Photo: Triton NoirCharlie Hall is Polygon’s tabletop editor. In 10-plus years as a journalist & photographer, he has covered simulation, strategy, and spacefaring games, as well as public policy.Lots of folks say they want to get started painting miniatures, but they’re just not overly fond of Space Marines or anything else that Games Workshop is selling at the moment. That’s okay, because there are plenty of miniatures-based games out there for you to get excited about — including loads that you’ve likely never even heard of. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood of Venice is on sale right now as part of Amazon’s October Prime Day, and it’s an excellent example of how a small purchase can start you down the road to an amazing new hobby.Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood of Venice is a story-driven, cooperative campaign game for up to four players that includes 26 playable chapters, each roughly an hour long. It also has a solo mode, so you can play it by yourself or learn it thoroughly before sharing it with your friends. And while I haven’t had the chance to put it through its paces, the game comes highly recommended by several writers that I respect, including Aftermath co-founder Luke Plunkett.Photo: Triton NoirMuch like other modern board games, Brotherhood of Venice was brought to life with a successful crowdfunding campaign. While the $239 collector’s edition is still available, the $79.99 version is half off for Prime Day, on sale for just $39.99 through Wednesday.Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood of Venice$70$8013% off$70$70 at AmazonInside your copy of Brotherhood of Venice, you’ll find the first five miniatures you get to paint, a series of familiar-yet-deadly assassins wrapped in flowing robes and cowls barely concealing a collection of elegant sharp objects. How about a video tutorial to get you started? Who better to assist you on your journey than Golden Demon award-winning painter Angel Giraldez. (Just skip the bit with the airbrush and do a quick zenithal highlight with some spray paint instead.)Now all you need is some paint and a brush. You could, of course, drop by my in-depth painting guide for lots of helpful advice and buying options. Or you could snag this Army Painter Zombicide paint set that’s currently on sale, which comes with enough basic colors and metallics to get you started. You even get a decent brush! Any other colors that you want or need, just pick them up at the local hobby store or online.But we’re not done yet. Now that you have five fully-painted Assassins, and after you finish the 26-mission campaign, then what? Well, then it’s time to check out TTCombat’s Carnevale, a full-fledged miniatures skirmish game played on elaborate terrain. You can start small with just the core rulebook, or go big with a massive laser-cut wooden diorama. Or you can skip the skirmish game entirely and just do up a nice little Venetian street corner for your beautiful new miniatures to hang out on.Opportunities to start painting miniatures are all over the place, with more and varied lines from all kinds of different settings coming to market every year. So quit putting off starting a new hobby, look around for miniatures and games that excite you, find some good tools and tutorials, and get painting. You won’t regret it — especially as the cold winter months begin to creep in.Looking for more deals? Check out all of Polygon’s favorite October Prime Day 2024 deals right here, and subscribe to our newsletter below to get great deals delivered to your inbox every week.
Related Posts
By Simmone Shah
To Refik Anadol, data is a creative force.
“For as long as I can remember, I have imagined data as more than just information—I have seen it as a living, breathing material, a pigment with infinite possibilities,” the Turkish-American artist said on Monday during his acceptance speech at the TIME100 AI Impact Awards in Dubai.
Anadol was one of four leaders shaping the future of AI to be recognized at TIME’s fourth-annual Impact Awards ceremony in the city. California Institute of Technology professor Anima Anandkumar, musician Grimes…
Read moreGrand Theft Auto V actor Ned Luke, who played Michael in the incredibly popular game, has spoken out about his thoughts on Grand Theft Auto VI. He said in an interview with Fall Damage (via Dexerto) that he’s confident the game will be “fantastic,” going on to say no one ever knows what to expect from Rockstar Games, and that’s part of the reason why he’s so eager to see what the studio is cooking up.
“You never know what Rockstar is going to do,” he said. “What I tell people is, be patient. It’s going to be worth the wait. From what I’ve seen, it’s going to be amazing. They’re going to blow our [GTA V] numbers away.”
By “numbers,” Luke was referring to the $800 million that GTA V earned in its first 24 hours back in 2013. Luke said he expects GTA VI to make $1.3 billion in …
Read moreWith the launch of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle around the corner, interest in the original film series starring Harrison Ford will probably spike. The first four movies are streaming on Prime Video and Paramount+, and 2023’s Dial of Destiny is on Disney+. If you prefer to own your movies, there’s a four-film collection on Blu-ray and 4K Blu-ray. And the timing of the game’s release is kind of perfect, as Amazon’s Cyber Monday sale includes deals on the collections in both formats. You can even get a 4K collection with a steelbook case for each movie.
