Hi guys, Sharp-O back once again with another Mint in Box and thanks to the lovely folks at Jazwares, I have a whole host of Fortnite toys to review and I’ll be kicking off with the pocket money collectibles; namely the Fortnite Domez and the Fornite Figure Hangers.

Find out more about Jazwares’ Fortnite toys here.

Hi guys, Sharp-O back once again with another Mint in Box and I’m bolstering my loadout with the Fortnite Loot Llama and the Collectible Loot Chest! Find out more about Jazwares’ Fortnite toys here.

Mars Attacks! Officially this time! Join me as I unbox Mantic Games’ new (and silly) miniatures game!

Way back here I reviewed Flying Frog Productions’ Invasion From Outer Space,  a game inspired by the 1960s Topps trading card series Mars Attacks (also the inspiration for the 1996 Tim Burton film). This year, Mantic Games buddied up with Topps to produce an officially licensed miniatures combat game, cleverly entitled Mars Attacks: The Miniatures Game.

So…I guess the humans are losing, huh?

The box for Mars Attacks is thankfully quite slim, yet crammed full of figures, scenery and cardboard – you certainly get some bang (or Zzaapp!) for your buck. Sadly the first thing you encounter is also my least favourite…

The junction of Ehhhh and Urrrgh.

Oh, do I despise these things. This is a (admittedly very nice quality) paper poster, on which your battles will be fought. Being folded up in the box, however, means that the bloody thing will never lay flat and that your scenery and figures will wobble about and fall over. Add to that the relative ease with which paper gets creased, scuffed and torn and you’re really not looking at much longevity for this essential piece of the game. ‘Proper’ game mats are available separately for about £15, but still, urgh…

A ROBOT IS THROWING A CAR. THERE ARE ALSO SAUCERS.

The rule book, by contrast, is gloriously glossy and super-high-quality, with vibrant art and pretty much all the information you require. Sadly there are issues with defining terms and sticking to them, as well as a lack of a single reference point for model stats. It’s not a long read as the game’s rules are a heavily streamlined version of the already-easy Deadzone system but still packs in character bios and 10 playable scenarios. Not bad, if a little unfinished. Ok, ok, time for the toys!

Another refinement, clearly lessons have been learned. The modular scenery pieces are again very similar to those in Deadzone, but pre-coloured, with a far better fit and much more stable. The clips aren’t as much of a pain to connect, though they are still a little flimsy and need pushing out from the opposite side, rather than pulling. That said, you can be up and going in no time; Everything has been removed from the sprue so you don’t need any modelling tools, or know-how. I took a bit of time to remove the ugly sprue stubs though.

This is Sir Edwin, a knight. He is about to get medieval on their asses.

The minis in this game are playing pieces, rather than wargame-style figures; the trade-off of pre-assembly and durable, coloured plastics is that the detail can lack a little definition, especially on the hero miniatures. The army men and Martians have multiple sculpts and look superb and yes, they even provided some fiddly, flimsy vac-formed helmet domes.

Burning cows, knackered cars, giant bugs and terrified civilians, oh my!

The larger miniatures for the game are a separate purchase, so the base set makes do with card standees. This isn’t a problem to me from an aesthetic point of view, but it is obvious that they fluffed the design, as a bag of clip bases was included to replace the slot-in stands. The other problem is that the rules seem to assume that these pieces are figures, though don’t really explain what they are; tokens? Miniatures? Who knows! The card is shiny and decent quality, but half of my tokens (the other sheet) were mis-cut. Good luck randomising those :(

Where did that circular sawblade come from?

The card system is very neat, using a single deck of dual purpose cards, usable by either player. Events also crop up to add mayhem and blazing cows to the game. Neat! The Support Cards allow you to play and then power up larger attacks, such as heat rays, or air strikes, which is a very cool idea.

Go to it, Edwin!

