Thursday, January 30, 2020

Dragonlance

The Dragonlance series was the first successful spin off from D&D or what was called at thetime AD&D. Whereas today we have Wizards licensing other properties (Rick and Morty, Critical Role, Stranger Things) and converting them in D&D worlds or sourcebooks, back in the 1980s TSR went the other way with Dragonlance. After the success of the modules, sourcebooks and novels, dozens of which hit the NYT best seller list, TSR  created an number of other products under the DL banner. 

We saw a Dragonlance boardgame, comic books, animated movie (talk of a live action one never went anywhere), calendars and video games. There was even a Russian musical and songs released by several bands using Dragonlance concepts

Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Using the Media to Promote


In case you missed it this past last fall, and if you did, I can understand why, NPR ran a 5 minute segment in which host Scott Simon discussed good (and good selling) boardgames with Kathleen Donohue of Labyrinth Games & Puzzles in Washington DC. Games mentioned include Secret Hitler,  Azul as a beautiful game to give, Codenames, cooperative games from Peaceable Kingdom and, as a game that all ages will enjoy, that ol’ stalwart Ticket to Ride (which, surprisingly, is offered pretty close to Asmodee’s MAP on Amazon,  unlike companies with no MAP, such as WOTC, which does not seem to care a whit how much Amazon devalues the D&D brand). Though some people might complain about the games selected, given that Secret Hitler is only available through Amazon (from where a lot of stores buy and resell it) and a couple of others are exclusive with particular distributors,  it is still a nice bit of publicity that reached some 4 million to 6 million listeners at no cost to Donohue (except for her time and whatever preparation she made) or to any of the publishers of the games she mentioned. Just how much is getting your game (or your store) in front of 4 million people? Now and for the next 8 months is the time for you to start cultivating media contacts and developing promotional plans that will bear fruit in the last quarter of 2019.  How to do this?
Reach out to the media or otherwise make yourself known to them.  Donohue gets mentioned on some NPR program at least once a year because many of the staff there are fans of her store. MSNBC’s Rachael Maddow used to shop at the now shuttered Modern Myths  and would post photos of her purchases there on occasion. The editor of one of our local papers is a customer and we don’t hesitate to pitch him a story when we have something we think is newsworthy. Making sure the media is aware of your existence is a major factor in getting your store mentioned in articles like this . Incidentally, one of the things I would like to see GAMA do over the next year is launch an public relations campaign to position the organization as the go-to source for information on the tabletop game industry. Similarly, in your community, your store should be the one the media contacts if they have a question about what Secret Hitler is or why Catan has maintained its popularity for so many years. The Growler, which published the article linked to earlier, focuses on craft brewing while Illinois Country Living, published by the Association of Illinois Electric Cooperatives, also published an article on boardgames last summer. You never can tell what publications what might want to do a story on your store or game. 
Create Events and Pitch Them--The news media likes news and is always looking for stories to publish. In today’s 24 hour news cycle, the need for new content is unending and your events, especially if they are out of the norm, can provide that content, especially if you can tie it to some sort of national event such as Free Comic Book Day or Free RPG Day. We have actually had success contacting our city government and getting them to proclaim the 1st Saturday in May as Free Comic Book Day in Carbondale and the 3rd Saturday in June as Free RPG Day (Unfortunately, we still had to explain what an RPG is, but once we used the term “Dungeons and Dragons”, the proclamation went through fine).
The media is your friend or wants to be if you approach them. It is too late to work with them for this holiday season but you’ve nine months to prepare for the next one.

