Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Kronk attend the FFG GenCon In Flight Report on Friday at noon. Below are the highlights. If Kronk missed anything, that’s your misfortune rather than Kronk’s error! Kronk not be expected to know everything about every game. Or care about your game if Kronk not play that. Go yourself if no like it!

General:
* FFG has had 25% (at least) annual growth (that’s year on year, people) since 2000. There was a pretty line graph that sloped upwards and stuff.
* Since 2000, they’ve sent out over 30,000 Organized Play kits.

Descent #1 selling board game line
* Monster and Hero packs are popular. More to come.
* They are coming out with expansions that will allow solo play and cooperative play. Nature’s Eye is the first, and is due this fall (2014).
Descent is their best selling “Game Night Kit” ever.

Netrunner #1 selling card game
* They are coming out with a draft play option to support tournaments and/or special events. This is more of a one-off as they will not abandon the existing system, but want to offer more variety.
* “Order and Chaos” releases this fall (2014) and focuses on Weyland and Anarch factions.

Eldrich Horror
* Best launch for a board game ever
* on 8/15/2014 at GenCon, they put up the Mountains of Madness expansion
* This introduces a sideboard, new ancient ones, new characters, and new options. $60.00

Lord of the Rings Card Game
* Saga Expansions for the hobbit are selling well.
* on 8/15/2014 at GenCon, they announced the 3rd Lord of the Ring saga: Something (Treachery?) of Sauruman.
* Focus shifts to Aragorn (From Frodo or Bilbo (I don’t play that gak)).
* 1Q2015 release at $30.00
*First in the Lost Realm of Angmar: Angmar Awaken cycles (I have no idea if this is part of the above or what. I was just writing gak down)

Star Wars RPG
* Adversary Decks for GMs to release soon. 20 monsters and encounters. $16.95
* Force and Destiny: focuses on the Force, Jedi, and Sith
* Releases in Spring 2015, Beta Release is at GenCon now.

Battle Lore
* 2 Expansions: Army boxes with 50 points of an army in each box. $40.00 The two factions will be Hernfar Guardians and Warband of Scarn
* They are enterlacing the game with their Battle Lore mobile game for IOS, PC, Android and something else $9.95. Should be out in October, includes solo, multiplayer (local), and other words.

X-Wing
* Best selling game right now. They have opened new and expanded existing factories to support the line.
* Wave 5 is 4Q2014. Smugglers!
* Includes A Y-Wing, 2x Z-94s, IG2000 (IG88’s ship), Star Vyper (forget his name’s ship), and Slave 1. Includes cards to convert existing rebellion ships to generic smugglers ,new pilots, new options, mo-money, mo-money!
* Mission Control Software by September
* Online stuff that let’s you build lists, build scenarios for home play and tournaments, track your fleet (keep track of the gak you bought, I guess), and is free to people with FFG accounts (also free)

Warhammer Conquest
* LCG with 7 factions, 2-player game
* Warpacks will be the name of the support products. Will introduce characters, equipment, locations, and stuff
* September 2014 release. There will also be Demo Decks for FLGS’s soon

XCOM
* Cooperative Game which focuses on “Global Battle for Earth” rather than individual or unit or Hero.
* You have to have a free app to play it, available for free for IOS, Android, PC, and MAC.
*Why? There was a 10 minute speech on why. Blah-dee-fething-blah. Basically, it introduces a timer, music, videos, rules, step-by-step tutorials that will take you through 2 turns and then let you restart to play your own game or let you continue through completion.
* Available 4Q2014 for $60.00

Star Wars Armada
* 2 Player game with capital ships. Releases 1Q2015 for $100 base set.
* This game is NOT X-Wing with big ships. The play is completely different. New movement stuff and lots of rules that are different.
* First Wave: All of the ships in the starters set will also be sold separately.
* Also in first wave: 2 capital ships. Rebel Assault Frigate Mark 3 and an Imperial Gladiator Star Destroyer. 2 fighter kits with 8 squadrons each. Rebels have X-wings, B-wings, Y wings, and some other stuff. Imps get more Tie Fighters, Tie Advanced, and bombers and maybe other things. Kronk can only write so fast.


