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Which is odd, given they're choosing custom gear so often better equipped, vs issue gear in the military. Anyway, I digress. If you can rationalise it in this fiction, that's fine, and not really worth drawn-out real world analogue discussions when the chaps with chaps are what they are. I was just surprised how few people knew that 'contractor' in terms of warfare doesn't mean 'janitor or handyman with a gun' right now!

Looks like Custom add-ons are now an option, as is the "buy just the terrain sprue" option. That should get some folks to sign up.

I'm definitely upping my pledge to add a couple of those sprues, because I love making me some terrain!

In for a couple of terrain sprues! A set of templates would be very much appreciated

Here's the announcement update for the terrain - just $12 per sprue, an amazing $0.38 per element!

We are kicking off the add-on facility with the most demanded add-on of all - our amazing terrain sprue for just $12 per sprue:



Each Sprue Containing: 1x Large Door, 2x Small Doors, 1x Light Fitting, 2x Microwave Projectors/Antennas, 4x Corner Caps, 1x Small Pipe Fitting (fits a standard drinking straw), 1x Large Pipe Fitting, 2x Computer Panels, 1x Trapdoor, 2x Shuttered Windows, 2x Fascias, 2x Tessellating Trapezoid Windows, 1x Ladder/Walkway, 2x Tech Edge Pieces, 8x Modular Edge Pieces.

Our terrain sprue is HUGE (almost the size of a sheet of A4 paper) and perfectly scaled to work with all 28mm-32mm games. The design is simple - get a box, or some cardboard, cut some holes in it and stick in our doors and windows and add edge pieces, then paint it and you have terrain unique to your table but still thematically linked to any other pieces you make with a minimum of effort. You can also use all of our fully plastic terrain elements to spruce up any other terrain kits you might have, with it adding especially great detailing to MDF and wood terrain kits. Even fantasy buildings can be turned completely sci-fi with the addition of our doors, pipe fittings and computer panels.

Add just $12 to your pledge for each additional terrain sprue you want to add on. As soon as we hit $45K in pledges, we'll be adding one free terrain sprue to every $90 pledge as well!

To help you imagine what you could do with these sprues, here are some of the things our team have made with them:

Hab Unit:


Pre-Fab Shop Before:


Pre-Fab Shop After:


Ruins


Pipes:


All of the above are made with simple materials like cardboard, foam core and plastic boxes and are then made sci-fi by our great terrain sprue. You can see a few more photos on our facebook page.

Add some additional terrain sprues to your pledge today! You will want a lot of them as they are great fun to work with!

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Which is odd, given they're choosing custom gear so often better equipped, vs issue gear in the military. Anyway, I digress. If you can rationalise it in this fiction, that's fine, and not really worth drawn-out real world analogue discussions when the chaps with chaps are what they are. I was just surprised how few people knew that 'contractor' in terms of warfare doesn't mean 'janitor or handyman with a gun' right now!

I'm not sure that people didn't know that mercenaries are also known as military contractors, but as has been stated before the Epirian contractors aren't trained mercenaries, they are more general contractors, they construct buildings, roads or other facilities. They are plumbers, repairmen handed a weapon, given minimal training and sent out to keep the real muscle (the converted mechs and drones) running.

SacDef (?) are apparently the military contractors.

 EarloftheNorth wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Which is odd, given they're choosing custom gear so often better equipped, vs issue gear in the military. Anyway, I digress. If you can rationalise it in this fiction, that's fine, and not really worth drawn-out real world analogue discussions when the chaps with chaps are what they are. I was just surprised how few people knew that 'contractor' in terms of warfare doesn't mean 'janitor or handyman with a gun' right now!

I'm not sure that people didn't know that mercenaries are also known as military contractors, but as has been stated before the Epirian contractors aren't trained mercenaries, they are more general contractors, they construct buildings, roads or other facilities. They are plumbers, repairmen handed a weapon, given minimal training and sent out to keep the real muscle (the converted mechs and drones) running.

SacDef (?) are apparently the military contractors.

That's right. The standard Epirian Contractor is not paid primarily for military purposes (although they do fight when they need to), but do a whole host of construction, operation and maintenance work in addition to security. When things get really heavy, the local Epirian trustee will contact the head office, who will send in dedicated military contractors from SecDef to clean up the mess - these guys are much better equipped and armed, but are not usually garrisoned at most Epirian facilities.

There you go. Terrain add on.

I was interested to see the SAS comment on kickstarter covering the different viewpoints of the dev team regarding mankind's escape into the void between galaxies.

Have you found that each of you has gravitated towards specific factions during development of the universe*? If so, what are they? (or does this give away secrets to the other two factions?)

*This is not limited to the playtesting as you've currently only got the two factions to play with.

 endtransmission wrote:
I was interested to see the SAS comment on kickstarter covering the different viewpoints of the dev team regarding mankind's escape into the void between galaxies.

Have you found that each of you has gravitated towards specific factions during development of the universe*? If so, what are they? (or does this give away secrets to the other two factions?)

*This is not limited to the playtesting as you've currently only got the two factions to play with.

When we wrote the novels, initially I wrote the Epirian storyline and Stephen wrote the Karists, and then we swapped in the initial feedback, before I rewrote all of it (many times!) for the final version. As a result when we began I had a lot more attachment to the rugged frontier life of the Epirians, combined with the more advanced technology in the cities, and the conflict between the two. But as I spent more time on the Karist side of the story, I got more and more intrigued by the nature of their beliefs, and their relationship with the Maelstrom.

In terms of all the factions, without giving too much away (as we have plans for that later), I've done a lot of work on the Remnant Fleet and am excited about the modelling opportunities with them, the Broken will be a lot of fun for the potential of making different styles of rebel or pirate warbands, whilst the Kaigus Pact are a really different idea that I'm looking forward to seeing people's reactions to their weirdness!

So in truth I like all the factions, which I guess is a good thing! If I had to pick I'd say the Epirian Foundation because I really enjoyed writing the part of Sheriff Kyle Wynn in the novels and I'm looking forward to making an army of the Desert Rats led by him.

I must admit that Wynn's story was my favorite part. Although the Karists were interesting, I did not agree with their methods or ideology.

It's definitely Epirians for me

Although I am intrigued by the Broken, and the other faction introduced right at the end, I really want to learn more about those.

We're now a staff pick on Kickstarter! Thanks to everyone who's supported us so far, we really appreciate it.

This Kaigus Pact sound interesting.

Always a fan of Weirdness and whatever that may entail, as it often means fun modeling and painting opportunities.

I hope when we see The Broken they've got a real cobbled together look.

Whats a Staff Pick?

 Grey Templar wrote:
Whats a Staff Pick?

It's when Kickstarter staff highlight a project. It is good for the project's visibility.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Whats a Staff Pick?

The staff of Kickstarter has selected us as one of the notable Game projects going on at the moment, so we'll be featured more on their website. They don't give it out that often (I think about 10% of projects), so it's a nice distinction to have.

 darrkespur wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Whats a Staff Pick?

The staff of Kickstarter has selected us as one of the notable Game projects going on at the moment, so we'll be featured more on their website. They don't give it out that often (I think about 10% of projects), so it's a nice distinction to have.

Huzzah!

Congrats! it's the last on the second page of staff picks. But awesome none the less! I am impressed how fast this got funded, and with any luck it will get funded even further!

I am hoping to paste an ad at my FLGS and see if we can't get some more people to buy in!

I downloaded the PDF intro rules, and I love it! Suppression adds so much depth, but it's a lot simpler than I thought it would be which is awesome. My favourite part has to be the VS. rolls though, they simplify everything so much. Keep up the good work!

Looks good, I'll be backing if for nothing more than to support a community-driven game.

I can't read through all the rules while at work, but it seems pretty decent, the VS rule might be too simplified, but I'll give it a shot first!

Do you plan on having tournament formats? I know you said it would be a long way off, but a rules pack similar to how privateer press handles steamroller/masters events or outlaw studios handles gunslinger events would be a nice development if this game gets some traction.

Boom 30k, neat.

In for 90! Like all the models except the basic contractors that are just kinda all right. But I am mostly looking forwards to the rules, it's definatley a size of batlle that I am interested in and facing, supression and so on sounds swell. And I will add more scenery sprues to my pledge - an excellent idea indeed!

