A thing a week 2025, week 2

This week we have a melange of short folk on tall bases from our pals at Titan Forge. The guy on the left is a Dwarf Male Cleric and the other dudes are Gnome Male Cleric variants. I had grand plans to do a bunch of OSL work on the two guys on the right but I only kind of roughed it in on the guy with the flaming sword because I got lazy. These guys were on the whole a lot harder to paint than I expected. They have lots of weird negative space issues and the faces under their cowls made things way harder than needed. I did some texturing on the blue cloak which reads OK on the tabletop but doesn't really hold up under scrutiny and I have no idea where the other hilt piece went from the rightmost dude's sword. Honestly, I got to a place that I wanted to be done with these guys and kind of rushed to the finish line. They went on tall bases because I already had them. They're cool enough but all told, I don't think I'll be printing these guys again unless I have an unexpected need for one of them. 

2025 finished mini counter: 8

A thing a week 2025, week 1

It begins! As these are the figs in the first row of the big end of year shot, I put a bunch of extra time in for these. Also true that most of the work was done at the end of 2024 but I didn't finish the work until this week. 

 First up we have Ronin Arts Workshop's Spitfire Jen. This is a sculpt that I like a lot and I regret having scaled her down to 28mm, a habit I've now been disabused of many times. The sculptor had a thing in mind and I've learned that I should respect that even if the fig stands a little proud on the table. Anyway. I had a heck of a time gluing her together, particularly her gun hand and obvious glue artifacts, probably because each part was soooooo small. She spent quite a long time on my painting desk partially prepped and I only got to seriously painting her near the end of last year. The highlighting on her dark clothes doesn't sell super well on the table which is one of the difficulties of painting black, hence the black cat challenge. I also note that I really like painting sci-fi characters because it gives me an excuse to paint weird hair colors. She'll count as high quality #1 on the year. She will likely show up here again sometime, possibly in her 54mm incarnation.

Next up we have Trista Female Warrior from Reaper Bones, a sculpt I like a lot but which is let down badly by bendy white bones plastic. Notably, I purchased this particular fig in 2018 before my moratorium on purchasing bendy white bones plastic. I wanted to take her to a high quality but the mold really made that hard so I put a lot of effort into her face and the rest of her is kind of phoned in. I also had ambitions of NMM rather than TMM which would have made a lot of the decorations on her shield and armor easier to sell but clearly that didn't happen. She was done in a few hours which feels OK for the result. 

Lastly, we have a pair of Battle Mages from Galaad and we've seen this sculpt before, way back in week 12 of 2022 where I noted that we'd probably see more of her in the future and that it's a sculpt that can support a higher quality paint job. Well, we live in the future and yes. The older print was done on my old Mars Pro. These are printed on my much newer Saturn 2 and that made a lot of difference in terms of print quality. I had a lot of fun painting these two, particularly their faces and the color shifts on their armor. Notably their faces are deliberately different which is a good example of sculpting with paint.

There's certainly more work that could be done here. Particularly, the metallic bits are phoned in some but I did go back with a Badger Ghost Tint wash to highlight them some. Their pants could also use better highlights but that didn't really stand out to me until looking closely at these close up shots. Their staves and bracers have gem-like protuberances that I've yet to gemify and the globes on the end of their staves have filigree that I've never sufficiently picked out. The patterning on their armor also could be done better so no one should be surprised if they show up here again. All told they were somewhere in the ballpark of 12 hours for both and there's a lot more work that could be done on them should I be so inclined in the unforseeable future. They'll count as high quality #2 and #3 for the year. 

2024 finished mini counter: 4, 3/12 high quality

2025 crafting challenge

This is now the sixth year I've done this kind of challenge which I don't think I would have predicted when I started. Like last year I'd like to do more high quality work but unlike last year I'm not going to have a count for many things because I'd rather clear up some of my "nearly done" categories like Reaper Bones kickstarters as they're starting to really pile up. Not sure how well that's going to go, but we'll see in a year!

Valid things:

• A finished piece or WIP representing not less than two hours of effort
• NaNoWriMo which I still haven't done, SHIPtember, and high quality paint jobs are good candidates
• Gaming terrain, prop, scatter (etc.)
• One or more painted minis
• A sketch in digital or traditional media
  
• An article or other piece of writing of, I dunno, 1000 words or so
• A Lego build (big, small, WIP)
  
• Other?  Much of what I do defies easy categorization and I don't like long lists
  

Goals:

• Complete Bones 4 kickstarter minis (~20)
• Complete 2018 purchases (~60)
  
• Complete 2019 purchases (~10)
• Complete 2020 purchases (~20)
• Twelve figures of significant quality featuring OSL/NMM/something else notable
  

Unofficial Stretch Goals:

• Six serious attempts at NMM because it's still scary
• Complete Bones 5 kickstarter minis (~120)
  

2024 in review

It's cliche to say "wow, I can't believe the year is over already" but I honestly can't believe the year is over already. Outside of a couple intense months of Lego building and a couple shows, my days are pretty same-y which is both a blessing and a curse.

Gaming

As my first full year of retirement, you might be surprised to find out that I didn't do all that much gaming, but what I did do made up for in quality what it lacked in quantity.