This really is a looker, the simple colours and dynamic pieces make Mars Attacks grab anyone standing close enough and demand that they play it. Over all, the core box is great quality and very good value. Mantic are definitely aiming for the board game audience over their usual wargamer market and it has paid off big time. With Mars Attacks, the love for the source material shines through – it’s infectious silliness and wanton carnage is fully embraced – this is definitely no cynical, licensed cash-in. Mantic have always fallen a little short for me in the style and ‘fluff’ department, crafting solid game systems, with fairly uninteresting miniatures and lore, but this time all I can say is ARM THE SAUCERS! ACTIVATE THE ROBOTS! THE INVASION BEGINS IN FIVE EARTH MINUTES! ACK! ACK! ACK! ATTACK!

Grab your shovel and crowbar, it’s exhumation time! Don’t worry, the dead can help themselves out of the grave…

Bloated, rotten thanks to Fireside Games for sending over a copy of Dead Panic to sink my manky teeth into! Before we rummage around in its guts, how about a look at the box cover?

Excuse me, do you have a moment to talk about halitosis?

The artwork is at once cartoony and unhygienically horrific, but subtly imitates the cover of it’s sibling Castle Panic (which I reviewed here). It’s big and bold and has a movie-esque tagline; a good start, but what lurks beneath?

Take a red paint pen and scrawl “PANIC!” across the board.

 The board is very familiar to Castle Panic fans, with the same clear demarcation of areas and excellent use of corner space for quick reference guides. Two stumps up!

Breaking the fourth wall has no consequences here!

 The classic cabin in the woods…well ok, it reminds me more of a bandstand, or a summer house, but if you can accept its unorthodox number of sides, then you can begin to appreciate the little details of your slightly flimsy stronghold. The card stand-ups are thick and well printed, though – rather like the zombies – the feet need gluing, or they’ll drop off. I especially like the way the front door lines up with the path and the many little characterful touches on the board.

Fetch me some PVA glue and balsa wood – that’ll keep them out!

 This is what happens when your walls get damaged, letting in the rain, the wind and the dead. It’s a neat way of showing 3D damage without any plastic pieces.

Cop, medic, Joker fan, builder, 50s street punk, mechanic and…lawyer? Just guesses.

 Also not in plastic: your characters! No miniatures here and no need of them, these colour-coded standees are perfectly functional and suit the games style, it’s also nice to note that there’s an equal number of male and female characters.

The character cards function as a reference guide and status tracker, but they have a dark side too…

Surprise! I’m dead!

 And here it is! Once you’re dead, you carry on playing into the afterlife and your standee becomes a flat token. Why? Because anyone who knows their ‘Panic’ knows that monsters are always flat!

I had the Shamblers once, but I bought some ointment.

 There’s a good bias toward your basic shambling corpse, with some special fast/aggressive/tenacious zomboids in the mix as well. You might find some survivors, but by the looks of it, they can be undeaded too! All this once-living evil has to be contained somewhere though, but with the huge expense of a Protection Grid, Fireside instead provide a nifty bag.

A nifty bag. Le sac nifté.

 The rest of the tokens are as bold and easily-readable and the three-part radio objective is the worlds easiest jigsaw, a clever touch that will surely make you feel like you are actually assembling it, rather than collecting bits.

HALP Radio, just £9.99 from Ikea.

 Now we’ve seen all the chits and tokens, let’s gnaw the shrinkwrap off the card decks; one good and one…not so good. First up, the Cabin Cards, featuring all sorts of familiar zombie-splatting objects and a nod to The Walking Dead…and possibly Cluedo.

Colonel Mustard, in the Drawing Room, with his leg hanging off.

 And the Event Cards, universally known to gamers as Bad Things Happen And You Die Somehow. The art and titles are well chosen and help bring the theme to some twisted, awful parody of life, OH GOD NO!

‘Event’ sounds like a happy thing; a wedding, or party. Not today.

 Last but not least, the rulebook is well laid out, clearly presented and with lots of example pictures, so even if your brain is splattered across an antique bookshelf, you should still be able to learn the game.

A great resource for the ‘hard of thinking’!

 Dead Panic has the looks, but how does it play? No, really, how does it do that? it’s guts are flapping about and it’s missing an arm! Sleep with one eye open and a shotgun by your side, for soon a video review will come a-scratching at your window in the dead of night…

Little green men with buckets on their heads have arrived at my house inside a cardboard box! What? Don’t make it weird!

Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Game was a smash hit for Flying Frog Productions and earned them a reputation as a company to watch. Their subsequent titles A Touch of Evil, Conquest of Planet Earth and Fortune and Glory all saw similar success, each spawning expansions and gaining a solid fanbase. So why is it that we hear so little of this, then?

It’s all in there; aliens, fire, moustaches!

Invasion from Outer Space:The Martian Game (From here on, IfOS) is like an alien conspiracy; evidence of the game clearly exists, but nobody seems willing to talk about, or even acknowledge it. I’ll be fully probing this game in an upcoming review, but for now let’s bust open the box like an unconvincing autopsy!

So these are the innards, I guess? Which bit’s the spleen?

Right away we get a whole tonne of quality cards, boards and token frames. Everything feels sturdy and glossy enough to deflect a Death Ray except the game board which has a mercifully matt finish. Flying Frog set a high standard for themselves and have kept to it; I especially love the crashed saucer on the right. Wait, is that a bear?

Sorry, Martians, no heroics from you today.

Two rather massive decks round out the card bits; their shiny, thick stock is really hard to shuffle and requires flexing to ‘crack’ and separate the cards. Shiny, but not practical, like a space helmet for your bum.

Yes, this game has a CD soundtrack.

A Flying Frog quirk is the inclusion of a CD soundtrack with each game. While non essential to gameplay, the music is themed to create an atmosphere for the invasion; does it work? Watch the skies for my forthcoming review!

When Mars Attacks!

Toys! I mean Miniatures! You get 18 Invaders in two colours (to facilitate multiple Martian players), The Martian Leader and the Zard Beast. The sculpting is remarkably good for a non-wargames company and while the plastic has some ‘give’, it’s not soft and squidgy. What’s really neat is…

Baldy, Wrinkles and Clive.

Three different sculpts for the ‘grunts’! Totally unnecessary, but a very nice touch indeed.

Posing and gesturing abilities are the most important qualities a leader must have.

I have to admit that the Zard Beast is, while definitely besital, not all that impressive. His gummy face looks almost smiley and he’s almost entirely made of muscles, a bit like an aged WWE star. The Leader is quite dynamic, certainly differentiated from the rest of the rabble and seems to be the only one with a breathing mask. Why’s that? Well…

Always wear a rubbish bin on your head, or you’ll offend the locals.

BUCKETS! You actually get a little baggie of clear ‘domes’ for the little guys! It’s a wonderful finishing touch, unless you don’t have any skill with glue. The helmets don’t clip on, they just balance precariously and if you’re not into miniatures or model-making, you’ll have smeary vaseline-visors all round.

They’re here to save the tiny fairground and possibly the world.

The Heroes also get some very detailed and unique figures, albeit in a horribly dull grey. There’ll be no mistaking who’s who on the table top, so well done there. Oh and about that bear…

I’m here to eat fish and ride a unicycle and I’m all outta fish.

JoJo the Dancing Bear has two abilities: Bear and Dancing. He wears a tutu and, needless to say, is my instant favourite.

Martians have all the best toys.

Above is a sample of the art style of IfOS which is impeccable; Flying Frog assembled a cast, wardrobe and make-up, then took a bunch of photos and CGI’d the rest. It looks cheesily cinematic and is bold, colourful and bang-on theme.

The world’s most organised funfair.

Last, we have the board, which is a bit of a mixed bag once assembled. The different grass shades don’t match and the art looks hand-drawn and jarringly different from everything else. It’s nicely functional and clear, but I don’t get why it’s so stylistically at-odds with the rest.

Invasion from Outer Space is extremely well-produced, having the looks of a blockbuster and the feel of a B-picture. The multiple Martian variants, separate helmets and CD are all extras which were totally unnecessary, but make you feel like you’re getting a top-quality game. With the exception of the mis-matched board style, the artwork is memorable, fun and unlike any other game – you know this is a Flying Frog title.

All that’s left now is to see how this thing plays! Watch the skies, dare to believe and most importantly, take that space helmet off your bottom!

