It looks like Wizkids have gotten some sort of rights to the Lord of the Rings. They are going to issue a collectible game, which I assume would mean squad level style combat in the LOTR universe and also a boxed ‘semi-cooperative’ clix game. What that means I have no idea. Depending on what the figures look like I may try out the collectible game.

Pinnacle Entertainment Group looks like they are going into overdrive with the Space:1889 stuff. So if you are into Victorian pulp adventure they’ve got the goods. They just put out a set of bennie (benefits) poker style chips with the 1889 logo and artwork on them. I’ve got a set of the more generic bennie chips and I can tell you they are really pretty cool things to have when playing Savage Worlds.

Chaosium has a hardcover BRP Rulebook coming out that I am pretty jazzed about. I love the Basic Role Play System and am something of a book fetishist so this will most definitely be on my want list this year.

If anyone feels like buying presents here’s what I am eyeballing over at Fantasy Flight Games.

Mansions of Madness – This looks like too much fun.
Arkham Horror – Innsmouth Expansion. Eventually you will need a ping pong table to play this game with all the additional maps.
Arkham Horror – Lurker expansion. More cards = more fun.

Wizards of the Coast made a pretty big announcement last week. They have said except in limited productions (like for stand alone box games) they are discontinuing the Dungeons and Dragons line of miniatures. Presumably they will no longer support the miniature wargame that went along with them or will do so in a limited capacity. This certainly explains why you are getting sheets of counters in every box set now. Personally counters really don’t bother me that much, and the ones Wizards makes are sturdy with decent artwork. I do like miniatures, but with this notification Reaper Miniatures is going to be the only provider of pre-painted fantasy minis that I know of (correct me if I am wrong). I wonder how this will impact the industry though, are we going to be seeing more counter-based wargames? I know Fantasy Flight Games experimented with it a bit back in the 1990’s with the surprisingly fun Diskwars game, but sales for it were less then stellar and it came and went pretty quickly.

(Correction: Wizards is going to do one last release for the D&D Miniature line and then after that will release the occasional ‘collectors’ series of figures, like the Beholder collection last year)

Speaking of miniatures, Wizkids Games has got the Star Trek license. Interestingly though, it seems to only apply to the most recent movie and not any of the TV shows or previous films. (Sort of like when MWP got the rights to produce a ‘Serenity’ game but had to be careful about mentioning ‘Firefly’) They’ve got a somewhat odd looking ‘away-mission’ box game coming out and then a more straight up star ship combat game next. These look as if they use the standard Clix mechanic as seen in the Hero/Horror/Halo games. There are also rumors that Wizkids might be bringing back their Mage-Knight game, the Clix game that started it all, in some capacity. I don’t know how much truth is in that last bit though.