GenCon News So Far

First thing in people rush the ffg booth. a stack of netrunner core sets 5 cubic feet thick was gone in 6 minutes. I got there about minute 2 and stood around to watch the meyham. Some people bought 5 and 6 copies each but a majority of buyers had 1 or 2 copies. Even if FFG had limited copies to 1 per person it still would have likely sold out in 15 minutes.

Star Wars LCG is a whole new game. All the co-op is goone and in its place is a very interesting game. You pl.ay as light and dark side. Each side has 3 factions each which can be mixed and matched however you like. The gooal foor the Dark Side is to fire the Death Star which is conceptually represented by a counter which when it reaches 13? will win the Dark Side the Game. The Light sides goal is to destroy the Dark Sides 3 objetives. Objectives have hit points and can take damage during normal combat.

Characters can damage either objectives or other characters. Combat is resolved by committing characters to aattack an objective, defenders defend, there is then a card bidding war to determine who has the edge. Whoever has the edge can get extra icons which do damage on their characters.

Deckbuilding in Star Wars is the interesting twist here. Instead of building a deck from individual cards you select groups of 6 cards. ten of these sselected grous will create your 60 card deck. Each group is tied to an objective so you are also selecting your objectives during this process.

An example would be I want Yoda in my deck. In order to do that I choose the objective set with Yoda in iit. When I do this I also get 5 other cards which I might or might not want in my deck.

It seems like an interesting mechanic and a new twist on deckbuilding.

Sorry for any misspellings Im typing this out on a bluetooth keyboard on my phone. Ill update later tonight with images for Star Wars and Im in the process of trying to enter in the netrunner spoilers, unfortunately entry is proving difficult with this method so no promises until later tonight.

[UPDATE 8PM CST]
In response to the Netrunner sellout Christian T. Petersen posted on Board Game Geek:

Hi All,

Chris from Gen Con here. I wanted to pipe in and give you all some concrete information and facts.

- FFG expedited pallets of the game from LA to arrive at the show. The primary shipment is enroute to FFG still.
- We brought more copies of this game than any game we've ever brought to Gen Con (except for X-Wing, which we have here at the same show).
- We did not, mistakenly, place a limit on these. It should be said that FFG has never (in our recollection) placed limits on Gen Con sales.
- Rumors of hoarding are greatly overstated. A few people bought 6-8 copies (about 5 people is my information). Most of the people buying 3-4 copies were simply doing so for a friend in order for the friend to avoid the huge line. There was NOT a 25-copy sale.
- Half the copies were sold from 9am to 10am when the "VIG" gamers are let into the hall. Per Gen Con rules, we have to be open for business for this crowd (who pay for this priviledge). So, in fact, the game sold out on 70 minutes, not 10.
- We are overnighting loaner copies, so that anyone who registered for the Icebreaker tournament (and was unable to buy a game) will have game materials.
- We are looking at options to get more copies driven in from afar (but we cannot promise that we'll be successful).

We are, of course, very sorry for the gamers whom wanted a copy, and came early, and that did not get copies. Fortunately the game will be broadly available in 4 weeks or so.

This does not imply that we did not make a mistake here, but I think the facts should assist in curbing the speculation.

Best Wishes,

Christian T Petersen
CEO
FFG