Space Hulk: Death Angel – The Card Game… Expansions!

Fantasy Flight Games recently announced that certain games will henceforth be supported with their new Print on Demand service. Games that normally would not have been supported with new expansions will get new game stuff called micro-expansions. The first two micro-expansions available are two card expansions for the game Space Hulk: Death Angel and here’s what the players who own this game can expect according to the FFG website:

Death Angel: Mission Pack 1 Expansion

Your mission is not over, and failure is not an option.

While you may have survived the harrowing challenges of Death Angel, the mission is far from over. The Mission Pack 1Print on Demand expansion brings twelve new Location cards to provide alternate missions for players. These cards are seamlessly incorporated into your Death Angel game – simply choose whether you want to use the standard Location cards or the ones found in this Mission Pack and build your mission as normal.

But beware! New terrors have emerged in the form of Adrenal Genestealers: deathly agile and relentless. These dangerous new foes will pop out from every dark corner, unleashing attack after attack.

Also included in Mission Pack 1 is an all-new Terrain card, that will threaten to thrust unfortunate space marines out into the cold embrace of space.

 

 

Death Angel: Space Marine Pack 1 Expansion

Rally your battle brothers with the Death Angel Space Marine Pack 1 expansion!

Space Marine Packs introduce brand new combat teams to your game, ready to blast their way into the carnage that is Death Angel.

The Space Marine Pack 1 Print on Demand expansion comes complete with two new Combat Teams and their respective Action cards. The deadly Chaplain Raziel brings his ironclad faith to the fight while Brother Adron readies his Cyclone Missile Launcher for absolute devastation. These new Combat Teams can be seamlessly incorporated into your Death Angel games to provide more versatility and more options.

Also included in the Space Marine Pack 1 are 8 Combat Team cards, which replace the original 6 Combat Team markers from the Death Angel game, making it easier to randomise and select your teams.

 

That’s an interesting idea and hopefully now good games that perhaps didn’t fulfill FFG high expectations regarding sales will now get cool new stuff for those players who own them and enjoy them. We would like to see Print on Demand expansions for example for games like Marvel Heroes – The Boardgame or Middle-earth Quest.

The Space Hulk expansions can be ordered here

 

War of the Ring (FFG/Nexus) – revision!

Roberto di Meglio, one of the designers of the boardgame ‘War of the Ring’ has announced that a rules revision and an upgrade kit for the cards is currently in the works. He made clear that for all those who already own the the game there’s no need to buy a new version but a download of a pdf with the changes will be sufficient to be up to date with the current thoughts on the design. Because there will be some changes to the wordings of specific cards and the idea is to have cards that are easier to read (i.e. larger letters) there will be an upgrade kit available for those who own the game already, which will include cards, card sleeves, and a tin box to keep all of it.

The designers also consider a change of the victory condition for the Shadow player, asking players whether 10 victory points for the Shadow is ok or that the Shadow should conquer more territories to qualify for a win.

If you want to chime in on this discussion you can either answer Roberto’s question on Facebook here or as a member of BGG you can leave a post here in the relevant post.

So, besides the news post here, we would like to say that there’s no need at all in our opinion to change anything in the victory conditions of both sides in the game. One can argue whether the expansion ‘Battle of the Third Age’ used all the opportunities that were clearly present (e.g. siege towers just a dice roll modifier…something more interesting and innovative would have been possible here) or even if the expansion is necessary to get the most out of the game, but there’s – in our humble opinion – no reason to bugger about with a game that is just fine as it is. It works, it fits the overall story of Tolkien, it has the right atmosphere, it’s fun and gameplay is full of tension and it’s dropping with theme, in short there’s nothing wrong with it and one of the best LOTR wargames out there.

So, if you have some time on your hands dear designers, think about another, better or let’s say ‘richer’ expansion than BotTA was  – or even better …consider a revision of Marvel Heroes – The Boardgame because there is where things don’t work completely right and where expansions would be great. Do we hear the word ‘licence issues’? Yes, Francesco said that already in our little discussion about the game, but hey…we just wanted to use the opportunity to say ‘we still think about the MH game’

LOTR Living Card Game (FFG) – Rules & Video Tutorial

Well then, you heroes of Middle-earth, prepare yourself with all you need for the forthcoming journey of your life. Courageous folks gather, allies come to help, weapons are handed out while the Eye of Sauron is watching and a great evil is lurking in the shadows…

…and that you as a player might be well prepared for what to come, FFG has the rules online now for the highly anticipated Lord of the Rings – The Living Card Game.

In addition to the rules, the first part of the – again extremely well done  – video tutorial is also online now and new sections will be added over the next days to explain the game so that at the end of the week we should have the complete tutorial available.

The release of this solitaire/coop game is drawing nearer and although no concrete release date has been given by FFG so far, rumors say the game will be out in April.

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

Up Front – no new version from MMP!

Up Front Status

Recently, we were able to agree with Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro on extending a number of the licenses that we hold from them. Unfortunately, with the status of Up Front in the air, that license was not continued. WotC/Hasbro could not estimate when, if ever, they would be able to work through the legal issues surrounding ownership of that game that have prevented us from producing anything for the last five years. We regret that we will not be involved in the future of Up Front. We are very grateful to Andy Maly and Ken Smith for all the hard work that they put into Up Front for us. It was a pleasure working with them, although the results did not pan out. We are big fans of Up Front, and we hope it is able to thrive somewhere else.

