Last year, my friend Marco Pecota — who I’ve known since the ’90s when he ran Global Games and published the minis game Legions of Steel — contacted me. He’d come back to games publishing with a new company — Raybox Games — and had some great successes with Stalingrad Z (zombies in World War II) and The Cats of Mont Saint-Michel (anthropomorphic cats fighting rats in the legendary monastery in the days before the French revolution). He asked if I was interested in designing a sequel to Mont Saint-Michel called The Cats of New Orleans, set in 1868.
I said YES. I love these sorts of tactical combat games, going all the way back to one of my all-time favorite games — Space Hulk — for which I developed the expansions Deathwing and Genestealer during my time at Games Workshop. Plus, this was a chance to work with two of my kids — Marty and Pat — who were just as excited as me.
We spent much of the last year working on the game, meeting in the afternoons and playtesting in the evenings. The boys and I came up with the characters, the storyline, and all the missions and cards, plus we worked with Marco to streamline the rules and make a game that’s sharp, fast, and fun.
And it’s now coming to Kickstarter on Tuesday, April 21. It comes in two formats: the standard and the deluxe sets.
The $49 version comes with everything you need to play and features colorful standees for the characters. The $149 version comes with all that, plus unpainted miniatures in a deluxe slipcase, plus a bunch of other enhancements.
Maybe best of all for us, one of the bonus figures that comes with the Kickstarter deluxe set is a miniature of Simon Beloit, based on our own dog, Simon, who passed away earlier this month at just short of 16 years old. It’s wonderful to have this tribute of him out there for us to remember him by as well as for everyone to enjoy.
Anyhow, you can find out all sorts of more details on Raybox’s page for the game. Please go check out the Kickstarter and sign up to be notified when it launches. Thanks!
