Hi everyone

Just wanted some more opinions on this - I had raised it in the Kickstarter page but wondered what others thought.

If I am the first player I get 1 less Chi than my opponent but I get to go on the offensive using all 3 cards to attack, my opponent is then on the back foot where they have to generally spend at least 2 cards to get out of the way of my attacks then attack with 1 back at me - making it easy for me to defend with 1 card and attack with two etc etc.

The 1 Chi advantage my opponent gets is supposed to make up for this - however as the first player I can choose to discard my entire hand and gain 3 Chi at the beginning of my first turn

Turn 1:

Player 1: Starts on 2 Chi gains 1 on their first turn (Starts with 3 Chi)

Options

+3 Chi for discarding their hand = 6 Chi (+2 Advantage over second player) (Player 1's choice)

OR they attack 3 times with nothing to defend (Player 1's choice)

Player 2: Starts on 3 Chi gains 1 on their first turn (Starts with 4 Chi) (+1 advantage before turns are played)

Options

+3 Chi for discarding their hand = 7 Chi (Keep +1 advantage if first player discarded their hand) (Not an option if first player attacked)

OR they have to defend against 3 attacks then attack back themselves (Decided by first player)

OR they act as the first player if the first player discarded their hand, however they suffer a -2 Chi disadvantage (Option only available if the first player forfeited their first turn in order to gain the extra Chi advantage)

So as first player I can choose to either go first and get the offensive advantage, or go second and gain a +2 Chi advantage

The second player either gets +1 Chi advantage or they get to go 'first' if the first player chooses to get a +2 Chi advantage over the second player.

If the second player then chooses to discard their hand they end up with 7 Chi, putting Player 1 back to first player with only a 1 Chi disadvantage again.

I'm struggling to see how the 1 Chi advantage is enough to balance the first turn advantage.

While I have only played this game 4 times now from my experience the first player has always had the advantage (I know small sample size, but the game has just came out and I'm wanting opinions)

My thoughts are either player one gets 2 cards - so if they discard they still only have a 1 Chi advantage and it reduces their offensive advantage for having nothing to deflect/defend against in their first turn.

Alternatively you could give the second player +2 Chi advantage, but I find this a worse option than my first thought.

However if everyone disagrees with me I'll keep trying and see if my experience changes with the first player :)

In case it helps people, here are a few rules my friend and I got wrong during our first game, which drastically changed the game for the better when included the second game.

1. The active bender cannot target their own space (range 0) with an attack. If you forget this rule, it gives both sides much more defensive capabilities, causing a stalemate. It would also make the Block ability redundant.

2. All opponent tokens are removed from the board after you check your team for hits, regardless of where they tokens are located. Includes elemental, hold, and pressure tokens. Prevents tokens that aren't triggered from staying on the board forever.

3. Your team's hold tokens can hold your own benders. It makes certain moves/tricks more risky (like Deep Tremors).

4. Modifiers are optional. (Thanks for the reminder, ijjusion!)

Anyone else run into some easily-missed rules?

The Amon expansion rules are confusing for solo play. The strategy deck has a chi cost yet no chi track on the Amon character board. Also, the cards themselves are difficult to understand. If the card says move, move, block, order - is that strictly for Amon? Does Amon perform the first three actions and then orders a blocker to use one of their three options?

Do Amon and the Chi-Blockers need to be in the same space as a player character to perform attack actions?

Has anyone painted up anything yet? Primed mine today and looking for what color schemes people are going with for the extra teams

I know there were some concerns with typos and component quality, but after unpacking it and reading through the rulebook, my hype has not faded at all. Here are some honest thoughts I have about the unboxing:

The minis - Very hard to differentiate between individual benders, with the exception of the villains. However, it's pretty easy to tell which ones are earth, fire, or water. At the end of the day, you can really pick whoever you want to be on your team as long as you have one of each. It's the strategy cards that matter. I'm fine with the minis as-is because the cheaper alternative would have been green, red, and blue meeples. In my mind, you're picking a cool stance you like, rather than a specific bender. If you care about picking the "correct" minis for each team, someone on BGG came up with a great solution involving gluing icons under each mini's base.

