After getting some Mechs painted last weekend, Kris got in his learning game of Battletech. “Aiden took it easy on me with one heavier Mech and a light one against my Lance of 4 small and medium Mechs. His big swinging shots mostly missed, but when they did land, the potential for him to have just squished my smaller Mechs was clear, with a single hit blasting through all of the armour and most of the structure of my Commando…Eventually, the numbers started to tell, and after seemingly stripping every point of armour from his 60 Ton Mech, I landed a Crit on his ammunition stores and detonated his centerpiece model which left me chasing down his heavily damaged Commando when we called the game.”

This week a couple of the staff members have been busy with painting projects, starting with Kris, “I have been looking for other things we can support on Tuesday evenings and we have never really done any Battletech at the store, so I figured why not get some tiny Mechs to stomp around with. I painted up a few at random just to learn the game with, and found them easy to paint quite quickly. Now I just have to learn what all the different stompy things do, and how blasty the blast things are and it will all be fine!”

Sue finished her third Star Wars: Shatterpoint miniature; Kalani the Super Tactical Droid. “One thing that’s really cool about this model is he comes with alternate left and right arms so you can really get creative with this guy and not everyone’s Kalani will look the same. I tried really hard to make him as nice as the many Battletech Mechs that other staff members have painted. I primed him with Leadbelcher so that if any of the paint wears off, it will look like worn paint on the model and the silver will show through. I used Castellan Green for his main coloring and I used Death Guard Green for the edge highlighting. I used Ungor Flesh for his yellow details. I like it because it’s not too bright a yellow. And, of course, I used Aethermatic Blue Contrast Paint for his hologram.”

It’s a rarity for Greg to get to play Barrage with more than two players so he was looking forward to seeing how different it felt with four. “It’s a long teach as there are lots of important concepts, but we got through it pretty well. It’s definitely a different, tighter game with four as the map is exactly the same size. There are more worker placement spaces available, but not twice as many, so the options there feel tighter too. However, it does retain the same need for timing things right and trying to maximise your scoring opportunities by planning ahead. I enjoyed it just as much with four, and I expect that if we play again the new players will now feel more confident.”

Renee had a chance to play a 3 player game of Clank!: Catacombs this weekend. “We hadn’t pulled this out in a while so we were excited to play this again. The board was probably one of the larger ones we’ve had yet and it was also the longest game we’ve played so lots of adventures were had. We played with the characters from the Adventuring Party expansion and Jenn played with Monkey Bot 3000 which unlocks ongoing bonuses everytime you take damage from a dragon attack. Luckily(?) for her she took a lot of damage very early on in the game (the dragon attacked almost every turn for the first few rounds of the game) and her engine ramped up very quickly. Combined with strategic choices throughout the game, she won by a landslide. We tried to kill her but never stood a chance. In the end we all made it to the end tile with only me not making it out. I love this game!!!”

Renee and Jenn played the final adventure, the Ticket to Ride scenario, in the Unlock Game Adventures box. “It was the easiest rated adventure and we saved it to play with our Dad since we had been playing so much Ticket to Ride. However he didn’t end up enjoying the game, but we thought this would be a good one to try out to see how he liked escape style games in general so we tried it. Jenn and I ended up enjoying it ok, it wasn’t our favourite in the box, probably because of the rating, but also because neither of us felt it incorporated the Ticket to Ride mechanics as well as the other games did in their versions. But still a decent adventure. All in all this box was a lot of fun and I definitely recommend checking it out if you are fans of the games included.”

Sue finished Darth Maul for Star Wars: Shatterpoint. “A couple of things of note about this model. Darth Maul has big, black tattoos around his eyes, making him the perfect candidate for the Cartoonishly Large Eyes First technique (as described here: https://sentrybox.wordpress.com/2023/04/26/painting-demo-extra-painting-faces/). I made oversized, yellow eyes using Ungor Flesh, with a black line down the center, and then painted black “eyelids” over the top and bottom to make the eye look more realistic. Also; this is a model you must build prior to painting. If you prime and paint the pieces separately they will not fit together later. This model will be part of the Star Wars: Shatterpoint display at the Sentry Box.

Renee and Jenn played Terraforming Mars Ares Expedition with the Crisis expansion. “Ares Expedition is a slightly scaled down version of Terraforming Mars that is intended to be played within an hour, but Jenn and I have never been able to play it in less than a few. But I’d love to figure out how to make it quicker for us because I know we’d play this a lot more. This spring, 3 different expansions all released for the game and I picked up Crisis because it was the one that seemed the most interesting to me: Mars has been successfully terraformed but crisis strikes and the corporations have to work together to keep Mars habitable. Each round you turn over a crisis card that has an immediate effect (usually lowering oxygen, the temperature etc) and it has an action you have to do 1-3 times to clear the card. Each round, any cards that remain from previous rounds have a persistent negative effect on the environment. The goal is the ensure that by the end of the game, you’ve not only dealt with all each crisis, but you’ve re-terraformed mars. We definitely lost but not by as much as we thought we would and I know we’d definitely make different choices next time. We both really enjoyed this cooperative version!”