Pet Parade - Arcadia Quest Gets Wild

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Board Games – When a game is as cute as Arcadia Quest it’s hard to push that envelope without feeling like more of the same. So how do you turn up the cuteness to 11? Well you add pets, super deformed looking little pets.

Other chibi games also have gone down the Pet Parade (and failed to deliver so far) but CMON has a huge box of cute little friends for you guild of heroes to adventure with. Also pictured here are a bunch of Orcs and goblins that I don’t think were part of the Pets box but they came in this batch.

Ninja All-Stars - Scorpion Clan

Ninja All-Stars - Scorpion Clan

Board Games – I’ve written about Ninja All-Stars quite a bit, I love the miniatures and the look of the game. The dice mechanic still bugs me but the fact that I can use these in Super Dungeon Explore helps make up for that. I’ve been painting up all the minis in my collection of games from Sodapop Miniature/Ninja Division because my kids are finally old enough to enjoy the game and I have a reason to paint up these cute little miniatures.

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Is it like Yatzee?

Board Games – Rome and Roll is a dice rolling game that has you build Rome. I’m still not sure why it has miniatures other than the fact they’re cool and represent characters in the game.

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Here’s a summary:

Rome & Roll is a heavy roll-and-write board game by Dávid Turczi and Nick Shaw in which 1-4 players compete to craft an empire. Draft from a pool of custom dice to collect resources, construct the town, and organize armies. Political alliances, the colonies, and even the Gods all have a part to play. Imperii Gloria!

• Draft the dice to match your needs: roll, draw, and win!
• Play one of seven unique character classes, ranging from merchants to military leaders, with a wealth of different strategies to deploy.
• Take advantage of four possible scoring avenues: construct buildings, trade resources, conquer unruly colonies, and renovate the Roman road network.
• Make political alliances and call on the Gods.
• Raise armies and invade settlements as far afield as Egypt and Spain.
• Build roads and manage unruly provinces.”

Cyclades - Fear the Wrath of the Gods

Cyclades - Fear the Wrath of the Gods

Board Games – With control/auction games you often get a mix of components. Many have meoples or wood blocks but more recently many have opted for molded plastic minis. Most of these games have tiny figures that look cool covering beautiful boards, but the solid color plastic takes you out of the immersive experience promised by the game.

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Masmora and Arcadia Quest - Another Batch Done

Board Games – Arcadia Quest is a PvP game, Masmora is a dungeon crawl. So if you love Chibi style miniatures and find yourself needing to play alone Masmorra has a single player mode. This batch features the Kickstarter exclusive hero pack and a selection of random heroes.

What Is Best In Life?

What Is Best In Life?

Board Games – The sword and sorcery genre began with Conan the Barbarian and his exploits in the pulp magazine Weird Tales, Marvel Comics began publishing his exploits in 1970 and everyone’s favorite action hero took on the roll in 1982. In 2016 Monolith released a board game base on Robert Howard’s original works.

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Ghost Stories in a Golden Age - Tang Garden Expansions

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Board Games – Tang Garden has several expansions, in this batch I’ve painted up Ghost Stories and Golden Age. Both expansions introduce new characters and gameplay mechanics to make the garden building game even more interesting.

Devil Island: Clan Ika - Feeling a Bit Salty

Devil Island: Clan Ika - Feeling a Bit Salty

Super Dungeon Explore – Chibi Ninjas are just amazing. Several years ago Sodapop/Ninja Division released Ninja All-Stars the game was beautifully designed with amazing miniatures and had a ton of potential. There was even a pretty decent campaign system that would allow you to run a league of ninjas competing for the top prize.

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Schooling Future Explorers - Dungeonology

Board Games – Have you ever wondered how a monster manual was created, is this something you need a formal education for? Well Dungeonology by Ludus Magnus Studio seeks to answer that question. You play the role of a teacher at an exclusive academy that needs to complete a thesis on a local monster. Taking a gaggle of students with you questing through a perilous dungeon hoping to glean enough information to right that award winning paper.

It’s a clever concept that is even more clever in its execution. I don’t have a ton of time to play board games like this but after watching the play throughs and painting up the models I really want to add it to my collection. I won’t droan on about the amazing components masterful box organization or beautiful miniatures you can see that by checking of the games official page.

The character models are comically detailed to perfectly match the art on their cards. I really liked the molded bases that give the impression of actually exploring a dungeon. These were really fun to paint. In addition to the amazing characters you get a ton on student pawns. These are really cute in their simple sculpts and by putting some paint on them I think it really added to the look. Because these are just resource cubes they need to look really similar to remain functional. I guess the expansions might add additional colors of “bad” students so I kept the colors simple. For variety I tried to have a variety of skin tones on the students to make them look unique. I think the effect is really nice.

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Hard City - An Ode to B-movies

Hard City - An Ode to B-movies

Board Games – As a kid my mom worked two jobs and waitressing on the weekends meant we got to spend a lot of time with my grandparents. Living in the country I never had cable so those weekends with my grandparents meant I could binge on all the TV I never had a chance to watch at home. Because my mom would pick us up really late at night I could usually stay up late watching garbage on basic cable.

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Release the Kraken

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Board Games – Mythic Battles continues to trickle across my desk I Imagine the core box will eventually make its way here and I’ll have a significantly longer post about that project. As it stands this is an expansion for the game by Monolith Games.

With the boxes I’ve painted so far I’m impressed with the quality of the sculpts, particularly the larger monsters.

Maximum Apocalypse - 2020 the Board Game

Board Games – Sometimes a game comes around that just fits with the times. Maximum Apocalypse is most definitely one of those games. This set of twelve survivor figures upgrades the core game to give you some nicely detailed miniature to battle through the current crisis.

Here’s a brief description from the manufacturer:

Maximum Apocalypse is a cooperative roguelike adventure game for 1-6 players. In Maximum Apocalypse, civilization has already fallen. The players are survivors of the apocalypse whose mission is to survive the hostile landscape.

The game map is randomly generated and different every time that you play. On each turn, a player can use up to four actions to explore the map, play cards, equip weapons, scavenge for resources, draw cards or battle off monsters.

Picking a unique survivor class within the group, players must plan their strategy and work together while leaning on their survivor’s strengths in order to defeat monsters and avoid starvation. For example, the Fireman is deadly up close with his ax and can easily chop down monsters; meanwhile the stealthy Hunter is great at scouting the map and avoiding traps — but roaming monsters are gathering quickly and time is running out. If you are overwhelmed by monsters or die of starvation, the players lose. If they can find enough gas and get it back to their van to escape, they all win and live to play another scenario.