Well it's early days with the game due to hit the shelves over the next two weeks but Earth Reborn discarding the theme seems to have the game mechanics possibly Tannhauser should have had or maybe not? Anyway for those interested check the links below. With the lack of Tannhauser product (I should know I have waited long enough for nothing) maybe this could provide a fix until Tannhauser gets it's act together. It may be also possible to transfer some of the ER rules into Tannhauser? That would be interesting and if ER is a success maybe FFG should consider an alternative rule set along the same lines. Well I still hope Tannhauser gets something out in the next 12 months but I won't hold my breath, which is a great shame because I love the theme. Boo hiss to you FFG for the neglect you have shown. By the way the ER forum has been done in French and English. Maybe they saw the mistake TOY made?

forum.earthreborn.ludically.com/index.php

earthreborn.ludically.com/home

Chimaera said:

I can't really comment on the merits of Earth Reborn but find the above quotes puzzling. If this post came out early January of this year, I could see the sentiment but from all the news Tannhauser has gotten recently, I'm not sure why you're so pessimistic about the upcoming 12 months.

I think this thread sums it up pretty well:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

They aren't flooding the market or anything but FFG is pushing out new content now and 2010 has been the best year we've seen for a couple of years now. With the upcoming releases, 2011 seems to look even better.

Sorry if I come off a bit cynical but I think I first saw those minis (actual pictures) over 1yr ago. TOY had already produced them at that time. Since then FFG have just left them on the shelf and done nothing with them. The same goes for the Minotaur and new Labrinth map. FFG have neglected the game and thats the truth of it.

agree with you, Chimaera! i own the game for about 5 years now, and what do i got?

- the original rulebook, which nobody really unterstood (and people clapping hands, that a revised rulebook is being out now after 5 years, how revolting..)

- incl. daedalus i have 5 different maps. makes one new map every year. how revolting is this? ....pffff...

- daedalus. a them on it's own. since when do the french guys have this map? it would have been necessary to translate the rule mag (not a book!). did they manage it? you know the answer...

- the "new" troops....have chinese children putting the original figures in a different colour pot..."new"? my....

and at what prices? the deal should have been: send us your old rulebook, we'll send you the new one! just to make it up a little for what they

have lacked over these years...a pity, having such a fantastic idea rotting..

FFG should be ashamed, putting all this stuff out and branding it with "new" and "wow, 2010, what a year for tannhäuser!" i feel betrayed...

pardon me, it's only 4 maps i own...my memory was too friendly. 4 maps!!

The only reason that all these figs and expansion materials were "left rotting" is precisely because FFG was working on the revised rules and wanted to get that done before publishing any new content for the game. The alternative would have been to crank out all that stuff under the old rules and then have ended up asking you to upgrade ALL of it to the new rules if you wanted to get any serious mileage out of it. Not only would that have been an insult to anyone who bought that stuff in V1 rules, it would've been a gigantic waste of paper printing out rules they knew would be obsolete within a year.

Granted it took them a few months longer than anticipated to actually publish the V2 rules, but I think the product they produced out of that extra time is pretty good quality. And now that the V2 rules are out, everything that was put on hold is flooding out to the eager fanbase.

As far as giving away the V2 rules for free, that sounds great from a consumer perspective, sure. (When does free stuff NOT sound good to consumers?) Keep in mind, though, that the V2 rules are the first thing for this game that FFG has actually spent time developing themselves. Everything else was just being translated from the original French. The V2 rules constitute a significantly larger investment of time and money from FFG's own pocket to produce. Giving it away for free would be shooting themselves in the foot as far as profitability goes. If you want to moan and groan about the big evil corporation milking your wallet, fine, but remember this: games that cost the company more money than earn tend to get shitcanned.

I still like Tannhauser as it is. It has been through a rough patch upgrading itself to V2 rules, but now that's done I think it will be getting back on track.

I agree that Earth Reborn looks like a lot of fun, too, but I think it will ultimately fill a slightly different niche. Being post-apoc instead of mythic-history and all. If ER is being developed in France, it wouldn't surprise me if a few ex-TOY employees have migrated over to that company, and that might explain any similarities in design philosophy.

I'm sorry, how is E R like Tannhauser?

After looking over Earth Reborn on BGG and reading some of the reviews, it's hard to see this being what Tannhauser wanted to be. I agree with others that things were moving pretty slow early in the year but as of right now they've been pushing out a lot of products that keep the game interesting. While I do enjoy the option of having more maps and scenarios, I'd rather that FFG take their time ensuring that the product is complete than just tossing them out willy nilly.

From my point of view only. It's the RPG element of ER that is quite appealing. Because the relevant stats are on the character cards this process becomes a lot more simple to manage. In comparison Tannhauser has missions but they don't quite hit the mark from my point of view basically because the mechanics don't support this style of play. In a way Tannhauser wants to have this element of play but doesn't quite pull it off. Now I am not saying ER does as I haven't played it yet but all the feedback would suggest it does. This is what I mean when saying "could this be what Tannhauser was trying to be" if this makes sense. Imagine needing to get the key off the guard before having total access in the castle or torturing someone for answers in Tannhauser to help complete a mission and then you see where I am coming from. Have a read of the ER rules online (on their main game site) to see all the possibilites. Which leads me onto another good point. If the ER team could put the rules online for free, why couldn't FFG have done the same for Tannhauser? They have also wacked on tutorials and a map building tool yet again all for free.

On the plus side for Tannhauser. The theme, fluff and the basic combat after the V2 rules do stand up. It's just a shame that the missions/objective part of the game is a little lacking and not fulfilling. The other area where T comes up short is support from FFG. Just look at the instant web support for ER that has sprung up and with more to come. I also like the fact you can design a new map everytime for ER so things shouldn't get stale in this respect. What has FFG done map wise for Tannhauser since taking it off TOY. Now I know that I said earlier that I saw a lot of the new minis over a year ago. In truth it is probably nearer 18 months. To see Hoax come up on the FFG incoming list not until another year down the road is a vexation, considering Hoax was produced so far back by TOY. Same goes for the rest of the incoming minis. Why did FFG sit on them so long even with the V2 rules delay.

In summary if ER does hit the mark? Then I almost wish FFG would pass Tannhauser over to Ludically for a conversion job. In truth they could probably give Tannhauser for free as FFG's mis-management of the game has almost made it a poisoned chalice to anyone taking it on. Don't get me wrong I have a lot of love for Tannhauser as I had it from release. Unfortunately I don't have much love for what FFG have done for the game since taking it off TOY.