Kickstarter Twelve Elements od War

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Highguard

Noble and proud, its soldiers armoured in the finest steel plate, Highguard once ruled all of the Eastlands… but that day is now past.

The Mining Guild

Ruling an ever-expanding subterranean realm, the Mining Guild is a faction renowned for the toughness and tenacity of its warriors and citizens.

The Geniocracy of Toth

Masters of invention and technology, the Geniocracy makes extensive use of clockwork constructs, aiding its citizens in menial tasks and marching alongside its armies when it goes to war.

The Shadow Hold

Shrouded in darkness, the acolytes of the Shadow Hold are Runecasters who wield powers beyond comprehension and are feared across all of the Eastlands.

The Keepers

Religious fanatics who believe they alone can save Dothmora, the Keepers are a fervent order who see it as their divine duty to rid the Eastlands of dangerous Runecasters.

Heroes for Hire

Warbands can be supported by a number of unique “Heroes for Hire” lending their services to your noble cause (for the right amount of sovereigns of course)

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When we first approached the task of making a set of rules for Twelve Elements of War, there were so many questions that had to be answered before we could make the game. So we sat down and talked about the things we DIDN'T want in this game... This made us think about all those times we didn't enjoy ourselves while sitting at the wargaming table:

• Arguing about rules interactions and downright fuzzy wording of rules that leave you unsure of what they mean.

• Opponents conveniently forgetting the negative rules of their forces.

• Pages and pages of complicated charts just to figure out what happens when my guy rolls a 4 when your guy has a stat of 5.

• Waiting patiently (sometimes up to an hour!) for my opponent to have his turn so I can do something

• Unbalanced forces leading to all the players taking the one 'best' build or faction

So with these things in mind, we set forth creating Twelve Elements of War with these Tenets of Game Design:

• Make the rules clear and concise, so that players understand them without needing to interpret what was meant.

• Make the rules modular so that a special rule acts in a similar manner to other special rules, standardising the way rules interact with each other.

• Remove as many 'penalty' rules from the game as possible. Instead make that penalty a bonus to your opponent. If your opponent neglects to take advantage of this weakness, this is forgetfulness; if you “conveniently” forget to take into account your weakness, this is cheating and ruins games.

• Have markers showing what conditions are on a model, so that all players can see the status of all models at a glance. Also try to minimise the number of different markers so that it does not get cluttered or confusing.

• Remove all charts that a player needs to access more than once per game. Charts and tables to resolve a combat slow down a game and requires you to memorise them which hinders learning of the game.

• Minimise the downtime between when a player gets to do something (other than remove his models from the tabletop!)

• Concentrate on making sure each faction and list is balanced and fair compared to the others

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Hi All,
I wish I had a cheerier note for first thing in the morning.

It has become clear to us here at Sword & Board Games, that meeting the high levels of expectations this game has drawn, is going to be very difficult.

The Kickstarter campaign and the interest it has developed, has made clear to us that those who want the game would like it to be more realized than we currently have it, and we are receiving contact from retailers who would like levels of stock which we just cannot provide at this time.

Our intention is to cancel this iteration of the Kickstarter campaign, and get to work on fleshing out the proposed model range to support this game a lot further, so when we return we have a much broader set of goals to allow this game to be more complete as a result of its crowd funding support.

We will be back on Kickstarter in July, and we want to make sure we have learnt from our experiences, taken on board the feedback from the gaming community and will make sure we fully realise the expectations people have for our products.

I hope to have the rulebook available from our website store in the first half of next year.

Make sure you keep up to date with news on our Facebook page and our Website and sign up to our newsletter here: I do apologise and I appreciate the phenomenal support you all have given to the game and myself Thank you all for your understanding. But it's clear that this game deserves the best opportunity to be as complete as it can be.

Thanks and Stay Tuned!

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