Gene.sys, a mysterious and super-protected database controlled by the Achab Corporation, in search of precious information and secrets capable of changing the world...

The Breach is a competitive Net Crawler that will test your strategic, tactical, and resource management skills, in a fast-paced scenario with constant reversals in front of you. Will you be able to become the best Breacher ever?

If you are intrigued and want to follow us in this new adventure and discover a new piece of the history of our setting, click on Follow in the preview of the Kickstarter campaign. If you want to know more you can read the dedicated page on our website or follow the updates on The Breach Facebook group.

In the next update, around mid-June, we will show you photos of the PU samples received (the quality is really stunning!), And spoilers on the completed materials of the expansions!

And now we leave you in the clutches of the Possessed! We look forward to receiving your feedback!

Fireball!