Barnes on Games- Talon Head to Head with Kyle Mann, Mexica in Review, Shadowrun: Crossfire

For those of you who are impatient, copies of Talon are starting to become hard to find. They are still on GMT's site full retail, but the game has gotten some pretty glowing video reviews and the online retailers are showing them as sold out.

No doubt GMT will reprint, but if you have a birthday coming up in April or May you might want to secure your surprise gift now.

Yeah, they have a lot of things to reprint so I would get it now if you want it...

Michael Barnes wrote:
Gosh, I want Java really bad now.

Love Java. One of the best 2player games as well.

As best I can tell, I've given Talon its weakest endorsement so far. A really glowing video review came out two days ago and this morning's written review at BGG leads with the word "masterpiece". I have it in the "really like" category, giving it an 8 or maybe an 8.5. It's a solid Minnie Driver, but not a Michele Pfeiffer by my estimate.

I'm just never in on a game that's selling out at stores or at the top of the Hotness. I'm out of my element here. I need to go back to a nice, tepid game of Field Commander Alexander to settle myself down a bit.

As an addendum to my note, Tony just emailed me and told me he's getting cascading distributor re-orders already, so my guess is the existing stock will be gone very soon - probably a week or less.

Gene

20+ copies at MM today.

www.miniaturemarket.com/gmt1511.html

And there it goes. A flurry of distributor orders today, and we are now sold out.

I'll work on getting a Talon P500 Reprint option up for by the time the customer update goes out next week.

Gene

GMT moved 500 copies to distributors in 5 hours today.

Michael Barnes wrote: 20+ copies at MM today.

www.miniaturemarket.com/gmt1511.html

Something's up with the site or the listing. Adding it to cart does nothing at the moment.

Edit: OIC. Out of stock, actually. That was quick.

It's always bittersweet when GMT sells out of something, especially quickly. I love it when GMT does well, but it takes a really long time to reprint stuff! I still sort of regret not getting Navajo Wars. Who knows when that one will be reprinted but I guess I'll wait so they can solve any errata.

Yeah, a "P500 option" isn't very comforting, especially since current owners are asking for two more races.

Odd game to have catch fire. Some should become available again since the last 500 boxes were distributor purchases.

Looking at this article from back in the good old days it occurs to me that Talon hasn't gotten the respect it deserves. It's rule complexity is on the line of Manouevre or Hold The Line, and it really brings a unique mechanical structure to the play with its Impulse system, which dates back to Star Fleet Battles and BattleTech. I don't know how may other games have used it since the 80s.

If anyone is interested in taking a shot at this on Vassal in a Play-by-Email game give me a ring. It plays any number of players so I should be able to accommodate anyone that wants to give it a go.

I went to put a rating on this and . . . it's not in the TWBG database! Tyranny!

Sagrilarus wrote: I went to put a rating on this and . . . it's not in the TWBG database! Tyranny!

You can add it there. Freedom!

ChristopherMD wrote:

Sagrilarus wrote: I went to put a rating on this and . . . it's not in the TWBG database! Tyranny!

You can add it there. Freedom!

Don't we pay someone to do that?

Funny, I've been thinking about Talon a lot lately myself...I've been considering picking it up again to get some spaceship shootin' going. I believe they went to a second edition with it, didn't they?

I don't think it changes much beyond the components on a second printing. I believe they made the writable counters more durable. I don't think they made large changes?