The kick starter concept is one of the better uses of the internet. Kind of like Dragons Den meets gamer geeks without the awkward stumbling through your pitch to the Dragons- come up with a cool new idea and pitch it to the masses, those interested pledge money and when the target is reached the company has enough capital to fund the project and the backers get rewards for their investment. A hundred or two here and there (or less) is much easier to get than several thousand from dubious corporate suits. Seems like a winning concept to me!
Dwarven Forge are a long established terrain making company, I love their stuff, but was never allowed to sell the children to buy some so when they released their game tile kickstarter concept I resisted for about... a day (not bad really). I must admit a couple of the guys in our gaming group have been backing a few kickstarters lately (we are about to see the rewards from Reaper miniatures when Nigel is inundated with plastic minis for D&D)
Dwarven Forge Kickstarter
So I ordered 3 sets. I must admit that these days I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY hate buying anything for the US. Why? Simple: 3 sets $175 US + postage of...wait for it...$100 US- about $120 NZ. Someone is taking the piss and ripping us off big time. It is not Dwarven Forge I am blaming here it is
all postage out of the US these days. I have bitten the bullet this time but it is probably the first purchase from a US company I've made in over a year simply as their postage rates have become ridiculously high compared to the rest of the world. Let's compare postage out of the US with postage from the UK. I an order a similar amount of gaming products from the likes of Wayland Games or Warlord Games in the Uk and pay...NOTHING. Guess which side of the Atlantic my gaming dollars tend to get spent these days.
That little rant aside, I've bitten the buullet and ordered. The $50,000 kickstarter goal to start this project was reached within 3 hours and they are now nearing $500,000, which means more rewards to pledgers are being unlocked so it seems a pretty good scheme. Only drawback I see is having to wait 6 months or so till they are released!
With the so far released bonuses for when different dollar goals have been reached my order is looking at:
Total 2x2 Straight
Walls:
66
Total 2x2
Floors:
54
Total 2x2 Corner
Walls:
24
Total Swinging
Doors:
9
Total Diagonal
Walls:
6
Total Diagonal Half
Floors:
0
Total
Pieces:
159
So roughly $NZ2 per piece even with the send it with is own economy class seat airfare included.
For those into D&D and other RPGs like we are these are well worth a visit. Just don't look at the postage rates:)
Craig
