Tank Chess (reprint)

Update #18
about 2 years ago – Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 01:35:36 PM

The creative team of Forsage Games has managed to become fully professional since its first Kickstarter project (at the end of 2016) and now the creation and production of board games is our main job. In addition to the two authors, three more employees work in the company, and we occasionally hire additional workers for a certain period of time. From project to project, we have invested in our company: in office space, in machines and tools and in staff training, so that now we have respectable production capacities and are very little dependent on the services of other companies. Thanks to the fact that backers around the world recognized our creative capacity, we have reached the current position, which is good, but also demanding because we have to justify the trust that has been shown to us.

All 8 of our projects were funded, and several of them were hits, with over 100,000 dollars (counting the pledge manager). The success is even greater when you consider that we work in a small country without a gaming tradition and that we have never invested money in any form of advertising. We have had our ups and downs in our Kickstarter career; good moves, but also some misjudgments; good profit, but sometimes losses, but we always delivered to the backers everything we promised, and often more. Age of Dogfights WWII game is currently in the final stages of production and will soon start shipping via UPS (shipments arrive within 2 to 4 days anywhere in the world). We are behind schedule in that project, not because of poorly organized production, but because there was a lot of work on the game rules and the authors decided to significantly improve the game (in terms of the number of components and more comprehensive rules). Instead of the estimated 20 or so pages, the rulebook will have over 40 pages. It is a very complex theme - movement and combat in three-dimensional space, so work on the rules took more time than planned. We learned lessons from that project, so in the future we will not start Kickstarter campaigns before we have at least 90% of the author's work done. Proof of this is our campaign on the Forsage Light Games profile (Carom Mini Golf) that we had at the beginning of this year. We delivered all the games to the bakers well ahead of schedule.

This project is a reprint of the game that had its own campaign at the end of 2017. The new 12 x 12 and 24 x 24 options are only geometrically reduced/expanded editions and a new box and board design has already been done for them. The new two expansions (Airborne and Fun Set Plus) are simple in themselves, just as the whole concept of Tank Chess is simple. The rules for the basic game Tank Chess are on 4 pages, which is many times less than the 40+ pages that Age of Dogfights WWII has, and this simplicity is the greatest virtue of this game. Therefore, the preparation for production and the production itself, and immediately afterwards the deliveries of the Tank Chess game and accompanying expansions will be realized according to our plan - deliveries will start in March 2024. As already mentioned, the current focus in our company is to start shipping AoD2 games, and then we will use all our capacities to produce Tank Chess games and expansions.

In this update, we show tests of several models of tanks from the Fun Set Plus, and in the next updates, further progress on the realization of this project will be shown.

Order lock
over 2 years ago – Thu, Oct 19, 2023 at 12:04:27 PM

We will lock all orders on Sunday (22nd October), so any changes should be done before that (this doesn't include shipping addresses, which will stay unlocked).

A new 3D printer that we ordered a couple months ago has finally arrived. Together with our old printers, it will be used for the production of Tank Chess playing pieces (for Fun Set Plus and Airborne expansion, as we already have molding tools for the standard basic game and Fun Set). The new printer (Prusa MK4) is more reliable and will ensure good production quality for pieces that are trickier for print, which might cause some issues on the older printers (certain tank types are more challenging to print than others).

Tankball
over 2 years ago – Wed, Sep 13, 2023 at 11:46:56 AM

Hi, everyone!

Since the pledge manager is still open, we're using this update to present Tankball, one of the games that can be added to your pledge. It has also been one of this campaign's gifts, in its Light version.

The idea for Tankball emerged during the summer of 2018, when the production of Tank Chess and Fun Set was in full swing - see the news.

Since the Tank Chess and Fun Set pieces are injection molded, two separate tools for mass production had to be made before molding. These tools, however, do not contain the exact number of pieces required for the game, as there are some tank models that are represented more times than needed, which creates a surplus during production. Two of the mentioned models are the Super Heavy Tank and the Recon Tank, so the authors designed a simple game that features these two models, with 8 pieces in total.

From the very beginning, the game was conceived to be affordable, so in addition to the 8 pieces, it contains just the board (32 x 48 cm), 3 d6 dice, 1 ball piece, and the color rulebook. What was left was the box design, but due to the commitments regarding the production and distribution of TC and its expansions, Tankball had to be put on hold, and actually never entered production. Since Tankball is in some way a TC derivative, the TC reprint campaign was the right opportunity to present it to the community.

Unlike in TC, the grid is made of hexes, but the pieces move according to the same principle: any movement is a combination of turns in place and forward moves to the hex in front. In this game, the number of steps is determined by dice rolls. A Super Heavy Tank (a "Heavy Tank" for the purpose of this game) can move in each turn for the number of steps shown on the die or less, and a Recon Tank (a "Light Tank") is faster, so it can move maximally for two steps more than the number on the die (or again, less, if it suits the player). In each turn, a player rolls two black-dotted dice and chooses which two pieces to move. In some cases, it will be possible to move 3 or all 4 pieces in one turn.

