The Umbrella Academy

So, I am a sucker for comic book based minis and Mantic in general. So I resisted this for awhile then caved and backed it anyway.

This is firmly based on the comic book IP so has a different aesthetic and details to the TV show. Which is fine because I like painting the comic book look!

For this project I am going to try playing with mixing army painter speedpaints (V2) and conventional acrylics. I tried a couple of contrast paints and didn’t particularly like them, but have batch painting projects in my future so want to experiment with a few short cuts.

This is not a huge game with about 50 minis in it total so let’s see how long it takes me and if/when I get distracted.

What is The Umbrella Academy?

This is a co-operative game for up to 5 players based on The Umbrella Academy comics that inspired the Netflix TV show.

The story is about a mysterious generation of kids all born all over the world at the exact same time on the exact same day. The twist being that their mothers were not pregnant when the day began, then went through a pregnancy lasting a few minutes only to give birth having no idea what was happening to them.

Noted philanthropist and eccentric Sir Reginald Hargreaves set out to adopt as many of these children as possible believing that they would be of great importance in the future. Of the dozens born, he managed to ‘acquire’ seven.

Being a practical man he largely delegated the parenting part of it all to a robot mother he designed, along with the house butler Pogo, an intelligent talking Chimpanzee. For some reason, to here are many talking chimps living among the humans of this comic book world. I don’t think it has ever been explained why if even alluded to.

As Hargreaves is a stern and distant father figure, the children learn to compete for his favour growing up as he trains them into a team of superheroes, unlocking their innate powers.

The game features both a set of young heroes from the days of a tight nit, disciplined team and the adult heroes after years of collective childhood trauma have led to deep seated feuds and dysfunction. There are alternative game modes to reflect this and mix things up.

A common theme of The Umbrella Academy is the impending apocalypse that the team must fend off to save the world. Only every time they do, the threat seems to change and shift into something else. So there are of course a bunch of adversaries to overcome and crises to avert!

The game is about moving around the board to overcome hazard cards that can devastate locations, as the clock (a deck of cards) runs down towards the finale.