Shogun no Katana - Fully Painted

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Board Games - Shogun no Katana is a worker placement game that focuses on gathering supplies to make swords. It’s one of those games that could easily get away with using just meoples, but the miniatures add flavor to the game and make it feel more immersive.

In addition to the player worker families there are several characters that will visit the village and provide more options in game play. The miniatures aren’t super detailed but they do a good job representing the various jobs of the family.

The description from the manufacturer sounds promising:

Shogun no Katana is a strategic Eurogame that will transport you to the magical atmosphere of feudal Japan. Use your workers to choose which swords to make, among those requested by the powerful local Daimyo. Collect resources to improve your craft, and request your artists to create breathtaking decorations. Have your family members admitted to the most strategic rooms of the Shogun’s palace to obtain the privileges of their rank. And finally, create the most beautiful SHOGUN NO KATANA!

You will have to manage your Forge wisely, as crafting Katanas will be the real beating heart of the game. The original and innovative sword-making mechanism allows you to activate an entire row or column to work on different Katanas at the same time. Each player has its own forge where all the katana crafting will take place.

During the game you will obtain resources, either by visiting the market, the palace among other places. By activating a row or column you can add resources to all matching Katanas, moving them accordingly on the grid. But be careful! Having a lot of Katanas on the grid means that you can accomplish more with fewer actions, but it also increases the risk of them hindering each other. You will have to build your engine cleverly to maximize your turns.

Knight Tales - Fully Painted

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Board Games - Knight Tales has some pretty nice miniatures.

In Knight Tales, 1-4 players stand against hordes of monsters and must cooperatively or semi-cooperatively defend a remote village for three days and three nights.

Knight Tales is a great mix of genres; character-building, set-collection, a tower defence mechanism with a puzzly twist, as well as the possibility to fulfill daily quests and gain renown make each game a truly unique experience.

A wide diversity of interacting monster effects, a clever system of spending fatigue, losing health and unleashing wrath as well as a doom mechanism that empowers the bosses triggering their own deck of tactic cards unfolds into a challenging puzzle that you will need to solve in order to be victorious.

Europa Universalis - Painted

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Board Games - To be honest 4X games are not my favorite. Europa Universalis is a monster of a 4X game that lets six players play through 300 years of history.

If that sounds interesting to you these miniatures are of decent quality and painted up quickly with contrast paints.

Hunters AD 2114 - Painted

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Board Games - Hunters AD 2114 seems very much like a take-off on the Terminator. You’re hunting the machines that have taken over the world after the apocalypse.

The miniatures are decent. I’m not a fan of square bases but I suppose they work for this style of game. This is another game that I used the white drybrush of grey to create depth before finishing with contrast paints. The technique is great for board games, but for more detailed figures I’d need to add some layering and additional shading to be happy with the results.

Here’s the description from the publisher:
The Hunters is a cooperative miniatures board game for 1-4 players. Become a machine hunter and face the enemies in a brutal post-apocalyptic world.

Players become the Hunters of machines that wander between human settlements and together hunt dangerous enemies. Each mission, taking from 30 to 90 minutes, requires an adequate choice of gear and tactics. The players can also lay deadly traps and prepare ambushes. A day and night system is used in the game which has a significant impact on the choice of equipment and enemies' action abilities.

At the end of each mission players gain experience points, allowing them to reach new levels of training and be better prepared for survival in the hostile world. The most precious prize, though, is the remains of the defeated machines used to construct the hunters' gear.

All the missions combine into an outstanding campaign during which the players will have to make tough choices influencing their future fate. Each time they will be able to make different decisions, allowing every mission to be an exceptional experience full of new emotions.

Dungeonology Expansions - Painted

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Board Games - Dungeonology is a really nice game with beautiful components. This project is for a few expansions that were recently released that add some new monsters and scholars to the game.

Definance - Infinity as a Board Game?

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Board Games - Defiance is a dungeon crawler set in the Infinity Universe. It’s a little strange because metal miniatures don’t typically go over well with the board game crowd, but these are really nice.

Description:

A Dungeon Crawler game by CORVUS BELLI based on the Infinity Universe.
A group of heroes has been commissioned up by the human nations to stop an imminent offensive by the Combined Army. Embarked in the Defiance, the heroes of the Human Sphere must fight against an alien invader in a suicide mission with the sole objective of saving humanity. Infinity Defiance is a dungeon crawler with high quality metal miniatures that are compatible with Infinity.

At the beginning of the Round, you build the Initiative deck which will determine the order in which the enemy units will be activated. Each enemy Unit will draw a card from the AI deck and every Enemy in that Unit will attempt to perform, in order, the actions the card indicates - up to a maximum of 2 actions.

Each time you make a roll, you will obtain a series of symbols from the dice. Equipment cards, Software cards, Specialty cards, and enemies, may spend those symbols to apply Effects via Switches.

As the Campaign advances, Characters may improve their combat skills through Specialty cards, which will allow you to choose the specialty best suited to your playing style or personal preferences.

—description from the publisher

Skyrim Adventure Game

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Board Games - Video Games turned into tabletop games seems to be a theme with my board game projects. I mean it makes sense with Television Shows and Movies pulling from Video Game content why wouldn’t board game manufacturers.

This is Skyrim.

Deep in the Forest - Forest of Radgost Painted

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Board Games - Some days I feel like there might be two many games, I mean how many different ways can you tell folk tales or stories of an apocalypse? Do we really need more zombie games? How many games do you own that are still in shrink wrap? Do you feel a strange need to have every game with miniatures painted? I mean honestly no, there’s never enough games and the creativity board games spark in their players lends itself to a constant churn of new content.

So times I start a project and think, “Didn’t I already paint this?” Forest of Radgost is one of those games. The setting is Slavic Mythology which is slightly different yet similar to many of the traditional myths I’m familiar with yet this if a bit different.

The miniatures are nice, not amazing but pretty nice and the description from the publisher is interesting. (Not having played yet I can’t say much beyond this):

Detailed miniatures, immersive storytelling, and rich mythology await you in Forest of Radgost, a cooperative storytelling tabletop game that brings Slavic mythology to life.

When a boy and a girl disappear from their village somewhere in IX century Europe, the village druid dispatches a search party to find the children and escort them back to safety. As one of the members of that search party, you will need to trespass into the sacred forest and cross the boundary that separates the realm of humans from the realm of the Slavic deity Radgost.

Inhabiting the forest are strange beings such as the Psoglav, Lesnik, or Todorci, none of which take kindly to human intruders.

You'll need to use all your skills, wisdom, and instincts to survive the numerous encounters with these strange creatures.

Along the way you will develop your character, collect items, gain skills, separate and rejoin with other members of the search party, and, possibly, discover the secret reason why the druid chose you to join the search party.

Forest of Radgost is a role-playing game where each player controls a character with a fleshed-out backstory, motivation, and skill-set. Players navigate the web of interconnected forest footpaths with a pair of dice that determine the distance and direction of their movement, evoking the feeling of being lost in the woods, with creatures lurking at each crossroad.
At each encounter, players must decide whether to run, hide, flee, or communicate, without knowing which creature they are about to face. Depending on their choices, the encounters are resolved according to the numerous scenarios provided in the accompanying book of encounters.

I'm Super, Thanks For Asking - Hour of Need Painted

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Board Games - The super hero gene is one that is ripe for making “generic” versions of existing properties to build “unique” worlds. I mean The Boys does it marvelously so why not do something similar with a board game?

These minis are similar in scale to Zombicide and don’t have a ton of details so they’re ideal for the slap-chop dry brush and contrast paint style of painting. I really like this style for board games that have a bunch of miniatures. It gets them painted quickly and they look good on the board. Sure this style isn’t going to win any awards and I wouldn’t use it on more deatiled figure but when you need to get color on stuff quickly it’s amazing.

Hour of Need is just that, here’s what the publisher has to say about it:

The pages of Modern-day Saga Comics are filled with heroes and villains doing battle across both reality and the shared inter-dimensional space of the Astrallacy. While nefarious villains seek power and material wealth, valiant heroes fight to defend those that are caught in the middle of these epic conflicts—it is these everyday people that make reality worth fighting for, and now is their hour of need!

