I've finally got my hands on the shipment of Keepers of Tradition, and like a Fledgling I immediately forked out everything I have to get as many boxes as I could carry back to my den. In total me and my immediate play group brought home 4 retail display kits - meaning I have at home now a staggering 8 starter boxes and 8 booster boxes, plus all the attached promo cards and the carrying bags. (And all the wrappers and holders and empty starter boxes) - gee, my room now looked like a storeroom for Vtes.
Well, here's my first impression of the set. Please note that by now I've only sorted out the cards for the Malkavian starters and opened up 2 boxes of boosters. Still a long way to go.
First of all, the pre-constructed starters' packaging is beautiful. It is an upgraded version of the previous Blood Shadow Court, with a semi-transparent plastic outer cover for a plain generic paper box like all the others. I think for future starters White Wolf might follow this format and save cost with 1 generic paper box, and have various plastic outer covers. I'm gonna tell you that the new packaging looks really cool. And with so many Malkavian starters opened, I recycled the plastic covers by cutting out the gorgeous Gem and use it now as a divider for my card shoeboxes of Vtes cards. All is good.
The carrying bag that came with the retail kit is functional and cool. It fits 2 starter boxes perfectly with space for something more. It has a small little pouch that is probably meant for beads or blood counters, a big enough central holding area for maybe 6-8 deck boxes (depending on what you use to carry your decks), and another 2 zip sections for anything else that you might need to use it for. Oh, you mean it can be used for something besides Vtes? Sorry, didn't occur to me, but I think it is perfectly capable of doing that, in a really cool way. It does look durable and functional enough to bring out.
The packaging for the boosters is a little gloomy. Didn't really catch my eyes, but hey, this is the World of Darkness afterall, and it does look eerie and dark and undeady.
The card mix of the starters are probably done with a conviction to reduce the price of some "chase" cards. For example, 3 Freak Drives and a Powerbase Montreal in the Ventrue starter? That would definitely drive down the price of these cards. Cards of value that might drop in price due to the ease of now getting them for sure in starters are - Powerbase Montreal, Giant's Blood, Sniper Rifle, Mark V, Immortal Grapple, Freak Drive, On the Qui Vive, Vessel, Second Tradition, Torn Signpost etc etc. For new players, this is a good place to start. This movement will also reduce the powers of some of these unique cards - Powerbase Montreal comes to mind.
The annoying thing about this is hence the addition of some of these cards in the boosters taking up the rare slot. I mean, everyone wants to rip a booster apart to find a card that they want, and failing that, a card that can return his investment of the pack price. The fact that you can get another Ivory Bow in the pack is no longer that exciting since buying a Toreador Starter will 100% yield one, and there are so many other great rares to get. Ok, granted, there are many who will not buy a starter just to get a particular card, but really, getting a card that is now a fix card in a starter isn't a great way to make me wanna buy more boosters. The risk isn't worth it, I might as well buy those cards through ebay.
But that aside, the many great (and expensive) cards that are printed in KoT might not be as accessible as I thought. I opened up 2 boxes of boosters and I've got only 1 Heart of Nizchetus, 1 Heroic Might, 1 Unmasking and 1 Charisma. I'm considered a lucky one as I've seen friends who opened up 2 boxes with only 1 Heroic Might and 1 Heart of Nizchetus, and ended up with some other rares that duplicate their starters or are less "chaseable". So, monetary wise, the boosters aren't that exciting yet.
There are several flaws that I heard about. Wrong artwork, Vampires who didn't make it to the set and multi-slots for certain cards, misprinted rulebook... I don't think they've done any major damage to the set. On the other hand, the card themselves did seem a little "cut off". Lacking another way to describe it, I think if you take a look at the upper left hand corner of the cards you'll get what I mean.
There are some new art for the cards. Some I agree with, some I don't. But by and large this is a marvellous set. I've not yet got into full gear of appreciating the card powers (especially the Vampires) but I think at the moment the Inner Circles are not as impressive as I hoped they'd be, but the fact that there are now 3 sets of Justicars really made life very interesting.
The promos are, well, lacking a better way to put it, imaginative. Though I'll have to bite on it a little more. At the moment I'm forming a deck idea with Gather and the House of Sorrow... but I think it's not really a big deal.
Well, time to go open up another few boxes, and I think it's time to look deeper into the Malkavian starters.
(o.o)y
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