Castles and Crusades

[Ancalagon]

The cover for TLG's upcoming, revised Amazing Adventures PHB cover. I'll be getting this to add to the collection. May have to brainstorm some good, old fashion pulp-adventure goodness for the next round of GaryCon.


312632229_10167297895320554_2646054123054060512_n.jpg

Was this ever released?

[Necron 99]

Not yet. Here was the last update from Steve on the funding site from the project, March 14th.

Greetings from the Dens,

The Amazing Adventures Players Handbook is almost laid out and print-ready. Peter Bradley, our Art Director, has set all the text and is currently placing the final art. We had hoped to have this out by Gary Con but we are going to miss that, but hopefully, we will have a working manuscript by next week and can release the PDF to everyone.

Thank you for your patience!

Steve

So far, no word on the PDFs as of yet. I seem to recall Chuck saying at Mythic, that they were shooting for summer or early fall for the fulfillment and release.

[Ancalagon]

Not yet. Here was the last update from Steve on the funding site from the project, March 14th.

Greetings from the Dens,

The Amazing Adventures Players Handbook is almost laid out and print-ready. Peter Bradley, our Art Director, has set all the text and is currently placing the final art. We had hoped to have this out by Gary Con but we are going to miss that, but hopefully, we will have a working manuscript by next week and can release the PDF to everyone.

Thank you for your patience!

Steve

So far, no word on the PDFs as of yet. I seem to recall Chuck saying at Mythic, that they were shooting for summer or early fall for the fulfillment and release.

IIRC, that KS launched in November of '22. If summer / early fall for fulfillment... almost two years.

Just reinforces my decision to not back the 9-10 book KS for Gary's World Builder series.

[Necron 99]

IIRC, that KS launched in November of '22. If summer / early fall for fulfillment... almost two years.

Just reinforces my decision to not back the 9-10 book KS for Gary's World Builder series.

Well, to be fair to the Trolls, I backed the Aihrde kickstarter which funded in March of '23 and included the Codex, M&T of Aihrde, and a few smaller supplements, and I received the stuff in September of '23.

This AA project has been something of an anomaly, mostly due to the OGL debacle and their decision to stop work and revamp the books to pull out the OGL references. If they had not done so, I imagine I'd have had the stuff in a similar time frame as Aihrde.

[Ancalagon]

IIRC, that KS launched in November of '22. If summer / early fall for fulfillment... almost two years.

Just reinforces my decision to not back the 9-10 book KS for Gary's World Builder series.

Well, to be fair to the Trolls, I backed the Aihrde kickstarter which funded in March of '23 and included the Codex, M&T of Aihrde, and a few smaller supplements, and I received the stuff in September of '23.

This AA project has been something of an anomaly, mostly due to the OGL debacle and their decision to stop work and revamp the books to pull out the OGL references. If they had not done so, I imagine I'd have had the stuff in a similar time frame as Aihrde.

Emphasis mine.

Ah! Didn't realize that. Good to know.

[Necron 99]

Interview with Steve at the TLG booth for Gencon.

[Necron 99]

While on DriveThru RPG I noticed that there was an update in my Library for the new C&C PHB 10th printing. I had not looked over the pdf since the original release and decided to give it a brief glance. I noticed that several pieces of art were either swapped, removed, or new pieces randomly added in. Below are some comparisons showing the old images on the left, and the newer images on the right.

Barbarian class, I much prefer the older image on the left.

Cleric, the new art isn't awful, but it's not great either, just somewhat meh. I think I prefer the dwarven looking cleric.

Monk, I like the new half-orc, but I also like the old human monk, I wish they had kept both.

Paladin, I absolutely dislike the new art on the right. I think it just looks terrible. The mounted pally looks WAY better.

It's cool to see Peter's original knight back in the book, I do like that piece. To be fair, I never liked the old art with the knight and pole-arm. It's, ok, but I like the older image more.

Dwarves, I like the new art for the dwarves better than the previous. The older art just didn't capture "dwarf" in my mind.

Elves, the old art could have been better, but the new art doesn't do it. I would take the old art over the new, I mean, look at the pants and shoes on the standing "elf" in the newer art, they look like some student you'd find at Hogwarts. I mean, it looks like they're wearing khaki pants and converses or something. And what's with that weird beak-ish nose? Just not a good choice for "elf", imo.

