Marvel United - More Progress

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Board Games - Marvel United has quickly grown to be one of my favorite board games. The mechanics while simple to learn are really deep when you start swapping around heroes and villains. This game has been out go to for any couples games nights as it’s simple and fun to try out various mixes of teams to play out historical story lines or just come up with a random what if scenario.

At this point I have gotten a base coat on all the models I own and am slowly working on detailing them out to completion between my other projects. I’’m really happy with this batch and can’t wait to play a few games with them.

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.

Marvel United - Expansions Galore

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Board Games – I love Marvel: United, it’s a simple co-op game that you can play with anyone. Next year the X-men will be joining the game which will round out the roster with a ton more characters to try out. This is the first batch of another set I’m painting which includes all the expansions.

Zombicide Black Plague - Special Guests

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Board Games – Zombicide Black Plague has had a ridiculous amount of expansions, not only new gameplay mechanics, board and minis but also many “Special Guest” Boxes which bring in a guest artist to do a character design for the game.

Each box adds a few characters that could be enemies or heroes depending on the box. The designs range from pretty unique to pretty generic but if you’re a completist you’ll need to track these down.

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.

Pet Parade - Arcadia Quest Gets Wild

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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.

Dressing Up Your Deck - Starcadia Quest Scenery

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Board Games – Another Kickstarter Exclusive that really should be made available to the general public the scenery pack adds working doors, gun turrets and console screens to take the game to another level.

I tried dressing up the screens a bit with loose interpretations of some classic video game screens. I’m not 100% happy with the final results but I think they serve their purpose.

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Not Stars Wars or Aliens - Starcadia Expansions

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Not Stars Wars or Aliens - Starcadia Expansions

Board Games – CMON loves their kickstarters and they love parody stretch goals so much so that it’s become expected anytime they launch a new project. Nostalgia and Fandom are big motivators and for people that pass or miss the initial offering it can be super annoying trying to collect everything for a game they decide they love.

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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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Arcadia Quest - Chibi Fantasy Adventures

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Arcadia Quest - Chibi Fantasy Adventures

Board Games – Arcadia Quest is another chibi-style board game that has a ridiculous amount of expansions. When it first came out I assumed it was just CMON’s response to breaking ties with Sodapop Miniatures after the Relic Knights fiasco, and dismissed it because I didn’t think I needed another game with a similar theme. Sadly I was wrong Arcadia quest is much different than Super Dungeon Explore and if you’re a fan of the style you should probably make room for both games on your shelf.

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The Others Seven Sins - One More Box

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Board Games – Sadly although I’ve painted every model for this game and watched a ton of play throughs I still haven’t had a chance to play The Others: Seven Sins. The game looks super fun and I loved the dark theme, however the game is a little mature to play with the kids so until I can get a group together to play I’ll just enjoy the models.

This “final” box has Delta Team and a variety of corrupted citizens.

Blood Rage - Mystics of Midgard

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Board Games – Blood Rage is a viking game. I’ve painted several expansions for the game but not the core game. Much like many other CMON games it has decent quality sculpts for the various characters.

These are really similar to the miniatures from The Others and Zombicide, pretty decent for board game pieces but not quite the detail you get from a mulitpart plastic kit. I painted these up to match the cover art in simple reds, browns and blacks.

As I haven’t had a chance to play this game here’s a description from the manufacturer:

Known by many names (Seiðmenn, Völva, Vísendakona, etc.) and possessed of different powers granted by their connection to the gods, these warrior-shamans will be a boon to any clan able to recruit them!

Mystics are special units (neither Warrior nor Monster) that players can only employ once they've given their clan one of the Mystic Clan Upgrades. Each of these Clan upgrades adds 1 Mystic figure to your clan's reserves, which you can then use to Invade and battle normally. All Mystics have STR 2 and the special ability that allows them to Invade at no Rage cost. Clans are only able to recruit a maximum of 2 Mystics.

Besides adding Mystics to your reserves, each of these Clan Upgrades grants your Mystics a special ability. If you collect several different upgrades, each of your Mystics will posses all the abilities you accumulated, making them incredibly resourceful and strategic additions to your clan!

Zombicide - Character Pack

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Board Games - Zombicide Black Plague has several “Artist Editions” much like the other versions of the game they invite a guest artist to do character designs. This is one of those sets.

Black Plague - Zombicide in the Dark Ages

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Black Plague - Zombicide in the Dark Ages

Board Games – I remember when the first Zombicide game was up on Kickstarter, zombies were all the rage and Walking Dead was fresh and different, survivors based on pop icons drove the stretch goals to create an annual cash cow for CMON. As with most “sequels” the franchise eventually lost steam and rebooted in an Evil Dead 3-ish realm of mid-evil zombies and necromancers. Of course this also gave the game access to a variety of fantasy tropes that breathed new life into the franchise and wrangled in fantasy players with a refined version of the game that uses a nifty dashboard instead of the awkward “paperclip” for tracking your character.

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The OTHERS: Seven Sins - Gamma Team

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Board Games - It’s amazing the amount of content CMON produces for their board games. I’ve painted up several batches of these models for my client and I think she still has a few more sets to go. When this game was up on Kickstarter originally I picked up the “core” set but still haven’t had a chance to put it on the table, from what I’ve heard it’s an amazing game with a rich backstory. I love the models and hopefully I’ll be able to find some free space on my painting table to get my own set done soon.

The Others: Seven Sins - Gamma Team

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The Others: Seven Sins - Gamma Team

Board Games – The Others: Seven Sins is a fun board game with a pretty rich backstory involving the supernatural, a government agency and a Cthulu-esque threat that needs to be dealt with. The coolest part of this game are the miniatures. Each one is well detailed, hard-ish plastic and looks just like the art on the character cards. If you’re a fan of Hellboy, BRP, MIB, or Ghostbusters you’re probably going to like this game’s concept.

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