BrookM wrote:
Bombshell will be doing a KS soon for minis: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bombshellminis/the-sacred-costalera

Physical prints will be available for sale directly from our web store after digital fulfillment is complete.

Project Update #52 wrote:A tome of heretical proportions (and the obligatory shipping update)

Greetings Crusaders,

We have a lot to talk about today concerning the rulebook. But, first of all, an update on shipping:

Miniatures

Things continue to progress well. Iron Sultanate players rejoice, your rewards are now being sent too. Casual soup enjoyers, yours won't be too far behind either!

In terms of pure numbers, S3D plans on hitting around 8-9k total physical orders shipped (out of 12k) by the end of the month. So Heresiarch and Beast backers as well as those who ordered things like mercenaries and terrain, you don’t have too much longer to wait either! We’re still on track to fulfil the lion’s share of orders by the end of next month. Once again a big thank you to everyone for their patience and understanding. Everyone should be in the trenches by the summer!

Assistance

As always should you have any issues with your order, contact S3D and they will get you sorted: hello@3dcltd.com. As a reminder we did a quick guide on how to quickly fix small issues like bent parts or remaining supports in a previous update.

The Dice

Some dice sets have already started arriving. If you haven’t been contacted by the folks at BoD or if there’s an issue with your order, contact them at Support@baronofdice.com.

The Book
We’ll get straight to the point here: the book is going to be late. We originally planned for it to deliver late next month but now we expect it to be August and possibly slipping into September for the tail end of things. The reason? It simply needs a bit more time. We’re currently in the final stages but don’t want to rush things.

Disappointing news, we know. We’re not happy about it either BUT there are good reasons for the delay:

Much more book for your buck
The pagecount, originally planned to be around 210 pages on the KS page, is now pushing 300. Given the success of the campaign we allowed oursrlves some extra leeway in terms of both art and lore… Ok, it was a lot more leeway actually. We’re talking about much more art as well as lots of expanded lore.

Our book designer Spiridon and Graphic designer Viktor (who hand wrote all the quotes you will see below, the mad lad) have been working overtime to produce a veritable feast for your heretical senses.

The rules. Refined.
As many of you know, Tuomas has teamed up with Andy Chambers and Jervis Johnson to work on future rules for Trench Crusade. Between the three of them they’ve also been going over all the core rules extensively. Not just making minor changes here and there but also improving things like wording and structure. This should ensure an even smoother gaming experience and less ambiguity in certain situations.

License to sin
We’ve also decided to make this version of the book a kickstarter exclusive. We’re adding what’s called an “Indulgence”. You can look it up for all the interesting historical details but the short version is that it was a document that let you lessen the weight of the sins you’ve committed… in exchange for a nice donation to church coffers, of course.

If you liked all of the latin and fancy details that were included on the map, you’re going to love this and it’ll mark your book as something truly special.

So go on, you can sin just a little bit. It’s on us.

—

Once again Crusaders, we regret this extra wait but it will be worth it.

Also, note that this ONLY applies to the delivery of the physical rulebook. The digital version of the official 1.0 Trench Crusade rules will still be made available to everyone by the end of next month so you can crusade whilst the book makes its way to you.

Last thing: If you're attending UKGE next week, do feel free to stop by and say hi on stand 3A-430!

And with that, I bid you adieu again for now.

I ask what they're going to do about it – and, while he can't say it in so many words, Pirinen characteristically hints so hard that the message can't be missed: it looks like they're doing plastic kits, and they're doing them as soon as they possibly can.

He all but confirms how they'll go about it, too. Winking at me, he says "You might just think about why we're sharing space with Archon," nodding at the show booth TC is sharing with plastic miniatures powerhouse Archon Studio.

Johanxp wrote:
I find lore and miniatures absolutely fantastic. But I just re read the ruleset and I think is a random-fest. M+d6 for a charge, modifiers add dices (mostly) everything is a 7+.
I must admit i'm very disappointed.
What am I missing?

 Tabletop_Magpie wrote:
From the bat reps I've seen, it plays fast and clean if yes, very basic. Ticks the right boxes for me, I'm not having to bust out 3 different rule books or reference 5 tables to shoot at someone!

Cyel wrote:

 Tabletop_Magpie wrote:
From the bat reps I've seen, it plays fast and clean if yes, very basic. Ticks the right boxes for me, I'm not having to bust out 3 different rule books or reference 5 tables to shoot at someone!

Hello time traveller from the 80's! You are missing the point completely. It's not about complexity, it's about depth. Chess do not necessarily have much longer rules than Snakes & Ladders yet offer incomparable range of decision making and creative problem solving to players.


Modern TT designs often aim to be neat and lean and deep at the same time. Trench Crusade is shallow as hell.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I wouldn't say it's shallow, just unsatisfyingly abstract and with a writing style that is anachronistic in the worst way, combining the narrative vagueness of 90s GW and the overexplaining word salads of 2020s GW, and combining a fiddly list building section with streamlined mechanics that don't have the design space for all those options.

