Lego Heroica Update

I've kept an eagle eye out for news of any Lego Heroica releases, but it appears that there will be no new sets for 2013.  Last year, Lego released Ilrion (a set that adds a Vampire Lord, Giant Vampire Bat and Zombies to the Heroica lineup).  In the UK, this set is only available directly from Lego online (and probably at the 5-6 official Lego stores), so it is quite a rarity.

The other Heroica sets have largely disappeared from retailers and even Amazon seem to be no longer stocking some of them.  Based on my limited experience of the Lego market, it looks very likely that Heroica will be done and dusted by the end of the year.  If you were planning on picking up any sets, I would do so sooner rather than later, as once the sets reach what Lego collectors call End of Life (Eol), their prices on ebay and the Amazon Marketplace could really take off.  Brickset is a good site to use for further information on all the sets in the range:

http://www.brickset.com/search/?query=heroica

In addition to the Ilrion set, I also recently picked up a Heroica Storage Mat from ebay.  Whilst this is a nice item it fails in its main purpose (storage) as it can't hold the full set of Heroica game sections.  However, it does come with a very nicely made, fold-out game board that is perfect for setting all the Heroica games out for play.

FREE Character Sheet PDFs - 1st Ed and B/X

To help promote my Kickstarter project for pads of printed Character Sheets, I've decided to make the PDFs of both designs FREE to download from RPGNow.  Here's direct links to them and the Kickstarter project:

http://www.rpgnow.com/product/110487/1st-Ed-Advanced-Character-Sheet
http://www.rpgnow.com/product/110488/A5-B-X-OSR-Character-Sheet
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1730454032/advanced-rpg-character-sheet-pad

Fancy Being the next CEO at Games Workshop?

Games Workshop have dispatched headhunters to find a new CEO to replace Mark Wells, who's been at the helm for the past 5 years.

I haven't had a call from them yet, but I still thought I'd do some prep so I can hit the ground running.  My  masterplan for "moving the business forward", as MBA types like to say, is to take GW's £11.1m profit from last year, and use it to buy the Dungeons & Dragons name and back catalogue.  After that I will begin a major roll-out of B/X and AD&D rules and adventures, whilst at the same time cutting most of the current Warhammer lines.  If, no, when this strategy succeeds, I shall begin a programme of recasting classic Citadel miniatures from the 80's.  In keeping with the spirit of the company, I will keep GW's strict restricted toilet break policy for staff (oops sorry I mean colleagues) though.

Retro 1st Edition Character Sheet Pad Kickstarter Now Live!

Last summer, I tried a small crowd-funding project to fund a print run of some B/X Character Sheet Pads.  It didn't make its funding goal (I suspect because of the unavoidably high cost of overseas postage and also because it was on Indiegogo rather than Kickstarter).

One of the good things that came out of that campaign was a spin-off DTP reworking of a 1978 1st Edition Character Sheet.  Everytime I looked at this sheet, I could not help thinking that it would be a great item to get printed and, if truth be told, it probably should have had star billing last time around.  So today I'm launching a new crowd-funding project for pads of my version the 1978 1st Edition Character Sheet (this time on Kickstarter, as they are now allowing UK projects).

Link to Character Sheet Kickstarter.

Merry Christmas from the Oubliette

The team at Oubliette want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas.

It's been a tough year for us this year and we'd like to apologize for our recent absence.  Oubliette Issue 9 was scheduled for a November/ December release but we've had to reschedule it for release in Spring next year.  The main reason for this is that Marg was diagnosed with severe anemia at the end of the summer, leaving her unable to concentrate, much less get out of bed. It has only been in recent weeks that she has begun to feel more like her old self.  We promise to get back to all things Oubliette related in the New Year and hope to release at least a couple of issues in 2013.

Otherworld Miniatures Dungeon Adventurers Range

Otherworld Miniatures are launching a range of no less than 48 minis in their new Dungeon Adventurer range.  Development of this substantial range is being funded by an Indiegogo campaign.

http://www.indiegogo.com/otherworldDA

The image below shows sculpts of the first four adventurers and I have to say they look really great, with bags of personality and real dungeon-ready equipment.

146+ Reaper Miniatures for $100

Reaper have got an amazing Kickstarter campaign going on at the moment (ends Saturday 25th August), that is smashing through its stretch goals at a blistering pace.  At present, $100 down gets you 146 miniatures delivered in March next year.  However, given the rate at which the stretch goals are being hit that number should easily hit 200+ before the end. 

The Kickstater also has great add-ons for larger figures, paints and cases all of which are priced at around half their expected retail prices.  The campaign is somewhat complex to grasp at first, but that is simply because they have added so much to it over the last few weeks.  Here's a link to the main page:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1513061270/reaper-miniatures-bones-an-evolution-of-gaming-min