That’s a statement recently posted by Brian Youse over at CSW and really bad news, because as we all know Up Front is one of the best card wargames ever designed and a very innovative  and thrilling game. The so called Up Front 2000 project (the plan to publish a new updated and completely overhauled version of the classic game) has been on hold for several years so that nobody really believed it would ever happen, but there’s always this 1% of hope that it will happen anyway – and that hope is now completely dead. Given the situation Brian describes above it seems to be fact now that no reprint/reproduced version will come out and  I would suggested that everybody who owns a copy of the classic UF game should by all means keep it and everybody not having it on the shelf should get a copy as soon as it appears on their radar.

New Hornet Leader Campaign: Libya 2011

In view of the current events in Libya, DVG published a new Campaign for Hornet Leader – Carrier Air Operations: Libya 2011. In this scenario, the US sends a carrier task force to aid the anti-Gadhafi revolutionary forces in their conflict with the loyalist forces.

You can download the Campaign for free from the DVG website (PDF, 234 KB).

Warhammer Invasion LCG: New FAQ version available!

The official FAQ version 1.3 is online! You can download a printer friendly version here from the FFG support page (PDF, 788 KB).

It now includes clarifications for cards from the new battle packs as well as general clarifications and examples for various rules and games concepts. New additions are printed in a red font, so you will spot any differences between the new and the old FAQ immediately.

A Sign of Life from the “Lord of the Rings” Living Card Game (FFG)!

News from Fantasy Flight Games regarding the eagerly awaited “Lord of the Rings” Living Card Game!

The game (which was initially announced for the “holiday season 2010″) appears to be published “later this winter“. In a new preview article, Fantasy Flight Games introduces the scenario driven concept of the Living Card Game and describes how the “Quest Deck” works.

In addition, FFG announces a series of previews which will deal with several aspects of the game. A large overview which explains the cooperative gameplay mechanics was published in August. Since then, news were scarce. New previews and the “later this winter” announcement aroused anticipation and new discussions among players and fans about the fourth Living Card Game.

You can read the latest preview here. We don’t think that the game will be published before Christmas, but rather in early 2011.

We will inform you as soon as there are new information regarding the release date or new previews available!

New experimental Wingmen rules for DiF – Aces High (DVG)!

One of the new wingmen cards

Our review of Aces High inspired game designer Dan Verssen to experiment with new wingmen rules. One of our major complaints was the elimination of wingmen rules from the new Down in Flames game (which were a vital part of the original Down in Flames series by GMT).

Dan Versson developed experimental rules and Wingmen cards for playtest purposes and published a sample dogfight game between two leaders and two wingmen, showing the new rules in action.

“My goal is to return wingmen to the game, while keeping the rules as simple as possible. From what I have heard, almost everyone likes the idea of wingmen, but many people were turned-off by the old rules. For those of you who never played the old game, the wingmen rules were filled with complexity and exceptions. Basically, you had to learn/teach two seperate sets of rules, one for Leaders and one for Wingmen. My goal is to make the Wingmen rules as much like Leader rules as possible, while still retaining their flavor.”

If you are a wingmen fan and want to participate in testing the new rules, you can simply download the rules and sample cards and integrate them into an Aces High dogfight.

Feedback, comments, and suggestions are highly welcome, please leave any comments in the DVG forum on Consimworld!

A Game of Thrones (LCG): Official FAQ updated and news

A new version of the official FAQ & Errata is online!

Fantasy Flight Games published a new version of the extensive A Game of Thrones (LCG) FAQ. Whether you are a beginner or a veteran, downloading this FAQ is imperative because it contains very important rules clarifications, errata, and additional rules not mentioned in the basic rulebook (for example, the Moribund state).You can download the updated FAQ & Errata here (PDF,1.2 MB).

In addition, FFG published new tournament rules (PDF, 3.0 MB).

The 2010 World Championships are over. If you are interested in the top 8 decks, check out the official tournament page with a detailed list of all 8 winners’ decks. Interestingly, 26% used House Martell, followed by 21% House Stark. 16% played with Baratheon and Lannister, 14% Targaryen, and 7% House Greyjoy.

You can still pre-register for the “Days of Fire and Ice” event in the FFG Event Center (November 12th-14, Roseville, MN). The schedule of the event includes tournaments for all A Game of Thrones games, game introductions, seminars, and meeting with author George R. R. Martin who will sign autographs, answer questions, and will read from his books. The schedule can be downloaded here (PDF).

Call of Cthulhu LCG: New faction!

Good news for all Call of Cthulhu LCG players! Fantasy Flight Games announced a new human faction for the Call of Cthulhu Living Card Game: The Order of the Silver Twilight!

The new faction will be introduced this winter by the Deluxe Expansion “The Order of the Silver Twilight” which will contain 55 never-before-seen cards (3 copies per card), 40 for the new Order of the Silver Twilight, 2 for each of the existing factions, and 1 neutral card.

One specialty of the new faction will be “Ritual Cards” which have similar effects as event cards but which will be played on the table and remain in play until their effect is triggered – adding a new threat to other players. The Order will also focus on discard and sacrifice effects.

With the new faction, the CoC LCG will have 8 factions – four human and four demon factions.  Future Asylum Packs will contain cards for the Order as well as cards for the other 7 factions.

Up to now, the release date is unknown (“winter”), but while you are waiting, you can check out the FFG announcement for more information about the upcoming expansion.