Monday 25 June 2012

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!

34 comments:

  1. Here's hoping they hit 470k, I NEED that Riv- I mean, Phoenix mini.

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    1. Well they've happily smashed through the $470k barrier for you already Ant... and yeah I know what you mean.

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    2. How kind of them :)

      If these sculpts are up to Studio McVey's standards, they're going to be cherished. I am a little concerned, but not much.

      Not enough to withdraw the stupid amount of optional pledges I've made anyway :D

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  2. This game just keeps putting its hand in my wallet! Well i say that like its a bad thing buts i just can't resist those homage miniatures. :)

    At the moment my only worry about this game is that it won't live upto my own internal hype for it. I've been putting it on a bit of a pedestal.

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    1. Internal hype is a big problem. If it helps, right now were I reviewing the current (and I believe) final set of rules it'd most likely be an 8 out of 10, which is a good solid game. There are things I would have done slightly differently but all in all the game delivers a fun tactical challenge with a good mix of different mission types.

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    2. Good to hear you giving it a good score. When it arrives i'm just gonna have to make sure i give it the chance it deserves. No jumping to quick conclusions and all that.

      Oh and as i'm writing they've just announced the last stretch goal, Its for $781,598 One dollar more that zombicide. I like there style :)

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  3. I had increased my contribution to get the scenery set as well as a few of the homage minis. I may have to change that when the survey arrives and just plump for all of the homages instead, and pick up the scenery at a later date...

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    1. I think the knowledge that the homage mini's won't be available after the Kickstarter, but the scenery will be will convince a few more people to spend their money on mini's and possibly significantly increase their donation levels!!! :P

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  4. Both the quality of those sculpts and the level of painting just awe's me.
    [Note to self: Search for reviews of "Sedition Wars" game.]
    And yessss, these kick starter projects are indeed a temptation...

    Speaking of kick starter, must say I found really cool their humorous take on the update #43 (quoting) "Sexy nanovirus? She may have crabs though...."
    :)

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    1. You won't find any reviews for the Sedition Wars game at all, as it's not yet released. I'm sort of hoping I'll get the world exclusive on that one as well... given that I've been a pretty big help on the old games testing side of things for Studio McVey. I've really put in a hell of a lot of leg work.

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  5. Since last week I'm Kickstarter infested :) It's really cool to follow "your" supported project as it breaks one goal after another (yes I'm talking about the Mantic Kickstarter). And I also have an eye on Sedition Wars which looks just as (if not more) promising.

    And I agree on your thoughts about supporting peoples dreams. If I'm interested in the product and get the chance to support it this way, that's a great opportunity to a) make this product possible and b) spend money to help them making the product even better. A classic Win:Win situation: I get the product I wanted and the companies minimze their risk in producing it.
    Yes I know, taking risks is business as usual for companies, but smaller ones often have problems funding new products without the risk of completly dying after a bad result. If the benefit for both parties is good, why not doing it this way?

    So Full ACK to (nearly) everything you said :)

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    1. It is fun watching crowd fuding projects grow and succeed... it's actually a little addictive and that's the problem with t for some people. You end up spending far too much on them.

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  6. In for $300 here, Biohazard + all the add-ons..... just don't tell my bank manager I've just paid out on the KoW one....... *cradles wallet*

    :-)

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    1. Yeah as I said above, these crowd funding projects really smash the old wallet apart a bit don't they? You have to be carful not to get carried away with them.

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  7. This is the reason I'm selling some of my stuff on Ebay. LOL.
    I think I may have to drop the scenery pack so that I can afford all $60 of the homage figures. But then I dont mind paying the extra $10 when the set is released in March.

    So much goodies LOL, I really want an extra set of dice as well but may have to give them a miss, can't justify $10 for 6 dice at the moment.

    -Voidsign-

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    1. I love me some themed dice though. I can't help it, almost every faction I own in every game has it's own special set of dice... yeah I'm one of 'those' gamers.

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  8. They just keep getting me to increase my pledge, you know that???

    LOVE the work they've put into it, but I agree with Voidsign in that I'll have to abandon the additional Tiles for the limited edition figures.

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    1. I don't think you're the only one in that boat Tim. This Kickstarter has really caught hold of the minds of geeky gamers and pinters alike. So many goodies on offer.

