Dark Ages - Epic Adventure

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Board Games – Dark Ages is a 4X game set in the well, Dark Ages. It has many unique miniatures representing resources, military might and unique locations.

From the Manufacturer:

Dark Ages is a historically-based civilization-building game that features an innovative action selection mechanism. As long as your action markers remain on the board, you may be able to gain secondary bonus actions whenever you or another player repeat the action.

While Dark Ages features objectives commonly found in 4X games — encouraging you to explore nearby regions, expand your territory, exploit the resources, and exterminate your opponents — it does so featuring several Euro-centric mechanisms. Collect resources from lands under your control, using them to build up your cities and fortifications. Some building types provide several ways for you to gain important in-game advantages, while others enhance your military strength or simply score you victory points. As you expand your territory, you will lay claim to noble titles, acquire new technologies, and train your military units. Each region and leader offer asymmetrical choices with their unique abilities.


On the "Hotlist" – Nemesis Board Game

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On the "Hotlist" – Nemesis Board Game

Board Games – Often I’m a bit behind with the “hotness” when it comes to board game projects. I imagine for some players, they want to confirm a game is good/enjoyable before having it painted. While other players will have massive back-logs of games they want painted just on principle that a painted game is more fun to play than an unpainted one. (A concept I whole-heartedly endorse)

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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.

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.

Starcadia Quest – Chibi Space Combat

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Starcadia Quest – Chibi Space Combat

Board Games – Earlier this year I painted up a good portion of the Arcadia Quest heroes and in the process of painting them I started to develop an interest in the game but was holding out for various reasons. Arcadia Quest has been a very popular property for CMON so it only makes sense that they’d rehash the content in SPAAAACE!

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Gardening for Fun and Profit – Tang Garden

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Board Games – I know many people have taking up gardening during lockdown and that’s admirable. However if you want to keep your hands dirt free and create something beautiful you might want to check out Tang Garden.

This is a unique game that has you creating a garden for the emperor during the Tang Dynasty. The tile laying game has unique 3D elements including trees, bridges, gazebos and of course miniatures. From what I understand you score your game by looking at what the miniatures can actually see and score accordingly. It seems like a cool concept that I’d love to play one day.

For now I’m happy painting up the models. These character pawns aren’t super detailed and are a little on the small side, but they serve their purpose. Once they’re painted to match the cards they blend in nicely with the other components to create a beautiful garden scene without getting dirt under your nails.

Back in the Hobbit Again

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Back in the Hobbit Again

Board Games – It’s been a minute since I posted, but I haven’t been idle. I just wrapped up Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth. This is one of those hybrid board games that requires you to use an app in order to play it. The potential for this type of game is great, however the fear that an app becomes out-of-date fairly quickly makes some people scared of picking up an app dependent board game.

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Arkham Horror - Expansion

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Board Games – I’ve painted up quite a few models for this Fantasy Flight game. The latest batch adds some new heroes and a few monsters. The sculpts are all pretty decent and take paint well. My only honest complaint about the minis is the dumb clunky base. I know in game it serves a functional purpose that makes it easy to see what the monster is, how big it is and it’s basic stats, but in my opinion the base detracts from the model as a whole.

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Dark Crystal - Board Game Minis

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Board Games – As a kid Dark Crystal freaked me out a bit. I remember watching it at my grandmothers house who picked it up because at the time anything Jim Henson was gold. Little did she know that this was almost as scary to a little kid as his storyteller series was. The story of the guy who caught death in bag still sticks with me.

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Anyway the four miniatures used as game pawns in this board game have a decent level of detail. The base on them makes it feel a bit like a chess set. Which would be cool if they expanded the line to have a few more figures. With the Netflix series on the horizon I imagine the Board Game will see a spike in sales.

There Can Be Only One - Highlander Board Game

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There Can Be Only One - Highlander Board Game

Board Games – Nostalgia sure is a powerful motivator. Picking up a licensed property from the 80’s and 90’s to bring out as a board game seems to be all the rage right now. Some of these games are really good and some just like the licensing craze of the 80’s-90’s are just cash-grabs that slap some movie art onto a box with some loose rules destined to fail before they launch. The latest of these nostalgia-based games to cross my desk is Highlander the board game, by River Horse productions.

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The Adventurers: Temple of Chac

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The Adventurers: Temple of Chac

Board Games – Temple of Doom is by far my favorite Indiana Jones movie. It was the first one I saw in the theater and I still have my metal lunchbox that I got that year. Pulp adventures looting tombs, archeology and ridiculous characters make for a fun time in any story. The Adventures: Temple of Chac promises to deliver all of those things in a fun little game.

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878 Vikings – Painted Board Game

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878 Vikings – Painted Board Game

Board Games – My pool of board game clients seems to be ever increasing. Which means I’m seeing lots of game I’ve never been exposed to. The most recent one to cross my table was 878 Vikings, the minis look pretty decent for bendy plastic and the houses, keeps and walls are all injection molded hard plastic. I don’t know why but as I was painting them I kept thinking these are Viking houses and hotels and somebodies going to pay when they land on Trelleborg…

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Gloomhaven - The first six models

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Gloomhaven - The first six models

Boardgames - It's interesting to paint models for a game where the models are supposed to be secret until you open them up and reveal them during the course of the adventure. The first six miniature my client provided me are what I think are the heroes.  She provided a few screen-grabs of schemes she liked that I tried to mimic. 

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Getting Crazy or Going Sane? Lobotomy The Board Game

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Getting Crazy or Going Sane? Lobotomy The Board Game

Board Games – Ever feel trapped, alone or like everyone thinks your crazy? Are you institutionalized? Do you want to break free? If these statements apply to you you should check out this game from Titan Forge. You play as a vaguely familiar patient in an Insane Asylum where things aren't what they seem.

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The Others: Seven Sins – Lust

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The Others: Seven Sins – Lust

Board Games – The sins keep coming as I work my way through the expansions for The Others: Seven Sins. This time around is Lust. When I first saw this models I was a little confused as there's nothing sexy about them. The typical super sexy girl/guy treatment doesn't exist which through me for a loop initially. 

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On the painting table ... Scythe Expansion

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On the painting table ... Scythe Expansion

Board Games – While I haven't had a chance to play it yet Scythe has been racking up acclaim all around the internet. From what I've heard it's an elegant system that is very simple but tactically deep. The models are very nice and my latest project brought the scottish and asian factions to my painting table.

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