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| The battlefield, guarded by one of my 4.5 foot tall wooden soldiers! |
" Form
Kickstarter and advance on my command!"
~ me
Kickstarter!
Wooden Wars Kickstarter
First off I
want to shout to the world that my Kickstarter for wooden wars has launched! With
the help of some very talented and fabulous friends, I was able to have it
start simultaneously while running a campaigns worth of games at Gen Con. We've been live for 3 days now and have
already shot past the half way point for funding. Heartfelt thanks to all of
you that believe in this project!
Now we
need to keep the fires stoked and keep the initiative! Just ask yourself, " what would Murat do?"
If you
haven't checked it out first, please do- if for no other reason than to see me
attempt to be suave in front of a camera. Let's just say Tom Cruise has nothing
to be worried about.
Tell your
friends, tell your enemies - so you will have someone at which to toss balls!
Gen Con Review!
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| Blue artillery view of the Convention |
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| With the smaller kids, I had the game begin by them building the Forts with blocks. | | |
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| A square's last attempt to stop the Elite cavalry from capturing the flag. |
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| Not only do "girls" play wooden wars, they won over half the battles! |
Gen Con was an amazing experience. Not sure
how many people were in attendance, but I heard tell that there were more folks
than last year's 35K attendance. The exposure is remarkable and everyone that I
met was helpful, excited and well, nice. Special props to my good friend Shane Hensley of Dead Lands fame
for introducing me and Wooden Wars to so many great names in the industry! Also to Rob Bowes of Lone Wolf Development, who let me share his booth at the con, and beat me over the head till I said I'd go to the con!
During the
convention I ran 8 scheduled games and several quick pick up demo games,
all of which were well attended and fully booked by awesome kids, big kids and even full
families! Ages ran from 5 on up to (well I didn't ask) and everyone had a great
time- especially me!
Depending on the
overall age group, I'd scale the rules back to accommodate, which worked better
than I had hoped!
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| Reddish artillery site in on grenadiers. |
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| Red Army general guards his flag and medals! |
The
objectives for the battles were to capture the enemies flag, or knock over
their entire force. I had a sub objective to capture and hold La Haye Bloque, the village on the
battlefield. At each objective there was a medal to be won, visually displayed for
all.
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| New commanders survey the battlefield |
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| Artillery was keen on siting in. |
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| Counter batter fire. This fine officer even brought his side arm (right). |
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| Grenadiers advance, while siblings taunt each other! |
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| Top down of Lay Hay bloque- Blue grenadiers take possession.. for now. |
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| Reddish Elite "greys" charge down light cav on the right flank |
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| Blue Grenadiers held the village, as Reddish elite cav sweep right flank and capture a flag. |
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I took tons
of pics, so will dole them out until you
say stop! The ones in this posting are from Saturday's battles. Enjoy!
Wow! Such fun pics.
ReplyDeleteKeep the pics coming! They're all great so far. Can't wait to see more.
ReplyDelete& more than half way is nothing. It's now just exactly 3 days since your project went live & it's up to 94%.
Congratulations! Now I want to see some robots.
Can't get enough of these, dude! I wish I could have been there. Question, though: (m)any breakages? Did the players get to keep the medals they won (You probably have said somewhere, but I missed it)?
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Ion.
Archduke- a most sound question!
ReplyDeleteFist thing first- Yes all medals I gave out were kept. It was wonderful seeing them sported proudly during the convention! Well earned each and every one. You can see one fellow with his on (got it for first unit knocked over at the con) in one of the above pics.
the butcher's bill was as follows:
One cavalry arm came off during shipping across the country. Easily glued on. On the way back I added some plastic bags as padding between these lads and horses, no problems.
During battle two plumes came off, glued back on. One of these was from a hard overhand throw of an over zealous lad- the balls did not bounce as per the rules. His father, who was taking pics with his phone, even caught the moment of impact- just like the Olympics baby!!!
plumes are vulnerable due to the pivot to surface area glued onto a shako. I have toyed with the idea of making them just part of the soldier model, but, since they just glue back on, the variety of styles has so far won out over a solid look. To date over the year, I've had maybe 6 come off, none which could not be easily repaired.
One grenadier was leaned on, cracked legs; glued and pressed back together. I am assuming leaned on, as I found the poor lad after the battle.
All in all very light damages, especially considering 40+ kids and 20+ "big kids" handling them. And, because the quality of the birch plywood and that it IS wood, easily repaired.
Cheers
Thomas
I would regard taht as a very light casualty rate. That argues a fine robustness for these troops, as well as their spledour. Tough as well as pretty!
DeleteCheers,
Ion
Booya! Just got in on the Kickstarter -- my first. I'm glad to have made it just under the wire. Congrats, Thomas! -- Ken
ReplyDeleteI've been following this project since the first post on TMP, and I must say I'm impressed. I've always been a fan of the HG Wells' style of playing toy soldiers games (rather than 'real' wargames) (see my games of Shambattle http://www.nirya.be/snv/shambattle/ ).
ReplyDeleteYour games would have been a perfect fit for the Classic Wargamer's Journal (http://classicwargaming.blogspot.be/2010/07/introducing-classic-wargamers-journal.html), although this project has been stopped after 5 issues.
I wish you all the luck with your project!
wow Phil- that is a cool Journal. Thanks for the feedback and the links! That sham battle looks fantastic. I love that faunt and the illustrations. Inspiring. You know, you can use the wooden soldiers to play your rules too! I have a group here that uses them for "Blackpowder" rules.
DeleteCheers
Thomas