When We Last Left Our Heroes...

Well, we tried something new here with a 2-player-focused week. we hope you enjoyed it; we had a lot of fun  making our lists of favorite games. Here's what you might have missed...We reviewed Reiner Knizia's brilliant Battle Line.

Jeremiah continued the Dead CCG series with a piece on Star Trek The Customizable Card Game.

We told you all about one of the great Spouse Games: Lost Cities.

Jeremiah shared his Top 5 games for 2 players.

And finally—because I couldn't decide on only 5—I told you my Top 10 games for 2 players.

We hope you're enjoying the blog, and have a great weekend. Thanks for reading!

New Details About the New Resistance

The specifics are trickling out about the expansion, or sequel, or prequel, or...WHATEVER to one of our favorite games: The Resistance. According to a thread on Boardgamegeek, this will be a standalone game, and set in Arthurian England. The description says: Arthur represents the future of Britain, a promise of prosperity and honor, yet hidden among his brave warriors are Mordred's unscrupulous minions. These forces of evil are few in number but have knowledge of each other and remain hidden from all but one of Arthur's servants. Merlin alone knows the agents of evil, but he must speak of this only in riddles. If his true identity is discovered, all will be lost.

That line about Merlin needing to speak in riddles sounds tantalizing. Some people thought it was just a simple retheme, or "Werewolf with missions," but someone who's playtested it says it's not really like Werewolf at all—no player elimination, for instance. That is a very good thing, because the lack of player elimination is one of my favorite things about The Resistance.

Finally, we've got this superb quote from Rich Sommers—who plays Harry Crane on the TV show Mad Men, and is an avid gamer: "Got in five plays of this last week, and I can confirm: It is not a Werewolf clone. It is more like The Resistance: Enhanced.

And it is GREAT."

We can't wait to give it a whirl! Thanks for reading!

Dominion gets a 7th expansion...

Rio Grande has released info about a 7th addition to the Dominion franchise: Dark Ages. The expansion will include 500 cards, including 35 new Kingdom cards and a few replacements for estates and such. They're touting a couple new baddies to give to your opponents and a few cards that are only acquired by specific other cards. You can see the official Rio Grande description here. And for some nifty card previews from the game designer himself, click here. It looks like Rio Grande and designer Donald X. Vaccarino are doing their best to keep the Dominion franchise alive and relevant—and quite honestly, that's okay with us.

Are you looking forward to another installment of Dominion? What are your favorite expansions? Leave it here! And thanks for reading!

Netrunner is almost here!

One of our most-anticipated games is the upcoming reboot of Netrunner—a classic CCG by Richard Garfield, the designer behind Magic: The Gathering. What made Netrunner so great was that each side was distinct: the Corporation was trying to keep their secrets, and the Runner was trying to "liberate" them. The sides felt and played differently. It's been out of print for a while now, but Fantasy Flight is bringing it back in a Living Card Game format--the same one used for Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. That means they'll be coming out with regular packs of cards, and each pack will have the same cards. No more buying pack after pack in hopes of getting a sweet card to add to your deck.

They're going to release it at GenCon, and they posted a PDF of the rules today.

Anyone excited about this besides us? Anyone play the old game back in the 90s?

To Be Continued...

We've had a great first month of blogetty blogging here at TOG, and we wanted to take a second and say thanks to all of you who have read, shared, liked, retweeted, and commented on our posts here on the blog, as well as our other social media outlets! We sincerely appreciate it, and humbly ask for your continued support! We also thought we'd take a few seconds and give you a sneak peek at what we've got planned for month 2!

So here we go!

We've received a handful of review copies for some games, and we'll be reviewing those soon!

Walls of Light

Glory to Rome

and soon Zombie in my Pocket!

We'll also be reviewing some classics and new games:

Fluxx

Bang!

Mage Knight and more!

And look for our interview with Heartland Hauling Company's designer Jason Kotarski!

All that plus more news, deep thoughts and we'll talk more about our favorite dead CCGs too!

Thanks again for all your support! See you next week!

When We Last Left Our Heroes...

