Starlit Citadel

New & Restocked Board Games : September 2, 2010

September 2nd, 2010 Posted in new releases | No Comments »

New Board Games
Ascension : Chronicles of the Godslayer
Buzz It!
Back to the Future: Card Game
Battles of Westeros : Wardens of the West Reinforcement Set
Dresden Files : Your Story
Digging
Formula D Dice Set
Ingenious: Challenges
Modern Art the Card Game
Parade
Playbook Football
Scarab Lords
Showbiz Shuffle
The Sun Never Sets
Warhammer : Invasion LCG Silent Forge
Zombie Dice

Restocked Board Games
A Game of Thrones : Sacred Bonds Chapter Pack
A Game of Thrones: A Time of Trials Chapter Pack
A Game of Thrones: the Tower of the Hand Chapter Pack
BattleLore! Horrific Horde Goblines
Battlestar Galactica
Camelot Legends Card Game
Carson City
Cartagena
Cash ‘n Guns
Catan Histories : Struggle For Rome
Caylus
Chrononauts The Gore Years
Cold War: CIA vs KGB
Dice Town
Drakon 3rd Edition
El Presidente - Cuba Expansion
Finca
Forbidden Island
Frontline D-Day
Ghost Stories
Guillotine Card Game
Iliad
Leaping Lemmings
Ligretto - Blue Set
Macao
Memoir ’44 Breakthrough Expansion
Memoir ’44 Eastern Front Expansion
Memoir ’44 Terrain Pack Expansion
Memoir ’44 Winter/Desert Board Map
Middle Earth Quest
Modern Art Revised Edition
Modern Society
Nostra City
Nuns on the Run
Onirim
Ra the Dice Game
Revolution!
Risk: 2210 A.D.
Roll Through the Ages
Saboteur
Say Anything
Shadows Over Camelot
StarCraft: The Boardgame
Summoner Wars: Dwarves vs Goblins
Summoner Wars: Elves vs Orcs
Tannhauser Boardgame
Thunderstone
Tichu
Tide of Iron
Titan
Treehouse Pink Pyramids
Treehouse Rainbow Pyramids
Treehouse Xeno Pyramids
Tsuro: The Game of the Path
Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition
Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition : Shattered Empires
Wasabi
World Without End
Zombies!!! 2nd Edition
ZOMBIES!!! 6 : SIX FEET UNDER
Zooloretto

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September 2010 Newsletter

September 1st, 2010 Posted in Newsletters, general | No Comments »

Review Contest Winner

This month’s winner is Andrew A. with his review of Shadows over Camelot. In his words “In my experience, this game (Shadows over Camelot) is great with large groups (5+ players) and gets better each time you play with the same people. The bluffing element to the game really starts to shine when you’ve had experience playing with everyone at the table.

This game is fun for new players as well – the rules are easy to learn, and new players can sometimes be the most successful traitors. (Your fellow knights will be asking themselves “Is he inexperienced or the traitor?”.)” .

 

On-Going Contest

Don’t forget, we are also awarding 50 Citadel Points to each approved review. Lastly, the winner is enterred into the end of the year draw for the Grand Prize of $250 of board games!

Read more about the Contest

Site Updates

Our coupon codes and rewards points system is still down. We’re hoping to have it fixed soon, and once it’s fixed, we’ll be hosting a Rewards Only Sale, so look out for that in September.

In addition, we are sponsoring the Spiel; a gaming podcast. We’ve added them to the site’s Homepage so customers will be able to listen to their podcast directly.

Lastly, read our report on the Anime Evolution Convention we attended in early August.

Read more on our blog

Upcoming Hot Games

A ton of great new releases are arriving in the next few months including Dominion : Prosperity, Showmanager, Power Struggle the reprint of Betrayal at the House on the Hill and Jerusalem.

More Pre-orders

In Other News

• Let us know how you like the new Newsletter design!
• All Pre-Orders now receive Double Reward Points
• Drop by the Vendor’s Room of VCon on Oct 1 - 3, 2010 to say hi!
• We are also sponsoring
  BigCon in Kamloops and
  FallCon in Calgary
• We have a new employee (Chona) doing shipping for the next few months.

