Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Since I received my first set of toys for Christmas from my grandparents, all the way back in 1988. I've been hooked on those heroes in the half-shell. I still own all my original toys from those days, as well as all of the original movies and the entire 80s-90s animated series. I even have a copy of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 that was reprinted for Free Comic Book Day and it's signed by Peter Laird.
Like all things, we lost track of each other as I grew older and I never really paid attention to any of the new series or comics. But, when I heard there was a new board game coming to Kickstarter earlier this year, I had to jump on it. In the end, nostalgia won the day and I went in for The Works, which was everything in the campaign plus some extra goodies.
Throughout the campaign, the community surrounding it seemed to be extremely negative and angst ridden, which surprised me. Going into it I was a bit apprehensive, as the previous board game based on an IDW comic series, Ghostbusters, seemed to miss the mark (I was a backer for that campaign as well, until I decided to pull out). But, this game was being handled by IDW Games themselves rather than Crypozoic and the designer has some cred, so I remained hopeful.
Since the end of the campaign, the community that backed the project has seemed to get more and more negative. Of course, part of this is due to what seemed like poor communication on IDW's part, such as poor quality pictures of production sample models or sparse updates during production. But still, I remained hopeful. I figured, if the game is crap, at least I'll have a bunch of TMNT minis to paint up.
Well, after a long week of hitting F5 and refreshing my tracking number, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shadows of the Past - The Works Edition is finally here! Lets take a look at this massive box of lean green Foot kicking goodness!
Lets dig into the box.
Underneath the last batch of tiles is a box filled with miniatures. Inside this box are two trays containing all of the minis in their own formed slots. This is nice, since it gives you a nice spot to put the minis in after they've all been painted.
Let's crack that bad boy open!
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| The IDW Ninja Turtles. |
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| Super Shredder and normal Shredder |
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| Rocksteady and human Rocksteady. |
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| Bebop and human Bebop |
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| Alopex, Karai and Old Hob |
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| Foot Clan Bruiser, Foot Clan Soldier and Foot Clan Elite |
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| Street Thug Brawler and Street Thug Gunner |
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| Mousers |
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| Eastman style variant Turtles |
I'm really pleased with the minis, but there were some issues. But I'll get to that later on. The sculpts are all pretty solid, but one thing that disappoints me
about this game is this; the models are all sorts of wonky scales. The
Turtles seem small, while some of the thugs seem way too large. April
and Casey's models are huge in comparison to the Turtles. It's just all
over the place. If this were just another game, I may have been able to
over look it. But as a guy who is used to tight scales across entire
miniature ranges, this seems like a really unneeded mistake.
With the models it's no to the rest of the contents!
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| Adventure Comics, these are the mission books. |
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| The Rulebook |
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| Kickstarter variant cover of IDW TMNT #1 |
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| Print #1, featuring Kevin Eastman's signature! |
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| All of the dice in the game, each Turtle, April, Splinter and Casey all have their own specific action dice. The white and black dice are combat dice. |
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| Round Tracker Bookmark, Turtles side. |
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| Round Tracker Bookmark, Villian's side |
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| Tokens tokens tokens! |
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| More tokens! |
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| Leonardo's special action cards. |
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| Donatello's special action cards. |
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| Michelangelo's special action cards. |
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| Raphael's special action cards. |
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| Splinter's special action cards. |
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| April's special action cards. |
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| Casey's special action cards. |
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| The Turtle's hero cards. |
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| Turtle hero cards, with Eastman Turtle art. |
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| April, Splinter and Casey hero cards. |
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| Turtle ally cards. |
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| Casey, April, Woody and Master Splinter Ally cards. |
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| Kevin Eastman, Fugitoid and Angel ally cards. |
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| Master Shredder and Ultimate Shredder villain cards. |
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| Alopex, Karai and Old Hob villain cards. |
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| Bebop, Rocksteady and Mouser villain cards. |
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| Villain cards for all of the minions. |
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| Terrain cards for everything that needs terrain rules. |
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| The villain cards for the villain deck. These are mixed together, depending on scenario. |
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| Tiles 1a and 2a |
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| Tile 1b and 2b |
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| Tiles 3a and 4a |
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| Tiles 3b and 4b |
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| Tiles 5a and 6a |
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| Tiles 5b and 6b |
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| Kickstarter tile for the Rooftop scenario |
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| Kickstarter tile side 2 of Kevin Eastman's studio for the Save the Studio scenario. |
That's everything from the box! Overall, I am pleased with the boards, tokens and rule books. The books all seem easy to follow and laid out well. The Kickstarter book has an issue with the Bebop and Rocksteady missions though and seems to be a reprint of a mission in Book 2 of the main missions books.
One of my Mouser miniatures is missing the top part of its head and Super Shredder is missing a blade on one of his shoulders. So, if you're still waiting on your copy of TMNT to arrive, make sure to check it all out for mistakes. IDW has announced the email to contact them for mistakes/missing pieces on the Kickstarter pages, but expect at least a week for your turn in line.
Either way, I am really pleased with TMNT: Shadows of the Past and can't wait to get it to the table.
