Has FFG dropped Battlestar Galatica the boardgame and its expansions?

Take a look at this weeks Roll for Crit podcast where they discuss this very question. 

Click here for the video on YouTube if my self made attempt at embedding the clip doesn’t work.

It’s certainly true that the game isn’t listed on the FFG products section of the site, but you can go direct to the page from Google.

I’ve only recently got the base game. So if I like it the three expansions could start to get expensive. Look at how the prices of the Games Workshop licensed games and expansions went through the roof when that agreement dissolved. I’m not even going to attempt to get the expansions for Blood Bowl Team Manager or Space Hulk Death Angel. I mucked up on those and wasn’t quick enough grabbing them. Mind you they weren’t that easy to get hold of before the announcement.

So now I feel compelled to grab the expansions while I can and they are at an affordable price. Which explains why I pulled the trigger on the first Battlestar expansion Pegasus. Exodus and Daybreak won’t be far behind. Most likely payday. 

See FFG haven’t made any official announcement yet. All we have at the moment are conspiracy theories. 

There are possible innocent explanations. Are they going to do a 2.0? But then why take down the page? Or are we just looking at a programming bug or data entry error?

But to be on the safe side if you are a fan of the game and been sitting on the fence about any of the expansions, I’d be picking them up now while you can. If you have been wanting to buy the game, I too would be getting a copy now.

If the worst case scenario is true, that FFG have decided to no longer publish the game, then prices are going to get silly. We know they, recent history shows us they will. 

My final thought on this is “good job it doesn’t rely on an app.” But that’s another post entirely.

With his latest project Rising Sun (the spiritual successor apparently to Blood Rage) clocking up the big money (having just gone over the $2 million mark at time of writing) on Kickstarter at the moment, Eric M Langa Langa Ding Dong has another sure fire hit on his hands. Looking at it, if The Others was described as “Eric’s take on Zombicide”, then Rising Sun to me looks like “this is Eric’s take on A Game of Thrones the boardgame”. Which obviously a lot of people are into (possibly, maybe) by the looks of the amount of money it has raised so far.

Anyhoo, the predictable success of Rising Sun is yesterdays news. And so is the rest of this post really. But it’s fresh “old” news!

Currently over in the United States of Trumpton, in the gambling mecca Las Vegas, the 2017 GAMA Trade Show is being held. This is where the publishers, distributors, designers etc. do show and tells to retailers for what is coming out later in the year. You now the sort of thing, make the retailer feel important, wine and dine them, wow them with sneak peaks, blow smoke up their rear ends, make promises. The usual stuff that makes up a trade show.

So my favourite company to hate CMoN (I still don’t know why they changed their name to something that sounds so much like male love juice, but hey who am I to criticise? I’m just going to keep snickering like a little school boy.) made one or two announcements at the show.

First up is A Song of Ice and Fire the Tabletop Miniatures Game.

I find this announcement so so interesting. A tabletop miniatures game set in the Game of Thrones universe, but having to use the series title. Which will be recognisable to fans of the books, but less so to the wider audience who will be more familiar with the AGoT name.

It’s this whole licensing thing that is interesting. Because we know that FFG have the license to AGoT. They have their LCG, the boardgame, Battles of Westeros, Trivia Game, Iron Throne, Hand of the King, plus others. So I’m not surprised that CMoN have had to use the slightly lesser known series title for their miniatures game.

I can’t imagine FFG being happy with the announcement. It directly competes with their Runewars Miniatures  Game. Not only that but uses similar trays to hold the armies on the table. Have CMoN licensed the Runewars system? It isn’t unprecedented for FFG to license a system to another publisher and competing product (X-Wing/Star Trek Attack Wing).

A Song of Ice and Fire will be hitting Kickstarter later in the year. Really does male love juice need to use Kickstarter to fund it? No, all Kickstarter is for them now is a pre-order system, and allows them to get free publicity from how it sets new funding records for a board game. What worries me for this sort of game is Kickstarter exclusives. It means Kickstarter backers could potentially have an unfair advantage having a powerful Kickstarter exclusive unit that is super powerful.

I do like this trend though from male love juice and FFG of releasing miniatures games that can be bought in a FLGS, opened up in the store, and played almost instantly at the store. Which Games Workshop still don’t get. They are still looking at releasing board games that you have to spend hours assembling before you can play them. If I’m going to get into this style of game then I’m more likely to go with the FFG/CMoN offereings because of this.

FFG must also be worried because a miniatures game with the better known AGoT ip will most likely out sell the lesser known Runewars ip of theirs. The FFG offering might hit the shelves of your FLGS before the CMoN one. But I think the Kickstarter might deny FFG of more than a few sales. Why buy the FFG one, when you have just backed the CMoN one?

Will this Game of Thrones tie in be enough to tempt me to break my boycott of CMoN? Would I be able to look myself in the mirror afterwards? We will have to see at the time of the Kickstarter and the price of the pledge level. FFG have the Runewars offering priced at $99 rrp on their website.

You can read the official announcement here.

