Critical Gamers

Critical Gamers' June 2009 Board Game Roundup

2009-07-01T17:56:55Z

We just can't believe it. The year is already half over. Our liver only just got over our holiday party, and it's already almost 2010.

That's quite the sobering number; when we were kids back in the 70s and 80s we thought 2010 was officially "the future" (2001 A Space Odyssey was before our time, an obviously not an accurate target, so we only had John Lithgow and Roy Schnieder versus the friendly space Russians as our version of potential future events).

And the way we see it, Jupiter will go Nova in just 6 months time, so it's time to get some gaming-in while we still have a night time. Thankfully our countdown starts with a bang. The World of Warcraft set release Fields of Honor is hitting stores right about now. Also our new board game obsession Dominion is slated to expand in just a week's time. We're giddy over this, considering the game already doesn't seem to play the same way twice. Oh boy, it's going to be a good July.

And of course we'll continue to get more updates on upcoming releases, including Battlestar Galatica Pegasus, the Warhammer Board Game "Chaos in the Old World", Middle Earth Quest, and the new Axis & Allies 1942 baseline, all of which should rock our world this fall.

Here's a look back at the news of June:

Board Games

Collectable Card Games

Gaming Culture

Gaming News

Party Games

Magic the Gathering Injects Itself into Xbox Live June 17th

Variants

Magic the Gathering Injects Itself into Xbox Live June 17th

World of Warcraft TCG

The Skinny on WoW TCG Fields of Honor (June 30th)

BattleLore: Heroes Expansion Goes Epic

2009-06-30T19:40:17Z

Late last summer the Battlelore Fantasy Wargame System franchise changed hands from the slick, colorful and approachable publisher Days of Wonder to the rich, enthralling, but sometimes rules-heavy Fantasy Flight Games. Both of these houses are on our top 5 publisher's list, so we weren't too worried with the hand off. Still, we were a bit concerned that Fantasy Flight Games might complicate a nicely stream-lined system with a slew of extra chits and rules.

And while it seems seems that the game will in fact notch-up the complexity scale with the newly announced Heroes Expansion, the additions to the game are being done in a really interesting and potentially rewarding way.

BattleLore Heroes - due out by the end of the year - introduces persistent characters that level up through numerous adventures (ie: battles). Its kind of like D&D meets a Battle Field (which kinda brings things full circle if you think about it).

The expansion will include 10 different classes, each with their own set of upgradable skills and abilities. Details on the first two classes have already hit the web, with preview articles for the Rogue and Cleric classes.

The articles are short, but the ideas are enough to pique our interest in the BattleLore system again, which has been a little slow in its development recently. We'll keep you posted of any more interesting news as more details emerge. Until then, here are the Expansion's official details:

"BattleLore: Heroes introduces player-created Leaders and Champions to augment your camp's forces in battles.
As with all journeys, the beginning is never easy. As a fledgling adventurer, you begin with a bare minimum of skills and artifacts to help you combat the enemy. Adventures have the potential to reward your intrepid Hero greatly if he performs well. But beware, battlefields are not without peril, and taking too many wounds may force your Hero into an unwanted early retirement.

Prepare yourself for the journey of a lifetime!

BattleLore: Heroes includes 10 unique Hero figures, a Rules booklet, 110 Skill, Artifact, and Landmark cards, and much more!"

The Willy Wonka Dice Machine

2009-06-26T14:05:00Z

Simply crazy - or crazy brilliant - take your pick. This jobber was built for two major reasons. The first was that it was hobbyist's dream, but more importantly it's the manifested answer to overly critical players of GamesByEmail.com. We remember some bickering last year regarding the 'trendiness' of the Random Algorithms the site used to create the dice rolls of their games. These weren't horrible algorithms, actually they were top notch, using numbers from Random.org and another tested random number generator algorithms. Still, that wasn't enough to silence the critics. Apparently players can get pretty defiant when a bunch of rolls don't go their way.

The new Dice-O-Matic should shut them up. Here's the full story.

Top 5 Board Games From Our Childhood (aka the 1980's)

2009-06-24T14:30:00Z

We've been around the webosphere for a while, and some of you might have gotten to know us quite a bit. But still nothing paints a picture about our style of gaming better than regressing into our childhood memories and hand picking the best games from our younger years.

We've taken a considerable amount of time with this exercise, surveying the group and pacing the games in order using the most agreeable means possible. You could imagine this being a difficult process with all the pretty-haired egos sitting around our gaming table, so we just went all Stalin and 'liquidated' the unbelievers in our group. The survivors agreed upon the following list in short order:

5. Risk [Amazon, Funagain] Hey, we're guys. and when you're 10 we're pretty much all warmongering egomaniacs. What better way to beat down the egos of your fellow classmates than by throwing down a board of global domination, Risk Style? (Actually, we found there are quite a few better alternatives, all of which made this list... we just had to grow up a few more years before playing them).

Like most people we slaved over quite a few Risk battles in our day, creating house rules where the game seemed to have shortfalls. Risk became the foundation of all things strategic and good. And while the new Risk Revised is super on the rules front, it's pieces aren't nearly as cool as the Roman Numeral ones from ages past. If only we still had that set lying around so we could mix the two.

Never mind, there are better ways to hark back to abstracted war games of yesteryear (see #1 on this list).

4. Survive! [ebay]
We don't know if you know this title, but it was the ta-tas back in 1986 Southern Rhode Island. Survive! featured an board of somewhat randomly placed tiles making up an island at the center of the board. The skinny: the island is sinking due to 1970's/1980's clichéd tropical island volcanic activity, and you have to rescue your potential survivors while ensuring your opponent's islanders fall victim to drowning, blowing up, or the shredding teeth or shark and/or sea monster. You know, it's the vicious tropical island cataclysm game, for kids!

The cool pat was how chaotic things became, and quickly. Each turn a player removes a coastal part of the island. Anyone standing there starts swimming for the life, heading for the safe zones abutting the four corners of the board. The bottom fo the island piece had another action, like place new boats, a shark, a sea monster, or a whirlpool of death that sucked in adjoining tiles.

Players that planned ahead, ro were may also crew lifeboats to oaddle a few of their Survivors to safety.. but even in the boats things aren't' peachy. Whales can crush boats, and sea monsters and sharks (controlled on chance by enemy players) can swoop in and have a feast.

3. Diplomacy [Amazon, Funagain]

This was the first social board game that we played, and perhaps one of the best when it comes to pure game mechanics. Diplomacy had friends drafting plans within plans, drawing up war strategies, and stabbing each other in the back... and all in Junior High School!

While there have been some cool social games out there, like Battlestar Galactica Shadows Over Camelot, there really hasn't been any experience quite like a game of Diplomacy. Like a good beer it matures with age. And you know what, seeing as the game was first published way back in 1960, that's saying something.