Could have been written by the same person as Legions Imperialis tbh.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I wouldn't say it's shallow, just unsatisfyingly abstract and with a writing style that is anachronistic in the worst way, combining the narrative vagueness of 90s GW and the overexplaining word salads of 2020s GW, and combining a fiddly list building section with streamlined mechanics that don't have the design space for all those options.

Could have been written by the same person as Legions Imperialis tbh.

Project Update #55 wrote:Hi there Crusaders,

This is not going to be the most positive update we’ve ever done, as unfortunately we’re going to have to announce delays for both the book and the miniatures.

In this update we’ll explain what’s happening and why, and give you a new delivery timeline. For both cases though, we are aware that this update is arriving later than it should. As I’ve said before, we always aim to provide you with information that’s as accurate as possible. It took some time to reevaluate the situation, especially in the case of the miniatures, and we didn’t want to update everyone without being sure.

The Miniatures
As it stands, 80% of all pledges have now been fulfilled, including around 20% of Beast and Heresiarch pledges. So why have the remaining pledges been delayed?

During the month of June, approximately 100 printers from S3Ds print farm (which represents a massive 1/3rd of their total capacity) broke down over the space of two weeks. Issues varied from dead pixels on the screens to broken build plate motors. To be clear, these kinds of issues do happen even with regular maintenance, and these printers have been running almost 24/7 for months now in an effort to fulfill orders as quickly as possible. Although some issues were bound to happen, having so many printer failures at once is an unprecedented occurrence for S3D.

Normally, broken down printers are replaced or repaired with new printers and parts kept for just such a situation. However this was far more than what S3D usually keeps in stock, so new machines and parts had to be ordered. This was made even more difficult due to some of the technical staff being on annual leave which has slowed down the whole process. Additionally, S3D uses a central system that controls what each printer produces for each print run. With so many going down at once, S3D had to audit their stock of miniatures to double check what had failed and reinject it into the system to be printed, causing even more delays.

Obviously, it’s an incredibly frustrating situation for the backers still waiting on their pledges, as well as for us and S3D. We were looking forward to closing out the delivery of the models this month as much as you all were, but this situation is not something anyone could have predicted this close to the finish line. Despite this, we do sincerely apologise for the delay.

It is important to stress that S3D has kept orders going out as much as possible, even if it’s a crawl compared to previous months. The situation has not yet been fully resolved, but S3D is slowly but surely getting back up to full capacity. We don’t want to have to announce any more delays however, so going off the information provided to us, we’re going to go with a conservative estimate of late September to mid October as the window for deliveries to end. This includes latecomers and sending out replacements to those who experienced issues with their orders.

The S3D team is now moving forward on two fronts, with half their team dealing with Beast and Heresiarch orders (which represent about 35% of remaining orders) and the other half focusing on smaller orders and working their way up. Those of you with orders of a dozen or so models should see these being sent out within two to three weeks.

Once again folks, we’re as impatient to see this done as you all are, and we are 100% committed to ensuring everyone gets their pledge as quickly as possible. We’re so very close despite the setbacks and your patience and support is very much appreciated.

The Book
The files for the book are currently being finalized, and are scheduled to be sent to print at the end of this month. Once it has gone to print, it will take two months for production to complete and for the books to arrive in fulfillment centers.

This means that shipping of the book to backers should begin late October early November, as a conservative estimate. We apologize for this delay. However, as the book will be produced in one large print run (as opposed to being made to order like the models), we will have far more visibility on how things are going during the production process. This will allow us to give you far more detailed updates as we hit each milestone.

So why the additional delay? We received the first, digital proof of the book early this month, and we weren’t 100% satisfied with it. Some graphical elements needed to be reworked, such as the placement of certain illustrations. Proofreading and final checks also ended up taking longer than expected. With so many different writers contributing to this project, extra care needed to be taken to ensure that everything was clear and consistent. While no book can ever be perfect, we wanted to do our utmost to make this one as good as it can possibly be.

We can only apologize for the delay, but rest assured that it in no way prevents you from enjoying the game in the meantime. The book does not contain any major rules changes or important information that you don’t already have access to, and no new factions have been added.

Digital Rulebook
We do not have a specific date for the digital version of the rulebook just yet. However, once the final files have gone to print, we will begin adapting them into digital format, and let you know when they will be available.

Once again Crusaders, we massively appreciate your patience and support while we work on getting this project completed, and we’ll be back for another update next month, or sooner if we have any important information for you.

Sunno wrote:
I know its the risk you take with Kickstarter but its pretty galling when as a early backer I still don't have my small basic warband delivered where others locally have just been able to buy the same models, 3d printed off Etsy for a fraction of the price

DrankThePaintwater wrote:
I've seen a few people say the wait for kickstarter models has killed their excitement and their groups have moved on to other games.

I'm still waiting on my Iron Sultanate and reinforcements.

 kodos wrote:
(selling prints of someone else files is basically dead now as they require that the files are your own to be allowed to use Etsy)

Project Update #57: Trench Crusade by Factory Fortress INC wrote:October shipping update

Greetings Crusaders,

It’s time for our October update.

