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Fans’ Favorite Publisher Gold: Paizo Publishing
Silver: Wizards of the Coast
Product of the Year Gold: Advanced Players Guide, Paizo Publishing
Silver: The Dresden Files RPG, Evil Hat
Best Game Gold: The Dresden Files RPG, Evil Hat
Silver: Mutants & Masterminds Hero’s Handbook, Green Ronin Publishing
Best New Game Gold: The Dresden Files RPG, Evil Hat Productions
Silver: The Laundry, Cubicle 7
Best Supplement Gold: Pathfinder: Advanced Player’s Guide, Paizo Publishing
Silver: Space 1889: Red Sands, Pinnacle Entertainment Group
Best Adventure Gold: Pathfinder Adventure Path #43: The Haunting of Harrowstone, Paizo Publishing
Silver: Delta Green: Targets of Opportunity, Arc Dream Publishing/Pagan Publishing
Best Setting Gold: Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea World Guide, Paizo Publishing
Silver: Dark Sun Campaign Setting, Wizards of the Coast
Best Monster/Adversary Gold: Pathfinder: Bestiary 2, Paizo Publishing
Silver: Monster Vault, Wizards of the Coast
Best Miniatures Product Gold: Mousling Heroes, Reaper Miniatures
Silver: BattleTech 25th Anniversary Introductory Boxed Set, Catalyst Game Labs
Best RPG Related Product Gold: Castle Ravenloft Boardgame, Wizards of the Coast
Silver: BattleTech 25th Anniversary Introductory Boxed Set, Catalyst Game Labs
Best Aid/Accessory Gold: Hero Lab, Lone Wolf Development
Silver: D&D Essentials: Dungeon Tiles Master Set – The Dungeon, Wizards of the Coast
Best Electronic Book Gold: Continuity, Posthuman Studios
Silver: Shanghai Vampocalypse, Savage Mojo
Best Free Product Gold: Old School Hack – Basic Game, Kirin Robinson
Silver: A Time of War: The BattleTech RPG Quick-Start Rules, Catalyst Game Labs
Best Rules Gold: The Dresden Files RPG, Evil Hat Productions
Silver: D&D Rules Compendium, Wizards of the Coast
Best Writing Gold: The Dresden Files RPG, Evil Hat Productions
Silver: Delta Green: Targets of Opportunity, Arc Dream Publishing/Pagan Publishing
Best Production Values Gold: Pathfinder: Bestiary 2, Paizo Publishing
Silver: The Dresden Files RPG, Evil Hat Productions
Best Cartography Gold: Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea Poster Map Folio, Paizo, Cartography Rob Lazzaretti
Silver: Bookhounds of London, Pelgrane Press, Cartography by Beth Lewis
Best Interior Art Gold: Pathfinder: The Inner Sea World Guide, Paizo Publishing, Art Direction by Sarah E. Robinson
Silver: Dark Sun Campaign Setting, Wizards of the Coast
Best Cover Art Gold: A Song of Ice and Fire Campaign Guide, Green Ronin Publishing, Cover by Michael Komarck
Silver: Shadowrun: Attitude, Catalyst Game Labs, Cover by Echo Chernick
Best Blog Gold: Critical Hits
Silver: Gnome Stew
Best Podcast Gold: Yog Radio: Yog-Sothoth.com
Silver: Chronicles: The Pathfinder Podcast, d20 radio
Best Website Gold: Obsidian Portal
Silver: d20pfsrd.com
Gen Con 2011, the best four days in gaming, is off to an amazing start! Our expansive booth saw a flurry of activity as eager attendees grabbed the first ever copies of Blood Bowl: Team Manager – The Card Game, Gears of War™: The Board Game, Black Crusade, and more! And at our demo tables, rookie pilots took to the stars in X-Wing, massive combat walkers battled for supremacy in Dust Warfare, and the great Houses of Westeros defended their claims in A Game of Thrones: The Board Game Second Edition.
An author signing, an LCG world championship tournament, and exclusive announcements of upcoming titles... day two of Gen Con 2011 offered plenty to get excited about! Check out our video recap below, in which you’ll hear from Embers of Atlantis author Tracy Hickman, get insights from LCG champions, and catch a glimpse of our Blood Bowl: Team Manager – The Card Game demo tables.
With the highest attendance of the weekend, Saturday at Gen Con 2011 offered non-stop excitement. The Fantasy Flight Games booth was packed with visitors eager to learn more about our upcoming projects, while others flocked to our demos of A Game of Thrones: The Board Game Second Edition, Gears of War™: The Board Game, Elder Sign, and dozens more! And in the Event Hall, worthy victors emerged from our gripping world championship tournaments for both A Game of Thrones: The Card Game and Dust Tactics.
