Gaming

The D6 Generation have posted photos of some of the artwork from the upcoming Rising Powers expansion for Malifaux.

Mantic Games are now accepting pre-orders for their 28mm Zombie figures. From their announcement: The day is finally here, the Undead Zombie Regiment and the Undead Zombie Horde are available for pre-order today. And to celebrate here is a stunning example of just how good our Zombies look when they are painted… and this is [...]

Darkson Designs will have a limited number of copies of their Basra 1946 Campaign Supplement for AE-WWII available for sale at Gen Con Indy. From their announcement: Our newest release will be available in limited quantities at GenCon 2010. AE-WWII Basra: 1946 – The Desert War. 8.5? x 11? 108 pages SRP $34.99 Basra: 1946 [...]

Bastion have sent images of the base for an upcoming monster figure for Ex illis. The figure will be on display at Gen Con Indy. From their announcement: We’ve got something huge coming, and it stands on this. This is a base for our next monster, our miniatures use a 28mm scale range. To give [...]

Wyrd Miniatures have posted images of the stat card for the Colette Du Bois Master miniature from Malifaux.

Secret Skeleton Miniatures have sent a photo of the green for their new Sahuagin miniature. No word on a release date for the figure. From their announcement: We have decided to wipe the slate clean and start all over with our Sea Devils (or Sahuagin) and here are the results. Sculpted by Patrick Keith, this [...]

Gary Hunt Miniatures have posted a photo of the greens for their 28mm Goat Boyz figures. No word on a release date or pricing for these figs.

Crooked Dice have posted a photo of the greens for their upcoming 28mm Scary Statues. From their website: So in an appropriately timey-whimey fashion, we have adjusted the release schedule and can now offer you C1, C2 and C3 – Scary Statues. Amongst catacombs and graveyards lie these carvings. Silent and patient, they watch and [...]

Perry Miniatures are now accepting pre-orders for Go Strong into the Desert, The Mahdist Uprising in the Sudan 1881-1885 A Military History and Uniform Guide. From their announcement: Following the string of disasters which befell the Egyptian military in the Sudan from 1881-1884, the Mahdist Uprising obliged a reluctant London government to deploy an array [...]

Fantasy Flight Games have posted a video overview of the Dust Tactics miniatures boardgame. From their website: On Thursday, August 5th at 10am, Dust Tactics will debut to tens of thousands of excited Gen Con attendees in Indianapolis, Indiana. At that very moment, four competitors will officially kick-off the Dust Tactics Gen Con Skirmish at [...]

Dark Age Games have posted a PDF based set of Quickstart rules for their Dark Age sci-fi skirmish game (PDF link).

Beast of War have posted their first video starting their Kings of War weekend focusing on the Mantic Games range of figures. This first video is an interview with Ronnie Renton discussing the new Kings of War fantasy rules and boxed game.

Mantic Games have announced a new starter set for use with their new fantasy rules written by Alessio Cavatore. From their website: Mantic Games has gotten gaming legend Alessio Cavatore to write the rule set for their Kings of War fantasy miniatures game, set to release on October 22nd with the Mhorgoth’s Revenge starter set. [...]

Corvus Belli have added a channel on YouTube with introductory videos for Infinity. From their website: Greetings. We are glad to introduce you to the new Corvus Belli Youtube channel. In the next days we will be uploading videos that will show the rules and background of “Infinity the Game”. These videos were made to [...]

Egizia Impressions

The latest new game tried by the Appalachian Gamers was Egizia, a word that is Italian for Egypt, or so I've been told. This game was designed by Antonio Tinto, Flaminia Brasini, Stefano Luperto, and Virginia Gigli, and published by Hans im Glück and Rio Grande Games. Egizia is what I call a distillation game: it's a game that really doesn't really invent any new mechanisms, but rather distills a lot of popular gaming mechanisms into a well-crafted package.

