Well, first game done with the sleeves. Adventure deck (204 cards I think) is closing in on 5" in height . Still shuffleable by hand, but slower going than without sleeves. Was expecting the deck to fall over though, the cards had settled in, so kept them in one pile.

As to the game, sigh, another total Gladiator pwnage. Prophetess with her Strength 13 in battle couldn't even challenge the Gladiator, not even after he got zapped with the Rod of Ruin. Prophetess also had Craft 13 30 minutes into the game. Thief had earlier gone to the Temple with 2 Lives left, rolled snake-eyes. His replacement the Assassin didn't get enough boosts to even challenge the Prophetess, not even to Assassinate. Total game time: 65 minutes.

Thanks for the report on the cards. I just acquired some sleeves to test after working on various ways of making or re-facing cards Haven't even put anything into the sleeves yet, but nice to know a few challenges to be prepared for before putting them into play.

Much as I can appreciate people not wanting 4+ hour games, 65 minutes just seems too short. With 3 players (?) its a little shy of the new 30m plus 15-30m per player estimate I came up with by tracking some game times here on the forum. All the more reason to think there's just too much push in the game for character add-ons and quick elevators besides earning up the tokens. 

Were you playing 7 points of Enemy per token, or something less?  How much of those attribute levels were tokens versus add-ons from Objects/Followers... or free tokens granted in encounters? Must have been at least half that weren't earned.

Hi,

All my small cards are sleeved but I would like to sleeve my character cards too, have any of you seen anything that would fit the bigger character cards?

Thanks and cheers.

JCHendee said:

Standard 7 point rule. Prophetess had Unicorn, +1 both from Potion of Might and Strength Spell, rest of her 7 points of Strength were from kills. She got +3 Craft from the Fountain of Wisdom and had Maiden she Mesmerised from the Gladiator, but she still had Craft 15 at the end. Gladiator had Homunculus among his throng of Followers and the Ring, he also managed to roll a 6 at the Temple twice IIRC. Gladiator didn't break the "Strength 20 in battle" barrier (that is before any rolls) in this game, as he has done twice in the past (only char to ever do and he's done it twice in 6, now 7 games ). No Magic Stream or Fairy/Enchanter/Phantom in the game (Phantom was drawn, but Prophetess bounced it with her ability and Fairy went when she killed the Crypt Keeper).

Hmm... still seems like a lot of points gained outside of kills.  And I'm left wondering how many kills came after some augmentation.  Then again, it's been similar in our games as well. Probably why we play the 2d6 approach more often and a few other modifications.  Anyway, thanks for the breakdown, always interesting to see and not too many people keep track of that stuff.

And to O.M... I haven't seen anything big enough for a character card, though some people have gone to laminating them in varied ways to keep the 'fresh'.

Old Master said:

I've also thought of this. One idea I have had (though haven't had time to check in to it yet) is, they make binder pages for pictures & postcards. Kind of like the 9 pocket pages for baseball cards, only with 4 big pockets. I've been curious to see if A) if the character cards fit comfortably in those slots. And B) if they DO, then maybe cut the pages apart to make my own 'big' character card sized sleeves. Dunno how practical it is until I look into it (or if it will even work at all), but if it will work I like it more than laminating my cards.

JCHendee said:

It's going by memory, though I do write decent memory-aid logs and as the game was played today, things are fresher. At the 30 minute mark, the Prophetess was Str 2, Craft 13 , with Axe as Weapon and by the time she had around 5-6 Str (which is what one likes for Pits), Gladiator was well ahead on Str.

I really do hope some Object/Follower gets made that allows anybody to attack another char in Psychic Combat. As it is, unless the Gladiator is taken out early or Reapered later, he becomes unstoppable too easily.

What's the detail of the Gladiator's training ability? That's probably the key to what's wrong with him, as he is (obviously) poorly balanced with other characters.

ADDITIONAL: Just got my card sleeves in the mail form Mayday Games.  They fit nice, though I haven't had a chance to try them for custom card inserts.  indeed, they are a little troublesome to shuffle, but not too bad.  Haven't done a full deck stack, but for 20 sleeved vs 20 unsleeved there's a slight height difference in the stack.

