Heroines in Sensible Shoes review

Ok, so this is the second kickstarter from Oathsworn I pledged to, and boy do they not know how to run a kickstarter.

• They included an extra figure and a resin Dragon's nest as a "Thank You" to the backers -- not a stretch goal, but just as extras. Ok, functionally it's the same as a stretch goal but they didn't have to include them since they never said "Everyone gets extra stuff when we reach so and so much money."
• Despite the extra stuff included I recieved my pledge in time. Unacceptable. The first time they were a month late, even that was ridiculous. It's simply not how Kickstarters are done.
• The figures looked exactly like the pictures we were shown during the kickstarter. No change of design, no change of material. Surprise!
• Clear communications during the casting and sending out processes so everyone knew what was going on.

I'm joking of course, but it's refreshing to see a company using Kickstarter as it was originally intended and then actually delivering what was promised and on time.

For those of you who don't know what it's all about the figures are depicting female adventurers wearing sensible and practical adventuring gear. No chainmail bikinis, no high heeled boots, no slashed dresses revealing shapely thighs... just what women would wear if they had to go explore a dungeon and fight monsters. I don't want to make this into a feminist debate, but the thing is that these figures are needed. Have you ever roleplayed with a bunch of your male friends and suddenly a girl wants to join? Yay, you think! Awesome! But the only female figures you have are a half-naked barbarian and an evil elf sorcess with high heels striking that Angelina Jolie at the Oscars 2012 pose?

Yes that pose.

Sure, I like a bit of eye-candy. But there has to be ordinary figures too. And there are, they are coming, but those cheese-cake pin-up models are still the majority of female figures out there. So the Oathsworn Heroines in Sensible Shoes kickstarter was very welcome and fills a niche that's not yet full. Which about a 1000 backers also thought, as they backed the project. Compare that to their earlier kickstarters which gathered the interests of about 300 backers at most -- 207 for the Dwarf Brewers that I backed previously.

Enough soap-boxing, on to the miniatures.

EM4 cheap-ass mechs and spaceships

Inspired by Horizon Wars I decided to get some battlemechs to try out the rules. As I wrote in my previous post I have ordered some cheap plastic mechs from EM-4 miniatures. They are molded in a hard silvery plastic on two sprues. The plastic takes ordinary model glue fine and five 25mm round slottabases are included.

The first sprue

The second sprue. The two standing mechs are identical to the first sprue.

To summarize the parts there are two identical smaller bodies, two identical slightly larger bodies, and a large body with large hind legs. Weapon-wise we get two right arms, two left arms, a pair of double lasercannons, three autocannons and two missile pods. I thought the missile pods were a bit large, but otherwise the designs are nice.

A quick dry-fit of weapons and bodies. All arms fit all mechs, but some look better on certain bodies.

What I really fancy is some real Battletech figures since I played the boardgame a lot during the early 90-ies. The best looking mechs were those that really were copies of the Robotech anime designs; The Marauder, Warhammer, Rifleman and others I can't remember anymore. Unfortunately the metal Mechs are quite costly and -- I think -- that the classic designs are no longer available due to the blatant copyright infringement. But in the mean time five mechs for the princely sum of £2.55 will do nicely.

The cheap Spaceships/Flyers.

Twelve different sculpts, quite impressive.

Along the same vein, you can get 12 different spaceships and/or flyers for £2.55. Also included are 12 flight stands, which is insanely good value since often just flight stands cost more than that if you buy them separately. Not all designs look like airplanes, some look more like the spaceships they are sold as, but hey, at 21 pence a pop who's complaining?

EM-4 I'm told are mainly doing pieces for boardgames, and you can buy a lot of dice, counters and other accessories on their site. These models were originally designed for boardgames, but they will do nicely for Horizon Wars or Polyversal. 

To summarise I give EM-4 Mechs and Flyers 4 out of 5 heat-seeking nuklear missile salvos.

Sure they look cheap, but they are even cheaper. For the price you can afford to sacrifice the occasional odd model or iffy sculpt to the bits box. Check them out.

Some thoughts about Horizon Wars

Horizon Wars by Robey Jenkins is the new set of wargames rules from Osprey publishing. This time it's all about big stompy robots and tanks in a not all too distant future -- albeit in 6mm or 1:285 scale. The game is designed to be generic which means you can use all the 6mm S/F stuff you already have, be it Battletech or Epic40k stuff, or maybe even Hammer's Slammers or other figures. [Edit: as someone pointed out you can use 10 or 15mm troops too!] There's a setting and a background included for those of us who need a little bit of inspiration for our games. It's quite funny actually. There's a Youtube video explaining how to play via a short battle report, I'm sure you can find it if you search on Youtube.

The pre-release blurb from Osprey

Before I go into the my thoughts about the game, lets take a detour shall we.