Poor printing for Infernal Relics

Anyone else thinks that the printing for Infernal Relics is extremely poor?

• Cards too "yellow". I mean, look at Unity's skin!
• Card borders inconsistent. Look at AA and NM, their borders are way too narrow. Look at Horus Ra, left and right borders uneven.
• Bleeding text. All the text are not sharp at all. They don't even look original. To me, they look like cheap knock-offs ripped and printed in China. Compare with Rook City and 1st Ed and you can see the different. Hurts my eyes to read the text now.
• Just for completeness, the different card sizes in 2nd Ed and the box that don't fit the cards.

I understand that these do not affect gameplay, but they speak of extremely poor production value.

I have to say I am extremely disappointed with the production of IR. I'd rather have 1st Ed thin stock cards and have better colours and sharpness.

I'm not saying GtG is to blame, but I think they've been played out by their printer. If it is even possible on a business level, I will reject the entire batch of goods and demand for a full reprint.

It is better to publish high quality products than to rush a poorly produced product to the market.

I did not notice this in my copy

Well, they were printed in China.  Of course, of what you stated, the only thing I noticed were the weird borders (some thinner than others, some uneven).

Most of what you mention hasn't been reported by anybody else. The slightly uneven borders, as well as the miscut cards in enhanced edition are known. If you have the miscut enhanced edition cards, contact GTG and they'll send you a replacement.

As for the colours being too yellow, that's entirely subjective, unless your cards are different to everyone else's. I suggest taking a photo to show us what you mean. Likewise with the bleeding text, nobody has reported that before.

And the enhanced edition box not fitting the cards? What? Again, not a problem I've read about before. What do you mean?

There was talk during the Kickstarter that the core and both expansions, the two promo decks, and all promo Character cards could fit in the EE box sleeved.  As many Multiversizens have discovered (myself included), there is a very particular size of sleeve that will fit the entire set.  Penny sleeves do not work, and that is kind of a bummer.  I'm only down ten or twelve bucks, but I would've loved to know how important an extra 1/8th of an inch or so would be on those sleeves.

As for the yellow-ness of Unity's skin colour, I refer you to these links on BGG.

Kickstarter image: http://boardgamegeek.com/image/1301929/sentinels-of-the-multiverse-unity-hero-character

Scan of actual card: http://boardgamegeek.com/image/1444321/sentinels-of-the-multiverse-unity-hero-character

For the fuzzy text, I will try to take a few pictures with Rook City and 1st Ed for comparisons later.

That second link/image should probably read "scan of actual card". My physical copy of Unity is fine.

My physical copy has that same shade of yellow as the scan of actual card.

Pardon my camera skills. I printed out the kickstarter image, took a picture of the printed kickstarter image side by side with the physical card, then overlay the softcopy kickstarter image on the right.


Actually, they made no such claim on the card sleeves. They said they would all fit without sleeves, and the EE would fit with sleeves.

Huh.... I never realized Unity was from The Simpsons.

I just thought she was Asian = /

Yeah, I'd agree that the extra yellow looks like bad printing.

Yeah, my batch has highly saturated colors too, I was pointing it out as a pro and a con when I got my box. I need to check if I have a Simpson Unity, I think I might since seeing her scan from the kickstarter looks "wrong" to me.

The problem being that with penny sleeves they fit vertically, but not horizontally.  That is a problem regardless of how many cards are in the box.  I don't think their intention was to have the cards stand upright in the box making it unable to be fully closed.  It will, in fact, fit every single card in the main set and both expansions sleeved, but they have to stand upright in order for it to work.  The issue is that it is very hard finding sleeves that will fit.

For me they hardly fit without sleeves, I'm kind of worried about damaging the cards just by keeping them in the box. Luckily sleeving would be kind of pointless anyway, since the cutting of many of my cards is kind of sloppy too, with corners already looking like I played the game unsleeved for years :P

Now that I've actually compared my physical unity to the kickstarter image, yes, I have the same 'yellowness'. I too had assumed it was intended.

I have also noticed the overbright colours and high contrast on many cards (much of Fanatic's deck has this issue), I had again assumed that this was intended, as I assumed GTG would have received proofs and approved them. Certainly they would have seen all the cards while they've been demoing with the new sets, and we haven't heard any comment about the printing from their end.

The >G folks are so busy that I'm amazed they ever have time to read the forums at all, much less tell us much about what's going on. Paul's got a day job and a baby. Adam has to do ALL THE ART. Christopher does all or most of the shipping and networking. Ever sent a package? Imagine doing that 1000 times, plus all of the online orders and distributor orders. And they're all working on game design and attending cons and creating kickstarter rewards and getting play mats printed and on and on and on. 

I definitely don't blame anyone but the printers for any issues that may arise. After all >G has been extremely helpful for anything that I've contacted with. For a three man company they have an A+ in my book. It's amazing how much effort these guys put into the job, even if it is one they love. 

Oh, I'm not expecting them to reply to every thread or even read most of them. They're definitely busy and under no obligation to do any more than they already are.

just figured that if there was indeed a problem with the colours, that Adam would have noticed, and we might have heard something through the grapevine.

I would have thought so a year ago, when we used to see posts from Adam, Paul, and Christopher regularly.

