Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Super Dungeon Explore: Forgotten King Arrives! - Wave 1


It's been just over a year since the Kickstarter campaign for Super Dungeon Explore: Forgotten King launched and now I have part of my rewards! Because of the way Chinese New Year landed, Soda Pop decided that it was in the best interest of everyone to ship in two waves, rather than one. A decision I am very glad that they went with!

If you've been following me here or on Twitter, you no doubt know that I am a huge Super Dungeon Explore fan and have everything that's been released for retail to date. I have the entire original Base Set painted, along with the individual releases, part of the Caverns of Roxor and the Heroes from Von Drakk Manor.

That said, it was a no brainer that I picked up everything they offered in the Kickstarter, though I didn't go with their "Dark Consul Everything Bundle". I didn't see the need to have a third set of dice and even more Rattlebones creeps.

My pledge looked like this:

1x Always Super Pledge
1x Emerald Valley Warband
1x Stilt Town Zombies Warband
1x Claws of the Wyrm Warband
1x Tabbybrook Mage
1x Deeproot Wolf Rider
1x Twilight Knight
1x Kobold Exemplar
1x Bag o' Squirrels
1x Dungeon Tiles: Dungeons of Crystalia (Includes Bag o' Slimes)
1x Dungeon Tiles: Van Drakk Ghost House (Includes Bag o' Rattlebones)
1x Goro (Includes 6x Giri creeps)

Today's arrival included only a part of this list. Namely the Always Super Pledge and every freebie that went along with it. Everything else in this list won't be arriving until Wave 2 ships.

And what a haul it was! It took me no less than an hour to unpack the boxes and take pictures of everything. I also needed to sort things between Classic Mode and Arcade Mode cards too. I ended up with around 40 pictures total.

The two game boxes came in a shipping box that spared no extra room. Luckily FedEx managed to no ding up the box in shipping and everything within was nice and minty. Though I could see how something could easily get messed up if the carrier was negligent.

Overall the entire package looks great! The new boards, cards and tokens are all of very high quality. The plastic of the miniatures is solid and harder than the models in the old sets and single releases. The rulebooks are laid out much better than the original book was and there are separate books for Classic and Arcade mode, so you don't accidentally look up the wrong rule.

I do have a few minor issues though. Those issues come in the form of 3 broken figures. I had a Frog Knight who was broken at the ankle. A Billmen who's tail was broken off. And Ninja Cola who's arm with the giant shuriken was broken off of him at the shoulder. Also the Grobbit Executioners both had bent axes, an issue I foresaw during the campaign, but never voiced.

Anyway, rather than my normal post style, I am going to lay out the pictures below, with my thoughts in captions.

The SDE: Forgotten King Box and the bonus Boo Booty box. The Boo Booty box is mostly empty, but allows extra space to store things. I doubt these boxes, plus the original SDE box would be enough to store everything released to date, though.
Quick-Start Rules, Classic Mode Rules, Arcade Mode Rules, and the Explorer's Handbook (which is filled with lots of SDE fluffy goodness. You'll also notice a flyer for Ninja All-Stars packed in there.)
Tokens! It seems to be just as token heavy as the original version of SDE, but in reality the status effects have been overhauled and streamlined. Now we have brand new key tokens and those light blue templates are actually trap markers!
The game boards are double sided and very nice! They are slightly smaller than the original SDE game boards, since the 1/2" border that was originally there has been removed in SDE:FK. I'll still keep my old boards handy, though I may have to make up some upgrade decals to update them a little.
Brand spanking new Treasure Deck (Red cards) and Loot Deck (Blue Cards) and in Forgotten King, each item has it's own graphic! Reminds me a lot of old artwork found in NES game manuals. 

These are all of the new hero cards, including hero cards for the 2 mini-bosses that are included in the game. I'm unsure on how you would be able to allow players to use them in a basic game. Since a new consul, who doesn't own any other mini-bosses, needs to have them available for the game.

