Due in August from USAopoly is Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle: A Cooperative Deck-Building Game. The game has players adopting the roles of Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Neville to combat a series of villains infiltrating Hogwarts Castle. Each has their own deck of cards, to which they’ll add spells, magical items, and other characters.

Hogwarts Battle comes with a game board, health tracker boards, dice, card boxes, and 245 cards at a suggested retail price of $50.

[5/11/2016] Note: The information above was gleaned from the websites of BBCW Distributors, CoolStuffInc, and BoardGameGeek, who may have released the information early. It has not been confirmed by the publisher.

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USAopoly is pairing Steve Jackson Games’ Munchkin with a Marvel license for a game that has superheros killing monsters and grabbing treasure… well, probably not. But USAopoly does say that Munchkin: Marvel Edition “comes complete with new monsters (villains), allies (heroes) and custom S.H.I.E.L.D. Identification Cards,” so I gather the company’s figured out some way to merge the two, mechanically if not thematically.

USAopoly plans to ship Munchkin: Marvel Edition next April at an as-yet unspecified retail price.

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New from USAopoly is My Little Pony Rainbow Dash Yahtzee. It plays the same as the original, though the dice have cutie marks and the cup is Rainbow Dash on a cloud.

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I was pretty excited when a big box from USAopoly appeared on my front step a week ago. Inside was a bunch of licensed goodness just waiting to be played. One of those items was The Walking Dead TacDex, a game I was eagerly waiting to try since seeing it at Toy Fair this year. A card game by Richard Borg? Sign me up!

Maybe signing me up was a bit hasty.

Don’t get me wrong. TacDex isn’t really that bad. It’s just…War. Granted, it’s War with a few twists, but nothing mind blowing that really changes things up much. Each player has a deck and a hand of cards. Each player plays a card simultaneously and either the higher or lower number wins depending on what side the Battle Marker is on. Some cards have powers that let you draw an extra card, have the other discard a card, or that give you the option to flip the Battle Marker. Play continues until both players draw their End cards which have been shuffled into the second half of the deck.

Some times games go great. Each player has a descent hand of cards that they can play from throughout the game. Often times, though, you end up running out of cards and have to rely on the 1 card you draw at the end of your turn. This basically makes nullifies certain aspects of the game, namely making your opponent discard cards and using the cards that let you play your numbered card after the other player places theirs.

I guess I should have expected something as simple, but Richard Borg’s involvement got me a bit more excited. My oldest two kids still like the game, and there hasn’t been a day of summer vacation that they haven’t played it since it showed up. As for me, I politely turn down invitations to play.

A copy of TacDex: The Walking Dead was provided free for review by USAopoly.

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Tuesday at the GAMA Trade show, Renegade Game Studios and Steve Jackson Games announced a patnership to produce Munchkin Trading Cards. To be clear, these cards, available in the fall, are not a game, just trading cards of the kind with images on one side and character facts on the other. However, in addition to the typical sticker and autograph cards, inserted in to random packs will be actual unique playtest cards from the Munchkin game development team, new one-off rule cards, and original hand drawn sketch cards (at least one per box of 24 packs). While the total number of cards in a pack has not yet been set, MSRP per pack should be $3.50.

Also announced at the show were Munchkin Gloom from Atlas Games, Munchkin Smash Up from AEG, and Munchkin Zombies Walking Dead and Munchkin The Nightmare Before Christmas from USAopoly. The last is an October release and the rest are set for Gen Con.

Coming direct from Steve Jackson are Munchkin Steampunk (a hobby channel exclusive through December), Star Munchkin 3 (with a single extra card, for a total of 113, only in the first print run), and Munchkin Stocking Stuffers (a bundle of five Christmas-themed packs plus some gift stickers).

And possibly in the works are Munchkin vending machines, either for game cards or for tchotchkes, like mini figures and dice. At the moment, no concrete steps have yet been taken for these. However, the retailers at the show voiced strong support.

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This could not have come at a better time seeing as I just recently received a copy of Munchkin Adventure Time. Munchkin: Adventure Time 2: It’s a Dungeon Crawl! is a small expansion that requires the base game to play. The real deal here is not the 90 extra cards it comes with, but the 12 Adventure Time themed dungeons!

Unfortunately we’ll have to wait until April 15th to get out hands on this. MSRP will be $19.99, which seems a bit high for a small expansion.

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