“What’s old is now new” seems to be the slogan of the Renegade booth. They’ve acquired the rights to several older games and are rereleasing them, hoping to attract a new audience. Acquire, Diplomacy, Robo Rally, and the line of Axis & Allies games have all been polished up for new release.

Acquire and Diplomacy

Both Acquire and Diplomacy have been rereleased almost entirely unchanged. The only changes being some improved pieces (back to wood), better legibility, and streamlining of the rules. The rulebooks are now more in line with what modern board gamers expect with Diplomacy in particular benefiting from the touch of Thomas Haver who wrote a quick start guide to the game.

Robo Rally

Robo Rally has had a few more rules modifications but it is basically still the same game. The base game now comes with painted robots. A couple of expansions are coming in November. Each will add three completely new map tiles and three tiles from previous versions of the game. I inquired, but at this point it doesn’t look like there are plans to bring back some of the weapon expansions of the first edition of the game. Finally, I didn’t record it in my notes but I seem to recall there might be an expansion coming up that lets players customize their own factory tiles during the game setup.

Axis & Allies

Lastly, we come upon the Axis & Allies line of games. I have a fondness for the series as it was the first huge and complex game I owned and the Christmas it arrived we blew off an entire day of skiing in Montana just to play it. At this point, Renegade has released 1941, 1942, 1914 (WWI), and both of the 1940 games – Europe and the Pacific (able to be joined to make a mega-A&A game.) Renegade put it up to a vote and the next A&A game to be rereleased will be North Africa.

Looking towards the future:

Renegade has the boardgame rights to GI Joe, My Little Pony, and Transformers and they aren’t letting those IPs lie fallow. In 2024 look out for G.I. JOE: Battle for the Artic Circle based on the Axis & Allies engine and Transformers Robo Rally featuring Optimus Prime and Megatron. No news if there will be a My Little Pony Diplomacy game, but we can only hope.