Witcher Adventure Game
* Resource Gathering and Exploration game
* 4 unique characters with their own cards and powers and stuff.
* Releases 4Q2014

Dark Heresy RPG
* New book that allows Inquisitors to run around with their team of operatives. There will be a new GM screen and other stuff. Forgotten Gods book to release in Fall of 2014. (Is this 2nd edition or something? Kronk was confused and knows nothing of their RPG stuff).

Star Wars Imperial Assault
* Sneaky new product they revealed at the presentation. Kits are now at the GenCon booth, but by the time I write this, you probably all know about it.
* It is a miniatures Board Game for Star Wars and is based on their hugely popular Descent Game Engine.
* At release, 30 minis using 13 different sculpts.
* This is 2 games in 1 box! You can either play the board game as is OR you can create customizable lists for head-to-head tournament play.
* 1Q2015 release date and demos started on 8/15/2014 at their GenCon play area.



Opened floor to questions
* Not all were questions worthy of Kronk’s ink.
* X-Wing: Armada will not affect what ships will be released for X-Wing. They have 2-3 years worth of releases in line right now. Also “Why do the rebels have 2 capital ships but not the Imperials?” Don’t worry so much right now…
* Dune Series is unavailable to FFG for reasons.
* In General ,FFG plans out expansions and stuff for games 18-36 months at a time. The 18 month plan is locked in. The 18-36 month window can see releases slide here and there depending on manpower, factory availability, or other reasons. After playtesting, it takes 6 months from going to production to sending to shops.
* If something from the cartoons (Star Wars Rebels) can be used for X-Wing or Armada or Imperial Assault that would make sense in the Galactic Civil War era, and they think it will sell (i.e. is cool as gak), then they might do it.

Thanks for the report. I'm interested in the xcom game.

 kronk wrote:
Dark Heresy RPG
* New book that allows Inquisitors to run around with their team of operatives. There will be a new GM screen and other stuff. Forgotten Gods book to release in Fall of 2014. (Is this 2nd edition or something? Kronk was confused and knows nothing of their RPG stuff).

Yes. It's 2nd Ed. Forgotten Gods would be the first supplement (it's an adventure book). No I can't tell you anything more than that, NDA's and whatnot.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 kronk wrote:
Dark Heresy RPG
* New book that allows Inquisitors to run around with their team of operatives. There will be a new GM screen and other stuff. Forgotten Gods book to release in Fall of 2014. (Is this 2nd edition or something? Kronk was confused and knows nothing of their RPG stuff).

Yes. It's 2nd Ed. Forgotten Gods would be the first supplement (it's an adventure book). No I can't tell you anything more than that, NDA's and whatnot.

Hi

I appreciate that you can't say much right now, but perhaps you can help me understand a few things. Is this Second Ed going to replace (completely) the first Ed stuff, including source books, adventures, etc? Should I hold off tanking up on the first Ed stuff and wait for FFG to churn out the 2nd Ed stuff?

What does this 2nd Ed DH indicate for all the other games in the WH40K RPG line? By that I mean, will we see 2nd Eds for everything else?

Do you have any idea why FFG didn't get Dune? I'd love to know.....that would have been freaking Epic (for me anyway) that sheits bigger than Star Wars, LotR, and WH40K put together......now there's a Jihad I can get with!!

 Delephont wrote:

I appreciate that you can't say much right now, but perhaps you can help me understand a few things. Is this Second Ed going to replace (completely) the first Ed stuff, including source books, adventures, etc? Should I hold off tanking up on the first Ed stuff and wait for FFG to churn out the 2nd Ed stuff?

I can't imagine FFG just dumping everything like that. At the very least I can imagine there being a page or two on converting 1st Ed stuff to 2nd.

