Meeple Minded

The News Shed 5 : 16/03/2023

March 16, 2023 Meeple Minded
Meeple Minded
The News Shed 5 : 16/03/2023
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Welcome Back to the News shed, 

On this weeks episode, our News man Paul brings you all of this weeks juicy Table Top Gaming news & Crowdfunding campaigns we think you need to know about & of course the all important update on the BGG hotness so you are always in the loop of what is the hottest game on the market.

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Thank you all so much for choosing to listen to our humble down to earth Table top gaming podcast. If you do like what you hear, please do subscribe as we will be uploading a new show every Tuesday & Thursday @ 7am GMT, ready for that commute into work, or gym session :)

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Will you just stop for 2 seconds...

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Oi, have you been in the sweet jar again...?

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You know what sugar does to you...!

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It's like this every time after we've had a delivery, he finds the sweets and gets so jacked up on sugar, it's like having a hyper toddler...!

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Brain I've opened the Duck Flap, go run round the garden... Or go and see if Jason and James want to play...!!! Think Jason said he wanted a game of Quacks...

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Before you go... Be a dear and push the button would you...

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NEWS HEADLINES

A new racing board game is set to hit the shelves soon, inspired by the popular science fiction universe Infinity. REM Racers, designed by Fernando Lago and developed by the Corvus Belli team, is a fast-paced game that challenges players to attack their opponents and dodge obstacles to be the first to cross the finish line.

Players take on the role of drivers, each with their own controller and special abilities, and use movement templates and equipment cards to push other vehicles off the track and avoid being destroyed themselves. The game is suitable for all ages and promises to be an exciting addition to any family’s game night.

The inspiration for REM Racers comes from the background of the Infinity wargame, where pilots and their remotes race across the universe, battling each other for supremacy. Fernando Lago, a dedicated Infinity player, developed a set of rules for remote-controlled vehicles, and the Corvus Belli team worked with him to create the prototype thats doing the rounds.

If you’re keen to try REM Racers, the Corvus Belli team will be conducting demos at various events throughout the year, in the United States and Spain.

The game promises to be a thrilling experience, combining the adrenaline rush of high-speed racing with the strategy and tactics of tabletop gaming. 

Funko Games have just announced a brand new slate of board games coming this Spring as part of this years centenary celebration, Disney100.

In 'Disney: Animated Game' sees you become one of Disney's top producers as you work together to bring the animated Disney classics to life whilst Disney Villains work against you by rushing your deadlines and just being a general pain! Working together with your team as a part of the world famous Animated Studios will be your key to success.

The classic Disney Villains also get there own game as they takeover the classic party game of ‘Spoons’ in Disney Villains Sinister Spoons. Play as characters like Jafar, Maleficent and Captain Hook in what promises to be a “fiendish frenzy”!

One for the youngsters out there as this one has an age rating of 3 and up. We are expecting some fast paced fun in Disney And Pixar’s Cars Launch ‘N’ Race Game, a tabletop racing game featuring Lightning McQueen and the gang. Initial reports suggest that this will have both cooperative and competitive modes.

Something Wild! Disney Mickey Mouse Card Game – Steamboat Willie

Not to miss out especially on his 100th Birthday is the Disney Classic, Steamboat Willie as he gets his own set in the Something Wild! Game Collection. Something Wild! Disney Mickey Mouse Card Game – Steamboat Willie, to give it it's full title sees you get ready and whistle the classic Steamboat Willie theme tune… Mickey holding Steamboat Willies’ ship wheel makes for a fantastic Funko Pop! Figure in its own right, never mind the musical critters and cows who will be appearing on the playing cards.

More details of the Disney100 releases are sure to follow before the games final release this Spring but there’s definitely a lot for Disney fans to look forward to, not just on our tables.

Tabletop hobbies create a lot of waste, excess card from punching tokens but the various plastic sprues containing the various bits and bobs for miniature-based titles such as Warhammer can often be among the worst offenders.

Games Workshop wants to reduce their contribution to the carbon footprint by introducing a new partnership between themselves and Terracycle, a private recycling business based in the US that will recycle leftover and discarded plastic from the Games Workshop products.

