Reaper Bones "Cthulhu" miniature WIP 1

While visiting my friend Thomas earlier this week I was given this pretty awesome Cthulhu miniature as a gift. The model is from the Reaper "Bones" kickstarter and supposedly only cost him 10 dollars (he ended up buying 3). What's interesting beside the dirt cheap price for such a huge miniature is the material, which is some kind of rubber/plastic/resin meld that could perhaps be described as "close to rubber dinosaur toys you had as a kid" but at the same time with a lot more stiffness to it and less of a rubber feeling. The material can be filed or cut with a knife when it comes to cleaning mouldlines, and paint sticks right onto the model without any need for a primed undercoat.

The material allows the tentacles and other thin parts such as the wings to bend if you push them, which is great as usually parts like these will snap under pressure. I also thing that dropping the miniature on the floor won't cause the same kind of disaster effect compared to plastic/metal/resin minis.

The model comes with few parts that all fit well together due to socket/slot fittings at the joints, you only need to greenstuff the joints a little. The construction doesn't weigh that much when all assembled, and all the parts stay in place once superglues - so no need to worry when you are holding the mini by the limbs when painting it.

It will be very interesting to see how I end up painting it, I have an idea about going for a pale green look on the skin, perhaps with tints of yellow, purple, red and blue in some places. So far I have no idea how the scales will end up, though I don't think a too dark color will fit with my light skinned rendition - so perhaps green, or brown?

I will be posting WIP updates as I paint this mini over the coming week with the aim of finishing it by the end of the next weekend.

By Fire & Sword: Deluge expansion Kickstarter

For those that haven't heard the guys over at Wargamer.pl recently launched their second Kickstarter and are gathering support for their upcoming expansion book "Deluge" which covers the Swedish invasion of Poland and the northern war of 1955-60.

The new book is packed with armies on skirmish and  division level for both new and old nations (for instance the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth and Sweden both get revamped list to more accurately portray their armies during this particular campaign).

The book also includes a welcome addition in terms of 10 new scenarios for skirmish level battles that add a lot more variety to this level of the game.

Check out the Kickstarter by following this LINK !

Countdown to new 15mm WW1 range

A friend asked me to share this link on my blog , it's a countdown timer to the starting date of WW1 and also the launching date of a new line of 15mm WW1 miniatures by a Polish manufacturer "3FG".

I guess Battlefront isn't the only company out there thinking about cashing in on the 100th anniversary. It will be interesting to see the stuff on offer from 3FG after having seen the expected releases from Battlefront.

To visit the 3FG site, follow the LINK

Personally I was thinking about WW1 in the East African colonies, in particular the campaign led by German commander von Lettow-Vorbeck, a long time ago before I was distracted by other projects.  We'll see if the new line of miniatures will be accompanied by a game / new ruleset. At the moment I have only read about the FoW:WW1 rules and they don't look like something I would be interested in. I think WW1 is a difficult game to make on a company sized level, especially if you use the trenchline setting. What I had in mind for WW1 back in the days was a platoon/skirmish sized game but that would of course leave out the quirky tanks...

Eldritch Horror review part 2

Here comes the delayed part two for Eldritch Horror, I just had a super busy last couple of days with a lot of "real life" stuff getting in the way. The review will include a lot of comparisons to Arkham Horror since I think the target audience will be fans jumping over from Arkham to Eldritch Horror.

Eldritch Horror is a boardgame where players fight against the creatures and monsters of H.P. Lovecraft's "mythos" in an attempt to save mankind from horrific disaster. Players take on the role of investigators with different backgrounds, traveling around the world in an attempt to solve mysteries and fighting creatures and event that threaten mankind in an attempt to stop the appearance of so called "Old one" (basically an evil monster and godlike creature).

The game is limited in number of turns by two features, the doom track that is an immediate countdown for the arrival of an Old One, and the Mythos Deck. The Mythos deck is a specific number of cards (determined by the Old One you have picked for your game) that determine random events at the end of each turn. If the Mythos deck runs out the game is automatically over and the players have lost.

Akin to Arkham Horror the game is ridiculously difficult to beat, but offers a variant that make it a tad easier by removing certain Mythos Cards. As this is a co-operative game, players will work together to beat the system to the best of their abilities and if they are lucky they may pull off a victory every now and then.

As mentioned the game is about preventing the arrival of the "Old One" (the game comes with 4, Cthulhu, Azathoth, Shub-Niggurath and Yog Sothoth). This is done by completing research in order to solve three mysteries tied to the Old One you are facing. Each  Old one comes with 4 mystery cards to add some variety to your game and these mysteries are drawn at random and you have to finish one mystery before you draw the next one. As such the same Old One can provide a different gaming experience depending on the way his mystery cards are drawn. Mysteries are solved by performing "research encounters" at location that feature a clue token. 

Eldritch Horror review part 1 - unboxing

Recently I bought the new Lovecraft inspired boardgame Eldritch Horror made by Fantasy Flight Games - at first I wasn't that interested as I think FFG is milking this franchise to death with all the versions Arkham Horror/Elder Sign/Mansions of Madness/ Collectable Cardgame etc and this was just another straightforward boardgame.

However, upon reading about the game online, it seems to have been very well received by the fanbase - and many people liked it a lot more than Arkham Horror. This in turn made me curious enough to take a plunge and buy it. In this first part of the review I'll be doing the unboxing of the game and talking about the various components and how they work in the game. Part two will be a review of the game.

The game comes in a regular sized FFG box, akin to that of Arkham Horror and Mansions of Madness, the first thing I noticed was that it came with two rulebooks. One book called  "Rulebook" and one called "Reference guide". I haven't encountered this earlier in any FFG game, but read that this is the new direction of that game company - who has in all honesty and with few exceptions been experts in writing pretty messy and unclear rulebooks for a LONG time. I guess having the rules only in one book and the examples, clarifications and FAQ in another is a way to make it less cluttered and hard to follow when reading everything for the first time.