Warlord 4th Edition CCG - the epic fantasy card game

So far I have been vague about GenCon’s Sunday event.

At KoHIT we traditionally do Doubles on Sundays - people want to leave early and because you only have half the number of teams a Doubles tournament usually runs faster than Singles, despite the longer rounds.

At GenCon this year, though, we do Doubles on Thursday. Also at GenCon a lot more people are leaving early, need to catch a flight or have a really lengthy drive home.

Therefore I needed a fun format that runs fast enough to be hosted on Sunday.

The solution is a Baronial Battle. It’s derived from the Battle Royale, where all players sit around one table and play simultaneously. The latter can take way too long, though.

In the Baronial Battle, depending on the number of participants, we’ll play up to three rounds. Up to eight players will sit at one table and play a standard multiplayer game. You get points for staying in the game, and for eliminating other Warlords, for example (there are more, conditional points to be won - specific rules will be forthcoming). The best players will advance to the second and then the third round, where only one final table will be played.

All members of the Ordo Phoenicis Ascendentis are automatically qualified - this is their event. Other players can qualify by winning any of the offered Warlord tournaments - including any of the pick-up sealed tournaments.

Last night more art finals came in (to be spoiled in due time), one of them being the first Warlord. If the Lead Designer can’t wait to get the printed cards into his hands, I’d say that is a good sign.

While talking to Oliver on the phone he suggested a competition to me that I am very happy to do.

Starting on May 1st all members of the Ordo Phoenicis Ascendentis will be eligible to submit one single character card design of theirs. Out of all submissions turned in by June 30th the Design Team will select one card to be included in the first expansion of Warlord, due out at the end of October 2008. That card will identify the name of the member who submitted the card.

Here is your chance to contribute to the game and get your favorite character into it! I really look forward to reading the submissions, too.

Not all playtesting groups are able to physically assemble in one place. They test online.

This in fact gave me an idea: The members of the Ordo Phoenicis Ascendentis have shown their will to invest into the game. Why not reward them, I did promise special perks after all, didn’t I?

What we can give a try, is to have the actual first official Warlord tournament online, on a week-end closely before GenCon. Every Ordo Phoenicis Ascendentis member will be eligible to join and I’ll manage the tournament from my home. It would start some time on a Sunday afternoon my time, so players from either the Americas and Europe (as far as I am aware there are no players in Asia) could participate.

For prizes we’ll simply have some gold pieces for use in the online shop. The best prize of course is competing in the very first tournament and see decks of other players, giving you a head start for GenCon and the first tournament season. Then, if this model works, we might actually do it again (the Ordo Phoenicis Ascendentis christmas tournament on Dec. 26th from your cushy home, anyone?), including online challenges.

I look forward to seeing the first tournament winning deck!

Back before Campaign Edition reset of the game I made a little bit of a name for myself at GenCon 2003 by piloting an overlooked Mercenary Warlord, and my alias namesake, Kerebrus to a 6-0-1 performance in the Warlord Championships. I have never been one to make any mystery about my affinity towards the leader of the Dark Horsemen, and I even tried a little behind the scenes campaign to get Kerebrus reprinted in the Campaign Edition reset (He almost made it, but Zartoch was needed for reasons that became moot).

Then, as my involvement with the game increased I would often get the question from folks, “When are you going to bring Kerebrus back?”

If it were only that simple. Each member of the design team certainly has cards that they would like to see, for whatever personal reasons. As much as I might like to see Kerebrus return to the field of battle I have to be honest with my evaluation, his abilities (or lack thereof) are not enough to make him viable, and certainly not enough to get people excited over getting back into Warlord: Fourth Edition.

As an early assignment Arne approached me with the question, “If you could bring back Kerebrus with an upgrade, what would you do?” In addition to making me happy at the notion, this struck me to the core of my being. Obviously, I thought Kerebrus was still pretty good, I keep a deck or two of him together at all times. Even though I didn’t think he was flashy enough, I didn’t think he had any weaknesses. I could go with the Mek’kiah route, keep him as is and simply upgrade his level to 5. Maybe just add on a feat and an extra HP to bring him in line with the current batch of front line fighters. So many options, but which one captures who Kerebrus is?

