Right out of the box, Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition does a lot for combat on the personal scale, but when it comes to the broader field of battle—when things go macro—the tools to handle a clash of thousands just aren’t there.

Or are they? In Hard Boiled Armies, you’ll find an examination of how to take the existing tools in the game—with just a few additions and changes of perspective—to get right where you need to go for medium- and large-scale military conflicts. And by looking at these existing tools with new eyes, you’ll be able to add large scale battles to your game in a way that feels both fresh and yet completely familiar.

Hard Boiled Armies is available now at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

White Wolf has a special place in my heart that goes both ways. It’s a classic tale of love and hate that dates back to the first edition of Vampire: the Masquerade I bought on a whim. As they dwindled down their successful runs only to reboot them, I found myself enjoying their releases less and less. I felt they were trying to reinvent their own wheel and, well, just couldn’t do it. I took on Hunter: the Vigil and hoped for the best.

This monstrous tome pushes four hundred pages and yet somehow manages to enrapture the reader. There are small bits off; however, this is an exceptional book. Let’s take a look at it. The layout of Hunter is typical to their new lines. A cropping of artwork throughout the book lines the upper border of the book while fading into a gray border that frames each page.

Review by Todd Cash

Post Mortem Comic Studios is based out of western North Carolina, joining authors from the Southern Horror Writers Association with talented artists spanning the world. Some of the titles available at DriveThruComics include:

Magic Eight Ball

A one-shot horror comic. Three teenagers test their fate in the words of a Magic Eight Ball when strange creatures threaten them.

Dorothy Rising

Hatfield, Arkansas becomes terrorized by a government experiment gone wrong. A swarm of mutant insects takes control of the wind and destroys everything in their path. A plague of funnel clouds begin to form and lay waste to the town or so the town thinks.

Blue Dragon Plus for the Nintendo DS is a sequel to Mistwalker’s console RPG Blue Dragon. This time around, the straight-up RPG action has been replaced with a real-time strategy mechanic but everything else, from the Dragon Ball-esque graphics to the big bad Shadows, has returned.

The original Blue Dragon was a hotly-anticipated title for the Xbox 360. Not only did it have an esteemed pedigree with the creator and composer of the Final Fantasy series onboard but the 360 was going through a bit of an RPG drought. Its release helped scratch an itch a lot of Xboxers had and was a decided “hand across the aisle” to the Japanese market who regarded the 360 as an American machine with American games.

Review by Jason Blair

Spectrum Games is pleased to announce the release of Slasher Flick, the role-playing game that brings the thrills and chills of the “psycho killer” horror movies from the screen to your tabletop.

According to Cynthia Celeste Miller, “As with any of our games that emulate a particular genre or medium, Slasher Flick was designed to reflect every aspect of the source material. This isn’t a universal system. It was created specifically to feel like a slasher film in play. And I’m extremely confident that the game does exactly that. One of the most important keys to capturing the feel of the slasher movies was the implementation of something we call ‘kill scenes’. A kill scene begins when the killer appears in any given scene and ends when the character(s) present drops to below zero survival points (death) or gains a total of eight survival points (escape). Survival points are gained and lost by making crucial stat checks throughout the kill scene.

One word describes the first novel from author Jack Kilborn: relentless. Much like the works of Jim Butcher and David Morrell, Kilborn’s premiere work, AFRAID, is non-stop tension. Each section break, while short, somehow manages to ratchet up the suspense to the point that you wonder how much more you can take. You won’t want to put the book down once you start it and a small part of you will wonder what possessed you to pick it up in the first place. The story is a non-stop horror ride…once on, you can’t get off.

The story centers on Safe Haven, Wisconsin, a small town that prefers its privacy over even economic depression. Snowbirds flee south for the winter, leaving the 900+ full-time residents to their quiet, peaceful place of fishing and relaxation. That is, until what appears to be a helicopter crash ignites a world of trouble for every one of the town’s 900 inhabitants.

Review by Joe Rixman

Exile Game Studio licensed the Ubiquity Roleplaying System to Triple Ace Games (TAG) for their Daring Tales of Adventure (DTA) series.

“We’ve developed a reputation for high quality products and we intend to keep our sights aiming ever higher.” said Robin Elliott, TAG’s Production Director. “The DTAs may be a conversion, but that doesn’t mean we’ll take shortcuts. Each adventure is getting as much attention to detail as the originals.”

Triple Ace Games is putting the final touches on several manuscripts of its DTA line and expects to have this exciting new series of adventures completed by the summer of 2009.

The story is about a young man living in a police state. The internet has become the chief propaganda tool of the government, and camera-like tentacles are everywhere to monitor citizens. Broad skyscrapers dominate the skyline with propaganda dominating advertising spaces.

Current events make up the backdrop of the story as well. In One Live Beast, rising gas prices, terrorism, and corrupt business practices contribute to the rise of the police state. All of these lead to Christopher’s rise as a hero, as his attempt to rebel against the police state inadvertently leads to him gaining his powers.

Review by John Kennedy

Move over King Kong, there are new monsters in town!

Giant beetles, towering crustaceans, gargantuan felines and massive underwater beasts, to name just a few. Think you’ve got what it takes to survive their attacks? Then open this baby up, and join today’s hottest authors as they show us the true power of Mother Nature’s creatures. With enough fangs, pincers and blood to keep you up all night, we promise you won’t look at creepy crawlies the same way again.

Monstrous is available now at Amazon.com.

Anime has come a long way since Astroboy and Voltron, as is evidenced by even the merest glimpse of Ergo Proxy. This visual delight, though perhaps not the latest, is – in this reviewer’s opinion – one of the greatest anime series to come out in recent history.

Delightfully dark, Ergo Proxy revolves around two main characters: Re-l Mayer and Vincent Law. Re-l, privileged Citizen and Security Bureau member of the post-apocalyptic eden-dome of Romdo, becomes rapidly obsessed with a bizarre series of murders committed by AutoReiv androids.

Review by Aly Condon

Dancing on the Head of a Pin is the second installment in Thomas E. Sniegoski’s compelling urban fantasy mystery series, which follows the adventures of Remy Chandler, once known as the Angel Remiel who chose to renounce heaven and live on earth.

Dancing on the Head of a Pin picks up where A Kiss Before the Apocalypse left off. As Remy becomes drawn to cases with a dark supernatural bent he finds it difficult to distance himself from his past. When the theft of priceless ancient weaponry threatens all of humanity, Remy finds himself at odds with the Fallen Angels, who want to use the weapons to build their power, and the Nomads, who have far darker intentions. Will Remy’s search leave even an immortal such as he to the brink of death?

Pre-Order Dancing on the Head of a Pin at Amazon.com.

Under the Skin is the first adventure using the Storyteller Adventure System that I’ve read, so I found myself looking forward to reading it. Adventures are a tricky bag, especially to a setting as thick as White Wolf’s World of Darkness. I say they are tricky mainly because there always exists the tendency for them to railroad players in an attempt to make sense of the scripted adventure. Some games find a way around this by theorizing alternate endings or sometimes not even offering a true ending (though few do the latter). This adventure makes little effort in offering a free-form style, which we’ll discuss later in the review.

Review by Todd Cash

Fat Dragon Games is pleased to announce that it has signed an agreement with Chaosium to create 3D gaming terrain sets for the Call of Cthulhu role playing game. These cardstock terrain sets will feature some of the best known locations of the Cthulhu mythos, complete with gaming stats using the Basic Roleplaying system.

“It is an incredible privilege to bring these iconic settings to life for Call of Cthulhu fans,” said Tom Tullis, owner and lead designer of Fat Dragon Games. “Call of Cthulhu is one of my all time favorite RPGs, and I look forward to working with the legendary creative minds at Chaosium on these model sets.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing Call of Cthulhu terrain from our friends at Fat Dragon Games. I’ve always wanted to own a little piece of Innsmouth. Now I can!” said Dustin Wright of Chaosium Inc.

Dungeonaday.com, Monte’s new subscription-based adventure site, goes live today, offering game material and DMing advice to its members. Dungeonaday.com, in fact, builds an entire ongoing campaign with a new material updated every weekday.

