Add-ons! How they work, Backerkit, PC Expansion, additional Warbands. BIG NEWS!
about 4 years ago – Fri, Mar 20, 2020 at 05:43:35 PM

Hi everyone!

First off, we're nearing the end of the campaign, and we've had a nice little bump at the end. Thank you so much for helping share this campaign! We hope to get at least one more stretch goal in. One way that people can push for the stretch goal, is with Add-ons.

The PC Expansion

The biggest add-on in this campaign is the $20 PC Expansion - 32 more PC choices for your players, that includes the gender-swapped versions of the 5 Starting PCs, and many pieces custom curated by the backers of this campaign!

Here are some sketches from pieces claimed by our backers, but there are MANY more to come!

The stretch goal to double this pack to 64 Pieces for the same $20 has not been reached, and we did not unlock additional user submission slots, but we have decided to go with an alternative idea with less costs - and pulling an additional 32 pieces of PC options from our existing catalogue of artwork. Backers now have the option of adding the $20 PC Expansion, OR bumping the add-on an additional +$10 for a full 64 pieces (This would make the add-on $30 total.)

Of course we will be adding even more typical adventurers, but with that many slots can also hit some rarer PC needs as well such as tabaxi, kitsune, warforged, tortles, and others. Here's some examples of what we will be adding to the 64-piece PC Expansion:

 
 Warbands

We've also decided to mush ahead with the creation of all 6 planned Warbands, and unlock the Dwarven Draugr, Dragon Cultists, and Goblin Raiding Party - though they may end up with less unique art than we had previously imagined.

As shown in their concept images, they will be strips of 10x additional enemies with a unique colored, etched base, and the artwork will have some repeats.

Our dabbling also brought to light the possibility of a 7th Warband, using existing Aasimar pieces, and alternate versions of them highlighting the unique Aasimar forms of power, whether that be growing angelic wings, flightless undead spectral wings, or alighting themselves in radiant fire.

Here's a mockup of what this 7th Warband : Aasimar - Forms of Power might look like.

Backerkit

With all this Add-on talk, many of you may be asking yourselves "But how do add-ons WORK!?"

Well, thats a great question! In Kickstarter, you may increase your pledge by an amount equal to the add-ons you expect to purchase. This will raise our funding total, and bring us closer to the next Stretch Goal. But Kickstarter does not ask you to specifically assign what that pledge value is going towards - that's where Backerkit comes in.

Backerkit is a 3rd party software that is going to help us track exactly what add-ons you're interested in, and will allow you to assign your pledge dollars after the campaign ends. Even if you don't remember or don't decide to buy add-ons now, you can always update and adjust the details later.

After the campaign ends, we'll begin setting up the backerkit system, and then invite everyone to fill out surveys that include your name and address for shipping purposes, select your Add-ons, etc.

Retail Pledges

We will be adding a 'deluxe kit' for retail consumption, at a wholesale price for retail locations that would like to buy in quantities of 4+ sets. This kit would include the Maps, Minis, Carrying Case, Goodies, Stretch Goals (free Warbands), PC Expansion+, and other items from this campaign. If you are interested, there is now a Retail Pledge level. If you missed the opportunity to back in this level, in Backerkit there will be options to convert to a Retail tier where you will see those prices and options, as well as other items from our website at wholesale price.

FREE WARBAND #1! (we got 100 shares on FB)
about 4 years ago – Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 12:31:23 AM

Our Facebook post has 100 shares!

Woo!! 40 hours left, and we have 100 shares on Facebook.

Without further ado, the TWIGBLIGHTS ARE FREEEE!!! Completely free.

So, how are we going to do this? Well, to start we'll be making tons of these Twigblight warbands, and when we bundle everything, we'll drop them in. We will essentially give them to "everyone", but I do need to make a small clarification, because of course some backers will come to me later and say 'I didn't get my free stuff....' well, if you're not getting any product, I can't really ADD free product, because there's no shipment in the first place. So where's the line? Well, we're making it the easiest line we can.

Every backer who's getting a physical shipment that includes ANY minis will ALSO get a Warband of Twigblights, FREE!

If you're getting Maps-only, and you want some free Twigblights, maybe add in the $20 PC expansion, and you'll also get Twigblights. Or perhaps add another Warband, to get a SECOND warband, etc.

Our Twitter Post does NOT have 100 re-tweets!

We STILL NEED more shares on Twitter. Currently our tweet has been retweeted only 55/100 times. If you guys want a SECOND free warband, lets get this thing retweeted!

ANYONE can re-tweet it, it's really not that hard. Just ask your friends on twitter to re-tweet it.... tell them "if we get 45 more people to retweet this, we all get free stuff. Just go out and ask a few people on Twitter.

^^^ Just click this link, and retweet! ^^^ Save the link, and have your friends retweet ^^^

Visual Catalog for all pieces!
about 4 years ago – Mon, Mar 16, 2020 at 12:07:33 AM

Visual Portfolios

We've created an online visual portfolio of the 84 pieces in the 5E Starter set, which we've initially filled in with sample sketches and concept work for many of the pieces. We'll have at least an initial sketch for all of them soon, and this portfolio will allow people to visualize all the pieces in the pack.

If you have commissioned a piece, and you see a sketch that does not reflect your piece, do NOT be alarmed. These were simple sketches we cranked out to visualize the portfolio and layouts. As your real sketches and concepts come together, you'll replace these. But they will be somewhat accurate for pieces that are not claimed.

https://arcknight.myportfolio.com/

A second visual portfolio will soon follow with the 32 Piece PC Expansion Pack, and we may also add visual portfolios of all of our Flat Plastic Miniatures packs and other items as well if people find these helpful.
 

After this project ends, the next Hardbound Support on our hit-list is the SKT pack. This pack is going to have a LOT of challenges, and allowing us to work off a visual list has some great benefits, since the piece count is likely to go into the 200-300 piece range.

FULL Piece List - FREE WARBANDS - Made in USA - NEW ART - Final 10 days, lets push this thing!
about 4 years ago – Tue, Mar 10, 2020 at 01:55:02 AM

We have 10 days left, and there's a lot to discuss!

Social Media Share >> Rewards

Our project is only going to go as far as our backers are excited. We had a clever little idea for this campaign to pre-post a Twitter post, and a Facebook post, and ask our backers to share it. It's currently set up to be as painless as possible, simply click on the button, see the post, share the post. Done!

Now, the audience may be asking "Whats in it for me?" Well, if you share it, and we get more backers, that leads to more stretch goals. Win-Win right?!

Here are the stats:

•  We have 300 current backers 
• Twitter Post re-tweeted 5 times
• Facebook Post shared 40 times

So, lets try a new approach, and give you something to be much more excited about.

If ^^ THIS ^^ Twitter post gets 100 retweets, EVERY BACKER thats getting minis, will get a FREE WARBAND STRIP. Currently the Warband strips are Add-ons, but with this reward, one of them will be completely free.

And if ^^ THIS ^^ Facebook post gets 100 shares, EVERY BACKER thats getting minis will also get ANOTHER FREE WARBAND STRIP.

And when were done with these goals, we'd love to post more goals. We don't care WHO shares them. Tell your friends if they share our original post, it counts! (If you share it, and they share YOUR share - I have no idea if it counts on our original post. So if you want your friends to help, send them the link!) They don't even need to be backers of the project. Just help us spread the word, and you all get free Warband strips.

Now you may be asking 'But what if we share, and reach the goal, but we don't Unlock the Warbands Stretch Goal?' Don't worry. We'll absolutely still make any Warband strips that we need, in order to give them to you FOR FREE. No matter what. You cannot get screwed out of this reward. JUST HELP US SHARE the project!

New Art!

Okay, now for some fun. These are in no particular order, and there's a lot of new pieces being sketched right now. A few are done, some are getting corrections, but here goes:

And just to re-cap, in case they weren't very visible in the Warband Strip Promos:

WARBANDS ARE GOING TO BE AWESOME!

Arcknight is Made in the USA

Just a quick mention. A lot of people are tied to Chinese manufacturing, and are going to be having some serious delays in the near future. Machinery, Materials, sometimes their entire product.

We've considered a number of future projects with various manufacturers, we even considered having some or all of our printing done overseas, but it never really made sense to us to export our business when we can do it ourselves right here at home. The overhead can be a little higher, we actually have to do the work ourselves, and sometimes it feels like we've given ourselves an uphill battle. But we have always printed, die-cut, assembled, warehoused, and shipped out of the USA with our own machines (currently in Las Vegas, NV and Fort Worth, TX). We are a completely independent self-publisher and self-manufacturer.

For what it's worth, we are not expecting any setbacks or delays due to the current shutdowns.

FULL PIECE LIST

If these lists are hard to read, im sorry. There's not an easy way to import lists into Kickstarter update pages;

Some notes:

1> we're putting all 5 Starter PCs in the main pack (either male, or female). Then in the PC Expansion, we have the opposite gender for the same 5 Starter PCs.

2> we're drawing essentially ALL npcs to be cool enough that they could be PC pieces. Only a few of them will expressly look like NPCs. For example, our halfling farmer will fit her description, but rather than holding a farming tool, we'll make her look like she could very well be a Wizard or other caster.

Our 'lean, middle-aged, balding noble/shopkeeper' will be drawn so that he could be any number of classes - rather than draw him to look so specifically like a shopkeeper to be a detriment for all other uses.

3> These are the initial slot/concept from the module for these pieces. But if they're available to be claimed, and you want to customize them, you CAN certainly alter all sorts of details about them. We would only ask that they serve 'basically' to represent that NPC in the module still.

4> There are empty slots! There are 3x medium slots with NOTHING there! These can become additional PC/NPC options from the matrix of missing starter options, or they could pad the monster lists with more copies of specific monsters. Throw your suggestions at us!

5> We still have 2x Large-Tall slots that are open for "Bonus Minis". We've slotted one for a Minotaur and the other is still open. These pieces do not appear in the module, but we're not going to waste the slot, so we're peppering in other iconic creatures.

We've never had a minotaur piece before, so this seems like a nice place to add on, and we'd love suggestions for an additional 'iconic' DnD piece. Either something generally useful for all tiers of DnD, or something a GM might sensibly add to this module.

Discord - Share your custom art requests, and get them sketched!

If you've backed for a Custom Piece and you'd like to give us the details, so we can sketch your piece and show it off, please join us on Discord!

https://discord.gg/Gdjfu8N <--- this link is NOT SET TO EXPIRE, and should continue to work for a bit. Join in and say hi!

Nearly at Updated Maps - Showing off 12 undead tricks - BONUS Minis!
about 4 years ago – Mon, Mar 09, 2020 at 09:52:15 AM

3rd Stretch Goal Looms - Upgraded Maps

First off, we're getting close to our 3rd stretch goal! The updated maps are basically guaranteed and we're really excited to be adding tiles for the Roadside Ambush and the Goblin Cave Entrance (with a Goblin Blind!) to all map sets. This upgrade will be automatic.

The Undead!

Lets get into the details of our Undead!

The module includes a variety of Skeletons, Zombies and Ghouls, which you encounter in increasingly large numbers. We've initially slotted "12 undead" into the main pack, not including the encounters with the Wraith and the Banshee.

With a set of 84 pieces, it's critical that we cover all of our needs, while striking a balance in whats necessary so the pack doesn't balloon out of control in size (and therefore costs). So lets get into the juicy details;

Our first step was to list out all the encounters that need undead, and break them down categorically. Then we plucked art from our archives to get an initial visual, and determine which new pieces need to be created. **Note - the 'Flaming Zombie' sketch is a placeholder for an Ash Zombie concept** Lastly, we sort our undead into themes/types.

We made sure each type of undead had at least 2 main pieces that directly represent it. Then we focused on finding hybrids, that could visually work for more than one concept at a time.

Breaking the individual encounters down, we can make lists like this to see if we're covering everything necessary;

• 3 Skeletons
• 12 Zombies
• 4 Zombies
• 2 Zombies
• 5 Zombies
• 1d4 Ghouls
• 1d6 Skeletons
• 1d6 Zombies
• 3 Ghouls
• 7 Ghouls
• 8 Zombies
• 9 Skeletons

Now, using combinations of the existing undead, we determine if we can cover everything that comes up in the campaign. For example,

If the campaign needs a routine number of skeletons, you use your skeletal pieces. If it needs zombies, you use those. The hybrids work in both categories, so now you can dramatically increase the number of encounters covered with the same pool of pieces.

With proper planning, we can make sure you have enough hybrids, or pieces that lean into the concepts necessary. As the campaign goes long, and the piece counts of the encounters ramps up, we need to make sure the pieces are as close to reasonable as we can make them. It's also important to note that a few skeletons in front of a larger group of similar undead, makes the entire group seem like skeletons.

By the end of the campaign, you're going to enter a battle with 12 Zombies. At that point, all the undead pieces need to be used at once, so the last layer of our process is to make sure that "as a group" they all have similar color and theming, so that when used as a mass to represent a pile of undead, the specific art isn't as important as the fact that they are all dark tones, possibly on the same color of base, etc.

And of course, we're offering +10 piece strips of Reanimated Villagers or Dwarven Draugr as Add-ons if you want to improve the ambiance of your set even further.

BONUS MINIS

Let's talk about one more fun thing really quick - Bonus Minis!

When we initially compiled our piece list for the 5E Hardbound Support set, there were 4 unnecessary slots. Three of these were 'Large' slots (2 large-tall, and 1 large-wide). In the campaign, there simply weren't more large pieces that appeared. Of course, we're going to fill them with SOMETHING.

We started referring to them as 'bonus' minis. It doesn't really matter what we put there, because ironically, the piece will be something that doesn't actually exist in the LMOP module.

We've got some great ideas, but the first confirmed piece will be a 'Guard Drake'!

We have a couple of pieces already that could represent our guard drake (currently printed in the Dragonborn Pack), but we can also create new art for this.

Let us know in the comments if there's a certain Color or concept of Guard Drake you'd like to see in the Bonus Mini!