gen-con-indySome of the games that sold out at the show: Revolution and The Stars Are Right from Steve Jackson Games, Eclipse Phase from Catalyst, Heroes of the World from Asmodee, Battelstar Gallactica Pegasus expansion from Fantasy Flight Games, but not the Pathifinder RPG from Paizo! Despite an extremely long line on the first day, hundreds were left Sunday afternoon.

Timestreams from Bucephalus Games is a multiplayer card game of time travel. Two boxes just released—one with Medieval and Modern Day card decks, one with Stone Age and Future Tech. Available in December will be Renaissance and Industrial Revolution.

Coming soon from Bucephalus will be Dogfight, an abstract strategy game with a wood board and historically accurate, die cast metal, model fighter planes from World War II.

From Fantasy Flight Games:

  • Next after BattleLore Heroes will be the Creatures expansion and the Dragons expansion. Creatures will contain a Wood Giant, Earth Elemental (these two originally released as promos in blister packs by Days of Wonder), and Hydra (with interchangeable heads). Dragons will include a Wood Wyvern, Ice Drake, and Fire Dragon, as well as the creature card and lair terrain hex for the previously released Troll.
  • War of the Ring Collectors Edition should be available at the end of this year or early next for $350-400.
  • Fantasy Flight has purchased the Tanhauser game and intellectual property outright from its previous European publisher. This should enable the company to release expansions on a more reliable schedule. Later this year there will be a Daedalus map and other expansions. Also, Fantasy Flight will be publishing a second edition of the game, which will keep all the components exactly the same but will provide updated rules. For those with the first edition, the new rules will be available for free download, or for $5 for a printed copy.
  • Fantasy Flight is applying board game design principles to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition. Whereas a number of modern RPGs attempt to reduce the burden on players by jettisoning details, WFRP keeps the detail but makes it much easier to manage and reference with custom components such as special dice, character sheets, stance tokens, condition cards, and career cards.

Catalyst still committed to Battletech and Shadowrun but expanding with casual board games and new RPGs and miniatures games. Eclipse Phase is an RPG with a grim but not hopeless transhumanist setting. Leviathans is a miniatures game set in an alternate history Earth with flying ironclad war ships (got me on that one!). Merchants is a light resource management and selling game from Reiner Knizia.

Rush n’ Crush is a combat and racing game from Rackham and AEG. It’s set in the AT-43 universe, is playable by up to 6 people, and has Arcade (basic) and Overdrive (advanced) rules versions. Expansions with more cars and jumps should be available in December.

Even better than all the games were the people I got to spend time and game with: Ben Clark, Don Dehm, Derek Rex, Dirk Solko, Jeff, Will, Zandra, Jim, and Brian! Thanks Boyd, I think it was, for pointing out a curious fact—amazing that for thousands of games played in the board games rooms, we didn’t see a single loose gaming piece on the floor!