Update #54 - Almost At Mass Production
about 1 year ago – Mon, Sep 04, 2023 at 06:26:15 AM

Hello everyone,

We trust you've had a splendid month of August; we certainly did, thoroughly testing our master copy. We've been diligently conducting quality control across all components, making a few last-minute refinements, and engaging with the manufacturer to address some queries. We're delighted with the outcomes from our manufacturer, and we're confident that you will be too!

We submitted our feedback on Monday, the 21st of August and are now awaiting their response. Once a few minor issues are resolved, we'll be ready to give them the green light to commence printing. These minor issues include the orientation of the front card in the battle pack add-on, which contains the barcode crucial for scanning. Additionally, there was a slight discrepancy in the count of small wooden cubes; we originally requested 65, in line with the requirements for a 6-player game. However, we received only 64, so we've increased our order to 67 to ensure a surplus of +2. Rest assured, all the other issues we reported are similar to the above and only minor. We've included several photos and unboxing videos for those of you who are interested. Please take a look below.

Collectors Edition Unboxing Video

Cards Opening Video

 True Solo Mode Opening Video

Last Minute Tweak's

Print & Play backers, please take note that we will be updating the Print & Play (PnP) files over the next few weeks. If you have already printed the game, it's important to know that these gameplay adjustments are relatively minor, primarily involving hero balancing based on the outcomes of our recent 2v2 arena tournament. The most significant tweaks to gameplay are outlined in the first two bullet points below.

General Tweaks 

• The condition Immobilise now doesn't effect CD:0 spells. This change was made to stop players locking out the spells on Trash Mob cards.
• When our scenario mode was originally designed (2020), we had heroes not resetting their boards after battle. However, this system was quickly removed as the heroes didn't stand a chance against our epic bosses when their HP wasn't full. We tried a few different systems, but always reverted back to the board reset. I personally play magic the gathering and this is what happens after combat there, so it wasn't something new to me. During the last 12 months, around 50% of our scenario mode games we've played in-house, we have been testing a slightly different way of resetting the boards. Most of it didn't work, however one thing seemed to improve the game. So we've made the last minute decision, before mass production to change the board reset. Cooldown die no longer get removed during a board reset.
• Updated the rulebook section defining what an attack and support spells is for when Hero Boards don't have clear labels (due to their unique layout). In short, if the spell has a Melee or Ranged icon in the bottom left, it's an attack. We've also added in a small section called Cancel Out in the percentages section. This informs players that when there are 2 conditions that counteract each other, such as Advantage 50% more DMG, and Protection 50 less DMG, no math is required and that both conditions cancel each other out to save time. We have also darkened the grey background colour to better help with the contrast.

