This is a copy of the “script” we used to organise Brainwaves Episode 162. It is not a full transcript but should give you an overview of the news as we reported it. Quotes are in italics.
Headlines
- Games Workshop, the tabletop miniature model manufacturer known for games such as Warhammer has been on a lawsuit rampage. The company recently started suing nearly 280 sellers across the globe and freezing their assets, alleging that they are selling counterfeit items and trading off the Warhammer name without permission, using branding owned by Games Workshop.
- Bootleg minis, knockoff terrain, and highly suspicious Warhammer-branded products are not new, of course, but rather than politely requesting the removal of these items from sale, this time Games Workshop opted to sue these retailers by filing a complaint in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Florida.
- According to reports, Games Workshop’s lawyers made a number of test purchases to check if the items sold were indeed fake, low quality or designed to imitate official Warhammer products, including the unauthorised use of Games Workshop’s copyrighted logos, box art or product names.
- In an attempt to prevent fraudulent sellers from hiding their practices or removing unauthorised items, Games Workshop gave no advance warning of the test purchases.
- On the 22nd of April, the court signed off on a Temporary Restraining Order as part of the full complaint, from which point onward, sellers had to stop selling anything infringing, their financial accounts were locked, marketplaces like Amazon, eBay and AliExpress were ordered to hand over seller details, and platforms had to freeze and disclose information on the accused sellers.
- The court allowed Games Workshop to notify defendants via email and Dropbox links and ordered the company to post a bond of $10,000 per seller to cover potential damage if the court later finds they overreached. So for 280 sellers, that’s $2.8 million in bonds on top of the legal bill.
- It is reported that Games Workshop uses the services of Brickell IP Group, a law firm that has been attached to similar mass-defendant IP lawsuits in the past.
- However, the problem with large sweeping lawsuits is that the likelihood of innocent parties being caught up in the process isn’t low. In this case, it seems that a handful of genuine sellers have been caught up in the lawsuit by mistake.
- One seller was flagged over a gaming mat because the title mentioned Warhammer 40k. Another was added to the list of defendants because they sold a wooden brush holder whose description included the word Citadel. Some were tagged for using official logos in their store category page, even though they didn’t use them on any of their products. At least a few listings seemed to be fulfilled through Shopify’s affiliate program, The Collective, meaning those defendants never touched the goods.
- So if any of the claims are ruled excessive or unjustified, the bonds of $10,000 per seller paid by Games Workshop would help pay damages awarded to the wrongly targeted sellers.
- Of course, we will bring you updates on this case as it proceeds through the court.
World Warhammer Championship boycotted by some players
https://www.rascal.news/players-boycott-the-world-championships-of-warhammer-because-of-trump
- Sticking with Games Workshop for our next headline, issues have arisen around some of the players who were invited to attend the World Warhammer Championship taking place in Atlanta, Georgia in the United States.
- Due to the Trump administrations border crackdowns and arrests of innocent civilians by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) one of the attendees publicly announced they were boycotting
- Quentin Dubbs had won a golden ticket to the championship at a recent tournament in Belgium. These tickets give the player an expenses paid access to the Championship.
- Posting on Bluesky Quentin said
- This ticket comes with the privilege of representing Belgium on the international stage. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: the chance to meet the legends of Warhammer, connect with the global community, and take part in an event at the very heart of our shared passion.
- And yet, I’ve made the difficult decision not to go. I refuse to travel to a country currently led by a fascist figure who actively enacts policies that harm trans people, marginalised communities, the environment, and more. My decision is a political and ethical one — an act of activism.
- I believe we each have a responsibility to speak up when we are given a platform, and this is mine. Games Workshop says that Warhammer is for everyone. This is a moment where they can choose to truly embody that message.
- By hosting such a high-profile event in a country that systematically undermines the rights and dignity of many of its own people, they send a mixed message to the global Warhammer community. They have the power to make a different choice — a better one. And I hope they will.
