…and a little bit of that. My hobby brain is all over the place.
Cyclades: Legendary Edition
I haven’t talked about anything on Kickstarter lately because, honestly, there haven’t been many things that compelled me to consider backing them. However, back on June 29, I backed the new Legendary edition of Cyclades, my favorite multi-player board game. Cyclades is a fantastic strategy game, designed by Bruno Cathala and Ludovic Maublanc, that lets you compete for supremacy over the Greek islands using the aid of the Gods, your armies & fleets, and mythical Greek Monsters and Heroes.
With 21 hours left in the campaign by Open Sesame Games, we’re now at 1.1 Million Dollars and closing in on one last mega stretch-goal: the dual monsters of Scylla and Charybdis. There have been several truly terrific new elements introduced into the Legendary edition. I’m excited about it because based on the designer’s notes, it appears to be taking all the best elements of original Cyclades, plus the Hades and Titans expansions, creating one ultimate edition that should be even more satisfying to play. If you have any interest in great strategy board games, then I strongly suggest checking this one out.
Dark Age Archers
I’ve done a little eBaying over the past 2 months, breaking out of a down-cycle of having not purchased much of anything off the auction site. I had been looking for some affordable, painted archers to use for SAGA, but didn’t have much luck on that end. Finally, I came across these Victrix Dark Age archers, which would work for both my Norman and Viking armies. They’ll even see service in some Sword of Severnia fantasy battles as well. Double bonus!
Angels by Another Name
I don’t play Age of Sigmar and I’m generally not a fan of the new wave of GW models for that game. Many of them are too overwrought and baroque for my tastes. But there are some AOS models that I have a soft spot for and perhaps surprisingly, the Stormcast Eternals have a certain appeal to me.
You see, one race/species that’s available as a troop option in Sword of Severnia are Angels. There really isn’t a wide-range of decent models that work there. The Basilean Elohi from Mantic are a really good option. Several of the old HeroScape models also work, but it’s tricky to make multiple regiments from those. When I first saw the Stormcast Eternals for AOS, I thought “these are a cross between holy knights & space marines”. With additional pondering, the idea of using them as Angels in my fantasy games gnawed at the back of my mind. There’s something majestic, radiant, and otherworldly about them.
I wasn’t looking very hard, but one day a 21-figure band of nicely painted Stormcast Eternals flashed their shining gold armor across my screen. The price was right and boom boom — I started humming “Just call me Angel of the morning…” and the rest was history. Thank you Juice Newton.
Thunder Road: Vendetta
I never posted about this board game because I played it a couple of days before we put my beloved cat Jinx to sleep, and well then, my mind was completely elsewhere.
At the tail end of June, me and two of my friends played our very first game of the brand, spanking new Thunder Road: Vendetta. This was a game that I Kickstarted back in early 2022. It’s basically a Mad Max racing game – be the first to cross the finish-line with one of your three cars or be the last survivor.
Initially, we were way too analytical as a group and the game took a couple of rounds to get rolling. Once we realized that the best strategy is Ram-Shoot-Boost-Pray, the Fun Switch was immediately turned on. I had a blast, even when the guys blew my cars to bits and made them crash into rock walls.
Congrats to Bob Heiser, whose little Doom Buggy constantly avoided getting riddled with bullets and who somehow managed to limp across the finish line with the big Eliminator as Kevin Sarnowski’s can’t-hit-an-elephant at 10-feet chopper kept missing. If you like games that generate action and amusing stories, look no further than Thunder Road: Vendetta.
I’m really looking forward to playing this again, hopefully with 4 players next time, as that will be total chaos!
More to Come
I played a Sword of Severnia battle against my good friend Wally Wenklar on July 30. His newly formed Asian fantasy army comprised mostly of Samurai/Ogres/Demons took on my slightly tweaked Norse/Barbarian army (some Ice Trolls joined us this time). I have to see if I have any semi-decent pictures before I post anything (I need to get better at stopping for mid-game snapshots).
We’re also planning to start up regular board-gaming again, with plans to another new-to-us game (Mission: Red Planet) on Thursday night. Fingers crossed!
Until next time… Roll ’em high (unless you’re playing Wars of Ozz)!
Tiny Painted Heroes 