Outlaws at Thunder Junction

 Pre-release weekend for Outlaws at Thunder Junction is April 12. We will have pre-release events at 5:30 on the 12th, 1 p.m. on the 13 and a 2-headed Giant at 1 p.m.   Each event costs $45, although if you prepay for 4 kits by the 7, they cost $35 each. A single kit paid for by the 7th costs $40.

Modern Horizons 3

 

We have been checking the prices for Magic the Gathering Modern Horizons 3, releasing this summer, skipping over Outlaws of Thunder Junction, which, surprisingly, at least to me, has far more interest among our customers than Murders at Karlov Manor (We still have difficulty explaining just what Murders at Karlov Manor:  Clue Edition is.  “Where is the board” is the most common question.).  However, since Thunder Junction has prices close to those of Murders of Karlov Manor, I wanted look at the pricing for Modern Horizons 3, to see how it compared with the jaw dropping pricing for last summer’s Commander Masters. Although the prices for Modern Horizons 3 are high, at least compared to a current set of Magic such as Murders at Karlov Manor, they pale In comparison to the prices Wizards of the Coast charged for Commander Masters. T

he store will be able to sell a Modern Horizons 3 Play booster for under $15 and still make a pretty good profit, whereas Commander Masters boosters, both draft and set, still must sell for over $20 apiece to make a marginal profit. Even the Modern Horizons 3 Collector boosters will sell for a reasonable price, at least if one considers the price of a Lord of the Rings Collector booster reasonable.  After looking at the pricing for Bundles and Commander Decks, it appears prices for Bundles and Commander Decks have shot upwards, with keystone pricing for Bundles a bit over $100 and keystone for Modern Horizon 3 Commander Decks a whopping 40% up over the Commander Masters’ Commander Decks. If you want to keystone pre-release kit pricing, )yes, there will be a Modern Horizons 3 pre-release), stores are looking at right around $70. For a pre-release event, that is pricy. Unless pre-order demand spikes sharply, the store will likely take its normal number of Bundles but cut back significantly on Commander Decks and pre-releases there was already significant price resistance to the pricing on Commander Masters Commander Decks.

HeroScape this summer

 

We have been looking forward to the re-release of HeroScape, this time from Renagade Studios, who have happily gotten the rights to most of WotC’s boardgame catalog, allowing them to get games like Axis and Allies and Robo Rally back into print (See “Heroscape 2024 Product Release Calendar”). Unfortunately, Renegade, for whatever reason, has decided to release 2 different versions of the game, a Standard unpainted version which will go into distribution and a Premium Painted version available directly from the company for an extra $100. Unfortunately the first time Heroscape released, very few people bought it as a game. Customers bought it for the miniatures and terrain, both of which were painted, which was comparatively unusual for the time. I remember a number of buyers added the figures to their collections for use in various fantasy and SF roleplaying games while Battletech players, especially, glommed onto the terrain because it fit the scale of Battletech perfectly, allowing them, and other miniatures players, to create elevation in a way that flat hex maps did not. HeroScape Sets were a great deal for miniatures players 20 years ago. I will be interested to see how players respond to the new sets, especially the unpainted and more common version.

Disney Lorcana

 Ravensburger announced a 2 week embargo on online sales of Disney Lorcana starting with Ursula's Return. The game arrives in stores on May 17th with no sales online until May 31. Stores may list the game online and take pre-orders and prepayment and can let customers pick up the game after paying for it on the website but cannot ship mail orders until the 31st. 

Early Release for D&D

 Wotc Announced this week that it would restart early release for D&D books, beginning with Vecna:  Eve of Ruin. Vecna releases officially on May 21 but WPN stores, such as us, will have the book on sale on May 7th.

National Pi Day

 For March 14 (3.14  Get it?) you will get a promo card with purchase of $25 of either Pokemon or Magic and 10% off on Math Fluxx. We will also have a limited amount of free pie available as well.

Fallout Sellout

 We got in one booster box of Fallout Collector boosters and, even with limiting it to 2 boosters per person, we sold out in less than a day. According to our supplier, this is the first Magic set in years they needed to allocate. I hope there may be a second printing of the collector boosters but, based on past experience, I doubt it.

Fallout

 Universes Beyond Fallout goes on sale tomorrow. Wal-mart broke street date on Commander Decks, releasing them on Wednesday. We only have a few boosters for the set and are limiting them to 2 per customer.

Will Eisner Week

 Will Eisner Week is celebrated is year to remember Will Eisner, considered the creator of the graphic novel, essentially a book length original comic book. Books such as Gender Queer, Ducks and My Favorite Thing is Monsters can be classified as graphic novels, since they are written and drawing as a self contained whole. Eisner Award winners such as Saga, Bone, Monstress and even Maus could be classified as trade paperbacks, since they were originally released as comic books, or in the case of Maus as part of a comic anthology, before getting collected into book form

Magic Store Championships

 Due to request from several Magic players, we have moved the date of the Murders at Karlov Manor Store Championships from Saturday at 1 p.m. We have moved the Fallout event to Sunday Commander at 3 p.m.

Carpets

 Don't be surprised if the carpets feel a bit damp tomorrow. We had our semi-annual shampooing of them Monday night and it can take a day or so for them to fully dry.