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Wednesday, December 30, 2020
An impressive box of Tainted Grail
Two years ago, in December 2018, I made a tactical mistake: I didn't read the small print of a Kickstarter project I backed, and went for an intermediate (Excalibur for £110) pledge for Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, without paying extra for two wave shipping. As a result, while most people got their copy of the game last year, my Tainted Grail box only arrived today, two years after my pledge. But the box I received today was impressive: It contained the core game (4 characters, 15 chapters of game), the stretch goal box (another 8 character and 30 chapters of game), the very pretty but unnecessary for gameplay box of miniatures for the large guardian monsters, and a free "surprise" box containing advertising for the current Kickstarter game of the same company, ISS Vanguard. In hindsight I would have better left out the miniatures, paid for two-wave shipping to get the base game earlier, and maybe picked up some other extras like the metal dials instead of the miniatures.
On the other hand I am glad that I didn't go for a higher "all-in" pledge level. Kickstarter projects have a built-in trap known as FOMO, fear of missing out. If you decided today that you wanted a copy of Tainted Grail, you would have a hard time finding one, and certainly not at the price I paid. Expansions are usually even harder to find (Awaken Realms doesn't appear to have a webshop). The only place I could find those Tainted Grail metal dials now is on eBay, for 5 times the original price. Knowing that, one is easily persuaded to go for an all-in pledge at two or three times the cost of the core game, and end up with far more game than you can ever play. And of course sometimes a Kickstarter game is just not a good game, and then you end up with a huge box full of garbage you don't want to play.
The first Kickstarter board game I bought, 7th Continent, I backed because I had seen a prototype played at the Brussels Games Fair. These days some of those pre-Kickstarter prototype versions are being sent out to YouTubers with board game channels. So these days I wouldn't buy a Kickstarter game anymore without having seen it played and reviewed on YouTube. Having said that, all the game I got from Kickstarter up to now I enjoyed, and I backed another one, 7th Citadel, this year. So I am looking forward to finally playing Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon.
Labels: Board Games
- posted by Tobold @ 2:32 PM Permanent Link
