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FTN TABLETOP GAMING NEWS (02/02/2013)

February 2nd, 2013 by Irwin Fletcher Comments

Hello gamers and gamerettes! Dave here again with another look at what’s new in the gaming world over the next short while.

Exciting news on the table top comes from Forge world who have just released no less than nine new bundle sets for the pre-heresy Legion Astartes and an FAQ document for Betrayal and Imperial Armour Volume One: Second Edition. As a dedicated Iron Warriors fan I’m especially delighted with the new Heavy Support Marines in MkIII armour. They’re posed perfectly to accept missile launchers so flyers beware! There may be a whole squad worth of Skyfire Missiles heading your way very soon.

New event decks based on Gatecrash, the latest set in Magic the Gathering, will be released on February 22nd. Deck lists have yet to be leaked, I wouldn’t expect to see them until Feb 14th at the earliest, but it is known that the Guilds represented in these decks will be the Boros Legion (red/white) and the Simic Combine (green/blue). According to the blurbs we can expect “waves of soldiers” and “aggressive support magic” in the Boros deck while the Simic Combine will make enemy forces look “microscopic” by comparison, so expect a lot of token spawning cards and heavy use of the Populate special rule.

Work on the next iteration of Dungeons & Dragons is underway. Provisionally called D&D Next, this version of the rules is intended to provide a solid and, above all, simple set of core mechanics and will be easier for new gamers to get to grips with. Wizards have made it clear that they want to bring the game back to its roots as a fun fantasy RPG with a heavier focus on storytelling and modularisation, so that the complex mechanics beloved of veteran gamers doesn’t weigh too heavily on the core game. Expect to see a new core rulebook with rules for creating human rogues and adventuring in a haunted castle while optional expansion books released in the months after will cover things like creating an Aasmir Celebrant of Sharess and the seven rites necessary to recreate one of the lost wands of Cannith!

I’ll wrap up with a strong recommendation for a game I’ve started playing recently; Carcassone. Any fans of Settlers of Catan or similar German style board gamers will really get a kick out of this. Players take it in turns to place tiles and build a kingdom in which they can capture cities, roads, monasteries and farmland for points. The strategy element cannot be overstated and the rules reward clever cooperative strategies in a way you don’t see in a lot of board games. If you see a copy in your local game store definitely pick it up and have a try.

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