After a lot of whining the last couple months, this month seems a bit more promising in regards to selection. Nice to see after four months of new releases ranging from mediocre to completely atrocious, a store might be able to pull off this thing known as a profit this month.
Of course, your mileage may vary, so check out http://www.gametrademagazine.com/downloads/GTM133Games.pdf and see for yourself.
In order, the only item that goes on my list (after a few purchases at Cold Wars) will be Curse of the Chthonians ($25.95 - Chaosium), another fun CoC reprint that I don't own (yet).
My dreamlist doesn't expand the horizons much: Fog of War: Strike of the Eagle - The Polish/Soviet War of 1919. It is wasn't $65.00 it would be on my want list. Now if I could only find players for a Polish-Soviet War chit-based wargame!
As I harped on earlier, the hypothetical store has a number of options this month. Of course, the release dates for all the items range from January(?) to May, which means April through December in the gaming industry.
- There are 3 third party Pathfinder books coming out, plus NINE books alone from Paizo. And with the exception of the Ultimate Magic hardcover, they're all under $20!
- Flames of War Material, although they are noted to be scheduled to ship January 2011. It's always amusing to see Panzer IVs and French horse-drawn artillery being solicited side-by-side. I wonder which one will sell more units.
- Battletch: 3062 Era Report and the "Historical Reunification War" which I'm so out of the loop, I don't know what that is...
- A rewrite and relaunch of Advanced Fighting Fantasy. Really? I'm all for retro/nostalgia, and I know lots of people still love this game, but is the buying public still there to justify three print runs vs. three pdfs?
- I've been treating Dust Tactics as my experiment as a game store owner. I've just not been impressed by the releases. The Special Ops Grenadiers and Special Ops Ranger are solicited this month, and i'm sorry, but they look the same! I'd rather try to justify a true historical game where you can get 2-3x the numbers of figs for a similar price.
- Two new releases for those Settlers of Catan fans: (1) Catan: the dice game...or "I've got wood for yahtzee?" (2) Struggle for Catan "a fast-paced version of Settlers?" How much faster can you make the game?
- Mongoose is releasing 2 new Traveller books (Traveller's Aid Society and Supplement 12-Dynasty) and a Runequest product
- We have the regular Reaper assortment, plus a hot Russian Sniper (!) and the first big mention I've seen of the p-65 Heavy Metal minis.
They look more like shelf pieces than playing pieces, despite having extra 60% lead in each order! - Vampire The Reqium: Invite Only -- holy crap! apparently White Wolf let down it's obfuscate ability and has appeared with new product!
- WOTC: THE SHADOWFELL -GLOOMWROUGHT AND BEYOND is coming out for D&D, but there's a new Magic expansion to fill the cash registers in gaming stores everywhere.
- Wizkids: DC Heroclix Green Lantern Fast Forces 6-pack - just in time for the movie.
It might not be my tastes (again, I'm no longer the demographic), but I do believe that there is actually sufficient product in here to keep a store afloat with new releases... New Magic (and a WoW CCG costs a pretty penny to stock, but seem to sell in most places. The Flames of War selection reminds me of a GW launch, again another outlay of cash with little guarantee it will sell. And the Pathfinder vs. 4e battle, I'd be throwing my lot in with Pathfinder. Everything nowadays is hit-and-miss, but if I knew my base, I could justify two copies of each Pathfinder book vs. four of the single D&D title. In most cases the sell-through and reorder of the successfull Pathfinder items will justify the stocking of the less popular items. Plus, a proper inventory system, a well-developed pre-order program, and just knowing my customers would allow those numbers to be tweaked even more efficiently
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