H is for Hobbitt'iss, more Horrible Little Hobbitt'iss . . . It's NOT Fair!

Poor old Gollum! Another week another charity-shop board-game, for 95p this time I think, it was a few weeks ago, it's been sat in Picasa while I waited to do the last shot, as I had to dig them out of the attic!

 

Rio Grande Games, who have been seen here before, and a nice little game with a 30-40 minute play-time, so easy by the standards of a lot of games which can take that long to organise and get started!

 

It's mostly punched card, or it is once you've punched it - the norm these days is to charge the customer extra for a larger box, then have them do half the work they used to paying the manufacturer to do - That's 39 years of small-'c' conservative, Thatcherite-Reganomic, 'free-market' theory in action and a global trade war won't stop domestic greed, nor is it any use shooting the messenger, the message stays the same!

 

And - once you've punched all the die-cut sheets, you end up with a box that has a centimetre gap at the top so everything flies around!

 

But all that doesn't matter as you've added two figures to the stash! They are actually pre-coloured PU resin and quite brittle - in the wrong hands they won't last long. The game is one of those lay-as-you-go random path mechanisms (match edges like-for-like) with smaller, added companion and challenge cards liberally spread about.

 

And there's a volcano, rings, into, throwing, for the use of.

 

You may remember Graham Apperley donated a set of Hobbits to the Blog just over a year ago, and they match well with the two Rio Grande ones so it seems I'm fated to slowly build The Shire as a set of questing, ring-bearing, stroppets - Gollum doesn't stand a chance!

N is for New Finds, Pt.4 - Sci-fi and Fantasy

These are all all less than a year old I think (the insects may be a slightly older purchase?), and again should all still be in the shops if not on the Internet somewhere.

Could have been in the Works post, as that is where they came from, but I was looking for ways to divide up all the pictures in the 'new stuff' folder in Picasa and a Sci-Fi/fantasy post seemed a good idea.

Really these are 'action figures' of the type I don't usually bother with, however I saw in the carry-cases a potential for Bamiyan Buddha/Petra style rock carvings for use with small scale figures,...a quick dry-brush, marbling and wash should have them looking like Easter Island monoliths in no time, or set them in a cork or plaster 'wall', so I grabbed the two when I saw them...they were also dirt cheap...they were also Blue Box!

These are still available all over the place, I bought two blind bags when they first came out and ended up with two of the better figures so stopped! Mainly because they will be turning-up loose for pennies in small groups at shows or on evilBay for the next few years - should I fell the need to get a full set.

The marketing ploy here is three different antiqued-metallics for each figure (gold/brass, silver/pewter and a copper-bronze), but that's no different to various colours, so hardly a whinge! About 60mil, the deep, plinth-bases make them awkward for playing with, but you could try to create a chess-set or something? I also think they'd paint-up nicely.

I've seen various versions of both these exact models (the same Poundland carried them a few months later is realistic finishes) and other brands of giant insect, but thought these - with their charcoal and chrome plastic - would make excellent robo-sects for my LP spacemen to battle one day?

Also - if you follow the blog regularly - you'll know my love of Stag beetles and Rhino Beetles meant I was never going to leave them on the rack....at a pound a piece? Not sure if Funtastic are the same as Fun-Tastic, but I'll give them the same label for now. [2016 - They are and I've changed them all over to Funtastic!]