Maps Showcase - Mining Town; Overgrown Ruins; Shipping to begin for core sets, artwork teasers
about 3 years ago – Sat, Apr 24, 2021 at 01:19:43 AM

Mining Town (8 Pages)

Welcome to the great town of Pha ... I mean Mining Town!

An 8-page, fully modular town. Includes Provision house, Inn, Smith, Townmaster, Coster, Exchange, Orchard, Farm, and a ruined building on the edge of town. Can be built in dozens of layouts, or 'as suggested' in a format that can work for running the town of Phandelver.

The building are also generic enough to be used for all your future tabletop gaming for many years to come, and this set will hopefully serve as a wonderful addition to everyone's toolkit.

Overgrown Ruins (6 Pages)

Faithfully adapted from the source material, this 6-page layout of a ruined city, overgrown with vegetation and collapsing buildings will no doubt find endless use at your table. And of course, when running LMOP it serves as a near perfect map for representing Thundertree, with it's iconic encounter with Venomfang atop the northern tower.

One of the few alterations we made was to open up that space leading up to the tower, to make it a more realistic battlemap.

And, for ease of use, we're embedding reference number codes to help you run the LMOP module using our maps, so you'll have no trouble figuring out which buildings are meant to be which, if some of them have slid slightly in our modified layout. Map Codes will faithfully mirror all codes and references in the LMOP booklet, while being small enough that they aren't noticed or distracting when you aren't looking for them.

Production and Shipping Update

The main set of 84 miniatures is completely finished, printed, and being assembled. Maps are finished, printed, and being assembled. Bases, Cases, Ambush Carts, and Stirges are all finished, printed, and being assembled.

Twigblights are finished, file is ready to print, and it'll be printing on Monday. This means, essentially, the packs could start shipping early next week!

Additionally, the Dragon Cultists Warband is finished, the Goblin Raiding Party is ready to print on Monday, and the Reanimated Villagers pack file is being created, and could also possibly print monday or wednesday.

Whats still waiting on Artwork

The PCXP Pack, Dwarven Draugr, and Aasimar Forms of Power are nearing completion, with roughly 20 pieces of artwork remaining.

So, if you bought some add-ons and extras that aren't quite ready, you won't be among the first to ship, but we should have them done soon too.

In the meantime, some art teasers!

And this is just a dozen of the pieces in this set!

The delays have been horrendous, and it's our hope that we can do a few things to keep you happy and rely on your continued support. We're working on restructuring so we can improve the speed, scope, and professionalism of these hardbound support kits, and we're going to continue to make one hell of a product.

Multi-Part Update - P2 - HBS1 has begun printing, Dragon Cultists print and die test
about 3 years ago – Thu, Mar 18, 2021 at 12:59:46 AM

Hey guys! Had a small delay on printing, when we attempted to print last wednesday we had some printer malfunctions. Those have been fixed, and we did our Dragon Cultists test print.

Check it out!

And of course, all warbands come with numbered 1-10 bases, in a specific color. So here's how the final product will look;

Printing Status

Once the repairs were finished, the printer is back to excellent condition and printing very well.working perfectly. Our next print day will be either next Monday or Wednesday, pending our next delivery of plastic, and we're hoping to crush out several of these warbands.

Additionally, the main HBS1 set is 1.5 packs, and while a number of pieces are not ready, we can print the "main page" immediately, and plan to do that without delay.

So this marks the beginning of real production for the HBS1 miniatures, and we'll continue with smaller updates showing pieces as they finish.

Maps will also likely begin printing this week, and we'll have another update soon with map layouts and finished digital releases.

Multi-Part Update - P1 - 4x Warbands complete
about 3 years ago – Sun, Mar 07, 2021 at 01:02:12 AM

Hello backers!

An update is very overdue. There are some reasons we haven't posted an update in a while. Multiple parts of this project are done, but don't have photographs, or are nearly done and would be more presentable with just a few more days of progress.

Philip has given a few updates from Vegas, but the real information comes from me / our Texas office, where we only have a couple of people.

However in the last few weeks there have been small things preventing us from rounding those last corners; between the Texas winter storm, sicknesses in the office, an employee staying home for a covid scare (it was negative), our die-cutting laser shattering from the cold (already replaced), our printer broke down and needed a new part (already replaced), and other small issues - not to mention the irregular and crazy schedules that come with 2 new babies.

While it feels like 'were almost ready for a huge update' I've been essentially stalling until it's ready with more to show. This is not the proper way to do updates or communicate with kickstarter. I'm sorry for falling into this trap. I'm instead going to break it up into multiple smaller updates and just give the information I have, and I'm still hoping to have several more updates (the other parts of the big update) within the next few days, specially with photos, better visual details, and printing progress from the finished elements.

The overall Status of Hardbound Support 1 : 5e Starter Set

I would also like to mention that these 'small picture' delays can be avoided or compensated for, and one of the reasons we're not trying harder to avoid them is that they somewhat don't matter to the 'big picture'. HBS1 is waiting on artwork. If the artwork was done, we'd be doing things differently, pulling in extra help, prioritizing the project to get it out the door, etc but the art still isn't complete.

So while the Texas winter storm and sickness issues may be affecting my communication, and slowing down updates, printing and photographing for the updates, it's not affecting the bottom line. The 'issue' is art. Currently theres ~40 pieces of art outstanding (all of them have been sketched). But lets break everything down into components:

5E Starter Main pack of 84 Minis (18 pieces of art missing)

PCXP - PC Expansion pack of 64 minis (18 pieces of art missing)

Warbands - 7x Sets of 10 pieces - (3 pieces missing, and 2 quick modifications needed).

Currently, 4x Warbands are completely ready to print, and Philip has finished the Warband die, so we'll be finalizing and printing these pages immediately. Among the other 3, we need only a few pieces to have them all ready. 2x Goblins needed for Goblin Raiding party are PART of the main set, so those will be finished automatically. Aasimar Forms of Power pack just needs 2 of the original's to have a 2nd version with wings added which should only take a moment of work. The Dwarven Draugr needs some unique stuff in it though, so we're adding 3 new pieces; a spearmaiden type, a grizzled champion, and a Jarl to lead the crew. 

Carts with Horses special Doodad - Finished, and ready for print.

Dies - This project needed 2 new dies, one for the carts + horses, and one for the warbands. Philip has finished both of them. The dies have shipped from Vegas to Texas, and will arrive in a few days.

Maps - 17 Pages, double sided, with 34 map tiles. Completely finished. Philip is printing these this week. I'll be doing a Maps showcase as part 2 of this multi-part update.

Bases - All cut and set aside ages ago.

Ready to Print; 4x Warbands

Ready to Print; Carts and Horses

In the end, we decided against the b-side having 'dead' oxen, which would make the damaged side of the cart effectively have only one use. This way, we have 2 versions of useful cart (one full, and one wrecked and ransacked), and the oxen can be marked with blood or declared dead with dry erase or a blood splatter.

Printing Carts + Warbands

Warbands and Carts files will be built this week, and could be printed as early as Wednesday night, and we'll have an update once they come off the press to show the real results.

Damien has a new position

We knew the day would come. Damien continues to create work of an unbelievable quality, and as his portfolio grows he's getting the attention he deserves. He's been offered a full-time position from a large game company, and accepted. It's great news for him, but we will certainly miss him and his fantastic miniature art. He will be completing all pieces for this project before moving on. He will still be making pieces for us as his time permits, but it's unclear how much time there may be since it would have to be outside his normal full schedule.

Part 2 coming soon - All About Maps!

Dies are done
about 3 years ago – Wed, Feb 10, 2021 at 12:58:42 PM

Map printing shall begin later this week. Josh will have to fill you guys in on progress on other fronts.

Carts done.
about 3 years ago – Fri, Feb 05, 2021 at 02:52:12 PM

Here are the front and back of the carts you unscrupulous adventurers will be robbing and blaming on the goblins. On to dies.