Requiem arrives!

My Requiem delivery arrived from Westwind :-)

Werewolves, Order of the Dragon, Vampire Hunters, Arch Criminals, Baker Street set, Gentlemen with Guns and all the Freebie Stretch goal figures and more besides! To be honest I had forgotten exactly what I had ordered, as its been several months since the order was placed!

But all seems in good order. Sculpts appear to be good quality with little flash / mold lines.

The only thing is the figures seem more slender than I expected, but it could be the more recent figures I have painted, from their Vampire Wars ranges are just a little chunkier... I'll have to compare them to my Gentlemans Club, already painted, to see how they match...

The discount voucher is a nice little extra - I'll probably be going back for some Victorian Zombies, and maybe the Clickers...

Who's going to be a busy boy then!?

Empire of the dead Requiem - LAST GASP chance...

Roll up roll up , read all about it...

9 hrs to go till the end of the Empire of the Dead Requiem Kickstarter ends!

We thrashed through the last stretch goals and Uncle Thulu has been added and more besides!

We're only £2k away from completing the final goal of the Kickstarter and releasing "The Phantom" with the £90,000 mark of the target.

OK, the UK and Europe have gone to sleep now, so its up to us 'internationals' to hit this one out of the park! So all you Aussies who have just got up, and Kiwis going about their day, and Yanks and Canadians, sitting down to dinner looking forward to your evening, nows the time to log in and pledge away!

Have you pledged yet!? If not , time to visit here.

Come on guys I am sure we can hit this final target!

Fingers crossed...

Well done to Andy and Wendy Cooper for managing a superb Kickstarter project!

Empire of the Dead Requiem Kickstarter - Just over one day to go!

Attention Attention!!!

Just over one day to go till the end of the Empire of the Dead Requiem Kickstarter pledge period ends.

The last day or so has seen a roar of activity, shooting the pledge level up to just over £78,000!!

If we can crack £80,000 , we can free up Great Uncle Thulu ! I simply love this concept figure... a wonderful tongue in cheek nod to the Lovecraftian world of Cthulhu.

This kickstarter has been a run away success... what started off as a hope to get £5,000, has managed to draw in almost 16 times that initial required amount!

Clearly this period and setting appeals to a great many gamers out there!

I have to say I am quite thrilled. And as the kickstarter grew I couldn't help but get drawn in a little further, and the addition of the pledge booster was a great idea, allowing you to more or less customize your desired financial input.

Not only are we seeing 'fighting faction figures' but a whole host of background figures and vehicles to really set the scene.

The stretch goals have rocked along at a wonderful rate securing all Requiem level pledges an amazing array of unique miniatures available only to those who dare to dip their toe in the kickstarter.

If you are still sitting on the fence for this one you have one last day to make the decision to jump on in. So come on in, the water's lovely! ;-)

If you want to grab all these unique stretch goal models you'll need to stump up £74, but this will get you:
"Requiem 18 - (+all stretch goals) 18 human sized models from Requiem. + Choose any single boxed set from Lycaon, Vampire, Brotherhood, Gentlemen's club or Zombies. + Nadezhda Durova, a Kickstarter only Limited Edition miniature. + a Pdf of the Empire of the Dead rulebook."

This is a damn good buy in to the game, giving you a PDF copy of the rules, a starter faction set of 8 figures, and a choice of 18 figures to add to this from the kickstarter, plus Ms Durova and all the stretch goal figures, currently at another 10 figures, so that's 37 beautiful metal sculpts from Andy Cooper at WestWind at £2 a figure. I think that's great value.

Of course you could pledge more and grab more great figures!

So its your choice, pledge away and join in the fun!

ONE DAY TO GO!

Check out the Kickstarter here.

Empire of the Dead - Requiem Kickstarter - roaring success!

Having sucked up the courage to dip my toe in the kickstarter craze, and having a great fondness for this game despite only playing a handful of games, I placed my pledge and managed to grab one of the early bird £75 pledge deals.

After only a few days, the kickstarter has reached over £40,000 in pledges, obliterating the target of £5,000. !

Keeping an eye on the kickstarter page here, and the Westwind Facebook page here, its been tremendous to see what Andy is going to be able to do with the game as its audience of existing and prospective players grows, with new figures, factions, conveyances and rules for these being 'unlocked'.

I am still excited to see the kickstarter continue to grow as it unlocks more stretch goals, effectively rewarding my pledge with further models for my collection (if I understand the kickstarter correctly!?)

So anymore folks still undecided or sitting on the fence with this, now's the time to jump on in! I am sure you wont be disappointed.

On the terrain front, I have often looked at the MDF terrain from Sarissa Precision, and whilst their cityblock range looked good, I wasn't keen on the flat roofs. So I dropped them an email about it, and was pleased to hear back that they are actively working on the range with plans for further expansion and pitched roofs! Great! As these will look far more 'Victorian' to the image in my minds eye...

Also the Legatus blogged this: " The really good news is that North Star are working with 4Ground to make some laser MDF Victorian London houses.  This really is excellent news and will solve my big worry about scenery!", over on his wonderfully eclectic blog; Legatus' Wargames Armies. 

So thats another range of buildings to watch out for!

Exciting times ahead indeed in the realm of VSF/Steampunk!

Can't wait!

Empire of the Dead - Requiem - KickStarter

Kickstarter seems to be all the rage at the moment for launching new things with the pledge support of backers. However it seems it is also being used to expand upon existing ranges... and this is the plan Westwind Productions have to expand upon their Empire of the Dead, Gothic Horrior/Steampunk skirmish game.

I have dipped my toe thoroughly in this game and find it whole heartedly enjoyable. I have collected starting factions for the Gentlemans club including Zendarians (by chance!) and the Vampire Faction! I have only played a handful of games on a simple rural hamlet terrain setting but these have been immensely fun and the idea of embarking on a decent size campaign certainly appeals.

The only problems I had really were first finding some suitable urban terrain (hopefully more in the pipeline of the self build scratchbuild side of things)... and extra models to add to the existing factions to grow your factions accordingly. I didn't really want to buy duplicate sets as that would be a bit dull, so new models are in demand, and this seems on the horizon, in the form of the Kickstarter, due to go live February 14th...

As yet I have yet to back a kickstarter but I will be giving serious consideration to this one...

Over to Westwind:

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WEST WIND PRODUCTIONS KICKSTARTER

Empire of the Dead – Requiem – Proposed Miniatures Release

Q&A

What’s it all about?

Requiem is West Wind’s huge miniatures release for its acclaimed Gothic Horror / Steampunk skirmish game, Empire of the Dead.

What’s in the release?

If we are successful, we plan to make over 80 New miniatures, plus 12 New Victorian machines, carriages, steam powered walkers and Time machines, etc.

What scale are the miniatures?

28mm pewter miniatures, on a 30mm round bevelled base. The carriages will be resin and white metal.

What made you choose the Victorian period and Gothic Horror/ Steampunk ?

We have a long history of games and miniatures based in this period, Vampire Wars was our first Victorian game and Empire of the Dead has its roots in this game.

What kind of miniatures can we expect?

If you love the fictional world of the Gothic novel then you will be very familiar with a lot of the characters we have planned for Requiem; ranging from Vampire Counts to Great Detectives, we have them all, plus more ideas too….......

Tell us more about the Victorian Machines.

Victorian streets were filled with people and machines, in fact if you look at old photos of London around the 1880’s, you can’t move for horse drawn vehicles!  You can expect a London Omnibus, a Hansom Cab, a Victorian horse drawn Fire Engine and a lot more……….

What about the Steampunk stuff?

We have an ingenious Time Machine, ala H.G. Wells, a Steam Powered Exo-skeleton, a Spirit Canon, a steam powered Gyro-copter and many more……...

Why have you gone to Kickstarter?

Its fairly simple, you have to keep up with the times.  We want to fund the out sourcing of our mould making. Currently Andy Cooper splits his time between mould making and sculpting. This is really slowing us down and we need to find a different way to bring our products to market in a more timely manner.

What can we expect from West Wind in the future?

As far as Empire of the Dead is concerned, we have a third part planned. We think it’s a great twist on the traditional Steampunk background but you will have to wait and see.

Can we expect to see Requiem releases in the game stores?

Yes, we are planning on having six new boxed sets on release this summer. However, you will not see any new stuff in shops before we fulfil the pledges to our backers made on Kickstarter.

So is every model made?

No absolutely not, the range is about 40% done. You will see a lot of concept stuff on the Kickstarter. We will be posting up some video updates on where the newest sculpts are up to, and if we achieve our funding, Andy will be freed up to get on and sculpt the rest of the range.

West Wind Contact Details

Please feel free to ask us any questions throughout the Kickstarter, or indeed, if you have any ideas of your own to help things along, we would love to hear about them.  If you need to contact us, please do so via email to mail@westwindproductions.co.uk or phone on 01457 879330.

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So Gothic Horror, Steampunk fans I hope that has wet your appetites at little, at the new wholesome goodness due to come from Westwind. I also hope this means we will get rules for horses and the carriages they propose in the kickstarter!


regards
Scott


[update - KICKSTARTER link here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/832150598/empire-of-the-dead-requiem-0?ref=live ]

[another update - another batch of early bird deals were added to the kickstarter a couple of days after the launch as the first batch was sold out so quickly as US customers had lost the chance to grab these - so have another look for current deals!]