Individual hero changes

• Alchemist: Her Alchemists insight spell was increased by +1 DMG. 
• Assassin: Helpful Infection was upgraded to allow the Assassin to cast another spell afterwards.
• Bard: Torment spell was reworded to make clearer. 
• Blood Mage: Dark Ritual and Blood Pact both had their cooldowns increased by +1 to slow down the effectiveness of reviving your own sacrificed ally. 
• Druid: Her Earthbound spell was increased by +1 DMG alongside the buffs it grants increasing by +1 duration. 
• Druid: Both her defensive claw and morph spells had their cooldowns reduced by a value of 1 to help improve the DMG of the druid. 
• Engineer: Mind Control helm was given another upgrade layer, making the gadget require 3 upgrades to be Up and Running, instead of 2. The take control spell also grants the Engineer confused for 2 turns after casting it. This was for balance reasons as the Mind Control helm proved to be extremely strong in our PvP tournament that we just held. 
• Engineer: Detonate had it's extra DMG reduced by 1.
• Engineer: Jumpstart had it's cooldown increased from 5>6.
• Engineer: Frazzle ability increase from 1>2 DMG to make the Electro spell mastery more appealing.
• Engineer: Overtime spell, had it's +1 DEF removed and replaced with -1 AGI to be more thematic with the hard work/overtime spell. Removing the +1 DEF was to help balance the Engineer.  
• Huntress: Strength of the Wild was buffed and now reads: Your Bird, Bear & Snake now deal an additional 1 DMG, for each time they have attacked during the round. This will make the Huntress's Leadership sacrifice stronger alongside the Boars assist spell. 
• Huntress: Tactical Shot now grants -2 DEF for 2 turns instead of -1 DEF to help strengthen the Huntress's arrow specialist path.
• Illusionist: A Great Chill spell has had it's cooldown reduced from 5>4 to grant him 1 additional spell to cast whilst not transformed into his illusive form. 
• Illusionist: Most of his attack spells where increased by +1 DMG. 
• Musketeer: Tactical Reload had the 'Can't be Targeted' condition replaced with Protection. It's cooldown was reduced from 6>5 to fit the theme of all Reload spells costing CD:5. 
• Scholar: Flash of Fire was upgraded to allow the Scholar to cast another spell afterwards.
• Shaman: Her Combustion spell was changed to help fit the theme of the elemental power tree. The previous support spell was almost a double up of Focused Attack. So instead, the new spell reads 4 DMG + -2 DEF for 3 turns, allowing the elemental shaman to keep up her DPS tempo.
• Shaman: Elemental Healing has been changed to Elemental Damage. This is to help better fit her archetype of high risk, high reward in the DPS tree. This new ability grants her +1 INT in her End Phase for each consecutive attack spell she has cast, incentivising her to continuously attack. 
• War Drummer: Battle Drumming has been changed to reduce the HP lost from the Drums of War ability. Previously this reduced the cost to 1,2,3,4 and now the costs are 1,3,5,7, which is a reduction of 1 HP per activation, rather than 1 HP per beat of the drums. 
• War Drummer: Heavy drumming hero ability, the +2 DEF was reduced to +1 DEF to help balance the War Drummer, as he's proved time and time again to be a very strong team character. The finals of our 2v2 PvP tournament contained different variations of War Drummer teams. 
• War Drummer: The Defensive Might ability under the Survival path was changed to now grant the War Drummer +Str attack modifiers on his attack spells with +Def attack modifiers. This change was made, because the War Drummer is capable of already being a great tank, which made the previous Defensive Might ability somewhat redundant. 
• Warlock: We reworded the Raise the Dead spell on the Army of the Dead cards to be clearer. We adjusted it, so that if an Army of the Dead has already been summoned to an ability tab this turn, then no more could be summoned. This meant that Warlock's army wasn't able to duplicate itself the turn it was summoned, so instead we increased the amount of army of the dead cards summoned initially to x2 instead of 1. In turn, Restore the Dead spell mastery now summons x3 army of the dead cards. This change, works slightly better for the Warlock as one of his pets now gets an extra turn of dealing DMG instead of having to duplicate. 
• Warrior: His Spear Throw spell now includes a wounded condition for 2 turns.
• Warrior: Fighting Lesson now grants +2 STR whilst in brawl stance instead of +1 to help improve the viability of the DPS Warrior. 

Canadian Backers

Over the past 12-18 months, we've encountered several shipping cost increases, and we've diligently tried to mitigate these expenses. For instance, last year, there was a 22% price hike in shipping packages to France. This meant that we were essentially subsidising about £5 per backer for shipping games to France. Our approach has always been to charge our backers only a minimal amount over the actual cost to us, which is why our shipping rates remained very reasonable for the majority of our backers. 

However, just last month, we received news from QML, our US distribution hub, that the cost of shipping to our Canadian backers was set to increase by a staggering 102%. While we can absorb approximately £5 of this cost, we regretfully have to pass on the additional £20 to our Canadian backers. We want to emphasize that this decision wasn't made lightly, and it saddens us to have to relay this message. Unfortunately, we find ourselves in a financial situation where absorbing these extra expenses is not feasible.

In a more positive light, we have confirmed with QML that the goods sent to Canada will see no additional customs fees and will be sent Customs Friendly. See their response below.

"Backers in Canada will receive their shipments customs-friendly, so they won't see any additional costs for customs clearance when they receive their shipments. We pack a consolidated shipment at QML and send it to a FedEx facility in Canada. We do charge importation costs to publishers for the bulk shipment, but the individual orders enter the FedEx system in Canada as local shipments with no associated customs costs."

Fulfilment Coming Soon

We extend our heartfelt thanks for your enduring patience as we communicate back and forth with our manufacturer. We are now on the cusp of giving them the green light for mass production. We estimate that by the time you receive our next update, this pivotal step will have been completed, and we will be able to provide you with a production commencement date.

