[Kickstarter] Lasting Tales - Solo/Co-Op Adventure

[Manchu]

Lasting Tales is designed by Mark Latham, of Walking Dead: All Out War and Elder Scrolls: Call To Arms, and will be published by Black List Games. Black List ran a very successful KS about this time last year for somewhat generic single-piece plastic fantasy miniatures and Lasting Tales seems like a vehicle to sell these to miniatures gamers, as opposed to TTRPGers. The Lasting Tales KS is scheduled to start on March 30.

Lasting Tales translates the RPG experience fully into a miniatures skirmish game. There are races, classes, levels, equipment, skills, spells — everything you’d expect in, say, D&D. Except for a Dungeon Master. Lasting Tales was designed from the ground up for solo and co-op play. Player Characters get to Move, Attack, and perform an Action each turn. Running, at a baseline, prevents you from making a Ranged Attack or performing an Action that turn. Interestingly, casting spells (whether “Arcane” or “Divine”, in D&D terms) is an Action.

Resolution is a matter of adding a figure’s relevant stat, plus or minus any modifiers, to a 2d6 roll against a TN: Simple [8], Normal [10], or Hard [12]. For example, hitting in melee combat is a matter of rolling a TN or above based on the relative Melee attributes of the attacker and target. If the attacker’s Melee attribute is the same as the target’s, then the attacker must pass a Normal test; if the attacker’s Melee attribute is at least double or half as much than the target’s, the test is then Simple or Hard, respectively.

Borrowing one of the “innovations” of D&D 5E (itself borrowed from the OSR community), Lasting Tales also allows for advantage and disadvantage, namely adding a third d6 to your 2d6 roll and discarding the lowest or highest result, respectively. Certain rolls, such as attack rolls, also allow for the possibility of critical results: add a d6 (of a different color) to your 2d6 roll and, if that die rolls a 6, it’s a critical. Player Characters have a Fate attribute, a limited resource that can be spent for a number of purposes, including (as I understand it) to reroll any or all dice. Rerolls may not be rerolled.

A successful attack does a randomized amount of damage based on the weapon or attack type, plus or minus modifiers. Incoming damage is reduced by the figure’s Resistance attribute and, potentially, armor/shield. Armor is handled like a save, with a chance on a number of d6 (depending on the armor type) to further reduce damage. Player Characters who take damage equal to their Health attribute are knocked out rather than killed and can spend a Fate point to get back into the action. Aside from healing spells and potions, any Player Character can perform a “Take A Breath” action to regain a single health point. Monsters classified as minions are put into a two-stage redeployment system when vanquished and have a chance of returning on subsequent turns.

The books will come with set piece scenarios but also promises to include a scenario generator.

The KS will also feature Black List’s “Fantasy 2” set of miniatures and pre-colored MDF terrain by Black Site Studio.

Ash did a video overview of the game here:

[The Voivod]

Sounds cool. Always on the lookout for a good generic fantasy skirmish game.
Curious about what enemy types will be available and how flexible "classes" are.
I'd really be in the market for something that really lets me use my full fantasy collection.

Will there be story/campaign modes or is it aimed at one of games?

[Manchu]

It seems to be designed for campaigns, given the XP system for leveling and perhaps some persistent wounds, effects, etc. — not to mention looting treasure chests!

But of course, it could also be used for one-off set piece adventures.

As for classes: so far I know of (from Ash’s vid on the demo rules) Barbarian, Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, and Wizard.

Other classes appear in the related minis range such as Bard, Druid, Paladin, Monk, and Ranger.

Races include the usual Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, and Human — but perhaps also Demonkin, Dragonkin, Gnome, Half-Elf, and Half-Orc. Note: these are supported in the minis range, unknown if Lasting Tales will have rules for them.

[Manchu]

Blacklist have posted another Designer Diary over at BGG

LINK

The playable races are: Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Half-Orc

The playable classes are: Fighter, Barbarian, Rogue, Ranger, Bard, Cleric, Paladin, Wizard, Druid, Monk

And if you don’t see your favourite niche race or class (or even sub-race and sub-class), fear not! We’re already discussing ways to expand this list in the future!

Also of note: in addition to full-on Player Characters, you can also hire Followers. They don’t have access to the full range of actions and they also don’t have Fate points. Very interesting! This is really shaping up to be the game i have been looking for.

[Manchu]

This KS is now live!

[Grumpy Gnome]

Oh... so.... tempting! We missed out on the previous Blacklist Games kickstarters due to cash flow issues at the time. So very, very tempting.

[The Voivod]

Dammit, I'm in.
I was tempted by the fantasy series 1, but this deal is to sweet.
At the legendary level it's already over 300 mini and this should get me practically everything I would probably need on a dungeon campaign like I always wanted and the game looks pretty sweet.

[Rhelyk]

I'm in for Legendary, SO happy that it includes the Fantasy 1 and original stretch goals. I'd never even heard of Blacklist Games until Ash Barker did the unboxing video of Fantasy 1 KS rewards and then I was sad and mad that I missed it. Ever since I've been watching to see when if finally hits North America to buy a (most likely overpriced) 2nd hand version.

