Kaijudo Review Part Two

As promised, this is the second part of my Kaijudo review. Today I will talk about how to play the game, and discuss the different aspects of the cards themselves. As before, please feel free to ask questions or make comments!

Kaijudo Review Part One

Kaijudo. You may have heard this word recently, and wondered exactly what it was. Perhaps you saw an episode on the HUB channel, or your children have asked you for the cards, or you listened to a commercial for it online. Or, just maybe, you're one of the many gamers who are eagerly awaiting an opportunity to prove your skills at one of our tournaments starting in September.

Regardless of which category you fit into, I'm sure that this review will help to answer some questions about this exciting new CCG from Wizards of the Coast. I'll divide it into two parts; Part One will detail all the current releases for Kaijudo, whereas Part Two will be about the gameplay, and card types.

Games Workshop New Paint Line

As many of you probably know by now, our friends at Games Workshop released their newest products, which contains 145 separate paints, making it one of the largest and most comprehensive paint lines on the gaming/hobby market today. These are hardly your "run of the mill" paints though...In fact they seem to not only be a higher quality than GW's previous paints, but are also created with a step-by-step painting process in mind. This makes them great for beginners and enthusiasts alike, especially considering their price hasn't changed at all!

Today, I'm going to show you every one of the different types of paints, a short description of the uses for the different groups AND a link to a nice conversion list for the old vs new colors they kept.

First up are the Bases. As you might expect, these 34 colors are made for base coating your miniatures. They contain a higher than normal amount of pigment, making the first layer a very nice solid color. As any painter knows, in addition to having a clean, smooth prime coat, one of the most important steps to painting your miniatures is to have a even and colorful base coat.

 

Next up, we have the Shades. There are 12 of these, and they are made for going over the base coats. Very similar to the previous Washes, they help to add detail and definition to the primary color, while also making a darker hue wherever you decide to apply it.
Beginners: remember to use sparingly until you get the hang of it, as this medium is made to pool into any spots or recesses that your miniature has.

Now comes the Layers, which are by far the most expansive of the line, and the core of what the other paints were designed around. Consisting of no fewer than 70 paints, these are different than either inks or washes as they are typically used for making very nice mid-tones and transitions. Although they overlay other colors, there is enough pigment that by watering them down slightly, they could be used directly onto your miniature.
Beginners: Due to the huge amount of color spectrum available as Layers, you shouldn't have to mix paints nearly as much as you previously had to.

The Dry paints are new to the line, never having been made before. There are 15 of these, and they are sure to help overcome any of your dry brushing problems. Using an entirely novel formulation, they are very thick (almost paste-like) in consistency. Thus, Dry paints will bond to your miniature's raised surface, making it much easier to create large-area highlights.

For the Glaze, Texture and Technical paints, I took a single picture, as there are fewer of them.
The 6 Texture paints (top) are essentially for basing your miniatures. No longer will you have to mix glue or sand into your paints, as these have both coarse and fine grit in them. They also dry very quickly, so you can add many colors if you so choose.
We now have 4 Glaze paints (right) which can be used for more even blending of colors, or adding that much more depth to a small area. They are extremely watery, but the color goes a long way.
Lastly, there are 4 Technical items (left). These are different than the others, in that they are used during miniature preparation or completion rather than during painting. Thus, they are not really "paints" per se, but are still part of the new line.
Beginners: After applying Texture to your bases, try using a light Dry coat to really bring out the detail. Careful use of the proper Glaze can help decrease the sharpness of highlights, and a good way to get rid of the gloss leftover from some Technical paints is to use a quick spray of Matte.

 

Now, the rumors of certain paints being re-used under different names is true. The chart for this can be found on page 128 of White Dwarf #387, which also has various painting techniques, upcoming miniatures, a look at the Citadel painting guide, and other cool articles and pictures.

But...if you don't have a hobby store near you and want to know the conversions, simply follow this link to the official GW chart;
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m2320032a_Citadel_Conversion_Chart

That's all for today, everyone. I am getting in some Reaper miniatures on Monday though, so I will try to do a follow-up post showing the various steps I followed for using these new paints. Be sure to check on Twitter and Facebook for new posts!

Lords of Waterdeep Boardgame

Well, it is finally here...the first Euro-style game made by Wizards of the Coast...Lords of Waterdeep! Journey back to the Forgotten Realms and try your hand at the game of intrigue, adventure and bribery as one of the many rulers of Waterdeep, the City of Splendors.

A new attempt at Euro-gaming, the Lords of Waterdeep is a beautifully made 2-5 player game.  According to the selling blurb, it is meant to be played in about 1 hour by players 12 yrs. and older, though I'm sure any child who has been introduced to the Forgotten Realms campaigns or novels would certainly be able to play. The fact that every game only takes 8 rounds should be able to keep every one's attention. Now, without further ado, let's see what's inside...

Upon first cracking the box, we first notice a folded board, many different colored tokens/markers, a rulebook, player mats and various cards. On the right side, we have buildings and 1GP coins.  On the left, 5GP coins, control markers, and various Victory Point tokens. Everything is well-packaged, but will take a while to sort! Quite luckily, you have me to do that for you...

While I'm punching everything out, let's take a look at the board. It represents all the Wards that you will need to build on and assign Agents to, and has spaces for Quest Cards, Buildings, the Intrigue Deck, and various Discard piles. The "stones" around the perimeter track player points, and the golden "track" near the bottom right marks the current round.

Alright, everything is set up now, so let's take a look...First, there are the player-specific Mats, one each for the groups controlling Waterdeep. These are (from left to right); City Guard, Harpers, Knights of the Shield, Silverstars and Red Sashes. Underneath each Mat, I've placed each of the relevant pieces. The meeple is an Agent, the circle is the Score Marker, the small token is the Building Control Marker and the large token is the specific Victory Point Counter. The amount of Agents each player has depends on the number of players per game.

In addition, there are two Neutral Agents; the Ambassador and the Lieutenant. They can only be added to your Agent Pool by use of certain effects. The Tower piece is given to the First Player, and events occur toward the left. There are also four types of Adventurers; Fighter/Orange, Wizard/Purple, Rogue/Black and Cleric/White. They are required to accomplish Quests, and form part of the Supply. The second part of the Supply is made up of Gold Pieces and Victory Points. Below are the fronts (top) and backs (bottom) of the 5GP, 1 GP and Victory Points.

And now...on to the cards. Below we have each of the Lords of Waterdeep. The bonuses listed for your chosen Lord are based on various combinations of Buildings, Piety, Commerce, Warfare, Arcana and Skullduggery. Choose carefully, as your Victory Point bonus could make or break the game for you!

Next, we have the Intrigue Cards, which include everything from "Call in a Favor" and "Assassination" to "Sample Wares" and "Research Agreement", and many others besides. By judicious use of these cards, you'll be able to both advance your agenda and foil those of your opponents...or will you?

Remember, not only do you have to watch out for the opposing Agents, but you must gain your own Victory Points and Gold by completing Quest Cards and the much-sought-after Plot Quests, which give other bonuses! Although you may perform one Quest per turn, beware of adversaries who play a Mandatory Quest on you. No other Quests can be completed until the Mandatory Quest has been fully accomplished. Don't let yourself be sucked into too much Intrigue!

Last, but definitely not least, and the Buildings. There are nine Basic Buildings, and 24 Advanced Buildings. All nine Basics are always available to assign Agents to, but the remaining 24 must be purchased during the game. Each Building has a bit of information on what effects it does, as well as where it is located in traditional Waterdeep. However, the purchaser is not limited by this "history" and can place an Advanced Building wherever she wants. Anywhere up to three Advanced Buildings are available for purchase, but there are only ten empty spaces, so buy carefully!

Having trouble keeping track of it all? Don't worry, the rulebook is a wonderfully simple 24 pages of game mastery. It contains full color pictures, photos of items, play sequences and even FOUR illustrated appendixes for the Lords, Clarifications, Agents and Buildings! Concerned about needing plastic bags or boxes to keep all the meeples and tokens in place? Fear not, as the WotC design crew have made not only the best compartments with which to hold their creation, but what is conceivably the most aesthetic as well. If I may be so bold, I would suggest this is a new step towards something trully fulfilling and sucessful for our friends at Wizards of the Coast!

-Stasi "Dengirl" King

Winner of the GAMA 2012 Outstanding Organized Play!

We of the Dragon's Den are pleased to announce that we are the proud owners of the 2012 GAMA Power Retailing Award for Outstanding Organized Play. Our events manager (Sean "Striderlotr" Banks) and buying manager (Stasi "Dengirl" King) were on hand to receive the reward. For those unable to attend, it was presented during the GAMA Trade Show Dinner on March 13th, at Bally's Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

The Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) is the non-profit trade organization dedicated to serving the tabletop game industry. The award reflects our success in organizing and running diverse and exciting events in the Poughkeepsie store. This is a national award given by members of the GAMA board, which includes game manufacturers, wholesalers, and other hobby and game store owners.