Power of the Package


I had the opportunity to try a game designer’s newish card games earlier this month. The games played smoothly and in general, I liked the card art. However, I opted not to bring them in for one simple reason:  the only packaging was a strip of plastic shrinkwrapped around them holding the cards in place. No box, no clamshell, nothing, so I passed on it.  If you want to sell any product (with the possible exception of live animals), you need packaging.
Packaging serves two basic purposes: functional and promotional.  The functional purposes of packaging are to allow the customer to transport it, protect its contents and give needed information about them.
Consider consumer products. Could you transport liquid laundry detergent or toothpaste home from the store if it did not come in a bottle or tube? This is the first function of the package, to hold the contents together conveniently. While carrying home an RPG like 13th Age or FATE is relatively easy (though try getting one home without that handy binding), imagine taking home a board game like Settlers of Catan or Zombies! without the box. Pieces and cards all over the place!
The second thing the package does is protect the contents. Even something as simple as a deck of Once Upon a Time cards needs a package. If you just put them out on the shelf, they will get dirty, shelfworn, even torn. The box, or clamshell, or case, protects them from normal damage.
The third functional thing the package does is provide information about the contents. In the case of toothpaste, the customer wants to know how many ounces, is this tartar control or whitening formula, does it contain fluoride? Consumer protection laws for consumable items require a list of ingredients as well. You find that information on the package. Though ingredients are not necessary, in the case of a game, the customer wants some basic information: how many people can play, what ages are suitable, how long should a typical game take, what is inside the package?  This last is important because the customer typically cannot open the box to see the contents and stores may not want to open it if they do not have a shrinkwrap machine (If a store does not have a shrinkwrapping machine and the customer decides not to buy, the opened game is now worth less in the eyes of the next customer).
In terms of promotion, packaging can do two main things: make your product stand out on the shelf and sell it to the customer. Steve Jackson Games is a prime example of using packaging to make its products stand out, purely though box size. As I mentioned in previous columns, I used to think SJG was wrong for packaging Munckin in such a large box. Time proved me wrong and over the years, SJG has moved away from the small tuck boxes in which it packaged Chez Geek and Illuminati. Today, those games, and others, come in boxes the size of the Munchkin box, the easier to stand out on the shelf.
The packaging also should sell the product to the consumer. Tell them why they should buy it, why they are going to have fun playing it, how play works. While the FLGS probably has someone who can tell the customer about the product, if a game makes it to the shelf of a Target or B&N, no staffer there will work to sell it.  The poor game package is on its own. Bland doesn’t attract attention, bright and attention getting does.

Monday, January 27, 2020

Kickstarter from a Retailer Perspective


While from a publisher’s point of view, there is no real downside to Kickstarter, from a retailer’s point of view, there is almost no upside to the process, at least at the basic level at which crowdfunding works.

Conisder, the publisher lists a game on Kickstarter, or IndieGoGo, or some other crowdfunding site, gets pre-orders for it, collects funding, produces the game and ships it out.  Yes, there is more to it than that, but the publisher is selling their games to the customers who are most primed and ready to buy them.  At least one publisher that uses Kickstarter extensively has said they have moved their business model to a crowdfunding platform.  The company develops a game, puts it on Kickstarter, pre-sells 500-1000 copies, then, instead of keeping the game in print, develops another one and launches it via Kickstarter.

From the retailer’s point of view, stores see games coming up on Kickstarter and watch as they fund, with the opportunity to stock them occurring weeks or even months after those who participated in the Kickstarter receive their copies.  Assuming the typical print RPG sells  300-500 copies of a print run while small press boardgames sell 500-1000 copies, almost all of that demand gets satisfied by the Kickstarter campaign, leaving little demand left for distributors and retailers to satisfy.  Unless the game attracts a lot of post production buzz, such as Brotherwise Games Boss Monster, a Kickstarter funded game has already seen most of its sales during the campaign, leaving only a few potential sales through the distribution channel and lots of unsold Kickstarted games sitting on the shelf.
A number of Kickstarter campaigns do offer retailer tiers, wherein the retailer commits to purchasing several copies of the game, delivered at the same time as other supporters, at a discount comparable to what the store would get if purchasing the game through distribution.  This does require the retailer to tie up precious capital for several months, waiting for the product to release. Other Kickstarter campaigns, if the retailer commits to purchasing a certain number of copies of the game, have arranged to take payment and ship the game at the same time as it ships to the regular backers, putting it on the shelves while buzz still exists about it.

The big benefit that Kickstarter provides to retailers is the potential to develop an unending flow of new games and related products, some of which will prove comparatively successful in the distribution channel, such as 13th Age, and some which will not, such as Kill the Overlord.  The case then becomes how much scarce time the store can allocate to determining which is which.

Sunday, January 26, 2020

What Is the PLC

The product life cycle consists of four stages:  introduction, growth, maturity and decline.  All products go through all four of these stages, some at a faster rate than others (roughly 50,000 new products come onto the market every year, only about 10% of them stay in production for more than five years).

