Tag: Flying Frog Productions

Old Games

I seem to be on a definite big game high at the minute, folks! Every so often, I really find myself in the mood for playing one of the big, table-covering games from my collection, and I think as we head towards proper winter, that is just intensifying. After it came back on the radar a few weeks ago, I’ve finally had a game of Runebound (my first since November 2014, as it happens!)

It was an absolute blast, and I was excitedly telling my mate Tony all about it as I was playing. It was like the carefree days of 2011, when I was playing this thing very regularly.

Playing just the base game used to feel like a lacklustre experience, but honestly, it’s been so long that it didn’t bother me in the slightest! I think there is just so much to enjoy in the game that it’s hard to have a bad time playing it. So much of it came flooding back to me, as well, that I was really quite surprised at how quickly I was actually able to play, rather than having to check every little move in the rule book.

I definitely want to return to Terrinoth, and soon, but I think I might do so with some of the small expansion packs involved. It surprised me, really, how big the card stacks were for each adventure colour, but I think it’ll be interesting to add some more variety in there, all the same. I have considered doing this in a sort of chronological sequence, as these packs came out in three “seasons”, almost, with a pair each of adventure decks, market decks, and adventure variants per season. But something as formal as that might be better left for the new year.

Runebound is definitely the sort of game that wouldn’t really see the light of day in the modern gaming age, it seems, but I’m very glad to have it!

At the weekend, I managed to make some time to play another favourite of mine, A Touch of Evil. What’s more, it was expanded with Something Wicked, which is my favourite board game expansion ever, I think – it’s very much more of the same, but it somehow manages to equal and surpass the core set, and I just love it!

I thought it was interesting that playing this one seemed to be really quite easy – almost accidentally, I was able to build up a powerhouse duo that killed off the Unspeakable Horror in a single showdown fight round, only sustaining a single wound in return. Interesting, because it almost felt like a let-down, really. I will freely admit that it’s possible I forgot a couple of rules. But all of the equipment that my heroes had was legal, etc, so I’m not sure how I managed to make a monk and a playwright into supernatural monster-slayers quite so easily!!

I want to play this game more, as well, but I also think I need to spend some time with the rulebook and check that I’m doing everything correctly. Just in case…

At any rate, while it’s lovely to be digging into the collection once more and playing these games, which I’ve not had the chance (or inclination) to look at for a number of years now, I think it’s really interesting that I’m playing these old games once again. The board game hobby seems to be plagued with the Cult of New like nothing else I know, and I constantly see online people who are (quite rightly) proud of a growing collection, who want to add new and different games to their roster etc, and who share shelfies of huge numbers of boxes. Impressive stuff, for sure, but when do you find the time to actually play them?!

There’s something really quite lovely, to me, about having a much smaller collection of games (I don’t count individual card packs as expansions, so by that reckoning my game collection is only around 20 distinct games) that I can actually get to play on a fairly regular rotation. True, some stuff like the Star Wars LCG might be going into storage until I can convince the kids of its greatness, but I like the fact that I am actually able to play these games now, and I can enjoy my collection accordingly!!

I’ve definitely been playing a much wider variety of games this year than in previous years, and I’m enjoying that aspect of things, as well. It’s great to be able to enjoy the collection – feeling like a game of Eldritch Horror, so just set up a game! It’s still difficult to balance around the kids, of course, and the game of A Touch of Evil at the weekend was cut a bit short by nap time ending prematurely, but even so!

My goal for 2023 is to increase my plays, anyway. I think it could be good to try to get at least ten games in each month, so that’ll be something to aim for! Of course, I don’t want to turn anything into a chore, but I’ve already exceeded that number for November, so it’s entirely do-able!!

A Touch of Evil

Hey everybody,
I’ve been really enjoying a return to some of the board games lately, almost like it’s some kind of return to my roots or something! I distinctly recall that it was around the autumn time that I really got into this sort of “serious” boardgame lark, starting with Carcassonne and moving swiftly into stuff like Runebound, Arkham Horror, and A Touch of Evil. There’s something that I really enjoy about playing a big, table-spanning board game in the evenings this time of year!

It’s that last that I’ve been playing again recently, after a six year hiatus. I suppose it’s only natural, with Halloween and all! A Touch of Evil is a game that I have talked about many times on the blog already (such as here and here) so I won’t be launching into a massive dissection of the way it plays again. The game is relatively simple, in fairness, and it kinda surprised me how straightforward the gameplay actually is for it. I think, now that I’m steeped in stuff like 40k, it’s a really refreshing change to have a game system where you just roll to move, automatically take actions, and combat is a straight-up slugfest. It really allows a game like this, which is steeped in theme, to shine.

