The Isofarian Guard

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Board Games – Narrative solo games can be pretty intense, The Isofarian Guard lives up to this it’s a massive box with miniatures and quest books. The miniatures are unique as each one has two models joined together.

From the publisher:
The Isofarian Guard is a solo/co-op narrative driven adventure board game for 1-2 players.

Welcome to Isofar, a wild land severe in its beauty. The Isofarian people take great pride in their ability to flourish among the hostile wildlife and cruel elements of their mountainous home. As a member of the Isofarian guard, life is never dull. You try to keep the peace among your fellow Isofarians (a never-ending job), as well as deal with constant threats from the aggressive Falmund Empire to the south.

But now, the old patterns are shifting. New forces are at work that will challenge the very underpinnings of reality. You will guide eight different Isofarian Guards throughout 5 interweaving campaigns as they deal with a power that threatens not only Isofar, but the entire world.

In The Isofarian Guard, you will travel throughout the cities and wildernesses of Isofar on a beautifully illustrated world map, fight off enemies using a unique and highly customizable battle system, and use your wits to talk your way out of sticky situations. As you forge important alliances, opportunities will arise for you to craft stronger gear, gain new powers, and step into the destiny you were called to.

Hybris - Greek Gods

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Board Games – Hybris: Disordered Cosmos is a worker placement game that combines Greek Myth with a Digital Utopia.

From the publisher:
Hybris is a boardgame of worker placement, opportunity and development. For 2 – 4 players for game session around 120 minutes. A solo mode will be included during the Kickstarter campaign.

Primodials Gods have fallen. Hunted, captured and tortured by their children, Chronos and his congeners are nothing but remnants of an ancient world. Era of Olympians has just begun. After aeons of fightings, a new order is established. Zeus, his brothers and sisters took the dominion of the heavens and the mortals world. Now they are trying to organize themselves to share the remaining realms and know who will be the new ruler.

But Olympians are not yet real gods, they must evolve, activate the spark that will turn them into a true god even if their current strength is colossal. Moreover, they must establish their domination in the realm of mortals, and to do this, use the essence of their father: the Aegis. This energy comes directly from the Primordials themselves who are captured and chained in the underworld. With this energy, Olympians can meet the expectations of the largest cities in Ancient Greece by deploying the most beautiful and promising technologies.

Play your god to build technologies, accomplishing quest, fight heroes, upgrade your Divinity Sparkle and win the game by unlocking all your Divine Enhancements or by victory points in the 6th Age turn.

Anno Domino 1666 - Expansion

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Board Games – 1666 is a skirmish board game where player battle using a variety of factions. These two are one of the expansions for the game.

From the publisher:
It is the year of our Lord 1666. Emperor Leopold is dead. The election looms. European monarchs send their envoys to Vienna to participate. But the struggle for the Empire's future takes place not only at the noble courts. In Vienna's slums and alleys swashbucklers, musketeers and thugs wage a secret war on behalf of their powerful superiors.

Anno Domini 1666 is a tactical adventure miniatures game in which two players pit their bands against each other in order to achieve specific goals defined by a scenario. The game takes place on boards depicting 17th-century Vienna with a grid overlay. Dice rolls are replaced by cards either played from a player's hand, or drawn blindly from a deck. A scenario's objectives may include defeating the opponents in combat, but also stealing a valuable object or breaking out a hostage, among others.

The theme and characters of the game are based on real-world history, historical novels (such as Three Musketeers) but also feature magic, alchemy, wizards and fantastical creatures. The participating factions are the Poles, the French, the Ottomans and the evil sect Broken Cross. They can get help from the Vienna locals (thugs, urchins, merchants) and famous mercenaries. The process of building a band is fast and streamlined thanks to a draft system.

Kilforth - Fully Painted

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Board Games – Kilforth is a fantasy card game that produced a set of miniatures for the characters featured in it.

From the publisher:
Gloom of Kilforth is a card game of high fantasy with a Gothic edge, playable in 1-3 hours, where 1-4 players, working individually or together, must take their humble adventurers on a journey through a dark world of magic and peril. They will visit strange places, stranger people and overcome powerful enemies in their mission to discover mysterious artefacts and mystical Spells. Players follow their Hero’s tale from modest beginnings through an epic story to an exciting climactic battle for the fate of the world. Gloom of Kilforth takes about 45 minutes per player to play.

Gargoyles - Fully Painted

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Board Games - Gargoyles was part of the Disney Afternoon in the 1990’s it was a pretty cool cartoon that was supposed to be appeal to a more male demographic like the films the studio released in the time period (Altantis, Treasure Planet etc) it didn’t really work as intended but the films and shows of this time have a pretty solid cult following.

Battle for Eternia - Wrath of Snake Mountain

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Board Games - I don’t think I ever owned any of the Snake Men from the Masters of the Universe, they came out toward the end of the series and I think I had changed my focus to G.I. Joe and video games by then.I remember them from the TV Show and the various commercials.

Monster Hunter - Fully Painted

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Board Games - Monster Hunter is a franchise know mostly for the Capcom video game series, there is also a film set in the universe. Now there is also a board game that allows you to battle giant monsters in a Co-Op style board game.

After you successfully hunt down a monster you’re able to craft gear and improve your stuff before you head out to track down bigger game. It sounds like a pretty faithful translation of the core game concepts and the monster miniatures are really nice. The details on the hunters are a little soft but my kids have played several of the video games and were impressed with the armor sets so I guess they’re pretty accurate.

Vampire The Masquerade

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Board Games - Vampire The Masquerade is typically associated with LARPing however they recently came out with a narrative board game. Check it out here.

Masters of the Universe - Battle for Eternia

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Board Games - He-Man and the Masters of the Universe were a huge influence on my childhood. I had opted to pass on backing this kickstarter just because I’m trying to be more selective due to limited space to store these big box games. Honestly I was a little sad about missing it. Luckily it’s back for a second printing and available on Gamefound.

I was happy to get a chance to paint these for someone else and they brought back fond memories of the Master of the Universe from my childhood.

Titans - 17th Century Area Control

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Board Games - Titans is another area control game that has unique figures for each player. The sculpts are well done and fit the theme nicely.

From the Publisher:

Titans is a territory control miniatures game for 1-4 players (up to 5 with an expansion).

The game is set in a historical fantasy setting of 17th century Europe. Endless wars are taking their toll as the people fall into despair. There is no hope for an end, no prospects for a peaceful order. The faith of the people slowly burns out. Dorment Spirits of the Nations wake up from centuries-long rest, rekindling the hearts of the people and raising ancient warriors called the Titans. People, filled with extraordinary powers, standing hand-by-hand with mighty Titans, fight to reclaim Europe. That war will end it all, and a King of Kings will be chosen.

In Titans players take roles of a king that leads an Army with a mythical Titan into Battle. There are 4 Nations to choose from, one of the European empires of that time - Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Russia, Sweden, and the Ottoman Empire.

The game revolves around a unique, yet simple Order Card Mechanics. Players will use a shared deck of Order Cards that will allow them to recruit Units, awake the Nation’s Power and move their Armies across the Game Board. Players draw a specific number of Order Cards and place them face-up for all players to see. Players also see the upcoming Order Cards so they can plan their long=term strategy. In his turn, the active player chooses 1 of the available Order Cards and uses it's available Actions. Players will try to gain strategic positions, move their front line and attack their opponents where they are the weakest. The next player uses the same Pool of Order Cards so the active player may try to anticipate opponents movement and use that to their advantage. When there is only 1 Order Card available it's discarded, the "upcoming Order Cards" become the available pool and new Order Cards are drawn. That allows for dynamic gameplay with a lot of planning, both tactical and strategical.

The game is divided into Rounds and the Round ends after the Order Deck is empty. After each Round players collect Victory Points for the Regions they control, so players constantly want to expand their domain. Winning Battles also bring players Victory Points so deciding when, where and how to attack is crucial as well. The player with the most Victory Points at the end of the game is the winner.

City of the Great Machine - Steampunk Boardgaming

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Board Games - Years ago when I first started this site I was introduced to Steam Punk, it’s an interesting genre that goes in a sci-fi tilt at the turn of the century. Personally I’ve don’t have a huge amount of interest in it any longer but it’s a unique thing you see at Ren-Fest. City of the Great Machine is a Co-op game in when you play against … The Great Machine a form of AI.

From the Publisher:

City of the Great Machine is a strategy game set in a grim universe of technocratic Victorian steampunk. The game features the conflict between the Great Machine, an artificial intelligence network, and an alliance of Heroes. The Great Machine is either controlled by a player or is automated, which completely changes the gameplay.

