Games and Gears Battle Board Kickstarter - An endless saga of frustration

So, I've been trying to avoid doing this while I'm so emotional about it but I'm coming to the end of my tether and need to vent.

I pledged £62 a while back (November 2013) for a 6 by 4 plastic modular board for my gaming table, this was initially estimated to arrive by May 2014 which I felt was acceptable, and worth waiting for to get a decent product at a good price.

Initially all went well and I'll track the project updates here to try and warn those of you who may be interested in kickstarters in the future, and potentially just to avoid the company in general as some would say there updates have been at best, unclear, and at worst, downright lies.

Nov 2014 - Kickstarter funds within 12 hours, promising to deliver the next generation of tabletop boards

24/12/2014 - Kickstarter successfully funded

22/01/2014 - Backers Kit locked down, no more addons can be selected

20/02/2014 - Battle Boards in molding process, on schedule to deliver May 2014

01/03/2014 - Still in mold making process, we are told that this is the longest process  of the production and that the mass production process thereafter is quite fast. Told that some may even deliver earlier than the May 2014 deadline!

14/03/2014 - We are told that we will be given a battle board carrying box for free as a packaging solution. This will be a sturdy box with a plastic handle.

01/04/2014 - We are told that we are on target for May 2014 dispatch, Molds are nearly done and then mass production will be a few days. Painting will take place during April and all will be completed during this time.

01/05/2014 - Everything still on track for dispatch during May

16/05/2014 - Some severe flooding in the area of China the boards are being painted, according to news reports caused by poor drainage systems during monsoon season. Production is untouched, but 30% of the cardboard boxes are ruined and approx 20% of the boards themselves. 

Estimated a 25 day delay as will need to be repainted.

26/05/2014 - Battle Boards getting back on track,  We are told they are a week behind schedule on Urban War Battle Boards but that they will be dispatched in July

07/07/2014 - Battle Boards should be with you August / September

23/08/2014 - Battle Boards estimated shipping late September. Delivery time quoted as 4-12 days to the EU

08/10/2014 - Boards not dispatched yet. We are told they are trying to ensure they can ship them at a price which will ensure the kickstarter is kept in the black.

18/10/2014 - Boars almost ready for dispatch

04/11/2014 - Boards sent to Port in China. We're told once they're in the UK warehouse it'll take a week to repack and re-check, following which we will get a 1 day delivery from TNT.

05/12/2014 - Boards should be in the UK this week, then will need sorting and should dispatch January after Christmas holidays. "Even with possible port delays or customs delays it's still on it's way for us to get the gears rolling for Jan 2015 dispatch to your door"

19/12/2014 - Boards are at the UK Warehouse

17/01/2015 - Boards have ALL?!? been unpacked, quality checked, then packed back in their boxes. Should be completed early next week.

28/01/2015 - Dispatch estimate now of February 2015, hoping to make delivery 2-4 days instead of 5-25

09/02/2015 - Boards will be dispatched wc 20th February, new delivery date of Mid-Late March

09/03/2015 - Boards all dispatched, delivery is 5-25 days and everyone should have theirs by 15th April 2015

13/03/2015 - Exciting times, "all boards will be with you by or before April the 15th" Battleboard clips sent separately from China and should be here within 10-20 days.

01/04/2015 - Quote: "As per previous update please allow your Urban Wars to get to you by the 15th of April 2015. We understand there is a lot of excitement and frustration in getting your boards now but they are coming to you, all shipping is prepaid so they have to get to you :P by the deadline date at least. "

So it's now the 16th April, I've not received anything, neither has anyone who's posting on the Kickstarter comments, I have not had the clips either that apparently were sent separately from China.

I'll allow everyone to draw their own conclusions from the above, which is the information we've been given through the kickstarter updates.

Personally, I will never be having any dealings with the company again. I will be strongly urging anyone I know/have contact with to boycott the company, and avoid sending any business their way.

I feel we've been misled and lied to continuously throughout the process and if there was any action other that I could take other than to just urge others not to make the same mistake I did in trusting the company, I would take it.

My advice would be to avoid this company at all costs, goodness knows when/if we will ever receive our boards

Airbrush Stencilling // Hobby Update // 1000pt Dark Eldar vs Crimson Fists this evening

Hi guys,

Quick update with some progress, I'm afraid most of it is pretty boring but just got some progress on assembly / priming.

Before...

Got the airbrush out last night and primed some more of my Dark Eldar bits as well as spraying over some I had bought second hand on ebay. I also managed to get some of the characters primed for my Harlequins so that I can get started on those when I feel the urge.

After...

Managed to Prime:

Dark Eldar Scenery Piece
Archon
12 Kabalites (3 Blasters, 1 Sybarite, 1 Splinter Cannon)
2 Ravagers

Solitaire
2 Death Jesters
2 Shadowseers

Drop Pod
Marine w. Heavy Flamer
Dreadnought

I do find the airbrush a much better way to prime then the spray cans, you're able to direct the spray much better and can put a much lighter coat on them. It is a bit of a pain having to get it all out and then clean and put it away afterwards but I think it's worth it.

I also managed to have a play around with some stencils and I'm quite happy with the results, the stencils are from a recent kickstarter I backed from Anarchy Models and are the Dragon Scale pattern ones, I really like the effect and think it'll look good once they're painted up. I have some hex ones for the Aether Sails of the Ravagers as well as some Diamond ones for the Harlequin vehicles

The picture at the top is a better close up and you can see the one on the right I had a bit of splatter from the airbrush with so I'll need to clean that up, they also look much brighter than they are in the flesh, for a better idea of the colours/brightness look at the army shot.

For anyone interested in how I used the stencils I just held them over the area I wanted to put the pattern and sprayed over with some white paint, then went over the area with a purple shade (Druchi Violet) afterwards to try and tint the white and blend it in a bit more. Might need to put a couple more coats of this on to make the effect more subtle but wanted to consider it rather than just do it on the night then regret it.

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Following that I managed to get another batch of 4 Kabalites started last night and I'm painting my Archon along with them. (Not going to put a lot of time into this model as I plan to convert my own eventually but I'd like to get him on the table painted for now)

That would put me on the following painted:

Archon in Venom
5 Kabalites with Blaster in Raider
5 Kabalites with Blaster in Raider
8 Wyches with Hekatrix and Hydrae in Raider


Feels like I'm slowly getting there with the army and I have a few other bits at various stages of completion like the two jetfighters above, a unit of 3 Reaver Jetbikes and a second Venom that just need to be finished off.

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1000 pt Game this evening

I also have a friend coming round this evening with Crimson Fists for a game at 1000pts playing a Maelstrom mission. He normally brings quite a competitive list so I'm going to try out the list I wanted to use for the league once it kicks up to 1000pts in May.

Archon with Blaster and Haywire Grenades in Venom (2x Splinter Cannon)

5 Kabalites with Blaster in Venom (2x Splinter Cannon)
5 Kabalites with Blaster in Raider (Dark Lance)
5 Kabalites with Blaster in Raider (Dark Lance)
5 Kabalites with Blaster in Raider (Dark Lance)

Razorwing Jetfighter (2 x Dark Lance and 4 x Monoscythe Missiles)

Ravager (3 x Dark Lance)
Ravager (3 x Dark Lance)

Hopefully has the tools to deal with a variety of lists, with 9 Lance shots initially and extra as the Blasters come into play and the Razorwing arrives. Not sure the Razorwing is worth it but it's my only anti air if he brings any flyers.

Will try and take some pictures this evening and post them up some time in the next couple of days, possibly as a battle report if I've time, if not then just a few pictures and a brief overview of the game.


Sorry for the info dump, I view this blog as somewhere I can dump my own thoughts so I can look back on it as much as anything and I am aware it's content may not be the best format for everyone!

Rich

Quick Update on 750 League Progress and first impressions of Imperial Assault Skirmish

So still only played one game at 750 I'm afraid as we played our first game of Imperial Assault Skirmish on Wednesday at the club.

I played against my mates Sentinels of Terra scout army and it was a good game, could have gone either way until the last turn really.

I went with the slightly fluffier option as below, it's still a reasonable list I think but the Wyches and Succubus are definitely not a great option at this points level, with that unit coming in at a third of my points (255)

Succubus with Archite Glaive and Haywire Grenades

6 Wyches with Hekatrix (Agoniser)

Raider with Dark Lance

5 Kabalites with Blaster

Raider with Dark Lance

5 Kabalites with Blaster

Raider with Dark Lance

Ravager with 3 Dark Lances

Razorwing Jetfighter with 2 Dark Lances

He ran:

Librarian ML2 (Pyromancy)

5 Scouts with BP+CCW and a Heavy Bolter

5 Scouts with Bolters

5 Scouts with 4 Snipers and a ML

3 Scout Bikers with Grenade Launchers

Dreadnought with Ass Cannon and Heavy Flamer Power Fist

Vindicator

Land Speeder with HF and MM

Land Speeder with HF and MM

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By the end of the game I had the Ravager left and one Immobilised Raider, He had the Dreadnought on 1 HP, the Librarian with CC Scouts, and 2 of the Snipers.

