News Collider - Board Game News 27/02/2019

Lots of things to announce this week, from new Dungeons and Dragons books (steady, Andy) to reskinned Talisman games (down Jon!) and an expansion for Anachrony (easy, Steve). There’s even a few Kickstarters...um...kicking off.

And needless to say, Andy is all over at least three of them.

GAME ANNOUNCEMENT: GHOSTS OF SALTMARSH

Amazon has slipped up again with another D&D release.  Somehow, someone got a hold of the upcoming D&D supplement and scanned in the cover releasing to the world its name and cover art – a very similar thing happened with Guildmasters’ Guide to Ravnica.  Wizards of the Coats had already teased a couple of pages in their monthly Twitch stream, Spoilers & Swag, and since the slip up have now released full information on the book.

Ghosts of Saltmarsh will be released everywhere on 21st May, and is 256 pages long of new locations, new adventure hooks, new monsters, magic items, ship-to-ship combat and a bunch of adventures from Dungeon Magazine such as;  The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, Danger at Dunwater, The Final Enemy, Salvage Operation, Isle of the Abbey, Tammeraut’s Fate, and The Styes.  These adventures all take characters from level 1 up to 12.

GAME ANNOUNCEMENT: ODYSSEY OF THE DRAGONLORDS

Odyssey of Dragonlords is a third party setting for D&D, set in the world of Theylea, which is heavily inspired by ancient Greek myths and legends.  What makes this so exciting?  Well, this campaign will be the first publication from Arcanum Worlds a company made up of former BioWare writers.  This includes James Ohlen, the lead designer of Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age: Origins, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.  The game includes two new playable races, a variant centaur and a satyr.  Additionally, the game will feature Epic Paths, quests that the heroes are destined to tackle.  

The Players Guide, a 28-page companion book needed to play, is available for free on DriveThruRPG now.  A Kickstarter campaign will run in April to finance the print run of the hardcover campaign book, the digital version of which will be (hopefully) released in May.

GAME ANNOUNCEMENT: TALISMAN: KINGDOM HEARTS

Remember when we told you that USAopoly had secured the rights to create a licensed version of the classic Games Workshop game Talisman?  Well, the first one has now been announced.  Disney’s Kingdom Hearts!  

Players will take on roles such as King Micky, Goofy, Sora, Kairi or Riku, gathering strength and magic to complete objectives and seal the Door to Darkness. 

GAME ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM MONSTER FIGHT CLUB

A little while ago we told you about a new publisher, Monster Fight Club.  Back then all they had was a logo and a name, now they have games to talk about.  Revealed at the New York  Toy Fair earlier this month.

First up is Tentacle Town, a worker placement and hand management game set in a town besieged by giant tentacles.  Townsfolk will need to build up defences and repel the Tentacle attack - earning them “calamari” and fame, with the most famous townsperson being the overall winner of the game.

The second title will be Yuli, an abstract strategy game where players will use their loyal pseudo-Aztec-worshippers to push temples around the board with the aim of installing them at their opponent's end of the board - it looks and sounds like a mashup of Onitama and Kickle Cubicle which is utterly amazeballs.

GAME ANNOUNCEMENT: QUIRKY CIRCUITS

Making up part of Plaid Hat's Adventure book series of games, Quirky Circuits has players working together to programme a robot to complete certain tasks.  However, players won't know what commands have been added to the subroutine by anyone else until it's too late. Complete the task before the robot's battery dies and you win 1 of the 21 scenarios!  

Quirky Circuits will be available this Autumn.

GAME ANNOUNCEMENT: SHADOWS OF KILFORTH

Gloom of Kilforth from Hall or Nothing Productions will have its first standalone expansion hitting Kickstarter this Friday, 1st March.   The game can be played as its own adventure or mixed in with Gloom of Kilforth to create a new and bumper sized adventure!  Work together, or not, as your journey through Kilforth, meeting creatures weird and wonderful, strange and dangerous all in order to complete your epic, personal quest…and save the world.  

Obviously.

GAME ANNOUNCEMENT: SUPER FANTASY BRAWL

A shufflebuilding, action programming arena battle game with chunky miniature is what is on offer from Mythic Games later this year on Kickstarter.  Players will assemble their team of legendary fighters and pit them against one another.  Each fighter comes with its own action deck which is combined with those of the same team to fight enemies and claim objectives.  

Mythic Games will bring Super Fantasy Brawl to Kickstarter this summer!

GAME ANNOUNCEMENT: AGE OF SIGMAR RPG

Cubical 7 have released the cover art for their upcoming Warhammer Age of Sigmar RPG along with some details of what the book will contain.  Characters are initially created from a host Archetypes which present species attributes, base skills equipment and so on and will use  D6 dice pool system to play.     

GAME ANNOUNCEMENT: RAVNICA INQUISITION

Who wants a social deduction game based on the Magic the Gathering: Ravnica setting?  Well, you’re in (or possibly out of) luck.  Wizards of the Coast and Wizkids have done just that.  5 to 10 Players will be either Agents of Bolas or Gatewatch Loyalists and you’ll do the pretty typical social deduction with the opening and the closing of eyes and then set about killing one another with a very democratic voting system.