Well before the Shadows of Brimstone kickstarter, Flying Frog used to be really good with their small stable of games, expanding them with regular boxes of great content. A Touch of Evil had two big boxes, two smaller boxes, and two small card packs to increase the content, as well as four web-exclusive villains to fight against. It was terrific, and the gameplay options that each of these brought to the overall experience were just immense.

One of my favourite gaming experiences is to string all three of the game boards together, and have a massive game where you have heroes travelling the length and breadth on an adventure. You can just settle down to a rainy afternoon of colonial horror, and it is often really quite cinematic! Of course, the game does go very long, and you risk diluting the overall experience by getting too much out at once. In that sense, then, having a game with just one of the expansions is usually preferable, and for me it would have to be Something Wicked, because that is one of my all-time favourite boardgame expansions. Dealing with a sinister cult while investigating such areas as the Monastery or the Inn, or maybe travelling to the mysterious island at the heart of Echo Lake… It’s really the stuff of board gaming legend.

Last year, the Tenth Anniversary edition of A Touch of Evil was released, but aside from one or two nice additions, it’s otherwise a blinged-out version of the base game and I think I am overall not impressed. I think the idea to professionally print the web villains was really nice, and the epic villain stuff is an interesting idea as well. Having miniatures for the four corner locations just seems a bit silly though, and plastic tokens don’t really appeal to me either. Plastic busts of the town elders? Hm. I think, if anything, I would have wanted plastic models for the ally tokens in the game. But I digress. The anniversary edition was accompanied by some small card packs for each of the big box expansions, and I’m really intrigued in getting hold of these at some point, maybe when they have a sale. Importing this stuff to the UK can be quite extortionate, and I think I’m looking at around £40 for two 15-card expansion packs. Not really a worthwhile investment at the minute!

The two card packs that I do have are both really quite nice additions, though I haven’t really used them a lot in-game. They sort of work together, in that The Madness is a bunch of cards that can really mess up your plans and cause problems, while The Allies is a nice bunch of useful stuff. Should probably get those to the table more often, now I think about it.

One of the great things about the whole product line is just how much extra stuff that is included in the game. The additional tokens are a bit of a staple for Flying Frog of course, and you’re almost encouraged to make more content for the game around them. I remember doing this a long time ago with some of the tokens from Something Wicked, getting a fairly convoluted mini-game inside the main game through use of the five journal pages tokens:

“More than she knew…”
Setup: Randomize the Journal Pages tokens and place them in five Random Locations. Try to get as much of a spread as possible across the board(s) – feel free to fluff the card draw for this.

1. When encountering a space with a Journal Pages token, you may pay 6 Investigation to make a Cunning 5+ test. If you roll more successes than failures, you can pick up the Pages.
2. Having either Selina or Delani as allies reduces the Investigation cost to 2. Having Lucy herself as an ally reduces the Investigation cost to 0. The Cunning 5+ test must still be passed, however.
3. If you find Lucy’s Diary in the Windmill, and succeed at the test on that card, any further tests to pick up remaining tokens are reduced to Cunning 4+ tests.
4. During a Showdown, if you have more Journal Pages than any other player, you get to roll 2 extra fight dice during the first round. If you also have the counter with X on the back, you get 3 extra fight dice. If you have all five counters, you go first in the first Showdown round.

Some general points on theme:
1. I don’t think this variant will work with the Lucy Hanbrook hero, unless you take it that she is running around the countryside trying to recover her lost Journal Pages? I don’t like the idea, but don’t let it stop you!
2. I feel that it only works with some Villains, not all. The Unspeakable Horror is my favourite to use this variant with.
3. Selina and Delani are taken to know more about Lucy than the other Heroes, so help with the tests by their presence alone; their attributes don’t count for this purpose. Their ability to reduce the Investigation cost also doesn’t stack – having one or both will do the same thing.

Now, I’m not a game developer, but coming up with rules like this back in the day was a lot of fun, and given that games of A Touch of Evil can go on almost as long as you like means that you usually have the time to go faffing around the countryside on a weird kind of scavenger hunt like this! Of course, there is a lot going on in the game anyway, but I don’t think that adding in random bits and pieces necessarily breaks the game.

It’s overall one of the most immersive games out there, and I do love the fact that I have it in my collection. I just can’t believe it’s been six years since I last played it!

#shelfie

Hey everybody,
I just wanted to share this with you all today. It’s a shelfie that I took of the current selection of games, after a bit of reorganisation at the weekend.

