New Kickstarter - Brigade Games - AWI

Here is, yet another, Kickstarter that has peaked my interest. While my own AWI project has been on hold for a while this is the kind of thing that could bring it back to the front of the list of things to work on. My last experience with a Brigade Games Kickstarter was for their WWII miniatures for their WWII miniature rules; Disposable Heroes (second edition I think, the original was published by Iron Ivan Games and I have almost all the supplements for it). They produced the Americans in the M41 uniform so post Normandy and late war Germans and I bought in at a platoon of each for the WWII project. They were good gaming miniatures but not great (in my opinion) but worth the price and the variety is very good with lots of extra weapon choices. There was a delay in shipping, which is certainly not unusual with projects that require hundreds of figures to be cast.packaged and shipped so I was not surprised with that and expected as much.

You can see the Americans from that Kickstarter here:
Brigade Games WWII Americans

The AWI kickstarter is in currently in process and has been funded. I believe that this is a different sculptor than the one who sculpted the WWII miniatures and I have to say I like the looks of these quite a bit. They are very similar in style to those from Fife and Drum although maybe not as "clean" you can see some of the Fife and Drum miniatures I have here:
Fife and Drum AWI Samples
and some painted versions here:
Fife and Drum AWI Painted Continentals

These look like they would fit in well with the Fife and Drum and the Perry Miniature plastics that I already have. If I jump in on this one it would probably be mostly for the British. I do wish they were going to do some cavalry with this kickstarter but I don't see any in the stretch goals.

I do need to mull it over but I think these are very good looking miniatures and would be worth jumping in on it. Here is the direct link to the kickstarter

Brigade Games American War of Independence

A look at some of the sculpts, note these are actual greens not digital renderings. The only thing I would like to see different is to have one of each of the command sets as core packs rather than stretch goals. And again some cavalry would have been nice to see.

Kickstarter - Gunfighter's Ball, Knuckleduster Miniatures

A very large, very damaged box arrived full of stuff from Knuckleduster's kickstarter. I have been eagerly awaiting its arrival!

While this kickstarter delivered late, I don't let that upset me anymore. There are so many factors that contribute to not meeting the date listed in the kickstarter it should really only be considered a guideline. I did not immediately jump in on this one even though it features my favorite western gaming theme. I thought the primary package was a bit weak for the price so I waited to see how many of the stretch goals they were going to hit. I do believe they hit all of them, and I jumped in as soon as the game mat was included. To say that the box was full is an understatement. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves and while I did receive a pdf copy of the rules time has just not been on my side to read them now with the actual rulebook in my hand that is likely to change.

A very full box, notice the completely shredded box corner in the upper right of the picture.

The basics; poker chips (who doesn't love poker chips), dice, cards and the character cards (I believe there is a card in there for all the western miniatures currently in the Gunfighter's Ball line).

A look at the front of the character cards

And the back. These are laminated so you can mark right on the cards with a grease or china pencil.

Three card decks. The Black Deck, I believe, can be used to replace the wound table. A Card deck, this is a standard card deck with some very nice artwork on the royal cards. The Pistoleer Deck, which looks like it has special character abilities. Everything is pretty much pure speculation on my part.  

Artwork on the royal cards, although I think they missed an opportunity of doing something fancy with the ace.

Three bags of stuff for the Saloon

That's a lot of MDF parts. I must admit that I'm intrigued enough to want to put this together right away. I have looked at the instructions posted for it and I think I'm going to only use them as a guide. It feels like its not quite in the right order.

Something a little different here with pewter doors, windows and matching interior pieces.

The resin bar along with a compliment of pewter pieces. I'm a bit disappointed that this is not a little fancier, again I think an opportunity was missed. I'm already considering some extra stuff to fancy it up a bit.

The Iconic faction, this is a new faction introduced for the kickstarter

A large pile of add-on miniatures.

The dismounted miniatures, very clean castings. I'm not sure how useful the bathtub guy is but its almost iconic if you watch western movies. 

