Full announcement here

Oh and it just happens to be a special day to! More to follow nearer the day…

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Yep the big box art above gives the game away, but I'll spell it out anyway. Ashes Rise of the Phoenixborn is out this week in your FLGS and online retailers. You won't be getting the promo Phoenixborn that came with the game when you pre-order/buy it from Plaid Hat Games, but I'm sure Plaid Hat will do as they did with the Dead Of Winter promo characters and make it available on their website soon.

Don't forget this will have expansions adding more cards/dice. But Plaid Hat are not following the Magic collectable model, but the FFG LCG model. However I believe Plaid Hat are not going to be doing such a punishing release schedule for these expansions.

Yes I have an alteria motive, I want more people to play with, especially locally (mind you I want that with Netrunner too). But this is a great game, looks AMAZING. Definitely a must buy.

The other new release I'm pointing out this week is Tiny Epic Galaxies. This is an awesome little game, I like playing this game. I've played this game with both none gamers, and none hard core gamers and they really enjoyed playing the game.

My Kickstarter copy came with a little expansion, but the good news is you are also able to purchase the expansion from the BGG Store. Even though the BGG Store is American, the postage they charge is minimal, and usually takes about two weeks to arrive.

Tiny Epic Galaxies packs a lot of game in such a small box. A definite addition to any game collection.

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Just put up on Inked Playmats are some amazing new playmats by an amazingly talented artist Natascha Roosli also known as Kyena online.

As you can see from Tascha's photos from Instagram that I've “borrowed” for this post, she has an amazing talent.

Tascha I believe has done some work for FFG in the past too. Sadly nothing for Android:Netrunner. But I can hope that maybe in the future that will happen.

You can find Tascha's playmats HERE

Finally I have met Tascha. It was about three years ago at Eurogamer in the indie section. I was helping a friend promote his game Fist of Awesome that was just being released, by dressing up as a bear and having photos taken with people pretending to beat me up.

Tascha was promoting a puzzle game if I remember correctly, which did look amazing. However we did have our photo taken, but Tascha felt guilty hitting a bear so the below photo was taken instead.

Naturally since that photo was taken I have had a shave and hair cut.

I have to say that was a great weekend at the show. The indie developers were so amazing, really friendly, and supportive of each other. I love the indie section at shows, where else can you meet, chat and discuss games with the actual designer/developer?

Anyway go over and buy an awesome playmat, I will be on payday.

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So this is my current thinking for games to take with me for this weekends trip to see Nath.

As I said in the previous post it's very possible the Thunderbirds board game by Matt Leacock may be with me in time to take also. So Nath's work shift permitting we will play a few of these.

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Yep you read that right. Today is Batman Day.

So go play some Batman Love Letter, or DC Dicemasters using Batman characters to celebrate. I know there are some other Batman games out there, and a Batman miniatures game but I don't have them. Read some Batman comics/graphic novels, watch some of the cartoons and movies (but not Batman and Robin that was just dire).

Have a great Batman day.

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It's like torture waiting for stuff to come through the postal system.

It doesn't help that my friend Freddy had his copy of Epic two weeks ago.

I've also got a King of New York themed t-shirt from Kickstarter also in the post from the same continent.

I'm sure that the postal service sends my packages the longest route possible, giving me the biggest delay they can get away with. If not it certainly feels that way.

It's nice having the delivery email from the distributing company that the companies use to send out their games. But then every day I'm like a dog waiting for its owner to come home, excitedly hoping that when I get home from work that the postman has delivered my anticipated goodies.

Oh the waiting game, the one game I hate playing!

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Let sleeping attack chihuahuas lie

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This is what my view ended up being for several hours.

Yep I was all loaded up for a visit to Nath. Castle Panic, Imperial Assault (plus the new expansions), Star Realms, King of Tokyo in the car ready. Even my Amazon order that I placed first thing had been set up to deliver to Naths for Saturday (Power Up expansion for King of Tokyo, Wizards Tower for Castle Panic, and Lords of Waterdeep). All I had to do was get to Naths before five pm, we would then spend a pleasant evening at an Italian restaurant with friends, and spend the rest of the weekend gaming.

Before I left Wisbech had the tires checked. Needed a new one, which they didn't have in stock so ordered and paid for four new tires, and booked the car in for eight am Tuesday morning for them to be put on.