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On Competition & Sale Restrictions

September 1st, 2010 Posted in business | No Comments »

In the game industry, quite often there are restrictions on sales - whether geographical or because we are an online store.  It’s an extremely annoying restriction in our view and one that drives the price of products up for our customers; if we can even buy / sell those games at all.

Geographical limitations are annoying since we receive the vast majority of our product from the States.  So for a few games that do have these restrictions, we have to go direct to a Canadian distributor.  This often means we pay between 4 - 5% higher in exchange rate conversions (i.e.  the distributor has calculated their game price at 4-5% higher than if we had just brought the game across the border ourselves); we also have to pay an additional 7 - 12% on delivery.  We are not the only ones affected here - often in these cases, only a few distributors (mostly found in Ontario & Quebec) have the rights, so all the Western retailers have this problem.

Still, I can understand this to some extent.  Sometimes, it’s more profitable to do it with 1 distributor; sometimes it’s just due to existing grandfathered contracts.  It’s the restrictions of sales to online companies that puzzle me.

The main thrust of the argument for restricting sales to online stores are to ‘grow the industry’.  Party to this restriction is the belief that brick & mortar game stores do this better than online stores and their margins must then be protected.

If we take this argument as given; my question is why do these publishers then turn around and sell to big chain stores like Chapters, Barnes & Noble and worst - Amazon?  It’s not even as if they’re restricting sales to their brick & mortar locations; all of these groups are online (if not exclusively so).

It’s the sheer hypocrisy of this that drives me up the wall.

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New Bestsellers List for August 2010

September 1st, 2010 Posted in bestsellers | No Comments »

Last month (August’s) bestsellers were mostly dominated by newly released games. Quite different from July’s bestsellers that were mostly the tried and true classics of our genre.

1. Settlers of Catan 4th Edition

2. Dominion

3. Settlers of Catan 5+6 Player Expansion 4th Edition

4. Small World : Tales & Legends

5. Dominion : Intrigue

6. Dominion : Seaside

7. Dominion : Alchemy

8. Seafarers of Catan 4th Edition

9. Bohnanza

10. Dixit

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New & Restocked Board Games : August 31, 2010

August 31st, 2010 Posted in new releases | No Comments »

New Board Games
Axis & Allies Europe 1940
Castle Ravenloft : Dungeons and Dragons Board Game

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Boardgame Exchange : NetFlixing Board Games

August 29th, 2010 Posted in articles, business | No Comments »

It’s quite interesting that a recent discussion has brought to light that a new company has launched itself in the US that is attempting to be the NetFlix of Board Games.  Interesting because we actually considered and discarded the idea about 3 years ago when we first launched the site as a potential point of differentiation.

Mainly, we couldn’t work out a way to make it cost effective in Canada.  Of course, unlike the Exchange, we hadn’t thought to discard the boxes (i.e. just shipping components); but due to Canada’s size, it’d still be cost-prohibitive.   We’d generally looking at between $12 -$15 per shipment one-way; thus a total of $24 - 30 per trade.  Add time taken to review and count each game as it came back, and to just break-even we’d need to charge a minimum of $35 per month.  And customers would only be able to receive one shipment a month on this cost.

There’s also the major issue which I’m curious how they will manage - new board games.  If a new board game costs’ on average about $30 to stock; and with an average of say 5 games you’d like to add to the library each month, you’d be seeing about $150 in capital cost.  You would really need to add this ‘expense’ to your monthly fee.  Figure say 10 customers per game, your ‘cost’ to each customer is $3.  So that pushes your minimum fee to $38 or $456 a year and you’d still not be making any money!

As others have pointed, the other flaw of a rental plan is that you would end up with new games at the end of the year.   Of course, you could make the games purchasable (potentially at a discount); but that’s just an additional cost on top of the above.

Truthfully; I think this is another area is another that your local brick & mortar store is better able to provide.  With no shipping involved, the only real cost is the counting & replacement of the games and the need to add to the new ‘collection’.  So a minimum charge of $5 would probably cover the cost and provide a minimal profit.

