Different colored backs makes playing impossible

[Raven Ravensson]

Hi,

We just tried to play with our new copy of Wrath but we noticed that the backs of some of the cards are a lot darker than the rest. Especially the villains and the henchmen are a few shades darker which makes them extremely easy to stop on the top of a location deck. This obviously makes playing really hard as you know if it will be a villain/henchman before you even explore. We even tried a blind test to see if was just in our minds but we could pick the villain/henchmen from a random pile without problem every time.

I checked the AP1 and they have the same problem so I think there might be an issue with the whole batch. I can't believe this is how it's supposed to be as my copy of Runelords does not have this issue.

Is anyone else having the same problem? What can I do about this? I have contacted the support but not heard back from them yet. I'm afraid that even if I try to return it to the retailer I will have the same problem with the rest of their stock.

[elcoderdude]

My set doesn't have this issue, as far as I can tell.

[Sandslice]

One thing you can do is sleeve your cards with opaque-back / one-sided sleeves; Ultra Pro sells them for ~$5 per hundred, so plan on about $60 to sleeve the AP going this way.

You can also use the cheaper fully transparent sleeves - often called "penny sleeves" because they normally cost $1 per hundred - and paper cut to the size of the cards in order to hide the backs. You can get nine such "cards" out of a single sheet of paper, so your total cost should stay under $15.

[Andrew Betts]

Any pictures of the differences? I don't see them in my copy.

[JDragon_ITTS]

I noticed the difference with mine as well.

Same as I had with RotR.

Raven, please post what the response from Support is.

JD

[Raven Ravensson]

Please see this link for a picture of a random weapon versus a the villain. As you can see the difference is very clear to the naked eye and it is even more profound when sitting beside a few other location decks.

http://i.imgur.com/6dxaKia.jpg

[Jorsalheim]

I've also noticed diferences on the backs, but I don't feel like it's "impossible" to play the game. But my with my bad memory, I never remember which card has the lighter, or which has the darker...

[Chimpy]

My copy of WotR seems fine.

I had a problem in RotR where some US printed expansion packs had lighter backs from the China printed ones, but from what you are saying it's with cards from the same base set?

[isaic16]

If the difference is bad enough, you can try to put in a ticket with customer service and see if they can help you out.

[Theryon Stormrune]

All copies of S&S and WotR (and their respective Adventure decks) should have been printed by the same manufacturer (US).

[Raven Ravensson]

Yes, my copy is from the US. The difference is indeed very profound and literally makes it unplayable as it is 100% clear if the next exploration on a location will yield a villain/henchman or not. As at least Chimpy seems to have a good print I will try to get in touch with the support once more and also try to return in to the retailer.

Honestly though I'm very disappointed in the product as I paid good money for it and was really excited to play with my family. It kind of put a downer on the evening when it was so easy to tell which the next card was and now I have to try to get a refund or a replacement. I thought these issues would have been sorted out long ago as this is the third installation of the series...

[Sharaya]

Raven Ravensson wrote:

I have contacted the support but not heard back from them yet. I'm afraid that even if I try to return it to the retailer I will have the same problem with the rest of their stock.

This issue does sound unusual and we would be happy to take a further look at it. What method did you use to contact us? I'm not seeing any emails from the email address that is linked to your Paizo.com account.

[Raven Ravensson]

Hi Sharaya. Thanks for taking your time to look at my issue! Your reply to my first email had gone into the spam folder but I found it and sent a reply with the same picture as I linked in the above message to your support yesterday evening. I'm not however using the same email. The one I used is jakob@*.se.

Thanks again and I hope we can resolve this issue.

[Mogloth]

There are quite a few cards in my base set as well that have different shaded card backs.