Kickstarter Loot - Crocodile Games Wargods of Olympus - Amazons

So this one is a bit delayed, about two months so not bad in the grand scheme of things. The Amazons, along with the Automatons, are part 3 of Wave 1. Still to come are the Athenians (sculpted by Fitz) and the Corinthians (sculpted by Todd Harris) which come sometime early in 2015. Then the rule book which requires all the sculpts to be finished will follow and complete Wave 1. Wave 2 consists of the rest of the Trojans followed by the rest of the Amazons. Still looking at not being fully delivered till late 2015 is my guess. I might see if I can still jump in on the Amazon cavalry that's part of Wave 2.

Excerpt from the update in the Croc Kickstarter:
"The Amazons and Automatons are BY FAR the largest single release that Crocodile Games has ever done - with over 50 individual production molds, thousands of miniatures to cast, sort and pack, and over 200 pounds of metal used thus far! But the work is not yet over, as we still need to get these to our backers. Indeed, it is a bit like Santa's Workshop around here, and we are trying to get as many rewards shipped before Christmas!"
I received my shipment notice on Sunday (12/21). I anxiously started tracking the shipment figuring that even though it was being sent via 2 Day Priority Mail that it wouldn't make it till Friday. It was picked up by USPS on Monday, arrived sometime early, early this morning in Aurora and was out for delivery around 7am. I kept doing the F5 dance on the keyboard until it showed up as delivered on the doorstep at 12:15. This was confirmed by the youngest spawn.

Since I'm in Ft Collins this week they brought it up for the family Christmas Eve celebration at my parents' house.  I found a quite place to do the now traditional Kickstarter loot un-boxing pictures. I maybe re-considering some of my painting entries for Genghis Con and ReaperCon. The quality of the casting and the sculpting is awesome, mold lines are light to non-existent and the number of poses is great. This kickstarter was well worth backing. I'm extremely pleased.

Helen of Troy, Titan Hunter, Oracle of Delphi, Bronze Owl

The command set

One of three Amazon Hoplite units that I received. My pledge came with one and I ordered two more

Front and middle rankers depending on which arm you use.

Rear rankers, I love the variety in the poses

An Amazon Hero, Champion and a casualty

Archers

Archer captain on the right

Peltasts or light infantry armed with javelins

That's the captain with the sword

I also ordered two sets of front/middle/rear rank hoplites to increase the size of my units

And a couple of things I decided to tack on

A Sobeki from Wargods of Aegyptus that I didn't have and the demigoddess of Athena

The sculpting is stunning.

Wargods of Aegyptus - Basti Army and Allies

It has been a long time since I pulled this army out, in fact I think it was for a tournament at GenCon for the Croc's first world campaign event. I remember desperately painting some of these mini right up till I had to fly out for the convention. I do need to find a better transport for them though, I really have come to dislike the abrasive nature of the foam in my army transport. I would prefer something that keeps them standing upright instead of laying on the foam. I see some areas that needs to be touched up and, especially with the Asar, upgrade the basic paint job that most of them received.

The Basti are a tough army to play with. Their strengths are archery and speed (and making sure they look good while doing it, cats you know) but they are not very good at melee. To compensate I have a lot of Asar to use as City Dwellers, essentially humans that are followers of the Goddess Bast. That means that I have a pretty good start on a straight up Asar army as well. The rest are "allies" the thought being that the allies will do the heavy lifting in combat while they are supported by Basti archery. I have pulled it off a time or two, they are definitely challenging.

All the Asar need some additional work to really make them pop most of the allies are in pretty good shape although the To-Tanem infantry and the Khemru slingers could use some more work. With Wargods of Olympus looming on the horizon I think I'll spend some time getting these whipped into shape before packs of Amazons land on the doorstep.

Here is my Basti Army for Wargods of Aegyptus

The key to any Wargods Army, the Harbinger. Here is the male version

And here with his retinue of lions

The female Harbinger of Bast is wearing more, yet somehow wearing less than her male counterpart. This one was painted by Ali Bailey (Jubilee). I love the paint work but I should have given her more direction on the skin tones as she as a very human look to her.

The  Mistress of Words, the Wargods equivelent of a sorcerer and  another one from Ali. The staffs and banner poles are another reason I dislike my army transport. This one needs some serious touch up work.

The Priestess of Bast and the last one painted by Ali for me. I need to work on my own versions of these if I start taking the army to competitions again so that the paintwork is all mine. But Ali did awesome work on all three of the ones I commissioned from her. She was much cheaper back then.

One of my favorite units my Basti Skirmishers. I painted this unit up for a painting competition years ago.

Standard Bearer and Musician

What the Basti do best, shoot things!

This is the whole of the Basti portion of the army. Two Archery units, a skirmisher unit and the various leaders. The rest of the army is made up of city dwellers (Asar) who count as Basti units for army builder purposes.

An Asar Priestess, in a pure Asar army she would be a priestess of Osiris. Since my Asar are usually used as city dwellers she doesn't see the table very often.

A unit of Asar Spearmen. I kept these units at the minimum so that I could bring more allies if I felt the need.

An Asar melee unit, A slightly larger unit, enough extras to experiment with unit size. I used the shields to tell which mini belonged to which unit.

Another smaller Asar melee unit.

The fourth and final Asar Melee unit. This one is short a man. I'm not quite sure when he went missing.

The Heru Heavy Infantry with polearms. This is a rock solid unit, the Heru are one of the best melee troops in the game.

Another unit of Asar but this time appearing as City Dwellers of the Heru. The Warhawks are one of the few specific city dweller units that the Croc produces

Khemru slingers, another skirmisher unit. These guys definitely need some additional paint work.

Khemru infantry, maces and horns they just go together.

The To-tanem, you can think of them as dwarves but they are literally living rock. They are a bit slow but definitely a rock hard infantry.

That's all that I could find last night. I know there are a couple of pieces missing and I'll need to sort through my box of minis and see what else I have to paint. My Beloved of Sobek wasn't in the case nor were any of my Basti or Asar Champions so I must have them in a "safe" place.

Kickstarter Progress - The Amazons for Wargods of Olympus

The Wargods of Olympus Kickstarter is being delivered in "waves" but with a slightly different approach than with most delivery "waves". The Croc is shipping things, mostly, by faction. If you were in at the painter level that was delivered as the first wave, followed by the Trojans, then the Spartans and Mycenaeans (both of which already had fairly solid forces available and just needed a few extras to fill out their armies) and now the Amazons and Automations. I knew this Kickstarter was likely to be delayed because of the large number of new sculpts that were required. The Amazons are likely to take a little longer than expected as well because it is by far the most popular faction of the Kickstarter according to sources at the Croc. But it sounds like the last sculpts are getting finished up now and casting should commence shortly. Unfortunately the Amazon Cavalry are a Wave 2 item so I won't see those models until after the Athenians, Corinthians and Wave 2 Troy models have been completed. I haven't pulled out my Wargods armies in a long time, but its still one of my favorite miniature games to play. I should pull out my Basti army and see what I need to do to expand it while I wait for the Amazons to arrive.

The Amazon army is one of the reasons I'm participating in the Basius 2 Kickstarter. While its a smaller army I'll still need another 60 25mm square bases and  11 25mmx50mm cavalry bases, I may decide to redo my Basti army bases with the Basius pads as well, they are rather plain right now and could use an upgrade. 

Here are some pictures straight from the Croc: