Ankh - The Guardians

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Board Games – Egyptian Deities and Mythical Creatures are interesting. This is the expansion for Ankh dealing with some minor gods.

From the Publisher:

While all gods possess power and responsibility beyond that of mortal ken, they themselves were never created equal. Not all bestrode the world like the mighty sun, or commanded the realm of the dead, or even represented all of feline kind in their regal majesty.

The lesser gods and demons knew their place, and divined that their survival would hinge on levying favor with the one patron that would dominate the cosmos when all was done. It was not a matter of followers or that their duties were of any lesser import. Yet the whims of fate and the cosmic tide had left them without grand monuments and legions of devoted followers. Such was the nature of a divine existence.

For the patron deities that grant them succor, these Guardians ply their talents in their patrons’ names, adding to their grandeur and protecting their devoted followers as their own. Serving the mighty was their truest path to enduring this war to end all wars.

The Guardians Set introduces a new set of Guardians ready to join the gods in their quest. Most of the Guardians contained in this set are terrible demons with vicious abilities the gods would much rather have at their side than used against them. The introduction of new Guardians into the game gives new options to select from, increasing the possibilities for different combinations and interactions for each game. The presence or absence of each Guardian can have a profound impact on the gameplay dynamics.

Company of Heroes - WWII Board Game

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Board Games – WWII is such a popular topic for gamers of all types. This latest batch of minis are a few expansions for the board game from Bad Crow Games based on a video game by Relic/Sega.

Here’s a summary from the manufacturer:

"Company of Heroes", the World War 2 board wargame, is based on the video game from Relic/Sega. It closely captures the choices, tactics and mission strategies of the videogame. In teams, or as individuals, players will maneuver units and battle for control points to collect manpower, munitions and fuel. Players spend these resources to construct new buildings, purchase units and upgrade abilities, eventually unlocking the powerful end-game units of their nation. To win, players will either attempt to collect enough victory points before their opponent does or totally annihilate the enemy's base.

-user summary

A board-wargame 'port' that attempts to capture the strategy, choices and fun of the beloved video games. Players maneuver units from one of four factions to secure resource points, grow their economy, unlock buildings and purchase and upgrade new units. Player's eventually unleash their team's powerful end game forces to help secure enough victory points or annihilate the enemy base buildings to win.

From fog of war, utilizing cover and buildings, flanking armor, spotting, combining multi-unit tactics, veteran upgrades, deciding what units to purchase and what buildings to unlock; this project distills many elements we fans love about Company of Heroes into a streamlined board wargame experience.

This game involves squad level tactical movement but also focuses heavily on securing, collecting and spending resources to purchase new buildings, units and upgrades.

-description from publisher

Release the Wolves

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Warhammer 40,000 – Space Wolves, love em or hate em these space viking barbarians are always a popular faction. The iconic slate blue with yellow accents and a snow covered base is relatively easy to accomplish with a few simple base colors and washes. The time sink for these models are all the details, teeth, pelts and random charms which require a bit of time and effort to make look good.

Taming the Primordial Ocean

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Warhammer 40,000 – Thousand Sons are a tragic story of the best intentions going horribly wrong. These space marines fell during the Heresy because their Primarch was attempting to tattle on Horus and in the process messed up the Emperor’s great plan. As punishment their home planet was destroyed by the Space Wolves and the chapter was declared traitor.

This chapter has a very Egyptian flair which influences the color scheme and model line. While the models are amazing looking they’re a real pain to paint. Putting in the time to do it right is totally worth it though.

Chaos Furies

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Warhammer 40,000 – For years the ugliest models in Games Workshops line up were the metal Chaos Furies. While they were always a good choice for a fast moving flying unit the models were just terrible and ugly. Thankfully they’ve recently rectified that with a nice plastic kit. While I still prefer some third party sculpts of harpies this new models are decent.

Cthulu: Death May Die Core Set Painted

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Board Games – I feel like I paint a significant amount of Cthulu miniatures. It seems like most every Kickstarter has some variation of everyone’s favorite sleeping god. In this latest batch, I’ve painted up the core set and one expansion for CMON’s Cthulu Death May Die.

This is one of CMON’s massive Kickstarter projects that has multiple expansions as well a gigantic Cthulu statue that will all be crossing my table at some point in the future.

Here’s a summary of the game, which you should be able to track down on Amazon for about $200:

In Cthulhu: Death May Die, inspired by the writings of H.P. Lovecraft, you and your fellow players represent investigators in the 1920s who instead of trying to stop the coming of Elder Gods, want to summon those otherworldly beings so that you can put a stop to them permanently. You start the game insane, and while your long-term goal is to shoot Cthulhu in the face, so to speak, at some point during the game you'll probably fail to mitigate your dice rolls properly and your insanity will cause you to do something terrible — or maybe advantageous. Hard to know for sure.

The game has multiple episodes, and each of them has a similar structure of two acts, those being before and after you summon whatever it is you happen to be summoning. If any character dies prior to the summoning, then the game ends and you lose; once the Elder One is on the board, as long as one of you is still alive, you still have a chance to win.

The episodes are all standalone and not contingent on being played in a certain order or with the same players.

Pandemic - Mythos Style

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Board Games – Pandemic is a classic board game that most serious gamers already have in their collection. Having lived through one for the last few years makes the game a little to real for most people to want to bust out for game night. Pandemic: Cthulu helps to solve that problem by porting over the gameplay to a Mythos Theme. Now rather than trying to control the spread of diseases you’re trying to stop the spread of cults to prevent the rise of a terrible evil entity (Hmmm … maybe it still hits close to home for some). As far as I know this is also the first game to feature miniatures, which I painted up in this latest batch.

