Hey folks,
we’ve been talking a lot about Bladestorm and gave you a tour of the new Rulesbook. But what does the game actually feel like? To remedy that, we created this little video tutorial that will take you through the Basic Game scenario which can also be found in the Quickstart Rules. Three Goblins Montu, Argh and Cro take on a big, ugly Sea-Troll. How do they fare? Well, let’s find out…
Hey everyone. This is a heads up that preparations for the RPC Demo Table have been completed. The large chunks of marketing stuff (find us thanks to two big human sized rollups and yellow T-Shirts) and spiral bound Rulebooks were luckily designed and ordered a while back. During the last couple of weeks (2 months, ahem…) remained the rather tedious task of assembling and planning the locations, encounters and treasures that you will find during your short journeys on our gaming mat. What came as a big surprise to me, was a big Kraken-mat, that my friends gave me as a birthday present especially in view of the upcoming convention season.
THANK YOU SO MUCH GUYS, IT’S AWESOME!!
Anyway, last night saw the initial test of the new setup at a local gaming event and I’m happy to say it worked great! Between 7:00 pm and 2:00 am we ran a bunch of encounters with varying forces and participants. In the Demo Game, players can take any of the 14 archetype characters on a test skirmish through the dark, orc ridden forest and free the mage besieged in his humble abode. Try to evade the mounted rider on his hungry, bulky beast while questing for the hidden healing well. Overpower the chieftain at his fireside and loot untold treasures from his stashes!
From the demo games emerged – just by chance – a number of really high powered magical items. One lucky player in particular continued to roll in the high 80s to 90s while identifying his loot. This resulted in a wealth of items such as spell imbued armor, magic potions, weapons and lots of other peculiar and powerful items.
Get your share of the adventure!
Looking forward to seeing you May 27th!
YES, you heard right! Thanks to the Fandom program which offers space for new and aspiring hobbyists and projects, we are going to have a dedicated area for Bladestorm demo games at the Role-Play-Convention 2017 in Cologne, Germany.
Since the release of Second Edition finally launched also in print last month, it is now possible to do some demo games with the finished product in a larger hands-on gaming environment. What better place to be in May than at the Role-Play-Convention, Germany’s biggest professional trade show for Tabletop, Card, Pen&Paper, LARP and Computer Gaming? Each year, between 50.000 and 60.000 enthusiast join up for two full days of fun and gaming at the Koelnmesse Exhibition Center.
After initial contact with the officials was very positive regarding participation in the program, contact was forwarded to the organizing staff of the tabletop area. Today, following a presentation and some phone calls, we are extremely excited to announce that Bladestorm is going to officially exhibit in the Tabletop Arena!
Time flies when preparing for a trade show and thus preparations are already underway to make a great first appearance on May 27th!!
Stay tuned!
“Greetings Youtube”
Granted, I couldn’t just copy that line from a favorite youtuber without feeling really bad about it, so I contented myself with a simple “Hi there!”. Starting today, you can find Bladestorm on Youtube where the book and the scope of rules is explained in two “flip-through “videos.
The first video covers the Rules from Basic Game to the Standard Game.
And the second video covers the Optional Rules, Campaign Rules and Appendix chapters.
Please bear with my limited technical setup as the GoPro camera that I initially intended for the job turned out to be the wrong choice (fish-eye lens got everything in the room except the book). Soooo, I fixed my smart phone to an old magnifier lamp (thus the little sway in the first few seconds) and talked about the most important points of the new edition.
If you are new to Bladestorm and want to know what it’s all about or if you have been pondering whether the hardcover book is the right choice: This video is for you 😉
A mere four days to Christmas Eve and way before 2016 bids it’s farewell, I am thrilled to announce the availability of the printed hardcover version of Bladestorm Second Edition!
The book can be ordered for 37.99 USD at RPGNow.
There is also a 10.00 USD discount when buying the print and pdf bundle.
Before I forget, the PDF-version was also updated with some corrections and should now come along with richer graphics. This of course comes at a price which you will notice in file-size once you download the updated file version.
With this being the final milestone on our Bladestorm product roadmap for 2016, we can now start planning what may come next for our completely renovated skirmish system. Join us online and tell us about your adventures. I hope you enjoy this great game as much as we do.
Best wishes to you all!
Have a great holiday season (and some good time rolling dice) 😀
–Sebastian
Yesterday, I received the proof copy in the mail. It took the package almost three weeks to get here but in the end, all wheels of the international mail system turned slowly but reliably towards their destination. Interestingly enough, this was the first book I ordered off RPGNow that did not originate in the UK. Instead the book arrived here from Malmö, Sweden.
Now, regardless of the fact that the print files got mixed up: The book itself is going to be gorgeous! Flipping through the pages revealed crisp graphics, very good readability of all print and most importantly, the page tabs and page numbers inside the so called safety area (which caused the file to get rejected by the printer) were 100% where they were supposed to be.
