Nice… but… is that Brass without industry? And a single train line?
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Brass: Isle of Wight – No Canals, No Rails, Just Sheep
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Bonus point if you mass produce needles.
I’ll leave.
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I thought they had more Cowes than sheep?
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I don’t think anyone posted the edition of Martin Wallace’s Tinner’s Trail. I hadn’t heard of it before and it doesn’t seem like anything particularly unique when there are so many options for Euros out there. But it does look very nice:
It seems fairly heavily redesigned from whatever Wallace’s original game mechanics were, though presumably retains the core experience which I think is an interesting approach.
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I’ve heard uneven opinions on Tinners’ Trail and, to some degree, suspect some people like it because it was, until the last couple of years when it was reintroduced to the zeitgeist, a lesser known title from a famed designer.
Definitely one I’ll be keeping an eye out for when it hits retail.
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I’ve played the original, which could be summed up as “get as much tin out of the mines as you can before Cornwall sinks”. I like the time track (player with lowest marker gets an action, they do a thing that takes N time units, move their marker up by N, repeat) but it isn’t the only game that uses it. But I’m not a huge Wallace fan.
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Oh wow. I didnt know it was already out.
I wasnt wowed by the original. But I do like the time-as-a-resource which is also in AuZtralia.
Will keep watch of it
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It’s from Smallbrook Junction to Havenstreet.
As the forum’s top Island-born lurker I am offended and amused by recent posts in this thread.
The Island line has bumps so severe, and 80 year old Underground seats so springy, you can hover in the air between Ryde and Brading.
(Sadly these old trains are currently being replaced)
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I’m honoured.
Hope there are no other IOW lurkers who can challenge this title, otherwise we will need to face off in time-honoured Island fashion.
(Kickstarters? Only Streets and Cascadia on my wait list. So few it seems almost criminal)
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Anyone had a look at this one? I’m sorely tempted despite not being supposed to back anything for another 4 weeks. Any thoughts on gameplay? I slightly wonder if it’s a touch close to Street Masters in terms of the joys. Maybe less of the hanging on while building up to crush feel and more consistent hand management needing to balance some ebb and flow. The thing that disappoints me most about SM is the unpaintably poor minis, this looks more fun for the minis painting feel to me.
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For a boss battler I’m surprised to see the spatial element almost entirely removed. All the players stood around a stationary big mini (as it spins around?) doesn’t look so thematic!
I appreciate minis and am not one of those “rah rah gallon of plastic” types, but… the minis seem redundant for what is ostensibly a card game with very little happening on a board.
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The minis really do appear to be superfluous, but the positioning elements do appear to be important as far as being in the front, rear, or flanks of the monster, where its weak points are, where it attacks, etc., and having to respond to its movements. That’s not taking the terrain elements into account, as the KS page did not do anything to detail how they affect the combat. This all could easily be done with cards or tokens, of course, but let’s face it: minis makes these campaigns.
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It does have movement between the zones. I watched a bit of an overview and your movement cards do move you around zones, it’s just the boss spins to face wherever you end up under some conditions which you can manipulate. Whether that’s enough… I don’t know.
Yeah, if it wasn’t for the minis I wouldn’t have been so interested. A manageable amount of monsters to paint seems like half the fun to me.
The problems are the campaign finishes before my self imposed exile ends and I’ve already broken it once and it’s a lot of money.
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I backed 18Mag at the last minute just to push onto the last stretch goal. I hope that things will be fine by Q4 so I can pick it up from Essen.
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So, having watched Rolling Solo’s playthrough, I’m definitely interested.
Minis are always superfluous. But some people seem to like them. And yeah, positioning is important - the monster as you fight it will transition between stances that make particular parts of its body available to damage or not, it will turn to face the hero it has aggro on (based on cards heroes play or sometimes its behavior cards). Behavior cards will trigger based on heroes starting in a particular position relative to it, like front or back. Some behaviors will do things like drop fire in the front position or swing a tail at the back. (And whether you share a zone with fire definitely matters.) And the demoed monster had an objective to whack it in the tail that would ultimately do extra damage. Terrain tokens apparently do things like let you hide in a bush, heal off herbs growing in a zone, or do extra damage.
Is that enough to compensate for not having the fully granular positioning of a KD:M or Aeon Trespass or whatever? I don’t know. But in KD:M, at least, it seemed like that rarely mattered that much to me. Most of the time I wanted to be right up against the enemy except when dashing away to avoid attacks, it was just a question of front, sides or back. And often back was best. Primal seems to at least mix that up a bit more. I also definitely think the system of having distinct cards with different special qualities that you play in particular orders and have to also use to fuel card plays (as stamina) and movement is more interesting than that game’s very dice-oriented combat systems (I’m told you can eventually get to a point in KD:M where there’s a lot more tactical and strategic decisions going on than just rolling to see if you hit and occasionally spending survival to dodge or dash or surge, and trying to build gear sets between fights, but, well, I lost interest before that.) The way the monster doesn’t actually act on its own defined turn but does incidental “attrition” damage if you’re not defending enough and triggers attacks and maneuvers based on what you’re doing on your turn also is pretty interesting, I think, adding another piece to the what to play puzzle.
The thing that’s a bit weird about the zone board over more granular position is at least one of the characters uses a ranged weapon and that doesn’t seem to have a mechanical advantage specific to having range. That character does get a card (well, a couple) called “Long Range” which shields her against attrition damage if it’s top of the discard, and the bow itself can “volley” on attacks, which does extra damage if you draw attack cards off the top of your deck. But it’s not quite the same, I think.
Edit: one thing I’d like to see and I’m not sure anyone has demoed is the campaign stuff. The boss fight component seems solid, but I want to see what crafting is like and what other between fight stuff may go on. That was really the hook for me with KD:M.
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Hmm. Okay, the whole volley thing was apparently just one possible style of doing the greatbow, based on the latest update, where they showed a bunch of different builds. Which is not to say that each “class”/weapon type doesn’t have its own identity, but there’s different “masteries” you can equip to reward powerful abilities if you manage particular feats during combat, and different weapon abilities. So the build in the video I watched had a “Burst” mastery that allowed volleying every round up front once you ran through your deck once (plus bonus damage for running through your deck subsequent times) and had a bow with volley on every attack, but there were others shown in today’s post.
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This is a very similar complaint to mine about the fight in KD:M. Interesting that you picked up on the same issues as me and have similar interest to me in Primal. Although the movement is fairly abstracted I did get an impression it mattered. Maybe more interesting decisions than most in the genre because it might not just be trivial counting of squares.
That might tip me over to fully backing. Thanks for your thoughts! (maybe, they might make me poorer 
)
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I’ve been waiting on this for almost a year, and was there day 1.
The base pledge was a fair bit more than I expected, but the all-in wasn’t by much.
All of the previews have been positive, and have really praised the positioning element despite the abstracted battle field. I actually think this will help the setup and play time.
As far as gameplay, I’ve heard really good things, and while I do think a non-mini option would be nice for those that want it, I love the sculpts and hope they can pull them off.
This is basically the Monster Hunter game I want. The focus is on combat, and narrative and such is minimal.
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