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.