Cards & Boards

It’s been a good year for gamers.

By CHEE YIH YANG

alltherage@thestar.com.my

SINCE this is the season to look back and reflect, here are some of my thoughts on the gaming scene over the past year.

TCGs chugging along

Major TCG (trading card game) titles continued to enjoy another good and productive year. Magic: The Gathering marched on relentlessly with a steady clip of excellently-designed products, led by the debut of the new Return To Ravnica block.

The new Ravnica block was wicked in concept and design, as it played heavily on the themes and card concepts that were so hugely successful when the first block rolled out back in 2005. Many modern tournament mavens would have been delighted by the reprinted “shocklands”, and the exciting new decks the set has introduced.

Wizards Of The Coast continues to crank out a bunch of entry and professional-level products. With new two-player and special format sets, starting or introducing anyone to Magic has become easier than ever.

Meanwhile, World Of Warcraft – that other popular TCG – also continued its solid run with a bunch of new expansions. Many fans would no doubt have been excited by sets such as War of the Ancients, which gives them a chance to play iconic Warcraft universe characters like Arthas, Illidan Stormrage and even the Lich King himself.

The game also got a boost with a new “base” in the Klang Valley – Classroom Café in Subang Jaya, Selangor. The budding WoW TCG community looks to have scored a strong start, showing everyone that Magic does not have a monopoly on the TCG here market here.

The other games

Living card games, or LCGs, (a term trademarked by Fantasy Flight Games, or FFG in short) and deck-building games (DBGs) continued to make its mark, with a slew of new licensed titles proving rather popular.

FFG continued to support its impressive array of LCGs, adding Android Netrunner to its line-up of A Game Of Thrones and Warhammer Invasion games. Based on the mid-1990s Netrunner Trading Card Game (which itself was designed by Richard Garfield, creator of Magic: The Gathering), Android uses a similar distribution system as FFG’s previous LCGs, with a Core Set supplemented by monthly Data Pack mini-expansions.

In terms of deck-building games, there were supposed to be Upper Deck’s Legendary Marvel, but it looks to have been delayed until 2013. Online reviews have been promising – I’ll definitely write about this in a future issue or blog post!

All in all, LCGs and DBGs continue to provide an easier alternative to TCGs, though I don’t think LCGs or DBGs can be considered cheaper. LCGs, for instance, can be more expensive given that supplementary sets come out as often as once a month. But their advantage would be the ease in deck-building options. TCGs are notorious time sinks, while LCGs make it a lot easier for us casual gamers.

As far as LCGs go, I think the most exciting FFG title has to be the much-delayed and hugely-anticipated Star Wars Card Game. Originally slated for an early or mid-2012 release, FFG announced a “redesign” back in February, shifting its release to late 2012. Latest news is that the game is making a Christmas 2012 shipping date, making it available worldwide by next January.

Playing and collecting

Since we’re talking about Fantasy Flight Games, the company will also be shipping a Star Wars role-playing game soon, the X-Wing Miniatures Game.

The miniatures game is an interesting concept, as it combines pre-painted miniatures with exciting gameplay.

The reception to it has been fairly positive, as the quality of miniatures have impressed even the “traditionalists”, the hardcore tabletop miniature gamers.

This interesting concept seems to have a rather unique market, as it attracts Star Wars fans, toy collectors as well as gamers.

It has had a seemingly strong start in Malaysia, though it would be interesting to see how much FFG wants to drive this on – the first expansion set has been delayed by almost an entire quarter.

In Malaysia, with gaming products often priced at a premium, I’m actually curious to see if the X-Wing game will entice people to stop playing their other games in order to focus on it.

Only time will tell, and something tells me we’ve barely even scratched the surface here!

Got any hot gaming tips, news or updates for the writer? Email him at yihyang@gmail.com.

You can also check out blog.rage.com.my and follow him on Twitter (@arcturus_mengsk).

October is my favourite month because that’s when I try to cover as much Halloween gaming as possible. After all, Oct 31 only happens once a year, and what better way to celebrate it by playing a bunch of good horror-themed games?

This year’s Halloween-themed picks were not too hard to piece together, as a number of gaming companies seem intent to ride on the horror theme quite early.

Magic gets gothic

Wizards Of The Coast’s Magic: The Gathering (MTG) trading card game (TCG) just gets bigger and better. And it looks set to be even cooler with a direct tie-in to the hallowed season, with the horror-themed Innistrad.

It has werewolves, vampires, zombies, geists (that’s German for ghosts) and, of course, plenty of human types that would like to keep them away, or dead and buried!

We’re talking about clerics and other holy types that would serve as the typical counterfoils to the evil kind.

That’s right; every single one of the 264 cards in the set is linked to horror. Some even reference pop culture’s most famous horror icons – see if you can spot all of them!

For the first time in Magic’s 18-year history, it features double-sided cards. In order to flesh out the “day” and “night” themes better, the set designers decided to feature “transformations” once certain conditions were fulfilled.

It’s a fine way for Human cards to become Werewolves for instance. They’re simply awesome!

Seasoned MTG fans will definitely go all out to pick up 15-card booster packs, while the less experienced may want to get an Intro Pack or two.

Each Innistrad booster pack will have one double-sided card, so there is a possibility of getting two rare cards, or better yet, a rare and a mythic.

Intro Packs are 61-card decks with fixed decklists, and with a bunch of rares and uncommon cards, they’re fun to play as is.

Those with more experience with the game are probably close to completing their playsets of the new dual lands. They are functionally similar to the ones we already have from the Core Sets. Their only difference would be them pairing opposing colors (hence the term “enemy” duals), which are different from the allied duals.

There are plenty of cool Legend and creature cards that are awesome, for those intending to build Zombie decks, Vampire decks or Geist decks, or … well, you get the picture.

I love Zombies, and it’s nice to see Wizards revisiting the Blue-Black combo for this favourite race of mine. By the way, Vampires see the addition of Red to its traditional Black.

Innistrad is available at most game shops, with booster packs starting from RM11 for a 15-card booster.

Going underground

Halloween may be a Western thing, but that doesn’t mean that you have to play only Western-type games, right?

Thanks to local boardgame enthusiasts and suppliers Boardgamecafe.net, I picked up a rather curious-looking mystery-themed game called The Message. Okay, so it isn’t exactly creepy horror, and more subterfuge/espionage, but this will do for something
totally left-field.

The Chinese-themed card game is created by Qian Qi Animation, and is supposedly based on themes and elements from a movie of the same name.

In this card-based game, players randomly select one of the three identities – Underground, Army and Passerby. To spice things up, each player can choose one character out of 18 available ones. Each character has a unique special ability.

The object of the game is to collect appropriate sets of “information” cards based on the faction selected. All function cards divided into three types – Red, Blue or Black (signifying false information).

During each round, each player draws two function cards. Then, the player transmits one of his function cards to other players. Other players can collect the requested information while attempting to avoid Black information.

Certain cards can interrupt and cancel opposing information as well as removing the Black cards. Any player with three Black information cards are automatically eliminated.

It’s a simple and light game that’s more suitable to the party crowd, but experienced gamers will relish the beautiful art.

The Message retails for RM95, but Boardgamecafe.net is now having a special promo of RM75 for a limited time only.

Bowling for blood

Last one for the week is a classic game that has recently gotten the cardboard treatment, thanks to the good old eminent gaming merchants, Fantasy Flight Games.

Blood Bowl: Team Manager – The Card Game is actually a card version of the famous Games Workshop miniatures game that had its heyday back in the late 1980s.

Think of it as fantasy football/rugby played amongst Humans, Orcs, Dwarves and large
rat men known as Skaven.

The premise is simple – you win by almost any means necessary. So unsportsman-like conduct, which would be totally unacceptable in real-life, such as fouling, and worse, are actually standard behaviour in Blood Bowl.

I think this is perfect in Halloween gaming because sometimes you just want to beat your opponents using some of the most repulsive and evil races known in fantasy-dom. And keep score.

Before you go, “oh no, another card game”, the good news is that this Blood Bowl game is entirely self-contained, with no additional parts and purchases required to play.

Imagine Games is bringing this mighty fine product in this week, with each box selling for RM135.

Time to get some games going on people!

* Chee Yoh Yang can’t get enough of Innistrad, wants to play The Message again and again, and kick some Human behind in Blood Bowl using evil rat men. Special thanks to Hasbro Malaysia, Boardgamecafe.net and Imagine Games for their contributions in making this month’s Cards & Boards happen.

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