Post-Kickstarter Update XI: Zombie Dwarves, LOVies & Trog War Moles...

Sculpting:

What. A. Week!

It's been a good'un!

We'd like to introduce you to Heriberto, our new sculptor, from Mexico - whom has been working on the Zombie Dwarves (bet you forgot about those!) for the Deathless!

He's an absolute speed-demon, he's managing to get these miniatures sculpted incredibly quickly, whilst retaining the character of them. He actually started off by following Gregor's Sketch, then making his own sketches, then going ahead an sculpting them. He's not finished them all, but the first 5 are ready to show!

Gregor's original Dwarf Zombie Concept

Heriberto's expanded concepts

Heriberto's Final Renders!

As you can see, they have loads of great details that make them look like the shambling mess that they should be! We all think the Deathless are going to shape up to be a truly characterful army.

Victor has also been a busy bee, and has made some progress with our Local Orc Volunteers. Keep in mind that these are quite WIP and there will be changes made to them, but the facial characteristics are all there. :)

A number of details will be changed - Don't panic!

I think you'll all agree that Victor has done a glorious job thus far. We really cannot wait to see what the whole unit looks like.

Artwork:

Okay, few exciting things here! Last week, we announced the Kret Bitewny (Battle Mole) for the Troglodytes. Well Will, being the efficient bloke he is, has managed to scribble up this masterpiece!

Based on the TKS-Tankette, which characterised the Polish military force in WW2, the Kret Bitewny will bring a further punch to the Troglodyte forces, with some medium firepower, but a terrifying ability to burrow up from underground, just like the Ulani Kret...

Meanwhile, Gregor has been sketching (only very, very roughly, mind you) the first of our Field Marshal Pledger characters!

This is 'Isla Antonsdottir'... More on her will be revealed once the concept art is completed, but she is a Officer of some description, within the Dwarf army. Steve is working on the background.

3D Printing/Casting:

Anders sent a bunch of 3D prints through, which arrived with Rob yesterday. Rob's had little opportunity to get these moulded up, but hopes to during this week. He's apparently got an Orc Fomor cast up, but it's one of the 'sticky' first casts, so doesn't want to photograph it. Next week should be a big week for casting, if all goes to plan!

As for existing models, Rob's been able to really push on with getting stock made up. Thing are going really well in that regard!

Pledge Manager:

Don't worry folks, this hasn't happened yet. We will make sure to let you all know about this as soon as we can. Craig is still tweaking it and making sure the basics work before loading up all the products. Our aim is to have pictures of as much as we can, to aid selecting your Sections, Sets and Characters. We know it can be very hard choosing stuff just from names - especially when they are in totally different languages!

To whet your appetite, here is the first sneaky preview of our sixth faction, the Skøgtrolls of Skøgmark. Now, there has been some confusion here, these guys are Forest Trolls and they represent the 'Norwegians' of Panzerfäuste. They are few and far between and not particularly well equipped compared to the invading Dwarves, but they are hardy fighters indeed. There will be other 'Troll' races in Panzerfäuste in the future, representing other Scandinavian countries.

Speaking of Craig, Craig is also the webmaster for Orcs in the Webbe. He's running a funding drive this year, to keep the website going. In recent years, he's had to fund the whole thing himself, even though it is a key part of the Historo-Fantasy Wargaming community AND acts as a major advertising platform for like-minded businesses.

Official Sponsors of Orcs in the Webbe!

Please check out Orcs in the Webbe, we are PROUD to be sponsors of his glorious website!

Post-Kickstarter Update X: Battle Moles, Local Orc Volunteers and Kaliko...

Artwork

Okay, first up, we have some new work in progress artwork of Crown Prince Kaliko to share with you all, Gregor has been busily working on this! Just remember it's not finished.

Will Beck has been super busy, starting the week with a rough sketch concept for the Troglodyte 'Bitewny Kret' (Battle Mole). It will be a Naked Mole Rat and really nasty looking by the time its done. As miniatures, they will be 2 to a pack. :)

It's always interesting to see how these concepts grow and pan out.

Will has also worked on the final member of the Local Orc Volunteers, knowing that it will be much easier for Victor, the sculptor, to finish the models with a very clear concept to work from.

Here's an Orc that would knock your lights out for leaving your lights on! :D

Sculpting

Speaking of the Local Orc Volunteers, Victor has made a little progress on them. He is focusing on the heads, as that is the key to their character - then he will work on a generic body and do his 'thing' in to make them taller, slimmer, fatter or shorter as needs require.

Still quite work in progress, but he's working on them!

Also, bit of a surprise from a certain Mr Huntley of Arcworlde fame...

We present you, the one, the only, Hansi - the Kaiser's pet cat!

Alex is also working on the Skøgtroll range for us, when that eventually hits; but we're keeping that super tip-top secret. Who knows though, we might have a few in the Pledge Manager...

