Battle for Alabaster

[me_in_japan]

Not trying to resurrect a dead topic, but I figured it was worth a post. I dunno how much any of you have followed BfA post-kickstarter (no reason you should've been, really) but there have been a few interesting developments over the past few months. Several WIP minis have been posted, my particular favourite being the chap about halfway down this page:

http://studiomcvey.com/forums/index.php ... e__st__620

Lots more pics in page 1 of the same thread. It's also been very interesting watching people's moods and opinions swing back and forth. While CMoN and the McVeys were great at communicating during the kickstarter, it all went pretty quiet a bit afterwards. Not worryingly so - as the thread I linked shows there were a few pretty good updates for a month or so, but then the McVeys moved house and pretty much dropped off the map (no Internet in hobbiton, apparently. Yes, they moved to hobbiton. I saw photos...)CMon otoh, have had no reason for keeping quite so schtum, other than being busy getting the relic knights kickstarter going, shipping out zombicide and going to adepticon. OK, i have no doubts they were very busy, but they were incommunicado long enough to prompt quite a bit of whinging on the McVe's site. Anyway, it turns out that the boss of the company responsible for printing for BfA (rulebooks, boxes, etc) has absconded from his company along with most of the company funds. Ouch. Still, all is not lost - a new printer has been found and thins continue apace. New shipping date:December (was November). All in all, I'm still pretty happy with the whole experience, but it's very interesting to see the various pitfalls of international production.

Hopefullyy next update in this thread will be pictures of the inside of my BfA box, in my house

[ashmie]

Thanks for the update looking forward to playing that.

[Dungeon Lord]

@ MIJ - Thanks for all the updates btw. I didn't actually follow them at the time, but it is nice when people share things like this. Quite a bit purchase, but you certainly got your money's worth and more.

It is funny that there are lot games with added expansions that you could easily spend a good part of a year only playing that game, but rarely get the chance to thoroughly play a game like we did as kids.

[AndrewGPaul]

Sorry to brag so shamelessely, but my copy arrived on Friday!

Now I just need to try it out. The components look nice - the plastic minis are about on par with Dreadball - although the art on some of the tiles is rather dark. Fairly solid pieces, though.

[me_in_japan]

booo! That's what I get for living on the other side of the planet, I suppose...

That said, I'd be interested to hear if there are any problems with casts or anything like that. Some of the comments on the McVey forums suggest there may be some (small) issues. There's also a huuuuuge number of people whining that they didn't get their set yet. Some people have no patience...

[me_in_japan]

Well, my battle for alabaster arrived yesterday. First impressions are:

Minis are lovely
Aaaaaagh! So many minis to paint!
Boards are nice, but a tad dark. May look into making card-craft walls for em.
Rules are complex to read, but ok to play, actually.
There are a lot of wee tokens to push out of their sprue-thingy.

Proper write up to follow. For now, MiJ is a happy camper

[ashmie]

Cool. Any chance of some photos? How about Ripley and Newt?

[Primarch_Vanguard]

Looks cool. Models look nice as well.

[me_in_japan]

It's pretty damn shiny, actually. I'm very much looking forwards to getting some games in. While the book does include 10 pretty nice narrative scenarios, what appeals to me is the fact that everything has a points value, so you can easily make your own scenarios. I haven't fully processed the rules yet, but it defo appears to be close enough to a tabletop wargame that, while it's not there yet, it can see TableTopWargameLand without a telescope, so to speak.

Re: Not-Ripley and Not-Newt - actually, I didn't buy em. There was a whole slew of extra Not-minis available for 10 bucks apiece (for the homage character and its infected counterpart as a pair) but tbh I was only ever into BfA because I thought it looked like a cool game and I wanted to support Studio McVey. The only extra stuff I bought was the scenery pack (doors, corpse counters, spawning vents etc), the battlefoam bag to carry it all in, and one Not-The-Bloke-From-Deadspace, just cos I was playing DS2 at the time and reckon the armour looks cool. That said, even though there was a lot I didn't buy, I'm still going to get a second delivery of extra gubbins in March. Battle suits, zombie spider thingies, robot drones, Not-Riddick (he was free), etc, etc. I am very, very satisfied with the amount of freebie this kickstarter has given me.

[The Other Dave]

Nice! Post pics - it will help keep the fire under my butt for my own boarding game painting project.