My Most Anticipated Games of 2012

Each year there are a few games that I keep my eye and get excited about. While I'm sure there will be some more announced I haven't heard of, here are a few that are really sparking my interest.

First up is World of Warcraft: Clash of Champions. This game is from Cryptozoic, the publisher of the WoW TCG. When WoW TCG was first released by Upper Deck, I was heavy into it. I enjoyed the theme, the art, and most importantly the gameplay. However, as more and more sets kept coming out, I just couldn't keep up. It got to the point I was so many sets behind that I just put it aside. However, with Clash of Champions, this is a deck building game and not a collectible game. Everything you need is in one box and no need to buy anything else. I've come to really like the deck-building genre and WoW universe is very rich with lore and characters. This is a no-brainer buy for me.

At GenCon, I got the opportunity to test play Mage Wars. This is a card/board game where powerful mages face off against each on playing field broken into two rows of four squares. The appeal to me of this is that even though its a card game, there is no draw deck. All of your cards are in a book and you play card directly from that book. No luck involved when it comes to card draw. If you need it, you have it. The company has done a lot of playtesting at Cons over the past year and player feedback is very important to them. So I have high hopes for this game. Plus, I'm in one of their pictures on their website (Rock Em Sock Em Robot guy), so that's a bonus :-)

This past year I got into the miniature-battle game, Warmachine. One thing that drew me to that game was the lore. It is very steam-punkish with some magic mixed in. There are several warring factions in the Iron Kingdoms each with their own backstory and larger than life characters. The company that makes Warmachine, Privateer Press, recently announced they are releasing a new pen and paper RPG called Iron Kingdoms. I will admit that I never really got into RPGs because they were intimidating to me because of all the books and guides that exist. It just seemed like too much to buy and learn. With Iron Kingdoms, this will be a new system released with only one or two. So getting in on the ground floor of a game is less intimidating and will make the game easier to learn. Luckily, I have several other friends who are also interested in this IP so it won't be hard to find people to play with.


Those are the three main new properties I'm keeping an eye on this year. There will be some new expansions to some existing game I play that I will get. But I'll talk about those as the year goes on.


So what new games are you looking forward to?