The introductory stage of the PLC is always the most exciting part of a product’s life.  The manufacturer has this cool new idea for a great new product(Dominion) or an interesting take on an already existing one (Ascension).  The manufacturer has (hopefully) playtested it extensively, made mockups or prototypes, lined up a production option, either in-house or outsourced and lined up financing, again either through theirself or, quite commonly today, through an exterior source such as Kickstarter or Indiegogo. The manufacturer is also all over Twitter, Facebook, TheyTube and any other media source  to which they can get access, talking about this cool new product and trying to get others to do the same.   During this stage, while their sales increases hit double or triple percentages, their expenses far exceed their revenues.  In short, they are losing money on the product until they hit the breakeven point, at which their revenues cover their expenses. 
Now, they move into the growth stage of the product life cycle.  During this stage their promotional efforts slack off as others have, hopefully, picked up on the buzz their original efforts generated for their products.  This means less expenditure on promotion, allowing they to divert more of the gross profits to cover fixed costs.  If they allocated revenues well, they start making a net profit during this stage.  As their product gets wider notice in the market though, sales start to slacken from the triple or high double digit growth they posted after the launch.  They should still see growth in the low double digits though.

The characteristic of the growth stage that makes me think the deckbuilding category is exiting the growth stage and entering the maturity stage of the PLC is that, towards the end of the growth stage, competition products start to enter the market.  Competitors see how well this product has done satisfying consumers and want a piece of the action, so they enter the market with similar products, planning to capture a share.  Currently, I count a minimum of ten deckbuilding games on the market, with more on the way.  Nothing says more clearly that the market for deckbuilding games has matured than the number of companies announcing their entry into the market.
What happens during this stage?  Profits for early entrants into the market continue to increase as their expenses likewise continue to drop.  However, sales increases drop to single digits and start to decline towards the end of the cycle, as the product moves from maturity to decline.  One sure sign that the market has moved from maturity to the decline stage of the PLC is competitors pulling the plug on their products and announced product launches never making it to market. 
During the decline stage, sales drop, either slightly or precipitously and they must decide whethe

Saturday, January 25, 2020

Games Workshop Releasing Feb 1

Warcry: Spire Tyrants (111-26)
 
  • Contains 9 brand-new multi-part plastic Citadel Miniatures
  • 9 Spire Tyrant Fighters Cards, 8 Language specific Spire Tyrants Ability Cards and 2 Wound Divider Cards
  • A brand-new Chaos Warband for Warcry
 
(111-26)

US $50/ CAN $60
For sale in your shop on Saturday 02-01-20

Warcry: Souldrain Forest (111-33)
 
  • Multi-part plastic kit.
  • Contains 7 Frames of scenery (makes 2 Awakened Wyldwoods and 1 Timeworn Ruins) 16 pieces in total
  • Includes 36 unique terrain cards, 24 of which use terrain exclusively from this set

(111-33)

US $100/ CAN $120
For sale in your shop on Saturday 02-01-20

*
Warcry: Ogroid Myrmidon (111-25)
 
  • Contains 1 multi-part plastic Citadel Miniature
  • A brand-new Chaotic Beast Ally available to any Chaos aligned warband
  • Includes a choice of two head variants, two left hands and two right hands

(111-25)

US $40/ CAN $50
For sale in your shop on Saturday 02-01-20

Warcry: Gloomspite Gitz (111-28)
 
  • Added value box-set (29%), containing 12 previously available Fighter cards, tokens and all the rules you need
  • 13 existing multi-part plastic Citadel Miniatures
  • Includes green tinted tokens and new Warcry rules for the Sneaky Snuffler exclusive to this set

(111-28)

US $50/ CAN $60
For sale in your shop on Saturday 02-01-20

Warcry: Stormcast Eternals (111-34)
 
  • Added value box-set (27%), containing 8 previously available Fighter cards, tokens and all the rules you need
  • 11 existing multi-part plastic Citadel Miniatures
  • Includes blue tinted tokens exclusive to this set

(111-34)

US $50/ CAN $60
For sale in your shop on Saturday 02-01-20

*
Warcry: Nighthaunt (111-35)
 
  • Added value box-set (11%), containing 7 previously available Fighter cards, tokens and all the rules you need
  • 13 existing multi-part plastic Citadel Miniatures
  • Includes purple tinted tokens and new Warcry rules for the Myrmourn Banshee exclusive to this set

Friday, January 24, 2020

Herbie

Arguably the greatest hero in comics ever, I am not talking about the Fantastic Four's HERBIE or even Herbie the Love Bug, but rather Herbie Popnecker, the "fat little nothing", according to his father but Alan Moore's (yes, that Alan Moore) favorite superhero. Some critics have speculated that Moore based the speech pattern of Rorschach in Watchmen on Herbie's speech. Herbie premiered in 1957 and continued in various titles until 1967.

