So, two new Organized play tournaments have been announced today. I'm mostly speaking (writing, rather) aloud to see if I have understood correctly.

First is the Battle for the Stronghold. Each BftS kit supports one individual tournament. Prizes are new alt-art, clan-matched role cards (6x7), plus the already known full bleed Champions (7x3). Price-wise, unless you have a huge community, it seems to me there is little incentive to hold more than one of these... may be some months later, just in case new players have entered the game. There is also an open-ended scoreboard type of thing, where you record overall Clan wins and loses and your store becomes a Stronghold for that clan. This is cool, but again I see little incentive to buy additional price kits. I'm therefore unsure of what's going to be the availability of this kit. I'm thinking maybe this is meant to be available for a whole year, until next Worlds, may be one year from now? Then it makes sense... if after a few months your community has grown (new players come in) and evolved (some old players have switched clans) then there may be a "need" to old another BftS tournament for additional role cards. Also, the scoreboard thing is cool. I'm thinking you can update it after every tournament; the store potentially changing colors after every event. But I'm assuming a lot of things, and I'm not sure if I have missed something.

Much clearer to me is the Stronghold Kit #1. SK1 is essentially the quarterly kit. It has a definite scope. The basic kit is big enough to support 3 monthly tournaments up to 32 players each. There is even the possibility to add Reinforcement kita that, essentially, support 8 extra players, in case you need it. Then, there is a fourth "final showdown" style tournament that is also supported with additional prices. Also, as a TO who doesn't have the chance to play in the tournaments he organicez and judges, I really appreciate they include one extra card each. Much, much obliged! Casual players who don't have the inclination and/or chance to play in tournaments, are also considered, and are maybe tempted in the dark world of competitive play. Nice!

Essentially, my only problem is that I'm very clear about what the intent and the scope of the Stronghold Kit #1 is, while the Battle for the Stronghold kit has me scratching my head and making assumptions. What do you think?

To me, it seems as though there is only one kit. It is designed to support 32 players, in one of two models: Dynasty Leagues or Conflict Tournaments. The kits also supports one grand event called the Stronghold Showdown. It seems as though the timing of this event is left open-ended and up to each store, pretty much like the Imperial Summons. Technically it can happen any time in the first quarter, but I would expect most places to run the events, and then culminate with the Showdown.

Basing my assumptions off of this page:

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/op/l5r-lcg/stronghold/

Yeah I understood it as a single kit with... confusingly enough... two announcement pages. One is more of a "this is the kit" announcement while the other is more of "this is how we're doing kits" announcement, both referencing the same first kit release.

It looks like its designed to have a good amount of prize pool to support participation or "fellowship" prizes in addition to victor prizes, and could work as a single massive tournament kit OR as a league kit for more extended play.

I'm hoping to sway my lgs to do the league concept. With my work schedule it would be very difficult to get to a single larger event, but I could easily swing by at some point during the week to play a single game with someone.

The quarterly kits are ordered separately from the Stronghold event kit, they're two separate items. I forget exactly how the contents were divvied up, though.

Any details about prices?

5 hours ago, kempy said:

Any details about prices?

Somebody asked their FLS and said it was the most expensive kit ever released by FFG (the Stronghold Kit).

I have a question,

On the League prize distribution setup there is mentioned a "Code Card", do you guys know what card is?

2 hours ago, Barbacuo said:

Somebody asked their FLS and said it was the most expensive kit ever released by FFG (the Stronghold Kit).

It supports three months worth of tournaments AND a special quarterly tournament...it was always going to cost more than a single month kit.

1 hour ago, Thalenus said:

I have a question,

On the League prize distribution setup there is mentioned a "Code Card", do you guys know what card is?

I didn't see that bit anywhere...maybe I missed it.

Patronage card is maybe what you are referring to? If so, the first one is Wandering Ronin.

There's a pdf floating around that appears to be an instruction sheet for the kit, which mentions code cards as a main event support item. I believe this may be an outdated contents list, as it also mentions acrylic fate tokens and the website has been updated to include metal fate tokens instead.

The list doesn't have Role Cards on it, and they're mentioned in the write-up, so it seems most likely that's what they are.

2 hours ago, Hinomura said:

The list doesn't have Role Cards on it, and they're mentioned in the write-up, so it seems most likely that's what they are.

The code cards are listed as only having 12 copies total though, and in the pdf are included alongside the fate tokens as a Top 4 prize for the weekly/monthly events. I think it's more likely they're something else that's either been delayed to another quarter or scrapped altogether. Interestingly enough, while the stronghold showdown article mentions the clan specific role cards, the stronghold kit write-up doesn't even mention them in the prize support, so I'm going to guess they're a newer addition that hasn't been included in all they're marketing materials yet. At least I'm hoping that's the extent of the mistake. Would be nice if their info between their own website pages would at least match.

They way I understood it, it is one kit, which can host up to 5 (large) tournaments - Battle of the Strongholds (1), Strongholds Season ( 3) and Stronghold Showdown (1).

Considering that in our meta that's about 5 months worth of tourneys and we are nowhere near the 32 player size (meaning that everyone will get full set of all rewards), the price is pretty ... ok

Thanks for your answers guys, guess i'll get the kit and then figure it out

11 hours ago, Dydra said:

They way I understood it, it is one kit, which can host up to 5 (large) tournaments - Battle of the Strongholds (1), Strongholds Season ( 3) and Stronghold Showdown (1).

The contents and prize breakdown indicate 3 "leagues" or tourneys during the season, and the Stronghold Showdown as a special event. I think what you're calling Battle of the Strongholds and Stronghold Showdown are the same thing, just different names.

Here's the breakdown. There are four quarterly event kits, reinforcement kits for each, PLUS one 'Battle of the Strongholds Kit' available to order. The quarterly event kit (also referred to as a stronghold kit, unhelpfully) is intended to run for three months. You can do 3 monthly tournaments or 12 weekly tournaments with this kit. The first one (which costs more than the 2nd and 4th ones) also contains support for a capstone tournament (Battle for the Stronghold, but not THAT battle of the stronghold).

The 'Battle of the Stronghold kit' is a separate package that simply contains 6x7 Elemental Role cards and 3x7 Clan Champ promos.

SO, stores that get everything will either be running weekly tournaments or monthly tournaments (each with the same prize support), as well as one quarterly tournament (with its own prize support). They can switch between monthly and weekly formats each month, if they find they like one better than the other. The Battle of the Stronghold kit isn't clearly designated, other than as support for the contest for which clan claims the store as a stronghold. Since they described that as being either an ongoing league or single tournament, my impression was that stores could decide what to do with those as they will.

Oooookay, that makes more sense, I think. Somehow got really confused, probably between the names being so similar, everything being announced at once, the season kit being linked in the stronghold control announcement, and the total lack of relevant dates for WHEN this is all supposed to start.

1 hour ago, Zesu Shadaban said:

Oooookay, that makes more sense, I think. Somehow got really confused, probably between the names being so similar, everything being announced at once, the season kit being linked in the stronghold control announcement, and the total lack of relevant dates for WHEN this is all supposed to start.

FFG Spain sent an email about this to my LSG (in fact, is just a book/comic book store) and they resend us the mail because basically we told them what to order for us, that said “2018 starts with an exciting event that will start in March”.

Also, in the battle for the Stronghold kit, oddly, says it supports 24 players instead of 32.

Then it says “These two kits will arrive in March 2018. First season spans from February to May 2018”

”Time limit to preorder the kits is January 21”

I’d post the captures of the mail, but they’re in Spanish.

Just received the prices:

115€ for the Stronghold kit

15€ every expansion kit

15€ for the Battle for the Stronghold kit.

Normally the prices in Spain are the same as in USA, but with Euros instead of Dollars. I mean, the cores here were 39,90€ (although 39,90$ are just 32,50€ with actual exchange).

