New Releases : 3rd November 2009

The first of Rio Grande’s Essen releases hit the UK on Tuesday 3rd November

Tobago gets an official UK release from Rio Grande this week. Its top of my family game picks.

Carcassonne Wheel of Fortune is a standalone Carcassonne game, with a .. Wheel of Fortune

Jambo expansion 2 adds three new games elements to the base game

I was impressed by the description and look of ‘Longships’ (a Viking plunder and trading game) at Essen so i am importing some. They should arrive by the end of the week. If you would like to know more about this game there is an excellent review here.

There are three new releases from GMT

Command and Colors Ancients: Expansion four takes the action into the later Roman Empire

Command and Colors Ancients : Expansion five adds more players and new game play to the base set

Hellenes : The Peloponnesian War is a block game, recreating the struggle between the Greek city states.

Erosion from Sierra Madre games is back in stock. This is a quirky card game in which players attempt to build up mountain ranges, erode them and claim victory points by collecting the resulting debris. Highly recommended and in a way reminiscent of ‘Glory to Rome’

I have managed to play a few more Essen releases. ‘At the gates of Loyang’ (which i’m expecting next week) is a great game, a lot more tactical and quicker to play than the other games in Ewe Rosenberg’s ‘Harvesting’ cycle. ‘Dungeon Lords’ is fantastic, a hard core Euro with a fun theme. This is rather difficult to get hold of and i don’t expect to get any copies until its official UK release later this year. ‘Colonia 1322AD’ from Queen is a resource management game, with the twist that you have to vote on edicts during the different phases of the game. Quite intricate, this is for gamers who like long term planning. I’m expecting this to arrive in a few weeks.

Stronghold will be with me at latest by Thursday, i’m afraid my distributor has dragged their heels on getting this to me when promised (i.e before the official UK release on Tuesday). I will make sure that those of you who have pre-ordered a copy get it by the end of the week.

I am hoping that some copies of Carson City will arrive next week, along with quite a few other Essen releases. I will send out another newsletter when they arrive.

New Releases : 6th October

It’s a rare pleasure to be able to report that some games are actually being released ahead of schedule. Some of Alderac Entertainment Group’s Essen releases are out on Tuesday the 6th.

The most eagerly awaited is ‘The Adventurers’ – a hit at Gencon 09, this game gives you a ‘Indiana Jones’ adventure as you rush around a temple collecting treasure and avoiding traps.

‘Monkey Lab’ is for younger gamers who play monkeys trying to release fellow monkeys from the lab.

‘Arcana’ is a trick taking, bluffing diplomatic game set in a fantasy world.

Other Tuesday 6th releases include:-


‘Dungeon Twister 2’. It contains lots of miniatures, a new set of rules and backward compatibility with the original game and expansions

‘Samurai the card game’ is the third in the series of Knizia’s abridged versions of his classics.

‘Twilight Horror' is the first Asylum Pack in the Dreamlands expansion for the Call of Cthulhu Living Card Game

‘Scrappers’ from Privateer press is the last of the new releases.

Exciting imports arriving this week.

‘Rise of Empires’ will definitely be with me on Tuesday. It’s the Phalanx German version but is language independent and I will provide English rules and laminated player aids. The Mayfair English language version has been delayed to November at the earliest. Being a Martin Wallace fan I can’t wait to get this to table.

‘Tobago’ is arriving at the same time. A deduction game with gorgeous components Bruno Faidutti has talked of this being an early candidate for the 2010 SdJ. It is language independent and I will provide English rules.

‘Peloponnes’ is an auction /civilisation game from Bernd Eisenstein (half of the design team behind 2009’s best dice game ‘Alea Iacta Est’). The game will come bundled with it’s expansion and should be in the shop on Friday.

Special Offers

4 fab games added to the ‘offers’ section :- ‘Warrior Knights’ , ‘Garibaldi’ , ‘Dust’ and ‘Chicago Express’

Other news

If anyone bought Middle Earth quest from me and they need replacement figures please email me with the figures needed, FF have sent me some replacements.

Bucephalus games have released a host ot f new games this week. I don’t stock anything by this publisher because their games have received terrible reviews. However if there is any thing from their range you would like I would be more than happy to get hold of a copy at a very small mark up.

The postal strike is still causing havoc with royal mail delivery times. If you need a game in a hurry then choose DHL at the delivery method.

Warhammer Invasion Living Card game looks like it might be out in 10 days time.

‘Kursk’ the follow up to ‘Conflict of Heroes’ is shipping pre-orders soi hoping it will hit the UK soon. The same applies to the reprint of Command and Colours Ancients and its new expansions, four and five.

‘The War of the Roses’ from Columbia games should be no longer than a month away