Once production commences, our trusted fulfilment partners will immediately collect the games and initiate the process of transporting them to their respective countries. It is at this juncture that we will lock your shipping addresses. Therefore, if you have relocated in the past 12 months and have not yet updated your address in the BackerKit pledge manager, we kindly request that you do so without delay. If you require assistance with this task, please do not hesitate to reach out, and we will be more than happy to assist you. 

Thank you for your continued support and understanding, we will be back next month with another update.

Best wishes,

- Heroes of the Shire team

Update #53 - The Master Copy Has Landed!
over 1 year ago – Thu, Aug 03, 2023 at 10:55:01 AM

Hi all,

We want to express our gratitude for your patience as we liaise back and forth with the manufacturer regarding the printing of the physical pledges. We apologize for the several delays we've experienced in receiving our master copy. The most recent setback was due to the weight of the punchboards, which proved to be too much for the cardboard tray inside. However, we've worked closely with the manufacturers to find a stronger solution, and we're pleased to confirm that the issues have been rectified, and our master copy has finally arrived.

Now that we have the master copy, we will immediately conduct in-house quality control to ensure that everything meets our standards. Once we are satisfied with the results, we will give the green light to proceed with printing. We will keep all of you updated throughout the next steps of the process.

Below are some images of the master copy that we received today. Stay tuned to our social media channels, where we will be sharing an unboxing video and detailed visuals of the physical game.

Thank you for your continued support and patience. We're excited to bring you the best possible product and can't wait for you to experience it first-hand.

The rest of our update is to give you some general information of what we've been up to over the last few weeks, so if you're only here for the important stuff, you don't need to read on from here.

Scenario Mode - TTS

We can confirm that we are currently working hard to add the full scenario mode (PvE) to Tabletop Simulator over the coming weeks. See a screenshot below of the progress we've made on adding the water scenario with the rest to follow.

Last Minute Gameplay Tweaks

Our master copy has been printed, but there is a tiny window of opportunity to still adjust artwork before the final printing. We've taken this opportunity to update a few spells before the game goes to mass production. See below a small list of spells that we have updated. 

Alchemist: Numbing potion was reduced from CD:4 to CD:3 to keep it out of range of Hex.

Alchemist: Sleeping Powder spell had it's cooldown increased from 5>6,  to stop sleeping loops and to help play become non-linear.

Assassin: Assassinate spell mastery ability now grants him a semi-permanent advantage condition when his HP is 14 or below. Previously it was for 1 turn, now it' a semi-permanent, making him a much stronger opponent when close to death.

Assassin: Slice & dice spell now grants the 'Can't be Healed' condition for 2 turns.

Assassin: Base attack spells have all been increased by a value of 1.

Assassin: Helpful Infection spell now allows the Assassin to cast another spell afterwards. 

Bard: Soothing Voice spell had it's cooldown increased from 4>6, to stop sleeping loops and to help play become non-linear.

Bard: Spelling correction on fools strength > fool's strength.

Berserker: Base attack spells have been increased by a value of 1.

Blood Mage: Blood Pact spell, we have added in an exclusion so the Blood Mage can't target himself with the sacrifice.

Cleric: Quick heal CD:0 spell has been removed and replaced with Restore, which is a single target cleanse. This does indeed work with counter-attack. 

Cleric: Generosity spell was increased from cooldown 4>5, to stop any paralyzing loops and to help play become non-linear.

Engineer: The create gadget spell has been removed and added to the hero ability, meaning the Engineer is able to get his gadgets up and running a turn earlier. The create gadget spell has been replaced with the original spell we had there, Gadget Maintenance, which reduces the CD die of gadget spells by a value of 1.

Huntress: Base attack spells have been increased by a value of 1.

Musketeer: Run for Cover spell was increased from cooldown 3>4. Also Tactical Reload had it's cooldown increased from 5>6. Both of these were to stop loops with Taunt and Can't be Targeted. 

Musketeer: One of her reload abilities didn't have the word Reload in italics, this has been corrected.

Scholar: Artwork for the elemental book was altered, displaying full colour backgrounds for ease of identifying the pages. See image below.

