Fantasy Flight Games has unveiled a brand new A Song of Ice and Fire board game yesterday at the opening of the grand opening of their new event center. The game, titled Battles of Westeros, is a BattleLore-system based tactical war game using hexagonal grids, plastic miniature army units (these would be unpainted, as far as I know; besides generic units, it will likely have ‘hero’ units representing the likes of Eddard, Catelyn, Edmure, and more), and a card system for orders and special tactics.
The BattleLore system and its publishing history is summarized at Wikipedia. At BoardGameGeek’s entry, my eye was caught by the fact that there are two different ways of playing the game on-line using either Vassal (as seen here) or ZunTzu, which should be a significant boon once players virtualize any new rules, cards, and units for these systems.
The initial news flash came by way of The Hopeless Gamer, who also provided a photo of the contents list on the back of the box. One notable detail that gamers have pointed out: the explicit reference to this being the “Core Set” on the front cover, showing FFG has long-term expansion plans for this game system. In fact, posts at BoardGameGeek note that this appears to focus on House Stark versus House Lannister, certainly leaving room for expansions which introduce the rest of the great houses of the Seven Kingdoms.
Finally, an additional note: it seems that some time in November, FFG will host a “Days of Ice and Fire” event at their Event Center in Roseville, Minessota, in which George R.R. Martin will be a guest. More details when we have them.