Hour of Need is a cooperative game of comic book action for 1–4 players (or up to 6 players with available expansions). Designed by Adam and Brady Sadler, Hour of Need is the latest installment in their line of Modular Deck System (MDS) games. Set in an original world inspired by modern comic books, Hour of Need puts players in the roles of diverse heroes attempting to thwart dangerous villains from carrying out nefarious deeds!

In each game of Hour of Need, players will need to use their chosen hero decks to tactically solve problems and thwart their chosen villain's schemes, as presented by the chosen issue deck and board. Utilizing simultaneous turns that provides the framework for collaborative strategy, players have to work together to reveal the villain and prepare for the final showdown!

Featuring fast gameplay, highly-detailed miniatures, and a variety of modular fixed decks for heroes, villains, and issues, Hour of Need lets players create their own comic book stories in the MDS Comics world!

Battles in a World of Darkness - Sheol Fully Painted

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Board Games - Weird painting techniques can be tricky to pull off. This is a game where light is used as a weapon and the art style is very monochromatic with glowing effects. It took me a bit to sort out how I was going to pull that off but I ultimately settled on a mono chromatic scheme with glow in the dark and blacklight reactive paint. That way the models match the art style in normal light but if you put in a blacklight bulb or two you get a really cool look.

The description on the game sounds interesting:

The shadows arrived on the moon. From that day on, a mass of shadows (called Sheol) similar to a black tide began to form until it shrouded the moon completely and the moon "cried" the shadows down to Earth. Although technologically advanced, people had no means to stop the shadows, which slowly filled the Earth and exterminated almost all of mankind. The planet was fully enveloped in layer of clouds so dark that sunlight could not filter through and the survivors took refuge on the Isle of Light, also called the Citadel, the last outpost of mankind. In fact, Lux, a type of light radiation capable of destroying shadows, was discovered too late.

Enclosed between the immense walls that surround the many square kilometers in which the intricate levels of the citadel arise, humans have slowly forgotten the external world shrouded in darkness and exhausted themselves in a series of internal political, cultural and economic struggles. In fact, over the decades, the citadel has become a collection of decadent people, mixing nanotechnology with superstition, millenary beliefs with cyber-empowerments, chaos and the emergence of new castes.

Only the Scouts, explorers of the unknown and raiders of the outside world, have not forgotten that the world belongs to mankind and that mankind shall reclaim it one day. In this game, you are one of them.is set in a not-too-distant future. After the Moon's Weeping, Earth has turned from being the realm of man to a place reigned by shadows. The only bastion of salvation is the Citadel, where the last survivors of humanity found shelter to survive. It is from here that the Scouts head out to explore the desolate lands of Sheol in search of resources.

Sheol is a cooperative game, playable solo or up to 4 people, with an emphasis on storytelling and strategy. Sheol is set in a coherent universe where game mechanics and setting are deeply interconnected. It is organized in campaigns, in turn, subdivided into missions. In each mission, players will have to coordinate their efforts tactically to complete the objectives and defend the central game area (the Citadel) from the enemy invasion. The story will progress, mission after mission, allowing characters to discover the secrets of the Sheol’s world and unlock more items and skills.

—description from the publisher

Feeling Frosty - Frost Punk Fully Painted

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Board Games - I’m really behind on posting here, but will work on getting back to a regular schedule. My most recent project is a bit out of season now that spring is finally here, but what if spring never came? Frost Punk explores the idea of a perpetual winter set during the age of steam a what if post apocalypse game in which Victorian era technology needs to deal with a forever winter.

The game seems very cool according to this description:

In Frostpunk: The Board Game, up to four players will take on the role of leaders of a small colony of survivors in a post-apocalyptic world that was hit by a severe ice age. Their duty is to effectively manage both its infrastructure and citizens. The core gameplay will be brutal, challenging, and complex, but easy to learn. The citizens won’t just be speechless pieces on the board. Society members will issue demands and react accordingly to the current mood, so every decision and action bears consequences.

The players will decide the fate of their people. Will you treat them like another resource? Are you going to be an inspiring builder, a fearless explorer, or a bright scientist? Is your rule going to be a sting of tyranny or an era of law and equality?

The game is based on a bestseller video game by 11bit studios, the creators of This War Of Mine. The original (digital) edition of Frostpunk is a highly successful strategy-survival-city-builder, a BAFTA-nominee that originally launched in 2018.

