Tuesday 15 May 2012

Project Pandora Part 1: Assembling the miniatures (or how to super-glue yourself to various objects)


Project Pandora: Grim Cargo is the new, miniature based board game from Mantic Games and ex White Dwarf editor, Jake Thornton.

Set in the claustrophobic corridors of a drifting spacecraft it pitches a small group of human Corporation troopers against a tide of terrifying rat-men known as the Veer-Myn as they struggle to obtain the precious cargo; Verminium.

Over the next few blog posts I'll be reporting on my experience with Project Pandora, taking you through the various stages involved with playing this game.






Assembling the Miniatures

Upon opening the box you'll be greeted by 20 little restic dudes. Ten Corporation troopers and ten Veer-myn all in the very sorry state of being separated from their heads and upper limbs. Your first mission (should you choose to accept it) is to reunite them with their matching body parts. Unfortunately being made from a resin plastic means that polycement is about as effective as telekinesis at sticking these guys together, so you'll need a decent super-glue for the job.

First up let's lay out all of our Corporation troopers to see what we've got.



Doing this helps you organise how you're going to assign the various parts to each miniature as we can see how many different kinds of bodies and heads there are.


We have three lots of three body types. ( Plus a kneeling trooper shown in the above picture)


We also have three lots of three head types.(Plus one extra unique head and a spare of the leftmost head).

To try and get each miniature as unique as possible try to mix the three heads and bodies as much as possible. After you've found a good mix remove any unsightly mold lines with a craft knife or file and, get sticking!

After they've had time to bond, you'll want to take a look at the daunting array of arms. In particular the arms holding guns. You might notice that some of the guns look a little bent, if so you can easily set them straight by dipping them in hot water for 5-10 seconds and manipulating them back into shape.

The next part I found a little trickier. As tedious as it sounds, try to find a combination of arms and bodies that fit for all your troopers before gluing anything. Otherwise like me, you'll end up with one chap at the end who can't for the life of him hold the bottom of his rifle.

One of the troopers will become a Sgt. Cruise who wields the power fist and pistol combo. It's implied for you to use the kneeling torso for Mr Cruise but it didn't seem very fitting to me so I opted for one of the standing bodies instead. I got creative with the kneeling torso and instead gave it to my uncoordinated trooper who now looks like he's discovered Veer-Myn gloop on floor.




Okay now it's a case of doing the same thing with the dastardly space rats. I found these guys a little easier to work with as they don't seem so fiddly. Unfortunately the Veer-Myn parts don't mix well so you won't have much in the way of variation but it does make the proces more straight forward. Just be mindful of giving the arms enough room for the head and vice-versa and they can get in the way of each other.


The two bodies on the right are to make Master Reekish (Pistol, Knife) and an Exterminator who carries the larger weapon (Chem-thrower).



 And that's the assembling done and dusted!

My overall impressions of the completed models are very high. I think the Corporation troopers have a classic space marine look about them that puts you in mind of Starship Troopers, Halo etc and they're really nicely proportioned with some great detailing, especially on the heads.
The Veer-Myn are equally nice but for different reasons. Super detailed with a mad comic book styling that gives them a great sense of character. All in all these are some cracking sci-fi miniatures and I can't wait to roll some dice with them!


Stay tuned for posts on painting and playing with the new recruits!

2 comments:

  1. I can't find a glue that sticks these models together. I have tried brand after brand.

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  2. Nice overview! I've put a link to your review in our article: Project Pandora: Grim Cargo from Mantic Games

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