One Ring

 According to this, the 001/001 serialized One Ring card has been pulled. I have read a expressions of concern that the price of the LOTR Collector Boosters will drop after it was pulled. Given the prices of other cards in the set, I rather doubt that we will see a collapse in prices immediately. I know the store would take a couple of displays of Collector Boosters should they come available.

Catan Hawai'i

 Catan Hawai'i arrived today. New scenario for Catan. Requires both the main game and Seafarers of Catan in order to play. Features a much smaller landmass to develop but fishing becomes a very important component of the game

Sold one already so expect to see it show up at a Gaming with Gary session in the near future.

Social Deduction Games

 Apparently games such as Blood on the Clocktower, Werewolf, Secret Hitler and Good Cop Bad Cop have gotten prevalient enough that they now have their own game category: social deduction games. In a social deduction game, one player takes on a role in which they attempt to harm the other players or prevent them from winning, while keeping the fact that they are doing so secret. This has been a part of gameplay for a number of years as games like Shadows over Camelot and Saboteur come to mind but the genre has gotten popular enough to warrent a name finally.

Pokemon 151

 The Pokemon Company just announced Pokemon 151, a box only set releasing in September. This will follow. This set will follow the format of the Pokemon Go and Pokemon Celebrations sets in that there will be no individual booster packs available for sale. Booster packs for the set will only be availalbe in Elite Trainer Kits and gift boxes, unless retailers opt to break open those sets to sell boosters individually. The set is expected to release Sept. 22 2023.

Improving Free RPG Day

 Do not use the cover of your product to send people to your website to buy your product. This ought to be self-explanatory, but for at least one publisher included in this year’s selection, it wasn’t. It’s OK to mention your website on your giveaway but, for Pete’s sake, tell people to look for your product first at their local game store THEN tell them to go to your website. Putting a bold notice on the booklet directing people to your website when I am going to the trouble of promoting your product guarantees a trip to the recycling bin or, as we did here, a removal of your product’s cover.

LOTR Magic

We sold out of the LOTR Collector boosters today as well as the Starter Sets. Bundles sold out earlier this week. We still have 1, that's one, Commnader Deck and are expecting about 1 more case of those to arrive. We still have draft and set boosters and should see restocks of them and the Starter sets later this summer but no more Bundles or Collector boosters

We still have a number of the Pre-release or Limited Play kits as well and customers get a foil 30th Anniversary card while quantities last.

Ultimate Invasion

 Marvel is relaunching the Ultimate Universe, which the publisher originally created back in the 1990s as a grittier Marvel Universe that introduced Miles Morales as Spider Man and more violent versions of Marvel characters, best illustrated by a panel in Ultimatum in which, having killed her, X-men foe the Blob starts eating the Wasp. that scene still resonates with Marvel fans that followed the Universe. Eventually, Marvel wound it down and brought some of the most popular characters, such as Morales and a black Nick Fury, into a relaunched Marvel Universe.

Jonathan Hickman is a good writer, as he showed on is Fantastic Four run, but I am not sure where they are going with this. In a meeting to present the concept to retailers, it appears the writers and editors may not be sure either as most of the questions were met with a variation of "We really cannot discuss that". 

Anyhow, the first issue is on the shelf now if you want to pick up a copy.

Tales of Middle Earth pre-release

 Magic Tales of Middle Earth pre-releases all ran smoothly this weekend, though turnout was light compared to past pre-releases, especially on Friday. We had 9 people in for Friday compare to the 18 to 24 we have had in the past. Saturday has been light as well in the past so the 9 people that showed for it were not particuarly suprising.  We did have 2 teams show up for the 2 headed giant on Sunday. However, we may move that until later in the day for the next pre-release and run another sealed deck tournament at 1 p.m. Sunday instead.

