Dissonance Divais out, and the cards are so cute! I love the Halloween flavor, and the art looks amazing. The Dark Tama in this set is sick! I just caught up to the anime, and I am ready to start collecting. Check with your LGS to see if they carry Wixoss or run events.
You can pick up a booster boxes ($75) or singles of Dissonance Divaon TCG Player through my affiliate links. If you enjoy these updates, don’t forget to like, comment, and share this with your friends. Don’t forget to follow the socials! I’m currently opening packs of Battle Spirits Saga on my TikTok and YouTube.
I was sent a free copy of the Dragonbane Bestiary to review for my blog. While I am very grateful for the opportunity, I won’t let it sway my opinions. This will be my honest review of the supplement. If you enjoy my reviews, please leave a like, comment, and share this with your friends. Don’t forget to follow the socials!
The Dragonbane Bestiary is beautiful. I have always been a huge fan of the art for this game, and this is no exception. The pages are nice and make it feel like you’re flipping through an old monster manual or reading an old storybook. I know you can get away with using the PDF instead but flipping through the book just hits differently.
What is it?
The Bestiary is a supplement. You will need the Dragonbane rulebook to run the adventure, but the Bestiary is optional. This is meant to be a resource for the GM who needs a little help with their next campaign. The book introduces nine new playable races, 63 new creatures, and a handful of adventure hooks. There is also a decent amount of lore and beautiful illustrations to flip through. If you love Dragonbane and need some new ideas for your campaign, it’s a solid resource.
The Art
Sample Pages
Impressions
I loved running Dragonbane at my table, and the Bestiary brought some nice flavor and variety. I don’t think you need the Bestiary to run a successful Dragonbane, but it is nice to have. I like having stat blocks available, and the adventure hooks are a nice bonus. It certainly gave me a good amount of ideas to build from. I think it is worth it if your adventure calls for it, my campaign certainly did.
If you’re looking for a way to spice up your next Dragonbane campaign, go pick up the Bestiary. You can pick up the PDF for $19.99 on DriveThru RPG, or you can pick up a physical copy for $39.99 on Amazon using my affiliate link.
World Beyond has officially been announced, which means we have a few new spoilers to get excited about. World Beyond will be the first direct-to-consumer set, which is an exciting development. Collectors should especially be excited because there are some beautiful cards you’re going to want to get your hands on. World Beyond will release with two new theme decks, a collectors box, and a blister pack. The set breakdown:
9 NEW Akora Chains
9 Full Art Akora
10 Full Art Alchemy
10 Full Art Battlezones
41 Holographic Akora/Alchemy Cards
10 Holo Relic Shards
100 Mechanically Unique Cards
9 Stage 1 Akora Extended Art Box Toppers
10 Character Relic Shards
18 Stage 2 & 3 Extended Art Akora
9 Stage 2 Extended Art Akora
9 Stage 3 Extended Art Akora
2 Serialised Generational Rare Akora
1 Serialised Box Topper
Ancient & Secret Rare Cards (Limited to 5 copies each)
Make sure you join the official Akora Discord if you want to stay on top of all the news. Check out the official post for all the details.
Collectors Box
The World Beyond collectors box will be up for preorder on April 26. There will only be 100 of these available, so make sure you get yours before it is too late. Collector boxes will include new exclusive art rares, and they are beautiful. These will look amazing in a binder and are a fantastic way to bling out your deck.
The Buy a Box Promo card has also been announced, and it is beautiful. I am a huge fan of the Akora artwork, and it continues to blow me away.
2 New Theme Decks
Conclusion
I can’t wait to see more spoilers, but I am excited. I might at least get the decks to play with, but I’ll have to see how much money I can get together by then. If you want to pick up any Akora to begin your collection, pick it up on TCG Player with my affiliate links. If you enjoy these updates, please leave a like, comment, and share this with your friends. Don’t forget to follow the socials! I am doing daily pack openings of Spellbound Wings on my TikTok and YouTube.