Herbie took the traditional superhero strip and turned it on its head. Instead of a muscular physique, he was rotund and  short of speech, able to fly by "walking", gained powers by licking lollypops, could talk to animals and known to every world leader. Quite absurdist for the era and well worth a read if you can find them. 

Thursday, January 23, 2020

How To Make A Profit


“Buy Low, Sell High.”
There you go, that, in the proverbial nutshell, is how you make a profit in the game business, actually in any business.  Or, paraphrasing something a friend of mine, Marcus King (late of Titan Games and Entertainment, more recently with Troll and Toad) repeats from a mentor of his years ago: “You make your profit when you buy and your cash when you sell.”  The lower for which you can produce or buy a product, the more money you make when you eventually sell it.  Simple, right?
Not completely.  The above is indeed the basic of pricing but there are a number of different strategies and tactics a  business can take with its pricing, depending on what sort of image it wishes to project.
First, and most basic, is cost pricing.  You take the cost of the product you purchase or make (hopefully low, see above), increase it by an amount sufficient to generate enough money to cover the business overhead and provide a profit that you consider sufficient and sell it for that price.  Fairly straightforward, though not necessary simple, as this method does require you to know your overhead costs and how to break them down in order to assign them to items for sale.  This also highlights a recurring problem game stores have with a price for their products set by the manufacturer (manufacturer’s suggested retail price or MSRP).  Since customers are notoriously reluctant (with good reason) to pay more than the marked MSRP for items, having a price pre-set by the manufacturer constrains the amount of gross profit the store can earn from the item,  ergo the only way for a retailer to increase profits is to cut costs.  This is why game stores really dislike short discounted items from manufacturers, as a shorter discount on a product that much less money available to cover the costs associated with running the store.

Demand based pricing and competitive pricing are the two other major strategies a game store can choose to adopt when setting prices.  Demand based pricing derives from economic laws of supply and demand:  As supply decreases, price increases.  As demand increases, price increases.  A perfect example of this is collectable card games such as Magic and Yu Gi Oh.  Within any new release of either, there are always 1 or 2 cards highly desired by players.  The price for these cards quickly rises, due to demand, with the prices for the foil versions of the same cards priced even higher, this however, due to scarcity/lack of supply.  If players find these cards not as playable as hoped for or they cycle out of the preferred tournament environment, supply remains the same but demand drops, causing a reduction in the price a retailer will find customers willing to pay for cards, Magic’s Jace the Mind Sculptor card a perfect example.

When a store opts for competitive pricing, it is a good thing from the consumer’s point of view, not so much from the retailer’s as this means you reduce price in order to either grow market share or meet prices offered by competition on the same products.  Typically a retailer will cut prices in order to attract customers drawn to a lower price.  Magic packs are a classic example in game stores.  Hoping to attract more customers, mainly the price conscious kinds, a retailer cuts the price on Magic boosters to $3.50, 12.5%.  Other stores in the area have three choices:  ignore the price cut and either sacrifice those price conscious customers or determine some other way to retain them, meet the price cut and sacrifice some profits to keep customers, or exceed the price cut to keep those customers and attempt to draw in price conscious customers from the competing store.  If you choose option three, expect the other store(s) to cut their prices to meet or beat yours and, next thing you know, you have a full-fledged price war on your hands.  Great for the consumer, really bad for the store as that money you are giving up from profits is money that would otherwise go into running your store.  Price wars are usually won by the store with the deepest pockets as lesser capitalized give up, though really, no store ever wins a price war (though it is rather good for manufacturers as long as it lasts and as long as no store goes out of business).

So, returning back to the beginning, stores make profits by buying a product as cheaply as possible, selling it for what the market will bear and competing as much as possible on things other than price.  Do that and you have a really good chance of staying in business.


Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Tomboy

Just finished reading The Great Women Superheroes by Trina Robbins. One of the more interesting and obscure heroes from the 1950s was Tomboy, a 10 year girl who would put on a short cape, skirt and mask to fight crime. No apparent powers or any origin as to why a fifth grade girl should decide to start beating up on mobsters but emblematic of the writing of the era in that anyone could become a costumed crimefighter.

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

3 Predictions for the next Decade


Although there is some debate as to whether the current decade ends last year or 52 more weeks from now, it still seems appropriate this week to make a few predictions over  the next 10 years.

