2013 Origins Awards Nominations Announced!

The Nominees for the 39th Annual Origins awards have been announced via the GAMA Web site. Making a HUGE showing in the list of nominees is Wizkids Games, with 5 titles up for an award! Not bad for a company who just several years ago had shut down operations. Wizards of the Coast, also with 5 nominations, continues to make an impact on the gaming industry. While Catan moguls Mayfair Games make a showing with Catan Junior and Clash of Wills. And we can't forget AEG bringing 3 nominees to the table this year including Love Letter and the much beloved Smash Up!

Here are some quick highlights of the games nominated:

 Best Board Game -

Hot Rod Creeps – Cryptozoic Kingdom Builder – Queen Games (Read our Review) Lords of Waterdeep – Wizards of the Coast Mage Knight – WizKids (Read our Review) Mage Wars – Arcane Wonder

The nominees for Best Traditional Card Game are -

Doctor Who the Card Game – Cubicle 7 Entertainment/Treefrog Games Legendary – Upper Deck Locke & Key – Cryptozoic Penny Arcade: Rumble in R’lyeh – Cryptozoic Smash Up – AEG (Read our review)

Best Family, Party or Children's Game -

Catan Junior – Mayfair Games (Read our Review) Escape: The Curse of the Temple – Queen Games Love Letter – AEG Once Upon A Time 3^rd Edition – Atlas Games Quarriors! Dice Building Game – WizKids Games (Read our review)

For the complete list of categories and nominees you can visit the GAMA website by clicking right here.

Feel like a game got slighted? Are you pulling for a favorite to win? Let us know! Sound off here in the comments, or shout out on Facebook and Twitter!

What News From the Shire?

With last year's release of the first film installment of the Hobbit, the world of gaming rejoices—and of course cashes in! There have been several games released over the past several months, as well as a few upcoming that may scratch the itch you have for more Tolkien-based games; here's a short (if not completely inclusive) list of them:

The Lord of the Rings Living Card Game Saga expansions - Fantasy Flight released two Hobbit-centric additions to their smash hit LOTR-LCG: The Hobbit: Over Hill and Under Hill, and The Hobbit: On the Doorstep

The Lord of the Rings Dice Building Game

Wizkids, who brought you the unique spin of dice building vs. deck building in Quarriors, has released (it is available NOW!) The LOTR themed game, and we have it on good word it's more than just a re-theme of Quarriors!

The Hobbit Card Game - An inexpensive, trick-taking game with a Tolkien theme from Fantasy Flight Games and designer Martin Wallace—also available now!

Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of The Ring Deck Building Game -—Cryptozoic, publisher of the World of Warcraft TCG, has thrown their hat into the Tolkien "ring" (see what I did there?) with a deck builder of their own, which is just recently available!

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Cryptozoic's second go at the genre, this time in board game form, this is expected sometime in the second quarter of 2013.

Sadly we have no review copies of any of these games, but as soon as we do we will post our reviews as soon as we can!

We know there are tons more of titles out there that take place in Middle Earth! We'd love to hear of any diamonds in the rough you've discovered!

Thanks for reading, and for those who were here yesterday, yes, that was an April Fool's day post; we hope you got a good laugh out of it, and if you came here today looking for the latest in crocheting news, we extend our apologies.

Give us a shout in the comments with your favorite Tolkien titles, and hit us up on Facebook and Twitter!

Star Trek Gets in on the Space-Combat Fun!

Trekkers rejoice! Whether you're in the Star Trek or the Star Wars fan club, now you'll have a chance to fly through space and blast your friends into space-bits. Thanks to the popularity of Fantasy Flight's Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game, WizKids has licensed the movement system for the Star Trek universe. In an announcement this morning, WizKids revelaed that Star Trek: Attack Wing will come with prepainted miniatures, and will look practically identical in mechanics to the Star Wars game—including movement wheels and unique pilots to attach to each ship. They expect a GenCon release late this summer. If you're unfamiliar with the Star Wars game, you can check out our review to get an idea of the mechanics.

As always, thanks for reading!

The Lord of the Rings Dice-Building Game—Order NOW!

If there's one thing that continues to baffle myself (Jeremiah) and probably Firestone too, it's that most game companies don't publicize street dates/release dates for their titles.

For instance, this last December we were expecting the Star Wars card game from Fantasy Flight to hit stores in January. Turns out it was on shelves in December, with little fanfare from Fantasy Flight themselves. Anyway...I say all of that to say this.

Over on Amazon they're taking orders for Wizkids' latest dice-building title: The Lord of the Rings Dice Building Game. According to Amazon they will be shipping the game on February 28, which means there's a good chance it could hit shelves the same day—if not sooner. We're both big fans of Quarriors, and the dice-building mechanic; add to that the spiffy Tolkien theme and we're pretty much in hog heaven!

You can order the game on Amazon Right HERE!

Thanks again for reading, and we certainly appreciate you liking us on FaceBook, following us on Twitter, and retweeting, sharing, and commenting whenever and wherever you can!

Wizkids Announces a New Quarriors Expansion

Alright you dice-rolling fans...Wizkids has a new expansion on the way, and it looks fun, fun, fun. According to Wizkids, "In Quarriors! Quartifacts - the fourth expansion set for the Quarriors! dice-building game - all of Quaxos' magical items have gone missing and you, mighty Quarrior that you are, must take it upon yourself (with the help of your trusted Squire) to find them!

Quest cards are available in the Wilds for you to send your Creatures to capture the all-new LARGER Quest dice that wield unimaginable power. (No, seriously, we have no idea what these things do.) Quarriors! Quartifacts includes five new Creatures and two new Spells, in addition to a new Basic card (the Squire), twelve Quest cards, and six Quest dice."

So it comes with bigger dice (!), and some pics from the Nurnberg Toy Fair show that they're including a non-winding score track, too. Now if we could just get them to include some decent individual players boards...

At any rate, we're excited to hear about this, and when we get a chance to give a whirl, we'll let you know what we think.

Thanks for reading, and as always you can find and even "Like" us on Facebook. And over on Twitter too!

What You Missed...

We've got some great things coming up for the site—including some Best Of 2012 awards. In the meantime, here are some posts from this week that you might have missed.

First we told you about a new, cheaper version of Reiner Knizia's Ingenious from Fantasy Flight Games. And Jeremiah has already spotted one of these in his local Books-A-Million store.

Z-Man Games announced a new version of Pandemic. This will have a new art style, and two new roles. Check out the news, and designer Matt Leacock's announcement video here.

We reviewed Asmodee's fun, creative, family game Dixit.

We shared some news about 12 Realms being printed in Germany to save shipping for those across the pond.

Our Kickstarter Weekly was the new 4x space game Hegemonic.

And finally, Wizkids gave us some more details about The Lord of the Rings Dice Building Game.

Next week we'll have a Double-Take Review of Mayfair's Catan Jr. Thanks for reading!

Wizkids Posts an Overview of The Lord of the Rings Dice Building Game!

Wizkids has posted an overview for their newest dice-building title: The Lord of the Rings Dice Building Game. If you're a fan of Quarriors, chances are you're going to want to look into this title as well. The game is said to have a similar feel to the game play of Quarriors, but also contain a few new elements to make it a fresh experience for everyone—including the fact that it's a co-op. And of course, the way-cool Lord of the Rings theme! The co-op aspect sounds pretty cool. The overview describes it this way: "Players alternate taking turns for Sauron and his forces. Sauron’s forces are represented by three sets of “Enemies” dice. Early in the game, players will face the likes of Goblins and Trolls with The Fellowship of the Ring Enemies dice. As players progress in the game, they will encounter tougher foes such as Wargs, Mumakil and Nazgul with The Two Towers Enemies dice & The Return of the King Enemies dice. If players are not able to defeat all of Sauron’s forces before his next turn, they may not advance to the next stage and Sauron gains corruption. Corruption is spread onto the cards on the playfield making the dice associated with these cards useless while corrupted. If too many cards are corrupted, Sauron has conquered Middle-earth and all players lose the game."

You can read our full review of Quarriors here.

While the preorder on Amazon claims that the release date is Feb. 28 of 2013, Wizkids is saying March. At any rate, you can pre-order it on Amazon RIGHT HERE!

