New from Catalyst Game Labs is The Duke, a Chess-like abstract with a few interesting features. First of all, there are more than a dozen types of pieces in the base game, each with its own movement and capture rules. Second, when a piece is moved, it flips over, changing its rules. Third, only a few pieces start on the board. One of a player’s options each turn is to draw a random piece from a bad and enter it into the game.

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The fifth edition of the Shadowrun roleplaying game has been released by Catalyst Game Labs in ebook format, with preorders for print editions being accepted at the company’s website.

For those not familiar with the game, it’s based on a futuristic Earth controlled by megacorporations and a pervasive computer network (the Matrix), yet filled with magic and mythical creatures. Characters can be samurai, shamans, deckers, or a variety of other archetypes.

The changes from 4th to 5th edition Shadowrun aren’t drastic. The cyberpunk aspects have been modernized a bit. Hacking the matrix has been simplified some, mostly to make it’s mechanics and timeline more consistent with other tasks. Gear quality now places a limit on dice pool hits. And magic has been tweaked some.

Also available now are free Quick-Start Rules and a 4th-edition-to-5th-edition Character Conversion Guide.

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With Jihad: Final Reckoning Catalyst Game Labs completes the Jihad series of BattleTech plot books. It details the final years of the war, and includes articles and intelligence reports for both miniature battle and RPG campaigns, as well as rules for experimental superheavy mechs and experimental robotic drone battlemechs.

Objectives: Federated Suns is a Jihad plot supplement that focuses on House Davion’s territory with details on key systems, major factories, and training and command centers.

Supporting BattleTech miniatures are Record Sheets: 3058 Upgrade, for the RPG A Time of War GM Screen.

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