Category Archives: Board Games

Board Game Blues: The Miniatures

I promised a closer look at some of the miniatures featured in my (mostly unplayed) board games, and here they are.

First, the eight heroes from Touch of Evil. These are some nice miniatures, roughly 28mm scale, suitable for any gaslight setting. The definition is much better than my blurry photography would suggest.

I like these a lot, and it wouldn’t be an overwhelming project to get them painted if I could just park my ass at my painting desk for more than five minutes at a stretch. Up next, the miniatures from Batman: Gotham City Under Siege:

L-R: Catwoman, Batgirl, Robin, Batman, and Commissioner Gordon and Officer Montoya. This game is based on The Animated Series, in case that’s not obvious from the sculpts. Painting these will be fun, and I’m definitely going to do it soon. I really like the Gordon/Montoya miniature. Too bad there’s no Detective Bullock.

Marvel: United! is a game that got a lot of hype when it released, mainly for the cute miniatures:

L-R: Black Widow, Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Storm (with mohawk!)…

L-R: Venom (odd choice), Ant Man and the Villains: Red Skull, Taskmaster and Ultron. This game was a Cool Mini Or Not Kickstarter, and it funded quickly and with a ton of stretch goals, which were additional miniature sets that you could not purchase anywhere else. As a result, there are additional miniatures for this game that sell for ridiculous amounts of money on the secondary market. I picked up this core box at Wal-Mart for $15, IIRC, and that’s about as much as I want to spend on this game. Do I really need a cute Fantastic Four expansion? Not for $140 I don’t.

Wonder Woman: Challenge of the Amazons has some awesome miniatures, well worth the $10 I paid for this game at Ollie’s. Like the Batman game above, this is on my short list of projects to paint (for whatever that’s worth nowadays).

Look at this sculpt of Diana. Freakin’ sweet, right?

Mansions of Madness has some amazing miniatures, all scaled at 32mm. Here’s a shot of some of the investigators and a couple of monsters, but the big Eldritch Horrors contained in this box aren’t featured on the box itself, which is a shame because my box remains sealed at the moment. This would be a big project to paint, and TBH I don’t know if I have it in me. I played the game before and it’s a lot of fun, but I think this may languish forever in the unpainted pile of shame, much like Space Hulk.

And now we reach game expansions for games I do not own (and never will), purchased solely for the miniatures contained inside. These were deeply discounted clearance items at Miniature Market (I paid $6 for the Solomon Kane expansion, a game that I’d actually purchase if the core set wasn’t prohibitively expensive).

First, some expansions for The Others, a game I know nothing about but one that has some cool futuristic/horror/pulp figures, as seen below.

Next: the aforementioned Solomon Kane expansion: Castle of the Devil. I’d say $2 a miniature is about right, especially when one of them is whatever the hell that thing is supposed to be. It almost made it into Monster May(hem) this year.

Finally, a couple of expansions for Yashima, an Asian fantasy-themed game. I like the miniatures, and I have a long -stalled Legend of the Five Rings/Samurai project that I will likely never get to, so I bought these because they’re cool. I think I paid $2 apiece for these expansions during one of Miniature Market’s “up to 90% off” clearance sales.

A couple more games bought solely for the miniatures, although both of these seem very playable: Journey: Wrath of Demons and Age of Thieves.

These are the heroes from Journey. I think this makes the third or fourth Sun WuKong miniature that I own.

These are the bad guys. IIRC, some of the demons are anatomically correct, which may offend some folks who don’t like dicks on their miniatures.

Above are the miniatures from Age of Thieves. You get 24 of the blue guards, which are quite serviceable for town guards (because that’s what they are). The other four are the thief characters you play in the game. Some cool character concepts here.

And that about rounds out my board game pile of shame. Hoping to get back into painting soon, but for whatever reason I’ve lost my mojo again. I seem to be incapable of choosing colors anymore, or for painting more than five minutes at a stretch. It’s not worth the time to set everything up. Any of you ever have this problem?