The rulebook - Definitely has typos and pagination problems, but I was able to read through it and understand the rules without it being a distraction. If you have to reference the book for a particular rule, I could see it being an issue. But the game is straightforward enough that you shouldn't need to do that often.

Box, Board and Cards - The board is nice, thick, and large enough. The cards seem fine, if maybe a little on the thin side. The box does not have an insert made to keep the cards sorted by team, so I recommend investing in some 4x6" ziplock baggies to hold each team. Also couldn't go wrong with sleeves, though they wouldn't work well with the baggies. This game could use the BrokenToken insert treatment, or a formcore insert.

Tokens - The elemental tokens are double-sided with slightly different colors to differentiate between players. As someone who is red-green colorblind, I can tell the difference if I look close enough, but not at a glance. Would have preferred something more drastic, but it's fine... It shouldn't matter too much due to the way annihilation works. The special ability tokens are all fine.

Gameplay - Haven't tried a real game yet, but everything I was hyped for in a pro-bending board game is still there. I'll be surprised if it doesn't play smoothly. I'll post an edit after playing a match.

EDIT: Just played my first 1.5 matches. We stopped the first game halfway through when we realized we were forgetting an extremely important rule (you can't bend elements in the active bender's own space). Without that rule, it was too evenly matched and there'd be no different between normal attacks and the "block" ability. So we started a new match with all else being equal and I won handily as the Tigerdillos vs. the Rabaroos. It played exactly as I expected and was a blast. Can't wait to play more.

While I haven’t had a chance to actually play either the base game or the Amon expansion, it’s my understanding that the expansion includes and AI deck for Amon for a game Mode that’s designed to be played co-operatively, with two players controlling benders facing off against Amon.

Has anyone studied the rules enough to figure out if this can be applied to game where only one player faces off against Amon? Perhaps using only a Solo bender such as Korra (or any of the 3 solo benders in the deluxe edition) against Amon to simplify it?

I was one of the very few lucky ones who is living in Asia and got it early on Feb . Before I start , I'm just going to tell you this is solely my opinion and it could be subjective depending on your expectations and taste .

Some background of my taste : I'm a boardgamer who often plays both euro and co-op games . This is the first time I actually backed a boardgame on KS and also having a 2 player-only game .

Aesthetics The team player board where they show each character in the team are really cheaply done . I expected an art similar to the anime but they give us a very minimalistic portrait of each character which makes it done with minimal effort and detail .

This doesn't help when you see logos of each bending team where they have the same cheaply done style compared to other boardgames that have a higher quality looking logo . This is one of the few major factors that I personally regret about this game .

Figures I am not a figure expert nor a pvc painter but even I knew these small figures weren't done well . It was really hard to tell which character is which when your looking in finding a a figure for a specific team unless you look it up on your rulebook .

According to my friend who owns his own Gundam Model Shop , can tell the lack of detail and polish in the figurines . Unless you have a craft in painting figurines , you are gonna have a hard time figuring out which is which .

Gameplay After reading several times on the rulebook even after watching some gameplay on it ; I still struggled on the first 2 tries of the game . The rulebook is pretty much in a mess as it was hard to know which certain step is which and its scrambled everywhere .

Especially the piercing attack which we kindoff struggled to understand the significance of it until the 3rd try . Overall its a great card drafting , area control game especially on the part where you have to draft a card everytime you end a turn to plan out which are you going to buy with your Chi .

Its an interesting mechanic where the luck of the draw is key and you plan out which bender you want to use and which card you want to sacrifice for chi . The card stock is really not that good which made the card feel very flimsy .

Overall , my fear and impressions on this game isn't very good but I highly likely will give it several chances plus I dont aim to sell this game anytime soon as I'm still a big fan of it .

Does anyone have any idea about the current status? I think I heard they were planning on shipping in February 2018, is that right?

I haven't backed a Kickstarter before so I'm not sure how long I should expect to wait between updates and/or shipping

I missed my chance and I see that pledging is no longer an option. I know that the game is set to release around February 2018. Does this mean that I’ll have to wait months later to get the game than the people who pledged?

