Online Selection

Our Ebay account will be up and running in a few weeks, but because we received so many requests for online sales from our Facebook friends, we’ve put up a selection of our inventory that anyone can buy now!

Shipping and handling costs are $5 for each item.  (Though two small items might be able to fit in the same box.)

Call us at 208-944-9275 with your credit card information and we can place an order just for you!  For alternate forms of payment, contact us at facebook.com/frontiergamesllc, or frontiergamesidaho@gmail.com.

FLUXX (Original, Zombie, Pirate, and Cthulhu) — $16

“The card game with ever changing rules! It starts out simple, with just the Basic Rule card: draw one card and play one card during each player’s turn. But New Rule cards quickly make things chaotic. Even the object of the game will often change as you play, as players swap out one Goal card for another. Can you get the Rocket to the Moon before someone changes the goal to Death by Chocolate?”  – from Product Discription

BANG! Core Game — $20

BANG! Dodge City Expansion — $18

BANG! Gold Rush Expansion — $17

“When a man with a pistol meets a man with a Winchester, you might say that the one with the pistol is a dead man, unless his pistol is a Volcanic, In the wild west, the Outlaws hunt the Sheriff, the Sheriff hunts the Outlaws, and the Renegade plots in secret, ready to join one side or the other. Before long, bullets start to fly, Which gunmen are Deputies, ready to sacrifice themselves for the Sheriff? And which are the merciless Outlaws, looking to gun him down? The world’s best-selling wild west card game is back in a new, richer format. Easier to learn and play than ever before.” — from Product Description

GLOOM Core Game — $25

UNFORTUNATE EXPEDITIONS, UNHAPPY HOMES, UNWELCOME GUESTS — $15

“In the Gloom card game, you assume control of the fate of an eccentric family of misfits and misanthropes. The goal of the game is sad, but simple: you want your characters to suffer the greatest tragedies possible before passing on to the well-deserved respite of death. You’ll play horrible mishaps like Pursued by Poodles or Mocked by Midgets on your own characters to lower their Self-Worth scores, while trying to cheer your opponents’ characters with marriages and other happy occasions that pile on positive points. The player with the lowest total Family Value wins.”

MODERN ART — $18

“Remember those unknown, starving, but up-and-coming artists from the early nineties ? Lite Metal, Yoko, Christin P., Karl Glitter and Krypto? You first met them in the now-classic Reiner Knizia game Modern Art. Now, almost 20 years later, they have all found fame and fortune in the art world and their masterpieces are displayed in major galleries around the world. But even with their success, the group’s artistic rivalry remains as lively as ever. Whose work sells for the most? Which one has the highest standing in the minds of the art-buying public? In Modern Art: The Card Game, the players are art critics, collectors and gallery owners. All have their own favorite artist in this pantheon of greats, or at least they do until the game begins. As it is in art galleries the world over, tastes and opinions change constantly in the world of Modern Art. Today’s treasure is tomorrow’s trash, and no one has more influence on the artists’ values than the players in this game. Which players will exert the most influence on the art market? Who will be the best at anticipating the quickly-changing tastes and opinions of buyers, and thus assemble the highest-valued collection of these new masters? Only the most influential collector will come out on top in Modern Art: The Card Game!”

MUNCHKIN (Zombies, Booty, Super, Cthulhu, Star, Apocalypse, Bites, The Good and the Bad) — $25 each

Munchkin Zombies: “Braaiiinns. It’s the sickest, silliest Munchkin yet. The players are zombies, kicking down doors and eating brains. The “monsters” they’re attacking are people, some helpless and some hazardous, with a few rogue zombies thrown in. The armor is whatever they’ve blundered across during their lurching search for brains. So bravely the munchkins go forth, with mousetraps on their feet and a bowling trophy protecting their poor rotting heads to level up, or to die. Again.”