EXPANSION ANNOUNCEMENT: ANACHRONY – FRACTURES OF TIME

Fractures of time introduces an alternate timeline to Anachrony in the game’s first expansion. Players will discover powerful new technology called Flux which they can use to power-up their Fracture devices and “blink” one of their placed Exosuits to a new action space instead of placing a new one.  This new action results in newfound levels of efficiency, but at a cost…

Anachrony: Fractures of Time will be hitting Kickstarter on 16th April  

EXPANSION ANNOUNCEMENT: FEUDUM: RUDDERS & RAMPARTS

This new expansion for the very well received Feudum makes some small but significant changes to gameplay by adding deluxe vessels and castles, which improve attacks and defences respectively but there is an upkeep cost that can be the ruin of many a fine Feudum.

The Kickstarter launches on 1st March.

WIZARDING WEBSTORE

Knight Models are running an exclusive on their webstore for their Harry Potter Miniatures Game.  There is a bundle pack for each side of the wizarding war, with one bundle featuring 2 Auorors and Trigger/Barty Crouch Snr and 2 Death Eaters and David Tennant/Barty Couch Jr in the other.  

They are at the bargain price of £69.97, down from £69.99….someone may need to point out how to do promotions to someone at Knight models…

GAMES FACTORY SHUTDOWN

The Polish games publisher Games Factory is having to close its doors…before fulfilling its Kickstarters.  If you backed The Board Game Creative Kit or Solar City then you may already know, you won’t be getting them and that the reason for this is due to “financial mismanagement” by the president.  In a translated statement on the publishers Facebook page:

“a lot of financial negligence has come out in games factory, including unpaid invoices for the production of the games hero realms and Solar City.”

DETECTIVE AWARD

Detective: A Modern Crime Board game was awarded the Golden ace – Game of the Year (I’As d’Or-Jeu de l’Année) at Festival des Jeux in Cannes last week in the expert category.  Children’s category winner was Mr Wolf by Marie & Wilfried Fort and the third winner of the night was The Mind by Wolfgang Warsch.

IDW BREAKS UP WITH NINJA DIVISION

IDW has worked closely with Ninja Division on a number of previous projects but with the continuing troubles faced by Ninja Division, IDW have decided that the best course of action would be to find a new sculptor.  For games announced so far, this affects only Wayward – which was to have six hero miniatures for the Kickstarter exclusive version and the Men in Black/ Ghostbusters game due for release later this year.  

IDW has already updated backer about this change and has asked for patience with the delay caused by the need to find someone new.  MIB/Ghostbusters will now be sculpted by Hector “Herc” Moran who previously did Street Fighter: The Miniatures Game.

HASBRO AND WIZKIDS SITTING IN A TREE

From one messy break-up to coupling, of sorts.  Hasbro and Wizkids have announced an “enhanced licensing deal” which will allow the latter to include properties such as My Little Pony, Transformers and GI Joe into their games retinue.  

Neither company has expanded further on what form these games will take (my money is on Heroclix) but time will tell.

KICKSTARTER HIGHLIGHTS

Coloma
Travel Out West, stake your claims, and defend the town in this strategic Eurogame for 1-5 pioneers.
A Eurogame with cowboys that Andy backed with 115 seconds of the campaign going live.  He’s not a junkie.  
Honest.

Hero – The Adventurer’s Journal 
HERO is an epic and fantasy Adventurer's Journal adaptable to every role-playing game to write the stories of your heroic characters!

I have to say this looks like an absolutely cracking way to keep all your character and adventure information together.  There are a few days left and the publisher is still a way of meeting their funding goal, but go have a look and see what you think.

In The Hall of the Mountain King
Territory denial. Cascading production. Magic & muscle. An innovative game for 2-5 trolls that is easy to learn but hides rich depths.

One of our Most Anticipated Kickstarters of 2019 and this game is smashing through stretch goals currently.  The campaign ends 2am on the 1st of March!

Iwari
Iwari is an abstract-like euro game where players represent different tribes who endeavour to define their identity by travelling and expanding settlements into five different types of regions in a strategy game of majorities. Iwari re-imagines the award-winning game Web of Power by Michael Schacht by adding new layers of strategy, different maps with their own set of rules, modules that can be added to the game and a unique cooperative and solo modes.

Iwari comes from the same publishers (Thundergryph) as Tang Garden and Spirits of the Forest, which we made special note of in our “Upcoming in 2019” article for being pretty, even though you don’t get points for being pretty any more. Yes, Jon was confused too.

Iwari will launch on Kickstarter on 5th March.

Elder Dice: The Colors Out of Space
Other than the grievance of having to spell this incorrectly, The Colors out of Space continues the series of collector’s dice from Infinite Black themed around the Cthulu Mythos. Andy and Jon have both previous sets so naturally, this one is of interest as well. They’re lovely dice packaged in fabulous grimoires to create a great look on the shelf.