In the end I thought I would keep it simple. Since he is The Dark Horseman, I figured that Riding would be appropriate, and give him some reliability in heading to the front rank. Adding Charisma felt like a natural fit as well, as it is not an easy task to lead a Mercenary outfit, even less so considering the strict rules Kerebrus enforces. It wasn’t easy improving what I thought was an already quality product, so I thought that some sort of downside could capture the essence of possibly the most Lawful Good character in the Accordlands. At first the penalty only applied to Evil characters in Kerebrus’ army, but that was upgraded to include opposing characters, giving Kerebrus a real dynamic reason to take to the front rank, while also giving him a reason to purge the influences of evil from his Army.

So here we are, Kerebrus will be back in Warlord’s fourth edition! While this version (the art is a sketch, not the final art) will go exclusively to the members of the Ordo Phoenicis Ascendentis, the basic stats are unchanged. If you do have a copy of Saga of the Storm edition of Kerebrus, you will be able to legally play him in 4E.

Finally it is done. I hope you’ll have as much fun with him as I will!

In yesterday’s post I left you with a cliffhanger. Bad me.

So what can you do with the Treasure cards? Some will be barely playable (think a Golden Long sword, below) or just in local play. Others will not be playable at all. Some of the more playable items in the base set might be Treasures.

In the end there are many uses I can think of: Just collect them for the fun of it, play them locally, do a “most treasure brought into play” tournament or buy into certain tournaments and challenges at GenCon for example.

The most important use would be to “buy” promo cards you have missed in the online shop.

Duh. If you miss a special event promo card chances are, after a certain while you might just be able to exchange the gp you have accumulated against that. In this form gp replace AEG’s XP system.

It also gives me a lot of flexibility with tournament prizes: Exclusive promo cards for winning a GenCon tournament would really be a bad idea. But getting cards with a value of 50.000 gp might really give you some headstart on buying into something you want (several things, actually).

In tomorrow’s Designer Diary Richard will reveal the first 4E Warlord.

… and the score is tied. AK’vuk-47 ist blocked at the rim, Bohst’er is stripped off the Fireball and Deron Harper misses a shot. Even late Treyiks from Korvus and Okurg Bloodlick don’t help, the Siegemasters go home with a win.

Dang! My “hometown” Jazz have to go back to Houston.

For those who couldn’t follow the references: I was a basketball player and really am a NBA fan. Unfortunately it’s not easy to follow the games - they usually are in the middle of the night, and rarely seen on TV. This morning my daughter got up early enough for me to catch the last minutes of the Utah Jazz vs. Houston Rockets game - and I have been a Jazz supporter for over 20 years now, not sharing most of my countrymen’s love of the Mavs (if I had taken better care of my former coach, now president of the German Basketball Federation, I would probably have had a better chance to meet Dirk Nowitzki in person, but I didn’t).

What does this have to do with Warlord and Ordo Phoenicis Ascendentis week? Nothing and all, I might wager. My first games of Warlord (playing Gnorrow Yaw vs. a friend’s Slayer the Unkind) were like NBA playoff games - in the last second they could have gone either way. I loved that! That little card game (I am always for the underdog - never even played Magic but lots of other second tier games) pushed my adrenaline level so bad, that it reminded me of my basketball playing days (With my college team I did become German Vice Champions in 1993 - but that’s not comparable to the level of competition in the NCAA). I got so totally hooked, I used my relationship with Fantasy Flight Games to go to London to both help them out demoing at GenCon UK 200… err, 1? And to play in the Warlord European Championship, organized by none other than stalwart Sy Hughes and his SELWG crowd. I got thrown out of the tournament by Vince Turner’s Rogue deck, showing me the power of Black Steel Daggers and Gloves of Mischief (Nest of Vipers hadn’t arrived at my store at that time - until then my switch deck of Uthanak/Krun/Sceth Hellbringer had a chance to make the final cut). Instead of playing in the cut I had a game vs. David Williams I’ll never forget - in a “buzzer beater” game I managed to become the first player in Europe to beat Al’drich von Grøssynkiir.

Both of these points serve as examples where I come from and what I love about the game of Warlord and what I strive it to be: Pure fun.

The direction to enable frontline clerics in part comes from this. In my opinion drama ensues from the fact that your Warlord is the best character in your army (usually), but you need to risk him, to bring about his best. No reward without risk.

