More Zombicide! Set #1 Survivors & Zomb'ivors

Huzzah!

UPS-man just dropped off a package which contained the Set #1 miniatures for the basegame of Zombicide. I took a few quick photos:

New heroes:

Zombie-counterparts for all the heroes:

New character-cards ofcourse:

Box also includes more of those small plastic pegs which you attach to the character-cards. All in all a nice package. Only thing that bugs me is that I just got all of my heroes painted, so now I have some more work ahead of me. :P

Haven't done a lot of painting recently as other IRL -activities have kept me quite busy. I have been working on the heroes from Super Dungeon Explore, and I only have two more of those unfinished. I will post some pictures once I get them all painted up.

As other news cmon announced a while back that the release of Relic Knights is delayed quite a lot and is now scheduled for the end of the year. This annoys me, but on the other hand I now have more time to finish some older stuff before those come out.
 

Thx for looking!

Kingdom Death

!!

What a succesfull Kickstarter the Kingdom Death Monster had. As a fan of the miniatures I just had to pledge for the game. I ended up pledging all the way to Herald of Death -level and a bit over, but I am confident that it is worth it.

Ever since the kickstarter popped up I was itching to paint some of their miniatures, so I ordered a few.

The first one I got was the Great game hunter -female pinup. I already painted it, so let me show you the pictures first:

As you can see I changed the backdrop to black with this one and I think it worked very well with the mini. I think it's not so overpowering as just pure white so you can focus on the actual mini a bit better. I was going to experiment with textured backdrops also, but with this piece I didn't feel the need to as I liked it this way.

The miniature was a lot of fun to paint, and in a way I went over my "comfort-zone" a few times with this one. That's always a good thing as it teaches you new things.
For example painting human skin is not my strongest area, so I experimented with many different shades with this one. There are places that I could have done a lot better but overall I am fairly satisfied with the result.

Miniature itself is packed with a lot of extremely small detail and the whole sculpt is surprisingly tiny. Also the resin that it is cast in is very easily broken. I broke her right ankle when I was putting her together. Luckily I was able to pin it back up without any visible damage to the model.
In the end I probably wouldn't recommend the resin miniatures from Kingdom Death to a total beginner of this hobby, as you need to be pretty careful with them and they may be a bit fiddly to put together and clean.
This miniature however was pretty straightforward as the Game Hunter herself is in one piece. The squire carrying her crossbow comes in two parts, as the crossbow is connected with very small contact points. I ended up pinning the crossbow to his/her head.
Miniature had some flash and a couple of bubbles but nothing major, and they were pretty easy to clean up.

Here's a picture of the miniature unsassembled (taken with my phone):

Base for the miniature is a resin base from the Dark Age Groundwerks -lineup. I had it lying around and felt that it fitted the overall feel of the mini quite nicely. Temple ruins are just the places for Great Game Hunters to move out from. :)

The other Kingdom Death mini I have for know is a bigger project as it has multiple parts. I'll leave that revelation to another post soon to come. :)

Drop a comment and be sure to check out the Kingdom Death for their awesome lineup of miniatures and background for the upcoming game.

ps: I am sadly disappointed as I wanted their miniature "Flower Knight", but was too late and they are allready sold out again. Second time that this has happened to me, and I am bummed out as that is in my opinion one of the coolest looking miniatures ever made. ;/
Oh well, perhaps someday.

Hope you liked it and have fun painting!

Zombicide: Board game overview

Delivery guy woke me up this morning and carried a big box for me.
Inside the box was my copy of Zombicide. I backed this game up in the kickstarter for the abomination level. This is a game that didn't come cheap. First the abomination level + shipment to Finland took 125usd, and after that my copy ended up on the customs table and they made me pay ~24 euros taxes as extra.
Well, here's hoping the game shines and atleast it has a lot of stuff in it:

Zombicide basegame:

 Heroes:

Zombies sculpts:

Abomination extras: 

More Zombies! (Basegame comes with two sheets of zombies)

Extra "Mr Spiky" (basegame comes with one abomination)

Extra Heroes:

More dice. The white ones glow in the dark (uuuuuu spooky)

Size comparison:

I took some pictures with the miniatures next to a "standard sized" space marine. Now bare in mind though that the marine is in terminator-armor, which makes it a bit more bulky. The abomination is about the same size as this guy:

(This guy would probably make the game a bit one-sided though)

Thoughts:

All in all, game certainly has a bunch of nice stuff in there. Plastic they used for the miniatures is hard and the sculpts are done nicely. Miniatures are a bit smaller though than I inially thought.

