The most popular fan site for my Marvel Heroes Battle Dice game has been offline for a while, although it lasted longer than the game. However, its creator, Malakai, recently posted a refurbished version of the site. If you’re looking for information about the game, including rules, variants, rosters, and more, be sure to pop by and check it out.

I’ve received a number of e-mails lately from people who have found Marvel Heroes Battle Dice booster boxes in bargain bins and snapped them up only to find they don’t have any rules for the game. I created this game for Playmates Toys a few years back, so people often wind up here to ask for help.

The game is long out of print, but I’ve been given permission to post PDFs of the rules, the attribute list, and the play mat. Now, if you can find enough booster boxes, you can just download these bits and play!

I’d heard that my Marvel Heroes Battle Dice game was doing well in Europe, but I didn’t know for sure what that meant. Malakai at PopDice.com dropped me a recent comment, though, that pointed out that the game is now selling in France. Apparently, there are some extra figures in the European set, which seem to be from Series 2, which was unreleased in North America.

I’m glad to see the game having a second life. Here’s hoping it keeps rolling!

As posted at MarvelBattleDice.com, Playmates has decided to cancel its Battle Dice game line. I’ve known about this for some time but been unable to say anything publicly until Playmates made its official announcement. It’s always sad when a game line goes away, but just because we won’t see any more Battle Dice supplements doesn’t mean we can’t keep playing with the figures and dice we have.

For those of us who prefer to keep playing, there are other, nonofficial sites out there. The best I know of is PopDice.com, run by the mighty Malakai. If you hear of others, be sure to let me know.

Since I last mentioned the Marvel Heroes Battle Dice website back on June 8, they’ve added:

• A list of the new powers from the upcoming Series 2.
• Two more sets of computer desktop wallpaper.
• A calendar of upcoming games, tournaments, and events.

Be sure to stop by and check them all out. I like the new wallpapers a lot, although my favorite is still the one with Dr. Doom clutching a pop-die in his outstretched fist. “This game will be won by DOOM!”

A company called Illektron—which made a collectible card game called Battlez—has filed suit against Playmates Toys over the trademark for Battle Dice. I’m still poring through the PDFs of the court documents to see exactly what this is all about. (You can get these and the original press release about the lawsuit by clicking on the “News Wire” running scroll in the lower left corner of the Battlez site.)

No comment until then. As I might be called as a witness by either side, I’ll probably have little comment either way.

I just wanted to let you know that I do know about the situation. Also, since it seems to be over the trademarks for the games, it shouldn’t affect me directly. (Let’s hope!)

Over at MarvelBattleDice.com, the fine folks at Playmates Toys have posted the latest in their series of computer desktop wallpapers. This one features the Thing and Mr. Fantastic from the Fantastic Four!

To cap off the week of Battle Dice previews, we have one more from the upcoming DC version of the game: Starro the Conqueror. If you thought MODOK was weird, he has nothing on the giant starfish alien who controls the minds of his victims via miniature, face-hugging versions of itself. Better yet, Starro takes the blame for the discovery of Earth-C, home to Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew!

You just can’t get much more trippy than that. Still, I enjoy Starro stories, and I read lots of Captain Carrot as a kid. I can only hope the influences don’t show too often.

This time around, we have our first preview figure from the upcoming DC Battle Dice game. Starfire was one of the founding members of the Teen Titans, and she’s been with the group through many of its incarnations. She became even more popular as one of the lineup for the Teen Titans animated series on Cartoon Network. Nothing like a scantily clad alien princess with glowing green eyes to add an exotic dash to a superhero team.

The fine folks at Playmates Toys are running a third contest with a case of Marvel Heroes Battle Dice Series 2 as the loot. Be sure to check in to see if you can come up with the winning answer!