when/if i got the pin, think i'll beat it, doesnt seem/feel to hard (you know me lol)

I own a pro and I can only beat it with the glass off

Had my first issue with my le yesterday. Mystery screw in the orbit blocking the ball. Took a while to find it's home. It had come from the bottom side of the upper playfield. My first time having to remove the upper playfield, which turns out to be super easy once you know how to. Though some on here might be interested...

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It’s hard man. It MAKES you hit those risky shots. It’s more luck than anything once you get passed say, the second monster.. I almost wish it gave ya a ball save for a few seconds after defeating a monster, or you could unlock ball save time somehow to hit those risky shots...

I’m having a problem with my Premium game where the ball gets trapped behind the upper flipper and stuck on the clear playfield insert. Is there a known fix for this? Thanks a lot in advance.

This is a known issue with some machines. There is likely a missing washer in the upper flipper stack or, as was in my case, the washer was stacked in the wrong order causing plastic ironing board to sit too low below the upper playfield, thereby allowing a ball to get stuck in the cutout. See:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/black-knight-swords-of-rage-club-honourable-knights-only/page/36#post-5347008
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/black-knight-swords-of-rage-club-honourable-knights-only/page/37#post-5367034

Thank you.

Topper of the Year. Now if Stern would just ship mine!

Ever clean your machine and wish you hadn't?

..yeah. Cleaned mine and couldn't do jack on it for nearly a week, scores were a third to a half what I had been scoring.

I hate that! I’m still recovering from waxing TWD like two months ago.

Sorry for the dense question but if I want to order a topper now, a) is that even possible (ie are they long gone) and b) where’s a good easy place to order from? Anywhere online or do I have to call around? Just thinking with COVID that places could be all messed up.

I don’t really have a true distributor (I buy my machines from a local pinball gallery and he gets them from stern but he isn’t a true big “distributor” that has parts available etc).

I saw mention of a distributor a page or so back but it was some abbreviation, I think.

Anyway, hoping for some guidance. Think I’m ready to pull the trigger on one.

Thanks!

Lsog= little shop of games. That’s where I, and many other ordered theirs from. It’s backlogged, you can order off the website but no clue when you’ll get it. Others have mentioned the game exchange. Good luck

I got mine from Greg at Pinball Pro. I had it in house in about 5 days after ordering it from him. The BKSOR topper never been listed in Stern's online shop like other toppers have/are.

I don't know what the remaining supply is like right now, but it's extremely well worth the effort of tracking one down and pulling that trigger the second you can.

I have a feeling the BK toppers are dried up until after the shutdown is over. Long after. I realize Stern has a topper department, but still it will be all hands on deck getting games out the door for the foreseeable future once they are back in the factory.

I finally was able to track down a Star Wars topper and in calling around the BK toppers are nowhere to be found. I do still have one on order at LSOG, but at this point I will be glad to get it within a couple of months.

Just added the side armor and the topper to LE. All the hardware is included with side armor and can be used as needed. The powder coat on the original rails does look nice, but the new armor does have a nice touch. I could give or take on the armor. Decision to leave on. Topper is a really cool feature. It tends to mimic the action and responses. The plastics surrounding it are super fragile. Two of the pieces on mine were busted up pretty bad on delivery. Once offices open back up they plan on sending me the replacements plastics. Few photos attached to show the goods.
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You had me confused because you said "art blades." I thought to myself "Why do you need to add art blades to an LE - they already come with ones pre-installed exclusively for the LE, don't they? It actually took me 1 minute before I noticed the side armor installed because I kept looking at the cabinet wall inside your game!

I have a Premium and was inclined not to get them. After seeing them on your LE, I don't think I'd like them on mine. But I've been looking for someone to post a nice picture of them installed on a game before deciding that, so thank you so much!

Very sorry to hear about the arrival condition of your topper. Hopefully they'll be able to get those replacements plastics to you soon. I can't imagine they need the line to be operating to fetch them off the floor for you, but I also don't know exactly how tight of a lockdown they're under/chose to implement with all the virus stuff apparently getting worse.

Had Blades to the brain. Side armor. Yeah, the boys at Stern replied back, once the places open back up they will ship me a couple replacements. Figured since the topper was 400+, I should have a topper that is not busted up. I patched up the pieces and the unit works with no issues. Fyi, hometown Iowa City. Go Hawks!

I noticed today there are some new callouts with the topper installed, like Ritchie says "you look like a little baby from up here."

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/578710387

My favorite is when you add player #2 to a game, he'll sometimes say (very condescendingly) "Wow, you have a friend."