Munchkin Cthulhu: “Now available . . . another stand-alone Munchkin game! Munchkins have hacked their way through dungeons, kung fu temples, starships, haunted houses, and super-foes. Now they face their greatest challenge – Cthulhu! Will they survive? Will they retain their sanity? Will they . . . level up? Munchkin Cthuhlu is a stand-alone game in the Munchkin line, this time lampooning Lovecraft’s Mythos and the horror gaming that surrounds it. Brought to you by Steve Jackson and John Kovalic, this set features four new Classes – including the Cultist – and a lot of classic monsters from outside reality. And they all have Stuff you can take from their twitching bodies. You can play Munchkin Cthulhu by itself, or combine it with any number of other Munchkin games for mind-bending silliness.”

MAGIC: THE GATHERING Booster Packs — $3.77 each

RETURN TO RAVNICA, GATECRASH Starter Decks — $15 each

“Play Magic: The Gathering and discover why it is the worlds premier trading card game. Start with a deck of cards filled with potent spells and fearsome creatures. Then take on the mantle of a Planeswalker, a powerful mage, and challenge your friends – and yourself – in the ultimate battle of wits.”

GHOOOST! — $14

“A fun and Spooky Card Games for the whole Family. 2 to 6 players compete to get rid of all their Ghooost’s first. A combination of cards played in the right order with rid you of these Ghooosts! and declare you the winner!  Fast-paced game with lots of twists and turns!  Manage your hand wisely for chain combos.  Easy to carry, quick to play.”

COLORETTO — $15

“The players draw cards from a card supply in the middle of the table. During the game, the players try to specialize in a few colors, as at the end of the game, a player can score plus points for only 3 colors; the rest score minus points. The more cards a player has of a color, the more points he scores. The player with the most points wins.”

SABOTEUR — $15

“You and your Dwarven brethren dig for gold in the depths of a mine. Suddenly, a pick-axe breaks and the light from the lantern goes out. The saboteur has struck again – but which of your fellow players is a saboteur? Discover the traitor in your midst while questing for gold in this path-laying card game for 3-10 suspicious dwarves.”

MONOPOLY MILLIONAIRE DEAL — $9

“A fast-paced, totally addictive card game that you can play in minutes!Deal and steal your way to success – just collect 3 property sets to win.  Sounds easy… but beware the dreaded Debt Collectors and Deal Breakers, which can flip your fortunes in the play of a card!Includes 110 Deal Cards and instructions.  For 2 to 6 players.”

YU-GI-OH

Gold Series Haunted Mine — $20

Hidden Arsenal — $4

Return of the Duelist — $10

“In this game, two players Duel each other using a variety of Monster, Spell, and Trap Cards to defeat their opponent’s monsters and be the first to drop the other’s Life Points to 0.”

/Exploring/ Tabletop Wargames

By Lance Mulberry

What is wargaming?  If you are uninitiated your first thought might be of generals practicing in a hypothetical war.  Testing their wits and the mettle of their soldiers and weapons against a wide array of foes.  Truth is, you are correct, but what you might have wrong is the scale of things.  Because wargaming, which may imply a grand scale, is actually quite small.

Yes, this is wargaming, and as you had thought, it is about soldiers, weapons, and generals.  Only you are the general and your soldiers fit in the palm of your hand.

If you have never heard of wargaming as a hobby before, then what may surprise you is the rich history of the genre.  The first wargame was created sometime around 1803 by the Prussian General Staff and was dubbed Kriegsspiel, or Wargame.  It was designed so that they could test out hypothetical scenarios on various types of terrain.  These games used dice rolls on six sided dice to simulate the randomness of battle, such as fatigue, moral, weather, and weapon malfunction.   These games were refereed by highly experienced officers who would then modify the dice rolls based on what they had seen and experienced in actual combat.  Kriegsspiel was so successful in training officers to think critically and to explore new tactics that it is often given partial credit for the Prussian victory in the Franco-Prussian in 1870.

Kriegsspiel

The first civilian usage of wargames came about in sometime around 1898 at Oxford, England, where John F. T. Jane had started a naval wargaming club.  Jane would later become the author of the famous series of military reference books named after him.  Several years later, the famous author H. G. Wells would write the first ever rulebook for land based wargames.  Many of the rules and concepts which Wells put into his rulebooks are still used by tabletop wargamers to this very day.

