Some of my crowd-funding swag has turned up!

  
   

This week a bit more of my crowd-funding swag has turned up. Obviously just over a month back now my Tentacle Bento stuff turned up, which was the first of the projects I'd supported and backed on my Blog to deliver the goods. But, on Wednesday I had the first major bunch of swag turn up from the Bushido Ito Indiegogo campaign, and then a day later the first batch of stuff from my DreadBall pledge turned up. So stuff has begun to roll in. It's actually quite bizarre to see packages turn up and not really know what they are, so it's like a lot of mini Christmas's. Although I totally knew that the DreadBall package was DreadBall. So it's pleasant to get these little presents you've brought yourself months and months ago suddenly turn up. Obviously I'm still waiting on any of my Gruntz and Sedition Wars stuff... plus Relic Knights, Freebooter's Fate and some other stuff I'm sure I've long since forgotten about! Hopefully though I will remember what the hell they are and make sure people do actually deliver my swag.

Bushido: New Dawn (new rules)

   
    

Yep, for those of you who have been keeping a close eye on GCT Studios, the creators of Bushido the Game, you'll have been aware that for sometime they've been working on the latest installment of their game rules. Well today they actually launched them. Banzai!!!! You can download the new rules and cards for the four current factions here. I have yet too actually sit down with them for any length and work out what I make of the changes. There is no question in my mind the previous Bushido rules were a bit of a rough diamond in some respects, and I hope this new set of rules will have polished things up nicely and left a more balanced and rounded game behind that is easier to navigate. I was not a fan of the previous versions damage table and felt it could really swing things quite violently. Any who if you play Bushido and you've had a chance to have a smooch at the rules let me know what you think. Thus ends my public service announcement. Peace out!

Frontline Workshop: Making some Bushido boards.Part 1

 
  

Right after last Sunday's Sermon I thought I really ought to actually write an article on making some scenery and stuff. If these prove to be popular you can expect me to go all sticky back plastic and Blue Peter on your ass. For my none British readers please see this awesome (warning may not be awesome) video below, don't worry you don't have to watch it all:

Banzai!!! And the winner of the Bushido stuff is...

...Drum roll please!!! Bishop.

I don't think he has a Blog of his own, so I'm not going to pimp it for him... because he's got nothing for me to pimp! Any way, what I do know about him is that he loves Squirtel from Pokémon, big medallion based neck garments and Parker coats. I can also tell you he's an Australian, from New South Wales. New South Wales also, so I'm reliably informed looks bugger all like actual South Wales: 

525 followers, time for another prize...

  
   

Right, I thought this had a possibility of happening and guess what, it has. So even before I've finished off with the bloody Heavy Gear Blitz giveaway I'm having to start the Bushido giveaway. I'm starting to get the feeling that perhaps my follower targets weren't quite as impressive as I first thought they were. Crumbs! Well a promise is a promise and I did say I'd give some Bushido stuff away when I reached 525 followers.  So what am I giving away? Well I'm giving away the Prefecture of Ryu Starter Set, you can read my review of them here and I'm also giving away a Wave 6 release that's yet to hit the shops, Tenshi, the Seshin Na Goei.So what do you have to do to get your hands on this swag? Well here are the rules:

500 Followers, time for a Prize draw!

 

Right, at some point during last night I managed to cruise up to and past the 500 followers mark, and that triggers my Heavy Gear Blitz PDF rulebook giveaway. It's happened a little bit quicker than I thought it would, and I'm currently only 19 Followers away from the next prize. The rules are dead simple:

Jwardiff: Watching a Bushido Tournament

    

Bushido is one of those games I've tried to get people to play locally that I have to be honest and say I've struggled with. I think there's some sort of mental block with a lot of gamers over games without a physical rulebook. It's an understandable first test, it really is. I mean if it doesn't even have a rulebook yet is it even a game yet? I obviously say yes, because you get a free little rulebook with the starter sets, and the rules exist. But hey, I still tried pimping it because I think it's an good little game you know. Besides, it's at the stage where they're still probably finalising what that first edition rulebook will look like, so the game could actually really do with experienced gamers playing it, and feeding back their thoughts to the guys at GCT Studio's. Any who, me and the Cursed, who I've tried to get involved with the game, decided to trek all the way from the West Midlands to Cardiff this Saturday to take a look at what was billed as the worlds first ever Bushido Tournament held at Firestorm Games.

