Fed up of playing as the heroes? Bored of always doing the right thing? Want to take part in some devious dungeon delving? Then read on my curious friend…
League of Infamy is an occasionally co-operative dungeon crawler for up to 5 players, where it pays to commit dastardly deeds and partake in foul thievery – often against your own party. Created by the team behind hit games Hellboy: The Board Game and Dungeon Saga: The Dwarf’s Kings Quest, this is a dungeon quest like no other.
Join a rogue’s gallery of misfits, ne’er-do-wells and miscreants on a disgraceful mission to kidnap cute little baby Drakons, steal their eggs and viciously wipe out any irritating, goody-goody Elves that try to stop your nefarious schemes.
But it’s not just the Elves you’ll need to keep a wary eye on. Your fellow (mis)adventurers are just as likely to betray you and steal your loot, shove you into harm’s way or just leave you in a dungeon full of unbeatable foes. As they like to say in the League of Infamy – ‘keep your enemies close but keep your friends at knifepoint’.
In the limited edition No Half Measures expansion, you must investigate reports of an ancient form of long-forgotten magic: gastromancy! Deal with halflings as strong as an ogre or tricky traps with toxic poisons. It’s not all bad though, because you might come across a tasty pie or two to loot!
In the Kickstarter Exclusive Siren’s Wrath expansion, the League is furious that the Trident Realm is messing with one of its most important trade routes… which absolutely won’t do! You’re sent in to raid the Trident Realm keep and gather as many goods as you can. However, this will be your hardest mission yet, as the Keep Master takes advantage of the aquatic landscape to boost their Defenders.
Published by Mantic Games and designed by Sophie Williams and James M. Hewitt from Needy Cat Games – the team behind Hellboy: The Board Game – League of Infamy is a dungeon crawling experience like no other. Featuring fantastically detailed PVC plastic miniatures and unique gameplay elements, this is a game where it pays to be bad! One player takes on the role of the courageous Keep Master, while four others choose from a ragtag bunch of assassins, thieves and cut-throats ready to ransack an Elven Drakon sanctuary. Or, if you want to pretend to work together, you can use the Unseen Keep Master as the adversary.
Party members start off working together to complete the mission but each villain will try to accrue the most loot and Infamy to go up the League’s ranks. It’s every villain for themselves… until you need some help, of course.
Players can use Disorder Cards to steal from their ‘friends’, stop them performing certain actions and generally stab them in the back. All the while, you’ll be earning Infamy to improve your personal reputation and the chance to bag the best loot at the end of the mission. You’ll need to keep an eye not only on the action to spot opportunities to earn infamy, but on your co-conspirators – you never know what they’ll be plotting, so always watch what’s happening!
Of course, your crafty comrades aren’t the only thorn in your side. The Keep Master can send wave after wave of noble Elves to stop your despicable plans. If the villains spend too long squabbling among themselves, the Keep Master will overwhelm the area with reinforcements or even call in a mighty hero to crush the crooks.
As the would-be thieves delve deeper into the sanctuary they’ll discover more valuable loot, more powerful weapons and vital equipment –some of which the League might let them keep to improve their (admittedly slim) chances of survival. What’s more, the villains will also learn spectacular new skills to help them with their heist. Remember with great power, comes great irresponsibility.
Each of the six missions can be replayed multiple times, with very different results. The Chamber Cards mean you’ll never find the same items in a room twice, while the Keep Master cards allow the Keep Master to bring in different Defenders or trigger special events.
During a campaign, you’ll be able to upgrade your Villains with the Skill cards. There are generic skills that any Villain can learn, along with more unique skills that are linked to special keywords on each Villain card.
In the rulebook you’ll find a story-driven campaign for the Villains to play through but each scenario is customisable. You can choose different Villains to complete the mission or even mix up the Defenders used by the Keep Master. Fancy a mission using elves and halflings? Go for it! You can even use the Wandering Beasts included in the Join the League pledge as your Defenders.
Plus, Chamber Cards make the contents of each room totally random. Sometimes you’ll find a room full of treasure, another time it could be full of howling cats that will create Alarm tokens for the Keep Master. Even the most simple scenario can play very differently.
The Keep Master can also spend funds on fortifying the sanctuary before the mission. Bring in stronger reinforcements, upgrade the room defences or even use additional, stronger Keep Cards from different expansions. By the final mission, the Keep Master is able to choose their own Defenders and strategy to protect the drakons.
With the Kickstarter Exclusive Wandering Beasts upgrade you can add an extra optional element of difficulty and replayability to your games. These powerful monsters can be mixed into the Keep Master’s Keep Deck to add some extra help when it comes to defeating the Villains.
The Villains may encounter a Curious Unicorn or Angry Brock during their devious quest to steal the drakon eggs! Once unleashed, the Wandering Monsters are controlled like a standard Defender.
In later missions, you can even use the Wandering Beasts as standard Defenders… just in case you need a little extra help.
Even with a group of dastardly Villains, you might occasionally want to work together. The Unseen Keep Master replaces the human-controlled Keep Master with a special deck of cards. Of course, even though it’s co-operative, you’ll still be expected to stab each other in the back as much as possible using the Disorder Cards, so don’t play nice!
