The War Council
Playing with a single low-level Lore Master at your side is a great way to learn the system and discover what spells a Wizard might be able to cast to sway the tides of battle in your favor; but the real fun won’t start until you’ve assembled your own full cadre of expert Lore Masters into a personal War Council.
A generic Lore Master level token
At the start of any Lore adventure in which you wish to bring the War Councils into play, you must first:
- Turn your War Council sheet onto its other face, revealing the tent and all its potential inhabitants ;
- Agree on a total number of Lore Master levels in each War Council;
- Grab the corresponding number of Lore Master Token levels;
- And secretly assign these tokens to the Lore Masters you wish to have present in your War Council, piling one token for each level desired.
The total number of levels in each War Council is often specified in the Lore Adventure’s battle notes. When it isn’t, we recommend setting it to a mutually agreed 6 levels, which is sufficient to permit a wide combination of Lore Masters and levels of expertise, while forcing some serious choices from among the various possible trade-offs.
The choices made at this stage are important because:
- Your Commander’s level determines how many Command cards you will get to play with for the duration of this Adventure;
- The level of your highest level Lore Master character (Cleric, Wizard, Rogue or Warrior) determines your initial number of Lore tokens in reserve at game start; how many Lore cards you get to keep from among the four you initially draw; and how many Lore cards you may keep in hand and play from, at any one time.
All this information is conveniently gathered in a couple of summary tables, directly printed on your War Council sheet. Also written on each sheet are directions on how to build the common Lore deck of cards that each player will draw from throughout the game. The deck’s exact mix varies in function of the players’ own, and relative, War Councils’ choices!
This brings into light an interesting issue: What happens when you draw a Lore card for which you have no corresponding Lore Master on your War Council, such as Jean de Brosse drawing a Wizard’s Magic Web spell card?
This is where one of the critical trade-offs that you made when choosing how to allocate your levels among the different classes of Lore Masters at your disposition now appears:
- If you opted to go deep, focusing all your level tokens on one or even a couple of Lore Masters, to maximize your starting Lore reserve and Lore cards, you are now increasingly likely to draw Lore cards from Lore Masters that are absent from your War Council. Each time you will want to play such a card, you will have to play it Out-of-Character (ie play it without having the required Lore Master class in your Council).Lore cards played out-of-character cost you 3 more Lore tokens to bring into play. Furthermore, these cards can only be played at level 1, regardless of the level of the other Lore Masters in your War Council.
Casting this Lore Drain without a Wizard on board would be dumb! You’d be paying 2+3 = 5 Lore to drain a measly 1*1 + 2 = 3 Lore off your opponent! - If, on the opposite, you went wide and spread your tokens between most - or all - of the possible Lore Masters, you are now well covered. But few, if any, of your Lore Masters, are likely to be high-leveled… and you will now pay the price in correspondingly diminished Lore capacities (lower initial Lore reserves, lower Lore cards in hand, lower effectiveness for level-dependent Lore cards).
The dilemna facing you when choosing your War Council only becomes greater if Landmark rules are in effect. For in that case, if you end up being the only player with a level 3 Lore Master of a given class in your War Council, that Lore Master will offer you the benefit of his own unique, famed family property!
The Healing Pool, privilege of a level 3 Cleric!
To top it off, you will also have to consider whether diverting one of your precious and scarce Lore level tokens to bring a Creature to your side, placing the corresponding level token in the monster cage at the bottom left of your War Council sheet.
These monstrous Creatures, and their fearsome powers, will be the subject of our next major entry…
Other Languages:
October 12th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
Cool!
October 12th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
Argh! The choices! The options! The strategies! I can hardly wait! Pre-ordered two copies (one for a friend) today.
October 12th, 2006 at 3:10 pm
This game just keeps getting better and better! I’m intrigued by the Guest area at the bottom right of the War Council sheet…
October 12th, 2006 at 3:39 pm
Um…isn’t telling us all this stuff before we can buy the game some sort of crime against humanity? Seriously.
I hear they have pretty strong anti torture laws in Germany. If I can’t buy this at Essen there’s going to be a reckoning*. Mark my words.
