Dragon's Maze Pre-release

We had 40 people in for the midnight pre-release and only 28 signed up so far for the 2 p.m Saturday pre-release for Dragon's Maze, which indicates to me that players view midnight pre-releases as more of an event than the "regular" pre-releases that take place over the rest of the weekend.

It's a pity that Konami's policies won't allow us to run midnight Sneak Peeks for new Yu Gi Oh releases as I think that would make them more of an event as well.  Per Konami policy, the earliest we can start a Yu Gi Oh Sneak Peek is 8 a.m., too late to make it a midnight event and too early to make it worthwhile opening the store a couple of hours before opening time.

The Future of Kaijudo (at least for the next year).

WOTC really put a push on Kaijudo at the show, much as the company has since announcing the (re) launch of the game with announcements of PTQ style events, a Duel Day in May or June and (non-specific) programs reaching out to Boy and Girl Scouts as well as boy’s and girl’s clubs.  It does concern me somewhat, when I asked about the release schedule for expansions, WOTC only has them on the schedule through the second quarter of 2014, since I was rather expecting to hear, based on the announced commitment to the game, a release schedule extending 2-3 years out.  Here’s hoping we are discussing a release schedule for Kaijudo for 2015 and 2016 at the 2014 GTS.

Evil Baby Orphanage

I wasn’t expecting much when I sat in on Wyrd Miniatures presentation.  Puppet Wars seems a bit pricy to me and their Malifaux line had sold quite poorly here since the initial run of interest after it first arrived.  However, once again I found you can always learn something interesting or useful in every presentation.  This time ‘twas Evil Baby Orphanage, a card game in which players attempt to score points by capturing history’s greatest villains while they are still in their diapers and sending them off to an orphanage where they can be monitored.  I did not lay hands on a demo copy of this but was intrigued enough to bring it into the store when I returned and have it racked near Cards Against Humanity.  I’m always looking for a new twist on a quick card game and this one certainly qualifies.

Pazio at the GAMA Trade Show

Paizo had a pretty comprehensive presentation with a couple of announcements that made my customers quite happy.  First the announced gravity feed of goblins just in time for the release of “We Be Goblins Too” at Free RPG Day had more than one customers commenting that “you can never have too many goblins” and considering the purchase of a complete display to get a full set of the 13 figures.  Secondly, and this rather surprised me, they were quite happy about the planned reprinting of the Combat Pad.  This is a GM aid that we have had a number of customers asking for over the past few months and there was even applause when I announced this during a Pathfinder Society session.

Fear Itself

Still catching up on my notes from this year’s GAMA Trade Show.  The most popular seminar/presentation of the show had to be the WizKids’ session, likely because at each presentation, attendees received a highly desirable HeroClix Convention Only figure.  However, Wk also gave out a lot of information about the next Organized Play campaign, Fear Itself.  I won’t go into detail about the Fear Itself OP program, as you have likely read about it elsewhere.  One thing I did take away from it was the increased importance WizKids has put upon online registration of both events and players.  In fact, in order to order the Fear Itself OP kit through Alliances, a store has to both purchase a certain number of boosters over the preceding period and register events on the WizKids’ website (which is still a work in progress and somewhat clunky, i.e. there is no indication on the site when you request a password reset that it goes through until the email shows up in your mailbox).  The limited edition Fear Itself booster set of 40 figures and the Blitzkrieg packs are nice add ons that will drive customers to participate in the Fear Itself event, though I would not take any bets on how long it takes before the FI boosters wind up for sale on eBay or other online locations.

Egypt Wars

Just opened the doors for Egypt Wars 4 about 30 minutes ago and am ones again reminded of how much work goes into putting on even a small convention.  We have been planning EW 4 since last fall and have moved to the SIUC Student Center, based on requests from prior year's attendees.   It is not as convenient to the store and we had to split off the Magic events into the upstairs activity rooms but everything seems to be runnng smoothly so far.

The con actually started at 9 this morning with a Slot Zero Pathfinder event held in the store gamerooms.  We opened an hour early so that dedicated Pathfinders could get their game on before eveyone else

TableTop Day

Had a very successful TableTop Day on March 30.  We didn't get to all the games on the schedule, due to some of them, especially Star Fluxx, running longer than anticipated.  Players did get in games of Dixit, Settlers of Catan, Gloom, Get Bit, the aformentioned Star Fluxx, Ticket to Ride and Munchkin, among others.

You can see pictures from the event at our Facebook page.

The event proved successful enough that will plan to participate again next year as well as host another one over the summer on a Saturday when the Pathfinder Society does not have games scheduled so we can devote more table space to it.