Crowd funding update: Sedition Wars

Well my last crowd funding update was pretty darn dramatic! What with the whole Tentacle Bento fiasco with Kickstarter and Insert Coin going all 'Mary Whitehouse' on us, and decided we all needed protecting and that they were just the moral Guardians to do it. Hopefully today's update will be dramatic for all sorts of different reasons. Firstly there is a new campaign I'd like to talk about today, and the big bloody logo at the top of this article, not to mention the title of it should be a dead give away as to what it's all about. I'm sure you all know I'm an absolutely massive fan of all the really, really cool limited edition resin pieces produced by Studio McVey. Simply put they haven't produced one dud miniature yet, they're all pretty much superb. What you may not know though, is that I've been playtesting Studio McVey's Sedition Wars for a fair old while now.

I've seen the shear amount of effort that all concerned with the project have poured into it. I've seen the blood sweat and tears, hell maybe even a few temper tantrums. I've witnessed the game evolve, go up the garden path only to come back again and take a different route. I've seen things simplified, and then changed back. I've seen things streamlined and nuanced until it's a bout right. A hell of a lot of work has gone into this product, and a whole lotta love, as Led Zeppelin would say. It's been a pleasure to watch a product evolve from it's early stages, as it always is whenever I playtest product, but I have to be honest... Sedition Wars has managed to worm it's way into my heart. I have a very special place for it, not because I've been more involved than I normally am with a games development, but because it's just a good idea with really nice mini's, and I know how much time, agony and passion Mike, Ali and Rob Baxter have put into the product.

So I care about what happens to Sedition Wars, because Studio McVey have put everything into making this product as good as it could be. It's a product Mike and co need to work, so I'll let him explain it to you in his own words:

So there you have it Sedition Wars explained as a project! I guess though this Kickstarter campaign had a happy ending before it had pretty much started though. The initial amount Studio McVey needed for the funding project was $20,000, which is a fair old wedge of cash for a campaign to achieve, some have struggled to get near that sort of figure within 35 days. Sedition Wars managed it on only 6 hours! Yep, I think it is fair to say that there is a lot of goodwill out there for this project and Studio Mcvey themselves. It was great to see all the hard work put into the project show some early fruits.

So now they already onto the stretch goals! Their first stretch target is $40,000, which they're already closing in on having amassed $34,173. When they reach this target it's all about pimping the game up! We all know that in many of these board games the basic grunts get one pose and that is it. Well Mike and Ali being the perfectionist painters that they are want to inject some variance into the product for us all, by offering alternative sculpts for things. As anyone who knows anything about the industry will tell you, tooling for plastic miniatures costs an awful lot of money and Studio McVey being a small independent company just don't have the resources to do this sort of thing on their own. This is where we all come in and give them a helping hand with their Kickstarter campaign, and help them create the best possible version of Sedition Wars for us gamers. I really hope everyone out there goes and supports this product as much as they can. Hell it'll be worth it just for the Strain miniatures alone!!!

Tentacle Bento

On to the bad boy of crowd funding now. Well for obviously reasons the guys over at Soda Pop Miniatures chose to take their crowd funding campaign back onto their own website. Where I'm sure they'll hope it is safe from being dicked about by third parties. The first good news to report if you are a fan and supporter of the project is that they've managed to get back to and exceed where their funding was on their Kickstarter campaign, they now sit at $38,584. What this means is that they've managed to get to their third stretch Goal target of $35,000. Now that means they'll be putting up a fourth stretch goal target any day soon, but they've asked us to be patient. The reason being is they're really not too sure how much the next thing they want to do will actually cost to do. However John Caddice has assured me that "it's worth saying we were listening to our new fans about what they would want!" from the new stretch goal, he also told me I could quote him on it... so I have. They've also now put up a crown funding date deadline on their website of June 17th, 2012, 11:59PM Pacific Standard Time. So there's still plenty of time left for you to back the project if you want to.

Gruntz Army Builder - Barracks

Another successful project, albeit with more modest targets than the other projects on in this article, although they are no less ambitious. The first thing that needs saying, is that they've managed to reach their target of $2,222 and have managed to get to $2,796. The next thing to say, is that for all those of you who contacted me and said you weren't interested in funding the project as all the rulebook options had gone, is that they're back! I'll let Robin explain it to you himself.

 

They haven't put up any stretch targets yet, but I guess we'll be getting updates soon that will let us know what's what in the land of stretch targets.

Bushido Ito Clan

And so we get to the fourth of the projects I'm currently backing, the fifth Bushido faction, the Ito. Given the relative size of GCT Studio's, and just how new they are to the games industry, it really must be quite gratifying for them all to see just how massively successful their Indiegogo campaign has been. They initially required only $5,000 to get the Ito faction made. Well that target came and went. Their first stretch target was for $12,500 so that they could release the Itsunagi Ito faction mini at the same time they launch the entire Ito faction, so they weren't too far behind the games other four factions for options when they launched. Well that target was surpassed petty quickly, as was the next target of $15,000, which was for providing an additional model for the Ito faction as a choice, as an incentive they offered up the Itsunagi miniature for free to anyone who backed the campaign to the point that they were getting the Ito faction. Nice! Well that too came and went...

So they put up a third stretch target that was actually stretching, this time it was to provide a pretty cool looking snake lady by the name of Ayako Ito, and for those who backed the campaign with $100 worth of donations they'd get either an additional free miniature, Satoshi Ito or 6 custom Ito dice. Pretty cool, and it was at this point that I personally started thinking the $100 deals started to look like really good value for money, I mean insanely good value for money. What do you know, they reached it in no time at all. So now we're onto stretch goal number four, which is $25,000 for yet another miniature to be released at launch for the faction, a dude with a snake head called Akimoto, and yet again they've continued the free aspect of their campaign by offering Akimoto Ito free to all those of you who back the campaign by $100 or more. So if you went for the I want I-Two perk you would at the very least be getting £88's worth of miniatures (could be more depending on your choices) for £64, now that's got to be a damn fine deal in whatever money you use, right? Any way to help them reach this new stretch target there is a perk with some Feldherr cases, although you'll have to hurry because the last time I checked there were only two left. They currently need $2440 in 7 days to reach this new target, and I think with a little bit of help they might just do it. Here's another excellently made fan video for the project:

So in conclusion the three older projects I've been supporting have all been highly successful... which probably has bugger all to do with me by the way, but they've been successful nevertheless, despite my help. As for the Sedition Wars campaign... well that's already been massively successful and if it continues to be as well supported as it has been in the initial stages of it's funding drive we could be looking at a bumper haul of dosh, possibly even record breaking. Now that would be something, and it'd be great for miniature fans everywhere to give something back to two people who have given so much to the industry over the years, Mike and Ali, and to help them cement the future of their company, which is dedicated to bringing us all the best miniatures possible. I for one feel that Studio McVey is a company worth keeping around, and Sedition Wars is a project worth making as damn good as is physically possible. I think though once the Sedition Wars campaign has come to a close that will be it for me publicly supporting projects for a while. I don't want my Blog to become a public service announcement for Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Peace out!