A look back: Miniatures of 2013

Now that the year is drawing to a close, I find myself thinking back on it as a whole and remembering all the exciting miniatures that were released. Between the Bolter and Me is now almost a year old, and I can’t help but think of some of the releases that kept me forging forward with the hobby amidst the toils of graduate school. Before the year turns over, I felt it would be neat to talk a little about my favorite models of the year, culminating in my pick of the best model of the year.

The year certainly had a number of really impressive releases which really helped inspire me to work harder than ever to assemble and convert  new models. With so many companies releasing models, it has become increasingly difficult to select a single model as the best of the year. To make this post more manageable, I am going to break it down by the specific company that released the models.

Deadzone (Mantic) Modular Terrain Review

The assembled Deadzone terrain looks good at first glance.

In my last Deadzone unboxing post, I talked about how the modular terrain included in the box was a primary motivator in my decision to purchase the game, due to its ability to be used in a wide variety of miniature games that I currently play.  When I wrote that post I had not yet tried to assemble any of the terrain.  Over the last few days I was able to assemble the majority of what came in the box, only stopping when I ran out of connecting pieces.  I ran into quite a few snags along the way, and wanted to let everyone know about them in hopes it improves other peoples’ experience with the terrain or allows new buyers to be more informed of what they are getting themselves into.

Deadzone (Mantic) Unboxing

And Deadzone arrives!

On Monday, I was excited to get home to find that my Deadzone Kickstarter pledge was delivered. Ever since Mantic started to ship out copies of the game two weeks ago, the internet has been alive with activity surrounding it.  Although the overall impressions were largely high, an increasing number of comments on their Kickstarter comments page suggested that things were poorly packaged and confusing.  Reading all this only increased my anticipation to receive the game myself and to see how everything would turn out.

Welcome to Malifaux! Impression of the game

There will be Blood.

Although I had known about Malifaux for a few years, and heard a lot of good things about it, the models really left a lot to be desired for me, and I resisted any urge to start playing it.  When the 2nd edition was released and the new plastic models started to come out Adam bought a few and was quite impressed by them.  So much so that he bought the rulebook and started to learn how to play the game.  Despite this, I was a little reserved about starting up the game myself.  Did I really need to be playing another skirmish game, having started to play Deep Wars and now Deadzone?  But when he assembled enough models and asked if I wanted to play a game of it, trying out the rules, I could not resist.  Although I knew I would not be able to appreciate and incorporate all of the nuance and  strategy in the game having not read though the rules myself, I was excited to go through the basics and see how things played out. In particular, I was interested in seeing how it compared to Deep Wars and Deadzone, both rulewise and in narrative scope.