The Warhammer Recycling Programme will be rolling out a trial run in 28 UK Warhammer store locations to start with, so, by the end of March, players will see “sprue bins” popping up inside the hobby shops where materials that would otherwise be trashed can be collected and shipped off for a second life.

If you think that the recycled sprues may end up back on your table, think again. Although Games Workshop know that Citadel use very high quality and purity of plastic, the repurposing prcedure means it will likely become a garden planters or playground equipment rather than reappearing on your opponants table as a new miniature, so imagine youngsters sliding down a tube composed of the bodies of your enemies.

Here’s what you can put in the sprue bins: sprues, obviously (even if they still have some bits attached), old and unwanted plastic Warhammer miniatures and paint pots with no liquid in them. Games Workshop said the acrylic paints inside the pots are also recyclable. What should not be tossed in are metal or resin minis or non-Games Workshop miniatures or other plastic materials. The sprue bins are reportedly not general-use recycling receptacles.

The pilot programme won’t extend past the UK for the moment, and though Games Workshop claimed it wanted to expand into other regions as soon as possible no timeline was provided.

It's not even April and I'm sure this is a wind up... OK, here goes... A new expansion for Catan, entitled Catan: Soccer Fever, invites players to score goals to win more victory points.

Despite the core tabletop title taking place in an alternate world set sometime in the past, Catan: Soccer Fever proposes that the colonialists settling on the board game’s island have an intense love for the sport.

The new expansion will see players engaging in a series of football matches taking place across the island. Every time a player constructs a settlement or city, the group compete in a heavily abridged game of football. Playing the football game has players attempting to score a goal by flicking a spherical token that has multiple sides to it. Should the scoring player land their token into the ‘goal’ coloured side up, then they have scored a goal. Whichever player has the most goals at the end of the match will acquire various benefits that they can use within the wider game.

Soccer Fever will have players competing in football matches throughout the family board game, with players needing to take note of the winner of each one. The player who is at the top of the league table will also win a number of victory points, which will go towards their overall total and assist them in winning the game.

Catan: Soccer Fever was co-designed by Klaus Teuber – the creator of Catan – and Benjamin Teuber, with Catan Studio and Kosmos set to co-publish the expansion sometime this year. April 1st anyone...?

Late last year a game entitled Line Dice was released by publisher SUNNY BIRD.

The backgammon-style design is from Yoshihisa Itsubaki, who is probably best known for Streams, which has had several licensed versions released since that game's 2011 debut. 

In Line Dice (ラインダイス), your goal is to reach your finish line first with your six dice.

Each player has their own movement track with six lanes for their six racing dice. The racing dice all start off the board on their 1 symbol, which is also wild.

On your first turn or two, you'll roll two six-sided dice, choose a die, flip a racing die to the matching number, then place it in the "start" space at the beginning of the lane; you'll then repeat this process with the other die.

Once you have at least one die in a starting space, on a turn you roll the two six-sided dice, then use each die to either change the face of one of your racing dice or advance a racing die of the matching number. 

If you create a line of racing dice of the same number, say, two 4s that are adjacent to one another, then you can use a rolled 4 to move both of the racing dice four spaces at the same time. (A 1 counts as all numbers, so it automatically creates a line when adjacent to another racing die.)

If you land one of your dice on a change space in a lane, you can change an opponent's die to the value of your choice. 

You must land a racing die in the goal space at the end of the lane by exact count. If you would have extra movement, then you move the racing die backwards in the lane until the full value of the die is used. However, if you land a racing die in the penultimate space in a lane, then when you roll that number again, you can push that racing die forward one space onto the goal.

Get all six of your racing dice onto the goals first, and you win. Alternatively, you can play multiple games, with each player scoring points for the face value of the racing dice in the goals and losing points for dice that didn't make it, with jokers now counting for -10 points. 

Sarah Shipp is a first-time designer, whose debut game Deadly Dowagers has just been released by publisher Sparkworks. 