Secondly  Eric M Langa Langa Ding Dong is totally CMoNs bitch now! Eric has been hired full time by male love juice as their Director of Game Design. Eric is a very prolific games designer. Although I have found he seems to have hit a rut, and starting to get a bit samey in the stuff he is doing. Some have pointed out that his best work is when he collaborates with others. And from social media he has been doing one or two projects in the past year or so with other designers.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out for Eric. Will it slow down his output? Financially it makes great sense for him I would imagine. A fixed regular income always helps.

You can read all about this here.

31st March, Save the date, because the NSPCC are holding a “Big Board Game Day”, supported/sponsored/whatever by Hasbro, to raise money for the NSPCC. A bit like their version of that MacMillan coffee morning thing, but with board games.

Yeah I know it would be nice for none mainstream games to be promoted along side the ones in the picture. Hasbro own Magic the Gathering. But hey it’s for “muggles” not us! We have International Tabletop Day. 

It would be nice to think there are promos and such. But I’m not holding my breathe on that.

We at Fenland Gamers are possibly planning something. More details once we have firmed up our ideas. 

You can find out more HERE. And a big big thank you to Bouncy spotting this and kicking the group into action!

Well it looks like my birthday weekend is going to be bloody amazing!!!

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 comes out two days before my birthday on the 28th April. Then on my birthday The Luxe (best cinema in the area) is showing one of my all time favourite movies Robocop (original version) on my birthday! Yeah guess what I’m doing on my birthday, other than eating cake?

Now purveyors of click bait articles, paywall programming, Geek and Sundry have announced that the 29th April is International Tabletop Day. 

That weekend is just going to be one big geek out celebration for me. 

So I need to now book something on the Fenland Gamers Facebook page so that we can start organising our celebration of all things tabletop. I’m thinking cake for starters. 

Read the original story here.

For those fans of The Pillars of the Earth boardgame prepared to be just a tad more patient the following tweet from BGG last night will save them lots of money. 

Yes Vasel’s Law (“The games that are good enough will come back in print.”) once more comes true! This game and its expansions have been out of print for ages, and go for stupid money.

It’s meant to be a really good worker placement game. So it might just find itself in my collection. Now I know Jonathan will be tutting and pointing out he did have it. So I’m sure on Friday he will give me the low down on the game and his thoughts on it. 

In the meantime I’ve got time to hopefully cash an Audible credit in to get the book the game is based on. Assuming it’s available as an audio book. 

Each day I have an hours drive to and from work. I love it. Yeah sounds weird I know but hear me out. I usually take back roads, avoiding the main A road that I could take. It means I get to go along bumpier (Fenland roads aren’t known for being flat, it’s the shrinking peat etc they are built on) and more scenic roads than I would. I’ve seen deer, red kites, hawks, barn owls, pheasants etc on my drive into work.

It also means I listen to podcasts and audio books on my commute. I have a US and UK Audible account, plus naturally I listen to gaming related podcasts.

On my drive in this morning I was listening to the latest podcast from The Dice Tower, episode 490. In this episode Tom Vasel and Eric Summerer in the main spot after answering some listener questions did their top ten most anticipated games of 2017.

They did Tom’s list first, it was the usual fare. I think maybe one or two had made my radar as well. They then went on to Eric’s list. Once again an interesting list until he got to number two. Wait! What did Eric just say? Streets of Commonville? How does he know about this? He’s a big Police Precinct fan? OMG! Thats Jonathan and Rebekah’s game!!!

I wonder if Eric knows this is as far as I know only going to be a print and play. Or was the last time I heard any news about the game. Has there been a change of plans and this is now getting the full blown treatment?

This is sooo amazing. So excited for both Jonathan and Rebekah. To get this sort of exposure, is really cool. Super awesome in fact.

It wasn’t there on the website this morning, but hopefully you can pick up the podcast any day now. Or if you can’t wait here is the link to itunes.

The other day, might have been just before that big commercial holiday we’ve just had, Pretzel Games released a teaser video for a game Flick Em Up Dead of Winter!

Naturally it tells us bugger all about the game. They should have released this video at GenCon when the news and photos of the game were released. As an example here is a photo from GenCon by The Dice Tower guys, and their news story here.

See we have a better idea about the game from the August coverage than we do this teaser.

We have no new info about the game, which is what we want. We already know the game is coming! We’ve known that since August when they told us! 

This teaser is a none event. A waste of time. I shouldn’t be wasting your time and mine with it. But I felt like doing a mini rant about it. 

I now hand you back to your regular programming…

Jonathan, one of the designers of The Streets of Commonville just put an update on the game up on a Facebook UK boardgame chat page. So below I have copied and pasted that update for none Facebook users to read:

UPDATE: THE STREETS OF COMMONVILLE

Hopefully, early next year, Rebekah and I, in conjunction with Common Man Games, will release a Print and Play version of The Streets of Commonville, so you’ll be able to try the game out with your friends and family, and provide us with valuable feedback.

Rebekah and I have had a lot of fun developing this game and we’re hoping that others will enjoy the game too, so look out for the Print and Play version next year :)

We are also hoping to get this up on Tabletopia at some point (if one of us can actually get to grips with the Tabletopia interface), which will give us a digital platform to test the game with players around the world.

For those in my local area, Fenland Gamers will once again be running some playtesting sessions for those brave officers that are interested in putting their detective skills to the test.

Stay tuned!