The board game (and board game-related!) news that caught our attention for the week ending July 27, 2018.
- Gen Con announced they expect a sellout of four-day badges this week. The convention, North America’s largest tabletop get-together, had a (gulp) $73 million impact on Indianapolis last year. According to Gen Con, 80% of the badges sold this year will be four-day badges.
“So far in 2018 we’ve already sold more 4-Day badges than ever before in Gen Con’s 51-year history,” said David Hoppe, Gen Con President. (Read our interview with Hoppe.) - The Spiel des Jahres announced their winners this week with top honors going to Azul. The SdJ gets a lot of attention, but I never feel like they make picks that most of the people I game with enjoy. *shrug* I think that’s one of the things that’s great about our hobby. There’s something for everyone!
- This week’s image? The ICC, natch. See you there!
- CMON seems to have saved up a lion’s share of announcements for this week. After last week’s surprise about Wacky Races, they revealed they would be bringing an updated edition of Project: ELITE to Kickstarter later this year. Next, they announced a CMON-style game (I guess that’s code for minis), set in the Munchkin universe, called Munchkin Dungeon. That’s also a Kickstarter game. Lastly, yesterday they told us they are developing an RPG based on the Zombicide universe. It will be—you guessed it—coming to Kickstarter late next year.
- European private equity firm PAI Partners announced that they had entered exclusive discussion to purchase Asmodee. It was just four years ago that Eurazeo acquired Asmodee and it has been announced that the sales price of the game company will be $1.4 billion, which represents a fair portion of PAI’s portfolio. They currently have $15.7 billion under management.
- Games Workshop has started taking orders for Kill Team, the skirmish sized version of 40K. Robin Brooks has written about Kill Team a bit, if you want to know more, but… that terrain!
- Renegade announced that, in addition to their edition of Arboretum, the beautiful card game, they are bringing us a deluxe version. The premium cards will be stamped with a rainbow foil, the fabric bag will be embroidered, and the whole thing will come in an engraved wooden box with a fancy sleeve. Look for it in November.
- Plaid Hat will be coming out with another adventure book game. After the success of Stuffed Fables comes Comanauts. In this game, also by Fables designer Jerry Hawthorne, players race to bring the smartest man in the world out of a coma. It’s a race to not only save the good doctor, but also the world!
- As far as new games out next week, well, there are too many to list. We’re headed to Gen Con in a few days and we’ll do our best to tell you all about as many of them as we can. Like in the past, we’ll let you know about all the amazing, cool, and fun things we see while we’re there. Be sure to follow me and Jonathan Liu on Twitter, check in here for special Gen Con posts, and probably a bit more! Then, of course, we’ll be reviewing as many as we can!
At GeekDad, we write a lot about tabletop games. Here’s what we’ve written about this past week:
- As mentioned, Robin Brooks told us about the new skirmish game from Games Workshop, Warhammer 40K: Kill Team.
- Before going on vacation, Jonathan Liu looked to clear his plate and write a lot. So… (deep breath) he told us about Blue Lagoon, an exploration and settlement game set in the South Pacific and from Blue Orange, he also alerted us to Sabotage, a roll and write, hidden movement game from Tim Fowers and Jeff Krause that’s seeking funding on Kickstarter. Next, he wrote about BarBEARian Battlegrounds, a cute dice-rolling, glory-seeking game that’s out now and, finally, he reviewed the game where it’s OK to be evil, Villainous, which features the most morally bankrupt of Disney characters… (gasp).
- OK, moving on, Kim Haynes looked at Carthage, a deck builder that pits gladiators against each other in arena combat. (It has minis too!)
- Simon Yule ventured again into the fray in session 63 of his D&D campaign, which he titled “You can do this the easy way or the Strahd way.”
- James Floyd Kelly looked at Battle Mats, a big book of laminated maps, of varying terrain, complete with a 1″ grid.
- Wrapping things up, we added two games to the rolls of GeekDad approved games (find all of them in our review index). First, Logan Giannini loved Century: Eastern Wonders, the next game in the Century trilogy, and I braved the brutal wastelands of Remnants to bring word of a great new game from Fireside.
Finally, here’s what some of the GeekDad Crew has been playing this week:
- Michael Harrison: Galaxy Trucker, Hanabi, Junk Orbit
- Jonathan Liu: Sabotage, My Little Scythe, Startups, Villainous, Deep Sea Adventure, Hanamikoji, High Society, NMBR 9, Tofu Kingdom
- Michael Pistiolas: Mastermind, Massive Darkness, Sleeping Queens
- Kim Haynes: Carthage, Long Cow, Ghost Fighting Treasure Hunters
- Logan Giannini: Secret Hitler, Menara, Gorus Maximus, Set a Watch, Bye Bye Black Sheep, Skulls, Cockroach Poker.
- Robin Brooks: Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire, Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team, The Mind, Minute Realms, 7 Wonders Duel, Drop it, Yu-Gi-Oh
- Dave Banks: Minerva, Karuba: The Card Game, Bunny Kingdom, Mars Open, Chopstick Dexterity Mega Challenge 3000, Between Two Cities, Kitchen Rush, Seal Team Flix, Remnants, SuperTopSecretStonemaierGame
