News

Feb052017

Winter 2017 Update and Convention Schedule!

Ahoy, all!

I hope that your holidays treated you well and that 2017 is off to a great start!

While we’ve had a few hiccups that have interrupted production–some torn chest cartilage, the untimely death of one of our cats, a busted dishwasher, and a bout with norovirus–we’re still chugging away to ensure that CSW: Rogues Gallery will be the phenomenal book that you deserve.

First off, the best news: text editing is done. Christine, Jeff, and Lauren did a phenomenal job on the text, and it’s leaps and bounds better. Secondly, we have about 80% of the art in. I’m still waiting on a series of pieces, but I have no doubts that these will be arriving soon.

My original hope was to have all of these items in hand by the end of December; obviously, this puts us slightly behind that original target date. Interpret that how you will; it’s still my intent to have pdf copies out this summer, with hard copies to follow. I heartily apologize if that leads to an actual delay, but I want to ensure that I’m proud of the book that arrives in your hands. Your patience is surely appreciated!

Conventions and Upcoming Appearances:

With the spring approaching, that means conventions! Andy’s busy assembling his spring and summer convention schedule, which will include the following:

Saturday, February 10: DayCon Game Day (Fairborn, OH)
Tuesday, February 28: RPG Demo Night at The Rook OTR (Cincinnati, OH)
Friday, March 3-Sunday, March 5: CincyCon (Hamilton, OH) (Only Saturday, March 4)
Saturday, March 11: UDCon (University of Dayton, Dayton, OH)
- Andy will be the keynote speaker at the convention, in addition to running games!
Saturday, March 25: WittCon XIV (Wittenberg University, Springfield, OH)
Friday, April 28: GeekFest at the Boonshoft (Boonshoft Museum of Discovery, Dayton, OH)
Tuesday, June 13 – Sunday, June 19: Origins Game Fair (Columbus, OH)
Friday, October 8 – Sunday, October 10: CinCityCon (Cincinnati, OH)
Friday, November 10th – Sunday, November 12: AcadeCon (Dayton Convention Center, Dayton, OH)
- Dates for AcadeCon are subject to change.

Note that, unfortunately, we will not be attending GenCon this year. The reasons for this are twofold: GenCon is becoming increasingly prohibitively expensive, especially for a small design company. While we have endeavored to cut down costs–we’ve always stayed outside of downtown Indianapolis to reduce hotel costs–the expenditure for GenCon is always the highest of our convention season.

Further, a dear friend of ours is getting married in late August. Her wedding is in Minneapolis, so we’re taking the road trip up to see her off into married life. Because of the time-proximity to GenCon, we elected to go to the wedding rather than the convention. Ideally, we will return to GenCon in years to come.

But how about those convention scenarios? What will we be playing this year? Take a look!

CSW: Darkness on the Edge of Town (4 hour investigation)

— “Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact. But maybe everything that dies someday comes back…”

CSW: Bad Trip (2 hour demo)

— Overdose deaths among New Corinth’s homeless lead to a harrowing realization.

De Civitates Dei: Ghosts of Ma’ara (4 hour alpha playtest)

— Wrest an ancient relic from the clutches of an evil lurking within a ruined Crusader fortress.

In addition, at WittCon and several other events, Andy will be showing off board game prototypes of Dwarven Defenders, Steel Drivin’ Man, and a few other designs that he’s been kicking about!

Art Previews:

Lastly, let’s take a look at some of that gorgeous art filtering in from our artists!

Gramma Murder (Matt Morrow)

Cadeia and the Rojo Bastardes (Dan Oropallo)

Suiting Up (Jon Gibbons)

Lobotomy (Jon Gibbons)

Oct182016

A Long Overdue Fall Update!

We’ve been so hard to work out here, we forgot to update our website!

If you’ve been following the buzz on our Facebook page, you already know the great news: our Kickstarter relaunch was a success!

By the end of August, we raised over $5,000 to help make Cold Steel Wardens: Rogues Gallery into a reality. Thanks to all of you who backed us; we’re already hard at work on the art aspects of the book, with art direction completed and our artists pumping out some phenomenal pieces!

Take a look below!

[Show thumbnails]

In other news, the winter doesn’t mean the end of convention season!

We’ll be heading to Star City Brewery this weekend–October 22nd–for their Dayton Designed Game Night, where Andy will be running demos of Dwarven Defenders.

And, if you haven’t gotten it already, get your badge for AcadeCon, now at the Dayton Convention Center! Andy will be running Dwarven Defenders and the premier of De Civitates Dei, while Jules will be throwing down a whole series of CSW games!

See you around the game table, friends!

Jul252016

One Week to Relaunch!

Friends–

First up, thanks for your continued support of Cold Steel Wardens. We truly appreciate each and everyone one of you–we never get tired of hearing stories about your home games, of your off-the-wall convention adventures, or your favorite comics inspirations.

