X-Wing Wreckers

Space Rocks sells debris for the Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures Game. In other words, the company produces models, hand-painted, of the same Star Wars space ships found in X-Wing but wrecked and in pieces. The idea is to use them as terrain, or background setting, like the asteroid tokens that come with the game, only much better looking.

On the subject of asteroids, Space Rocks also makes three-dimensional versions of them, as well as a space station, debris, and asteroid set for Star Wars Armada. And the company is currently taking preorders for a non-wrecked Escort Frigate, scaled for use in X-Wing.

Prices range from $35-55 for the asteroid or wreck sets. The Escort Frigate is $210 as a preorder ($260 at full price).

  • Comments Off on X-Wing Wreckers

xwing

Leaked images of the Star Wars Episode VII starter set for Fantasy Flight Games’ X-Wing game appeared on Reddit’s XWingTMG subreddit earlier today. Images featuring the three ships included in the base game (from the Resistance and the First Order) and quite possibly the opening crawl from the upcoming movie.

“Some people are wondering about what’s going on with [Star Wars: The Force Awakens] and what’s going on with that is I can’t tell you anything about it,” Christian Petersen, CEO of Fantasy Flight Games, joked at the Inflight Report at Gen Con 2015. “The secrecy and the level of death imposed upon me, if I tell you anything about [Episode VII] is enormous.” While he was speaking at the end of July, finished product was being shipped to the FFG warehouse. Reportedly, forum threads at FFG’s site that point to the leaked images are being deleted almost as soon as they are created.

Ship cards indicate that the “Blue Ace” T-70 X-Wing has a 1 Hard Turn Boost ability built in, plus a slightly better base statline (3/2/3/3), and a 3-green straight. The First Order TIE has four actions on its bar: Evade, Barrel Roll, Target Lock, and Focus.

  • Comments Off on Star Wars: The Force Awakens X-Wing Starter Set Images Leaked

Crowdfunding Highlights

magnetic war matDo you play Fantasy Flight Games’ X-Wing or Armada? The creators behind the Magnetic War Mats campaign on Kickstarter do, and they’re printing 36″ square and 36″ x 72″ magnetic rubber game mats to keep ships steadier on the playing field. The products that would be funded in this campaign can be ordered with or without printing; mats without printing can be placed under other company’s printed mats (such as Wings of Glory/War) to help prevent your ships from slipping during play. All of the currently-proposed prints are space scenes. Each set comes with either 20 or 40 neodymium magnets to attach to ships “completely flush with the bottom of [the X-Wing type] game base”. Mats begin at $20 unprinted, $40 for printed (with carrying travel case).

Tasty Minstrel Games is halfway through a campaign for two Eminent Domain-based products. Battlecruisers is a standalone game in the ED setting; Exotica is the second expansion to Eminent Domain. Already funded (over $70k as of this writing), TMG has added several stretch goals to the project. The base game was one of the first boardgame Kickstarter campaigns, launched in 2010, and is one of TMG’s flagpole games. Eminent Domain: Battlecruisers & Exotica‘s Kickstarter campaign ends on July 1st.

papecarz

Meanwhile on IndieGoGo, there’s a papercraft car racing game called Papecarz. With a throwback 60’s design and plenty of Good Girl Art, Papecarz comes with track, stands, and six cars, all pre-cut and pre-creased. All you need is glue to assemble. Funding levels include a $29 for the game tier (with modern-day NASCAR-like cars), $10 more for six additional “vintage” race cars, and slightly higher tiers for custom car designs. This IndieGoGo campaign will only be funded if it hits the $5000 mark on July 14th.

kaitlynn peavlerOver on Patreon, Kaitlynn Peavler is creating stock illustrations. Her goal is to have weekly releases available to use by all patrons, with diverse characters “of many different ethnicities, genders, body types, and ages.” A $1 pledge gets you access to the images while a $10 pledge (limited slots) will let you suggest illustrations.

Lowell Francis is covering the history of roleplaying games, looking at a genre of games (like superhero, post-apocalyptic, and others) in a certain time period, describing how they fit into the culture of the time, and then listing games (with reviews, where possible) from that period. As an example, “History of Superhero RPGs (Part Four: 1993-1996)” beings with a personal look at the era and a review of the state of the comics industry at the time, followed by twelve different entries for the four-year period. Suggested pledge levels start at fifty cents.

  • Comments Off on Crowdfunding Highlights

X-Wing Imperial Raider

FFGSWX30

Do you have an extra $100 just laying around? Already paid all your bills, and made sure your children have food to eat? You’re in luck! Fantasy Flight Games has just released the Imperial Raider for the Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures Game. They will gladly take that $100 from you in exchange for this marvelous, and gigantic, addition to your Star Wars miniatures obsession. Better yet, they’re also tossing in a teeny TIE fighter in the package, and a maneuver template so you can accurately try to move the lumbering Raider through space.

The X-Wing Imperial Raider set also contains rules for energy to fuel your shields and abilities. It comes out in March, and will retail for … $99.95 (so you can keep a nickel from that $100 you have. Until you figure in tax.)

Score Board - Boardgame tournaments, competitions and championships results and scoresShogi

Awake defeated Ponanza, claiming the top spot in the Shogi Deno Tournament in Saitama, Japan. Both are computer programs, and along with three other computer players earned the opportunity to compete against humans for a 2.5 million Yen prize next March.

Scrabble

Nigeria placed first at the Africa Scrabble Championship, followed by South Africa and Zambia.

Christopher May clinched the British National Scrabble Championship with a record of 13-4 +1287 by playing “MATH”. Yep, that’s it.

Go

In a repeat performance of last year, Kim Sooyoung and Jeon Junhak of Korea claimed the trophy at the International Amateur Pair Go Cup. Their final game was against Chinese Taipei and was won on a resignation.

Draughts

The World Youth Draughts Championship in Tallinn, Estonia was divided in to boys and girls, minicadets (under-14) and hopes (under-11) sections. Among all the sections, the top spots were dominated by players from Russia and Belarus. In minicadets girls, the winner was Vera Gorbacheva of Russia. In minicadets boys, the winner was  Anatolyi Protodyakonov of Russia. Leading hopes girls was Maryia Chasnakova of Belarus. Leading hopes boys, Miraslau Kuzniatsou of Belarus.

In Lishui, China the 3rd Xingqui Tianxi Cup International Open Draughts Tournament saw Mourodoullo Amrillaew of Russia at the top of the general section, Natalia Shestakova of Russia lead the women’s section, Yiming Pan of China boys under-14, and Yurui Liu of China girls under-14.

Rubik’s Cube

At Człuchów Panzer Cube 2014 (Poland), Jakub Kipa set a world record at solving the 3×3 cube with feet, 25.90 seconds.

With an average time of 9.47 seconds in 3×3 cube, the winner of the Asian Championship in Matsudo, Japan was Sei Sugama. The same tournament saw a world record 37.83 Megaminx solve by Mitsuki Gunji.

Chess

After six rounds of the World Chess Championship, current champion, Magnus Carlsen, leads challenger and previous champion, Viswanathan Anand, 3½-2½.

First place in the Tashkent leg of the FIDE Grand Prix went to Dmitry Andreikin with 7/11 points.

Magic: The Gathering

Grand Prix Nashville was a Khans of Tarkir team limited event. Of the 464 registered teams, the one of Matthew Nass, Jacob WIlson, and Jesse Hampton came out on top.

At Grand Prix Santiago (standard), Brazilian players proved tough opponents for local Chileans, with Eduardo dos Santos Vieira coming out on top.

Immanuel Gerschenson of Austria won Grand Prix Madrid, where the modern format saw a strong performance by a variety of older cards.

