Sunday 28 May 2017

Painting Guide - One Minute Walls

Before we begin, I have a minor confession... this isn't a guide for painting walls in one minute. I just needed a catchy title to grab your attention. However, this is a guide for an incredibly fast way to paint any stone scenery for tabletop miniatures games, including houses, ruins, statues, and pillars, so I thought the title was close enough.

And, you know... it's a painting guide... I'm allowed a little creative licence, aren't I?

This is only my second painting article, and I'm still playing with the format. My first effort was a bit difficult to follow, and the pictures weren't great. Let's see if I can do better this time, as we step through the process for painting a wonderful wonderwall.

(Dammit. Wonderwall. That's the title I should have used.)

Close up photograph showing the detail on a painted Games Workshop wall.


Why are we painting a wall? Because Games Workshop's Age of Sigmar skirmish rules hit stores yesterday, and while I'm waiting for my copy to arrive in the post I thought it was time to finish off some of the old scenery bits I had lying around. This is actually a section of wall from the bloody lovely Fortified Manor kit, which I've had for years. The painting process for this component is very simple, so if you already have experience with painting miniatures, you probably won't find anything new or interesting here (sorry!).

Thursday 11 May 2017

Review - Jim Henson's Labyrinth: The Board Game

Designed by Alessio Cavatore
Published by River Horse Ltd
For 1-5 players (but really 1-4 players) aged 6 to adult


The box art for Jim Henson's Labyrinth: The Board Game, showing the titular maze.


I want to start this review by saying, "Thank you," to two people who will never read it: Jim Henson and David Bowie.

I want to say, "Thank you," for the immeasurable joy they brought into my life.

I want to say, "Thank you," for being two people who made the world better by being a part of it.

But most of all, I want to say, "Thank you," because I really want to start my review by saying something positive. Lord knows, from this point out, I'm not going to have a lot of opportunities, because...

(Spoilers...)

Jim Henson's Labyrinth: The Board Game is terrible.

In fact, I'd go further than that. I would say it's a failure.

Wednesday 10 May 2017

With a Little Help from My Friends

I'm taking a quick break from your (ir)regular (not exactly) scheduled programme to talk a little bit about Always Board Never Boring as a product. Bear with me here, I'll try to keep it brief...

I started this blog back in 2012, with the intention of using it to catalogue my collection of out-of-production board games. Since then, I've expanded the remit considerably, and I've published articles on many new and old games. Recently I've ended up talking quite a lot about Games Workshop products and started introducing more articles relating to hobby aspects such as painting and miniature conversions.

Monday 1 May 2017

Shadow War: Armageddon - Building a Cadian Kill Team

Having previously published my thoughts on building space marine scout and ork boyz kill teams, I thought I would make a trilogy (I'm into that sort of thing) with a piece on cadian kill teams.This is ostensibly because the rules book that came in the Shadow War: Armageddon starter box included rules for those three factions; but the main reason is I just happened to have a unit of 10 cadians lying around from years ago, which I was intending to use in Space Hulk.

Fortunately, I have a bit of a fondness for the humble cadians anyway. I think they represent Games Workshop at their satirical best. There's something darkly funny and harrowingly bleak about over-the-top heroes that look like they've stepped out of propaganda posters leading a near limitless number of cattle-like soldiers into a meat grinder with the intentions of drowning the enemy in the resulting slurry.

It's also a concept that gives 40K it's most recognisably human element. These poor bastards aren't superhuman gene-spliced warrior monks or blood-hungry aliens. They're just people.

Just us.