DreadBall Arena–Name that Stadium

The Kickstarter for Dreadball has been running for just over a week now and is doing great, $137k and rising. If anyone hasn’t seen it (unlikely I know) check it out, I wrote some first opinions of it here and haven’t been disappointed. The stretch goals to this point have been grand, nothing out of the box, but we still have four weeks and I’m expecting some big things.

Jake Thornton, the designer of the game has been releasing a series of articles on his blog, Quirkworthy. So far he has covered a bunch of rules and game concepts that shed some light on the game beyond Mantic’s great responses on the KS page and Frontline Gamer’s & War and Peace’s previews of the game on their own blogs. Again I recommend everyone to read these articles if you want to know more about the game, especially Jake’s.

OK, on to the point of this post. I plan to make a pitch for Dreadball. This is a project that goes beyond what I can manage really, but given my success (albeit slow) with my Tru-scale Grey Knights I’m willing to reach. I have gone through the cupboards and been down to the hardware store and collected together this pile of resources.

That’s a few wooden boards, some coloured folders, battery powered lights, some cardboard and a can of black spray.
Combined with some maths:  I’m ready to start.

And that’s where I realised I have no decent name for my stadium (pitch) or my Corporation Team that’ll be playing there. What I'd love people to do is suggest names for both in the comments section of this post. That’s a name for the pitch and a name for the Corporation Team that will be calling it home field.

Please, Get commenting…

Not Quite done with Kickstarter

Well since my previous article about how great Kickstarter is for the hobby I’ve found more ways for the site to make me a little poorer and a great deal happier. Three drives have grabbed my interest, two that are still running and one that blew all gaming records.The third here is of course Reaper’s Bones miniature campaign.

$3,429,236!! As in yes, they made almost three and a half million dollars made for making new little figures. I think that is pretty fantastic, and is a clear example of what a well run Kickstarter campaign can achieve. We the hobbyist have a lot to offer to the companies we believe deserve our support. Some folks smarter and better at writing have written a great (and concise) article about Reaper’s campaign. So I’ll just go on to say that I’m very excited about some of the figures that I’m getting, having gone in with a friend from in my D&D group. The $100 ‘Vampire’ pledge level was a fantastic deal, 241 figures ranging from a Griffon (for my Empire army) to some awesome Pirates (for Cutlass!). Here are a few images of some of the items included or that could be added on to a pledge.
Not bad for a pair of expressive hands and a voice over.
Now more exciting right now are two campaigns that are still running (28.08.12). You’ll recognize them from the banners I’ve added to the top of my blog right now. Mantic’s Dreadball & DreamForge Games Leviathans

To call Dreadball a Sci-Fi copy of Blood Bowl would be doing it a massive, massive disservice. So I won’t do that apart from to say that you get the idea. : ) You’ll be hearing more about Dreadball on this blog soon, I think it looks amazing. Having got in quickly on the Kickstarter I got the Earlybird Special on the Striker pledge level saving $10 and am waiting with baited breath on more exciting options and extras. Currently the basic set is looking like this:

Then comes DreamForge Games’ Leviathans, these look great. A few times over the years I’ve stumbled across them on the net and wished I could afford the $400 price tag So now they are going to be available for $90 I’m in. This figure stands at 8.5” tall and I hope will make a perfect Ad.Mech. Knight Titan from the days of Epic 40k. In game I plan on using the rules of  Leman Russ Battle Tank.

Leviathan Crusader from DreamForge

Knight Baron

The Knight Paladin models from Epic Titan Legions (1994)

The campaign also includes Eisernkern Stormtroopers, a range of 30mm human soldiers that will make great IG or even Space marines at a push. There is talk of APCs and command sprues coming for these guys on top of the incredibly detailed accessory sprue that has just been unlcoked.
So exciting time on Kickstarter right now. What do you lot think of these campaigns? Are there any others that I’ve missed that I really should know about? Please don’t mention Fanticide, I can’t believe that such big names in the industry have got themselves involved in such a rubbish looking project.