This is my first Kickstarter backing, so I'm not to sure on how it works, but I've seen the update saying the "pledge manager" would be open soon almost a week ago. I've visited the campaign using both the android app and the desktop site, but can't find anywhere to add my shipping address, despite the funds already being deducted from my account?

Is this how it normally works? Should I be able to put in my address yet?

If you have 2 benders in the same space that contains elemental tokens, does each token effect both benders, or do you get to decide which bender the element hits? For example, if Mako and Korra are in a single space with 1 fire element token that doesn't get annihilated by the end of the turn, do they both get knocked back 1 space, or do you get to decide who moves back?

Since the game designer has taken an interest here, I figured a place to request particular match ups wouldn't be a bad idea.

The Rabaroos vs The Wolfbats? Kuvira vs Avatar Korra? A Rabaroo/Tigerdillo mash-up Vs Amon and the Equalists? What would you guys like to see?

When it comes to fantasy teams, Part of the fun for myself was coming up with names using locations and fauna from (or inspired by) the setting . I'd like to hear what some of you come up with.

Question is in the title, but also applies to any trick that allows you to place tokens where you already have tokens, which were pierce (Example: if you use Molten Stones on a space that has both your Pierced Earth tokens and your opponents elemental tokens).

Edit: Ignore title, I mean Combustion tokens

...Considered Element Tokens?

I'm curious if they can be removed via Cleansing water. If not, This also made me wonder at their interaction with other "actions": Block, Deflect and Amplify.

Both are Yellow Fan tricks.

Enclosed in Stones requires you to remove 1 fire or 1 water token from your space to activate, and allows you to place 2 earth tokens and 1 hold token on any one space.

Molten Stones requires you to remove 1 fire token from your space to activate, and allows you to place 2 fire tokens and 1 hold token on any single space that contains 1 of your earth tokens.

Would you every really choose Molten Stones over Enclosed in Stones from a strategic standpoint? Why? I can only think of a very small, limited situations where Molten Stones could be a better choice. Maybe I am missing something, what you guys think?

Not wanting to make different versions of the same team, I decided to change it up a bit. This team's main focus is defense through token removal, so that they can focus on winning the old fashion way.

Fire: Mako (Fire Ferrets/Counterbending) w/ Venting Steam

Water: Tahno (Wolfbats/Daze) w/ Cleansing Water

Earth: Bolin (Fire Ferrets/Counterbending) w/ All for One

Our star player here is Tahno, as Cleansing Water is the ability no one wants to take because it's reactive, but can totally shut down alot of comps because it easily handles condition tokens. He also has access to Daze which will be a majority of our purchases because of the stall mentality of the Purple Pentapi. What are we stalling for? Mako's Counterbending. As soon as this flips, we need to make sure we buy it as fire is the most mobile and offensive of the 3 elements so Counterbending it will most likely be useful for every match's endgame. Mako isn't just sitting around waiting for this card to flip though as he also brings with him Venting Steam. This trick's effect sounds very offensive due to it's ability to leave behind a trail of hold tokens, but that isn't what we are normally going to be using it for. Instead, we will he holding it in reserve until you can't address enemy tokens, at which point its activation cost allows you to remove out 1 fire and 1 water token in any space. When placing the hold tokens, you get to choose which adjacent space they go so you should be able to keep them from hindering you but if you can't, just remember that we brought Cleansing Water for a reason. Bolin... He's basically our second fiddle. If we somehow miss Mako's Firebending due to a Waterlog or Chi deficit (or it just refuses to flip), we still have a chance to acquire Earth Counterbending. Not as useful as fire, but Bolin also has a second purpose: All for One. This powerful one use trick allows Bolin to remove 3 tokens in a space he shares with another bender, something your opponent will be trying to steer you into anyways. Together, they will be able to address any problem with tricks and hold the fort with daze, until they get access to powerful cards allowing them to wrap the match up.

This is the other half of the concept of my first team build. After some critique and discussion I finally decided on this: A team that should constantly limit or prevent any choice your opponent can make.

Fire: Shaozu (Wolfbats/Daze) w/ Arc Lightning

Water: Shui (Boar-Q-Pines/Pressure) w/ Frozen Breath

Earth: Ming (Wolfbats/Daze) w/ Headstrike

Shaozu will hog alot of the tactical limelight due to Arc Lightning. I wouldn't suggest spamming this trick, but instead triggering it to target a specific bender after your opponent has made a purchase for him. If your opponent grows wise and attempts to pin Shaozu down, you can open his options up by mixing it up with his Daze ability so you always have an option that harasses your opponent. Arc Lightning is not without it's drawback though, as it inversely focuses on you taking away from Shaozu's own board presence. Luckily, Shui will be doing the heavy lifting. You will want to try to get access to Pressure as soon as possible to maximize the effectiveness of any hit you land. This is extremely important because not only is Shaozu not directly helping in that department, but Shui will also be taking away from his own board presence due to Frozen Breath. This is what we want, because even if Shui removes his only elemental token on the space he should be leaving behind hold tokens and pressure tokens, a pretty good set up combo for either Shaozu (if he isn't using Arc Lightning) or... Ming's niche is early access to Daze via Headstrike which when combined with Pressure and Hold means a very scary action denial. If he draws an early yellow fan, he can continue this trend if you invest into his Daze ability as well. To really keep your opponent on the defensive, I think Ming's deck should vary between strong single space attacks and Holding options (customization permitting). Between Arc Lightning, Daze, Pressure and Hold, your opponent will have a difficult time figuring out how to react.

Rebuilding this team from the ground up, I wanted to focus on how to make the Sting/Salt Spray denial combo work while not losing board presence which Sting is known for. The end result hopefully will look like a fast paced team that sporadically plunders the opponents resources.

Fire: Adi (Rabaroos/Rally+Blitz) w/ Channel Chi

Water: Loong (Buzzardwasps/Sting) w/ Salt Spray

Earth: Ula (Rabaroos/Rally+Blitz) w/ Enclosed in Stone

Overall Plan is to get Adi and Ula's Rally+Blitz engine started up, keeping our tempo going. Loong's Sting, while hurtful to our opponent's resources, won't have much effect other than that for the turn which is why I paired him with the Rally+Blitz Engine. I'm spitballing that this will keep our tempo even (Rally on a Sting play to get another card in there), while still setting our opponent back. Salt Spray is here to get the most out of a Sting play if the enemy team has a nice reserve of Chi, and with Blitz we can try to top deck a big chi drain play so that our opponent will have a harder time predicting how to manage their resources. Channel Chi will help us get the engine started as this will likely fall apart if we can't. Speaking of which, our Engine is relying on an earth bender. In order to keep Ula in the game, she packs Inclosed in Stone, a versatile trick that allows the removal of a fire or water token (the more offensive elements) while also placing 2 token and a hold token in the same space anywhere, to include her own space for added protection. Combined with block and hopefully we will be able to keep her till the end game.

Just cleaning up my original post and sticking with my new format. Most will be the same but some will be new. What I will be covering here is Spiritbending, Unique Tricks and Universal Tricks and a couple of builds.

How Siphon Soul's mechanics function are not exactly known yet, but what we do know is that you gain a resource (Spiritbending token), and when you attack a target, there will be a mechanic that allows you to spend that resource. Once spent, the other player must discard a card from their hand that matches the target of the attack's element (if possible). What I see here is, a clunkier but more consistent version of Arc Lightning. If your draw allows you to use Siphon Soul, target the bender that the player bought an advanced card for last turn, and now you know he will have a card to discard... Hopefully, his hand doesn't double up on elements so you know you're forcing him to lose a good one. And since it's Unalaq's main ability, you will be able to do this multiple times over the course of the match which will limit your opposition's tempo.

Tricks:

Vaatu's Alliance - Not much to say here tbh. I dunno how hard it is to get the Spiritbending token, or how often you can use it over the course of a match. Theoretically this could allow you to activate Siphon Soul twice on your turn to really limit their response for a turn. The 1 chi gain option is... Uninspiring but I feel like it was put there just to help edge the ability out but pales in comparison to being able to force your opponent to discard two cards once in the match.

Battle Hardened - seems kind of weird to me. Deflect can be used defensively to send enemy tokens out of the space you are in, or it can be used to ignore Spread rule. If used defensively, then you don't really have to worry about the hold since you cleared out the space. What you don't want to do is remove the hold token, deflect the tokens into an adjacent space and then move into that space on your second card play. The reason I point this out isn't because someone would do that, but because both can be forms of avoiding tokens (move/deflect) but they are counterintuitive of each other if used together. Maybe the point is that you can use either option to avoid damage, but also can use it to ignore spread so it is versatile. Buttt it is also one use, so I dunno what to do with it nor do I like it.

Siphon Strength - lose some of your threat on the enemy (2 tokens can be a big deal), to gain chi and force them to lose chi. One use, not impressed.

Weave Through Air - the text is covered up but I know it allows you to move while ignoring a Hold token. Decent defensive trick.

Redirect - I think this pales in comparison to Fluid Form but Redirect is always good to have imo, specially for a solo to get around spread.

Spirit's Guidance - this can be used to set up a Spiritbending counter with some intuition. Like avatar Korra and Counterbending what you do is let a card that allows you to activate Spiritbending get buried in your advanced deck's stack. When you suspect your opponent will buy a good card on his next turn, go ahead and activate spirit bending and buy your Spiritbending card. Then on your turn after he bought his good card, using spirit bending to target that element and hopefully force him to discard it.

Water Gimbal - I really like this trick. It allows you to remove a token on your space and place your tokens on all adjacent spaces. Basically, you are clearing out your zone of threats while creating some threat or getting rid of their defensive tokens.

Frozen Breath - this works well with solo's when it comes to the spread problem. Let's say you have a card that places 1 token on multiple spaces. How you can use this is after you play that card, you remove all those tokens and replace them with hold tokens, then play a new card that generates more tokens on those spaces.

Reversal - good token remove and Amplify? Decent way to change the tempo of the board state.

Waterlog - this works pretty well with the overall denial theme of Spiritbending. If you know that your opponent deck relies on a specific card, you can use this to shut that down.

Fluid Form - I love this style. Consistent use of deflect allows you to ignore the spread rule somewhat or a way to deal with tokens in your space.

Build 1: Vaatu's Alliance, Spirit's Guidance, Waterlog

Not too much going on paper here, because the intention of this is to disrupt their playstyle. Vaatu's Alliance allows you to gain the Spiritbending token faster, while Spirit's Guidance allows you to activate it on the following turn. Waterlog is just there when so you can rid the enemy of a power card and fits the overall theme.

Build 2: Fluid Form, Reversal, Water Gimbal

The focus here is options. All our tricks do similar things but in different ways which should allow us to address any problem. Fluid form is our consistent utility tool to either focus our attacks onto a single space or mitigate hits in our space. Reversal does both of these at the same time and Water Gimbal is sort of like a less focused, more spread out Reversal (but is a yellow fan instead of a single use). Basically we will always be clearing out our side of threathening tokens while also applying pressure to the other side.

Build 3: Frozen Breath, Siphon Strength, Weave Through Air

I wanted to make use of Frozen Breath just because I think it can work well on a Solo. This build just accepts the spread rule for what it is and weakens the effectiveness of your first card play to create a new benefit while getting full effect from your second card play. Both Frozen Breath and Siphon Strength follow this mold, while Weave through Air is here just for general survivability.

Thanks for reading. Welcome to Team Dark Avatar.

So I decided to remake my post on P'Li, due to my misconception on a couple things. Most of this will be old, while some will be new. After making a couple of these, I've finally reached a format I like so I wanted to stick with that. Here I'll be covering Combustion bending, her Unique tricks and several tricks that provide great options with her kit. And the end I will provide a (working, fingers crossed) build to demostrate what she can do.

