Due from Ultra PRO this December, the Dungeons & Dragons Mind Flayer Gamer Pouch ($17).

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Though Cheapass Games’ classic has seen a number of reprints over the years, the new Deluxe Anniversary Edition of Kill Doctor Lucky will have revised rules and a refined map-board. Think of the game as a wacky prequel to Clue. Players move their pieces around a map of the mansion, attempting to catch up with Dr. Lucky and kill him without any witnesses. Should someone manage to find him alone, opposing players, however, still have an opportunity to play their cards in Dr. Lucky’s favor, giving him that quick boost of luck that allows him to escape murder—temporarily.

Kobold Press is putting together a book of 300 new monsters for 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons, as well as a collection of monster lairs with detailed battle maps. Backers can get the Tome of Beasts, the Book of Lairs, or both, in any combination of print or PDF.

Scythe is a Euro-style 4X game set in an alternate-history version of early 20th century Eastern Europe. It has mech miniatures, deterministic combat, and unique factions. And as Stonemaier Games is wont to do, the game is available in premium, collector, and connoisseur editions with metal coins, plastic modeled resource bits, and an art book.

Ninja Star Games’ Wolf & Hound is a card game played in partnerships. As shepherds, the goal of players is to manipulate the wolf in to chasing away their opponents’ sheep, while using the sheepdog to rescue their own sheep from the forest.

Machu Picchu Dice are to be hand-made in Cusco, Peru from Nephrite stone inlaid with silver, chrysocolla, lapis lazuli, spondylus, and abalone. Available in three styles, a pair of dice will run $39-55.

High-tech instead of artisanal, Boogie Dice are self-rolling. They respond to sudden noises, such as clapping or the snapping of fingers, by bouncing around of their own accord. What this accomplishes, I have no idea but it sure is cool. A pair with charging station goes for $38. If the project gets to $200k, they’ll also make 20-sided boogie dice.

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New from Litko are money tokens that instead of looking like the usual coin or bill are shaped like currency symbols—dollars, euros, and pounds.

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In a trick-taking card game such as Bridge, the luck of the draw can have a significant impact on a player’s success. Thus, most tournaments are played in Duplicate Bridge format, where card hands are determined in advance and the same distribution is played at each table. Scoring, then, in Duplicate Bridge is based on performance relative to those playing with the same cards, rather than strictly on the number of tricks taken or games won.

But with four hands of 13 cards spread over potentially dozens of tables and multiple rounds, sorting cards in to duplicate hands can be a time-consuming chore. Thus were born machine card dealers. These are devices that will sort a deck of cards in to four preset hands. Typically, they interface with computer databases or shuffling programs and sort the cards in to standard boards (that is, plastic trays designed to hold and lock hands for North, East, South, and West players).

Among the machines available are:

• The Duplimate Mk. 4.5, which for $2,970 can deal a deck of bar-coded cards in 5 seconds.
• The PlayBridgeDealer4+ with built-in memory and touch-screen operating panel for $4,750.
• The $345 HandyDup, which scans bar-coded cards as they are dealt but requires the human hand to place them in the correct piles.

Of course, old-school paper kits are still available. But so are third-party software interfaces, which claim to provide truer random deals and better security.

Nor is the development of Bridge dealing technology finished. High-level professional Poker player, Gus Hansen, is said to be investing millions of dollars in “Bridge+Dealer“, a new dealing system that will also incorporate advanced analysis features for tabulating tournament results.

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Normally when I think of The Army Painter I think about quality paint for quickly getting miniatures colored. Well now they’re getting into dice!

The 36-dice sets are made of blended, hard acrylic material in 14mm size. There are five different sets, each set containing 30 dice in one color and 6 different colored “hero/special weapon” dice.

Each set will be sold for $8.50, and should be available soon.

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This December Ultra Pro is releasing a messenger-style bag designed with the CCG player in mind.

