Move over Walking Dead, without warning, this arrived the yesterday:
I knew it was en route generally speaking but didn’t get a tracking number or anything for this new CMON monstrosity. The game was highly anticipated and is none other than the new A Song of Ice & Fire Tabletop Miniatures Game. That is a pretty big mouthful so I’ll shorten it to ASOIF for short.
There is a lot of unpacking to do with this one so I’ll just go through some of the basic items I picked up, like the obvious core box starter. This is the main starter for the game and features the two iconic factions, Stark and Lannister, going head-to-head.
Also coming in this shipment were some of the expansion boxes that were part of the main campaign. I’m missing a few still but I assume that will come in a separate shipment.
This is the real prize of the shipment, the exclusive stretch goals. CMON did something a little different than before and didn’t really put up anything that was truly exclusive as they want their minis game to take off at the community level. Likely that means that a lot of these special items will be available through organized play events or trade shows. Even if they aren’t, CMON was very careful to make sure nothing available only through the Kickstarter campaign had any mechanical effect or advantage in the game.
Sorry for more iPhone terribleness but these two pieces are probably the most ridiculous items in the whole campaign. A useless character mini of the author himself, George R R Martin and a massive Iron Throne. The GRRM mini is just a gag figure that, if taken in your army, you can dictate by what deeds you defeated your opponent and they must corroborate the story, no matter how ridiculous, assuming you win at all. The Iron Throne is maybe even sillier in that it is the first player marker. Even with all the ridiculousness, I can’t help but really really like both of them.
Next we have easily the best miniature in the set (maybe the mounted Flayed Men are better but this mini takes a lot of awesomeness and crams it into one great piece). While I consider myself a Stark fan and Lannister hater thematically, I almost only want to play Lannisters so I can field this force of nature on the field of battle. I don’t care if I lose every game, that guy is just too cool. Now if I could figure out a way to get a wolf in there too…
With the offer of “exclusive” terrain, I couldn’t help but get a set. Game pimp needs to keep pimpin’, right?
The unique plastic coloring is a nice touch. I think, if I want to quick-paint these up, I could just seal them with a matte spray then apply a wash, then seal them again. The first seal is to give the models “tooth” so the wash doesn’t just bead up or settle awkwardly.
Lastly, I decided to also splurge on a game mat. They had several available so I chose a generic one to work well for most any battle situation. I have a couple of ASOIF events at Gen Con so I’m looking forward to doing a deep dive into the rules and army building and hopefully squeak in a game before the convention. More to come!