The (Much Less) Apathy of New Releases (Dec '10)

It's that time of month...

The latest Game Trade Monthly (#130) is out, and as a former retail manager, I'm a wee bit confused. The last two GTM should have covered November through early January releases (with the obvious delays that gamers are used to). For holiday season releases, outside of a few board games, there was very little to pad the coffers of your FLGS, or even Dirty Pompous-Ass Store That Sells Games. This issue covers January and February, the true dead season for gaming retail, and if they could survive a rather weak holiday sales season and still have enough put aside, I foresee a rather profitable Winter into Spring...

But first, let's break this issue down:

My wishlist:

• Wargames Illustrated: I'm just Jonesin' for something to read. Anything post-18th Century will do.
• Cthulhu and D&D Rainy Day Activity Books: Hackmaster did this a number of years ago. It was fun, although I pity the fool who did the wordsearch in the middle of combat.
• Age of Cthulhu 5: The Long Reach of Evil -- Cthulhu Mythos in South America.
• Monsters! Monsters! -- The "Reverse Dungeon" concept RPG, but by the dudes at Flying Buffalo. And only $14.95 to boot!
• And speaking indirectly of Flying Buffalo: The New Khazan, is a space supplement for Tunnels and Trolls, produced by a 3rd party.
• Pirate Fluxx
• They re-offered Strat-o-Matic Football 2010, and I'm both games geek and sports geek.

My practical list: Nothing will usurp a spot on my current want list, but if I came into money (in order of preference):

• Pirate Fluxx
• Monsters! Monsters!
• and a fairly new issue of Wargames Illustrated.

and of course, My imaginary store wishlist

• Rogue Trader: The Frozen Reaches-- an adventure for the 40K RPG.
• Dust Tactics Expansions-- I've ignored this, but a WW2 game, set in 1947 and infused with alien technology piques my interest. Not enough to buy any right now, but it might be worth a store to infuse a little investment capital.
• Reaper: the usual assortment, complete with *sigh* zombie strippers and Orangutango: Super Ape!
• Colonial Gothic: New France. Everyone should celebrate a supplement for one of the few 18th Century RPGs.
• WoTC pays some stores' bills this month: Three new D&D books, the latest Magic expansion, and D&D fortune cards, which provide temporary in-game benefits. I noticed this in the Gamma World boxed set. Seems gimmicky, like something Gary Jackson would do for Hackmaster in a KODT comic. In fact, I think he did something like this years ago... Ah, when art imitates life.
• Pathfinder has 5 new products slated for release, and since I noted a sizable and money-affluent group of Pathfinder players at Mepacon, this appears to be a good thing. Plus their Game Mastery line is releasing new dungeon maps, and you crazy 3.0+ GMs/players eat that shit up. Don't lie, I've seen it anecdotely!
• Dystopian Wars- I'm used to seeing Victorian Sci-Fi minis in 25-30mm, whether on Earth, Mars, or Venus. Dystopian Wars looks like 1/900th scale or even 1/1200th scale with naval, air, and ground forces (for comparison, Battletech is 6mm or 1/285th scale). Mass combined forces operations can be conducted en masse, and you could still afford the nice digital camera to take some awesome pictures. The deluge of fantasy naval games do not catch my eye, and I loved Man o' War, but this does fill a separate niche and I hope it does well.
• Finally, *sigh* the "evil" GW is re-releasing Dark Eldar. Now I know it's been a long frickin' time since the Dark Eldar were unleashed en masse onto the crazed 40k masses, but I've survived Saturdays during the Necron and Tau releases, each new space marine codex, each new mini and vehicle release. All of those combined could not match of the gamer lead-gasm that was unleashed with Dark Eldar (white metal gasm just sounds way too dirty... oops I said it). Not since the initial release of Ral Partha's Slave Auction had I seen nerds openly clamor for naked chicks cast in metal to further decorate their vehicles. Perhaps I should direct you Reaper's zombie strippers? Anyhow, the models look eerily similar to the originals, just with brighter accents against their Matrix-like black and green. I'm not impressed, but I know stores still sell a ton of this stuff, even without a direct (i.e. higher discount) account with GW.

Since I don't post pics on these types of posts, check out: http://www.gametrademagazine.com/downloads/GTM130Games.pdf for more basic info, more items I didn't deem worthy, and don't forget Google works well for more specific questions (trust me, I checked it out for Dystopian Wars and Dust Tactics.)