Board Game Blues Part 2: The Unplayed Games

Continuing on with my massive pile of board gaming shame, here are six from Ravensburger: Alien: Fate of the Nostromo, Wonder Woman: Challenge of the Amazons: Indiana Jones: Sands of Adventure, Horrified, The Shining, and Jaws. You can follow the links above to see the painted miniatures for these games. Wonder Woman also comes with four surprisingly good miniatures, one of Diana herself and her four Amazon friends, that I hope to paint soon. I’ve played Alien: FotN before and very much enjoyed it. Ravensburger does some high-quality games that are well-reviewed. Although I hope to play all these games, the one I’m most looking forward to is Jaws. It has a reversible board: one side is Amity Island and the surrounding waters, the other side is Quint’s boat, the Orca. One player plays the shark, while up to three more players take on the role of Brody, Quint and Hooper. The first part of the game the shark tries to attack swimmers while the other players try to tag it with barrels and pinpoint its location. Then, play moves to the Orca, as the players defend the boat from the shark as it begins to dimantle it piece by piece. Sounds fun, right?

More games I hope to play, since I painted all the miniatures for these games, too: Dungeon Saga: The Dwarf’s King’s Quest, and Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps. Hard to believe Simon, Roger and I painted the Dwarf King’s Quest miniatures as a shared challenge waaaay back in September, 2018. Not so hard to believe that I haven’t ever played it since then. Not once.

More games I hope to play one day, but as yet remain untouched. Marvel: United, Batman: Gotham City Under Siege, and A Touch of Evil. Since I didn’t really look at these beyond checking out the miniatures, I can’t say how they play. I’ve heard good things about all of them, and the miniatures for them all are really great. I’m not a big fan of chibi-style art, but even I have to admit the Marvel miniatures are cute. The is the base set of Marvel: United, which was available at Wal-Mart. There are many expansions to this game that were all part of the original Kickstarter; to my knowledge that was the only way to get some miniatures and they go for insane amounts on the secondary market as a result. I’m fine with the basic box as I doubt I’ll ever play it. A Touch of Evil got pretty good reviews and has some excellent miniatures despite the goofy box art, and Batman is Batman. What’s not to like?

Two I’ve played, five I havent. I have played both the games in the bottom of this picture: House of Danger and Red November. House of Danger is based on the old Choose Your Own Adventure book series. It was fun, but replay value is somewhat limited once you “solve” the story. It’s my understanding new CYOA board games have been released, but this is a purchase I regret. Red November is a small Fantasy Flight game wherein you take on the roles of drunken gnomes aboard a sinking submarine. The pace is hectic as you race to put out fires, pump water, fight off a Kraken and try not to go down with the ship. It’s fun as hell!

I bought Pac-Man because I though it would be an easy game to pass the time during the pandemic. Never played it and got a sideways look for even suggesting it. The Walking Dead was another discounted pandemic purchase. I have no idea why I bought it, because it’s based on the comic, not the TV show, and I’ve never read the comic. I’ve also never played the game.

I picked up NInjato on the discount rack at my FLGS about ten years ago, because you get to play ninjas. I’ve never played it because I can’t understand the rules and haven’t bothered to look up any relevant YouTube videos. Dune: Imperium is a highly rated game that was released around the same time as two other Dune board games, one by Gale Force Nine and one that tied into the recent movies. This game is a deck-building game that combines elements of resource management. You take on the role of one of the Great Houses. Your goal, of course, is to control Arrakis and crush your enemies. Sounds really great, and I’ve never played a deck-building game, so I hope I get to play this one one day. It also has several expansions. Finally, First Martians is a cooperative game of colonization. That’s about all I know about it, other than it has an integrated app, which will most likely disappear after this game is discontinued if it hasn’t already. That makes this a poor choice for purchase and play, but I did it anyway because I didn’t know about the app before I bought the game.

Two I’ve had (but never played) for a long time: They Come Unseen by Osprey and Khronos by Rio Grande Games. They Come Unseen is hide and seek with nuclear submarines, played on two separate boards, one for the surface and one for the depths. I posted about this game on my Instagram account back when I bought it and it caught the attention of the game’s creator, a former Royal Navy sub commander who was quite pleased that I was interested in playing it. Sadly, I still haven’t done so. Khronos seems to be a confusing time-travel game in which things you do in the past affect things that will happen in the future, but the reverse could also be true. Since I picked up this pristine copy at a flea market for 3 dollars, I didn’t really care if I played it or not. I figured I could always sell it for way more than 3 dollars. Maybe I could, but shipping it anywhere would cost a stupid amount of money, so I’m stuck with it.

