FFG's Tannhauser - Marketing that works

...at least on me. Some of you may have noticed FFG's announcement late Wednesday regarding their pre-release promotional offer associated with their upcoming US printing of the French game Tannhauser. In short, if you pre-order at full retail ($59.95) from either FFG directly or your FLGS, you get a free bonus figure (~$9.95 retail value). You may remember last year a similar campaign was used by Days of Wonder for their BattleLore game, which offered the Hill Giant and Earth Elemental for pre-orders.

I freely admit I buy the vast majority of my board games from high discount on-line retailers. Usually I use Thought Hammer despite the State of Texas sales tax, just because I appreciate the free shipping for orders over $150 and the short ship time from their central Texas warehouse. The only exceptions I ever make to this are games less than $20 full retail I will sometimes buy from the FLGS.

Tannhauser from Thought Hammer sells for approximately $44 (including sales tax). At FFG it will cost $14 more. I'm considering shipping a wash, though I'd probably get it free from TH. Is it worth it to me to pay the extra $14 for the free figure? Yes, it is. They've got me, darn it!

One interesting aspect of this situation is that apparently the FFG pre-order promotional figure is not exclusive to the pre-order offer. At least according the posters on BGG, the figure will be available for regular purchase in a few months, so what you're really paying a premium for is early adoption. There is, of course, the risk that the game will totally suck, but I think it will be popular enough to enable re-sale easily enough at only a minor loss.

Is anyone else thinking about getting this game? I do wonder a bit about the way Germans are portrayed in the game as either ugly demon zombie males or slutty, leather clad females. But, the game is from France, so perhaps there's some lingering cultural animosity there. I'm a big fan of the Hellboy and BPRD graphic novels plus of course Wolfenstein, so the theme works for me.

In semi-related news, things are looking slightly better for me to attend Essen this year, for at least 1-2 days. I'll be finished with my work in the UK (Manchester) on October 16th, and Essen is just a 1 hour flight plus a 1 hour train ride away. I'm not completely ready to get excited about it yet, but the trip is getting more likely. Woo hoo! Now to figure out how I can back to San Antonio by that Sunday at 0600 AM to do a 20 mile run with my marathon training group...