More Super Dungeon Explore minis painting

I managed to get some more painting done on the fun miniatures with the Super Dungeon Explore game.  These are the four spawn point models and the six pets you can get as treasures.

Another game of Super Dungeon Explore

Following my main birthday party with family I got together with a couple of my gaming crew for some gaming and BBQ in the yard.  I've been wanting to play a full-on game of Super Dungeon Explore (SDE) with the rules properly read.  I took the role of Consul and my two friends shared three heroes between them.  Set up was pretty quick since we have everything sorted into little ziplock plastic bags from the last time.  Also, since I only have the original set we just play with all the cards rather than having to build decks from lots of extra expansion sets.

SDE is a very tactical game with RPG elements.  The players start with minimal resources and equip themselves with loot from vanquished monsters and treasures from the single treasure chest on each board.  The monsters outnumber them to start with and each spawning point can re-spawn from it's dead pool up to three times.  As each spawn points is destroyed it spawns a tough mini-boss, and the lesser monsters still on the board gain "leveling up" bonuses to keep them tough as the players improve their equipment.  The final boss is very tough.  Nevertheless I was only able to take out one of the adventurers--albeit the same one twice--but then that little hero (they respawn at the entrance) finished off the big boss in epic single combat.

The players enter to find the dungeon swarming with monsters.

Quickly clearing the first room the storm into the next!

The defenders do a respawn as the players maneuver against the first wave.

The first mini-boss spawns, but the players get to summon a rooster.

Battling on as the final room monsters move up to reinforce.

The big boss teleports to safety as his "time out" frogknight

spawns attack.

So what are the pros and cons of SDE?

Pros: great miniatures, high quality components, plenty of replay value with just the basic set, good tactical gameplay

Cons: game boards almost too busy and cluttered to make out key features, a few rules require a lot of hunting around in the rulebook to figure out; took a bit long to play

One thing I wasn't happy with was how long it took to play.  Granted we were doing a lot of reading and re-reading of the rules as we went but it still took about six hours to play a 3-hero/3-board game.  At that rate a really big game with all the heroes and more boards would take a full day to play through.

Super Dungeon Explore mini painting progress

So I managed to get in a short painting session today.  I'm sticking with just doing a layered dry-brush approach with relatively few colors, at least for the monsters.  This group is done except for painting the base gray.

Super Dungeon Explore - Painting Underway!

Okay, so my thoughtful family got me Super Dungeon Explore for Christmas and we had fun playing a couple games.  I hesitated on plunging in on painting the miniatures because I'd want to do the fine detail justice but my eyes are not good for sustained close work like that anymore.  But a lot of the kodama (plant faction) minis are hard to tell apart during play because they're all tiny plant creatures.  So I decided to do a simple dry-brushing approach with a few bits of detailing afterward.  I'm starting with a solid black undercoat followed by a dry-brushed white highlight, both using regular hobby acrylics.  Later I'll dry brush the main colors and add details, especially on the heroes and bosses.  Here's the progress so far:

Santa brought me...Super Dungeon Explore!

Okay, actually it was my very thoughtful wifey and daughter who went to the slightly scary game store and got me this fun game.

I've been looking at this game for a while now.  It looked fun but my gaming group is mostly into tabletop RPGs and computer gaming.  Board and card games usually only come out on the occasional "off night" when we don't have a quorum for one of our RPG campaigns.  Thus I have avoided buying board games in general, despite the fact that it was historical wargame board games that first took me from "playing with plastic soldiers" to games with actual rules and stuff.  But this Thanksgiving my family surprised me by suddenly being interested in playing a game.  So my wish list for Christmas this year was board games we could all play, including Super Dungeon Explore.  After excitedly unwrapping SDE and giving the rules a quick scan we ran a game and a half.  My quick scan of the rules just before and during play was kind of a fail so we actually missed out on a lot of the key rules but it was fun anyway.

As for the game itself, the first thing you'll notice is that the production values are very high.  The miniatures are excellent, there are plenty of dice for everyone, loads of marker counters, and all the dungeon boards are double sided.  You will definitely not be disappointed with any of the components.  The rules are not complex, but the rule book is not well organized and there is no index which leads to a lot of re-reading to find where that mention of topic X is hidden in the text.  Play is fast and fun.

So now I have to decide whether to take a plunge back into miniatures painting...I'd love to paint up the fun minis but my eyesight isn't really up to it anymore.