Origins 2008 – Day 2: When Frogs Fly and More!
Another day at Origins is over for me. I’m back at the store and reflecting back upon the day.
This years con seems….off to me. Now, granted, my convention experiences pretty much begin and end with activities in the Dealers Room. Outside of demos, I don’t play in any games at conventions. I know, I know, that’s sorta crazy. But, when I go I am hoping to find some new games that look interesting that I’d either want to play myself or want for the store. I usually find two or three games that pique my interest.
Not this year.
One game I found that I will be ordering in for the shop is The Battle for Hill 21B from Your Move Games. Your Moves Games is responsible for what is, perhaps, the best miniatures game you’re not playing: Battlegrounds Fantasy Warfare. But, more on Battegrounds in a moment.
You begin play with the Hill 218 card in play and two face-up air strikes set off to the side of play. One side of the hill is your home base; the other is your opponent’s. You win the game by occupying both bases; if neither player manages this, the player with the most units remaining when all units and air strikes have been played wins.
It looks pretty cool, and we’ll have it in stock soon!
Battlegrounds Fantasy Warfare is a point-based miniatures game – but without the miniatures. Battleground uses cards rather than painted models to represent your forces. This means a much lower price as well as easier transportation and setup, but don’t be fooled – this is not a “light” war game or a CCG. Battleground is a serious, award-winning wargame that will challenge you at every step, from army design and deployment to tactical maneuvers and command decisions until battle’s end.
YMG has some great stuff coming for this game including Kingdoms, a campaign set and a Monsters set. Both are due out soon. As you can see from the photo below, YMG is also working on a historical version of Battlegrounds that’ll be fully compatible with the fantasy game. So, if you want you can have Orcs invade Imperial Rome!
Flying Frog Games, another pretty young company is producing some interesting boardgames. Their first game, Last Night on Earth, was a big hit for them in 2007 – selling out almost immediately. The zombie-theme game seemed to strike a chord with gamers. The first run sold out and the game was incredibly hard to come by. We finally were able to stock the game for the first time only about two months ago! Flying Frog recently released an expansion called Growing Hunger.
Flying Frog is developing a new game, A Touch of Evil, set around 1800, this game allows each player to become a monster-hunting hero who competes with or cooperates with other players as they try to keep monsters such as a werewolf, a spectral horsemen, or a scarecrow, each with its minions, from the town. Sounds like it sure scare up some fun!
If you like your games big, then Sailpower is for you! The Sailpower crew (as we affectionately refer to them at Alley Cat) was on hand running games of their fun-scale combat game set in the Age of Sail. It looked like everyone involved was having a blast! We carry the Sailpower rules at Alley Cat, so be sure to check ‘em out next time you’re in and feeling nautical.
Alrighty, that’s enough for this update. Even though I am not attending Origins on Saturday, I’ve got more to post about tomorrow. So, be sure to check back for another Origins report.
REMINDER: Alley Cat is open on Saturday, regular hours: 10am – 10pm.
I’ll be at Origins again on Sunday morning for my last round of Mutant Chronicles demos. Come on out and check out this cool game from Fantasy Flight! FFG just announced today that they are retooling the game to make it a non-collectible game. No more blind boxes! Thanks, FFG!
