Matt: Unlucky Matt this week! I’ve got a cold! And worse than that, it’s not even a rare cold or an illustrious purple EPIC cold, but merely a plain green chunk of common head-gunk. As the coffee and paracetamol begin to wear off, I’m switching over to rooibos tea and lashings of toast with off-brand nutella. I’m not sure “lashings of toast” makes 100% sense, but what I get up to in my house is my business.
And on that note – it looks like Fantasy Flight Games has certainly been putting the BUSY into BUSI(Y)NESS!
Matt: Miniatures game Star Wars: Legion is getting a new core set, based around the Clone Wars era of The Stars Wars.
As anyone who lived their formative years in the bleak shadow of George Lucas’s prequel bonanza will recognise, these new models are based on one of the worst films I’ve personally ever seen.
BUT RELAX, SUSAN: If like myself you were secretly enamoured with the introduction of rolly robot boys (RRBs), then providing they haven’t hired Jar Jar Binks to write all of the rules copy on the new cards, this expansion / standalone game looks like daft space fun for those who harbour passionate feelings for the era in which an entire team failed to say “no” to George Lucas.
For more info on just how fun Star Wars: Legion can be (provided you spend enough $$$), be sure to check out our review!
Intern Kylie: After dramatically rebooting their game and its entire world a few years ago, Games Workshop has announced yet another board game based in the world of Warhammer: Age of Sigmar.
The Rise and Fall of Anvalor sees players pretending to work together to build and defend the city, with the ultimate aim of the game being seizing full control of the city in question, even if the city itself actually falls.
Matt: Gosh! It’s an interesting pitch for a game, I’ll give them that, even if they’ve lost me with the enthusiastic explanation that “the player who has the most influence over the city reigns supreme and secures their dominance over The Great Parch”. The Great Parch? Is Gatӧraade one of the new Chaos gods?
Kylie: Maybe? I’ve got to be honest here – I don’t know an awful lot about the Warhammer Universe, but I can tell you this game looks very black. It’s a big black board with black tiles and black cards, and I’m not really digging it. I think they thought adding luminous borders would add a pop of colour, but it just makes my eyes hurt.
Matt: Neon is an odd choice for high fantasy. I still can’t quite get over the decisions that CMON made with Ethnos (see our review of that lovely game here). Still, on a broader note: what is going ON with Games Workshop? I’ll be fascinated to find out how these new Warhammer board games fare in the wild, because from my perspective these dry-looking oddities can’t possibly do well… right?
[Update: It seems this game was announced a little while back. We were just tipped off to it this week due to the designer posting an extensive design diary.]
Kylie: Matt! Board game fans will soon be able to step into the shoes of Die Hard’s John McClane!
Matt: Presumably you’ll then have to take the shoes off again, run through some glass, and crawl through a vent a bit until the terrorists decide that they’ve had enough of Christmas.
Kylie: But wait, let’s not get too excited – Die Hard: the Nakatomi Heist is a collaboration between Fox Consumer Products and USAopoly, coming from two unknown designers, leading Quinns to state plainly that “statistically speaking, it is going to be bobbins”.
In the potential event that it isn’t awful, you can look forward to a ‘one-versus-all’ style game in which Mr McClane must face off against a variety of Germans with fabulous hair. As someone who loves being the bad guy in a board game, it doesn’t get much better than joining Team Gruber.
Matt: The Ian O’Toole alarm just went off in my shed! I came as quickly as I could – what’s going on??
Kylie: He’s done the art for a new edition of 2014’s Irish Gauge! One of those mildly alienating games of stocks and shares and railway tracks that says it lasts about an hour but inevitably takes people like us a lot longer. However, where those games are usually enormously ugly, Capstone Games has made this one look amazing.
Matt: Oh gosh I love these games, but there’s nothing more paralysis-inducing than the fear I’ll do THE WRONG TRAINS. This is a delightfully clean bit of visual design, and cor – what an absolutely verdant bit of box art! Immediately evocative on my Irish-o-meter, and yet doesn’t even veer close to falling into the trap of lurid horrors that surround stuff like St Patrick’s Day.
Kylie: I’m pretty sure those lovely shades of green have cleared up the worst of my Warhammer headache. It’s also great to see a continued run of pretty little things from Capstone – this is the first release announced from their ‘Iron Rails’ series, in partnership with Winsome Games.
Kylie: Meanwhile, AEG has announced a Kickstarter for deluxe version of really-quite-good deckbuilding game Valley of the Kings, which we talked about back on podcast #18.
Valley of Kings is an unusually-themed game which sees players preparing for their own burials. Just want you want to think about during a Monday game night! The game is full of food, canopic jars, amulets and treasure, all of which you’ll hopefully stow away in the ultimate death-bed/pyramid. The player who has the most valuables entombed at the end wins!
This edition of the game consolidates the three previously released editions into one big package, alongside some improved components. AEG seem very keen on letting you know that the cards in this premium edition are, for lack of a better word, premium. The Kickstarter has gone into some hilarious depth on the quality of these cards. They’re enormous linen-finished tarot cards, guys, what’s not to love? Although, AEG are also giving you sleeves for the cards. Probably negating all the effort made on the cards in first place.
Quinns: It’s me, Quinns! I am also here. Seconds before loading this article into the news-tube and firing it into the waiting brainpans of our beloved audience, I spotted one more story for us to cover.
The New Voices Scholarship is a new program created to help tabletop game designers from marginalised community to get a helping hand into the industry, and it’s now open for applications! The first wave of five successful applicants will receive:
- A badge to the Tabletop Network game design conference ($450 value; which also includes admission to BGG.CON)
- Hotel accommodations at Tabletop Network for three nights (Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday). There may be up to two scholars per room.
- Reimbursement for up to $500 in air travel to and from the conference
Initial funding for the scholarship is being provided by designer Geoff Engelstein, whose pretty face can be seen above. You can also read an interview we did with Geoff here, watch our crazy playthrough of his excellently silly game Space Cadets here, or if you want to agree with us that he’s a very nice man, you can do so in the comments below.