Shieldmaiden: Crowd Pleasure spell which used to grant STR & DEF now grants STR & INT, due to already having to much DEF buffing. While this hero isn't tournament legal (because not everybody will have access to her apart from you guys), we still want her to feel balanced in scenario and arena mode. 

Shieldmaiden: Cross Cut and Perforate spells had their DMG increased. 

War Drummer: Hero ability (viciously 8 HP) has been downgraded to only reducing cooldowns by a value of 1. This is to help reduce loops being formed with crowd control effects such as Sleep, Hex or Paralyzed.

Warlock: Base attack spells have all been increased by a value of 1.

Witch Doctor: Hex spell has been downgraded to only last for 2 turns, as 3 turns was making the ability far to strong in Arena mode. The CD has been reduced from 6>5 to offset the nerf. 

Witch Doctor: Voodoo worship, the energised condition has been reduced from 3 turns to 2 turns to help better balance his hero ability which grants HP. 

PvP Tournament

This month we held a 2v2 PvP Tournament over on Discord/TTS. We had 19 players from all across the world do battle with each other across 2 pods. The tournament was held for a couple of reasons, but mostly for us to get feedback on the 2v2 format and suggested rules moving forward with the competitive meta. First up, we would like to congratulate both winners of their respective pods who are, @Yannor, @DorkKnight, @Shaggy & @KnightofLight. For those of you that might be interested, see below a little infographic of which heroes where picked during the tournament.

We kindly asked Cregan for permission to share his match and as you can see below, he kindly accepted. For anyone interested, here is the Round 1 match between Cregan & Scamz,  recorded by @Cregan.

Expansion Content

We are thrilled to share that most of the project is now in the capable hands of our incredible manufacturer and will soon be forwarded to the fulfillment centers. While we eagerly await the next steps, we're using our free time to work on expansion content for Heroes of the Shire. As part of this expansion, we already have six new heroes designed and currently in the testing phase. However, we also want to involve our backers in shaping the roster of heroes by adding more through addons.

Last month, we posted a poll on Discord with a list of potential heroes and archetypes that we are considering. These include Cannibal, Swashbuckler, Fire Mage, Sensei, Explorer, Mad Scientist, Arcanist, Cannoneer, Enchantress, Lancer, Monk, Elementalist, Blacksmith, Necromancer, Raven Handler, Artificer, Dweller, Seductress, Dragon Rider, and Evolutionist.

So far, the Enchantress, Swashbuckler, Necromancer, Monk, and Raven Handler are leading the votes. We invite you all to cast your votes or suggest completely different hero ideas in the comments of this post. Your input, along with the votes from our Discord community, will help us determine the direction for new heroes to be added.

Rest assured, new heroes are not the only exciting content on the horizon. We have many more surprises in store, including professions, a movement phase, mini bosses, individual hero quest lines, and much more. However, creating and testing new heroes is a significant part of our development process, and that's why we are eager to flesh out these characters early on.

Thank you for your continuous support and enthusiasm for Heroes of the Shire. Your engagement and feedback play a crucial role in shaping the game into an extraordinary experience for everyone.

Until Next Time

Thank you, everyone, for your continued support and for accompanying us on this incredible journey. As we progress, we eagerly anticipate the next few months when the game will be mass-produced and shipped to fulfillment centers in the UK/US. We hope that the wait will be minimal, and you'll soon have the product in your hands! The full scenario mode will be available on Tabletop Simulator (TTS) for all of you to sample and enjoy. We want to ensure you have a taste of the game while you wait for the physical copy. We'll keep you updated on all developments, and we can't wait to share the next update with you. Once again, thank you for being an integral part of this venture.

- Heroes of the Shire team

Update #52 - Master Copy Being Printed
over 1 year ago – Mon, Jun 19, 2023 at 02:34:18 AM

Hi all,

Welcome back to another monthly update. In todays update, we'll let you know what we've been up to over the last month. When it comes to the physical game, we don't have much to update you on at present. We're still awaiting our master copy from the manufacturer. We can confirm that our master copy is being printed right now and that they have apologised to us for the delay. Explaining that our project is quite complex and required a little more planning on their side creating the pre-production tools. By our next update, we should have our physical copy to show you all! Until then, please see what we've been up to over the last few weeks.

