Games Workshop do various bundles.

I've not used, but heard good things about (most of these also do bundles by theme):
Privateer Press' Formula P3.
Vallejo.
Battlefront's Colours of War.
MiG's Ammo.
The Army Painter.
Tamiya.

Also available (but I've never used them or know anyone that has):
Dark Star Miniatures' Reaper Paints.

As for brushes, a lot of these same places will do sets of various sizes. At the moment I'm using a set from Revell.

You'll also want something to undercoat the miniatures. Try Tamiya Matt Black, GW Chaos Black, or Army Painter Matt Black spray paint. (I've used all three of these before and they work well.)

As for tutorials, try the following YouTube channels. A lot of companies above will also have painting guide books that you'll probably be able to appropriate for New Angeles.

That Teri Girl.
Girl Painting.
Hobby Hot Tips.
Beasts of War.
Warhammer TV.

This guy's tutorials are pretty good. This one is kind of close to what you are doing as well. 

Played a couple of good games over the Christmas holidays, especially New Years Eve. Firstly, One Night Ultimate Werewolf is one of the most frequently hilarious games I have played and has become a firm, warm up favourite. Lots of bluffing, discussion and accusations...great stuff.

Patchwork is a lovely 2 player game that seems very simple but has a surprising range of things to consider and keep track of. Really enjoyed.

Mythos was also good fun. It is essentially Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective mixed with Lovecraft. We did the first case on New Years Eve and it was good but seemed way too simple. It felt like a tutorial rather than a proper case and we correctly answered all 12 questions within an hour...yet it was still fun and has a lot of potential.

Yet the real star of the recent play time was Letters from Whitechapel. I have been desperate to play this ever since I got into board gaming and holy shit it did not disappoint. Insanely tense, frequently exciting and satisfying. The way the mechanics all work so extremely well and the exceptional theming lead to an excellent experience.

I got some Nurgle Rot for the boys. Up to 4 now, 6 left for this unit so far. Hrrrgn.

The plan is to finish off this batch of warriors and then move onto my Lord of Plagues when the flesh paint arrives. After that, more nurgle stuff, but of the daemon persuasion

Letters from whitechapel is outstanding Aaron. I love that game.

Recently I wished there were games which focussed on a mechanic from complex games and shined that to all hell rather than as part of a breadthier game.

Like in rebellion the whole hide and seek sounds good and interesting but it's tagged to a few other mechanisms too. Similarly captain sonar has that listening out mechanic and path the path but conjoined to a six player game.

mistercrayon wrote:

Recently I wished there were games which focussed on a mechanic from complex games and shined that to all hell rather than as part of a breadthier game.

Like in rebellion the whole hide and seek sounds good and interesting but it's tagged to a few other mechanisms too. Similarly captain sonar has that listening out mechanic and path the path but conjoined to a six player game.

Heard great things about Captain Sonar. I'm pretty sure I'd become a massive board game collector if I actually had anyone to play with - there's so many games I want to try.

Tending to sell games that aren't getting played nowadays, so my collection size isn't really changing. Mainly to keep within my allocated shelf space/avoid castration by Mrs Pea.

pantyfire wrote:

That plague thing looks disgusting well done!

Yes, I meant to comment on this too. Awesome work.

I took advantage of illness this weekend to finally catch up with this thread (mostly scanning for interesting photos and mentions of new game titles) after having waded through the first third ages ago and then being too intimidated by the thousands of unread posts (and counting) to go back to it.

I now have a bunch of BoardGameGeek pages in my browser history for future purchase consideration, mental stop-motion imagery of Frantic's shelves filling up with boardgame boxes and a deep respect for those of you with the patience and skill to paint miniatures at frankly amazing levels of detail...

I was given Bananagrams for Christmas which was played with much relish over New Year (although we quickly added a rule of 3 letter words or longer given that one of the players knew the Scrabble 2 letter word list inside out) and I plan on taking it in to work to see if I can get some sessions going at lunchtimes, much as I did with Carcassonne early last year.

My relatively limited and random collection of games currently consists of:

Bananagrams
Carcassonne (the 'new' edition with the river and abbot included - I'm considering expansion #1 or #2)
Dixit Odyssey (along with expansions 4 and 5; my girlfriend has original Dixit with expansions 2 and 3)
Labyrinth (the classic Ravensburger version; I'm intrigued by the Jim Henson boardgame from 2016...)
LEGO Minotaurus
Love Letter
Robo Rally
Star Wars Trivial Pursuit: Classic Trilogy Collector's Edition
Trivial Pursuit: Genus III Edition

@jdaniel
Fuck me yes, bananagrams and scrabble players = no fun at all. 
Memorizing a list of two letter combinations isn't really a strategy to be proud of imo.

pantyfire wrote:

@jdaniel
Fuck me yes, bananagrams and scrabble players = no fun at all. 
Memorizing a list of two letter combinations isn't really a strategy to be proud of imo.

Tell that to all the good chess players!

My partner and I played scrabble yesterday. I think we agreed it's a bit of a shit game. The points and words is a toxic combo for pace and the pointlessness in thinking before your go (for layout and availability reasons) kills it even more.

Codenames is surprisingly cheap. There are some cheap games still, like I got kana gawa which an absolute beaut of a production for <30 (I think, like karuba, it's a game banking on selling a LOT, there wee three or four copies in the shop which is unusual).

It's games like fog of war (the new two player one by Geoff engelstein) which are hitting 60. And clank over 50 quid. There's beyond Baker Street which is essentially hanabi+ that is in the 30+ range now too. The newest pandemics (Iberia and Cthulhu) are £47 too.