Facebook Twitter Reddit September 2017 Welcome to the Smash Up Smash Club newsletter! This is where all you awesome Smashers will get the first news on new Smash Up amazingness including releases, promotions, and contests. Plus we’re going to do our best to give you a lot of behind the scenes info, and include you on Smash Up info before anyone else. Baa Baa Black Sheep...

The sheep are out to pasture.



The Sheep deck has been printed and will be on its way to you in just a couple of months. We can’t wait to see the incredible power and madness that comes from Werewolf Sheep, Time-Traveling Sheep, and of course… Granny Sheep!!!

Be ready for it! Baaaaa!!!

Did this guy belong with the Vampires in Monster Smash? Konichiwa Smashers!

Welcome to the Big in Japan expansion!



One of the most exciting things about this set is that it introduces a new kind of card: Titans! Titans are neither minions nor actions, but are played on bases when their unique conditions allow it. The designer Paul Peterson invented Titans to represent the awesomeness of the Kaiju. Each BiJ faction has one Titan and more will come in the future.



But that's not all! Each faction brings something new to the Smash Up table. Let's take a look at the new factions, and how they can smash up with earlier factions.



The Kaiju are the most unique faction of the set, having only three minions. However, nine of their actions are played on bases and also add power to it -- power that counts both for breaking bases and earning their VP rewards. Their Titan Gorgodzolla benefits greatly from playing actions on bases.



The Kaiju combo well with any of the following factions: Steampunks, who also have a lot of play-on-base actions and other cards that support them.

Dragons, who fittingly also lay waste to bases, making them unsuitable for other players.

Wizards, who let you play extra actions.

Mythic Greeks, whose ten unique actions make a good toolbox for the Kaiju to draw from. The Itty Critters are a toolbox faction, with six unique 2-power minions (the Critters). The other minions are coaches that bring out the Critters and quickly remove them again to the bottom of your deck -- but there are several ways to get them back out again, through searching and shuffling. Itty Critters combo well with any of the following factions:

Shapeshifters, who can search out, copy, and replace minions.

Grannies, who can fetch cards from the bottom of the deck.

Ignobles, who can get out extra minion who come back to your control later.

Aliens, whose 3-power Invaders can be easily recycled for extra VPs. Magical Girls have lots of things they can do when they have a lot of minions on the same base. This makes them slow to start but powerful when they are ready.



The Magical Girls combo well with any of the following factions: Mythic Horses, who also love getting in groups and who make it easy to do.

Aliens, who are good at slowing down other players' power build-up.

Killer Plants, who can both slow others down and speed themselves up with minion growth. The Mega Troopers have a lot of special cards that trigger before or after a base scores. This makes them extra deadly at scoring time, because they can’t ever decide to bring out their mega-super-weapon-robot until the end of the fight of course. They also have several cards, including their Titan Megabot, that benefit from having several minions on the same base.



Mega Troopers combo well with any of the following factions: Robots, who are great at getting lots of minions out.

Miskatonic University, who also are good at turning things around at scoring time.

Rock Stars, who are good at mobbing bases and then moving on to the next one.

Ninjas, who have a good number of special abilities themselves.

(Mega Troopers also pair well with Sheep, but we'll talk about that later. Have you filled out your Sheep survey yet?) Thanks to the following playtesters who shared their thoughts for this article: James Cartwright, Wim Debraekeleer, Garrett Lapham, James Martin, Robert Payne, Annie Stout. There were others who shared ideas too late for press time, so don’t think that the suggestions above are the only good possibilities! Get to Know the Smash Up Team: Wim Debraekeleer Smash Up Insta-Grow by Wim Debraekeleer

Hello Smash Up Smash Club newsletter readers! That’s quite a mouthful. If it would be a Smash Up card name, it would have to be shortened to fit on the card. Smash Up may be growing, but the cards are still the same size. Well ... that’s not entirely true. We have Titans now, so even the cards are growing. Anyway, a game that grows as large and fast as Smash Up has, with at least 8 new factions every year, needs a lot of volunteers to keep growing. I am one of those volunteers.



It all started when I answered Bryan Stout’s call for playtesters on the BoardGameGeek forum. They were about to start testing the next expansion and they needed more volunteers. With every new release, new factions are added to the game and more testing is needed to make sure those new factions integrate well with all the ever-growing existing content. The playtest team grows as much as the game itself.