- Responding to Quentin’s post, Emma Hallinan stated they would not attend due to the dangers to transgender people travelling to the states. Emma won an australian Kill Team tournament and also had a Golden Ticket.
- Games Workshop made a very public statement in 2020 that ‘Warhammer is for Everyone’ in response to a player that showed up at a Spanish Tournament openly wearing nazi iconography. That statement said this
- Our fantasy settings are grim and dark, but that is not a reflection of who we are or how (we) feel the real world should be. We will never accept nor condone any form of prejudice, hatred or abuse in our company or in the Warhammer hobby. We will continue to diversify the cast of characters we portray through miniatures, art and storytelling so everyone can find representation and heroes they can relate to.
- And if you feel the same way, wherever and whoever you are, we’re glad you are part of the Warhammer Community.
- If not, you will not be missed.
- The story was brought to our attention by the reporting on Rascal which is behind a paywall. Everything we have quoted is in the public domain. A link to the Rascal article will be in the show notes.
Goodman Games works with Fascists
https://goodman-games.com/a-statement-about-city-state-of-the-invincible-overlord
https://goodman-games.com/an-additional-statement-about-city-state-of-the-invincible-overlord
- Goodman Games, publishers of RPG Dungeon Crawl Classics, has found itself in trouble over the reissue of an RPG setting called City State of the Invincible Overlord
- This was one of the early game settings from the Judges Guild for the original D&D. It’s had many versions over the years. The judges Guild was founded by Bob Bledsaw and Bill Owen
- In 2020, Bob Bledsaw the 2nd, son of co-founder Bob Bledsaw, posted a variety of racist and anti-semmitic statements online. In these posts he described himself as pro-life and anti-gay, defended his racial humour and alluded to the truth behind 9/11. Bob Bledsaw the 2nd was part of the current iteration of the Judges Guild
- This led to many companies, including Goodman Games, cutting ties with the Judges Guild. At the time they said
- To start with, we are disgusted and disheartened by the antisemitism, bigotry, racism, homophobia, and transphobia exhibited by the current owners of Judges Guild.
- Goodman Games has stopped selling our previous Judges Guild products through all distribution channels.
- Judges Guild will no longer receive income from Goodman Games products now that sales of their titles have ceased.
- Goodman Games ended up trying to defend their involvement with Judges Guild.
- In a statement posted on the 8th of May, Joe Goodman owner of Goodman Games said this
- It’s hard to express how upset I was personally and professionally by the events of 2020. I don’t discuss my family, but the posts and comments that came to light affected all of us, including my children. What I saw was repugnant and vile.
- Unfortunately, the 2020 revelations also left several pending projects in limbo. Legally, we can’t discuss specifics, but one of those was our adaptation of the City State of the Invincible Overlord for (our Original Adventures Reincarnated line)
- They go onto explain that a 2010 attempt to reissue the setting through crowdfunding had run into problems and that funds received by the Goodman Games reprint would be used to issue refunds to the backers of that project. Joe concludes by saying this
- These were the only terms that were acceptable to Goodman Games. We want to see the original backers of the 2010 Kickstarter made whole. We also want to bring an updated version of the City State of the Invincible Overlord forward into the 21st century and give new audiences a chance to explore what made it so compelling almost 50 years ago.
- Many in the RPG community were unhappy with the situation and criticised Goodman Games for effectively working once more with Judges Guild in its current form. This backlash led to an additional statement on the 9th of May from Joe Goodman.
- In this statement he breaks down that they will make all efforts to ensure that the royalties to Judges Guild from the campaign will only be used to refund backers of the 2020 crowdfunding campaign. However part way through the statement, Joe says this
- However, it has been represented to me that Judges Guild has already refunded some of the original Pathfinder backers, so perhaps the total refund requests will be less than $85k. And perhaps “our” campaign will do better than expected, generating a larger-than-expected royalty payment. The combination of these two factors means it’s possible there will be money left in the escrow account.