2. The Game of Life [Amazon, Funagain]

Taking a step back in the old time machine (we didn't graduate from Diplomacy to Life, after all), we give our number 2 slot to The Game of Life for its approachability, it's relative depth for a kids game, and for these three chief reasons:

We played it a lot - perhaps more than any other board game in our youth. Even that old dinosaur Monopoly.
We Learned That... sometimes he who finishes first doesn't always finish in first place. *claps one hand*
It Taught Us A Lot About Life - sure there were other games like Monopoly which taught you about money and smart investments, and Sorry! which taught us that guilt + math = fun, but Life had all these things and more. It taught our little developing egos and minds about various occupations like lawyers, doctors, and how crappy it is to live on a journalist's salary, it taught us about growing families, and life insurance, and the general cost of living. It taught us about life stages, expensive luxuries like really expensive pens, Mediterranean yachts and blackmailing mistresses. And most of all it taught us that the road to retirement has forks and bends, but you'll ALWAYS end up right next to where you started your life, but just over the next horizon.

Crap, we're getting misty eyed over here. Quick, someone put the dancing clown on stage for a sec..

Errm... Thanks?

1: Axis and Allies [Amazon, Funagain]

The manifestation of all of our strategy wargaming dreams. This jobber builds off of Risk in complexity, boiling down the themes and strategies of a pitched WWII campaign so that it fits on your table top, and completes in about five hours time.

Seriously, back in the 1980s games weren't this good. Period. Axis & Allies had somewhat easy to understand rules, an interesting combat system, multiple nations each with their own role in the war, and gobs of different types of units each with their own niche as well. Staring at the B17 bombers, and divisions of tanks flanked by infantry, our eyes grew wide with awe.

Best most of all this game was designed for chest-pounding gloats against your friends in global domination. Where as Risk had gobs of nameless armies, Axis & Allies had battles and stories. A major fleet action of Battleships and Aircraft Carriers plowing through the pacific island chain, had its own narrative in a much larger war. An entire front of German tanks and infantry being swarmed over by a seas of Russian Infantry was just one thing that could happen in a much larger conflict. A Japanese invasion of Australia could tilt the once historic war towards new directions. And the player's take on how to run an economy could totally tell its own tale: how funds were spent on war efforts, where factories were built, and where units were placed were all huge elements of the game.

And despite all of these hard fast rules and numbers of cost and attack defense values, the game remained delightfully random. Any one battle had its calculated chances of succeeding, but a stalwart defense of key dice roles could pitch a seemingly unattainable war back on a knife's edge. The ebb and flow and luck of battle were always spot on.

Thankfully this series hasn't gone away. In fact, lately it's been back better than ever. While there have been numerous theater specific releases, last year saw the release of Axis & Allies 50th Anniversary Edition (Avalon Hill's 50th Anniversary), a limited edition release which may go down as the best A&A of all time, and a new upcoming A&A 1942 Edition will incorporates a lot of Anniversary Edition's rules and Units into the new mainline of A&A for the next few years. We're looking forward to seeing how that pans out this fall.

So there you have it. The top 5 titles which shaped our gaming tastes while we were still young and impressionable. Now you know where we come from, after all these years!

Stay Frosty with Your Board Game News

2009-06-22T13:17:00Z

We interrupt our normal line of Board Game News updates for this important update...

Are you browsing the web like a sucker? Have you ever thought that you'd have a lot more free time in your day if you didn't have to go trough your daily rotation of web sites? Are you feeling stressed, experiencing hair loss, and generally bored with how you look in the mirror?

Well it's time to put the Internets to work for you.

Critical Gamers offers a wide variety of ways to deliver the latest latest Board Game news and previews delivered to directly to your Email Inbox, Twitter Homepage and/or RSS Reader (like Google Reader). Just click on your preferred method of delivery and chose 8 Track, Cassette or CD, and we'll ensure that your mailbox will be chalkfull of gaming news just in time for Bastille Day.

The Skinny on WoW TCG Fields of Honor (June 30th)

2009-06-18T14:21:00Z

The final set of cards in the World of Warcraft TCG PvP-themed cycle is slated to hit stores at the end of June. But while the PvP stuff seems cool, with some great new keywords and abilities, the real shining star of the upcoming Fields of Honor is the introduction of the new Death Knight class. That's right - death knights are coming to the WoW TCG, and they look to be glorious.

Upper Deck has started publishing Death Knight class preview articles alongside the standard Fields of Honor set previews (below), so we can get a full look at the new plate wearing casting class before they hit your table in just a few short weeks. The variety of their roles in battle from the WoW MMORPG are very well representated, with their debuffing and tanking Frost spec, Ghoul spawning Blood spec, and sheer dps Unholy spec skills all dealing a considerable amount of hurt. Your newly formed Death Knight should be up to speed, kicking the snot out of your friends heroes despite their back catalog of cards from sets passed.

As you can see, to jump start your Death Knight Upper Deck will release a Death Knight starter set that lets you go either Horde (Blood spec) or Alliance (Frost spec) straight out of the box. We've yet to see a reference to any Unholy Death Knights, so they might not make an appearance until the Fall. Of course there could be more Death Knight heroes lurking elsewhere in the Fields of Honor set, too.

Here are some details for the Death Knight Starter, gleaned from one of the preview articles:

"So what do you get in the box? Each package comes with a 33-card Horde or Alliance Death Knight starter deck and 3 exclusive Ghoul Tokens. In addition to this, there is a bonus Death Knight pack containing another 17 cards (along with Alliance Death Knight allies if you want to change your deck to the blue side). Each non-hero card in the starter shows up twice, so you'll only need to get two copies to get full playsets of each card! As a freebie, we've even thrown in a Dark Portal starter deck in the product, so your Death Knight can begin beating down on your friends right out of the box. "
-- Knights of the Ebon Blade

OK, enough about Death Knights for now. The set also expands upon the game in the same way as all of the previous expansion releases (the DK is just icing on the cake). Here are the official preview articles, along with details of the new card keywords: Escape Artist (Gnome Allies),
Escape Artist: When this Ally becomes targeted by an opposing card or effect, you may put it into its owner's hand

Fields of Honor is scheduled for a June 30th launch date. Oh man, that's in like 2 weeks!

MTG Duels of the Planeswalkers Hits XBox Live

2009-06-18T01:15:00Z

A quick reminder that Magic the Gathering Duels of the Planeswalkers (800 MS Points) is slated to hit Xbox live today! So fire up your 360 and get on with some CCG goodness. The release doesn't correspond to any of the recently MTG sets, but contains its own collection of cards, some available when you start playing and others unlocked as a reward for playing matches. The game also supports multiple multiplayer modes, including Two-Headed Giant versis AI, and versus other players, and free for all modes for 2-4 players. There are also two tournaments slated for over the next three weeks, and Future Expansions are also under development as well.

