Sedition Wars Kickstarter update

  
  

Before I leap in and tell you all how insanely successful Sedition Wars has been with its Kickstarter campaign I'm going to fill you all in with a bit of news about various other projects first:

• The Tentacle Bento not Kickstarter manage to raise $48,500's, which given the furor surrounding the project and it getting unceremoniously dumped by Kickstarter is actually really quite impressive. So Soda Pop Miniatures should be proud.
• The Gruntz Barracks Army Builder Indiegogo campaign finally finished on $3,981's. This wasn't as good a result as I thought it would have been when I first backed it. I've already covered many of the reason why, but perhaps the biggest reason was that the community already knew about this. Yeah that's right, it's a free to use Gruntz Army Builder... nerd rage building!
• Mantic Games put on a real growth spurt towards the end of their Kings of War Kickstarter to reach $354,997's. I think that goes to show there's a bit of love out there for Mantic Games. 
• With two days left Avatars of War have finally managed to breach their $20,000's target to reach $26,085's with their Dwarf Army Indiegogo campaign. So there's still time to get in there and bag yourself some plastic Dwarf swag. I'm really pleased they managed to get this funded.
• Infamy Miniatures Indiegogo Project has already been funded with 8 days still to go, but then again they did set themselves a very modest target of only $750's. They do though stand now at $3,140's, If you haven't checked their campaign you really ought to, especially if you have a soft spot for steampunk.
• The final campaign I want to tell you about isn't a miniatures wargame, it's a computer game of a miniatures wargame, Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire Indiegogo Campaign. This is the sort of thing Crowd Funding was made for, a project that wouldn't normally get off the ground with conventional funding... and it's struggling to get off the ground with crowd funding too it seems. In 14 days it has only managed to raise £4,755's of it's $35,000 target. There's still plenty of time for it to reach its goal with 26 days left to go, but if it is to succeed it'll need a serious growth spurt soon!

So that should wrap up all of the crowd funding projects I've mentioned in the past. Only a very few of them are still going and I'm really pleased to see that most of them are going to be funded. Why? Well it's not just because it means more cool product will be released, it's mainly because you are funding peoples dreams. These projects are somebodies hopes and aspirations for their own life and what they want to do with it, and by funding them you really are helping somebody somewhere live their dream. That's the best reason to back a crowd funding project I can think of. Now onto the big dawg...

No I'm still too white to pull off ghetto talk, aren't I? Well I am of course talking about the crowd funding juggernaut that is Sedition Wars: Battle for Alabaster. Why is it a juggernaut? Well last night I'd pretty much written this article ready to go live. I had two stretch goals to tell you about, both seemed a fair way away, but they've smashed through the one and as I type this they have probably smashed through the second one too ($430,000's if you want to know), as it was only mere dollars away. So why so successful? Well clearly Cool Mini or Not know what they're doing with these sorts of Kickstarter campaigns, you only have to look at their phenomenally successful Zombiecide campaign and... well... Sedition Wars! There's also the fact that the names Mike and Ali McVey are synonymous with awesome miniatures and fantastic paint jobs. They're both of them well loved in the hobby, because they've both driven hobbyists to achieve higher levels and standards in their own painting... and they're thoroughly nice people. Then theirs the fact that Sedition Wars looks cool and has some really sexy miniatures.

Some of the floor tiles and stuff.

So I always had a sneaky suspicion that Mikes trepidation and fears before the campaign got underway were unfounded and unnecessary. I guess he didn't know how many of you had repeatedly contacted me to ask about Sedition Wars and when it was coming out. I'll be honest though, the initial rush even took me by surprise. I knew it would be big, but this big? Nope, didn't see that coming I'll be honest, and with only 5 days still to go it could just keep on getting bigger. Firstly I need to answer a few questions for people about the add-on sales, here let me list them below:

Pimping the game

 Sci-fi homages

Clear plastic coolness

I've broken the add-on sales down into three categories for you. Now people have asked me via email if I know whether any of these goodies will be available after the Kickstarter for general release, or whether you'll only be able to get them by backing the Kickstarter. Well the news is that if you want any of the Opticamo or Glow In The Dark stuff you'll only be able to buy it via the Kickstarter Campaign. The same is true of all the sci-fi homage miniatures, so if you want your Alien inspired female heroins, your Dead Space themed Engineer and the Cylon wannabe you'll need to stump the cash up now... or miss out for ever. They are well worth though, because as I type they've just passed through the $430,000's mark, which means that every single one of the sc-fi homages also comes with a strain infected doppelganger for free. Bargain!. There is some good news though for the fiscally challenged among you, the Terrain Pack will be a long term product available after the Kickstarter campaign has finished. On the Dice and Tile pack I'm not sure either way, but I'm going to say it's highly unlikely they'll be selling them separately. Hopefully that's cleared up that mystery for some of you, and you feel better able to make informed consumer choices!

If you are going to pledge make sure it's at least at this level!!!