Gears of War (FFG):
Gears of War: The Board Game, designed by Corey Konieczka, is based on the wildly popular third-person shooter by Epic Games. One to four players take on the roles of COG soldiers cooperating to destroy the Locust horde, and must work together to complete missions against an ingeniously challenging and varied game system. In Gears of War: The Board Game, you’ll relive classic moments from Gears of War and Gears of War 2 – Roadie Run into cover, spray your enemy with blind fire, or rip him in half with your Lancer's chainsaw! In Gears of War: The Board Game you must fulfill one of seven randomly constructed missions and support your fellow COGs as your team engages an unflinching enemy in furious, white-knuckle firefights! Only through teamwork and communication will you gain a tactical advantage, completing your mission and striking a blow for humanity. You'll need every soldier you can get if you hope to send the Locust horde back to their holes. Leave no man behind!
Greetings from the Gen Con Floor! The vendors I've spoken to thus far have said it's been a brisk business, with customers happy to part with their fundage. There's really no big hit, although Margaret Weis has a big announcement coming tomorrow at 1 concerning a "big" license. Honestly, there's just no "big buzz" game or product, but that doesn't mean there's not lots of awesomeness.
Paizo had a line to just get in their booth once more, with Ultimate Combat selling well. There was an early rush for Luke Crane's Burning Wheel Gold, though as I write this there are copies remaining (no idea how many they brought).
The biggest booths of the convention have to belong to Fantasy Flight and Mayfair, each of which are really jumping already! Privateer has a smaller presence, but is flooded as always.
The convention hall has moved to a bit roomier of a setup this year, and the hallways don't seem nearly so congested. However, the registration line for those who didn't order their badges ahead of time is as long as ever.
Green Ronin's booth is in the back of the hall by the entertainers. What a crappy location, listening to Luke Ski do parody songs all day. If there's a hell, Green Ronin purchased booth space.
White Wolf is also in the back of the hall, too, but at least they have actual books on sale, unlike last year.
Oh, by request I asked a WotC rep is there was any progress on bringing back their back pdf catalog. After a pause, he very politely asked, "Are you talking about DDI?".
We will never see those pdfs again, guys.
(...)
The big announcement today was Margaret Weis landing the Marvel RPG license. The booth personnel were all smiles after the early afternoon announcement, and they plastered Marvel stuff everywhere. They couldn't have been prouder. Honestly, that's been the biggest news to come out of the convention so far.
(...)
There's a bit of noise about Wizards of the Coast potentially releasing old editions of D&D once again. Personally, a) I have zero faith in the company to not mess it up, and b) I already have my ideal game of D&D, and it's not going through their filter.
(...)
There remains no big "hit of the convention". I've asked probably 2 dozen gamers and gaming bloggers, and no one can point to one product that just took over this show.
(...)
Honestly, if there's anything, I get the sense most people are generally pretty happy with their game or company of choice. Paizo and Pathfinder fans are enjoying what they're getting (Ultimate Combat was moving very well, it looked like), and you can see the same with fans from Margaret Weis to Cubicle 7 to Pinnacle. I don't know if it's the fact that we're coming to terms with things such as pdf pricing, online resources, and less traditional publishing models, or if we've stabilized after a long period of their being one big dog and everyone else. This show just seems a bit happier, if that makes sense.
Drizzt Boardgame (WoC):
A cooperative game of adventure for 1-5 players set in the world of Dungeons & Dragons. It is named after the book series by the same name telling the adventures of the dark elf Drizzt Do'Urden and his friends. Designed for 1-5 players, this boardgame features multiple scenarios, challenging quests, and cooperative game play. Players explore the game world, which is built during the game by laying out tiles, using ready-made player characters and encountering enemies with corresponding miniatures. Encounters are generated by drawing cards and resolved using a D20 die. All players win together, depending on the scenario, by escaping, saving others or overcoming a threat.
"You don't believe data - you test data. If I could put my finger on the moment we genuinely <expletive deleted> ourselves, it was the moment we decided that data was something you could use words like believe or disbelieve around"
The blogger who made that pic was less convinced :
Silliest Booth: Dismiss for a moment booths pertaining to laser cosmetic surgery and the usual anime booths chock full o' hentai. White Wolf decided to make a booth look like a New Orleans lounge, served booze, and gave us a good idea of what a French Quarter salon would look like if it was full of nerds drinking Budweiser. What they didn't do is sell any product, or offer any indication they were an actual gaming company. They probably wanted edgy and urban. They got silly and stereotypical.
I don't think we need any more proof that WOTC is headed downhill for RPG land. Dark sun was supposed to be their uber endgame product but i think nostalgia got the better of them.
Eldar Sign: A buddy bought this one. Our group loves to play Arkham Horror. But it takes 4 hours. Eldar sign has a lot of the same feel, but simplified tremendously. We can knock it out in an hour or hour and a half. Great Game. We played it twice to completion, losing the first time and winning the last time on a "make it or lose the game" final roll.