So, yeah, pretty expensive, and probably not worth it for the Store unless they have a big player base. Maybe stick to the Battle for small groups of players.

115 euro for four events worth of prize support is expensive? The kits look like excellent value to me, even if a store only gets around eight players or so to their events. You can always carry over any leftover prize support to the special event at the end of the kit, making it even more attractive and rewarding to players and likely increasing attendance for the store.

Yeah, they're pricey, but if you do the 3 monthly tournaments, you just need to make about $35 per event in entry fees. I suspect that players will pay a $5 entry (seems to be the case in my area), so you just need 7 players each event to pay it off, and that's not even counting the Battle for the Stronghold. It's a little harder if you want to do the weekly tournament format (since you can't really charge $5 for a quarter of the support, and any smaller entry starts to feel trivial), but overall I expect the tournaments to be profitable in and of themselves, not to mention their utility in building a playerbase.

I will note, though, that here in the US, it's just $100 for the stronghold and $12 for reinforcements. Kind of crazy that the price would go up when converting to Euros.

So it's probably a safe assumption this will be the same numbers with $$ for U.S. pricing. Let's say a store goes with the monthly model and has an entry fee of $5 per event (pretty standard in my area). With 6 players participating in each event supported by the season kit, you'd be about breaking even at collecting $120 in entry fees. Same with the BftS Kit, bringing in $20. I would hope most stores looking to run these events can manage at least that many players.

Now if the store opted for weekly events, if they don't have a lot of players they could probably get away with charging $5/week or biweekly, and they'd likely have enough prize support to ensure everyone is walking away with something each week (ignoring official prize outlines to some extent). Even at $5 biweekly, with only 6 players they could make back double what they paid for the kit. That's not too bad at all, IMO.

EDIT: I see Aradon beat me to the punch and with better info.

Dunno, I still think this is a kit for at least 16+ players.

In my town we are 8 players. So at 5€ entry fee, first time we'll go 6 players (assuming the typical 2 that can't/don't wanna go). And that's it. Maaaaybe they'll go to another event, so that's 60€, not even half of what it costs. I mean, given that all prices are gonna be distributed between us, instead of paying 20€ each in entry fees, I think it will be better to just buy the kit as a group and hand out the prizes.

For weekly events, it is already hard enough for such a small group of players to get two games a week, let alone be all reunited once a week for three months.

I also have talked to LGSs in big cities in my region and those with less than 10 players are probably not ordering the kits. They still even have some material left from the Launch program...

The BftS kit, I see that. Even with a 3€ entry fee, they're at least not losing money if only 6 players show up.

That being said, we're trying to get our Town Hall to organice a board games event, and if they do, they'll be the ones to buy the kits

I don't know what it's like in your area, but there are a lot of L5R players organized on facebook for the Atlanta area. I see maybe 2-4 other players on our Thursday nights, but when an event is posted, as long as it's not conflicting with another store's event, we see a pretty consistent 10+ crowd. If you're fortunate, you may see more people mobilizing for the events and promos now that there's event support.

2 hours ago, AradonTemplar said:

I don't know what it's like in your area, but there are a lot of L5R players organized on facebook for the Atlanta area. I see maybe 2-4 other players on our Thursday nights, but when an event is posted, as long as it's not conflicting with another store's event, we see a pretty consistent 10+ crowd. If you're fortunate, you may see more people mobilizing for the events and promos now that there's event support.

I’m not saying there are too few players. Here in Spain we have 2 active Facebook groups (Why 2? I have no idea), with nearly a thousand players between both. In big areas like Madrid or Barcelona I know about tournaments of 30-40 people.

But there are small places where there are not so many players, and we can’t be moving all the time to other cities to play. Here we’re trying to build some local community for the game, and the kits are good for that. But I don’t understand why they wouldn’t make them for, let’s say, 16 players instead of 32. As it is now, is not so viable for LGS with small groups, unless the shop is willing to risk to lose some money.