For more information about MTG: Duels of the Planeswalkers, check our previous coverage: Magic the Gathering Injects Itself into Xbox Live June 17th. We'll see you online!

Battlestar Galactica Expansion: Pegasus Announced

2009-06-16T14:14:00Z

This is perhaps the best board gaming we'll hear all year. Last year's Battlestar Galactica board game was probably our favorite release of the year, and now it's first expansion has been announced! Even better: it's coming out before the end of the year.

The title of the expansion "Pegasus" will be familiar to fans of the TV series. The Battlestar Pegasus was another Battlestar that survived the initial cylon attacks, though the Pegasus and Galactica were unaware of one another's existence, and each thought they were the sole survivors of the Human race. The disparity in the crew's philosophies ranging topics from the rights of cilivians, the impacts of martial law, and the question on how human cylons really are (and if they should be treated humainly), made for some pretty entertaining social and physical conflicts during the short run the Pegasus crew remained.. alive.

It'll be very interesting to see how the characters from the Pegasus' crew will mix with the ones of Galactica old. Surely they'll have some more aggressive and cylon-phobic tendencies, and maybe even a bit more firepower to boot.

Along with Pegaus flying along side Galactica, the expansion will comes with yet another companion board, sporting locations from the colony of New Caprica. Details are a bit sparse on how this will play with the original content, but the fact that its optional, and that it's generally MORE Battlestar Galactica goodness, has us excited.

More information, including images of the new board layout, can be found in the Fantasy Flight Games preview article Evolution and Rebellion. We'll also keep you posted as new preview articles are published on FFG's website.

Here are the expansion's official details:

This fall brings the first expansion for Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game. The Pegasus expansion adds two new supplemental game boards featuring the Battlestar Pegasus and the planet of New Caprica, seven new characters, a new Cylon Locations overlay, two plastic Basestars, as well as new Destination, Crisis, Loyalty, Quorum, Super Crisis, and Skill cards.
The new Pegasus board can be used by itself or together with the New Caprica board to create the game you desire - use the Pegasus alone for the additional firepower she provides, or add the New Caprica board to simulate the rebellion on the human colony, bringing the game to an epic level.

New rules introduce the ability to play as a new character type - the Cylon Leader, with a new Treachery Skill card type.

How will the crews of the Galactica and the Pegasus mesh when they join each other on your game table? Will the Cylons be able to subjugate the human rebellion on New Caprica? Will an open Cylon Leader be able to vent the last remaining humans into space, giving the toasters control over the galaxy?

Pegasus will be FTL jumping into your friendly local game store this Fall. Be on the lookout for previews leading up to the expansion's release.

The Kids of Carcassonne - You Know, for KIds!

2009-06-11T21:16:00Z

It's never too early to introduce kids to board gaming (unless they're hellbent on digesting a healthy variety of colored pieces of course) And now once they've conquered the traditional Candyland you can easily start your child's gaming tastes along the line of Eurogame titles that we know and love.

The Kids of Carcassonne [Amazon, Funagain] sports easier rules, always matching pieces,and is the perfect stepping stone to more advance Carcassonne titles. The game is also targeted for players Age 4 and up, which means it quite the sweet spot for the young ones.

Here are the official details:

"On 14 July, the national holiday in France, the sheep, chickens and cows are set free in the town of Carcassonne. The children have lots of fun catching the animals before dusk.
The players in turn draw a landscape tile and place it; unlike in normal Carcassonne, they always match. Amongst other features, the tiles show children in the player colors on the roads. Whenever a road is finished, every player places one of his meeples on each appropriate picture. The first player who manages to place all of his meeples wins the game."

Also checkout the Game's BGG Page for user reviews and more info. One of the most popular reviews there cites the game as "The perfect 'gateway game' for geek parents."

The Kids of Carcassonne is now shipping from Amazon and Funagain Games.

Arkham Horror: Innsmouth Horror Expansion

2009-06-09T21:39:00Z

The H.P. Lovecraft themed horror board game series Arkahm Horror has just expanded, again, and it's another doozey. Arkham Horror: Innsmouth Horror Expansion [Amazon, Funagain] adds the sleepy coastal town of Innsmouth to your monster slaying adventures, including a new board extension, new monsters and 16 new cast members to a game that already has a surprising amount of depth.

The game can be used in conjunction with the other expansions, or can be mixed and matched with a subset of them as you see fit. Please note that you really don't have to play with all the expansions at once.. cause that's some serious time and table space. But sliding Innmouth in place of one the other jobbers, or using it to expand upon the original game, makes for some great gaming.

And of course Innsmouth isn't just a new board with purty pictures; it includes new gameplay elements on content up the wazzo. Most notable are the new character story cards (see preview article "Story Time") that include game mechanic hooks, not only for the new characters of Innsmouth, but for the main game and for characters from all past expansions to boot. Hows that for being thorough?

If you're thirsty for more speicifc details, Fantasy Flight Games have posted a series of preview articles regarding the new mechanics of the game, and a preview of some of the tentacly baddies that wait for you within:

And of course, how could we forget the game's official details:

Innsmouth Horror introduces several new game concepts to the Arkham Horror board game, including Personal Stories unique to each investigator as well as the Innsmouth Look. The town of Innsmouth is hostile to the investigators, and they may well find themselves thrown in jail and fed to a Shoggoth while they search the town for evidence to call in the Feds. However, leaving Innsmouth to fester is a bad idea, since the Deep Ones will gather and rise, bringing with them the Ancient One.
Innsmouth Horror also adds 16 new investigators, eight new Ancient Ones, two new Heralds, Epic Battle cards for the new Ancient Ones, over 30 new monster markers, plenty of new encounters, and an expansion board featuring the town of Innsmouth. Over all, this expansion adds over 300 new cards to the base game.

Arkham Horror: Innsmouth Horror Expansion is now shipping from Amazon and Funagain Games.

Warhammer Renters the Chaotic World of Board Games

2009-06-05T21:28:14Z

More great news from Fantasy Flight Games - their board game division is working to bring the flavor of the Warhammer tactical tabletop game to our world of less-than-die-hard gamers. You know, those of us who don't find it worthwhile to spend hours painting an army of goblins and chaos priests.

Wait, that came out wrong. We didn't mean to alienate anyone. If that's you're thing, then rock. However, we prefer the boxed games with easy setup and take down times, one up front cost, and not quite the money sink. We already have enough problems.