1.       More disruption in trade and imports.  This will prove to affect a lot of boardgame publishers, especially those launching new games via the Kickstarter channel. Since most of them use China for sourcing the manufacture of their launched games, disruptions in the channel will greatly affect their logistics and pricing. The industry dodged a pricing bullet with the delay by the administration of a tariff on boardgaming (and other related products) imported from China but neither nation has signed off on even the touted Phase One of an agreement. The president has said he is in no rush to sign off on an agreement and we could see a delay in one until after the 2020 election. More concerning than that though, at least to a lot of experts, is the neutering of the WTO trade courts by America’s decision to block the appointment of judges to the court, not only under the Trump administration but also the Obama and Bush ones. This deprives the court of a quorum, forstalling it from making rulings on trade disputes. Thanks to the court serving as an impartial referee (although the US argues otherwise and has made its displeasure known by blocking judge appointments), the last 50+ years have seen tremendous growth in international trade, aided by the arbitration of the court, reducing instances of trade wars and allowing multilateral agreements to flourish. With the projected demise of the court in the next few years, I would expect to see a return to greater reliance on bilateral agreements and more instances of stronger economies imposing agreements on weaker ones.

2.       WOTC Cancels the Transformers TCG (and Launches Another One). This won’t have a major imparct on the industry and , although the Transformers TCG proved very popular  on launch in the latter part of 2018 (Google Trends shows a huge spike in searches for the topic in September 2018), like all of WOTC’s TCG releases, Pokemon excepted, interest in the game slacked (remember C-23 and Hecatomb?) within a year and while the game still has collectors and players (the Highlander and Warlord TCGs both have active online communities, for example), I doubt we will see more than one additional release through distribution.  However, given WOTC’s track record, I would expect its development arm to launch another very well designed TCG with 3-5 years after the demise of the Transformers game.

3.       Continued Growth of Internet Sales and Brick and Mortar Response.  When I questioned my marketing students this past semester as to what percentage of retail sales currently occurred online, their guesses ranged from 25% to 70%. The actual figure, as of 2018, was 11% but it ticked up sharply this year, reaching 14%, with online holiday sales seeing an increase of some 58% on the Saturday before Christmas over the same day 2018. Concurrent with, or in response to, this I expect to see even more stores moving to the retailtainment model, not only selling games but offering more events beyond the card tournaments that are a fixture now. More stores will incorporate parties and food service into their model, even offering alcohol sales and consumption when local laws allow.

Monday, January 20, 2020

Star Trek and MLK Jr.

StarTrek was so important to MLK Jr. that he let his children stay up late to watch it and persuaded Nichelle Nichols to remain in her role when she considered leaving after the first season. You can read about the actor's encounter with him and how he persuaded her to remain in the role of Uhura, a decision she never regretted, here and listen to Nichols discuss her encounter with MLK Jr. here

Sunday, January 19, 2020

Minimum Advertised Pricing (MAP)


When you get a group of game retailers together, sooner or later the topic of MAP (minimum advertised pricing) and its enforcement, or lack thereof, will come up. For those not familiar with the term, Minimum Advertised Pricing is the term for a policy put in place by many, but not all, manufacturers stating that, in exchange for the manufacturer allowing the retailer to be an official reseller of the product, with any benefits and access to product that may entail, the retailer agrees to not advertise a discount of more than a certain amount on those products specified by the manufacturer. For example, both Mayfair Games and Games Workshop have MAP policies in place. If a store wants to have access to their products, either directly from the company or through approved distributors, the store must agree to become an authorized reseller and abide by company policies, one of which is a MAP of 20% for both companies. What this means, and it is much more important online than at a brick and mortar store since online retailers compete much more heavily on price, is that an authorized reseller of Mayfair Games or Games Workshop products cannot advertise their products for more than a 20% discount, i.e. an approved store selling Games Workshop products could not advertise a $50 boxed set for less than $40 or risk losing the ability to order products directly from Games Workshop at a larger discount than they get if buying GW product from other sources.