 Delephont wrote:
I appreciate that you can't say much right now, but perhaps you can help me understand a few things. Is this Second Ed going to replace (completely) the first Ed stuff, including source books, adventures, etc? Should I hold off tanking up on the first Ed stuff and wait for FFG to churn out the 2nd Ed stuff?

What does this 2nd Ed DH indicate for all the other games in the WH40K RPG line? By that I mean, will we see 2nd Eds for everything else?

1. Essentially yes, DH2.0 replaces 1st Ed, including all the source books, adventure books and so on. The base-line rules remain the same however, meaning converting one to the other isn't that hard.
2. I'd still get the 1st Ed stuff, or some of it anyway, as there are a lot of fun things in there that might not get redone in the new version. Plus all of 1st Ed is focued on the Calixis Sector, and if you like that setting then 1st Ed is the only place you'll find that. DH2.0 takes place in the new Askellon Sector, so everything is focused around that. Plus I'm not sure if they intend to keep any 1st Ed books in print (they'll likely stay on DriveThruRPG), so if you want physical copies I'd get 'em now.
3. At the moment, at least according to what FFG has said, it means nothing as far as the other lines are concerned. DH2.0's rules are heavily based upon the updated RPG rules from Black Crusade and Only War, so really the only two that keep the old style rules are RT and DW. If they choose to re-do those, then we'll see it then, but as it stands right now nothing's been announced and, in fact, when DH2.0 was announced they said that they weren't thinking about 2.0's for other games at this time. And a lot has changed between DH2.0 as it first arrived (when my group play-tested it) through to the Beta, through to the second Beta, through to now, so the need for 2.0's on other books is arguably less urgent.

 Delephont wrote:
Do you have any idea why FFG didn't get Dune? I'd love to know.....that would have been freaking Epic (for me anyway) that sheits bigger than Star Wars, LotR, and WH40K put together......now there's a Jihad I can get with!!

No idea sorry.

Thanks, Kronk, for a great report!

The growth rate though impressive and I would argue indicative of an overall growth of the tabletop hobby game industry still leaves FFG as potentially a fairly small, specialised company. This may be to our advantage as wargame players, since they clearly focus on products that are relevant to our interests.

I like the sound of the Imperial Assault game.

FFG is hardly a small niche player in the table top market.

 Manchu wrote:
FFG is hardly a small niche player in the table top market.

You only say that because they had the largest floor area (again) and the longest lines at GenCon (again).

 Manchu wrote:
FFG is hardly a small niche player in the table top market.

Yeah, they are. They are growing fast, but GW is small fries in the table top games market too. You may not want to belive it but it is true. Now if one of their games would sell as good as say Candyland then we will take again.

Kronk, thank you for that report. The tidbits on Netrunner were well appreciated. As someone that plays Anarch I'm super excited for the next box.

Also I saw you like three times this weekend but was always mod conversation with someone else when you walked by.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
FFG is hardly a small niche player in the table top market.

You only say that because they had the largest floor area (again) and the longest lines at GenCon (again).

True, I do have the nasty habit of characterizing things based on observable facts.

 Alfndrate wrote:
Kronk, thank you for that report. The tidbits on Netrunner were well appreciated. As someone that plays Anarch I'm super excited for the next box.

Also I saw you like three times this weekend but was always mod conversation with someone else when you walked by.

Sorry I missed you, Alf. GenCon is becoming go-go-go-sleep for me. Hardly time to do anything outside of our group.

I picked up a few games, some FW, and made lists of stuff to buy at my FLGS. Good times.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Some pictures to go with the report.

XCom

I wasn't able to play test this game. The 2 tables they had set up where crowded like crazy.



Imperial Assault: 28mm game


SW: Armada
Holy crap was that table crowded. Not even Kronk's good looks could get him in there!






X-Wing: New Faction is Scum and Villany, as reported in the OP