Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon... Why I want to Know More
By Dan Adam
Hello again paint ramblers, Dan here again with another game that has piqued my interest, you might be interested in at least reading about it too.
Remember these articles are just here to possibly turn you on to another fun and interesting game that you might not have heard about before, or to generate conversation in the community if you have. Let us know what excites you about this new adventure!
Here are a few things that jumped out to me and made me want to mosey on over to the tainted grail side of the sofa and ask for a cuddle…
Awaken Realms…
The first thing that draws me to Tainted Grail is in fact the game producer. Now I wont claim to be in the know, in cahoots, or close in anyway to Awaken Realms, because I am not! But from what I do know, my experience of them, and also interactions I have had through playing their games and seeing how they conduct themselves I find myself really enjoying what they do. Paint All The Minis is a hobbying community with peripheral add ons such as a podcast, bat reps etc and there are certain things that are important to us. Care and Enthusiasm being the main ones. I not only get the same feelings from Awaken Realms but they explicitly mention it on their website.
Awaken Realms first started as and continues to be a painting studio but in recent times they have turned their hand to game creation. I have had 2 interactions with Awaken Realms so far via This War of Mine and Nemesis. This War of Mine is a board game iteration of the video game of the same name. Both are great by the way so make sure you check them out! In This War of Mine you play a changing group of survivors as they try to outlast a modern-day siege of a city. Using the day to hang out in your squat and the night trying to scavenge for essential and rare items. I’m not going to go into a blow by blow of it, but it’s hard, it’s engaging, & I loved it!
Nemesis is a fairly recent Kick Starter of a game which is effectively the first Alien movie in a cool board game. It’s not a rip off, it looks like an amazing game, I only use that term to set a great many premises. Crew wake up not sure why, have to figure out whats gone on, some have ulterior motives as the game progresses, gribbly aliens show up and try to eat you. Again I am not going to give it a blow account but I was EVEN more excited by Nemesis than by TWOM. It is due for delivery this month and I cant wait to get my paws on it. Cool minis to paint, great game to play. How can you go wrong!
So as I said the first thing that draws me to this game is its creators. I cant wait to see what cool concepts, interesting themes & mechanics they throw at us in this Celtic/Athurian adventure!
The Story…
The game is set on the Isle of Avalon and you take on the role of less than heroic feeling heroes. I LOVE THIS….All to often the playing pieces are elite, amazing, super human, & untouchable behemoths. Not so here, and its great. In the story all these jolly good and brave heroes all toddled off to se the world to right but never returned, so we are left with some reluctant and flawed characters who need to survive this. Beor is a black smith but he is sick and is wounded, Maggot the druid betrayed his people and has a problem with addiction, finally Ailei is a healer but seems to be suffering from PTSD or should I say Current Traumatic Stress Disorder because of the current events.
So we haven’t even got into the story but it is already interesting, three flawed & reluctant heroes!
As I previously mentioned the game is set on the Isle of Avalon and the players must survive & avoid death, sickness, & anything else that comes their way. The red sickness is coming from the mainland and the menhirs that protect the island are losing their light! Finally the fore dwellers who protected the island are all dead, or are they? I don’t know but the story is enticing. Whats going on, can my addiction riddled druid help? I DON'T KNOW!
The campaign is set over a number of acts & chapters and you work through them cooperatively trying to survive needing to use travel, combat & diplomacy, as well as needing to eat, heal, manage wounds, and avoid going insane!
If you aren’t interested after those two snippets then you can check out more on the Awaken Realms website. But it feels to me like a refinement of the This War of Mine game that was engrossing and immersive.
It’s a Co-op Experience…
I am starting to love coop games & especially story driven discovery ones. Gloomhaven & Solomon Kane are just two others I have been interested in recently and this seems to be another really interesting coop experience that I can sit down with some chums to play. I still love my games of direct competition but coop games have a special place for me and help to ingratiate non war-game friends into the tabletop world.
The Artwork & Overview…
Finally I am going to put up some of the artwork already released on the Tainted Grail Facebook group. I am a sucker for artwork and it is one of the main reasons I get excited for a game, being able to envisage the minis in the world setting. People often talk about lore and a certain ‘grim dark’ setting. Well for my money this grim dark setting is one I want to set about with reckless abandon and find out more ASAP!
It would take too long to list all the things I am interested with this game, I don’t want to write thousands of words. I just picked out a few things that popped out on my first fly over. There are a great many more things that are great too and I recommend checking it out.
Tainted Grain: The Fall of Avalon comes to Kick Starter first Q 2019 and I for one will be looking to get amongst it.