Tabletop Simulator 

We originally opened up our Tabletop Simulator version of the game as a demo, with only 6 heroes, showcasing Arena mode. We have now decided to open up our Arena Mode to include all 20 heroes on TTS, free or charge to everyone. We have given the old mod some TLC, naming all the files, adding all the snap points in etc... Here is the link to our TTS if you are not already subscribed: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2929355606

We also have a solo mode demo on TTS, that allows players to take on some trash mobs and the first enemy boss of the earth scenario! Videos to Damian playing the TTS demo are up on our YouTube channel. Link to the solo mode TTS demo here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2943651427

Whilst our TTS mod is free of charge, we kindly ask that, if you find some value in it, that you would consider donating to help support our project. Your donations will be greatly appreciated, as a small indie publisher, we're heavily reliant on the community. In exchange, we'll do our best to provide you with some awesome content! If the community shows us love, we'll show it back by adding all of our Scenario mode to TTS over the coming months. Donations can be made via PayPal to [email protected] or alternatively you can Tip us via our Backerkit pre-order store: https://heroes-of-the-shire.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders

To celebrate the full release of our TTS Arena Mod, we'll be hosting a PvP Arena tournament over the coming weeks. While this isn't an official tournament with a prize pool, it will give players the opportunity to test our 2v2 tournament format in a competitive environment and give us feedback to help shape the future of tournaments. Official tournaments will start after the game has been fulfilled. If you would like to register your interest for the event, please fill in this quick form (30secs). https://docs.google.com/forms/d/13VZ9hSx7Q-5TUFP0AqUb2Iy5gfzjcDyHAOryHm-Eq1k/edit?pli=1

YouTube Channel

Over the coming weeks, we've been slowly adding more videos to our YouTube channel. If you haven't subscribed yet, please do so! Link here. You can find the link here. We've recently added some Solo Mode videos, along with a 1v1 Arena Tier list for the heroes. We'll be uploading many more videos in the coming weeks, mostly focusing on how-to-play guides for all game modes. When your game arrives, if you're like us and typically prefer learning how to play by watching videos rather than reading the rulebook, we've got your back! However, we do encourage you not to skip reading the rulebook entirely, as it is the most informative way to learn the game, not to mention we've spent a lot of hard work into it :) 

Solo Mode TTS -  Part 1:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-_jr8FcIM0&t=4052s

Solo Mode TTS -  Part 2:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0cgCp1IWR8&t=1739s

1v1 Arena Tier List:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jZAemeiu-s

UKGE

We attended the UK's largest games expo earlier this month, which had its highest footfall to date, with 52,000 visitors across the 3 days. We had a blast demoing our game to all those who stopped by. We also had the pleasure of meeting many backers during the expo. Thank you to all who turned up to say hello and show your support! Additionally, several social media channels visited us during the event to record videos of what we had to show. If you're interested in hearing us talk about the game, check out the couple of videos below.

Print n Play

Our Print n Play files were all delivered at the end of May. We hope you're all enjoying the game if you've had a chance to print it out and play. If you encounter any issues with any of the files, please contact us immediately, and we'll rectify them. So far, we've sent out 2 Hot Fixes, so please double-check that you have also downloaded these files.

Website

We're currently building our website, which we hope to launch in a few months' time. This will be an access point for people to come and learn more information about the game and all the heroes. Each hero will have a downloadable reference PDF, alongside their ability cards that some players may want to print out at home and have multiple copies of. For example, our Warlock hero comes with 5 Army of the Dead cards, but in one game if you managed to summon 6+ and didn't have the required cards, you can print the excess out yourselves. Our website will also house an in-depth FAQ section, containing examples of all the different interactions between spells/conditions. 

Until Next Time

And that's it for this update; there's nothing important to note for now. Once we have more information from the manufacturer about mass production, we'll be in touch to let you all know that the games are being printed :) Thank you for your patience while the game is now out of our control. We're working with a great manufacturer from China who has an impressive portfolio of successful titles, so rest assured that our product, as well as yours, is in great hands. Until next time, happy gaming.

- Heroes of the Shire team

Update #51 - Print n Play files ready for fulfilment
over 1 year ago – Sun, May 14, 2023 at 12:36:41 PM

Hi all,

Welcome to another Heroes of the Shire update. We've had a very busy few weeks, reworking some of our art for the manufacturer alongside prepping our Print n Play files. Our update this month will cover the completion of our Print n Play files, the shifting of our expected delivery date (physical backers) and adding left over stock to the pre-order store. See below for more detailed information.

