Baby It's Cold Outside - Last Aurora

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Board Games – When I was a kid Post Apocalyptic always meant desert wastes and fighting over water/food/fuel after a nuclear war. Over time that scenario seems to have changed Water World had the ice caps melt, other films have had it be a plague zombie or more traditional and for a period of time the disaster of choice was a new Ice Age. Last Aurora follows along with the frozen wasteland theme caused by nuclear winter.

From the manufacturer:

“The radioactive dust of the Last War has frozen the northern countries. In the ice desert, the few survivors live in an icy hell as the resources of the "old world" are now exhausted, and travel to the south is too long and dangerous. But a radio message is rekindling hope: The last icebreaker ship, the Aurora, is cruising along the coast, looking for survivors. The winter is coming, and in a few days, those who cannot get on board will be doomed by the ice. It will be a race against time to arrive at the ship or surrender to despair: there's still the light of hope on the horizon, a light to grab before it's too late...

Last Aurora is a post-apocalyptic game for 1-4 players set in a frozen, desolate land. Each player has to manage their crew to gather resources, recruit survivors, improve their vehicle, and fight their enemies as they race to reach the ship before it's too late!”

Having a unique look to your miniatures is always a bonus for a game, sometimes you stumble upon a new look that creates a trend and other times your unique look makes you stand out from the crowd. The gas-masked little soldiers for this game are pretty unique looking and the other tokens do a good job representing what they are.

Dwellings of Eldervale – Now with Sound Effects!

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Board Games – Successful Kickstarter games can go bonkers with stretch goals. A great example of this is Dwellings of Eldervale, I mean seriously sound effect bases that have little to no value for gameplay but do push the “blinged out deluxe version” envelope. Apparently there are multiple versions of this game available with out all the extras that play exactly the same, which means if you didn’t back this you’ll likely be paying a premium if you want to track down the special version.

Anyway everything I’ve read and watch about this game is very positive. Not only are the super premium components great but the game also has a well developed story and solid mechanics.

Each of these minis can be represented with a cardboard standee in the basic version of the game but the miniatures are pretty solid and do come “pre-painted” in a weird color wash. It was easy enough to prime over that and paint these up to look pretty slick.

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Secret Society – Stygian Society

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Board Games – Some of the games I’m asked to paint have very few models. Sometimes I wonder if they were just added to the game to say, “We have Minis!” Not that I’m complaining but in some instance it seems like having a meeople or other counter would be a most cost effective option rather than having models tooled and cast.

Anyway Stygian Society is a Kickstarter-Funded board game that bills itself as a diceless dungeon crawler. The concept looks fun and the minis while super tiny are pretty detailed.

In Like a Raging Lion - Barbarians at the Gate

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Board Games – I previously painted all the expansions for Blood Rage. This time around I completed the core set. Since its release in 2015 this game has held a really high rating on Board Game Geek and has won numerous awards.

Here’s a summary from the manufacturer:

“In Blood Rage, each player controls their own Viking clan’s warriors, leader, and ship. Ragnarök has come, and it’s the end of the world! It’s the Vikings’ last chance to go down in a blaze of glory and secure their place in Valhalla at Odin’s side! For a Viking there are many pathways to glory. You can invade and pillage the land for its rewards, crush your opponents in epic battles, fulfill quests, increase your clan's stats, or even die gloriously either in battle or from Ragnarök, the ultimate inescapable doom.

Most player strategies are guided by the cards drafted at the beginning of each of the three game rounds (or Ages). These “Gods’ Gifts” grant you numerous boons for your clan including: increased Viking strength and devious battle strategies, upgrades to your clan, or even the aid of legendary creatures from Norse mythology. They may also include various quests, from dominating specific provinces, to having lots of your Vikings sent to Valhalla. Most of these cards are aligned with one of the Norse gods, hinting at the kind of strategy they support. For example, Thor gives more glory for victory in battle, Heimdall grants you foresight and surprises, Tyr strengthens you in battle, while the trickster Loki actually rewards you for losing battles, or punishes the winner.

Players must choose their strategies carefully during the draft phase, but also be ready to adapt and react to their opponents’ strategies as the action phase unfolds. Battles are decided not only by the strength of the figures involved, but also by cards played in secret. By observing your opponent’s actions and allegiances to specific gods, you may predict what card they are likely to play, and plan accordingly. Winning battles is not always the best course of action, as the right card can get you even more rewards by being crushed. The only losing strategy in Blood Rage is to shy away from battle and a glorious death!”

To paint these guys I started with a Khaki base and heavy Earthshade wash. Once that base dried I went in with various browns and earth tones from the Contrast Range. With the pre-shading I did with the wash the contrast paints do a good job adding color on natural furs and straps like these models have.

Arcadia Quest - Achievement Unlocked?

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Board Games – Last year I painted up the majority of the models for Arcadia Quest and the various expansions. This batch of models should be the last of what CMON has released so far.

Overall I’m really happy with how the models have turned out painting Chibi style minis is fun and a nice break from the serious grim dark stuff I typically paint.

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Aliens - Another Glorious Day

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Board Games – Many people were sad when the Alien vs. Predator game was canceled when Disney acquired Fox. While it’s a bummer that game went away having another company pick up the license is a very good thing.

AvP was a pretty overly complicated game that missed that sweet spot where fans of the series intersect with fans of boardgames. They tried to rectify that with the one-piece sculpts of the second edition but still had the issue with the average person doesn’t want to invest the time it takes to learn, build paint and play a tabletop miniatures game.

Another Glorious Day in the Corp mixes really nice screen-accurate miniatures with a simpler system that most people could pick-up and play fairly quickly. The hard plastic minis are color coded by faction as assembly is really simple with some plastic cement and clippers.

Star Trek - Borg and Ferengi

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Board Games – I’ve painted up a few of the expansions for Star Trek Ascendency. The technique I’me using is a contrast paint over a silver base. This is a pretty quick way to make the ships look a little better than the plain plastic.

Incursion Second Edition - Weird War II

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Incursion Second Edition - Weird War II

Board Games – Incursion was a great game, the only real issue with the first edition was how expensive it was to get the metal miniatures and the challenges of storing them. I was lucky enough to pick up the core box of the first edition ages ago and finally got my metal set of minis painted when the pandemic began. Its funny that I painted the second edition almost a year later.

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Cyclades - Expansions

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Board Games – Cyclades is a pretty cool board game with a ton of not so great miniatures. I painted the core game up earlier this year and recently had a chance to paint up the first three expansions for the game. Luckily the quality of the miniatures got “better” with each release.

Hades, TItans and Monuments all add new challenges to the game as well as providing options for adding another player.

Fuji Koro - It's like Mine Craft?

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Board Games – Fuji Koro has a unique aesthetic that plays up the blocky look that made my kids ask is this a Mine Craft game? The concept seems pretty cool, collect and craft items before the volcano erupts or the Dragons kill you.

The miniatures were fun to paint, the unique look of them played into a more cartoony look than I typically paint and they had enough texture that I could experiment with contrast paint for some unique metallic effects on the dragons.

Star Trek - More Expansions

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Board 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.

Blood Rage - 5th Player Expansion

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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.

Marvel United - The Perfect Gift

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Board 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.

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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.

Impact Chibi Adventures - Boss Monsters

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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.

Red Tiger Clan - Clan Tora

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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.

Space Train Robbery - The Law

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Space Train Robbery - The Law

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.

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