• Designer Néstor Romeral Andrés has released Arcade, a two-player-only skirmish game that reveals its origins in its title, through his own nestorgames publishing house. In this game, players move a trio of tanks around the modular playing area, trying to blast one another to bits by lobbing shots. Walls prohibit movement in certain spaces, but with the variant rules included in the game, you can blast away walls, cause collateral damage to the floor, stun units, or use triangulation to shoot with greater accuracy.
• Mike Fitzgerald's Baseball Highlights: 2045 was released by Eagle-Gryphon Games in January 2015, with five expansions already in the bullpen at that time, but now EGG has announced even more for the game series, starting with expansions #6 and 7: Errors! and Big Fly! EGG's Ralph Anderson notes that these expansions, due out late Q3 or early Q4 2015 in coordination with a reprint of the base game, each contain 15 cards and many of them bring new "immediate actions" to the game, with some of those actions being dependent on making a check on the free agent deck. Pinch runner, hit-and-run, forced error, sinkerball, bean ball: lots of familiar baseball terms come into play.
On top of those, EGG is introducing twelve(!) new 15-card starter teams, with four new sets of five veteran players being included. Notes Anderson, "All 16 teams share the same ten Rookies and each have a set of five veterans based on eight sets. The new Starter Teams will be available separately and in various bundles so that fans will be able to include their favorite locations." Here's a roster of the teams that highlight how the veteran players will appear in sets, although they won't necessarily be grouped this way for sale:
BH2045 Starter Team 1: San Francisco - (Veteran Set - V1)
BH2045 Starter Team 2: Los Angeles - (Veteran Set - V2)
BH2045 Starter Team 3: Boston - (Veteran Set - V3)
BH2045 Starter Team 4: New York - (Veteran Set - V4)
New Starter Teams with Veteran sets V5, V6, V7, V8 - NEW
BH2045 Starter Team 5: Chicago - (Veteran Set - V5)
BH2045 Starter Team 6: St. Louis - (Veteran Set - V6)
BH2045 Starter Team 7: Florida - (Veteran Set - V7)
BH2045 Starter Team 8: Milwaukee - (Veteran Set - V8)
New Starter Teams with Veterans sets V1, V2, V3, V4 - NEW
BH2045 Starter Team 9: Atlanta - (Veteran Set - V1)
BH2045 Starter Team 10: Baltimore - (Veteran Set - V2)
BH2045 Starter Team 11: Cincinnati - (Veteran Set - V3)
BH2045 Starter Team 12: Detroit - (Veteran Set - V4)
New Starter Teams with Veteran sets V5, V6, V7, V8 - NEW
BH2045 Starter Team 13: Kansas City - (Veteran Set - V5)
BH2045 Starter Team 14: Philadelphia - (Veteran Set - V6)
BH2045 Starter Team 15: Pittsburgh - (Veteran Set - V7)
BH2045 Starter Team 16: Texas - (Veteran Set - V8)
• TRAP! is a "deductive, dice-rolling, card game system" from designer Jeffrey Neil Bellinger and publisher IDW Games, and if you're familiar with Bellinger's earlier designs (Killer Bunnies et al.), you won't be surprised to learn that this system is launching with two titles — TRAP! Nimble Ninjas and TRAP! Zany Zombies — that can be played on their own or mixed together. Details are right now: You play five rounds and try to trap large sets of creatures.
• Designer Michael Schacht has been fiddling with the scoring pad for Zooloretto: The Dice Game and scoring pad "S" can be downloaded to put a twist on the game. Schacht also notes in his monthly newsletter that other new Zooloretto items are in the works such as an even different scoring pad for the dice game and a game for two players. Writes Schacht: "But surely there might be something small in 2015."