It’s by no means all the games I own, as there are plenty more up in the loft, or under the bed, but I have been trying to get a bit of a wider selection here so that they can be accessed and enjoyed! It’s now that time of year when I am really partial to a sit down with a big game, like Runebound or A Touch of Evil, so I’m looking forward to potentially getting more games with these in soon!

I’m one of the crazy folks who logs all my board game plays over on boardgamegeek, and looking at those stats, I’m quite horrified to see that it’s been almost 8 years since I played Runebound, and 6 years since I last played A Touch of Evil! These are two of my absolute favourites, so I definitely want to try and get a couple of games with each of them before the end of the year. I’ve had a lot of fun getting stuff like the new Arkham Horror to the table lately, and while I have definitely morphed into more of a card gamer than a board gamer over the years, I do still have a soft spot for these big games that take over the table!

I actually had a surprise game of Eldritch Horror the other day, just using the base game, and that was a lot of fun as well. So I’m fully intending to try to get more games to the table as time goes on, anyway. It’s great having game nights when the nights are drawing in. It’s only coincidental that I have a fair few horror-themed games and we’re approaching Halloween, as I’m not really into all of that myself, but I suppose it does help to bring those games to the table!

I’m really looking forward to Runebound though. It’s one of the classics of the genre, for me, and I really can’t believe it’s been so long since I had a game with it. I suppose my obsession with Games Workshop has overtaken me though, and I’ve moved away from a lot of the more regular gaming.

For now, though, I have about a dozen games that I can get to without foraging in boxes in the loft, or furtling under the bed, so I’m looking forward to more game nights as the autumn turns into winter!

It’s the GAMA Trade Show 2019!

Hey everybody!
It’s the GAMA Trade Show, and as I have done in the past, I’ll be keeping an eye on the proceedings to see what we’ve got to look forward to in the coming weeks and months!

First up, it’s none other than Games Workshop, who have just updated their community site with a first look at the next expansion for Kill Team – Elites. I mean, of course they have – not to be too proud of myself, or whatever, but I saw this coming a good while ago…

We’re getting all manner of delights here, from terminators (as we can see on the cover) to Drukhari Grotesques! It was almost prescient of me, then, to have just bought a pair of these delights!

For all my cynicism of expanding the game like this, I am actually looking forward to seeing how it continues to grow – the danger, of course, being that it will soon turn into just low-point 40k if it isn’t careful. But so long as we continue to get intelligent choices with reasonable rules behind them, why not, right? Just let me take Lychguard now!

I suppose this also answers the question, where has the Thousand Sons faction box been?

Along with a Kal Jerico model for Necromunda, we’re also getting a Halfling team for Blood Bowl, with promises of more announcements to come in the next couple of days!

…let’s see what else is on offer!!

Next generation of the DC Deck Building Game, with the Rebirth branding? Very cool. Not sure about the more board-gamey aspect with moving cardboard chits around – it is supposed to be a deck building game, after all – but linked campaign scenarios and character progression do sound like they should be a lot of fun. Gonna keep my eye on this one!

You know, I’d forgotten about the two Fortune & Glory expansions until reviewing last year’s GAMA blog, but now that I’ve had my memory jogged, I really feel the need to have them in my life! It feels like Shadows of Brimstone has taken over Flying Frog, and with the third kickstarter for this game currently ongoing, I have to wonder if they have their sights set anywhere near the more traditional games manufacturing route. Not that I’m trying to be bitter or anything, but I do miss their games like Fortune & Glory, and A Touch of Evil. Last year, they were in the middle of making sure the Forbidden Fortress SOBS game was shipped in time, pushing the FANG expansions back to the first quarter of 2019. Well, we’ll just have to wait patiently for something not weird-west related to arrive, I guess!

GAMA day two has arrived, and my goodness, how exciting is this:

Traitor Command, the next Blackstone Fortress expansion, gives us a Traitor Commissar and a Chaos Ogryn, both of whom look delightful gentlemen – and will have 40k rules, to boot! Awesome! Forging alliances with unlikely friends sounds interesting, too…

I’ve said it before, of course, but I really love how GW are using Blackstone Fortress to explore these weird and wonderful bits of the 40k universe. The Commissar in particular looks like a stunning chap, I’m really looking forward to snapping these up when they’re out!

Warcry, the skirmish game set in the AoS universe and first teased a few months back now, has finally been shown off to be really quite the interesting game! Pitting different Chaos warbands against one another, at first it sounded like it might be a bit too exclusive – I mean, what about us Death players, right? But whether Chaos is just the first wave or not, it’s difficult to not be enamoured with at least one of these factions, particularly the cute looking devil-bats! I like it, which I’m a bit sorry about, as I feel like it might well become another juggernaut like Kill Team, and I’m not sure my bank balance can cope with that!