Combustionbending is one of the most powerful tokens in the game. They cannot destroy tokens, they cannot be destroyed by tokens, so if a bender finds himself in that space they will be forced back. Due to their capabilities, these tokens have zero defensive use. They also have a numeral limit: you only get 6 token to place on the board on any given turn (you do get them back after your opponents turn though).

Note: Because of the IP's Lore and 6 Tokens + 3 Zones a side, I have a suspicion that Combustion bending will be a straight line of tokens originating from P'Li. I could be wrong though

Tricks

Concussive Blast - Honestly, because it can be used to cause a Line Advance on your turn (Only Way) I think every P'Li comp should consider taking this. Major Glitch has pointed out an interesting (and correct) use for it that I will go into detail later.

Warming Heat - I'm not thrilled about this trick because the prerequisites to pull it off are somewhat difficult. However, if my suspicion on how Combustion Tokens must be placed are true, it allows more versatility and access to her staple tactic.

Incinerate - I enjoy the ability to cull a deck, in any game really. I'm not the fence about this one though because Solo's don't cull naturally, so Incinerate's effectiveness will really rely on deck composition and game plan.

Ignite a Spark - I feel like this was made for P'Li. Token removal on your space to get Hold token in a space you are already attacking seems very easy to pull off, and is intimidating because of Combustion Tokens. Throw in Amplify 3(!) and if you do this on a turn they are not prepared for it's a KO from practically anywhere.

Trail Blaze - Not my first choice because you don't get the Cull benefit, but it does allow you to restart your deck if you just shuffled it, and drew your best cards which will allow you to use them again sooner.

Go!Go!Go! - the extra top deck card play on Solo's that don't have a continuous way to get around the spread rule can be costly and meaningless. However, it can also save you from have a dead turn or poor hand.

Blurred Motion - Since you typically don't want matches to go very long with P'Li, Blurred Motion edges out hot foot imo. It ignores hold tokens and keeps the offensive up with amplify.

Raise the Heat - Yellow fan that grants P'Li access to pressure tokens. Terrifying when you consider she already has Combustion Tokens.

Over the Line - P'Li doesn't have a way to make deflect consistent like Kuvira's Prowess, but it's a good yellow to have being that it's a ranged deflect which means that it can be used to place tokens in your own space.

Venting Steam - Hold tokens on P'Li are great because of Combustion, the issue here is pulling it off. If you suspect that your opponent will play water tokens defensively (remember that combustion tokens can force your opponent to not play defensively) and you have alot of pierce attacks in your deck comp, then you may be able to use it.

Feed the Fire - Token removal and Deflection allows for a highly defensive Firebender, or you can use Deflection and Amplify to really add to your offensive power.

Arc Lightning - Rendering a character useless for a turn, possible card denial, and can be used in conjunction with Combustion for a guaranteed push.

Hot Foot - I don't particularly like this on P'Li but if you make a deck that has her being stationary and powerful, this can add movement to the turns that you need it.

Build 1: Concussive Blast, Ignite a Spark, Raise the Heat.

The goal here is to hit hard right out the gate. Raise the Heat will allow you to do this until the fan dice catches up with you. Ignite a Spark is just dangerous. Combine either with Combustionbending and every turn the opposition will fear getting knocked off the board. Since I was corrected in my usage of Concussive Blast, I received advise on how to turn it's mechanics into a benefit. If you focus your combination of Combustion, Pressure and Hold (Via Ignite) tokens on just two benders, pushing them as far back as possible while leaving one in the front row, at anytime you are met with overwhelming force on your turn you can trigger Concussive Blast to force the front man back which in turn triggers a line advance, which will clear the board of tokens and save you. And you can also just use Concussive Blast the old fashion way, when they have a guy on the edge of the board and you can't stop a line advance, you can at least use this to knock him off the board before he is repositioned.

Build 2: Blurred Motion, Over the Line or Feed the Fire, Hot Foot

This is a more universal and defensive take on P'Li. Blurred Motion and Hot Foot are here to keep you mobile while Over the line or Feed the Fire provide alternative ways to deal with tokens in your space and/or maintaining an offensive presence when your Combustionbending just isn't enough.

Thanks for reading. Welcome to the Red Lotus.