Boardgame News

Convention Report: GAMA Trade Show 2006 - March 14, 2006 - Part 2 (Day 2)

By Rick Thornquist
March 14, 2006

After posting part 1 of today’s report it was time to head back into the fray. In this part of my report I visit Fantasy Flight Games, Café Games and make a quick stop at Educational Insights.

Fantasy Flight Games
Wow. I thought Fantasy Flight had a pile of stuff last year - this year the pile is even bigger! They have three huge box games in the pipeline plus Marvel Heroes, a pile of expansions, a couple of new versions of old games, English versions of a couple of German Knizia games… the list goes on and on.

I got from Fantasy Flight a 27 page booklet that has tons of information on these games and there is just no way I can give you all of it. Instead, I’ll give you a list of the new games with a few highlights.

First of all, on a completely non-boardgaming related topic, Fantasy Flight is jumping into the collectible miniatures market with Mutant Chronicles. I talked a bit to designer Eric Lang and he was very excited about this one.

Now onto boardgames. Fantasy Flight had a pile of pre-release production copies of Warrior Knights at the booth. I’m really looking forward to this game - I read the rules and found them very interesting. I’ll have to see who’s back I’ll have to scratch to get a copy of the game to try.

The Game of Thrones - A Storm of Swords expansion features a brand new four player game plus expansion rules to be added to the base game. Battles of the Third Age is the War of the Ring expansion and also features a new game plus expansions for the base game. I got a picture of the board plus the miniatures.

Arkham Horror is getting two expansions - the big Dunwich Horror Expansion and the smaller Curse of the Dark Pharaoh Expansion.

Fantasy Flight is redoing a couple of their older Silver Line games. Drakon and Cave Troll are going to be republished with updated graphics, components and sculpted figures. Great Wall of China is a family card game from Reiner Knizia. Penguin also appears to be a very light game designed by Knizia.

Marvel Heroes is still coming from Fantasy Flight. They had a prototype of the board on display along with some miniatures.

Starcraft: The Board Game is another game in Fantasy Flight’s huge box line. This one is for 2-6 players. Players take on the roles of the military and political leaders of the races from the computer game. The game will, of course, come with a pile of miniatures as well as a large central game board surrounded by nine smaller boards. Combat is diceless and uses transparent cards.

World of Warcraft: The Board Game is getting two expansions. The first is called Shattered Kingdom and is billed as the ‘first card expansion’ so I guess you can expect more. This expansion has hundreds of new cards with new items, quests, classes, etc. The Overlord has some new cards as well. That one is due this summer. Later this year there will also be a board expansion which will come with new Overlords, character sheets, events, quests and more.

Runebound is also getting a pile of expansions. In addition to the already announced Midnight and Class Decks, there are six more small card expansions planned. There will be two Item & Ally expansions, two Challenge Card expansions and two Adventure Variants. Each one of these will have 30 cards.

Wings of War is getting another sequel. This one is called Wings of War - Dawn of War and it introduces World War II planes to the game system. If I recall correctly, you will even be able to fight with WWI planes against the new WWII planes!

Descent is also getting two expansions. The first is The Well of Darkness Expansion and includes 30 new miniatures, 6 new heroes, new relics, a new type of potion, and more. The Overlord player will now be able to customize his deck and has new spawn cards, new events, traps and more. There will also be nine new quests. The second expansion will be a new campaign expansion including options for characters allowing characters to level up. This expansion will also have new hero characters, skills and equipment.

Blue Moon City is an English version of the Kosmos game from Reiner Knizia. Interestingly enough, Fantasy Flight is changing the cover art a bit. This is a 2-4 player game and includes 21 modular building tiles to build the board plus 80 cards depicting the races of Blue Moon, and, as in the card game, 3 large molded plastic dragons.

Tide of Iron is a huge box game. This is a wargame that features World War II squad-based tactical combat. The game will include many miniatures with soldiers, weapons, vehicles, and more. The game will include modular boards and will be a scenario based game.

Reins of Power is also a huge box game. In this one, players take on the role of global superpowers vying for world domination. There will be a pile of miniature tanks, aircraft and more.

Another expansion for Knizia’s Lord of the Rings is going to be coming out. This one is called the Battlefields Expansion. I remember talking to Knizia a while ago and he mentioned he had another Lord of the Rings expansion finished - I’m glad to see Fantasy Flight is going to release it. In this one, the boards from the main game get a corresponding battlefield and players play on these battlefields to improve their lot on the main boards.

Twilight Imperium is getting an expansion. This expansion has four new races, new variants Strategy and Objective cards and miniatures and rules to expand the game to eight players.

Lastly, Mag Blast is getting a new version - the Third Edition. This one will have all new artwork, by John Kovalic, plus eight new flagships, and more.

Whew! For more information on these, check out the FFG Rants page (scroll down to the ‘3/13 - Greg’ entry).

Café Games
After Fantasy Flight, I visited with Ron Magin of Café Games. He was happy to report that the eagerly awaited Tempus is finally printing in China this week. The game should finally be available in May / June 2006. Ramparts, the English version of Spiel der Turme, is set for June / July 2006. Spectral Rails is due sometime between Origins and Gencon and the new version of Ave Caesar should be available at the end of this summer.

Educational Insights
Educational Insights had a big booth showing their StrataGems line of abstract games. I don’t normally cover abstracts, but the company does do Blokus, which has become sort of an honorary German game. They were showing the newest in the Blokus series - Blokus Trigon - which is due to be released this month.

And that’s it! Stay tuned for part 3 of today’s report!

Pictures - Click the picture for a larger version
	Fantasy Flight Games - booth front
	Fantasy Flight Games - booth side
	A pile of Warrior Knights
	Battles of the Third Age
	Battles of the Third Age board
	Battles of the Third Age miniatures
	Arkham Horror plus expansions
	New version of Drakon, Cave Troll and Mag Blast, plus Knizia’s Great Wall of China and Penguin
	Marvel Heroes prototype
	Marvel Heroes miniatures
	StarCraft - The Board Game with World of Warcraft - The Board Game plus expansion
	Runebound plus expansions
	Wings of War - Dawn of War
	Decent plus expansion
	Blue Moon City
	Blue Moon City close-up
	Tide of Iron
	Reins of Power
	Lord of the Rings - Battlefields Expansion
	Cafe Games
	Educational Insights
	Blokus Trigon