The Great Machine controls the City built on mobile platforms in the sky. As the Great Machine, the player (or game AI) commands a force of perfected Servants and mechanical Guards. The Great Machine's ultimate goal is to suppress social unrest and complete its grandiose Master Plan to perfect the mankind.

The other players are Heroes working together against the Great Machine to start a revolution. They encourage discontent in the City, enlist the support of famous citizens, and inflame riots. They also attempt to prevent the Great Machine from completing the Master Plan, as it leads to the enslavement of the mankind.

Game features:

  • City of the Great Machine may be played as One-vs-Many (2-4 players) or cooperatively/solo (1-3 players).

  • Modular board allows for infinite City layouts. The players may reposition the City Districts during the game.

  • Hidden movement. Each round, the Heroes secretly choose the Districts they will go to.

  • Resource management. Both sides of the conflict have multiple actions to take and pay for them in Trust (Heroes) or Bonds (the Great Machine). The same is true for movement and other tasks.

  • Asymmetric gameplay and unique victory conditions. The Heroes need 3 Riots to win, while the Great Machine strives to complete the Master Plan.

  • Secrecy. The Heroes need to conceal their plans from the Great Machine, however, they may discuss their intentions only in the presence of the Great Machine.


Zerywia - Painted and Ready to Play

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Board Games - Zerywia is an interesting looking adventure game that links together adventures into an overarching story. It feels a little generic fantasy but the minis has a different look about them.

From the Publisher:

Zerywia is a cooperative adventure board game set in the primeval world of Slavic myths. It includes a campaign mode composed of individual adventures for 1 to 4 players, linked together by an overarching storyline. Each adventure can also be played separately, as standalone episodes. This enables the players to experience each story in different ways and allows to lead their Heroes on a different path during each playthrough.

Each Hero has their own Saga, a tale waiting to be uncovered and told. Progressing through it grants powerful, new relicts, rituals or allies. As they roam the lands, the Heroes will be able to acquire new Sagas, which shall give them more power and unlock new, hitherto hidden parts of the story. This is why our Heroes are a work in progress, so to speak, and it falls upon the players to shape them and lead them to noble (or not quite so) deeds.

Uluk - Painted Up

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Board Games - I love big chunky miniatures. Uluk has some really nice idols that are simple to paint up and look great on the board.

From the publisher:

Elders say that our world is a fruit of the sacred uluk tree. No humans have ever stepped on this magical land, and you are the leaders of its hunter-gatherer tribes of sentient animals, collecting food, developing inventions, and erecting monuments in honor of the ancient gods to fulfill their spiritual needs. The winner in this competition will ensure happiness and well-being for their tribe members, and he or she will be praised as the arch leader of all the tribes!

The goal of the game is to have the most Happiness Points at the end of the sixth round (season). There are several different ways to score points, but the most important activity in the game is to send your tribe members (called here "tribers") to various spaces on the main board and take actions corresponding to them.

Uluk mostly makes use of the classic worker placement mechanics. The players send their tribers to spaces on the main board to build monuments and gather raw resources. The resources gathered are stored on each player's tribe board and may then be processed into food. Feeding your tribers brings you HPs and lets you win the game after the sixth season. A single season is divided into six phases in which the players take their actions in a clockwise order:

Errand phase - place your tribers on the main board
Harvest phase - gather resources from the main board
Processing phase - process raw resources from your tribe board into food
Feeding phase - spend food on feeding your tribers
Ecology phase - adjust the harvest levels (quantity of resources available) on the main board
Clean-up phase - build monuments and prepare for the next season

Developing inventions (in the form of invention cards with different symbols) enhances the effectiveness of your food processing, and collecting sets of different symbols brings extra points at the end of the game.

The Great Wall - Fully Painted

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Board Games - I love when a game has unique miniatures for the workers of each faction. It make a huge difference in being able to identify your pieces and makes worker placement feel more realistic.

From the publisher:

The Great Wall is a new asymmetric worker/soldier placement game with engine building themes and a twist in form of a constantly attacking AI (Mongolian Horde) that requires players to sometimes cooperate in order to defeat it. This is a new major board game from Awaken Realms.

Players will control ancient clans in China trying to defend against invading Mongolian hordes and build a Great Wall. While every player will want to win (by earning VP = Honor) they also need to sometimes cooperate to defend against the hordes. Each clan will be asymmetric through its chosen Leader (resource production/starting resources/starting workers and units) and this asymmetry will increase as the game progresses (players will hire Advisors with unique skills, often creating unique engines).

