OT: Mage Knight Rebellion

I recently had a chance to see Mage Knight Rebellion demoed. I took pictures
and just secured permission to put them on the web. So:

> I recently had a chance to see Mage Knight Rebellion demoed. I took

I saw this at GenCon. It was one of the only really innovative new things (if
you can really call it even that).

I think that it has potential.

Mike,

We're doing 200 demo sets for them, and may do a "made for Mage Knight"
terrain set based on our
Battleground (non-geohex) designed terrain.  These
terrain pieces sell at a $6.50 to 12.50 per set of one to
three pieces.  The purpose-made mats will be 3 feet by 3
feet, no info on price for those as yet. As you can see we have a terrain
system to sell to that age group, and this game should be the vehicle for us.
The game is the brain child of Jordan Weisman of Battletech fame and should be
a success.

KR

> On 16 Oct 00, at 13:13, Mike Stanczyk wrote:

> I recently had a chance to see Mage Knight Rebellion demoed.

> On Mon, 16 Oct 2000 15:05:05 -0700, krs@geohex.com wrote:

> The game is the

I wish you success, KR. But I know that around here, NO store is buying into
more collectible stuff. Even collectible disk games, which were the "big
thing" at GenCon aren't making any kind of impression. Too many stores got
burned. If stores aren't buying Star Trek disk games, or any of the other disk
games, they aren't likely to get into a "collectible miniatures" game.

I also concur with Rick. Didn't play a demo, but watched a couple. It looked
kind of dull. The figures were okay (not badly painted, for machine painted
plastic minis) but very "derivative". My friend Sherry was mildly
amused/disgusted at the big hefty-chested female magic user (we all know
the target market for this game). It looked cumbersome with a lot of figures,
and boring with a few. Not exactly a deep game.

> Allan G wrote:

Hmmm, do those stores know how much has come out for Disk Wars? A couple
supplements for the main game with I think another on the way A licensed
Legends of the Five Rings version A licensed Deadlands version Red Alert!, the
Star Trek version (which should be in stores this week)

All this in just over a year (initial release was at Origins in July of 1999)
and now Dream Pod 9 just announced there will be a Heavy Gear disk game.

On Tue, 17 Oct 2000 16:42:32 -0500, "Dean Gundberg"
> <dean.gundberg@noridian.com> wrote:

> Hmmm, do those stores know how much has come out for Disk Wars?

Some do, some don't. But knowing how much is out there for Disk Wars is, in
some ways, a detriment.

The problem is these stores got REALLY burned on cards, and not just Magic.
They got burned on all the different games that came out. It wasn't just all
the Magic sets, but all the Legend of the Five Rings sets, and Seventh Sea
sets, and Deadlands sets, and etc., etc.

This isn't just Toronto, either. I haven't checked some of the local stores
that sold nothing but cards, games-wise. The games stores, though, just
don't carry them. I was in Kitchener recently, too (it's an hour away from
Toronto, has a local population in excess of 200,000, and is home to two
universities). There were three stores I visited, none of which have disk
games. One hadn't even heard of them. And you'd think miniatures stores would
be interested, particularly in Diskwars. They did sell the German board games,
though.

Part of the problem is that cards are VERY labour intensive. It's not just the
cards, but the need to handle the second hand market. It takes sales away from
other stuff. It's pretty good for sales, except if you get caught in a
downturn you lose a substantial part of your profit to date. The people who
buy cards don't buy other stuff, either. In a perfect world, the two sets of
customers offset each other. In reality, some will swing to cards and stay
there.

I think there is more overlap between disk games and miniatures. Certainly I'd
be interested in looking into them if they sold them locally. But the stores
are "once bitten, twice shy". "Collectible" is a dirty word...

One thing about collectible miniatures games. They have all the disadvantages
of cards and disks, without one crucial advantage. Except for displaying used
cards and disks, card and disk games take up very little "shelf space". In
fact. they can sit on the counter beside the cash register.

Mage Knight, though, is sold in little boxes. If they sell as well as cards or
disks, they will take up much more space. And a store now has to sell terrain
packs. While I hope I'm wrong and KR sells a ton of terrain packs, I suspect a
lot of places will shy away from them because they are collectible and because
they take up a lot of space.

As a limited card player I have some thoughts. (I collect space empire buildin
g
card games...there are 3 that I know of...:-)

One of my biggest annoyances about these otherwise interesting games, is that
y ou often have to play "without all the pieces". And to aquire even a middle
range
 of
the available cards, you have to put up some major bucks.

On the other side of the coin...they do have interesting ideas, settings, ect.
(This makes me have to think outside the usual "space game" box.)

> Donald Hosford wrote:

What are their names, and are any of them worth playing?

I have two, one called "Galactic Empires" that is pretty pathetic, and another
who's name escapes me (Supernova?) which seems to have more promise.

A) "Galactic Empires" by Companion Games. I am not sure how many cards I have
for this one....If made into a single stack, it is about 14 inches high...Has
lots of
interesting crew/ship/terrain cards.  Easily the most complex of the
three. I bought 2 or 3 display boxs of booster cards from a toy outlet for 2
bucks apeice.

B) "Supernova". I don't remember who published this one...I do know it is out
of print. The interesting bit of this one, is the attacks: Players may make
Mili tary attacks, Diplomatic attacks, and Economic attacks.

C) "Star of the Guardians" by MAG FORCE 7 inc. This is based on the books of t
he same name by Margaret Weis. Has an interesting game mechanic: Lanes.
Between each
 player
(in a two player game) is a "front" of 5 lanes. You place ships into each of t
he lanes, in upto three rows. In three and four player games, there are just
two "fronts" for each player. One for each of that player's neighbors. Players
pl ay for "Power Points". A player can be eliminated by attacking that
player's home wor ld.

I haven't played the second two, for lack of cards. The first one I have gotte
n in a game or two...(when "Real Life tm" dosn't interfere...) There are
oddities in playing space empire games this way...You can't feild som ething
unless you have the card. I have thought of combineing all three
games...:-)

Donald Hosford

> Nyrath the nearly wise wrote:

> Donald Hosford wrote: