This is very underwhelming (as is to be expected from Blacklist Games these days, sadly). There are so many similar and more importantly better games out there, too many to list really.

This game is fantastic. It's extremely irritating when bitter kickstarter backers give 1 star ratings because the publisher dropped the ball. I am a backer as well and yes, I'm upset that Black List screwed this one up but that doesnt mean Mark Latham designed a bad game.

Btw, if you were a backer, you have a free pdf waiting for you here. Thats far more than you get from most failed kickstarters.

Since they have not released this to the backers of the kickstarter campaign, how can they be selling it on here? what a farce... No one should buy this book until the kickstarter backers have thier books in hand..

Glad to see this miniature skirmish game finally available!

This game has most features I'm looking for in a miniature skirmish game.

• Miniature agnostic. Characters and enemies are conventional generic fantasy miniatures. No buying of special or IP miniatures. If you've backed bulk miniature KS campaigns, such as Reaper Bones or CMON's Massive Darkness, or own several dungeoncrawler boardgames, you should have enough miniatures for this game (although your miniatures may not match the specific weapon loadouts of your Lasting Tales character).

• Flexible terrain: More than 20 scenarios are divided into dungeon, wilderness, and settlement. You won't need some unsual terrain just for a single scenario. I will say that RPG game tiles didn't work as well as dungeon terrain for miniature skirmish games. Myself, I use Terra Tiles from Ravenkeep to generate a random wilderness game board for wilderness and settlements, then use Archon's "Dungeons and Lasers: Elven Woods" for trees and rocks, and Battle System's "Village Set" for settlements. I will use Battle System's "Dungeon Terrain" for a huge multi-level dungeon/cavern. I did find it annoying that Lasting Tales gives little guidance on making a challenging terrain setup, although this is a common problem for solo miniature skirmish games. The game board is 3x3.

• Casual miniature skirmish rules. Basic combat rules are mostly easy to pick up. Roll 2d6 + ability score > 10 is a success. Various modifiers and exceptions will mean looking up rules as you learn the game, of course. Armor is odd in that the heaviest armor doesn't really stop much damage, and that crossbows can shoot across the entire board most of the time, with their 2' range, and do much damage.

• Solo/Coop: Scenario design is that monsters return to the game while players have a limited time to fulfill their objective. The game AI is pretty easy to follow and you can later tweak it or run the enemies with a GM. You should be able to hack the game into a standard multiplayer game of two warbands fighting each other.

• Characters: Melee characters are pretty limited, as scenario objectives often do not stress melee combat. Spellcasters have enough variety to try out different play styles. Pretty much every generic fantasy race and class are covered. This range of complexity benefits the game by allowing players to play multiple characters, new players to play simpler characters, etc. Simpler characters lend themselves to remote play. (We play a two-player campaign, with my friend remotely playing a Paladin and Rogue, while I play a Wizard.) Character progress is unsual in that character stats increase and new skills are gained, rather than the more conventional "levelling up".

• Campaigns: Lasting Tales contains both the "Nethering Lord" campaign and a random campaign generator. The "Netherling Lord" campaign is actually a good way to learn the campaign system, as the campaign takes care of the random generation for you. The random campaign generation doesn't create an overarching story, but it's not hard to improvise some sort of story explanation.

• Campaign Events: Between scenarios, the party will have various road encounters, and encounters within settlements.

• Settlement locations: Villages, Towns, and Cities have plenty of locations to visit, although some are better than others. (I houserule that a settlement event of "No Event" means the characters end up at a random location.)

• Treasure: Lasting Tales has an extensive variety of treasure, although you only have a few chests you will open in a scenario, and it's probably going to be some sort of potion.

Five Leagues from the Borderlands may be the closest miniature skirmish and narrative campaign ruleset to Lasting Tales, although I haven't played Five Leagues yet.