I played it once at GenCon the year it was released. I really liked it, but for some reason never picked up a copy.
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This could be a very dark rabbit hole that I could embark down but my son loves his army men and action figures and I’m wondering what the best beginner miniatures games are. I think he might like using allowance money to buy figures and he may like painting them as well. I am happy to bring him to the game store and let him browse the Warhammer stuff but I don’t know any of the rule sets. I very well may not end up doing this, but if I do I’d like to go in at least a little informed.
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If you’re thinking about citadel games, they have a line of low-cost, low-complexity starter games which, in the US, are Barnes and Noble exclusives. Blitz Bowl seems to be the most beloved of them, but we’ve had fun with Fireteam and Labyrinth of the Necrons. Unlike “real” miniature games, they have boards with discrete spaces, so there’s no measuring or templates to muck with.
I wouldn’t discount the joy of walking into a game store, looking at a big wall of minis, and letting the kid choose something cool to bring home and paint. If you end up with a few of those and minis from other board games painted up which you don’t mind them playing with, kids imaginations can run pretty wild. I was kind of disappointed with Mice and Mystics, but the minis have done terrific duty as playthings (come to think of it, I’m not sure we ever even played a full game of Tail Feathers, which looked like a fascinating take on the X-Wing/Wings of Glory style of game, but its minis were even more attractive as toys, so toys they immediately became). Gives you a bit of reason to make terrain you might later use in something like Frostgrave or an RPG, without fussing too much about it (which seems to me like the ideal attitude to have when it comes to wargame or miniature terrain—great pieces are a delight, but perfectionism tends to be counterproductive).
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You can count me in the camp that thinks there are too many magic sets, too much power creep, and too many crossovers that cheapen the brand.
But the Lord of the Rings set is blowing my mind. The lands that have maps of Middle-Earth are amazing!
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I hadn’t heard of that! I think I’m doomed to buy a box.
Yeah, it comes out in June. They only just revealed cards for the one ring, Gandalf, and lands, but the whole set is LotR. I’m doomed to buy a lot of the set, I think.
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Hrmph…I already bought the 4 Commander Decks based on a Warhammer 40k crossover…and hadn’t had a chance to play with those…
[shakes fist at LotR set]
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If you have younger teens (or even kids in general), this is a great game to play with them:
The Initiative.
The review does a great job of explaining everything. It has cyphers and a campaign. And the campaign is actually a story. The game changes and there are real surprises. Will you be surprised? The review explains that as a jaded older man who has tons of board game experience, he was not. On the other hand, I have been surprised and tickled to watch our teen discover them.
We’ve been playing it with out 13 year old, who is a typical grumpy 13 year old that doesn’t really want to do anything but be on his phone. Except he just asked us to play this game last night. Again. It is so wonderful to watch him figure things out and solve problems.
Highly recommend! This is making board game and quality time memories.
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There are places to ask this where I’d get more responses but I know we have some painters here. It’s been a while since I’ve dabbled and I think over spring break I’m going to take the kids to the game store, let them pick a mini, then work on painting with them. I’ve got my paints and palettes and stands and sticky tac and all that but I think I need to refresh my brush supply. I would also like to get them their own brushes. I would also like to spend as little as possible. So generally, if you could boil it down to a couple essentials, what would they be? A medium top for broader strokes, a fine tip for detail, and a wash brush?
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I have painted so many miniatures that I feel like I ought to be able to say something smart here. But, mostly, I think about brushes in the categories of “the big one”, “the pointy one”, “the really small one for eyes” (which sometimes gets replaced with a toothpick shaved to a sharp point for pupils), and “shitty old brushes”.
I will say that the Reaper brush I got was very good for its price, and it might be reasonable for each child to have one.
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Those descriptions are exactly what I needed, lol.
I’ve got some reaper brushes, but they are going to keep their grubby little hands off them until they show me they can be patient enough to make an honest attempt at the hobby. I let my sone try painting one when he was 5 just for fun while I worked on some dragons and he turned a troll into some tie dye blotchy monstrosity.
They are older now, though, so here’s hoping.
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Wasn’t sure where to ask this, but since it relates to physical games, here seems like a good spot:
Does anyone use any nice collection tracking apps for any of their things? I used Decked Builder for my Magic collection, which I quite like. I’d love similar apps for my other collectible games.
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I use this for pretty much everything board games.
I use it to track play sessions, my collection, “Challenges” like “Play X games X times in a year”, and deep play stats analytics.
The challenges and insights IAPs were essential for me, but I don’t see any use for the “tagging” one, at least how I manage my collection.
Also has some really nice sync with BGG features to make it super easy, and can import games played on Board Game Arena, Yucata, as well as track games played in person. I track all my in person and BGA games with it.
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If you just want collection tracking. Something like this might work as well.
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The ones I’ve tried have only been for sports cards, but there are a couple I know about:
A few of my subscribers have mentioned it to me as something they like for Pokemon because it helps them track values and enables selling right on the site. Looking at it, it’s not as robust as some of the sports card ones I’ve tried, but it looks like it does the job. Several of them also use the Carddex as well, but I think that might be more geared towards deck building?
The developer BigAR has been involved in this space for over 5 years now, though I’ve never used any of their apps:
I don’t really use these kinds of things, honestly, so I can’t speak from personal experience–my collection is embarrassingly disorganized, though, so maybe I should get on board!
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What do you use for sports cards? I have boxes and boxes I would love to organize and track as well.
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Among those that I tried, I liked this one:
Really clean visual interface, graphs, and updated very regularly. The focus is more on tracking values through time, so that may not be as appealing to you, especially since it is not free.
This one is semi-free:
It’s also very professional like CardLadder, has nice graphs, etc, and it has a basic (free) tier, or a paid one where you can sort of track and research stuff based on different criteria.
Lastly, if you just want something free that you can use on your phone:
I found this really basic, but it is pretty effective if you’re not looking for any bells and whistles.
Depending on what era your sports cards are from, it may not be worth entering them all into a database like this. By and large, cards from the mid-80s and 90s are extremely plentiful, and the vast majority of them do not have much value in raw, ungraded condition. If you want to tell me about what you have, I can easily guide you on what to expect (if you want). My channel is focused on trading cards, and I am pretty active in that community : )
I’m not as concerned about value, though I certainly like to see what some cards are worth. My cards are mainly 80s-90s and primarily baseball, though I also have quite a few basketball and some NFL and NHL. Most of my rarer cards I’ve kept in hard plastic and I have most of the MLB upper deck boxes from 90-98, but those I’ve kept in their boxes.
My interest is primarily just to have a list of what I have, and the more searchable the better.
I’ve done it with M:TG, I have a home inventory with the MyStuff app, but many of my collectibles need some good database-ing. I’d like to do the same with my HeroClix, Pokémon TCG, WoW TCG, Dice Masters, etc. I could always use MyStuff for any one of those but I do like the dedicated apps that are designed for whatever specific thing you are collecting.
Following up on the Lord of the Rings Magic set announcement, they’ve also now announced that they are printing a single copy of a One Ring card that is foil with unique art and the Mordor script.
Imagine the bloodbath when some Friday Night Magic guy opens that pack in a draft…
This isn’t quite an “Actual Table” post, but since most people who use Boardgame Geek do tabletop board games, I thought it might be appropriate.
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