*The reckoning may well consist of me going “Oh well…now what else can I afford with the extra Euros I have” but that’s beside the point.
October 12th, 2006 at 3:44 pm
Is Jean de Brosse and actual game component, or just a fancy example? I would think that if the assignment of levels to lore masters is free, this specific assignment doesn’t make sense.
Otherwise, I can’t wait to see the game in action in Essen. Pity it’s not for sale yet, but hopefully the promo will be there…
October 12th, 2006 at 3:51 pm
Now this is the entry we have all been waiting for. I love making tough decisions in games and this game will really put you to the test. The options are endless and adding the “guest” space leaves more options. I hope the next entry about creatures will show a picture of the “Hill Giant” and describe his abilities.
October 12th, 2006 at 4:01 pm
Sweet… a “Guest” spot (allowing for future expandability of Lore Masters) and a Creature spot (Assuming that’s how the Hill Giant and Earth Elemental fit in).
Since there are 24 Lore Tokens, if there are 10 “standard” tokens (for the 5 standard Lore Masters), that means 7 creature/guest tokens in the box?
The strategy of Landmarks and the Level Choices and how they impact the Lore Deck (14, 8, 5) is an interesting concept… especially since you can’t guarantee that a certain card is in the Lore Deck.
October 12th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
@Niels:
I believe “Jean de Brosse” is a scenario example… I would imagine that there are some scenarios that are restrictive in this manner and some are not.
October 12th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
I am thrilled with each new tidbit about this game, which looks amazing. If I may venture one slight criticism, which could easily be proven wrong with actual gameplay, I was a little disappointed to see that Lore Master’s will be able to use Lore abilities that are not within their scope. I realize it comes with a significant penalty, but I have never really liked blending class abilities in games, and not sure how it is justified from a “RPG” perspective though could see where it makes sense from a game balance perspective.
Anyway, just a nit for the sake of conversation. I am drooling for this game.
October 12th, 2006 at 4:37 pm
I am pretty much speechless at this point…..
October 12th, 2006 at 4:50 pm
Yes, Jean de Brosse is in one of the adventures in the scenario’s booklet. He has nothing to do with any _specific_ War Council member, we put it there just to illustrate how War Councils might be specified in some of the adventures.
For the tokens, there are enough tokens for each player to make any combination of levels for any character in his War Council, up to level 3. The tokens are double sided (the other side always being the “neutral” side shown at the top of this entry).
October 12th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
Jean de Brosse… See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_de_Brosse
Wonder which battle we are looking at….
October 12th, 2006 at 5:04 pm
Don - the other thing to note though is that not only is there a penalty, but there is also less of a chance to draw those types of cards. Depending on if there is 0, 1, or 2 of a certain class will depend on the mix of cards.
It would be nice to see a heavier penalty i guess but I also see it as in M44 - if you do not have any tanks, move 1 unit of your choice. I think more people would be angry if they had a hand of dead Lore Cards then having a Wizard cast a Rogue card. (Besides, in this day and age, you need to be cross-trained to prove more valuable to your employer).
October 12th, 2006 at 5:19 pm
Have we seen an example of a “level-dependent Lore card” yet?
October 12th, 2006 at 5:28 pm
I will say one thing I am slightly surprised at is that each side can only have one “Creature” (although I guess you could insert a second in the “Guest” spot as a house rule).
I’m assuming that worrying about balancing issues (i.e. having a combination of two creatures that are devastating) was the major factor behind that decision. Thoughts?
October 12th, 2006 at 5:39 pm
Wow! I have nothing else to add, as I’m thoroughly impressed by the war council.
I’m highly anticipating the creature rules. I wonder the same as shadowTerp–does this mean you can only have one creature on your side per game?
BTW, I’m dense and didn’t get the ‘bike shed’ reference at the end of the last thread…although the words’ initials look oddly familiar…
October 12th, 2006 at 5:56 pm
ColtsFan&6 - good points, and we can always assume the Wizard started off his career as some thieving whelp, therefore despite his sorcerous talents, he still remembers the old backstab move. Cool - I am satisfied!
