The Decipher Dinner Announcements
Tuesday night, Decipher, along with Games Workshop and Alliance Distribution, hosted a news-filled dinner for GAMA attendees. The evening abounded with announcements, inside looks at new products, and plenty of surprises for the audience.
The Lord of the Rings movie, books, and mythos dominated the evening's festivities, since both Decipher and Games Workshop hold some of the most important product licenses for both the movie and the literary lines.
The president of Games Workshop led off the show with numerous announcements about their upcoming Lord of the Rings miniatures game. Already known around the world for their "Warhammer" and "Warhammer 40,000" miniature game lines, Games Workshop now turns their considerable talents and skills to the Lord of the Rings franchise. Games Workshop president XXXXYYYY explained that this new game plays at a skirmish level, where individual heroes clash on the battlefield. "Lots of action -- that's what this game offers", he promised.
Decipher's own Dean Irwin picked up from there, filling in the audience on the company's hectic release schedule for the coming year. In addition to the Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game (slated for release in November 2001, shortly before the movie release), the designers at Decipher plan multiple releases for all of the existing core games, plus Jedi Knights, the newest addition to the core game group.
With the initial set arriving in April, Decipher plans two Jedi Knights expansions in 2001. Scum and Villainy, the first expansion, is due in the summer. Look for the second expansion (as yet unnamed) closer to Christmas, 2001. Decipher also announced more details about the Jedi Knights League, and showed off samples of the special league membership cards and promotional playing cards. Be sure to ask your favorite retailer about the League, because it's too cool to miss!
2001 won't leave Decipher's classic games out in the cold -- in fact, this year might be the hottest yet! The Star Wars CCG gets the much-anticipated Tatooine expansion, which bridges the gap between Classic Star Wars and Episode 1 action and characters. Look for still more Episode 1 expansions later in the year, leading to a new Episode 1-only tournament environment!
In addition to all that, Star Wars CCG also gets Reflections 3. How will Decipher beat the home-run combination of box toppers and case toppers in Reflections 2? "Decipher always adds extra value to the Reflections sets," Dean said, "and we plan some very special value-added surprises for this new one." Goodness only knows what's up their sleeve, so keep your sensors active for more on that topic.
Star Trek fans receive gifts in the form of the new Voyager expansion, followed later in the year with a new Borg expansion. Voyager brings a lot of excitement to the Star Trek CCG world thanks to its Warp Speed tournament environment, and because it represents a completely new entry point for players interested in the game.
Finally, Young Jedi players get their hands on the ever-so-cool Reflections release, and then rev up their engines at the Boonta Eve Podrace expansion.
In another exciting development, Decipher announced that they sewed up the rights for the Lord of the Rings Role-playing Game. With two top-shelf role-playing game licenses in house, Decipher needed the best role-playing designers out there, which is why they recently brought in the former staff of Last Unicorn Games. Christian Moore, former president of Last Unicorn Games, heads up Decipher's new roleplaying and miniature games development team. With an incredible track record including more than 20 Star Trek RPG products and the popular Dune role-playing game, the prospects look really exciting for both the Star Trek and Lord of the Rings products.
John Kaufeld
For more information contact
Monica Jones
monicaj@decipher.com
March 20, 2001
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