 Invasion from Outer Space: The Martian Game can be purchased directly from Flying Frog Productions, or your friendly, local game store.

Disclosure: I was not paid to write this article and the opinions expressed are from my own personal experience. The game featured in this article was kindly provided by Flying Frog Productions for review purposes.

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The website for the awesome Aces Laces can be found here.

Hot on the heels of my Von Drakk Manor overview comes this spotlight on the limited edition (inevitable) catgirl for Super Dungeon Explore! All together now: Nyan nyan nyan…

No rainbows, no Pop Tart.

First released (and quickly sold out) at Gen Con 2013, Nyan Nyan is a cheap and cheerful hero expansion for Soda Pop Miniatures’ Super Dungeon Explore. As it was my birthday at the start of the month, my lovely wife bought me one of these the instant that they hit the CMON Webstore, where a limited number are still available. Let’s kick Schrödinger in the kneecap and let the cat out of the box!

Sorry, trying to work out a ‘leotard/leopard’ joke

Nyan Nyan appears to be made of the softer, darker ‘Von Drakk‘ type plastic, but feels a tiny bit more sturdy, perhaps due to the solidity of the sculpt. I initially thought this would be a ‘catgirl’ character, but on closer look, she’s actually wearing a cat outfit, complete with kitty-ears hood! The big claw-gauntlets are vicious, riveted armoured things, giving her a convincing warrior feel that’s only *slightly* undermined by the daft, fur-trimmed leotard. Nyan Nyan continues the trend of unique-looking heroes in the SDE world and won’t be confused for any other character on the board.

Stats wise, Nyan Nyan is clearly in the ‘Rogue’ camp, with abilities stacked toward long range hit-and-run tactics, not protracted brawls. High DEX, coupled with Dodge makes her hard to hit, while Luck adds some flexibility to both her and her party. Purr is useful for drawing enemies out of formation and isolating them, while Catnip Bomb is one of the new, offensive potions to rob enemies in its AOE of their special attacks. Both these can combine to set up a strike with her ‘grandstand’ move; Teeth & Fur.

With an effective range of 12 squares (6 if she wants to hit-and-run) Nyan Nyan is shaping up to be an excellent Hero and a serious threat to any Dark Consul player’s elites, mini-bosses and even Boss characters. The problem I have is that she’s a little too good…

Power creep?

(Note: Pounce as written is a Fly move, but has since been altered by errata to be a teleport: “Pounce: Choose an enemy model anywhere within 5 squares, and line of sight. Place the model with Pounce adjacent to this target, then roll to attack as normal.”)

So first up, she has Dodge with a base DEX of 2red, which is none too shabby and she has an average health of 5. However, if you do manage to splat the cat, her 9 Lives ability kicks in and this is where it all goes wrong: Nyan Nyan is nigh-immortal; If Nyan Nyan dies, then she has a 66% chance of bouncing right back again, with just shy of a 17% chance of regenerating three hearts as she does so! A 50-50 split (1 blue die, maximum two hearts regained) would have felt a little fairer considering how much effort it takes to kill a Hero to begin with and I hate to imagine what Nyan Nyan and a solid healer like the Paladin would be like.

The ultimate gauntlet with which to instigate a duel!

Nyan Nyan also comes with a unique treasure card granting +1 red die DEX and cloning the Teeth & Fur special attack – very nasty! I love how they’ve included her character portrait on the card and having character-specific weapons adds a bit of flavour to the Treasure deck.

With game expansions, the worry is always how they will affect the balance of power in the game and while Nyan Nyan is only a small addition to the SDE world, she does have the distinctly cheesy whiff of ‘power creep’ to her. She’s a great Hero to add to the team, but as a design, she still needed some tweaking before release. Nyan Nyan is a lot of fun, not necessarily ‘broken’ and for the price I would recommend buying her while stocks still exist. Just be aware that she’s a particularly strong hero that could unbalance a game if used in a similarly top-tier party – this kitten has claws!

Seriously, look at those things; they could disembowel a bear.