If you’ve enjoyed CSW thusfar, Cold Steel Wardens: Rogues Gallery is the next step in our odyssey. Rogues Gallery contains full write-ups for Stonegate Penitentiary, Lincroft Asylum, and a legion of mooks, madmen, masterminds, and metahumans ready to drop into your campaign. Further, Rogues Gallery dramatically advances the New Corinth setting, as our narrator–fan favorite vigilante Sawbones–provides his own notes on the various miscreants roaming the streets.

However, CSW: Rogues Gallery cannot become a reality without your help!

We will be RELAUNCHING the CSW: Rogues Gallery Kickstarter on Monday, August 1st, 2016!

Our revamped KS drive will include a number of special events throughout the drive:

We’ll be hosting a Kickstarter launch party at The Malted Meeple game cafe in Hudson, OH, on August 1st. We’ll have cake, featured milkshake specials, and demos run by Andy all evening.
We’ll be hosting demo events at Epic Loot in Centerville, OH on both July 28th and August 25th. Andy will be on hand to answer questions and run demo games for anyone around!
We’ll be running a bevy of events at GenCon Indy!
We’ll be holding a “Crowdsource-A-Villain” contest on our Facebook page for the duration of the drive. The results from the votes will become an additional villain which will appear in Rogues Gallery!

Of course, Rogues Gallery cannot become a reality without your help. Please consider backing us and share/tweet/like/upvote our drive whenever you can.

Thanks again for all of your support; we’ll see you on Kickstarter on August 1st!

–A.P. Klosky

Jun082016

Summer Updates: Convention Schedule and Kickstarter Relaunch!

Ahoy, all! Andy here.

Since our updates in mid-April, things have slowed down a little bit out here. This has been partially due to the end of the school year–I teach English as my day job–but also because I underwent arthroscopic surgery for a torn meniscus at the end of April. Mind you, this was following two full month of doctors’ appointments and physical therapy for what was first diagnosed as a knee sprain, then as a dislocated kneecap, then finally as a torn meniscus.

That said, I’m more than ready to get back on the horse and do some gaming!

First up, the two big conventions of our season: Origins and GenCon. Blackfall Press is hosting official Cold Steel Wardens events at both conventions, with the newest print edition of CSW available for sale at both cons at the Studio 2 Publishing booth!

At Origins, I’ll be running two-hour demo sessions (Stolen Away and Hell on Wheels) at 1pm and 3pm each day. At 7pm, I’ll be running our newest four-hour investigation: Anastasia’s Bane. Help take down kidnappers, break a fellow vigilante out of police custody, or track down an enigmatic arms dealer!

In addition, CSW original playtester Julia Murgatroyd is bringing her own scenarios to the party! Julia will be bringing the DC Comics-inspired Bile in the Throat, featuring the Birds of Prey!

At GenCon, I’ll have the same set of scenarios, available on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, while Julia will be running Bile in the Throat on Saturday and Sunday. Seats are still available at both the Origins and GenCon games, so swing on by with your generics and pull up a chair!

That’s not the biggest news, though. After doing some post-Kickstarter analysis (and, let’s be honest, some soul-searching), I’ve decided to relaunch the Kickstarter drive for CSW: Rogues Gallery. The text of the book is already done; it’d be a damned shame not to give it at least one more try.

However, this hinges upon you, heroes. While we were moderately successful in our first attempt for Rogues Gallery, it simply can’t happen without the funds from a fully-successful Kickstarter; the burden of art, layout, editing, and graphic design are simply too much for me to finance on my own.

The new Kickstarter drive for CSW: Rogues Gallery will go live on August 1st, just in time for GenCon!

Please, above all else, spread the word! The more buzz we can get moving about CSW and the upcoming Kickstarter, the more likely that we’ll succeed. And, that success means that I spend more time working on CSW material in the future!

Thanks again for all your support; we’ll see you on August 1st for the relaunch of our CSW: Rogues Gallery Kickstarter!

Jan202016

2016 Convention Run-Down

Happy new year, fellow gamers! Andy’s been up to his eyeballs in drafting, revisions, and planning, but that only goes to show how much great stuff we have on the horizon!

One of our most important items on the docket is our convention schedule! We love seeing all you fans at the various gaming conventions and throwing down some dice! Check out the list of conventions below and see where you can catch up with Andy, play some Cold Steel Wardens, or try out one of our new designs!

CincyCon 2016–Hamilton, OH–March 4-6 (Andy will be here on Saturday only!)
WittCon XIII–Springfield, OH–March 19
WhosYerCon–Indianapolis, IN–April 1-3 (Andy will be here Saturday and Sunday)
Origins Game Fair–Columbus, OH–June 15-19
GenCon–Indianapolis, IN–August 4-7
AcadeCon–Dayton, OH–November 11-13

If you know of any gaming or comic conventions in the Ohio/Indiana/Kentucky area, please drop us a message and let us know. We’d love the chance to sling some dice with you!

