Board Game News 21: IELLO Powers Up, Thunderstone travels to New Realms plus this week’s releases!

Welcome to another round up of news from around the web along with the latest releases in the UK, including the excellent looking X-Wing, along with news of four UK cons coming up in the next two months!

AEG

First up some news from one of my favourite games companies. AEG have released a handy PDF guide to their news, but here are some highlights:

• Smash Up - A Smashing Success!
• Tempest - Gorgeous artwork, updates about release, plus a new game - Love Letter!
• Thunderstone - AEG joins forces with Monte Cook to support Numenera!
• The Gamers - AEG joins with the people behind The Gamers!
• L5R - Global Storyline Tournaments, 10,000 Cards!

In addition to all that Playdek has released Martial Law, an expansion to the iOS version of AEG’s popular combative deck building game Nightfall. There is still no sign of Playdek coming to Android but when it does they can certainly count on one very interested customer!!

 

IELLO

The guys over at IELLO, makers of fine games like King of Tokyo and Dwarf King have some exciting Essen releases they would like to tell you about.

On September 28th, IELLO will partner with new publisher Play & Win to release a new epic board game set in Mythic Greece.ftp://marketing:marketing@91.121.179.21/Jeu%20de%20Societe/Mythic%20Battles/MB_mockup_top.jpg

Mythic Battles will place 2 or 4 players in the position of legendary warlords, taking control of fantastic armies for fast-paced, less-than-an-hour strategic games.

Benoît Vogt will be signing copies and postcards of the game at Essen SPIEL ’12 on October 21st from 1 pm to 3 pm on IELLO’s stand (hall 9, stand 74). Pre-orders for pick-up at the Game Fair are available at : http://iellogames.miiduu.com.

BECOME A LEGENDARY WARLORD!

Take the leadership of fantastic armies and lead your troops to victory!

Mythic Greece is in chaos: Athena and Hades are at war and have sent their greatest heroes to battle. Take on the role of these generals out of legend, leading fantastic armies and lead your troops to victory!

Mythic Battles is a game that simulates epic confrontations and breath-taking battles. The Building Battle Board (BBB), an innovative game system, combines game mechanisms from miniature games, board games, and card games; as a result, Mythic Battles offers you a unique experience.

ftp://marketing:marketing@91.121.179.21/Jeu%20de%20Societe/Mythic%20Battles/eventail_cartes_1.jpg

Recruit your army, play your cards to activate your units, roll your dice to resolve combat... reinvent the way you play!

This box contains two complete armies for two or four players, an initiation campaign, as well as all you need to play hours of endless battles.

Other armies and units will periodically be released to flesh out your campaigns!

FEATURES :

• Comes with 2 ready-to-play armies

• Powered by the Building Battle Board system, a radically innovative concept

• Includes a campaign booklet for a quick & easy tutorial and special rules to improve your games

• Splendid artworks

• An upcoming complete range of expansions, new armies, miniatures and scenarios.

Players: 2 or 4. Age: 14+. Duration: 45 min. Language: English.

Content: 145 Unit cards, 86 Manoeuvre cards, 9 Stele cards, 40 Art of War cards, 10 special dice, 5 Stele tokens, 34 Unit tokens, 6 double-sided tiles, 30 Power Point tokens, 1 Rulebook, 1 Campaign booklet.

Release date: AVAILABLE

Suggested retail price: $49,99 / 39,95€

We are proud to announce that IELLO pre-orders for Essen SPIEL ’12 are now available online.ftp://marketing:marketing@91.121.179.21/Jeu%20de%20Societe/Iello/King%20of%20Tokyo%20Power%20Up%20!/KOTPU_Box_FR.jpg

It takes just a few clicks to pre-order a copy of Uchronia, King of Tokyo - Power Up! and Mythic Battles.

Other IELLO games IELLO (King of Tokyo, Innovation, Biblios, The Dwarf King, Joomba et Croak) are also available for pre-order, as well as a King of Tokyo bundle.

Uchronia and King of Tokyo are each provided with a set of promo cards. Power Up! will receive an even more special treatment, which you should hear about very soon…

ftp://marketing:marketing@91.121.179.21/Jeu%20de%20Societe/Iello/Uchronia/mockup_Uchronia.jpgThe website and all the games are available in English.

Payment will take place at pick-up, in hall 9, stand 74 of Essen Messe.

IELLO pre-orders are now available at: http://iellogames.miiduu.com!

