I’ve been playing Battletech nearly as long as I’ve been playing games – so when Catalyst Game Labs asked if we wanted to take a look at their newest box set weeks before it’s launch…well, let’s just say that wild horses would be required to stop me from saying yes! You might ask why the world needs another Battletech box set – there have been several over the years and the contents tend to be fairly predictable: a quick start guide, some more advanced rules, a poster of the galaxy, a few maps, some dice and a fair number of plastic miniatures.

I’m not going to lie – the 25th Anniversary Box Set has all of that. What makes it exceptional is that it has so much more. When you hold the box in your hands, the first thing that you notice is how much bigger the box is (check out our Unboxing Video to get a better feel for the size difference). Previous boxes have been in bookshelf format, but this giant is about 16″x16″ and a solid 4″ thick. I’m not exaggerating when I say this is a solid box. Opening the box you quickly realize just how much “stuff” is packed in there – it’s full of books and miniatures.

Check out our full review after the jump!

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If you saw me on the Friday of Origins, you almost certainly heard me utter the words, “I got to interview Steve friggin’ Long!” You’ll have to forgive me, I was pretty excited.

So what is the man who churns out 1,000s of pages of game material every year (and I’m not exaggerating – even other game designers mention Steve’s prolific writing ability) like? Studious and focused. Steve has a definitive vision for the products he loves and doesn’t mind rolling up his sleeves and making things happen. The most striking example of this is the founding of DOJ by Steve and Darren Watts to purchase the rights to the various Hero System Properties, rescuing the properties from the somewhat misunderstood and poorly received Fuzion system era (Steve personally felt that the original Fuzion system had promise, but there were numerous changes over the development of the rules that diverged from what fans loved about the system).

Just talking with the Steve, you have to respect the man’s approach to his job. He works to understand what his fan base really wants and then works to deliver it – no matter how many pages it requires. When asked how he manages to churn out so much content, Steve chuckles, “I have no life. I sit around and write.” That said, Steve acknowledges that there is an industry trend towards larger and larger RPG books, something he attributes to the increasing maturity of the industry and gamers just looking to get more value out of their gaming materials.

With regards to Hero in particular, Steve is fairly humble about the continued success of the line, “There’s just something about the system that appeals to a certain type of gamer.” And clearly, the release of the sixth edition of the Hero System rules has been a complete and total success, selling out in numerous venues and the Character Creation Guide hitting #10 on RPG Countdown. And follow-up books have been no different, “The Advanced Player’s Guide has been a huge seller.” (not to mention hitting #3 on RPG Countdown) For those who have been with the Hero system for a while, I did ask if we would see as return of the Ultimate series. No luck – that content will continue to be incorporated into the core rulebooks as appropriate.

The purchase of Indie Press Revolution was one of those things that I had to ask Steve about (it’s kind of why they let met have a press badge at these things…). I decided to be blunt about it: People have said that Hero isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when you think story games – how does the purchase of IPR fit in? Steve was equally blunt in his response, “I think they’re wrong.” Steve is quick to point out that DOJ has been handling distribution for IPR for a year and a half already. That said, he’s got a solid sense of humor about the critics: “Every indie game needs hit points!” To be clear, Steve feels that the fit with IPR is a good one that expands DOJ’s reach and provides IPR with solid management and accounting. Even better, it improves the ability of IPR games to get into brick and mortar stores that might not have looked seriously at their titles in the past.

So what’s next for Mr. Long and Hero Games? The big releases at Origins were Champions Universe (which provides the long awaited who’s who for the popular Champions setting) and the Hero Bestiary (an absolutely massive tome covering every beasty you ever imagined and a few you probably didn’t at just under 500 pages). The new version of Fantasy Hero will be released at Gencon and the Equipment Guide, Grimoire, Champions Beyond and three (!!!) Champions villains books will release before the end of the year (I’m not kidding when I say Steve is probably the most productive man in the industry). And it just gets better from there; next year will see the re-release of Mythic Hero, Time Traveller Hero and Star Hero. If you thought the sixth edition of the Hero System was good, Steve and DOJ are just getting started.

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And the winners are:

• Wings of War – Best historical miniature figure or line
• Flames of War: North Africa – Best miniature games rules or supplement
• Wings of War: WW2 Deluxe – Best miniature game rules of the year
• Conflict of Heroes: Storms of Steel – Best historical board game
• Battletech 25 Years of Art & Fiction – Best game related book
• Knights of the Dinner Table – Best game accessory
• Marvel Heroclix: Hammer of Thor – Best miniature line or figure
• Battletech: Strategic Operations – Best miniature game rules
• Big Damn Heroes Supplement – Best rpg supplement
• Eclipse Phase – Best RPG
• Are You the Traitor – Best children’s, family or party game
• Poo – Best traditional card game
• Space Hulk – Best board game

And if you want to watch the shenanigans that are the Origins Awards, we have the entire session recorded and available for your viewing pleasure on our YouTube channel (due to length, we had to break it up into five segments), including the soon to be infamous champaign incident.

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We had a chance to briefly talk with Colby Dauch at Origins, the man behind Plaid Hat Games and the designer of one of my top games of 2009, Summoner Wars. Colby indicated that things had started out fairly slowly for their first Origins, but had picked up as more and more people stopped to take a look at their outstanding first offering (for those who don’t know Summoner Wars is a tactical combat game played on a square grid with a deck of cards representing the spells and units of a given faction – what makes the game unique is how well designed the abilities/powers are – you just don’t see game design this tight and interesting that often). As for what’s new:

• Plaid Hat made the first two expansion factions available for sale at Origins. The Fallen Kingdom expansion is the new undead faction with abilities that manipulate the discard piles and allow for sacrificial magic ($10 US). The second expansion faction, the Vanguards, relies heavily on healing magic and abilities that play off of the presence of units on the battlefield ($10 US).
• The mounted board was being demoed at the show, but was wasn’t available for sale, although it will go on sale next month and is currently available for pre-order for $15 US at the Plaid Hat website.

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Fatigue becomes a way of life by the fourth day of most conventions and Origins is no different. Generally speaking, Saturday is the crescendo of the convention, with the Origins Awards and many tournaments having their finals. It’s also the day that the weekend crowds invade in force, which can really compound the fatigue for those who’ve been hearer since the beginning. That said, it’s also the day that many get in serious gaming, leaving the shopping and events to the newcomers, which really helps in terms of minimizing the “crowded” feeling.

We’ll be posting the full details of the Origins Awards later tonight (if you were following us on Twitter, you would already know!), but the real story for Saturday is how robust the full con feels. Origins is absolutely packed this year, but it doesn’t feel so crowded that you can’t breathe. Most events are full and open gaming is going on everywhere (I counted no fewer than three pick-up games of Dresden Files during my trip back to my room last night).

Over the next few days, we’ll be providing you with a number of in-depth interviews, news (and a few items that I guarantee you haven’t heard) and even the full video of the Origins Awards, so be sure to check back!

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Looney Labs is a really interesting company. I don’t know many board game companies that can be said to have “fans.” I mean, sure, we all like Z-Man and Rio Grande and Fantasy Flight, but would you really call yourself a fan? Andy’s Loonies are fans. Total and complete. I’m pretty sure I was the only member of the press at the “What’s Next with Looney Labs” event this year, but the room was packed and everyone there (and I mean everyone) was way more excited and knowledgeable than I was. But, for you, dear reader, I persevered.

So what is next with Looney Labs? As it turns out, quite a bit:

• Promos, promos, promos: If people love Looney Labs, its very fair to say that Looney Labs loves people back. This year will see promo cards released for just about every one of their Fluxx games as well as for Chononauts. These promos are built using a new approach that results in no perforations on the card (you can check out our video of how this works here) which is something I wouldn’t mind seeing other publisher’s pick up.
• Back to the Future – In celebration of the re-relase of the Back to the Future movies, Looney Labs has put together a revision of their Chrononauts game based on the movies. The new game features heavily revised rules and seemed pretty popular with the playtest groups (including among people who didn’t like the original Chrononauts game).
• Year of Treehouse: Andy was pretty blunt that his treehouse series of games (which use the multi-colored treehouse pyramids) just haven’t been as successful as they feel they should be. So in 2011, there will be a renewed focus on the game, including new packaging for the pyramids, a new intro game that includes three sets of pyramids and five games (currently titled Looney Pyramids) and a new two-player set.

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It’s day three and your intrepid reporter is pretty dead on his feet. Day three at Origins is a pretty interesting experience in that it resembles day two, but with a layer of self-induced fatigue (which I’d why this is coming to you on the morning of day four!).

Not much opens on Friday (that was all on Thursday if you’ll remember), but there are a few things you may have missed:

• The ever-increasing crowd: Like most cons, there are really two stages – the die hard crowd and the weekend warriors. Friday is when the weekenders start making an appearance and the con can feel a wee bit crowded (to put things in perspective, the 1000+ seat board room is completely sold out).
• The rapidly disappearing new releases: Friday can be a rough day for people looking for new releases as most vendors will sell a ton on Thursday and then hold some back for the weekend crowd. Thunderstone, Founding Fathers and a few other hits were already pretty scarce in Friday morning.
• The press events: Origins went out of their way to make sure the press had plenty to keep them busy. Combined with a full exhibit hall (which I’m still trying to get through completely) and you get one tired blogger (the upside for you, I’ve got at least five stories that I just haven’t had time to write yet…).

We’ll continue to post throughout the day (check out our various streams on Flickr, Qik, YouTube, Twitter) and check back later tonight as we attempt (fingers crossed) to stream the Origins Awards live from Columbus!

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Most of us at the Pawn are pretty in the know when it comes to who’s doing what, but I discovered something today: Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) is probably one of the busiest hobby gaming companies out there. Why is that?

• Legend of the Five Rings RPG: I got some hands on time with the new rulebook and I’ll tell you, AEG has really been paying attention to the trend towards full-color, high quality RPGs. This book is beautiful. If you’re even half-way interested in the L5R universe, you’re probably going to want to pick this one up.
• Legend of the Five Rings CCG: AEG was packing the full current range of L5R cards and people seemed to really be going for them.
• Board Games: AEG has been putting out a good number of board games recently and had their newest, Mad Zepplin on display. The game has some outstanding artwork and looks fairly interesting, but…
• Thunderstone: Thunderstone is the real talk of the AEG booth. No one (including AEG!) was expecting the new expansion, Wrath of the Elements, to be at the show, but somehow they made it happen. And then it sold out. There are a few copies left right now, but those will be put out Saturday and probably won’t last long. This won’t be the last expansion though, in addition to the already announced Doomgate Legion expansion (4Q 2010), a third expansion is already in the works for 2011.

  

• Dust Tactics: Speaking of unexpected surprises, AEG showed me the production models from their Dust Tactics starter set. If you’ve been on the fence, but thought the pictures shown thus far we’re dressed up, check out these shots. These models are sporting some very serious detail. Even better, AEG is bound and determined to support this as a viable, new miniature game for hobby gamers, with expansions to follow later in the year (the game officially launches at Gencon).

But even with all that, not everything is going their way. The long-awaited L5R boardgame, Art of War, is just going to have to stay long-awaited. Quality problems with the manufacturing side are keeping this title in limbo. That said, AEG is putting out an enormous amount of product and really making a name for themselves.

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I couldn’t buy it and they wouldn’t let me steal their demo copy (believe me, I considered it…), but I did get to sit down and play Petroglyph Games’ upcoming deck-building game, Heroes of Graxia. You know what? Whatever you’re currently thinking about this game, you’re probably wrong. This one is a winner.

The gameplay starts out looking an awful lot like Dominion. Draw five cards from a pre-defined starter deck. Take two actions (play or attack) and then buy new cards with whatever you have left over. Discard all the cards you used for money and the ones you bought and then draw a new hand of five cards. But there are a few twists – you start play with a hero who is pretty butch and can receive equipment (which are cards you can buy). He also can be joined by new legions (which are also cards you can buy) which can also be equipped. Other cards for purchase include spells which can influence combat or create havoc in enemy ranks.

Remember those cards you were buying? They’re not static. They’re laid out in a grid and every time you buy one, it’s replaced with a new card of the corresponding type at random. All of this adds a really interesting pacing to the game that is really enjoyable.

Yeah, yeah, but what about the combat? Is there really player interaction in a deck-building game? You betcha. Each game includes a set of monsters who can be attacked. Beat a monster and you get a number of victory points (and these monsters hit pretty hard). Here’s where it gets interesting – instead of attacking a monster, players can attack each other. Overextend yourself (attacking a particularly nasty monster can cause you really rack up some damage) and one of your fellow players will come over and take you apart. Killing off a legion nets a player prestige points which indicate when the game is over (you get a prestige point just for attacking another player – this can be a pretty savage little game).

I really enjoyed this title and can see it being a sleeper hit when it releases in September (or early release at Gencon).

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I got a chance to talk with Matthew Grau, the head man behind WildFire today (and creator of one of my favorite RPGs, Cthulhutech). We didn’t have a lot of time together (the booth was really hopping), but we did cover a number of things that will probably get people’s interest! First, the Cthulhutech goodness – now that Wildfire has settled into a nice fit with Standstorm, we should be getting regular Cthulhutech releases. That includes three new releases this year alone:

• Ancient Enemies will be available at Gencon, focusing on the shadow war between the Eldritch Society and Chrysalis Corporation
• Unveiled Threats will be a new equipment focused book that should have something for just about anyone who plays Cthulhutech
• A new adventure book is also in the works for later in the year/early next year

This is all in addition to re-releases of the original rulebook and the first supplement, Vade Mecum, which will feature some clarified rules and built-in cloth bookmarks.

I also asked about the hit card game, Poo. That too is available once more and has been moving off shelves just as quickly as when it debuted. In addition, David indicated that he’s been working on a number of other humorous, animal-based card games that should be rolling out in the near future. I’m really excited to see WildFire ramping back up – should make for some great gaming.

Correction: Corrected Matthew’s name (I’m using fatigue as my excuse!)!

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