The Warlock is not the only one from whom you can gain a coveted Talisman—or other rewards.
He has alliances and pacts, debts to pay and collect, throughout the Land.
Why else would the King and Queen have tolerated him this long?

All Talisman Tasks preliminary card images have now been removed from the previous development topic. You can download the complete "review" archive HERE. All comments and suggestions are welcome. In particular, be on the watch for glitches, typos, and potential need for clarification and address of mechanics conflicts. I'll consider all helpful input provided herein before I release the final version.

NOTE: The alternative card back for the new TT quest cards is one I just slapped together. I anticipate working on something better, something more unique, before the final package is released. Thanks to all for commentary, and especially to Wastedyuthe, who is duly credited in the expansion's documentation, since he is the concept creator of some cards therein.

You will need to click HERE to get the file as the link above has an extraneous full stop at the end.

A nice collection JC and I do like the trigger Adventure cards! I like the idea of the "new" cardback being similar to the standard one too, so I'd go with that after it has been colour matched etc.

Oops... now how did i mess up that link? Okay on the cardback, if that seems appropriate, and I'll see what I can do about color, though it got tricky just getting that image into the circle with a gausian blur of the underlying dome.

Read through everything and I am very impressed.

Will print off the cards and add them to my Talisman decks.

Having done similar things with other games, I can recommend a good way of adding new cards to the game, however, it requires some outlay in resources and time. However, once you've done the initial batch, adding new cards in is easy.

1. Purchase enough protective sleeves for your cards and any additional ones you wish to add. FFG and Mayday Games both offer good protective sleeves.

2. Print out alternative backs for all your cards. Ensure that they are big enough to fit the entire sleeve, covering your original card (I will provide link in the near future).

3. Pop your original cards and your fan cards in the protective sleeves and then add your freshly printed alternative backs. Your original and fan made cards should be indistinguishable.

The huge downside to this is that it will double or triple the size of your decks.

The huge plus side is that your cards are now infinitely expandable.

I have used this system for other games and it works a treat. Of course, the decks in those games are much lower than Talisman. So it really boils down to how much you want to add to your Talisman game!

Best Regards

DTH

P.S. Btw, love the Talisman Tasks' card back!

Hi Dth. I've been experimenting with other methods as well. The latest was a adhesive overlay method.

1. layout card fronts from multiple printing at one in a graphics program.
2. Place a black line box around each that is slightly larger that a finished card.
3. If using a program capable of doing layers, such as Photoshop or PaintShop Pro, you can put the box outlines on vector layer an reuse the same master file over and over by putting in new cards on new grouped layers.
4. Print the layout at home or take it to a print / copy shop for higher quality (do not use photo "stock" and likely not photo "paper") ... just get it printed like a color copy. I've tried 15 different types of paper, and the basic is the best balance of ease use and quality
5. Place the sheet face out against a window pain during the day so you can see the black-line boxes showing through.
6. Adhere cards to be covered over by gluing them to the back of the sheet. Yes, the black-line boxes will guide you. I used a basic craft style glue stick of acid free glue in the end after trying various adhesives.
7. Once all cards are glued on, I place the sheet under a heavy pile of books for an hour.
8. Using a razor blade, clean craft knife, or even freshly sharpened scissors (if you're good at it), remove the excess paper from around the cards. It's never completely clean but it does work well.

Advantage: indistinguishable card backs for all cards; smooth stacking with minimal bulking of the deck compared to all other methods; no need to buy sleeves, which bulk the deck by 2 to 3 times as much as overlays.

Disadvantage: heavily time consuming; cards must be available to reface; not recommended for large quantities of cards (unless you're real fussy about all cards being real cards.

Cost: if one is doing the printing of backs and fronts for sleeves, the sleeve method is actually more "production" costly than the overlay method. However the overlay method requires one to buy commercial cards, so in the end, its more costly overall.

Especially when we look at the price tag on Frostmarch. I was a little put off. I just bought 3 deck expansions for Runebound that totaled slightly more, and that included almost three times as many cards that are over twice the size. So what's up with that?

