Back in July of 2013, Sandy Petersen and his crew at Green Eye Games ran a campaign for a new board game entitled Cthulhu Wars. The game boasted a large core game, featuring seventy-two miniatures and the potential for multiple expansion sets, and the game was a huge success. Nearly 4,000 people pledged 1.4 MILLION dollars to make this game happen. It’s been a long road for those following the production of this game, but around the midway point of January, the core game began to ship. While I will have to wait for all for Great Old One expansion sets, my core game arrived on 1/16, and I was floored by the sheer size of this game. It’s huge and heavy, but when I opened the box up I could tell it was worth every penny, even without playing the game. Of course, I did only pay $110 for it compared to the $200 MSRP Cthulhu Wars will have for non-Kickstarter backers, but even if you pay full retail price for this game, you won’t be disappointed by the eldritch horrors lurking within this box.
I took thirty-six pictures as I opened up Cthulhu Wars and I’m sharing them with you, our DIehard GameFAN readers today. Remember you can click on each picture for a much larger view. I’ll get a review out of the game down the road, but for now, just enjoy the visual feast.

The package as it arrived. The shipping box is a little damaged, but look at that number. 10,000 cartons of these things. I can’t even imagine the sheet volume they would take up. This game is the size of my torso – boxed!

The crate is opened and something unspeakable begins to emerge!

The game removed from the crate it came in. How awesome is that box art?

Back of the box.

The lid of the box removed.

A Bag for all the parts I will eventually have to punch out.

The two game boards folded up.

The three player side of the first game board.

The five player side of the first game board.

The three player side of the second gameboard.

The five player side of the second game board.

The rules manual.

Two exerts from the rules manual for you to look at.

All the player cards for the four different factions.

The back of Nyarlathotep and Hastur’s player cards.

The back of Cthulhu and Shub-Niggurath’s player cards.

Quick check reference cards for players.


Front and back of one set of assorted things to punch out.

The second set of punchables.

Front and back of the third set of cardstock pieces.

The front and back of the fourth and final set of pieces I’m going to have to punch out. Oy. So many pieces!

The front of the sheet showing the price of the core set and expansions. I’m glad I got in on the Kickstarter.

The back of the product list. SO many things for you to buy! So many more unboxings for me to do in 2015!

The core miniatures. Yellow is Hastur, Green is Cthulhu, Red is Shub-Niggurath and her Dark Young and Blue is Nyarlathotep. The question is whether or not to paint these things. I want to, but I probably won’t, as the color coding will really help the game, especially with the other guys we are about to see.

SO MANY MINIATURES!

Nightgaunt in blue and The King in Yellow in… yellow.

Acolyte Cultists for each chapter, along with Deep Ones (Green frog things), Ghouls (Red) and generic undead thingy (yellow).

Star Spawn and Shoggoth for Cthulhu’s faction.

A Mi-Go (red) and Byakhee (yellow)

A Hunting Horror and a Flying Polyp for Nyarlathotep’s side.
There you go! That’s everything in the core Cthulhu WarsWarhammer or Warmachine, and I like what’s here a lot better than the licensed CoC miniatures out there. I’ll have to find time to review Cthulhu Wars later this month, but man oh man, does it look terrific.
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