And finally, the games I simply have no excuse for purchasing, as I will never play them: Conspiracy: The Solomon Gambit, Dojo Kun, The Village Crone, Cutthroat Kingdoms, Five Points: Gangs of New York, and The Rose King.

Conspiracy: TSG is an updated version of the classic game, where you take on the role of a spy trying to get a briefcase back to your own country. The other players are trying to do the same thing with the same briefcase, so it’s not a cooperative game. Cutthroat Kingdoms and Five Points are similar in that they are political resource management games as you vie with the other players for control of the Kingdom or Five Points. New York, respectively. The Rose King is a two-player game that is meant to emulate the War of the Roses, with one player taking the role of York and the other Lancaster. You play cards to acquire and control space on the board. Dojo Kun is a game about kung-fu, which is why I bought it at Ollie’s. It’s a CoolMiniorNot game, which means it was probably abandoned shortly after release, hence me finding it at Ollie’s on deep discount. You train your fighters to take part in tournaments for a season, then actually compete in the tournaments. Like I said, poor purchase choices all around, as I’ll probably never play these and would play something higher up in this post instead if I had the opportunity.

Next up: a coda of sorts to Board Game Blues, in which I look at the miniatures from these games.

Board Game Blues: Part 1: Games I’ve Played

This is my gaming table. There are many like it, but this one is mine. I rarely use it for gaming, at least with other humans. I normally use it as a platform upon which my stuff accumulates, until I get yelled at or break down and tidy up. I did the latter recently, and was left with a spotless platform from which to exhibit the ridiculous amount of board games I’ve bought, most within the last 5 years. The dimensions of this table are 6′ by 4′. I say that so you can look at the picture above, and understand that all my board games are not shown in there.

I have a lot of board games, some with miniatures, some not. I acquired most of these during the pandemic, when spending money on stuff made me feel a little better about the world ending while our leaders (well, one anyway) said vaccines are untrustworthy but injecting bleach into yourself is the way to go. Anyway, this post is about those games, why I bought them, whether or not I played them, whether or not I hope to, whether or not I think I ever will, and whether or not I regret the purchase.

Disclaimer: I have been taught (and I agree) that it is gauche to flaunt one’s wealth. That’s not what this post is about. While board games are not cheap, I am most certainly not wealthy. Most of these games were not purchased for full price, but rather at deep discounts and on clearance from Miniature Market and Amazon. While I bought some of these games because I found them affordable at the time, it doesn’t mean I should have.Think of me as the poster boy for poor impulse control and fiscal irresponsibility rather than Richie Rich (who is the single worst cartoon character ever, and that includes Woody Woodpecker, who is an absolute kick in the balls every fucking time).

Let’s start with a game I purchased well before the pandemic, one I’ve actually played a lot and one I enjoy so much I went all in on it. This is Arkham Horror (2nd edition) by Fantasy Flight Games. My understanding is there is a very popular third edition out now, and it plays differently and contains miniatures. Still not enough for me to buy it, as I never even play this edition anymore. It’s a lot of fun, but like many games nowadays it takes forever to set up.

Two more Cthulhu-themed games from Fantasy Flight: Mansions of Madness (lots of awesome miniatures in here) and Elder Sign. Although my copy of Mansions of Madness is still in the shrink-wrap (a pandemic purchase), I have played the game at a friend’s house. I remember it being fun, but we lost. Elder Sign is a game where you roll special dice to get matching results to defeat challenges. It’s ok, but the mobile app game is better and plays faster. I think I played the board game once.

Another one I went all in on, and another one that takes forever to set up: Star Wars: Imperial Assault. The miniatures are great (but expensive) and the “board” is made up of tiles arranged as a map, like Space Hulk. I played it twice, mainly because it takes so long to set up that playing through more than one scenario results in a lot of downtime as the map is broken down and the map for the next scenario is built. It’s fun, but that part is a real bummer. Gameplay is similar to Mansions of Madness, in the sense that you have a clear objective and the enemies are just there to slow you down. I’m steadily working my way through painting the miniatures and expansions for this game, because I need to justify its purchase. I have the core set, Bespin Gambit and Twin Shadows expansions completed along with all the blister releases that coincide with the boxed sets, and I’m presently working on Return to Hoth. The boxed sets on the right above are still in the wrap. These got cheap once Fantasy Flight discontinued Imperial Assault and focused on Legion, so I bought most of the expansion boxes during lockdown. Will I play it again? I hope so. It would be fun to play with painted miniatures.

