As I write this, it’s currently 5:22 a.m. EST on Columbus Day, Monday October 13, at the Fort Wayne, Indiana International Airport.  For me and most human beings, 5 a.m. arrives early.  I’ll count getting out of bed at 4 a.m. for a 7 a.m. flight as one of the few downsides to my otherwise pretty extraordinary job.

Previously, I may have put presenting in front of large, sometimes unruly crowds as another one of those downsides, but as the years have passed, so to have my anxieties surrounding public speaking.  Now, with a little help from my ole friend PowerPoint, I can stand before a group of strangers and pour my guts out.  Honestly, if you prepare and have good news to share, presenting feels like running off of a cliff edge and discovering that you can fly.

For those that haven’t heard yet, the final Diamond/Alliance Retailer Summit of 2008 took place last weekend in unseasonably warm Fort Wayne.  At the Summits, WizKids gets to meet with retailers, demo our products, answer tough questions, and ultimately present at a showcase dinner on Saturday night.  With this being the final Summit of the year and with the bulk of our 2009 plans approved by our fine licensors, I had the ability to share some new information with our retailers.  By that, I mean that I spilled the beans.

A whole lotta beans.

A grain silo of beans.

We will do formal posts for these upcoming product announcements, because that’s the right thing to do for the business.  However, I’ll give you the straight story here, and in a more conversational tone ☺.

We have some very big plans for 2009.  The top line note that we shared at the Summit, that I would like to pass along to you, is that in an uncertain economic environment, we will invest in our products.

What does that mean?

Where we previously may have tried some new game ideas or launched WizKids’ next big brainchild, we instead have chosen to take that extra cash and apply it to our best selling brands.

What does that mean?

We have expanded our product development budgets to ensure even higher quality sculpts for HeroClix, a bigger spend for our organized play programs, and set aside cash for a brand, spankin’ new website.

To summarize, we have some brands that continue to do well, and our big corporate strategy next year solidify and grow those brands.

Enough of the boardroom strategy, you guys want info.  What are we doing in 2009?  For the purpose of this blog, I’m going to focus on HeroClix, but I’ll have follow-ups on Star Wars PocketModel TCG and Pirates of the Cursed Seas.  Andre (our Marketing Director) will post on Star Wars shortly, too.

Here’s what we announced at the show for HeroClix:

DC HeroClix: Brave & The Bold

The summer (tentatively July 22, 2009) HeroClix release is going to focus on the biggest team-ups in the DC Universe.  The one figure that I gave away as a freebie at the show was Batman/Green Arrow.

When I think of the great, historic title of Brave & The Bold, I think of those two heroes laying the smack (or for the Green Arrow thwack) down on DCU baddies.  We’ve never done a set where duo figs were the theme, and I can think of nothing cooler than A-list DC team-ups as a mechanical theme for booster release.

Some quick questions re: DC: B&B:

Is it a codename?

No.  Barring some unforeseen derailer, the set’s name is DC HeroClix: Brave and the Bold.

Will all the figures be duos?

No.  I can confirm that there is at least one duo fig at every level of rarity and that currently, ALL OF THE SUPER RARES ARE A-LIST DCU DUOS.  We have some really surprising duos and we have the “required” figures that are mandatory for a set named Brave & The Bold.  The set will be balanced for fun sealed play, and it has a couple of special powers and characters that people have been chomping at the bit to see.

Who’s doing the R&D for B&B?

This is going to be the subject of another mega-blog that I’m wrapping up now, but I’m proud to announce that a team of designers, developers, and play testers are currently toiling away at Brave & The Bold.  Former HeroClix Lead Designer Seth Johnson submitted a rough draft of a set list for Brave & The Bold, which was tweaked and modified by yours truly, game designer/developer Eric Engelhard, our art/sculpting team, and the fine folks at DC (they know things about the future ☺).

In short (at least for this blog), R&D has morphed from a solo lead designer (with back-up playtesters) model to a segmented team approach.  This is also true of Hammer of Thor (which was led by Kelly Bonilla, but was a largely collaborative process of about 8 people) and will be true for all upcoming sets.  The position of a brand-specific Lead Game Designer no longer exists; instead, each individual HeroClix release has three distinct R&D groups that are overseen by three different people.

These three elements are: creative/brand development, game design, and game development.  For Brave & The Bold, we also will have a playtesting and “hole-filling” team.

More info will follow on this in the blogs and over the next few months.
Alright, so what else was spoiled at the show…
We mentioned that we were going to do a Marvel 70th Anniversary Collector Set next year.  This set will feature seven “super-premium” exclusive figures from Marvel’s seven decades of history.  Each decade will be represented by an iconic piece from that range of years.  The piece we spoiled at the show was Fastball Special (Colossus and Wolverine for non-comic dudes).

Perhaps the most buzzed about message at the show was the release of the Hammer of Thor Buy-It-By-The-Brick image.  We had shown shadows of the figure at prior shows, but in Fort Wayne, we released the cat from the bag.

Here it is-

Pretty amazing, no?  It’s approximately 10 times heavier than the Super Skrull: Illuminati figure from the Secret Invasion set.  This was definitely the “camera phone moment of the evening.”

We spoiled even more, but you’ll have to check that out in the second part of this blog.

I have a plane to catch.

-Later-

Jake