In this issue:

- Welcome
- Testimonials
- Two South Africans at Essen
- ICON
- Settlers of Catan Tournament
- SA Classics now available
- New dealers
- rAge 2007
- Formula One Fever

- Settlers on XBOX
- Missing In Action
- Great bundles
- Prize Winners
- New games available
- Winter Specials
- Subscribe
- That's a Wrap

Welcome

Well, the flood-gates are open and things are going crazy at Boardgames.co.za HQ. After encountering untold problems with our shipment, we are happy to advise that it finally arrived and we have been busy, busy, busy fulfilling all those pre-order requests. Thanks to all of you for your patience in this regard. Winter is definitely a popular time for board games it would seem. We are so excited to see so many NEW customers buying our incredible games. Welcome to the family everyone!

There is so much we want to tell you ... I hope we can fit it all in this issue. As we have been rather quiet over the last couple of months we have decided to give away 3 prizes this month ...please see who the lucky winners are below!

Please enjoy this bumper issue of our newsletter, and help spread the word about the magic of board games by forwarding this on to all your friends and family so that they too can be enchanted like the rest of us :-)
 

Not sure if you want to buy online? Or unsure about the quality of the games available from our retailers or our web-site?

Then make sure you take some time to read about what our customers have to say about our products and our service - click here.

A particularly special testimonial arrived recently which we would like to share with you now. Thank you, Richard Hagan, for sending us this lovely letter:

"To the boardgames crew!

I just want to give you some very positive feedback about your game The Settlers of Catan. (And please do feel free to quote any of what I'm about to say, on your website, because frankly not enough good things can be said about this amazing game!)

Over December 2006 I discovered your site purely by chance by following a Google ad on Amazon.com one morning. After seeing your front-page write up about the Settlers of Catan, I did a bit more reading up about it on the net as I had never heard of the game before. Ordinarily, when I thought about boardgames, titles like 'Monopoly' and '30 Seconds' would come to mind, but your website and its products blew my perception of boardgames right out of the water and opened my and my family's eyes to a whole new world of boardgames that I had no idea even existed!

Within about 24 hours of encountering The Settlers of Catan on your home page, I was sitting with my own copy which then followed myself and my family on holiday up the Garden Route to Wilderness the following day. My mother, who has never considered herself much of a board-gamer and often ended up losing at Monopoly, Risk and the usual slew of boardgames gathering dust in our cupboard, was particularly sceptical of the new game on the block. Let's just say that by the end of the first day on holiday, the four of us had played the game about four times within only a few hours and our addiction simply grew after that as each day of the holiday went by; In fact, midway through the holiday we were playing the game so often that the board was left out after every game ended, in preparation for the next game! My sceptical, boardgame-losing mother was full of smiles and was at that stage perhaps the most addicted out of all of us as she managed to beat the rest of us in game after game!

It is almost needless to say that the moment we arrived back in Cape Town after our holiday, we went out and purchased the Cities and Knights expansion which we have all continued to enjoy just as much, though we have found that playing using the expansion does require a larger time sacrifice.

Here's the funny part though: My sister's boyfriend Anton, who accompanied us on holiday and was as addicted as my family, soon borrowed the game for a night in order to play it with his immediate family. His family was so impressed and so addicted after that one game that within days they had purchased their own copy and were playing on a regular basis. Soon after they had purchased their own copy, Anton's slightly younger 19 year old sister took her family's new Settlers of Catan board game to her boyfriend's house, during which the Catan bug immediately bit and a copy was promptly purchased by that family too. Within days they even purchased the Seafarers expansion!

In conclusion, I must admit that as a PC gamer myself, I have never experienced a game with the strategic depth along and raw appeal to so many age groups, as The Settlers of Catan has. It can admittedly be daunting to learn at first, but once you know the basics, a whole new world of board gaming opens up to the new player. The Settlers of Catan is good clean addictive fun for the whole family... literally!

My only recommendation is that new players should definitely start with the basic Settlers of Catan board game before trying any expansions.

Thanks for a great site and keep up the good work!

PS: We are going to be purchasing Ticket to Ride: Europe this evening. Can't wait!!

With the warmest regards from sunny Cape Town

Richard Hagan
on behalf of the Hagan family!"

Gavin has put a fantastic trip-report together for all of us to enjoy and to learn more about this incredible event. A huge thank you to Gavin for taking the time to share this experience with us.

Make sure you take the time to read about their super adventure - click here.
 