Anyway, the newly announced Chaos in the Old World puts each player in control of competing gods. What's great is that you're not actually in direct competition, each god is trying to spread chaos across the Old World, but each on does it in their own way. We're a huge fan of these disjointed goal type games - when done properly - because the flavor of the competition is pitched on an angle, nuancey, and just isn't as 'in your face!' . Each god is doing their own thing within its own theme, and that just makes things more interesting throughout an entire gaming session. Anyway, here's a great description of the gods:

"Chaos in the Old World makes you a god. Each god's distinctive powers and legion of followers grant you unique strengths and diabolical abilities with which to corrupt and enslave the Old World. Khorne, the Blood God, the Skulltaker, lusts for death and battle. Nurgle, the Plaguelord, the Father of Corruption, luxuriates in filth and disease. Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways, the Great Conspirator, plots the fate of the universe. Slaanesh, the Prince of Pleasure and Pain, the Lord of Temptations, lures even the most steadfast to his six deadly seductions."
- The Ruinous Powers Descend From The North

Details of the game are still a bit up in the air, but Fantasy Flight Games have posted 2 previews. The Ruinous Powers Descend From The North announces the game and introduces the theme as a whole, and Word of the Creator further breaks-down your roll as a god of Chaos. What could be finer?

Currently FuangainGames lists the title as shipping in October, but given Fantasy Flight's recent October missed targets, we'd expect 1Q 2010 release. We'll let you know as more details emerge.

Magic the Gathering Injects Itself into Xbox Live June 17th

2009-06-04T17:02:00Z

It's that time of year again: The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is in full swing in Los Angeles, and with it comes gobs of news of all sorts of games. We're most interested in the extension of board games and cards games, of course, and once again there's some great news to be had.

Now we all heard before that MagicThe Gathering was heading to an XBox near you, but it was a general "sometime" announcement without much detail. Well now the details are out (in this press release) and sometime soon is actually now really soon: June 17th.

It appears the game centers around 7 pre built decks that seed your collection, and then you unlock more cards as you play. Multiplayer is included, included the Two Headed Giant fiormat for 2v2. There are even tournaments planned soon after release: one on June 20th and antoher June 27th where you can players will be able to compete against Magic the Gathering League members and Developers of the game.

The game sports a slick trailer showing the game in action ( a must-see if you found the Magic Online interface a complete travesty ) More details can be round at the Magic the Gathering Duels of Planeswalkers website, and in the product's recent press release from E3. Here's a snippet from that:

Developed by Stainless Games, Ltd., Duels of the Planeswalkers, rated T-Teen, lets players simulate the Magic: The Gathering trading card game through lush interactive 3-D environments. The arcade-style game takes players on a journey through a vast Multiverse of unique worlds where they are deemed Planeswalkers, powerful mages who battle others for glory, knowledge and conquest.

Players can choose to battle against the computer or compete online against real-life opponents using Microsoft's Xbox LIVE Arcade. With numerous game play scenarios, including multiplayer game mode, Duels of the Planeswalkers offers an unrivaled depth in which each game is different from the last. Wizards of the Coast is supporting this release with an exclusive promotional card, which includes brand new artwork, making Duels of the Planeswalkers a game that both new and existing Magic players will enjoy.
- New and Existing Magic Players Will Rule on Xbox LIVE(R) Arcade

Critical Gamers' May 2009 Board Game Roundup

2009-06-01T17:45:57Z

Spring is in the air, and in the board gaming world that means releases are about to slow through the summer months. That's cool though, because this past Winter has had a lot of great releases. Spring also means that publishers are revealing new titles meant for Holiday 2009.

We've already gotten world of the next baseline iteration of Axis & Allies: 1942, which is based on the rules and alternative setup of the A&A 50th Anniversary Edition, and will replace Axis & Allies Revised as the new mainstay of A&A gaming.

Also recently announced, and soon to be published, is the cooperative board game Space Alert, which challenges players to keep their spaceship alive throughout a series of astro crises. Each crisis is pulled from a variety of decks, and is queued from unique audio CD which sports atmospheric music on special tracks, each one with a different pacing of events and card draws. Initial reports of the game have Space Alert being one of the best games of the year, and has already made the Dice Tower's Game of the Year Nominee list (the game had limited availability at trade shows last year).

This month also saw other notable announcements, like a new Lord of the Rings game Middle-earth Quest, the announcement that Death Knights will be rolled into the next World of Warcraft TCG release, and release of the latest Memoir '44 expansion: Tigers in the Snow & Operation Market Garden.

Good Gaming Folks!

Board Games

Collectable Card Games

WoW Minis Spoils of War Expansion

Gaming News

RPGs

D&D 4th Edition Monster Manual Miniatures: Dangerous Delves

World of Warcraft TCG

2009 Board Game of Year Award Nominees at The Dice Tower

2009-05-27T19:49:27Z

The boys over at The Dice Tower are game review demigods. Their word is usually the moderate voice of the game community, and they play more games than any reviewer we know.

We'
ve said it before and we'll say it again: these guys seriously know what they're talking about.

So we're stoked to see that some of our favorite games from the last year, and a lot of the games we've focused our coverage upon, have been nominated for numerous categories. Games like Chicago Express, Argicola, Space Alert, and Pandemic, which we've covered. But also games we've fixated on, like Battlestar Galactica which has been nominated for Best Game of the Year, Most Innovative Game, and Best Game Artwork.

We like their criteria, too:

"The purpose of the awards is to:
Encourage new developments and innovations in the board game industry.
Promote board and card games to a larger audience
Award the best games in different categories released each year.
Present a slate of games with wide appeal from a variety of genres.
Point out games that are simply fun!"

- The Dice Tower Gaming Awards

Here's the full list of 2009 Dice Tower Board Game Award Nominees. We'll let you know when the awards are officially.. awarded.

Middle-earth Quest Details Emerge

2009-05-26T17:56:00Z

This potential gem of a game was official announced by Fantasy Flight Games about 2 weeks ago. At the time we got the original overarching product info, but now Fantasy Flight has started to post preview articles detailing the title. The first steps through the abilities that makeup the each and every force of good:

"Over the coming weeks we will be diving into the world of Middle-earth Quest. Each preview will feature a new facet of this fantastic game. Starting us off, we focus on the attributes of the heroes facing down the schemes of Sauron. Each hero has much to prove, and will be forced to use every trick they can think of to overcome the evil machinations of Sauron."
- from By Strength Of Will

The article steps through and describes the stats you'll find on the the unit cards in front of you. They sport the standard lot of fantasy themed dork stats like Strength, Wisdom, etc. What's interesting is that they seem to effect the amount of cards you draw, not just dice rolls.

It's obviously still too early to tell if this game will have the lasting appeal of the recent Fantasy Flight titles. So far, though, so good. It also seems the game will come in a large box, but it won't have mind numbing rules since it's targeting a 13+ audience.

Wait, scratch that. While War of the Ring wasn't over the top, it was pretty freakin' complicated, and that targeted a a 12+ audience. Sometimes Fantasy Flight is just flat our crazy. Not that we don't love them.

Middle-earth Quest is slated for release this Fall.

