Quinns: Hold onto your unmentionables! Fantasy Flight have apparently decided they had too much to announce at Gen Con later this week, and have revealed a couple of massive new games early. Very wise of them. The SU&SD supercomputer warns us that a press conference of sufficient magnitude might just reduce Indianapolis to a smouldering, game-shaped crater.

Appearing one miserable month after our glowing re-review of the X-Wing Miniatures Game, Star Wars: Armada will offer some strikingly similar 2 player space battles, but EMBIGGENED. The profoundly personal pilot management of X-Wing replaced with cumbersome capital ships and whole, abstracted squads of fighter craft.

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Hold on to your wallets! Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective is now available. Contained within its box is the pinnacle of puzzle technology, the supreme solo game, an astonishing coup for couples' gaming! Board games will never be the same again.

Hmm? What's that? You're saying it came out in 1981?

No, that's impossible. There... must be some mistake.

It's a podstravaganza today, as we make not one, but two additions to our podcast section!

In Podcast #19: The Watercast Paul, Leigh and Quinns cast off their disguises and holster their leaky weapons to review the month-long watergun assassination game they all took part in. We learn what it did well, what surprised them, and how they'd recommend you get involved.

Then in the second of our spoken word articles, Leigh describes her month as an assassin. An emotional story full of guilt and grisly details that frankly makes us all a bit jealous.

It's more murderous content than you can shake a shotgun at. Don't worry about where you comment, as both podcasts and this very post will share the same thread. Enjoy, everybody!

Quinns: Hello, everybody! How are we all? I spent my morning sweating my way around the warren of central London with all the purpose and grace of a Hex Bug, visiting five shops with nothing to show for my brave capitalist efforts. And now there's not much news on the internet, either! What a day.

We'll start with the reveal of the above image, which is the box contents for undersea power struggle Abyss. This game looked exquisite before I knew that it included pearls as a currency, or that the stunning cover is only one of five different boxes. I love what the publishers are doing here so, so much. If this design was any more arresting I'd be in fish prison.

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Paul: Hello! Welcome! I am so, so sorry to have kept you waiting. Come in! Take off your shoes! That’s it, though, don’t take anything else off.

My last RPG Design Diary was ages back now and, I have to admit, I completely underestimated the time it would take for me to put something functional together for you to look at, to even start to play around with. Nevertheless, I said that I would and I was determined that I would. I didn’t so much put my nose to the grindstone as headbutt that grindstone, but still, that’s how progress is made.

As you probably know, we took the advice that several readers gave us and we decided that, yes, actually, we would start playing some of the new Star Wars RPG, thanksverymuch. I spent a lot of time thinking about dice. I spent a lot of time thinking about stats. I might have something to show you all.

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Paul: No video today, as this week we were assembling 2200 of our Season 3 Gold Club bags! Also Matt had some kind of disease and may now be dead(?).*

Quinns: Next week will be a stomper, though, with coverage of Street Wars, Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective AND Nations. Then the week after that our entire team will be reporting from Gen Con '14 and trying to blag our way into the sold-out True Dungeon! Actually, if any of you guys have a spare ticket and want to let Brendan fulfill his destiny by becoming an actual bard, please email the address at the bottom of the site.

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Now LIVE in our podcast section is part 2 of our entirely amazing Star Wars adventures! In this session our team of heroes arrive at a space station, kill an orc (kind of), succeed at crime (mostly) and (almost) begin working as a team. I'm calling it now. There is no way this ends well.

If you missed part 1, we should stress that we haven't retreated into a child-like fantasy world and are in fact playing the new Star Wars RPG. Newcomers will definitely want to check out part 1 where our story begins.

The dramatic caper of the Crap Plastic Artifact will conclude next week!

Quinns: Morning, everyone! How was your weekend? I woke up today with my friend Olly sprawled across my sofa after some hot, late-nite Pictomania. Such a tragedy that that game didn't sell! It's Vlaada Chvátil's secret best work. If you ever see a copy in the wild, pounce on it instantly and without doubt, like a tiger upon a juicy gazelle.

Oh man, I'm going to get some juice. Be right back.

Our first story is that well-respected 2009 release Hansa Teutonica (seen above) is receiving a reprint this year as well as an expansion, Hansa Teutonica: Britannia, adding an optional new board to play on and revised 2 player rules.

I've never played it, but I can tell you that the fancy Latin name isn't hiding much in the way of theme. Hansa Teutonica is a game about building offices and trading routes in the middle ages, immediately putting me in mind of the comedic-sounding yet actually pretty great Thurn & Taxis. A game where players run a 17th century German postal service. I know! Just like you always dreamed.

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