Priceless!!!

First of all, the side armor does look good on the LE, much better than I thought. like TheRudyB I also have a Premium and am concerned about how these would look especially with his sword swinging at you. If anyone has pictures of the side armor installed on a Premium, please share. Otherwise I think I'm inclined to go with the generic black teardrop ones.

There were some posted earlier in this thread.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/black-knight-swords-of-rage-club-honourable-knights-only/page/38#post-5383942

Now if anyone has pics of them on a pro, that I'd be very interested in seeing. Not sure how that will look with the sword on the artwork being the focal point on the pro. I like the side rails, but I think they could be better without the Black Knight title on it. That looks a little busy and crammed in. Would have been better if it was his helmet, similar to how GoT have the house sigils or SW has the imperial / rebel logos.

I was surprised that they actually do look OK after seeing a pic of them on @trex's LE. But even without seeing a pic of them on a Premium, my mental image of that armor on a Premium sees the two swords in compositional conflict: an "active/coming at you" sword in the knight's hand on the cabinet vs. a stationary flat sword on the side armor that seems to just be there without an actual integrated artistic purpose. They have also always seemed too wide for me, covering a wider swath of the cabinet art than I like. I was hoping they would be a lot more streamlined, perhaps just extending the gold/brass rivet motif to the side armor.

So instead I went with the clear flipper button cabinet protectors from Titan Pinball and I have been very happy. For under five bucks for a pair, you get two semicircular pieces of transparent soft vinyl with a small U-shaped bite in the center of the flat edge to go around the flipper button. They work like window clings (and the Colorforms vinyl playsets I had as a kid) with no adhesive. They just cling to the painted wood cabinet and can be easily peeled away, without leaving any kind of residue and then immediately put on another game. They are virtually invisible once on a game too. So much so that when I came home from being away for a few days shortly after installing my first pair, I looked at the game from about 6 feet away and then instantly looked on the floor thinking they fell off. They were still on the game. I loved how they fooled me. I'm certain they will never fall off of their own accord. No one I've had over since installing them has even noticed them. The only incredibly itty-bitty issue is that you may have to trim them a bit to make them cover the cabinet area you want to protect for games where the flipper buttons are not simply "out in the open" on the side of the cabinet.

Thanks all who gave suggestions on a topper source. I called all of them and they are out of stock and have a waiting list.

And then I found one! Called arcade sales of Maryland and they had one left. It will be here tomorrow from FedEx! Not bad, a one day turnaround.

Curious to see how many days until the wife notices, ha!

Nice pick up! Just remember when quizzed:

"Oh that thing? That was there when I bought it"

That's a shot to the gut for everyone who has been waiting for their topper for months now.

Ha, normally that would work, but she got me this BKSOR for my birthday and helped sneak it in the house, so she might be more tuned in to this change. We shall see!

Was the game already set up or still in the box?

If it was still in the box: "I finally got some time to put the rest of it together."
- Wife figures it came unassembled in that big box and complicated enough to take some time. You mean the money to buy it after it could be ordered.

If it was already set up: "I told them not to send it to me until after they released updated code for it."
- You mean "code that uses it", wife hears "original code for it was pretty buggy so why even have it here until it works good"
- Also to be used if wife watched unboxing of game in lieu of the option offered in the previous case

Still not sufficient? Ask me about my complete online course in the Art of Convincing Purchase Justification Without Pain.
- I'm not only the instructor, I've also successfully used the techniques taught in my course in urgent purchase justification situations for over 30 years. (Mostly on myself.)

HA! awesome. I think I’m busted on this one. Box arrived an hour ago and it says STERN SHOP real big on the side.

It also says “non urgent” in sharpie, which is sort of insulting. I mean, it’s all relative.

Anyway, I’ll be installing shortly! Still thrilled with the 18 hour turnaround time from order to at my doorstep lol

Alright here it is! Awesome topper, for sure.

First video is some simple install instructions and the second is a little unboxing. Both done at the encouragement (and filmed by) my kindergartener lol.

Initial thoughts

Pros:
movement and colors and general build are all very impressive.

Some new call outs (more to come as I play more, I’m sure)

Random movement on its own during attract mode is great. At least three different patterns of movement too, so not the same thing each time.

Movement when flipper is hit during attract mode

Rocking out mode where he head bangs to the music between games

Cons:
Noise of the movement motor is noticeable. Not a terrible thing, just different and new

No movement or reaction that I’ve seen from Catapult multiball, retro knight multiball, or extra ball. You’d think they could have programmed some reaction or response to these. I did notice him go blue and react to triple knights challenge. Didn’t get to pay attention for War mode because I had a lot going on in multiball.