October 12th, 2006 at 6:12 pm
Just to be clear: The creature token in no ways restrict us for the future. Unlike the other (lore masters) tokens, it simply indicates a presence on the board. But there is nothing to say this presence has to be limited to a single creature (though initially, in the base game, it will).
When we post the entry on Creatures, you will see that there is enough to a single creature to keep people busy for now without having to worry about handling multiple ones ;-).
October 12th, 2006 at 6:13 pm
>Have we seen an example of a “level-dependent Lore card” yet?
Well… The “Lore Drain” one ?
October 12th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
All I can say is WOW….
They better do something quick to memoir to beef it up or my money will be directly converted to the Battle Lore line…and abondon the memoir line.
October 12th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
Yes. We have seen two level dependent cards. The level plays into the effect of the card. For the Portal card, we see that a Level 1 Wizard can tranport someone 4 hexes. But a Level 3 could trasnport them up to 10 hexes. And all for the same cost.
So the cards’ effects are dependent on the level. Now if you mean that a Level 1 Wizard would be prevented from using a Level 3 card - no, we have not seen that. It doesn’t not seem to make sense given that any character could cast any Lore effect anyways. Having a higher level just means you do more damage.
But maybe we will see Level 3 spells that would cost a Level 1 to have to pay additional Lore tokens to do it.
October 12th, 2006 at 6:18 pm
>Eric said: When we post the entry on Creatures, you will see that there is enough to a single creature to keep people busy for now without having to worry about handling multiple ones.
Well, that pretty much tells me that creatures will have the staying power I’m hoping for!
Thanks for the two updates this week…and I’m ready for another!
October 12th, 2006 at 6:23 pm
I do have one question:
Let’s say we want to play the full game and play with the war counsil and we get 6 levels to play with.
I am guessing if you want a creature, certain creatures cost a certain amount of ‘points’. Like the hill giant may cost 2 or 3 where as the spider may cost 1 or 2.
Since the Promo minis are going to be hard to get since i need to jump through hoops and pre order from select stores, let’s assume all i have is the spider that comes with the game.
So, me and a buddy want to play and all we have is one ‘creature’ the spider..since i tried, but couldn’t get any more creatures. Let’s say we BOTH want this creature…since assigning levels is done simutaneously and in private what happens…is there an auction mechanic or do you do both not get the creature…
October 12th, 2006 at 6:38 pm
I am going to assume that there are two spiders in the box, one for each side.
October 12th, 2006 at 6:48 pm
ah good point…all creatures could have 2 copies…
never thought of that…i guess i will have to wait for the creature post.
October 12th, 2006 at 7:14 pm
Regarding using Lore cards without a Lore Master at a cost of 3 addtl lore tokens — I would consider these to represent the use of less experienced people with those abilities. For example, I have a level 3 Wizard lore master and use a Rogue lore card at level 1. This doesn’t mean that the Wizard is using a Rogue ability but instead that a level 0 Rogue is working for the army and he takes more lore tokens to be effective.
October 12th, 2006 at 7:29 pm
>Eric said: For the tokens, there are enough tokens for each player to make any combination of levels for any character in his War Council, up to level 3. The tokens are double sided (the other side always being the “neutral” side shown at the top of this entry).
Now I am confused: from the entry I understood that you have one token per level, and that a pile of three tokens indicates a level 3 wizard, but this suggests that the other side of the token is the relevant side, maybe indicating level 3. I guess it will all become clear once the game is out.
October 12th, 2006 at 7:36 pm
No there are no double copies of the creatures. Then again, additional creatures will not be that difficult to get!
One (the Hill Giant) is available to any pre-order on our web site (going live tomorrow) if you don’t have a local game store nearby; and the other (the Earth Elemental) will be widely available following the release of the product, at many, many events.
October 12th, 2006 at 8:15 pm
I’m really just curious about how 1 / 1 + 2 (how it is on the card) = 1 * 1 + 2?
Is the ‘divided by’ or ‘per’ sign used throughout the game to indicate ‘multiplied by’?