By the way, Alex is a wonderful bloke, really genuine and easy to work with. Give him a deadline, he'll hit it. If he can't, he's honest. So we'd like to invite you all to take part in his Mini-Kickstarter coming soon for Arcworlde. It's a great game, a fantastically creative concept and brilliantly immersive - remember to check it out!

Anyway, we digress; back to Skøgtrolls!

Rulebook

Ian Hill and Matthew Hartley, continue to work on the Mass Battle and Skirmish rules (respectively), meanwhile, Steve and Rob have been discussing how we are going to get them printed and bring them to market. We've had some very long discussions and had to make some decisions. We went out looking for pricing on the A4 format Paperback Skirmish book and Hardback Mass Battle book, but actually found these to be not particularly practical for the game.

Allow us to explain ourselves, before you set us on fire!

1. It's quite important to us to have continuity in our products. We feel like a roughly A5 format, Hardback book for both games still represents the quality we want to put across, whilst being much easier to transport and more handy for games. This is the same format used by Warploque MIniatures for their Arcworlde game, as well as Tor Gaming with Relics.

2. A new A5 format means that we can increase the page count of both books. This means they will both contain the Skøgtroll Campaign, Operation Grunwueste, as well as the Skøgtroll Army List! We will release an event deck for this particular Theatre of War via Wargame Vault a few months after the rulebook is released! For those who don't know, the Skogtrolls represent the Norwegians in Panzerfäuste.

3. This means that future expansions, which can be sold via Wargame Vault on Print on Demand, as well as a few copies from our fine selves, will match up with each other.
Some changes will also be made to the way the cards are packed and presented, but more on that once Ian has finalised the rules with Rob and Steve (no pressure, Ian!).

It's worth pointing out, we'll make quite a lot available via print on demand that we would otherwise have no budget to manufacture. Especially Stat Cards and other useful gaming resources.

Printing and Casting

We can wrap this up easily here. Rob's had a rather busy week with Age of Tyrants, which he is working as Community Manager for here and there. Both Rob and Steve are old friends of the MD there, John Robertson, so do check it out too. Nevertheless, Rob's managed to get a lot of casting done, but has been unable to make any new moulds this week for Panzerfäuste - due to waiting for 3D prints from Anders in Sweden.

Further to that point, Anders has been unable to get access to his 3D printer. The company he is working with on this has sadly had staff sickness, which has meant that the technician he has usually worked with has been unable to assist him. These things happen, but Anders hopes there will be progress tomorrow.

In the meantime, Anders has found an alternative, albeit slower and more labour intensive, printer to work with. We cannot stress how much we appreciate this! Anders has sent the parts to Rob in the UK, so they should get into moulds during the week, as soon as they arrive!

Packing

The first few models were packed up today by Rob and his friends, Allan and Ant. Thanks so much guys! It's been a good opportunity to do some quality checks on the casts he's made so far and, luckily, all seems to be well! We should tell you that the miniatures will not be sent with a casting 'foot', all the parts will be clipped off. This allows us to recycle the foot in the interest of the environment.

Post-Kickstarter Update IX: Strummer's Stormers and LOVie Heads...

This is going to be a short update, due to being a shortened week. Rob headed over to Beasts of War on Wednesday and Thursday to do some filming with them for the Age of Tyrants project that hs eals involved in. It was very successful and you guys will be pleased to know he has also got the ball rolling on some Panzerfäuste content.

Mould making

Rob did a few moulds this week, with mixed success. There's nothing to photograph regarding this that you haven't seen before. Resized Dwarves, as well as a failed mould of the Deathless Zombie Troll. Next week, we're hoping to ramp moulding up big time! Apologies for this. we do have some Zombie Trolls built up, but we don't think the quality is up there with the rest of the range and we don't want to confuse you guys. We'll make sure to show you as soon as we have something we're happy with.

We're actually in a bit of a sour mood about this, as many of the parts of the Zombie Troll have smashed to bits in the mould making process - rendering them useless and meaning that we have to get them reprinted and totally remake the mould. It's just a pain in the backside and a lot of work (and money!) wasted!

Anyway, moving on!

Casting

Nothing to report here. We're running the full capacity now, and casting as often and for as long as possible. It's hard to get the balance of work right at the moment, as casting requires pretty much endlessly working on it. However, we've managed to get a small stock ready and made up. Just gotta pack it into bags!

This has slowed right down. Irek is busy at the moment, but Victor did send us a WIP shot of the first of the Orc LOV Heads...

We're Doomed!

It's a long way off yet, but a good start. The helmet will raise up a little bit and the hair will flick out a bit more.

We got the last STL file we're owed from Prodos Games as well. We don't think we're getting any more from them, just because they are too busy to provide (good for them!) in a timely manner for us. They've been super helpful with this process though.

Orc Matilda I War-beast

We're looking for 3D sculptors as well! Let us know if you are available! We're especially interested if you are keen to add to the Troglodyte and/or Deathless ranges.