Gameboards are printed on a very thick and durable cardstock, and they have some cool artwork on them. Same high quality applies to the small cards and the dices as well. Components-wise, I have zero complaints.

As far as the actual gameplay goes, I just got this so I haven't had a chance to play yet. I have read some promising reviews though. Should be fun, and probably fits those gamenights with a few beers thrown in the mix. :)

Atleast the cat got some enjoyment out of it allready:

 

Mage Knight: Board game Overview

I got Mage Knight the boardgame a while back. It's a game I think I don't have changes to play very often, but something just intriqued me enough to warrant a purchase for myself.
First edition of the game was also sold out very quickly, and from what I have read the second edition is also pretty much sold out now. (there are some shops that still have it in stock I am sure).
I have heard a rumor that a third printing of the game is due later this summer (july/august, but again, this is just a rumor, But it is definitely coming as it seems to be selling fast).

My copy of the game is of the second edition, although the editions seem to be pretty much identical.

Anyway, this is just an overview of the game and it's components:

Mage Knight -  Boardgame:

Game is being praised quite a lot lately on boardgamegeek. For those of you who haven't heard of it, it's a game where you take control of a powerful Mage Knight and explore the world. It has the basic RPG/adventure elements where you fight monsters and try to develop your character with better loot, spells etc before taking on the final challenges. It also includes some very interesting mechanics and has very little luck involved, so you have to rely on your decisions.

Game can be played cooperatively or competitive, and it can also be played as a solo game. (solo rules are included in the game).

Anyway, let's take a look at the components.

The box insert:

Fits pretty nicely. My only complaint about the insert is, that he cards are printed on a pretty thin stock so they need sleeves. And from the look of it sleeved cards are not going to fit on their place in the insert.

Mage Knights:

Miniatures are pre-painted, and the quality is what you see here. For a boardgame I think they are pretty nice out of the box. (I am tempted though to give them a wash or two and maybe some highlights.)

Game also comes with four miniature towers on Clix -bases. These towers represent cities that you can conquer in the game once you get powerful enough to take them on.

Tower:

Again, a drop of wash would show the details a bit better. These towers are on Clix-bases, the number showing the difficulty -level of the current city.

The cards, as I allready said are printed on a pretty thin cardstock so you might want to sleeve them. Artwork on the cards in my opinion is very nicely done.


Game is being played on hexacon tiles, which you place once you explore the land further. These tiles also have nice artwork, and they are of good quality and thick cardstock.

Map:

Game also comes with a lot of other stuff that I am not going to go on detail here, such as a bunch of tokens, custom dices, plastic crystals, etc. Everything in the box is of nice quality in my opinion, although nothing extraordinary.

All in all I am happy about my purchase components-wise, and I have a feeling I end up liking the game as these kinds of games usually interest me.
That being said I haven't actually played the game yet, so I can't give a deeper analysis just yet. If this is something you fancy, check out more about the game on boardgamegeek.com.


TabletopCop

Small update on what's going on

Uh. Been very busy with the work lately so I haven't gotten anything finished. Therefore I apologize for the lack of pictures lately. :/

Two more days at work and then I have some more spare time to put some paint on. I have a few ongoing projects that I hope I can finish soon and post pictures.