So why the hell should people back the Sedition Wars campaign if it has already been so stupidly successful? Well for selfish reasons of course! Simply put the $100 Biohazard level pledge is just worth its weight in gold. Let me show the ways in which this deal gives you extra free stuff:

1. When they hit the $60,000 stretch goal every Biohazard set got 12 extra Vanguard mini's.
2. When they hit the $120,000 stretch goal every Biohazard set got 12 extra Strain mini's.
3. When they hit the $150,000 stretch goal every Biohazard set got an extra Quarantine Campaign to make use of all those lovely extra mini's you got.
4. When they hit the $170,000 stretch goal every Biohazard set got 6 swanky looking Strain and Vanguard custom dice (3 of each).
5. When they hit the $210,000 stretch goal every Biohazard set got 4 extra phase 3 Strain, 2 Brimstones and 2 Scythe Witches.
6. When they hit the $250,000 stretch goal every Biohazard set got a painting guide DVD done by Ali and Mike McVey.
7. When they hit the $270,000 stretch goal every Biohazard set got  an extra AI Drone.
8. When they hit the $300,000 stretch goal every Biohazard set got an extra Grendlr mini.
9. When they hit the $360,000 stretch goal every Biohazard set got an extra Cthonian mini.
10. When they hit the $420,000 stretch goal every Biohazard set got 6 baby drones.

And that's just for starters! The campaign is still going strong, and no doubt will see even more goodness added onto the Biohazard set as the campaign races along. So that's the reason I think if you are going to back the campaign you should do it at the $100 Biohazard level, because the amount of free stuff you get already for backing at that level is phenomenal and well worth the asking price. Plus it's only going to keep getting better and better. Did I also mention that every Biohazard level pledge also gets a limited edition resin Kara Black mini and a signed copy of the cover art? I didn't! How remiss of me. Bargain.

Some of the mini's you'll get into the game.

I've read some dissenting voices on the Internet about Cool Mini or Not using Kickstarter and whether it is right for them to do so, I've also heard plenty of people say Sedition Wars would have been made any way. Now while I think they have a point, Sedition Wars would have been made eventually, I'm not sure that without the Kickstarter campaign it'd have been turned into the quality product it has been. Here let me point out how the Kickstarter campaign has improved the product for everyone:

1. When the game hit it's $40,000 stretch target every game was improved with additional variety in the poses of the Vanguard Samaritans with two extra female sculpts.
2. When the campaign reached $80,000's every game had it's infection tokens and chits turned into plastic. That's a massive boost in quality.
3. At $100,000's every game got an extra sculpt of the phase 1 Strain, to again add more variety in the box.
4. At $140,000's every game has Barker Zosa with Pulse Cannon added to it.
5. The success of the campaign has also allowed Studio McVey to reward backers with cool unique sculpts such as Dr Ridley at $190,000's, along with all the others. Cool mini's that wouldn't have seen the light of day otherwise, and neither would their infected versions.
6. Without the Kickstarter campaign there wouldn't have been the Opticamo an GITD miniatures released for sale.
7. The scenery set as well might have eventually been released as individual expensive resin casts, but now Studio McVey will be able to sell them as plastic pieces for a far more reasonable price for everyone.

The simple truth is that despite what people might think about the relative size of companies like Cool Mini or Not within the industry, they are in real word terms very much small fry, and Studio McVey really is a cottage industry... literally. They also operate in a very niche marketplace offering extremely niche products for that marketplace. Let me assure you having worked in a bank as a new business manager and researcher that such companies have never found it easy to raise finance, and in the current climate it will have only gotten significantly harder to get backing for these types of products.

This is what it has all been for, the boxed set.

So this Kickstarter campaign has not only funded a product that trust me would have struggled to find conventional funding, it has also made the product significantly better for absolutely everyone out there who buys it subsequently. It has also brought the product to market much, much sooner than it would have been had Studio McVey had to fund it out of limited edition resin sales. Think about it, to make the $20,000's necessary to publish the game, I think they'd have needed to sell somewhere in the region of 10,000 miniatures at least, and that's probably not including the McVey's needing to make money to live off of. Kickstarter campaign has really driven the project and given a small company a boost that it would never have been able to achieve via conventional means, and for all us who have backed the project it has given us the opportunity to support a product that we all want to see, and get a cool return on our investment in the meantime. If that isn't what crowd funding is all about, then I have no idea what it is about. It's not a charity thing, we're not giving money away here, we are helping to fund a product and we expect to see a return for our investment.

So what's new? Obviously while re-typing this they've put up more stretch goals and more add-on sales, so what are they?

First up there are these... things. So there is even more extra miniatures goodness on the way IF they reach the $460,000's. If they do every Biohazard set will get 6 extra Head Crawlers... I say extra, but they're new and I've never seen them before! They also will have rules so you can use them in your games, which will be cool.

Huzzah and hooray for yet more sci-fi homage / fan service miniatures! If any of you have seen the TV series Firefly, or indeed the film Serenity you'll all be more than aware of just who these two characters are paying homage to. So for $20's you can have the start of a mercenary crew...
 

And if the campaign reaches the heady heights of $470,000's you get 2 extra crew members who should also be familiar with viewers of the aforementioned TV series and film. I'm going to be honest here and say I love all of these sci-fi homage mini's and would gladly gobble them all up myself. Every single one of them has tugged on my geek heart strings, as all of the franchises they are paying respect to are things I hold very dear to my own geeky heart. Now if there was only a way to shoehorn a Mulder and Scully set of miniatures into the Sedition Wars background we'd be golden! The Sedition Wars campaign has only 5 days to go, so there are only 5 days left for you to nab yourself some of this awesome goodness. So if I were you and you were sitting on the fence my honest advice to you would be don't delay for one second, and remember I've played the game. The total funding so far currently stands at $434,557... and rising. Peace out!