Print n' Play Backers

Our manufacturer got back in touch with us after analysing our art files and wanted us to make some edits to what we had submitted, meaning we had to delay the production of our PnP Sheets, hence why they have not already been delivered. However, we've made those edits and resubmitted our artwork. We can now confirm that we have finished exporting all our print n Play sheets. We need to compile all our individually exported sheets together and do some test prints, alongside sending out to some folks for their approval. Once we're happy, we will deliver them to you, which should be sometime next week. We can confirm that there are 276 pages or 138 double sided pages. We've done our best to fit as much onto one sheet of paper as we could to ensure there is minimal paper wastage. We've put bleed on most of our pages and we've also numbered all of our sheets and labelled them front/back in case they get mixed up after being printed. Once we have delivered the PnP pledges, we will set aside a few days to make any digital corrections to the sheets if we need to (hopefully we don't need to!).

Expected Delivery Date (Physical Copies)

Many of you are eagerly awaiting your copy of Heroes of the Shire and we continue to thank you for your patience as we now unfold the final few steps of the production process. As it stands, we have been pushing the manufacturer for our physical master copy, and we have been told that this will arrive with us in early June. We're gutted about this, because it means attending the UK's largest games expo (UKGE) without our master copy that we planned to show off! What this means, is that we can 100% confirm that we will not be able to deliver physical pledges for June/July as we had hoped. When our master copy finally arrives, we will waste no time in inspecting it and giving the green light for mass production. From there, it's estimated 4-6 weeks to print the game, with our distribution partners collecting the games right away. Shipping time across the water is similar, 4-6 weeks. At this stage, we don't want to give you another month for our ETA and let you down again, as this is what we've done in the past. Instead, we feel it's more appropriate to keep everyone updated along the process as we have been doing, and give an accurate ETA once the games are on the water being sent to our distribution hubs.

Not Going to Retail till 2024

We've made the decision to not take Heroes of the Shire to retail/distribution this year (when released). Only retailers that backed during the KS campaign will have Heroes of the Shire stock.  We intend to take the game to retail sometime mid 2024, meaning you guys will certainly have you games way before anyone else!

Addons:

We've had many inquiries about our addons recently, so we thought we would add a section about them below. Please note that the pledge manager was closed some while ago, so if you would like to add anything to your pledge, please get in touch with us and we can do that manually for you. 

- True Solo Mode Addon £10

This addon is not only for solo mode players, but for anyone who would like the enemy monsters controlled by AI. Taking the game from it's standard 1vsMany mode to a true cooperative experience. The addon includes the following:

20 Action Cards(5 for each themed scenario). These action cards will be added to the action card decks inside the base game taking the total of 64 cards to 84. The solo mode action cards have better rewards on them and increase the chances of finding an ally on your journey. The found allies will then assist you on your adventures in scenario mode. Example below.

10 Ally Cards. Our base games contain 4 ally cards, so this addon includes an additional 10 that support the above action cards. These ally cards, like the 4 from the base games, can also be used in Arena mode. Example below.

50 Monster Cards (AI deck). Of these 50 cards, there are 3 types, defensive, aggressive and passive. There are 20 passive cards which form the monster deck. As you progress through a scenario, defensive and aggressive cards will get shuffled into the passive deck, expanding it over time. There are 15 defensive and 15 aggressive cards. Each time a boss takes a turn, instead of the Villain player deciding what to do, a card from the top of the monster deck is revealed and resolved. This deck can be used not only in solo mode, but to also take the game from it's 1vsMany mode to a true cooperative mode, great for 2 player games. Example of a defensive monster card below.

1 Monster Die. When trash mobs are summoned to battle, the monster die is rolled. The value of this die roll will determine which cards are shuffled into the passive monster deck. Mobs can be either aggressive or defensive. 

- Battle Pack £5

This little addon will grant players some additional pieces to use across all game modes, as shown below.

2 Ally Cards. The Warlock who has his Demon Form on the back of the card, alongside the Bard, are the 2 exclusive ally cards that are included in the battle pack. These can be used in both scenario mode and arena mode.