More Quick Start Rules

More of this years of this year’s offerings for Free RPG Day should include quick play rules and pre-generated characters in their booklet. Pazio is well enough known to their target markets that they could use this year’s offerings as a teaser for upcoming products.  Since almost all of the other offerings fell into the category of “I’ve never heard of this” RPG, having introductory rules helps should potential customers what to expect from a full fledged version of the game. Oh, and be sure to clearly indicate on the cover this is a quick start set of rules for your game. I didn’t realize the Numenera adventure  had rules included until the day was half over.

Restocks

 If you are a miniatures painter and collector, Next time you are in the store, check out the paint racks. We have restocked the Games Workshop, Army Painter and Vajello paints and supplies and restocked the D&D miniatures wall with over $2000 worth of figures. Only a few Aasimar figuers though and almost no Dragonborn

Free RPG Day One per Box

Unless you are Blue Panther and contributing dice trays, dice towers and dice cups, or Off World Designs and putting in a t-shirt,  both of which are pretty costly, send out just one item per box is a waste of your promotional dollars and my time and table space. I am not getting things in the kit for me to look, I expect stuff in the box to come in a large enough quantity that a reasonable number of people coming in for the event will get one. I buy the box for the express purpose of giving away the books in it, not to look at your sample and decide if I am going to stock it in or not.  You should look at this as a promotional opportunity to get a teaser for your RPG into as many of my customer’s hands as you can.  Pazio, Magpie Games and Renegade all provided lots of copies of their products and lots of customers will go home with them.

Games Workshop's Confusing Business Model

 

Games Workshop, meanwhile, has a significant business model which, for the life of me I do not understand. Most new releases get announced the week before the release date, which has been on Saturday for most of the past decade. Especially on highly anticipated releases, there are often caps on the quantity a store can order. The recent Kill Team Ashes of Faith set had a cap of two units on it. While we had to turn away a few customers that wanted one, I shudder at thinking about how stores with much larger Warhammer 40,000 customer bases dealt with the customers they had to turn away.

The problem here is another supply chain snafu, this one self-created by Games Workshop though. By not announcing releases with a reasonable amount of lead time, stores do not have enough time to determine how much interest there is in the new release with customers only having about a week to find out about it. More lead time would allow us and GW to better judge product demand (I am still sitting on copies of Dominion).  With Leviathan, we have no idea what is in it or what it will cost, making budgeting funds to purchase copies pretty difficult, especially after just having paid for Pokemon : Paldea Evolved, Shatterpoint and Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth.  Retailers knew about those and could allocate funds. With Leviathan, stores are flying blind.

Lord of the Rings Tales of Middle Earth

 Current offer for the 001/001 One Ring card is $1000000 as long as it is turned over to Dave and Adam's Card World by July 17. I assume so they get maximum publicity out of it. Meanwhile, Dan Bock the "Black Lotus Guy", has made an offer in a Facebook group to beat the "highest offer from a a reputable source". Meaning I guess that if someone pulls the card, they can expect to get at least $1000001 for it.

Leviathan

 Due to unplanned for demand GW capped orders of the Leviathan boxed set starting Monday afternoon so stores putting in orders for the set Tuesday or later this week had their ordered capped somewhere between 3 and 9 copies. We put our order in early enough that we will receive all 15 copies we have on pre-order.

Knight Terrors

 DC is suspending publication of most of its regular line of books for the Knight Terrors series this summer of 2 issue mini series. We still have a copy of the Free Comic Book Day preview of the series if you want to take a look at it before deciding which books in the series you want to order. 

Leviathan 2

 Here is some more information on the new Leviathan Boxed set. It contains 72 miniatures and the new rulebook, which will be the only place to get the rulebook until it releases later this summer

Leviathan

  Put in our pre-orders for the Warhammer 40,000 Leviathan boxed set today. We only get one shot at ordering them so ordered 15. MSRP is $249.99 and, like the previous big boxed set Dominion, there will not be a second production run. We already have 5 copies presold, so if you want one, let us know as soon as possible. Release date is June 24th. 

Paldea Evolved

 Paldea Evolved arrived today without nearly the amount of pre-release hype that Magic sets get. We have Elite Trainer Kits, booster boxes, 3 booster packs and single boosters available.