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Hello to everyone on Dakka! Some of you are probably familiar with me, as I've been around the site for a while now, and this is start of a new blog separate from my main painting and modelling blog. In this one, I plan to discuss my projects that aren't actual tabletop wargaming, but rather board games with miniatures. Things like Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps, Ankh: Gods of Egypt, Guildball, and the brand new Primal: The Awakening. You won't see 40k related stuff in here for the most part, even if they do release board games once in a while with their miniatures in them. I figured most of this was a little different type of modelling than regular wargame stuff, hence why I decided to separate it out.

To kick off this new board game blog, I thought I'd talk about the giant box I just got in the mail today. After three long years of waiting after backing the Kickstarter, I've finally gotten my hands on Primal: The Awakening, and it looks to be one hell of a project (and I mean that in a good way!). Unfortunately, the only thing that came in the mail was the core box; all the expansions, Kickstarter stretch goals, and add-ons will be coming in a separate shipment in a couple of weeks (fingers crossed). But still, the main game's here, so let's have a small look-see at it, eh?

First off, I should point out that the game box itself is MASSIVE. Easily the biggest board game box I've ever seen. Here's a pic of it on my couch:

Of course, the reason for the huge box is the massive monster minis that are inside it. I won't show pics of all of them, but I'll show a couple of them to give an idea just how big and awesome they are.

First though, here are the plucky heroes who will be hunting the monsters:

From left to right, we have Dareon and his giant sword, Mirah and her longbow, Thoreg and his big hammer, and Ljonar with his sword and shield. These minis are really cool, with all kinds of detail, and will make for some fun painting on their own. But that's not the main attraction of this game. Here's a pic of one of the monstrous foes the heroes must face:

This is Vyraxen, and he's actually the first monster in the campaign (and the subject of the sample hunt described in the rulebook to teach the game). Like all of the monsters in the game, he's really big. I put one of the heroes next to him in the picture just to show the scale. These models have a lot of different textures on them, and will provide enough variety in painting that they shouldn't become boring in any way.

And if you thought Vyraxen was big, check out this game's "final boss", a giant dragon with a seriously bad attitude:

He's called The Awakened, and he is the enemy that must be defeated at the end of the campaign in order for the players to win. As the picture shows, he absolutely dwarfs the hunters to insignificance. They'll need to muster every trick they have to bring him down!

As far as game mechanics go, the game is mostly card-driven, with putting together good card combos crucial to beating the monsters. The monsters' behaviors are also controlled by cards, and they get more dangerous as the fight goes on and as they take damage. After all, there's nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal...

Anyways, that's kind of my first look at Primal. I know I didn't show all that much, but you'll see each monster as I paint it, so eventually they'll all get their time in the spotlight, as will all the heroes. In total with all the expansions and stretch goals, there are 22 monster models and 6 heroes, so there's plenty to keep one busy with this game. And one of the add-ons replaces the cardboard terrain counters with actual 3d plastic pieces, so there's even more gubbins to paint. I have other board games I'm working on too, so there'll be plenty to cover in this blog, and of course my main blog should stay busy with all my 40k/AoS/other wargaming stuff. Not sure how often I'll be working on the stuff in here, but I do hope to get a fair amount of Primal done this year, Lord willing. That's all for now, thanks for looking!

Nice! Looks like a lot of fun. Good luck getting it all painted.

You going with traditional paints, contrasts, or a mix?

Always did like big monsters. Looking forward to seeing this develop.