These are tile effect cards, explaining what the various environmental effects are on the board. Its nice that they are loose and that you don't have to sift through the manual to find them. Though I can't help but wonder why they didn't go with a pamphlet instead.
This is the party's Backpack, treasure and loot cards go in here until the Power-Up phase. 
All of the monster cards for both Arcade Mode (Purple Cards) and Classic Mode (Green Cards). I currently have the Arcade cards all bundled together and haven't really sorted through them all. I still need to read the Arcade Mode book, but I was more interested in the changed to Classic first and foremost.
The small card to the left is the Forgotten King's boss effects card. The Purple Deck is the Arcade Deck for controlling the enemy's AI in Arcade mode. The Green Deck is the Explore Deck, which comes into play in both versions of the game, randomizing dungeon effects and summoning the new Creep monsters. The cards on the right are the new Pet cards and the Blue and Purple cards are reference cards for the Mighty Monster Table and Arcade Mode's Wrath system.
Brand new SDE Dice! They are a bit lighter in color than the original ones. The the green dice seem a bit hard to tell, color-wise. But it could have been the light I was looking at them in. They look fine in this picture.
Let's hear it for your, 2015 Super Dungeon Explorerrrrrrrs! (Left to Right) Princess Emerald, Questing Knight, Thundervale Huntress, Royal Warden and Fae Alchemist.
These little guys are the new Pets. (Left to Right) Mr. Chompers, Lord Gruff, Madam Hilde, Miss G. Snorts, Admiral Fuzzybottom and the Colonel. These guys are super adorable and you can gain them from the treasure deck. Each one offers a perk and they can even fight alongside of you. But they are best served out of combat.
The new Old Growth paired Spawning Point. These guys will be a fun challenge. I've never really painted foliage before, so it should be interesting trying to come up with interesting color combinations and markings.
This is the Bramble Knight spawning point. Here we have giant killer rabbits, platypus with halberds and frogs riding chickens! Unfortunately, one of my Frog Knights is broken off the base and one of the platypus tail was broken off. Luckily they are easily fixed. 
The broken Frog Knight.
The broken Billmen's tail.
New rabid Squirrel creeps. Creeps are like wandering monsters in the dungeon, they are summoned into the game by the Explore Deck. The Explore Deck will summon a random amount of Creeps depending on the card drawn.
The Forgotten King appears! Flanked by Trent the tree-folk and the hulking brute, Boris. All of these guys look really sweet in person and I'm sure they'll look even better painted. 
Treasure chests, just like the original ones. Only this time they provided 3 Boo Booty models. I'm not sure why, I've yet to pull a Boo Booty from the treasure deck... But it does look like they've tripled the number of Boo Booty cards in the Treasure Deck.
The SDE Coloring book is super cute and features a lot of the artwork that's in the Rulebooks. I can see this getting some use for decals or color testing.
The inside of the Boo Booty box. It's mostly a cardboard insert. the cards to the left are the upgrade cards for the old content, while the minis are the Pumpkin Patch, Mistmourn Tribe spawners and a few extra heroes, plus the plastic heart and potion tokens.
The new, upgraded Boss effect cards for Starfire, King Starfire, Roxor and Von Drakk.
Starfire/King Starfire's Explore cards. These get added into the Explore Deck when either version of Starfire is the boss. I can see these adding a lot more flavor to the game. I dig it.
Roxor's Explore deck, with lots of Mario/NES references. 
Von Drakk's Explore Cards, I'm kinda sad that there aren't more obvious references to my other gaming love, Castlevania.
All of the upgraded hero cards, including hero version of a lot of the mini-bosses. There are no less than 3 Candy hero cards now, and Cola has his own hero card as well! 3 player all Candy game, coming up!
Every Boss and Mini-boss upgraded, including Mini-Boss cards for Nyan-Nyan, Kunoichi Candy and Ninja Cola. The options are endless!
All of the boss's special treasure cards have been upgraded and given their own artwork as well.
No old monster is safe from arcade more either! These piles contain every boss, mini-boss and spawning point now upgraded for Arcade Mode as well. 
Here are the Potion and Heart tokens. They ended up being a lot smaller than I expected. But they are still really cool. I kinda wish the Potion token was a little brighter though. I foresee them disappearing on the floor, easily.
More Heroes! (Left to Right) Wandering Minstrel, Never Lost Cola (pet), Brave-Mode Candy, Mistmourn Shaman, Kunoichi Candy, Ninja Cola (w/ broken arm) and Shadow-Mode Candy. I've since fixed Cola's arm and I'm hoping it holds, hoping the ones I get from Ninja All-Stars arrive in better condition. :\
The new mini-boss Salt and his Salt Pillar Spawning point. Basically a reprint of the Fire-based spawner in Caverns of Roxor. These aren't a complete reskin and those little dudes look like they could be nasty.
The rest of the Mistmourn Warband. Here we have Trolls! These guys are super cool and I may need to buy a second set of them when the Warband sets start getting released. 
More new Creeps, these guys are called Giri and they are like ill-tempered Chipmunks who love Green Onions... which will have be quoting Gantz constantly whenever I play them. 
And the final spawn point of the Boo Booty box is a reprint of the Pumpkin Patch spawner from Von Drakk Manor. I'm glad they included this in the KS as it gives the Horror Genre part of the game a bit more meat. If I had gotten things painted before FK dropped, I would have been stuck at VDM due to the need to wait for these minis. I hate trying to color match after the fact.
And finally, the metal Princess Coin. This is a quality piece and heavy! The pictures don't do it justice at all. This is the "Heads" side of the coin.
And here's the "Tails" side of the coin, featuring the Super Dungeon Explore logo. I doubt I'll travel with it, it's currently in the glass case with the rest of the painted SDE models.
So there you have it! The Wave 1 shipment of Super Dungeon Explore: Forgotten King!

I can't wait for Wave 2 to arrive though, these pieces are quality and I'm super glad I backed the Kickstarter.  I still need to sort a few things out, sleeve cards, and transfer the old tokens out of my token box and swap in the new. I have no idea when I'll get around to painting the minis either. but I do have to glue these broken minis together. Also, I have a lot of the old SDE minis to paint, not to mention 3 other projects in the works. Plus, I have a Warhammer 40k army starting up as well.

Either way, way to go Soda Pop.