Foundations of Rome - Fully Painted

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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.

Cats in Space?

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Board Games - I haven’t play Nemesis yet but I have painted the models for the game, recently these Space Cats came across my table. No idea what they do in the game but the models were fun to paint.

Batman Gotham City Chronicles

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Board Games - Batman Gotham City Chronicles is a board game that let’s you play out various story lines within the Batman universe. This set is part of the two player vs. mode that adds some dashboards and additional miniatures.

I haven’t played the game yet but the concept seems cool. Unfortunately the miniatures are some what all over the place in quality. Some of the sets I painted previously are on par with the Knight Models kits while others are really soft on the detail and merely get the job done representing the characters.

Starlight: Stars of Akarios - Fully Painted

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Board Games - Space ship games are one of the genre of board game that can be a little polarizing you really either love them of hate them. Generally I dislike them as the are really just themed naval games which can be a bit slow and cumbersome. This one seems interesting however with some variety in combining pilots and ships for unique experiences.

Having not played here’s a description from the publisher:

Stars of Akarios is a narrative-driven, cooperative campaign game set in the Akarios Galaxy. Throughout Stars of Akarios, you will fight in epic space battles, upgrade your ship, and explore the fringes of space. Stars of Akarios is built upon 4 core pillars of game play: Space Combat, World Exploration, Space Exploration, and Player Progression. Each pillar works together to create a unified and epic, sci-fi board game experience.

You and your fellow cadets are close to completing your Akarios Institute pilot training when an unknown enemy attacks your home planet of Medellia. You must fight back with the war hero Captain Soma and her ship, the Sparrow. You will need to step out of your fighters to explore hostile worlds and ships, putting your cunning to the test as you seek new home for your civilization. Use your pilots' skills to complete the challenges you encounter in the limited time available. Manage your ship’s resources as you explore new regions of space and embark on missions fighting to survive through the unknown. Even if you are out of resources you can continue exploring, but you risk starting your next encounter at a disadvantage. Your pilot's skills will grow as you test your grit against the enemies in Stars of Akarios. Upgrade you characters' unique abilities and skill trees, allowing you to customize your play experience.

The 200 page scenario book unfolds as a "choose-your-own-adventure." Each choice, success, and failure will shape your story. It will take multiple play-throughs to see all of the Akarios galaxy. 8 different pilots each come with their own unique progression pad and set of skills. The campaign starts with 4 available pilots and the others are unlocked through the choices you make. 10 pilot ships each come with their own set of abilities and class. The ship class will determine what type of upgrades the ship can equip. Equip a combination of upgrade and ability cards from over 55 weapon cards, 55 engine cards, 55 tech cards, many co-pilots, ship abilities, and pilot abilities. Slot in each upgrade in your dual-layered playerboard where everything has a home.


Sons of Faeriell - Fully Painted

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Board Games - Masks are pretty cool. This game makes use of a mask mechanic that give models special skills based on the combination of character and mask. The miniatures are interestingly styled and were fun to paint using primarily contrast paint.

The description from the publisher sounds pretty cool:

Sons of Faeriell is a strategic eurogame for 2 to 4 players, featuring a brilliant potential traitor mechanic and multiple endings.

Faeriell is a verdant land of forests, mountains and lakes, set at risk by the menace of Corruption. All players have to face this threat, while pursuing their individual Achievements. If they fail to constrain the rise of Corruption, everyone loses the game. Collecting the most Achievements, while avoiding this fatal outcome, allows one player to win the game.

Players guide different Tribes of Weybits, the youngest sons of Faeriell. They are tiny and industrious humanoids, with the common goal to preserve the environment from Corruption and help the Great Guardians, the giant keeper animals that watch over the land since remote times. The customization of the Weybit Heroes starts from the beginning with the selection of their Tribe Masks, original items which can be worn by the minis. Each color of those masks provides a different specialization. New Heroes can be dressed and upgraded during the game with the acquisition of Perks, additional abilities that make every character unique. Weybits can become the most efficient helpers to the Great Guardians, mastering the knowledge of nature and learning to fight Corruption.

As an additional thrill to the game, one player can choose to change sides, get corrupted and gain the Corruption Sower as a new Hero, becoming able to win in the event Corruption defeats all others.

