Two More Kickstarter Arrivals

The Kickstarter's are arriving fast and furious lately. Two more arrived over the last few weeks.

The first was from Cigar Box Battle Mats. I have a couple of their older mats (and actually sold about four I think as well) and I do like them for throwing something down quickly.

I decided to back this project because they have improved their mats by leaps and bounds in my opinion. This is the new Grasslands mat.

And an up close photo. It's amazing how good it looks, the photos don't do any of the mats justice.

The Barren Lands mat. Perfect for a desert like setting.

This new version just blows away the older Open Desert version.

The third mat I decided on was the Tundra mat. I've got a couple ideas swirling around inside the 'ol bean about some adventures in the snow and cold weather.

Unfortunately this photo is pretty bad in attempting to show the detail of the mat, but again, I'm incredibly impresses by it.

The last one I picked up was the Caribbean Waters mat. This one I really liked because of the lighter blue and white tones. This will be perfect for Blood & Plunder, Age of Sail, or any other water based game.

Again, detail wise this one is top notch.

This KS funded on July 16th and had an estimated delivery of September. So an A+ to Cigar Box Battle Mats, delivery was as promised and the quality is beyond what I had hoped for. Highly recommended if you are looking for something to throw down on the table quickly and still give yourself a great looking table. One other really nice selling point is these things literally fold right up to about the size of a folded towel, so storage and transport is really easy. They measure in at approximately 60"x80", so plenty of overlay for a 6x4 table.

The other KS that arrived was from Sally 4th. This was the Classic Movie Miniature Episode 2. Episode 1 featured figures from some of my favorite movies of all time - The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca! There were a total of  36 figures in my pledge and below are some of my favorites.

I missed the first KS and what was great about Episode 2 was that there was a pledge level that you were able to go all in on - catching up on the first one, as well as getting everything from the new one. Here are a few of the Casablanca figures from the first KS.

Episode 1 also had figures from an old television show called 'Tales of the Gold Monkey'. It was really piggybacking the popularity of Indiana Jones at the time, but it did have some fun aspects to it - for me it the awesome airplane, a white and red Grumman Goose (if I can find one of those in 28mm Ivor would be one happy boy!), and Jack the dog, who wore an eye patch. Jack had a fake eye which was an opal, and why he wore the eyepatch. Jake lost the eye in a poker game and a running joke through the series was how Jack never lets Jake forget that. Anyway, good pulpy fun, and someplace to find some gaming ideas, despite the show really not holding up to time all that well lol.

The Maltese Falcon set. Just brilliant! And even better is that I now have multiple figures of Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre. That's just the coolest thing ever for a classic movie guy like myself.

One of the new sets from Episode 2 is a take on the old Miss Marple film Murder at the Gallop. I absolutely love this series of old Marple movies as well. I think a lot of it is because Margaret Rutherford reminds me a bit of my grandmother with that white hair.

But here is the piece de resistance of the set - the Howling Commandos from the first Captain America movie. What was crazy about this set is that it was made at my suggestion. Madness really lol! Chris Abbey, who owns Sally 4th, has all the backers of the Kickstarter vote on what the next set of figures will be. It occurred to me that no one to date has done a Howling Commandos set - and it was the one major thing I was missing from last year's Agent Carter game that I took down to Historicon.

It was super frustrating because I was changing the narrative of my story because I didn't have the right figures for what I wanted to do. Well, I suggested the commandos and they won the vote by a landslide! So now I have a Dum Dum Dugan figure and I couldn't be more chuffed!!!

As well as the first version of Captain America, with the original badge shield. I can't wait to get some paint on these guys. But more importantly, I'm hoping that now having these figures in hand that this can be the push I need to get our favorite SSR agent back onto the tabletop and fighting the evil forces of Hydra :)

I was already paying for shipping across the pond so I figured I may as pick a bunch of the really neat Sally 4th accessory pieces. I've had my eye on these for quite a while now and jumped at the chance to grab them at a KS discounted price. This is the museum set, with all kinds of great bits and bobs to throw around inside a building.

And the market place set. I can't wait to get these painted up.

The Museum of Antiquities set has a bunch of these awesome glass cases that should really look the business when built up. I got several other little accessories as well that should make the table a whole lot more interesting to look at too.

This KS funded on July 30th, with an estimated delivery date of December of this year. Well, Chris and everyone at Sally 4th absolutely knocked this Kickstarter out of the park!! I had my full pledge in my hands at the end of September - and what makes that even more amazing is that the entire Howling Commandos set was sculpted from scratch after it won the vote on July 30th!?!? Mark Fuller - Tin Shed Gamer on the LAF - did an absolutely amazing job on these figures, and he deserves a huge shout out for the effort. I've heard on LAF that he's already started work on four more Howling Commandos (I'm sure Bucky will make it in that set) for Chris' next movie KS :)

But because of this Kickstarter, now the wheels are turning in Ivor's little head - I'll be jumping in on the next one and 100% putting up Jonny Quest as the vote in set of figures! The hurdle will be that the Quest gang just isn't known in England, which is an absolute shame because it's a cartoon that easily hold up almost 60 years later - giving you everything you could ever want in a spy-fi pulpy globe trotting adventure series. Quest is easily my favorite cartoon of all time, and if you've never heard of Jonny Quest I can't recommend looking it up enough. I absolutely guarantee that you will not be disappointed if you like the kind of stuff I described above - just make sure to watch the original from the 1960's. And if this does actually happen by some miracle, it will mean I can get rid of my proxy Quest team. Please oh please oh please let this happen!!! And then after that I can suggest a Goonies set of figures lol!!

I'll leave you with what could be the most important photo I've ever put up on the blog. This is work being done across the street to FINALLY get Internet access to the farm. It's just mad to think we've been without Internet/wifi access since moving out to the farm five years ago. Everything I do on the blog is either on my phone (which is easily the most frustrating thing ever) or piggybacking off my wife's portable Jetpack from Verizon, which is supposed to be used for work, so it's worthless. It has absolutely sucked to say the least. So here's to Ivor getting back into the 21st Century :)

I also want to send a quick shout out and thanks to Michal K. and Phil C. for following along with the blog, cheers guys!

Until next time, thanks for looking!

Ivor