Oh, and one last thing…

Beware the Ides of March! New Corinth will never be the same…

Nov262015

AcadeCon Wrap-Up and a Contest!

It’s been a busy few weeks here, friends and neighbors! New Corinth has been abuzz with all sorts of goings-on and it’s been hectic just to keep on top of all of the projects currently being juggled!

The biggest note on our schedule was, of course, The RPG Academy’s second AcadeCon, held at the scenic Hueston Woods Lodge and Conference Center in Oxford, Ohio. AcadeCon featured three full days of glorious gaming beneath the Ohio autumn trees, with a number of awesome special guests including Robert Schwalb, Rich Baker, John Wick, and…well, Andy! After a VIP gathering on Friday night, though, we were ready to throw down some games all Saturday and Sunday!

Here’s Jules, about to throw down some CSW at AcadeCon 2015

Jules spent most of the weekend throwing down Cold Steel Wardens demos, as well as some of her infamous Birds of Prey scenarios. However, Andy focused his efforts on his latest project: Dwarven Defenders. AcadeCon saw the convention playtest debut of DD, with four tables of players taking up hammer and axe to defend the dwarven barrow! What’s even better, these players fed Andy a ton of great playtest fodder, which he’s since been working into the rules. Biggest on the deck currently are changes to the Rune deck: a series of enhancements that Dwarves can add to their Weapons, their Armor, or even their Base attacks!

Dwarven Defenders Playtest at AcadeCon 2015

AcadeCon wraps up our 2015 convention slate and, as the long night of winter descends upon us, Andy’s been making use of his time to get prepped for next year. As we start looking at conventions throughout the 2016 season, we’ll be bringing a bevy of games: new CSW scenarios featuring characters from the forthcoming Rogues’ Gallery, playtests of the Deus Vult rule-set, and playtests of Dwarven Defenders. Keep your eyes peeled here for more details!

However, that’s not all!

You see, Andy has precisely one copy of the Chronicle City run of Cold Steel Wardens left in stock. And, just in time for the holidays and before CSW heads back into print with our new publisher, he’s going to give away a that piece of Blackfall Press history!

How can you enter to win Andy’s last copy of CSW? You can’t! But, you can nominate someone else to win it! Yes, friends and neighbors: in honor of the holiday season, Andy will send the last Chronicle City copy of CSW to a gamer of your choice as a holiday present. He’s even throwing copies of the CSW PDF and the CSW GM Screen Inserts, which are up on DriveThruRPG. That’s a $70 gaming value into a friend’s stocking!

Give the gift of New Corinth history! Enter our holiday contest today!

Here’s how you can enter!

Drop us a comment on the Contact Us page
Tweet us @BlackfallPress
Post your entry on our Facebook page

In your entry, give us the following info:

Your name
To whom you’d like to send the winning package
Your favorite superhero

We’ll start tallying the entries on Thanksgiving and we’ll keep taking them up until December 18th! Don’t delay–bring some joy to New Corinth this holiday season!

Nov132015

Four dwarves. One tomb. Countless undead.

Thanksgiving’s right around the corner and here’s one thing to be thankful for: you don’t have to defend your ancestral tomb from barrow-wights!

This is some phenomenal concept art for Dwarven Defenders, done by the wonderful Sonya Green!

Nov092015

AcadeCon, ho!

Just a quick reminder that we’ll be spending this coming weekend at AcadeCon, just outside of Oxford, Ohio, at the Hueston Woods Lodge and Conference Center.

AcadeCon is in its second year and is brought to us by the folks at The RPG Academy, a podcast network focusing solely on RPGs and tabletop games. I was actually privileged enough to run several sessions of Cold Steel Wardens for the RPG Academy gang, at CincyCon, at GenCon, and for their “The Trials” series of podcasts.

Among the special guests include Robert J. Schwalb (Shadow of the Demon Lord), John Wick (Houses of the Blooded, Play Dirty), Rich Baker (a whole pile of D&D-related properties), and…well, me!

All weekend, I’ll be running both demos of Cold Steel Wardens and playtest sessions of Dwarven Defenders, including full evening sessions that include both our convention scenario, Code Ten-Double Zero (Officer Down) and one of Jules’ infamous Birds of Prey scenarios.

And, if your’e there late at night, I’ll be breaking out a final draft of GameWick Games‘ second game in the Shuffling Horror line: Roswell 51!

Hope to see you around the table! With The RPG Academy, you just might learn something!

Oct262015

AcadeCon Plans and Project Juggling!

As the leaves are falling and the nights grow longer, we’re keeping busy over here at Blackfall Press!

First up, take a look at this awesome new website! Thanks to one of our associates, BlackfallPress.com has never looked so awesome! Thanks again to our favorite faerie imp for all the help. Take a look around and enjoy the new digs!

Also, we’ve got AcadeCon incoming! AcadeCon is the brainchild of the gang over at The RPG Academy, whom I first met over at CincyCon earlier this year. The RPG Academy guys are huge fans of Cold Steel Wardens: I ran them through one of my exclusive adventures, On Gossamer Wings, as part of their RPG Academy podcast. Take a listen, if you haven’t heard it already!

So, what are we doing at AcadeCon? Well, firstly, Jules will be running a whole series of CSW demos all weekend, so if you’re attending and haven’t yet tried Cold Steel Wardens, your seats will be waiting! Andy, however, will be doing something a little bit different. He’ll be running demo sessions of his new board game prototype, Dwarven Defenders!

Wait…what?

Oh, yes, friends and neighbors. Andy’s keyboard has been ablaze with new projects over the past few months, not the least of which has been the aforementioned Dwarven Defenders. So, what has he been working on so fervently?

Cold Steel Wardens Studio 2 re-release. Andy’s made some minor changes (mainly in terms of readability and ease of use, but a few bits of errata), which are now in the hands of our layout designers. After that, it’ll be sent off to the gang at Studio 2 for publication and the subsequent print run.
CSW: Rogues’ Gallery. Andy’s got the draft of this done and it’s now in the hands of his lovely and talented development team. Keep your eyes peeled for news on the upcoming Kickstarter for this one in early 2016.
Dwarven Defenders. A board game, rather than an rpg, Dwarven Defenders casts players in the role of stalwart dwarves attempting to defend their ancestral tomb from the machinations of the necromancer Jaegren Lern. A combination of a dungeon crawler (in the vein of Descent or Castle Ravenloft) and online tower defense games, players must carve runes, scavenge relics, and build temple defenses by day, in the hopes to stave off Jaegren Lern’s undead hordes. It’s a one vs. many game that carries 3-7 players and plays between 60 and 120 minutes.
Deus Vult: Occult Horror in 1135 Jerusalem. Andy’s next rpg project, Deus Vult whisks players away to the Holy City of Jersualem at the foundation of the Crusader Kingdoms. However, even as the Levant faces the man-made horror of war and religious hatred, yet darker demons lurk in the night. Jerusalem’s sacred walls are home to horrors sealed away in ancient catacombs, eldritch tomes meant for no man’s eyes, and foul occult rituals chanted by moonlight, Andy’s still writing the rules for this one, but expects to have a full rule-set by the end of the year and hopes to have it ready for playtest during the 2016 convention cycle.

Keep your eyes peeled here, friends, for all the news on these upcoming projects as well as where you can try these games out!

Oct062015

Important News: CSW, Chronicle City, and The Future

Hey, gang–Andy here!

First off, welcome to the Blackfall Press website! It’s been a long-time coming, so I’m happy to present the official home of Blackfall Press on the web. Check out the site, enjoy the art gallery, and grab a download or two. We’re still under construction, so don’t mind any broken links or the like–we’ll get it all sorted out soon!

However, this transition comes with a bit of important news.

As you may know, when we announced our Kickstarter for Cold Steel Wardens, we were pleased to announce that CSW would be produced via a print/publisher partnership with Chronicle City. I was quite excited for this union, for I was sure that it would ensure a quality print run of CSW from a trusted veteran of the rpg market.

However, as time has passed, it became increasingly apparent that Chronicle City was unable or unwilling to fulfill their end of the contract. Contact with the heads at Chronicle City grew sporadic at best and a North American print run was never attempted on their end. Following this past GenCon, the lack of support reached a head and we decided to sever our contract with Chronicle City.

We realize that many of you are still aching to grab a hard copy of Cold Steel Wardens; you might be wondering when, if ever, that might happen.

Lucky for you, I have some great news. Blackfall Press has just signed a new print/partnership with Studio 2 Publishing. You might know Studio 2 as the publishers of a little game called Savage Worlds… We are incredibly excited about this agreement and plan to move ahead with new publication and distribution channels as soon as we make some minor formatting changes to the CSW PDF. We are not currently planning a “2.0” version of CSW–any changes we make will be to simply make some clarifications, fix typos, and take care of other errata.

Note that you can still purchase the PDF version of CSW via DriveThruRPG–in fact, it’ll automatically update when the new PDF is released–as well as the CSW GM Screen Inserts. Further, as we mentioned in our last post, CSW is part of the Indie Bundle of Holding+3 until October 14th!

It’s an exciting time for the Cold Steel Wardens universe. We can’t wait to show you all what’s in store!