Conan

Probably my first fantasy read was one of the Conan books, created by the American author Robert E. Howard in 1932. I bought most of them including the later editions developed by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter. They have long been donated to Oxfam, but I recently bought an anthology of them for next to nothing in Kindle format. Of course, we also have Arnie Schwarzenegger doing his best with the concept - although I admit I actually enjoyed Conan the Barbarian, if not the sequels.

I recall the Meeples podcast referring to a Kickstarter game based on the books, but didn't follow through as I rarely play board games. A pal at the club did and pointed out that this was a hybrid figure and board game. He went for most of the stretch goals that brings an impressive collection of miniatures. We played the game last Sunday, and impressed, I bought the core box on eBay.

With the core box you get two double sided playing boards, with a village, ship, tavern and castle settings. This is the ship board I used in today's game.

The box includes the rules, tile cards with the essential stats and counters. Plus the real selling point, 74 hard plastic figures, fully assembled. They include four heroes, including Conan, various other character figures, monsters and basic troops such as pirates, guards and Picts. The figures are large 28mm, actually 32mm from base to eye. Here a few Photies and as you can see, they are well sculpted with excellent definition for painting.

The game mechanics are not complex and a game last around 90 minutes once you have a grasp of the rules. I can see me using the figures for other game systems, Open Combat in particular.