Master Sleuth and fellow Sentinerd Johnny G has made an incredible discovery in another thread, but I thought it was worthy of its own. So I took it upon myself to blatantly steal his thunder and start it.
He noticed a picture SotM designer, Christopher, and (at least) one-time collaboratore, Richard Lanius (a well-known designer on his own), alpha-testing a board game featuring miniatures of the Freedom Five.
Could this be possible?
Here's a link to the Kickstarter featuring the picture:
While it looks to have minis, it appears to my eyes as more of a "traditional" board game, almost in the Arkham Horror vein. The standees very much remind me of those from AH, and there appear to be specific locations on the board...
Ha. That's very true… and given the current miniatures craze the topic might be too deceiving… I changed it to more appropriately reflect what the pic looks like.
How do you think a board game of sentinels will go? What is the theme? Are there only locations that the heros can travel to (a la Arkham Horror) and deal with multiple different senarios that could go down at each spot? Maybe the game will focus on just the general day to day heroic activities of the heros and the game will have them moving around all over the place dispatching villains and evil doers as they crop up. How will the board game compliment the card game? Might they be integrated in some way? When will the board game take place within the narrative? Will it take place post SotM expansions?
The card game takes the approach of putting the players in the shoes a specific Hero during a single encounter with a particular Villain. Those encounters might represent day/week/month long campaings (consider the difference between fighting the Chairman and Plauge Rat. The Chairman enounter thematically takes place over a long period of time, where as Plauge Rat feels much more like a single showdown from the begining).
I would expect the Board game to approach the universe from a different perspective. It is very hard to make out any details about the board. But as Ronway keenly pointed out, the top 3 major spots certainly look familiar. They are the art for Plauge Rat, Pike Industrial, and more likely than not the 3rd one I agree looks to be Omnitron. Keep in mind this is an alpha proto-type. We can't make out what the keyword boxs say and it is very likely the art is a palceholder. Is the spot with Plauge Rat actually the Rat himself? Maybe it is just the sewars in which he dwells? Pike Industrial is certainly just a location, but a cheif asset of the Chairman (assuming of course that the game takes place before the encounter with him that we play out in the card game). Omnitron could very well be just the robotics facility before it became sentient? I guess the idea here is that the board is more than likely comprised of locations. Instead of focusing on a single villain encounter each game like the card game, a board of locations lends itself to a focus on the day to day function of the Freedom 5. Villains do not usually pal around together sending eachother memos saying "hey would you mind not terrorizing metropolis this Tuesday? I really wanted to test my new death ray that day". Bad things happen all around the world all the time. Realistically, most days the Freedom 5 will have to split their time and attention to deal with the plethora of things that can and will go wrong.
This could be what we are seeing in that picture of the game. Legacy over in metropolis taking care of a burning school bus, Wraith beating down a drug cartel running out of Pike Industrial, while Absolute Zero stays in the Cryo Chamber at the F4 HQ until he agrees to form the F5. You basically will run the F5 and direct their reasources. Will we be able to save the world?
Maybe there is something to the Arkham Horror setting (and the fact that Richard Launius is present) and the game might revolve around an unexplained surged in crime caused by an unknown villain.
The heroes would have to spread out to stop the crime wave while gaining information on who the villain is and setting themselves up for a final boss showdown.
The possibilities are endless. I would like to see the board game offer a different look into the SotM universe. I would be a tad disapointed if it is the same concept as the card game just in a different presentation.
I've had a germ of an idea exactly like what you just described rattling around my brain for a few years now. I've had the time but mostly lacked the motivation to do anything with it.
If what you describe is correct, it would be absolutely amazing. The guys at GtG would do a much better job than me obviously and for that matter whatever this ends up being I'm certain it will be awesome.
I was thinking that was Rabit, however the only thing I had to go by is the picture of him dressed as Ra, so I figured I wouldn't say anything. I knew he knew something about it, trying to be all nonchalant.
The female I am 100% sure is Wraith. While the other I think is probably Absolute Zero, purely because the other 4 make of the Freedom Five. Also he is the only character I can think of that has a full body suit that is about that color.
