The Onion once ran a spoof about a new expansion to World of Warcraft that lets your WoW character play WoW. If only it were ridiculous enough to be fiction.

The game Combat Cards was initially created as a virtual card game that you play within the online virtual reality world Second Life. Your character stands on the screen as you draw cards and then acts out the cards you play. Like real-world CCGs, you had to buy packs of combat cards to play. The mechanics are a souped up version of RPS.

Combat cards has now jumped into real life, and you can now get physical cards to play with. You can get them free print-and-play, or buy them in packs.

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The Guardian surveys what it feels are the ten best uses of Chess from the history of literature. Books:

• The Book of the Duchess by Chaucer
• A Game at Chess by Thomas Middleton
• The Tempest by William Shakespeare
• Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
• The Royal Game by Stefan Zweig
• The Waste Land by TS Eliot
• The Defence by Vladimir Nabokov
• From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming
• Murphy by Samuel Beckett
• Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone by JK Rowling

(source)

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Six new Lego board games were announced at the Toy Fair. Lego board games let kids build the board game and then play, making the board itself somewhat customizable.

Source implies this is Lego’s first foray into the game business, which is far from true (also here). Also, numerous classic games like Chess and Tic Tac Toe have been made from Lego pieces before, either as official sets or just from the minds of crazed fans. From the source:

One game, Rameses Pyramid, involves children building their own pyramid, complete with treasure buried inside and Egyptian sphinxes. Players have to collect crystals to climb their mini-Lego character up the pyramid and claim the prize – the king mummy.

(source)

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These articles are starting to come in every day now, so I’m thinking of just collecting them in a roundup format, similar to the criminal roundup.

• A Reuters story about the UK Toy Fair and families retrenching to play more board games was reprinted many times. The article implies that board games gain a boost due to nostalgia: people remember the games they played when they were younger and buy copies of those games. I.e. board games = thirty year old games.
• The Atlanta Journal Constitution ran a front page article on five places to play board games in Atalanta, including The Tower Games (Euros and CCG game store), Atlanta Card and Board Game Meetup (Euros), Play Date Atlanta (mainstream, attracts an urban crowd), Thinking Man Tavern (bar with mainstream games), and Kirkwood Bar and Grill (ditto).
• The Toronto Star talks about people ditching bars for board game nights, talking about mainstream games. The organizer of one of these events is looking for “new games to wow her guests with”. Bar are fighting back by stocking board and dice games, as you can see from the above Atlanta links.
• The Hard Rock Cafe in Niagara Falls is hosting a Scrabble fest, a kickoff for the Literacy Volunteers’ annual fundraising event. More Western New York scrabble events are listed here.

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The next expansion to Magic, Conflux, is going into pre-release tournaments this weekend, and is due to hit the streets next weekend, Feb 6.

This expansion adds new mythic rares which were introduced in this block, a new Planeswalker: Nicol Bolas, and a new term “Domain”, which indicates some bonus that is equal to the number of basic land types you control.

Here’s a spoiler.

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If you’re interested in learning more about Warball, Duncan’s entry in to the collectible marble market (ala Bakugan), the complete ruleset is up.

Warball looks like a nice combination of both strategy and dexterity.

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Miami, FL: 2 dead and 7 injured in an assault rifle attack on a dice game. (source)

Jacksonville, FL: One man shot in the back at a dice game. (source) Dice games in FL = Dominoes games in Jamaica: avoid.

Tampa Bay, FL: Police raid a card game, arrest the players, and seize $15k and drugs. (source)

Bahrain: Scrabble champion found guilty of cheating at Scrabble tournament. He’s been banned for four years. (source)

London, UK: Man receives seven years in prison for slashing a fellow over a game of cards in a pub. (source)

Butte, MT: Woman stabs bowling alley’s bar owner in a fight over a card game. (source)

San Franciscon Town, Phillipines: House raided and occupants arrested for playing Tong-Its. (source) I get the impression that anyone playing Tong-Its is assumed to be playing it illegally for money, although this is not specified in the source.

Cleveland, OH:  One man who, together with a few others, robbed a house during a card game is later found shot to death. To make matters worse, a 13 year old apparently stole $20 which was hanging out of his pocket after he was dead. (source)

Ann Arbor, MI: Three men rob an EMU dice game. (source)

Dayton, OH: Man shot and killed at an illegal card gambling game. (source)

Tenby, Wales, UK: Seemingly untroubled 15 year old boy hangs himself after an argument with his family over a game of Chess. (source)

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Six months after completing development, Green Ronin Publishing has finally secured approval by George R.R. Martin and will be releasing the roleplaying game in March. The lead-off product will be a 200+ page hardcover core book with an entirely new rules system, custom built for this epic setting of adventure and intrigue. Following that will be the Narrator’s Kit in April, Peril at King’s Landing, an adventure, and A Song of Ice and Fire Campaign Guide. While at the start the system will be set up for players to take the role of a noble house participating in the game of thrones, other campaign options (such as the Night Watch) will be presented in future volumes.

If after all this time, March is still too far away, a free booklet of quick-start rules is available here [PDF].

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By Thalantos - Our apologies to any IG players!

Its that wonderful time of the year again where I decide to torture…I mean share…the best, most likely 40K rumors with you.  This time, we’re talking about the most expensive expansive army in 40K – the Imperial Guard.  So what can we expect on May 2nd when the newest codex drops?

• Primaris Psykers are back – translation, you’re IG once more have some psychic hate to throw at the Emperor’s enemies
• We may see a Commissar Lord – possibly with Stormtroopers as a troops choice
• There will probably be an inquisitor and retinue option, not unlike we’ve seen in the other Imperial forces
• Several sites have reported that individual troopers will only be 4 points!
• There will apparently be a ton of tank variants
• Ratlings are expected to return (based on a few greens that have been spotted)

Hrmmm…shame I just started a new Raven Guard army (I’m using PaintedFigs.com for the painting – expect a review in a month!)…

(hat tip!)

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Scrye contributor Philip Reed just got an email from Scrye indicating that F+W Media will be shutting the magazine down. April, 2009 will be the last issue.

If this is the case, I’m not sure how this affects one of the top gaming news sources, GamingReport.com, which Scrye purchased in 2006.

Scrye has been published since 1993 and was one of the top sources of CCG news in its time.

(source)

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