News Collider - Board Game News 7/11/2018

Polyhedron Collider - Board Game News

You’d think that the board game news would slow down a bit, I mean its practically Christmas (according to the seasonal aisle in my local Tesco) but it seems the dice that is the board gaming world doesn’t stop rolling. I may have got my metaphors mixed up there.

We’ve got gaming movies, gaming dance shows, champions, bears and more Kickstarters that any sane human could back, but no doubt Andy will try.

GAME ANNOUNCEMENT: HAVEN

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From Red Raven Games (Above & Below, Islebound)  and designer Alf Seegert, comes a two-player area control game about controlling a mystical forest.  One player will be the town looking to dominate nature with “store lore” while the other player controls the forest and the creatures within.  More information and the rulebook can be downloaded from the publisher’s website 

GAME ANNOUNCEMENT: DEAD MAN’S CABAL

Announced for just in time for Hallowe’en, the next game from Pandasaurus Games (Wasteland Express Delivery Service, The Mind) is a mid-weight strategy game where players take on the role of a necromancer looking to raise the dead…to throw a party.

Dead Man’s Cabal is designed by Daniel Newman (Ahead in the Clouds, Feat on the Ground) and has been in development since Origins 2016 with Jonathon Gilmor (Dead of Winter, Dinosaur Island). The game boasts a clever interlinking private and public action selection mechanic for tense decisions.

Expect this to be hitting shelves in June 2019.


EXPANSION ANNOUNCEMENT: BÄRENPARK: The Grizzlies are Coming!


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A darling of UK Games Expo 2017 was Bärenpark from Mayday games, which unfortunately shut down in early 2018, will no doubt be coming out of hibernation shortly as Lookout Spiele release the game’s first expansion: The Grizzlies are Coming.

This expansion features three mini-expansions that can be used individually or all together including additional goals, a monorail feature and as the name suggests, Grizzly bears.

All being well this will be available June 2019.

EXPANSION ANNOUNCEMENT: DOMINION RENAISSANCE

The twelfth expansion for the classic deck builder drags the 10-year-old game into the late medieval period with the golden age of art and the advancement of science.  The inclusion of ‘Artefacts’ which will allow players to save coins for use in later turns will surely have fans of the series chomping at the bit to get their hands on these additional 300 cards.

JUST RELEASED: ARKHAM HORROR 3RD EDITION

ARKHAM HORROR 3RD EDITION

It’s time for Fantasy Flight Games’ annual pre-Christmas content drop, when they release a veritable Santa’s Sleigh full of games just in time for the end of the year. In past years, the releases have been in late December, but this year we’ve been lucky and the content has dropped early.

What this means is that Steve is particularly excited that Arkham Horror 3rd Edition has been released, and we can expect him to be filling the podcast with talk about this Lovecraftian adventure game for weeks to come.

TWEAKING THE BEASTMASTER

Later this month D&D will be releasing an errata within which will be some rules tweaks for Beastmaster, the subclass of Ranger.  Previously, this subclass has been a little “weak” and has apparently been highly criticised for this.  The new roles allow the beast to have more autonomy and its attack will now be considered magical as the player levels up to enable the beast to actually be useful in later level adventures.

THE OLDEST GAME

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The oldest known board game, the Royal Game of Ur is being re-released.  Irving Finkel of the British Museum and games scholar, David Parlett, have unlocked the rules to this game that is believed to have originated around 2500BC.

The British Museum is now selling replicas of the game, which in Kickstarter fashion has both the “basic” and “advanced” (#TrueStory) game for you to add to your Kallax.    

THE KEY TO SUCCESS

Chubb picked up a game design award last week in Chicago for HACKSAGON! Gamicon is a conference held exclusively for the design and application of ‘Gamification’ for corporate training, colleague engagement etc.  Winning the Excellence in No-Tech Gamification Design, Hacksagon! Is used to help brokers and customers understand the risks of cybersecurity.  Award categories include ‘Best Use of Narrative’ and ‘Best Use of Surprise and Delight’ which I think are utterly brilliant awards and I just wish my company did something, anything like Gamification.

BRAZILIAN GEEKS

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Tao Long, one of Jon’s top games from Essen 2017 was awarded the Golden Cube award for Best Game at the 2nd annual Cubo de Ouro in Brazil, which celebrates all things geek originating from Brazil.  The event awards greatness to all areas of geekdom such as movie, book, personality podcasts and so on.

You can find the full listing of categories,  winners, and runners-up by following this link if you ever fancy trying a piece of geek culture that is quite probably a little bit different.

THE FIRST RULE OF MONSTER FIGHT CLUB…

Monster Fight Club is a publisher that we may start seeing from 2019.  John Kovaleski is departing from Gale Force Nine–the company he founded and runs-to start a new game and manufacturing company that will specialise in “innovate new and exciting gaming products”. No games have been announced yet, but one question hangs in the air: Why leave a company that you run, to go and start a new one that does exactly the same thing?  

BATMAN, DARTH VADER AND DUNGEONS & DRAGONS

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Just what do these three things have in common?  Chris McKay, that’s what.  The director of Batman Movie and Robot Chicken: Star Wars III has officially signed onto the D&D movie.

Principle photography is scheduled to begin in the summer of 2019 with the movie’s release pencilled in for some time in 2021.  As for actors, Ansel Elgort is “attached” to the project to play the lead but there is nothing official yet.  Quite frankly if Vin Diesel isn’t in this movie I’m out.  You can’t make a movie about D&D without the only A-lister who actually plays the game. 

NEW FANTASY FLIGHT GAMES WORLD CHAMPIONS

Fantasy Flight Games have crowned new world Champions after 4 days of gruelling gaming for the contestants held at the Fantasy Flight Game Center.  For A Game of Thrones: The Card Game, Lennart Paga made extensive use of Flea Bottom to bring ruin to Stark and Targaryen alike with House Martell.  Erik Baalhuis made use of Crane and Dragon over the course of the Legend of the Five Tribes tournament to final take the win.  Justin Hare’s one hero force in the final battle allowed him to take a full tray of Beserkers armed with Tempered Steel which cinched him the win.  Deck and Army lists are availibale along with a full report and Twitch feeds form the Fantasy Flight Tournament Debrief

BOARD-GAME-INSPIRED MOVEMENT

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Board game movies: Check.
Board game comics: Check
Board game books: Check
Board game dance show: Check

That’s right! “Written in Water” by the Ragamala Dance Company is a show is a multicultural dance performance based on the game Paramapadam – the 2nd-century ancestor to a game we know as Snakes and Ladders.  The piece and the game (in its original context) centres on morality, with the upper squares representing enlightenment and the snakes being unexpected slips into the more base urges.  During the show (2nd -3rd November only I’m afraid at the Kentucky Centre, Washington) dancers became pieces on the stage as the board was projected.

You can check out a very short excerpt of the performance here

HOLY BAT-BOX

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If, like me, you didn’t have £350 to drop on the Monolith’s Kickstarter Batman game earlier this year, but you still want a Batman miniatures game then look no further than the Batman Miniatures Game from Knight Models.  It has just become a little more accessible.

With the release of Bat-Boxes, you can now pick up everything you need to start playing the skirmish game in one go.  Each box is complete with one whole crew, cards quick-start rules guide along with a unique crew objective and scenario.

KICKSTARTER HIGHLIGHTS

Welcome to Dinoworld from Alleycat Games was funded with 3 hours and is showing no signs of slowing.  Stretch goals are yet to be announced but no doubt there will be some.  I’ve been playing this game a lot over the last few weeks and you can check out the full review here.

Reavers of Midgard from Grey Fox Games.  It’s the stand-alone sequel to Champions of Midgard and is already fully funded, rampaging through stretch goals like a horny Viking.

Deep Madness from Dimension Games is a reprint of the huge 2016 success.  This campaign also includes the expansion The Faces of Sphere and a novel Shattered Seas.  Andy, naturally, has already backed this expansion as he clearly loves the base game - you can read about that here

Pipeline from Capstone Games is a game that Jon put on the Polyhedron Collider radar during the Essen 2018 podcast, is more-or-less triple funded (in part thanks to Andy)  and can join your collection for a seemingly humble £37

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