I understand your point about GtG being small and hardworking and busy and I really appreciate their efforts in making this game that we enjoyed immensely. However, a company is defined by the products and services that they provide. Their behind the scenes hardwork is not being well represented when the final product is subpar. Being busy with designing, drawing, packing, shipping, marketing, etc, is not a reason or excuse to be lacking in quality control. Look at the problems with the 2nd Ed rulebook for example. The Operative error was really unprofessional and didnt do justice to the amount of effort GtG is putting in.
I think the printing company is at fault for all the printing, cutting, colour, etc, problems, but GtG needs to step up their game with being more meticulous with quality control.
My 2 cents.

I have the yellow Unity as well. I am retrospectively outraged. Personally, I have very cheap Ultra-pro sleeves, and everything fits into the box, although I have to be ruthless about crushing the sleeves when I put it in. The sides of the box bulge out a bit, but I imagine it'll last a few years anyway.

I completely agree!

My comments about the >G folks' being busy was not meant as an excuse for any perceived failings, but rather as a point about the likelihood of hearing from them about any particular topic.

This is exactly why they will always be able to take all of my money.

What error does The Operative have?

There's a misprint in the Infernal Relics rulebook where the section for The Ennead is labeled The Operative.

Yeah, and also the last two pages of that book are a repeat of the previous two. It only  chops off the last bit of the Glossary, though, and if you've got the other books (for Enhanced Core and Rook City) it doesn't matter since they have the same Glossary :).

Just confirming that my version of Unity is a resident of Springfield... with that yellow on every card. Playable, of course, but I figured I would chime in for statistical reasons.

My Unity isn't yellow at all... 

Great news for me today : the full Enhanced+Rook+Infernal+Promos pack I ordered a few weeks ago finaly arrived ! Woot! Alas, I am a victim of the "too much yellow ink" syndrom. It affects all the Enhanced cards, Unity and Ambuscade, but Infernal and Rook City seem good.

Happy to have the game anyway - as I am in France, I'll have to do with it, but i certainly hope the bad inker will be dealt with by Fanatic :)

*goes back to a full day marathon of random team solo play*

Hmm I ordered the enhanced edition, the promos and the 2 addons. Now i'm worried of getting an ugly subpar product >_>;

It's not particularly ugly, to be honest. I hadn't noticed the yellow until this thread came up, and I haven't got any other problems the OP mentioned.

and being that so many people here have the yellow ink, I'd say that the yellow cards are par, not sub-par

Guys, I'm looking at a box of Unity decks, and none of them are as yellow as the super yellow scans I've seen. Where did you get these? Sure, she's got a different skin tone than, say, Legacy, but none of this cartoon yellow. Here's a picture I just took with my cellphone camera:

She's not white. She's not going to have the same skin tone as Legacy or The Argent Adept. But she's not YELLOW yellow, either.

I don't have a scanner or camera good enough to post images, but there is a problem.

I don't know what Unity was meant to look like, but there are other problems with some copies of the game. I really think there is a bug with yellow ink for the cards in my enhanced set - and my fellow gamers all commented on it when seeing the cards.

Another problem, for instance, is the Genebound Frost hound cards : they are almost white : background, creature, everything is white with just the outline of the dog and a few patch of color - what some other posters have described like "overexposition".

I tried to compare the Matriarch villain card and its oversized version - my rook city cards don't feel "too yellow" - and the difference in skintone and background colors is visible. Sadly, I can't compare with the old cards (I don't have them, and nobody around me has the game), but the colors are very different from the scans I've seen.

This is strinking when comparing any of my rook city cards with any in the enhanced set : the enhanced cards "feel wrong" to everyone I showed them.

My wife says that it reminds her of the badly printed comics we were reading 30 years ago :) As for me, I can' stop thinking that I have an edition meant for the asian market with a double layer of yellow to make heroes more asian looking :p

I'm just saying that you should make some investigation and make sure your printer corrects any inking issue. The art in this game is too good to be botched.

I just took a quick picture with my phone's camera, which came out looking very yellow.  However, in real life, my Unity looks much more like Christopeher's picture than this one.

Also, the EE cards are more highly exposed than the original edition, which I believe is well known at this point.  Some people prefer that look on most of the cards.  I think the Gene-bound Frosthound is one of the worst off, but I certainly don't think it looks bad in the EE.


After looking at the Heroes (Optimized) file on the Downloads page, I am starting to think that it *may* be some software rendering problem. Look at the first page on Absolute Zero.


Coolant Blast is more "brown" and Onboard Module Installation is more "yellow". The 1st Ed cards are of the "brown" tone while the 2nd Ed and Infernal Relics is of the "yellow" tone.

Could it be a software issue with whichever software GtG is using to generate the card images?

If I can find a better camera than my phone (it takes awful pictures), I have the perfect example of what I mean with the Te Moko card : Haka's teeth are yellow. Maybe it's by design, but it looks strange. But well, maybe my poor eyesigth is just too sensible to yellowish tones and over exposition.


Can you figure out which of the above is Enhanced Edition and which is Core. Not too hard, perhaps. Though I see more yellow in EE, it's not enough to bother me.

I never play using the character cards that came with my EE because I use my custom oversized cards, but I just pulled them out for another reason, and I have to toss my voice in with those who say the print quality is bad.  Far too much yellow, comically so in some cases (Haka, Bunker, and Fanatic are particularly bad).  My Unity definitely looks more yellow-skinned than the .jpg does.  I don't notice it on the deck cards themselves, but it's really bad on some of these character cards.  If I didn't have my own versions, I'd probably be pissed.  Luckily, I don't have to be though. :)