Premium Edition of Valley of the Kings on Kickstarter Now

For those of you who are interested in the Premium Edition of Valley of the Kings (and judging by my visit log, many of you are), the Kickstarter for it is now live!

Yes, this huge edition contains all three Valley of the Kings games (base game, Afterlife, and Last Rites) designed by Tom Cleaver with art by Banu Andaru and Matt Paquette and published by Alderac Entertainment Group.

The second and third games are standalone expansions that can be combined or mixed with the base.

We now have some more information other than what we had before, and it looks like an interesting campaign.

Let’s get the old, and so far most controversial, stuff out of the way first.

Yes, all of the cards are tarot-sized. Many people on Boardgame Geek have been complaining about this. “Deck-builders shouldn’t have tarot-sized cards! They’re hard to shuffle!” was the common refrain.

Whether that’s a deal-breaker for you or not, take a look at the campaign and see what you think.

The good thing is that they are including 350 sleeves in the edition, so you don’t have to go find tarot-sized sleeves. That’s pretty cool.

Secondly, it will not only contain all of the cards from all three sets, but it will also include ten Pharaoh cards with starting abilities, adding a bit of asymmetry to the whole thing.

One additional piece of information (I don’t remember if this was previously announced) is that there are six unique artifacts on offer as well. Not sure how they’ll be included, but could be neat!

Now, how about the new stuff?

The campaign is only going to be open for two weeks and it’s going to have an extremely short pledge manager period after the campaign is over.

This is because they plan on shipping it to backers in August 2019. That’s only 4 months from now!

It will be hitting retail in October, so backers will have a couple of months to play before others can get their hands on it.

In addition, the pledge to get the entire kit & kaboodle (Editor – you are so old) is $50 US plus shipping.

When it hits retail, the MSRP will be $65, so you are getting a discount.

A bit.

Why only a bit?

The shipping estimate to the USA is $15. While that could go higher, it’s hard to say whether it will. If it does go higher, it makes it even worse.

If your store is selling it in retail for the MSRP ($65), then that cost-savings was just eaten up by the Kickstarter shipping.

Essentially, you are paying to get it earlier at this point. Two months is nothing to sneeze at, of course.

Is it worth it?

That’s up to you to decide. You are paying essentially the same amount anyway, so a couple of months would probably be nice.

The artwork looks very pretty. I think the previous edition’s cards are easier to read from a gameplay perspective, but that’s certainly debatable.

These definitely look nicer, though.

The Premium Edition also comes in a nice big box that holds everything from all three games. They don’t show the insert, so I hope that it comes with a nice place for everything and makes it easy to pull out the cards that you want.

The card list shows dividers, so I’m assuming the insert will be set up so you can just pick and choose which cards you want to use.

It’s definitely not as portable as one of the original games was. That box was small! But if you’re interested in bringing all three with you and mixing up the cards, this is the way to go.

At the time of this writing, it’s already well-past it’s funding goal (almost triple) so obviously enough people are clamoring for it.

Personally, I’m not going to back it because I like what I have (I have the 2nd & 3rd ones and traded away the first).

However, if you haven’t experienced this glorious game (and that applies to any and all of the three), you should definitely check this out.

The game(s) is amazing, the artwork is stellar. The only thing you need to think about is whether tarot-sized cards work for you.

If they do, picking this up is a no-brainer.

The campaign will be live until April 16.