3D Printing

Anders in Sweden is continuing to impress. It's a HUGE undertaking printing this amount of figures, so he's been absolutely golden. We're not really sure what we would do without him, not just for his skills as a printer - but also for his ability to organise everything. Rob's pretty scatterbrained and he's really helped rationalise everything logically. Cheers dude! He assures me us we'll have a small parcel next week with some bits and pieces in it.

Artwork

Will has drawn up some rough pictures for the last two characters in the Dwarf Straftruppen Section. These will be the next Dwarf unit to be sculpted.

In Mass Battle, the Straftruppen Set are usable as just any other Section of Straftruppen; but in the Skirmish game, they will be usable as an actual character unit - Steurmer's Stormers! Each member is a character with a short back story.

That Deathless Picture we showed you guys last week is now finished. Piotr has done a grand job!

Other News!

Really, really, really exciting news!

Allan Powell, very kindly has offered to fund a War-Beast set for the Troglodytes. This will be available in the Pledge Manager and we hope to share some concept art from Will Beck in next week's update (or the week after!). We also want to let you guys know that we will be offering all of the Troglodyte Scenery in the Pledge Manager too!

Post-Kickstarter Update VIII: Orcs, Enigma, Deathless and a Frog!

Casting

The good news for us is that we are preeeeetty much there to really push on with our own resin manufacturing at full tilt. Our equipment has finally all arrived as well as having been gone over by someone who is familiar with Pressure (Pressure is a scary and potentially massively destructive thing that can go very, very wrong - so this was important to check before rushing into anything).

This means we are able to start manufacturing figures at a larger scale than we have been up to now.

So, without further ado, here are the rest of the Orc Command (we decided to get the missing parts printed from an alternate source, just to get this ball rolling. Over a month late, but there we go). Thanks to Anders for getting these sorted out for us so quickly.

Orc Sarge and Orc Enigma Machine - Crewed by a pair of Boffins!

In addition to the Orc Command missing bits, Anders also managed to print out the Orc Support Set - which we have cast up (figures are a bit shiny due to being early casts from the mould. Models sent out to backers will NOT be shiny!

Orc "Drainpipe" Anti-Tank Team

Orc "Sausage Shredder" HMG Team

Orc "Pudding Tube" Mortar Team

3D Printing

We've got a load more prints from Anders to get through, with more coming. We don't like to say too much, just in case it's not up to scratch, but we'll show you as soon as there are casts.

Let's just say that Piotr's latest piece of (WIP) artwork should be a good hint...

Artwork

WIP Artwork for The Deathless...

Gregor is currently working on new full concept art for Prince Kaliko of the Gnomes. We hope to share that with you next week.

3D Sculpting

Victor, the sculptor of the Panzerbär, has just begun work on the Local Orc Volunteers. It's going to take him quite some time, as they are a complex unit to sculpt (lots of individual characters and tweaking), but we're hoping to share the progress with you over the next few weeks.

Irek, who sculpted our Dwarves, has committed to finishing the rest of our Dwarves and Gnomes. Again, this will be slow, but we'll get there. Irek is now freelance too, so it should be easier to get progress from him.

The first piece he's done for us since going freelance is Hauptmann Entwickler!

Hauptmann Entwickler and his Night-Vision Frog!

We absolutely love this character, first created by long-time Panzerfän, Luke Passingham. He is in a LOT of scenarios on the Orcs in the Webbe website, so get over there and check it out!

Community

Ant Evans has continued to be awesome and paint scenery for us. He's been working on the Snail Barn that Tony so lovingly sculpted up. We think you'll all agree that it looks really fantastic.

Also, we've been mentioned in the Beasts of War XLBS Video today! If you are a back-stager, check it out! They just run through some of the designs for The Deathless.

Post-Kickstarter Update VII: Achtung Panzerbär!

Firstly, apologies for being a couple of days late. It's kind of inconsequential to you guys, but Hysterical HQ (Hannah and Rob) decided to get a Pug (mostly Hannah decided...) and that has taken up a bit of time to settle in the dog.

It's not going to be a huge update today. We're still working on 3D printing, for the most part and dealing with that number of files is an awful lot of work. We're expecting the next batch to arrive tomorrow. Rob will be getting these into moulds as quickly as possible.

Speaking of which, casting has taken a bit of a slump, due to the Christmas and New Year's holidays; which is caused a delay in getting the equipment totally ready. we have done some casts of the Orc Support, but we're not really convinced that the quality is up there with the other products we've shown you, so we want to hold out until next week.

Next week should be a big one. :)

On a more positive note, there is some great news, the Panzerbär is complete!

This has two turret options, as well as the option to build it with an open turret hatch and a tank commander, or a closed hatch. There are also optional stowage parts!

Victor has done a fantastic job of bringing this beastie to life, we're really happy with it!

More news, we've got the Techniks for the Dwarf Zinn Mann completed too.

Dwarf Techniks are strange folk... Not really trusted by anyone. They tinker with Techno-Magick and they wear their beards in a strange, Un-Dwarven fashion...

Okay, that's it for now folks, more on this in a few days time when things have, hopefully, returned to normal!