A detailed account of my various commission/hobby projects.
Board Games – Earlier this year I painted up the core set for Journeys in Middle Earth, this time around I painted up the Shadowed Paths expansion and the Villains of Eriador. These expansions both add new models to the Fantasy Flight game.
Read MoreBoard Games – Earlier this year I painted up one of the expansions for Star Trek Ascendancy in a test scheme to see if I could efficiently paint up the large number of ships included in each box. In this go round I have two more factions to paint up, the Andronians and Vulcan High Command.
The goal of this project was to keep the player color obvious, make the pawns look more realistic and keep it simple. My solution was to base everything in a brushed silver color with a coat of Contrast paint in the player color. The Vulcans are orange and Andronians are blue.
Board Games – At this point I think I’ve painted all the expansions for Blood Rage and still haven’t painted the core set. This latest project is the 5th player expansion which adds additional components to allow for a fifth player (obviously).
Vikings are always tricky because they’re mostly fur, leather and beards so finding a good mix of browns that work with the player color, in this case green, can be tricky. I achived some additional depth to these brown by using a variety of brown base colors and then applying Contrast paint to bring out the detail. The result is pretty decent.
Board Games – Often I get board games crossing my painting table that I’ve never heard of, The Refuge is one of those games. Doing a little digging this beautiful game can be played co-op or competitively as players take control of a dive team that has to battle a nasty tentacle monster.
Read MoreBoard Games – Earlier this year CMON did a Kickstarter for Marvel United, a chibi style co-op game set in the Marvel Universe. It appears to have been fairly successful and the minis included in the biggest pledge are crazy, sadly I missed the campaign, but I was happy to see the core game hit retail stores this fall.
The game is pretty simple geared toward new gamers or something light to play while hanging out with friends. Being completely co-op it looks easy to play with kids or people not familiar with more advanced board games. I haven’t had a chance to play the game yet but the few play-throughs I saw on YouTube look fun and easy to understand. If you need a gift for a Marvel fan or something for the family I highly suggest picking this up.
The minis are in a fun chibi-style that remind me a bit of the Marvel Superhero Adventures line from several years back. Those figure were in-line with Imaginext, which I think of as My-First-Action-Figure.
So far I’ve painted up two sets of these models and have thoroughly enjoyed painting them. Using a mix of Citadel Contrast paint and some traditional techniques I quickly got the effect I was looking for. Both of these sets are the Walmart Exclusive versions which include Venom as a hero instead of The Wasp. Back in the 90’s I was a huge fan of the Venom Lethal Protector comics so it’s cool to be able to play him as a hero. If you want to have a more accurate Avengers set you should get the standard retail version to have The Wasp.
Board Games – Ages ago I had backed Impact Miniatures Chibi line of miniatures, at the time I had planned on using them with Super Dungeon Explore and making my own rules. I never got around to that but I did finally get some of the assembled and painted.
I’ve been kicking around so ideas for home-brew rules to use with Super Dungeon Explore, I like the stars and button push mechanics they use and it should be easy enough to come up with something fair that could challenge the heroes without being overpowered. I’m also kicking around creating some missions/adventures that I can run the kids through without trying to play the full game which seems to run long right now.
Board Games – Ninja-All Stars got a bad rap. The weird combat mechanic really killed what was otherwise a beautiful game. Luckily Ninja Division/Sodapop Miniatures is repurposing the Clan boxes with rules for Super Dungeon. I’m patiently waiting for them to release the rules on their site or as a card pack so I can save my ink.
Board Games – Do you like poker dice? Do you like space cowboys? Do you like chibi style anime? Do you like trains? If you answered yes to ALL of these questions then Rail Raiders Infinite is the game for you. If you only answered yes to some of those questions you might like this or you might not.
Read MoreBoard Games – I’ve being painting quite a bit of CMON products as of late. Their particular style of chibi is different from the Sodapop Miniatures/Impact Miniatures style. I think I prefer the bigger eyes of the other two companies, but the variety of the CMON product is very nice.
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Board Games - Storm Shadow was my favorite ninja as a kid. The white color scheme with that sweet red tattoo just fed my imagination. I know I already painted up the mini boss based on Storm Shadow but I really wanted a full clan of white ninjas.
In Super Dungeon Explore the Elemental Shrine Ninjas are just OK. They can get cool abilities and with forward thinking the Console can make some pretty nasty groups for the Heroes to battle. However their limited attacks make it hard to put a significant hurt on the Heroes once they’re powered up with a few loot cards. I need to try a few more combinations to see what works best, but so far they’re pretty easy for a solid party to take out.
These models look great on the swamp side of the Von Drake Manor boards. the white really pops on the dark backgrounds. I was also able to get some paint on the shrines with this batch. The glow effect I did isn’t the greatest but on the dark boards they look pretty cool.
The three Ronin I squeezed in are the ghost from the Ring, Lone Wolf and Cub and a Birdman Sabotuer (I call him the Seahawk for obvious reason, haha).
Board Games – Mortal Kombat has a pretty amazing history, one of the things I’ve enjoyed with some of the more recent games are the Krypts that let you unlock history of the game, alternate costumes and concept art. It’s cool when a game has backstory and hidden easter eggs. When it was in the arcade I remember watching people try to unlock Reptile and battle against the green color swapped ninja.
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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.
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.
Read MoreBoard 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.
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.”
Board Games - Every now and then I have a chance to paint up truly amazing board games. Dungeonology is one of those games, every component is beautiful and well-crafted, and the miniatures are full of character.
Read MoreBoard 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.
Read MoreBoard Games – Some game feature miniatures that don’t really need to be painted, but it’s pretty amazing how a simple basecoat and wash can take simple plastic ships to something really cool.
Read MoreBoard 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.
Board Games – Chibi games have been flooding my table lately. Arcadia Quest has so many expansions and variations that I think I’ll be painting these for a good chunk of time.
Read MoreBoard 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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