If you are like me and have been waiting for Up Front to be re-printed, make sure you get in on the Kickstarter campaign. The 48 hour count down has begun. This deal is rediculous. The base game and additional core nations alone is over 1300 cards. At the current stretch level, the number of cards you get is more than doubled. To get all the cards, a pledge of $125 USD is required (shipping included for US adresses).
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1325766284/up-front-the-card-game
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| Millennium Falcon and A-Wing |
I was fortunate enough to participate in the FFG Kessel Run event hosted at my FLGS, Six Feet Under Games. And, despite my many mistakes I was lucky enough to walk away with the Millennium Falcon as my prize. I have been wanting to use and check out this piece ever since it was announced. The model is very nice and I am quite please I walked away with it.
The ship boasts of 5 shields and an 8 hull, but only 1 evade die (with Lando as pilot). In this configuration, it is a smart idea to use your actions each turn on an evade action.
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| Slave I and Tie Interceptor |
I recently finished listening to the Thrawn Trilogy audio book on Audible. If you are a Star Wars fan and are looking for some source material for all the cool new Star Wars games then I highly recommend this read (or listen as it were). Before listening to the Trilogy, I didn't know much about what happened after episode six, so this was a nice tie-in to the movies for me. I am hoping to use some of the background story and event in the Star Wars RPG by FFG. If you haven't read or listened to it, check it out. It is pretty good!
BTR
Most large board game companies have an online store and most of them do some kind of Black Friday, Cyber Monday or Holiday sale that offers 10%, 15% or even limited 50% (for loyal customers) savings. To my surprise, FFG has several items at 75% savings. Most of these items are not things I would buy at full retail, but at a huge discount these items become a little more palatable. There are a few $100 games marked down to $25. It might be worth buying a few of these just for the components to make your own games or to give away as Christmas presents. LINK
BTR
I just finished playing my first game of Legendary. I wasn't blown away, but I am not ready to trade it off either. I only played solo and I am sure a group dynamic will add to the experience. This was a learning game too which sterilized the game play a bit. I see a lot of potential here. There is room for breadth as well as depth. We'll see what they do with it. For now I am giving it a 7.5 out of 10.
BTR
Along with Fantasy Flight's other Star Wars related offerings is a new RPG, Star Wars Edge of the Empire. This is a bit of an odd ball. The book is a Beta test for the new system. I have never heard of releasing a printed Beta for something like this, but they got me to buy one ....
Something cool I didn't realize is the dice app I mentioned a few posts ago actually has the proprietary dice for the RPG built in already, so I guess I'm good to go. :-) We'll see how it all works out .....
B.
The donjon web site is a fantastic rpg resource. Not only will the site generate a fully stocked dungeon with the size and level specifics you provide, but it will do so for several different versions of D&D as well as generic fantasy too. The generated dungeon material can be downloaded as a nice pdf package once the desired results are obtained. What an awesome FREE resource. Cudos to the donjon folks!
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| Dungeon created as a result of the settings above. |
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| Example dungeon and room description for the dungeon above. |
There are other generators that are handy for several genres of rpgs, not just fantasy. The person or persons responsible for this site have been doing it for quite a while and as a result, many of the offerings are quite polished and offer lots of variety.
B.
A new version of my favorite childhood game is due to be released very soon. I have already pre-ordered three copies. I intend to give my nephews the same opportunity I had as a child for such memories. This is one of those games that, judged all by itself, would not rate very high in my book, but because of the theme and the memories it is still a favorite. I even still play the game from time-to-time with my nephews and since finding a solo scenario recently I have even played by myself too. I highly recommend playing this with any youngster who shows an interest in this type of game.
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| Star Trek Deck Building Game |
You may have noticed the playing surface we used on our X- Wing game. It is actually a banner printed from images taken by Hubble. A company named Banners on the Cheap (www.bannersonthecheap.com) prints banners using all sorts of images. They even make roleplaying maps. The 4' x 4' banners I purchased cost $22 plus about $6 for shipping. I have ordered a total of four of these play mats. So far my experience with this company has been very positive and I highly recommend them.
To go along with Fantasy Flight's Roleplaying and Miniatures games is a dice rolling app for iOS and Android devices. The dice roller supports other roleplaying games with a generic set of multi-sided dice as well. There are all kind of sounds and backgrounds to go along with the dice rolling, but for $4.99 I expect a few extras. In general I think this price is high for an app of this type, but they did an excellent job and it really helps set the atmosphere for X-Wing games.
Fantasy Flight Games has released a Star Wars themed ship combat game with rules similar to Wings of War. Each ship can have various attachments and pilot abilities which give it varying point values. Each player creates a force of the specified point size. All manner of space accessories can be added to the play surface to create any scenario imagined.
Initial ship choices are limited. An X-Wing and two Tie Fighters come with the base set and additional X-Wing and Tie Fighters can be purchased as well as Tie Advanced and Y-Wing ships. The Millenium Falcon, Slave 1, A-Wing and Tie Interceptor ships will be in the next wave of ships offered.
We have played three games so far and certainly recognize the huge potential this game offers. Each game was quite fun as well. I think we'll get lots of mileage out of this one.
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