06/10/15

Star Wars Imperial Assault – First Look!

Michael Eckenfels, 10 June 2015

So the shrink-wrap is cracked and pieces are out.  Is it Jar-Jar Binks, or Boba Fett?

It was with GREAT anticipation that I received a copy of Star Wars Imperial Assault by Fantasy Flight Games. This and Star Wars: Armada are two of three games I’ve really wanted for the last year or so (Fortune and Glory being the third), and when the heavy box arrived from Amazon, it felt like Christmas morning. Don’t get me wrong – I love getting games, and goodness knows I get lots of them in the course of the reviews and AARs I write, but this is Star Wars, man.

ImpAs001

The box, in all its shrink-wrapped glory. It is almost six inches thick and weighs a ton, which just testifies to the goodies loaded inside.

 

ImpAs002

The back of the box. Hard to believe that there used to be a time where this backside of a box was pretty much your only source of knowledge when you came across a game on a shelf somewhere.

 

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06/3/15

LNLP’s Dawn’s Early Light and Rommel at Gazala – First Look!

Brant Guillory, 3 June 2015

Lock’n’Load is pushing out reprints and new editions from their new digs in Colorado.  What’s in the new boxes?  Let’s take a look.

Click images to enlarge

First up, the new edition of Jim Werbaneth’s Rommel at Gazala, which got a significant graphic upgrade.

Inside the new Rommel at Gazala, with the box in the upper left of the photo.
Inside the new Rommel at Gazala, with the box in the upper left of the photo.

 

Player aid cards.
Rommel at Gazala – Player aid cards.

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05/13/15

Heroes of Normandie – First Look!

Heroes of Normandie is getting all sorts of chatter around the web.  What’s in the box?

Jim Owczarski, 13 May 2015

Click images to enlarge

I left Origins 2014 fairly heavily-laden (everybody here is coming to see us Grogheads Central Command this year, right?), but one game I left un-bought was Iello’s “Heroes of Normandie”.  I’m a bit of a “Memoir ’44” obsessive, the fact that both my wife and son are willing to play it with me is likely argument sufficient, and the game as laid out on the demo tables at the convention read like a competitor so I spent elsewhere.  I kept my eye on the game over the year since, though, drawn to its over-the-top graphic style and the representations of some that it played like a simplified miniature game with counters.  So, when Amazon included it among its Tabletop Day sales items, I pulled the trigger.  What follows is a bit of what’s inside.

Like I said, the box and everything within is, let’s say, dramatic.  For this the game makes no apologies saying that this is World War II as fought in classic war films.

How do you not at least like a game that's got Lee Marvin caricatures (inside)?
How do you not at least like a game that’s got Lee Marvin caricatures (inside)?

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05/1/15

Quartermaster General – First Look!

Michael Eckenfels, 1 May 2015

After seeing a few discussions about Quartermaster General online – both positive and negative commentary included – I reached out to Ian Brody at Griggling Games to get a review copy for GrogHeads. I was looking forward to receiving this since it seems to simulate World War 2 in a very different manner than most games.

QMG-un001

Here’s the box. I admit, in my eagerness, I removed the plastic shrink-wrap. I feel terrible that I didn’t capture a picture of it with the shrink-wrap. Why? Only because that’s what I’ve always done with all my unboxing articles so far.

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