Exploding Relics In The Knight!

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned the Relic Knights Kickstarter from Soda Pop Miniatures.  At the time, they were around the $165k mark and had just unlocked casino quality cards with all of the starters.  Well, things have changed since then...

As it stands right now, for a $50 pledge you get the starter, which includes a Relic Knight (this is the leader for the faction and is typically a giant mech with pilot along with their cypher), a unique minion or two (these are more specialized then you regular grunts, such as a weapon team or elite troops), and a squad of regular minions (which are the aforementioned regular grunts), along with quick start rules, and the cards and tokens you'll use in the game.

Here's the artwork for the six different starter options.

In addition to all of this, the Kickstarter pledge will also get you a second squad of regular minions, a character for the faction, and a Questing Knight (basically a Relic Knight without the Relic).

Here's an example of the extra minis included in just one starter!

 As if this wasn't enough, they are also offering a number of special edition minis which look really sweet as well.

This is a great value just to get the miniatures which is what sold me in the first place.  They do have a gameplay intro video on their Kickstarter page as well which is worth checking out to see how the mechanics work, but even if you're not interested in it for the game, I definitely recommend giving these minis a look.  Until next time...

Soda Poppin' Onto Kickstarter!

I was checking out the Reaper Kickstarter when what should I find but the Soda Pop Miniatures Relic Knights Kickstarter!  For those of you that are not familiar with them, Soda Pop Miniatures makes a line of very anime inspired miniatures which look absolutely amazing... at least from what I've seen anyway.  Though I've toyed with the idea of picking up a few of these figures, its never been a pressing thing for me in part because I'm just not sure what I'd do with them besides paint them up and say "Man this looks sweet!"

With their Kickstarter, Soda Pop is going to take these figures to the next level and is releasing a sci-fi skirmish game.  Notice that I say "is going to" because this Kickstarter has already been successful.  In fact they were over $100,000 with a goal of $20,000 on the first day!

Each of the faction starters will include everything you need; the minis, cards (as I understand this is a diceless system like Malifaux), tokens, even a playmat!  All of this for $50, which is a heck of a deal.  Add in the fact that the minis look really sweet (provided you like that anime feel) and it sounds like a sure thing.

So what's holding me back?  Two things.

I know someone who was involved in the initial playtesting of the game and after attempting to play it several times, him and his friends told them that the game was basically unworkable.  Using the two factions that they were given, they were actually not able to end a game.  One faction was insanely fast and impossible to hit while the other was ridiculously armored and impossible to damage.  This was a while back and it must have been worked out by now but it still lurks in the back of my mind.

Calico Kate, leader of the Star Nebula Corsairs

The other thing is the miniatures themselves.  They look incredible.  The detail looks crisp, the poses are dynamic, just all around really sweet looking figures.  I've also heard that some of them are absolute bears to assemble because of their detail and the fact that they're not heroic scale.  The new sets in the Kickstarter are going to be plastic so I would think that this would be addressed as well but again, it lurks in the back of my mind.

Codifier Kisa of the Doctrine

 Even with these concerns, I'm still really tempted to get this.  The minis look awesome and the starter set that they are offering is a great deal and with the stretch goals it looks like its just going to keep getting better.  This is definitely one that I'm going to be keeping my eye on in the weeks to come.  Oh, and if any of you happen to be going to GenCon and have a chance to demo the game, please post in the comments!  I'd love to hear the game plays out now that the bugs are (hopefully) worked out.  Until next time...