Night at the Museum - Museum The Board Game

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Board Games – These days it seems you can find a game to fit any interest you may have. If you like trains, farming, zoo keeping or any number of things you can find a board game based on that theme. The latest project to cross my painting desk are the player pawns for Museum a board game about collecting artifacts for … you guessed it a museum. The nice quality miniatures represent various artifacts from around the world much like the little pewter pieces in Monopoly players use these to move around the board.

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One of the complaints I read about the player pieces is that they are not colored to match up with the player colors, which is honestly a silly complaint. The models are detailed enough to paint up and make them feel like real artifacts, which adds to the theme of the game.

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Terror Below - The Big Worm

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Board Games - Terror Below was on Kickstarter last year. It’s essentially Tremors the board game without licensing the property and tying into the line of films. The game is played with wooden pieces that plyers use to try and escape the giant worms living below the surface. So yes the gameplay is real similar to the film.

While the game itself doesn’t use minis (I imagine to keep costs down) they did make one giant worm model that came with the Kickstarter.

Arkham Horror - Expansion

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Board Games – I’ve painted up quite a few models for this Fantasy Flight game. The latest batch adds some new heroes and a few monsters. The sculpts are all pretty decent and take paint well. My only honest complaint about the minis is the dumb clunky base. I know in game it serves a functional purpose that makes it easy to see what the monster is, how big it is and it’s basic stats, but in my opinion the base detracts from the model as a whole.

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Trun Hunters - Shadows of Brimstone (In Space?)

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Board Games – Shadows of Brimstone is quite the mishmash of things, initially it seemed like a Cowboy game with monsters but with each expansion it delves further into the weird. This latest set I painted reminds me a bit of Bosk from Star Wars or the Badoon from the Guardians of the Galaxy books. Space-faring lizardmen bounty hunters, kinda speaks for itself.

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Black Plague - Zombicide in the Dark Ages

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Black Plague - Zombicide in the Dark Ages

Board Games – I remember when the first Zombicide game was up on Kickstarter, zombies were all the rage and Walking Dead was fresh and different, survivors based on pop icons drove the stretch goals to create an annual cash cow for CMON. As with most “sequels” the franchise eventually lost steam and rebooted in an Evil Dead 3-ish realm of mid-evil zombies and necromancers. Of course this also gave the game access to a variety of fantasy tropes that breathed new life into the franchise and wrangled in fantasy players with a refined version of the game that uses a nifty dashboard instead of the awkward “paperclip” for tracking your character.

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7th Continent - Flying Roots

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Board Games – I love the variety of painting clients I currently have. It’s really hard to get burnt out when you have a variety of things to paint. (I swear if I have to paint one more Hive Fleet Leviathan model I’ll lose it) It’s especially nice to get something on a totally off-the-wall scale like 7th Continent. These models are tiny.

The goal with these was to match the card art/box art so that it’s easier for players to identify their paws on the board easier. At this scale it’s not so much about an amazing paint job as it is being functional.

The OTHERS: Seven Sins - Gamma Team

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Board Games - It’s amazing the amount of content CMON produces for their board games. I’ve painted up several batches of these models for my client and I think she still has a few more sets to go. When this game was up on Kickstarter originally I picked up the “core” set but still haven’t had a chance to put it on the table, from what I’ve heard it’s an amazing game with a rich backstory. I love the models and hopefully I’ll be able to find some free space on my painting table to get my own set done soon.

Dark Crystal - Board Game Minis

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Board Games – As a kid Dark Crystal freaked me out a bit. I remember watching it at my grandmothers house who picked it up because at the time anything Jim Henson was gold. Little did she know that this was almost as scary to a little kid as his storyteller series was. The story of the guy who caught death in bag still sticks with me.

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Anyway the four miniatures used as game pawns in this board game have a decent level of detail. The base on them makes it feel a bit like a chess set. Which would be cool if they expanded the line to have a few more figures. With the Netflix series on the horizon I imagine the Board Game will see a spike in sales.

There Can Be Only One - Highlander Board Game

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There Can Be Only One - Highlander Board Game

Board Games – Nostalgia sure is a powerful motivator. Picking up a licensed property from the 80’s and 90’s to bring out as a board game seems to be all the rage right now. Some of these games are really good and some just like the licensing craze of the 80’s-90’s are just cash-grabs that slap some movie art onto a box with some loose rules destined to fail before they launch. The latest of these nostalgia-based games to cross my desk is Highlander the board game, by River Horse productions.

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Folklore - Part Two

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Folklore - Part Two

Board Games - Folklore is a pretty amazing deal for some old-school looking minis. I completed the first half of the set a few weeks ago. This is the last portion of the set. As I noted previously there are just a ton of minis include. The detail level is a little lacking compared to most modern miniature games, but for anyone that has been playing/painting for a significant amount of time these bring back a bit of nostalgia to the minis of the late 80’s early 90’s.

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Brimstone still has Shadows over it - More Expansions

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Brimstone still has Shadows over it - More Expansions

Board Games - Shadows of Brimstone is a game that just keeps on giving. The more of these expansion sets I paint the more I’m reminded of RIFTS or GURPS, it’s probably because the mismash of enemies I’ve seen run the full gambit of old west Indian to weird space robot suit back to giant mutant animals. At some point I need to get a demo of this game because while the minis aren’t the best quality, they’re decent and varied.

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Folklore - Massive Project in a Small Package

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Folklore - Massive Project in a Small Package

Board Games – I think Folklore: The Affliction dances a fine line between miniature Game, RPG and Board Game. Prior to this coming across my painting desk I’d never heard of the game. As part of a larger batch of miniature Folklore was nestled in a small box and a simple bag of terrain. I was quite surprised to option up this tiny box and find over 96 individual models in the box. More surprising was how detailed these were for “inexpensive” miniatures they feel similar to Reaper Bones but it’s a different material that is harder, the doors and walls are a very hard plastic. It seems like a decent value for the cost.

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In Space No One Can Hear You Scream - AVP Second Edition

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In Space No One Can Hear You Scream - AVP Second Edition

Board Games – Prodos Games has a pretty solid property. Aliens vs Predator remains a popular property regardless of the quality of the sequels, prequels and reboots. This year is the 40th anniversary of that lovable chest-bursting monster making it’s big screen debut, although with the current shake-up of Disney buying Fox, I wonder if they’ll make a big deal about the anniversary. Sadly it looks like the House of Mouse has killed all existing licensing deals so AVP goes out of print on May 1, if you’re a fan tracking down anything you don’t have now would be safer than waiting on clearance pricing to hit rock bottom.

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The Others: Seven Sins - The Apocalypse Arrives

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The Others: Seven Sins - The Apocalypse Arrives

Board Games – I’ve now painted the complete set of minis for The Others: Seven Sins. The final expansion bring out the four horsemen and the avatar of the apocalypse. Just like the rest of the models for this board game these are pretty amazing. The pictures pretty much speak for themselves, if you have any questions about the technique post in the comments below.

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Dark Souls - Asylum Demon Expansion

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Board Games - The Asylum Demon is a massive monster for the Dark Souls Board Game. From what I’ve read it’s the first Boss Monster you face in the video game. It has a massive hammer and non-functioning wings, the skin texture on this model is pretty amazing it looks similar to an elephant and is deep enough that the detail really comes through.