The other element of the game is the challenge system. It’s where the cards get added value - supposedly bad cards suddenly become key cards in decks designed to beat a certain puzzle. This always added to the game and made Warlord much more “affordable” than other collectible card games.

The challenge system has been great, but after the first memorable ones, who remembers the next? Beating Al’drich was great and back in the days those cards were traded for some incredible amounts of money. Beating a Qor-Teth or a Kcal’den were feats to brag about. Just challenging a Medusan Lord was something to aspire to, lest beating one.

And now? Dragon Lords and Overlords are a dime a dozen, even Medusan Lords have seen a lot of inflation with the player run Medusan Lords. Those in turn have suffered in quality - some fun ones got beaten within several challenges - others are deemed too strong to waste a Dragon Lord on them. We are going to tighten the reigns: Some Medusan Lord runners have asked me to retool their Lords for Warlord 4E and I’ll be happy to do so. But beyond that the highest level of Warlord challenges is going to be reserved to Design Team members and me, at least in the beginning. Of course with a spread of Jeremiah in Oklahoma, Richard in California and Tommy in Texas, we do get a decent coverage of events in the US beyond GenCon. Keep in mind, though, that they volunteer their time and it’s entirely up to them (after coordinating with me) where they want the top challenges to make an appearances.

Why am I writing “top challenges”? That’s because the system is going to change somewhat. One big problem in the past has been that some play groups got the Overlords en masse, were near to Cons where they could win Dragon Lords or even challenge Medusan Lords. Others felt left out of the system. The previous answer was creating the Dragon Lord program, where dedicated volunteer runners ideally would bring Dragon Lord challenges to the remotest villages. Unfortunately this was part of the reason for the aforementioned inflation.

So what is going to change? We are still going to have multi-tiered challenges. You will (mostly) need to achieve a lower tier in order to challenge an upper tier. There is something new - or ancient, as you wish, though: The return of the Treasure trait.

Have a look at this hypothetical card:

Similar cards like this will be added to the challenge system and given out in “treasure chests”. When you are eligible to win a Treasure, you draw yours from the treasure chest. And no, if you play them and lose, you don’t have to give them to your opponent.

For the most part they’ll not be interesting for tournament decks, but they have some new information on them - a gold piece (gp) value. In any given challenge you might still win the Overlord, but there might also be secondary prizes to win in what you could think of as side quests.

This is already my longest post evar, so I’ll leave what to do with all those gps snatched from the Dragon’s lair to your imagination - for now…

Confused by a German title? Don’t worry, I simply couldn’t come up with a smart one this time. No, you don’t have to comment on that.

It’s Ordo Phoenicis Ascendentis week, sort of. Since yesterday a good 20 players have signed up, which is a very good sign.

Today it’s only 6 days to go. I started the day by putting myself in a Warlord player’s mind and asked myself “If I buy 10 æris and become a Commander - what do I really get?”

So far I had been a little bit vague on important things like pricing, future sets and what Ordo Phoenicis Ascendentis members really get. It’s time to change that.

For 10 æris you dish out 750 bucks - no small money in any case.

• You get the initial six starters - priced at $31.99 each. Wow. That’s hefty. Actually it’s not. Assuming a prize tag of $12.99 for a starter that contains 3 rares (at most), for $31.99 you get two starters ($25.98 value) containing 18 rares, not counting the Warlord, which you would normally have to buy at least 12 additional boosters for, let’s say another $41,88 value. So, for the cards you buy for $31.99 before 4th Edition you would have paid ca. $67,86.
• You get four guaranteed expansions of either 110 to 160 cards. We haven’t decided on the format yet - it could be double starters again or fixed sets like Champions/Stolen Destinies (only with better art, of course). Anyway the prize range to get one set of 1 rare : 2 uncommons : 3 commons will range between $95.97 and $129.
• You get two Special Sets, if an when they appear (right now I am quite sure we will do them, we have enough ideas and I believe the sales will allow for them). They will definitely be in a fixed set format and for now let’s assume they’ll be $99 each.
• So far I did exempt next year’s starter edition. I was being too careful. Considering the investment a player has to make, it’s only fair to include the next starters due out for GenCon 2009 as well. That’s a $191.94 on top of things.
• Harder to quantify are the fringe benefits. You get three sets of promo cards you could sell, because for at least six months this is the only way to get them. The first set is valued at $75, but this includes access to the Ordo forum with promotions and inside information as well as to UWODB with the ability to build decks in the online card data base.