Succubus and Wyches got out to deal with the Scout Bikers and then Bolter Scouts when their transport got stunned and probably should have stayed inside, but there was little in the list they could really do much to.

Ravager and Raiders took out the two Land Speeders as early priority, with the Succubus finishing one by charging in with Haywire Grenades. Tried to keep the Dreadnought stunned and did so two turns in a row but it still recovered in time for trashing my last raider on his objective on T5.

Ended with a 7-2 Win for the Fists and I'm going to have to change the list up again to avoid the Wyches I think at least until a higher points level. Not sure though as against a different list with more infantry it might have had more luck. Charging a couple hundred point unit in to deal with 3 scout bikes and 5 scout bolters seemed a waste though.

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Imperial Assault Skirmish

Very quickly - positive feelings about this after our first game, seemed very tactical and I can see loads of variation in list building with the deployment and command decks both offering options.

We just grabbed some random command cards for the first game but I've put together a list now for next time we play Skirmish (Maybe Sunday evening)

On Wed we went with:

Rebel High Command

Luke

Fenn

Diala

Mak

Elite Rebel Troopers

vs

Royal Guard Champion

Royal Guard

Royal Guard

Elite Officer

Officer 

Officer

We played "Get to The Ship" from the core rule book

Was a good game and the last couple of turns was hectic. Fenn legged it in to contest the consoles with the last activation of one round, then activated first next round and used "Marksman" command card to get a shot through my officer and into the last Royal Guard to win the game for the Rebels at 40-38

I really think the game is likely to be popular, the only thing stopping it is likely the buy in as you really need the core box for the map tiles and command cards as well as it giving you a good amount of figures. I think £60 is harder to swallow than the £25 needed for X-Wing, even though that £25 likely turns into £50-60 once you've put a squad together.

Hopefully get an update up after the weekend, I've mostly been doing assembly, so I have my first Harlequin Troupe assembled, along with a Death Jester and Shadow Seer, as well as a new Archon for my Dark Eldar.

Completed first unit of Kabalites // Escalation League moving to 750

Just a quick post to update with progress as I completed the first of my 5 man units of Kabalites yesterday evening.

I'm quite happy with the results and do feel as though I'm progressing as well as starting to understand the need to speed through some things for the sake of painting a full army.

I'm sure it's by no means impressive to most of you, but for me managing to paint 5 figures in just over a week represents a significant improvement.

Not quite sure what to start on next, the escalation league has kicked up to 750 now and I'm considering bringing the Wyches back into play a bit more although I'm not sure I can do so before 1k without nerfing my anti tank a bit too much.

I think I'm going to have to use Ravagers and I currently have 1.5 of those built so I imagine the next project will be to complete assembly on the three Ravagers and then get the hulls of those done using the airbrush.

I'm thinking of something like the following for 750pts, at 400 I ended on 10 games, 8 wins 2 losses and I'm pretty happy with that. I'd like to aim to keep my win ratio around 75% or above.

HQ - Archon with Blaster // Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons (Venom painted)

Troops - 5 Kabalites, Blaster // Raider with Dark Lance (All painted)
Troops - 5 Kabalites, Blaster // Raider with Dark Lance (Raider painted)
Troops - 5 Kabalites, Blaster // Raider with Dark Lance (Raider painted)

Fast Attack - Razorwing Jetfighter with 2 Dark Lances and 4 Monoscythe Missiles (Airbrushed but not detailed yet)

Heavy Support - Ravager with 3 Dark Lances (Assembled awaiting priming)

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If I want to bring the Wyches in instead I could do something like:

HQ - Succubus with Archite Glaive and Haywire Grenades (Assembled awaiting priming)

Troops - 5 Kabalites, Blaster // Raider with Dark Lance (All painted)
Troops - 5 Kabalites, Blaster // Raider with Dark Lance (Raider painted)
Troops - 6 Wyches, Hekatrix with Agoniser // Raider with Dark Lance (All painted)

Fast Attack - Razorwing Jetfighter with 2 Dark Lances and 4 Monoscythe Missiles (Airbrushed but not detailed yet)

Heavy Support - Ravager with 3 Dark Lances (Assembled awaiting priming)

Any thoughts?

