New Old D and D Books

Wizards of the Coast will reprint limited premium versions of the original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks by Gary Gygax to help support the Gygax Memorial Fund.  The new editions will be released in limited quantities exclusively for the hobby channel and the store will receive them about  April 17, 2012.  They’ll include the original art and content with new cover designs commemorating the re-release.

The three core books being released are:

1st Edition Premium Dungeon Master’s Guide, a 240-page hardcover at $44.95

1st Edition Premium Player’s Handbook, a 112-page hardcover at $34.95

1st Edition Premium Monster Manual, a 128-page hardcover at $34.95

The Gygax Memorial Fund was set up by the late Gary Gygax’s widow Gail to raise funds to erect a memorial to Gygax in Library Park in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin

A Tale of Two Paints

Probably going to drop the Howard Hues line of paints.  We brought these in about two years ago and have sold less than half a dozen bottles, despite their quality and value.  We currently stock, in depth, the Games Workshop and Privateer Press lines, because both of those sell steadily, the GW paints outselling the PP ones by a factor of 4 to one, mainly because of the high number of Warhammer 40,000 players compared to Warmachine and Hordes players in the area.  We have looked at expanding the Reaper line but haven't been able to get any info on a rack.  We have toyed with bringing in the Vallejo line of paints as well, as people speak quite highly of them, but the Vallejo paint sets we brought it, to test the waters, moved very slowly.  Ergo, we are pretty leery of bringing in the entire Vallejo line, given that it would amount to a significant investment on the store's part to do so.

We're Off to See the Fluxx

March 23^rd Street Date!

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Oz Fluxx

Does life seem drab and humdrum? Let the cyclone of Fluxx, the ever-changing card game, whisk you away to a magical world of fun and wonder! Mingle with Munchkins, make new friends, help them with their quests, and follow the Yellow Brick Road to seek the Wizard’s help for your own heart’s desire—but beware the flying monkeys, fighting trees, and fields of poppies! Don your green spectacles to enter the Emerald City, and keep a bucket of water handy: you never know when you’ll run into a Wicked Witch that needs melting. Next stop… the land of Oz!

New Yu Gi Oh SE

March 6^th Street Date!

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YGO: Order of Chaos SE

Special Editions give Duelists a great value, combining 3 packs of the latest Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s TRADING CARD GAME booster release with 1 of 2 hard-to-find variant cards. In addition to 3 packs of Order of Chaos, each Special Edition box will contain a special championship-level foil card sure to make a lucky Duelist’s day. Great value and excellent content will make the Order of Chaos Special Edition a must-have for players of all skill levels. Duelists will want to take advantage of the second offering of Order of Chaos because many cards in this set can be combined with past and upcoming releases. Photon Shockwave and Gold Series 4 include cards designed to work with Order of Chaos to give Duelists a boost!

D&D 5th Edition

As you might have heard, WOTC announced D&D 5th Edition or, as the company appears to prefer to call it at this stage, D&D Next.  The company also wants lots of input from players, or so it says, even posting a link allowing interested parties to sign up.
One thing indicating  a definite shift away from 4th edition mechanics is the posted list of the design team:

Mike Mearls, Team Lead 

Greg Bilsland, Team Producer 

Monte Cook, Design Team Lead 

Bruce Cordell, Designer 

Robert J. Schwalb, Designer 

Jeremy Crawford, Development Team Lead

Tom LaPille, Developer 

Rodney Thompson, Developer

Miranda Horner, Edito

None of these folks appear on the list of designers for 4th edition, at least not that I see, and many people credit Cook for the successful design of D&D 3.0 and 3.5.

Games Workshop Paint Change

We are looking at some form of change to the Games Workshop paint line later this year.  No idea what the company plans on changing, whether it's a new formulation, new sizes, a shake out of the color line or what.  We have just been told that, due to the change coming , Games Workshop has told us to keep inventories low and are allowing stores to buy bottles in single quantities instead of in sleeves of six as is the past.
So, if you are a fan of either the current color line or formulation, you might want to stock up. conversely, you may want to let your paint stocks thin out, in anticipation of whatever happens.  Unfortunately, we don't even have an idea regarding when it will happen, just sometime this year.

Looney Labs Changes Distributors

 Looney Labs, maker of Fluxx, Seven Dragons, Ice Dice and other well regarded small games, has signed an agreement with ACD Distribution, Diamond Comic Distributors and Alliance Games Distribution to exclusively distribute Looney Labs products in the US and Lion Rampant Distribution as the company’s Canadian distributor.  From the press release:

In the U.S. hobby game market, Looney Labs game titles will be available through ACD Distribution and Alliance/Diamond Game Distributors. In Canada, Lion Rampant will become Looney Lab's primary distributor, while Publisher Services, Inc. (PSI) will continue to supply Looney Labs games to international markets as well as the U.S. mass market and book trade.