July and August were quieter than the first half of 2026, which means I actually had some time to relax and get some gaming and mini painting time in my schedule, despite work being pretty crazy.

STAR WARS Zero Company

I’ve recently started playing STAR WARS Zero Company and Xenonauts 2. Zero Company appeared to be loosely in the same genre as XCOM, at least based on some of the marketing materials I had seen, yet takes the game in a wildly different direction compared to Xenonauts 2, which stays pretty faithful to the original XCOM games. Zero Company does a couple of things that I thought are interesting and worth discussing.

There are, of course, the obvious differences that come with Zero Company being a bigger budget game - great visuals, voiceovers, a large marketing campaign on Twitch (even Day9 had a video playing it) and a great integration of beloved IP - beloved despite Disney’s best attempts to drive Star Wars into the ground. Xenonauts 2 has a worse presentation overall but much, much deeper gameplay, with a far more complex strategic layer, pre-game squad building and grittier combat.

What I found interesting though is Zero Company’s approach to the moments between battles.

XCOM (new and old) and Xenonauts have a similar approach to the time between fights - when you’re not in combat you will slowly inch forward, methodically moving across the map, checking corners and buildings and looking for the next group of enemies. It’s slow, it’s tense and it reinforces the idea that humanity is up against a superior and unknown enemy. Moving quickly even when no threats are present is the fastest way to get in way over your head.

Zero Company however puts you into a 3rd person exploration mode after each encounter, allowing you to move forward with the squad until you run into the next battle, doing a bit of scouting and enjoying the world and environments. This takes the tension out of the game and gives you a moment to relax and explore. It wouldn’t work in XCOM or Xenonauts, as it would go against the tone of both games and the fantasy of fighting against a larger and unfamiliar foe, but it works for Zero Company’s less stressful gameplay (and it also fits the feel of Star Wars). This approach to handling the time between combat encounters is a change of the game’s pacing that I was not expecting.

I think Zero Company can serve a useful role in the ecosystem of XCOM-like titles - with a well known IP, cinematic introduction, great tutorial and streamlined gameplay loop, it can serve as a gateway game to bring more people into the genre, some of which will trickle through to XCOM and Xenonauts if they’re interested in a deeper experience. The UI is clearly intended to work well with controllers (unfortunately making it just a bit clunkier to use with keyboard and mouse), which will also serve it to reach a wider audience compared to something like Xenonauts.

I’m looking forward to playing more of both games.

Miniatures

I’m currently working on three separate projects at once.

First off, I’ve assembled the Lord of Pestillence (in sub-assemblies), base-coated and done some of the metallics:

I’ve also been researching paint schemes on YouTube for this bad boy:

Finally, I’m going through the Bolt Action: Band of Brothers starter set and slowly asembling all of the minis (no pictures of that yet, sorry!).