The bag will go for $79.99 and has the following features:

• A pocket for a PRO-Binder
• Laptop pocket
• 3 Elastic holders for deck boxes
• A side pocket for a water bottle of rolled up play mat
• Blue or Red accent colors

I’m actually not to sure about this one, and would really like to see one before I make an final calls on whether or not this bag would suit me. At $80, that’s a big investment.

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Wyrmwood Gaming hand-makes dice and card storage boxes and dice trays, each available in a varieity of natural woods, including maple, mahogany, rosewood, cherry, walnut, and bubinga. Of course these beautiful accessories do not come cheap. An extra-large deck box (which will hold 120 sleeved cards) runs $200 in Gabon Ebony.

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It’s almost like a followup to the other day’s post!

Ultra Pro has just released a line of My Little Pony deckboxes featuring Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Muffins (Derpy).

Each box is $2.99 and holds 82 sleeved cards.

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It was only the other week that I posted about BCW Supplies and their release of Deck Guards, Deck Cases, and Pro-Folios. |I mentioned how their prices are lower than Ultra Pro stuff, but I wasn’t sure about the quality.

Now I know.

BCW was kind enough to provide me with a bunch of their items to review, and I took a bit to give each of them a whirl. Here’s what I found.

PRO-FOLIO 4-POCKET & PRO-FOLIO 9-POCKET: The quality and feel of the folios is great. Cards slip easily into the pockets, but are snug enough that you don’t have to worry about them falling out. The elastic to hold the case closed is a nice touch and isn’t too tight that you’ll damage the cards inside.

PRO-FOLIO 9-POCKET LX: Pretty much the same as the above, but with a really nice leatherette cover. A little bit of luxury goes a long way here.

DECK CASE: The deck cases come in 2 sizes. The regular holds 80 sleeved cards, and the large holds 100 sleeved cards. Construction is excellent, definitely on par with Ultra Pro’s deck cases. The added bonus is that each of these come with a divider to split cards. I also found that each can comfortably hold more sleeved cards than advertised. I was actually able to hold 4 sleeved 40-card Kaijudo decks in the large Deck Case with a little wiggle room to spare.

DECK CASE – LX: My second favorite product from the BCW line. These deck boxes are padded with a leatherette shell, and have a folding top that latches with a magnet. They say they hold 80 sleeved cards, but again, they can hold a bit more without having to force the cards in. I’m keeping my favorite Magic deck in mine, and I love just holding the damn thing.

DECK GUARD – MATTE: Here was the big test, and the product I was most looking forward to testing. Ultra Pro matte protectors are awesome. I love them. The last time I purchased 600 of them (a box) it ran me about $33. These come 500 to a box, but they only cost $20.03. That’s a significant savings. How do they compare? Very well, indeed. They feel pretty much identical to the Ultra Pros and have a great fit. The one thing they don’t have is a little holographic circle on the front. That’s a nitpick if you couldn’t tell. Also, after sleeving 600 cards in the Ultra Pro sleeves, I ended up with about 10-12 split sleeves that had to be thrown away. Not a huge deal, but I didn’t suffer 1 split protector in the 500 cards I sleeved with the BCW product.

Overall I’m REALLY happy with the lineup BCW offers. It’s great quality stuff at a better price than what I’m used to. They’ve got my business from here on out, and I’ll be ordering at least 500-1000 more sleeves in the very near future. Maybe some more of those DECK CASE – LX, too.

The full lineup of product were provided free for review by BCW Supplies.

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Rankade is a new, free system for ranking players. Using the Ree system, players are ranked based on their strength at whatever game or event is entered into the system. Though it looks a bit daunting at first, it’s pretty simple to setup. My only complaint with the system is while you can track wins, loses, etc… there’s no creation of tournament brackets or the like. So while you can record results and have ranked players, you can’t actually host tournaments by creating brackets through the site.

Rankade is fairly new, so hopefully the functionality will grow. For now it’s still a good place to rank your local competitive games.

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