Kickstarter–My £’s Growing the Hobby

Well I’m sure everyone who comes here knows the basic premise of Kickstarter.com. But to be sure,

What is Kickstarter?

Kickstarter is a new way to fund creative projects.
We believe that:
• A good idea, communicated well, can spread fast and wide.
• A large group of people can be a tremendous source of money and encouragement.
Kickstarter is powered by a unique all-or-nothing funding method where projects must be fully-funded or no money changes hands.

Kickstarter FAQ

In essence the public agree to upfront to pay for something, then if enough people promise enough money the Kickstarter is ‘funded’. Money is paid by everyone and (hopefully) the company can then make what they promised. If not enough money is promised then no one pays a thing. There have been some super high profile stories recently about videogames getting funded with massive amounts of support. And a D&D based super geeky stickman comic recently raised $1,254,120 for reprints, (if you don’t read it I highly recommend the Order of the Stick if you are a D&D fan). More appropriate to our little area of the community have been two very different and successful drives.

Mantic achieved an amazing $354,998 to fund their new hardback rulebook and beyond that 15-25 new sculpts and conversions of a load of their older metals to plastic. Whilst everyone expected them to crush their $5,000 goal and they themselves started off with plans a plenty through to $25,000 and even ideas for their first $100,000. What wasn’t expected is how much the hobby community would come together behind Mantic, their ‘final’ stretch goal was beaten by $65,000 and they launched an amazing Celestial Humans range which took off at the end. Mantic threw out ideas and concept sketches and let the backers decide and lead the way things went. It was a great example of company/customer relations and likely has done almost as much as the cash inflow for Mantic’s coming years.
Everyone had high expectations for Sedition Wars: Battle for Alabaster because of it being put out by CMON who had recently ran the highly successful Zombicide Kickstarter campaign. Sedition Was: BfA went on to reach an staggering $951,254. Run by CMON for Studio McVey this campaign was a masterpiece of Stretch goals adding up so as almost every backer (97%) put in at least $100 to get all of the extras.
The amounts that these projects have pulled in is in itself a clear explanation as to why companies in the hobby are jumping on Kickstarter. Yet at the same time there are a few arguments against Kickstarter; some people feel that firms shouldn’t be going out ‘begging’ for money but instead should create products and put them out for purchase. Others feel that Kickstarter should be reserved for only for the smallest of companies and the likes of CMON or Mantic are too large a concern to deserve this funding method. Now I’m not one to find problems or reasons to complain, so I find it hard to see the problem with any company using Kickstarter, it’s a great way of getting products directly to those who want it and of funding projects that have already been through a level of consumer research.
The only downside I really see to Kickstarter is the FLGS’ (Friendly Local Gaming Stores) not getting to sell the products, although compared to the amount of internet sales through normal lines I can’t imagine its a big effect on miniature sales, slightly more for boardgames I suppose.
OK the other downside has to be the waiting, following is a list of Kickstarts that I have backed recently, my levels of patience are depleting as I wait.

• Order of the Sitck (Comics)
• Chicken Ceaser (Boardgame)
• Wasteland 2 (Videogame)
• Blackwater Gulch – Gangfights in the Old West (Skirmish miniatures game)
• Kings of War (Army scale miniature games)
• Sedition Wars: Battle for Alabaster (Boardgame+)
• Run out the Guns! (Model ships)

So as you can see I’m a fan of Kickstarter. I’d love to hear what other people have backed on Kickstarter or on the British Indiegogo. What are peoples thoughts on crowd funding? And scariest of all… are their any campaigns going right now I should know about? Whilst I was writing this, I was contacted by Ballistic Skill Four painting studio about their Indiegogo campaign "Last Days of Angels", what do you think about that idea, and about funding it in such a way?
Finally I recommend you listen to the last few minutes (Timestamp 4:43:41) of The D6 Generation episode 108, Nicole has summed it up quite well.