11th February 2024: I Actually Painted Some Things
It's been a long time since I really knuckled down and painted something, but just before Christmas, Scoob's enthusiasm for his new Nid army started to stir the desire in me again.
I first painted some more of the Epic Evil Sunz. Those poor Orks. I just keep teasing them with the possibility of finally being finished, and then move on to something else.
Case in point, rather than carry on with the little Orks, I instead switched my attention to the Callidus Assassin that I'd stripped of paint and shoddy green stuff a few years ago.
To make up for my horrendous first effort at painting this model, I thought I should really try this time, and painted her up about as good as I am capable. It doesn't really mean much, as it's still not great, but I'm happy enough with the end result.
After painting that model, which was my first 40K model in some years, I moved on to something entirely different. For some reason, I felt like painting the character figures from my old copy of Cluedo: Super Sleuth, which is a game I've owned since the 1990s and have never played. At the same time as painting those, I thought I may as well paint the four detectives from the City Of Angels game as well.
Here's my Callidus Assassin, Xenia Koza, back and ready for action.
I've only managed a gloss varnish so far, which is why she's so shiny. I'll get around to the matt at some point.
Probably.
Still not sure why I felt such an urge to paint these, as I've never used them and maybe never will.
But I used to really love Cluedo as a kid, and they will be ready on the very small chance that they will ever be needed again.
What a bunch of dicks!
Still can't wait to get this game to the tabletop and use the full rules. Hopefully, the other players will be as interested in it as I was.
Can't believe it's been three years already since I played through the solo variant. Holy shit.
Not long ago, I had a look online if there were any good print & play games available. One that popped up on a few people's lists was a little game called Sprawlopolis.
For some weird reason, I thought print & play games were all free, but it turns out I was very mistaken. Still, this one was only £3, and looked interesting, so I picked it up.
The game has you placing cards to form a city, and then see how well you did depending on three randomly selected scoring conditions.
In my first game, I needed to get a total of 31 points in order to win, and I managed a very comfortable 38.
Thinking I'd already cracked the game, I had a second attempt. The scoring conditions were Master Planned, Concrete Jungle, and The Outskirts, meaning I needed just 16 points to win this time.
In a polar opposite outcome to the first game, I only managed a measly 7 points, leading to complete failure.
With one win and one loss under my belt, I then played a 3 player game where we had to get 25pts in order to win. We only got 3 combined points from two of our scoring conditions, but the third one, called Looping Lanes, allowed us to score a whopping 30 points, and brought our total to 37.
It's a fun, quick little game that really makes you think. Not sure how much play it will get in group situations, but there's always the option for more solo play.
Strange that Master Planned has rocked up as one of my scoring conditions in all three of my games. I wonder if I'll ever get to see the city blocks on the other side of that card.
Just yesterday I got to play my first ever game of 7 Wonders, the card-drafting, civilisation-building classic, that seems very well regarded amongst board gamers.
The basics of the game were easy to pick up, and though we realised later that we'd made a simple rules error, we were soon quite into it.
What was quite interesting to note is that we all went with very different tactics in order to try and win. I went a very science route, while my bro-in-law went very trade-heavy, building up his treasure, and my sister went almost full military.
While I came last, we were all within 5 points of each other, which we were quite impressed by.
I'm looking forward to playing it with a couple more players, so that everyone can't interact with everyone else.