Now on Kickstarter – Siege of the Citadel and Thornwatch

I know what you’re thinking – you haven’t finished writing that Storm King’s Thunder review, and yet here you are posting a second ‘Now on Kickstarter’ in two weeks. Well, too bad, these are a lot easier to write than one of my full-sized RPG reviews (you’ll get it on Monday). Or maybe you were thinking that it was great to see another curated Kickstarter-link post, in which case, you’re welcome.

Last time, we had one giant RPG and one small-scale game. This time, we’ve got one two board games that are going to be huge:

thornwatch

Thornwatch: Once upon a time, there was a web comic called Penny Arcade. And lo, it did grow into a mighty empire of comics and commentary and conventions (I swear, any day now Strange Assembly is going to have its own convention too). Then, one day, they decided to make a tabletop game. And then they licensed the Penny Arcade brand for a couple of other games. But then, one day, they decided to make another tabletop game, and it appeared this one might be the bee’s knees! Designed in conjunction with Lone Shark Games (who you can hear more from in our Live from GenCon episode), Thornwatch is not based on the core Penny Arcade characters, but rather on a subcategory of strips about the Eyrewood, a fantasy setting. In the world-spanning Eyrewood, villagers tie a knot of brambles on a tree to summon the Thornwatch for assistance. The players take on the role of Members of the Thornwatch, responding to this call. The RPG-style action is card driven, with dice-based attack resolution. The members of the Thornwatch who are summoned are those who are needed, and so although there is a campaign element to Thornwatch, it is not tied to individual characters. Rather, the players can earn knots, which will provide benefits when they sit down at a later game of Thornwatch – whether they are the Judge or normal players, and whether they are playing with the same group. So except a lot of Thornwatch at those PAX conventions. Thornwatch is fully funded several times over, has another 3.5 weeks on Kickstarter (ending on October 5), and the basic pledge level is $78.

siegeofthecitadel

 

Mutant Chronicles: Siege of the Citadel: We covered the Mutant Chronicles 3E RPG Kickstarter in the sixth one of these columns (way back in February 2014), and this time around we’ve got the resurrection of the Siege of the Citadel board game, which was originally released in the 1990s. The new version of this miniatures-heavy game involves Modiphius Entertainment (publisher of the RPG), and Cabinet Games (headed up by Fred Malmberg, who ran Target Games, the original publisher), plus a lauded crew including Eric Lang, Richard Borg, Kevin Wilson, and Jay Little. Siege of the Citadel is a campaign style combat game, but with control of the alien invaders the Dark Legion (the bad guys) passing from player to player over the course of the campaign. Players can power up their own corporate-backed forces (there are five unique corporations, each with its own heroes), and the Dark Legion player similarly has the opportunity to boost their ‘normal’ assets based on how well they do as the Dark Legion. Siege of the Citadel is fully funded and the campaign runs through October 8, 2016. The “standard” pledge level is $69, but I suspect that most will go for the get-everything pledge level of $149 (the $69 pledge basically gets enhancements to the base game, but not more expansion-like material).

 

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