Dice Throne deepens Asmodee ties with three European deals covering publishing, retail distribution, online sales

Dice-and-card combat game Dice Throne has signed a trio of new agreements with Asmodee to expand its European retail distribution and online sales, including switching its French-language publishing away from Goliath-owned Lucky Duck Games.

The deals will see Asmodee France produce French-language editions of existing and future Dice Throne titles, Asmodee UK expand distribution across British retailers, and Asmodee subsidiary European Player Network provide a dedicated EU online sales channel.

The new agreements follow Dice Throne’s decision in February this year to consolidate its North American distribution under a single exclusive partner, Universal Distribution, as the company looks to expand its retail presence through new distribution agreements, lower-priced products and organised play.

That strategy centres on making Dice Throne more accessible through traditional game stores, including offering individual Hero Packs at lower prices than its larger boxed sets, while using organised play to encourage repeat visits and purchases.

Dice Throne said the UK and EU agreements were aimed at strengthening its existing sales operations, with Asmodee UK providing wider access to British retailers from the first quarter of 2027. EPN has already begun selling English-language products through its Boardgame Select online store.

The French-language agreement, meanwhile, marks a change from Dice Throne’s longstanding relationship with Lucky Duck Games, which began publishing localised editions in 2021.

Lucky Duck, which was acquired by Goliath in 2024, said last October that negotiations over future Dice Throne releases had become increasingly complicated by the franchise’s success, citing discussions over rights, production quantities and exclusivity.

The publisher said at the time that it had yet to secure agreements for several upcoming products, including Vanguard and Outcasts, and could not confirm whether they would receive French-language editions.

The change comes amid a wider restructuring of Lucky Duck’s European operations following its acquisition by Goliath, with the company scaling back third-party localisation to concentrate on developing and publishing its own games.

Lucky Duck global brand director Scott Morris told BoardGameWire in April that localisation had become “resource intensive” and dependent on external factors. The cutbacks have since extended to the loss of the company’s in-house French editorial team, which Lucky Duck acknowledged in September had forced it to cancel planned French-language editions of Into the Godsgrave and Oakspire, and delayed its French release of Too Many Bones.

The restructuring has also affected Poland, where Lucky Duck announced in June that it would no longer publish most of the third-party licensed titles it had unveiled in February. The company said most had found alternative local publishers, while stressing that its Polish operation would continue trading.

Asmodee France will begin releasing French-language Dice Throne products in the second half of 2027, covering France, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada.

The new arrangements are also intended to strengthen organised play across France and the UK, with improved access to kits and dedicated support for retailers, while Dice Throne plans to introduce multilingual packaging for more products, including Hero Accessory Packs.

Dice Throne CEO Casey Sershon said: “Instead of one approach for every market, we’re partnering locally to meet each community where it plays and shops.

In a company update in September, Dice Throne said its single-Hero packs had been a major success, while retail and organised play continued to grow.

The company, which has raised more than $20m through crowdfunding to date, added that it no longer needed Kickstarter to finance production, although it intended to continue crowdfunding new releases “because it’s part of Dice Throne’s community tradition”.