In the Magic section, I noticed they removed the old piece and replaced it with a new one, overall, the new one is ok, nothing too stand out with it. The old one is just weird and while it does speak "magic", it wasn't very appealing. The new one, could use some actual magical effects, that would make it much better.

Near the end of the book, there is a section on general game stuff, like Time, Hearing, Vision, just stuff dealing with in game character actions, etc. Anyhow, for some reason they removed the original image of the camp and replaced it with the weird looking character, not sure if that's supposed to be a gnome or a halfling or what, but not a fan, in any case. It's just too goofy looking. The camp scene was a much better fit.

[Ancalagon]

While on DriveThru RPG I noticed that there was an update in my Library for the new C&C PHB 10th printing. I had not looked over the pdf since the original release and decided to give it a brief glance. I noticed that several pieces of art were either swapped, removed, or new pieces randomly added in. Below are some comparisons showing the old images on the left, and the newer images on the right.

Barbarian class, I much prefer the older image on the left.
cnc1.PNG

I prefer the old. The woad, axe, and kilt gives it an identifiable highland flavor. I don't have any idea where the guy one right is supposed to be from.

Cleric, the new art isn't awful, but it's not great either, just somewhat meh. I think I prefer the dwarven looking cleric.
cnc2.PNG

I'm not taken with either pic. No symbols or any other obvious signs of devotion to show "I follow XYZ" as I imagine a dedictaed-unto-death cleric would possess.

Monk, I like the new half-orc, but I also like the old human monk, I wish they had kept both.
cnc3.PNG

The half-orc isn't bad... but I prefer the human monk.

Paladin, I absolutely dislike the new art on the right. I think it just looks terrible. The mounted pally looks WAY better
cnc4.PNG

Agreed.

It's cool to see Peter's original knight back in the book, I do like that piece. To be fair, I never liked the old art with the knight and pole-arm. It's, ok, but I like the old image more.
cnc5.PNG

Hard to go wrong with the P. Bradley image!

Dwarves, I like the new art for the dwarves better than the previous. The older art just didn't capture "dwarf" in my mind.
cnc9.PNG

Agreed. The only thing missing is a beard on the lady dwarf.

Elves, the old art could have been better, but the new art doesn't do it. I would take the old art over the new, I mean, look at the pants and shoes on the standing "elf" in the newer art, they look like some student you'd find at Hogwarts. I mean, it looks like they're wearing khaki pants and converses or something. And what's with that weird beak-ish nose? Just not a good choice for "elf", imo.
cnc10.PNG

Agreed. Its like they were trying to channel Vox Machina elves with the new pic.

In the Magic section, I noticed they removed the old piece and replaced it with a new one, overall, the new one is ok, nothing too stand out with it. The old one is just weird and while it does speak "magic", it wasn't very appealing. The new one, could use some actual magical effects, that would make it much better.
cnc12.PNG

Agreed.

Near the end of the book, there is a section on general game stuff, like Time, Hearing, Vision, just stuff dealing with in game character actions, etc. Anyhow, for some reason they removed the original image of the camp and replaced it with the weird looking character, not sure if that's supposed to be a gnome or a halfling or what, but not a fan, in any case. It's just too goofy looking. The camp scene was a much better fit.
cnc13.PNG

Definitely prefer the older image on the left. I don't know what the hell that thing on the right with toe spikes is supposed to be.

[Necron 99]

I prefer the old. The woad, axe, and kilt gives it an identifiable highland flavor. I don't have any idea where the guy one right is supposed to be from.

No symbols or any other obvious signs of devotion to show "I follow XYZ" as I imagine a dedictaed-unto-death cleric would possess.

My best guess is he's supposed to represent the barbarians we'd have seen of Russian or similar lineage. As for the cleric, yeah agreed, I think showing a symbol would be more appealing. I "think" that is what the dwarf has in his hand there, but no way to really know.

Some other pieces of art that were either removed or simply added to fill space.

Two images that were added to the rogue section, the human is a good piece, what I assume to be a half-elf is ok, but something about the face paint/tatoo just looks a bit off, I think it would have looked better with something different.

This one was added randomly to the Equipment section. I guess is kind of fits since he's carrying a pack with some stuff, but honestly, I don't really think much either way about it. It's not a bad pic, but I feel like it could have been placed in a better section.

This one was added to the Bard section, it's fine, no real complaint there.

[Necron 99]

Apparently TLG is planning a new thing: