Butcher
| Assembly: 45 minutes | Painting: 9 hours |
Unarmored Survivors
| Assembly: 30 minutes each | Magnetizing: 30 minutes each | Painting: 2 hours each |
I’ve decided to magnetize–but just at the shoulders and nowhere else. Here’s my reasoning:
I want each survivor to feel solid. I’ve heard reports from people who have fully magnetized (waist, head, shoulders, and wrists), that their friends start to feel hesitant each time they play. No one wants to interrupt the game because someone’s head fell on the floor. Magnets can also interfere with each other, producing random explosions that can mix up weapons and body parts. And the really small magnets like ones in the wrists, can sometimes result in droopy weapons. In a game where miniatures must be frequently laid down on the board (to represent when they’re knocked down), this creates too much of a hassle.
So instead, I’ve made the entire body a solid piece. Each arm is also a solid piece with its attached weapon. For me, it’s not all that important that the arms always match the body, or that one character always be represented by the same head.
What is important, however, is being able to switch weapons. I’d rather not be looking at my leather armored survivor, while trying to pretend that his twin axes are actually a bow and arrow. I’d rather see him holding the bow and arrow, even if the arms come from a different armor set. With this, at least, I can create ANY combination of armor and weapon, while simultaneously minimizing the hassle.
To ensure every combination can match, I had to determine a single skin tone to be shared across all survivors.
For the Butcher, I opted for a darker color scheme so that all of his lanterns would appear brighter. I also thought the rust and blood would make him more intimidating.
We already fought against him once, and he is very intimidating, to say the least. We won, but it was a close thing. With a few unlucky rolls, it would have easily gone the other way.