WoW TCG Arena Grand Melee

2009-05-22T02:45:00Z

For better or worse throw away every preconception of what it means to be a World of Warcraft TCG expansion. WoW TCG Arena Grand Melee [Amazon, Funagain] is a hybrid of old and new. In one had. there's the small set of themed cards similar to Feast of Winter Veil and Darkmoon Fair set. However this time around the major theme is that of game mechanic instead of an holiday event: that of preparing your toon for battle in the World of Warcraft Arena.

Prepare Your Face
In WoW (the 'real' WoW), players entering the Arena have a few moments to cast any buff they want, for free. And mirroring that theme is the new Preparation key word introduced in Arena Grand Melee. It's brandished on each Ability and Equipment card within this mini set, and allows each card to be be played for free if you're lucky enough to have it in your hand on your first turn. These cards normally cost around 3-4 resources to play, so if lady luck is shining on you then your game should seriously speed up fast enough to lay some quick smackdown. Alternatively, if you draw these cards later on in your game, then they can be payed for their full price at that point in time. Win/Win.

Well, sorta. Die hard tournament players may find some of these cards aren't worth their full resource prices. There are some better cards out there that do things for "cheaper". Of course, some of these other cards cost 20 bucks on ebay, which is less than this entire set's strike place.

For us, life isn't all about tournament play. If it is for you then you're probably reading the wrong blog, 'cause we're all about sitting back, enjoying a beer, and beating the ego off our friends, not strangers.

Wackiness Ensues
So what, a new expansion with a new keyword, big deal. Well the Arena Grand Melee also ships with a side deck of about 100 cards that are drawn during play. Similar to the Event cards of Boss Battles, these cards inject some randomness to the battle. Some are serious, like damaging specific hero types, etc. There's also some silly cards, too, that are supposed to make things 'more fun'. Like forcing people to whisper through the game, or else suffer the consequences.

We'll try anything once. Considering that there are gobs of cards in the set, were sure that some will make the game pretty freaking interesting, and others we'll just kick to the curb.

Previews
In true Upper Deck fashion the previews are a bit chaotic. On one hand the official WoW TCG website has a series of card previews from the new mini set. This includes the new pair of heroes and the ability and equipment cards that can be placed right into your collection.

Finding official details on the Arena Grand Melee event cards is a bit more tough, but we tracked down a Preview of Cards at Upper Deck's TCG Designer's Blog. Its worth checking out to see if this new game type seems worth your time.

Here are the official WoW TCG Arena Grand Melee Details and Previews:

You want to stand in the grand arena. Do you have what it takes? Are your blades keen and deadly? Do your spells have the ferocity of an archmage? The Gladiators think not. Walk across the sands of the arena and prepare yourself for the greatest test of all. Soon your worth will be revealed!
Opening up an entirely new dimension of the World of Warcraft TCG, Arena Grand Melee adds all-new content, including a new twist on standard play! Now, players each bring a deck from their own World of Warcraft TCG collection and use a shared stack of Grand Melee cards to recreate the chaos that happens when battling in the Arena!

WoW TCG Arena Grand Melee is out now, and available to order from Amazon and Funagain Games.

D&D 4th Edition Monster Manual Miniatures: Dangerous Delves

2009-05-19T20:36:00Z

We've said it before, and we'll say it again, D&D 4th Edition has a lot of great things going for it - streamlined rules, tactical combat, cleaner skills, defined class roles, etc. But one thing that has always been a thorn in our side is that Wizards of the Coast never actually gave us an effective way to represent our characters on a tactical map. This would be a petty complaint if this latest and greatest edition hadn't put so much emphasis on positional combat.

The official solution was for players to sink money into the D&D Miniatures game, which is a closed box booster system so you never know what you're going to get when you hand over your money. This stunk for both the players attempting to find a mini representative of their character, and for DMs trying to collect figures for the monsters and NPCs.

Things shifted slightly toward the positive side in late April with the release of D&D 4th Edition Player's Handbook Miniatures, which had an assortment of populare character class/race combinations. It wasn't perfect though - there were some combos missing, and you had to buy at least three figures in each pack.

Now a similar treatment is being done with 40 monsters in the Dangerous Delves set. The figures have been pulled from the new 4th edition Monster Manuals, with each containing ''one visible figure, always Large; one rare figure, about half are Large; one medium or small uncommon miniature; and two common miniatures.' We should also mention that these figures are actually part of the D&D Miniatures game (tough we don't play it ourselves!)

Further details on how the miniatures are distributed can be found in the set's First Preview Article (all preview articles are linked below):

"We've worked to make it much easier to collect a set. Dangerous Delves contains 40 different miniatures, with 16 rares, 8 uncommon, 8 visible, and 8 common miniatures in the set. A case of miniatures has 8 boosters, and you'll get one of each visible figure in a case. This means collectors won't be stuck with 6 or 8 common miniatures for each rare. The ratio is closer to 1 rare for every 4 different commons."
- Dangerous Delves Preview 1

Unfortunately the series is pretty hard to find online in any way you can deliberately browse and buy a pack with your choice of visible figure (let us know if you find a good place). Best head down to your local hobby store for that. However, if you'd like to at least browse the miniatures, then take a look at the following preview articles which does a great job of cataloging them all.

Preview 1: Cyclops, Orcs, Gnoll, Arbalester
Preview 2: Unicorn, Medusa Archer, Yuan-Ti Fangblade, Harpy, Snake Swarm
Preview 3: Aboleth, Beholder, Foulspawn Grue, Berbalang, Xen'drik Drow
Preview 4: Frost Giant, Rust Monster, Blood Scarab, Githzerai, Githyanki
Preview 5: Hippogriff, Choker, Bloodseeker Drake, Banshrae Warrior, Ghaele of Winter
Preview 6: Bloodrager Troll, Clay Golem, Aspect of Vecna, and a pair of Goblins
Preview 7: Gold Dragon, War Devil, Hellstinger Scorpion, Grimlock, Chain Devil

Memoir '44 Bulges East and West

2009-05-18T21:35:00Z

The expandable WWII board game franchise Memoir '44 has built-out the franchise's European theater of operations even further. Following the first Battlemap Expansion Hedgrow Hell, the second Battlemap Expansion Tigers in the Snow / Operation Market Garden [Amazon, Funagain] includes 4 new scenarios, 2 new board layouts, and 6 detailed Tiger Tanks pieces. The major scenarios are balanced for 2-8 players, which makes for some pretty sweet gaming night action.

Those mainstream Western Front fans will get the blundering Operation Market Garden scenario, which tasks allied forces in taking and holding a series of bridges in Holland. Somehow Days of Wonder have managed to squeeze all the Dutch bridges onto one map, which doesn't seem entirely accurate, but it looks like a challenging romp of paratroopers and tank convoys all the same.

Still, Western Europe has been done to death, and we're far more excited with the Eastern Front setup. The late war Russian push against Germany includes some of the most amazing armor battles that are sadly missing from a lot of mainstream WWII games, be they on a computer or a board. The Tigers in the Snow scenario has German troops digging in to resist a Russian advance in the Winter of 1944-45. Of course, digging in instead of retreating was Hitler's crazy idea, a decision that was made under protest by the German field commanders, so their forces are understrength and generally not in a good way.

There is some duality in these two scenarios. In Market Garden the allied forces were lacking the tools to take and secure territory on their surprise paratrooper attack. Meanwhile in the other scenario on the eastern front, the tough roll is rotated to the defender's side, where the German forces are on the brink of desertion and must pull themselves together to ward off a massive attack. This contrast could make for some interesting gaming sessions.

The expansion also includes two scenarios for the standard Memoir '44 set. These other scenarios require only one Memoir '44 box to play. Operation Market Garden and Tigers in the Snow both require Memoir '44 and the Operation Overlord expansion, or two copies of Memoir '44. If you want to use the correct Russian pieces, then you could substitue the Eastern Front Expansion as well.

More information can be found at the official Tigers in the Snow / Market Garden websitee. Memoir '44 Battlemap Expansion 2 is now shipping from Amazon and Funagain Games.

Sauron to Throw Some Smackdown in Middle-earth Quest

2009-05-14T19:33:00Z

Publisher Fantasy Flight Games released the first information about the announced "Middle-earth Quest" adventure game today, expanding upon their suite of Lord of the Rings board game titles. In this latest adaptation of the franchise, players will control three heroes trying to scramble to conceal the truth of the ring during the time it hasn't even left the shire. They'll need help from a lot of the novel's characters, of course, which hasn't quite been detailed yet. Perhaps from character decks and ability cards. Pulling the strings on the other end will be a player controlling the antagonizing forces of dark, attempting to reveal the ring bearer with the powers of Sauron and squash him like the hairy footed ewok he is.

As we hinted at before : details are a bit sparse at this point. We'll keep you apprised of more information as this game begins to take shape. Until then check out the Middie-earth Quest official release announcement.

WoW TCG Arena Grand Melee Previews Begin

2009-05-13T00:55:00Z

Wow, this wasn't quite so expected. Once again the WoW TCG just got interesting, and before the implications of Blood of Gladiators have had enough time to set-in and stain our tablecloth, too.

So what's in store for us in the final expansion set in this cycle of PvP goodness? We'll we're still not completely sure. For one we know that Death Knights will hit the table for the first time, and thats pretty incredible. A whole new class is an extremely nice step (if done well). And now the first hero previews sampled from the standard lot of classes also prove to be extraordinarily promising to boot.

Like the bosses of the WoW TCG raid decks, the flip powers for Grand Melee heroes are on the back of the card. We'll let that sink in for a second. And so far they also seem to be passive, which means you keep reaping the benefits from the onetime upfront cost. How awesome is that?

Start organizing your piles of "flip target hero" cards.

The premier preview article "Arena Grand Melee Preview - Heroes" promotes two hero cards to start with. The first is alliance gnome warrior who gets +1 base attack on her flipped side. No offense folks, but alliance heroes are about as boring as a microwaved poptart.

That's what makes the second hero so awesome. Moonlighting as a 28 health Tauren Druid during the day, the flipped Kauno Stormhoof is an manscaped monster with 40 health on the other. And as the article aptly points out, he's not technically in bear form, which means he remains able to tap his library of cards that apply only when "not in a form," if so desired. Rock.

Grand Melee is slated for a June release, and it can't get here soon enough.

Settlers of Catan Geographies: Germany Reviewed at BGN

2009-05-11T21:54:00Z

There's a nice review with some great pictures posted over at BoardGameNews.com of Catan Geographies: Germany [Amazon, Funagain], the latest themed edition of the Settlers of Catan franchise.

Settlers of Catan was the gateway game of choice for years. Heck it might still be in some circles. Astute game aficionados will note that it's also the poster child for Eurogames, a movement that came out of Germany over the last few decades that makes for a lighter, more engaging gaming experience when compared to traditional American board games.

But that was years ago (Settlers came out in old school 1996). Catan Germany was published last year in its motherland in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the founding of Germany. In it players race to settle the major cities of the nation and construct historic / cultural landmarks to win victory points. Each of the landmarks is modeled after a true historic landmark in Germany, and list as one of the pluses by the review at BGN is that this installment teaches some Germany history and culture to its players. The game even ships with some supplemental descriptions of the significance of all of the landmarks.. something to read while it's not your turn. For us - as amateur historians - that's pretty cool.

The review at BGN also notes that the board in this installment is much tighter than your father's Catan, which makes for some urgent racing to quickly claim the best locals. Quite the different experience compared to the open ended beginnings of the traditional Settlers installments. Catan Histories:Struggle for Rome had this as well.

Read the rull review here: Geographies: Germany at BoardGameNews.com.

We wonder if these subtitles of "histories" and "geographies" will ever branch out into their own unique family lines of Catan games. Hopefully so, because we find them to be a bit more interesting than yet another round of Settlers. 'Rome' specifically brought a lot more interesting things to the table.

WoW Minis Spoils of War Expansion

2009-05-08T01:02:00Z

The first expansion to the tactical and collectible World of Warcraft Miniatures game system is out on store shelves. Spoils of War [Amazon, Funagain] introduces new characters from the Horde, Alliance and Monster factions.

Of course if that were all then this would be a pretty sleepy expansion.
The cool, new interesting stuff comes via the introduction of card type thats distributable to your characters in addition to to the standard spell and ability cards, i.e. Armor and Weapons. After all, what would World of Warcraft be without the l33t equipment gravy train of self advancement?

The new sets of armor and weapons not only have their straight forward uses, like hacking off limbs for the cheap, but they also give your characters new miscellaneous abilities to boot. In fact, they're so powerful that they actually contribute to each character's honor rating, so use them wisely.

And if that's not enough then the new Channeling spell type should change-up tactics nicely. These spells may continue their effect so long as your character doesn't movie. which should make for some very interesting decisions in such a dynamic game where players jockey for position.

The expansion is available in blind boosters packs of three whic promise a common -> epic rarity distrubution, with something substantial in each box. Word has it that the fabrication process has been improved, so here's hoping for better paint jobs for the figures and more accurately modeled UBases that don't reject their figures. Sadly, the set includes no new maps. While this might not bother some, it is pretty disappointing for us (see our WoW Minis Review) and may diminish the amount of time this expansion would hit our table otherwise.

More details about Spoils of War can be found in our WoW Minis Spoils of War Previews page, which has an index to all of the official preview articles and Minis.