Strategic choices lead to multiple endings, making every game a different story to be unfolded.


Publishers Description:


Sons of Faeriell is a strategic eurogame for 2 to 4 players, featuring a brilliant potential traitor mechanic and multiple endings.

Faeriell is a verdant land of forests, mountains and lakes, set at risk by the menace of Corruption. All players have to face this threat, while pursuing their individual Achievements. If they fail to constrain the rise of Corruption, everyone loses the game. Collecting the most Achievements, while avoiding this fatal outcome, allows one player to win the game.

Players guide different Tribes of Weybits, the youngest sons of Faeriell. They are tiny and industrious humanoids, with the common goal to preserve the environment from Corruption and help the Great Guardians, the giant keeper animals that watch over the land since remote times. The customization of the Weybit Heroes starts from the beginning with the selection of their Tribe Masks, original items which can be worn by the minis. Each color of those masks provides a different specialization. New Heroes can be dressed and upgraded during the game with the acquisition of Perks, additional abilities that make every character unique. Weybits can become the most efficient helpers to the Great Guardians, mastering the knowledge of nature and learning to fight Corruption.

As an additional thrill to the game, one player can choose to change sides, get corrupted and gain the Corruption Sower as a new Hero, becoming able to win in the event Corruption defeats all others.

Strategic choices lead to multiple endings, making every game a different story to be unfolded.

Posthuman Saga - Fully Painted

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Board Games - Post Apocalyptic games are always so cool, there are so many clever variations on what causes the end of life as we know it. Zombies, plague, climate change, nuclear war, technology run amuck. In Posthuman genetic modification has caused a collapse of humanity as we know it.

The game looks pretty fun and is part of a series set in the same universe, it feels a little like Mutant Year Zero in concept which is a good thing.

The publishers description is probably better than mine as I’ve yet to play it:

You are a survivor in a near-future Europe that has collapsed under the weight of its own political errors, in the wake of a bloody class-war fueled by genetic modifications. In Posthuman, you journeyed to the last bastion of organized human society in the area: The Fortress. A year down the line, you have become an active part of that society and honed the skills you need to fulfill your role there, but the mutants are gaining ground...

Posthuman Saga is a standalone survival game in the Posthuman universe. You play a seasoned member of the Fortress' militia, sent out beyond the defensive perimeter to explore and hopefully reconnect with outposts the Fortress has lost touch with, while searching for scavengable sites along the way. You have to forge across a crumbled land where resources are spare and mutants roam the ruined mansions and forests alike.

Like the initial Posthuman, this is a sandbox-style survival journey, but the game system in Posthuman Saga differs from that of the first game in the series. Players win by completing various objectives that suit different characters and playing styles. It has an emphasis on tactical choices on two levels: the journey expressed through an innovative modular tile map puzzle and the individual story and combat encounters. The latter are fast, card-based affairs involving tough choices with future consequences. Posthuman Saga boasts over one hundred, finely crafted story scenes with a simple, push-your-luck mechanism that supplements the emergent narrative afforded by the game. Mutation is a way of life in the Posthuman world, and it can have its advantages, but it can easily get out of control...

ADELE - Fully Painted

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Board Games - Most of the time when I get a board game project to paint there are tons of miniatures which is great, but sometimes a game only requires a couple to add to the overall experience. I think ADELE is one of those games.

Super simple models that just needed a touch of paint to make them pop.

From the description the game sounds really cool:

A mission to Mars starts to go wrong when the on-board computer becomes self-aware and identifies the crew as potential threats...

ADELE is a claustrophobic and stressful one-versus-many board game for up to 5 players.
All but one player take on the role of crew members. Each one will choose a character board where a special ability, initial object and stats (spirit and life points) are indicated.
The remaining player will control the powerful and vigilant AI of the spaceship: ADELE.

On each turn, all crew members have 4 action cubes each, to secretly distribute them among the available actions, using a screen to hide their boards from ADELE.

The ADELE player has to guess what actions each crew member plans and try to hinder them as best as possible. Managing a control panel (with its own deck of cards and pool of tokens) with a limited amount of energy per turn, ADELE will create incidents on the ship: originate fires, close floodgates, remove oxygen, shut down computers… there are many options!
Will the crew be able to carry out a plan to survive?