Hasbro is partnering with Epic Games to produce Fortnite-based toys and games. Of course, there’s to be a Fortnite Monopoly (due this fall) but also other unspecified games.

Shinobi 7 announced acquisition of the Conan license for tabletop games. Two products are planned. The first, a miniatures game via Kickstarter project. The second, a direct-to-retail card game.

With a license from Sony Interactive, Steamforged Games is pursuing plans for a miniatures-heavy Horizon Zero Dawn board game via Kickstarter. Pledges already total more than $1 million, though Steamforged estimates delivery not until March 2020.

Things from the Flood is a just-launched Kickstarter RPG project that’s a sequel to Tales from the Loop and based on another of Simon Stålenhag’s art books. The new one from Free League Publishing is more grim and bleak than its predecessor.

Coming to Kickstarter on the 1st of October is The Hunger Games: Mockingjay from River Horse.

Then scheduled for November 13th is Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood of Venice from Triton Noir. The company promises a cooperative miniatures game focused on stealth mechanisms.

WizKids recently announced a licensing arrangement with WWE. The company will add WWE wrestling personalities to HeroClix and Dice Masters and create WWE board games.

Available now from WizKids is Star Trek Galactic Enterprises, a game in which you play as Ferengi.

Also available now at retail is Munchkin Starfinder. It’s the Munchkin grab-the-loot card game from Steve Jackson Games, based on the Starfinder sci-fi RPG from Paizo Publishing.

Next up for Munchkin is Munchkin Warhammer 40,000 based on the property from Games Workshop. I love the meta of this previewed card, Unpainted.

But Steve Jackson isn’t the only company with a new Warhammer 40,000 license. Devir has made a racing game, Gretchinz, out of the property. WizKids has adapted Warhammer 40K to Dice Masters in Battle for Ultramar. Ulisses did Wrath & Glory, a Warhammer 40,000 roleplaying game. And USAopoly has made Warhammer 40,000 Monopoly.

Based on Warhammer Age of Sigmar, PlayFusion recently launched Champions, a collectible card game with an online play option. A non-collectible card game, Warhammer Doomseeker is available from Ninja Division.

EN Publishing, under license from Rebellion, is launching a Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD roleplaying game on Kickstarter.

IDW will ship to retail this coming February Nickelodeon Splat Attack!, as well as an expansion, Reptar Rampage. The game represents a food fight between teams of characters from various Nickelodeon shows, including Spongebob Squarepants, Hey Arnold!, Rugrats, and Invader Zim.

IDW also signed on with Toei Animation for a series of Dragon Ball games. The first two are due in stores this holiday season. Dragon Ball Super: Heroic Battle has players flicking tokens at each other, while Dragon Ball Z: Over 9000 is supposed to provide a more strategic gameplay experience. In 2019 (after a planned Kickstarter campaign), IDW will release a Dragon Ball Z miniatures game.

Coming this fall from USAopoly is the Dragon Ball Z Power Up Board Game in 3D. Also scheduled to deliver soon is a new Disney Chess Set celebrating 90 years of Mickey Mouse. Available now is one celebrating 25 years of Tim Burton’s A Nightmare Before Christmas. The company’s latest Monopoly games include Five Nights at Freddy’s Monopoly, Ren & Stimpy Monopoly, and BoJack Horseman Monopoly.

Looney Labs recently released Mary Engelbreit Loonacy, a matching card game with the artwork of Mary Engelbreit.

Dog Might Games is now making officially licensed Vampire: The Masquerade dice trays, storyteller screens, and storage boxes, each with a choice of clan symbol. Orders ship with exclusive V5 loresheets tied to the new Geek & Sundry show, LA by Night.

Elderwood Academy is taking preorders for a Vampire: The Masquerade Spellbook gaming box made from walnut and leather. It also ships with LA by Night loresheets.

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Licensing Roundup

CMON is developing a miniatures board game based on George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice & Fire series (that’s the novels, rather than the A Game of Thrones television show). To make that game, CMON is of a fashion borrowing the A Song of Ice & Fire license from Dark Sword Miniatures, which has been producing related minis for some time (in PR terms, they’ve entered a partnership). CMON, though, is working on a complete tabletop game, which the company promises will handle scenarios ranging from small skirmishes to large-scale battles with hundreds of figures.

IDW Games has licensed three early video game titles from Atari: Missile Command, Asteroids, and Centipede. IDW says the line of board games will be “fun, intense and fast-paced.” The first out will be Centipede this fall.

IDW is also publishing a game based on the original 1968 Planet of the Apes movie. It’ll be a cooperative adventure game in which players take on different aspects of Colonel Taylor’s personality trying to figure out the history of humanity.

WizKids has renewed its Star Trek license with CBS Consumer products. And with that renewal came several new product announcements. The company is launching two new products for Star Trek: Attack Wing—Card Packs that have just new cards and tokens for existing ships, and Faction Packs that include four ships at reduced cost. WizKids will also be offering unpainted Star Trek minis, an expansion for Star Trek: Frontiers, more Star Trek Tactics ships, and Star Trek characters for HeroClix.

Fragor Games has secured a license from Aardman Animations for a Wallace & Gromit game.

Cubicle 7 is releasing its licenses for the Yggdrasill, Qin, Kuro, and Keltia roleplaying games back to French publisher Le 7eme Cercle. Cubicle 7 said that the extensive work involved in translating the games prevented a reasonable economic return.

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Toy Fair 2017—Gale Force Nine

Gale Force Nine’s booth was a science fiction geek’s dream, with products for Star Trek, Dr. Who, and Firefly.