JCHendee said:

Basically, +1 Str in battle for every Follower (Gladiator in this game had Prince, Princess, Mule and Riding Horse to go with his Homunculus at least, so +5). If he uses and loses Followers in battle against another char, in addition to a reward, the other char can kill one of his Followers as well. But doesn't apply to battles against Creatures. And if for some reason you are well down against the attacker as the Gladiator, you can just take your lick and not use any Followers, save them for later if you're gonna lose anyway.

JCHendee said:

Is there mention of the thickness of the Mayday sleeves? Mine don't, but upon first sleeving, I'd say the thickness tripled (25 sleeved = 75 unsleeved, that is if you didn't squeeze them down, they've settled a bit lower now).

One of the first things I'd do is hobble that training ability.  A humanoid cannot teach non-humanoids to fight, and most certainly not animals. Gladiatorial arts didn't include combat horsemanship; even so, training the horse and mule was BIG loophole.  So no mules, horses, horses and carts, Enemy-Animals, etc... in other words, no Animals of any kind. It's not much, but its something.  If you want to go further, no training of anything that isn't humanoid.

Loss of followers becomes less likely once his Str. goes up, so the number of followers compounds their own invulnerability as they compound his strength. Potential loss of a Follower and loss of a Battle decrease versus standard characters at a geometric rather than arithmetic rate. Its ridiculous that no one saw this coming when the character was created. It's so obvious.

I don't know what could be done about Battles against Enemies, but certainly no chance of loss there is another loophole.  Enemies are how he gains Strength points and thereby, secondhand, makes his Followers more invulnerable the harder he is to defeat in PvP. And since there's no risk whatsover of losing them against Enemies... well, you see how it works.  Too much steamroller effect in this character, and overall he doesn't need toys except to bolster his Craft.

I believe the Mayday sleeves are 40 microns, where as the FFG's are 100 microns... but maybe someone else here knows for certain.

Mattr0polis said:

Thanks to JCHendee and Mattr0polis for your answers.

The laminating of my characters card would be done as a last resort since I'm not sure if it can be done properly, by this, I mean that there should not be any way to distinguish a card from another one. This is very important if , like my group, you get to pick your character ramdomly face down on the table, a bad cut or any visible sign could give a great or poor character away and change the chances for this character to play more often or be remove from the pile as it will never be chosen!

 I guess that until FFG increase their selection of sleeve to include "character cards size" sleeves, I will look into the postcards and photo album as suggested by Mattr0polis as a temporary solution.

I really hope FFG will soon offer the "character size sleeves" as I would buy 1 pack of 50 right away knowing that at the rate the expansion are coming and that they include 4 or 5 new character each, the magic 50 characters available will be soon upon us 

Cheers

Hey O.M., I think you're overestimating how much little imperfections would give a card away.  In the days of 2E, I used clear contact paper and covered everthing in the game to make it last. Yes, it took some time and care, but in the end, any minor imperfections (that you had to look very closely for) were there in all cards... and nobody was able to memorized which little imperfection (unseeable in a draw of card) marked which card.  Having played that edition alone for almost 9 years before leaving it behind, It just didn't happen.

I finally bought the Mini Armerican sleeves from FFG !

I think i am gonna sleeve them this evening, otherwise it will be tomorrow !

Then what you will need is somewhere to store all of the cards! I have recently found these boxes at Hobbycraft which fit the cards in very nicely, even with sleeves on.

I need to make a little stand or something to prop them up, or just use a bit of foam to raise the cards up, but they should be okay. Plus they are colour coded too!

I'll get round to sleeving mine when I have decided what the best option is for me. I have already sourced some FFG sleeves, some from Arcane Tinman, and am waiting for the new Chimera sleeves from Mayday which should come any time soon (Mayday's  "Mini USA" sleeves didn't actually fit Talisman cards properly).

Hey, I saw those same boxes in sale bin at an Office Depot of all places!  Didn't think to grab some, since I didn't realize they would fit the cards, and I was over an hour's drive from home. Darn!

Jon, is there any kind of manufacturer's imprint on them, maybe with a product and/or model number as well?

I had a tiny bit of trouble with the Mini-US sleeves as well from MayDay. They are a tight fit, but they do work well for home cut cards on cardstock.  In that case the tight fit of a front and back holds everthing together snugly, so it feels and handles like a whole card coated in plastic. I didn't like the thicker stuff that FFG is selling as much.