Indiana Jones 4-Movie Collection:
- Indiana Jones 4-Movie Collection (4K Blu-ray) — $53 (
$91) - Indiana Jones 4-Movie Collection (Blu-ray) — $32.49 (
$48Read more
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 will have no DRM whatsoever. Tobias Stolz-Zwilling, the PR boss at developer Warhorse, confirmed this during a recent Twitch stream.
The RPG does not use Denuvo or any form of DRM, the developer said, as reported by IGN. Stolz-Zwilling said Warhose had “some discussions” about utilizing DRM to protect the game from piracy, but it was ultimately decided that “it will not have any DRM system at all.”
Stolz-Zwilling said he hopes this brings closure to the ongoing questions from the community about whether or not Deliverance 2 will have DRM.
“Stop texting under every post we do that Denuvo is in the game, because it’s not. We never announced… we never said it will be there. As I said, a bit of a misunderstanding,” he said. “Let’s bury that th…
Read moreIn retrospect, Deadpool 2 has the perfect setup for a MCU sequel after Ryan Reynolds’ title character “borrowed” a time machine and used it save his beloved Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) from an early grave before righting some other wrongs. But if fans were expecting Wade Wilson to have a happy ending, Deadpool and Wolverine is shooting that notion down a month before the film’s release.
Deadpool and Wolverine is the cover story for the latest issue of Total Film, which features new details about where things stand after Deadpool 2. According to the report, six years have passed since Wade changed history and prevented Vanessa’s murder Come from Sports betting site VPbet . But there have been some unpleasant e…
Read moreSince the beginning of The Boys in 2019, showrunner Eric Kripke has done just about everything to show audiences that Homelander (Antony Starr) is a villain. He may drape himself in the American flag, but Homelander has killed countless people through three seasons and he’s behaved in very un-heroic ways. Regardless, some fans continue to view Homelander as a hero. As The Boys heads into its fourth season, Kripke doesn’t know what he can do or say to change that perception among Homelander’s fans.
While speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Kripke not only took on Homelander’s defenders, he also addressed fans who have accused the show of going “woke.”
“Anyone who wants to call the show ‘woke’ or whatever, that’s OK. Go watch something else. But I’m certainly not going to pu…
Read moreVinland Saga’s gorgeous new deluxe editions are on sale for their lowest prices yet at Amazon. Volume 1 of the superb historical manga, which released in February, is discounted to only $33. You can pair it with Volume 2, which was published in April, for $43. These hefty hardcover editions of Vinland Saga are 600-700 pages each and carry list prices of $55. The third and fourth volumes release in the coming months, and you can get a 10% discount on your preorder.
Vinland Saga Deluxe Editions
- Vinland Saga: Deluxe Edition 01 — $33 ($
55) - Vinland Saga: Deluxe Edition 02 — $43 ($
55) - Vinland Saga: Deluxe Edition 03 (Releases June 18) — $49 (
$55) - Vinland Saga: Deluxe Edition 04 (Releases September…
Read more
At a glance, you’d be forgiven for thinking that The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom follows firmly in the footsteps of the 2019 remake of Link’s Awakening. Stick Zelda in as a playable character, give her a magic wand, sell an absolute shed-load of copies. Job done.
But having now played an 80-minute section from early in the game, this comparison seems only surface-deep. Although it shares the extremely cute, diorama-esque aesthetic of its top-down predecessor, Echoes captures much more of the systemic and improvisational joys of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom than you might expect.
As I write this, Black Myth: Wukong, the action adventure from China’s Game Science studio, is the most played game on Steam by player count. There are currently 1,400,932 players in-game (with a peak of 1,443,570), surpassing the likes of Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, PUBG and all the usual games that occupy Steam’s top five.Wukong’s launch was already predicted to be strong, with the game being Steam’s number one seller for several weeks, but the concurrent player figures are quite staggering for a single-player, offline game.To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings Though the number of concurrent players continues to rise, even as it stands, this makes Black Myth: Wukong Steam’s fourth most popular game in its history, having j…
Read moreWorld of Warcraft: The War Within is officially out today, which means you – yes, you – can boot up the game right now and get an espresso shot of that lovely new-expansion experience. It’s the best time to play an MMO y’know, before everything settles down and you’re stuck running raids on a weekly schedule.The expansion has you and other players venture down into Azeroth’s underbelly looking for loot, Xal’atath, and roughly a billion giant spiders who ironically aren’t too fond of you hanging around. It’s already been playable for those who bought special (and more expensive) version of the expansion, but now the gates have been thrown open for the entire playerbase to hop in.To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings As for what’s available right now, the…
Read more