In The Great Wall, the players take the role of Generals defending the Wall against the Mongol Horde. The game is played over a series of turns called Years, each divided into 4 parts called Seasons.

During Spring, new barbaric hordes invade the fields in front of the Great Wall and prepare to launch their assault. Summer is the time when generals prepare for the assault and mobilize their forces. During Fall, players take their turns, playing Command cards, resolving their effects and Activating Locations to gain various benefits. In Winter, the last layer of Defense is activated, then, the hordes try to assault the Walls.

During the course of the game, players will create their own unique engines based on their clan strength as well as interact with other players during all phases of the game, trying to get the most Honor points, which can be gained in a lot of different ways.

At the end of the game, the player with the most Honor wins.

Nightmare Cathedral - Painted

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Board Games - This games features some incredible art and the minis are very creepy. I only painted the enemy figures because the player pieces looked fine in their base color and it didn’t seem worth the extra effort to shade them.

From the publisher:

Nightmare Cathedral prominently features the haunting artwork by the late polish surrealist painter and sculptor Zdzisław Beksiński.

Nightmare Cathedral is a strategy game for 1–4 players, where victory is gained by controlling the map, managing resources, following objectives and selecting when to engage in fast and furious conflicts to gain strategic advantage. Over the course of the game, you will perform actions — and follow the actions of other players — to produce units, build fortifications, maneuver around the map, and spend your followers to climb the ritual track. Throughout the game, a haunting Cathedral will grow in the center of the board, and once it is completed, you will face — and gain the ability to control! — the physical manifestations of nightmares that are released upon the world. Nightmare Cathedral is a game of both strategy and tactics, where finding clever ways to follow your objectives and combining different strategies is the ultimate route to victory.

The Last Kingdom

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Board Games - Games based on popular TV shows can be iffy, sometimes all the money is spent on the licensing and not enough is spent on actual design and development. Based on the Board Game Geek scores that’s not the case with The Last Kingdom.

Description from publisher:

The Last Kingdom Board Game is game of war and politics for 2-5 players by renowned designer John D Clair that's based on the Netflix series The Last Kingdom.

In this world, the kingdoms of Britain are at war. Many have already fallen to the invading Danes, leaving the great kingdom of Wessex standing alone and defiant under the command of King Alfred. You are one of the great commanders and politicians in this war-torn land known today as England. Both Saxon and Dane armies openly battle for dominance, and it is up to you to title the scales of power. To claim these lands, you will need to tread a dangerous path between both sides of the conflict. Will you betray your allies for power? What part will you play in the birth of a new nation, and will you ultimately rule it all?

The Last Kingdom Board Game plays over the course of two rounds during which players will perform actions to command armies to shape the course of the war. Your allegiance to the Saxons or the Danes can be firm or fickle, and your score will reflect not just your prowess in battle, but your political skill in maneuvering the competing forces of Britain.

Each of the ten leaders offers unique benefits to your strategy and provides special cards to start your hand. At the start of each round, players complete their hand by drafting cards from a deck specific to that round, then the war begins in one of the five regions. Players take turns playing cards to command Saxon or Dane armies, gaining affinity with the different factions, or positioning their heroes and leaders to shift the tides of war. Players also have access to a rotating market of actions that are available to everyone.

Alternatively, players may choose to not act on their turn and instead pass to see what moves their opponents make.

Once all players have passed consecutively, the war in the current region will be decided by the strengths of the Saxon and Dane armies battling there. Players gain victory points if they are aligned with the winning faction and based on their level of affinity. The focus of the war then moves to the next region, and the battle continues.

After the fate of each of the five regions has been decided, the round ends. After two rounds of play, the player who has accrued the most points wins.

Castles of Burgundy - Deluxe Edition

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Board Games - Castles of Burgundy released a super premium deluxe version of the classic game with some updated components. These are the miniatures from that release.

Final Girl Season 2 - Fully Painted

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Board Games - It’s rare for a game to come out as purely solo play. Probably rarer still for it to be as successful as Final Girl by Van Ryder Game. Right now they’re wrapping up the Kickstarter for Season 3 so it made sense for me to try and finish painting the second season ASAP.

Most of this was painted with contrast paint over a dry-brushed base layer.

Much like the first season these miniatures are pretty small, but they have a decent amount of detail. I’m really happy with how everything turned out.