2012 Holiday Gift Guide - Stocking Stuffers!

Today we're completing our gift guide with a list of things to get that gamer who has EVERYTHING! These little trinkets are fun, add something to your favorite game, or just add a little geeky Christmas cheer! Catan Ornament - For the serious Catan fan, this cut-brass beauty will help you celebrate the season while settling on the newfound island of Catan. The third in the Catan Resource series, this year's ornament features wool.

Cost: $48.00

Available from: Mayfair Games

Pirates of the Spanish Main card game - Wizkids Games' latest reboot of their former titles, turns their classic consrtuctable strategy game, into a single-deck card game, perfect for the nostalgic Pirates player, with lots of art that has been re-purposed for the game.

Cost: $10.60

Available from: Amazon, or your local game store

Ages: 8 & up

When Zombies Attack - Because Attack Dice (makers of When Zombies Attack), isn't Steve Jackson Games, this fun little dice roller has been somewhat overlooked. Unlike Jackson's "Zombie Dice"—which is basically a re-themed version of Farkle—When Zombies Attack is a competitive dice game that has players trying to eliminate not ALL of the zombies, just ones attacking them! Totally worth picking up and stuffing someone's stocking with this one!

Cost: $14.99 (And they're running a special Christmas deal 2 for $25.00!)

Available: Right here!

Ages: 8 & up

Alvin and Dexter: A Ticket to Ride Monster Expansion - By far one of the coolest mini expansions for a game to come along in a while! This was released last year and is becoming harder to find! They're out there, so grab a set for your gamer and become the hero of the day! It's like a Godzilla effect for Ticket to Ride! 'Nuff said!

Cost: $15.00

Available from: Amazon, and your local game store.

Lord of the Rings card sleeves - Fantasy Flight released a series of card sleeves featuring art from LOTR: the card game, every gamer wants to sleeve their cards, but most of the time they buy the cheap clear sleeves because that leaves more money for more games. So a couple packs a snazzy LOTR sleeves is sure to make the yuletide gay! (Note- there are Star Wars sleeves available now too!)

Cost: $5.00

Available from: Amazon, and your local game store

IronDie - I saw these at Origins this year and HAD to buy one. Simply because they are so cool! There is a game that is played with them if you choose to buy the whole set, but if you play any game that requires a 6-sided die, pick up a couple of these to replace them! There are now also polyhedral designs for that role player on your list!

Cost: $5.00 (6-Sided) $25.00 (Polyhedral, 7 die set)

Available from: Amazon, and your local game store.

Thanks so much for reading and being a part of Theology of Games; we hope this guide has been helpful to you during this wonderful season!

As always stay tuned for more great features from the gaming world!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

What You Missed

It's been a busier week than usual here at TOG; here's a quick look back at this week's posts! Monday's news: Or maybe this wasn't really news, but we brought you a little more info about the new reboot of Wizkids Pirates of the Spanish Main.

Tuesday we brought you a special Election Day review of Pixel Lincoln!

Wednesday we didn't have an interview for you, but there was some exciting news about the new data pack for Fantasy Flight's Netrunner.

Thursday's Kickstarter Weekly this week featured Lost Legends.

And today we brought you a bonus review, which is also our first Double-Take Review, of the Kickstarter project Ruse!

Thanks so much for reading; feel free to write us if there are any games you'd like us to review.

Have a great weekend!

Pirates of the Spanish Main?

By Jeremiah So I don't know how this slipped by my radar, but in late august Wizkids snuck out their reboot of the Pirates of the Spanish Main, in the form of a card game.

The original version of the Pirates franchise was based on the construction of tiny little pirate ships and setting up your entire table as the board on which you played. Many of those ships are still setting sail atop my monitor, even as I type! It is truly one of my all time favorites in the world of "dead games".

The new game hit stores in late August/early September, and unfortunately for the Pirates: OTSM franchise, hasn't seemed to make a big splash. The game play is advertised as  a secret bid system, where players play cards to help your sponsored captains achieve success without letting everyone know who you are secretly sponsoring. The cards feature artwork from the many releases of the original.

So, has anyone played this? Why didn't you tell me about it? Let us know what you think!

Thanks for reading!