As part of their drive to prove themselves the greatest, the Villains will not hesitate to undermine each other. This is represented by the Disorder deck, which the Villains will draw from at the end of each round. To sweeten the deal, and encourage some healthy backstabbing, playing a Disorder card also gives the Villain an amount of Infamy, shown in the Infamy icon at the bottom of the card. This means you’ll always be looking for opportunities to stitch up your ‘colleagues’ and gain that all-important Infamy. The more you act against the interests of the group, the more Infamy you will earn. Find out more about the Disorder Cards here.
Each villain has their own skills to get the job done… but it’s not always that easy. Sometimes your ability may leave you vulnerable, or you could even jeopardise the well-being of the group *looks at Karzel*. You’ve got to choose wisely about what skills you use and when!
You’re meant to be quietly sneaking into the sanctuary, but occasionally you might need to make a bit of noise. Every time the Villains generate an alarm token, it can be used by the Keep Master to reinforce their defenders. Learn more about Alarm and Infamy tokens here.
Throughout the sanctuary you will find scores of lovely loot! Some can be used immediately to help your Villain in a sticky situation or, when playing a campaign, you can find special equipment that will boost your Villain’s abilities. Find out more about how to use loot here.
During a campaign your Villain will learn new and more powerful skills. The more Infamy you gather during a game, the better the skills you’ll be able to learn… so it pays to be bad!
Want to learn more about the rules? Take a look through the draft rulebook (basically the rules are written but it hasn’t been laid out yet) by clicking the link above. Also, give us your feedback about the rulebook by using the link in the document.
Paul and Tom from T&G Productions sit down with Sophie and James to learn how to play the game… and get in plenty of arguments along the way.
MANTIC OPEN DAY LIVE STREAMS
Co-designer Sophie Williams talks about the development of League of Infamy.
Matt and Rob from Mantic chat with OnTabletop about League of Infamy and how it ties into the wider Kings of War universe.
Shipping is NOT included in your pledge and will be calculated/charged once the campaign has completed. We recommend waiting until the pledge manager to add the exact amount required. See below regarding import duties and taxes.
We currently estimate that the shipping costs for the pledges will be approximately:
All Optional Extras outside the core pledges will have their shipping calculated and charged in the Pledge Manager after the campaign has finished.
Please note, we are unable to ship to these countries: Argentina, Brazil, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Afghanistan.
We are dedicated to our retail partners worldwide therefore we are delighted to offer you a retail pledge for our new Kickstarter.
Information about the League of Infamy retailer pledge can be found here.
There are a number of risks with any Kickstarter project, especially getting accurate timings for such complex products with so many components.
With this project, the rules are currently in testing and will require more playtesting, however we have a dedicated team of playtesters to help with this. Many of the miniatures are already designed and ready for tooling. Once we have all the miniatures designed, the next part of the process is the tooling and production. We predict that we will begin shipping in November 2020 – however, the exact timing is impossible to predict and there is always the potential for delay with products produced in China. We will of course keep our backers up to date as best we can once the project closes.
To date, we’ve successfully fulfilled 16 Kickstarter campaigns: Kings of War, DreadBall, LOKA, Mars Attacks: The Miniatures Game, Deadzone, DreadBall Xtreme, Dungeon Saga, Kings of War 2nd Edition, Deadzone: Infestation, The Walking Dead: All Out War, DreadBall Second Edition, Star Saga: The Eiras Contract, Warpath, TerrainCrate, Kings of War: Vanguard and Hellboy: The Board Game.
We currently have one outstanding Kickstarter, TerrainCrate 2. This is currently in tooling and is due for delivery in Q1 2020.
REFUNDS
Upon request refunds may be given within 14 days of the campaign ending, including fees. Following that time, refunds may be given minus Kickstarter and payment fees. In order to request a refund you must contact support@manticgames.com
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
By backing this campaign you acknowledge that the components, artwork and game elements may change in the final edition. This means some elements may differ from those shown here following the Kickstarter campaign.
If you do not complete the pledge manager within the time specified when the pledge manager is sent, you agree that your contribution to the campaign was a donation and your pledge is fulfilled. Of course, we will use our discretion on a case by case basis. Completing the pledge manager is the ONLY way for us to confirm your shipping address and pledge details, as well as making sure we hit the production timelines.
By pledging on this Kickstarter you agree that you will pay for any shipping and any import or other duties required in your country. If you refuse to pay customs or duties and do not accept the package, it will be destroyed and you will not be eligible for a refund. You also accept that you are liable for providing us with the correct shipping details upon request and we are not responsible for items lost in transit if sending to an incorrectly provided address. We also cannot ship to PO boxes and you must provide an alternative shipping in this circumstance.
Although we are aiming to deliver League of Infamy to Kickstarter backers before the game is available at retail, production and shipping delays can lead to delivery at the same time or following the retail release.
If you do not agree to these terms, then please purchase the game once it’s available at your friendly local gaming store in 2020.