We’re always excited to expand our range, so our latest stock run has added wild west auction game Homesteaders and classic negotiation game Diplomacy.

We’ve also restocked with copies of Stronghold, but what we’re particularly excited about is a pair of pre-orders for highly sought after games…

 Eclipse, a space-themed 4X game of epic proportions, is already ranked in the Top 10 at BoardGameGeek and it hasn’t even arrived in New Zealand yet!

We’ve been allocated only a few copies, and pre-orders have already sold out, but we’re hoping to secure a few more units – so contact us if you’d like to get in the queue for the next available copies!

The other exciting title is Puerto Rico: Limited Anniversary Edition, a 10th anniversary remake of the multi-award winning original.  This is essentially a massive components upgrade, (including metal money!), as well as including expansions that have been released over the years and special rules for 2 players.

We don’t want you to miss out on this pre-order like some have missed out on Eclipse, so head on over to the game page and secure your copy!

But firstly, we wanted to thank you, our fellow gamers, for making our year such a success – we wouldn’t be here without you, and we’re grateful that you seem to want us to stick around!  And with more than 300 gamers now joining us on our Facebook page, we reckon it’s time to celebrate with a discount!  But more on that later…

SeriouslyBoard’s 2011 Highlights

International Charity Board Game Auction: Christchurch has been subjected to earthquakes for more than a year now.  One of the few positives to come out of this awful series is events is that Kiwis have rallied together for Cantabrians in numerous different ways.

Early in 2011, SeriouslyBoard became a contributor by organising an international charity board game auction.  Gamers from around the world, including multi-award winning designer Reiner Knizia and publisher Days Of Wonder, contributed items to be auctioned off, and the bidding resulted in a $2,598.74 cheque being sent to the New Zealand Red Cross.

The cheque that you made possible!

We were really excited to facilitate this process, and we’d encourage you to donate if you haven’t already – Christchurch could do with every cent it can get.

Reinier Knizia Interview: Following on from donating autographed games to be auctioned off, Reiner Knizia agreed to an interview with SeriouslyBoard.  This was his first New Zealand interview, and our first international one, but Dr Knizia was very gracious and, we think, provided an insightful interview.

You can find the interview here.

Board Games By The Bay: Winter saw the launch of our pet project, Board Games By The Bay.  Billed as an event for gamers and non-gamers, we rented a hall in Auckland for a weekend and essentially provided a place for gamers to learn, play, win, and buy games, while meeting other like-minded people.

We got some media exposure which gave us a result we were really after: new people joining the hobby.  Few things gave us more satisfaction than seeing someone come along, enjoy themselves, and leave with their very first modern board game!

We ran a follow up event in Tauranga later in the year, and we’re excited about running these events again in 2012.

Bookmark the BGBTB website keep an eye on our blog for dates!

SeriouslyBoard Secret Santa: December can be a pretty crazy time of year, but a number of Kiwis embarked on our first nationwide Secret Santa.  With flexible cost brackets, people didn’t have to be flush to take part, and it meant for an extra gift on Christmas Day!

Angie with her gift from Santa.

We’ll be running another nationwide Secret Santa at the end of 2012, and we’re hoping to make it bigger and better for those involved.

2011 Best Sellers: We saw a number of great games receive the favour of Kiwi gamers in 2011, but these were the most popular…

• 5: 7 Wonders
• 4: Forbidden Island
• 3: Ticket To Ride
• 2: Settlers Of Catan
• 1: Dominion 

2012 Discount: To celebrate the New Year, and also to celebrate our 300^th Facebook fan, we’ve decided to set up a discount code as a thank you gift for supporting us.  Until the end of January, you can get 12% off.  All you have to do is enter the discount code, which is…in the video below!

This time of year is a great opportunity to get together with loved ones and share a bit of food and a lot of laughs.

The SeriouslyBoard crew will be out of town doing just that, which means we won’t be answering emails on Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day and January 2nd.

We’ll be answering emails between December 27th and December 31st, and orders will be sent out from December 28th to December 30th when the couriers are operating again.

And then, on January 4th, everything will return to normal and all will be right with the world!

In the meantime, we’d like to wish you a Merry Christmas, and a happy and safe New Year.

Caitlin - our expansion - wishes you a Merry Christmas!

The February earthquake has affected so many lives in so many ways, prompting numerous fundraisers, including our board game auction which raised $2,598.74.

One of the most memorable images was of Christchurch Cathedral, its spire having collapsed.  The building will, sadly, be deconsecrated.

Christchurch Cathedral in the wake of the 2011 earthquake.