 

Eagle Games

As always plenty of news now from Eagle Games…

Salmon Run

Now available on Kickstarter. Don't miss out on the race of a fish's lifetime!

2012 Eagle Games Special

Here are some www.eaglegames.net specials you should know about!

"Defenders of the Realm" Special- Order the base game and receive the Barbarian Expansion (grey hero figure and its character card), and the Pre-Painted bundle of Original Heroes and Generals from base game. This bundle special will expire at the end of the year. Check it out here at Defenders Special.

We offer free shipping in the Continental US for orders over $50.00!

If you are looking for a few cheap games to get your order to the FREE shipping level, or if you just like a great bargain be sure to check out these games in our:

Bargain Basement

Cheeky Monkey

Here's a sneak peek at the NEW Version of Cheeky Monkey, this wonderful game will now be packaged inside of this cute plush monkey bag!

Cheeky Monkey is in stores now

Find it online here!

Cheeky Monkey provides barrels of fun for all ages as players challenge each other to push their luck to the limit while trying to amass the most valuable collection of wild animals. You can draw as many chips as you want from the plush "Cheeky Monkey" bag, but don't be too "cheeky" or you'll find yourself returning your current catch to the bag!

"This is a really, really good game for families with children that plays quickly, and has a great fun factor....with all ages..., and generates laughter and excitement."

--Ender Wiggins on BGG

Solitaire for Two

Now available on the iPad! Check it out Here!

Eagle & Gryphon Games now has three electronic apps. available: Solitaire for Two, Roll through the Ages, & What's My Word with many more on the way! You can expect to see electronic apps for Can't Stop, Railways of the World, & Defenders of the Realm in the near future!

Age of Empire III: Builder Expansion

The 6th player expansion to Glen Drover's best game yet. Get it now while supplies last at Empires: Builder Expansion!

Interested in what another gamer thought? Check out this review posted by Josh Edwards

Game Highlights:

* Expands the game to 6 players with a complete set of purple colonists

* 20 NEW Capital Buildings

* 34 Base Buildings

* 60 Builder specialists in 6 colors

* 6 New national advantage counter

* 1 Rule book

* Compatible with Age of Empires III: The Board Game

If you are not familiar with the original Age of Empires III the board game. Check it out here!

The Board Game Arena

After Seasons (July) and Gygès (August), Color pop, a game from from Lionel Borg, is now available on Board Game Arena online board game platform.
Freshly published this year by Gigamic, Color pop doesn't hide its inspiration from reflexion video games where you have to make small groups of colored tokens vanish. Your goal is to pop the tokens matching your (secret) color, but without being too obvious: if your opponents get a whiff of what your secret color really is, they will make your popping a lot harder!

To make a long story short: this is an digital adaptation of a board game which is inspired from a video game. Absolutely.

image

We take the opportunity of this new game to introduce an innovation: a technology to allow color blind people to enjoy the game as well. Color blindness is - as you can imagine - a strong disadvantage for gamers. 8 to 10% of men (and .5% of women) have some form of color blindness, and can't enjoy many games - like Color pop. To realize this innovation, BGA is using the more and more popular "colorADD" technology, which will be used massively during the next Olympic Games in Rio.

Color Pop online on Board Game Arena

Viticulture

Jamey and Alan would like you to know about their Kickstarter project…

Wine lovers, wishful Vineyard owners, and gamers unite! Viticulture Game developed by St Louis duo

Jamey Stegmaier and Alan Stone have created a fun yet refined board game centred around the art and science of wine making, aptly named Viticulture. The St Louis team skillfully captured the romanticism of owning a vineyard, and packaged it into this entertaining game.

Jamey has been creating games for over a decade; Alan has also studied strategy games in-depth. Their journeys culminate here, under the Stonemaier Games™ logo, in a game already receiving international exposure.

Jamey and Alan are just in the beginning phases of getting Viticulture off the ground. To test market demand they’ve established a fantastic crowd-funding campaign on Kickstarter (http://kck.st/SEYuzw). The Viticulture campaign (open until 7 October) has gained great support to the tune of 148% funding with 2 weeks remaining, fuelled by a buzz about the game, especially after it passed multiple tests by experts, enthusiasts, and novices alike.

About the game:

Viticulture challenges players to create, cultivate, and expand a vineyard in Italy. In the game, you find yourself in rustic Tuscany, where you've inherited a meagre vineyard. You'll have a few plots of land, an old crushpad, a tiny cellar, 3 workers, and the dream of owning the best winery in Italy.

