Category Archives: news

news

WS12Sep16 deep pockets alert 

news

It’s that time of week where I pick through the scattered remains left by Esdevium on the side of the road, and choose the tastiest morsels for our table. 

There are some pleasant surprises this coming week. 

Having just got my Kickstarter copy of Saloon Tycoon I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was so soon hitting the shelves of your FLGS so soon. I was a little smug also to see I’d saved a little money on the game too. You can see what I thought of the game by scrolling to yesterday’s post. 

Another pleasant surprise was that Grifters, another recent arrival from Kickstarter is also coming out. This is a nice card game with a cooling off mechanic for played cards. 

The third instalment of the Valley of the Kings game Last Rites is out. I like the original game, the theme, and it’s drafting mechanic. The only draw back for this is I understand it’s just more of the same, not introducing anything new mechanics wise. 

A game that had a bit of buzz at GenCon and does sound fun is Potion Explosion. 

They were bound to release this next one at some point despite the low opinion fans have of the source material. So next week Timelines will see an edition out that covers the Star Wars prequels. 

Spiel des Jahres winner Codenames sees the anticipated follow up Codenames Pictures out. Plus in the US there was a Target exclusive edition of the game called Codenames Deep Undercover, which we are also getting the chance to buy. This is an “adult” version of the game with some risqué adult words and blank cards to add your own words. I’ll only probably bother getting the Pictures edition.

Like Pandemic? Like Cthuhlu? Well you will love this next game coming out in the week. Yep the much hyped and anticipated Pandemic Cthuhlu mash up Pandemic Reign of Cthuhlu is finally out.

Finally the Android novella Monitor is also out. As you know I LOVE Netrunner and the Android universe. So you can be sure this will be ending up on my book shelves.

So you can see our table is full from the abundance of games this coming week. With Essen approaching fast, and GenCon stuff starting to come, I think we are going to see our table overflow a lot in the coming weeks.

UPDATE: forgot Covert is also out next week. I’ve only just watch a video on it and it looks good. 

Oh and Blood Rage is restocked, and the poorly reviewed by The Dice Tower Ticket To Ride Rails and Sails. Which holds no interest for me.

WS5Sep16

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There is only one thing to buy next week, my game of the month for August, The Manhattan Project Chain Reaction. I don’t know what more I can say about this game. Just go buy the damn thing, it’ll be the best £14 you spend this month, or basically this side of Christmas.

Out of the other scraps thrown at us a new edition of the rather fun Catan based card game Struggle for Catan. 

Wow too cheap card games this week. But both pack a lot of game. 

WS29Aug16 

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After the last couple of weeks this coming weeks new releases seems a bit disappointing. But I’m sure our Esdevium overlords have all the cool promises made at GenCon by various publishers waiting, so they can throw us the odd morsel when it suits them.

So what crumbs have been accidentally dropped this coming week?

I do like the duel decks that get released. For casual players like me they are great. I have a couple already, and enjoy playing with them. So I’m excited about this new one coming out.

Finally more tanks for Tanks, this time the Limey’s are coming. It’s nice they are giving us the chance to buy more tokens for the game, but £9 for some cardboard! Seems a tad on the expensive side. 

I’m sure we will be given even more reasons next week to rob the elderly, take lollies from babies, sell a kidney and our souls in exchange for cardboard.

Ws22Aug16 – The Russians Are Coming

news, Uncategorized


Yep the Asmodee/Esdevium Borg Collective are unleashing the Soviet war machine on us next week with the release of some Soviet tanks for the skirmish game Tanks.

Which is lucky because if any thing will work in the Dead of Winter (see what I did there?) it’s Soviet tanks. Which is handy because we will need them to survive The Long Night (oh yeah I went there). Yes the stand alone expansion for Dead of Winter, Dead of Winter The Long Night brings us more hidden traitor, surviving against the odds set against a zombie apocalypse backdrop magic. Plus you can integrate it into the original game too.

Your FLGS will also get a chance to restock the second expansion for Seasons, Seasons Path of Destiny. Along with the Spiel des Jahres nominee Karuba. I’m sure they will feel really lucky and blessed that they have been given this opportunity.

Finally the dungeon building card game Boss Monster gets an expansion allowing 5-6 players to play with the expansion called Crash Landing.

So that’s it for another week. It still feels relatively like the lull before the GenCon releases storm. It’s just going to get busier in the run up to that big holiday at the end of the year.

