Bone Forest - A Review

 

On a bit of a whim, I bought Boneforest from Hollow Press. I've been following the folk horror style miniatures by Helge Wilhelm Dahl since he started branching out into them from doing grimdark Warhammer conversions.

This is a pretty huge box with a lot of contents. There's a chunky painting project here, or possible several small ones! Lets take a closer look...

Alongside a hardcover rulebook, there's 25 miniatures, 7 scenery pieces, a card board to play on and a bunch of card terrain tiles to supplement the resin scenery.

The miniatures are all hand cast resin pieces. They're nicely cast with a very hand sculpted feel. There's a lot of body horror aspects to the miniatures, and I suspect they won't be to everyone's taste.

The rule book is very well produced, seems to be clearly laid out and has some nice illustrations. The card tiles for the board and the supplementary terrain pieces are OK, but I do feel like they could have been a little higher quality. I'd have liked a fold out game board, but obviously, that might have cost a bunch more.

The dice are simple enough, with a single custom dice for random directions, and the rest standard D8s. There's also some tokens for bile, a resource you can use in the wargame.

All in all, this is an interesting project, a wargame packaged like a premium board game. The focus is definitely on the production of the rulebook and the miniatures. While the artwork on the card stock is nice, it does feel like a little more attention to detail could have really elevated the project. The card pieces could have done with being a little thicker, and having a better storage solution in the box. The dice are functional but could have been much more characterful to fit the rest of the production.

While Boneforest is currently out of stock, another print run is planned. I think it's definitely still worth getting if you're a fan of this sort of body horror wargaming, but that the price tag is likely too high for someone who is simply curious or casually interested.

Tis the Season for Rampant Capitalism

I wasn't expecting anything for Christmas this year from a hobby standpoint, but did get some Christmas money which I spent on a few bits and pieces. First up, I decided to get the ITS Objectives Pack Alpha so I have some nice looking objective models. They should be a nice quick and simple hobby project.

Next up, I have a few extra models for my White Company, that I'll be sending off to That Mr Shy to paint. The Karhu are apparently excellent so I want to give them a go, I definitely wanted an EVO remote, then I've got the last civilian models I need along with another CSU and a Bashi Bazouk, which you get free in some missions in this year's ITS rules.

I made a bit of an impulse purchase last month, picking up Hollow Press' "Bone Forest". This is a weird skirmish wargame which takes advantage of the sculpting style of Helge Wilhelm Dahl. It's a bunch of rough "folk art" fleshy monsters that plays out a wargame on a large board marked out with squares. There's a bunch of models that form three viable starter forces included in the box, making it an interesting self contained hobby project.

Alongside Bone Forest, I also ordered "Vermis" on even more of a whim. It's a weird art book, done in the style of a computer game that has never existed. I've not had time to settle down with it, but I'm curious to see what its like. I was sold on the concept alone and I'm curious to see how its been enacted.

And finally, the thing I'm really excited about. Voodoo Forest is a collection of John Blanche's artwork from the past decade or so. It's another art book, and as a massive John Blanche fan for years, I'm really happy to pick up one of these. This is definitely one to settle down to have a browse through over the Christmas break.