I really like the look of those pit-fighters with the welding masks, they remind me of Haemonculus Covens creations among the Drukhari, and I’m sure plenty of us will be using them for Grotesque conversions as these things move along. The scenery looks pretty amazing, too!

Not sure, of course, but this could tie in with the rumours of Warriors of Chaos/Slaves to Darkness getting an overhaul soon. I suppose we’ll see!

At any rate, that appears to be that! Plenty to look forward to from Games Workshop, who appear to have taken over with their exciting announcements of new stuff! Nothing from FFG, though the distributor Asmodee has announced a deal with Cool Mini Or Not, which may bring those incredible games to the masses (personally I try to avoid CMON as I find it difficult to resist them!)

It almost feels like the landscape of boardgame news has changed, and the big trade shows are no longer that important for getting a picture of what’s coming up next. Even the big daddy of them all, GenCon, hasn’t been that explosive for the last year or two. Is it a result of Kickstarter seemingly taking over the world of boardgame production? Speaking from an entirely personal perspective, it seems like the companies I used to watch – FFG in particular here – just aren’t knocking it out of the park anymore, with nothing really overwhelming me with its excitement. Meanwhile, established companies like Cryptozoic and Flying Frog Productions seem to be using Kickstarter more like their business model than not, and it’s leading to an over-saturation of stuff. Shadows of Brimstone has been a case in point here – when that stuff eventually found its way to me, it was like receiving 5+ years’ worth of expansion material in one hit, and I’m not sure I want that from a board game. Has our modern sense of impatience and always wanting the next thing caught up with us, to the point where we suddenly need everything for a game right now? All of these companies using Kickstarter to distribute games, and somewhat by necessity producing almost an entire game’s run in one go just to ensure the crowdfunding, seems to have led to a point where they just don’t have anything new to announce, because we had it all in one hit a year or two ago.

Makes me wonder what GAMA 2020 will have in store for us…

It’s the GAMA Trade Show 2018!

Hey everybody!
So the GAMA trade show has happened, and there is a lot of exciting stuff going on that has, well, gotten me quite excited! I thought I’d do a quick round-up as per usual, and see what’s caught my eye this year!

It’s really cool to see something that isn’t kickstarter-related coming from Flying Frog right now, and while you do have to kinda squint to see them, there are two expansions coming for Fortune and Glory – Lair of the Spider Queen (much like the Crimson Hand expansion, adding in a new vile organization) and Temples and Treasures, which apparently has more generic villains as well as, unsurprisingly, rules specific to the Temples. Should be good!

Still waiting for more expansions for A Touch of Evil, of course, though I do still enjoy that game regardless, so…

There’s some news that the next big box expansion for Marvel Legendary will be Hulk-based, which I have to say doesn’t really inspire me with any great interest, as he’s not what I’d call a favourite…

I’ve not seen anything from Fantasy Flight this year, which is weird, but the big news for me right now is, you guessed it, from Games Workshop!

Yes! Kill Team is coming back! I do enjoy skirmish games, and so having this updated for 8th Edition is great! I’m guessing that there will be a starter-style box similar to that for 7th, with Genestealer Cults vs AdMech! And of course, the exciting thing here is the new terrain that will be accompanying the release. As if Sector Mechanicus wasn’t glorious enough! Very excited for this…

… as I’m also very excited for House Van Saar! While I do love the Orlock aesthetic the most out of the now-four gangs we’ve seen, I think there’s something quite creepy about these guys, and I will definitely be picking up a box. Well, I’ve already told myself I’m committed to picking up all of the Necromunda releases, anyway, but even so! These guys look really interesting, and I’m looking forward to adding them to my roster.

And, of course, Codex Fish-People looks like it should be amazing!

Shadows of Brimstone has arrived!

Well…

Following the end of the kickstarter back in November 2013, it’s been a long and boring wait for my pledges to be fulfilled. But now, they have, and I have to say: I’m really overwhelmed!

I’ve had a peculiar relationship with this game, going from overwhelming enthusiasm for it during the kickstarter campaign, to severe disappointment when the core sets were delivered. I’ve played it a couple of times, and I can’t work out if I actually enjoy it or not, so it has spent a very long time on the shelf.

However!

I believe I’ve now had everything delivered, though I’m not entirely sure about a couple of things I had added in the pledge manager, so need to try and go through it all again. Some things I’ve decided to sell off, as I have pretty much everything twice, so I’ve been separating off a few bits that are easy enough to do this with, but even so – wow!

