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Published: January 22, 2025

Adam Knight

Pre-orders, or How to Make Sure You Get Your Game

Ah, the pre-order. Notorious in video games, where a day-one purchase might mean dealing with bugs, preorders in physical media like boardgames and books hold a wholly different purpose: they tell publishers how many copies to make. Without pre-orders, whether placed by you and I or stores like Noble Knight, game makers have to guess how much to produce. Going wildly wrong on one side or the other leads to inflated prices and annoyed customers, or warehouses full of inventory gathering dust.

Kickstarter, Gamefound, and its crowd-funded ilk help with this, but running campaigns is both time intensive and not always worth the squeeze. Instead, established publishers, like with GMT’s P500 system, turn to simpler, lower cost ways (both Kickstarter and Gamefound take percentage cuts) to deliver new titles to interested players. Yet, therein lies a dilemma: how to let your ideal player know you have a game waiting for them?

Enter Noble Knight, where you’re already browsing for new games. Swinging by the pre-order section and placing one lets Noble Knight go back to that publisher and request more copies, ensuring everyone’s satisfied. Not a bad deal, right?

How To Pre-order from Noble Knight

On its face, pre-ordering from Noble Knight is just like buying any other product. You get to the product page, add the giant box of awesomeness to your cart, and click on through the purchase. There are, though, a few wrinkles worth touching on:

First, Noble Knight (like most retailers) won’t have pre-orders for every new game in existence. Rather, we’ll have a selection of key titles curated to our audience and board gaming in general. You’ll find that list on our preorders page, and from there can sort and filter just like you can anywhere else on the website.

Second, once you’ve found something you’d like to preorder, make sure to note the expected date of arrival on the store page. This is always a ‘best guess’, gathered by Noble Knight from the publisher, so while it can change, knowing when to keep an eye out for your game is important. Obviously, you’ll get our usual shipping notifications, but it’s easy to forget when a cherished package might show up on your doorstep.

Third, bear in mind that placing a pre-order and an order for an item in stock will put the latter on hold until your pre-order arrives too. This saves on shipping (yay!) but, if you must have those fifteen different versions of Fluxx right now, best place your pre-order separately. On that shipping note, keep in mind Noble Knight’s free shipping threshold. You can grab a couple of in stock, but not urgently needed, games and add a pre-order to hit that mark, then save on the shipping cost.

Not too shabby.

Lastly, you can always add pre-order titles to your Want List. That way, even if you don’t want to pre-order the game, it’ll show up later when the game’s in stock as something you can order right then and there. It’s a nifty way to keep your list up to date with future titles without needing to track when a game’s actually released.

With all those wrinkles in mind, I’m going to be selfish here and take a second to highlight some of the pre-orders I’m excited about. (Werwolf!)

Top Current Board Game Pre-Orders

Just like with current stock, the pre-orders available at Noble Knight change frequently (because, you know, new games keep getting released. How about that?). I like to bookmark the page and check it every so often just to see if something neat’s on the radar, and you can find it right here.

With that said, here’s my personal top five current pre-orders:

Werwolf: Insurgency in Occupied Germany 1945-1948

Asymmetric conflict games (COIN and otherwise) are very much my jams, and Werwolf (Clint Warren-Davey) is pitching a thematic sweet spot, hitting a little-explored era in WW2’s immediate aftermath. Flavored with enough alternate history to create a guerilla war, we’ve four factions struggling over German remnants, from scientists and prototypes to the hearts and minds of the German people. There’s combat, but it’s far from the only way forward (and, if you’re the Allies or Soviets, often not the best – bombing one’s homeland doesn’t turn them friendly). Interaction is spicy in that COIN way, where everyone’s a pal so long as your objectives align. Werwolf doesn’t have a firm release date yet, but it’s expected by mid-2025.
Pre-Orders

HAVOC – Gen Zero

Tactical card battlers like Summoner Wars always get a good look thanks to their easy set up and play, and HAVOC (Cole Beardsley, Zack Howe) comes in with a great sci-fi theme, killer art, and a an approachable concept: a 6×6 grid with two mech pilots trying to blow each other away. You’ll build your deck, stuffing it with actions, enhancements, and creatures to blast onto the battlefield. We’re talking easy to learn, hard to master, great to play with production values worthy of your collection. Current estimates by the Nyx Studio team will have Havoc on your tables in Summer, 2025.

Roma Victrix

Pre-OrderGrand strategy in ancient Rome? Yes please. Playing up to six, Compass Games’ Roma Victrix (Paul Kallio) strikes a balance between Successors-level abstraction and the guts’n’glory of tactical legionnaire combat. You’ll be developing an economy, levying soldiers, and embarking on illustrious campaigns against one another across a map featuring Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Packed with nearly twenty scenarios to set you and your pals into historical context, Roma Victrix isn’t trying to be the next Virgin Queen, but rather a smooth, interactive, dive into antiquity. This one should be released in early 2025 too.

The Devil’s Cauldron – The Battle for Arnhem and Nijmegen

Classics deserve new life, and The Devil’s Cauldron (Adam Starkweather) is getting a shiny new version from Multi-Man Publishing. First released back in 2008, The Devil’s Cauldron is a Market Garden simulation for 2-4 players, dropping hundreds of counters on up to four linking maps depending on your chosen scenario. Chit-driven and respectful of rules grit, you’re getting a game here that’ll bend to suit your playtime (many scenarios play in just a couple of hours) and your goals. Your strategy is also driven by your own purchasing decisions, as you’ll spend points to load up your draws with what you want, rather than relying wholly on fate. It’s a compelling mix, active and approachable while being grand. This one should be out later this year.

The Aqua Droid Expansion – Star Wars Legion (Now Released!)

Okay, look, the Aqua Droid itself looks pretty darn nifty (clearly, if the Trade Federation had these on Naboo, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan wouldn’t have escaped with Jar Jar). Rather, the point here is that, with many miniature war games, smaller expansions come with smaller stock. When there’s a new one appearing that meshes with your current group of battle-ready baddies, dropping in a pre-order (or two, or three, depending on how your force frolics) ensures your army is good to go by tournament time. And hey, if the Aqua Droid convinces you to give Star Wars: Legion a try, you’re in for a treat. This little robo killer should be out in early 2025.

Noble Knight’s pre-orders cover more than games, too. You’ll find the occasional fun toy / accessory (a cuddly displacer beast, anyone?), but for those interested in major tournaments hosted at our Fitchburg, WI store, the pre-order section is where you’ll find sign-ups and entry fees. Take the Innistrad Magic tournament in January – you’ll sign up here and secure your spot in the big event.

Ditch Uncertainty, Embrace Pre-Orders

Pre-orders are an essential way to ensure publishers, retailers, and gamers all get the goodies they’re looking for. While you won’t find pre-orders for every title, it’s worth browsing the section every so often to see if there’s a game, tournament, or special accessory you’re interested in. It’s the best way to make sure you’ll get a copy, or a way to Want List something well ahead of time so you don’t lose it in the, er, havoc of day to day life.

Sorry.

Check out the previous article here!