Blood Bowl: Team Manager – The Card Game Another Fantasy Flight game. I didn't like it at all. I'd rather just play Blood Bowl. The mechanics were ok and fairly easy to follow. I just didn't care for it.
X-Wing by Fantasy Flight. Have you played Wings of War? You're not far off, then. It has dice instead of cards for damage. Moving the ships looked a little different, too. They only had x-wings and tie fighters, but they looked great. Although, if you kept to scale, Star Destroyers would require a 15' model... I won't play it, but I'm 100% sure that most of my group will.
Ultimate Combat A supplement for Paizo's Pathfinder. Tons of feats. Tons. If you play a fighter type, you'll love this book. Like previous releases (Ultimate Magic, Advanced Player's Guide), there are Archetypes for each of the core and expanded classes, as well as new spells and new rogue talents. Lots of new mechanics in this book like vehicles (wagons, chariots, Airships), Eastern weaponry and monk stuff, Firearms (a big turn-off for my group. Will never be used by us.), and a host of alternate rules (armor as DR, called shots, and so on). Good book.
New Star Wars LCG by FFG Watched it for 5 minutes and wasn't impressed. Maybe someone that played it can speak more about this game.
Gears of War™: The Board Game I play-tested this with two from my gaming group. Bought it immediately afterwards. I've played it once, but lost. I really like this game. One of my favorites. Can be played by 1-4 players. Solo is pretty difficult.
Death Watch I showed this to several people in my group. "We already play Battle Tech for Sci-Fi RPG, 40k for table-top gaming, Pathfinder for Fantasy RPG, and have more board games between 6 people than is possible to play in a year of weekends..." Dang.
As you can see, we spent a ton of time playing the new releases by FFG. The had a rather large foot-print in the dealer's hall. I can't wait to see what they do with the Star Wars license.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/08/08 00:43:56
Dust Tactics just keeps looking better and better. Those heavy vehicles all look amazing, and the whole aesthetic from the game is just rad. If I had the time for it, I'd be all over that game.
You can never beat your first time. The second generation is shinier, stronger, faster and superior in every regard save one, and it's an unfair criticism to level, but it simply can't be as original. - Andy Chambers, on the evolution of Games Workshop games
I made it to Gen Con this year for the first time in 8 years (the last time I was there was to run the 2003 booth for GW back when they actually did shows...) I had a great time and tried out a lot of new games. I picked up Blood Bowl Team Manager and Elder Sign. I enjoyed BBTM. I also got to demo Dust Warfare and I am really seeing some potential there. The rules were super Beta, but I can see it shaping up nicely.
One of the highlights of the show for my group were the amazing deals the Warstore had all weekend. They had big discount bins that they kept putting new stuff in all weekend long. My buddy got 3 entire Dark Age forces at $2 per figure (this includes some $30 models that were on sale across the hall in the Dark Age booth!) I also grabbed some new Dystopian Wars Metzgers for my Prussians, the new Malifaux book, and lots more great models from Dark Sword, CMON, and more! It was a great time!
DnD got ran out of the building by Pathfinder in awards.
As a DnD player who collected the vast majority of the plastic miniatures they produced from 2003-2008, the Drizzt boardgame is just a sad attempt to repackage old, unpainted miniatures into a new box and charge people for older content.
Some of the DnD news seems good, but until they get rid of 4th edition, the franchise cannot continue forward as it has been (what I mean is make something new that won't force players to go back to 2nd ed).
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/08/08 03:37:46
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
Absolutionis wrote:4th edition isn't the problem. It's their restrictive licensing of 4th edition that leaves it rather lacking in content that isn't rehashed.
Ex Illis is still struggling, it seems. I wonder if they ditched the miniature-rights-management system of forcing a computer yet.
JHall wrote:...the new Malifaux book...
The new Malifaux Book? Do you mean 'Twisting Fates'? It's out already?!
It was available on the Wyrd store, might be pre-order for those not attending...
Thanks to OP for this thread.
MikZor wrote:
We can't help that american D&D is pretty much daily life for us (Aussies)
Walking to shops, "i'll take a short cut through this bush", random encounter! Lizard with no legs.....
I kid Since i avoid bushlands that is But we're not that bad... are we?
You can get all the early stuff from Wyrd on their online store until Wed.
They had issues on their store Thursday and Friday, so ran it later.
Most of the Avatars and Alternates, plus the nightmare Teddy and Justice. Also Twisting Fate.
And any of the Puppet Wars stuff can be had.
Bam, said the lady!
DR:70S+GM++B+I+Pw40k09/f++D++A(WTF)/hWD153R+++T(S)DM++++ Dakka, what is good in life?
To crush other websites,
See their user posts driven before you,
And hear the lamentation of the newbs.
