Pledge Manager Update
8 months ago
– Wed, Jul 09, 2025 at 09:50:35 AM
Greetings, Phoenixborn!
Just a quick update to let you know the Pledge Manager has gone live. That's great news! But we made a mistake and your email will tell you the deadline is 7/15. That's terrible news! No worries though, as we have corrected it.
We plan on locking orders for EU/Aus/Asia/Rest of world around 8/15. US/UK will have a little bit longer.
Sorry if we made you panic, but we certainly aren't going to give you a mere six days to finalize everything!
Proofs, Pledge Manager, and Production
9 months ago
– Wed, Jul 02, 2025 at 02:52:06 PM
Greetings, Phoenixborn!
We received pre-press proofs (pretty!) of everything at the end of June, and we thought we would share pictures. These cards aren't the same quality of the final product, but rather are intended for us to sort through and ensure everything was 100% accurate. And good thing too! We discovered an error with images of the artifice die power face. An overprint setting was placing the icon on a gray field instead of a white one. Fixed!
The Big Box. Gorgeous! And below is a peek at the interior.
Of course we had to sleeve and sort everything to see what a full collection would look like. Here's the top half with dice, tokens, rules, and a mat.
Yes, those are all sleeved! We even included the forthcoming End of Argaia set (not included in this Kickstarter) to see how it all looked together. There's still room to grow, and if we took the mat out of the top tray and stored it with the rules, thats a whole other card well to be filled. Plenty of room to grow!
Here are the new acrylic tokens:
And here's the new starter set along with the mat:
We cracked open the starter of course, so here are some shots of the inside:
So there you have it! We have approved this copy and are now in production. Joe, ever-excited to try out the new Dragonborn, got in a game.
He says he won, but we all know he cheated...
With Ashes in full production, we think it's a good time to open up the Pledge Manager. In the next 24-hours or so we will conduct our first test, and send out Pledge Manager invites to a small sampling of backers. If everything goes fine, we'll send the link out to everyone. Please be aware of this because if you see people saying they were invited to the Pledge Manager, and you were not, everything is fine! Those lucky few were just part of the initial test group. Your invite will follow shortly after!
US tariffs on Chinese products are currently at 30%. As promised, we will pay the cost of that ourselves, rather than passing it on to backers.
There is one bit of less happy news in this update, and that's our delivery expectation. We're definitely going to miss the delivery estimate. Production should now end in early September, which would mean fulfillment will begin in the beginning of November. We will continue to provide updates as production continues, with dates becoming more concrete as things progress.
I hope the pictures above have you as excited as we are, even if our gratification must be delayed! Thanks for joining us on this adventure. We will be at Gen Con '25 this year, in booth #2229. Drop by and say hello! We will be running demo games of Ashes Ascendancy, and would love to let you give it a test drive.
Until next time!
Want Rules? Yeah You Do!
9 months ago
– Tue, Jun 17, 2025 at 11:13:02 AM
Greetings, Phoenixborn! Just a quick update to tell you the great news for those eager to get their eyeballs on the new rule book. You can access it here.
And yes, it includes the rules for battling Dragonborn!
We've also made a handy Quick-Start Guide for PVP battles, which you can access here.
By the way, if you're attending Gen Con 2025, we'll have prints of the new sets available to demo. Drop by the Plaid Hat Games booth #2229 and try your hand at beating up the Dragonborn, Scatha Kalani! We're also running an Ashes tournament this year. If you're a veteran, or one of the new players that just ordered a shiny new deck off our print on demand site, sign up, and see if you have what it takes. You can find details on the tournament here.
We hope to see you there!
Lots of Mini Updates.
10 months ago
– Tue, Jun 03, 2025 at 07:04:52 PM
Greetings!
A lot has happened since we concluded our campaign, so let's touch on it now.
Printing!
First, and perhaps most importantly, we have submitted all of our print files. Now we wait for physical proofs to approve. Once we've done so, we'll be able to better verify our delivery date. The tariffs made things a little crazy there, and once the larger US tariffs on Chinese products dropped, there was a mad rush for shipping. We hope that won't be an issue when we're ready to ship, but we're keeping our eyes on the situation.
Late Pledges!
We opened up late pledges for people who missed the campaign. They can select the items they're interested in, and we will formalize things later. This step basically allows us to survey interest in the products post-campaign, and adjust our print order accordingly. If you know someone who missed out, feel free to direct them here.
POD Update!
One of our initial limitations on the POD site was you had to build a legal deck. Well, you wanted more flexibility and we heard you. We've made a new option where you can order up to 100 cards, with no regard for deck legality. This includes dice reference cards! Read more about this exciting update here.
We have also updated our free pdfs to have an option for printing on A4 paper. Huzzah!
We are still waiting to offer print and play pdfs for player-designed decks. Our partner is hard at work on it, and we'll let you know when it's ready.
That's it for this update. We'll keep you informed and share pics when we have more! Dragonborn reveals are coming, the graphic design on the dice app proceeds at a good pace, and we announced the final Red Rains set! We'll be offering previews on it soon on our website. Until next time!
Ascendancy Indeed!
11 months ago
– Fri, May 02, 2025 at 12:00:06 PM
In 2015, Plaid Hat Games launched a little card game called Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn. It was designer Isaac Vega's attempt to show what his vision for a magic-duel card game would look like. Thoughtful, full of subtlety, beautiful, and free of the pain points Isaac found in TCGs, Ashes was an immediate success.
And yet, despite that, ten years later, we sit here in utter awe of how Ashes is now positioned for the future. We asked you for at least $50,000 to usher Ashes into its next stage, and you responded with over $480,000. It means a lot to have so many people support us and jump into our little game with such ferocity! We thank you, both for keeping Ashes alive, and for making it possible for us to do what we love most.
What comes next? First and foremost is getting all the new products finalized for production. Then we figure out what we need to order for our final print runs on the Reborn products. And of course we have to do all that while navigating the choppy waters made by tariffs. We will be keeping everyone up to date as we go. Whenever we hit a new milestone, we'll share an update. Same if any unexpected roadblocks appear. There will probably be quite a few updates given our tight production schedule and the uncertainty associated with tariffs, but we'll try not to abuse your inboxes. If for some reason there's a slow period, you'll at least receive monthly updates.
What does this campaign's success mean? Good question! It tells us that investing more in Ashes is a good idea. Expect to see news on the dice-rolling app in the future and functionality updates to the POD site (we're already hard at work on both). You should also expect card teasers, a pdf of the rules once they are complete, and some long-awaited videos demonstrating how the Dragonborn work. But now that the campaign has ended, and has proven such a tremendous success for us, we have some planning to do. You all went big on Ashes, and you can expect we're gonna send big right back at you.
Thank you again from everyone here at Plaid Hat Games. Great things are ahead. Talk soon.