Speaking of Space Hulk, here’s the 2009 third edition that I purchased in 2009. I love Space Hulk and I love this version, but I haven’t played much of it because I wanted to paint the miniatures first. Sixteen years later, I haven’t painted a single one. The miniatures are exceptional sculpts, but sadly, the Terminators are Blood Angels (my least favorite chapter, as I hate red) and I painted so many Genestealers back in the 90’s that I am unenthused to paint any more. Will I play it? Maybe. It’s fun. But unpainted miniatures irk me.

Last, another pre-pandemic purchase that I’ve played a few times: Marvel Heroes, again by Fantasy Flight. Tough to find now. You take the role of one of the superhero teams (Avengers, Fantastic Four, X-Men and the Marvel Knights) and also take the role of one of your opposing team’s nemesis. Your objective is to complete missions while your nemesis seeks to mess with you and complete their own schemes. The miniatures are pre-painted and pretty nice, but the rulebook is hard to understand. IIRC, there’s a multi-page FAQ that addresses unclear rules. Of course, this document is no longer available anywhere since Fantasy Flight lost the license to this game years ago and no longer supports it. Will I play it again? Sure, if I get a chance. It was fun and doesn’t take forever to set up.

That about wraps up part one. There are other games I own that I have played, but they’re lumped in pictures with games I haven’t, so I’ll address them individually in a later post.

I took the month of July off unintentionally. Just seemed to fly by. I haven’t painted any miniatures since my last Forgotten Heroes submission. One of my miniatures that I planned for Monster May(hem) is still sitting on my painting table, halfway done. I really should get back to him.

Halloween Horrors

My painting output for 2024 has been somewhat dismal, but I managed to get eight miniatures done this month. Because of the season, I chose to focus on some spooky-themed minis.

First up, a miniature I’m certain many of you will recognize: Isabella Von Carstein, by Games Workshop. I’ve had this miniature since her release in the early 90’s, back when Warhammer Fantasy Undead weren’t split into two armies (Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings). It was just Undead back then. I recall not liking the miniature all that much, and if I recall, her points cost didn’t justify using her in the army, therefore she has languished unpainted these few decades.

As I was painting her last night and this morning, she began to grow on me. I kind of like her now. Maybe it’s because she’s the only Fantasy miniature I’ve painted all year. (Still need to do that dragon.) Aside from painting all the Indiana Jones TSR miniatures and taking part in Monster May(hem) and Forgotten Heroes, I’ve mainly focused on painting miniatures from board games. I did Indiana Jones: Sands of Adventure and Alien: Fate of the Nostromo earlier.

This month I completed Horrified, by Ravensburger Games, released in 2019. This is the original version of the game, featuring the Universal Monsters. There have been several other releases featuring monsters from European and American folklore, one featuring monsters from Greek Mythology, and one featuring Cryptids. Some of the miniatures in those variants are pretty cool, but not cool enough for me to buy the same game more than once, especially since I haven’t played it yet.

Here’s a group shot.

The Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954). One of my favorite Universal Monster movies. This film is 70 years old this year, and watching Julie Adams in a swimsuit still makes my heart flutter, even if it is in black & white.

The Bride of Frankenstein (1935). My favorite miniature in the game. Elsa Lanchester has almost 100 acting credits to her name, yet she could never escape being the Bride of Frankenstein. It’s probably the best Universal Monster movie of all. The 1985 “remake”, The Bride, featuring Sting and Jennifer Beals, is also really good. Plus, it has Clancy Brown as The Monster!

The Wolf Man (1941). I just watched this the other day. If I’ve ever seen it before, it must have been as a young child. It was a bit of a slog, truth be told, even though it’s only a little over an hour long. I didn’t know that Lon Chaney Jr. was such a big guy, nor did I know that Bela Lugosi was in this movie, too!

Dracula (1931). And speaking of Bela Lugosi, he’s my favorite Dracula, although Christopher Lee is a close second. This miniature is good, but it has the annoying trait of being bent forward. I’ve tried to straighten him with the hot water/freezer trick and I thought it worked, but a couple of days later he was bent again. Of course that was after I painted him, so I can’t very well try the hot water thing again.

Frankenstein (1931) I love this sculpt of The Monster. He was also pretty easy to paint. It’s been a few years since I’ve last seen the film, but I remember enjoying it quite a bit. Although nothing like The Monster in Shelley’s novel, Boris Karloff’s portrayal is iconic. I also like the Kenneth Branagh/Robert De Niro remake from 1994. Am I alone?

The Invisible Man (1933). I know Claude Rains was the Invisible Man, but that’s only from Science Fiction Double Feature, the theme song to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I’ve never actually seen this one, not the original, anyway. The 2020 remake featuring Elizabeth Moss was very good. Still, I’m gonna watch this one tonight, because it’s currently on Prime.

The Mummy (1932). A year after he was Frankenstein’s Monster, Boris Karloff was The Mummy. Another one I haven’t seen. Since it’s also on Prime, maybe I’ll go home from work early today and make it a double feature.

I can procrastinate no more. I must get started on my dragon for the Year of the Dragon challenge. At least I have finally decided which dragon I will paint. It’s going to be my main project for November, and then I think I will try to finish up some more board game miniatures before next year.

Hobby Block

Hi. Been a while.

I haven’t posted in a bit, in part because my country is a fucking shitshow right now where everything–most notably democracy–is on the line, and TBH, I’m scared that the future of my country may be orange. And to the asshole who said he “couldn’t help me” and would never come here again after this post, fuck off again. I didn’t need your help then, and I sure as fuck don’t now. I was right. (Still like your hobby stuff, though, even though you’re a fucking ass-hat.)

Anyway, the other part is hobby block. That thing where you can’t find the motivation to do anything at all, and when you do, you second-guess everything from color choices to which miniature I should paint next to whether or not you should be doing anything else, like doom-scrolling or playing endless video games or ignoring your family or just drinking like a fish, or all of the above, as is the case with me.

First, to my friend Dave Stone, I’m sorry I failed your Season of Scenery challenge this year because I painted exactly zero pieces of scenery. I planned to take part, but see above.

Second, to everyone whose blogs I visit, sorry for disappearing. I did manage to chide Carrion Crow for not posting enough beer videos, but that was about it. (If you haven’t watched Jeremy drink beer on video, you should check out his YouTube channel. As a bonus, I got to hear his real voice, so I know now he doesn’t sound like Lenny McLean after all. A bittersweet moment. You shattered my dreams, Jez.)

The last two months have been extremely unproductive for me, hobby-wise. Yet I still managed to paint the miniatures from the board game Alien: Fate of the Nostromo. I actually got to PLAY this game, too; with three of my oldest friends. It’s a good game. Sadly, I painted the miniatures after playing the game, so my friends couldn’t ooh and ahh over my painting genius.

Here’s the crew all together.

Lambert.

Parker.

Dallas.

Brett.

Ripley.

And the Alien.

It’s pretty clear I need some eye clean-up, but I can’t see shit these days.

Now, you may be wondering, what about Kane? What about Ash? What about that fucking cat. Jonesy?

Kane is dead, because The Alien burst out of his chest, so you don’t get to play him in the game for obvious reasons. Ash and Jonesy ARE in the game, but not as playable characters, hence no miniatures. Both of them fuck with you to make your life harder by undoing your progress and stressing you out, respectively.

The game is a lot of fun. It’s cooperative. The players work together to escape the Nostromo before getting killed. We played 3 games and lost 2 of them. It gets more challenging if you play with Ash, but we didn’t do that. I highly recommend it, and not just because it’s the only board game among the dozens I bought during the pandemic that I’ve actually had a chance to play.

I hope to be back to form soon, but who knows. My mental health has never been a concern for me, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t unusually anxious about the state of my country and the world right now. It’s tough to focus on anything.

And I still have a dragon to paint before the end of the year…

Indiana Jones: Sands of Adventure

I picked up this board game not too long ago, and I decided to paint the miniatures as part of my “Paint 100 Miniatures You Already Own Before Buying Anything New” challenge to myself. As of my last post, I had only painted two miniatures so far this year. Pretty dismal output, but hopefully that’s on the upswing.

As you can see, these miniatures aren’t too bad. They’re about 40mm or so, but don’t quote me on that as I didn’t actually measure them. The game is based on the first (and best) Indiana Jones movie: Raiders of the Lost Ark. You can play as Indy, Marion, Sallah, or Marcus Brody (who else were they gonna choose, Jock?).

Here are my painted versions.

I’m mostly happy with them, except I might need to tidy up Indy’s raccoon eyes a bit. The astute among you may notice this game (which I haven’t played) comes with some kind of apparatus for tipping the hourglass, which presumably contains the eponymous Sands of Adventure. I plan on painting this too, maybe as part of the Season of Scenery.

But wait! There’s more! Not one to miss an opportunity, I decided that while I was painting these, I could paint their smaller counterparts, i.e., these old Indiana Jones TSR Miniatures from 1985. After all, I was using the right colors already…

As you can see, most of these miniatures suck. They’re also made of that shitty metal TSR used in their miniatures line. I have railed about this shitty metal before, that it’s prone to metal rot and seemingly defies paint. The miniatures I have are actually rot-free (so far), so I wasted no time in priming and rebasing them.

Anyone else notice Indy can tie his shoes without bending over? Look at the arms on him!

The boxed set contains miniatures from the first two movies. I decided to paint the Raiders miniatures first. I’ll get to Temple of Doom soon. The first three were conveniently also part of the Sands of Adventure game, so I painted them right alongside each other.

Some folks will never have their face melted off for gazing upon the true face of God, and then there’s these three: L-R: Colonel Deitrich, Belloq and Toht. I lost count of how many times I re-primed and painted Toht’s hat brim. Damn thing just didn’t want to accept paint at all.

This little project brought my total painted miniatures this year from 2 to 12 (so far). Still not a great output, but I’m on my way. In other news, I’m also challenging myself to “Read 100 Books You Own Before You Buy Any New Books”. I’m on book 22 so far, and I’m reading stuff that’s been on my to-be-read shelf for years (in some cases, decades), so I seem to be doing better at that.

Season of Scenery 2023: Assets and Hazards

Dave Stone’s Season of Scenery started July 1st, and I’m determined to do SOMETHING this year after sitting out 2022. A while back, I purchased these “Assets and Hazards” objectives from Gale Force 9, for their Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps board game that I still have yet to play (much like almost all the board games I purchased during the pandemic). They’ve been sitting in the box on the sprue ever since, even though I painted all the marine and xenomorph miniatures almost 2 full years ago!

Well, now they’re done. The box contains 16 Weyland-Yutani supply crates, 6 MU-TH-ER computer terminals, 8 alien eggs, 2 sentry guns and 2 face-huggers. Now everything is painted and I have no excuse whatsoever not to play this game. Just need some friends, is all…

One major quibble with this set: there are only 2 face-huggers, and they are fucking fragile as hell, because whoever sculpted them decided standing them on their tail would be a good idea. This is a weak point of contact and is easily prone to breakage. I know because 50% of my face-huggers broke and needed to be repaired. They have 8 fucking legs and run around like spiders. Why not sculpt them like that? That way they won’t break!!!! It’s simple physics, GF9!!!! (mutter mumble grumble).

I plan on completing another project in August, but I just wanted to get this one in the books. Not the most exciting terrain to paint, but it was a quick and easy job and I’m glad it’s done.

Imperial Assault: Bespin Gambit Part 2

Hi there. Remember my last post, where I said that this year, I would do this and that, etc., etc.? Well, just forget that, because I clearly have. My hobby output has been dismal thus far, and I’m tired of making plans I can’t possibly deliver upon.

I guess I’ll paint what I paint this year, and that’s about it.

So, here are the remaining expansions to the Bespin Gambit set for Imperial Assault, starting with some ISB (Imperial Security Bureau) Infiltrators.

These two similar-looking fellows are led by Agent Blaise, who is an ISB Interrogator who supposedly was assigned to Bespin to uncover rebel activity…

…namely, the rebel activity of one Lando Calrissian, Cloud City Administrator.

Lando’s colors are pretty bold, especially compared to how he looked in The Empire Strikes Back. I followed Sorastro’s tutorial for Lando and I love the results.

I’ve barely painted anything this year so far. I managed to finish running my year-long Lamentations of the Flame Princess game earlier this month, and just last weekend I got to talk to Roger on my Discord server again, but that’s about the extent of my hobbying. I’m definitely feeling the disconnect from the hobby community that my unplanned absence has caused, and hope to be able to contribute more soon.

Star Wars Imperial Assault: The Bespin Gambit

As 2022 draws to a close, I regard my hobby efforts this year with melancholy disappointment. All told, I painted 68 miniatures, and I’m unlikely to paint any more before midnight tonight. One thing I was hoping to paint this year was my full set of Star Wars” Imperial Assault: The Bespin Gambit. By “full set” I meant all the miniatures that come in the box, and all the ally and villain expansions released at the same time. Close, but no cigar. A few expansions will have to wait for a future post.

I did manage to do the core set, though, starting with these Bespin Wing Guard. I painted them all the way back in April, but held off on posting them (or any other Star Wars stuff) because I wanted to post the whole set together. Anyway, here they are.

Next: the Ugnaught Tinkerers.

I thought I knew what an Ugnaught looked like, but I had to check source material a bunch of times while painting these guys. Anyway, they have spoken.

Finally, the heroes: Murne Rin, Master of Intelligence.

Ilthorians are my favorite Star Wars race. “Hammerhead” was one of the first Kenner Star Wars figures I ever owned as a kid; and I made an Ilthorian Jedi for the Start Wars RPG back in the day. It was good to see them make a comeback in The Mandalorian.

And speaking of Jedi, here is the other hero from the set: Davith Elso, Codename “Hawkbat.”

Dumb code name. Cool miniature.

Lastly but not leastly, I did manage to paint one expansion, at least…and it’s a good one.

The Trandoshan, the myth, the legend… and the dude on the cover of the box…Bossk! Here he is with the Trandoshan Hunters from the original IA core box set. You’ll note that one is painted as Bossk, because it was before Bossk got his own miniature.

Bossk says: Happy New Year!

Up next, 2023 resolutions!

Imperial Assault, Twin Shadows Part Two: The Heroes and The Hunter

Part Two of my Imperial Assault: Twin Shadows painting is complete, which means I have finished all the miniatures from the boxed expansion and the ally and villain packs released along with it.

There are two rebel heroes in the Twin Shadows boxed set. This is Saska Teft, a combat engineer. As far as I can tell, she makes things blow up pretty good.

The other hero is Biv Bodhrik, the stereotypical “heavy weapons guy.”

Looks like he has some skin problems. Chalk it up to poor layering on my part.

Next, an Ally Pack featuring some familiar faces: R2-D2 (does he even HAVE a face?) and C-3PO.

Another fun fact: I bought this pack twice, because I purchased the first one from “Amazon World Marketplace”. The description said that was based in Great Britain, but the package shipped from Spain, and I got this in the mail: the Italian version. Although the miniatures are the same, all the game materials are in Italian. This is useless to me as I don’t speak or read Italian. So, I put this on eBay, thinking someone else must need it. So far, no one needs it.

Between the primer fiasco and the duplicate droids, this Twin Shadows project was getting fucking expensive.

Like many of my Imperial Assault miniatures, I painted these by following Sorastro’s tutorials on YouTube. I like his tutorials because I often learn new ways of doing things. For example, the gold base color on C-3PO is not gold paint. It’s GW’s Leadbelcher washed with GW’s Seraphim Sepia, then highlighted up. This provides a nice depth of tone and it’s a trick I will absolutely use again, whether I’m painting shields or armor.

Finally: Boba Fett, a bounty hunter who is even cooler than Dog, the Bounty Hunter (didn’t think that was possible, did you?). He’s featured prominently on the box cover and in several Twin Shadows missions; so naturally he’s sold separately. Thanks, Fantasy Flight.

Boba Fett is a great-looking miniature, especially for Imperial Assault, where some of the miniatures are pretty lame (just wait until I get to Ahsoka Tano). Of course, the Star Wars Legion version of Boba Fett is so much better-looking, I try not to think about it lest I get depressed.

That’s it for Twin Shadows, but I have many more Imperial Assault miniatures to go. I’d like to collect the entire run of the game, but that doesn’t seem likely. Two days before I wrote this post, a Grand Admiral Thrawn villain pack sold on eBay for $152.50.

That’s one hundred fifty-two dollars and fifty cents for one plastic miniature. That’s fucking stupid.

It’s ok. I can live without Thrawn for sure. In addition to two more boxed expansions (Return to Hoth and Bespin Gambit), I have 18 more ally and villain packs waiting for my paintbrush. When will I ever get to them all?

That’s what New Year’s resolutions are for…