I've got some sleeves from Mayday (they are better at 40 microns than FFG's at 100 microns... but both will add bulk). I have yet to find a way to cut printed paper card backs with acceptable squareness, cleanness, and near the same size for all sleeves. I disliked the outcome of my attempts so much I put it aside for now.

Any suggestions?

JCHendee said:

What's up is that you're math is screwed up. According to Funagain Games the Runebound decks have 30 cards each and retail for $10. So 3 deck expansions would be 90 cards at $30 total.

The Reaper expansion has 128 cards at $25. Plus the Talisman expansion has 5 plastic miniatures and the Runebound decks do not have any miniatures at all. Look at the price of any miniature game and you'll see that plastic ain't cheap. I used to buy single Warhammer figures at $15 each. Based on the number and quality of components in the Reaper you are getting a fair deal even compared to any other publisher. If you're still complaining about a $25 price tag just buy it from a discount online retailer.

I'm still wondering how can you say that 3 deck expansions for Runebound included almost three times as many cards than the Reaper. Would you admit that 128 cards from the Reaper is more than 90 cards from 3 Rundbound decks?

In general, you are correct, until we look beyond simple card counts.

Runebound cards are a little over twice the surface area of a Talisman card, pertinent to ink and materials and general production. By physical bulk that makes them equivalent to around 180+ Talisman sized cards, though finish work would be less with fewer cuts, and they don't have the textured lamination (which for me makes them just a little hard to read). So basically I mis-stated my intention above and didn't make myself clear. My apologies.

Granted, the Talisman expansion box is bigger, though that doesn't mean a lot... except to production price. We're not playing with the box. There are miniatures included, popular with most, but not really of interest to me. Injection mold plastic does not cost that much when it's done in decent lots; don't use what you're paying for retail as a measure of production cost. You're off the mark a long way. A lot of the retail pricing is in the packaging, not the miniature(s).

$15 for one plastic miniature? I hope it was very large one.

All total, 3 Runebound expansions at $7,.95 each in Sausilito, CA, comes to just under $24. And as stated, 2x+ the size of printed material. It's not just physical card count, though I should have made that clearer. So, more in Runebound expansions than in Frostmarch as far as physical cards... then there are 4 minatures, 4 character cards, and 4 (?) endgame cards on the Frostmarch side. I would say its a push on square inch of printed product, so I'll give that, though your own estimate by pure card count isn't accurate for cost or price estimation.

There are a number of outlets, virtual and physical, that beat Funagain's price. I expect a price differential on Frostmarch as well with some quick online shopping... once it comes out. You might consider the same.

But yet another price discrepancy caught my eye among FFG's own product line. Go back and look at the content's list of the Upgrade Pack and compare it to the content list of the upcoming Frostmarch. At the very least, isn't there 3x as many miniatures, more cards overall, and certainly more character sized cards in the Upgrade Pack? Now look at the prices for both.

It is possible that they took a narrower profit margin on the Upgrade in order to get BI 4E customers up to speed, which would be gracious. But there's no way to tell, and getting less for more is always going raise an eyebrow on those who pay attention. I stand by my position, this time including some extra explanation. Perhaps content for price is not as divergent as first state between 3 Runebound packs and Frostmarch, but it is between Frostmarch and the Upgrade pack.

Redo your own math... but do a better estimate of content first. It's more than just a count of cards, which I should have mentioned more clearly. And ink an stock cost a lot more than that plastic.

JCHendee said:

I'm afraid Ameritrasher has erred slightly here. Warhammer products have an overly inflated price tag due to the very fact they are Warhammer: the game pretty much releases an army list and the produces the unique figures to go with them. The figures are good quality, yes but it does not cost £8/$15 to make a plastic 30mm figure.

I presume that $15 figure was a Champion or Captain or Hero Figure who therefore is generally quite powerful (that's pretty much how their business model works: rank and file are generally cheaper to obtain* but the named figures are much more expensive).

Best Regards

DTH

*compared to other Warhammer products. Plastic figures produced by other companies are WAY less expensive.

Compare Heroclix, a superhero miniatures game, or even any of the WOTC miniatures games and you will find that you get 5 figures of varying quality (for a not-inexpensive license) for the price of that one Warhammer hero...