A few weeks ago sloejack was good enough to mention the "Fury-of-the-Bear-Expansion" events listed in GenCon's catalog. That thread ends with the observation that those events have been since deleted from GenCon's schedule. And now there's no word about it.

So, what's going on here...? Was it a gaffe (i.e. FFG really wasn't ready to announce, but it somehow ended up on GenCon's list)? Was it a leak (FFG never intended for it to be publicized, but someone leaked it to the convention)? Was it misinformation (there is no "Fury of The Bear" expansion)? You'd think that if the news was out prematurely, there'd be at least some sort of "oopsies" acknowledged by FFG.

Anyone know anything? (Heck, I'll even settle for theories.)

There's a thread on BGG with a link to the "missing" thread you mention here. It seems as if the so called "leaked" information has been swept under the rug for the time being!

Rgeardless of whether the next expansion goes Eastern Front or Pacific, I'm also kinda curious to see where they go with the campaign idea. Will they continue on with it with the next expansion? Any stand alone canpaign books planned? ToI is a great game, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what is up next. I was in one of my FLAGS yesterday, and they had a copy of the base ToI sitting prominently up front at the counter (tagged at an eye popping $89.95 USD). That and they had tons of the Wings of War Miniatures available there as well.

If a guess is in order for the next theater of operations that will be covered for ToI, I'd put my money on an Eastern Front Expansion, just based on the fact that they already have released a good foundation of the German pieces, and especially tanks. We shall see soon enough though.

kaufschtick said:

Right - "swept under the rug" (chuckle). I think the GenCon listing was an FFG mistake, but reveals their direction (i.e. Easter Front). Someone suggested they schedule the release-event for the Con, someone else heard an imperative ("Schedule an event for GenCon, and make it snappy").

ToI is a great game (even with its flaws). And I'm pretty confident we'll see the EF next. I think the exchange with Bill Jaffe in the other thread made that pretty evident (one of the scenario designers reading numerous works on the EF?!). I'll even be so bold as to predict it'll be called "Fury of The Bear" (actually a pretty cool name). The question about campaign format is a good one. Publishing an expansion for each theater, then a stand-alone/corresponding campaign book for each theater would make a lot of sense. (Of course, this would make Normandy somewhat of an anomaly, but no matter....)

Belloq said:

Yeah, I like the name "Fury of the Bear" too.

Between that and Conflict of Hero's: Awakening the Bear, I'd say it's definately "Bear Season" around these parts!

I've been kinda wondering as well as to what types of Red Army Tanks we might see in the first Eastern Front set. OK, the T-34 for sure, but what else? BT-7s? KV-1s? T-70s? T-26s...what, WHAT!?! What-are-we-going-to-see!?!

I was wondering what new rules we would see; new boards with nothing but buildings and streets? Winter theme boards? New melee rules for room to room fighting? I building level movement? (might be to complex) Sewer movement? Epic tanks battles?... on and on...

Thass said:

Yes, I've wondered these too. Do you think this might require some scale adjustments? I wonder if they'll do this. One of the great things about ToI is that the system and mini's are flexible enough to accommodate such an adjustment in the scale-of-play.

Belloq said:

Maybe... I was thinking of boards that had just one large building on them, maybe overlays that could connect two boards to make one large factory type building, with large open rooms? Maybe have city street that are multiple hexes wide. A board dedicated with a bridge on it, just city street fighting boards... it's just fun to think about. I'm sure FFG won't disapoint.

Thass said:

I think this could be a pretty cool direction to go - at least as an additional scale of play. I wouldn't want it to replace the current scale - larger fields of battle, etc. (Of course, I don't think this is what you're saying anyway.) But producing boards and rules at such a different scale seems like it would be a lot of work, and I'm guessing they won't do that for Fury of The Bear.

However - can't you foresee a separate expansion altogether for urban combat: "Tide of Iron: Cities of Fire Expansion" - with boards like you've described. Then there could be boards, terrain, rules (and scenarios!) playing not only EF Stalingrad, but also France - St. Lo, etc. (Now I'm dreamin'...just dreamin' here...)