Using those workers (and sometimes visitors) across the seasons, you expand your vineyard by building structures, planting vines, and filling wine orders as you work towards the goal of owning the most successful winery in Tuscany.

The game is sure to please those who enjoy wines, strategy games, or dream of the sights and sounds of a classic European Vineyard.

Number of players: 2-6
Time required: 45-90 min
Recommended ages: 13+
Interest in playing board games more challenging than Monopoly: Helpful
Knowledge of wines/vineyards required: Zero
Interest or love of wine required: Nada

Cons and Clubs

First up here are four Conventions you should know about if you live in the UK

Travel Con 12th – 14th October at The Travellers Rest, Kenton Road, Harrow

Apres-Essen Goodie Con 27th October at Belmont Hall in Wellington, Telford

Liverpool Lions 2nd Annual Con 4th Nov Sycthe and Teacup Cafe Liverpool

Grim Con 9th – 10th November Marston Hotel Blackpool

And what’s on this week?

Out this Week

And finally, this week’s new releases courtesy of our friends over at Board Game Guru, take it away Paul…

Hi,

Apologies if this newsletter runs on – there are so many good things come out next week it is difficult to contain my enthusiasm.

The flag ship release is ‘Star Wars X Wing Miniature’ game and expansions. Early reports are that the game play is fast and furious and that the models are superb. May the force be with you. This is the biggest hobby release in living memory – stock will come in very regularly

Ugg-Tect! is the silliest party game I have ever seen played. Players compete in teams with one member of the team the Ugg-Tect (architect) and the other team members his/her builders. The Ugg-Tect needs to tell his team how to build a structure from a set of wooden blocks – the only problem is he can only speak in Stone Age grunts. The second mode of communication is an inflatable club that he uses to reward or punish his team during the building process.

'Gears of War' gets its first ‘Mission pack’ which adds new scenarios, monsters and weapons.

A Game of Thrones ‘A Dance with Dragons’ allows players to set up the second edition game from the political situation on the fifth book in RR Martin’s novel series.

Disaster Looms! Is themed about escaping from a poisoned earth and colonising the universe. It looks lovely and this review is the only clue to game play I found.

‘Atlantikwall’ is the first expansion for D-Day Dice – this allows one of the rollers to play the German

'For the Win' from, Tasty Minstrel games, throws the improbable combination of Ninjas, Pirates,Zombies, Monkeys and Aliens in to an abstract tile laying game.

‘Erin’ and ‘Pooky’ are a couple of Ally expansions for Red Dragon Inn

‘Andean Abyss’ is the first in the COIN (‘COunterINsurgency) series from Volke Ruhnke (‘Wilderness War’, ‘Labyrinth War on Terror') and sports a novel and neat card driven mechanic. Each round a card is drawn which can be played for an event or factions (listed in order on the card) can take asymmetric actions. If a faction acts during a turn they can’t on the next round. You always know what the next card will bring. This prompts the most intriguing decision making process and I can’t wait to get this played.

‘Bloody April Air War over Arras’ uses the game system of ‘Downtown’ – this game though is set over the Western Front and allows you to recreate in detailed air operations from the bi-plane era

‘Panzer’ & Expansion 1 and Expansion 2. It’s time to dust off the Black Sabbath albums and go all nostalgic about the Winter of Discontent -With its retro cover and retro feel play Panzer is a throw back to the glory days of 70’s wargaming. Though the antecedents of the game lie in Yaquinto’s back catalogue this is a thoroughly modern design – and the appeal for me is is the customisable complexity – you play a basic game or something far more complex.

‘Milestones’ has a general UK release on Tuesday – which is just as well as I have sold out of the copies imported two months ago.

More ‘Netrunners’ arrive on Tuesday

I have pickedup some cheap German copies of ‘Dakota’ (English rules provided by me)

‘Hanabi’ – This is possibly the best co-operative games I have ever played and one of the best games I have played in years. It’s so simple yet challenging – the first batch has I think already sold out, there are more on the way.

'Dungeon Command : Tyranny of Goblins' arrives (finally! and apologies for the delay) on Monday. Jesse Dean's review now means its another game I have to play :)

Lastly i have now got an automated option on every product that will email you when it comes back in to stock.

Happy Gaming

Paul

 

Wrap Up

Thanks Paul, I apologise for lack of content recently guys, things over at Unboxed Towers are a little hectic as I prepare for a big move, but the move will give me more time for writing. Have fun gaming guys and hopefully I’ll be back on Wednesday with a new review.

Chris

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