The first part of this post will hardly be a surprise to anyone closely watching the upcoming Star Wars RPG titles...from amazon, or the message boards or even just reading comments to some of my previous blogs that I've had to ignore up until now (sorry about that).

I can finally confirm that yes, I'm one of the authors of the upcoming Force Unleashed Campaign Guide for Saga Edition. As was discussed at Celebration IV, it is basically a sourcebook for the time between Episode III and IV. It builds on the Force Unleashed video game, but will include much more than that and will be useful to anyone running a game set in the Dark Times. That's about all I can say for now.

Of course, you can also check out the description of the actual product at amazon, which has had the product posted for weeks now (as usual). Amazon and avid fans seem to be particularly good at discovering products before they are announced. (Be warned, though, that amazon is not always correct. There was once a product called Ultimate Missions: Universe that showed up on amazon, with my name on it, but it was never produced.)

Even though I didn't get to go to Celebration IV, I have the following information from a number of reliable sources who did go to the WotC SW game panel.

* November: The first set of Galaxy Tiles for use with both the minis and RPG games. If you're familiar with the D&D Dungeon Tiles, you should get the idea.

For the RPG:

* The aforementioned Force Unleashed Campaign Guide.

* Starships of the Galaxy will be released in December. It will contain rules for starship modifications, expanded starship combat, and a starship codex.

* A Gamemaster screen and character sheet pack will be released next year.

* Other things to look for, such as a sort of "monster manual" style book and a really old campaign setting that should prove popular.

* Later this year, the Dawn of Defiance campaign will launch on the Wizards website. This 10 adventure campaign will take heroes from Level 1 to Level 20 in a linked campaign arc. Each adventure is 32 pages. The first part will be playable at GenCon this year. RPGA will support the campaign, but you DO NOT need to be an RPGA member to play or download the adventures. They are free to all. Look for more info on this in July.

For the Minis games:
* A new Starter Kit
* Rebel and Imperial 2-packs
* A Hoth Battle pack (with everything you need to fight a Hoth battle)
* A Force Unleashed full set, with a November release (despite the fact that the video game release is TBA, presumably later than November).

Many more details on the minis area available at the fansite Holocron.

The website RebelScum has photos from the panel, including the powerpoint slides.