Best Bang for your Buck RPG Miniatures 1

I've played a lot of Pathfinder Society in the past few years and enjoy enhancing the experience with a few miniatures.  Since our local PFS games are mostly played in stores I don't want to be lugging around a huge amount of minis so everything I bring must fit inside a fishing tackle box.

I've learnt the hard way that metal minis do not travel well and have been slowly culling them from the portable part of my collection.

There are a few rock stars in my collection, minis that are cheap and often used, if you are considering buying some minis then these would make a good starting point.

Reaper Cultists #03940:

These guys are so versatile, great as:

• Cultists
• Evil Spellcasters
• Rogues
• Martial Elves
• Generic Minions

Reaper Zombies #77342

Cheap, good variety of poses.  No TTRPG is complete without a few zombies.

Reaper Skeletons (various lines)

Not nearly as common as Zombies it seems and hard to get a good variety of poses but still useful and cheap.  Always have a few on hand.

Any generic Demons

These old Grenadier Demons from John Dennett are my main exception to the no metal rule because they are just so damn useful.  Medium to smallish size with wings they can represent so many different kinds of hellish minions.

 Reaper Bones Animal Companions 77216

These guys are fantastic value, in a single pack you get a Wolf, Bear, Big Cat, Wolverine and Bird of Prey.  The wolf, bear and cat see a lot of use as both companions and enemies.  The wolverine and bird not so much but are still useful to have.

That's all for today, I have barely scratched the surface so expect to see more updates in the future.

Terraforming Mars Magnetised Player Mats complete Set.

Terraforming Mars: Magnetised playmats

One of the big complaints with Terraforming mars is the player mats and how it's quite easy for the resource production cubes to slide all over the place.

While I find the complaint a little overblown I wanted to see if I could find a solution that doesn't cost as much as the game itself.  In the end I managed to make magnetised mats for less than $5 NZD each.  You can tip these mats upside down and the markers wont move.

Materials and Tools needed

• Colour Laser Printer
• Laminator & A4 Pouches 
• Hot glue gun 
• Drill
• Adhesive backed magnetic sheets ($2.50 Each)
• 8mm Square Beads ($3 for 200) (Aliexpress link)
• Neodymium (Rare Earth) Magnets 5mm Diameter, 3mm thickness (~$10 for 40)
• A4 Printer Paper, Scissors

Steps for Mats

1. Go to the Boardgamegeek listing for Terraforming Mars and in the images section find the image of the player mat (linked here). You are going to need 5 copies printed if you want a mat for each player. The player mat dimensions are 22 x 16 cm so you will need to print the same size. If you do not have software that supports this then you can download Irfanview which is free for personal use and allows you to specify printing dimensions.
2. Cut out and laminate the player mats using your laminator. This is not strictly necessary but will greatly increase the durability of your mats.
3. Trim your laminated mats and stick them to the adhesive backed magnets.  I find the best way is to leave a bit of extra empty lamination plastic around each print out (~0.5cm) then stick your laminated print outs to the magnets and then trim both the magnet and extra lamination plastic away with scissors at the same time to get good edge.

(Variation) You don't have to do the entire mat you can use the same technique to just do the production track part.

I was hoping that I could use the extra magnet material from the adhesive magnet paper but it turns out the magnets are far too weak to be able to attach through a laminated piece of paper so I had to purchase the Neodymium magnets.  They usually come in a disk shape of variable widths and heights.  I recommend you don't get any wider than 5mm and any higher than about 3 or 4mm.  Larger magnets will hold better but I would guess that smaller magnets would hold fine.

You will need a drill bit that is the same width as your magnet but a standard set of drill bits will usually have the size you need.

I had trouble finding square beads that suited the player board.  In the end I did find some from Aliexpress.  I ordered 100 clear beads and 100 mixed colours.  I decided to use the coloured beads to differentiate each resource and will be making a some clear beads with magnets for when a resource goes past 10 production.

Initially I tried gluing the magnets in with PVA (White) Glue.  This would work fine for when the magnets were attached to the player board but if the magnets came into contact with each other one would inevitably get ripped out of its bead.  Hot glue solved this.

Steps for Markers

1. Carefully drill into your beads using a drill bit the same size as your magnet. The hole will act as a guide.  Test fit your magnets.  How much magnet you want sticking out the bottom of each bead is up to you but you want a fairly snug fit.  If you are holding the beads I highly recommend wearing heavy leather gloves.
    
2. Glue your magnets into the beads with a small drop of hot glue. It is easy to use too much glue here. You want just the smallest amount that will do the job.  Leather gloves are recommended here too.  Magnet polarity does not seem to matter so you should be able to glue the magnet at any orientation but test this first with just the bare magnet on the player board beforehand.

That's essentially it.  I found a nice octagon box for marker storage and once I'm finished with the 30 production markers I will be doing 10 clear generic markers to mark the "10" space for when production goes over 10.

Explorers of the North Sea Expansion Kickstarter is Live!

The Explorers expansion kickstarter is now live check it out here: Explorers of the North Sea: Rocks of Ruin

I haven't had the opportunity to play Explorers much but I have enjoyed what I have done and will be backing this expansion.

Raiders of the North Sea Expansion Anticipation

If you don't already know Shem Phillips of Garphill Games is planning two expansions to Raiders of the North Sea called Hall of Heroes and Fields of Fame. They will be kickstarted this month or next and will be an instabuy for me.

Keep an eye out.

Metal coins

If you are looking for metal coins for your boardgames there are plenty of sellers willing to sell you themed sets for a premium, but finding generic coins cheaply can be a challenge.

I recently purchased the top set of coins from Artana LLC as part of their "Best Damn Metal coins 2" kickstarter campaign and they are fantastic but fairly pricey.

The bottom set of coins are uncirculated Ukrainian coins available on ebay in rolls of 50.  They are fairly generic with a number on one side and a trident symbol on the other.  Rolls can be purchased for a few dollars.  They come numbered 1,2,5,10,25 and 50. 

To find these coins search ebay for "kopek bank roll"

Shipwrights (with expansion) vs Raiders

I have been playing a bit of back to back Shem Philips Viking games recently and it has been fun to compare and contrast each game.

 Shipwrights of the North Sea (with the Townsfolk expansion)

At its core Shipwrights feels like an engine building game with the focus on strategic drafting and resource management.  The Townsfolk expansion adds a little bit of worker placement and generally streamlines the whole game.  Previously turns could be wasted due to bad luck, lack of resources or locking the wrong ships/workmen into your tableau.

It also allows you to mitigate some of the "take that" features of the game.

The Townsfolk expansion allows you to mitigate these issues which effectively speeds up the game.  I would always recommend playing with it, its free to print and play.

On the downside, Shipwrights does have a lot of maintenance to keep the turns flowing, each turn is a draft and there are tracks and workers to adjust at the end of every turn.  I wouldn't go as far as saying it is fiddly but the turns don't flow as easily as Raiders.

Raiders of the North Sea

The word elegant is what comes to mind when I play Raiders.  Raiders focuses on strategic worker placement with a twist.  Turns flow quickly but apart from your choice of crew all players are doing essentially the same thing.

At the end of the day I think Raiders is the better designed game but Shipwrights has more charm.

I look forward to seeing what the expansion of the Raiders has in store for us.