October 12th, 2006 at 8:35 pm
I’m guessing from what he said earlier that the other side is specific to that character. One side is generic, the other side is for say the rogue. So you have 3 rogue tokens, 3 wizard tokens etc.
October 12th, 2006 at 8:44 pm
For the tokens, I’m guessing that the “generic” side represents level 1, and then 12 of the tokens have 2s on the flip side and 12 of the tokens have 3s on the flip side. That would allow you to represent levels 1, 2, or 3 for the 6 things (per player) that seem to have levels (commander, wizard, cleric, rougue, warrior, and monster… Sorry guest. No tokens for you). Pretty economical since determining the level by stacking single tokens would have required 36 instead of 24 tokens to allow the same combinations. Oh those wiley DoW people.
October 12th, 2006 at 8:48 pm
It means “per Level” as I understand it, so you could as well multiply the Level.
There are many Pics of the Game being played over on BGG.Com!
One question to Eric:
Is only the Wood-Terrain 3D or are there other 3d-Features?
Cheers,
Aljoscha
October 12th, 2006 at 8:50 pm
Eric, so there is only one spider in the base game box? Or, are there two spiders in the box just in case both sides decide to take one? Got to have spider v. spider action.
I am a bit confused myself on the level thing. Eric, can you clarify this, or is this something you are holding for a future blog entry?
Also, how does the level three cleric transport an unique family property to a far off battlefield?
October 12th, 2006 at 8:57 pm
SteveB,
Just google for: “Why should I care what color the bike shed is?” It’s not the most popular of references, and not exactly a fit for yesterday’s little discussion on names, but the spirit is very close.
In the general, I am still excited by Battlelore. And I have always loved strange weird critters in battle. It’s a reason I love Wizard Kings: yes, you can have dwarves and orcs and barbarians duking it out, but they can bring in Dragons and Kraken and Werewolves and even more, even just in their basic sets. Special abilities abound! It’s not just the spare elephant….
October 12th, 2006 at 9:01 pm
There is only one spider in the game. So no spider vs spider action for now ;-).
1 d / lvl means 1 die per level, so 3 levels means 3 dice, for instance. We will have another more detailed entry about Lore cards and their terminology at some point (post Essen).
We will also talk about landmarks, such as the Cleric’s healing pool, at another time.
October 12th, 2006 at 10:01 pm
Ava Jarvis…thanks for the tip–not only did I learn something, but I think I scored a reference to work into one of my Master’s papers!
Copied from Universal Head’s battleloremaster.com:
“It has been revealed on the French forum that the base game will include ten Adventures (ie, scenarios). Two will be historical adventures and eight will be Lore (fantasy) adventures. Apparently the armies will be fixed in these scenarios, though different configurations of the War Council will make games play differently.”
So, I assume this means the scripted scenarios tell you who gets the spider, so you don’t have to bid for it. That’s my grounded-in-rumour speculation…
October 12th, 2006 at 10:16 pm
I read on the french version of the blog that Europe will have more figurines available than North America?
October 12th, 2006 at 10:19 pm
Eric, is that true?
Darn, I cannot read French…..
October 12th, 2006 at 10:34 pm
“There is only one spider in the game. So no spider vs spider action for now .”
I must admit I am a bit disappointed by this.
October 12th, 2006 at 10:43 pm
CoffeeMan,
No, this is not correct. The miniatures available will be the same all around the world, ie the Hill Giant and Earth Elemental figures, with summary cards in the various respective languages.
How these get distributed to consumers in each country will depend on our distribution channel in that particular country.
October 12th, 2006 at 10:53 pm
ok, must have misread it
October 12th, 2006 at 11:01 pm
Good news!
October 12th, 2006 at 11:22 pm
You may wanna tell the French guys that, cause it say specifically:
“Nous offrons une figurine en amérique du nord et 2 en Europe. Cette difference est due à la spécificité de chaque réseau de distribution. ”
For those of you who can’t speak french it says (been awhile, so my french may not be the best):
“We’re offering one figure in North America and 2 in Europe. This difference is due to specifics of our distribution system in each region.”