A close up, and not a very good closeup, can you say Blazing Saddles? I already have a number of miniatures from the Gunfighter's Ball line and they have all been great. Some of the poses are a bit stiff but that's about the only bad thing I can say about them.

The mounted miniatures

A really nice horse, I'm excited about working on it. There were also some riderless horses available, since they were an additional buy in I decided to wait till later on those. They are already available on the Knuckleduster website.

The 3'x4' game mat, very nice, it feels likes it made from the same material as mouse pads

And the hard cover version of the rulebook

A random selection of pages

Overall, I'm very pleased with the results of this Kickstarter, well run, well communicated and great products at the end.

Kickstarter Loot - Mantic Terrain Crate - The Battlefield Crate

Here is the last of the crates I picked out for my three crate deal; the Battlefield Crate. This is definitely more along the scenery line with fences and hedges rather than a bunch of craters and trenches (although those would have been good too). I picked this one simply to get my hands on the stone fences. I like the looks so much I picked up another box of fences with one of my two add-ons.
While I didn't really like the overall composition of the contents after opening it up I can see that some of it is going to be more useful than I expected.

A quick look at the Battlefield Crate;

Again, the box is identical to the others with the exception of the tag

Table of "Contents"

The classic ziplock bag shot

The Tents; there are three bags of tents. From my perspective the large tent is particularly useless but the rest of this should work out quite nicely for calamity.

Scatter; one bag of scatter I would have liked two. One the other hand I believe this gives me three bags of scatter total so Calamity will not lack for obstacles for gun fights.

The Wagson; one bag of this. Again the wagon itself is pretty useless and the horse is a bit small but the rest of it is quite useful.

The Wood Fences; two bags of this and I certainly could have used a third. Unfortunately there are only three sections of wood fence which makes this set a little small to be truly useful. The hedge is a nice addition, but I have no need of the large three stake section. The signpost could be quite useful too.

The Stone Fences; three bags of this. With enough walls to make at least a square area I think this one is  a great value. More appropriate for my Normandy battlefields than for Calamity though. My British and American Paras will be glad to have some very solid cover.

Kickstarter Loot - Mantic Terrain Crate - Dungeon Crate

This morning I'm showing off the Dungeon Crate, the second of the three Mantic Terrain Crates I selected from their Kickstarter. While the Town Crate was a pretty easy pick for me I really didn't decide on the Dungeon Crate until the end. What really got my attention was the abandoned mine stuff. One package was not really worth the effort but when it shot up to including three packs at the end it made the Dungeon Crate an easy selection.

One of the typical complaints in the Kickstarter comments was the amount of redundant packs that were included in each crate. I found that to be one of the nicer features. I was far more interested in quantity of some of the stuff rather than variety, the abandoned mine equipment and the scatter terrain being a good cases in point.

Here is the Dungeon Crate

Same box as the Town Crate, complete with cardboard dividers, just with a different label

The contents sheet printed front and back

Yet another pile of ziplock bags filled with terrain goodness

The Treasury, there are two packs of this. the only piece of real interest to me is the pile of trunks on the left. That could probably be used in and around Calamity's railroad station.

This pile of armor and shields is pretty neat.

The trunks, they lack little piles of gold around them so that makes them much more useful. The amount of rolled and unrolled parchment might require a bit of work, although likely no one would notice during a game.

The Library, is the same one that appear in the Town crate. I have lots of shelves and desks now!

The Scatter, a really nice assortment of scatter, the crates, barrals and logs make this very useful in Calamity. There are two packs of scatter.

Wizard's Study, only one pack of this. The shelf is a duplicate from the library set and probably the most useful pieces from my point of view are the mirror and the chair.

Abandoned Mine; three pieces of this and everything, even the big crystal, is pretty usable. I just wish there was more track.

Close ups

Trips, one pack of these and probably the least useful pack out of the whole set for me.

I suspect that the mine equipment will be first on my list to paint. I can envision a lot of rusty equipment occupying the mines below Calamity. One of the two add-ons I purchased was another set of the abandoned mine equipment which came with two more packs. that gives me a total of five to work with.