Each piece can push the ball during its movement. Due to their higher speed, Light tanks have an advantage when pushing compared to Heavy tanks; however, Heavy tanks can hit the ball with their large cannon barrel when turning the turret. The length of the ball movement is determined with a red-dotted die, which is rolled at the beginning of the move, at the same time as the other dice. Sometimes, the player will not be in a position to hit the ball with their piece, but when they are, they can hit it before moving the pieces, or after moving some/all the pieces, depending on how the attack or defensive action are conceived. The ball bounces off the borders of the field according to a very intuitive rule, and if it reaches another tank on its trajectory, it stops on the last empty hex. When the ball is hit or pushed in such a way that it ends up on white hexes on the opposite side of the board, a goal is scored.

Although the length of movement of the pieces and the ball is determined by the dice, luck does not play a huge role. At first glance, Tankball could seem trivial, but it requires a lot of thinking in order to plan and coordinate your team both in attack and defense, so you get into many favorable positions for execution, while allowing your opponent as few opportunities for counterplay as possible.

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In the pledge manager, Tankball is featured in Standard and Light versions (the latter was also a Loyalty gift). Both sets have the same core elements, and the only differences are the presence of the box, and the board thickness.

For those who are interested, here’s the rulebook, so you can find out more about the gameplay. The setup before any game takes half a minute, memorizing the rules around 3 minutes, which means you can enjoy your first game of Tankball almost immediately after unboxing! Try it out!

Pledge manager contents list, TC Storage box artwork + a SURPRISE ADDITION!
over 2 years ago – Wed, Sep 06, 2023 at 01:35:05 AM

Hi, everyone!

We’ve got some exciting news for you!

First, we want to express our gratitude for all the suggestions we’ve been receiving regarding the realization of this project and the game itself, in order to make it even better. We’ve already implemented a few of them, and we’re eager to see if there will be an opportunity to implement some more in a future project, as there are some really interesting ones.

One frequent suggestion now has been tocompile a list with contents of different options that exist in the pledge manager, as this many options, with differences in size or piece types can be too much, especially for the people who joined late and aren’t familiar with the game from before. That is why we’ve made this PDF, with data for the majority of Tank Chess content available now (we’ve excluded the more straightforward ones), so it should be easier for you to check if you’ve selected the options you wanted and to edit your pledge if not.

PDF: TC Reprint - Pledge manager content (gamesforsage.com)

Since this information comes pretty late (but better late than never), we’ll keep the pledge manager running for even longer, so you will have enough time to give it a proper look and decide with no rush.

Next, lately, there has been one important change with regard to the TC Storage box, but we have waited until now to make it more public, as now we have everything we need. Unlike it was originally announced, the TC Storage box will feature artwork in full color independent of the quantity ordered! You can see the render with the artwork below, and we hope most of you will like it.

Finally, two more surprise additions! As you can see in the PDF, we’ve decided to add one more vehicle to the Special pieces add-on, which is the Cruiser Tank! There will be one piece in both colors, with the corresponding Info cards.

The second addition is a minor one, and it affects the Airborne expansion, which will now also contain 2 parachute drop stands.

That’s it for now, we hope you like the news. We invite you to check out the PDF and to make changes if you wish to do so. Take your time, there is no rush, and you will be notified about the closing down of the pledge manager in one of the future updates.

Info Cards pledgee manager update
over 2 years ago – Sat, Aug 12, 2023 at 03:57:24 AM

Hi all,

As you might have noticed yesterday, there was an important group of add-ons missing, namely the Info cards.

This mistake has been rectified, so all the Info cards add-ons are now available.

The info cards are already included in the following sets:

Tank Chess (basic game)

Tank Chess: Portable

Tank Chess: Extended

Tank Chess: Fun Set

Tank Chess: Fun Set PLUS

Tank Chess: Airborne

TC Deluxe: Fun Set PLUS

TC Deluxe: Airborne

Add-on: Special Pieces

Add-on: Special Pieces (Deluxe)

Each of these sets features one white and one black card per piece type.

The rest of the versions (mainly Pocket and Light) and additional pieces add-ons DO NOT contain Info cards, and these need to be purchased separately. The Info card add-ons can be found in a separate section, and the particular add-ons are:

Info cards - basic vehicles

Info cards - Fun Set vehicles

Info cards - Fun Set PLUS vehicles

Info cards - Airborne vehicles

Info cards - Special pieces.

The Info cards printable files will be added to the full PnP pack, as well as to the PnP difference pack.

Please, let us know if you have any questions or doubts.