At the beginning of the month, we are normally looking back to the top games of the last month. Today we are going a few steps further and instead look at the top games of 2019.

Without further ado, here are the Top 20 of 2019 (based on our sales in copies):

1) Wingspan
2) Underwater Cities
3) The Quacks of Quedlinburg
4) The Quacks of Quedlinburg: The Herb Witches
5) Maracaibo
6) Gloomhaven
7) Second Chance
8) Res Arcana
9) Coffee Roaster
10) Die Tavernen im Tiefen Thal
11) LAMA
12) Dune (2019)
13) Bunny Kingdom: In the Sky
14) Wingspan: European Expansion
15) Chronicles of Crime
16) El Dorado: The Golden Temples
17) Root: Riverfolk Expansion
18) Tiny Towns
19) Little Town
20) Doppelt so clever

These Top 20 include a few surprises (in general games we are importing from Germany are doing very well for us), but also a few games are missing from the list which should be there like Root and Brass: Birmingham. But some of the biggest hits of 2019 were held back by limited availability in retail.

What games would you have expected on the list?

The new games releasing next week have been confirmed.

Releasing on Tuesday are:

• Vindication
• Rune
• Gates of Delirium

And later in the week, Friday is the release day for:

• ECOS: First Continent
• God of War: The Card Game
• Nemesis
• War Chest: Nobility

The good news: Dune will get shipped to use at the end of this week, so it should be here early next week. The bad news: The stock had to be allocated by our supplier. We will only get two-thirds of what we need, so we will have to decide who will get stock from the first wave based on the date the pre-order has been placed.

The cut-off date will be the 31st July. For every order placed after the 31st we, unfortunately, won’t have stock and we will have to wait for the second wave of Dune stock (expected in December) to fulfil these orders. If you are happy to wait until then you don’t have to do anything. If you don’t want to wait and would like to cancel your order instead, please contact us.

The first round of the US vs. China trade war went past us board gamers. But this will change soon: whereas in the first round of the trade conflict between the US and China board games were not included, this looks no longer the case.

The US government published a new set of proposals after the last round of talks with China failed. And in this proposals board and card games are included and would be subject to up to 25% import duty from the end of June.

This could turn into a potential problem for Kickstarters for which the funding phase have already ended but haven’t been delivered to customers yet. But it could also lead to a wide-ranging price increase across the industry.

At moment nobody can say how high the tariffs on games will be and if they will be imposed (there is still the possibility of a last minute agreement between the US and China), but it is definitely something I will follow closely in the next few weeks.

Links:

• Tabletopwire report
• BBC guide to the US-Chine trade war

The UK Games Expo 2019 is less than three weeks away and fast arriving. Time to have a look at all the games available at the show.

Helping with this is Tom Heath’s (aka slickerdrips) Big UK Games Expo list on Boardgamegeek. The list is eleven pages long and lists all the games available to play (as demo / prototype copies) and/or for sale.

Another great tool is Tabletop Together which allows you to make your own list of interesting games.

Links:

• slickerdrips’ Big UK Games Expo List
• Tabletop Together

Boardgamegeek News has just started publishing video previews of the games that have been presented at the GAMA Trade show in Reno.

Here are a few interesting ones:

More videos can be found in the Youtube playlist for the GTS 2019.

The new arrivals for this week have been confirmed and are now online. Available from tomorrow will be:

• Armageddon War
• Dead & Breakfast
• Hand of Fate: Ordeals
• Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game – Venom
• Small Islands
• Space Gate Odyssey

Splotter Spellen is working on a 5th Edition of Roads & Boats for the 20th Anniversary of the classic game (ETA: August). We can place a pre-order for the game, but we need to place our order next Monday.

If you are interested in the game, please place your pre-order until Sunday evening, so we know our numbers. All orders coming in, before we place our order with Splotter Spellen, are guaranteed.

Wizkids Games has announced a new board game based in the Warhammer: Age of Sigmar universe. The Designer of The Rise & Fall of Anvalor is Rustan Hakansson (Nations), the planned release date is April:

The Rise and Fall of Anvalor has players helping to build and defend the city with other factions, at least officially. Each player’s real goal is to gather the most influence in Anvalor and dominate the city, even if it means its ultimate fall. Players build city buildings to gather influence, or sometimes just to block allies from strengthening their position; and fend off enemies during attacks, or let allies weaken them, and then swoop in to deliver the killing blow. The player with the most influence at the end of the game wins.

Link: ICv2 News