War of Wonders Miniature Game Kickstarter (Kicktraq)

War of Wonders Miniature Game Kicktsrater is funded, but needs just a few more backers to unlock its first stretch goal, so I wanted to draw attention again to this campaign.

The War of Wonders is intended to develop a range of minis in a Weird War II setting. The weirdness is primarily through the metahumans themselves.

There are 4 initial metahumans and  2 squads available, with more unlocked as stretch goals are achieved.

Poison Ivy (Arkham City)

I had originally hoped to get this version of Poison Ivy finished before the March tournament at Titan Games, but time was against me.

The first Poison Ivy I painted is the 'comics' version and this is the Arkham City (video game) version. This mini was started, and sat part-painted for a while. During that time, my painting momentum fell off a cliff, as it does every so often. So, recently resolving to get something 'done', I picked up the brushes and managed to finish this mini off.

I had previously stated that the Poison Ivy crew was unlikely to get another run out by me, but I may reconsider depending on what Henchmen I get painted over the next few weeks, as I have been toying with the following list:

• Poison Ivy (Arkham City)
• Deadshot (my crutch for villain crews going forward I think)
• Riddler (for VP acquisition)
• Spore Plant
• Creeper Plant
• Turk
• Prisoner 01 (tube; part-painted)
• Prisoner 03 (axe; needs assembly and painting)
• Prisoner 04 (brass knuckles; assembled, needs painting)

The last iteration of the crew only had 3 models to Manipulate Objectives, so was lacking numbers in that area; this crew has over double that number and has a specialist for Riddles. It lacks the attack-magnet of a big guy, so whether that is a help or a hindrance is uncertain.

The crew above may be one I take to my next tournament, although I am still thinking about Black Mask for that, and have started painting some bits up for that.

BMG Painting Summary
BMG characters owned: 98 (added 15 more models, again thanks to some Ebay luck...)
Percentage of owned characters painted: 12.2% (12 models)

Fabled Realms: Mordanburg High Street Houses

Another two buildings from 4Ground's Fabled Realms range, bringing my total up to 9. I wasn't planning on getting these at this time until I found an Ebay seller offering them at a great price (each was between 22% and 25% off rrp).

These will probably be my last two for a while as I want to add some non-residential buildings going forward, plus some more ruins as they get released (unless I can snag another Backstreet Dwelling at a bargain price!). That means my prime targets are the massive Stoic Arms pub, and the Town Watch Tower which is due for release in June. Time to save up some pocket money - in other words don't expect to see them imminently on the blog!

The various Fabled Realms houses effectively come in three types: High Street Houses which are the 'middle class' homes of the city; Dockside Houses represent the grand quarter and most expensive dwellings in the city, owned by traders and wealthy citizens; and Backstreet Dwellings which are the simple dwellings of most citizens.

These are two more High Street Houses, and the larger one is the intact version of a damaged building (click for link) I built a while ago.

The larger building is High Street House 3. It took approximately 3 hours to put together, so a little longer than the undamaged version. Of course it has more cladding to add in, as well as door and chimney etc., so overall more work required.

The other, smaller, building is High Street House 4; this one took approximately two and a quarter hours to build.

As usual, with both builds I started with the first stage of each sub-assembly before moving to another sub-assembly to allow drying time. I over-painted the tiling on the roofs to cover the scorch marks of the laser cutting process. Obviously that adds more time, but in all still a hell of a lot quicker for me than going the route of a scratch-build.

I have really, really enjoyed putting these things together, and think it will be worth it when they get some gaming time. I wholly recommend this Fabled Realms range to anyone who is thinking about picking any of them up. For me, the price is right for what they offer, and it is nice to have a varied array of buildings that still have a recognisably consistent style.

War of Wonders miniature game - Superheroes fighting in WWII (Kickstarter)

I am planning to scale back the Kickstarter projects I back this year, but as this is supers-themed, it is hard for me to pass up. A modest goal with a chance of making it, so I am in. I will probably only back for the 'metahumans' and not bother with the squads. They should also have remembered that 'superheroes' is trademarked, so hopefully that won't hurt them.

Freebooter's Fate - New Traits Index

As Rob and I sail towards the shores of our first games of Freebooter's Fate, I have been devouring the rule-books to try and understand the game as much as I can ahead of time, to try and make things easier since neither of us has actually played the game yet!

One of the things that has emerged is that as much as I love the books, with their abundance of evocative tales of heroes and more often ne'er-do-wells and skulduggery, that with each new book comes new characters, with different kinds of abilities. And with each new book comes a 'New Traits' and 'New Special Actions' section - the latter are Actions that characters can only use if they are written on their card. The problem is, that some of these new abilities are included in specific character write-ups, and not the main text, and worse still, the Mystic Spirits book does not feature an index!

