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Weekly Store Update: 5 May
Happy Cinco de Mayo! We're completely on board this celebration of Mexican American culture. Having retired from the army and after spending a few decades in and around the greater El Paso area, we have nothing but respect. Around the shop we've been busy with local customers and have some great new releases to show you too. We have a few neat items to discuss as well, like our upcoming Shatterpoint demo, so check us out!
INTRO
Welcome to our weekly newsletter! For our new readers I'm Eric, and Wendy and I run Stone Valley Games. This newsletter is our way to share both local and world-wide gaming news of interest that popped up last week. It also provides our subscribers, both local and remote, some information on the going's on around here so everyone feels like part of the action. At the bottom of this newsletter we show you the restocks, new items, and preorders added to the store last week. It's not too difficult to navigate, so let's get to it!
SHATTERPOINT!
As I discussed in our April 7 newsletter, the fun-looking new skirmish game Star Wars: Shatterpoint is going to be releasing later this year. This is also great news to share right after May 4th - Star Wars Day! Shatterpoint is joining the existing catalog of Star Wars miniature games (X-Wing, Legion, Armada, etc.). In Shatterpoint, players will build and compete with their strike team composed of iconic Star Wars characters. This is expected to be much more squad-based than anything else in the Star Wars miniatures catalog, and we're quite excited for it!
We are members of the "Collection Holders", which is a tiered retailer system characterizing everything from promos to restock eligibility (kind of a pecking order). As we're a small shop we're at the bottom rung...but we're on the board! Another benefit of being a collection holder is we were provided the opportunity to purchase a core game demo copy early. Best part...it's going to be heading our way next week!
Squad-based games really pique my personal interest, and if this version comes with excellent rules wrapped in a Star Wars skin, all the better! Now...to be honest I don't know how much time I'll be spending painting everything nicely out of the box. It could be the worst paint you've ever seen. That's even if I ::gasp:: paint it at all. My main focus will be getting the game on the table and seeing how it plays.
I'll let you know how that journey goes in upcoming newsletters and what my impressions are as we work thru the rules and gameplay. While I would love to spend oodles of time on this, realistically I know time will be my limiting factor as I do have a store to operate. However, I plan on spending enough time on it to make a fair assessment. Bottom line though, you'll have front row seats for that journey.
SEASON 2 OF MEEPLE, MYSELF AND I
We received an update from Jason Montgomery, the bard and mind behind the podcast Meeple, Myself & I. Jason focuses on single player games, and if you haven't checked out his signature style you should really give his podcast a chance. It's not like anything else out there in the board game spectrum, and it's really well done.
In any case, Jason kicked off Season 2 of his podcast on Monday, May 1st. You can listen to it anywhere you normally get your podcasts. He's planning on doing an episode every other week and is tentatively planning about twelve or so episodes per year.
APRIL'S BOARD GAME VIDEOS
As we generally do at the beginning of every month, here are the video's that Baker of Bored Online? Board Offline! released last month. For the month of April, the list includes:
- Top 3 Most Played March
- How to Play Naturopolis
- How to Play Verdant
- How to Play Frosthaven Pt 2b
- Clone Wars Solo Gameplay
- How to Play Nemo's War Pt 1
- Nemo's War Gameplay
- Top 60 Best of All Time 60 - 51
I've gone ahead and laid them out below. Baker wanted to remind everyone that if they only had time for one, to check out his Top 60 Best of All Time that he kicked off in April. He is very excited about the list and has some decent street cred in developing the list. He'd love it if you checked it out! I can say that we've taken a look, and not only is it great fun, but it might also give you some insight on games you might not have heard much about. Good stuff!
NEW RELEASES
It's a great day for new releases! We have both The Great Wall dropping today along with Masters of the Universe! We've been looking forward to both of them for a long time and are glad they can start hitting the table in earnest. Sneaking in toward the end of the week was The Doomsday Project: Episode 2 - The Battle for the Balkans. Each episode will add something new to the experience and Battle for the Balkans includes political influence. It's really quite fun! Terrifying in alternate history...but fun.
In a few short weeks it'll be Tainted Grail, which we were both shocked and awed when it popped up again. One of our favorite's when it hit a few years ago, it's on our short list of games you should really move to the top of your 'research that game' list.
In any case, no matter if it's new games hot off the shelf or some family favorites, we hope you can take some time this weekend and enjoy a game!
THE WRAP UP
Okay, enough news for this week! Below are the Restocks, New Items, and Preorders added to the shop last week. You can click on the item to learn more, and many of the products have review and gameplay videos so you can see the game in action. If you're visiting our page and you'd like to keep up with our giveaways, sales, new products, and articles like this one just create an account here. Once created you will be subscribed to our newsletter and become enrolled in our loyalty system, instantly earning 50 Stones that you can use on your very first order. A Stone? One Stone is equivalent to One Cent. That doesn't sound like much, but you earn 2 Stones for every dollar spent and 5 for each product review, so though it may seem small, those savings add up fast! Redeem your Stones upon checkout, and they can save you up to 10% off your cart total. Loyalty Matters!
New layout looks great!