Mutant boss rant

father son gaming, game night, news, rant


So as I continue to explore these fancy picture layouts in LiveCollage that barely show anything unless you zoom in. I might talk about last nights gaming with Nath.

So Nath and I played one game last night and that was Run Fight or Die. 

Despite looking like at several points in our game that he’d be over run with zombies. Each time Nath managed to pull the cat out of the bag and survive. More than once being able to wipe out a completely over crowded zone of zombies. 

While I seemed to be in more control of the waves of zombies moving through the zones in front of me. So much so that I was able to get attacks in on the mutant boss once he had appeared.

In fact the mutant boss appeared very early on in the game. He was our very first location that got drawn in the game!

By the time the mutant boss was sent packing to lick his wounds until his next appearance, Nath had gained a follower. 

As we pushed our luck, found loot, went to new locations and handled new events. Somehow I ended up with a zombie swarm in my zone one I couldn’t take out and deal with three runners sitting in my zone 2. Which ever way I crunched the numbers I was taking damage. In fact enough damage to kill me. Nath had won by surviving longer than me.

The mutant boss figure does look amazing on the table. And adds that something extra to the game that the large cardboard disk doesn’t. It’s a lot more ominous having that large plastic mutant boss figure starring at you from behind the waves of zombies working their way through your three zones. Constantly reminding you during your turn that if you don’t deal with him, some extra bad stuff is going to happen to you. I like my mutant boss!

News and rants

Finally Duncan of trapped North of the border pointed me in the direction of a bgg video from GenCon where CMoN talk briefly about a Zombicide app coming out next year. Basically other than saying they are working on an app there are no other details. I’m hoping its Zombicide and not Zombicide: Black Plague. I like my zombies modern, in modern settings, as they should be. None of this fantasy zombie stuff. That’s just plain and simple wrong. Sadly I fear it will be the later, because original Zombicide has been pushed to the back and being ignored by CMoN. Z:BP is Zombicide 2.0 and by golly you are going to play a fantasy theme if you like it or not! Personally I’d love to see an upgrade kit for original Zombicide accepting the range attack rule update (house rule post), and the improved player boards. That’s all it needs. Doesn’t need a completely new version releasing. Just give us that CMoN.

You can view the bgg video here.

While I’m talking CMoN apparently CMoN are really nice people, salt of the earth, all that shit, according to Rob Oren of Dice Tower fame. They might be “nice” to him, but CMoN leave a lot to desire as a company and the way they treat the customers, especially Kickstarter backers. 

Rob has a point about the free stuff culture he witnessed. Some are just in this for the swag.

In some ways I have some common ground with Rob. I don’t go round asking for stuff, I buy my stuff. When I went to the UK Games Expo, I never mentioned once I wrote a blog to anyone. Not even to Tom and Sam when I bumped into them. 

I don’t write reviews, my readership isn’t nearly large enough to interest a publisher. While it would be nice to get a game I wanted free from time to time, I’m very very happy not to have that pressure of having to review the game, and have the review up in a certain time period, etc. Oh plus I don’t write reviews! If you are reading this blog regularly you know that already.

I like the freedom I have here to rant and rage, but also praise. But also to write bits about gaming I enjoy reading, that it seems very few out there do. Most are into reviewing. That’s not me I like personality, and my little niche.

There are other areas of common ground also but I’m not going to go over them. I’m bored of this now! Plus I suspect you are also. 

Hopefully this little rant won’t irk Rob too much I don’t want him to “bury me” also!

You can watch Rob’s rant here.

PS sorry for this long out of control post!

Buffy is Legendary

iOS, news

More news from GenCon, more screen caps of Instagram! 

This time my source for this story is The Dice Tower.

I enjoy the Legendary Marvel deck building games from Upper Deck. They are miles better than the awful DC deck builder. I have the Legendary Encounters games as well for Alien and Predator. Which are sitting in my pile of shame. But from reviews and comments, and nominations for awards Upper Deck have really pulled it off getting theme into their Encounters game.

So it’s why I’m looking forward to getting my hands on the soon to be released Big Trouble in Little China Legendary game and the Legendary Encounters Firefly game plus the Legendary Marvel Civil War expansion.

Although I’m not happy about the promos they are giving away at GenCon. But that’s a rant for another day.

Last night while I was dreaming about the excuses Taylor Swift gives for not calling me, or that I’m actually funny, The Dice Tower were posting the following on Instagram.

Yep Buffy and all her vampire killing goodness is coming to Legendary. 

There was already a board game about to be released that Roll for Crit in one of their GenCon vids described as Eldich Horror light. So I’m down for getting this when it hits.

But back to Legendary. How cool is this? I hope that they take into account the movie that started it all.

But that’s not all…

Very thin on detail, read that as none, there is going to be a Legendary app!

Will this be the games or like the existing third party ones that select characters, schemes and masterminds etc for you?

I’m hoping for the game, with online cross platform play.

Out next week 8Aug16

news

It seems the horses are out of the Esdevium gate quickly, the GenCon dust hasn't even had time to settle yet, and we have a few things out next week that caught my eye.

The fantastic Viticulture Essential Edition is going to be back in stock. I must get a copy! I have the expansions!!

Whilst Guilds of London finally hits the shelves of your FLGS. I picked this up at the UK Games Expo, but this is another top game to get. I really like it.

The card builder Mystic Vale also finally after all it's hype and buzz gets to fight for a slice of your wallet and space on your gaming shelf. This game really does interest me a lot. The game is aimed at introducing the public to the card building mechanic. Apparently there is a bigger more ambitious game by the designer that uses the mechanic. This his and the publishers way of easing us into it.

Another version of Love Letter is released into the wild. This time the theme is aimed at fans of the Archer cartoon. I'm curious as to what tweaks they have made to this version.

The fun party/group game Cash and Guns has a second expansion hitting. Going by the title I'm guessing it's introducing teams to the game, and I'm hoping more guns!

I love Five Tribes, and this new mini expansion for the game will be a no brainer.

Finally the second data pack of the Flashpoint cycle also drops.

Some great stuff out next week, you are going to need deep pockets to get it all. Then it's just finding time to play them.

 

FFG InFlight 

imperial assault, news

So with no FEG@TA last night, I was at the cinema watching Suicide Squad (an enjoyable movie, with the worst looking Joker ever), I’m continuing my coverage of GenCon from a far from my social media monitoring!

Yesterday FFG had their InFlight I think it’s called presentation at GenCon. Where they go through all their new stuff. What’s the point of this really considering they have been making daily announcements for over a week now? Did they have anything new to say?

Well I’m not going to go through everything they covered. I’ve already discussed the bits that interested me from when they made the announcement earlier.

But there was some new stuff they had held back for this talk. The biggy for most people but of no interest to me Runewars the miniatures game. FFG do wargames now to, or they will be when this hits.

The new but I was interested in was the stuff for Imperial Assault.

In the next expansion we are off to Tatooine and the start of Return of the Jedi with Jabba’s Realm.


The sculpts look amazing, especially the rancor.

Naturally to go along side this big box expansion we have the Ally and Villians packs to replace the tokens in the expansion! 

So here is the list of Allies and Villians:

  • Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight Ally Pack
  • Alliance Rangers Ally Pack
  • Captain Terro Villain Pack
  • Jabba the Hutt Villain Pack

Wait what Luke again? We got him in the base game! Yeah but this time he had a lightsaber and is a Jedi! 

But wait there’s more! This photo with unreadable text on it is all I can find about the new announced app for Imperial Assault.


Yes I hate apps. Well specifically games that can’t be played without the app. But companion apps that aren’t needed, but make the experience better if used, I’m down with. 

Anyway I’m expecting this app for Impetial Assault to be like the Descent app. Which having not used, I believe allows Descent to be played co-op by all players. 

Catch you in the next update.

Warring Colonies

news

So we haven't seen the stand alone expansion/game Dead of Winter: The Long Night hit the stores yet (end of August I think, but who knows how long it will take to cross the waters to our shores?)

Then what do we see at GenCon?

Another expansion for Dead of Winter called Warring Colonies. This looks a smaller box, so not stand alone.

No other info at the moment, except the Instagram photo above. I've checked the website of PlaidHat and nothing there at time writing.

So with the flick em up cross over it could be a cold cold winter! What? Ok that was pretty bad.

 

Most Unexpected Cross Over

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Apparently this is real, it’s a thing. I’ve tried googling to find out more but nothing is coming up (at the moment). I’m hoping more photos get released showing more of the game if it’s real. This is mind blowing! Could this be the biggest surprise of GenCon this year?

Here is the link

 UPDATE: found another photo on Reddit

Apparently this is a real thing – the box is a prototype box. Wow, gobsmacked I’d never in a million years have guessed this one.