With the impending arrival of the annual GrogHeads Holiday Buying Guide and/or List Of Things Your Family Will Never Get You™, we took a slightly different turn on GARPA this time, and tried to cover a variety of different bases, without repeating categories…

The wargame:  Liberty or Death: The American Insurrection (GMT Games)
P500, $57 pre-order, $82 MSRP – made the cut!

So the real question everyone has with the 4-headed COIN game set in the AWI is this : How do the French win?!  The latest COIN game brings in Indian raids, brilliant strokes, and the usual 4-headed multi-player madness that occasional devolves into players bribing each other with beer during the game.  The map might not be the prettiest of the COIN maps, but it does have one different feature – the cities of the colonies are called out as separate spaces distinct from the overall territories of the colonies themselves.  Many of the cards are named after historical actors in the AWI, and when the French enter, there’s no trumping it.  Check out their p500 page to get your pre-order in while they’re still taking them.

The tabletop RPG:  Shotguns & Sorcery RPG (Outland Entertainment)
$31k of $25k goal, ends 1 Jan 2015

Matt Forbeck’s incredible S&S world comes to life in an RPG that’ll be running under Monte Cook’s* Cypher System.  They’re well past their goal and the stretch goals are rolling in.  Forbeck is an industry veteran whose designs are always well-polished with attention to consistency and detail, so don’t expect any GM-hand-waving over logical gaps or the “it’s just fantasy” excuse if something doesn’t make sense.  It’s noir campaign world that’s equal parts Grimjack and Sam Spade, with some of Xenozoic Tales high-adventure thrown in for good measure.   Zombies, dragons, ancient ruins, goblins, and… well, shotguns!   Getcher tookus in gear and plunk down a pledge at the Kickstarter page, now!

*Google him if you don’t know who he is.  We’ll wait.  You’ll be a while.

The family board game:  GUNSLINGER: Legends of the Dusty Trail (Droege Boy Games)
$350 of $1500, ends 4 Jan 2014

A Wild West shootout on the tabletop in a combination quest- and recruitment- game.  Load up your posse and start hunting down bounties as you work your way through the famous towns of the American West.  You can level up your gunfighters, take on different roles, and hunt down the legends of the West on your adventures.  Check out their Kickstarter page, muddle thruogh the overly-graphic typeface, and see if you want to drop some coin to go outlaw-hunting.

The gear:  The Fidelis Tool (Jeff Morin)
$25k of $5k, ends 10 Dec 2014

The laser-cut multi-tool guys are back, with a wallet-sized hunk of goodness with a bunch of hex wrenches, scraper, wire-stripper, and obligatory bottle opener.  It won’t save you in a zombie apocalypse, but it’ll come in handy tailgaiting, biking, or making quick cabin repairs on summer vacation.  There’s also a dog-tag sized add-on you can pony up for to keep ready for deployments.  The base tool is only $25, and all of their gadgets have been big hits with Kickstarter customers, so grab one now.

The digital game: FireFactor AirAttack (Gaben Chancellor)
$50 of $70k, ends Christmas Eve

When a bunch of Grogs see a “firefight” game for an iPad, the Pavlovian drool factor kicks in.  Yeah, but this one is actually about fighting fires.  You use a variety of aerial assets to fight and contain wildfires in a nifty and intuitive touch interface.  The pledge levels start at $10 for a copy of the game, so getting to $70k might be a hell of a stretch, but realistic fire effects are a little pricy in the digital realm.  Give these guys a Merry Christmas and help them get funded over on their Kickstarter page.

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