We caught up with friends of ours the other week and had a great game of “Cartographer”. The game was partly print and play and partly home made as the PnP is not complete.

Lots of fun and seeing as the actual game has hand-drawn mapping as the theme, a PnP version changed little.

I felt in the mood for another board game, one that was in my realm of interest, but also very play-able for others.

Two that have been circling for a while are Star Wars Rebellion and The Battle of Five Armies.

Rebellion is a long game and one that needs two reasonably well versed players, but I have heard great things about it. Nick, a gaming friend of huge proportions (in games, not girth….), said after two games, both had come down to the last turn. Rare and precious that.

TBoFA on the other hand is a smaller, shorter game, one I wanted from day one, but when I discovered it, it was long out of print.

Well, it is back and today I will be getting a copy.

The smaller, more tactical cousin of the War of the Ring, I like the theming, scale and time commitment more, so it was a no-brainer. I also like the reviews that pointed out some small refinements were made and the game has deeper combat mechanics.

Painting is the thing that often brings me down with games like this. I find it hard to love a game with nicely done figs, that are unsightly bright red, blue or green*, but on the other hand, I am still only half way through painting Zombicide, so another 100+ figures does not appeal.

Cunning plan.

I think I may try a metallic look for the figs. The “good” side can be silver based, with bright silver for heroes, down to dull metallic-tin for minor players, the baddies can be more dirty-copper-bronze-brass, all with a wash to look like metal collectibles, that should match well with the board graphics and theme. This means the whole lot can be done in a day! If I then want to go further, I can add what is needed to this base cote of metallics.

Not sure till I see it, but it is a plan!

ed. On arrival I am torn. The figs are gorgeous, well moulded and proportioned coming in at about 20mm head to foot (claw), but I think I will still do this, as following through with more detail would be even easier.

*My copy of Cthulhu Pandemic and some of Zombicide are done, Batman Talisman is on the list and my Armada fighters are started, but far from finished. I tend to shy away from games with nice figs if I can because of this, but sometimes my resolve breaks down.