While Deadly Dowagers is Sarah Shipp's first published design, she's been blogging about "board game design theory from a fine arts perspective" since 2019 on her ShippBoard Games blog and has lots of other interesting work over on there. 

Deadly Dowagers is a game of marriage, murder, and money. You compete with the other lovely ladies in your town by strategically growing your dowry, while being careful not to gain too much infamy, or the duke may pass you over for another bride!

You play as a middle-class Victorian woman who would kill to be a duchess. Since you were not lucky enough to be born into the aristocracy, the only way to attract a noble is to have a large enough dowry. Fortunately, when your parents died, they left you with a small dowry and some land. You must build wealth through investments and strategic serial marriages.

Gameplay is divided into rounds; each round consists of four separate phases: drafting, investment, husband, and housekeeping. In each round, each player drafts a hand of cards, pick-and-pass style. Certain cards are played into players' tableaus. Instant cards are used and discarded. Players using death cards partially reset their tableau and get income. Players discard down to eight cards in hand, then draft four new cards.

The game ends when one player has no current husband, no more than 9 infamy, spends 120 crowns, and plays a remarry card to marry the Duke. That player wins.  

Magic: The Gathering is gearing up for its most ambitious Universes Beyond release when it crosses over with The Lord of the Rings later this summer. 

Tales of Middle-earth will be the trading card game’s first full set taking place in a world outside MTG’s established multiverse, and today we received our first look at the eponymous Ring of Power and more than one version of everyone’s favourite wizard in a pointy hat and I'm not talking about Dumbledore in the Sorting Hat.

Art Director Ovidio Cartagena and VP of Game Design Aaron Forsythe recently discussed the team’s approach when synthesising one of the most well-known fantasy stories ever, into the five Mana colours and mechanical limitations of Magic: The Gathering. Their insights accompanied two revealed cards demonstrating some key mechanical insight alongside the now expected showcase frame treatment.

The One Ring, which Frodo carries from The Shire to the fires of Mount Doom, will appear in full glory on its own card, and it’s appropriately powerful. The indestructible legendary artifact provides its caster protection from everything until their next turn, as long as it was cast and not tutored out or otherwise sneaked onto the battlefield. It then draws cards when tapped equal to the number of burden counters but also drains that much life from its controller - this dual-edged sword mirrors the manipulating effects The One Ring displays on Smeagol, Frodo and other bearers.

Gandalf’s card will actually be one of at least three versions of the wizard to appear in the set, an intentional choice that allowed the designers to portray central characters at different points in the narrative. The irascible but doting grey wizard is maybe the best example, as his death and eventual rebirth as Gandalf the White marks a drastic change in both his demeanour and function within Tolkien’s story. That shift is translated through the artwork for the as-yet-unrevealed card, though the interview heavily suggests its colour identity will match his title.

Not so for Gandalf the Grey, whose card bears a dual red and white Mana colouration and abilities befitting the archetypical fantasy wizard. Any time Gandalf’s controller casts an instant or sorcery, they may choose from among four options: tap or untap one permanent, deal three damage to each opponent, copy a spell they control or put Gandalf on top of its owner’s library. All four abilities can only be chosen once, which means Gandalf, bearing the sword Glamdring in Aaron Miller’s artwork, must exit the battlefield before pulling again from his bag of tricks. Much like the book, Gandalf, the card, has an exit and return baked into its very nature.

One more Gandalf is likely to appear, given Dmitry Burmak’s teased artwork titled Gandalf, Friend of the Shire, but we know for sure that Gandalf the Grey can pop up bearing Tales of Middle-earth’s showcase frame treatment. Cartagena said the stylised treatment, which depicts the wizened member of The Fellowship’s fateful battle and fall against the Balrog, is meant to communicate what’s happening “inside the Ring” - hence, the circular frame and ancient Elvish text. Characters printed in this style will reportedly be captured in a moment of internal struggle or hardship.

