Thinking Outside the Box

Haven't been playing much in the way of board games lately.  The biggest reason for that is the guys haven't been showing up as often for Sunday games...often it's just Seb or Will and I, and occasionally the three of us.  I don't think we've had a full complement of five players since we played Risk: Legacy a few months ago.   Edit: I really wish we could play that again, it's such a fun experience.  I did order a bunch of games a few weeks ago, but they weren't actually for me.  I still have a few games ordered back in March that haven't been played yet, so I'm keeping my cash (ie: spending it on other nerd stuff I don't need) until I get through the backlog. Last week we actually did play a quick board game called Castle Panic . Will brought it along and had actually read the rules in advance, so we set it up and gave it a shot.  The game mechanics in and of themselves were actually quite simple, but allowed for quick turns while we collab...

Even with the super weather we had over the weekend, I was still able to spend some time nerding it up.  Looking back I actually think it was a fairly productive couple of days.  And of course, I spent more money on stuff. Saturday morning I took the motorcycle out for a ride around town and stopped at Sentry Box.  I'd been eyeing some models for the past few weeks and finally decided to take the plunge with two starter sets and the rule book.  I even got a discount on the rule book (which is unusual for Sentry Box) because it wasn't properly bound.  All that meant was that some of the glue had given way on the main cover of the book, which I remedied in about 3 minutes with some super glue. What game did I buy into this time?  Well, you've likely not heard of it, as I certainly hadn't: it's called Hell Dorado . The little I've read of the fluff at the beginning of book is a really ingenious idea that makes for a great game setting.  What would hap...

A bit of a mish-mash today. I finally finished up all of the markers I've had on my paint station from last month.  Here are the three that are themed for Strange Aeons / Empire of the Dead. RIP grave marker from the Horrorclix starter set. Large grave marker, also from the Horrorclix starter set. A sarcophagus, also from Horrorclix.  This one was actually part of a zombie figure but the mummy walking out of it was awful and looked like it might have been drinking when it died, so I popped it off and here we go...grave marker. Note, I really need to start waiting until daytime to take my pictures.  I apologize for how awful all of these look. These next bits aren't for Strange Aeons but they were getting worked on at the same time. The first Warhammer 40k stuff I actually bought was the 4th edition starter box and I've painted some of the  crashed lander pieces from that set.  I'll post those up later.  There were some no...

I ran out of interesting titles for articles long ago.  Perhaps even that is giving myself too much credit, since it makes the grand assumption that the titles of my previous articles are in any way interesting.  However I did play some games, so that's what I'm here to talk about. Band rehearsal on Wednesday was cancelled, so I took my ever-growing box of Strange Aeons -related lead, resin and plastic down to Trilogy in hopes of finding someone to play a game with.  Sebastien was kind enough to stick around even though he had worked in the shop all day, so we sat down to create him a Theshold list.   Uncle Mike made some of his hand painted miniatures available for sale at the shop a few weeks back, and Seb had picked up a trio of guys who would serve as his first agents.  I helped him kit them out then we rolled up a scenario, set up a board and were off. The layout of the board was quite interesting, resulting in a long partially-ruined building running ...

Here are a few more pieces that I'll be adding to my growing ranks of figures for Strange Aeons .     One of my favorite figures from the Horrorclix range is Bishop Luzifer.  I've just purchased and finished reading the Shocking Tales books.  There's a profile for an Exorcist special agent in one of them and I think he'll fit the bill nicely.  I don't even think I'll change the name for the model in the game, and I've got an idea for an interesting back story for him.  The bishop himself was easy to paint.  A dark brown wash on the skin followed by a light brown dry brushing.  I added a little bit silver and brown detailing before a grey dry brush pass.  He doesn't look quite as good as I'd hoped, but it certainly passable for a table game.  I had a hell of a difficult time painting the woman on the base and eventually just said "good enough".  I should have followed my initial plan and cut her off so that it was just Luzifer w...

Since I started playing Strange Aeons I've had a chance to meet some new players, play some fun games, build and paint some great miniatures, meet the game's creators and even beta test some new rules with them.  I've had a lot of fun with Strange Aeons in the past two months, and I don't expect that to abate any time too soon. Unless you count washing all those blood and entrails-stained robes of the more senior cultists (they are an untidy bunch). That's right, I've joined a cult.  Wouldn't my folks be proud! In actuality "The Cult of the Black Goat" isn't a cult at all, so don't go freaking out and think I've turned to the dark side.  Truth be told that bridge was crossed long ago and none of my so-called friends seemed interested in stopping my descent, so here we are.  Want some red kool-aid, there's plenty to go around... Black Goat membership simply involves signing up with Uncle Mike's Worldwide.  You give t...

Canada Day this year fell on a Sunday, which meant that I got Monday off in lieu.  In order to make the best of things I added the Friday to it and was able to enjoy a nice four-day weekend.  The weather here was particularly nice as well, which we sort of deserved after the rain-filled monstrosity that was June. Strange Aeons / VUK Starting things off on Thursday evening was a quick, as in almost light-speed, game of Uncle Mike's WIP Kulten rules. We played his 60 point ghoul cult against my 23 point Arcanists. Due to the massive point differential I gained some sorely needed resource points to help bolster my ranks.  I was able to add four new cultists to the sad and lonely three that had survived from the last game.  I also gained two favour points, and a dirty trick. I used the dirty trick to alert the authorities and one of my favour points to modify Mike's roll from a 1 to a 6.  This meant that he could only field three models total, so he chose a g...