Happy Holidays from Lands of Myth!

First, I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

It’s been great seeing this community build since the Myth Kickstarter earlier in the year.  We have grown to over 1000 users, and have over 7000 posts in the forums, meaning about 1 in every 5 myth players have joined the community already.  We’ve been even more fortunate to have support directly from the MERCS team, whether it’s been answering Q&A’s, or directly interfacing with fans on the forums.  I can’t thank Mercs or all of the Myth fans out there enough for helping to make this site this successful.

With Myth coming out soon, we are having our first contest to celebrate.  We’d like to have everyone caption the photo below.  The contest is in the forums with the rules.  http://www.landsofmyth.com/Forum/index.php?topic=572.0

The long awaited Slaughterfield video went up, giving us a bit more of an introduction to that game mode, and more importantly letting us see the Brigand, Skald, Spriggan, and Trickster in play. It also gave us a sampling of the rat and Cyclops enemies.

Wave 1

Wave 2

Wave 3 (To be continued)

The game will be completed some time after the holidays, but we have a number of learnings from the video already.

Brigand –   Suicide run is as effective as expected, especially with a hustle card also in hand.  The ability to share bonuses from hiding in shadows was a nice buff I wasn’t expecting though.  Being able to hide at opportune times is huge.

Druid/Spriggan –   I hope that the expansion kickstarter scheduled for August/September next year includes a model for the summoned elder (treant).  We already knew the item summoning would be a big part of the Spriggan, but the battlefield manipulation like entangling and confusing enemies is a nice direction where I don’t think any other characters excel.  This character seems very strong early on with summoned items, but I wonder if it will scale well as others find bigger treasures to fill their item slots.

Skald –  Skald has become far more important in my mind.  I think I’d prefer a Skald in my party over an apprentice.  It provides decent buffs, and has the ability to manipulate treasure draws, which is a huge advantage, that can affect multiple acts of a quest.  Of course in Slaughterfield as a competitive mode, the Skald seems terrible.  This character seems to be more support oriented than any other heroes by far.  Of course, reciting your epic poetry is a big bonus playing this character as well.

Trickster – Still hard to figure this one out, even with the game play.  Looks like he can be effective with some nice devices, but combos seem so random.  I think it may be harder to try and create any cohesive strategy with this character.

Slaughterfield Items – These are REALLY strong, especially since you can pick one that will best fit your character.  They are the best items I’ve seen (having looked through some of the blue and green decks at GenCon), which isnt’ surprising.

The Game – I understand that this is a cooperative/competitive mode of the game.  I’m wondering if I’d prefer a variation of pure cooperative, so that you aren’t subtley trying to undermind your team.  Due to the play order rules, I think I’m not a fan of the competitive mode.  I may be convinced otherwise later, but I think I may house rule this with the team going for the greatest sum of victory points instead of individual scores.

The third wave video really illustrated one of the core concepts in Myth.  Manage the monster types.  Leaving 3 monster types out on the board creates a lot of AP for the darkness.  Try to wittle down the number of monster types as quickly as you can.  You will be generating enough AP with your cards, best not to give out free AP by leaving extra monster types out on top of it.

Rats and Cyclops – It’s probably good we will be getting the base boxed set to start, allowing us to get used to priorities of orcs and bugs before we start adding in more variations.  It might just be me, but Rats and Cyclops seem to be deadlier than the two base races by a pretty good amount.  Dodge can be a game changer when it cancels a killing blow that was costly to set up, and multiple ranged attacks can drop a party fast.

I plan to do my own unboxing in about a month or so, but this was such a huge milestone for the game, I wanted to comment on it right away.

The component look great on film.  Great color throughout, from counters, to boards, to cards.  Looks well packed, and has me even more excited to get the game in my hands.

We should be about 6-8 weeks away from a detailed review of everything in the box.  Hope everyone else loves this as much as me in the meantime.

Due to the delay in the game actually getting into our hands, I’ll need to scale back things for a much less ambitious convention tour this year.

Shadowcon – January 3 and 4.

Although I still plan on attending Shadowcon, any Myth related events have been cancelled, so no Myth 101 will be possible.  Still looking forward to seeing people there for other gaming events.

MidSouthCon – March 21-23

Although the base game will be in my hands at this time, I won’t likely have time to have everything painted, and won’t likely have the expanded items from the game.  I still believe that some Myth 101 and possibly Slaughterfield makes sense to get things going.

Origins Game Fair – June 12-16

This one is pretty expensive for me to get to, so I’m probably going to pass on Origins this year.  Although I will have everything, I won’t likely have everything painted, and won’t have playtested things for custom events.  With this so close to GenCon, I’m going to skip the travel expense.

