Life is full of tough questions.  Paper or plastic?  With or without cheese?  Red pill or blue pill?

Pig or dog?

The correct answer to the latter question is actually both.  And, luckily, when you buy a copy of Pick-a-Dog and Pick-a-Pig you get both.  When combined with each other, these games go from 2-5 players to 6-8 players, blending matching and dexterity games together no matter which version you play.  A grid of cards sits in the center of the table, each with five attributes noted on them.  Players also have a single card in their hand.  Once the game has begun, everyone tries to grab a card with at least four similar attributes, adding it to their hand and continuing from there.  The game stops when one player has no more cards to grab.  As one can imagine this game plays well with family members or friends plus a bottle of scotch.

Is your tower protected?

Not exactly a new game, but one we’ve just gotten back in stock, Batt’l Kha’os is a tile laying game with some fighty bits thrown in.  Players attempt to take control of various tower tiles laid across the table by placing their own army tiles around it.  Each tile intersection point is then totaled up for the amount of humans vs. orcs and whoever has the most takes the corner.  Once all four corners around a tower are calculated, whoever has the most corners (orcs or humans) takes control of the tower.  Though it leaves some letters out of its title, Batt’l Kha’os combines the best of Carcassonne and Pocket Battles.

Nathan Fillion has charmed television, comics, and cinema, but now he’s setting his sights on the world of board gaming. Castle:  The Detective Card Game transformers the comedy and mystery of the hit television series into a clue solving card game.  Players take control of a key character from the show in order to piece together the clues and figure out who the murderer is.  Players can choose to compete in episode mode, finding only one killer to win the game, or season mode, playing through a range of episodes and murderers to see who has solved the most by the end.

In the middle of all this complicated gaming hooha, let me throw in a quick shout-out to the newest Data Pack for the Netrunner LCG from Fantasy Flight.  Humanity’s Shadow includes the standard assortment of sixty new cards to be incorporated into the base game.  Download them into your hand right now.

Tear down your quarantine signs, put aside your rifles, and lay down your machetes, and come out of your reinforced basements because it’s time for the first Zombicide expansion to arrive.  Although, as this expansion, Walk of the Dead (see what they did there?), contains twenty-four additional zombie miniatures, you may still want to guard your brain.  There are also twelve spawn cards include so that these figures can be introduced into the game.  Stay close, lock and load, and make sure to wear a helmet.

Ahoy, maties, it be Catan: Pirates and Explorers!

The newest expansion for the hit Catan game series, Pirates and Explorers, like Cities and Knights, Seafarers, and Traders and Barbarians before it, adds new mechanics to the already popular ones from Settlers of Catan.  Bridging the gap between Catan and Seafarers, Pirates and Explorers starts players out on one island, searching for resources and settlers to build and pilot a sailing vessel to another island.  Once there, players discover a range of new resources to continue building and growing.  This version of the game comes packed with five original scenarios to keep the gameplay fresh and original.

And, because of time and all that stuff, the last three items tonight will be presented in image only.  They do say pictures speak louder than words, right?

Okay, maybe a few words.

There’s Ugg-Tect, a cooperative game where players have to act like cavemen while instructing each other on how to build a prehistoric building.  There are also inflatable clubs included.

Two RPG softcovers also release this weekend.

One, for Call of Cthulhu (Atomic-Age Cthulhu), providing a 50s era setting for Cthulhuian mystery and murder with a nuclear backdrop.

And, two, the newest addition to the Only War Warhammer 40K RPG, Hammer of the Emperor.

 

The mind can be a prison.

That’s the premise of Marvel NOW‘s X-Men Legacy series.  Written by the psychedelic pen of Si Spurrier (Gutsville, X-Club), X-Men Legacy follows in the footsteps of other C-List character-centric books like Immortal Iron Fist, Hawkeye, and Fearless Defenders by focusing on Charles Xavier’s son, Legion.  Formerly a schizophrenic super-villain, Legion has now found his inner peace by entrapping his numerous vile personalities in a brain prison.  Yes, brain prison.  This out-of-the-ordinary series is one of the most unusual, pleasing reads at Marvel right now, primarily because Spurrier is unafraid to venture into the weird realms of the X-Men universe.  The volume one trade paperback features the first six issues as well as a mound of mental distress.

Science = bad.

That’s the prime equation for Jonathan Hickman’s Manhattan Projects.  If you picked up the first collection of this psychotic series, you’re well aware of Hickman’s brilliance and the utter depravity of the scientists involved therein.  If you didn’t, the basic premise is that the Manhattan Project was a mere cover for what was actually occurring, i.e. time travel, alien encounters, robots, cybernetics, and vast A.I. computer systems.  From there Hickman throws in a slew of mentally unstable geniuses like Einstein, Oppenheimer, and Fenyman, each of which are hiding a dark secret, and you’ve got the madhouse pot boiler that is this series.  Now, volume two is being unleashed upon the unsuspecting public, this time with more alien disemboweling, evil FDR, and Russian cosmonaut dogs with machine guns.  Science = bad, Manhattan Projects = good.

Think bigger.

That’s Jonathan Hickman’s mandate for his recent relaunch of The Avengers.  Not has crazy as Manhattan Projects, Hickman’s Avengers has been all about expansion.  Spinning out of the Marvel NOW relaunch, this first volume of Avengers collects issues one through six, wherein Captain America puts out the call for new members in order to fight back a godly force on Mars.  All of this is building up to figuring out the original recipe for the universe.  This version of the Avengers moves far, far away from the Bendis era, with grand, epic adventures and huge comic book imagery!  Given that Jerome Opena (Uncanny X-Force) lends his fluid pencils to the affair, this is THE Avengers book to read if you loved the movie!

While the Avengers are fighting baddies on Mars, they are not, in fact, fighting the aliens from Mars Attacks!  However, nearly everyone else is!

IDW continues its annual tradition of crossover miniseries where some evil force ventures into the various property universes the company owns.  Previously, its been zombies and Cthulhu fighting the likes of GI Joe, Ghostbusters, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the Transformers (Infestion v.1-2; check’em out!), but this time around it’s the Mars Attacks! martians versus the IDW universe!  Mars Attacks IDW includes each of the one-shot volumes released, featuring KISS, Transformers, Ghostbusters, Zombies vs. Robots, and, the best of the bunch, Popeye!  Each issue is drawn and written in a style appropriate to the character so, for instance, the Popeye issue looks like a 40s era golden age book being invaded by twisted, murderous aliens.  And the only thing standing in their way is a can of spinach and one pissed off sailor!  If you never thought you’d see such insane crossovers, your mind will melt when you lay eyes on this trade paperback volume!

 

Regular-sized Batman is cool and all, but Li’l Batman is where it’s really at!

Dustin Nguyen, artist extraordinaire known for his covers and interiors on Batgirl and Batman: Streets of Gotham, brings his painterly pencils and ability to cute the reader out of existence to the Batman universe.  Batman:  Li’l Gotham #1 is the beginning of a new ongoing series featuring short stories packed to the brim with tiny versions of every famous Gotham resident.  Think Charlie Brown noir.  The first issue is a cavalcade of holiday tales featuring Batman, Robin, The Penguin, and more.  If you’re kids having been begging for some Batman, but you’ve kept them away from Scott Snyder’s recent run for obvious reasons, Li’l Gotham is the answer.

Zombies.  Robots.  Aliens.

Generally, a combination of the above three creatures would be a bad thing.  In the case of IDW‘s The Colonized miniseries, it is actually a very good thing.  Written by Chris Ryall, the creator of Zombies vs. Robots, and graced with covers by the reclusive Dave Sim (Cerebus), The Colonized blends horror and sci-fi by dropping aliens into the middle of a zombie apocalypse.  A surviving member of a zombie resistance camp has his hands full when a spacecraft lands in the middle of town and a government agent begins pulling tricks in order to nab the compounds gun stash.  What follows is when there’s no leader for the martians to be take too.

Your mind is not your own.

Matt Kindt, the ingenious comic creator behind Revolver, 3 Story, and the Justice League of America back-up stories, has been writing one of the most unusual, inventive comics being published for the last year and few have noticed.  Now, that may be because one of the agents from the books has been blocking your interest to hide its secrets or it may be because it’s far outside the norm of mainstream comics.  Basically, Kindt has constructed an intricate world of espionage based around the Mind MGMT agency, a secret organization that uses mental powers to control the ebb and flow of history.  They can wipe your mind, insert memories, make you hate your lover, stop you (or themselves) from feeling pain, or plant subconscious suggestions in the media, and there’s nothing you can do about it.  Kindt uses every last inch of the comic page to tell his story, even writing secret code in the margins and on the back cover of each issue.  This first hardcover collection includes the first six issues of the series…or maybe that’s just what it wants you to think?

The Fantastic Four have always been my least favorite Marvel team.

That is, until Matt Fraction took over the series with Marvel NOW!  For the last six issues, Fantastic Four has proven to be one of the best Marvel series on the stands right now.  And if you’ve missed these first issues, don’t fret because Fantastic Four v.1:  New Departure, New Arrivals comes out Wednesday.  Not only does this volume contain the first three issues of the  main Fantastic Four series, but also the first two issues of FF, the companion series.  This first arc involves the departure of Marvel‘s first family, as  Reed and Sue take their kids on a cosmic field trip, and their replacement by four stand-in Fantastics.  Fraction balances classic Marvel storytelling in Fantastic Four and post-modern wackiness in FF beautifully, offering two entirely different reads in one great package.

 

Welcome to the bad old days.

The world is a pit of despair, Ultron is in charge, and there’s no hope for survival…except for a rag-tag bunch of heroes with a plan.  Spider-Man, Luke Cage, Emma Frost, Wolverine, Invisible Woman, Taskmaster, Beast, She-Hulk, and Moon Knight are the last ditch effort for the Marvel Universe to continue existing, but something tell’s me they may have a chance.  This dystopian future tale is THE EVENT for the Marvel Universe this year, with three issues coming out a month for the next three months.  And don’t worry about crossovers with other series, because they’ve been kept to a minimum and left as non-essential; read’em if you want, don’t if not.  With the mad puppeteer of Marvel, Brian Michael Bendis (All-New X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, Scarlet), having worked on establishing the implications of this tale over the last four years, Age of Ultron is going to leave its mark.  And for a series that epic in scope you need an artist that can match the tone.  Luckily, Bryan Hitch (The Ultimates, America’s Got Powers) was able to lend his deft talent at cinematic realism to the book!  Don’t get left behind like so many did with Avengers vs. X-Men, pick up issue one of Age of Ultron, or one of its many variants, this Wednesday!

Cullen Bunn has managed to blend sci-fi, horror, and western genres in the long lived Sixth Gun series with ease.  Now Bunn is applying the same strategy to a tale of viking carnage!  Helheim begins with a brutal siege on a tiny, seaside village by forces of evil.  But standing between them and the meaty townsfolk is Rikard and his horde of viking warriors.  Though you might think you know where this story goes from there, you’d be surprised.  This is only the beginning.  Bunn just rocked Marvel NOW! with his first issue of Fearless Defenders (you know we’ve been talking it up at the store!), an issue which also featured some viking fisticuffs, and aims to do the same to Oni Press with the start of this new ongoing series.  When you blend gothic horror, witchcraft, and zombies, you get Helheim!

Searching for images of Joe Casey’s Sex #1 resulted in some awkward moments at the store.  Yeah….

One of this month’s Image Comics releases, advertises itself as “a good reason to come into the comic store – to buy SEX!” Though it may be crass, it’s true.  Joe Casey has written everyone from Wolverine to Batman to The Avengers to Spider-Man, but he’s never written anything as chock full of debauchery.  A former superhero is forced to give up his vigilante lifestyle only to take to the streets for some much needed R&R.  However in a town like Saturn City, R&R can get rather S&M.  Follow Simon Cooke on his dark, dirty journey through the recesses of a town gone wrong in a post-modern superhero tale unlike any other in comics today.

And finally tonight, another twist on a classic tale.

No Place Like Home was one of my favorite miniseries from Image Comics last year thanks to its intelligent, inventive reworking of the classic L. Frank Baum fable, The Wizard of Oz.  Dee is a rocker from the city, but a rural kid at heart who must return home to Kansas after the grisly murder of her parents during a tornado.  After getting home and rekindling friendships with old acquaintances, Dee stumbles into a decades old mystery that ties together her parents, the two sheriff, a local drunk, and…a flying monkey?  Comic newcomers Angelo Tirotto and Richard Jordan dropkick Judy Garland and replace her with a twisted slasher film sprinkle with famous imagery and characters from the classic tale.  Oh, Tirotto claims this is only the beginning of an epic arc that’ll take Dee all the way over the rainbow.

 

We’ve trudged through the snow and ice just to bring you, dear readers, the newest installment of New Game Stuff.  Okay, fair enough, it’s not that bad out now and, yes, we could have posted this from home, if need be, HOWEVER, there is new gaming stuff and we are going to tell you about it.

First up, with Magic Game Day arriving on the morrow, it’s time for the Gatecrash Event Decks to show up.  For this set, the decks focus on Boros and Simic, meaning red/white and blue/red/green, respectively.  The Simic Guild deck comes packed with killer green cards, like a Thragtusk and a Wolfir Silverheart, while the Boros deck includes ton of money cards, like Clifftop Retreat, Champion of the Parish, Spark Trooper, Silverblade Paladin, and more.  So, lets do the math, not only can you play these competitive decks in tournaments and do well, but you’ll also make off like a bandit with all the money rares included in them.

Expand your spellcasting playbook with the Forcemaster vs. Warlord expansion set for Mage Wars.  Within this set are all the spell cards, mage cards, spellbooks, markers, and rules that you’ll need to incorporate these powerhouses into your base game of Mage Wars.  And, whoo boy, these two robed wizard-types are packed full of the butt-kicking.  Forcemaster likes to kick other players in the face with her mind and whip them about like a ragdoll with her telekentic prowess.  On the other hand, the Warlord has his minions soldier on for him while he brings the death from above with his brutal war magic.  Either way, you’re going to be challenging your opponent like never before.

If you just can’t wait to see how Peter Jackson ends his Hobbit saga (or you can’t read…but then you’d probably not be looking at this), create your own ending with the second Hobbit saga expansion for the Lord of the Rings LCG game, On the Doorstep.  Within this expansion are three additional scenarios that take two players across the Wilderlands, pitting them against giant spiders, Smaug, and the armies of Bolg on a cooperative journey.  Of course, to topple these challenges, you’re going to need new heroes, treasures, and player cards.  Luckily, you don’t have to venture across the Misty Mountains cold to find them, because they’re all contained within.

But maybe hobbits aren’t your flavor (they do have all that hair).

If not, the newest release for the Dungeon Command miniature game, Blood of Gruumsh, is chock full of Orcs for your battling pleasure.  This boxset contains an entire Orc faction, ready to play directly out of the box.  That means there are twelve prepainted figures depicting an owlbear, an Orc Chieftain, a wereboar, and much, much more.  Or if you’re feeling random, slap your Orc faction together with a bit of Elf and Goblin and have an old fashioned D&D hoedown!

Finally, this evening we’re going to write a lot of words.  But we’re going to do it in an order that turns them into a sentence.  And from those sentences, we’re going to tell you the names of four fresh additions to the Pathfinder universe. First up is the Shattered Star Poster Map Folio which provides detailed maps for Varisia, Magnimar, and Kaer Maga.  Next is the Animal Archive which details the fauna of the Pathfinder universe, including armor-wearing triceratops.  The Snows of Summer begins a new Adventure Path known as Reign of Winter.  And, finally, Pathfinder Online: Thornkeep provides GMs all the information they need to run adventures in and under Thornkeep, as well as details on the upcoming Pathfinder MMORPG.

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