The Miniatures
We have just received the new delivery report from S3D. At the time of our last update, they assured us that deliveries were going to be finished by the middle of this month.

However S3D has now informed us that by the end of next week, they will be down to the final 4% of remaining backers, which is around around 500 orders. By that time, all of the biggest pledges should either have been sent, or at least packed and ready for dispatch.

S3D have told us that this means they will now need until around the end of October to complete these final 500 deliveries. We are of course extremely unhappy about this additional delay, even if we understand where they are coming from. They explained that it is due to the compounded effects of the setbacks from the past few months (printer breakdowns, transport strikes, etc), as well as the fact that a lot of the orders they’ve been tackling over the past month have been some of the biggest and most complex to ship.

If you are among the remaining backers who have not yet received your pledge, we can only apologize for the wait, and we really appreciate your patience. S3D are legitimately continuing to do their utmost to get packages out as quickly as possible. We completely understand the frustration those of you who don’t yet have your orders are feeling, but please bear with S3D as they get the last packages sent out.

Customer service and replacements
As always, the S3D team is on hand to replace anything that you are not 100% happy with, or to send anything that was missing from your order. You can reach out to them at hello@3dcltd.com

Packaging
We have also been receiving messages from backers who received their minis in completely neutral packaging. We asked S3D about this, and they have been doing it to save time, as the packaging design we provided has to be printed and assembled. At this point, we would rather you all get your minis as quickly as possible rather than make you wait even longer for disposable packaging with our logo on it.

Communication from S3D on delivery dates
We know that many of you have been frustrated by the lack of clear communication from S3D in terms of exactly when you’ll be receiving your packages. More specifically, the fact that all orders display as “Paid” or “In Production”, but never seem to go beyond that stage. We have spoken to S3D about this, and they have told us that while they usually do update order status, the sheer size of this project, combined with the multiple issues they’ve had with deliveries, has made it impossible for them to do so without losing a lot of time. As a result, if your order is displaying as “Paid” or “In production”, it means that S3D have it in their system and are working on getting it sent to you as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, they are unable to provide any further details on delivery dates at this time, and kindly ask for your patience while they work on getting the final orders sent out.

The Rulebook

After submitting the files to the printers as we reported in our last update, they were checked and processed by the factory’s pre-press team. Once they had gone through the book they came back to us recommending that, due to the weight and contents of the book, we use a process called UV LED printing. Without going into the technical details, this method ensures the pages are dried properly to avoid ink smearing in the final product. It increases production costs but helps avoid printing defects, so we accepted.

Then we waited for the delivery of physical samples, which are a key part of the printing process. As we wanted to be absolutely sure of the quality of the final print, we opted to have these samples made on the machines that the final book will be produced with, instead of a digital printer. However, this option is not only more expensive, it also takes longer, as it has to be worked into the printer’s production schedule. The wait is not ideal, but we truly feel that it’s worth going the extra mile to make sure that the final result does all the previous efforts (and patience) justice.

However, when we received the samples we were surprised to see that the result was far too dark. We’ve added a few shots so as to be transparent about the current results, however please bear in mind that these shots were taken on a smartphone camera, which always tries to balance out the lack of contrast. In person, the images look very dull and are missing a lot of their detail, which is not what we want for the book.

For example, in the image below the red is not as vibrant as we want it to be. Additionally there is a barely visible texture to the black background.

Here, as with the cover, the textures on the dark backgrounds are not showing up enough and the brighter colours aren’t vibrant enough.

The factory team explained that this is caused by the UV LED machine, which adds a certain amount of extra darkness. As they did not inform us of this beforehand, we’ve now had to go back through the entire book and rebalance all of the images to compensate. This is already done and you can see an example below that shows just how much we’ve had to increase the contrast on the cover.

We are now waiting for another time slot to have a second set of proofs printed. These should be done soon and we’re only printing a small sample of pages in order to speed things up, but we are currently about a week past the date we were originally intending to start printing.

As I said above, this delay is not ideal, but we consider it 100% necessary to make sure the book is as close to perfect as we can get it. As soon as we have confirmation we’re going to print, you will all be the first to know.

Locking addresses for the book delivery
Due to the delay, we'll be leaving the Backerkit open for now, and we'll give you a 1 week final warning once the book goes into full production.

The digital rulebook

The issues with the physical book have not impeded work on the digital rules, which are being assembled as we speak. For those of you wondering why this is taking a while: this is not a simple digital copy of the physical book’s print files. We’re redoing it completely in order to optimize it for digital viewing on desktops and tablets. We’re prioritising getting the basic version ready ASAP, but will be improving it after to include features like hyperlinks and bookmarks to make it even easier to navigate. As a simple example, you’ll be able to click on a chapter name in the contents page and be taken automatically to that page. There is also a mobile version planned that will be coming later as well. As soon as it’s ready, we will of course let you know.

As we’re now down to the final orders being sent out, we will update again as soon as possible to keep you all informed.

Spoiler: