Some giveaways:

• By Encounter Roleplay, the three core books of Dungeons & Dragons from Wizards of the Coast.
• By Singlehandedly, three games from subQuark Publishing: Mint Tin Pirates, Mint Tin Aliens, and Mint Tin Apocalypse Deluxe, one to each of three winners.
• By Game Trade Media, Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate from Wizards of the Coast.
• By Board Game Revolution, Coldwater Crown from Bellwether Games.

Snickelsox is giving away five Dungeons & Dragons Starter Sets when he gets to 3,000 followers on Twitter.

Geeknson’s Summer Sale means 20% off the company’s gaming furniture.

The discounts are also 20% in Buffalo Games’ Summer Sale on puzzles.

With a Kickstarter going for a new entry in the series, PSC Games is giving away a set of three Quartermaster General games, the original Quartermaster General, Quartermaster General: 1914, and the upcoming Quartermaster General: The Cold War.

Goliath Games is 10 prize packages of five games each, Pop the Pig, Greedy Granny, Shark Bite, Googly Eyes, and Build or Boom.

Crusader miniatures from North Star Military Figures are half-priced while supplies last.

Days of Wonder is giving away a four-night trip for two to New York City and also 10 copies of Ticket to Ride: New York.

The proprietor of DramaScape, who’s getting married, is holding a Wedding & Honeymoon Map Sale.

Fantasy Grounds is offering an additional 25% off Dungeons & Dragons modules, making them 50% off if you buy the whole bundle.

For every $40 spent at ReaperMini.com during July, get a free Dungeon Dwellers Orc Miniature.

Osprey Publishing’s July Sale is 20% off on Campaign, Fortress, and Raid series titles.

Save up to 69% on Super Dungeon Explore titles at Miniature Market.

The Summer Sale at Free League Publishing includes discounts of up to 40% on RPGs Tales From the Loop, Corolis, and Mutant: Year Zero.

Goodman Games is giving away free pulp novels with every direct order.

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TCGplayer has received a $10 million equity investment from Radian Capital. The company says the money will allow it grow staff while it expands its collectible market portal and retail support service from CCGs to board games, roleplaying games, comic books, sports cards, and video games.

Mayfair Games is closing up shop and has sold all its remaining game assets, as well as its majority stake in Lookout Games of Germany, to Asmodee North America. Lookout will continue to operate as a design studio of Asmodee.

Spin Master has signed a distribution deal with Toysmith for a variety of toy brands, including games and puzzles from Spin Master’s Cardinal subsidiary. The arrangement, which takes affect in June, will see Toysmith as exclusive distributor to the specialty market for the covered ranges.

North Star Games has instituted a minimum advertised pricing (MAP) policy, which is “non-negotiable for all North Star Games’ resellers and will be strictly enforced to ensure the continued value of its brand.” The company also issued a statement saying that, effective immediately, except for two unnamed parties, all sellers will be restricted from participating in Amazon’s Third-Party Marketplace. North Star promises to monitor product listings and suspend or terminate the accounts of those sellers that do not comply.

Hasbro has signed on as the master toy licensee for Power Rangers (Saban Brands), UglyDolls (STX Entertainment), Super Monsters (Netflix), and Top Wing (Nickelodeon), though only the announcement for Power Rangers specifically mentions games.

According to NPD, Mattel’s UNO card game was the top selling game in the United States in 2017.

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Kevin Siembieda, President of Palladium Books, posted a public update to the Robotech RPG Tactics Kickstarter stating they will not be able to produce the Robotech RPG Tactics Wave Two rewards following the expiration of the Robotech license. The campaign for the Robotech RPG Tactics game raised nearly $1.45 million in 2013 to produce a miniature wargame based on the version of the Robotech anime owned by Harmony Gold USA. The license, which was held by Palladium for thirty years, has expired and is not being renewed.

As part of the loss of license, Palladium is liquidating all Robotech products, including their roleplaying game book line and all pdfs of the original game line’s material on DriveThruRPG.

Siembieda writes about the many delays and the unseen costs Palladium encountered while attempting to fulfill the project: recreating 3d sculpts that were incompatible with the manufacturer’s production process and increased shipping costs. In January of 2014, the company decided to split the numerous sculpts and rewards into two waves of project. After having delivered the planned first wave, “the Kickstarter money was gone.” Palladium Books estimated that producing the second wave of rewards would have cost them up to $625,000.

The company is offering to substitute already-produced product in place of the second wave rewards they did not create, but say backers would have to pay for shipping. “We estimate shipping to all 5,000+ backers around the world will cost $120,000-$160,000; and, at this point, Palladium Books just does not have the resources to cover that expense.” This exchange is offered only while supplies last or March 20, 2018, whichever comes sooner.

In an earlier update to the campaign, Palladium wrote “By Kickstarter’s terms of service, we are obligated to deliver on the rewards we have promised, and we will do that…. If the time should ever come that Palladium Books cannot fulfill the terms of our Kickstarter project, we will of course offer refunds, as we would be required to do by Kickstarter.”

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August will see the retail release of the Lego Ninjago Stormbringer set, a robot dragon programmable with Lego’s Boost system. Suggested retail price is just $40.

Boost is an icon-based programming system designed for builders as young as seven. Programming takes place entirely in a mobile app environment.

Stormbringer can walk, move its head, roar, and shoot bolts from its mouth.

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The Broken Token will begin shipping this week a series of modular dice tower kits, each with a unique thematic design, including stairs, bones, pachinko, and others. The modules can be mixed and matched for a single dice tower up to several feet high.

One module even has a dice-shaming cage, so poor performing dice will have to watch their fellows tumble by.

On the backside, each module has a cutout for wall-mounting. And two bases are available, one standard in which the dice roll to the front when the tower is on a table, and one side-mounted so it doesn’t stick out when hanging on the wall.

Prices for the individual kits range from $10-22.

The Broken Token currently lists five tumbling sections for sale. Others will be listed soon, including a clockwork section with moving gears.

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On display by Games Workshop at New York Toy Fair were two new board games representing an effort by the company to provide a fresh point of entry for “the hobby”. The games, which feature less violent language and imagery and somewhat simplified rules, are being promoted to specialty toy retailers and mid-tier mass-market sellers as a way to expose new players to Games Workshop’s most popular IPs.

Both are planned for release later this year at a price point of around $40-50.

Blitz Bowl is the no-death version of Blood Bowl. It’s still a fantasy, full-contact version of American football, just with less blood and players being “taken out” instead of killed. The concept behind this version is monsters playing a scrimmage game while trying out for the main team.

Blitz Bowl’s rules are streamlined from the original (it’s supposed to play in about 40 minutes). Also, in addition to scoring touchdown’s for the win, completing certain objectives randomly selected each game (for example, three monsters making run actions) unlocks various benefits for the team.

Space Marine Adventures: Labyrinth of the Necrons is a Warhammer 40,000 dungeon crawl with a squad of marines drawn from those troops’ various chapters. The game is cooperative and scenario-based, the first of which is a tutorial and the last of which is a “massive labyrinth adventure” that can be adjusted for difficulty level. Each player gets a plastic space marine figure but the enemy necrons are represented by cardboard tokens.

Inside both game boxes, as alternatives to the standard rule books, are series of cards with instructions that work like game tutorials.

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Mongoose has a major Traveller sale under way at DriveThruRPG. Discounts are 33-80% off.

Gypsy Knights Games is also running a sale on Traveller material, to celebrate the company’s seventh birthday.

Another sale running at DriveThruRPG is the BAMFsies Sale, celebrating superhero titles.

Superheroes are also featured in Bundle of Holding’s Heroes Unlimited offer from Palladium Books, while another offer at the site features Ulisses Spiele’s English-language translation, The Dark Eye.

Victory Point Games is selling everything at 10% off (except for Darkest Night products) in celebration of Valentine’s Day.

Giveaways:

• By Happy Li’l Minis, a whole core set of Star Wars: Legion from Fantasy Flight Games.
• By Angie’s Angle, a bundle of three Gigamic games: Yogi, Imagidice, and Differ3nce.
• By EverythingBoardGames, Arcadia Quest from Dragori Games, Lucky’s Misadventures (two copies) from Great Northern Games, and an Herbalism Founder’s Pack of 4 games from Deep Water Games.
• By Katie’s Game Corner, autographed GMT Games box art from Roger MacGowan.
• By OffWorld Designs, two tickets to Gen Con 2018.
• By The Giveaway Geek, Cytosis from Genius Games.

At Amazon, Starship Merchants from Toy Vault is 71% off and Bloodsuckers from Fireside Games is 59% off.

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Today marks 10 years since Yehuda Berlinger posted the first article on Purple Pawn, a brief story about board games mentioned in the Sally Forth comic strip. I hope in that time that you’ve felt informed and entertained. We’ve tried our best to make a positive contribution. With 8,370 articles published so far!

Purple Pawn presents a unique voice in the game field, covering all types of tabletop games—board games, card games, collectibles, roleplaying games, war games, miniatures, and more. Games with modern movie tie-ins and traditional games played by generations. Games for the dedicated hobbyist, as well as the casual gamer.

Of course we report news of product releases but we also work hard to document the business side of the game industry, provide tips to the game consumer, and highlight the significant role that games play in culture and society.

Purple Pawn would not exist if not for the vision and guidance of its founder, Yehuda Berlinger. Thank you, Yehuda, for letting me keep it going when you decided to move on to other game-related endeavors!

Thank you also to our various contributors over the years: Ben Clark, Thomas Deeny, K.C. Lee, Lory Gilpatric, Phil Kilcrease, Randy Snyder, Richard Bliss, Josh Street, Rob Kalajian, Sam Mercer, and Tracy Tang! In the early days it was Yehuda as the snarky commentator, Josh as the fanboy, and me as the straight-man. Ben provided an amazing inside look at the business side of games with the Paper Money podcast. Sam gave us some cool graphics. Rob—who, other than Yehuda and I, was with Purple Pawn the longest—was of tremendous support to me personally, did a wonderful job of covering the independent publishers, and also solved many technical problems behind the scenes. Thomas, who is still with Purple Pawn, has an amazing knack for identifying the hot trends and controversies.

And of course, thank you to our readers!

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Online decor retailer Wayfair is giving away the components for awesome game room: carved wood table, throne armchair, bookcase, and a variety of fantasy-themed decorative items.

In Grey Gnome Games Hot Winter Sale, get significant discounts on select games, plus free promos, free expansions, and free shipping.

Osprey Publishing’s February Site-Wide Sale means up to 70% off in all categories, books, ebooks, and games.

A Pawn’s Perspective is giving away Hero Realms from White Wizard Games.

To go with the release of its free living campaign, Modiphius Entertainment is running a sale on Mutant Chronicles books.

Darksilver Forge is giving away a Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set prize pack, which in addition to the actual Starter Set includes metal dice, a dice tray, a comic, and dungeon tiles.

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Cabot Creamery is running a board game recipe contest. Three winners will each receive two tickets to the BGG@Sea 2018 Alaska cruise.

The Dungeon Masters Guild New Year, New Campaign Sale means a 25% discount on all tier 1 (levels 1-4) Dungeons & Dragons adventures, as well as some rulebooks.

Parenting in Progress is giving away two games from Goliath, Greedy Granny and Jumping Jack.

For The Love To is also giving away a Goliath game, Doggie Doo.

Promo code “GAMES2018” is good for savings of 25% on games from HasbroToyShop but only until midnight ET tonight.

Plumpy Thimble is giving away Torres from IDW.

MyMBuzz is giving away three Magic: The Gathering Rivals of Ixalan Bundles (box, 80 lands, and 10 boosters each).

Board Game Revolution is giving away Valeria Card Kingdoms plus expansions and accessories from Daily Magic Games.

USAopoly is giving away three sets of promo cards for Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle.

Buy one, get one 30% off on HexBug Battle Ground toys.

Through February, Noble Knight Games is offering free domestic shipping on all orders over $149.

The latest at Bundle of Holding is Oone Blueprints, maps for RPGs.

Unfiltered Gamer is giving away something from Mayday Games.

Name Dropping is giving away Stranger Things games.

Sentient Cow Games is giving away some miniatures.

Rolling Solo is giving away UBOOT: The Board Game (pending Kickstarter funding and production).

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