I was making good time, I had left Wisbech centre of the universe at eleven am. I got to the bypass round St Albans at one. That's when things slowed to a crawl. Due to road works on the bypass it took nearly an hour to get round on to the M25. Then as usual the M25 was its normal car park, finally made it to the M40, where surprise surprise there was another jam. Two hours to do a 30 minute at most stretch of the route.

Then at three pm just out side Maidenhead on the A404(M) the front driver tire blew. It wasn't the one that needed replacing! I couldn't get the spare tire out from underneath the car. So had to call out the recovery people.

The recovery bloke arrived an hour later, got the spare tire out, then discovered that the spare tire was the wrong size! This was the spare tire that the garage I bought the car from nearly two years ago had put on the car because it was missing a spare tire when I bought it. Should have guessed they would muck this up.

Good grief so the car was going to have to be recovered. Which meant having to go all the way back to Wisbech. Four new tires were waiting for me there. No point getting recovered to Naths.

Then the wait set in, waiting for a recovery truck to take me back to arrive. I feel sorry for the recovery bloke because he can't leave me due to some warped duty of care thing until the recovery truck turns up.

So as I sat in the car waiting, typing up this post, running the battery down on my phone with Instagram updates, checking email, playing the odd game of Lords of Waterdeep and Star Realms on my iPad. The recovery bloke was sat in his van equally twiddling his thumbs to pass the time.

At just gone six the recovery companies call desk phoned with a great scam, they could arrange for a company to come out to me to do the tire, but it would incur an out of hours charge! I politey declined this kind offer to lighten my wallet.

Finally the recovery truck arrived at 8:24pm!! Yeah do the maths folks, nearly five and a half hours.

The guy tasked with carting my sorry butt back to the deepest fenlands had actually heard of, and been to Wisbech. He'd had an aunt who once lived there. The aunt had retired to Wisbech or as I used to call it as a kid “Gods waiting room” (there were a lot of old people it seemed when I was growing up) to spend her twilight years.

Once loaded up my only request of the driver was to be able to stop at the nearest place I would be able to answer a call of nature. Yes I was nearly at bursting point. First bit of luck for the day for me was this stopping point was five minutes drive from my breakdown spot.

With the world feeling a better place we started the journey back to Wisbech. The journey was uneventful, a bit bumpy and boy was the seat uncomfortable.

I navigated the recovery guy into Wisbech for some reason his satnav was going to take him in a long way to mine. The final time of coming to a stop was eleven thirty four. Did I say I was knackered?

The car unloaded, paper work done, farewells said, I was back in the house and collecting the dogs from Nan and Mum next door. Then straight to bed. It had been a long disappointing day.

I've got the car to sort out today, the adventure continues.

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So I'm back after a day of drunken debauchary at my friend Amanda's wedding, followed by a day of chilling.

I'd like to say that I needed the day of chilling because my drunken antics were of legend that would put Motley Crüe and Guns 'n Roses to shame. But the reality was I went I have a snooze at around 7pm, and woke up at 11:45! Which meant I missed tea and the wedding cake. So not exactly rock and roll.

The truth is more that I needed the day of chilling because all of a sudden I'm old.

In closing this brief segment I'd like to wish Amanda and Paul a long and harmonious marriage. It really was a magical day. Thank you for inviting me to share this special day with you and your loved ones.

I was going to stay an extra night, but I made the mistake of calling home. Mum had broken down at Aldi, so I needed to get home.

However Greenflag had got to Mum and recovered her home by the time I hit Wisbech. However back at home the following was waiting for me.

Yep the wave two expansions for Imperial Assault arrived. Just in time to take with me to Naths. Which also means with the Star Realms Cosmic Gambit expansion I have a small backlog of “indepth” looks to do.

Oh and before I forget for my fellow Star Wars fans you may want to nip over to The Humble Bundle website and get the new Audiobook bundle they are doing. They have a cool collection of Star Wars audio books to get which includes the awesome radio plays of the original trilogy movies. Click HERE to go get them.

The Game of Thrones boardgame hasn't arrived yet, but is due any day (fingers crossed).

Plus this week the kickstarter project for A Chaotic Life! – A Hectic and Strategic Game of Poor Choices by Grubton Games has started shipping out to backers (that's me ^_^). So hopefully in a couple of weeks it should be with me (shipping from the U.S.)

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