Review: Dimensional Outbreak

Dimensional Outbreak PAL 875 Pub. by Palladium Books Softcover, 192 pages. MSRP $24.95.

Dimensional Outbreak is Rifts Dimension Book 12 (both there are a lot of them, aren't there) focusing on the effects of the Minion War, the clash between the rival dimensions of Hades and Dyval. Contains more details on the Demon Fleet and Demon Magic (60+ new spells and rituals), a timeline for both Phase World and Center as well as maps of Center.

As is the case will all Palliadum books I have seen, Dimensional Outbreak is physically well put together. The cover is tightly bound and uses the standard Pallaidum Rifts dress. Inside, there's a very thorough 4 page TOC, alas no index though.

The last page gives some indication as to the direction Palladium plans to go with the Minion War, with ads for upcoming tie-ins to Heroes Unlimited. another Phase World sourcebook (listing the 2000 people who purchased a limited print to help Palladium during its financial woes a few years ago) and another WorldBook, this one returning to the New German Republic.

All in all, Dimensional Outbreak is a very sound release, but one most likely finding interest (and sales) among those who are already fans of Palladium's Megaverse

Fluxxed Out

OK. Looney Labs now has Fluxx, Family Fluxx, Zombie Fluxx, Stoner Fluxx, Martian Fluxx, Monty Python Fluxx, Jewish Fluxx, Christian Fluxx and a relaunched Eco Fluxx. What's next, or are they all Fluxxed out?

Dual Terminals

Thinking about getting in one or two of Konami's Dual Terminals. Got a chance to take a look at the at the GAMA Trade Show and they are pretty cool looking. One of the things that concerned me originally was that they were counter top sized units, which would take up some pretty precious counter space in the store. Instead, they are floor standing units which work much better since we have much more floor available than we do countertop.

The price is a bit off putting, $2500 per unit, and the cards for the unit are fairly expensive as well. Konami expects most stores to hit breakeven with the units in about a year. Some some stores are doing much better than that. Another plus in their favor is that there are currently only about 100 units in the US, located in about 80 stores, making them a heavy drawing point for Yu Gi Oh players from miles around. My concern is that the Yu Gi Oh fan base in southern Illinois is not strong enough to support one machine, let alone two. I'm going to carefully look at Yu Gi Oh sales and tournament attendance through the end of May before making a final decision.

Egypt Wars Day 3

It's about 6 p.m. CDT. Only another hour until the last slot of the convention starts. Not many games running then: Winner's Circle, Trailer Park Wars and NinjaBurger for the boardgames and Vampire the Masquerade and Mouse Guard for RPGs. The Magic players are finishing up a second Standard format tournament. Note to self, be sure to schedule more Magic tournaments next year.

Among the RPGs, QAGS and Castles & Crusades were the hits of the con, with both games filling up every slot. It helps a lot that demo reps for both games were here as their enthusiasm for the games carried over and drew in a lot of players. Steve Johnson had fourteen players for his Roller Girls vs. Zombies QAGS game last night.

Gary Smith is running a D&D Monster Arena variant right now with about a dozen players. Each one gets a thief, mage and fighter and sends them into the arena one at a time to fight the other player's characters. Kill another character, get a point. First player to reach 10 points wins. It didn't go off in slot 6, so Gary pushed it in slot 7 and filled the table.

Troll Lords Games, Ad Astra, The Game Room and Mecca Anime all pulled out of the dealer's area about an hour ago as theyhave anywhere from a 2 1/2 hour to 8 hour drive to get home and we really appeciated them taking the time out of their schedules to come down, set up and show games.

All in all, a successful Egypt Wars 1. Mark your calendars for Little Egypt Wars 2, this fall's game day, scheduled for Sept 25, 2010.

Egypt Wars Day 2

Twelve people in for the Rogue Trader today. Half of them are from Cape Girareau and half are from the local Lords of Egypt group. No idea what the standings are but last time I checked they were halfway through the third round.

Steve Chenault from Troll Lord Games has run 3 Castles and Crusades events this weekend. All of them have gone off with 4+ players and the players have reported themselves very happy with the event. Star Wars SAGA, Pathfinder and QAGS are running in the RPG area as well.

The Settlers of Catan event filled early. Could have handled more but they were short one game and didn't have the 5-6 player expansion. Too bad as they got pretty cool prizes: a Catan polo shirt and the 2009 Catan Christmas decoration.

Magic legacy event started about 3 today, earlier than I expected but they got done with the Entered tournament after only about 4 hours.

A dozen players showed up for the Star Wars miniatures tournaments. The Dynamic Duos event kicked off at 9 a.m.. They are playing 150 points now and will finish up with a 100 point team event tonight.

Egypt Wars 1 Setup

Started getting ancy about 7:30 this morning so started up the van and drove the 1.5 miles to the Carbondale Civic Center to started setting up for EWI. At that hour, only me and one of the maintenance workers were here. I actually was able to haul everything in and get it set up by about 8:30. Of course, the fact I didn't have to haul in the store this time to set up made things go a lot quicker. Plus he fact taht we'd spent the previous couple of weeks getting everything prepared helped a lot.

GIrl Genius: The Works

One of the cool products I saw at the recent GAMA Trade Show was Bucephalus Games' relaunch of the Girl Genius: The Works card game. This is one of James Earnest's (the designer behind such games as Kill Dr. Lucky and Give Me the Brain) favorite games because of the amount of strategy possible, despite the apparent randomness of the card play. The basic mechanic involves moving a card to a position so that you can "pop" it off the table and into your score pile. When the last possible "pop" is made, the player with the highest scoring pile wins. You can play a game in under 30 minutes and the cards are illustrated with art from the Girl Genius web comic/trade paperbacks.

GG: TW has been out of print for several years, so I'm happy to see it getting re-release, especially in the much larger packaging, about the size of a Munchkin box, which should keep it from getting lost on the shelves. I'll have to see if I can find my copy so I can get some games in before the new edition hits the shelves this summer.

HeroClix Release Schedule

April 2010
DC HeroClix: The Brave and The Bold, releasing April 14th, features 55 figures including famous team-up, “duo figures”, from the DC universe such as Batman & Catwoman, Green Lantern & Green Arrow, and The Flashes as well single figures like Power Girl, Metallo, Martian Manhunter, Nekron and the Black Hand.

May 2010
The DC HeroClix: Blackest Night Starter Set will arrive in comic & game stores on May 12, 2010. The Starter Game includes everything you need to play - 7 HeroClix Figures (Green Lantern, Lex Luthor, The Flash, Mera, The Atom, Scarecrow and Wonder Woman), rulebook, map, dice and more.

July 2010
In July, the HeroClix Watchmen Collectors Set hits the street and includes 25 highly detailed figures pulled straight from the movie including - Rorschach, Nite Owl, Silk Spectre, The Comedian, Ozamandias, Walter Kovacs, Moloch and many others, all wrapped in beautiful, display quality, packaging. A 15” Dr. Manhattan will be released at the summer conventions and a variant version of the colossal figure will be released to retailers later this year.

August 2010
The Marvel HeroClix: Web of the Spider-Man Set debuts in August with 60 figures consisting of the most famous Spider-Man allies and villains. The set will also include figural content from Marvel’s Dark Reign and Siege events.

October 2010
DC HeroClix: Brightest Day Set will release in October as a tie in to the Brightest Day story line and as a follow up to the Blackest Night Starter.
Includes a two-sided map and 7 figures - Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, Firestorm, Deadman, Osiris, Hawkgirl, and Captain Boomerang.
More information will be released as it becomes available.

November 2010
In November, WizKids will wrap up the year with the DC HeroClix: 75th Anniversary Set that will contain content spanning the rich history of the DC Universe.