GenCon – August 15-18

I’m still planning on going to GenCon this year.  However, I’m going to push back “Rings of Ia” for 2015.  I just think the painting and the playtesting to make sure custom elements are balanced won’t get enough attention with the shortened timeline.  Myth 101, Slaughterfield, and some “Rings of Ia” preview/playtest events might make sense.

We’ve been lucky enough to hear from several people involved with the game in the US over the course of this year.  However, Myth will be a worldwide hit, with translations into several languages right from the start.  We were lucky enough to have one of the French translators for the game post a review in our forums with some thoughts on the game through some playesting.

http://www.landsofmyth.com/Forum/index.php?topic=507.0#msg6451

“Hello first you should know i am involved with the mercs team i am biaised but this translation is not a paid job so i hope you will believe me if i am saying i will try to be as honest as i can.

You should know i am french and i don’t speak english enough, i will make english errors, please forgive me.

After a lot of work on the translation some part of the translation team met in Paris to test the game, we played 12-15 hours over the Week End, we tested some “free questing” at the beginning with 3 players, it was an epic fail, we lost to Yardu the Undead Giant who appeared after the wrong darkness event. He can be brutal.

The day after we played the first and last act of the 2nd Story. We fought Terror at the end. We tried almost all traps (one quest added 3 traps on the next tile).

My first impression is the game is really smooth, you never wait long since everybody more or less play at the same time. Most of the time monster activation is easy to determine, the game have some simplification that make game faster, for example monsters who are already in a fight does not move and stay were they are. We tested all monsters but the Sycline, they are REALLY different from each other, i was playing the archer against a Rath mob, my very low Threat at the time was not an advantage. All characters feels really different from each other, that si what sold me the game at the beginning. IT seems very hard to play without the Acolyte.

This game will feel very strange at first for a lot of player i think. The first thing is the number of choices the player must make about the game difficulty. For example some tiles have wandering monsters (a band of monster not tied to a lair they won’t receive reinforcement), some tile force you to have one, some offers you the possibility to have one, but even if you have to add one it’s size can be from 3 to 8 monsters, YOU will have to choose that, adding more monster make the game more difficult, and offer you the possibility to gain more treasure but the difficulty is growing faster i think. It is the same with the choice of wich monster using to populate the Tile, some are really stronger than the others, i wanted to try as many as we could but i often listened this kind of comments : “oh no we are not in great shape if you add them we will loose”. It is not a bad thing but it is something kinda new in the strict boardgame world. I bet we will see very soon after the realease some random table to choose the number of wandering monster, monster’s type, number of lair and all the other choices you have to make.
The other thing that felt a little strange was the unique structure of the game turn, at the beginning i was frustrated with my hand, i thought “i don’t have the cards i need i won’t do a thing this turn, i will lost my turn”. That was really wrong, you have to understand if you don’t play you don’t activate the darkness, it is not a standard we play then monsters play structure. All the game finesse is in the management of these 25 cards, you know you will have the cards you want you don’t know when but you can try to optimise your chances to get them. IT is best if you don’t play the 2 point card in a suboptimal situation (just to kill one minion for example). You have to let the other players shine while you wait for your time. The threat system support that, if one player is at 10 you trigger a very very bad event, if your threat goes to high you should calm down to let it diminish. I really appreciated this innovative mechanic,  i am a big fan of Descent V1, but often it is best to give everything to the leading character it is stragically more efficient. But it is not at all the case here. A lot of other small rules are very nice, i have a very good feeling about the game.

Now the downside of this “review”, Brian said 1 or 2 hours per Act, even if it was our fist play we knew the game pretty well, and with no slow players. It took us more than 6 hours to make 2 acts. So even if we optimize this it will be 2 or 3 hours per act, no less. It is not a big problem for me but it is a point you have to be aware of. You can do “free questing” outside a story, but to be honest it does not feel as interesting.
The other little bad side of the game is there is a lot of questions during the game, not really about the base mecanic (some points will have to be clarified in a FAQ when the game will go public but i know as a fact Mercs will be supporting the game very very well for example they will make available a document explaining how to use EACH hero card) but they wanted to make a very very immersive game with cool stories. That is not a bad thing but there is question in a lot of quests since they are all changing the game. I imagin Brian writing  a fictive story (not in the game):
“And now it would be cool if a giant dragon come into the tile and ravaging everything”. He wrote it, the quest is extra nice, but when you do it you have no idea what to do when the dragon arrive if you are under him, are you pushed, does he damage you if you are under etc. This is a dumb example but i hope you will understand what i am trying to explain. This problem is less important in a cooperative game than in competitive games like Descent, but sometimes you tell yourself “i hope we are playing it the way it was designed”. I think this game will have one of the biggest FAQ ever, but it is maybe the price to pay to have such a rich and immersive game. Once again the bases of the game are well designed, it works well, it is more a problem with the little details at the end.

I hope i did not make you eyes bleed too much with my poor english. And i hope this reflect well my feelings about the game (my french review was way easier to write).”

