Big Thank You!!
almost 3 years ago
– Sat, Dec 11, 2021 at 08:09:16 AM
Hello
First off, we want to give a huge thanks to you, our backers and supporters, for believing in Heroes of the Shire. We're so excited to bring this game to your tables next year. Heroes of the Shire has been a dream of creator, Damian, for a long time now. We feel incredibly humbled and grateful that so many of you have joined us in helping to fund the project turning this into reality with many stretch goals unlocked. We're bursting with joy at the thought of thousands of you worldwide having access to what we've been playing here in the Shire for almost 2yrs now. However none of this could have happened without you! We are especially grateful to those members of the community who have been with us along the journey, answering questions for other backers. Those of you that have helped reply in the comments section on our campaign and our growing community over on our discord channel, we are so very lucky to have you here with us. All of your contribution to the game, the feedback, the support, the playing on Tabletopia, we see and appreciate everything you have done to help our game come to grow in this short space of time. We can’t wait to share the final product with you soon.
Thank you all.
Please see a link here to a google drive where you can download the above 2 images and our thank you banner at higher resolution should you wish to print them out or use them as a desktop background.
Final Challenge - Update
Thank you to all that participated in our final challenge. Some of you that took 11 turns defeating the War Drummer must have spent a long time on this challenge so it's really appreciated. Competition aside we hope you enjoyed learning the combat system and how all the upkeep phases and conditions work. With so many different variables from each hero on the table, hopefully this will shed some light on how different each and every game will feel when your pledge arrives.
The results are in for the competition and the answer was 3 rounds. We will break this down in our next update, but the Warlock placing a Darkness condition with his Heart of Darkness spell, was for the most part the most important move here. Congratulations to sh8pe who was our winner. Please see our IG story showing us spinning the wheel to randomly select our winner.
Kickstarter Payment Processing
Kickstarter will be charging your credit/debit card associated to your Kickstarter account sometime soon now the project has now funded. Kickstarter are usually pretty good at trying to resolve any payment issues, however if you still need support, please contact them directly at support(at)kickstarter.com.
The Pledge Manager
Over the coming weeks, we will be testing the pledge manager and adding all the bits we need in there. As we are coming into the holiday season and after a very busy campaign, we will have a few days off. Our Pledge manager will be open in a few weeks at the very beginning of January.
When we have finished, you'll be sent a survey link from BackerKit. In that survey, you'll have the option to confirm your pledge, upgrade your pledge, pick add-ons, add additional copies of the game, provide your shipping address and take care of shipping/taxes.
Missed the Campaign?
Stay tuned as we will be opening up the pledge manager to accept late pledges soon. Please note : late late pledges will not include the KS exclusive hero the Shieldmaiden, however late pledges do include all stretch goals. Orders received after the pledge manager closes in February will not receive any stretch goals.
Future Updates
We want to keep our backers up to date with all the news and updates, so we will continue to publish updates until the games have been fulfilled.
Follow us on Social Media
If you haven't already, please join us on as many social media platforms as you have access too. Whilst we will always update you here on Kickstarter, using our Discord, Facebook or IG are other great ways to communicate with us and stay updated.
Facebook - Follow us
Instagram - Follow us
Discord - Join us
One last thank you to everyone that's been involved in the project, our creator Damian for all the tremendous amount of work he's put in, Chloe for all the liaising back and forth with fulfilment companies and manufactures, Edwin for all the gorgeous artwork produced and to you the backers and the retailers who pledge projects like ours, helping create more than just a board game. Turning aspirations and dreams into reality.
Heroes of the Shire team
Update #23 - Hero deep dive & more
almost 3 years ago
– Wed, Dec 08, 2021 at 11:33:50 PM
Hey all.
As we close in on these final few hours, we want to take this opportunity to thank you all for joining us on this adventure and for supporting our project, really does mean the world to us, so thank you.
We have another deep-dive for you today covering the Witch Doctor as voted for by a community member BravoEcho.
Before we take our deep dive, lets have a quick update on that Hyena form we were waiting for from our artist. See below the updated graphic for the Druids 3 forms, which now includes the Hyena.
If you haven't caught up on our previous deep dives, you can find them all here. Blood Mage | Warlock | War Drummer | Illusionist | Shaman | Cleric | Bard | Shieldmaiden | Druid | Forest Troll | Armoured Crab.
Witch Doctor
The Witch Doctor draws on his wisdom to cure afflictions dealt by dark forces. However, be wary of his draughts of potions, as foes may be blighted with deadly poison and pernicious curses.