Now for those of you who don't know this, port towns are notoriously bad at dealing with traffic. The reason being is that roughly 50% of the potential dispersal area for congestion is, to not put too fine a point on it, bloody sea! So unless you're in a boat you're stuffed if you drive that way. So port towns are notoriously bad for being able to let pressure in their system ease out of the center. Put it this way it took us 1 hour 43 minutes to get to Cardiff... and then 59 minutes to get through the Cardiff traffic to Firestorm games. A journey the satnav was telling us should only take 6 minutes. Honestly, I was so close to beating someone to death with a plastic fork it was untrue. Genuinely Cardiff's collected town planning department must have an IQ score of spoon! Any way we finally got to Firestorm Games just before my head exploded, which was quite handy.

Bushido Ito Clan Indiegogo Campaign

    
 

They are indeed...

Right, a few weeks back now I did an article about crowd funding, or what business types refer to as distributive funding... or what the rest of us call Kickstarter or Indiegogo. Well the guys over at GCT Studios are trying to raise some dosh via an Indiegogo campaign for an extra faction called the Ito, obviously for their game Bushido. They already have four factions made and ready to rock and roll, but you know, you can never have too many factions right? Any way I'll let the guys explain what they're up to in their own words...

Review: Malcontent Bamboo Resin Bases

  
  

Looks professional to me.

It's been a little while now since I did a resin base review. Now I know I've got more resin bases than I have miniatures... well not quite, but it does feel like it at times, but there's always room for more styles and types in my growing collection of resin bases. After all there are more and more games being released now and many of them have a unique look to them and sometimes Gothic ruins and fantasy ruins just won't cut it. I was faced with one such dilemma while looking at getting started in Bushido the Game. 'Bugger' I thought 'where am I going to get suitable bases for an oriental themed game?' Luckily for me and my lazy affectations one of our fellow Bloggers and a follower of this here Blog actually decided to start making his own resin bases. Who is this masked wander you ask? Well masked would be right, it's 'The Dark Templar' and his Malcontent range of gaming accessories.

Product description

Half of the bases I purchased

This review is of multiple set types of Malcontent range of Bamboo bases. I purchased four sets of the 32mm round lipped bases, which have five bases per set. I also purchased four of the single 50mm round lipped bases as well. They are simply put 32mm and 50mm round lipped resin bases. Not much more too it than that really.

Review: Bushido Cult of Yurei Starter Set

 

Look. It's another huge blister pack filled with Bushido goodies!

Well after yesterdays rather detailed and informative review of my first Bushido starter set it's the turn of the Cult of Yurei today. Now these guys are a little bit less rooted in reality than the Prefecture of Ryu, or I hope they are. I'm not too sure how I'd cope with the idea that undead zombie samurai are actually roaming about the world, hacking people to death. I'd have to completely re-write my survival plan for the zombie apocalypse, and I'm just not too sure I've got the bloody time to do it! Any way, these guys in case you hadn't guessed are the undead faction in Bushido. As such they have ghosts, Zombies and other gribbly monsters in their ranks.

Product Description

As was the case yesterday, this starter set comes in a rather large plastic clam shell blister pack. As before the pack contains a good number of gaming cards, 7 this time to be precise, a printed rulebook and 13 D6 (6 Black, 6 White and 1 Red). But I'm guessing it's the miniatures you're all really interested in right? Well there are 5 main miniatures in this boxed set, Kato Kubiashi the puppet master with a ghost whispering sweat nothings into his ear, there is the parasol wielding dead geisha girl Ikiryo, there are two Kairai (or puppet) villagers and a Kairai Ashigaru who comes carrying to Katana for twice the choppy action. The first thing to note is that all of the miniatures in the Cult of Yurei starter set are all multi-part, even if it's only two parts, that is very much different to the Prefecture of Ryu set, where the majority of the miniatures were single piece sculpts. There is also a small marionette, and a few other bits and bobs like the odd raven on a branch too.