-Frazzled-10/22/09
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
I can't believe that I missed the White Wolf booth somehow. I must have roamed through that Dealer's Hall about a half dozen times, and never even noticed it.
WotC was a disaster this year. I played in two of their events, and both of them were very poorly managed. The new Drizz'l Boardgame is just 4th Edition Ultralite, with a good chance of utterly screwing the players if the wrong Tile/Card combinations come up too quickly. It's the sort of product that I could see myself picking up on the cheap and pillaging for tiles/game pieces, but never actually playing. Catalyst, on the other hand, really impressed me. They seemed to be cleaning up the Dealer's Hall, and when we played in their Shadowrun event, everyone was laughing and having a good time. Their people also seemed legitimately happy and excited about the product that they were presenting.
Nice to see pathfinder doing well. I played it for a while and quite liked it. Same for White WOlf stuff, though I really dont picture ever getting back into it.
Might look into the Gears of War and DnD games someday too. Hopefully the gears game is better than Doom...its harder than the videogame.
Whats my game?
Warmachine (Cygnar)
10/15mm mecha
Song of Blades & Heroes
Blackwater Gulch
X wing
Open to other games too
Warboss Gubbinz wrote:I don't think we need any more proof that WOTC is headed downhill for RPG land. Dark sun was supposed to be their uber endgame product but i think nostalgia got the better of them.
While I think that may be true, or their in transition to a more online product......I also think their moving in the GW direction and making a concerted effort to announce major products at their own event.
However the biggest announcement from WOTC was something that let slip- their planning on selling older products again, older editions. But nothing on what and prices or how.
Hope more old fools come to their senses and start giving you their money instead of those Union Jack Blood suckers...
Huh, some of those Malifaux models aren't exactly the step forward I was expecting from some of the more recent previews.
Apparently they still have sculptors that don't know what hair looks like. How are we seeing Perdita's eyes from under her hat in that first shot? The top half of her head must be a (scale) foot tall.
Returning from 4 days I had a chance to try a few things out. (btw....Westeros is the new black w/ games/gear/miniatures and collectibles).
1) Puppet Wars: I was pretty excited for this release but after a demonstration I didn't buy. I thought the mechanics were overly complex for a board game that was attempting to be simplistic. When I looked at what came in the box and compared to the price point, there was no way I could dive in. I was told that you might find certain minions would work better with masters but there is no way to get multiples of minions at this time w/ out buying multiple expansion packs @ $32 each. When you look at what you get w/ Super Dungeion Explore for a $5 cheaper MSRP it really isn't a hard choice from a "content" standpoint or game quality.
2) Malifaux. The launch of the avatars and resculpted masters. Apparently the resculpted masters are a result of the first generation figs/molds not holding up to new and better techniques for casting. The avatars comes w/ about 2 pages of rules in the new rules book and have a number of new units for each faction and in theory is an easy concept. 1) Meet either 1 or 2 reuirements and replace your master w/ an avatar.... essentially a boosted master. The ability to bring in an avatar increases as you meet the requirement and as the rounds tick off. You pay for your avatar (2 soulstones i believe). The avatar masters are nice but nothing I'd call broken on initally reading the rules for a few of the individuals. Don't look to these figs to be game breakers when they come on the table. They retain wounds already received by the master as well.
I'm not a huge fan of some of the avatar sculpts but I feel that way about a lot of Malifaux figs and I'm still a fan of the game. The rule book itself is about 60% fluff and 40% rules/new figs. A nice editions overall.
3) MERCS. This is really Infinity light. Small unit tactics on a gaming matt. The matt can easily be replaced by terrain. The mechanics are considerably simpler but still retain the need to be highly manueverable. The need to get into position to take other team out is really apparent. Just straight firing into an opponent in cover will result in never taking anyone out. You have the capacity to push an opponent out of cover or manuever behind to the side to get the incapacitate. I like the mechanics overall and it may fit me better than Infinity. No knock on Infinity, I just play so infrequently that I tend to spend more time in the rulebook than playing which means a slow game...being able to pick up and play a force I haven't used for 6 months and be successful is a win at times.
4) Blood Bowl Team Manager: I had a great time playing this game. We bought a box and went through it a couple of times. The mechanics are simple but it actually requires some thought about how to keep your oppenent from gaining too many fans. The collection of Star Players and team upgrades is required to stay competive through later rounds in the game. Now... we were into the cocktails while we were playing but for our group of hard core GW gamers, we really enjoyed it.
5) Dust Warfare: The new Miniature version (not board game). This really felt very Beta. So much so I didn't pick up any of the available figures. I think it has potential but the demonstration left too many questions answered with that mechanic is being worked on or we aren't in production release of full rules...etc. I can't deny the figs are very detailed and look amazing on the table I was just hoping for more.
:
I won't play it, but I'm 100% sure that most of my group will.
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