More than 4,000 players showed up for Grand Prix New Jersey (legacy) but in the finals it came down to roommates, Tom Ross and Brian Braun-Duin, with the latter taking home the trophy.

Other

Fantasy Flight Games’ World Championship Weekend saw eight different players declared champion, one in two separate games:

  • A Game of Thrones: The Card Game (Melee)—Dan Seefeldt
  • A Game of Thrones: The Card Game (Joust)—Sam Braatz
  • A Game of Thrones: The Card Game (Overall)—Alexander Hynes
  • Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game—Jeremy Zwirn
  • Star Wars: The Card Game—Mick Cipra
  • X-Wing—Paul Heaver
  • Warhammer 40,000: Conquest—Jeremy Zwirn
  • Warhammer: Diskwars—Francois Fressin
  • Android: Netrunner The Card Game—Dan Dargenio

  • Comments Off on Scoreboard

Score Board - Boardgame tournaments, competitions and championships results and scoresScrabble

The final game of the UK National Scrabble Championship was played between two former champions, Paul Allan and Allan Simmons. This time, Paul Allan clinched the title with the play of “bandura” (which is a Ukrainian lute) for a triple-word bingo worth 86 points. (For those trying to figure out how “bandura” is worth 86, the “d” was a blank, the “r” finished “tar”, and the final “a” was placed on the triple-word space and also finished “ta”.)

Chess

Chess continues to be played while the World Championship is underway…

In fact, other matches being played in India to celebrate the Championship included one for blind players, which was won by 16 year-old Sai Krishna, and the Women Grandmaster Tournament.

Ryan Harper of Trinidad & Tobago won the Umada Cup in Aruba.

FIDE selected 13th-ranked Peter Svidler for the open slot in the next Candidates Tournament, bypassing higher ranked players such as Alexander Grischuk (ranked 5th) and Hikaru Nakamura (ranked 4th).

While the FIDE Presidential Board approved plans for six Grand Prix events in 2014, agreements for only four have been signed so far. If the remaining two end up not happening, the two spots reserved in the next Candidates Tournament for Grand Prix winners will instead be selected one from the World Cup and one from the ratings list.

Backgammon

In the open section of the Capital Classic Backgammon Championships in Herndon, Virginia, the winner was Greg Merriman of Michigan.

At the Merit Open International Backgammon Championship in Cyprus, Sergey Erokhin of Russia took home the masters trophy and the team of Haris Christidis and Konstantinos Mitrelis from Greece the doubles trophy.

Collectible Card and Miniatures Games

Fantasy Flight Games’ World Championship Weekend was held in Roseville, Minnesota, where Alvaro Rodriguez of Spain claimed the title of Joust World Champion for A Game of Thrones: The Card Game. Ryan Jones, though, was crowned Melee World Champion and Overall World Champion. In the Android: Netrunner tournament, the winner was Jens Erickson. Jeremy Zwirn, the 2012 champion of Netrunner and Warhammer: Invasion, this year won at Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game. Dennis Harlien triumphed in the tiebreaker for Star Wars: The Card Game. Oliver Franke of Germany moved up from his second place finish last year in the Warhammer: Invasion championship. And in the final game of the Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game tournament, Paul Heaver battled back from a two-ship deficit and eliminated his opponent’s last ship with only one hull point to spare.

Rookie and new hometown hero, Luis Navas, won Magic: The Gathering Grand Prix Santiago.

Samuel Marti of Switzerland claimed victory with a blue-green deck at Magic: The Gathering Grand Prix Valencia.

At the Legend of the Five Rings Pacific Rim Championships, Edward Bareng claimed victory for Lion. Alexander Iarstev, playing Scorpion, was the winner at the Legend of the Five Rings South American Championships.

Go

For the fifth year in a row, a Korean team has won the International Amateur Pair Go Championship in Tokyo.

Draughts

The winner of the European Draughts Championship was Peter van der Stap of the Netherlands.

The winner of the Portugal Open was Guntis Valneris.