Extra doohikeys to stick on bases and shoulders and stuff.

Review: Bushido Prefecture of Ryu Starter Set

 

That's a pretty hefty blister pack

So yesterday I gave you a brief introduction to Bushido the game, and I know from the frantic emails some of you have sent me that I have piqued some of yours interests. Well I had to get these reviews done then didn't I? Good job I've got nothing better to do with my life (curse you economy). Word of extreme warning though, these miniatures are going up against the best of the best from Studio McVey so please, please, please don't get disheartened because these don't score 8's, 9's and 10's across the board. They won't because they're not the same quality as the specialist miniatures put out by the likes of Studio Mcvey, Kingdom Death and Bane Legions. They are however on a par with the stuff released by the likes of Wyrd miniatures. So they're not bad at all.

Product Description

Well this starter set comes with a myriad of bits and bobs in the over-sized blister pack. Obviously it comes with some miniatures, handy that. First up we have Hiro Takashi, a bad ass looking samurai, who actually comes with two head options and two sword arm options. That's a nice touch, one head has a helmet or Kabuto to give it the proper term, the other does not. The two sword arms are just as dramatically different with one a simple Katana arm, meanwhile the other offers you a flaming Katana, great for roasting marshmallows and enemies alike. Next up we get Hanso, a Samurai drawing his Katana who comes moulded in a single piece, as do the spear or Yari carrying  Yoshio and the rifle carrying Minuro. The only other multi-piece miniature in the starter set is the female Yari carrying Jin, who comes with a separate conical hat or Sugegasa Japanese fans or it could be the wood lacquered variety, in which case it's a Jingasa! Are you impressed with the research I've put into this review for you? I mean, it's educational as well as being informative! So all in all there are 10 parts to the miniatures altogether, with two of them being optional and left over to add to your bits box. You also luckily get 5 round lipped bases to mount your miniatures on, although I've ordered some special bases to mount my samurai on. There are the 5 full colour gaming cards to go with each of you miniatures, containing their vital statistic. You'll also get 6 white D6, 6 Black D6 and 1 red D6 and a printed copy of the rules.

Games that currently intrigue me: Bushido

This will be the third game in the series I'm doing on games that intrigue me. Yet again the aesthetic influences behind this product can be traced back to the Land of the Rising Sun, Japan. Maybe the wider orient in general including China, Korea etc. It isn't inspired by the usual sorts of anime I like to watch though, you know, things like Akira, Appleseed and all that sort of stuff. Although you could, I suppose argue it has been influenced by anime such as Ninja Scroll, with its Demons and Undead samurai vibe. Oh come on, give me a break it's not totally anime influenced! No, it was another sort of Japanese export that first sprang to mind when I saw this game. In particular a specific computer game series I loved on my PS2 called Onimusha. God I loved those games... I'm going to have to make a confession here. When I started writing this series late last year I got really deep into the details of some the games on my list, and GCTs (the company behind Bushido) openness and honesty won me over. Free rules? Check. Friendly employees? Check. Willingness to help me out and answer questions? Check. Some of their stuff may have found it's way onto my Christmas list I sent to Santa, and the spiffing chap that he is, he brought me some Bushido goodies... so this game more than intrigued me. It snared me.

Look it's an old dud on a giant turtle!!!

Company: The company behind Bushido, GCT, were founded in 2010, so they're a little over a year old now. So compared to some other companies in the list, like Dream Pod 9, they are mere pups taking their first fledgling steps. They're a British company that as far as I'm aware has four full time members of staff. Like all new companies they're obviously ambitious and want to succeed, because who sets up a new business with the hope to fail? But I may as well let them tell you their business aims in their own words:

'We are a group of individuals from a variety of backgrounds with a common love of table top gaming. We aim to design and produce games, that are both challenging for the strategist, fun for the casual gamer and provide exciting and dynamic sculpts to bring our worlds to life.'

Website: Bushido the Game