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This comes to us from the “say what???” department: Fantasy Flight Games has formally announced Battles of Napoleon: The Eagle and the Lion, the first in a series of games covering the various wars of Napoleon. This first title is lavishly produced with four boards, 200 plastic miniatures, 120 cards and a metric ton of counters for the standard going price of $100 US (standard going rate for FFG big box games at any rate). “So what,” I hear you ask, “there are tons of great Napoleonic games!” While Napoleonic games are becoming more popular (with GMT’s new Command & Colors: Napoleonics holding my complete and undivided attention), this is the first time since the old Avalon Hill days that a major game publisher has paid this much attention to this beloved era for wargaming (and is easily the most attractive presentation I’ve ever seen for this type of game). What’s more, this is a real stretch for FFG, a company that hasn’t really taken any significant strides into older-style wargames (Tide of Iron is close, but it really doesn’t compare to the depth and complexity of this title – the rules have already been published at the Nexus Games site) – and make no mistake, this is a real wargame, not a typical boardgame with some mechanics for conflict. Battles of Napoleon will be released sometime towards the end of February/beginning of March.
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I’m surprised by this one. How many war games can FFG sell at $100?
At least two! The upcoming Horus Heresy looks to fit the typical mold of a wargame (though we won’t know for sure until we see the rules) and will clock in at the $100 mark. For what it’s worth, both of these are on my “must buy” list. Horus Heresy is probably the safe bet, but BoN is a concern for me – wargamers have shown that they’re willing to spend big amounts for a quality game (the recent hit, The Devil’s Cauldron, sold out almost instantly with a $190 price tag). The question in my mind is: will FFG be able to generate enough interest to recoup the sunk cost on this one? Molds for plastic aren’t cheap and most wargame companies can’t even think about trying something like this without using a preorder drive. One thing is for sure, this is a gutsy move on FFG’s part – I’d kill to see sales figures as this one plays out…
Keep in mind that FFG is only the US distributor for this game. Like with Wings of War, Nexus is the publisher. I’m sure there is a bit more to the deal than FFGs just stocking the game in their warehouse, maybe like providing English rules or something. But overall, being a distributor isn’t as big of a risk as being a publisher.
Great point – in this case, Nexus is the originator of the title (continuing their longstanding relationship with FFG). Interestingly, I’m not sure what FFG is bringing to the table beyond distribution – the game has already been translated into English and is obviously production-level already…
Looks like they are making the same mistakes with the figures as they did with War of the Ring. Mike Doyle art makes it strike 2.
They’ve taken their sweet time. This game was originally planned for early 2007… Wait… That was after they delayed it a few times :)
David-
$100 wargames are getting more and more common. That audience has proven more than willing to pony up the cash for a monster game – and with production quality (read: lots of colorful plastic parts) much lower than this.
I’d guess they’ll easily move 5000+ of this one.
See, what I was thinking is that FFG moves enough $100 games when aiming for a broader audience. GMT and MMP and Compass can sell $100 war games, but their cost of production for those games is much lower (cardboard vs plastic). Will enough people be interested in a war game from FFG/Nexus to make up for the cost of producing those plastic miniatures? In fact, I suspect that plastic will put off a fair number of grognards.
Grognards like chrome, too, as I will attest to personally. :)
By producing in conjunction with Nexus though, they can probably produce enough for Europe and the US that production costs will be low (read: inline with other games of this type). Plastic is cheap when you amortize it over enough units. My guess is that they’ll be able to do 15-20,000+ units total. That’s enough that the plastic costs will be covered. Assuming that they are producing at about 15-20% of retail price, that gives them a hefty allowance for cost.
In fact, I’d guess that their margin on this will be more than what MMP makes. Partly, that’s because they are probably going to use the molds and dies over a series of games.