This is why MAP is often a sore point with many retailers since they see online retailers, especially, selling ostensibly MAP protected products at a greater discount than the MAP allows, apparently with no repercussions.  Someone will spot an online retailer selling a  MAP protected boardgame for less than the MAP, violating the policy, report it to the manufacturer and, as far as they can tell, see nothing happen. That is why this article in the May issue of Internet Retailer caught my eye ( I read Internet Retailer regularly, you can too and it is free at www.internetretailer.com).
Why do manufacturers even care about for how much stores sell their products? Price is part of the brand image.  Consider Nike. Nike routinely launches new shoes a prices between $100 to $200. If you have stores regularly selling a $100 shoe for $50, it becomes hard to convince consumers the shoe is worth over $100. Similarly, if a publisher prices a boardgame at $80 but has online stores selling it for $60, the customer starts seeing it as worth only $60, a 25% discount off the MSRP (manufacturer’s suggested retail price) and will expect similar releases priced at 25% off. Manufacturers need to make a profit too and aggressive discounting drives down the perceived value of their products.

An MAP can be tricky for a manufacturer to establish as If not written properly, it could be construed as restraint of trade and vertical price fixing, both of which are illegal in the US. If you get time, read over the Internet Retailer article I linked above and, next week, I will discuss why MAP can be so hard to enforce.

Saturday, January 18, 2020

GW releases for Jan 25

Coming from Games Workshop on January 25

Psychic Awakening: Ritual of the Damned (40-32)
 
  • Hardback, 88pp- English, French
  • The next installment of the Psychic Awakening series
  • 20 New and revised datasheets for the Dark Angels and Grey Knights
  • New abilities, Stratagems and Relics for the Grey Knights, Dark Angels and Thousand Sons
  • New Litanies and Psychic Powers for Grey Knights and Dark Angels, as well as new Psychic Powers for 9 Thousand Sons Cults of the Legion
 
(40-32)

US $40/ CAN $50
For sale in your shop on Saturday 01-25-20

Adepta Sororitas Exorcist (52-09)
 
  • Multi-part plastic kit
  • The fan favorite Adepta Sororitas Heavy Artillery Tank
  • Can be built with one of two different missile options

(52-09)

US $80/ CAN $100
For sale in your shop on Saturday 01-25-20

Adepta Sororitas Penitent Engines (52-22)
 
  • Multi-part plastic kit containing 2 Penitent Engines
  • Each can alternatively be built as a Mortifier

(52-22)

US $60/ CAN $70
For sale in your shop on Saturday 01-25-20
Adepta Sororitas Arco-Flagellants (52-19)
 
  • Multi-part plastic kit
  • Contains 10 Arco-Flagellant miniatures

(52-19)

US $50/ CAN $60
For sale in your shop on Saturday 01-25-20

Adepta Sororitas Junith Eruita (52-17)
 
  • Multi-part plastic kit
  • A new named character for the Adepta Sororitas
  • Great centrepiece model on a floating pulpit

(52-17)

US $45/ CAN $55
For sale in your shop on Saturday 01-25-20

Adepta Sororitas Hospitaller (52-18)
 
  • Multi-part plastic kit
  • A support character, heals friendly units

(52-18)

US $35/ CAN $45
For sale in your shop on Saturday 01-25-20

Dark Angels Master Lazarus (44-16)
 
  • Multipart plastic kit
  • Master of the Dark Angels’ 5th Company
  • Can alternatively be built as an unnamed Dark Angels Primaris Master

(44-16)

US $40/ CAN $50
For sale in your shop on Saturday 01-25-20

Friday, January 17, 2020

Yu Gi Oh Secret Slayers Booster Expansion

The all foil Secret Slayers booster releases April 3rd.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Secret Slayers Booster
Item # KOIYGSESL
Release Date: 04/03/2020
Order Due Date: 01/23/2020

·         Solve the secret to slaying your opponent this Spring with Secret Slayers! This all-foil booster set introduces three new themes for you to customize and build.
 
·         Uncover hidden treasures with the power of a Rock theme! Build upon the unshakable Gallant Granite from Chaos Impact and sculpt your strategy to defeat your opponent.
·         Cultivate natural beauty with the force of a Plant theme! Your garden is in full bloom with the explosive Lonefire Blossom from Mystic Fighters to launch your game plan into action.
·         Master necromancy with the trickery of a Zombie theme! The wicked Jack-o-Bolan from Ignition Assault heralds the arrival of a new wave of Zombies to reinforce their endless army.
·         Duelists can also bolster these strategies with cards from Duel Devastator, Duel Overload, and more!
 