It wasn’t until after World War II that wargaming became a popular pastime.  This was due mostly to the fact that disposable incomes were rising and the costs of manufacturing the miniature figures used in wargaming were decreasing.  People enjoyed then, as they do now, the thrill of assembling, painting, and collecting the miniature figurines that would comprise their army.  Just as some people boasted about their baseball card collection, others would boast of their armies and custom paint jobs.  For wargaming comprised the best of both worlds, it was part hobby because you had to assemble and paint your armies, and part game, because you could use your army to fight against another player’s army.  By the 1970s, with sub-genres in almost every category and a gaming club in every town, tabletop wargaming had hit its golden age.  However, this golden age would meet its end by the early ’80s as the popularity of role playing games, collectable card games, but most of all video games, started to take off.  By the end of the ’80s wargaming was largely forgotten, except for those few gamers that kept the hobby alive.

Today we are starting to see a resurgence in tabletop wargaming and miniture gaming.  The cause of this comeback is a topic that is often debated amongst the gaming crowd, with no obvious answer.  But it’s my opinion that the genre is coming back partly because of a backlash against one of the very things that ended its golden age, video games.   As our society become more and more digitized and networked, people lose that essential face to face interaction with others.  Many of these people are growing tired that their only contact with friends and family is through digital media, and they are looking for ways to get back to good ol’ fashioned person to person interaction.  This is also true of video gamers.  Though they enjoy the thrill of being able to use wits and skill to outdo their friends in an intense, competitive manner.  They too are growing weary of their only contact with friends being through a headset or a chat box.  Hence the steady move over to tabletop wargaming, where they can use those same skills, and develop new ones, all while playing against friends in a real life social setting.  It’s in my opinion that as the craving for real human interaction grows, so will the popularity of wargaming.  Perhaps because of this, we are not too far off from another golden age of gaming.

/Exploring/ Magic the Gathering

by Anthony Machado

Magic: The Gathering is a collectible card game commonly played between two people.  Each player is a “wizard” trying to defeat his opponent in a battle.  Generally the last man standing is the winner.  Each player starts with 20 “life points,” which can be lowered to 0 by creatures attacking the player and various spells that “damage” the wizard.  Once you get your opponent down to 0 life points, you win the game.

Your deck of cards represents your wizard’s book of spells.  If you’re playing with friends, you can put any cards you want in your deck.  Part of the fun of Magic is the near-infinite variety of strategies you can use, and decks you can build.  There are thousands of cards to choose from, and every year new cards, with totally new and exciting abilities, are released.

On each of your turns you draw a card and get a chance to cast spells.  Every spell requires magical energy called “mana” to cast.  There are five types of mana: Islands, Swamps, Mountains, Forests, and Plains.  So, for example, if you want to play a spell that costs 5 swamps, you must have those cards on the table first.

The five types of mana

One way you can lower your opponent’s life points is by attacking him with “creatures.”  Depending on how you design your deck, you can choose to put in as many creature cards as you want.  Creatures stay on the table after you “summon” them, and can attack your opponent every turn.  For example, if I summoned a “Runeclaw Bear” (see card below) I could have it attack my opponent each turn for 2 damage.  If you look at the bottom right corner of a creature card, there are two numbers.  The first is the creature’s “attack”, the second is its “defense.”  Runeclaw Bear has 2 for both.  This means that anything that deals two damage to the bear, including another creature, will kill it.

  

Besides creatures, there are all kinds of other types of spell cards you can put in your deck.  One type, called “Instants” are used once, then are discarded.  One nice thing about Instants is that you can use them whenever you want, even during your opponents turn!  Another spell type is an “Enchantment,” which is a spell that has a permanent effect and stays in play until another card removes it.  A third type of spell is an “Artifact,” which are like your wizard’s tools.  Some Artifacts are armor or weapons that you can attach to your creatures, others are creatures themselves.

One of my favorite cards is an Instant called “Lightning Bolt.”  For one mana, you can do three damage to any creature or player you want to.  Is your opponent attacking you with a bear on his turn?  Use one of your mountains for mana to call a Lightning Bolt from the sky and turn that pesky bear into a crisp instantly.

Magic: The Gathering is a game of constant variety.  There are an incredible number of cards with wildly different abilities.  And since blocks of new cards are made by the game publisher every few months or so, Magic hardly ever gets old.  There are always new, different cards you’ve never seen before.  Cards that can combine in ways to create clever strategies, and devastating attacks.  Anything can happen in this game.  You can shoot down an opponent’s dragon with an elf archer.  You can give a zombie the ability to fly.  You can cancel your opponent’s spells before he even plays them.  The variety is endless, which is why Magic: The Gathering is the most successful and fun collectible card game in print.

/Exploring/ Roleplaying

by Jordan Beery

Roleplaying, to define: Undertaking the part of a character who is not yourself and engaging in a collaborative imaginary situation and enacting on behalf of your specific character. A complicated sounding procedure, but at its core an easy practice to understand.

You’re in a long dark hallway, behind you a brick wall and before you a wooden doorway. What do you do?

If you can answer that simple question, congratulations you now have participated in a basic Roleplay scenario. Of course there’s more to it, but you now have a basic understanding from which we can explore the more intricate pieces of the game.

Roleplaying is an act of expression. A sort of artistic medium between acting and storytelling, but fret not, you don’t have to be keen or gifted to be creative or have fun during a Roleplaying game. In fact, Roleplaying as a hobby is vaster then one might guess with all the various degrees of intensity and accessibility. The act of Roleplaying with your buddies is a different game really, then if you were to find an online forum or even engage in an MMO Roleplaying Channel. There is room for many kinds of players with many different ideals and goals. Really any who wish to participate should be able to find a place they are comfortable  within the hobby.

Who are Roleplayers?- The stereotype would tell you RPers (roleplayers) are nerds, geeks, dorks and social outcasts in general. As nerd culture has begun to move into the mainstream eye, we begin to understand that this simply isn’t true. Roleplayers are made up of all kinds of people.  All of whom share a common trait: an active imagination.

Of course you must understand, not all Roleplaying is done with Dungeons and Dragons, there are many other games and tons of online sites that offer the ability to Roleplay and engage the community. This brings us to our next question.

What exactly is a role playing game?- This is harder to define. Truth is, you can Roleplay without any material aid what so ever. Generally speaking, a Roleplaying game is made up of two parts, which collaborate to tell a story. The first part is a referee type player, who runs the game, unveiling the plot of the story to its players and acting as the interaction between the world and the characters. The second part are the players, who take on the role of characters going through the story.

How do you win?- Truth is, you only win if you’re enjoying yourself. Roleplaying is unlike a traditional game in that there’s not a winner and loser. The idea is to create a tale of the imagination, and to enjoy the process of seeing its developments pan out. Much like reading a book, the amusement is the adventure, not who ‘scores’ the most points.

I’ve heard that Dungeons and Dragons and games like it are evil/unhealthy. Can this hobby harm or affect me?- The games are played with your imagination and creativity. It is impossible for someone to control you or do you harm with –your- imagination. It is true that in many of the traditional Roleplaying games there are elements of magic, but it’s no more real than the magic you see in the movies. Of course if you’re uncomfortable with even the idea of magic, there are lots of RP games out there that contain settings completely devoid of magic. It’s a game, and if you treat it like a game, you will be fine.

In fact Roleplaying is commonly used by professionals of psychology, the medical field, comedy troupes, and public speakers. Even though we’re talking about the hobby aspect of Roleplaying, it is ultimately nothing more than make-believe. A Game Master cannot make you do anything through playing a Roleplaying game.  It’s a game, and it holds no more power over you than playing Yahtzee or Monopoly.

Where can I learn more?- I would be more than happy to address any questions or concerns you may have involving Roleplaying. Of course there are plenty of websites that talk about many of the questions I have mentioned above. Also your local gaming and hobby store would be knowledgeable on the subject and could show you the games and activity.

There is much more to learn about Roleplaying, and in the future I may get to topics with more depth. In the meantime though I hope this helps clear the air, and offers you an open and honest look at the hobby of Roleplaying.