4 Legendary Loot Items. When creating Heroes of the Shire, we wanted to make legendary loot items really feel legendary, so we only included 4 within the base game. The battle pack adds an additional 4 items into the loot item deck to double your chances of finding one of these sought after battle pieces. 

4 Battle Maps. These battle maps, add global effects to Arena mode, which can slow down a game or speed up a game. These were created to allow players the opportunity to play any hero class with any hero build. Upon play testing back in 2020, we had a Healing Cleric vs a Tanking Druid 1v1 arena battle. This battle took almost 2hrs and was a drag! From this, the battle maps were born. 

- Playmats £14

Our playmats are designed to fit all components onto them for a single player, which include your hero, your spell mastery, your equipment board and ability cards. We originally included the guidelines, but we later removed them as we felt it ruined the stunning artwork. Both the Huntress and Berserker artwork are available. Once these are sold, we will not be reprinting these artworks, instead we will be creating new artworks for future playmats to include new heroes. 

- Sleeves £12

Our sleeves come in packs of 122. For the collectors edition of the game, which is what most backers pledged, 2 quantity of these sleeves would be required to sleeve all 200+ cards. We have 2 designs available for the sleeves, the Warlocks' Demon Form, and the Witch Doctor. 

To help us through the increased shipping and production costs, we've decided to add the left over stock  of colouring books and A4 art prints to our store, for backers of the game only. If this is something that you would like to add to your pledge, please get in touch and we can arrange that for you. Colouring Books are £12 and x4 Art Prints are £15.

Until Next Time

That's a wrap for us with this update. We're very sorry to not be able to deliver your games in the timespan we predicted, but we hope the wait will be worth it when your game arrives in a few more months time. As always, thank you for being here and patiently waiting. We'll be back soon with another update, hopefully that one will contain pictures and videos of our master copy :) Any questions, feel free to drop them in the comments or send us a private message.

Best wishes

- Heroes of the Shire

Update #50 - Awaiting Our Master Copy
over 1 year ago – Tue, Apr 18, 2023 at 11:48:09 PM

Hi all,

We hope you're having a great year so far! It will inevitably get better when your Heroes of the Shire pledge gets fulfilled :) In this month's update, we'll dive into a few things that we've done behind the scenes over the last couple of months before sending our game to be manufactured. Once again, we thank you for your patience while we wait to hear back from our manufacturer about mass production of Heroes of the Shire.

Print & Play Files

We're excited to announce that we're now ready to begin preparing the PnP sheets. They should be ready in around 14 days, and we'll deliver them immediately once they're done.

Gameplay Updates

Over the past several months, we've made some gameplay changes, and graphical updates. We were a little to busy to include them in our previous update, so here are the highlights:

• We've adjusted some colours on the hero boards, with the Paladin now in turquoise, the Blood Mage in purple, and the Alchemist also in purple.
• The text on the back of all our player boards is now aligned to the right, with the artwork popping off the page.
• Whenever we refer to a hero ability on a spell mastery or hero board, we now use the same block colour as the hero ability.
• We've revamped the rules sheet from inside the true solo mode add.
• All of the elite trash mobs now have names. This is because some are used for quest cards (added via stretch goals). Naming only a few didn't make much sense since not all elite mobs are used for quest cards, and this way we can use the named mobs in future expansions.

Character Updates:

