Board Game News On Monday 7th July.
Greetings and salutations on this fine Monday, and so with the usual irregularity I will attempt to offer you some nuggets worthy of news. With this post finding us plummeting happily into the big CON season actual proper exciting news is going to be on short supply, most publishers develop release constipation about now and all look a little bloated until Gen-Con when they can… hmm saw where that analogy was going, well you get the picture.
So not board game related but interesting i’m sure you will agree is that fact that Wizards Of The Coast have made the newly released 5th edition Dungeon & Dragons basic rules available for free online. It gives you everything to make one of the basic classes and level them up to 20, and the rules for Monsters and Magic stuff have recently been added. You basically get a complete free rules system, whats not to love. I grew up playing the original Red box rules of D&D for many years but haven’t been back to the well since the early 90’s. I’m tempted to dabble again just to see if its as much fun as I found it back in short trousers. Have a look for yourself and if you like what you see you’ll need the starter set for the GM stuff or wait until August when those will be made available for download.
Dead Of Winter! OK so the game is finally loaded on a boat and due to hit the end of July, and I couldn’t be more excited. I have this pre-ordered and can not wait to finally have this game in my grasp. It looks to absolutely nail the best stuff from all the greatest zombie films,series. I know that this genre has been flogged to un-death recently but this is one that I’m totally ready to sit down with. If you fancy getting stoked about this cool new release from Plaid Hat, you can do a lot worse than watching the series of video’s that Rodney over at Watch It Played is putting out for this game.
Another game that’s on my Radar and I’m interested to see how it plays is Black Fleet from Space Cowboys, they where responsible for the excellent Splendor that is nominated for a Spiel des Jahres this year.
Pirates, merchants, and even the occasional captain of a Navy ship all seek glory and fortune on the Caribbean seas!
In the easy-to-play, tactical card-driven board game Black Fleet, you’re in command of three different types of ships: your merchant ship earns you doubloons by conveying goods from one port to another, your pirate ship by attacking and stealing goods from merchants and burying them on islands, and the Navy ships by sinking your opponents’ pirate ships. With your (not-always-honestly-won) money, you’ll improve your ships by buying advancement cards, giving you powerful additional abilities.
Outwit your opponents with fortune cards and combos, earn money faster than they do, and pay the ransom for the governor’s daughter to win the game!
Its looking to be a easy to grasp and play game, with just the right amount of grit to give it the legs for making return visits to my table. It comes with some sweet components including the little ships and some coins, and is festooned with treasure chest full of fantastic looking art. After their debut game Space Cowboys are on my radar and I await this one hitting at Gen Con and will certainly add it to my wants list.
Whilst I wait patiently for Star Realms to hit these shores I been indulging in the recently released app on the android store. This one is really growing on me and quite possibly will unseat Ascension as my go to bathroom break time waster of choice. The card game went down a storm at origins and has since sold out, the second printing is on the way for late July/August. Its inexpensive and fun little game and I strongly implore that you take a look at the app, really good fun.
No official word on its UK debut but as soon as I get word you will hear the excited fanboy squeal of delight. Keep to the app for the moment and ignore the rather inflated prices this is currently showing up for.
As an added initiative this is a buy once play on all formats so for a couple of quid you are good to go.
And whilst we are talking apps Tom Norfolk the Yoda like zen master behind the excellent Stak Bots has a Kickstarter up for Stak Bots Live. Stak Bots is already a fun little app, but with this expansion Tom is looking to take his little robot army out of boot camp and into full battle mode. We love Stak Bots over here at Who Dares Rolls and it comes fully Ollie endorsed, its a great little card game and anything that puts this vicious little tin stomping machine into more peoples hands is fine by me. Go and back this now!!
Tom’s promising more bots and already we have this tease of things to come. I want my bots and its not going to happen without your help. So do the sensible thing and back this project.
He’s a busy man, but we’re see if we can trap Tom somewhere and get an interview in the coming weeks.
As its Monday Board game Hour hits at 7pm GMT – if you are on twitter come and join the party. Tonight’s discussion is on Board Game Groups, I suspect that will get to be quite involved. So get off the fence and join in.
And that about wraps us up for another week. Hope you like the new site format, we are still tweaking it and have some additions to add to the reviews but I think you’ll agree its a nice jumping off point. Any comments or views leave them here or at any number of the other options you have available, facebook,twitter etc etc.
Enjoy the rest of your gaming week, and we’re be back soon with some more reviews and goodies.
