New Product: Beautiful SGS T-shirts + SP Card Bundles!!

[UPDATE!] Multi-coloured Size L T-shirt has sold out!! Apologies for the inconvenience!

I have been thinking about this a LOOOOOONG time and I finally decided to take the plunge. Check out the new SanGuoSha T-shirts on Sino-Games.com! Comes in 5 different designs with 4 different sizes each.

As part of the clearance sale on Sino-Games.com, buying a T-shirt comes with a FREE GIFT!! There are 3 different gifts to choose from:

1. FREE Original Pack (worth $8.90)

OR

2. FREE SQS Q version (worth $14.90)

OR

3. FREE Tomb of Cao Cao (worth $9.90)


SP card Bundles!!!

Been waiting for the Clearance Sale to apply to SP cards? Here's your wish come true!! SP cards will be sold in bundles of 6 (Jul to Dec 2011 or Jan to Jun 2012).

Clearance sale is still going! So grab your items before they run out!


Bundles
1. Final Pack $99.90 now $69.90
2. Collector's edition bundle $69.90 now $49.90
3. Mobile pack $69.90 now $49.90
4. Ultimate pack $79.90 now $39.90


Separate items
1. Original pack $21.90 now $8.90
2. Battle expansion $9.90 now $4.90
3. Fire/wind/wood/hills expansion $7.90 now $3.90
4. Q version SGS pack $29.90 now $14.90
5. Card protector $24.90 now $14.90
6. Feng Sheng (The Message) $39.90 now $14.90
7. Tomb of Cao Cao $19.90 now $9.90

Liú Biǎo 刘表

Translated Description:
“Lord of Southern Han 跨蹈汉南 (kuā dǎo hàn nán)"

Who is he:
One extremely important person in the Three Kingdoms era who, serendipitously, created Liu Bei 刘备's power which immortalized the legends of Shu Kingdom. In a nutshell, if not for Liu Biao, Liu Bei would have died prematurely and Cao Cao 曹操 would likely have taken over China.

Liu Biao is a distant-uncle of Liu Bei who ruled over the strategic stronghold of Jing Zhou 荆州. It was Liu Biao's forces that killed Sun Jian 孙坚, father of Sun Ce 孙策 and Sun Quan 孙权. When Cao Cao began to rise to power, Liu Bei betrayed Cao Cao and fled, seeking refuge with Liu Biao. Liu Biao agreed to shelter Liu Bei, however Liu Biao was not highly respected due to his indecisiveness and his inability to exploit his talented generals. Zhuge Liang 诸葛亮 even told Liu Bei not to rest hopes in his uncle for the preservation of the Han dynasty, and that Liu Bei is a much stronger leader himself.

Consequently, Liu Biao came under extreme pressure from Cao Cao's marauding forces sweeping south, and Sun Quan's forces thirsting to avenge his father. He fell sick and died soon after. To add insult to injury, Liu Biao's intention was to let his elder son inherit his position, but his will was changed by his wife and his second son laid claim instead. Soon after, his weakling second son succumbed to pressure from Cao Cao.

Character Ability 1: "Self-preservation自守 (zì shoǔ)"
During the drawing phase, you may draw additional X number of cards (X being the number of units of health lost thus far), than skip your action phase.

Character Ability 2:  "House of Royalty 宗室 (zhōng shì)" [Enforced ability]
For every allegiance still in play, your on-hand card limit is increased by +1.

Ability's relation to story:
“Self-preservation” refers to his personality and action. He preserved himself from the conflicts of Cao Cao and Yuan Shao 袁绍. He withdraws from invasion to make Jing Province prosper. Therefore, he can draw more cards (showing prosperity) at the cost of action (without the ambition to invade others).

“House of Royalty” refers to his bloodline. He was a member of the royal family.

As you may observe, both abilities have relationship with Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu 袁术. Both Liu Biao and Yuan Shu can draw loads of cards because they both govern a prosperous region, which on-hand cards represent resources. Liu Biao can store more cards like Yuan Shao, because they are both born of high rank. Liu Biao is a clansman of the royal family, while Yuan Shao comes from the noble Yuan family. Yuan Shao can only store more cards when he is the ruler, but Liu Biao can store more cards regardless of his role, similar to Yuan Shu (Yuan Shu possesses the ruler ability regardless of his role).

How to obtain this character:
Liu Biao is available in the 2012 release of OverKnight Fame, otherwise known as OKF2012 (一将成名2012). Click here to purchase now!

Huá Xióng 华雄

Translated Description:
"Demon General 魔将 (mó jiàng)"

Who is he:
On one hand, Hua Xiong is an almost insignificant character in the entire story. You know he is not important by the speed at which he was killed by Guan Yu 关羽, no different from those nameless wrestlers who get trounced by the famous wrestling stars within 5 minutes.

On the other hand, Hua Xiong very nearly changed the entire course of history early in the Three Kingdoms period. The day before he was cut down by Guan Yu, Hua Xiong came very close to slaying Sun Jian 孙坚, and that could have distorted the future of Wu Kingdom 吴国.

In the story, Hua Xiong was credited as being a strong combatant, just shy of Lu Bu 吕布's abilities. I guess there was a need to let the heroes of the story (the 3 sworn brothers) take precedence and thus he appeared for a grand total of one miserable little chapter before his head was served on a platter. Wouldn't you be pissed if you were him?? Little wonder that he is one pissed off Demon!

Character Ability 1: "Reckless 恃勇(shi yǒng)" [Enforced ability]
Every instance that you suffer damage from a red ATTACK 杀 or WINE ATTACK 酒杀, your maximum health limit is reduced by 1.

Ability's relation to story:
Hua Xiong was a strong combatant serving Dong Zhuo 董卓. According to records, he looked like a loathsome American superhero (or supervillain), with a body as strong as a tiger, his waist as powerful as wolves, his head as fierce as leopards and his arms as aggressive as gorillas. In fiction, he was assigned as the protector of Si Shui Pass 汜水关, killing many generals of the coalition. He was eventually killed by Guan Yu in a single slash, to reflect Guan Yu's strength. Six max health relates himself to Dong Zhuo. “Reckless” refers to his defeat over Guan Yu. Nevertheless, he lacks playability…

How to obtain this character:
Hua Xiong is available in the 2012 release of OverKnight Fame, otherwise known as OKF2012 (一将成名2012). Click here to purchase now!

Updates to SGS blog for OKF 2012

Hi everyone,

As the number of posts for OKF2012 characters increase, it is getting more difficult to search for your desired character from the sidebar on the left.

Therefore I have updated the "Expansions" tab in the header bar to include all the OKF2012 characters in thumbnails for easier surfing.

Please note that characters that have not been posted will just lead to an image of the character card, and that the "All Characters" tab has not been updated yet.

One more thing, the 4 OKF 2012 Revamp characters (Fa Zheng 法正, Ling Tong 凌统, Xu Shu 徐庶, and Zhang Chunhua 张春华) have been updated with their latest character abilities. You will find them on their same posts as before.

The clearance sale is still going strong and we still have some stock available! Come grab'em!

Have fun everyone! 杀!!!


Bundles
1. Final Pack $99.90 now $69.90
2. Collector's edition bundle $69.90 now $49.90
3. Mobile pack $69.90 now $49.90
4. Ultimate pack $79.90 now $39.90


Separate items
1. Original pack $21.90 now $8.90
2. Battle expansion $9.90 now $4.90
3. Fire/wind/wood/hills expansion $7.90 now $3.90
4. Q version SGS pack $29.90 now $14.90
5. Card protector $24.90 now $14.90
6. Feng Sheng (The Message) $39.90 now $14.90
7. Tomb of Cao Cao $19.90 now $9.90

A quick "Thank You"

Hey everyone,

First of all, I'd like to say a big thank you to reader "金甲披身", for acknowledging my translations in his "SGS English Ver 2012" post. I'm more than happy to see whatever is on this blog further improved, then put to use for english-speaking gamers all around. Do make it happen!!

Secondly, I want to mention about some of the difficulties that this blog and Sino-Games has been facing the past couple of months.

As you might have noticed, the speed and frequency of the posts being generated has slowed considerably since last October. I'm doing my best to keep it a constant "one post per week".

But here's what is truly troubling me...

I haven't actually been playing SGS as often as I used to. That's an understatement actually. Since 2012 began till this post in July, I have played SGS a grand total of THREE times. The reason? It just doesn't appeal to me as much as before. I suspect it has to do with having to catch up with the constant influx of new characters and mechanisms.

When friends and I do meet up for our gaming sessions, we have been playing a mix of other boardgames, from the classic "Saboteur", to the abstract "Dixit", to jumping around conquering XBox Kinect.

Don't get me wrong. SGS is still fun as heck when we take it out for a couple of rounds. But the insanity just isn't there knowing that there is now a huge disparity between the clean game it once was and the myriad of questions that would arise with the new add-ons.

That being said though, my job on this blog is not yet done. I will still do translations of every new character that is coming out. But i'm relegating my position as "person with the answers" because I definitely play it a lot less than many of you reading.

If anyone reading this is keen to get our own forum up and running, please let me know!! It will be so much more tidy and efficient to get questions and answers there (in English) for every card and character.

Now, about Sino-Games.

There's no easy way to say this, so i'll just state the facts. Sino-Games.com just isn't making money for it to be sustainable. Therefore I will be having a clearance sale soon to clear out whatever stocks I have left. In the near future, Sino-Games will be dealing with accessories and new releases only. My apologies to customers who have been on the receiving end of less-than-pleasant customer service in the past couple of months. I am going to tidy things up, and bring back to the focus to the customer experience.

Despite all the issues, I am still extremely grateful that I still have an audience. Thanks for the support!! This blog will go on, and with the reshuffling of priorities in Sino-Games.com, i expect that more time will be channeled here in the near future.

Have fun! and continue to 杀 wherever you are around the world!

Ricky