Also the game and the entire setting could quite easily be transplanted to the grim dark setting which I actually kind of love even to the game has become unplayable to me both because of extreme rules bloat and crazy prizing. The IoM is huge and this is just a remote spiral arm... The Maelstrom can be an expanding warp storm via stable warp routes, the karists are obviously unwitting Tzeentch worshipers, and the Epirians? Hmm - either an independet isolated capitalist society or maybe Tau-sponsored cecessionists from the Imperium?

Grats on 30k! I'm in for a paltry $10 pledge. It's not much, but I wanted to support you guys, and I just don't need any more minis in my life right now Though I might be in for a sprue or two of the terrain bits at some point.

I want to put money in on this, but I really only want a few sprues. I'm pretty sure my brother is in for the full game, so that's already covered. Any chance of allowing sprue add ons?

 Barzam wrote:
I want to put money in on this, but I really only want a few sprues. I'm pretty sure my brother is in for the full game, so that's already covered. Any chance of allowing sprue add ons?

From the sound of the last update it will be an option down the line (with the encouragement to pledge $1 now to make sure that you get the email update when it happens), but it will really be sprue only - just the sprue in a baggy, no box, no fancy extras, with assembly instructions on the website. So if you are doing sprue add-ons you will get a good price and won't pay extra for anything other than sprue.

The buildings are very cool.

They have a Hadley's Hope vibe going on.

I've finished both novels, and found them pretty satisfying. I think Wynn is your 'breakout' character. Be interesting to see if/how the game will feature personalities/famous individuals.

I can understand, but not agree with the Karist viewpoint. Their intentions are all noble and good, but drift pretty quickly into rationalizing during terrible things to serve the 'greater good' (no pun intended).

 totalfailure wrote:
I've finished both novels, and found them pretty satisfying. I think Wynn is your 'breakout' character. Be interesting to see if/how the game will feature personalities/famous individuals.

I can understand, but not agree with the Karist viewpoint. Their intentions are all noble and good, but drift pretty quickly into rationalizing during terrible things to serve the 'greater good' (no pun intended).

I think that is one thing that the novels handled really well, and that really make the setting interesting for me.

Both sides are overall fairly neutral and seem to have goals and motivations that are fairly understandable.

The Epirians are your basic guys just trying to follow what you might call the "American dream": Get yourself a nice home, a decend job, settle down with a family, and have a good life. That goal then gets disrupted by the Maelstrom and your dreamlife is now worthless and you have to try to save yourself and your family and death scares them.

The Karists are your basic guys that know that there is nothing to be scared of and that the Maelstrom is your way towards a better life if you are prepared for it. They don't want the Epirians to die and go to whatever the ME version of hell is and are trying to make sure that people have the opportunity to be saved and provide counseling and community to people affected.

On the surface both sides are good and there is honestly no reason why they can't all coexist together.

But the Epirians have the people who are greedy for more, corporations and people taking advantage of fear and terror, ruthless people who don't care about a planet full of people left to die in the pursuit of the mighty dollar. They also have people who hate the corporations and know that they are working for bad guys but they are just trying to make the best of a terrible situation so that they can get a ticket off planet.

And the Karists have people who appear to truly care for the people that are scared, providing them with food and showing compassion and who are willing and happy to minister to their needs. And they also have people who are willing to bring the "choice" of accepting the Karist Way at the tip of a knife, who don't care about colateral damage, and who are willing to bring the Maelstrom racing to a planet and dooming a population only to encourage the "right" choice.

There really is no "good" faction and the setting really enables you to build a force that is motivated by whatever you want them to be motivated by.

Hope we have access to those novels soon.

 totalfailure wrote:
I've finished both novels, and found them pretty satisfying. I think Wynn is your 'breakout' character. Be interesting to see if/how the game will feature personalities/famous individuals.

I can understand, but not agree with the Karist viewpoint. Their intentions are all noble and good, but drift pretty quickly into rationalizing during terrible things to serve the 'greater good' (no pun intended).

Spoilers for the (mostly second) novel(s).

On a possibly less spoiler ridden point what did everyone think of Mekan? I kind of loved the idea of him but the execution felt strange for some reason.