Dragon's Dogma 2 (2024) *****

Sequel to one of my favorite games ever, it feels like I waited for this guy for a stupidly long time. When it arrived I was away at BricksCascade and then wound up with a below-spec machine. I got through all of that, thankfully and was not disappointed. DD2 builds upon the lore of the first and extends several of the systems while keeping a lot of the basic mechanics. Your NPC helper pawns are back and they're better than ever with better behavior, more lines, and the ability to lead you to quest destinations and other points of interest if they've learned them--within your game or not. I didn't end up writing a long form post on DD2 though I wanted to and might yet if there's an expansion sometime in the unforseeable future.

Dwarf Fortress, Steam Version (2022) *****

I've talkedwritten about Dwarf Fortress at least a few times in these unhallowed pages but thislast year I played a lot of it. The Steam version for me is a mixed bag. I like that it mostly works out of the box. I like that it's much more easily modded. I like that it's a lot more stable. I hate that the interface is at least as bad as the old ascii version and that some subsystems are notably worse than their pre-Steam versions (squads, health, I'm lookin' at you). With every new fortress I'm delving into areas of the game that I don't know as well as I'd like or trying out new ideas on how to build things better/faster/whatever. The last few have been bolstered by playing a race of lupines rather than the standard dwarves so the fortress is filled with adorable wolf people who throw great parties. There's nothing like Dwarf Fortress, no matter how you play it.

Mechwarrior 5 Clans (2024) *****

MW5:Clans had been on my wishlist for what seems like forever. I'm not a fan of the clans in general in the lore but I was pretty sure that Piranha would make something pretty good. I was right! It's a lot more cinematic than MW5:Mercs and it doesn't have its predecessor's replayability but it more than delivers on the stompy robot goodness that one should expect, nay demand, from a Mechwarrior game. It seems like every little bit of the gameplay is a little bit better which adds up to a very satisfying experience. Overall, I don't think it's better than its predecessor which I've played through like eight times. That's the thing, I guess, and how I try to think about it: it's good for what it's trying to be and it's not entirely fair to expect it to be something else.

Mechwarrior 5 Mercenaries, Solaris Showdown (2024) *****

Hot on the heels of MW5:Clans, I picked up the last installment of its predecessor because I had not yet gotten my fill of big stompy robots. Solaris Showdown adds the Solaris-5 mech combat arenas and a short-ish set of missions with the inimitable Duncan Fisher, a beloved voiced offscreen character from MW4. Both additions were good and many of the arena fights were legit challenging even through I have over 600 hours played according to Steam. Many of the Duncan Fisher missions were laugh out loud hilarious which is exactly what I was hoping for. Probably the only bad thing I can note is that the power creep continued with a handful of new quirks/weapons/whatever that cranked DPS up to the point that many of the normal encounters were trivialized. If it were less than my eighth playthrough, I might have been more critical.

Starcom Unknown Space (2024) ****

I played the predecessor of Unknown Space (Starcom Nexus) at the end of 2022/beginning of 2023 and noted it in the last installation of this annual series. This iteration is a lot like the previous with more polished storytelling and some more interesting building mechanics, particularly heat. Speed still rules and elemental components are significantly more constrained but overall I enjoyed my not quite 40 hours of it. Pretty sure it's still built by one dude who keeps a dev blog.

The Banner Saga (2014, 2016, 2018) *****

I've already written plenty about The Banner Saga so I'll be short here. Everyone should play this game. It is a tour de force of blending strong narratives and game design. This would have been my favorite on the year if the year didn't also include DD2.

Lego

2024 was a big year for Lego for me. Part of it was crunching really hard for a collab that was a mess of questionable communication and part of it was a double SHIPtember. I also expanded my Lego storage area (about +40%) which necessarily comes with a lot of sorting as one might expect. I don't have good shots from the show but I did a mess of very small microscale builds to bulk it out in addition to a lot of explosions mostly not shown in the shots to the right.

It was also a big year since it's the first year I've had builds in multiple categories. Toshoki (top left) is my Beastren bestie from Dragon's Dogma 2 and I displayed her in the art category as a mosaic. In addition to straining my collection (and the expected temptation to over-spend on brick) she incorporates two things that I almost never see in other mosaics: she pops out of the background by 2 studs and is built on a plates-up non-square aspect. The math wasn't particularly hard and neither was the palletization of the original screen shot but getting her to/from show was an ordeal. Probably there are more mosaics in my future.

I expect 2025 to be not quite as hectic though I do have some lofty goals on the year.

Hobbying

And last but not least, it was also a big year for hobbying. I blasted past all of my goals though I get a "well, not really" for the NMM bits which I completely forgot about until checking for this post, though I did do quite a lot of TMM in the NMM style. The total count was bolstered by a couple hundred or so props which some might say are a lot lower effort than normal. To them I saytype: they still needed paint. Notably, we've already used a bunch of them. I don't think, however, that I'll continue with the terrain piece as a goal since it feels like those have largely been fillers the last few years. I've got an enormous number of buildings already and don't really feel like I need more, though Bad News Tower has been relatively well received. Sadly, it has done nothing for people's shoddy dice rolling.

One of my big breakthroughs this year is finding the patience to do harder stuff. Part of that is not settling as often for crappy paints and/or brushes. I still use them, just not as often and I'm less hesitant to tap a better paint and/or brush when I'm working. My quality has definitely improved when that's my goal. I'll also note for the n-th time that my speed is also improving. It's still a wash in terms of time per fig since my nominal quality bar is also higher than it was.

2024 crafting challenge wrap-up

I'm happy to report that for the third time evar I've hit the magical 365 painted figs in a year mark and hopefully I won't be doing this super often in the future. Beyond that, I hit each of the major bucket goals with a pseudo-miss on the squishy "six of the high quality ones should be NMM" which I honestly forgot that I'd added. This is why I don't like long laundry lists of things.

Week 1: Reaper Profane Altar and Books, Balzador, Cleric, Aravir, Elf Ranger, Khanag the Slayer, Bryn, Half Elf Rogue, Estra, Iconic Spiritualist

Week 2: Arjan, Dragonborn Fighter and Heskan, Dragonborn Wizard from D&D boardgames, Blacklist Fantasy Series 1 female dragonkin warlock, male dragonkin warrior, demonkin assassin, demonkin sorcerer

Week 3: Vistra Dwarf Fighter, Alaeros, Northland Fighter, Drizzt, Jarlaxle, Cattie-Brie from D&D boardgames, Half-Elf Warlock Jilsa Rennwin from DnD is a Woman

Week 4: Blacklist Fantasy Series 1 Street Vendor, Female Elf Barbarian, Male Half Elf Bard, Male Elf Bard, Female Human Barbarian, Female Elf Ranger, Dungeons and Lasers 2xBig Mushrooms, 1xmelty statue

Week 5: Blacklist Fantasy Series 1 Male Human Cleric, Vampire Lord, Female Human Paladin, Lich Lord, Male Dwarf Monk, Female Human Constable, Male Elf Paladin, Male Elf Rogue, Half Elf Fighter

Week 6: Blacklist Fantasy Series 1 Half Orc Bard, Inkeeper, Male Human Druid, Female Half Elf Druid, Male Elf Wizard (high quality #1), Female Human Fighter (high quality #2), Female Half Elf Wizard (high quality #3)

Week 7: Blacklist Fantasy Series 1 Shambling Mound, Demon Lord, Ogre, Troll, Female Giant (large #1), Dragon (large #2)

Week 8: Onyx, Ironborn Fighter from DnD is a Woman, Reaper Bones Maggotcrown Juggernaut, Devil, and Cave Troll, Nolzur's Umber Hulk

Week 9: RN EStudio Aurielle - Female Ranger (high quality #4)

Week 10: Artisan Guild Wappelious Spellbrush and Orc Barbarian - B (Male) Modular,  Reaper Tazythas, Dragonfolk Rogue, Duncan Shadow Fox Folk / Kitsune Multipart Kit, DnD is a Woman Amalya, Tabaxi Monk, Galaad Fairy 02 (high quality #5)

Week 11: Hail Caesar Imperial Romans:  Plastic Scorpion + attendant operators (painted in a previous year). 

Week 12: Hail Caesar Imperial Roman Western Auxiliary Archers

Week 13: Hail Caesar Imperial Roman Eastern Auxiliary Archers

Week 14, Week 15, Week 16: Oshounaminis Free Flying Worms and Free Small Worms

Week 17: Reaper Fulumbar Ironhand, Chainmail Ravilla Gray Elf Duelist and Gray Elf Wizard

Week 18: Lion's Tower Lilly, Arch White Mage, 2x Reaper Dread Knights, RN Estudio Lydia the Lionness (high quality #6) 

Week 19: Reaper Tidal Lurker, Thrasher Snail, Cyclops

Week 20: Kingdom of Talarius War Mages

Week 21: Reaper Bones Annoyed Rocky (high quality #7)

Week 22: Reaper Bones Treasure Rocky and Flying Rocky (high quality #8 and #9)

Week 23: Reaper Bones Scheming Rocky and Sneaky Rocky (high quality #10 and #11)

Week 24: Reaper Bones 5 Treasure Pile and Artisan Guild Orc Barbarian D (high quality #12)

Week 25: Cyberforge Liza Thorn, Cree Chief Judah Starwalker, and Ghost of Kyiv, Papsikels Pam Pam Flores, Reaper Asanis Mercury Flyer, 

Week 26: Women & Sci Fi Smuggler, Twin Goddess TurningGear, Cyberforge Bonnie Gun, Suzanne Vega, and Cuddy Grey (high quality #13)

Week 27: Robotech RPG Tactics Regault Battle Pods, Recon Scout Pod, Zentradi Artillery Pod, Zentradi Recovery Pod

Week 28: Cyberforge O-REN, Kimiko, Jenny Silverleg, Wargames Atlantic International Women's Day Free Figure, Moid Female Mercenary

Week 29: Vae Victis Human Fighter, Reaper Bones Female Minotaur, Weapon Rack, Broken Cork Pillars

Week 30: Dungeons & Lasers tables, assorted sarcophogi, stone chairs

Week 31: DnL portals, creepy statues, melty statues, dragon pillars, dwarven hearths

Week 32: DnL foot stools, cabinets, park benches, wooden tables

Week 33: DnL stargate portal, hologram displays, office chairs, egg clusters, l-shaped concrete barriers

Week 34: DnL guillotines, x-shaped restraints, iron maidens, spike trap, assorted torture devices

Week 35: DnL small rubble wall, mine carts, shovel piles, axe skulls, squashy skeletons, wheel barrows

Week 36: DnL globey things, lanterns, dynamite boxes, big miner skulls, pickaxe piles

Week 37: DnL beds, stills, casks, scroll piles, book piles, leg lecterns

Week 38: Zierzo Miniatures Space Cowgirl, Papsikels Future Savior and Space Captain, Hivemind Minis Vanguard Droids, Hexy Studios Bios Equalizer Bots

Week 39: DnL weapon rack, armor racks, assorted fountains, anvils, axe stumps, grinding stones

