2014 Year-End Kickstarter Roundup

With 2014 winding to a close I thought I'd post another Kickstarter round-up, because I find them interesting. Move along if you don't care...but happy holidays regardless! :D

Achtung!Cthulhu

These guys have done a great job putting together all the materials they promised during the campaign. I'm still waiting on a few books:
- Shadows of Atlantis campaign
- Assault on the Mountains of Madness campaign
- Editable Dossiers
- Dust mashup
- Godlike supplement

Age of Conan expansion

Just last week I went through their web site to submit my "order" and paid the shipping fees. I'm hopeful that this one will actually be delivered on time.

Carnevale 2nd Edition

Fees have been collected, and their 1st survey was made available a few days ago. I've already filled mine out, but I'm not sure when the second one will show up, which will allow us to select all of our add-ons and other goodies.

Deadzone

This one has been pretty lengthy, which is a little surprising from Mantic Games. There were rumours of them doing a second KS campaign this month, but the fans seemed less than impressed with that idea since we've not yet received all of the stuff from this campaign. The third and final shipment is supposed to be in shipping stages now, but I'm not sure if I believe that.

Dragon Tides

No word on pledge manager availability yet, but the last update basically said "soon."

Dreadball Xtreme

I picked my first shipment up from the post office yesterday after work. Inside the shipping box I found the rule book, two sheets of decals, two bags of scenery and the MVPs. In the game box were two bags of players and all the rest of the stuff for the main game. I also received a second counter sheet for some reason.

I went through all the figures and at first thought I didn't get any convicts, but after looking through the rule book I realized that each bag in the box had all the player figures for the game inside. One of the Asterian strikers was missing an arm, but since there are two full sets in the box I'm not so concerned about it.

The rule book is probably the nicest looking one I've seen from Mantic so far, and I really like the cheat sheets at the back. I was a little disappointed that there was no roster pad, but then I remembered that it was an add-on during the campaign.

Dungeon Saga

No word on pledge manager availability yet. Since they just finished shipping out the first wave of DBX I don't expect to hear anything before the end of the year.

Dust Tactics: Operation Babylon

Ok this one is why I've labeled this post with the "rant" tag.

Simply put, the pledge manager and ensuing "process" for this campaign have been a giant mess. A few weeks ago I received email stating something was ‘wrong’ with my order, but didn't say anything about what or how it was wrong. So I had to send email asking for details...we weren't off to a good start.

After a few back and forth communications I was told that I couldn’t swap out free upgrade packs as I had done, to which I voiced my disagreement. The instruction video and one of the project updates both stated that I could do exactly as I had, and I was pretty sure that I'd filled out everything correctly. Even explaining myself to the guy felt like a challenge here.

I requested a refund if they were not able to fill my order as I'd entered it. Over a week passed before I finally sent a follow up query to find out what was going on. At that point I got three replies from two different people saying they'd made a mistake and that my order was indeed fine and they'd get working on shipping it out.

Fuck. Imagine how much pain is being felt by the people who DID have something with their orders. Unbelievable.

Fallen Frontiers: Reboot

I had looked at this game when they ran and then cancelled their first campaign earlier this year. I love the look of the models, but the pledge levels were pretty steep for what I want to get. Or so I thought. I ended up going in on this one and will probably add more cash via the pledge manager. If the models weren’t going to be resin I likely would have skipped it altogether based on the high cost.

Guardian Chronicles

I received my base game at the end of October and have tried the first scenario once solo. The game is just OK after a single run-through. The rule books are a total mess, which isn’t surprising based on the likelihood of it being directly translated from French. There is an English FAQ available, but it's less than stellar as well.

Despite me and several other backers requesting further information over on the campaign itself we still have radio silence from Iello as to WTF is going on with the follow-up waves. As previously I refuse to support them and won't be buying anything from them after suffering through this debacle.

Guild Ball

Delivery has been delayed until Q1 but generally the creators have been quite communicative. I'm kind of wondering if I’ll be able to get anyone into this if/when it finally shows up and get some models built.

Incursion

There have been a few more updates, mostly videos showing off some of the stuff to be delivered. It seems like the manufacturer is still dicking the creators around. If this one shows up it might be met with a pretty solid ‘meh’, as I’ve long since purchased a copy of the 1st edition of the game along with the metal miniatures. This one might get sold off unless it's head and shoulders above the original.

Judge Dredd Miniatures Game

At this point I think this is the longest campaign I've ever been involved with. I'm still waiting on my zombie bikers. I do seem to receive a little envelope of stuff every six months or so which is both nice and infuriating. Ironically, the "Block War" rulebook expansion the campaign was in support of in the first place was supplanted by a new rulebook over a year ago.

Kings of War 2nd Edition

I backed this for $150 and will likely take two starter armies to add to my Undead / Dwarf starter box and various models from Dwarf King's Hold games. I kinda don’t care about KoW, and wonder why I bothered to pledge. In the end I'll get more models I really don’t need and will likely never build. Whatever...

Lagoon: Land of Druids

Other than Sentinel Tactics, this is the only KS-funded game that I've backed that arrived on time. I have to say that it looks great! The artwork and pieces in this really are beautiful.

I've had a chance to play a two-player game. Quite the brain burner of a game. I realized about halfway in that I wanted to try to limit the amount of blue on the board. Sadly I realized this about two turns too late, as there was no longer enough red on the table to allow me to keep it in check. Pretty abstract and difficult (lots of thinking). Don’t play this one with your analysis paralysis-prone friends. Need a few more games to really form a true opinion.

Peachy Printer

Delivery for this is yet-again delayed; until spring 2015. I really wish I’d waited on this one because I think they have been using the funds to do development and research rather than producing a product that was ready to go. Unfortunately for me, I joined in via BackerKit, so I have to actively monitor the campaign, and have no voice on the KS page at all.

Rise of the Kage

The survey for this one was released pretty quickly and was quite smooth to go through. I added more items which cost a few more bucks, but will allow me to use pieces for this game in Bushido, giving me two new factions to play with. I wonder if this one will be even close to on time though.

Strange Aeons 2nd Edition

Uncle Mike's excellent game of Cthulhu-ian horror on the table top. The survey was made available this week and it was easily the Best Pledge Manager Ever.

Tablescapes

Poor Justin keeps running into more and more delays. It seems they didn’t order enough tiles to fill all the KS backer’s pledges, which could have been avoided with a little more project oversight. I still don't know if the shortage affected my order, because I have had zero direct communication about it. Since I haven't heard anything I'm guessing they haven't shipped anything to me yet. Sadness.