Due to technical issues over the last few weeks we welcome Dave’s Gaming News back, and to get the dice rolling we present a catch up, just so we are sure you don’t miss a thing…

Good day to you everyone in table-top land! Dave here with another look at what’s new in the gaming sphere and what we have to look forward to in the weeks and months ahead.

Brand new in board games we have Relic from Fantasy Flight games. Based on the popular Talisman rule set, this game lets players take control of a servant of the Imperium of Man and do battle against the nefarious foes of mankind in the grim darkness of the 41st millennium. Players must, acquire special wargear and ancient relics and garner experience in order to overcome their adversaries and defeat the evil lurking at the heart of the Antian sector before it spreads! With ten player characters to choose from, each with unique strengths and weaknesses, the game is different and exciting on every play through.

On April 8th Dragon’s Maze cards start getting previewed on Daily MTG. There’s much buzz about this expansion but in order to tell you why I’ll have to explain some background. The story goes that Niv-Mizzet, an ancient dragon and leader of one of the 10 guilds of Ravnica, has decreed that each guild send forth a champion to attempt to solve the Implicit Maze, a vast and arduous labyrinth, the prize at the centre of which is a power so great that whoever obtains it will gain supreme control over the plane of Ravnica. This expansion is small overall with 156 cards compared to Return to Ravnica’s 274 and Gatecrash’s 249. Since all ten guilds have a champion your chances of finding one a standard 15 card booster are pretty good. Rarity distributions are still unknown but the numbers certainly suggest that finding these cards through booster buying will be a lot easier than finding the guild leaders in the last two expansions.

Games Workshop have given the Tau Empire a face lift with a new codex and some excellent new models. The codex brings the army firmly in line with the new edition of the rules with special wargear and characters that help the Tau take on enemy flyers and increase the accuracy of snap shots. New models include the massive Riptide battle suit which stands twice as tall as an old Crisis battle suit and the new Sun Shark Bomber, a sleek atmospheric aircraft that is capable of sweeping down from the skies and blasting ground targets with its potent weaponry.

Hello all and welcome to the second half of this week’s table top news and reviews catch up. It’s been an interesting week in cards so let’s take a look at Magic the Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh!

The Dragon’s Maze Image Gallery is now live on the Wizards website and boy is it something to behold. Of particular interest are the new Fuse sorcery cards. These are single cards containing two spells. Players can choose to cast one half or both at the same time, a strategy that works particularly well with Turn & Burn. Keep in mind though that because a fused spell counts as one spell not two it can be countered with a single Reflect card or similar.

As expected the block also contains some truly mind blowing creatures, chief among them Mirko Vosk and the Master of Cruelties. Mirko is a must have for fans of the planeswalker Jace. He will help you to burn through your opponent’s library in double-quick time. First of all he’s flying so unless your opponent has an aerial defence he’ll be bypassing their defenders entirely. Secondly his special ability, which activates whenever he deals damage directly to a player, forces your opponent to send cards from the top of their library to the graveyard until they’ve discarded four land cards. Depending on your opponent’s deck disposition this has the potential to be devastating. The Master of Cruelties is just as nasty as his name suggests. For starters he has deathtouch and first strike, not a bad combination. Secondly if he attacks a player and isn’t blocked that player is reduced to a single life point. Follow this up with and instant like Chandra’s Fury or Chandra’s Outrage and you have a recipe for a quick win. As show stopping as the block’s legendary creatures are it also has some solid mid-range creatures. A good example is Saruli Gatekeepers. When these guys are summoned if you control two or more gates you gain 7 life, simple as.
April 19th is the release date for the 7th and final set in the Yu-Gi-Oh! Hidden Arsenal expansions, Knight of Stars. Primarily aimed at hard core collectors, each of these boosters contains a mere 5 cards but all 5 are guaranteed to be foil cards with each pack containing 1 secret rare and 4 super cards. The set is based primarily on the Duel Terminal expansions Sacred Star Knights and Ouroboros, Wicked Dragon of Destruction so if they’re among your favourite sets then this is and expansion for you.