- We are legally obligated to pay those funds to Judges Guild. If that happens, Goodman Games will match that remaining payment with a donation to a charitable cause that supports our values of inclusivity. We have requested that Judges Guild make a similar donation.
- $85k was what the 2020 crowdfunder raised.
- Links to both statements will be in the show notes.
- Thanks to Tanya Floaker for bringing this to our attention.
Updates
Greater Than Games
- As we reported in our last episode, US distributor Flat River Group announced that the company had to reduce staff and effectively shutter Greater than Games, the company it bought in December 2021. This was a direct consequence of the tariffs brought in by the Trump administration on goods from China.
- Now, Christopher Badell, Design Director at Greater Than Games, posted an update about the “Sentinels of the Multiverse: Disparation Expansion” crowdfunding campaign.
- In the update, dated 6th of May, Badell summarizes the events leading up to the current situation and explains that all of Greater Than Games’ projects have been put on hold, and that the production of the Disparation expansion has specifically been halted at the printers.
- Badell is currently waiting for more information about the Disparation expansion, but says that the team are committed to doing all they can to deliver it to backers.
- Badell says this about the expansion:
- “Despite these challenges, Paul [Bender], Adam [Rebottaro], and I remain absolutely committed to delivering Disparation to all of you. However, our current ability to act is severely limited. We will continue to provide monthly updates, as long as we are able, and we fully intend to resume work on this campaign when circumstances allow.”
- Badell goes on to apologise for what is happening and shares everyone’s disappointment and frustration.
- Badell thanks the Greater Than Games team, who have been let go, by saying:
- “The staff of Greater Than Games were some of the most talented and dedicated individuals I’ve had the pleasure to work with over the last decade and a half. While many of them are already moving on to new opportunities, their sudden departure has left us devastated.”
Tariff pause
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/12/china-us-agree-pause-trade-war-trump
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgv5n00e0jo
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/13/nx-s1-5395866/us-china-tariffs-trade-deal
https://ludorum.substack.com/p/tariffs-and-pricing-oh-my
- As widely reported in the global press, on Monday, the 12th of May, US President Trump announced a “total reset” in the relations between the US and China by agreeing a 90-day reduction of tariffs by 115 percentage points, effectively bringing import duties of Chinese products brought into the US back down to 30%.
- While the reduction is certainly welcomed by many US-based industries, including the board game industry, there is still too much uncertainty over how the situation will change in the future, given that there is still no long-term agreement in sight.
- In fact, even if the tariffs remain stable, it is not clear if the temporary import duty reduction will lead to a sharp increase in shipping costs as everyone scrambles to get their goods onto boats and the boats to sail to the US and arrive before the 90-day tax break runs out.
- Even if shipping costs remain stable and there is enough capacity for everyone to ship their goods from China to the US in plenty of time, the 30% tariff that remains in place for now is, while more manageable, still very high. There is already talk of these additional costs having to be passed on to consumers.
- We will have to see how this will affect the board game industry specifically, but the remaining uncertainty is definitely going to continue to cause problems.
- Tariffs have affected many companies already, as we detailed above. Underdog Games, publisher of the Trekking the World series of games, has shrunk its team in response to the current situation.
- We spoke to Eerie Idol Games, publishers of Old Kings Crown who are on the cusp of fulfilling that campaign. Pablo Clark from Eerie Idol said this about the pause
- At 30% costs are dramatically reduced, obviously. For some it is still essentially unworkable but for us, in our case, we built very big margins into our process early on and we made the game in house (so I illustrated it on a wage, instead of paying a freelancer a huge amount to do the same – the project would have essentially been impossible to fund for the amount of art and time involved). However, with a 90 day window and no real guarantee that the tariff rates will hold, this scenario now is still incredibly tricky to navigate. Here are some key issues: – Tariffs are charged at the point of departure of the stock from the port of origin. This means that all people looking to freight are incentivised (in many cases by their livelihoods depending on it) to get the stock on to the water as soon as possible. This causes all that delayed/held back stock that I mentioned earlier, racing to join all upcoming stock in a big crush.