In 1962, Robert Moore, then a pilot with the RNZAF, marvelled at how Christchurch Cathedral stood out from the rest of the city, and used it as a landmark against which to gauge his location.

He later went on to design the classic Kiwi board game Cathedral.

The New Year will mark half a century since that flight, and now Brightway Products - the first company to produce the game back in 1979 – is at the helm again with a fantastic wooden version.

The wooden box to Cathedral.

Featuring a fantastic wooden box, Cathedral is made from 100% New Zealand materials, so it should come as no surprise that we at SeriouslyBoard were the first retailer to place an order.

The medieval city depicted in Cathedral.

So in one sense, Christchurch has its Cathedral back.

And besides, who could resist a game with an advertising campaign like this:

This time of year is always a great opportunity to give, but you’ll need to act quickly if you want to be able to get a gift this side of Christmas!

With payment clearance and transit times to consider, there is no time like the present (ha!) to get something for your friend, your loved one, or heck – even yourself!

So if you’re looking to buy before Christmas, here are the deadlines for your payment to clear:

• Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga: Wednesday, December 21st.
• Rest of the North Island: Tuesday, December 20th.
• South Island: Monday, December 19th.

Please bear in mind that although credit card payments are immediate, internet bank transfers can take up to two days to clear!

With Christmas rapidly approaching, we’ve had a restock of more than 20 titles, and a few of those have already sold out again, so you’ll need to be quick!

Earlier this week, we restocked our shelves with:

• All time classics, including titles from the Settlers Of Catan, Carcassonne, Dominion, and Ticket To Ride ranges.
• Highly themed games, like Chaos In The Old World, Merchants & Marauders, Memoir ’44, and Small World.
• Great fillers, such as The Resistance, Coloretto, Fluxx, and JAB: Realtime Boxing.
• Other highly sought games: Dice Town, Power Grid, Wasabi!, Red November.

In addition to these restocks, we also added a couple of titles to our range: Chicago Express and Discworld: Ankh-Morpork.

Some of these games have already sold out again, so you’ll need to be quick if you’re going to secure our stock this side of Christmas!

But fret not – we’ll be bringing in some more games in the next week or so!

On another note, we’re excited about possibly adding board game themed apps for iPhone and Android users, but we need to be convinced that it’ll be worth the effort, so make sure you vote in our poll!

Last weekend, many of you will have contributed towards New Zealand’s future, with the help of this funky guy…

The orange election guy!

…but now you can have an impact on the future of Vietnamese street children with Venture Vietnam, a homegrown board game designed by Celia Caughey, former New Zealand Trade Commissioner to Vietnam!

The box of Venture Vietnam.

Venture Vietnam is an educational game about the Southeast Asian country as players race around Vietnam, answering trivia questions as they go, all the while balancing their ever dwindling finances.

The Venture Vietnam game board.

The game costs only $30 and half the profits go towards funding the Ba Chieu Home for street girls, which is run by the Women’s Charity Association of Ho Chi Minh City.

If you’d like to purchase a copy, contact Celia Caughey directly at: celia@primenz.com.

Come on, Kiwis – dig deep and help out the street kids of Vietnam!

Santa relaxing on the beach!

SeriouslyBoard‘s inaugural Secret Santa has had applicants from all over New Zealand, and this month they’ll be buying something for another keen gamer to add to the festive season!

If you signed up, hang tight – we’ll get your target’s details, along with their wishlist, sent to you at some point today!

November is almost at an end, so you don’t have long to sign up with our affordably flexible opportunity to add a bit of Christmas cheer to your board gaming table.

Secret Santa is a simple and fun way to buy a gift for another board gamer, while Santa takes care of you and delivers one to you at the same time!

You can either have us at SeriouslyBoard send an appropriate game to your target, or we can send it to you so that you can customise it, by adding some home baking or anything else that you think might be appreciated.

And it doesn’t even have to stretch your budget far, with the option to spend as little as $20 to make a special addition to someone’s festive season!

So don’t be a grinch!  Make this December a more board gaming Christmas for another Kiwi gamer!

Go on – sign up today.

When we were somewhere between celebrating a 100th birthday and restocking the best selling Forbidden Island, Pixelpark was working hard to enable us to expand our range with a new agreement for Wizards Of The Coast products!

This means that we can now access roleplaying games and board games under the Dungeons And Dragons brand…

Equip yourself with D4 through D20 for anything in the D&D range!

…as well as Avalon Hill titles, such as the much sought after RoboRally.

So if you’re after something for your next dungeon crawl, or you want one of the games that continue to make Avalon Hill great, make sure you get in touch!