Well, it's been a busy week here at TOG, lot's of exciting things happening in the gaming world as Gen-Con draws nearer. Here's a quick look at what we've been up to this week! Thanks so much for reading, and supporting our little blog, we greatly appreciate every one of you! We took a look at Wil Wheaton's Tabletop, a fun little YouTube series!

Don't Panic! It's just a board game! Here's our review of Castle Panic!

A fun looking game gets kickstarted: Heartland Hauling is hauling it in!

Fantasy Flight continues to expand X-Wing!

Step Right Up!! Carnival the dice and card game from Dice Hate Me, get's reviewed!

And, don't forget you can still enter to win a copy of "What's it to Ya?" Check that out right here!

Thanks again everyone and we'll see you next week!

More X-Wing News!

So, we're pretty big Star Wars geeks when it gets right down to it. And we're excited to see more news about the upcoming release of X-Wing. Fantasy Flight rolled out some more info on their upcoming X-Wing miniatures game this week, this time they gave us some info on the first expansion for the title. I'd say it's more of an add-on than an expansion. It features one T-65 X-Wing. It also has some ship cards, two new pilots (including the ever-so-skilled Wedge Antilles) and a few other customizable features. The ships themselves look fantastic and the buzz is pretty good surrounding this game. Although there's no word on when this single-fighter expansion will release, my guess is they'll be getting them to market pretty quickly to capitalize on the release-date fever.

If you're heading to GenCon to play X-Wing, be sure to check back here and let us know what you thought of it!

Thanks for reading! You can see Fantasy Flight's full post here.

Keep On Truckin'! [Kickstarter Project]

This is really exciting news! A friend of mine  (Firestone) named Jason Kotarski—a former youth pastor and current associate pastor at a church in Michigan—just had his first game design go live on Kickstarter! I helped him proofread the rules early in the design process, when he was still looking to shop it to publishers, and I thought it sounded like a really fun and unique game. Well, he suckered convinced Dice Hate Me Games to take a chance on him, and as I'm typing this he's over 10% of the way there after only one day.So consider heading over to the Kickstarter page and helping Jason out on one of his dreams.

Board Games Get a Geeky Apologist

Wil Wheaton has maintained his Geek cred, despite years of being everyone's favorite whipping boy from Star Trek: The Next Generation. From guest spots on The Big Bang Theory to celebrity roleplaying panels at gaming conventions, he wears his Geek Badge with pride. Well now he's bringing boardgames out of the darkness into...well, slightly less darkness. Geek & Sundry is a series of YouTube videos designed to increase the amount of unique content on the site. There are numerous "channels"—including one on fantasy and science fiction books, and one on various Dark Horse comics. Wil's hosting one called Tabletop that deals with board gaming. He and a few of his friends get together and play a game. They introduce the rules gradually and visually, and you get to see a whole game played through. The production is slick, and they skip over some of the slower parts. Depending on the guest, sometimes the banter can get off-color. But we applaud his effort to make our geeky hobby just a little more mainstream. You can check out the episode where they play Small World—with Mythbuster's Grant Imahara—here. Or the Castle Panic episode here. (Caution: language.)

Stay tuned tomorrow for our own review of Castle Panic. See you then, and thanks for reading!

Alcatraz Pre-Order from Z-Man Games

If you're quick, witty, and underhanded enough you can escape from Alcatraz, you can also pre-order the new board game from Z-Man Games. The game releases at Gen-Con next month and they're only taking pre-orders until tomorrow (Fri, July 28). Alcatraz - looks like another game in the vein of Battlestar Galactica or The Resistance, only this time players are cooperatively planning a prison break from the Rock. Only to find out one of them is going to get left behind in order for the plans to succeed! I just read up on the game this morning and it has me pretty geeked out right now. And the best news: There's no hint of Nicolas Cage, anywhere.

I would, however, suggest playing it with close friends who will be willing to patch things up after you punched them in the nose for stabbing you in the back. Or, I'd suggest you remember it's only a game!

Sadly, neither of us here at TOG have plans to attend Gen-Con, which is tragic news for us. But we'll be working to get our hands on this one as soon as possible!

If you're going, and you get a chance to play this, please let us know how you liked it—leave your comments here! What other games are you looking forward to playing at the Con?