In this issue:

- Welcome
- Board Game Clubs
- Gavin's Corner

- Testimonials

- Great bundles

- New dealers

- Prize winner

- New games

- News
- Some Interesting Stats
- Subscribe

- That's a wrap

Welcome

Hi Everyone,

We hope you enjoyed the recent holidays and that you have now settled back into your day to day routines and hopefully you have not experienced too many of the dreaded power outages recently.

Fortunately board games require no power and can still be enjoyed by candlelight :-)

We have got off to a slow start this year but we aim to change that.

Settlers Tournament – ICON – 11th – 13th July

We will be hosting a Settlers of Catan Tournament at ICON (Games and Comic Convention) again this year and we welcome all interested players to join in the fun. It will be held in the Jabula Hall in Sandringham, Johannesburg. You don’t have to be a die-hard Settlers player to participate and everyone is welcome. The Tournament will be run on Saturday and Sunday and we hope to see you there. Look out for our next News Flash which will contain more details about the event.

Board Game Association

We are also making progress in the establishing of a Board Game Association and we will keep you posted.

Compliments

We are very proud to mention that we have received two compliments on Hellopeter thanks mostly to Barbara's fantastic customer service. It was truly rewarding to receive such wonderful accolades. Check it out on www.hellopeter.com.
 

We have been striving to connect board game enthusiasts in different areas around South Africa with a view to starting board game clubs and this is the progress that we have made to date.

Edenvale Boardgame Club – meets on the 3rd Wednesday every month at the German Club. The contact person is Barbara 082 880-2707 or 011 454-2329.

Pretoria – We are looking for more players in this area. Please contact Rory at Rory.Brown@standardbank.co.za who has kindly offered to get things started there.

Durban – Gavin Westermeyer is the one to speak to 0837033326 or 031 202-3639. Anyone interested should contact him. He is guaranteed to light a spark in the board gaming arena.

Cape Town – if you are interested please contact Barbara 082-8802707 and she will add you to this list.

We are fortunate to have Gavin Westermeyer, who is a board game enthusiast of note, give us his take on some of the new games that we have in stock.


TICKET TO RIDE - SWITZERLAND
Not much to say about this one. For all the Ticket to Ride fans out there it is a must-have. Probably the best of the series for two players as it is only for two or three players anyway. It is an expansion so one of the other Ticket to Ride games is essential

TANNHAUSER
The figures are outstanding in their detail and each has been hand painted. Each character comes with it's own character card and set of counters for the various weapons and bits of equipment which only that character can use.

ELFENLAND
Alan Moon has come up with another winner here and although the game is a few years old now, it should be around for some time to come. It is a wonderful mix of strategy and luck. I would highly recommend it to anyone.


CARCASSONNE - THE DISCOVERY
Is a great fix for all those Carcassonne fans out there with it's new variations on playing the game. It is actually becoming difficult keeping up with all the expansions for this game. It just goes to prove how popular it is.
 

Not sure if you want to buy online? Or unsure about the quality of the games available from our retailers or our web-site?

Then make sure you take some time to read about what our customers have to say about our products and our service - click here.

Don't forget to take advantage of our awesome bundles. Save huge amounts of $$$ - click here.

Look out for other great bundles coming online soon!
 

We would like to welcome our new Retail Partners to the team.

- Puzzle Mania - East London
- Kleinmond Allerlei - Kleinmond
- www.Toys.co.za - Kyalami
- Edreams.co.za - Sandton
- This & That Books & Games - St. Francis Bay
- Mini-Webs SA - Cape Town

Congratulations to this month's lucky newsletter subscriber, Tshepo Molefe, who has won a copy of Settlers of Catan valued at R399.00!

The Boardgames crew hope that you thoroughly enjoy your prize and that you play it often with family and as many friends as possible. Spread the magic!
 

- Arkham Horror: Curse of the Dark Pharoah
- Arkham Horror: Dunwich Horror
- Carcassone: The Discovery
- Cluzzle
- El Grande
- Memoir '44: Air Pack expansion
- Settlers of Catan series (New Version)
- Starcraft
- Tannhauser
- Ticket to Ride: Switzerland Exp
- Twilight: Shattered Empire
- World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade
- World of Warcraft: Shadow of War
- Wits and Wagers

I know a lot of you will be disappointed to know that we are unable to procure the favourite religious board game, Revelations, but we have something in the pipeline which will be of great interest to you. Negotiations are at a sensitive stage, but we will share this information with you soon.

Powergrid is also scheduled to become available again shortly (hooray!).
 

News

Hasbro buys Cranium

As some of you may know Hasbro has acquired Cranium.

They have completed a $77.5 million acquisition of Cranium which was announced earlier. Cranium published its first game in 1998.

Since then, the company has sold more than 22 million games, books, and toys worldwide. Hasbro, which was founded in 1923, has acquired Milton Bradley in 1984, Parker Brothers in 1991, Avalon Hill in 1998, and Wizards of the Coast in 1999. Hasbro's global games and puzzles net revenues in 2006 were approximately $1.3 billion.

Cranium will only be available later this year, possibly around September.

Settlers of Catan fan site

Be sure to visit this Catan fan site which contains cool things such as reviews, strategies and variants of play (http://www.settlersofcatan.net/)

10 Top Rated Games –

Puerto Rico 8.31
Power Grid 8.16
Twilight Struggle 8.12
Tigris & Euphrates 8.07
Agricola 8.03
Caylus 7.99
El Grande 7.99
Through the Ages 7.93
Princes of Florence 7.90
Race for the Galaxy 7.86

10 Most Played Games in the last month –

Race for the Galaxy
Pandemic
Carcassonne
Lost Cities
Puerto Rico
Settlers of Catan
San Juan
Magic: The Gathering CCG
Hive
Power Grid

 

10 Most Rated Games –

Settlers (13783)
Carcassonne (13400)
Puerto Rico (11940)
Ticket to Ride (8540)
Citadels (7615)
Lost Cities (7273)
Power Grid (7125)
Tigris & Euphrates (6904)
Bohnanza (6786)
Risk (6699)

For more board game information, statistics, reviews, and descriptions log onto www.boardgamegeek.com. This site is a fountain of information.

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That's a Wrap!

That’s all for now. We will be sending out another update soon. Until then, happy gaming! Please also give us any feedback that you may have.

Play hard,

The Crazy Boardgames.co.za Crew

info@boardgames.co.za