October 12th, 2006 at 11:35 pm
Sounds great!
Is 3 levels per character a “hard cap”? In other words, might it be possible to have, say, a level 6 hero and no other heroes?
October 12th, 2006 at 11:56 pm
Shryke,
I think I can still read French thank you
The 2 figs they are talking about are the Hill Giant and the Earth Elemental we have talked about all along. Rather than being offered to all pre-orders, in France they are limiting their promotion to the first 1,500 customers, but giving those both minis in exchange for their 70 euros pre-order.
As I wrote, different countries will have different distribution policies.
In the US, we opted to give access to the Hill Giant (we are air-shipping these at great cost) to a much larger group of people instead. The Earth Elemental will then be distributed widely, free of charge, upon the product’s actual shipment via boat.
October 13th, 2006 at 12:08 am
Yes, 3 levels is a hard cap (for now).
October 13th, 2006 at 12:10 am
Is Dow also offering the 2 figs to german customers preordering the game or will i have to go to conventions (or demos) to get the earth elemental?
October 13th, 2006 at 12:21 am
Ok, thanks for the full explanation Eric.
And I was passing judgement on my french skills not yours. They’re alot rustier, minus of course the pick-up lines.
October 13th, 2006 at 12:22 am
Travica,
I am not sure what the policy is in Germany. I will ask.
October 13th, 2006 at 2:27 am
thanks Eric, appreciate your effort to answer almost all the questions here!
October 13th, 2006 at 10:33 am
As Eric mentioned, Europe is a different market. For exemple pre ordering in some countries is not even possible. In addition there are places where games events are a rarety.
However we need to give everyone a chance to benefit from the promotion.
So, in order to give everyone a chance to get the promotional minis we are doing it differently, as we are simply giving to each distributors of each country a limited number of miniatures, to please the early customers. To respond to Travica, Germany will have 2000.
We hope that way, that we can easily satisty people all over Europe from Portugal up to Finland
October 13th, 2006 at 10:51 am
Will I be able to preorder the Game at Spiel in Essen?
Thanks a lot!
Cheers,
Aljoscha
October 13th, 2006 at 12:13 pm
I have to say I really like the Giant Spider sculpt. Reminds me a bit of Shelob from the Lord of the Rings movies. Check it out here http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/152169 and here http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/152167. Can’t wait to see pics of the Hill Giant and Earth Elemental.
October 13th, 2006 at 1:33 pm
Yes, pre orders will work in Essen
October 13th, 2006 at 2:28 pm
Where were the game pictures taken? It looks like a game demo. There are also shots of other very cool figs in the Image Gallery.
October 13th, 2006 at 3:50 pm
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/152165
anyone else love the idea of a Goblin on a riding lizard ?
I can pre-order online from Saturday ?
October 13th, 2006 at 5:36 pm
Yea, the lizards are cool. I hope the Orcs have boars to ride! I also think that chariots would be cool too.
There are mounted troops to the far right of this picture:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/152170
They are human I think, since the bases look grey.
Eric, any additional figure images to share with us here on the blog?
October 15th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
The Lore Level tokens seem pretty straightforward to me. 10 standard tokens (neutral) + 14 non-standard, or 2 sets of 7, one for each side (commander, wizard, warrior, rogue, cleric, creature, & guest)
October 15th, 2006 at 6:19 pm
You “build” a stack of up to 3 tokens by putting neutrals down first, then topping the stack off with a corresponding character token. For example: Commander level 3 (2 neutrals & 1 commander token), Wizard level 2 (1 neutral token & 1 wizard token), Warrior level 1 (1 warrior token).
October 15th, 2006 at 6:20 pm
Sorry, the system wouldn’t let me post my comment with “plus” and “equals” signs! (Had to break my post down a couple of times to figure out the problem)
Please read the above two posts as one post.
October 16th, 2006 at 4:16 am
Hello Eric,
To my checking, no board games distributor/retailer in Singapore carry Days of Wonder games. Such, in what way could I obtain Earth Elemental? Do I have to place order through European stores to obtain both?