We are so proud of all our employees who pull together during each of our 1000+ yearly events. Whether it involves the actual running of the events, putting up player lists, the intricate planning of simultaneous compeitions, completing press releases, cleaning the play spaces or simply rearranging the tables and chairs, every employee has proved crucial in one way or another to our continued success. Of course, special thanks must go to Sean for running and planning the majority of events, and to Stasi for writing the winning essay!

Dragon's Den would also like to thank our numerous judges and volunteers who help us run our events (and obviously, they run them well!) Last, but most certainly not least, we would like to thank all of our players. Regular customers who come to our store during any of our events often remark at how kind and polite our player base is to onlookers. New players, be they young or old, are always welcomed into our community, and given every opportunity to learn. Women and men, 10 year olds or 80 year olds, newbies or old-time gamers...everyone of our players is counted individually for what they bring to the table, and as a part of a ever-expanding community. It is our players we thank the most, for being the community that we are confident every store wishes they had.

Thank you everyone for your support, and we hope to announce another award next year!

-Stasi "Dengirl" King

Staff at the Dragon's Den 2012

We have had many people stop in and ask... "So do you work here?"  I thought that maybe the staff shirts with our store logo would be a dead give away that we staff here in the store, but then again...

So here is current staff as of 2012.  We took this picture of the staff to use in the Power Retailer Awards for GAMA, and we never got to put it in.  So not to let a fun picture go to waste, I thought I would put it in our blog for everyone on the interweb... I mean the world wide network... maybe ever faceyspace... or twitterpages...

Playing Pieces

Front: Jessica, Amanda, Brittani (dndprincessaria), Stasi (dengirl)

Middle: Bob

Back: Alex, Sean (striderlotr), Scott (therageking), Stan, Rachel, Dave
Not in picture: Soyla

So if you stop in and are wondering who to talk to, well here is what each of the pieces to this great game can do:

Power Behind the Throne: Soyla, Webmaster

King: Dave, Regional Manager... knows some of everything in the store!
Queen: Sean, Store Manager... knows some of everything in the store!

Rook: Stasi, Purchasing Manager... does the purchasing for the store
Rook: Rachel, ebay/shipping

Knight: Bob, lead video game technician
Knight: Alex, video game technician

Bishop: Scott, Comic book manager
Bishop: Brittani, RPG maven

Pawn: Amanda, Cashier/Comics
Pawn: Jessica, Cashier/Retro Games
Pawn: Stan, Miniatures Minion

Sean "Striderlotr" Banks

GIZA The Great Pyramid

In this new 2-4 player game by Mayfair, you play as the leader of an Egyptian city. Pharaoh is concerned that his Great Pyramid will not be finished in time for his journey to the Underworld, and needs the help of his best cities in supplying additional labor. To win the Pharaoh's favor, you must send more laborers to complete the Great Pyramid than the other players!

When you first open the box, you will see the rulebook and the game board. The rulebook is 12 pages long, and is extremely detailed, perfect for those who have never played a board game. It includes information on Game Setup, Components, How To Play, Executing Turns, Scoring and Game End. It even has a very helpful scoring table for use during the game.

The board itself is a work of art. Not only is it beautifully done in neo-Egyptian artwork, but it is a  hard 1 piece fold-out.  In my experience, this eliminates people losing the separate board pieces or bumping into 1 half of it.

Underneath those are the Player Aid Screens (left side) and the tiles and tokens (right side). Each player gets 1 color-coded reversible screen, 3 Art Tokens for decorating the Pyramid (red), 8 Food Tokens to prevent Worker starvation(green) and either 8 or 10 Worker blocks, depending on whether your game is 2 or 4 player. There are also Sled Tiles (large yellow) and 50pt. Victory Markers (yellow/green/brown). Each of these are very important during game play, so I recommend getting a Ziploc to keep them in.

Lastly, there are the worker pieces and the plastic pyramid itself.  The small wooden blocks represent your Workers, and are color coded for up to 4 players, and coincide with the reversible Player Aid screens. There are 16 of each color, for a total of 64 Workers. However, there is also what is possibly the coolest part of this game: The Great Pyramid! Once your Workers have slid all the Pyramid pieces of 1 Tier into place, you use your Art Tokens to decorate that Tier. While everyone who bids Art Tokens toward the Pyramid win Victory Points, the player who bids the most will get more VPs. Once the Great Pyramid is completed, players will add up all VPs, and of course, the player with the most wins the game!

And there you have it, another awesome resource game from Mayfair. While this game is a bit more complicated than either Settlers of Catan or Steam, I like the fact that they are creating more challenges for their loyal players. Sean, Dave and I will be at Toyfair 2012 in NYC this Sunday and Monday, and I can hardly wait to see what new boardgames Mayfair has cooked up. Be sure to look for our Toyfair update on Tuesday when we return!

Stasi "Dengirl" King

Welcome Dark Ascension to the Dragon's Den

Today is the day before the Dark Ascension Prerelease for Magic, and people are already quite excited…none more so than certain coworkers of mine, who get to see and hold the new product ahead of everyone else!  For those of you not working in a hobby store, here’s a peek at the newest products from Wizards of the Coast.

Here you can see every Magic item we received today; Booster Packs, Intro Decks, and even our store’s new and improved Land Station. Fat Packs are only available for the Release, so that update will have to be next week.

Hopefully, since this new Land Station has an open top and can hold about 200 of each color Mana/Land, this will make it far easier for players to grab what they need. Previously, we used 500 ct. cardboard boxes.

The Booster Boxes are fairly standard, with there being 36 packs per box, and 15 cards per pack. The only difference seems to be that they have only chosen 3 illustrations for the boosters, whereas usually they have 4-5 separate cover illustrations.

There are, however, still 5 different Intro Decks. Each contains a 2-color 60 card deck, a foil card, a Dark Ascension booster, a learn-to-play guide, and a strategy insert that shows the deck-lists of all the Intro Decks. Below I have put the name of the Intro Deck, which 2 colors it has, and what the foil card is.

Dark Sacrifice has a foil "Fiend of the Shadows", and is a Black/White deck.

Monstrous Surprise is a Red/Green deck, and has a foil "Flayer of the Hatebound".

Grave Power contains a foil "Ghoultree" and is a Green/Blue deck.

The Relentless Dead deck is Blue/Black and it's foil is a "Havengul Runebinder".

Swift Justice is a White/Red deck, and has "Requiem Angel" as it's foil card.  

Now, I know what you're wondering; what about all the other great Dark Ascension themed products that I can actually buy this weekend? Don't worry, they're here too!

Once again, Ultrapro has created numerous items for those Magic players who love the illustrations from the new sets. Not only do we have an 80 pack of sleeves and vertical deck box for "Sorin, Lord of Innistrad"...

...but we also have the beauty from "Deadly Allure" gracing her own 80 ct. sleeves and horizontal deck box. Each of the deck boxes are $3.99 and the sleeves are $9.99.

As for playmats, we have 2 wonderfully illustrated ones available. Sorin graces one with his picture from the Prerelease cardboard standup...

...and here we see the mysterious woman from the "Fires of Undeath" card. Both are wrapped in a nice plastic hanger, and are $21.99.

That's pretty much it for now. Be sure to check back for our other posts on Saturday, when we tell you about how our Midnight Dark Ascension Prerelease event went. We're offering free soda and pizza, have lots of prizes to give away, and expecting over 140 players, so check our Twitter and Facebook accounts for hourly updates!

Stasi "Dengirl" King

Redakai: Conquer the Kairu

Want to get in on a new, fast-paced and 3D card game that's easy to learn, but challenging to master? Then look no further than Redakai!

It's a new card game (created by the same guys who gave us Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer) that involves harnessing the energy of Kairu to make amazing attacks with tremendously powerful monster transformations. Much like Yugioh and Pokemon before it, Redakai can also be watched on your local Cartoon Network channel in an animated series. 

As we've gotten many questions about the cards and how to read them, I thought it would be helpful to give a run-down of how to decipher the various card types.

In Redakai, there are 3 main card types; Character, Monster and Attacks, shown below in order.

Character Cards: Has the name and version of the character in the bronze section at the top. The 3 gold bars are your character's Damage Zones. Think of these as your "Health" bars. There are also 3 different zones on the left side of the card, which will be red, green, blue or blank. These Defense Zones determines the type of damage your character can take. Along the bottom of each card is your character's Special Ability. The ability can only be used if not covered by another card's ability.

Each player starts the game as a Character, with the same amount of energy (Kairu).

Monster Cards: These have most of the same information as Character Cards, including Name, Version, Defense, Special Ability and Health bars. The one core difference is that the amount of Kairu required to summon the monster is shown in the upper left corner. Also, some Monsters, like the one on the right, have the power to give Health bars back. These will go over your Character Card when summoned, and give you a different Special Ability. Don't worry about the other 3 symbols in the Special Ability bar, they aren't needed for gameplay.

Attack Cards: While they do contain some of the same information found on Monsters and Characters, the Attack Cards have very important differences in gameplay. The upper left corner still has the amount of Kairu needed for play, but the name has the attack's Color rather than Version. The attack may have a Special Ability like Characters or Monsters, but it will also have the Attack Power. When using this, simply compare the Attack Power of the Attack Card with the corresponding Defense Zone of the Character Card. If the Damage Zone number is blank or lower, it automatically hits. Also, if the artwork of the Attack Card covers up the Defense Zone or Special Ability, like in the middle Attack Card shown, that section is now considered blank.

And there you have it; your comprehensive guide to the 3 cards of Redakai!

Stasi "Dengirl" King 

New Wizkids & Pathfinder Miniatures

It is official: the new miniatures for the Pathfinder RPG are out, and they are awesome.
The rumors of a new line of plastic miniatures were well-known before Gen Con 2011, and we were treated to a view of 6 preview minis when a coworker & myself stopped by the Wizkids booth. While they were fairly good looking, I was dubious that the entire line would be treated the same.

Needless to say, I had nothing to fear.  As I found when the cases of product showed up on Jan. 11th, ALL the miniatures are great, and the product is packaged quite nicely, both as a counter top display or for the serious collector.

An entire display has 19 boosters in it; 16 small boosters and 3 large boosters.  The MSRP for the large are $5.99 and the smalls are $3.99.  Each booster, regardless of size has one figure in it, unless you count the goblins. As they are easily the smallest minis in the set, there are 2 goblins per booster.

We opened up 3 displays for the store, and got 31 of the 40 miniatures in the set, with only a few being duplicates. (Not that we minded, as they all went in our 8 ft. long glass minis case for sale!) If you're curious, here's the ones we pulled along with their names underneath each picture.

Half-Elf Cleric, Orc Brute, Orc Warrior, Skeleton

Elf Wizard, Medusa, Lizardfolk Champion, Dwarf Fighter 

Half-Orc Barbarian, Seelah-Human Paladin, Human Ranger, Zombie

Lich, Vampire, Human Druid, Venomous Snake

Mummy, Werewolf, Giant Spider, Human Rogue

Gargoyle, Troll, Wolf

Giant Caveweaver Spider, Minotaur

Ettin, Chimera

Goblin Warrior 1, Goblin Hero 2, Goblin Hero 1, Goblin Warrior 2

And, of course, what would any set be without the limited edition collector's piece? 

In this case, that means the ultra-desirable Huge Black Dragon, (only available to retailers who bought 4 displays!) which is conveniently labelled as "Promo 1" on the bottom of the base.  Hopefully this will mean they'll continue to put out more sets, and more promos!

Personally, I think these miniatures are one of the best ideas that Wizkids/Pathfinder could've had.  With the loss of D&D miniatures (both as a product AND game), it is quite refreshing to see a company recognize that;

A) players want minis to represent their characters/enemies and

B) that all RPGers are, in essence, like addicted magpies with ADHD when it comes to collecting needless bits of colorful plastic.

Ok, reason B might be just me...

But seriously, I truly like this set, and the fact that it has only 40 minis as opposed to the 60 that Wizards formerly put out means it is that much easier to complete your collection.  In a way, this is a plus for DMs too: If you desperately need wolves, goblins and zombies, you have a great chance of pulling what you need.  Also, the bottom of each base has not only the name but also the number of the mini you're currently holding, printed in bright white paint. D&D minis essentially had the same, but theirs wasn't as easy to read as it was simply stamped on.

Would I have picked some other minis to make for the first set? Yes.

Do I want to see more of the unique characters from the books made next time? Certainly.

Will I still buy the last dribble of D&D minis boosters from my job? Of course!

But am I now also hopelessly addicted to these new minis, and will I tell all my role-playing customers to buy them? 

Do you even have to ask?

Stasi "Dengirl" King