I’ll keep you posted!
Hi everybody,
I thought I pass along the current state of affairs with our journey to a printed book. Tedious, to say the least. Last night, I received yet another rejection of the print files from RPGNow. The cover has now been accepted – which is a good thing. Unfortunately, the latest info that was passed along by the system will result in a rather unexpected work-over.
To sum it up, these changes had to be done in the first two reviews:
NEW!
After successfully completing print runs with other companies, I must say that Lightning Source – the official printer for RPGNow – has the most restrictive policies regarding document conformity. When I can understand that over ink is an issue that arises with certain printing techniques, it is not really understandable why they would refuse decorative content which is expected to display some planned clipping in the final product. But here goes nothing….
Back to the cutting room !
While the wait continues for the Lightning Source (woefully not lightning fast) file validation for the printed book, there was some time to return to the gaming table and update a whole bunch of cards. Some critters and forces that I had been using for play testing sessions were printed on older templates and some now even had wrong values.
Let’s remember that Bladestorm Second Edition does away with unit savings, so all the unit cards now have a higher total point cost.
After all the new cards were printed and laminated, I turned to mark the finished cards with a little colored sticker in the top right corner to distinguish different kinds of forces. Naturally, my seemingly endless source of stickers was finally depleted. That sparked an idea that had been rolling around for some time. Now that we have these nifty forms, why not make them color coded in the first place? Said and done!
New templates with a RED, GREEN and BLUE tinted background can be downloaded at RPGNow!
Bladestorm Combatant, Unit and Vehicle Templates RED
Bladestorm Combatant, Unit and Vehicle Templates GREEN
Bladestorm Combatant, Unit and Vehicle Templates BLUE
Enjoy!
Thumbs up! The release went by smoothly albeit some nudges here and there with file names and category selections. Shortly after the files were available, work has started on the printed version of Second Edition. The spiral bound book I am showing off in the release thread has only been a “localized” test. A pre-alpha so to say. I had to reformat the source files to DIN A4 and sent them to an internet print service. Finally a way to hold the finished work in hands. Their print results are top notch but it also posted me with some troubles that would arise once I setup the printing title with RPGNow.
Some picture areas of the book were quite dark. This is a common effect when printing something that has been prepared in RGB colors. Printers use the CMYK color profile and converting from RGB to CMYK will result in a darkening effect. To some extent you can plan ahead and expect this effect with a brighter toned picture. Unfortunately, there is another effect called “overink”.
Today’s number is “240”!
240% is the total amount of ink RPGNow – or better, their printer Lightning Source – demand to be present in a preflight document. Since the colors CYAN, MAGENTA, YELLOW and black (KEY-plate) get layered during printing, having too much ink in one spot may blur or result in smudges. The common color profiles bring 300% to the table and colors look rich, you don’t care. Once you apply a color filter you can identify those areas which are subject to an “overink” effect. The trick is now to desaturate the black colors while trying to stay as true as possible to the original image. That happened.
It took a couple of long nights to reformat the print sources and do a bunch of conversions. With all requirements in place, exporting the preflight document now takes up to half an hour on a quad core. The finished pdf is clocking in at 250MB!
With the initial conversions out of the way, I am happy to announce that the files are now off to the printer for validation. How long that will take, I cannot tell. The internets knows of anything from two to three weeks for files to process. Even then, it might get rejected and further changes might be required. For now, we’re good.
I will keep you posted 😉
After months of planning, lots of work and seemingly endless rewrites and corrections, I am proud and happy to announce the official release of Bladestorm Second Edition. The new Rulesbook as well as tools and game aides are available for purchase and as free downloads at RPGNow.
1. Core Book
Bladestorm Rulesbook Second Edition
2. Tools
Bladestorm Calculator (Heavily expanded and now a free product)
3. Game Aides
Archetype PictureCards
Combatant and Unit Templates (English)
Kämpfer und Einheitenvorlagen (German)
If you are not sure what kind of game you are getting into, you can always grab a copy of the Quick-Start Rules which introduce the mechanics of the game and include a quick entry level scenario. With the Bladestorm Calculator now being a free product, you can also setup melee encounters between any type of adversaries. If you want to get more – and there is A LOT – the complete Rulesbook is the definite way to exciting tabletop battles!
Now there is one more thing…
With the original electronic publication completed, we are now looking at the next step forward. Following a phase of little nudges here and there (some typos may be found even though we stayed as vigilant as the auto correction) we are planning to bring Bladestorm Second Edition to you also as a Print-On-Demand publication. To my great pleasure, mail today arrived in perfect timing.
The production files have passed their first test run at the printer and are looking simply awesome! BS2E actually turned out to be quite a big book. Now if you’re a looking for the right hardware to go along with your digital files, stay tuned…there is more to come!