Boardgames.co.za will be exhibiting at ICON for the third year in a row. Thanks to a long standing co-operation with Grant Charlton, the main man behind the event, we are able to use ICON as a vehicle to drive awareness for the wonderful world of board gaming.

We hope to see many of our customers and other board game enthusiasts at ICON. We will be on hand to demonstrate and play our games with you at our stand.

With the kind help of Gavin Westermeyer, we will also be running board game tournaments at ICON. More on that below.
 

We are planning a Settlers of Catan Tournament at ICON this year and welcome all board game enthusiasts to join in the fun.

With the help of Gavin Westermeyer and Lanthis Wannenburg, we will be laying the ground work for a national Settlers of Catan Tournament with the view to using the tournament as the official South African qualification event in 2008.

This will enable us to send South African representatives to the 2008 Settlers of Catan World Championships held every year at Essen Spiel, in Germany.

The 2006 Catan World Championships featured players from over 29 countries worldwide. Markus Nuopponen proved to be the strongest player of the tournament, beating the very strong Japanese players, and the local player from Germany in the final game.

Visit the Catan World Championships home page - click here.

You can also download the 2007 Tournament Rules from our web-site - click here. These are the rules that will be used for the Settlers tournament at ICON.

We will send out a further news-flash closer to the time with more details about the tournament at ICON. Hope to see you there!
 

We would like to welcome our new Retail Partners to the team.

Akeba – Operating from Kilarney. 083-536-1963

Many of you will be happy to know that they also have a stall at the Rooftop Market in Rosebank, so if you are in the area, do pop around and visit Paule there. She can be found at stall 4A – 7th Avenue.

Aladin’s Cave – Mountainview, Pretoria. 012-379-2567

Mini-webs SA – Oakridge, Constantia. 021-715-0247
 

This computer, gaming and technology expo will be held at the Coca Cola Dome in Northgate, Johannesburg from 28 to 30 September.

rAge is yet another fantastic platform to introduce people from all age-groups to the magic of board games. Year after year, it is incredible how well Boardgames.co.za does at rAge considering the competition (Computer games, gadgets, etc)!
 

Coinciding with the Formula 1 season which has recently started, is our acquisition of the extremely popular game Formula De.

Due to popular demand, the suppliers have offered a final re-print of this game. We have ordered a limited quantity and will distribute these on a first come first served basis.

Dads ... perhaps a belated Father's Day gift to yourselves???

Settlers of Catan has just been released for the XBOX 360 gaming console.

It is quite remarkable to have a board game released on a next-generation computer gaming console.

It is quite awesome to be able to play this game on the XBOX and to challenge players from all over the world, 24 hours a day!

Visit the home page - click here.

Don't forget to take advantage of our awesome bundles. Save huge amounts of $$$ - click here.

Look out for other great bundles coming online soon!

Congratulations to the following newsletter subscribers who each win a copy of TransAmerica valued at R299.00 each!

- Franco Opperman
- Michael Ladwig
- Merrilyn Smith

The Boardgames crew hope that you thoroughly enjoy your prizes and that you play them often with family and as many friends as possible. Spread the magic!
 

We were excited to welcome Battlelore to our shores recently, and no sooner had it arrived and an expansion pack was on the horizon.

Call to Arms - The Army Deployment System for BattleLore! So all you die-hard enthusiasts will have something to keep you busy during the cold winter months.

To add to our Settlers family, we have acquired Settlers Event Cards.

Also arrived is Fire & Axe. The Viking Saga is a new edition of Viking Fury, by the Ragnar brothers (authors of History of the World).

And to enhance that fantastic game, where all players work together to defeat the board, we have a new expansion called Shadows over Camelot Expansion : Company of Knights

These games will up on our catalogue during next week.
 

Winter Specials

The following games are now available at Special Winter prices, while stocks last. All our prices include courier delivery to your door.

Cleopatra and the Society of Architects
- Normal Price: R535
- Special Price: R465

Memoir ‘44
- Normal Price: R539
- Special Price: R469

Ticket to Ride - Europe
- Normal Price: R459
- Special Price: R399

Starfarers of Catan
- Normal Price: R539
- Special Price: R469
 

Subscribe

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Remember that subscribing to this newsletter gives you a chance to win a board game every issue. So stay tuned and WIN!

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That's a Wrap!

That’s all for now. We will be sending out another update soon. Until then, happy gaming! Please also give us any feedback that you may have.

Happy Gaming,

The Crazy Boardgames.co.za Crew

info@boardgames.co.za