At its heart, Egizia is a worker-placement game. In this case, the workers are boats that are placed along the river Nile, but most of the usual worker-placement rules are in place: only one boat is usually placed in a space, and the owner of that boat gets the benefits of the space. The spaces are of two kinds; on one side of the river are spaces with pre-set benefits, and on the other side of the river are spaces for cards. Most of the spaces with pre-set benefits allow a player to increase the size of one or more of his four work crews, and sometimes allow a player to move his token down the food or quarry track. Three of the pre-set spaces are tracks where players place ships to work on building projects. Yes, this is another game about building the pyramids.

The spaces for cards naturally yield up the cards to players who place their ships on the appropriate space. There are a large variety of cards including quarries (which provide stone, the only real resource in the game), farmlands (which allow a player to feed his work crews), and a multitude of permanent and one-time special benefits.

The one unique twist on the worker placement mechanism in the game is that players must start by placing their ships upstream, and may only place subsequent ships further downstream from ships already placed. This means that players are constantly faced with the choice of placing a ship only a short way downstream to grab a benefit of minor value, or jumping over a bunch of spaces to grab a really valuable card while knowing that every space you've skipped is now forfeit. Sometimes players who jumped quickly downstream to grab the perfect card ended up being unable to place all of their eight ships because there were too few spaces left downstream.

The gist of the game is simple: place ships to grab cards, increase the size of work crews, and reserve a building action at major monuments. After everyone has placed their ships, work crews are fed (and players lose points if they have crews that can't be fed), stone is collected, and then work is done on the monuments and points are scored. Players use work crews to place stone on the monuments; the larger the work crew, the more stone that can be used, and the more points scored.

Over these simple mechanisms, the designers have layered a lot of detail. Players who have crews who work on the Sphinx can collect cards, and keep one of these each turn. The Sphinx cards provide bonus points for players who can meet the conditions on the cards. It is actually impossible to tell who is truly ahead in the game because each player will score so many bonus points from Sphinx cards at the end of the game that current victory point totals don't mean very much.

Players also score bonus points depending on the number of different monuments they worked on each turn. And there are food and quarry tracks that can provide bonus victory points or extra stone resources if players can drive their tokens far enough along the tracks.

Egizia has a good-looking board and lots of fine wooden bits. All the Appalachian Gamers who played it seemed to enjoy the experience, but I can't say it generated wild enthusiasm. Egizia is a game that I think might have created quite a stir if it had been published before 2005 when the publication of Caylus really made worker-placement a truly popular mechanism. But because Egizia has been published now, it seems merely one of many fine worker-placement games.

Angel Barracks have received new products and a restock of some of their existing products. From their announcement: We have some K&M trees in stock, perfect for the 6mm gamer. These can be found on the scenery page. We have also re-stocked the super mini d6, which are great as counters or just as very [...]

Game name:  Voll in Fahrt Designer:  Bob Lindner Publisher: Amigo Spiele — September 2010
Featured at: Spiel 2010

Voll in Fahrt is a racing game for young and old, with the players racing locomotives in the railyard and trying to be the first to enter the target station in order to win. Since you're in a railyard, though, you need to watch out for changing switches that will send your locomotive zooming in the wrong direction.

Fantasy Flight Games have posted the rules for the Dust Tactics miniatures boardgame. From their announcement: The rules for Dust Tactics (pdf, 7.4 MB) are now available on our support page. Study these rules of engagement carefully, then come test your mettle at GenCon 2010. In an alternate 1940s reality, alien technology fuels gigantic machines [...]

CoolMiniOrNot have announced some details of the products and personalities that will be at their booth at Gen Con Indy 2010. From their announcement: Miniature hobbyists will have seen Natalya’s (Alexi-Z) work on CoolMiniOrNot for years, or watched as she collected two Slayer Swords and numerous Golden Demon trophies. *Now they can get her brand [...]

CoolMiniOrNot will be producing Enigma and Gamezone figures for the North American market. From their announcement: CoolMiniOrNot is pleased to announce agreements with both Enigma and Gamezone to manufacture their miniatures under license in the USA. Gen Con will be the first time miniature fans can purchase Enigma miniatures produced here in the USA. CoolMiniOrNot [...]