So what do you all think? Am I off my rocker here? Would a service at say $50 a month that allowed customers to test any game they wanted from our catalog be worthwhile?

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Best Practices : Responsibilities & Business Structure

August 27th, 2010 Posted in best practices | No Comments »

Now that you have an idea about where you want to go, it’s important to build the foundations or shell of the business.  In particular, we’re talking about business responsibilities and structure.

Legally speaking (again, from my experience but I’m not a Lawyer so take it for what it’s worth); I have found that a company structure is best if you are entering business with more than 1 person involved in ownership.   If there’s only 1 individual involved, thanks to the bank’s and distributors requirements that you sign a personal guarantee; there’s no financial liability difference between a personal / business entity.   On the other hand, there is a difference if you (personally) go bankrupt in such a situation. At the end of the day, this is a decision that should be made with a Lawyer.

I’m more interested in discussing how the business responsibilities affect it’s structure.  Even if there’s only one of you involved, it’s worth breaking down the company into it’s functioning components and assigning these responsibilities .  The reason for this is that it allows you to consider the functions that are important to keep in-house and those that you could outsource.

Here’s a brief example taken from our business:

1. Strategy / Direction
2. Information Technology
   • Website Design & Infrastructure
   • Website Content
3. Marketing
   • Advertising
   • Public Relations
   • Graphic Design
   • Promotions
4. Logistics
   • Shipping & Receiving
   • Purchasing
   • Inventory
5. Customer Service
   • Sales
   • Customer Support & Enquiries
6. Finance
   • Bookkeeping
   • Taxes
   • Cost Management / Negotiations
7. Administrative & Legal
   • Administrative purchasing & supply (paper, tape, pens, etc.)
   • Legal

By breaking down and assigning responsibilities, you can actually start planning your tasks list.  In addition, if you have partners / employees the list allows you to sign responsibilities and reduce arguments when something doesn’t get done.

Lastly, the ability to break down these areas lets you decide if you want to / can outsource the work.  I generally outsource the vast majority of the IT & Graphic Design work, ditto with bookkeeping, legal &  Taxes. Why? Because it’s not core and I don’t have the time / expertise to deal with it.  It allows me to focus more directly on areas that I can influence.

On the other hand, there will be specific areas in this list that you will not want to outsource (e.g. Marketing, Customer Service, Purchasing, etc.) as it’s important to the survival and differentiation of the business.

Lastly; the Boss.  Make sure, if there’s more than 1 person involved (especially if you have equal partners) that you assign where the buck stops. Someone should, at the end of the day, have the responsibility & authority to make the call.

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New & Restocked Board Games : August 26, 2010

August 26th, 2010 Posted in new releases | No Comments »

New Board Games
Descent Sea of Blood Ocean Map
Duel of the Giants
DungeonQuest
Magical Athlete
Road Kill Rally
Tannhauser Reich Troop Pack
Tannhauser Union Troop Pack
Pizza Box Football

Restocked Board Games
Alhambra
Amun Re
Ants! For Queen & Colony

Arkham Horror King Yellow Expansion
Battleground Fantasy Warfare : Mens of Hawksfold Starter

Carcassonne Kids of Carcassonne (SA)
Carcassonne: Bridges, Castles & Bazaars
Carcassonne: Wheel of Fortune
Citadels Card Game
Colossal Arena
Cyclades
Doom the Board Game
Forbidden Island (limited quantity!)
A Game of Thrones Battle for Blackwater Chapter Pack
A Game of Thrones Beyond the Wall Chapter Pack
A Game of Thrones : LCG Core Set
A Game of Thrones : A Change of Seasons Chapter Pack
A Game of Throne : Illyrio’s Gift Expansion
A Game of Thrones : King of the Sea Expansion
A Game of Thrones : A King in the North Chapter Pack
A Game of Thrones Lords of Winter Expansion
A Game of Thrones : Princes of the Sun Expansion
A Game of Thrones : Raven’s Song Chapter Pack

A Game Of Thrones LCG : Return of the Others Chapters Pack
A Game of Thrones : A Sword in the Darkness Chapter Pack
A Game of Thrones : Wolves of the North Chapter Pack
High Society
Horus Heresy
Jaipur
Killer Bunnies Quest Orange Booster
Kingsburg
Le Havre
Le Havre Le Grand Hameau Exp
Pandemic
Pandemic : on the Brink

Race for the Galaxy
Runebound 2E Champions of Kellos Adventure Pack
Ricochet Robots
Risk: Godstorm
Runebound: Isle of Dread
Steam: Rails to Riches
Talisman Revised 4th Edition
Tannhauser Boardgame

Tannhauser Oper Novgorod Exp
Tannhauser Revised Rulebook
Through The Ages
Titan
Tobago
Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition : Shattered Empires
Zombie in my Pocket

Restocked Accessories

10″ Octagon Wood Dice Tray

Dice Boot
Monte BlueDragon DP 50ct 82006
Chessex Plastic Counter Storage Tray

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New & Restocked Board Games : August 25, 2010

August 25th, 2010 Posted in new releases | No Comments »

New Board Game
Jenga : Nintendo Donkey Kong Edition

Restocked Board Games
Zombie in my Pocket
Brass
Gipf Expansion Set 1
Race for the Galaxy Card Game
In the Year of the Dragon
Tzaar

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Dust the board game review

August 20th, 2010 Posted in reviews | No Comments »

Dust is an alternate reality sci-fiction wargame along the lines of Risk. Players are in control of their nations, attempting to build up their armies and areas of control to win the game. Unlike Risk however, players must manage not just the quantity of their armies but the mixture of the units in the armies, production centres and power sources to fuel their production centres. This makes Dust a much more strategically involved wargame, but streamlined rules and a victory point condition makes the game faster to play and finish.

Appearance: Firstly, Dust has the cutest little tanks ever. Seriously, those tanks are so, so cute. The various other models for the units are very well designed as well, cute and easily distinctive across a table. In addition, the artwork on all the cards and in the rulebook is great - I like the comic style art that they have going on. However, the biggest complaint is the board- instead of using a mounted, folded board, the board is made up of multiple cut pieces that are meant to join together. Which they do. Sort of. Various bulges appear consistently, causing pieces to lie askew and sometimes slide.

Rules / Ease of Learning: Since Dust is a Risk derivative game, the basic rules are well known to most players. Each player has units, which do battle against other units via die rolls. However, additional rules are added in Dust to make the game more strategic. First, players have action cards that they play in the beginning of each round which dictate their turn order, the number of production points they have, the number of movement points and attack actions. In addition, each action card has a special ability that may be used once per round. Since the cards (and values) vary,players must balance their options and the main goal of each round before playing the card.

Production of units are dictated by the number of production centres, power sources and the cards controlled by each player. In addition, production of units can only occur in production centres, so players must consider exactly where to locate their production centres.

In Dust, each round moves through production then movement of troops then attacks for each player before the next players turn. There is additional impetus to attack in Dust to receive additional victory points, which is how the game ends (most commonly).

Overall, the rules of Dust should not be hard to teach, leaving the majority of the time to actual gameplay.

Gameplay: Firstly, I should note that I’m a huge fan of Risk-derivative type games. I enjoy the strategic level of gameplay allowed in these games, without getting bogged down in individual unit details. There’s also a lot of fun in tossing dice.

With that said, Dust scratches the itch very, very well. It does exactly what I want it to do - play fast, provide a high level of strategic and tactical decision making where luck might play a part but certainly doesn’t control the game. Good decisions are rewarded in Dust, while tactical surprises can still occur due to the various action cards.

The play between production centres and power sources forces players to hold both areas tightly, attempting to balance both their ability to produce units with the power sources needed to run the centres. In addition, the need (towards the latter half of the game) to keep their Headquarters under guard adds another element of risk to the game. While there’s some complaints that keeping HQs in Dust invoilable in the first half of the game reduces the tension, I think it allows players the ability to be aggressive with their units, which is a good thing.

Conclusion: Dust is fun to play and by far the best Risk-derivative game out there. It certainly does better than Risk 2210 A.D. with fast play, additional strategic and tactical complexity without bogging the game down in too large swings in power dynamics. While luck still plays a factor in Dust, it’s definitely not the major factor in gameplay.

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