Last week of Combat Patrol with Dark Eldar

Hi guys,

quick update, Wednesday night I played two more games at the club against the 1st place and 3rd place players (I was 2nd)

First game was against the guy in 1st who was a nice guy and we'd played before and had a good time so I enjoyed the match.

He had something like:

Inquisitor with 10 guys, Plasma Cannon and Heavy Bolter Servitor things in this unit.
10 Guardsmen with 3 Plasma Guns in a Chimera with Multi Laser and Heavy Bolter
5 Guardsmen with Plasma Gun in a Razorback with TL Assault Cannons
5 Guardsmen with Plasma Gun

First turn he advanced and got a shot off with the Assault cannon but the rest was out of range and/or missed.

My turn I moved onto an objective and shot everything at the Razorback, blowing it up and killing all but 1 of the unit inside between everything firing into them (couldn't see the Chimera)

His Turn 2 he moved round with the Chimera, fired the lone Plasma Gunner into one raider exploded it, The Chimera took out a second raider, and the Guys inside fired 3 plasma guns and 2 bolters at the other Raider and destroyed that.

Not a good couple of turns...

So from there I didn't really have much of a chance, two units with Blasters were pinned, all my units were disembarked, and he had his Inquisitor and 10 guys on a 4 pt objective in the far corner... Not happening.

Nice guy though and sometimes the dice just don't work for you, I couldn't pass a jink save for toffee and that Chimera was just absolutely BRUTAL (4 S4 Bolter shots // 3 S5 Heavy Bolter // 3 S6 Multi Laser // 6 S7 Plasma Gun all re-rolling 1's to hit for an objective...)

Second game was against Necrons and this guy was the chap I'd lost as he walked over everyone at Kill Team. (9 Tomb Blades with Ignores Cover Gauss all in single model units at 200pts is crazy)

His list was something like:

10 Tomb Blades with Ignores Cover and 3+ Saves (2 S6 Blast Weapons in here)
5 Immortals
5 Immortals

Dice went horribly for me again and first turn 4 Lance Shots on 2's to wound, and 9 DC shots on 3's to wound, all with no save (didn't jink) and then 36 poison shots left... 2 dead Tomb Blades.

Then to add insult to injury, my Venom holding an objective rolled sabotage, then a 1 for it to explode, then 5 S4 hits, which then blew it up... At this stage I'm thinking this isn't going to be my evening.

Anyway, over the next couple of turns I finished off the bikes for the loss of 2 Raiders and 1 of the units inside them, and one unit of Immortals that had walked across by now. We called it on T4 as he couldn't stop me boosting over to his side of the table for linebreaker without moving his Immortals off the objective which would make the loss even worse, giving me the game at 5-4 (Objective // Slay The Warlord // Linebreaker vs Objective // First Blood)

The dice were horrible to me throughout the game but eventually after firing approx 30-35 AP2 shots and dozens of poison shots the Bikes went down, and the rest was much easier from there, I was saved by the fact that he could only take out 1 target a turn.

After the league table was updated I'm now at 5th with my first opponent still top and the Necron player just below me in 6th. So far I've won 5 of my 6 games but my objective points aren't high enough to lift me any further sadly as some of the games I've won with low scores. (The league is ranked by Objective Score Rate, gained by dividing the amount of Primary and Secondary objectives you have got so far by your win rate)

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Thursday night I went back to my Raiders and did the bases before I move on to the Kabalites, as the ones I'd done "yellow" (Don't ever try and shade this with Nuln Oil) had just gone a slimy green. I think they look much better with the light grey and it makes the Purple stand out a lot more, I'm pretty happy with these now and I think once I've gone back and done the crew they'll look pretty good. (Or at least to a level I'm happy with! :) )

Kabalite Test Figure Complete

Finished the test figure last night and I'm pretty chuffed with it for a quick scheme..

Took a bit longer then I thought to finish off as I started to base it by line highlighting the Alien Temple base but I didn't like the look of it and felt it was taking focus away from the figure so I went back and painted it grey in the end which I'm satisfied with.

Things I'm not quite sure about:

The brown pouch, could be grey instead to limit the palette as it looks out of place?

The red ribbons (For want of a better name) I'm not sure about either, I like the idea of putting a bit of red on the model but I'm not 100% sure this is the right place for it.

Overall though, I'm happy that I can replicate these results at a decent pace and at a standard I'm happy with as I've never been a great painter.

I'm going to try and get another few of these painted up next week as a batch of 5 to see how quickly they can be done and hopefully I will be able to post about my success when I get back from our holiday.

Just as a heads up, as a result of going on holiday next week I'm unlikely to be posting here until the end of the month now (Potentially a quick one on Thursday to let you know how my latest round of the Escalation league went - Last one at 400pts for me this week before the jump to 750)

Kabalite Test Figure // Second attempt at first play through Imperial Assault

Friday - Imperial Assault

Spent Friday evening starting the Campaign for Imperial Assault with a second group on Friday night, this being a group with mates I normally game with on a Wednesday rather than the previous group which was guys from work who were interested in trying it.

It went down much better this time and we had a blast.

A couple of the guys weren't able to make it so there were 3 of us total in the end with 2 Rebels and me as the Imperial. I'd read that the missions are more balanced with 4 hero's and this gives us the option of other people joining in future missions, so each player chose two heroes and we skipped the tutorial to start with the first mission - Aftermath.

The rules were grasped very quickly and the mission went well, with the Heroes quickly blowing away the forces outside the building and getting in, only to have two of them trapped inside and surrounded.

The party fought their way out of trouble though and despite my exploding Probe Droid antics, the final terminal went down on the last round, with a couple of actions to spare.

We then went on to Diala's story mission and I won't pop any spoilers here, but it was awesome, the Rebels seemed to breeze this one a bit but it could have been a lot different at the end when I thought the last Imperial was alive to attack back with 1 health left, only for Diala to use Force Push and smash him back against a wall for the kill. 

By the end of the evening the guys were both asking when we could get the next game in and were very excited about the combination of advances and equipment they now had. (Diala with a lightsaber and Balanced Hilt looks like she'll be nasty)

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Saturday - Airbrushing (Apologies for poor pic)

Saturday evening I managed to pull the airbrush out while my wife worked on a dress for the girls for Easter, I managed to pull my airbrush apart and clean it and finally found what was causing some niggling problems, the Nozzle had some dried paint in it and once that was cleared it was much better again (although I'm still finding it clogs up very quickly and I have to pick paint off the needle every minute or so to prevent splatter)

I got some Kabalites primed black and did my Flying Bases black as well as I have started to prefer that since I did it with my X-Wing mini's.

Then I thought I'd make a start on the flyers themselves and a Venom so I sprayed on a thin dusting of Vallejo "Alien Purple" before going in and trying to pick out the edges and raised bits with the same colour. 

With my Raiders I had previously used "Drakenhoff Nightshade" to wash over them through the airbrush and this had worked well but I had seen a video tutorial that used the Vallejo Purple Ink instead so I thought I'd give that a go.

In the end I definitely prefer the first method using Drakenhoff Nightshade, with the Vallejo Ink I found that the ink coloured by itself, more than blended my colours together which I think is what I liked about the GW version. I'm sure that's working as intended, but for my purposes it wasn't quite what I was looking for so now I'm not sure whether to leave as is, or to do them again with the Drakenhoff Nightshade.

For now I'm edging towards "they'll be ok" but I'll have a look at them next to the Raiders before deciding.

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Sunday - Kabalite Test Mini almost finished

Sunday was Mothering Sunday in the UK so we bought takeaway in the evening from a nice curry house locally, my wife obviously didn't trust me cooking for her and probably a fair shout that.

Didn't have too much time left in the evening but I wanted to test the colour scheme for my army on a Kabalite, given that I seem to be moving away from a Wych Cult and more towards Kabal.

I found a good tutorial on a quick paint scheme here and used that with some changes in colour for my own Kabal. (Subbed the Turquoise for two drybrushes of Alien Purple and then Dechala Lilac for the final highlight, before washing with Draknhoff Nightshade // Eyes were done with Teclis Blue / Lothern Blue and then washed with Asurmen Blue)

It's not quite finished yet but I'm happy with how it's coming out, I did about 1.5 hours on this last night and another half hour it should be finished which for me is pretty quick. I think if I did them in batches of 5 I could do 5 in 6 hours, which is about 3 evenings painting for me.

Hopefully I'll be able to post up the finished Test Mini tomorrow