Other Games

The winner of the 24th World Perudo Championships in London (the game is also known as Liar’s Dice) was Dan Reade.

From a touring series, 14 youngsters were invited to participate in the UK Lego Chima Challenge Championship, where Reggie Pegrum (age 9, from Waltham Abbey, Essex) was declared the winner.

  • Comments Off on Scoreboard

Gen Con 2013 logoThe annual In-Flight Report is a Gen Con presentation by Fantasy Flight Games’ Christian Petersen covering the state of the company, as well as previewing some of its upcoming products. After giving away the Star Wars RPG beta free to attendees last time, FFG had to turn away hundreds this year.

Though there were no product giveaways, the presentation was, as usual, highly informative.

Business

Regarding FFG’s business, we learned this year that the company continues to experience strong growth—greater than 25 percent every year since 2000. After the presentation, Christian also told me that FFG was up to 106 employees.

Fantasy Flight Games is in the process of moving its office and consolidating warehouse space in the same building. The Event Center will join them shortly.

FFG experienced its three biggest product launches ever, all in the preceding year: X-Wing Miniatures Game, Netrunner, and Descent 2nd Edition.

By product line, 37 percent of FFG’s sales are board games, 24 percent card games, 16 percent miniatures, 10 percent roleplaying games, 9 percent supplies, and 4 percent other products. Comparing this to last year’s numbers, it appears that as a percentage of the company’s business, board games dropped significantly, while card games, miniatures, and roleplaying games rose.

Fantasy Flight Games has acquired CardGameDB.com, an independent website dedicated to deck-building in FFG’s living card games. All of the website’s tools will be integrated in to FFG’s website. Drew, CardGameDB’s developer, will stay with the project. And all existing data will be preserved when the transition takes place in early 2014.

New Products

For the fans in the audience, the new product announcements were the most anticipated part of the presentation…

For Descent, FFG will be releasing The Trollfens, an expansion with new rumors and a mini campaign, and Lieutenant Packs. The latter will be individual plastic miniatures in the $9-14 range. Each miniature, however, will also come with a selection of Evil Plot Cards, material from which the overlord can choose in order to customize a game.

FFG’s Diskwars game will return as a Warhammer product in December. Warhammer: Diskwars was actually the first idea that Christian Petersen pitched to Games Workshop many years ago, before their licensing arrangement.

The next products in the Star Wars RPG line are Beyond the Rim, an adventure, Enter the Unknown, a sourcebook for explorers, and print-on-demand Specialization Decks, reference cards with specialization tree information.

Eldritch Horror, a “sister game” to Arkham Horror but presenting a “global experience”, will ship in December.

Fantasy Flight is bringing back BattleLore with a new Runebound theme. The rules will be slightly updated, though the game will maintain the same left-center-right and command-card mechanics of the Commands & Colors system. Changes include a fog-of-war element in setup and more objective-based victory conditions. Those pesky banners will be gone from the new edition. And instead of defining specific scenarios like the previous version, BattleLore 2nd Edition will include a scenario generator and rules for army-building.

Several developments are underway for the Lord of the Rings Card Game. Game modes being incorporated in to all new adventure packs are meant to provide better experiences at different levels of play. There will be an easy mode for new players. And separately sold $7 Nightmare Decks will give advanced players new challenges with old adventures. Additionally, while past releases introduced new stories to Tolkien’s Middle Earth setting, future products will give people the opportunity to play out the original adventures from the books. These Saga Expansions will also feature campaign play.

For the X-Wing Miniatures Game, FFG announced the addition of larger ships to the line, starting with the Rebel Transport and the Tantive IV Blockade Runner. Priced at $60 and $90, respectively, their arrival in early 2014 will usher in a new Epic tournament format to accommodate the larger sizes and higher point values.

And finally, FFG is planning the rerelease of Blue Moon. With all the previous products in a single box, they’re calling it Blue Moon Legends.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

  • Comments Off on Fantasy Flight Games’ 2013 In-Flight Report