I love board games.
I love everything about them—the strategy of the mechanics,
the competition of your opponents, the camaraderie of a good group of gaming
friends, and yes, even the fickle nature of Luck as it makes or breaks a crucial
dice roll, seemingly on a whim.
Everything from Chess to trivia, from Monopoly to Risk, and deep
into the specialty board games that require a trip to the local game store—I
love them all!
I’m a sucker for Meeples, and I’m down with chits, counters,
cards, and colored resource cubes, but what I really love are miniatures. Lucky
for me there are an ever-increasing number of publishers that are producing
high-quality miniatures-based board games.
I only have one problem: I hate playing with unpainted
miniatures!
Going back twenty years to the start of my tabletop gaming
days, I’ve always hated the thought of fielding anything other than fully
painted miniatures; cringing whenever I had to rush a figure onto the
battlefield before I could give it its painting dues. And that notion has
steadily crept into my board gaming life of today.
These days, I’m pretty much a strict board game
player—miniatures board games especially. Mansions of Madness, Last Night on
Earth, Mice and Mystics; if there’s a board and a figure to play on it, 9 times
out of 10, I’m in. Now, if GW rebooted a skirmish game like Realm of Chaos with
a genuine rulebook…I might come back to the table, but the best I can do within
that particular share of the gaming market is Blood Bowl (one of my all-time
favorite games).
It’s not that I won’t play
with unpainted minis, it’s that I don’t
like to play with them—and why would I want anything to get in the way of
fully enjoying a gaming experience?
I won’t begrudge others with not sharing this viewpoint, and
I don’t require other gamers to put in the time and effort it takes to fully
paint their miniatures just to satisfy my lunacy, but for myself, I’ve become
obsessed with the concept of playing with fully realized and finished figures.
So, I’ve decided to paint my way through my stack of
miniatures board games.
I’ve always loved the visceral experience of painting,
modeling, and converting gaming miniatures, and the fact that whether you’re a
beginner or an expert, painting and customizing minis is a personal experience
that connects you as a gamer, with the game itself.
But, not everyone feels the same, and I get that.
Some people just don’t have the time or the talent (I’m
certainly no expert), and some purists might argue that a well-sculpted mini
can stand on its own (because, after all, does Michelangelo’s David, or the
Venus de Milo really need a paintjob to make them beautiful?).
I totally concede the point that for board games, painting
minis is entirely unnecessary to enjoy the game. However, since I enjoy the
hobby aspect of painting and modeling…for my own games, I’m on a mission.
So what will you find in this blog?
Well, if you decide to keep tuning in, you’ll basically find
my exploits in painting and modeling miniatures from such games as Mansions of
Madness, Mice and Mystics, Castle Ravenloft, and many more, but I also have
plans to convert my way through a few Blood Bowl teams I’ve been wanting to
play for a long time, plus a few surprises here and there which should prove to
be an interesting list of projects.