In the meantime I bought a 2nd hand Altar Quest from ebay and have it mostly painted, plan to play it this weekend. Figures are on the thinner end of 28mm and the detail is a little shallow, but still very paintable. I have come to absolutely love modern PVC figures over pretty much any other material. I'm so tired of metal models chipping and breaking and even proper styrene plastics are so thin and fragile nowadays that I dread playing with them.

[Grumpy Gnome]

My wife has been hesitant about supporting this Kickstarter... but we got a set of the Fantasy 1 Kickstarter on EBay at a good price, which just arrived.

Wow!

We are overwhelmed at the quality of the figures. I would say closer to Bones Black than I was expecting. Much finer and crisper details. Much better proportions than I expected. Still some oversized weapons but those are a quick fix.

Several of the single pose five figure sets should be easy enough to individualize with hot water arm bending as well as head and weapon swops.

Speaking of bending, very little weapon bending on display in the box. No base warping notice so far.

I can not express how pleased I am. My wife is not as enthusiastic but she is keen enough now to back Fantasy 2 with the Horror add on and the Altar Quest terrain add on (we lost the auction where we were bidding on some AQ terrain).

This set of Fantasy 1 is brilliant quality and the cost is far below the competition. If you are a figure painter these will be fun but more than that, this set makes a brilliant novice DM generic hero & monster set for most Medieval Fantasy games... be it D&D, Frostgrave, Oathmark, Heroquest, Mordheim etc.

We will definitely be backing Fantasy 2 and recommend folks pick up Fantasy 1, either as part of the Fantasy 2 Kickstarter or on eBay.

[Sunjester]

You got Fantasy 1 on Ebay?!!! 

Here in the UK I'd still waiting for delivery of my KS.

[Grumpy Gnome]

Yeah, there have been a few on German eBay going for various prices but all for more than the original pledge amount. I think I have seen about half a dozen so far, from different folks. One seller had two sets for sale. There are four sets currently listed on eBay.de.

[ced1106]

I received Altar Quest. Great miniatures, about the same as other good plastics, such as Bones, CMON, Monolith, etc. I suppose if you looked at them up close, you'd see a difference, but these miniatures are primarily for gaming, not display. I have resins from Tiny Furniture, if I want better.

Picked up two copies of FS1 at the time, to spread the cost of shipping. At $75, will do so with FS2. I also backed Horror Series 1, since I don't have many Gothic Horror miniatures.

The demo rules look solid, although it's streamlined for new miniature skirmish players. Designer is the same guy as Call of Arms, which I also liked. OTOH, I expect the rules to be available retail at a discount, and, while the scope is greater than Rangers of Shadowdeep, if you haven't gotten through your copy of Rangers, I dunno if you'll get much out of an unplayed copy of LT.

I backed Bones I-IV, and FS1 and FS2 overlap. Speculating based on the comments, FS3 may have uncommon races (eg. dragonkin) and more monsters. So if FS1 and FS2 don't add much to your collection, FS3 might.

[Grumpy Gnome]

I need to track down some Altar Quest Frox... if anyone has some going spare....

With the quality of Fantasy 1, at the amazing price point as well mind you, I am onboard for more from Blacklist Games. I am very curious to see if they explore other genres, like sci-fi or pirates after how their Dire Alliance KS (Gothic Horror)went, which must have been disappointing in comparison.

Even my wife who was skeptical at first has come to think of Fantasy 1&2 as an excellent “library” of pieces we may not need right now but could in the future. She is less convinced by the Horror KS minis but I am working on it. I have explained how several of the repeat poses can be kitbash converted so in a way it is like adding to my kitbashing bits collection.

[robh]

I don't think you could play the game from the campaign without also investing in the first figure collection, the balance of weapon types is off.
The rules and figure collections 1 & 2 are pretty much a "set"

My boxes from the first kickstarter finally arrived last weekend and I agree they are superb examples of plastic miniatures. I really like the true scaling of the heads and weapons. This set does not appeal nearly as much and I don't rate Mark Latham as a rule writer at all.

[Manchu]

There’s no real difference between Lasting Tales and games like Frostgrave or Rangers of Shadow Deep when it comes to “needing” a certain set of figures. Sets 1 and 2 are just the easiest and cheapest way to get the kind of figures you might need to play Lasting Tales; whereas to play FG or Rangers, you might have to search far and wide if you want something exactly as described in the published campaigns for those games. As has been said, the Black List minis sets actually contain some hard to find FG monsters (e.g., vapor snakes).

I have some reservations about the Elder Scrolls rules, in that they seem a bit over complex, but I suspect that has more to do with Bethesda and Modiphius than Mr. Latham. Certainly, TWD feels very elegant to me and Lasting Tales, from what we have seen so far, is definitely not guilty of the fiddliness of Elder Scrolls.