Yes, it is true. There is still going to be a retail release, but not the special edition (at least not in the near term).
The process for actually getting the board game produced was taking too long and the pieces proved too expensive; Swen said during Tuesday's Dragon Commander
twitch.tv match (starting from 1:29:50) that they could have bought a 3D printer for the cost of the prototype pieces they had made. If there is enough additional content for the game to eventually justify a re-release, then the special edition may still happen, someday.