Vengeance - The Sabatuers

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Board Games – Vengeance is a revenge movie themed board game. I’ve already painted a few sets for this game which you can see here. This latest expansion is The Saboteurs which adds some new mechanics and models to the already extensive game.

You want to see those that wronged you dead, but there's no satisfaction in it unless it's your hand that does the deed. The problem is you're not the only one these rats have messed with. Sometimes you have to resort to a bit of shady back-stabbing to ensure others don't rob you of Vengeance's sweet satisfaction.

Saboteurs allows players to hire Saboteurs as part of their pre-fight preparations, and can then plant them in a gang den when other players attempt to assault it.

Vengeance: Saboteurs comes with 16 highly detailed Saboteur miniatures and 16 Saboteur cards. The Vengeance base game is needed to use Vengeance: Saboteurs.

Batman: Gotham City Chronicles

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Board Games – Batman: Gotham City Chronicles is a board games from Monolith. This is the first batch of miniatures I’ve painted for the game. It looks like a pretty complete representation of the Caped Crusaders mythos. This set is the League of Assassins expansion.

Here’s a summary of the game from the manufacturer:

In Batman: Gotham City Chronicles, one villain faces off against a team of heroes in one of multiple scenarios. Each hero has their own character, and they control this character by spending energy to perform actions (such as Melee and Ranged attacks, defusing bombs...) recovering more or less energy at the beginning of their turn depending on their stance. If the hero gets damaged, energy moves to a wound area, and if they lose all of their energy, then they're out of action for a while to recover their strength. Each hero has differing strengths for their abilities, and these strengths are represented by colored dice with different values; the more energy a hero spends on an ability, the more dice of that color they can roll.

The villain controls a team of henchmen and iconic villains of the Batman universe, and these characters are represented by tiles on their command board, with the characters costing 1, 2, 3, etc. energy to activate as you move left to right down the line. Once a character is activated, they move to the end of the line, boosting their cost to the maximum value should you want to use them again immediately, and decreasing the cost of the other tiles.

The game-play in Batman: Gotham City Chronicles is based on that of Conan, with revisions to character abilities, the addition of two different types of dice (w/ five types total), and a modified two-player set-up, the Versus Mode, in which each player has a command board and their own team of tiles that they can draft, with heroes facing off against villains.

Warhammer 40,000 – Crusade Progress

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Warhammer 40,000 – Crusade Progress

Warhammer 40,000 – Crusade is by far my favorite way to play Warhammer 40,000 Ninth Edition. Rather than focusing on building a hyper competitive list that can maximize the score in a fixed set of missions, you focus on starting with a relatively small force and focus on growing it through gameplay. Many of the abilities that you would typically spend command points or actual points to upgrade units and characters each game are instead a fixed purchase that can be gained via Requisition Points which are earned by playing games.

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Floating Worlds

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Board Games – Set in Edo Japan this deck builder is a sequel to Philosophia. While primarily a card based game this has minis to represent the six characters as well as the pagodas you can build.

Confrontation: Random Selection

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Confrontation – The last two years have given people an opportunity to go through their piles of shame while stuck at home. Which is great because I get random projects like this featuring some classic out of print models.

Rurik: Stone and Blade

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Board Games: This expansion for Rurik allows you to build epic structures and has three additional modules for the game.

Dune Imperium - Miniature Upgrades

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Board Games – Dune should have been a bigger hit than it was, coming out on HBO Max and in Theaters at the same time was nice for viewers during the Pandemic, but unfortunately it probably hurt the chances of finishing off a series. But fear not you can live out the experience in the Dune Imperium Board game.

Here’s the description from the manufacturer:

Dune: Imperium is a game that finds inspiration in elements and characters from the Dune legacy, both the new film from Legendary Pictures and the seminal literary series from Frank Herbert, Brian Herbert, and Kevin J. Anderson.

As a leader of one of the Great Houses of the Landsraad, raise your banner and marshal your forces and spies. War is coming, and at the center of the conflict is Arrakis – Dune, the desert planet.

Dune: Imperium uses deck-building to add a hidden-information angle to traditional worker placement.

You start with a unique leader card, as well as deck identical to those of your opponents. As you acquire cards and build your deck, your choices will define your strengths and weaknesses. Cards allow you to send your Agents to certain spaces on the game board, so how your deck evolves affects your strategy. You might become more powerful militarily, able to deploy more troops than your opponents. Or you might acquire cards that give you an edge with the four political factions represented in the game: the Emperor, the Spacing Guild, the Bene Gesserit, and the Fremen.

Unlike many deck-building games, you don’t play your entire hand in one turn. Instead, you draw a hand of cards at the start of every round and alternate with other players, taking one Agent turn at a time (playing one card to send one of your Agents to the game board). When it’s your turn and you have no more Agents to place, you’ll take a Reveal turn, revealing the rest of your cards, which will provide Persuasion and Swords. Persuasion is used to acquire more cards, and Swords help your troops fight for the current round’s rewards as shown on the revealed Conflict card.

Defeat your rivals in combat, shrewdly navigate the political factions, and acquire precious cards. The Spice Must Flow to lead your House to victory!

Board with a Vengeance

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Board Games – Kill Bill was a great homage to the classic revenge flicks of the 70’s and 80’s. Vengeance is a board game that takes you through a similar homage. With a ton of unique plastic miniatures and a giant box of board locations you can play through a variety of story lines to see if your character can get revenge against the criminals that wronged them.

How To Paint Thousand Sons - Quickly

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Warhammer 40,000 – Thousand Sons are a notoriously hard to paint army, this is my technique for getting them to tabletop quality quickly.