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Fantasy Flight Games Catalog, Spring 2004 · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:00
  Welcome to Pick Up and Deliver, the podcast where I pick up my audio recorder as I step
• 0:07
  out for a walk and deliver an episode to you while I stroll around.
• 0:10
  I'm Brendan Riley.
• 0:12
  Well, good morning listeners.
• 0:22
  It's a lovely day here in suburban Chicago.
• 0:24
  The sky is partly cloudy.
• 0:26
  The temperature is in the low fifties, not too breezy.
• 0:30
  Plenty of birds out chirping today.
• 0:31
  I'll call out if I spot any specifics other than house sparrows, which is the usual and
• 0:36
  robins, some robins there.
• 0:39
  And it seemed like a nice day for a walk.
• 0:41
  It's the last day of my spring break, so I thought I would get out and record a couple episodes
• 0:45
  and have some fun.
• 0:46
  You'll probably hear these episodes late next week if my schedule holds.
• 0:50
  Well, today's idea came from Rob.
• 0:52
  I think for your suggestion, Rob, and the donation at our material.
• 0:57
  So Rob, I was at Rob's last week for, or this week, for some gaming and we busted out a game
• 1:03
  that he had found at Goodwill called Minotaur Lords.
• 1:06
  This is a game by Reiner Knizia and it was published in 2004, or at least the copy he
• 1:14
  bought was.
• 1:15
  It was brand new in-string and we tried it out.
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  It was a battle line style game.
• 1:23
  I'll talk about it more in a board game espresso episode.
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  But the important thing is we opened it, it was new in-string, we opened it.
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  Inside was the Fantasy Flight Games Spring Catalog from 2004.
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  And I looked through it and it was interesting to see what games were in there and I thought
• 1:39
  I would talk about the games that are in the Spring 2004 Fantasy Flight Games Catalog
• 1:46
  and talk about the, I don't know what they mean for the future of the game industry.
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  Now part of it is I can't always tell whether the games are new or published already, some
• 1:57
  of them it'll say.
• 1:58
  So I think most of these are games that are coming for fall.
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  It's a summer update version on the front coming August.
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  So this might be games that are coming out in August, in which case, whoa, Fantasy Flight
• 2:12
  was producing a ton of games back then.
• 2:15
  I can't tell which games are already part of the catalog or which ones are new.
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  I'll narrate that as I go along.
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  I looked through this once but I haven't prepped the episode really, so I'm going to be going
• 2:22
  through page by page and talking about what I see.
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  If you're interested in seeing the catalog itself, I will put a scan of it in the show notes
• 2:30
  as a pdf.
• 2:31
  All right, let's jump into it.
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  So like I said, it's Fantasy Flight Games Spring Catalog 2004.
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  On the cover it says, "War of the Ring" based on the Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R.
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  Tolkien. It's a picture of somebody on a white horse attacking somebody on a black dragon.
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  So I presume it's the King of Gondor attacking one of the Nazgol lords maybe up at the top
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  in small letters that says summer update version.
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  So I presume this is the spring catalog but updated for summer.
• 3:02
  I'm not sure why it wouldn't be the summer catalog then, but there it is.
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  So let's jump right in.
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  All right, the top it says new.
• 3:09
  So these are new games. We have Blue Moon, which is a new Reiner Knizia game.
• 3:14
  The Blue Moon base game and two expansions seem to already be out and what they're advertising
• 3:19
  is two new expansions, the kind and terror expansion.
• 3:25
  Now Blue Moon is a famous Reiner Knizia game that has gotten a lot of love.
• 3:30
  I'm aware of it, I believe, because Zee Garcia of the Dice Tower, back when I used to watch
• 3:36
  them regularly, would often mention Blue Moon as a game he enjoys.
• 3:40
  I believe that one of the guys from so very wrong about board games also really likes Blue Moon.
• 3:47
  Although I feel like Blue Moon City is the game that they play or Blue Moon Legends if there's
• 3:51
  an updated version maybe.
• 3:53
  Since this is 2004, this would have been the original one.
• 3:56
  It is a faction battling game, I believe.
• 3:59
  I don't know much more about it than that.
• 4:02
  Of course, this is part of a long-running experience of Reiner Knizia making games that
• 4:08
  stand the test of time, that have a variety of different ways of interacting and end up
• 4:13
  being pretty good.
• 4:16
  The art on it is sort of weird, weird celestial beings, I think.
• 4:20
  Yeah, and it says you have a deck that you're fighting for dominance with.
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  Again, this isn't a new game, apparently.
• 4:26
  These are two new expansions for a game.
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  But it's interesting to see that they were already, they were doing expansions in 2004,
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  which again, I wasn't really in the board game hobby in 2004.
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  I maybe had a couple hobby games, I maybe had Munchkin, I think I had Stevenson's rocket
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  by then.
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  But generally, I didn't have a lot in the way of hobby board games.
• 4:49
  Yeah, interesting stuff.
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  So that's Blue Moon.
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  Second page, War of the Ring, new based on the Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkein.
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  So this is War of the Ring.
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  I know War of the Ring is a lot of people's sort of favorite game.
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  I think War of the Ring second edition is really the home run.
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  And I don't think that's published by Fantasy Flight.
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  I think that's a different publisher.
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  So I don't know if Fantasy Flight didn't have a lot of success with this and they let it
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  go.
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  But yeah, it looks like it came out in 2004.
• 5:17
  It looks like a fun box.
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  Epic Battles, 215 figures says.
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  And it looks like it's a lot of fun.
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  So interesting to see, again, Fantasy Flight, two games in a row that still get talked
• 5:29
  about.
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  I've heard of, right?
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  Neither of these games are games that have gone completely un-missed by me.
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  Despite the fact that I really wouldn't be aware of Fantasy Flight for at least a decade
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  after this.
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  All right, moving on.
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  Third page, Warcraft Board Game.
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  So it says like the original Warcraft Game is available for $40.
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  Oh, I should tell you prices because that's funny.
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  Blue Moon Base Game is 25.
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  Each expansion is 10 bucks.
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  War of the Ring, Base Game is 60 bucks.
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  So I'm rounding up.
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  It is 59.95.
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  But whatever.
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  Warcraft to the board game, 40 bucks.
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  And the new expansion coming in August is Warcraft Expansion for 35.
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  So you could be all in on the Warcraft Board Game for $75.
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  That's a good investment.
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  I think that game is worth quite a bit on the second hand market now.
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  This would be the first one that I don't really care about.
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  And I'm only aware of because it is well thought of in terms of the second hand market.
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  This one no longer says new.
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  So I think we are seeing now we're seeing expansions and other things, but we're still in the new
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  section.
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  The next one is the George R. Martin's Game of Thrones, The Board Game.
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  This is the original edition, which has John Snow on a horse on the cover rather than
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  the sort of castle, which is the current version you would buy, which is the second edition.
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  And this is the advertisement for the game, which costs $40, $50.
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  But then also for $35, you can get the Way of Kings expansion or Clash of Kings expansion,
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  which I believe or Rob said is now part of the base game.
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  If you buy the Game of Thrones game now, it comes with that expansion built in already.
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  So again, I guess of the four, three of these are to me still making waves.
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  Blue Moon still gets talked about some, it did get an expansion.
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  Warcraft is the only one that sort of died out.
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  Game of Thrones, The Board Game, got a second edition and still gets played and talked about a fair amount.
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  Next up, we have a couple collectible card games, of course, Fantasy Flight was doing this
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  for a long time.
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  This would have been just before they started doing living card games, actually probably a decade
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  before they started doing living card games.
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  I guess 2012 was when they started doing that.
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  But these are collectible card games.
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  We got Game of Thrones, collectible card game, and Call of Cthulhu, collectible card game.
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  Both of these are games that get a lot of interesting talk.
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  I think Call of Cthulhu is a cooperative game.
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  We're working together to fight the other horrors.
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  As far as I know, it is not related in form to Arkham Horror of the card game, although
• 8:00
  certainly related in theme and in market space.
• 8:03
  There really wouldn't be room for them to be doing two of those.
• 8:07
  Interesting that they decided to move to the Arkham Horror card game, which, of course,
• 8:11
  Arkham Horror is a Fantasy Flight property.
• 8:14
  Call of Cthulhu is, I believe, Tellursian Games RPG.
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  And so there, it's a registered trademark of somebody else, so they're paying a fee to
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  run that.
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  It doesn't surprise me that they would retire it and go with their own Cthulhu mythos game.
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  Game of Thrones, of course, went into a second edition, and that's the card game that I've
• 8:32
  played, and that one is the living card game.
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  I haven't played this original collectible card game version.
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  The board makes it look like it's a two-player game rather than a multiplayer, three, four-player
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  game.
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  So, I haven't gotten a chance to try that.
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  Looks pretty fun.
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  But, of course, neither of those are still around.
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  I would say, next up is Runebound.
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  Runebound is a sort of board game adventure where you have a deck, you have a board, and you're
• 8:59
  running around a fantasy land, and you're fighting different challenges in Caves and stuff.
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  I know this because I played Runebound's second edition.
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  I got it in a trade.
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  We played it one time, and I traded it along.
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  In part because the art was really over the top in terms of Chainmail Bikinis.
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  Of scantily clad women for no reason, and frankly kind of embarrassing to play.
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  The game play itself was okay, but I feel like it's the kind of game where you have to have
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  played it a few times to really understand and do well with it, and we weren't interested
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  in playing again after playing the first time.
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  So Runebound's second edition did not stick for us.
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  Runebound first edition, I don't know whether it had those issues or not.
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  Well, I do see at least one two scantily clad women in the art depicted on this page.
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  It looks like what we're seeing is the expansion, an expansion for Runebound that was due in
• 9:52
  October of 2024.
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  So Runebound I think does land in this category of kind of sandbox adventure games in the fantasy
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  space, which of course you could see thematically maintained and grew.
• 10:07
  Descent would be fantasy flight's follow up to that.
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  We also have gloomhaven and a variety of other games that follow in the footsteps of Runebound.
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  I would say the big thing that Runebound does that a lot of these other games don't is
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  it sticks to a map.
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  And so the encounters are on cards and such, but the gameplay itself is not in the dungeon
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  it's on a map.
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  So you know, we see that method in play in Eldritch horror.
• 10:37
  We see that method in play in Mage Knight, but I would say that method is not as common.
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  Now gloomhaven does have an overland map, but you don't play on it.
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  It is in service to the dungeons.
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  Well that brings me to the end of the summer update part of the pamphlet.
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  So now I'm into the part that's specifically labeled spring catalog 2004.
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  And it's got several different colors that I'm not clear on.
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  And I think here you can point to like a distinct downplay in what it is we're looking at in terms
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  of longevity.
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  For example, we have the Fire Within a D20 role playing game called Fireborn.
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  Fireborn is the name of it.
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  You can get the players handbook for 30 bucks, the Game Master's Handbook for 30 bucks.
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  I've never heard of that so I didn't last.
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  Oh, this must be the RPG section.
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  We have Midnight, a world where evil rules and darkness has fallen across the land.
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  We have a whole bunch of different books.
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  There's already a bunch of source books and they're bringing out three, four new source
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  books in June, July and August for the game.
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  We have Dawnforge Crucible of a Legend.
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  This would be another RPG system, which it looks like the mecha-morphicist source book is
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  available in June, but there are already several source books available.
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  Looks like Horizon, New Playing Frontiers is the company.
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  So maybe Fantasy Flight is partnering with them, sort of co-publishing situation.
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  So that was the green section, which it must have been RPGs.
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  And now we get into the blue section, which seems to just be Lord of the Rings related
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  material.
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  We have the Lord of the Rings board game.
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  We have the Friends and Foes expansion.
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  We have the Sauron expansion.
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  We have the Lord of the Rings trivia game.
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  Lord of the Rings confrontation, which is the one that you really wish you had bought
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  for $20.
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  Because that one is very well regarded.
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  And I played it once.
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  It was great.
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  And it's not widely available now.
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  Although I feel like they're bringing it back.
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  Like they just republished it or there's talk of republishing it.
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  So if that's something you're interested in, I have heard good things.
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  I did enjoy it when I played it.
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  It's maybe worth looking out for.
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  Then they have the Lord of the Hobbit, the board game as well.
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  None of these are marked newest.
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  I presume all of these are just available in the Fantasy Flight catalog and things that
• 12:51
  you could buy and play if you so desired.
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  And we have an orange section where it's just Dragon Shield.
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  They have boxes of card sleeves, card game box and card coffins by Cheese Weasel Logistics.
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  If you wanted a card coffin, you could get one of them.
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  And then they have a bunch of other stuff that looks like smaller releases.
• 13:13
  But some of them are new.
• 13:14
  We have Colossal Arena, Reiner Knizia's Colossal Arena.
• 13:17
  This game was republished.
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  Oh, it's a reprint of Titan Arena, which was an Avalon Hill game.
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  So that's maybe not what I'm thinking of when I think of Colossal.
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  There's Minotaur Lords, which is marked as new, Senator, which is marked as new, and
• 13:32
  Frenzy, which is marked as new.
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  Those are all games available to buy soon.
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  A lot of them are marked in July.
• 13:41
  We have Wreckage, a tabletop game, which seems to be some sort of, I don't know, car battling
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  game.
• 13:48
  We have Citadel's Mutiny, Acclamation point, Mag Blast, Second Edition.
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  All of these are not marked new.
• 13:55
  So these are things that you could get in their catalog, but they are not new.
• 13:59
  We have Ink Inc. Agnido, Kingsgate Arena Maximus, Magdar, Quick Sand, Kingdoms.
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  That's a Runner Knizia game, which I think has been republished recently.
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  Locoh, Atlantean, Maginor, Maelstrom, and Orgza Borgame.
• 14:20
  It says, "Visit our website, fantasyflightgames.com."
• 14:22
  Then they have a little ad for Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition September.
• 14:27
  Huh.
• 14:28
  Well, what a weird place to have an ad for that, maybe it's going to be in their fall catalog.
• 14:32
  So that is the entirety of the catalog I've narrated for you.
• 14:37
  So some thoughts.
• 14:38
  I mean, one thing that really speaks to me there is, man, I'm really sad that Fantasy
• 14:42
  Flight Games has so changed its footprint in the landscape.
• 14:47
  I feel like these days really what you see from Fantasy Flight Games are their established
• 14:51
  titles.
• 14:52
  You have the Arkham Files line.
• 14:54
  You have the occasional Star Wars game that they're bringing out.
• 14:57
  You have, um, I'm having trouble thinking of other things that they do regularly.
• 15:02
  They have a couple of card games that they've been doing, but I don't know how much they're
• 15:06
  supporting them anymore.
• 15:07
  They used to have some role-playing games, but I think those got spun off.
• 15:10
  I guess they still print Twilight Imperium, and there might be a couple other things.
• 15:15
  But generally, the company has really scaled back.
• 15:18
  And part, you know, it was sold.
• 15:20
  And I think in the sale, we've seen a change in the publishing model.
• 15:25
  I think that a lot of the games that used to be part of the platform have been spun off.
• 15:30
  All the miniatures games were spun off.
• 15:32
  The role-playing games I think either have been discontinued or spun off.
• 15:36
  So I'm not sure what the current future for Fantasy Flight Games is, but, uh, I am
• 15:45
  sad for what it used to be.
• 15:46
  It used to be a pretty vibrant company that did some original properties.
• 15:51
  They did some license stuff, and they turned out a lot of cool games, and now it feels like
• 15:57
  they don't do much of that original stuff anymore.
• 16:00
  But for a long time, Fantasy Flight was top of the pops, as the British would say.
• 16:05
  I don't think they would, but it's a phrase from Britain.
• 16:07
  I do like the model of the catalog.
• 16:10
  Of course, the catalog insert depends on a game company having a robust catalog.
• 16:15
  So somebody, a company is like Renegade or AEG or Days of Wonder or companies that have
• 16:21
  a robust catalog, absolutely.
• 16:23
  But I think the board game market has more and more switched to these titles where games
• 16:26
  are basically available when they're printed for a short time, and then maybe they'll get
• 16:30
  reprinted.
• 16:31
  Game companies really don't want to sit on large stocks of things that have been printed
• 16:36
  already.
• 16:37
  So I think that the model of having a huge inventory available has reduced somewhat, and
• 16:45
  maybe that's one of the reasons we don't see the catalog thing anymore.
• 16:49
  It's also just people don't communicate via print as much anymore.
• 16:53
  And it caused money to put a thing in there.
• 16:55
  This probably cost 50 cents to print, and in the time when the advertising channels were
• 17:01
  much reduced, the competition in the board game space was much reduced, maybe this made
• 17:05
  sense.
• 17:06
  I don't know how much people are doing that anymore.
• 17:07
  But I guess I'll know next time I buy, sometime soon we're going to have the next chapter
• 17:11
  of the Arkham Horror card game will be coming out, and when I buy that, I'll find out,
• 17:16
  is this still available?
• 17:17
  Do they still have a catalog in?
• 17:19
  I will let you know at that point.
• 17:20
  Well that's about it for me today.
• 17:22
  Thanks for joining me on this journey through Spring of 2004.
• 17:25
  I hope you enjoyed it.
• 17:27
  I look forward to talking to you again.
• 17:28
  What games from Spring of 2004 did stand out the most for you?
• 17:33
  What fantasy flight games stand out the most for you?
• 17:35
  You can share those over on board game geek guild 3269.
• 17:38
  I'd love to hear it there.
• 17:40
  In the meantime, I hope that your next walk is as pleasant as mine will be.
• 17:44
  Bye-bye.
• 17:45
  [MUSIC]
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  [MUSIC]
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  [BLANK_AUDIO]