Monte expressed excitement for the new format in which he could create and deliver game material. “It’s been very fun coming up with this concept and seeing where it can go, but the key component will be the feedback from members, so it still could go in all-new directions,” Monte said.

Dungeonaday.com will be updated every weekday with a major encounter, plus frequent blog and podcast updates, monthly bonus encounters, and more. Members will find an active forum where they can ask questions, give feedback to Monte, exchange tips and ideas with each other, and help build Dungeonaday.com into a community of dungeon (and dragon) enthusiasts.

API Worldwide Canada is Third Eye Games second release, a supplement to the Apocalypse Prevention, Inc corebook. In this 82 page book (three pages of ads), the authors lay out the specifics of the Canadian branch, specific threats to its agents (both environmental and supernatural), and some of the tools and spells fitting to this setting. The book concludes with a duo of adventures for players eager to jump right into the game. The artwork in this supplement consisted of fifteen pieces of art, two of which were maps. The art within the book ranged a bit in style; nevertheless, I found that all the pieces fit the story behind this book.

Review by Todd Cash

Night Horrors: Immortal Sinners

Sins of the Ages

So many people wish for fame and renown during their lives — or even for just a little bit of notoriety. But among our Kindred, that’s very nearly a fate worse than death. Don’t take my word for it, though. Go and ask some questions. Find out about who they talk to in the Necropoli of the Nosferatu, and in the perfumed salons of Elysium. Listen to what they say about them, and listen even more carefully to what they don’t say. Then maybe you’ll understand that the worst thing you can do is to stand out in a society of blood-starved murderers, my boy.

Night Horrors: Immortal Sinners is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

Magic: The Gathering Tournament Champion is First to Capture the Title in 2009

The Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour season kicked-off this weekend in Kyoto, Japan. Gabriel Nassif from Paris, France was the first to be crowed Pro Tour champion in 2009 and took home $40,000. Luis Scott Vargas from Davis, California, Akimasa Yamamoto from Iwade-shi, Japan and Brian Robinson from North Quincy, Massachusetts filled out the top four. Nassif’s win in Kyoto marks his first Pro Tour victory although he’s had several top-8 finishes and was the 2004 Player of the Year. Since 1996, Wizards of the Coast has given away more than US$32 million in prize money, which includes both cash prizes and scholarship awards.

Enter a world where the worst kind of monster imaginable is … US!

This hair-raising trade paperback is a “best of” compilation from the acclaimed COLD BLOODED CHILLERS series featuring 8 great scares and 2 chilling extras.

Dave Baxter at BrokenFrontier raves: “Cold Blooded Chillers is perhaps the very best of the independently published anthologies that I’ve read.”

Project FanBoy says: “There’s an edge of Twilight Zone with a twist of Alfred Hitchcock … and the art is stunningly beautiful, reminiscent of the horror art of the past.”

Bone Chiller is now available at DriveThruComics.com.

AND THERE CAME A DAY WHEN THE GAME MASTER WAS RAISED ON HIGH…

… And we who roll the dice, move the miniatures, and live the stories did celebrate our provider of fun. We sought out great treasures to grant unto him, and thus endow him with even more wonders to further entertain and enchant us.

It’s the biggest sale of the year for us, and a great time for you to check out whatever might be in your GM’s Wish List and get it for her. Dozens of publishers! Hundreds of products! All at 25% off or MORE!

Visit the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop to check out all of the GM’s Day Sale items.

Moonstone has announced plans to publish several original short story collections featuring radio, film, comic book and television heroes The Green Hornet and Kato. The debut entry is expected to hit the streets by late 2009.

Bold newspaper publisher Britt Reid (the Green Hornet’s alter ego) along with his faithful valet and ally Kato have thrilled audiences with their daring adventures as they “hunt the biggest of all game, public enemies who try to destroy our America” ever since springing from the imaginations of George W. Trendle and Fran Striker in 1936. Fans have longed for the green-masked crime fighter to once again match wits with and bring down the criminal underworld.