Allure of the New
In doing all of this, I’ve been surprised at how I’m actually feeling a bit better-predisposed towards it now that all of the additional material has arrived. This is probably just the allure of the new, and I’m intrigued to see whether this means I’ll be playing with it anytime soon…

It’s a bit silly, really, to want to play with some of the new stuff so soon. I have barely scratched the surface of the core sets, so I’m hardly about to start throwing something like the Ancient One into the mix! I’ve played the game a total of 8 times, according to my stats on boardgamegeek, though the last time I played was in June 2015. I think it might be interesting to do something like build up some Targa stuff, then return to Cities of Death and introduce some of the new stuff that way. Maybe.

But that said, I really like the look of those Mission Packs…

I’ve only briefly looked at the miniatures, and they don’t look that better in terms of quality than the core set stuff, which is disappointing. But I love the fact that FFP have continued to include additional bits and pieces of cardboard to help with narrative stuff. It’s one of the things I always love about their games, and has again begun to draw me back into wanting to play with this stuff once again…

At any rate, I’m hoping to start going through this stuff soon enough, and will eventually get the long-talked-about game day blog on it! Stay tuned folks!!

It’s the GAMA Trade Show 2017!

Hey everybody!
Well, it’s been an exciting week for games, as the GAMA Trade Show in Vegas showed off some really cool, really interesting things that have got me wanting to play more games! I’ve been trying to digest these things all week, so let’s take a look at some highlights!

First of all, it’s the return of Necromunda – it’s Shadow War: Armageddon! The internet seems to have been baying for the return of Necromunda ever since Games Workshop announced they would be producing specialist games back in the day, and while this clearly isn’t it, it’s probably the next best thing, I would think? I mean, Blood Bowl came back as Blood Bowl, and while Warhammer Quest did get the Age of Sigmar thing for Silver Tower, it still has the name. To produce a squad-based game like this and call it anything other than Necromunda just says that the original game isn’t going to be coming back any time soon. Though in the anniversary year of 40k, who knows if they’ll produce some kind of memorial edition?

At any rate, I think this is really cool, and I’m excited to get myself a copy! The fact that you can use other squads is obviously tailored for selling more miniatures, but I like the fact that you can customise your game experience right from the off, so that’s a big plus in my book!

GW were also showing off some of the new Kharadron Overlords at the show, which is a nice touch and they do look pretty great!

The biggest thing to come from the show is said to have been this new A Song of Ice and Fire tabletop miniatures game from Cool Mini Or Not. I enjoyed Battles of Westeros back in the day, and the Game of Thrones LCG is one of my favourites, but I don’t really think I’m going to take the plunge. I’ve noticed, in fact, that I’m leaning away from Westeros as time has gone on, mainly I think I’m just losing interest in the whole thing. I’ve talked about the books on this blog before, of course, and while the first three were really great, tightly-constructed yet deeply complex plots, the story seems to have gotten unwieldy for the sake of it. I’ve always preferred the books to the show anyway, but it seems that these things have become caricatures of themselves, as they seek to out-do expectations by being over the top and whatnot. A game on the subject, therefore, holds little appeal…

But what else has been going on in Vegas?

There are some interesting bits here at the Flying Frog booth, notably the looks at the Mission Packs for Shadows of Brimstone! I’m still a little bummed that I haven’t had anything beyond the base games delivered yet, but seeing those packs has gotten me once more interested in the game, and excited to see all of the rest of the content coming out for it all!

There are only two other games that have sparked my attention in this montage here (from the excellent Rodney Smith of Watch It Played – if you haven’t already, please go check out his youtube channel, it’s amazing) are Rise of Tribes and Meduris: Call of the Gods.

Meduris reminds me a lot like Stone Age, one of the resource-management games that feel like Settlers of Catan without being as rage-inducing. Rise of Tribes looks to have a similar feel, though I like the fact that it has a dice mechanic that determines your actions for the round, that sounds really nice and strategic… Meduris is out in the world now of course, while Rise of Tribes is going onto kickstarter in June, apparently, which is giving me some pause… I’m not the biggest fan of these things, after all, so we’ll have to see how this turns out!

Runewars Miniatures Game

Fantasy Flight also had a heavy showing of the Runewars miniatures game, which they seem to be pushing really quite heavily at the moment. While they still have some pretty big licences, such as Star Wars and Lovecraft, it strikes me that they’re really pushing this game out there to fill the gap left from parting with Games Workshop last month. The game is expected in April, but I have to say, the more I’m seeing of it, the less I’m thinking it’s going to be something I want. There are certainly some interesting things going on in this game, for sure, but I don’t think it will be worth making such a huge investment up front for something that only looks mildly interesting. Might have to wait for my local store to run a demo…

So yeah, that’s GAMA 2017, folks!