Witch Doctor Hero Ability
Healing Wave : You may heal 1 ally for 2HP and another ally for 1HP.
Energy Force : You may ignore the effects of taunt.
Support Spells
Healing Broth - All allies gain 2 HP regen for 3 turns.
Hex - All enemies receive a hex condition for 3 turns.
Toxic Strength - Your next attack deals 50% more damage if the enemy is poisoned. You may cast another spell.
Confusion Ray - You strip away all enemies defence by 2 and confuse them for 3 turns. A very powerful effect not to be overlooked.
Voodoo Worship - All allies gain energised for 3 turns and 3 HP immediately.
Attack Spells
Poison Curse - A ranged poison type spell that deals 3 damage plus poison to a single target.
Curse of Darkness - A ranged attack that deals 4 damage to all enemies and places them in darkness for 3 turns.
Spider Plague - A poison type AOE spell that deals 1 damage to all enemies. Great CD:0 spell for cleaning up multiple small enemies.
Undying Force - A split spell with the first half reducing an enemies defence by 2 for 3 turns. The second half of this spell deals 3 damage to a single target.
Acid Cloud - A ranged poison type attack that deals 4 damage to all enemies and leaves them feeling the wrath of your poison.
Witch Doctor Spell Mastery Board
The Witch Doctor has 3 paths to follow. Curse Anthology down the left, Venomous in the middle and Voodoo Healing on the right. Each path gives the Berserker a different play style as you'll see below in our summaries for each path.
Curse Anthology
Curses are frustrating to deal with and our Witch Doctor isn't any exception to this when following his Curse Anthology tree. This path increase the damage of all curse spells whilst unlocking a new curse. If your opponents have no cleanse abilities, this path will proof to be extremely useful.
Venomous
Unlocking new spells that pump out more damage to poisoned enemies makes this path great for burst damage. Keeping yourself poisoned whilst in this path proves to be very useful by increasing your defence and reducing your cooldowns. With cooldown dice dropping off quickly, the Witch Doctor can can be a deadly damage dealer.
Voodoo Healing
Following this path will pull the Witch Doctor away from damaging his opponents, instead becoming a great party healer. Whilst there are no additional healing spells unlocked, this path offers some amazing abilities to keep the Witch Doctor up there with some of the Shires finest healers. Following the voodoo healing path also grants the Witch Doctor access to a new Zombie Cat pet. This pet combo's with your curse of darkness spell to help
Social Goals - Update
We're now into the final stretch 20hrs of our campaign so please make sure to complete the stretch goals if you haven't already. This helps yourself and the community unlock some extra goodies.
Yesterday we posted our third and final challenge. This is a tricky one and will take some time working out. By participating you have the chance to win a free playmat and pack of sleeves so checkout our post on how to enter.
We've had a couple of backers mention they would like the Elite cards to have a gold border. At present we have our regular framed monsters with the gold border and our elite monsters with a borderless card. We were asked why we chose this method as we've played RGP's for as long as we can remember and we're familiar with how many of them represent a stronger monster with that gold border. As big Magic the Gathering players our decision to go borderless with elite monsters was because in magic, the borderless cards are the more sought after and more exotic cards so to speak with the regular cards getting their regular frame. We've done something similar. We're happy to look at this further if the community would prefer the gold frames on the elite monsters instead, so please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. See an example here of the 2 different types. As it stands we have the gold framed as standard trash mob's and the borderless as the elites.
Wait What...There's More?
As we close in on the last 24hrs we thought we'd treat you guys to second deep dives in the same post! This time looking at our might Berserker who can pump out huge damage. Enjoy.
Berserker
If you are planning a violent ambush upon the Berserker, take heed that he will inevitably channel his uncontrollable rage to strengthen his mettle, enabling him to unleash devastating strikes upon his enemies.
Berserker Hero Ability
Uncontrollable Rage : Anytime you receive damage you gain +1 Strength for 2 turns.
Support Spells
Bandage - One ally gains +3 HP regen for 3 turns.
Self Inflicted - You receive a burn and bleed condition. You also receive +1 Defence for 3 turns after a cooldown die leaves this spell. Remember that Uncontrollable Rage ability above, this spell plays nicely into that.
Punishment - One ally gains a counterattack condition for 3 turns.
Avengement - Your attack spells deal an additional X damage where X is the amount of damage you receive during your heroes upkeep. This can be a power house of a spell if used correctly.
Hostile Manoeuvre - Your next attack deals X damage where X is the value of the last CD spell cast by the defending enemy.
Attack Spells
Finishing Blow - A strong melee attack spell that deals 3 damage to enemy, plus an additional 4 damage if the enemy is below 12 HP.