·         Secret Slayers is an all-foil booster set that contains 60 cards:
·         40 Super Rares
·         20 Secret Rares

Thursday, January 16, 2020

More Trade Disruptions


1.I   I expect to see a lot more disruption in trade, both imports and exports. This will prove to affect a lot of boardgame publishers, especially those launching new games via the Kickstarter channel. Since most of them use China for sourcing the manufacture of their launched games, disruptions in the channel will greatly affect their logistics and pricing. The industry dodged a pricing bullet with the delay by the administration of a tariff on boardgaming (and other related products) imported from China but neither nation has signed off on even the touted Phase One of an agreement. The president has said he is in no rush to sign off on an agreement and we could see a delay in one until after the 2020 election. More concerning than that though, at least to a lot of experts, is the neutering of the WTO trade courts by America’s decision to block the appointment of judges to the court, not only under the Trump administration but also the Obama and Bush ones. This deprives the court of a quorum, forstalling it from making rulings on trade disputes. Thanks to the court serving as an impartial referee (although the US argues otherwise and has made its displeasure known by blocking judge appointments), the last 50+ years have seen tremendous growth in international trade, aided by the arbitration of the court, reducing instances of trade wars and allowing multilateral agreements to flourish. With the projected demise of the court in the next few years, I would expect to see a return to greater reliance on bilateral agreements and more instances of stronger economies imposing agreements on weaker ones.

Wednesday, January 15, 2020

GM Tricks of the Trade

How to spice up your treasure from Troll Lord head Stephen Chenault

#1: Use More Potions: This is a treasure that does not appear at our Thursday night game nearly enough. Despite that, potions are unsung heroes of the gaming table. They are good for the GM, the character and game play. They are essentially one of spells. Characters can have them, carting them all over creation, then use them by drinking them. Suddenly they are healed, have more strength, turn invisible, or what have you. The player gains the benefit of the item (and the experience) and this is good for the player. But the effect is temporary, and soon enough wears off, so it has no greater impact at the table than at that moment. Also, the GM doesn’t have to worry about players hoarding too much magic, and can give other magic freely. This allows a good avenue for characters to earn experience points as well. It also has the added benefit of surprising the GM. You will soon forget what they have and when they pull it out of their pocket, it will catch you by surprise!
#2: Let Them Roll It: After a long grueling campaign, adventure, or game, it is often a bit of fun to allow the players to roll their own treasure. Have them roll whatever dice are called for on the various tables and shout out what they get. It sort of puts the game even more in the hands of fate. It's just a lot of fun too. It doesn’t always work as you may need to draw up certain treasures or they are pre-rolled for you in an published adventure or what not. But for a nice change of pace and in the spirit of letting the dice decide the character’s fate, let ‘em roll it themselves. This is especially fun for younger players, puts a whole new element of chance into the game, and as with rolling a critical hit, it can bring elation like you’ve never seen to the table (frustration too, but no one wants to dwell on that).
#3: Use Treasure as a Millstone: Use treasure to drive the game in directions players don’t expect. Too much treasure can weigh a party down, slowing their movement, allowing monsters to pursue or find them. It can be noisy and flashy, drawing the attention of NPCs or monsters still. A trunk of 4,000 gold pieces is heavy. Even after the party divides it up, it can be heavy and slow party members down. A magical lantern that shines wherever it goes attracts all manner of beasts. Couple this with terrain and you can build a whole night’s adventure moving treasure form point A to point B. Getting 10 bags of gold dust across a river can be risky and challenging.
#4: Mix Your Coin Up: Somewhere in the back of my head I remember that it was Lydian King (from the Anatolian Peninsula) who first created coins. It was done (and I’m scratching my memory plate here) in order to mark gold that was his and to allow it to be ported easier. Take this concept in every which direction. Mix your physical treasure up. Make it dust, rods, bars, raw chunks, flakes or coins of differing nations and kingdoms. A group I ran at Gamehole discovered long six-foot bars of gold they had to figure out how to cut up and carry (they left over half of it). Mixing the coin up into whatever shape and form adds another level of play to the game. It also, for those into world building, adds a level of realism to the game that helps ground players in the world you are sending them through.
#5: Make the Reaping a Whirlwind: Make gathering the treasure no easy task. Tie it to the monster, its lair, its habits or its abilities. Make it so that gathering the treasure is an encounter in and of itself. Or mix it up, allow the players to discover the treasure first and then they have to gather it before being discovered. The most ready example I have is what I did with a white dragon’s treasure. The party found it in the ruins of an old castle. They slew the dragon guarding it, but quickly realized there was more than one. But the treasure was frozen beneath a mound of ice. The dragons were not simply lying on a horde of gold and magic, but rather breathing upon it, freezing it beneath and into sheets of ice. It made for some frantic play as they extracted the harvest without destroying it, all before the creature’s mate returned.  But this can be done almost anywhere. Creatures tracked back to their lair where more of the creatures lie. Treasure hidden. Treasure trapped. Treasure stolen by others while a battle unfolds. Treasure scattered in fields of bones. It never hurts to make the last act of a heroic tale to be the scouring of the horde, so the reaping is all them more joyful.