How does it all sum up? Let’s see:

1. $383,88 for Starters in 2008 and 2009
2. $581,88 minimum for 4+2 Expansion Sets
3. $75 for fringe benefits - even though it’s three sets of promo cards

If I can trust my Open Source Spreadsheet, that adds up to $1,040.76, or in other words, a 28% savings on buying the sets as is - plus fringe benefits.

That’s the news for today. Mull it around in your heads. I’ll be looking forward to comments.

What’s up with those seven days? That’s the time left to apply for membership for the Ordo Phoenicis Ascendentis - and the time left for me to make the membership appealing to you.

Why am I dwelling so much on this? Forgive me for that - I just found that too often people come up to me and tell me they never heard of “it”. So I’d rather post once too often than just assume that everybody knows what “it” is.

I spent much of the past 7 years promoting the game (with the exception of the EE era) and already I am spending more than a normal workday’s worth on Warlord. The Ordo Phoenicis Ascendentis for me is a way to see what is left of the core community for the game. In addition to that the membership fees of course are very welcome to help finance the initial expenditures, for example to pay artists, printing, and the preparations for GenCon.

Most importantly, though, it helps me judge the interest in Warlord and therefore decide on the print run for Warlord 4E.

So, if you are interested in receiving the promo cards and other benefits, please register during this week. You will be able to turn in your fees until June 15th - hopefully a long enough time for you to make sure you have the spare funds to join the club. If you sign up and don’t manage to pay - no harm done, you’ll just be scratched from the list of possible Founding Members.

Here’s another glimpse at what you get, this promo card is one that accompanies yesterday’s Cashbox.

In Playtest it bears the name Sgt. Trollson. And of course this character has his own story, due to be revealed later on.

For the first six months it will be exclusive to the Ordo Phoenicis Ascendentis members (a Commander having bought 10 æris will get three sets of three of them, for example) . After that it will be made available through other channels.

I hope you like this guy.

What do Mercenaries do, when they grow old? Count the loot, is what they do. And who takes care of the day-to-day business of running a Mercenary company? Cashbox, that’s who. Cashbox is the all but glorious playtest name of this card:

It’s still in playtest and the artwork obviously is just a sketch (which in turn is a good sign that the card is indeed upcoming), but it’s designated use is as one of the first Ordo Phoenicis Ascendentis Promo cards. Every Member will already get three of them, in fact.

Have fun with him!

24 hours later (don’t worry, we did get some sleep) the design meeting is over.

I consider it a huge success. All of the cards tagged as problematic are one step further to being fixed, or are replaced. Oliver is on his train back to Hamburg as I write this. As soon as he is home he’ll write up the results for the Design Team to comment on, then on Monday the updated card database will be made available for the Playtesters.

Personally I consider the changes to be significant and the playing field a lot more level than before.

Besides cards - Warlords and their supporting cast, actions, and items - we also laid the foundation for the new challenge system. It’s not set into stone yet, so I cannot reveal any details, but there’ll be a few fun surprises at GenCon :D.

Lastly we have set a schedule for the release of the next sets.

The release dates tentatively are set as follows:

• Expansion 1 - October 31st, 2008
• Special Set 1 - January 31st, 2009
• Expansion 2 - April 30th, 2009
• Expansion 3 (starter edition) - July 31, 2009
• Expansion 4 - October 31st, 2009
• Special Set 2 - January 31st, 2009
• Expansion 5 - April 30th, 2010

The regular expansions will contain 110-160 unique cards again at a ratio of 1 rare : 2 uncommons : 3 commons. We will reprint older cards when they fit exactly what we want to achieve, but for the most part these will be new cards.

The Starter Expansion will be similar to the base set as it will consist of playable starters (so new players can join up easier). This set is exempt from the Ordo Phoenicis Ascendentis Commander and higher ranks “free” sets.

The special sets are “optional” sets of probably 110 cards that we are planning but that depend on the level of sales that we will have. They are special in that they mainly provide cards for alternative formats, for example Multiplayer or League play. The exact nature of them is yet to be determined, but if we are able to make them, these will be free for Ordo Phoenicis Ascendentis Commander and higher ranks. I.e. a Commander will get the usual four expansions plus these two sets for his investment.

That pretty much sums things up for today - I look forward to doing more previews this week.