Re-Roll: This Week’s Tabletop Game News for Week 9 of 2018

The board game (and board game-related!) news that caught our attention for the week ending March 2, 2018.

We had an outstanding response to our call for new game reviewers. There are a lot of emails and writing samples to get through. It may take us a little bit to get through them all, but we are going to read each and every one and then email everyone who sent something in. We’ll move as quickly as we can, but it may take a while. Thank you so much to everyone who expressed interest!
Whistle Stop, an enjoyable, train-based pick up and deliver game from Bezier Games gets an expansion called Rocky Mountains. The add-on puts a 3D mountain range smack dab in the middle of the board and offers big rewards to those who cross them. Look for it at Gen Con.
This week’s image is from Doctor Panic.
Funagain Games announced that their online store is going out of business. Their brick and mortar stores will still be in business, but they are liquidating their online inventory. Shop now (if you can get through)!
In case you hadn’t heard, Star Wars: Legion officially launches on March 22. (Everyone has a third mortgage on their homes these days.) There are sure to be a few more previews before the game begins flying off shelves, but this week’s looks at the Speeder Bikes expansion.
BoardGameGeek has a second series of art prints based on the games you love. These four posters feature Takenoko, 7 Wonders, A Feast for Odin, and Castles of Burgundy and, in my mind, make a perfect addition to any game room. I love these!
Stonemaier Games had two announcements this week—one a stealthy surprise and the other an interesting addition. First, we learned that the fantastic worker placement game, Viticulture (read our review), is getting an unannounced expansion. If you have sharp eyes, you can see that it will be called Visit from the Rhine Valley and feature an alternative set of visitor cards for the base game. It’s advertised as a Q2 release. Second, the company launched a program they are calling Stonemaier Champion. For just a dollar a month, you can support Stonemaier’s continued creation of free content in blog posts and videos. In return, you’ll also receive a monthly digest available only to Champions, free shipping from the Stonemaier store, and early delivery of Stonemaier games, weeks before the rest of the world will see them. Awesome deal!
Renegade has a couple of newly announced games as well. Last week we told you about Wonderland, their Tabletop Day exclusive from designer Daniel Solis. This week Solis is behind a bigger game called Junk Orbit. The $35 game, which will be out in June, has you playing as a space captain, scavenging the universe for “cargo” that you can profit from. While the page only shows the game’s uniquely shaped box, gameplay features intersecting orbits and looks to be very clever.
The other game on the way from Renegade is the first from a recently announced partnership with Oni Press. The Tea Dragon Society is a card game based on Katie O’Neill’s graphic novel. It will be a deck-builder that stays true to the original story. Look for it this summer.
Novelty chess sets are a bit of a, errrm, mutation, but one on the way from USAopoly caught our eye. Fallout Chess pits you and your allies against the robots and mutants of the wastelands. Look for it in stores this month.
Istanbul is a really wonderful pick up and deliver game and one that gets a lot of play around our house. So we are excited to see that its progeny, Istanbul Dice, has a street date, April 11. We’re really looking forward to this one!
On shelves next week is the next game in IDW’s Atari series, Missile Command. The game has diplomacy and missiles. Lots of missiles.
Also on the way in the next seven days from IDW is The X-Files: Conspiracy Theory – Everything Is Connected, a storytelling game where players take turns as Fox Mulder, trying to convince everyone that his outlandish tales are true. Sounds fun!

At GeekDad, we write a lot about tabletop games. Here’s what we’ve written about this past week:

James Floyd Kelly runs down his wish list of what games and gaming related things he is looking forward to on his game radar.
Samantha Fisher ran part two of her exhaustive look at Storm Hollow. (It’s a really big game!)
Anthony Karcz continued his quest to paint all the minis he owns, this time examining an easy way to add highlights.
Ryan Hiller ran down the news that Pathfinder is now officially supported on Roll20 Virtual Tabletop.
Jonathan Liu reviewed Apocrypha, a horror-themed adventure card game with a ruleset similar to Pathfinder ACG.