Less flashy but nonetheless iconic are the basic land cards for Tales of Middle-earth, which trade panoramic vistas for sections of a map a reader might find printed in the back of an old copy of the book or Free League’s The One Ring tabletop RPG. Cartagena and Forysthe said evoking that feeling of poring over the map and imagining the world of Middle-earth in the reader’s mind was one of the team’s very first ideas when concepting the set. They aren’t worried about the fidelity lost to this artistic choice because the entire set will apparently push the envelope of what players expect from a core MTG set.

The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth is currently slated for retail release on June 23rd and will contain a lot of new treatments and styles of cards, including the still-mysterious new Battle card type and borderless “seam cards” that can be arranged into panoramas of famous battles from throughout the books’ history.


BGG TOP 5 HOTNESS

So these games on the list may be already out, due to come out, or crowdfunding at the moment, it tends to be a list based on what people are searching for on Board Game Geek right now and bot doesn't it change alot.

On to this weeks top 5 Games making waves over on Board Game Geek, as of recording obviously...

In 5. Ark Nova returns to the top 5, why...? We know Aquarius, the expansion for Sea Animals isn't due till later in the year, so peeps must be gearing up...

In 4. Frosthaven makes it return to the top 5, the chilly sequel to Gloomhaven is just the gift that keeps on giving.

In 3. Hegemony, or Hegemony Lead Your Class To Victory, to give it it's full title jumps straight into the top 5. Hegemoney sees you simulate a whole contemporary nation and it's class system in this asymmetric, politico-economic euro-game from Hegemonic Project Games .

In 2. We've talked about it already and I still think Brians pulling my leg but CATAN Soccer Fever Scenario sits here at number 2. 

In. 1. The Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game maintains it's hold on the top of the BGG Top 5 Hotness, I think this is the game we're looking for.

CROWDFUNDING

Well you heard them chatting to Jason and James last week, we briefly mentioned them too but Pearl and Amar's game, Cake of Doom is now live on Kickstarter, and as of recording stills needs a little punch to make it to their funding goal.

If you didn't catch the interview with them last week, why not...? So what you wanna do is listen to this first, then go over and back it on Kickstarter, then go and listen to the interview and bask in the glory that your helping the great little game from an Indie Publisher and Designers fulfil there dreams by getting the game funded.

So what is Cake of Doom...? Well simply put your trying to take over the world, with cake, simples.

You as the players are competing to rule Earth by offering delicious bribes of cakes to its inhabitants but you'll need to stop opponents from snatching control of regions by playing sabotage cards.

Remember you'll want to keep the relatively rare 'block sabotage' cards in hand to guard against rivals preventing you from a successful 'bribe'.

Other 'mischief' cards can be used to take a card from the discard pile or steal a card from another player.

And just because you've won control of a region doesn't mean you'll keep it: a player can always target a region under another's player's control just so long as they can 'outbribe' them. 

Cake of Doom is a casual, light-hearted card game of cakes and aliens with a jokey theme and artwork. It's perfect for non-gamers, casual groups, families, or as a palate cleanser for games night.
Let the bribery and sabotage begin!

Pledge Levels start at just £2 for access to the Pledge Manager and a Print and Play version of the game.

Physical copies of the game start at just £20 for the 'Novice Baker' pledge which includes the game, access to the pledge manager and the Print and Play.

Add the Playmat to your pledge at the 'Cake Enthusiasts' tier.

The Cake Enthusiasts Pledge level gets you the game, playmat, pledge manager and Print and Play Access. This is at just £36.

If you'd like to design one of the cards yourselves then you can back at £125, get everything I've just mentioned and design either a Cake, Sabotage or Alien Card.

Couple more pledge levels aimed at retailers for multiple copies are there too...

The project, as of recording has passed it's halfway mark but still needs your help. The project is live now over on Kickstarter and runs thru to the 31st March.

OUTRO

Oh your back... Did you find Jason...?

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Oh really, colourful language, sounds about right...

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I don't know that one, we'll have to ask him what that means...
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You calmed down a bit now...

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Good, right before you crash out, say goodbye to everyone...

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and it's a goodbye from me, keep safe Meeples, keep those dice rolling, the cards shuffling and we'll be right here for you next week...


Introduction
News Stories
The Hotness
Crowdfunding News
Outro