I haven’t done a Q&A here at Lands of Myth in a while, but I am hoping to make up for it a little bit as we close in on the first boxes of MYTH shipping.  Today, I’m very excited to have a question and answer session with Keith Lowe, who I had the pleasure of meeting at GenCon.  Everyone who fell in love with the game is familiar with Keith and his artwork, but for those who don’t know Keith yet, he is the artist for MYTH, so you’ve seen his work, and will be seeing a lot more.

Lands Of Myth: Myth has obviously been a bigger success than you probably expected coming out of the gates.  Has it had much impact on your life since the kickstarter ended?

Keith: Absolutely. I left my graphic design position at BradyGames of almost 8 years to pursue MERCS full time. It was a big decision, but an important one. There was such work to be done, that there simply wasn’t the time to try to continue doing both.

LoM: Concept art obviously played a big part in the game and the kickstarter.  Could you tell us how the art process worked in the infancy of Myth before the kickstarter?

Keith: It was a bit of a mixed bag. Brian and Kenny had already some great ideas about the different classes as a jumping off point. We picked some traditional classes from that list to work on initially, but we also made a point to explore other ideas, like Brigand as a rat. Having creatures as heroes helped us be more open to try different things early on. For the baddies, we asked ourselves questions. “What are really great fantasy monsters? How can we give them a different flavor, make them unique but familiar?” When executing the monsters, I worked all of a monster group at that same time. So for example the Grubbers, Muckers, and Orcneas were all done together, to keep them cohesive as a group. The other thing I really wanted to push was story telling in the way the monsters looked. We do that in MERCS but I really wanted to make that a major focus with Myth.

LoM: We recently learned you were the artist for the first edition of Incursion.  With a little research, I saw you also worked on Secrets of the Third Reich.  Could you tell us a little bit about those projects?

Keith: Board Game Geek has me tagged as working on SOTR, but I never actually worked on it. I’m not really sure how it happened 🙂

 As far as Incursion though, Jim Bailey reached out to me not long after we launched the MERCS website. This was sometime late in 2008. My job was primarily to illustrate the characters based off of concept art already finished, and in some cases miniatures in progress. I hadn’t done very much contract illustration work up to that point, so I felt like it was as a really good learning experience for me. I got to understand a little bit what it is like to be a freelancer. The art was fun to do, and Jim was an easy client to work with. We continued work off and on throughout the initial Incursion box release and into the SNAFU expansion as well. Eventually I had to discontinue, as MERCS was demanding more and more of my time.

LoM: Outside of MERCS, MYTH, and the two projects mentioned above, what other projects (even non-gaming) could fans of your art look up in order to find more of your artwork?

Keith:  I spent a long time as a graphic designer for BradyGames and learned a ton there. I did designs for nearly a hundred books and strategy guides. I had a unique opportunity to work on game properties I loved when I was a young man. If you want, you can check out some of my old book designs on my insanely outdated website…

 Beyond that, just little things here and there for friends and family. MERCS was a hobby for a long time, and I did the work during my free evenings. It just so happened that it was a business as well. I’m very fortunate in that my hobby has become my career.

LoM: Your art in both Myth and Mercs has a very distinctive style to it.  Who were your biggest inspirations as you developed your style?

Keith: I appreciate that. I think every artist hopes their work feels somewhat unique. I’ve had a great many influences. Cartoonist Bill Watterson from Calvin and Hobbes when I was young. Comic artists like Jim Lee and in recent years penciler Cary Nord. The great American illustrators NC Wyeth, Howard Pyle, and JC Leyendecker. My college professor Ron Mazellan. Concept artists like Feng Zhu, Syd Meab, Sparth, Madryk, Craig Mullins. The list could go on…

LoM: What was your favorite piece of Myth art to design?

Keith: Wow that’s tough. I’ll have to say the Skeleton Boss, he felt unique and fun right from the get-go.

LoM:  If you had to pick one miniature that’s been sculpted, which one do you think best caught the spark of the original concept art?

Keith: I about went nuts when I saw the Acolyte’s final sculpt images. He really captures the flavor to me.

LoM: Was there a reason you decided to go with sculpted miniatures over 3D graphic design?  (This was a question a player had way back in May, that I’m circling back to.)

Keith: In terms of our business as a whole, we’ve had the most success with traditional models. From an artist standpoint, I also find it easier to see a models details, know they are at actual size, and can usually expect them to translate that way. Basically it becomes a what you see is what you get situation.

LoM: The box cover art is obviously the biggest, most in depth piece of art that’s been released for Myth.  Are there other pieces you’ve done for the game that are that elaborate?

Keith: Right. The cover art was a priority early on to try to capture the look and feel in one big image. Nothing as elaborate as the cover has been illustrated yet, but I very much hope to do some more in the future.