Here's the official word:

Adventure into the Outland with the exciting, new characters introduced in Spoils of War, the second expansion set in the World of Warcraft Miniatures Game! Featuring new Epic Characters, Equipment, and Loot Cards, this expansion is offered in boosters containing three randomized, premium, pre-painted miniatures.

Space Alert Board Game Preps for Launch

2009-05-07T00:46:00Z

Fans of cooperative board games, in the strain of Pandemic, Battlestar Galatica and Shadows Over Camelot, have a new franchise to look forward to, and a very unique one at that. Space Alert [Amazon, Funagain] puts players in control of a space ship under a crazy string of disasters, and the players must survive the gamut in order to succeed. So far, sounds like Battlestar Galactica, right?

Well there are a considerable amount of difference. First off, trim the game down from 1-2 hours to about 10-30 minutes. Reluctantly, also remove the idea of a traitor character. There's no time for it anyway, because the game is not only about dealing with crises, but dealing with them fast. That's because the enitre pace of the game is driven by a CD soundtrack which tells you when crap hits the fan.

Yeah, pretty crazy. Each track of the CD has unique pacing and cadence, with its own timing of crises. And when one hits, the CD will tell your group which crisis deck to draw from. The combination of multiple tracks and multiple decks randomizes the game for repeat play. And if that's not enough for you then then are people already forming new MP3 audio tracks, splicing samples from the original CD, to keep things interesting over the long run.

With the CD driving the pace of the game, players must decide how to play the cards from their hand and delegate responsibility to quickly deal with each crisis before the next hit. The randomness of the crises, playing with the hand you're delt, cooperating with your friends to get the job done, and being driven by a randomized sound track, have made Space Alert one of the most anticipated cooperative board games for 2009.

And it's slated to ship this month. Joy.

"Space Alert is a team survival game. Players take on the role of a crew of space explorers sent out through hyperspace to survey a dangerous sector of the Galaxy.The spaceship automatically maps the sector in 10 minutes. The crew's task is to defend the ship until the mission is complete. If they succeed, the ship brings back valuable data. If they fail... it is time to train a new crew.
Space Alert is not a typical board game. Players do not compete against each other. Instead, they work together against the challenge presented by the game. The difficulty of this challenge can be chosen by the players themselves. Completing the most difficult missions requires close teamwork."
- Rio Grande Games

Space Alert is currently available for preorder from Amazon and Funagain Games. For more information also checkout the Space Alert page on BGG. We'll let you know as soon as it hits shelves this month.

WoW TCG Death Knights Coming this June

2009-05-05T16:21:00Z

The World of Warcraft Trading Card Game has been our TCG of choice for two years now. Even so, there are been points where we feared the game's stagnation, but just as those fears became frustrations, Upper Deck injected something new to not only hold our attention, but excite us to boot.

Now they just dropped a whopper. We had already begun questioning why the Death Knight - a class introduced to World of Warcraft via the Wrath of the Lich King expansion of the MMORPG - hadn't arrived in the WoW TCG. Well now have to wait just two short months before we get our grubby hands on them.

In the final part of "Caverns of Time - Our History Thusfar" - a WoW TCG and WoW Mini restrospective and state of the union - Upper Deck has announced that a the new Death Knight class will be introduced in the next WoW TCG set this June. Here's the snippet containing the details near the end of the article:

"Even with nearly three full years of sets and products in the books for the World of Warcraft games, the games show no signs of stagnation or slowing down. Wrath of the Lich King's release shattered record books for Blizzard Entertainment and video gaming as a whole, much due to the introduction of the incredible Death Knight class. From the corpses of those slain by the Forsaken, the Death Knights in the TCG will be released this June. The plate-wearing, disease-spreading hybrid class will be the tenth class in both the Minis and TCG games. Plus, as always, we have infinite more loots to slip into packs of our WoW Minis and WoW TCG product. Who knows what items will be available in the future? All I know is that our WoW MMO characters want them ASAP!"
- Caverns of Time - Our History Thusfar

Axis & Allies Spring 1942 Announced

2009-05-05T02:11:00Z

Axis & Allies fanatics who missed their chance at the gigantic monolith off Avalon Hill 50th Anniversary Edition goodness (its single printing sold out last month) may get a chance to redeem themselves, at least partially. The newly announced Axis & Allies 1942 edition incorporates new rules and pieces introduced by last year's Anniversary Edition, but reduced down to normal Axis & Allies size.

While the standard size means the game will clock-in at the reasonable ~$30 price tag, the scaling obliterates the intricate board layout of Anniversary. Instead the title will adopt 2004's Axis & Allies Revised board layout.

We understand why this happened -- you can't shrink an intricate board and expect the layout to remain the same, but it makes us sad all the same. Anniversary has some great nuanced territory layouts that does some amazing things in the Pacific theater with its new frontier battles in China, and the addition of Italy as a faction was a breath of fresh air as well.

It's said that the 1942 Edition will become the new de facto Axis & Allies much like Revised did half a decade ago. So, seemingly, the advancements of Anniversary might be lost forever. Try to get your hands a copy of that one if you can (check ebay), 'cause they certainly will be THE collectors item in a few short years. And if not, then be satiated by what will surely be another great experience.

Here are the board game details so far:

Axis & Allies celebrates it's 25th Anniversary in August of 2009 with a new and updated edition of it's original classic game. Axis & Allies 1942, designed and developed by Larry Harris, will utilize the updated rules established in A&A Anniversary Edition. Cruiser class ships will make their debut in A&A 1942, forever changing the naval line-up. Newly sculpted playing pieces and all new packaging will position this game as the cornerstone of the Axis & Allies game line for years to come. Decide the fate of a nation in a few short hours!
Axis & Allies: Spring 1942 details:

Rulebook updated by Larry Harris, creator of the Axis & Allies game system
Packaging, play components, and game board map feature updated art

370 game pieces featuring refreshed sculpts plus new models for cruisers

Updated naval unit rules as debuted in Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition
- Official A&A Spring 1942 Website

Critical Gamers' April 2009 Board Game Roundup

2009-05-02T14:01:00Z

Man, quite a busy month int the board gaming world. Some high quality titles were announced, like a new Settlers of Catan installment, new WWII Miniatures for Wings of War, and the next set of WoW Minis started grabbing the preview spotlight.

Shipping news centered around the 4th Edition of the cult classic Talisman receiving its first expansion, and the family friendly civilization growing Small World, which has gotten some really strong preliminary reviews. It's currently clocking nearly an 8 on BGG, and that's quite impressive.

By the time you read this we'll already be elbow deep in our first annual board gamefest in the hills of Montpelier Vermont. On slate we'll be playing gobs of Imperial, Pandemic, Axis &Allies 50th Anniversary Edition, WoW TCG, Talisman, and some Battlestar Galactica, of course. We'll try to upload some shots if any good ones come through the Cheetos encrusted lens.

Otherwise, here's to a good May!