- – To get on freight vessels you essentially “buy” a place on them. With conditions like this prices for this space historically escalate wildly, with larger companies buying vast amounts of space to ensure that overdue stock hits the water. This pushes aside many products and projects that are smaller and/or in more niche industries (board games for example).
- Fort Circle Games, who are patrons of this cast, have broken down the cost implications of the tariffs for some of their games. It is a great breakdown of why the hike is so devastating to businesses.
Alliance Game Distributors acquired
https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/59575/under-new-ownership-alliance-diamond
News
Rowan, Rook and Decard give Gencon a wide berth
https://rowanrookanddecard.com/were-not-coming-to-gencon-this-year/?v=7885444af42e
- With UK Games Expo on the horizon and Gencon looming on the horizon, many companies are getting ready to head to other countries and show off their range of games.
- I am sure many of you are aware of the reports coming from the UNited States of innocent people being grabbed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials, and it has given some companies reason enough to not attend conventions in that country.
- Rowan, Rook, and Decard is a UK RPG publisher best known for titles like DIE, Heart, SPire, and the one page series of RPGs. Matt Sanders, head of conventions, and Grant Howitt, the head honcho of the company, posted to their website. The statement starts
- We made a tough decision this week. We’re not bringing any staff from the UK to GenCon 2025. Crossing the border into the US simply isn’t safe for us at the moment, and it doesn’t appear to be getting safer.
- They go onto explain that they will still have a presence at the show through a contact in the states, but won’t be able to have any of the events that they were initially planning to run. Elaborating on the situation they say this
- We aren’t the first to make this decision; we suspect we won’t be the last, either; the political climate is only getting worse. While the odds of most of us encountering resistance at border control are low, we don’t want to risk running the biggest convention of the year without the members of staff we need because they’ve been detained, deported, or otherwise penalised for their beliefs or who they are.
- Matt and Grant express their anger at being put in this situation and urge people to contact their elected representatives to make them aware of the impact the trump administration is having on travel and events.
- Thanks to Corey from our Discord for bringing this to our attention
Canada’s largest miniatures producer shutters
Original Facebook post: https://www.facebook.com/RafmCthuhluMiniatures/posts/pfbid02Zj5n1Jy8Kf85o3ap12FwAFQNMbirMGcD3FzYoLnB6TcLUyLHrpZtMXQZanDCKoDnl
Silver Fox / RAFM website: https://rafm.com/
- Silver Fox Productions Inc, the Canadian maker of RAFM Miniatures, Charlie Company, Modern Day Heroes, RAFM Cthulhu and many others, announced on the 7th of May on its RAFM Facebook page that the company is closing down.
- The business started as RAFM Company Inc. in 1977, when they published “The Universal Soldier” ruleset. In 1979, they also started producing miniatures and later became the Canadian distributors for Ral Partha, Citadel Miniatures and at least one range of Martian Metals.
- In 1999, the company changed its name to Silver Fox Productions, Inc. and RAFM became one of its product lines.
- Over its history, the company developed into Canada’s largest producer in its field and created its own distinct Fantasy and Historical lines of miniatures and games.
- The Facebook post is signed by Jack Van Schaik, CEO of Silver Fox Productions, and while there is no mention of any specific reason for the closure, Van Schaik reminisces about the company’s long time within the industry and describes the hope that the company’s products will continue to be available:
- “Being the largest miniatures producer in Canada gave us the opportunity to work with many great American companies like Ral Partha, FASA, R. Talsorian Games and Reaper Miniatures. We worked hard to bring a wide variety of miniatures and companies to the Canadian market, as well as our produced own Fantasy and Historical lines of miniatures and games.
- “After pouring our heart and soul into this business for 50 years, with many contributors and partners along the way, we hope that our product lines and proprietary creative works will continue to be available to the market through other sources, those details are still being finalized. Stay tuned for updates, and thank you for your support over the years, it has meant the world to us.”