It has been great for me to be involved in the testing. I learned that there is much more to making a game than I could ever imagine. Testing a new set starts about a year before production starts and ends 7 months before it will be released in the stores. So testing ends a bit before the previous set hits the stores. I never imagined that it took that long to bring a “finished” game to my local store.



There is also a great feeling of satisfaction that comes from testing when you see the impact your contribution has on the final product. During testing, the testers are asked to make reports about the test games and write about what works well and what needs tweaking. Even though it’s more important to describe why something isn’t working well than to make a possible suggestion of how to fix it, we often do make a suggestion. One of my suggestions I’m still very proud of is one I made for the Dragons (from the Smash Up : It’s Your Fault! expansion). The first few versions of the Dragons had an action that wasn’t really working well within the rest of the faction while they had another action that was much too strong. Both cards had been tweaked a few times but the results still weren’t satisfactory. I suggested to ditch the bad card and make 2 different cards with half the effect of the strong card. Dragon Lands and Intimidating Presence - It’s Your Fault! became what they are now and didn’t need further changes.



Over time, my team took a hiatus from the deep testing but I kept a close eye on reports and gave lots of feedback. Bryan Stout noticed my efforts and asked if I wanted to stay on board to assist him. As of Smash Up: That 70s Expansion I am helping out on the development. I work closely together with Bryan (Stout) and Paul (Peterson) to make sure that those great designs by Paul can be fitted within the existing Smash Up ruleset and be worded correctly so that the cards do what Paul intended them to do. I’d like to believe that my efforts help all Smash Up fans enjoy the game more. I know I will keep enjoying Smash Up for years to come.



This is a great team to work with, even if I haven’t met any of them in person yet. I secretly hope that one day, they‘ll do a set named “designed by the team”, where 4 or more different people working on Smash Up each design a faction, probably with help from Paul. I would love to be one of the people to design a faction for that set. Smash Up? No, This is NOT SMASH UP!

This issue’s NOT SMASH UP is The Captain is Dead! This multiplayer co-op game puts you and your friends aboard a spacecraft that has been disabled by aliens, and worst of all… the Captain is dead! But you probably knew that from the title of the game, right?



You’ll take on the roles of the crew, everyone from the Chief Engineer to the ship’s Doctor, all the way down to the Janitor. Don’t dismiss the Janitor though, that guy has mad skills! Anyway, you’ll have to pool your unique talents to fight off aliens, repair the ever malfunctioning systems, keep the shields up against alien onslaught, all while trying to ultimately get the jump core repaired to make an escape. You just lost the weapons array! Is it worth getting it back? Or is that time better spent working on the jump core? You’ll have to find the best way to avoid becoming space dust with every different set of crew members you try!



The Captain is Dead is in stores now!

Smash Up Event Kit - Titans Announcement

TITAN TIME!

[Work in Progress - may not represent final art] [Work in Progress - may not represent final art]

One of the first reactions we received upon announcing the Titan cards in Big in Japan was, “will the other factions get Titans in this set?” Well, no. No they won’t. But they will soon! In the summer of 2018 an all-new event kit will be released, featuring Titans for several older factions, including the Ghosts, Pirates, and more! The kit will also include an all-new oversized playmat featuring some of the new Titans, as well as new upgraded tokens. Watch for more info as we go into 2018! Oops, You Did It Again!

We are pleased to announce the results of the community voting for the Oops You Did It Again expansion scheduled for 2018! After a final two weeks of constant lead changes and daily surprises, we have our winners! Egypt

Samurai

Cowboys

Vikings Honorable mention to Russian Fairy Tales, which almost made the cut. Our appreciation goes out to our Russian Smash Up fans who taught us all a little bit about their homeland's interesting and rich storytelling tradition!



We want to thank everyone who took part in the voting. More than 10,000 unique voters participated in the various rounds of the promotion!



Our crack team of Smash Up faction designers are now thinking hard about how to make each of these new factions interesting and fun to play! We'd love to hear your ideas too! You can post them on the Smash Up Facebook Group (but we can't promise to read every idea!). Staying Connected! We care about the future of Smash Up and we believe you have a great part to play in it. If you have any issues with any AEG Game, especially Smash Up, please write to customerservice@alderac.com and we'll do our best to help you!

We’ll see you next issue for more exclusive fun in the Smash Club!