What have the Sentry Box Staff been up to Mar 18 – Apr 21

Hi guys! Sue here again with an update on what the staff have been up to for the past month, and it’s been an active month! We have a wide variety this month including a couple of miniatures, a bunch of board games and even an update from a D&D campaign!

What have the Sentry Box Staff been up to Feb 19 – Mar 17

It’s been a bit of a slower month game wise here at the store, with a lot of people working on bigger projects. But we did have a handful of games. Every Thursday we have Battletech here at the store and Dan got some great pics of that, as well Dan and Chloe started a D&D campaign. There continues to be strong interest in Legions Imperalis and Uncle Mike painted a bunch of terrain for that. Anyway, without further ado, here is what people thought about their projects this month:

Star Wars: Legion – Objective Guides: Sabotage the Moisture Vaporators

We have Guest Writer Zack Mathews from the “Deploy the Garrison” Star Wars: Legion podcast. So read on to see Zack’s thoughts on playing the Sabotage the Moisture Vaporators objective!

What have the Sentry Box Staff been up to Jan 15 – Feb 18

Hi there! Sue here with some fun updates about what the Staff has been up to for the past month. If I had to pick a theme for this month, I would say it’s Legions Imperialis. So much so that I’m giving it it’s own section! Kris and Aidan finished a bunch of Legions Imperialis this month, and additionally Kris got in some Star Wars: X-Wing and I painted up some Games Workshop and D&D models. Renee didn’t get as many board games in as usual this month, but she did manage to get in a game of Diced Veggies. Here’s what everybody had to say about their miniatures and games this month:

Deathwing Assault – First Impressions

In the grim darkness of the 41st millennium, where war rages across the galaxy, the Dark Angels emerge from the shadows with a resounding roar. As the enigmatic First Legion of Space Marines, they bear the weight of a turbulent history, marked by loyalty, secrecy, and a relentless pursuit of redemption.

What have the Sentry Box Staff been up to Dec 11 – Jan 14

Hi everybody! Sue here again with an update on what the Staff have been up to for the past month. We have a wide variety of activities this month including board games, a whole bunch of miniature painting, some classical art backdrops, and a D&D painting party! Without further ado, let’s kick things off with miniature painting.

Takeover Phase Cycle Three: The Big Kiss Off!

Stop your ceaseless holiday feasting and merrymaking! It’s the last phase of the campaign and there’s still time for lots of gang violence! This cycle runs from Sunday, December 31 through Wednesday, January 31. A whole month…but also the last month. No time to be sad though, there are lots and lots of extra fun things to keep everyone busy before the inevitable end.

D&D Birthday Parties are back at The Sentry Box!

It’s been a while since our trusty DM Tom left to undertake his own adventures, but he has returned triumphant and ready to host your D&D Birthday Parties!

Takeover Phase Cycle Two: More Gang Violence!

Is your gang successful? Are your gangers happy with their weapons and armour? Are you a good gang leader? This is the Takeover Phase Cycle Two…the end of the campaign is only one cycle away. This cycle runs from Sunday, December 10 through Saturday, December 30. If you have any big plans you should get on it, before it’s too late…

What have the Sentry Box Staff been up to Nov 13 – Dec 10

Hi there! Sue here again with an update about what the Staff have been up to. This month Renee played a whole bunch of board games and she’ll share her thoughts below. We also had other staff members paint/ play a variety of miniatures/ miniature games.

Miniature Painting and Games

The store Necromunda league now has new and improved scenery for the Ash Wastes setting, courtesy of Uncle Mike. This seems like a good time to remind customers that the Sentry Box runs many and varied events and leagues, most days of the week, as well as a stocked Terrain Room full of fully painted table set-ups from historical to fantasy and science fiction.

I think that terrain looks excellent and really helps immerse you in the exciting world of Necromunda, 40k, or a variety of other sci-fi settings! We regularly have leagues for the different Warhammer skirmish games and they’re always a lot of fun!

Next up, I painted a Reaper Sasquatch miniature. Nice, simple miniature to paint. I primed him Vallejo’s English Uniform and I used Gore Grunta Fur Contrast Paint on his fur and Guilliman Flesh Contrast Paint over his skin. I purposely used the Guilliman Flesh over the darker skin rather than painting it a flesh color first so that the contrast between the fur and the skin wouldn’t be too jarring.

Lastly, for miniatures, Chad played Marvel Zombies. Here’s what he had to say about it:

“The Long awaited Zombicide spin off is here. I got to take play a few missions before priming a horde of miniatures. In this game mode you take the role of some of earths last heroes that have not yet become zombies, in an all out war to kill off as many icky zombies as possible before they eat you and make you join the horde.