• The Alchemist's Rise of the Purge ability was changed to a new ability called Negate Upgrade, which encourages her to cast Negate by reducing the cooldown die of any ally's spell (including herself) by a value of 3.
• The Assassin's Splash of Blood spell was changed to add Lacerate instead of Bleed, making the spell twice as effective in most cases.
• The Bard's Joker ability was changed to grant her +2 HP regen for 3 turns when an enemy or ally is put to sleep, incentivizing her to use her sleeping spells. The Bard's Sing ability was renamed to Screech, and her Angry Voice ability was renamed to Flawless Vocals.
• The Berserker was given a second hero ability called Bloodthirst, which causes him to deal an additional 1 DMG to enemies that are bleeding. His Flex spell was also changed to turn his Cleave spell into an AOE and deal more damage, as it was considered weak compared to his other available options.
• The Blood Mage's background colour was changed from red to purple to improve contrast. 
• The Druid's Future Sight spell was changed from a single target to a multiple target spell, making it significantly more effective.
• The Dragon Knight's Sea of Flames spell had glowing removed from it and now deals burn damage three times, fitting with its name.
• The Huntress had her Sharpen Steel spell removed and was given a new spell called Serpent Strike, which allows her Snake pet to assist her when she attacks, meaning that she could call 2 pets to assist if her swordsmanship path is maxed out. 
• The Paladin's Stunning Strike spell was changed from a single target to an AOE target to make his Melee path more appealing compared to the other two.
• The Runesmith's Dampen Magic spell was reverted back to its original design, reducing incoming elemental DMG by 2 instead of 1.
• The Scholar's Incognito spell was renamed Celestial Ward and their Burning Desire spell from within the pyromancer spell mastery tree was buffed to make it more exciting to cast.
• The Shaman's Lava Eruption spell has been renamed Lava Spike and is now a melee attack instead of a ranged attack. The Combustion spell now grants +1 fire elemental damage for 3 turns, to better suit the name of the spell.
• The Warlock's Demon Form has had its immortality spell changed. The new version now gives the demon a bonus turn as they die, allowing them one final turn to defeat their enemy before being defeated themselves. The Warlock's main board saw a name change from Soul Shatter to Soul Strike, and the spell was changed from a ranged spell to a melee spell. The Warlock's Excessive Poison spell was changed to Excessive Fire because the Decimation spell mastery is intended to focus on fire and shadow rather than poison. This new ability grants a passive +1 fire damage to all allies.
• The Warrior's Defence Hold spell (on their Defence Stance card) has been changed to make it significantly easier to understand.
• The Witch Doctor's Zombie Cat has been revamped to better fit the archetype. The updated version now has 9 lives as a passive ability rather than a spell. This ability allows the Witch Doctor to place a taunt condition on the Zombie Cat after casting Undying Force and then allows them to revive the cat after casting Voodoo Worship.

Rulebook

Possibly the biggest challenge of this entire project has been the rulebook. Over the last few months we have amended the following to the rulebook:

• Added a components page
• Added a components checklist
• Added a sections on completing a scenario and completing a campaign
• Added a section on defeating a boss
• Added an example of a filled in save game sheet
• Added a glossary of terms
• Added in a casting restrictions section
• Added a small section on packing the game away
• Updated all the rulebook artwork to display the final game pieces
• Changed the wording of stickman to stick figure.
• Adjusted artwork across pages to better suit the empty spaces.
• Alphabetically arranged the conditions page
• Reworded many sections to make them as clear as possible
• Updated the quick reference on the back of the rulebook to include page numbers

Please see v10, the final edition of our Rulebook here. 

Note: We received the incorrect information from the manufacturer regarding the number of rulebook pages required, which resulted in us having two additional pages. Therefore, we have removed the Achievements section from the rulebook, as it was only added due to our mistaken belief that we had two spare pages. Instead, we will provide these as a free download on our website once it's up and running, allowing you to print them off at home.

Airecon

We attended the Airecon board game convention last month, which was supported by Watch It Played. There we demoed the game and had a table for passers by to sit down and play scenario mode. We had a great time at the event, bringing in lots of new pre-orders, with many new excited gamers keen to play Heroes of the Shire. 

Solo Mode on TTS

Last week we recorded several solo mode videos of our tabletop simulator demo. We will edit these together put them up on our YouTube over the coming weeks, soon as we've created our PnP sheets. We will also make the solo mode demo on TTS available to everyone very soon (few weeks). 

Colouring Books & Art Prints

We've finalised the colouring book design and the artwork to be used for our Art Prints. These items are included only in the Epic Pledge level. The Art Prints and Colouring Book will be manufactured here in the UK and sent out to fulfilment hubs early, ready to be packed with the games when they arrive. See the chosen artwork for the prints below. 

Keeping you updated

We'll always do our best to provide you with the most accurate and up to date information we receive from our partners, keeping you all updated with the process of where your games are. We'll do our best to get photos from the manufacturers and fulfilment partners to share. Once we have any more information, you'll be the first to know! Until then, we're estimated around July time this year. Thank you all for your patience and support, and we look forward to finally fulfilling your games very soon :) Any questions, feel free to drop them in the comments or send us a private message.

Best wishes,

- Heroes of the Shire