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.
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It’s fairly well understood that Diablo 4’s first evolution post-launch came with Season 4: Loot Reborn, which revamped much of the game’s loot and itemisation loops. The next evolution will arrive with the Vessel of Hatred expansion, and its aptly named patch 2.0.Blizzard hasn’t quite explained what patch 2.0 will do to the game, but the developer recently confirmed what players have long be guessing: a major change to the levelling curve is coming, which may even take the form of a level cap squish.The good news? We won’t have to wait too long to find out what’s going to happen.To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings Diablo 4’s next Campfire Chat developer livestream has been announced, and it’s going to b…
Read moreEverybody Still Hates Chris, the animated continuation of 2000s sitcom Everybody Hates Chris, finally has a release date.You can only wonder how long people could hate Chris Rock for, but as it turns out, it’s quite a while, as people are continuing to hate him in the upcoming Comedy Central show. Earlier this week, a premiere date was finally set for the show, as well as a first look at the show, which you can see in the image at the top of the page. The animated series is currently set to air next month, September 25 at 10pm ET, though I have to say, they’re cutting it a bit close in terms of actually advertising the show – there hasn’t been a single trailer for it yet, and with a month left to go, that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.To see this content please enable targeting cookie…
Read moreConcord will be shutting down on September 6, only 11 days after it’s release date. Players on the PS5 and PC will be offered full refunds for the purchase of the game, as the team responsible and Sony is going back to the drawing board to figure out what’s next.This news broke courtesy of a PlayStation blog post posted just a few minutes ago, in which Ryan Ellis (game director at Firewalk Studios) wrote up what the future holds for the ill-fated team-based shooter.To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings “Concord fans — we’ve been listening closely to your feedback since the launch of Concord on PlayStation 5 and PC and want to thank everyone who has joined the journey aboard the Northstar. Your support and the passionate community that has gr…
Read moreWarning: Major Spoilers for Baldur’s Gate 3 Dark Urge playthroughs lie ahead.While Baldur’s Gate 3’s Patch 7 was beefier than Karlach if she took up olympic weightlifting, packing in a massive amount of additions, tweaks, and fixes, it seems there a still a few things players were hoping for which slipped through the cracks. The main one still bothering folk is how companions react to certain Dark Urge scenes, with some BG3ers now urging Larian to revamp this before it moves on from the game.If you somehow missed Baldur’s Gate 3’s latest update arriving last week, you can check out what it includes here. Needless to say it’s generally gone down well, especially those official modding tools, which modders are already doing plenty of interesting stuff with.To see this content please enable t…
Read moreWarhammer 40K: Darktide – one of the best Warhammer games in recent years and a very good co-op shooter – may be popping up on the PS5 according to a Taiwanese game rating.This rating, spotted by Gematsu, has seemingly listed the game as incoming to the Sony platform, though there hasn’t been any official announcement by Fatshark or Sony for that matter as of writing. Whether this is a canary in the coal mine for a larger announcement in the near future, or a fumbled entry on a national rating platform historically fumble-averse will surely be revealed in the coming weeks or months.To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings Darktide has been trucking along rather nicely since its release. Originally let out into the wild in a peculiar state, with some genuin…
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Read moreIt’s been a long while since the modding team behind Fallout: Nuevo México had anything to show off, but the New Vegas mod finally has an official reveal trailer.Fallout 4 is nine years old next month, and even though Bethesda did put out Fallout 76 in the years since then, there hasn’t been a single-player sequel, and there won’t be one until after Elder Scrolls 6, which is still a while away itself (even if Bethesda doesn’t want to wait that long either). Thankfully, though, modders have come together to create entire expansion-sized mods like Fallout: London to help fill the gap, and despite being put on hold earlier this year, and later being taken off hold, the team behind Fallout: Nuevo México has released the mod’s first official trailer, and it’s quite the impressive …
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