Super Dungeon Explore is a lovely little arcade-styled dungeon bash board game, which I reviewed here. Von Drakk Manor is the suspiciously Castlevanioid expansion. Journey with me into the pulsating heart of Darkness! Spoiler: contains no zombies. :D

Images of Von Drakk Manor (originally announced as Glauerdoom Moor) appeared in August 2012, whetting the appetites of all Super Dungeon Explore fans with glimpses of grody new minions and creepy bosses with a distinctly ‘Ghouls and Ghosts/Castlevania‘ feel. Now that the gates have creaked open, let’s lurch into the crypt and see what bones are shakin’

Please Press Start IF YOU DARE!

Lovely, distinctive art adorns the box, showcasing the characters and colour schemes; very helpful for those who like to paint. SDE Always delights with consistent visuals and this is no exception…but it is just a box, so on we delve!

Oh just chuck him a bonio

She looks innocent, but her arrows are pointy!

Making a nun cross is a bad habit…and now I’m fired.

The three new hero sculpts are slightly different to those in the base game and the first expansion set Caverns of Roxor, being both slightly larger and made of a softer and darker grey plastic. The shift in scale is slight, but noticeable, though certainly not a deal-breaker, but I’m not too keen on the new material, though I can see why it has been used. The SDE miniatures are quite finely detailed and I’d rather have this new plastic that risk breakage of small parts down the road.

The sculpts themselves are great, with the Belmont-esque Von Wilding and his alter ego Von Wilder clearly the winners this time around. The pose of the Sister of Light looks slightly odd somehow, perhaps due to the odd angle of her hair, but clever use of the Celestial Herald’s wings makes for a very distinctive hero. So what are they like on paper (cardboard, whatever)?

Oh just give him a Snickers.

Von Wilding is a pretty solid character with a nice toolkit of abilities and some neat synergy potential for Holy heroes. His hairier form, Von Wilder, trades up versatility for increased speed, toughness and attack. I’m not entirely sure why they chose the name “Shagfest” for an ability though, he’ll never live that down. Interestingly, Von Wilder’s attacks cause ‘lycanthropy‘, making the target vulnerable to magic, but handing a free red attack die to the wounded enemy. This limits potential against bosses, but most regular minions will die with one hit, so it’s not an issue against rank-and-file goons.

Holy…what? Holy. They’re just holy.

The Sister of Light will be one for careful positioning to make the most of her ‘Cross‘ action and attack. She seems to sit firmly in the ‘support/tank’ slot in the team and her attack and armour are actually pretty solid, so she shouldn’t need much protection. The Celestial Herald looks to operate like an angelic gunship; a flying, ranged weapons platform with ‘heart seeking’ arrows and the ability to hit multiple targets with ‘spray‘, topped off with a useful defensive potion.

So what about the grodiose minions and terrifying bosses? Well…

Oh hi there, welcome back from the dead!

Who ya gonna call? Lifebusters!

These are your first lot of goons, tied to the Shallow Grave spawn points and they are very much a mixed bag. First up are the Dust Coven Necromancer and the Dust Mages, who are excellent and pointless respectively. Both use the new ‘bone piles‘ and ‘raise’ rules which allow some dead minions to collapse into a heap and be respawned as ‘risen‘ Rattle Bones (more on those later), but where the Necromancer has the ability to raise multiple bone piles and then ‘compel’ them to move into action, the Mages can only pop up one at a time. Not only that, but their base stats are fairly unimpressive, aside from the ability to inflict ‘bind‘ and deny heroes their special actions.

My shield is like a skull of steel!

Bring me the head of Ray Harryhausen!

Next there are the glorious Dread Knights and the utterly generic Bone Heads. Dread Knights have a strong attack, a little armour and can knock down a hero’s defence and dexterity with ‘fragile‘ and ‘cold’. Disappointingly, Bone Heads are nothing special and have very little to distinguish themselves from the base set’s Kobold Knuckleheads, even lacking the former’s ‘mob’ ability. They are also the most numerous minion in the set. The really bad part is that when either of these minions are destroyed, they come back as…

Undead village idiots.

