Following up on the post I made last week about the core set of Marvel United that I painted up for a good cause (I’m so nice!) – here’s the other board game set that I painted during the same period of a couple of weekends for the same group of young people.

As you’d no doubt be able to discern from the post’s title, this one is Marvel Zombies: Heroes’ Resistance. The game is essentially a cut-down version of the Semi-released Marvel Zombies (the first core set is out, the rest of the Kickstarter including the second core set is still in production and apparently heading to transit for fulfilment shortly).

In Heroes’ Resistance, the game comes with 4 of the double-sided Zombicide street tiles rather than the 9 that the core box(es) release with. It also comes with 6 Heroes and 4 Zombie Heroes in pre-assembled miniature form compared to the 6 and 6 that the core sets come with.

And of course the plastic Zombies are replaced with cardboard standees. All this allows the game to be sold at a much cheaper price point in more retail outlets. The other thing that helps a lot with that is that in this version of the game you play as the living Heroes, fighting zombies as well as the zombified Heroes – so essentially using the “Hero Mode” rules that will be featured in the X-Men Core box whenever it arrives from the KS fulfilment.

As a nice little final touch, the game is fully compatable with the “big boy” versions of both Core Sets, and the models in Heroes’ Resistance are alternative sculpts. I’m not sure if they have alternate rules cards as well. I’ll have to check, since Spidey and Black Panther are both doubled-up from the Heroes Resistance box and the first, more Avengers/MCU-themed Core Set.

Once again, in order to get all of these models painted in a reasonable amount of time I used a bunch of time-saving techniques – zenithal sprays, contrast paints, washes and drybrushing as seen on T’Challa here (and purple highlights – thanks Faust!)

I still picked out many of the small details – those are what draw the eye after all.

As with the Marvel United models, if we were to ask if the models are perfect, the answer would still be – No. No, they’re not. Are there small “errors” – or at least places where I “could have done better”? of course – again, they’re all covered in them. But they’re minor, and things that bother me a little – like Zombicide Hulk’s skin not turning out as well as the Marvel United Hulk’s skin (I painted this one first) aren’t going to bother other people, let alone the young people that will be playing with these.

And once again… are they finished? Do they look better than my own sets which are still unpainted plastic? Well, clearly the answer is still a resounding yes to both. D’oh! I need to work on getting a few more games finished…

Much more importantly – are the kids going to like them? Well, yeah – when I brought the models in last week and they had a look at the figures they were quite happy and impressed. Details I’d picked out or emphasised like character eyes and Wanda’s exposed ribcage were noticed, as was the mess on Cap’s shield.

After that, I ran a game of Marvel United which went down pretty well. We might go with Zombies in the next session, bit it depends on who’s there on the day and what they prefer…

And another set complete! Now to work on some more of my own…