Also I think nothing for last chance. Missing a real opportunity here for some mockery during that mode.

This is a hard one as I own both... but I give the edge to Tron...

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Just bought and set up my first machine a week ago, and I'm really enjoying (finally) being a pinball owner! But I am having an issue with my BKSOR Premium, and I'm really hoping someone here can help me out. I think there is a crazy glitch involving the shield. Although it snaps up and down at the beginning of each ball (which would seem to indicate that it's functioning OK mechanically), the shield seems to be non-functional during game play. At the beginning of the first ball, if a pinball hits the shield, the shield will pop out and deflect the ball downfield while the BK voice says "Closed!" or something similar. So far so good, right? But somewhere shortly into the first ball, the shield just goes dead. Nothing seems to re-activate it. Nothing seems to trigger it to open up to allow access to the ball lock behind it. Obviously, this means I have never experienced the main level multi-ball during a game, and have never put the game into any kind of mode play! It's so frustrating to see the arrows lit up in front of the shield (lock, extra ball, mystery) and have no way to get a ball in there! I have read most of the posts in this thread, and I see all this stuff about Lich Lords and Hydras and Triple Knights but I have never once seen any of that stuff while playing a game. For the past week I have just been playing the catapult multi-ball up top, and just banging it around on the main level not really accomplishing anything.

With the glass off, I discovered that I can start a new game and the shield will kick balls away react normally, and I can even make the shield stay open by using my finger to depress the target immediately to the right of the shield. I can shove a ball in there and it will register the lock and so forth. But then the shield closes, and shortly after that it seems to become non-functional again. I think the optical sensor is still working even after the shield goes dead, because it awards 30 points every time you trigger the sensor with a fingertip.

So what do you think? Is there some magical combination of shots that I have somehow never managed to hit that will activate that goddam shield? I can't believe it's a hardware problem--my testing seems to indicate the shield is capable of functioning mechanically. My distributor thinks it's a software issue, which seems logical--but I have downloaded and installed the latest code (1.01) three separate times, and each time the machine reported a successful download. Is there an adjustment or a setting that might be wrong?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I hope someone can help me solve this mystery!

Restoring factory settings didn't help, however I may have solved the problem another way--I went into the adjustments and made small changes to the power settings for the shield, and every game since then the shield has functioned and I have accessed modes.

I wish I had discovered that before leaving my long post above, but maybe this will help somebody else who has the same glitch.

Anyone else having trouble with the flail - when it's down and there's attract lights to it - which I assume is 'make this shot' - the flail moves just a little bit, even after successive dead on shots, maybe 1/32nd of a roation. Not enough for the ball to go through or get trapped. Hitting different switches will get the flail to operate normally (spinning or horizontally flush to the playfield), but don't know what is causing it. Latest firmware, hasn't seem to improved before or after flash. TIA!

A minor upgrade to my Premium: Black Stern side armor. I never really liked the machine specific side armor, especially at that price. I picked these up for $75 shipped from Pinball Life.

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Black Knight with iced black cherry powder. It appears black, but under certain light there is a deep cherry color.

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Just putting out feelers, but when this Covid madness is over, if anyone is interested in trading BKSOR premium or LE for Stranger Things Premium with UV kit, let me know. Love the game, but playing the heck out of it while on lockdown.

Crille1...I have 3 machines wanting to purchase a 4th a Stranger Things premium. My 3 machines are BKsor pro, GOTG pro & a SW premium. Out of my three machines the BKsor is the most played machine. BKsor does not get the respect it deserves. Good luck with the hunt and if you do find one you will not be disappointed. Stay healthy and stay safe.

is there any new custom rule cards for BKSOR LE?

I didn't expect this today. As far as I can tell everything seems to work perfect. This puts the game over the top!

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^^ Where/when did you order? I expect mine sometime after the Rapture.

Ordered on February 24th from Game Exchange.

Still waiting on mine from LSOG ordered 16th March.

its missing a cat !!!???

How do those Pyles look lit up? I've had some installed in an empty speaker panel, but that's just not the same as seeing them in a game.

I'm kinda with you there. I'm in for the flipper button protection more than the bling. Having said that, I did get some official Stern JP siderails. I should have checked the price on the PBL lollypop rails before ordering them. I just didn't want to go with mylar or the slap on button protector plates. The lollypop rails would have been a nice looking , and much more affordable alternative.

They look great Doug! I ordered the amplified speaker kit and it came with the Pyles. No issues with form or fit. Everything worked nicely together with your light kit.