Board Games

Cheap Deals & Sales

Board Game Spring Clearance Sale at Funagain Games

Collectable Card Games

Gaming Culture

Gaming News

RPGs

Variants

Zoloretto Coming to iPhone and IPod Touch

World of Warcraft TCG

Pandemic: On the Brink Board Game Expansion Details

2009-04-30T18:27:36Z

Its Friday afternoon here and word has it the Swine Flu pandemic might soon attain Level 6 (out of 6) on the World Health Organization's pandemic defcon track of disasterous disasters. Don't panic yet though. Scientists are saying the disease isn't as lethal as first reported, and certainly not as big as the Spanish Flu that swept the world in the early 20th century.

Unfortunately they've also said that the these diseases could mutate at any time. So we decided that this weekend we'd head up into the hills of Vermont and throw down a board of the cooperative game Pandemic [Funagain] to celebrate the end of the beginning of the end. Unless it doesn't mutate, then it'll just be the end of the weekend, which would be great.

Now as if on-queue, the makers of the original Pandemic have released details of their upcoming expansion Pandemic On the Brink. The expansion will include new player roles, special events, and challenges, including a new game mode that pits one player against all others.

Full details on the expansion and a great sampling of cards can be found on the official Pandemic: On the Brink website.

Have a good weekend, and cover you mouth for goodness sake!

D&D 4th Edition Player's Handbook Miniatures

2009-04-30T02:50:48Z

We've been complaining a bit over the last year since the release of the D&D 4th Edition. See, the game puts a huge emphasis on tactical combat, with square maps in the all the modules, and all those rules that have you map out spacing and ranges to determine area of effects.

The problem is, there hasn't been a great official way to represent your characters on your table top. Sure, you could have blindly bought D&D Miniature boosters in hopes you would get someone cool and that slightly resembled your character's class, race, and gender, plus looked cool to boot, but that was a total crap shoot.

Finally, ten months later, Wizards of the Coast has a nice little gift for you. Behold: prepackaged miniatures of all the classes and races of the Players Handbook, presented in clear plastic so you know which miniature your dropping your cash for:

Player's Handbook Heroes - Arcane Heroes #1 [Amazon, Funagain]
Includes: Female Eladrin Wizard
Male Tiefling Warlock
Male Half-Elf Bard
Player's Handbook Heroes - Arcane Heroes #2 [Amazon, Funagain]
Male Human Wizard
Female Eladrin Sorcerer
Male Half-Elf Fighter / Warlock
Player's Handbook Heroes - Divine Heroes #1 [Amazon, Funagain]
Male Human Cleric
Female Halfling Cleric
Male Dwarf Paladin
Player's Handbook Heroes - Martial Heroes #1 [Amazon, Funagain]
Female Dragonborn Rogue
Male Human Fighter
Male Elf Ranger
Player's Handbook Heroes - Martial Heroes #2 [Amazon, Funagain]
Female Eladrin Fighter
Male Tiefling Warlord
Male Dwarf Rogue
Player's Handbook Heroes - Primal Heroes #1 [Amazon, Funagain]
Female Elf Druid
Male Human Barbarian
Male Goliath Barbarian

Not every class combo is there, but you should be able to make do with what's available. Unless you're picky, which would really stink since you've waited almost a year for this moment. We feel for ya. Wait, no we don't, stop dilly dallying. Just pull the trigger, have a cold one, relax and work on your anxiety problems.

Here are the official details:

The Player's Handbook Heroes: Series 1 expansion for the Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game features high-quality miniatures representing iconic player character races and classes described in the Player's Handbook and Player's Handbook 2 core rulebooks.
There are six booster packs in all: 2 packs of martial heroes, 2 packs of arcane heroes, 1 pack of divine heroes, and 1 pack of primal heroes. Each booster pack contains 3 visible, high-quality, non-random plastic miniatures representing D&D player characters, plus an exclusive power card not available elsewhere! Each miniature comes beautifully painted and fully assembled.

Fully assembled miniatures. Sweet. Put away your exact-o knife and sniffing glue.... err.. gluing glue.

Talisman: The Dungeon Expansion Released

2009-04-30T02:08:00Z

Fantasy Flight Games has just released the Talisman: The Dungeon [Amazon, Funagain] expansion to the dungeon romping Talisman 4th Edition. The Dungeon is a remake of one of the original Talisman expansions released nearly 22 years ago (aka Back in the Day) that adds a L shaped dungeon area to the board standard game board. Adventures who head in will find new encounters including new monster types, traps, and swine flu laded burritos. And, of course, players should expect new rewards to boot.

In true Fantasy Flight Fashion, the expansion is well previewed on the Fantasy Flight Game's website in a series of articles:

Descend Into The Dungeon
The Path Ahead
Digging Deeper
What Lies Beneath...
Going Further Into The Darkness
Light Your Torches (the rules for Talisman: The Dungeon)

Ok, so the collection of titles doesn't have a top shelf level of awe inspiring inventiveness. Thankfully each of the previews itself is a great read complete with rules and flavor. And while they might tell you all you've ever wanted to know about the game and more, we're still going to quote the rounded off product details, 'cause maybe you're in a hurry, but more importantly it's like, our 'thing'.

Talisman: The Dungeon features five new characters, including the Gladiator and the Philosopher, 20 new Spell cards, 10 new Adventure cards, and 10 new Treasure cards. The expansion also features a board expansion, the Dungeon, which adds a whole new area of exploration, and 128 Dungeon cards, featuring events and encounters that only occur in the Dungeon. Game Contains:
Game Contains:
1 Rulebook
1 Dungeon Board
128 Dungeon Cards
20 Spell Cards
10 Adventure Cards
10 Treasure Cards
5 Character Cards
5 Plastic Figures

Talisman: The Dungeon is now shipping from Amazon and Funagain Games.

Holy Bucky Balls

2009-04-27T20:03:00Z

Words cannot describe how cool things little nobblets are. If you're into creating tricky stuff with your hands, or into things produced by Zombo.com or puzzles with no end, then this is right up your alley.

The shapes these hands sculpt-out melt our brains like the end sequences of 2001. We want to go there.

Here are the official details:

"Imagine a Rubik's Cube that actually makes you smarter; an Erector Set that never stops erecting; a Hula Hoop you don't look ridiculous playing with; Silly Putty that isn't silly; cram it all in a jar, turn the fun up to 11, and you've got BuckyBalls!
Each set contains 216 powerful rare earth magnets that can be shaped, molded, torn apart and snapped together in UNLIMITED WAYS. Make sculptures, puzzles, patterns, shapes, stick stuff to the fridge, invent a new game--trying to find something more useful is useless."
- Zoomdoggle Bucky Balls

You can get your jittery hands on Bucky Balls through the official website GetBuckyBalls.com, or through Busted Tees. The latter is a bit less infomercialish.