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

The First Female Superhero in Comics

Most people think of Wonder Woman as the first female superhero. However she didn't appear until March of 1941. Fatomah, Mystery Woman of the Jungle, predated her by over a year, first appearing in February of 1940. Incidentally, the Woman in Red is considered the first female masked super hero. She first appears in March of 1940 and, although she never got a cover appearance, stories featuring her ran until 1945.

However, if you go back further into the era of the pulps, Golden Amazon appeared in 1939 and has a strong claim to the title of first female superhero, although she was never referred to as such and started out as a villain before reforming. The Domino Lady was one of the earliest, if not the earliest, masked female crimefighter, first appearing in Saucy Romantic Adventures in 1936

Monday, January 13, 2020

Game Designer Pay

If you are interested in working in the game industry, this blog post looks at how much a board game designed can expect to earl. Frankly, the numbers are a whole lot higher than I expected to see, although that pay also comes with 7+ years of successful designing. Also, most game designers are free-lance, meaning no employment benefits. 

Sunday, January 12, 2020

Games Workshop Releases for 1/18

Here are the GW releases for Jan 18th.  Lots of Sisters of Battle. In fact, all Sisters of Battle or as they now call them Adepta Sororitas:

Codex: Adepta Sororitas (52-01)
 
  • Hardback 112pp, Eng, Fre
  • The essential book for the Adepta Sororitas
  • Contains Datasheets for every Citadel Miniature in the Adepta Sororitas Army
  • Also contains 34 unique stratagems available to the Adepta Sororitas, 14 new artefacts, Warlord Traits for the 6 Orders Militant of the Adepta Sororitas
  • Features a wealth of army background, including the origins of the Adepta Sororitas, their crusades of faith, organisation and The Imperial Creed
 
(52-01)

US $40/ CAN $50
For sale in your shop on Saturday 01-18-20

Adepta Sororitas Battle Sisters Squad (52-20)
 
  • The central fighting unit of the Adepta Sororitas – an essential purchase
  • Can be built as one of three separate units, including the frontline Battle Sisters, the special weapon-wielding Dominions, and the veteran Celestians
  • Contains enough components to build up to four Battle Sisters with any of Stormbolter, Flamer or Meltagun, and two Battle Sisters with heavy weapons, one with a Heavy Bolter, one with a Heavy Flamer

(52-20)

US $60/ CAN $70
For sale in your shop on Saturday 01-18-20

Adepta Sororitas Retributor Squad (52-25)
 
  • Contains 7 miniatures including a squad of 4 Retributors with a Retributor Superior and 2 Armorium Cherubs
  • Includes enough components to build the 4 Retributors with up to: 2 Heavy Bolters, 2 Multi-Meltas or 2 Heavy Flamers

(52-25)

US $55/ CAN $65
For sale in your shop on Saturday 01-18-20

Adepta Sororitas The Triumph of St. Katherine (52-24)
 
  • The ultimate centrepiece model for an Adepta Sororitas Army
  • Enhances the fighting prowess of the surrounding the Adepta Sororitas army

(52-24)

US $110/ CAN $130
For sale in your shop on Saturday 01-18-20

Adepta Sororitas Dice (86-68)
 
  • Contains 20 Adepta Sororitas themed dice
  • Each features a translucent centre in the style of a stained glass window
  • A single large fleur de lys on the ‘6’, with a sanctified skull on the ‘1’

(86-68)

US $35/ CAN $40
For sale in your shop on Saturday 01-18-20

Adepta Sororitas Datacards (52-02)
 
  • A set of handy reference cards for use with your Adepta Sororitas army in games of Warhmmer 40,000
  • Contains 80 cards including 36 Tactical Objectives, 38 Stratagems, and 6 Sacred Rites

(52-02)

US $25/ CAN $30