First Game of Centauri Saga

So one of my Christmas gifts this year was Centauri Saga. I had wanted it for a while.

I'm a big fan of Twilight Imperium and greatly enjoyed TI4, but time wise it is an investment. My group also has become more focused on co-op games, not surprising for story RPG gamers. So a quick co-op 4x game, I was sold!
First things first, this is certainly not as epic as Twilight Imperium (possibly Legacy version will be). On the other hand after playing a game I feel the 60-90 minute length is accurate so that is a far trade off. Like most co-op games there are multiple missions you can play. We played the Repair the Jumpgate. While the game is rather straight forward, organizing the game straight from the box is not. We certainly spent longer than we should of. A lot came from not sure if mission cards needed to be separate.

Each mission has its own tracking card as well as numerous special event cards and rules. Most missions are set at a maximum of ten rounds. For this we needed to find 4 repair parts and successfully install them into the Gateway. During this time raiders will try to stop us. On top of that, we can only start the Gateway and win if no Raider Bosses are on the table (They appear on 3rd, 5th and 8th turns in 3 player).


Each player commands an Armada. The initial armadas vary by which commander you pick. During upkeep you can upgrade your spaceport or research using two energy crystals. This will unlock other upgrades you can pick from to improve the Armada.


At the beginning of each turn events or boss effects occur. This is followed by scanning which will randomly put a repair part and raiders on the board. If no repair part is found, two new tires are added (you can also move off an edge to reveal new tiles). If an enemy is in the square combat occurs. Fastest fleet goes first. Player rolls defense dice and attack dice against the raiders scores. If no enemy is present you can regroup or explore with random discoveries occuring. Naturally there are cards you can earn that allow one time bonuses and special abilities. They definitely saved us a few times.
Overall a great game. A nice feel of co-op, exploring, upgrading, and combat. It also easily fits in 60-90 minutes. Looking forward to many more plays and trying new missions. After a few more games maybe it will be time to take out the Legacy Version (they have add on pieces so the base game is still usable post Legacy.)

Abyssal Dwarfs and Translucent Reaper Bones

Three days and three updates, fun of Winter break.
Quick update on the Abyssal Dwarf project. I painted the Obsidian Golems last year, but never got to the rest of the army. I plan to go with a heavy golden theme. Thank goodness for an airbrush, definitely saves time!


Only thing I'm nervous about is my plan to use transfers for the shields. Always good to try something new!

Second thing I tried was some of the Bones Translucent. I figured I would just grey primer the ground (and basin for one). However, I tried a dry brushing of a few with the primer, and liked the results. I think a different color for flame will be needed.

Pandemic Legacy and Red Dragon Inn

So in the last year I got a sizable amount of gaming all things considering. A big part of this is my gaming groups more than willing to have a baby at the table.

My wife and I also apreciated two newer games for us, that got a lot of plays this year; Pandemic Legacy and Red Dragon Inn.

No spoilers!

Pandemic Legacy has been talked about all over

The place. However, I should start with saying we aren't huge Pandemic fans. Not that we dislike it, it just rarely shows up. It might be the tendency of one player taking charge or just not enough to it. Of course many games we play have borrowed ideas from it. But the added campaign mode and changes brought Pandemic Legacy to a new level. It also keeps to an hour or less a session, making the 10-20 needed games possible. This was ideal with a newborn (to be fair he slept well enough the first few months I managed beating Dark Souls 3, wish I could blame him for my lack of skill). The changes, stickers, and modified missions really brought a somewhat abstract game to life. The highest compliment I can give is we quickly bought Season 2 to try this year.

We got a few of the expansions.....

Red Dragon Inn has been a go to for a year now for end of a group night or just a quick versus game. Premise is simple. An adventuring party has vanquished some dungeon and have returned to relax at the Red Dragon Inn. Through gambling, drinking, and antics you will try to get your companions passed out or ejected from the bar due to lack of funds (to clarify this is not an actual drinking game). It's a fun and easy to learn game. Each character has their own deck of cards that brings them to life. A great silly game that you never take too serious. We also named my son's little stuffed rabbit after a character in the game....but he will also appear in another game next post, so I will wait on that.

Returning After a Break

So it's been a crazy two years. Having a kid certain changes things. Decided to come back to the blog to help organize and keep my projects going forward. But I can't really complain in terms of gaming. Still getting a few RPG/board games in a month. My wife and I managed to finish Pandemic Legacy Season 1. Project wise fully painted Zombicide and Massive Darkness were highlights.

Massive Darkness is a great dungeon crawler

Baby Arthur says no spoilers for Pandemic Legacy

I'm sure I will talk about all the games eventually. But I'll stick to this week's highlights. As much as I am trying to go fully painted with matching terrain, can't always in an RPG. I should give credit to Prepared 2: A dozen One Shot Adventures for the final battle of this week's session.

Well all painted but not exactly scaffolding on a moving Titan. But a great ending fight.

In terms of building I put together the Gamecraft painting station, really need flexibility in where I paint now. Went together quite well. Just some wood glue.

On mini progress did some basing some reaper metal miniatures.

 I built the nightstalker vanguard forces which were neat but a bit annoying.

Finally I started a project I shouldn't have. I started a Herd multibased army for Kings of war. I am using Hordes and Reaper bones models I have lying around. Should be different painting than the abyssal dwarf forces.

Hopefully I'll manage to get some painting in this week!