Aah… new year! I hope a happy one and good to see you back. Hopefully you are a bit sober from the partying again, because it’s time to talk about games! What games are we most excited for and which ones will we be playing? Let’s take a look at a couple of games that come out to retail in 2025!
Rivet Wars, Q2, 2025
Originally stated to come out in May 2024. It was quite the hit back in the day. It failed due to the lack of expansions, and the game died out after a while. Steamforged bought the IP and has promised to bring the game back to retail in Q2. After initial release, there are more factions and expansions to keep us happy dicerollers happy for quite the time.
This game will also become the first Chibi style game to enter the shop. It plays on a trenches board, and you have tanks, planes, drillers, mechs, motors and more silly stuff. Rumor has it you can upgrade the level of the vehicles by adding another commander head to the tank. At the moment there are 3 factions, but there might be more coming during the aftermath of the release.
The game is a board game style game (well… a wargame played on a board), it contains boardgame plastic miniatures. When all the models are chibi models, you don’t mind as much as it being wargaming models, which are usually higher quality plastic. The quality will still be quite high, since Steamforged Games has pretty high standards when it comes to the main selling point of the company, the models. This one is on our number one priority spot. Excited about this one!
Eldfall Chronicles: Northern Wind, Q1, ’25
So, we are talking quite a lot these days about the Eldfall IP. There is already a tabletop skirmish game available with the same name. One could expect this game to hit our digital shelves in Q1 of 2025. Why another title from the franchise? Because the Northern Wind core set will add quite the amount to the gameplay of both games. When you buy the EC core sets before NW, you could see the NW core set as a standalone expansion. If you bought NW first, it’s the other way round.
So, what makes this release so good besides the vice versa compatibility? Well, for starters, the expansions and the core set. They not only add models to the NW core game, but also add 3 new factions to the existing universe of EC. After release, the game has a whopping playable 7 factions
Where you had the more human like factions in Chronicles, you get undead, oni and goblins in the Wind set. The original factions started off with 4 models in the faction starters, with the expansions to Northern Wind, you instantly get choice of models for both games! Pretty sweet if you tell me.
What is Eldfall Chronicles: Northern Wind actually besides a great addition to the core gameplay? In its soul, it’s a dungeon crawler style game. Each joining player has a model which has to get from A to B on a tile board, battling enemies while moving towards the goal. Easier said than done of course, but that’s the whole fun of the game!
Warcrow Adventures Q1, 2025
Strangely enough, Warcrow Adventures and Eldfall Chronicles: Northern Wind share a common goal, with the same compatibilities all round. This is also where the coincidences stop, since the Warcrow boxes focus more on the actual roleplaying and mechanics on board than Northern Wind.
The latter has an AI driven mechanic to push the enemies forward, where Warcrow Adventures has an actual app that pushes the narrative forward in the game. This means that if you want to pick up a clue or something, you tell the app where you are in game and the app tells you what you found. This makes the app basically function as a Dungeon Master more than just a gimmick. It’s also told that this app is randomized at certain points, making replayability a nice experience.
Modelwise there is a lot to say. The player models are models from different factions, but the main enemy is the introduction of the Scions of Yaldabeoth (did I butcher it?). Strange choices are also made here, since the Scions being the most popular of the coming factions, are only available through the Warcrow Adventures game.
Another point of interest, is that the Adventures box comes with Boardgame plastic, whereas the Warcrow wargame is built up of Siocast models. Siocast is way better material that holds details much better than boardgame plastic, so we’ll have to see how this pans out for them.
Warcrow VS. Eldfall
If you compare Warcrow Adventures to Eldfall Chronicles: Northern Wind, you will instantly notice that every model is of the same high quality Unicool plastic, which some say is even better than Siocast. Do I smell a comparison blog coming up when I get both in hand? Whatever the outcome will be, the shop is dedicated to bring everything Warcrow to the shelves and available for purchase, so stay tuned for that. Warcrow Adventures is slated to hit shelves in the first quart of 2025.
This is only the beginning of the year
Well, we talked about the first and second quarter of the year and there are loads more to come from for instance Battlefront’s Flames of War and Team Yankee, but what about Bolt Action and some exiting releases from Mantic in 15mm scale?
Keep checking out our hobby section for more of these awesome lookaheads and other nice blogs about our favorite hobby!