Here I plan to gather and update as needed a small index of New Traits and New Special Actions, and page references where they can be found.
The book references follow the FF indexing:

I is Freebooter's Fate  main rule-book (also FF)
II is Deep Jungle (also DJ)
III is Mystic Spirits (also MS)
ToL I is Tales of Longfall - La Nocha de Brujas (also LNdB)

New Traits (any not in bold have only been used by 1 character so far)

• Cloddish, III/MS p. 51
• Cut Dead, III/MS p. 95 & p. 96
• No Authority, II/DJ p. 43
• Hot-blooded, II/DJ p. 37
• Indestructible, II/DJ p. 25
• Living Shield, III/MS p. 48
• Mystical Choir, III/MS p. 49
• Nightvision, ToL I/LNdB p. 14 & p. 17
• Possessed, III/MS p. 47
• Sixth Sense, III/MS p. 76
• Smoke Bomb, II/DJ p. 25 & ToL I/LNdB p. 13
• Stun, III/MS p. 55

New Special Actions

• Bayonet Charge (Complex Action, Movement, Combat), II/FF p. 47
• Shadow Run (Complex Action), I/FF p. 82

Fabled Realms: Mordanburg Dockside Dwellings

A few days ago it was my birthday, and I was a very fortunate Citizen indeed, as I received another two Fabled Realms kits as gifts. These kits were both the same Mordanburg Dockside Dwelling 3, but thanks to the options given with the kit, they have been assembled to have some differences in appearance.

The kit provides 2 choices of cladding, and something like 4 options of chimney configuration. In addition, the doors could theoretically be swapped over, and there are shutters available to use, however I decided against the shutters since I want the buildings to be as useful and accessible as possible for gaming, meaning windows for models to shoot from!

I did use some surplus windows from an earlier kit I had assembled to differentiate the frames and look of the attic windows on each of them.

Each build took around four and a quarter hours, both comprising 5 sub-assemblies with the exterior steps as well as floors, attic and roof. As when assembling the other Fabled Realms kits, I jumped around the order of assembly a little, building each first stage shell-first to allow that time to dry before adding the exterior timber work and cladding. I built the two separately as I didn't want to get confused working between the two, especially as some details would intentionally distinguish the different buildings.

Each building's roof was over-painted with a similar colour to the pre-paint colour, mainly to cover scorch marks.

Moving forward, the 'town' is growing between my buildings and the ones Rob has put together. I love the recently revealed Fabled Realms Watch Tower (due to go on sale in June), and would love to get the mighty Stoic Arms pub to add to the gaming table. I can see myself picking up one or two more Fabled Realms house kits before I get to either of those I reckon, and depending on pricing, I think the Watch Tower will be the likely next purchase of the two, although if similarly priced to the pub, then the Stoic Arms pub would be my first choice. Time to get saving!

In Defence Of Crowd-funding For Established Hobby Companies

A couple of familiar refrains I come across when there is hobby-related discussion about crowd-funding are:

• It is a glorified pre-order system

• It shouldn't be used by established companies.

I cannot say I agree with either sentiment, and here is why.

Crowd-funding As 'Pre-order'
So in the eyes of some commentators, crowd-funding within the hobby serves as a 'pre-order' system. Yes, in as much as a pre-order system on a web-site would do so, except with some inherent advantages.

The tabletop miniatures hobby is a funny one. Gamers generally want value, and perhaps more importantly, regular releases of 'new stuff'. The problem is that on the whole, an item may need to sell a couple of hundred or more units to cover original costs, especially when pricing can cause sensitivity among the potential audience.

A hot item for a hot game may recover those costs quite quickly, perhaps in the first couple of months, but if not, if the item does not grab an audience, then the company has investment tied up in an item which may take considerable time to recover, if ever. So investing in the next sculpt becomes a more problematic proposition if hoping to plough whatever profits there may be into the next releases.

Pre-ordering de-risks that. Crowd-funding de-risks that. What I mean is that the risk of slow/insufficient return can be removed if the numbers of the project goal are right. What it means is that a company does  not have to rely on a slow trickle of income to add further new products, but can have an accelerated (of sorts) way of adding additional releases, with costs recovered up-front rather than slowly after the fact, thus satisfying the gamer demand for 'new stuff'.

And all of that can be done within a crowd-funding platform like Kickstarter which creates advantages for projects small and large in terms - don't get me started with the problems I see inherent with Indiegogo...


'Larger' Hobby Companies Using Crowd-funding Platforms
Even a larger company like Mantic can use crowd-funding to meet demand (for multiple unit types comprising multiple models) that they may simply not have the cash-flow or cash reserves to achieve what is wanted by fans under the reinvestment approach. So to meet customer demand, arguably there is benefit for both Mantic (for example) and their customers when using crowd-funding, to get a game or range(s) to market within a relatively confined period of time. If a games' players and potential players demand a release schedule that exceeds to traditional reinvestment, then what is the real alternative?

For some, there may be an argument that the 'big' companies are squeezing out the smaller ones with their campaigns. Yet how does that argument hold up when there have been many successful campaigns by small companies within the period in which a small number of big companies (by minis hobby industry standards) have undertaken multiple projects?Arguably it doesn't.

The table-top skirmish games hobby is a niche one. there are some real successes, and some major players. But prevalence of a game or range does not necessarily equate to huge success. Even moderately well-known game brands may be struggling more than you think. Add-in that competition within local game stores is such that none can feasible carry all ranges limits opportunities further. And yes, maybe FLGS' need to adapt to a changed world, with changed opportunities.

Brief Conclusion
To lead a call against a platform which has arguably helped and democratised the minis hobby industry just causes me to encourage anyone leading such calls to really consider the costs of meeting their demand for 'new stuff' and the existence of the hobby they enjoy.

The time and effort of many of those involved in developing beloved games and ranges may be compensated through use of crowd-funding. For some the compensation for their time and effort may be realistically in line with their work done, while for others the only reward may be a very modest success that does not reflect the hundreds or even thousands of hours dedicated to get to that point. My point is that it is a small industry, and if crowd-funding is what the next age of the industry really needs, then I say, so be it.