Remember me writing about Fantasy Flight publishing what I would hope to be the first on the series of articles about miniature painting?

Well, I was wrong, that article wasn’t about having a series of tutorials, but a preparation for a miniature painting contest. The person who paints the best dragon will be one of the first having their dirty stained hands on Descent: Tomb of Ice expansion.

So grab your paints read some tutorials and get that paint flowing (oh and remember FFG will NOT provide replacements for your dragon if anything goes wrong).

It’s Alive! will be reprinted this July. According to Reiver Games (an independent publisher) this reprint will be professionally manufactured and thus more widely available (the first print only had 300 copies made). They are offering a 30% discount if you pre-order from their site.

In It’s Alive, you’ll have the chance to be a mad scientist trying to create your own personal Frankenstein. This auction card game where organ trafficking is abound is set for 2 to 5 players, from ages 12 up and has a medium duration of 30 minutes.

Steve Jackson has stated that he will be at SPIEL (perhaps you know it as Essen) this October.

Better yet, the lucky people who’ll attend will be able to check out Munchkin Quest for the first time.

It’s time for the vintage boardgame that would make us happy we were playing Monopoly.

IT’S BARGAIN HUNTER [bgg]! Get out of debt for having bought a stove, a dog and a dresser.

Double U Tee Eff?

If you want to hunt real bargains head to the store and check out some real games.

Horus [bgg], of which I’ve spoken about earlier, is released today. If you you want to give Egypt your personal touch now is the time!

Twilight creations Inc has announced Zombies!!! 7: Send in the Clowns [bgg] will be available on June 23rd (that’s next Tuesday).

On not so good news: Z-Man games have been delayed due to lightning strike (yes you read it right). So Agricola [bgg] will ship from the printer on June 21st, so expect pre-orders to ship by the final days of July, with game shelves crying all over the world waiting to be filled by Agricola [bgg] goodieness.

Middle kingdom [bgg] is now due to the final week of July.

Ideology [bgg], Pandemic [bgg] and Chinatown [bgg] should be shipping from the printer by next week being in stores by July. Traders of Carthage [bgg] and Shadow Hunters [bgg] are now to be released also in July.

Genji [bgg], Wasabi! [bgg], Neuroshima Hex! [bgg] and Tales of the Arabian Nights [bgg] now have an unknown print date.

Given these delays Arena and Monster Liner [bgg] will probably be released in 2009 due to problems in finishing these products.

So those of us who were hoping for a more game filled vacation, well crap it

Fantasy Flight is brewing up Arkham league play. I’m quite interested in how all this will work out, but unfortunately for me I don’t have all the Arkham expansions so I can only play two scenarios

Here are the guidelines for participating:

• A team can consist of 2-8 investigators.
• All players can choose which investigator they would like to be.
• A player may not change investigators unless they are devoured during a game.
• Each scenario may be played multiple times, but a League Results form must be filled out after every time, and only the best result will be used.
• The first and second scenarios will be from the base game. Scenarios 3 and 4 will include elements from the Dunwich Horror. Scenarios 5 and 6 will include elements from The King in Yellow. Scenarios 7 and 8 will include elements from The Curse of the Dark Pharaoh and Kingsport. The final two scenarios will include elements from all the sets.
• Results will be posted and updated right here, on the Arkham Horror website.
• All forms need to be e-mailed to JR Godwin.

Also for Descent gamers who got a little bit disappointed with the last Descent contest, here’s a new one. this time it’s your writing skills on the line as you have to create a hero complete with bio and stats.

Here are the rules:

• All entries must be received by July 10th, 2008.
• Contest winner will be announced in the third week of July.
• Five entries max per person.
• Submitted character biographies and stats may be posted on the FFG website.
• Participants in this contest cannot be an employee of FFG.

Winner gets a Tomb of Ice expansion [bgg] and a  set of four promotional Descent figures.