- Van Schaik also explains that clearing out the company’s premises has incurred a substantial amount of cost, which the company hopes to offset through the sale of digital products on their website, a link to which you can find in the show notes.
Diana Jones Emerging Designer Award Winners
- The Diana Jones Award is not only one of our favourite yearly celebrations of gaming, but has also been helping new designers get some wider recognition
- They have recently announced the winners of the Emerging Designer award for 2025
- The award comes with an expenses paid trip to Gen Con with interview and demo spot opportunities, a 1 year gama voting membership, prototyping credit at the game crafter, Affinity 2 graphic design suite, and a protospiel online badge.
- They are
- Ashraf Braden an African RPG designer living in Uganda’s Kampala District. He is best known for Legends of Uganda, a zine dedicated to bringing Ugandan myths and urban legends to the gaming table.
- Elliot Davis is a Brooklyn-based game designer, publisher, podcaster, and artist who loves all things weird and wonderful about the TTRPG industry. He is known for such self-published releases as Project ECCO, Rom Com Drama Bomb, and the upcoming The Time We Have.
- Lyla McBeath Fujiwara is the project lead for the Cosmere RPG, which in 2024 became the highest-funded tabletop Kickstarter ever. She coordinates a team of 20 diverse creatives working on 14 game products. She is also the book lead for the RPG’s hardcover campaign-length adventures, Stonewalkers and Mistborn Legacy. As the book lead, she facilitates and directs the overall creative vision and execution of the adventures.
- Marceline Leiman is a graduate of and instructor at the prestigious NYU Gamecenter. She has designed in the board game and RPG space, and has worked with design/development teams at North Star Games (Oceans solo mode) Underdog Games (Trekking the World second edition) and Clarkson Potter (title unannounced).
- Congratulations to all the winners
BGG winners announced
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3508413/article/46053839#46053839
- BoardGameGeek, the Wikipedia of the board game hobby, has just announced the winners of its annual awards. Voted on by the community of the site, the award winners represent how the users feel about the current state of board gaming.
- There are quite a variety of categories, including several different categories for game of the year. We won’t take you through all of them but wanted to highlight a couple we thought were worth a mention.
- 52 Realms: Adventures from publisher Postmark Games. Iain has really been enjoying this solo dungeon crawler, driven by interesting card play and variable characters and maps.
- Arcs was one of the big winners, a game both of us enjoyed from last year. The expansion also won an award.
- Beyond Solitaire won the best podcast. Well deserved. Great cast with interesting interviews and subjects.
- Congratulations to all the nominees, winners, and runner-ups.
- Discussion:
Jobs, Opportunities, and Events
https://www.facebook.com/groups/TabletopJobs
Tabletop Games Blog Raffle
http://tabletopgamesblog.com/raffle
- The raffle in aid of The Trussell Trust, a charity that runs UK food banks, is back. Tickets are again £1 and all proceeds, minus fees, go directly to the charity. The prizes for the May raffle are a copy of Klask, Rolling Realms Redux and Heroes of Timeline, all of which are review copies, so they’re not brand new, but still in very good condition.
Patreon Shoutouts
Kevin Bertram
James Naylor
Shaun Newan
game-a-lot.fun/en
facebook.com/gamealotboardgames
Our Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/thegiantbrain
Fanroll
https://fanrolldice.com/ref/2783
Outro
Iain
Pendragon features at law creative day
- The Royal faculty of Procurators in Glasgow host an annual creativity in law event which allows legal professionals to show off their hobbies while raising money for a charitable cause. This year that cause was Shelter Scotland a homelessness organisation
- One of the participants was Iain Nisbet who is a Tabletop RPG enthusiast and ran some Pendragon for the participants. Pendragon is a game of Knights and myths from publisher Chaosium. Many of the participants were new to tabletop roleplaying and it sounds like a good time was had by all
- The adventure will be available to play at Chaosium Con UK on the 23rd and 25th of May, and is also available on Drivethru RPG.
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