One two, skip a few, back again. Hi ho, and welcome back to the Mup…er, to the Weekly Round-Up! We were absent last week as we winged our way to Ft. Wayne, Indiana for the big,, well, moderately sized Alliance/Diamond Retailer Summit. We were dined, feted, gamed, and returned with a small bag of schwag. What did we learn? What’s happened in the past two weeks? Will Amanda learn that Carlos is actually Ramundo, her illegitimate twin brother? All this and some on this week’s Weekly Round-Up!

Trouble in paradise? Fantasy Flight Games announced today that it will no longer be distributing new releases for Rackham’s AT-43 and Confrontation collectible miniatures games. FFG will however continue to supply backstock on those lines while supplies last, but FFG will not be supplying any product from Wave 8 that was originally supposed to ship to retailers in late September. FFG is encouraging retailers and distributors interested in obtaining the new Rackham releases to contact Rackham directly. ICv2 (one of our favorite news cribbing spots) contacted Fantasy Flight Games concerning the reasons behind FFG's decision to stop distributing Rackham's games, but a spokesperson for FFG declined to comment on the situation or respond directly to the questions from ICv2 other than to say, "We wish Rackham the very best." Nothing was said by them at all just a few days ago at the Retailer Summit when we were there. Rackham’s products were nestled between copies of Kingsburg and the upcoming Battlestar Galactica and Talisman. It makes you wonder what EXACTLY happened between the two…

Even a headshot won’t keep them down. Twilight Creations, publishers of the Zombies!!! Board Game has reached an agreement with Big Rooster, LLC, an entertainment software company, to develop Zombies!!! into a videogame property. Initially Big Rooster, based in Madison, Wisconsin, plans to develop a Zombies!!! videogame for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation platforms as well as the Steam online game distribution Website, while later releases could include the Nintendo DS and Wii systems. Great news to hear! We just received our latest coffin of demo love from them and more often thasn not, Twilight Creations puts out a fun game. (Look for reviews of Humans!, Bump In The Night, and others in the foreseeable future!) HOWEVER….and however is the hobgoblin of great news – Big Rooster worries me. Big Rooster was originally the company that was to do the Talisman board game some months/years ago that never happened. A wary evil eye must be kept on these developments.

Looking for anime to watch? With cable/satellite/TV anime either get canceled or being tucked away at miserable times on art channels, watching some anime is getting to be hard. FUNimation is going to be offering an alternative for their anime. Funimation Entertainment is launching its video channel on the Joost Internet TV service in November. This marks a major move by Funimation toward using ad-supported Internet as a means of delivery for its anime library. In November Funimation will make episodes of Basilisk, Black Blood Brothers (subtitled), Blue Gender, Galaxy Railroad, Kiddy Grade, MoonPhase, Mr. Stain, Mushishi, Peach Girl, Rumbling Hearts, School Rumble, Slayers, Suzuka, and xxxHOLIC available on Joost. Episodes will be streamed to users who have the downloadable Joost player on their computers at no cost to the viewer (ads will be displayed). Fans will also be able to interact with each other using the social features of Joost to form groups around their favorite shows or characters. Only a few weeks ago Viz Media announced that it was placing episodes of its top series Naruto, Death Note, and Bleach on Joost. I can’t comment on the service for as of this article, I haven’t tried it – but lets face facts, any alternative is good these days.

Can you feel the beat? More like can you find the loot? Drums Of War, World Of Warcraft’s newest CCG expansion is on the horizon so we have had the loot cards drop (at least info wise). Upper Deck has released information on the Loot cards in its Drums of War expansion for the World of Warcraft TCG, due out October 28th. The Red Bearon continues the run of epic mount Loot cards; it will allow players to purchase either a normal or an epic version of the mount. Owned!, the uncommon Loot card, gives players the “Flag of Ownership,” displaying a “thumbs down” for victory taunting by planting in the corpse of a fallen enemy. And Slashdance, the super common Loot card, gives players a stack of party G.R.E.N.A.D.E.S., which when thrown make the targets dance for one minute, in the midst of streamers and confetti. Word has it that the bear will end up being as expensive via the e-commerce auction sites as spectral tiger was – keep that in mind. We are probably looking at another quick sell through.

We don’t normally stump for many gaming companies round these parts, but there are exceptions. Curt Covert, the devious mind behind Smirk And Dagger is one of them. When we see info about his games, we normally pass it on. And so, feast your ocular orbs upon this Gaming Report pilfered press release:

“Smirk and Dagger has posted the rules, info and images from their highly anticipated expansion to Cutthroat Caverns, Relics and Ruin, on their website at http://smirkanddagger.com/cutthroatRelics.htm The game looks to finally arrive in December after hitting a few roadbumps at the printer. "It's been killing us not having the game when we'd hoped - because it will add so much to game play," said Curt Covert. "We have posted details about the new mechanics and some great images to whet everyone's appetite!"

As an overview, the critically acclaimed game of dungeon delving, kill-stealing and cooperative - backstabbing becomes even more challenging with the inclusion of a NEW game mechanic, an Event Deck that makes even the most familiar Encounters new again. And mixed among the Events are ways to earn powerful new Relics that confer game changing abilities upon their owners.

Plus, this set includes 15 of the deadliest creatures yet. Can you resist the lure of a 14-card hand? Will you succumb to the PVP inducing effects of Voodoo? Or will you become a horrific beast yourself in the final moments and turn on your companions?

Once again, we have to credit a host of amazing artist who have lent their talents to creating the horrific creatures in the game. Among them are returning artist Adam Vehige, who creates monsterous images for Halloween attractions nationwide, the world renown tattoo artist, David Bollt, whom you may have seen on Heavy Metal magazine, CB Sorge and her amazingly detailed illustrations, matte painter Levente Peterffy, video game illustrator and animator Ian Maclean and more! Check out the gallery section of our site and follow the links to see more of their great works!

Plus, many of the Relics we mentioned above - are real! The photos on the cards show the actual work of these talented artisans, armorers and jewelers. Many of the items are for purchase - or for the one of a kind items, you may be able to commission a Relic of your very own.

"We are in the process of finalizing the pages for the following expansion, Tombs and Tomes, and should have that done in a week or so," added Curt. "Both expansions and the reprint of the base game and first expansion, which sold out way ahead of schedule, are all on the same print run at this point. We'll keep you posted as we get closer to having them.””

Thanks Curt! We’ll keep you all informed as the release comes nearer.

This week, we are going to forgo our Link Madness as we look for new links and our Capsule Review as we were at the Retailer Summit (and are STILL playing Final Fantasy Tactics A2 – Curse you, Squenix!). In their place, a veritable plethora of Wizards and Wizkids info from the show!

Wizards Of The Coast – always full of information and some of it is actually useful and interesting. Again, the belle of the ball is always Magic and they were more than willing to talk about it. If only we could have understood more. One of their major talkers, their main woman of marketing, was French. Her accent was just slightly worse that the French in Monty Python And The Holy Grail movie. So this is what we sussed out from an evening of “Play-airs” and “Planes-wookers”.

Magic started with a “hip hip huzzah” of Alara. Coflux, set 2 in the Alara trilogy, heads our way in February 2009 with 145 cards, 10 mythic rares, and 5 new intro packs. They did go on about the intro packs and I have to say I have softened on them. For something I through my nose up on first hearing, I must say I approve of now – go figure. Set 3, codenamed “Scissors” still, has the same layout as Conflux in finishes the block in May 2009. Two things you should expect to see every year for right now are Duel Decks and From The Vault. November 7th sees the newest duel deck, Jace Versus Chandra, and will have a web comic up any day now. The From The Vault will continue for now. Haven’t heard about it? Not surprised. The first Vault product, Dragons, was short printed, short announced, and has made many players short tempered. From The Vault is meant to be “an extremely limited hobby only product”. NOW we know that. We will have to wait and see what next year’s vault has inside it – or if it will as empty as Al Capone’s vault.

Magic will be coming to XBOX soon. Rumors have abounded as of late for a downloadable Magic game for the arcade platform and Duels Of The Planeswalkers is the answer. Coming in Spring 2009 this will be a more real Magic style console experience instead of the horrible RTS or arcade fighter as done before. The screen shot shown – lush, simply lush.

Then came the big info for the night – WotC’s newest marketing initiative. The newest brain child of Wizards is “Here I Rule”. This advertising bonanza will kick off next month so hold on as Wizards, yet again, tries to make Magic appealing to the skateboarding Gen Y (or is it X or Z or Q – I lose track) segment of the population. Yes, the pendulum has swung and it is again time to try and make Magic “hip”, “hot”, and “edgy” – or so the advertising would have you believe. The concept of the marketing is that Planeswalkers, Wizards newest iconic idea for Magic, are hot and happening and that you too are a Planeswalker. By being a Planeswalker, you hold incredible power in your hands, you can bend forces, you can manipulate minds, and that “Here I Rule”. The website is, oddly enough, www.hereirule.com and here you can learn about Magic, make your own Planewalker symbol to print out and use as a tag. (Yes, they actually DID say you should use your Planeswalker symbol as a tag.) Expect a deluge of this marketing as they will be hitting IGN, MTV, Adult Swim, and anywhere hot and hip youngsters will be. Oi! This sticks like the pimpification of Yu-Gi-Oh that was Street Warriors. That was Yu-Gi-Oh on the street for the edgy brothers. As I’ve said before – “Never heard of Street Warriors? There would be a reason for that.”

Now, the real info. Wizards knows that there were some birthing pains for the prerelease/release system for Magic. They will be upping the number of players per store for the prerelease events, will make sure that each store has enough prize support for that number of people, and most importantly that the release and prerelease card will again be different. The Wizards Play Network (WPN) appears to be heading into full force. The WPN Magic League starts in November with kits for players at all levels – the first prize card appears to be Desert, but no confirmation on that. In my mind – this is nothing more that a wide spread version of the Arena League with a fancy paint job. And finally – not happy with the replacement of the retail Dungeons And Dragons organized play kits with the one encounter Delve Night concept? Continue to be unhappy. Wizards stated that the Delve concept is for the prospective D&D player who “has no time or doesn’t want a real role playing commitment”. Gentlemen, a single twenty minute encounter per week is not ANYTHING close to a D&D experience. It takes longer to get everything set for the Delve than run it. We’ll see how long this brain child goes on for.

The other company spouting info like the fountains in the gardens of Versailles was WizKids, a company that desperately needed to get out some info and good press. When we sumoed one of the booth bros at the convention, we were pleasantly surprised to find out we had cornered a top banana. And we got some answers. Before we get to what they said at the dinner meeting, a quick bullet point rundown of what we learned pre-dinner.

-Biggest complaint about Secret Invasion – the paint jobs. Extra money was spent bringing the paint jobs up to snuff, and it showed. The demonstration pieces look beautiful, which might mean nothing except that they were supposedly pulled straight out of boosters.
-Question: Are event dials, special items, or bystanders coming back? Answer: Event dials definitely are. There will be other new things rotating through on that slot. This is a game that should be about the plastic and not the cardboard. (With WizKids printing lower value figures, bystanders are not that necessary now. With the great “kinetic accelerator” fiasco at GenCon this year and the fact the 3D dumpster was about the only other special object ever played – I wouldn’t expect special objects back anytime soon.)
-Question: There were some major three and four week holes in Organized Play this last year. Will we basically see OP support only around the new sets or will it even out a little more? Answer: OP is expensive, but we are working on keeping the holes to a minimum. There will always be a week or two skipped here or there, but overall expect a smoother experience.
-HeroClix World Qualifiers will be a store level this year.
-HeroClix is going to be pushing a new format this year, team battle.
-While not strictly confirmed, employees more or less revealed the Arkham Asylum WILL have chase figures.
-Arkham Asylum is “sold in”. This means the full print run has left for Alliance and Diamond. Make sure your numbers are in.

As to the WizKids dinner meeting – info explosion! March 3 bring the Hammer Of Thor Marvel set. This set, heavily keyed towards Asgardians and Marvel Gods, is going to have some heavy hitters indeed. The special, uber-requested team in the set? The Runaways. As to the Buy It By The Brix piece – we got a special reveal. The piece is Thor in his goat driven Asgardian chariot. Huge, beefy, and supposedly up to four times larger than the Clown Prince OF Crime Brix piece – this could be a hot item to come.

Want to keep up on some of the internal working at WizKids? They have started a blog at blog.wizkidsgames.com. They are going to try and keep the blog updated with projects, interal happenings, concepts and designs, and other insider info.

WizKids announced that they have finalized a deal with Max Protection for Max to create a series of HeroClix accessories – miniature cases, binders, and the like.

The Free Comic Book Day piece of ’09? An alternate paint Wolverine just in time for the movie of course!

The next DC set after Hammer Of Thor was revealed to be DC Brave And The Bold. With the wide popularity of the World’s Finest duo Brix piece, they felt doing a set based on a lot of the team ups in the DC universe would be a great idea. Expect to see a metric parademon load of duo figures in this set.

’09 will bring a special collector’s set to the table. WizKids will be making a special 70 Years Of Marvel collector’s edition to celebrate, well, the 70th anniversary of Marvel. The collector’s set will contain seven new pieces – each celebrating a decade of Marvel storylines. The one revealed was 1970s with Wolverine and Colossus in a fast ball special. This is one set fans are going to want to keep an eye out for.

And finally, vehicle rules appear to be heading to HeroClix. They will be adding vehicles and vehicle rules to the game some time in 2009 kicking them off with the Batmobile done is scale.

The other WizKids info:

-Pirates is returning with a new gift box format with Savage Shores. Players will get $25 worth of gaming for $15 but expect most of it to be reprints and repacks. WizKids will be looking to do Pirates in this manner if successful.

-Clone Wars, the new name for the Star Wars psuedo-mini game, has relaunched. This game is now being pushed primarily for the 6 to 10 market. Next sets: Clone Wars Tactics on November 12th and Clone Wars Conquest on Feburary 5th. Overiszed and chrome ships comprise the free OP for the game with no envoys needed.

And there you go – an info packed Weekly Round Up! We will return you to your regularly scheduled Round-Up! next week. Same Troll time, same Troll site.