Fellow TO's has anyone else noticed a sharp drop in printing quality of the Q2 and Store championship kits alt art cards?
I received them recently and could not fail to notice that all images look rather grainy, like a low dpi picture was stretched and printed on a bigger size card than the resolution allows.

I thought it was an intentional effect to give the cards texture.

Anyone got a better answer?

14 hours ago, tsondaboy said:

Fellow TO's has anyone else noticed a sharp drop in printing quality of the Q2 and Store championship kits alt art cards?
I received them recently and could not fail to notice that all images look rather grainy, like a low dpi picture was stretched and printed on a bigger size card than the resolution allows.

Can you post an example?

33 minutes ago, Pooleman said:

Can you post an example?

Go to Ebay. Look at the acrylic range rulers. There are two kinds for the Store Championship season. There is a transparent orange and an opaque version. For the SC I ran yesterday the kit had 3 of the transparent ones and the remainder opaque.

4 hours ago, emmjay said:

Go to Ebay. Look at the acrylic range rulers. There are two kinds for the Store Championship season. There is a transparent orange and an opaque version. For the SC I ran yesterday the kit had 3 of the transparent ones and the remainder opaque.

That is true, its the same for the kit I got too.

2 hours ago, tsondaboy said:

That is true, its the same for the kit I got too.

I thought that is how it is supposed to be. Top two get the yellow ones, 3-8 get the orange ones.

16 minutes ago, hawk32 said:

I thought that is how it is supposed to be. Top two get the yellow ones, 3-8 get the orange ones.

It is, they just didn’t state it anywhere.

I saw someone suggest this about the 1e extended art Juke - and it may be that this is the case, but I don't really see it, personally.

I have a Juke, Scairf Base Pilot, and Saw, and I think the print quality is awful. I can't imagine using one.

21 hours ago, emmjay said:

Go to Ebay. Look at the acrylic range rulers. There are two kinds for the Store Championship season. There is a transparent orange and an opaque version. For the SC I ran yesterday the kit had 3 of the transparent ones and the remainder opaque.

This is correct: 3 for top 2 plus TO. 6 more for 3rd to 8th places.

Ok I finally got around and started cleaning up my 1.0 stuff and organizing the new cards and finally took some pictures of the Krennic cards.

The one that came with the Store Championship kit is a tone lighter then the one that came with the Reaper and with lower printing resolution. Looks like it was rushed to production to make the 2.0 release. Same goes for the Juke Cards. Anyone else cards look like this or noticed the same?

You are probably correct that the prize kit cards are rushed -- they are printed in smaller batches on shorter notice than would make sense for the cards they include in other products.

As I understand it, FFG uses its own in-house print-on-demand print shop for the prize kit cards. The rest are probably printed overseas.

Different print shops means printing machinery that may use different printing processes, resulting in different color profiles. I think the cardstock used for the tournament kit cards is a little different from the standard cards as well.

4 hours ago, DagobahDave said:

You are probably correct that the prize kit cards are rushed -- they are printed in smaller batches on shorter notice than would make sense for the cards they include in other products.

As I understand it, FFG uses its own in-house print-on-demand print shop for the prize kit cards. The rest are probably printed overseas.

Different print shops means printing machinery that may use different printing processes, resulting in different color profiles. I think the cardstock used for the tournament kit cards is a little different from the standard cards as well.

This is correct.

So I worked in print for a long time, and the difference is that the promo cards were printed digital, the ones from the sets are not. They are printed litho style with coatings.

Digital can be good quality, but these appear to be done without the kind of paper and coating that leads to the same type of crisp look. My guess is the true issue is the paper selection, cheaper papers tend to have a disproportionate impact on image quality for digital printing.

On 9/23/2018 at 6:05 AM, millertime059 said:

This is correct.

So I worked in print for a long time, and the difference is that the promo cards were printed digital, the ones from the sets are not. They are printed litho style with coatings.

Digital can be good quality, but these appear to be done without the kind of paper and coating that leads to the same type of crisp look. My guess is the true issue is the paper selection, cheaper papers tend to have a disproportionate impact on image quality for digital printing.

They still ask the same premium price for the store championship kits though...
Something tells me that greed has settled in old FFG castle and its not going to be long before it starts loosing public support.