LoM: How much unreleased (unleaked) art should we expect to see for the first time when we open up our game box?

Keith: If you weren’t able to catch us at GenCon, you will see loads of great new stuff. The Realm tiles look much sexier now than they did on the initial KS page. Fantastic item art from a super talented young artist Jonathan Duncan. He did an amazing job of on concepts and matched the style right on. Beyond this there is all the punchboard art, and last but not least, all the completed hero card art. We’ve posted bits and pieces of stuff on the KS updates from the core box, but the lions share we haven’t shown outside of GenCon.

LoM: 2014 (and probably 2015) is likely to have a number of expansions following the release of the game.  How much new art do you expect to have to produce with each new expansion?

Keith: I’ll be in pretty solid shape for a while once I finish up the stretch goal work, which I’m actively working on now. Beyond that I’d love to do some more group illustrations with the expansion heroes.

LoM: Any final words for fans out there before the home stretch towards release?

Keith: I’m super pumped and I hope you are too! Thanks for taking this adventure with us 🙂

I’d like to thank Keith for taking time out of his busy schedule between continued work on MERCS, a hectic convention schedule, and getting MYTH finished to answer some questions for us.  It means a lot.

For anyone interested in seeing more of Keith’s work, be sure to check out Keith Lowe Art.

As a game that can be played in under two hours, MYTH is excellent for conventions. I’ve got big plans (and 11 months to prepare) for GenCon and Myth next year, but I definitely plan to try and use Myth as a convention game at other events as well. I haven’t been a big convention attendee since I’ve lived in Memphis, but I plan to be better about it this coming year as I warm up for the Summer Convention season with Origins and GenCon.

Shadowcon – January 3 and 4.

This should be right after the release of the kickstarter boxed sets, and before all the additional material comes out.  I plan to mostly stick to MYTH 101 style games, introducing new people to the game building up for it’s mainstream release.  I may even break it down into “demo” games where it will last under an hour per game in order to get more players through, with the possibility of one or two full games towards the end of the convention.

MidSouthCon – March 21-23

MidSouthCon will be after the full kickstarter components arrive, so it will be the first opportunity to show off some of the expanded MYTH world.  I hope to have a full set painted, and some 3D terrain to run custom scenarios at this point as well.  However, since this should coincide with the full release of the game, I’ll likely stick to mostly MYTH 101 style scenarios.

Origins Game Fair – June 12-16

Origins is on my wish list, but I’m not sure I’ll be making this convention yet.  If I can make this con, it would be to introduce more custom scenarios to playtest them for GenCon.  I’d expect MERCS to be in attendance, so the demos can be left to them, but I’m sure there will be plenty of time to get some standard MYTH games in, as well as some kind of Myth meet and greet.  I’ll make sure to update as we get closer on whether we’ll be running Lands of Myth events at this con.

GenCon – August 15-18

This is the big event being planned for, with the introduction of the full “Rings of Ia” scenario, Myth 101 sessions, and pickup games.  We are definitely hoping to schedule a meet and greet session, and we’ll see what other events we can come up with by August.

Minion Spawn Rates

During the Kickstarter, there was a lot of talk about how many minions were needed for a single or double lair on a tile.  One of the points of this discussion were that different races would spawn at different rates, but how different will they be?

Doing a breakdown of the 6 races in the game, using normal spawns we get:

• Arachnids: 2 Crawlers (melee), 2 Crawlers (range)
• Orcs: 3 Grubbers (+1 Grubber per Mucker on the board)
• Skeletons: 3 Shamblers (melee), 1 Shambler (range)
• Rats: 2 Tailless (melee), 2 Tailless (range)
• Cyclopses: 3 Syclines
• Elementals: 1 Fire, 1 Earth, 1 Air

So we can quickly see the most numerous spawns without other conditions are Arachnids, Skeletons, and Rats, each spawning 4 models each.  Orcs, Cyclopses, and Elementals each spawn 3 under normal conditions.

However, under the right conditions, Orcs will be the most numerous, with 1 additional model for each captain on the board, a buildup of a couple captains can quickly result in a huge number of orcs, especially if you are dealing with more than one orc lair.  This force multiplier effect is unique to the orcs, and must be taken into consideration for anyone trying to brave multiple orc lairs at once.

The other item of note is that 4 of the 6 races include more than one minion type, with elementals including 3 minion types.  With the exception of the elementals, this is simply a matter of ranged vs melee troops.

The net result is that Cyclopes and Elementals do spawn less troops (25% less) meaning you should need less models of these types, just as promised.  The question will be how much difference that 25% makes on the battlefield when it comes to difficulty.  From what I’m seeing of the minions, difficulties will be comparable when you take spawn rates into account.  However, I wonder if slower spawning minions and their resulting lower rate of treasure drops could make things more difficult in the longer run for heroes.