Week 40: DnL bear traps, boney thrones, candle skull, chest

Week 41: DnL Sci-Fi tiles

Week 42: DnL assorted barrels, satellite dishes, sci-fi trunk, safes, pipes

Week 43: DnL legally distinct companion cubes, transporder pads, rockets, atomic bombs, robot arm, walking turrets

Week 44: DnL sci-fi hatches, floor grates, ammo bins, sci-fi bridges, Geiger-esque thing

Week 45: Bad News Tower (foam structure)

Week 46: DnL big map display things, computer desks, old timey terminals, globe projection tables, atomic whirl retro TVs, vending machines

Week 47: DnL robot cult idol statues, legally distinct daleks, legally distinct star gates, yellow plunger-y things

Week 48: DnL busted up bar signs, fuel pumps, crypt markers, mimic shelves, gemstone clusters

Week 49: DnL assorted cauldrons, crystal-y formations, bed mimics, creepy mushrooms, creepy paintings, dude in a medical bed, busted up helmets, a marine having a bad day, ammo boxes

Week 50: DnL bridges, busted up fantasy corners, busted up sci-fi corners

Week 51: Papsikels Future Savior and Space Captain, Titan City Police Force Captain Roy "Donuts" Wales and Officer Roy Blunt, The Master Forge Paladin Aasimar

Week 52: Lion's Tower Captain Amara, Reaper Kassandra of the Blade, Familiars Pack 1, Prince Nicholas, Darksword Pi-Rat, Tri-Fin Adventurer - Fighters and Sorcerers, Nolzur's Wyvern and Young Blue Dragon

A thing a week 2024, week 52

And we're there! As the last Sunday in the year, we get our last post in this series for the year. And as per usual I'm draining the rest of my painted queue so buckle in and stay tuned in the next few days for my usual end of year shenanigans.

First up we have Lion's Tower Captain Amara from Kingdom of Talarius and Kassandra of the Blade in bendy white Bones plastic. Captain Amara is an OK sculpt that I got in a kickstarter-like batch. His cloak is a little patchier than I would like and he's got a dumb fantasy sword and pauldron but he was pretty easy to paint and I like his Captain Morgan pose. Kassandra is a good sculpt let down by bad molding. I spent a lot more time trying to get her to look right than was probably warranted and I note again for the record that I'm done buying white Bones plastic. She was done in around four hours most of which was on her face and color swapping basically all of her gear. I didn't have a plan and it made everything harder. He was done in about two fairly straightforward hours.

These little dudes are most of Familiar Pack I from Reaper in hated Bones white plastic. I painted the wolf as a fox way back in Week 27 of 2020 and boy was that photography rough. They've been kicking around my painting desk for years in various states of not-prepped-ness so it's not stunning that the sitting cat is MIA, never to be seen again. These aren't try-hard paint jobs though the Faerie Dragon got more love simply because he's more complex. None of them hold up under close scrutiny but that wasn't really the point, either.

These three are Adventurer Fighters and Sorcerors from Tri Fin Studio. These are great sculpts, come in parts, and are slightly modular which is great. I should have painted them in sub-assemblies but didn't and they were in enough parts that it was rough to get them together. These are pretty basic schemes held up by some well-placed details starting with a zenithal and speed paint/contrast paint basecoat. I note that the fighters are fairly plain which I like while the sorcerers are not which is also appropriate. Overall I think all of them work pretty well and weren't that hard to paint and I really dig the double highlight on the Elf gal's hair. I'll also note that they have some newer sculpts that I really like but haven't purchased yet so don't be surprised if more of these show up in the unforseeable future.

I did take the gal fighter to a high quality (#15 on the year if my count is correct). One of the great things about less-busy sculpts is that you can put a bunch more time on quality than just getting the details in. I did a bunch of NMM style work in TMMs on her metallics which is a little washed out and patchy in these shots but which work a lot better in person. There are also some nicely subtle transitions on her gambison and pants which doesn't show super well here. In addition to other things that don't show well are the three-ish hours I spent on her face which looks weird here because her head is tilted down a bit. Still some camera setup work needed for next year I guess and I really have to start dulling down these contrast paint basecoates--the shiny irks me.

Next up we have Pi-Rat with Cutlass from Darksword Minis and Prince Nicholas from Reaper both in metal. And for reasons I can't explain, I cannot find a link on the Reaper site. Prince Nicholas I bought many years ago and could not find record of when. He's been sitting primed and partially painted on my painting desk for what seems like many years but probably was only since summer of last year. His cloak looks extra patchy in these shots but works better in person. Pi-Rat was purchased a couple years ago for a campaign which completed quite a while ago. He played the ship's quartermaster, a weasel-y guy named Norbert. He's been partially prepped and painted for about the same amount of time. Note that metal figs don't work well with my normal Badger Synylrez primer does not work on metal figs (ask me how I know this). I had to go with slow-curing Vallejo Surface Primer instead.

Penultimately we have Nolzur's Wyvern which I bought quite a long time ago. I have a handful of these large sized Nolzur's figs that I otherwise don't like painting. He's painted mainly with the airbrush with a bunch of details, washing, and drybrushing because the details were pretty well sculpted. I'm not 100% sold on the last fleshwash which I probably put on too heavily. He'll be large fig #3.

Last up we have Nolzur's Young Blue Dragon which was a birthday gift from a buddy many years ago. He was also painted with the airbrush followed by washes/constrast paints, drybrushing, and details. This is my favorite kind of painting: high drama, low effort. Probably the details on his scales could have been popped out more. The darks are nice, tho, and I like the fade on his wings provided by the airbrush. Because the last wash on the wyvern went so badly, I opted not to wash this guy's wings. Both of them are semi-shiny from the ink basecoat but IMO that works OK for scaly creatures. He'll round out the year as large fig #4.

2024 finished mini counter: 420/208, busts or large figs: 4/4

A thing a week 2024, week 51

Two more posts for the year including this one and now we're free (free, I tell you!) of the long dark Propapalooza of the soul. So let's get started.

First up we have our mirrored Future Savior from Papsikels. We saw his mirrored twin way back in week 38. The leather coat doesn't sell as well in person as it looks like in this photo which is a weird reversal of the norm. I do like the denim effect on his pants, tho, which I didn't honestly work all that hard for. Occasionally (really, most of the time) I'm working with pseudo-dried paint on my wet palette in a state of partial molding. This sometimes leaves very patchy results which is normally very bad. In this case, it worked to my advantage this time. I also like his 5 o'clock shadow which I also worked not very hard for. Overall, I think he looks good and sells well on the table.  

Next up we have another mirror twin from week 38 and also from Papsikels. Our Space Captain here is painted in mostly the same scheme as the older one though I did manage to knock the shine off of the Contrast Paint basecoat. The freehand on his patches is less sharp than I would have liked but clearly I didn't go back and fix it. Also, the bases are phoned in on these so there's that. Aside from the freehand and his messy eyes, I like this result.

 

Next up we have Captain Roy "Donuts" Wales from Titan Forge's Titan City Police Department though I got him as a single through one of their welcome packs. As per usual I printed him mirrored and unlike as per usual, I painted them at the same time. I wanted to sell his blue suit and mostly grey/black equipment and I don't think that either went super well. The blue is probably a little too saturated and it's a little patchy (Golden SoFlat Ultramarine which sat on the palette a little too long). The grey of his gear in front looks pretty good but the backpack is really lacking contrast.

These four dudes are also from the Titan City Police Department and is a quad of non-mirrored Officer Roy Blunt. You can probably tell how shoddily the shields printed which is the kind of failure that I tend to get. These weren't fatal so I kept them and didn't really do anything to hide or fix the error. Goons don't generally get much attention and these guys are certainly goons.The only pseudo-hard thing I did on these is alternate scumble and wash layers of different colors trying for a "weathered concrete" look. It looks OK.

Last up we have Aasimar Paladin from The Master Forge's Kingdom of Tiradom series. Astute followers of the MyMiniFactory link will note that the actual sculpt has a big 'ol sword rather than a spear. Well. The version I printed had a very thin blade that flopped around and was in serious danger of breaking and I had a need for a winged gal with a spear instead. She was already prepped and partially painted so I cut her hand off and replaced it with a spare Yari Ashigaru hand that I pulled out of my bits bin. As a PC she will get significant screen time and since I wasn't in a hurry I took extra time on her face, hair, and other gear. I do regret the original red and blue color scheme since I ultimately followed the provided key art's color scheme. probably the yellow could be more saturated.

2024 finished mini counter: 408/208

The Banner Saga

Ages ago, in the heady days of April of 2012, I kickstarted a game that I thought had a lot of promise. I gave them a bunch more money again in March of 2017. The Banner Saga lived in my "to play" queue for a decade and change and, well, recently I decided that not only did I have the time, but I had the inclination to play it and its sequels. I probably shouldn't have waited.

I've talkedtyped a lot about the kinds of games I'd lie to see, particularly ones that have good writing, striking art, and elements of humor. The Banner Saga has all three plus excellent music and well-realized mature themes. There's good and bad in it, just like all games I suppose, but it all comes together in a way that not a lot of games do. There are some significant spoilers in her for games released between 2014 and 2018 so if you don't want those, you might look away. I'm also going to break it down as I am normally accustomed to doing and, because words are hard, I'm not going to spend a bunch of them explaining game mechanics thoroughly.

A Brief Overview

The Banner Saga is a story driven narrative following a series of characters trying to save their friends/family/world from one or more untimely demise(s). A turn based tactical combat underpins the narrative and every decision makes a difference, though some are gravely more important than others. There are a couple dozen or so named characters, mainly your heroes, and the point of view character bounces around between bands of folks doing things in different parts of the world. The themes are Old Norse, which, if you know me (and if you don't I have no idea how you found your way here) you know that this is right up my alley. Little did I know in 2012 that I'd spend significant time learning the language in the ensuing years.

 

The basics of the tactical game aren't particularly deep but they have some nuance, especially in the second and third installments. Movement is somewhat complex given that some of your characters take up four squares and easily get blocked by your other characters if you don't plan it out carefully. There's also a round-robin "I go, you go" turn timer that has some interesting consequences. If you blitzed down the cannon fodder too fast and didn't wear down the scary bad, you'll be terrified to know that the scary bad moves *way* more often than you'd like. Armor is a flat value off of damage, but strength is your hitpoints and the base amount of damage you do on a normal hit. If you've taken damage, you can easily get in a place where a normal attack vs. strength wouldn't move the needle much if at all, but you can also attack armor which knocks off a chunk. Characters also have a willpower microcurrency that allows you to boost your attacks and power special moves and whatnot adding another layer.

Time outside of the tactics game is split between narrative and caravan modes with the former handling a lot of the heavy dialog, especially between more than two characters, and the latter being where you see chibis of your heroes, clansmen, and the giant varl that make up your caravan. Hiking to the next town (no horses, says lore) costs supplies and morale a la The Oregon Trail and you hit some pseudo-randomized events on the way. These adjust morale, supplies, the folks in your caravan, and can set up events for the future and perma-kill characters as well. Can you tell when a character is going to perma die? Often not, but we're not there yet. All three games, should you import your games from the previous, build into a whole with many events harkening back to previous choices often in previous games to determine how it all works out. Often this is big stuff like "does the world end or not" and "does Egil die in a terrible way." Is it always obvious which choices you're making? No, but we're still not there yet.

The Good

The game is strikingly beautiful, in the style of western hand-drawn animation. I wanted to saytype "cell-shaded" but that's a rendering trick to make 3d content look like hand-drawn animation. The characters are distinct and well realized from the different color choices on Alette's or Nid's clothes to the distinct horns on every Varl. There's a small number of animation frames for each during their dialog scenes so it isn't just a flat image with text below it and the camera bounces around between speakers which is a nice touch. The landscapes and battlegrounds are very nicely drawn and help to sell the (presumably) iron-age Viking-era setting replete with godstones, runes, and stonework. 

Austin Wintory's soundtrack is also a work of great beauty. The mix of modern and traditional instruments and vocal elements gave it all an authenticity that I greatly appreciated. I never found a situation where the music didn't match or didn't help sell the emotional beats of what was happening in the game. I'll also add that there were points during some hectic battles where the music changed to match my angst. I don't know if that's due to a dynamic music system or not but it was hella rad when it happened and it happened multiple times over my not-quite-40-hour playthrough. 

Bad things happen to good people and occasionally, good things happen to bad people. I dislike seeing beloved characters killed off arbitrarily (more on that later) and it's real easy to get attached to these characters. These events come early and often and many of the ones that survive bear the marks of their choices and/or fortune in inescapable ways. One of the PoV characters loses their freakin' arm in one fight and their eye in another. Dude survived in my games, tho. As loss is a major theme in the game in its particular dark and gritty way, I ultimately added this point in the good section though I struggled a lot with where to put it. This is ultimately what kept me from enjoying Darkest Dungeon which I wrote about way back in 2018 in review.  The themes of loss and struggle rather remind me of The Black Company which is worth a read if you haven't already.

Characters often say little but tell a big story. Decades of GMing have taught me that words are cheap and that actions are preferable when you can swing it. A surprising number of characters have well-realized arcs, many of them shaped by your decisions in game. One of the stronger examples I can give is the archer Nid, (one of my favorites) an otherwise un-noticed mother of three, only adds to the roster in the first game if you win a particular fight and had opted to have one of your heroes train peasant women as archers two chapters earlier. You also have to talk her out of leaving the group after an off-screen event in the third game by telling this battle-hardened, would-be normal mother that you know she's no coward further reinforcing the dialog and actions she had previously. The game is full of this kind of writing which so often goes overlooked.

Beyond the characters, the overall storytelling is on point. The Banner Saga spins a vast tale of love, loss, betrayal, and a harsh and uncaring world. We get hints about the bonds between Juno and Eyvind basically from the first time they're on screen and in the last game we get trickles of how messed up things are and the direct hand they had in it. Depending on the choices you've made, it all might end in the destruction of the world. Scrutinizing some seemingly throw-away dialog, I might also conclude that by Eyvind breaking the world to save Juno, that he stumbled upon a ticking time-bomb intended to destroy the world, and inadvertently conjured up (pun intended) an opportunity to ultimately save it. He even telegraphs this cryptically in the first installment IIRC. This is an impressive feat over a multi-year set of projects and one that I think probably deserves more attention.

The Bad

No game is perfect and I certainly had my gripes about The Banner Saga. 

The game has no player-controlled save system. The game automagically handles saving which sounds good on paperin a blog post but I don't think it worked out in the game all that well. Every time I went to a previous load I had to wonder how far back it was going to take me and if I had to do that last gruelling fight over again. Over time I figured out how it worked more or less, but there were still surprises. The autosave system was made a lot worse in the last installment which, for whatever reason, as super unstable. I started the game five times and it crashed or hit me with an infinite load screen three times. Not a good average. 

I also had quibbles with some of the interface design, though notably I play on a super duper wide monitor which puts active elements far out of my normal FoV. Also of note, I have questionable eyesight and very old, very scratched glasses which are becoming worse and worse. In the tactical game, I often misread who was moving. This sometimes caused me to make moves that didn't make a lot of sense. This wasn't helped by the "commit move" interaction being easy (for me) to accidentally hit. I also ran into many instances where the threat was hidden because the ever-important armor/strength values are only available on-hover and your guys generally show on the bottom left, far outside my attention. More than once I ended up making an attack that didn't do what I expected and it's not like I was heavily drinking (nb: I mostly quit this year). As a last note, even after 40ish hours of game, I still don't know how varl move along their path. In the first couple games it was annoying if I couldn't path around other characters unexpectedly but in the last game where there were on-map terrain hazards, this was super annoying. I don't think any of these are game-breaking but overall it brought down my enjoyment of the game.

The game has two major currencies that aren't people, particularly renown and supplies. Supplies are consumed moving place to place and sometimes bartered at decision points. Renown is used to buy level ups for your characters, magic items at shops, and supplies, sometimes for very bad exchange rates. If you don't have enough supplies, bad things happen and the game has multiple events that super rob you of the supplies you have so there's always a crunch on them. Renown being used for so many things and mostly being rewarded for difficult decisions and winning fights is super tight. You generally can't level all your characters up and it makes it hit even harder when you've spent a bunch of renown ranking someone up and then they run off or die terribly. Much like an earlier note, I struggled on which area to stick this in because I'm pretty sure that the scarcity of resources is intentional. The game is gritty and this is one of the ways it's sold, but it still stinks knowing that your named characters could be so much better except that you have to keep spending your renown on supplies so your people don't starve. I get it but don't like it. 

The last note I'm going to make in this section is the hardest. When you make decisions outside of combat, the consequences are often terrible and often seem arbitrary. Egil dies in one of the first scenes in the first game depending on your decision which would deprive you of some excellent writing and an excellent character for the rest of the series. I get that this helps replayability but having looked through a lot of the different paths of those decision points, you can lose out on a lot of how the game eventually plays. Didn't save the Dredge baby in the first game? Your PoV character (Rook or Alette) probably dies in the third after watching the other main PoV character die in the first. Didn't take Eyvind down the right set of logical paths at the end of the game? Get ready for some of the darkest endings for the series. I don't like this and I get that it's entirely intentional. It's easy to get locked into "lol, nothing matters" when you see decisions go way off the rails too often and this is not what you want in a narrative heavy game. This is my biggest gripe with the game and it led me to scrubbing through walkthroughs and saves regularly which didn't make me like the game more.

Final Thoughts

The ending of the first game is abrupt and sorrowful and maybe it's because I've been processing a deep personal loss this year, but it hit me particularly hard. You've spent a lot of time with these people by then, deciding on their trials and tribulations and it's hard not to care about them. At the end of the first game, one of your last decisions will tragically kill one or the other of the main PoV characters with a gut-wrenching funeral scene at the end. The middle installment doesn't pull the heartstrings quite so hard, but the last one ramps it up with a vengeance. I got the "good" ending which I fear is not the canonical ending since the next-less-good ending has more writing and a voice-over scene with two of the now-deceased PoV characters. The other four endings were bleak--very bleak--and while I'm glad I watched them all, it was a real downer and I don't honestly know if I'd feel as strongly about the series as I do had I gotten one of those other endings. As John of  The Writer's Block writes quite often: the ending is all that matters. I think this is especially true of works as emotionally charged as The Banner Saga, especially when you factor in that most players won't finish a game and an even smaller number will complete it again.

The game is dark and gritty and portrays a world where hope is fleeting and far away where it exists at all. What carries these people through to whichever ending you might get to, is their love for each other and their determination to survive. I've asked the question here before: can games be art? If art makes you feel something, then The Banner Saga is most definitely art. Despite its shortcomings, I loved the series and encourage everyone to play it. This is the kind of game that I want to see more of from the industry. It stands as a testament to what the medium can be.

Propapalooza week 19 (2024 week 50)

Finally we have reached the end of the major push for D&L props. There's a handful left that were missing pieces (because I lost them), were so unuseful that I couldn't be bothered (so I didn't paint them) and/or I'm saving them for some nefarious purpose. Also, I really, really needed to be done with them. Anyway.

First up we have a set of stone bridges. I think the two small ones and the two larger ones are from different Dungeons and Lasers kickstarters and since I had so many of them, I painted them differently. The two foreground ones are painted as normal with some additional effort toward weathering which I think worked out pretty well. The ones in back are heavily darkened because they're supposed to be in night time. I don't think that sold as well. I didn't do any OSL on the night time ones though that was my first thought because it's super inefficient to light bridges that way and I just couldn't see that being a real thing.

Next up we have four sci-fi busted up corners. These fit on top of their normal tiles which is nice but they didn't have any convenient ways for me to magnetize them which is not. I basecoated them in metallic through the airbrush which sped things up quite a lot. I spent extra time picking out details and darkening them down with various washes. I think they look OK but I doubt they're going to get much screen time because while they do match the Dungeons and Lasers tiles, they don't match my hand-made magnetized foam tiles. 

 

These are also busted up corners in the fantasy realm this time. I figured these were sitting out in the elements and weathered them down a bunch. I didn't put a ton of effort into them and it kind of shows. The shields and other wooden bits get lost a bit in the background but that's probably OK since these are background terrain pieces rather than center pieces. These might get some screen time.

 

These last busted up fantasy corners I like a lot better. I think they're more striking and spent a little bit more time on them as a result. I didn't do anything particularly differently with the stonework but I think it came out a lot better. I did some highlighting on the exposed timber which helps sell them. I have high hopes for these.

2024 finished mini counter: 399/208

Propapalooza week 18 (2024 week 49)

I'm really ready to be done with props right now but I think there's one week left. 

First up we have assorted cauldrons. I kept the hands coming out but only opted for one set of tentacles for the middle ones and picked soup and ladle vs. fireplace for the ones on the right. These are pretty simply painted as most of these have been and while they don't hold up under scrutiny, they get the job done on the tabletop. When might I use these? No idea, but I often find creative ways to sneak them in regardless.

 

 

I wanted to make these two crystals of some sort but I don't think they work. I wanted to do a "weak crystal energy near the edges" and have them fade into more normal grey rockwork but clearly I didn't. I also wanted the left one to be more red than pink but once the magenta contrast paint went down, I just kinda went with it. The one on the right has the intended tone and while they aren't spectacular in any way, I still think they're cool.

 

These two are clearly bed mimics to go along with the beds we saw in week 37. Looking back at those old shots, I do not miss the old photo studio/settings/difficulties. I didn't spend as much time as I might have on these guys because I really don't think they'll get used. Then again, mimics. They follow the same basic scheme as the beds with additional effort on the teeth and maw. A sloppy mess of Reikland Flesh Gloss tries to sell the "this is a gaping maw of a malign creature trying to eat you" effect that is the essence of the mimic.

 

Next up we have a couple weird creepy mushroom things. I had higher intentions than I ended up painting these but where I was at that point, higher quality efforts really weren't in the cards. They're basically drybrushed over a contrast paint base coat which is probably obvious. In retrospect, I probably should have done more work since mushrooms do get a lot of screen time in my games and if I'm feeling ambitious at some point in the unforseeable future, I might punch these up some. 

 

This last shot is a big 'ol grabbag of things that didn't really have a good grouping. The creepy paintings are very weird and the ones on the left are pretty much phoned in. There's a lot of 3d-ness on these that might not be obvious but in some ways it made them easier to paint. Obviously I did more work on the ones on the right and I wanted to sell the "this is a cool painting with a demon coming out of it" vibe that it seems the sculptor was going for. The bottom left is a dude in a medical pod. I didn't do a lot of work on it and it shows. Ironically, the helmet and its missing twin got more love. Where's its twin? No idea! I dropped it on the floor after painting it and couldn't find it again. Gone forever. On the bottom right we have two ammunition packs (or something) flanking a marine having a really bad day. These didn't get a lot of effort, really, and I don't expect the marine to get much screen time.

2024 finished mini counter: 383/208

Propapalooza week 17 (2024 week 48)

I'm ready to be done with props but there are at least a couple weeks go go but unlike a lot of the stuff that precedes, these guys were less phoned-in for various reasons.

First up we have a pair of neon signs in rubble. I painted them as if they were on despite being in a rubble pile because I thought that was more fun. The pop colors are mostly in Golden High Flow fluorescent because a) they really pop, and b) that just seemed appropriate. The pink and blue were adulterated with normal flat acrylics because I couldn't get a proper coat of the blue fluorescent and couldn't mix a convincing pink fluorescent out of the colors I have on hand. The rockery is drybrushed and washed as usual. Also of note, the signage is only visible from the front so the backs are comparatively really boring.

The two dudes on the left here are pumps of some kind so I painted them in a retro and dirtied-down red. Part of the red is played by Daler Rowney Inks through the airbrush and then washed down with various colors. I did some weak detail work and cleanup and lots of washes to get them where I wanted them. Notably, the first layer of wash over the metallics re-activated some of them but I'm way too lazy to go back and fix them after the fact. The two little guys I think are supposed to be crypts or something and despite being small, I did quite a lot of work on them. It started with a slap chop with washes and Contrast Paints followed by another drybrush. I picked out the metallic details and finished with another wash. I think they look good for the small investment in them. 

These next two are clearly bookshelves but are they really dumb mimics? No idea why they have eyeballs on them. I like that they're whimsical and did minimal work to pick out the books and potions and whatnot on the shelves. These too started with a slapchop but I ended up painting over most of the non-wood bits anyway because I wasn't happy with them. Not sure if the red irises were appropriate but they are hard to miss.

Last up we have the try-hardest items in this set. I like the effect of gemstones but I don't super like painting them because they require careful blends and edge highlighting. These sat with rough highlights for a couple months but when I finally got around to painting them, They turned out pretty well. I'd tried to edge highlight the gemstones individually but never got a result I liked so ended up with an extremely light drybrush instead which I think looks pretty good. They're nicely dramatic on the table but unfortunately they also took a long time blending every single facet. 

2024 finished mini counter: 361/208

Propapalooza week 16 (2024 week 47)

If you were expecting props, well, I've got good news! Looking back on it, I kind of regret pushing to get all of these done this year. On the other hand, they'll all be painted which is nice.

First up we have all of these weird robot cult idol statues. I interpreted them as being made of metal and did very minimal detail work on them. They were basecoated and metallic-ly zenithaled with the airbrush which sped everything up quite a lot. The heavy Badger Ghost Tint Oil Discharge wash ended the process. I've been thinning it down with airbrush flow improver which makes it a lot less gloopy.

Next up we have these two...er...legally distinct Daleks. I wasn't entirely sure which side the eyes were on so I painted them on opposite sides for the two of them. I put some effort in to the details on them but let's be honest: they're real messy. I've been trying to use my misbehaving Vallejo Metal Color Copper more but it's really gloopy and hard to apply. I've been thinning it also with airbrush flow improver which helps in its application but not in its opacity. Dunno if I got a bad bottle or what but it's been a fairly low point in the line which I otherwise really like. 

I'm not entirely sure what these guys are. Are they supposed to be legally distinct star gates or something? Decontamination portals that are tall enough to trip you? Some other kind of stationary scanning device? They are nicely stable and are kind of impressive looking but I haven't a clue what I might us them for. Also, they don't fit nicely on my prop trays so I have no idea how often I'll remember I have them.

 

These yellow guys are also a mystery to me. Yellow felt right but wasn't based on any inherent logic. Because I didn't really know what they were, I didn't pick out super many details in different colors. Are they pumps? I legitimately don't know what they're supposed to be and I'm too lazy to go look it up. A lot of the props in this collection are like these: interesting but very confusing.

2024 finished mini counter: 351/208