For Star Trek Ascendancy, the Ferengi Alliance and Cardassian Union expansions were delayed shipping from the manufacturer but should hit retail soon at $35 each. Both add new civilizations to substitute for one of the original three or to accommodate an extra player. Gale Force Nine was also previewing a third expansion, which works a little differently than the player expansion sets. Borg Assimilation (due in June) provides a universal enemy and substitutes Borg for discovered planets. However, the first player to be assimilated by the Collective then takes over playing the Borg.

Doctor Who: Time of the Daleks (April, $75) is a 2-6 player cooperative game where each person plays a different incarnation of the Doctor visiting planets and solving dilemmas. The game looks grand, has some beautifully-detailed miniatures, and includes all the Doctors and companions from the whole series but is supposed to play in just 90 minutes. Look for a special K9 miniature in the first print run.

Separate from Gale Force Nine’s existing Firefly series, Firefly Adventures: Brigands and Browncoats is an RPG-style adventure game due in September. Essentially a dungeon-crawl, the game comes with six double-sided map tiles, 15 bad-guy miniatures, and two versions each of five crew figures. The two of those are there to represent the development of additional skills that each character can go through during the game.

Gen Con 2016—USAopoly

Gen Con 2016 logoThe most anticipated from USAopoly, Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle ($50), was only at Gen Con in very limited quantities but should be at retail in September. It’s a cooperative deck-building card game developed to be very beginner friendly. The box opens to look like a trunk filled with Harry’s possessions and the cards are packed in boxed for a series of games to introduce the rules in a graduated fashion. In terms of game-play, each person, in the role of one of the Harry Potter characters, gets their own personal starting deck of spell, ally, and item cards but they must work together to defeat the villains.

Also highlighted at the show was the recently delivered Star Trek Panic ($40). This one, another cooperative title, has players defending the starship Enterprise from alien attack while at the same time working to complete a number of missions. It’s a variation on Castle Panic from Fireside Games but has a central Enterprise figure that can turn and also has shields to absorb some of the damage.

Later, USAopoly plans two expansions for Marvel Munchkin, Mystic Mayhem ($20, September) and Cosmic Chaos ($20, December). The former features Dr. Strange and The Defenders, the latter Guardians of the Galaxy and Nova.

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Licensing Roundup

The Hunger GamesFor the 50th anniversary of the original series Star Trek, CBS has licensed Gale Force 9 to produce hobby games, USAopoly for board games, and Spin Master for RC vehicles.

Pressman has the game license for Powerpuff Girls. Spin Master has the master toy license.

According to a press release from Rovio, the game license for the upcoming Angry Birds movie went to Hasbro, yet at Toy Fair, I saw a game at Spin Master and none at Hasbo.

Jumbo has a license to produce Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice games in Europe.

Netflix has ordered a Stretch Armstrong series from Hasbro Studios.

River Horse is working on a board game based on The Hunger Games. WizKids used to have that license.

There will be a Master of Orion board game from Hobby World.

Winning Moves UK has a new Midsomer Murders Cluedo.

Mattel has taken over the Halo toy and figure license.

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Star Trek Tridimensional Chess SetIn honor of the 50th anniversary of the Star Trek television series, Wood Expressions will release this summer an authorized Tridimensional Chess Set. First portrayed in the original series episode “Court Martial”, the game became an icon of Star Trek but never had a set of official rules developed for the show.

Wood Expressions’ Tridimensional Chess Set is actually a rerelease of one first put out by Franklin Mint in the 1990s. At a suggested retail price of $275, the set is 14 inches high and comes with 32 gold and silver plated game pieces, three playing boards, and four movable attack boards, plus rules for play.

 

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So much licensed game news has crossed my desk recently…

Savage Worlds Flash Gordon

R. Talsorian Games has reached an agreement with CD Projekt Red for The Witcher Role-Playing Game. It’ll be based on the same rules system as Cyberpunk 2020 and is planned for mid-2016.

Two Dark Horse Comics series, The Goon and Fear Agent, are getting the Savage Worlds treatment from Pinnacle Entertainment. Also expect to see an official Savage Worlds Flash Gordon.

Star Trek board games are coming from Gale Force 9 next summer.

There’s going to be anniversary editions of Thunderbirds Monopoly and Back to the Future Monopoly.

From Upper Deck expect in 2016 a Big Trouble in Little China Legendary game. It’s the film’s 30th anniversary.

MegaCon Games is making The Banner Saga: Warbands, a cooperative miniatures game based on the computer RPG from Stoic.

The 1960s era Captain Action Card Game is making a return.

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment is getting a board game adaptation. Unfortunately, it’s planned just as a roll-and-move trivia game.

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Federation & Empire ISC War Rulebook

F_E_ISC_War_Rulebook_thumb1000Amarillo Design Bureau has just made the new Federation & Empire ISC War Rulebook available from multiple sources. You can snag the book in digital format from Warehouse 23 or Wargame Vault. A full physical copy of the game, including needed counters, can be found at Starfleet Store.

Note that the ISC War Rulebook is an expansion of Federation & Empire, and you’ll need the base game to play.

I’ve never looked much into these Star Trek wargames, but there’s a LOT out there. Kinda awesome, really. Even nicer that these rulebooks are available in digital format to make them easier to carry around.

 

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Star Trek HeroClix: Tactics

If what you really wanted from WizKids’ Star Trek license was cool starship minis and a space combat game, now you’re going to get it. Today the company announced Star Trek HeroClix: Tactics to be available in February. The game will be compatible with the HeroClix core rules system but is meant to be played separately and will have its own organized play program.

The first set of figures will include Federation and Klingon vessels (from all eras), which will be sold in a four-ship starter set and single-ship boosters.