The San Jose, CA regionals happened over the weekend, and it looks like Rai and Lorraine dominated the format. While the different flavors of Lorraine are interesting lists, it’s nice to see Rai carving his place on top. The VOD of the event is still up with commentary for those who want to see some competitive Grand Archive. I’ve collected the top three decks from the event and left links for singles for those who want them. If you would like to see the rest of the list, check out the Omnidex.
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Material Deck 1 Spirit of Wind 1 Rai, Spellcrafter 1 Rai, Archmage 1 Rai, Storm Seer 1 Chalice of Blood 1 Grand Crusader’s Ring 1 Nullifying Lantern 1 Safeguard Amulet 1 Tariff Ring 1 Tome of Knowledge 1 Storm Tyrant’s Eye 1 Tome of Sacred Lightning
Main Deck 4 Careful Study 4 Dungeon Guide 2 Peer into Mana 3 Resolute Stand 4 Scry the Skies 4 Beseech the Winds 4 Disorienting Winds 4 Windrider Invoker 3 Zephyr 3 Advent of the Stormcaller 3 Anger the Skies 4 Arcane Blast 2 Arcane Elemental 4 Arcane Sight 3 Erratic Bolt 3 Power Overwhelming 3 Spellshield: Arcane 3 Voltaic Sphere
I was sent a free copy of the Dragonbane core rulebook to review for my blog. While I am very grateful for the opportunity, I won’t let it sway my opinions. This will be my honest review. If you enjoy my reviews, please leave a like, comment, and share this with your friends. If you need to buy any trading cards, pick them up on TCG Player through my affiliate link. Don’t forget to follow the socials!
The Rulebook includes the rules, bestiary, roll tables to get you started on your own adventure. It also includes an introductory adventure if you need a good starting point.
Quality
I am a little disappointed that the cover has a glossy finish because it is going to be covered in fingerprints by the end of any session. You can easily clean it, but I wish it were matte instead. This is not a deal breaker because the book is beautiful. The images truly pop on its fine paper, and it is going to look great at your table. I have the PDF, and while I enjoy the convenience of the search function, nothing beats flipping through the pages and looking at all the pretty illustrations.
What is Dragonbane?
Dragonbane is Fantasy TTRPG brought to us by our friends over at Free League Publishing. It is an easy-to-learn system with some terrific flavor and interesting mechanics. If you’re looking for a new RPG, you are going to want to look into Dragonbane. I’ve covered this game before, so make sure you check out my older posts if you want to know more.
What I enjoy about Dragonbane
What makes Dragonbane unique is its leveling system. Classes in Dragonban act as a starting template, but players have the freedom to explore their character in whatever way feels best. Want to play a wizard who is also good at sword fighting? Dragonbane can accommodate, so long as you pass the checks.
What I enjoyed most about Dragonbane is how experience points are handled. At the end of every session, players are asked:
✦ Did you participate in the game session?
✦ Did you explore a new location?
✦ Did you defeat one or more dangerous adversaries?
✦ Did you overcome an obstacle without using force?
✦ Did you give in to your weakness (optional rule)?
Players get a point for every yes. We didn’t play with weaknesses, so they had 4 points every session to level. These points could be used to attempt to level up their skills once. Players need to roll a D20 and roll a number bigger than the skill they are trying to level. Say they have a 4 in their sword skill, they will need to roll 4 or higher to level up. My players liked this tangible form of XP, and the gambling aspect made things interesting. Sometimes you leveled all 4 skills, sometimes you didn’t level any.
What I particularly appreciated about this system is that it made creative with their encounters. They would always try to get out of an encounter without using force. This always led to interesting roleplay and took my players from being somewhat murder hobos to more developed player characters.
Dragonbane also has an interesting combat system that I enjoyed as both a player and a GM. Dragonbane uses cards for initiative which eliminates rolling and bonuses. Players and creatures draw from the same card and the lowest number goes first. These turns can be traded, which gives potential to some cool strategy. Players only have one action or reaction per round, which means they are either attacking or defending. There were times when players were on death’s door, and a lucky dodge roll kept them in the fight long enough to earn that epic kill.
I particularly enjoy that monsters have roll tables for their actions. Running a monster had the excitement of uncertainty. Would the monster kill a player with a powerful attack? Will it stun the party for another turn? Some of the tabled do need tweaking because they felt underwhelming, but I enjoyed the randomness.
Final Thoughts
I’ve been championing Dragonbane for a while now. I’ve run through both the quickstart and the prewritten adventure and enjoyed every minute of it. I did go off-script a lot in this game, but I used as much of the flavor as I could fit. The game is a great little system, and the book is a beautiful addition to my collection. This is one of the books I really wanted because of how much I enjoyed the game and how much I love the art. I fell in love with Dragonbane because of the art. My interest in Dragonbane is also why I have the wonderful opportunity to try all these cool indie TTRPGs.
You don’t need to buy the rulebook to play Dragonbane. I recommend you check out the free quickstart guide below, or on Drivethru RPG to get you started. The quickstart has a prewritten adventure to run and pre-generated characters to choose from. It is a streamlined version of the game, but it provides a solid snap shot of what to expect from Dragonbane.
Once you fall in love with Dragonbane, you can make due with the PDF, pencils, and paper. If you like physical media, the book is so pretty and printed to the high quality standards I’ve come to expect from Free League Publishing.
I was sent a free copy of Solforge Fusionto review for my blog. While I am very grateful for the opportunity, I will not let it sway my opinions. This will be my honest review of the game. If you enjoy my reviews, please leave a like, comment, and share this with your friends. Buying cards from TCG Player through my affiliate link is also a great way to help me out. Don’t forget to follow the socials!
SolForge Fusion is a CCG card battler out now on Steam. The game features single-player and PvP modes where players face off against opponents with uniquely fused decks. Do you have what it takes to outmaneuver your opponents and come out on top?
Gameplay
The gameplay loop is where this game becomes an acquired taste. You are either going to love SolForge or find it boring. The game is split into rounds where players can perform one action per turn. Players have two alternating turns in each round. During their turn, a player can cast a spell, summon a creature, or move a creature between spaces on the board.
At the end of a round, the cards auto battle depending on whether the player is defending or attacking. Creatures of attacking player will attack the opponent directly if there is nothing blocking them, players of a defending player can only attack adjacent enemy creatures.
Cards that aren’t used in a round level up and are shuffled back into the deck. The strategy seems to be choosing the right cards to hold onto for later in the game. Players also have access to a hero ability that also levels up as the game carries on. A player wins when their opponent’s life drops to zero.
In the roguelike single-player mode, players can fuse or choose a deck to make their run. The game plays like any other deck-building roguelike but without deck-building. Players earn special buffs and abilities along their run. The run is over when a player gets to the end, or their life drops to zero.
Review
SolForge Fusion is an interesting concept that is ultimately held back by its gameplay. I was intrigued by the random fusion deck building and found the boardlike game mechanics interesting, but found the game boring. Even with the animation turned up, the game feels slow and repetitive. These might be personal preferences, but there are more fun CCGs with a campaign I could be playing instead. Shadowvese has a neat one for free.
Playing a card per turn makes the game feel more luck-based than your traditional card game. You either pull the cards you need to fill your board properly, or you’re just playing from behind. Movement is always an interesting concept, but I don’t think this game does it well. When choosing between moving or playing a card, it is almost always better to play a card. There are cards that do damage when moving which might be how they balance things, but it felt kind of like a pointless mechanic.
The evolving card mechanic is an interesting one. You either play your cards for an early advantage, or you save your good cards for more explosive rounds later in the match. Finding a balance between what you play and what you level on top of keeping a healthy board state has the potential to create an interesting strategy. Unfortunately, the game just feels too slow and boring.
The deck fusion mechanic is what is going to kill this game. While I love playing random decks, it doesn’t work in this game. You either get a decent deck to play or have to try again. This game already feels very heavily reliant on luck, I can only assume that the ladder is overrun by the luckier players. I understand that all card games have some luck involved, but it should at least feel like there’s some skill involved. I don’t think I would have minded the Fusion mechanic as much if it were just a roguelike, but there’s PvP and people want to build their own decks.
SolForge is still in early access, and future updates may make this game fun, but the game didn’t create enough interest in me to find out. While I do believe it comes down to preference, there are better card games with similar mechanics out there. If you’re curious about the game, try the demo first.
You can pick up SolForge Fusion on Steam for $19.99 (currently $14.99 until April 23).
There were a few new developments in the world of Akora tcg that I wanted to share. We got a few new spoilers for the upcoming Worlds Beyond set and the prizing for the upcoming season. I recommend you join the official Akora Discord if you want to stay up to date on all the news or meet some chill people who just want to play Akora and have a good time.
420 Tournament
As a reminder, Jaxonation is hosting a casual tournament this Saturday, April 20, on Tabletop Simulator. The winner receives a Spellbound Wings Full art card. This is a beginner-friendly event, and a fantastic opportunity to practice playing in a competitive setting. The event is free so if you have some time, sign up today!
New Prize Card Teased
Art by Tek
The creator also teased the artwork for the upcoming season’s prize card, it is so cute! I am a huge fan of the style, and it really leans into the cozy aesthetic that I’ve come to love from Akora. Guess that means I need to try to get good at Akora for next season.
World Beyond Decks Teased
Make sure you follow the Akora TCG Instagram page if you want to stay on top of the spoilers. Akora is doing their social media push, and its nice to see regular updates. We got teased the Fire and Dark theme decks for the upcoming set, and I am hyped. I can’t wait to see a deck list, and more of the set in general. Traditionally, theme decks come with exclusive and playable promos. It might be worth picking up a couple, especially if you want to get into the game.
Dark Theme Deck
Fire Theme Deck
Manga Reward
In the last bit of news, the Akora Manga is getting a rework. From the Discord:
I like the push for lore and look forward to seeing what they come up with. The Akora History book will be an endeavor, but one I see paying off if done properly. Akora has some cool flavor, and having something tangible to expand on that flavor is always good for the health of the game.
Conclusion
I am excited to see what comes out of this game with the next expansion. Akora feels like if your friends made a TCG, and I want to see it doing well. I enjoy the art, the gameplay is interesting, and the community is chill and welcoming. If you’re looking for a new card game, you should check out Akora.
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I was sent a free copy of Mutant: Year Zeroto review for my blog. I haven’t had a chance to run a game of Mutant, but I did read through it. These will be my honest impressions of the system.
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The quality of this rulebook’s printing is expectantly phenomenal. You have a sturdily bounded book printed on high-quality paper. I have the PDF of Mutant: Year Zero, but nothing beats flipping through the pages and actually seeing the illustrations in person. I am a huge fan of the artwork, so I had a lot of fun flipping through the pages and admiring the illustrations. You don’t need the book to play Mutant, you can get by with the PDF, but it’s cooler with the book out.
The Story
The World as we know it has ended. War, famine, and illness have ravaged the land, leaving it a desolate and inhospitable place. Humanity’s only survivors have twisted and mutated to become unrecognizable to their ancestors. As the world falls into chaos, the Arc becomes humanity’s last remaining claim at civilization. Here, the lucky few have formed a community away from the brutality of the zone. But those peaceful days within the Arc’s walls are numbered. As supplies begin to dwindle, and tensions begin to rise, it is time to venture into the unforgiving unknown and search for salvation. What adventures await?
What is Mutant: Year Zero?
Mutant: Year Zerois a post-apocalyptic tabletop RPG that uses the award-winning Year Zero engine to tell its story. If you haven’t played a game that uses the Year Zero engine, it is a super easy system to learn that uses D6s to run. Players succeed based on the number of sixes they roll.
In the simplest terms, Mutant is a post-apocalyptic world filled with X-Men. Players start the game by picking a role, rolling stats, and rolling for a random mutation. Players can’t choose their mutation, but they can roll for a second ability at the cost of some skill points. Having a random ability is bound to spark some cool narratives.
The core book has everything you need to run a campaign in Mutant. It has an expansive lore about the world, abilities, and communities. While you don’t have a module to run, you do have access to a decent list of hooks and encounters. You’re going to need this rulebook to run a complete campaign of Mutant, but there are some prewritten modules if you need them.
What sets Mutant apart is its survival mechanics. Players will consistently push their limits as they fight to live another day. Food is scares, gear will break, and players will be forced to use their mutations. It is not a giddy dark survival that you would expect from Alien RPG, but isn’t easy either. If you’ve ever wanted to play a superhero campaign, Mutant: Year Zero is a fantastic place to start.
Free Starter Booklet
The best place to start with Mutant: Year Zero is the starter booklet. The booklet offers a streamlined condensed version of the rules, a prewritten campaign, and a set of pre-generated characters to run your first campaign. It is always a good idea to test if a system is a good fit at your table. You can get a copy of the free booklet from the official site, but I’ll leave it below for your convenience.
I am a huge fan of the artwork. I love the comic book style of the illustrations, and I appreciate the amount of flavor that fills its pages. The jobs and mutations have some fantastic flavor. I am interested in seeing how my players react to their random mutation. I definitely see the potential for shenanigans.
This seems like an easy system to pick up with a solid amount of potential. Combat seems fine, but the fact that gear can break and players can use mutations is sure to keep things interesting. Ultimately it comes down to you enjoying the flavor and wanting to break out of the fantasy real. It’s going to be a while before I run a campaign of Mutant because my players prefer their fantasy, but I’m slowly getting there. I did manage to break away from D&D, so I’ll hold on to my faith.
If you’re looking for a new TTRPG about survival and superpowers, check out Mutant: Year Zero. You can pick up the Mutant: Year Zero core rule book on Amazon for $49.99 using my affiliate link.
I first wrote about GLYDR when it’s Kickstarter launched. It not only met its but blew past its goal by $70,000. In a bit of new news, GLYDR has partnered with leading design engineering firm CRE8 to complete the design and engineering of their revolutionary gaming peripheral.
What is GLYDR?
GLYDRis a unique gaming peripheral that aims to revolutionize the way we play games by giving players the ability to play with their feet. This controller features 16 programable actions designed to give your hands some much-needed relief. These actions can be saved into game-specific profiles that you can easily pull up through their software so you can always have the loadout you need. There will also be a library of community loadouts for those like me who are less creative.
What the CRE8?
CRE8 is a design engineering firm tasked with the final consumer version of the peripherals. They are responsible for some well known gaming designs like Cougar Gaming products. While the Kickstarter prototype looks fine, I wouldn’t mind something with a deeper gaming aesthetic.
Impressions
I get pretty bad RSI after all the gaming and typing I do. It gets so bad that my hands become unusable. I’ve worked hard to find the perfect ergonomic set up for gaming and work, but the pain still comes through with certain games and tasks. Having something like GLYDR that takes away some of the strain from my hands seems like a fantastic addition to my arsenal. I will need to try it first, but I am at least curious. With the news of this partnership, I am excited to see the final product.
If you’re looking for a way to unload some of that hand strain, GLYDR seems like a fantastic solution. If you missed the Kickstarter, you’ll be able to reserve your unit soon. Stay tuned for the official announcement.
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I just came across the Wondrlnd TCG and was blown away by how beautiful the art for this game is. The cards have such a good layout, and while I don’t know how to play the game, I am willing to learn. As a collector, I want them all. If you’re a fan of Anime and are looking for a new tcg to get into or collect, Wondrland might be the one.
I’ve collected the card list for the Binary-Mind set which is available now on their site. You can get a booster box now for $80 (normally $100) which is a fantastic way to start collecting. Maybe you can split the cost with a friend and draft. I’m not affiliated with the game, I just thought I would share because I think the art is cool.
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