Devastating Blow - A split spell that deals 2 damage to a single target on the first half of the spell. The second half of the spell leaves an enemy with -2 agility for 2 turns.
Stomp - A single target spell that deals 1 damage to an enemy. Don't under estimate this CD:0 spell. With lots of buffed strength from your uncontrollable rage ability you can save your higher CD spells for when they are needed.
Cleave - A strong melee attack that deals 5 damage to an enemy whilst immobilising one of their spells of your choice by a value of 2. Immobilise is a condition that forces a player to place a CD die on one of their spells by a value of whatever the immobilise spell states. If a player already has a die on their spell it instead is increased by a value of that number instead.
Exhaust Armour - A strong attack that strips away an enemies defence by a value of 2 prior to attacking.
Berserker Spell Mastery Board
The Berserker has 3 paths to follow. Power of Rage down the left, Close Combat in the middle and Reckless Fury on the right. Each path gives the Berserker more spells for dealing great damage. Whilst this hero doesn't follow our regular system of each path offering a different play style, his 3 DPS paths are all unique in the sense that your combat strategies will differ. Thematically it didn't feel right giving our Berserker a support path, he's a damage dealer at the core so all 3 paths represent that :)
Power of Rage
This path helps improve the Berserkers agility value a great deal. By adding +1 agility to the Berserkers Uncontrollable Rage ability, this means he's not only be more powerful when he attacks but he will be able to go before most of his enemies. Cleave Upgrade is a fantastic ability for neutralising one of your enemies spell.
Close Combat
What sort of Berserker would he be without a classic headbutt. Making yourself bleed will prove to more more useful than you think. Knuckle Buster is a great addition for scaring off those frustrating casters, alongside Healing the Mighty being able to keep you alive much longer when working as a team.
Wreckless Fury
Vigor is a powerful effect that can permanently reduce one of your spells cooldowns by a value of 2 prior to battle. Meaning you can keep an enemy at bay by pumping the power level of one of your spells based on what your opponents heroes/build are. Whilst in scenario mode a new spell can be chosen each and every battle so the effects of Vigor are what we would call semi-permanent. This path also offers some protection and HP regen, but instead of relying on allies to protect you like the Close Combat path, you can rely on yourself by attacking.
And that's a wrap for now guys!
We will be back tomorrow but in the meantime, we will be doing our best to keep up with you in the comments section, as well as in our Discord Channel. As always, a huge thank you goes out to the fans who help each other out with the most frequently asked questions.
Thank you for all your support.
Damian - Creator
Update #22 - Final Community Challenge
almost 3 years ago
– Wed, Dec 08, 2021 at 03:22:14 AM
Welcome to our third and final challenge. Difficulty - Medium/Hard
1 Lucky winner will grab themselves a free playmat and a set of sleeves, so let's jump right in!
…Then, he was alone….looking around in hopes of seeing just a single familiar face in this field of death and bloodshed. His war drums beating slower and slower knowing his enemies are closing in….it is then his gaze meets that of two foes….both encircling him, closing in for the kill. Two formidable masters of the dark arts, each with one goal in mind. The War Drummer realised at that moment, hope was dwindling…this was to be his final stand….this was to be his end.
In what round can the Blood Mage & Warlock defeat the War Drummer? A round is complete after each hero in the turn order has taken their turn, including pets.
Note : When taking the turn for the War Drummer, act in his best interests. We have also removed the War Drummers, Drums of War 2 beats intentionally for the purposes of this challenge. If you need a better look at each hero board, please checkout each of these heroes deep-dive updates.
We will select one winner at random with the correct answer on Thursday 9th Dec. We will comment on your post asking for the workings out, if you respond back within 24hrs with a correct answer consider yourself a lucky winner to receive a free playmat & set of sleeves for participating in this challenge. If we get no response within 24hrs we will move onto the next comment chosen at random.
Good luck to all.
Damian - Creator
Update #21 - Hero deep dive
almost 3 years ago
– Mon, Dec 06, 2021 at 11:57:02 PM
Hey all.
We're diving into another hero today as voted for by a community member ThatsRobbery. If you haven't caught up on our previous deep dives, you can find them all here. Blood Mage | Warlock | War Drummer | Illusionist | Shaman | Cleric | Bard | Shieldmaiden | Forest Troll | Armoured Crab
Druid
Shapeshifting into a hawk, hyena or bear is the surprise attribute of the Druid. This versatile character draws on the earth's energy to generate her power, and when remaining in her Druid form, she can be relied upon to heal her allies.