Forbidden Fortress!

Hey everybody!
Well I’m kinda gutted that my game day blog for yesterday didn’t upload – a (late) Halloween look at the Omens of Ice expansion for Elder Sign. Well, it’ll just have to be later now! It should be up on the blog next week instead.

In case you aren’t aware, though, Flying Frog Productions have now gone live with their second Kickstarter project, Forbidden Fortress! It’s a third core set for the Shadows of Brimstone line and, as the name suggests, it’s set in feudal Japan.

Shadows of Brimstone Forbidden Fortress

I went all-in on the Shadows of Brimstone kickstarter, and when the game finally arrived, I wasn’t what you’d call impressed with it all. I have played it a few times, and intend to give it the full game-day treatment here soon, but overall, it seemed a bit of a disappointment overall. I’m also one of these backers who hasn’t received all of the stuff, so that’s annoying. But anyway.

When FFP announced the Japanese arm of their dungeon-crawler at GenCon this year, I was hopeful that they would have learnt from the last campaign and this one would be a bit smoother. So far it’s been interesting, seeing the early bird levels work out much better than last time, for instance. The project was funded in just 4 minutes, which I find hilarious, but the stretch goals are still paced every 25k, and they’re blowing through them as they did in the last campaign. It does make me slightly worry!

Shadows of Brimstone Forbidden Fortress

I’m currently pledged in at Sumo level, which speaks as much to my appearance as to my trepidation over another game right now. I suppose if I had more experience with the earlier game, I might be better placed to know if I’d want to go all-in for it, but so far I’m just too much on the fence because I don’t really know how I feel about the original Shadows of Brimstone yet. I may end up changing for a Shogun-level pledge before the end, as it’s likely to be worth more in the long run. However, I don’t relish the fact of putting up so much money right now and then potentially waiting a few more years before getting everything. Might be worth my while to wait for retail.

I don’t know a lot about Japanese mythology, but I do have an interest in it, so I’m finding that most of my interest in the game overall is coming from this aspect than the actual game. I also don’t have a great deal of Japanese-themed games, Journey Wrath of Demons being a notable exception of course, so it’ll no doubt be good to have in the collection. Especially given how thematic FFP games tend to be.

So I guess we’ll see where the next month takes us. At first glance, it doesn’t look like FFP are changing their engine to any great degree, and the box is fully-compatible with the earlier boxes, so I guess no huge changes will be made at this stage. For me, though, it’s more a matter of quality of the materials than anything else. I guess we’ll see…

Are you backing Shadows of Brimstone: Forbidden Fortress? Let me know in the comments below!

Upcoming Games!

We’re rapidly heading towards Christmas, which can only mean one thing: big games are coming! Okay, so it probably means more than that, but still! There are a lot of interesting things on the horizon, some nearer than others, so I thought for today’s game day blog, I’d ramble a little about these upcoming delights!

Burning of Prospero

The Burning of Prospero is coming out this weekend, and it looks spectacular. Along with a mass of Mk-3 Space Marines, we’re getting some of the most exciting models to be released by Games Workshop in quite a while! I had the chance to look at the sprues at my local store on Saturday, and those Custodes and Sisters of Silence are both amazing. I was even surprised to find myself excited by the Space Wolves character – normally I don’t go in for those guys, but the level of detail on him was fantastic! Definitely looking forward to getting a hold of this one!

The preview video put out by GW last week spends a lot of time talking about the theme of the game, before really quickly glossing over the rules, which at first made me wonder if the substance is in the theme rather than the mechanics. I really like the idea of using more than just d6s in the game, but I think I’ll need to look through the box myself before forming a real opinion. It looks fantastic, but as a game, I’ll reserve judgement. Of course, most people will likely be buying this for the miniatures rather than to play the game, but I have heard some good stuff about Betrayal at Calth, so I think it would be good to look at it in both aspects. Being mark three marines, I’m not overly keen, so more so than with Calth, I’m thinking I’d probably keep this as an actual game. Though I may break out the Custodians and the Sisters for other purposes…!

I don’t think it’s technically right to call it an expansion or anything for last year’s Betrayal at Calth, but more another game – another starting point – in the Horus Heresy universe. And speaking of alternative starting points for games…

Shadows of Brimstone Forbidden Fortress

We’re also on the brink of the next game in the Shadows of Brimstone line from Flying Frog Productions: Forbidden Fortress! Turns out the wandering samurai hero class was a portent of things to come, as we delve into Feudal Japan and all sorts of weird goings-on there! We’ll be fighting Japanese spirits in the third core set for the game, which is kinda exciting that it can both be added to or used independently of the existing material. I also like the idea that they’re reviving one of the missed stretch goals, the Belly of the Beast other world, for this one.

However, Shadows of Brimstone has been a bit of a let-down for me, if I’m being completely honest. The latest update, which not only served to formally announce the upcoming kickstarter (after the GenCon reveal) but also detailed the ongoing work on several other aspects of the Brimstone stuff, such as the Blasted Wastes, and I’m feeling really excited for it once more. However, it’s been almost three years since the game was kickstarted, and almost two years since I took delivery of the two core sets. The game is okay, the components felt a bit rushed, but more than anything I’m kinda pissed that so much of this material is available to retail, while the actual backers have to either wait or pay more money to get. That attitude saddens me, though, because the kickstarter was so badly handled that the company made it too good of a deal, and so I completely understand that they’d want to make as much as they could off the stuff. But that knowledge doesn’t take the bad taste away for me.

Kickstarter in general has become something of a hazardous area for me in the last year or so, however, and I’m no longer willing to invest in anything from there, partially because of the poorly handled campaigns such as this or Journey, which is kinda sad really.

I’ll certainly be checking the campaign out, of course, and look out for my long-overdue game day blog on Shadows of Brimstone, which I intend to bring out early December!

Blood Bowl

I think most gamers are aware the quintessential Fantasy football game Blood Bowl is making its long-awaited return to miniature war gaming before Christmas, although if I’m honest, the first time I’ve shown genuine interest in the game was actually when I came to write this blog!

I’m a big fan of the card game from Fantasy Flight, Blood Bowl: Team Manager, so I’m not entirely ignoring this. However, certainly within my local area, enthusiasm for the game seems mostly driven by nostalgia for the original, which I can’t pretend to share.

I think the miniatures look really great, for sure, though unlike with pretty much any of the other games they’ve put out for me to see so far, these things don’t look like they’d translate into any other game system. I suppose the Orcs might, but they all look like they’re American football players, after all…

Overall, I’m not that convinced with this one, and might need to see more or even play a game or two before making my mind up on Blood Bowl. I’m sure it’ll be great, though it might just not be for me…

We’ve seen a lot of boxed games coming out of Nottingham this year, and it’s been a really great time to see Games Workshop returning to their roots of an actual workshop of games. While I’m not necessarily chomping at the bit for stuff like Epic or Necromunda, I hope that we’ll be seeing a lot of great stuff like Deathwatch: Overkill and Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower in the years to come!

GenCon 2016!

Hey everybody!
It’s GenCon 2016, the best four days in gaming, and this is my attempt to round up all of the stuff that I think looks particularly amazing as the weekend rolls on!

Warhammer 40k Death Masque

Let’s start with something not announced at the con, but is definitely worth a mention all the same – Death Masque, the new boxed game for Warhammer 40k that appears to be replacing the current intro box, Dark Vengeance. Games Workshop are really pushing Deathwatch stuff, it seems, following the Overkill boxed game earlier in the year. Along with the game, which features Harlequins vs Deathwatch Marines, they’ve got the new codex and data cards available for pre-order this weekend, to allow for quite the launch for the latest additions to the 40k line. I really like the whole Deathwatch idea and lore, so will no doubt be picking up the codex next weekend, though the box set might have to wait for a while. Especially seeing as how I’ve got so many other projects on the go!

Fantasy Flight Games are always the company I’m most interested in at GenCon, so let’s move on to see what they’re currently up to. In recent years, they’ve taken to making most of their announcements in the weeks leading up to the convention, saving just one or two showstoppers for the actual event itself, and 2016 is no different there. I’ve already talked about the new Star Wars dice game here, but let’s take a look at what else is going on…

Imperial Assault is getting a new small-box expansion later in the year, centred on Jabba’s Palace. Looks amazing, though this is a game I have unfortunately barely played, so I’m questioning the need to actually buy this when it launches. You can bet your ass, of course, if I manage to make this game into a regular thing, I’ll be snapping it up! Jabba is also one of the new hero/villain releases accompanying the game, as well as a new Luke Skywalker.

Mansions of Madness is a Descent-style game that I’ve owned for years but never gotten round to featuring on the blog. It’s a really great, thematic game, but there hadn’t been any news on it for a long time, until FFG announced the new second edition a couple of weeks ago. Looks to involve an app similar to the Road to Legend app for Descent, though I’m currently undecided – I’m not about to go buy the second edition, owning all of first edition anyway, but I’m not sure if it would be the same experience. The game launched at GenCon, anyway, and seems to be getting a lot of hype from folks across the internet, so there is that!

More exciting from my perspective is the new Arkham Horror LCG. I’d heard about this recently as a rumour, but the announcement last week really got me excited for what looks to be an awesome gameplay experience! Looks similar to Elder Sign in parts, though the RPG-like feel to the whole thing has got me incredibly excited, so this is definitely on the Christmas list!

Doom is a classic of the boardgame world, though I’ve never had the opportunity to play it previously. All I can say on this right now is, the miniatures look incredible! And speaking of miniatures…

Runewars Miniatures Game

I was honestly not expecting this, and I’m still not entirely recovered from my shock following yesterday’s announcement! The “original” Runewars is a game I’ve played but once, though it’s still fantastic, and I’ve been wanting to feature it on the blog for a while now. Set in the same universe as Rune Age and Battlelore, it’s a game I’d thought dead, especially given the popularity of Battlelore nowadays.

It’s not just the fact that this is a new game set in the Terrinoth universe, this is a huge deal for FFG. A rank-and-file miniatures war game is a huge thing for any company, and to see them do this really warms my heart, as it feels like we’re seeing more games that have that juggernaut feel to them from the company. Horus Heresy, Runewars, and Twilight Imperium are all games that fit the classic mould, and it looks like FFG are perhaps making a return to that style of game here.

Very exciting times are ahead, I feel!

What’s been going on at the In-Flight Report this year, then?

Interesting stuff there, looks like FFG are making a lot of these app-driven games since X-Com…

Announced a while back, Legend of the Five Rings has another year to go before it arrives, but that should allow for FFG to make it pretty awesome. I’m not slavering for it, but it’s probably going to be picked up when it comes out, so there is that! Any LCG from Fantasy Flight is amazing, after all!

Looks like a pair of “expansions” to second edition of Mansions of Madness, which feature content from the first edition core set and expansions. Seems like second edition might be worth looking into more deeply after all!

X-Wing Wave X

Wave 10 for X-Wing (sorry, Wave X!) is coming, with ships from Rebels and The Force Awakens. I’m genuinely surprised they’ve managed to keep going so long with this game, I thought they would have shifted to a cards-only supplement style of expansion before now!

This is here because I still can’t get over my shock!

I’ve been seeing a lot of positive vibes around this game across Twitter, so I’m thinking that I’ll definitely try it out once it’s released…

I still can’t get over this Runewars announcement…

While there was a lot of amazing stuff coming out of the In-Flight Report this year, I’m more surprised by what hasn’t been announced at GenCon this year – a new big box expansion for Eldritch Horror, and anything about Warhammer Quest the card game. I find this lack of anything fairly suspicious, so it’ll bear keeping an eye on in the future, I think…

But what about the other companies out there?

Star Wars and Carcassonne… I don’t even… I mean, why?! Carcassonne is a good game, but I feel that perhaps some of the expansions for the main game have shown just how far that game can be taken, so instead we’re getting a lot of re-skins, which I suppose are okay if you like the theme, but seriously, why don’t you just get the main game? Hm.

Having recently bought the boxset to rediscover my love for Buffy, this is perhaps some of the most exciting news to come out of Gen Con for me this year! A co-op game sounds super interesting, and I love the Legendary thing, so definitely going to snap this one up when it comes out, that’s for sure!

Okay, so I had the game Mythic Battles, and I sold it after having never played it in the 2+ years of ownership. These miniatures look so incredibly beautiful, however, that I may have to keep an eye on this bad boy…

Flying Frog haven’t officially shared anything (yet), but a few people have been posting up pictures of the stuff they’re picking up as part of wave 1.5 of Shadows of Brimstone, and it does look kinda neat, I have to say. I’m still a bit bummed by the fact that I don’t have a lot of the stuff that I backed, but as many others have pointed out, the kickstarter was a hell of a deal, so I’m not complaining too loudly!

What’s very interesting, to me, is this news:

It’s interesting to me because I don’t have a lot of games with this theme, but it’s something I would like to explore in more depth. The fact that it’s going to be a kickstarter is not exactly getting my juices going, but y’know, I think FFP might have learnt from the Shadows of Brimstone experience, and perhaps things will be better this time around. I’m cautiously optimistic, though I might pass until it actually hits retail, so I guess we’ll see how things pan out. Of course, I’m quite sad they’ve had to put all of their other games on hold while they fulfill the SoB pledges, as I’m keen to see where they take Fortune & Glory, and A Touch of Evil, next!

Of course, FFP don’t have the only Oriental-themed game coming soon:

My favourite game designer, Eric Lang, has come up with, well…

…with beautiful minis, as always!

I should try to contain myself, though that might be very difficult!

That’s all for now! I’ll be updating here whenever I find more interesting stuff to share, so don’t think it’s over yet!