Rattle Bones are crap. Crap stats, and no extra abilities (aside from a barely-useful ‘mob‘) other than coming from, then swiftly returning to a bone pile. The worst part is that while the box and card say that you should have six, you only get four and this has been officially declared to be correct. Oddly enough, as well as the misprints, you get six bone pile tokens in the box and if the number of Rattle Bones had been larger, then maybe they’d not be so poor in practice.

The real reason that they’re so useless is that to play effectively as the Dark Consul you need to deny Heroes their loot, which they can easily rack up by ploughing through cannon fodder units such as these. Without Rattle Bones presenting much of a threat, nor having adequate defence, they’re little more than loot-pinatas. Oh well.

‘Ullo Burt!

Look at the kitty-cat head broomsticks!

What are you looking so smug about?

Skullbats, Curse Coven Witches and Miserable Toads all form part of the Pumpkin Patch spawn group and work pretty nicely as a magical combo of annoyance. Skullbats are statistically awful, but travel in pairs and can self-destruct (thus denying loot) to make heroes vulnerable to magic attacks and therefore the Witches, who have good Will to contest initiative, are quick, not too flimsy and pack both a nasty ‘knockdown and stun‘ attack and the brilliant Transmogrify potion. This is where the Toads come in.

A Miserable Toad is what Transmogrified Heroes become and this pathetic form all but spells doom for them. While the Toad can self-heal (if lucky) and can be ‘smooched‘ back to their normal form, they’ll instantly become a great big, easily killed target for any and all dungeon spawn. They’re a solid bit of thematic, halloween fun.

GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFF!

This is the Crypt Spider, who lacks direct synergy with his Spawn fellows, but boasts pretty good armour and health backing up a truly nasty ‘slow’ and ‘poison’ combo with a strong attack. An unpleasant solo model that may well take some killing, but will almost certainly be subjected to massed attack and ‘fire’ by the Heroes. Plunking this bugly on the table is sure to have a fair bit of psychological power, too.

We’re now winding up to the big hitters; the miniboss and the titular Von Drakk himself! Let’s crack that slab and unleash the evil!

HELLO.

Death Spectre kind of says it all; a staple of a certain video game series and an interestingly hit-and-run miniboss. With the ability to teleport across the board, then leech life from a Hero to heal, Death Spectre also boasts very good Armour and Will. While he’s unable to hit multiple targets at once, he can quite easily whittle down 3 wounds and strike a killing blow on any unwary Hero, before buggering right off and doing it again next turn.

A million miles from Ben Affleck

And here’s the biggest cheese of all; Von Drakk! What’s that? Oh yes, he can shapeshift into a huge bat-beast known as Nocturne! Von Drakk in human form has the ability to heal on the dice, good attack and defence and the ‘dodge‘ ability and this is just as well; with 6 wounds, he’s not overly durable. His special abilities suffer a little from relying upon his rather crappy ‘risen’ troops (again, the Rattle Bones) but his shapeshift throws out a large stat boost, especially to his attack and armour, with the ability to go ‘Berserk’. Nocturne also gains an AOE ‘stun’ but with only 6 health total he won’t be invincible.

In summary and on first look, Von Drakk Manor has some great ideas and some excellent synergy in places, coupled with a new ability combo that is hamstrung by some truly pathetic minions. Despite the errata I do wonder if there were supposed to be 6 Rattle Bones all along and maybe fewer Bone Heads. The failings of the ‘meat-and-potatoes’ minions in both theme and stats do rather diminish the overall effect of this set and I intend to house-rule the Rattle Bones in the following manner:

New rule: All ‘risen’ do not advance the loot track when destroyed, but advance the power gauge as normal.

In this way, the Rattle Bones become a roadblock for the Heroes, tying up attacks, but giving no reward other than potions and hearts from the dice (perhaps not even that!). I might go as far as giving the Bone Heads ‘mob’ or ‘cold’ to give them a bit more flavour and I suspect I won’t be the only one.

Now put in your false fangs and yell “KISS MY MISERABLE TOAD, HEROES!”

Hi, guys! Sharp-O back with more Box-y goodness than usual as I’m unboxing a Box of Awesome on Mint in Box. The word ‘box’ has lost all meaning to me.

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