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  9. Backed since day one. Have no idea why some folks are raging on the internet, in forums and blogs about this game, the lack of readable rules set online, etc? This game looks awesome. These minis look awesome. Of course, I too have had to work a little overtime so I could afford the Biohazard and extras, but hey, luxuries shouldn't come easy in my opinion.

    O and Rob Baxter (I think that's his name.) the main rules designer for the game has promised to write a novel set in the Sedition Wars setting should the amount pledged hit $500'000. Seeing as the current total is at $453,262 I don't see hitting that goal being such a difficult effort. Always a fan of reading more fluff to make my gaming experiences that much more immersive!

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    1. The raging that some are doing on message boards and the odd Blog just sounds a bit like jealousy and uninformed ramblings to me. I'd like to say that some people have had points... but I'd be lying. They've just taken against CMoN on some principled grounds and have decided they're the new evil that must be stopped.

      I had heard the Rob had mentioned something about writing a novel in the Sedition Wars background, I'd welcome that.

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  10. Currentley sitting at $486443 and with a Free Homage Riddick (Pitch Black) at $520k I think we can all safely assume we're gunna get those novels. ^.^

    But now they have put the drones and Skull Spiders up for sale at $10 a set. I need more Moneys.

    Anyone need a Lung, Kidney, HAIR ROOTS????

    -Voidsign-

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    1. I know when I saw the state of the campaign this morning I was like "good God how much Blood do they want?".

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  11. It's so awesome! :D

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  12. At this point I've already rented a storage unit just for sedition wars minis. Can't wait for this thing to end just so I'll stop getting emails that tell me I'm getting more free stuff.

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    1. lol. Not long to go then. I'll be really interested to see where it finally ends up... both in terms of funds raised AND free stuff given out. The $600k stretch goal in 3 days looks steep... but they're already at $546,227... so who knows.

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  13. Damn, now they add a Battlefoam bag to the mix.. It looks like the basic bag is the same as the Infinity Alpha one to me, so I'll probably either buy the custom foam later or the full bag if I'm wrong. Need money for the shiny first!

    Too bad about customs though.. Or I'd cancel the Infinity bag I ordered from Wayland as this one will probably ship sooner..

    I'm looking forward to the end of the campaign as well to see where they end :) Some people were talking about 1 mil+ but I doubt it'll get that crazy.

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    1. Yeah well ordering Battlefoam here in the UK is a pain in the ass too, despite Battlefoam UK. If it's not in stock you can wait an eternity. Me... I'd still be inclined to use Battlefoam USA and take my chances with customs. At least I know I'd get my stuff before hell freezes over.

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    2. Bah, that explains alot.. I'll have to look into it then.

      Thanks for the info!

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    3. Stupid of me, Battlefoam lists a CMON bag on it's website and based on the pictures it looks identical. Since I only have the funds for one bag it'll be either the Infinity bag and me buying a few custom trays for Sedition Wars or the other way round.

      A question to people who own metal Sedition Wars miniatures. Would you say there size is significantly larger than Infinity miniatures?

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  14. Heya FLG, just to clarify this:
    "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 "

    I made sure not to let anybody know about the Grunt'o'Matic until the Barracks kick-starter closed. I didn't want to risk having a negative impact on it.

    So, I really don't think it had an influence on Barracks funding levels.

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    1. Maybe so Quozl, I have to be honest if I'd known about your army builder I'd never have pledged to Barracks. It'll be interesting to compare Barracks to your free solution when they're both out.

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  15. :) Aye, that's why I told nobody about it - I'd have felt bad if I'd sabotaged Robin's efforts to any extent.

    i don't like that it may have cost some backers money who otherwise wouldn't have backed it but I felt that they weren't losing something they wouldn't otherwise have had but instead also gaining a free online builder to go with it ;) Or at least that's how I self-justified it - there really was no way I was going to risk spiking Robin's funding drive.

    Plus, I'll try and make sure that the GoM offers some stuff that Barracks doesn't. There's advantages and disadvantages both to being an online or an offline app. So there's stuff that I can do more easily than Barracks could and stuff they can do more easily than I can.

    Card creation on your iPAD or trivial sharing of cards are some online benefits :) Not going away because I get hit by a bus tomorrow are offline app benefits!

    BTW, thanks a lot for linking to the Grunt'o'Matic :)

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  16. I mentioned Sedition Wars to my wife last night. She was so-so on the game itself, but was sold as soon as I mentioned the crew of the "Calamity". She wants a set of the crew for herself now.

    Damn you, Mike McVey. You magnificent b'stard.

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