Druid Hero Ability
Shapeshifter : The Druid has the ability to shapeshift into animals during her upkeep. She has the option of a Hyena, Hawk or Bear. She can of course stay in her true Druid form. To shapeshift the Druid must place one of her animal form cards on her ability tab. These will offer some permanent buffs, for example the bear grants +1 Strength, +2 Defence and -3 Agility. Once the card is attached to her ability tab during her Hero upkeep she is locked into that form for her main phase. Similar to the Shaman with her totems, once locked into a form the Druid may only cast spells from within that form. See above on the Druids hero board she has 4 spells on the left for her Druid form, she has 2 spells in the middle for Hyena form, 2 spells in the middle for Hawk form and 2 spells on the right for Bear form. See below each animal form and the new spells and buffs assosiciaed with them.
Whilst we wait for our Hyena Form artwork to be complete, checkout the outline above.
Support Spells
Druid Form : Regeneration - All allies gain +2 HP regeneration for 3 turns. Granting 6 HP over 3 turns. A small heal AOE to help keep allies HP topped up in the midst of battle.
Druid Form : Group Immunity - All allies gain damage immunity for 2 turns. Yes you read that correctly, all allies :) With a long cooldown of 6, timing this spell will be crucial.
Hyena Form : Pounce - Your next attack disarms an enemy for 2 turns, you can now cast an attack spell.
Hawk Form : Future Sight - Place a hex condition on an enemy for 2 turns forcing them to only cast spells with a CD:3 or below.
Druid Form : Thick Fur - A buff that grants all allies +2 Defence for 3 turns.
Attack Spells
Druid Form : Earthbound - A ranged earth elemental attack that deals 3 damage to an enemy whilst buffing all allies strength and intellect for 1 turn.
Druid Form : Natures Wound - This ranged earth elemental attack leaves the enemy with a can't be healed condition for 2 turns.
Druid Form : Gnaw - A single target melee attack dealing 3 damage with a strength attack modifier added.
Druid Form : Razor Wing - A ranged attack that deals 2 damage to an enemy alongside penetrating their armour.
Druid Form : Swipe - A melee attack spell split spell. Each swipe of the bears claws deals 2 damage plus strength to a single target.
Druid Spell Mastery Board
The Druid has 3 paths to follow. Metamorphosis down the left, Fortification in the middle and Restoration on the right. Each path gives the Druid a different play style as you'll see below in our summaries for each path.
Metamorphosis
The shapeshifters path of choice. Unlocking 3 new damage dealing spells helps increase the druids damage potential. With a shapeshifter bonus, the druid will want to be swapping forms each turn to take advantage of this.
Fortification
Unlock 3 new spells for your bear form, giving you more of a reason to stay there. The armoured bear abilities ensures you can't be taken out quickly in bear form making you a fantastic tank. The Call of the Wild spell is one of the very rare occasions we overlap a card with another hero. The bear summoned here is the same bear you may have already seen in our PnP tutorial or over on Tabletopia, it shares the same hero with the Huntress. The Druid not being much of an animal tamer, the bear retreat after 3 turns.
Restoration
If you enjoy being a team player and healing your party to victory, this is the path for you. Our restoration path allows the druid to specialise in healing by granting her 3 new healing spells and 2 fantastic abilities to keep her alive for longer to ensure your parties safety.
And that's a wrap on the druid deep dive! We hope you all enjoy digesting the information about our Druid hero. Feel free to let us know your thoughts about her in the comments.
Social Goals - Update
Up Next
We have a short combat FAQ coming up in our next update alongside a community vote for trash mob cards. We will also continue with our deep-dives with our Witch Doctor up next as requested by BravoEcho a community members.
We will be back tomorrow but in the meantime, we will be doing our best to keep up with you in the comments section, as well as in our Discord Channel. As always, a huge thank you goes out to the fans who help each other out with the most frequently asked questions.
Thank you for all your support.
Damian - Creator
Update #20 - Boss deep dive
almost 3 years ago
– Sat, Dec 04, 2021 at 05:18:38 AM
Hello!
In todays update we're going to take another deep-dive into one of our bosses. If you haven't caught up on our previous deep dives, you can find a link to them all here. Blood Mage | Warlock | War Drummer | Illusionist | Shaman | Cleric | Bard | Shieldmaiden | Forest Troll
Water Scenario - Armoured Crab / First Boss
The last survivor of his kind is the Armoured Crab. Rarely coming ashore, he prefers to darken the waters of the deep sea, where it is almost devoid of light, and his huge pincer grabs at his enemies with the effortless power to tear off their flesh.
Static Ability
Rock Formation : You gain +2 defence for 2 turns during a heroes end phase if you were not attacked by them that turn.
Boss Abilities
80 - 40 HP Defensive Attack - Your attack spells grant +Defence modifiers.
< 60 HP Armour Toss - You permanently loose 3 defence in exchange for 6 agility.
< 40 HP Bury -During your Boss upkeep if you are not already buried, bury yourself in the sand giving yourself the can't be targeted condition for 2 turns. During your Boss upkeep if you are already buried in the sand remove the can't be targeted condition and gain +3 Strength for 1 turn instead. In short, every other turn the crab buries herself in the sand making it hard for you to attack her until she resurfaces.
Support Spells
Parasite Cleanse - Removes all buffs and conditions from an ally.
Crab Eggs - The armoured crab summons her babies to her ability tab. How many baby crabs will come to her aid all depends on the value of the D6 dice roll. Example : If you roll a 4, you summon 4 baby crabs to your ability tab. See below the baby crab card.
Shuffle to Safety - After casting this spell, place x3 D6 dice on top of Shuffle to Safety. When attacked, you must remove one of these dice and roll it. For rolls above a 3 you will receive 0 damage from the incoming attack. Rolls of 3 or below mean you still receive damage. Either outcome the dice is discarded.
Water Therapy - You gain +4 HP regeneration for 3 turns.
Attack Spells
Pincer Grip - A strong melee attack that deals 5 damage to a single target. This spell has a low cooldown and allows for a single roll of the conditions die to see if the spell gains penetrate armour.
Take the Bait - The first half of this split spell grants an enemy +1 Strength and Intellect for 1 turn. The second half of Take the Bait deals X damage to all enemies where X is their intellect value x2. If one enemy has an intellect of 8 and the other 5, Take the Bait would deal 16 damage to the one enemy and 10 to the other. Penalising those enemies with high Intellect values.
Crab Hammer - A melee attack that deals 3 damage to an enemy. There is a chance to add knockback to the spell by rolling the conditions die.
Muddy Waters - This is a ranged water elemental type spell that deals 1 damage to all enemies plus drenched. Drenched is a condition that penalises a larger party more as it deals 1 damage to everyone holding the condition during EACH players upkeep. If there are 4 players at the table this condition would typically do 12 damage over 3 turns.
Whirlpool - Another ranged water elemental type spell that hits all enemies, but this one packs more of a direct punch by dealing 6 damage plus stun for 2 turns alongside adding an intellect attack modifier. Remember that Defensive Attack ability the boss has between 40-80HP? These AOE spells can pack a punch so watch out.
Boss Strategy
- During the Armoured Crabs first phase 'Defensive Attack', dealing damage to her is vital. If your party goes in with support spells, this will trigger her Rock Formation ability for each time an enemy doesn't attack her. These buffs from rock formation will increase the Armoured Crabs damage output massively as she has +Def modifiers on all her attacks during this phase.
- Heroes might want to focus on builds that can reduce an enemies defence value.
- During phase 3 don't underestimate the Armoured Crabs attacks, so apply the protection, shields or HP regens at the ready for when the Crab resurfaces. With the Armoured Crab burying herself, she can't be attacked meaning Rock Formation will trigger several times negating the defence she lost from Armour Toss ability in phase 2.
- Support heroes that can remove conditions might prove to be useful in this scenario.
Note : The only time Defensive Attack is active is when the bosses HP is between 80-40. When it comes out of this range, the ability isn't active. Other abilities with the more than > or less than < arrow, are always active even once triggered, even if HP goes above this threshold.
Summary of Boss Conditions
See below a quick reference of the conditions used during this boss battle.
Stun - You skip your dice upkeep phase
Can't be targeted - You can't be the target of an enemy spell
Penetrate - Enemies defence is reduced by 50% for this attack.
HP regen - Target immediately receives HP equal to the value on the token plus additional HP on each token upkeep
Knockback - Target must pay 4 HP to get back up, removing the condition or they must skip their turn.
Drenched - Drenched is a condition that deals 1 damage immediately and 1 damage during EACH players upkeep.
Up Next
Up next we will be taking a look at our Druid hero in a deep-dive. Till then, see a tease of the druids Hyena form below. We will also be announcing the winners from our first challenge tomorrow. If you haven't entered yet, see the challenge post here on how to enter. Be quick as it ends tomorrow.
In the meantime, we will be doing our best to keep up with you in the comments section, as well as in our Discord Channel. As always, a huge thank you goes out to the fans who help each other out with the most frequently asked questions.
Thank you for all your support - Heroes of the Shire team