When entering new zones and rooms there are spawns that happen at random, funnily enough at the X mansion’s garage, none other than Wolverine was laying in wait while working in his Harley! What were the odds! We were just extremely thankful it was not the juggernaut or a sentinel.

We have only just scratched the surface of this epic game. I guess it means weekly game night here at my household are back on! 11/10 so far!!!!!”

I love Zombicide! I think it’s a fun game and it looks like this is another great installment and Chad had a blast!

Board Games

Renee had a busy month playing a wide variety of games! Here’s what she had to say about them:

“Jenn, Dad and I started our Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West and I wanted to share my initial thoughts half way through the game. We are absolutely loving this experience; it takes one of our favourite games and creates a new adventure each session by adding more board, more mechanics and even things that feel like little side mini-games. I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, but without spoiling anything I can say that I am extremely impressed with the design of this game. As a family that already owns almost every version of the game already, finding that each box adds something entirely new is impressive. This does require some extra attention because there are times when claiming one route triggers up to 4 additional actions that you have to remember to execute, but working together to keep tabs on the additional rules can be a fun part of the experience. We’re already all very excited about the epic version of Ticket to Ride that we’ll end up with at the end. I’ll share my final thoughts after we end the campaign, but that might take a little while longer as its been packed up again for a bit. (Spoiler free pic).

Jenn and I played through most of the My City legacy game, completing 6 of the 8 chapters over our vacation week. This is a fantastic entry level legacy game; the game play is very straightforward, each chapter introduces new mechanics and at the end of each of the 3 episodes per chapter, you make changes to your board based on how you scored. But while the game play is easy at its roots, the choices you make each turn feel very strategic and sometimes frustratingly difficult. The main gist of the game is that each turn you place a specific building on your board, with scoring objectives changing slightly as you move through the chapters. I love that this game features simultaneous play and while it initially appears to be a group solo game, because of the changes made to your board and your pieces, the game very quickly becomes different for each player with slightly different ways to achieve the objectives. This was a game we found ourselves happily bringing back to the table whenever we got a chance. If you like puzzly piece placement games, like Patchwork, this is a fantastic legacy version of that style of gameplay. And when you’re done, there is an alternate side of the board for repeatable play.

Jenn and I were beyond excited when we found out that one of our favourite games – Terraforming Mars – was coming out with a dice version. It was like all our dreams coming true. And it didn’t disappoint. While retaining the core theme of Terraforming Mars – you get points for planting forests, raising the temperature and building oceans which you accomplish through playing cards – you pay for the cards using resources you roll. There are ways to adjust your roll, get new dice, acquire wild resource tokens so while you definitely are impacted by the luck of your rolls, you can mitigate them. It has a smaller footprint on the table and definitely plays quicker, so we’ve already gotten in a few games. I love dice games and having one that feels a bit heavier then a roll and write and has a great theme, made it a fun play.

Quickity Pickity is one of the newer games put out by Oink Games, which I love for packing really fun games into small boxes. This is a fast paced game in which players race to flip over tokens and then take them to create groups of fruit that either all have the same colour or all have the same shape. However all the fruit is either happy or sad and you have to make sure that each group is either all happy or all sad. Each round the scoring changes, generally getting more points the bigger the group, but sometimes if it gets too big or has an odd number, you get negative points. Christopher loved the chaos of it and we all loved frantically trying to grab the correct tokens. A quick, silly but very fun little game for up to 6 players.

Escape the Room, by ThinkFun, was one of the escape room style games at the store that we had never yet played so we decided to go big and pick up The Cursed Dollhouse in which you construct an entire dollhouse, placing items in each room before starting. It was pretty cool seeing it set up on the table and getting ready to play. This was a longer session, a couple of hours, in which you spend your timing puzzling your way out of each room to make your way around the dollhouse. Having mini puzzles to solve with interactive pieces, definitely made it feel like a genuine mini version of an escape room and we had a lot of fun. If you get stuck there are hints on the website to make sure you’re pointed in the right direction which is always helpful. We were impressed with the design and execution and also had a lot of fun playing it! It was a bit more expensive than the other options, but it is completely resettable and replayable.

December means we get to start our, now annual, EXIT advent calendar. This year it’s The Silent Storm and once again we find ourselves stuck in a situation that requires to solve daily puzzles to slowly escape from our predicament over the course of 24 days. Escape room style puzzles are definitely the best type of advent calendar I’ve ever had EXIT always impresses me with their storytelling and puzzle design. Looking forward to the month!”

Looks like Renee had a lot of fun! I love advent calendars myself and this one looks great! I also love the old west, so I think it’s great they made a Ticket to Ride in that setting. And I was honestly sold on Cursed Dollhouse just by the house. It’s so cute! But they all look like great games!

That’s all for this month, I hope you enjoy your gaming and I’ll see you next time!