On boardgames, I have something planned also. I placed and order on the much praised: Mage Knight, which from what I read allready sold out again. The first print run sold out in less than three weeks, and the second print apparently got preordered before it had a proper chance to get to shelves.
Surely though there are some retailers that bough a bunch of copies, so I am sure there are still many places left where you can order it.
Hopefully I get the game soon. When I do I'l take some pics also. I'm pretty sure I'l end up pimping the miniatures that come with the game. :)

Secondly, I finally got a word that my copy of Super Dungeon Explore -should be on it's way to me at the end of this month. I placed an order at the end of 2011. So it's a game that I have been waiting for a while now, and I can't wait to put some paint on those miniatures. (and play the game as well) :)

I also took part in the open beta of Diablo 3 a while back, and man was I hooked. I am now eagerly waiting for the 15.5 release.. I have a CE -edition of the game preordered and I plan on spending a few spare days with the game when it launches.

But for now I feel like my cat...

... so I am off to bed.

I'l keep you posted, thanks for looking!


TabletopCop

Pimp up your boardgames!

I'm a sucker for quality components on boardgames, and games that have nice miniatures or other cool components often catch my eye.

I also have a habit of pimping up my boardgames. I usually try to spend fairly little time in painting boardgame-components, and just give them a basic tabletop quality. Still often due to the sheer amount of pieces I always fail miserably in getting everything done.


Anyway, here is a few examples of my tuned components:



Ghost Stories:

Just a quick paintjob on the monks made them come alive nicely. Just used basic basecolors and then dipped them. (Even though I'm not a fan of dipping, I find that it works pretty well on boardgames as you can get a lot done fairly fast, and dipping gives a very hard and durable coating on the figures).


Cyclades:

Just a quick paintjob on the Kraken. As usual I have yet to paint rest of the miniatures. :)




Battlestar Galactica:

Ok, this was more like a prototype so to speak. I ended up not doing this to every ship in the game mostly just because the cost of the bases was pretty high. Eventually I just primed the ships in black and drybrushed some metal on them.


World of Warcraft - the boardgame:

Wow - the boardgame holds a special place in my heart. My girlfriend bought it for me as a present when she saw me eyeing it in a store. It was one of the first boardgames in my collection.
The box is huge and full of stuff. So huge infact that it doesn't fit on my shelf where I hold rest of my boardgames. As a game it's pretty fun also if you have the right group. Just make sure you have a lot of time when you brake this bad boy open. :p



Last Night on Earth:

All the zombies are painted!

Painted heroes, although I have two more heroes two finish. After that I have the whole basegame painted up. :)
btw: Very nice and fast/light game if you like the zombie-theme. I have played this with gamers and non-gamers and it has been a hit with both!


Mansions of Madness:

One of my newest boardgame-projects. Finished all the heroes pretty fast. Again, basecoated and dipped but this time took a bit more time with them.

Hope you enjoyed!


TabletopCop

Overview: Nexus Ops

More boardgames!

Haven't had the time to play these in a while, but there are several games that have catched my eye. Actually there's two upcoming games that I might end up buying when they are published soon.

But for now, I picked up Nexus Ops a while back as I got it pretty cheap. From what I've read it's also a very fun and fast game. I haven't yet had a game though. :/

Anyway, here are some pics and overall impressions of the components:

Box:

As you can see this is the newer edition of Nexus Ops from Fantasy Flight games, and the game is for 2-4 players. Box is the regular FFG-sized one also found on most of their games. Game includes quite a lot of components, but the box itself is still pretty big for what is included.
(I would personally prefer to get boxes that would barely fit the components as this would save a lot of space. This just seems pointless to have an oversized box with a cardboard insert).

Tiles:

Made of good quality cardstock. Artwork is nice also, although I have read about quite a few people saying that it's too "cluttered". I don't know, I like these.


Miniatures:

Miniatures are nicely sculpted. Biggest surprice with them was just how small they are. From the promo pictures you easily get a sense of bigger figures.
Soldiers are tiny little guys, but the bigger ones are few times their size.

Quite a few of the thinner parts of the miniatures are pretty bend up as one would except, but nothing major. These are made of the same "soft" plastic as most FFG:s miniatures lately so It's easy to just bend them back to normal position without breaking them.

Game also comes with two packs of cards and some tokens. One pack of cards is the regular sized cards, and the other one is the small cards that are used in many of FFG:s games. Ofcourse as this is FFG:s game these both are also made of quality cardstock.

Overall Im eager to finally get this one to the table. Should be quick, fun and a tactical game. :)