Corpseship Print

Hi!

It’s been a very busy period, but we’ve finally managed to test print a couple of Corpseship with very satisfactory results.

The digital rework of the Kavenid Fleet is now complete, and we can now focus on organising the next Kickstarter, in which we are planning to offer the STL files of the ships of the three GRAVETIDES fleet.

A good deal of further play testing has also been done on the GRAVETIDES rules, leading to many changes that will be introduced with the next version of the rule book.

As usual, stay tuned for more.

First Prints

Hi!

We have finally managed to print a copy of the Drifting Mausoleum and a squadron of Bonerammers with very satisfying results.

The warships were printed with Man O’War scale in mind, and to show this we have taken some comparison shots with some of the original vessels from our collection.

Hope you like them as we do!

Work on the digital sculpt of the Corpseship is underway, and next in the pipeline is the printing of a full Dreadships squadron.

Stay tuned for more.

Digital Bonerammer

Hi!

The Bonerammer joins the Drifting Mausoleum in the digital version of the undead Kavenid fleet.

Taking advantage of the flexibility offered by digital sculpting, after the original Dreadship and the Copseship will be ready, we will work on variants for all the warship of the Kavenid fleet, in order to offer a more variable and ‘realistic’ mix of different designs.

As usual stay tuned.

Not (UN)DEAD…

Hi !

During this long time since our last post we have continued working on the digital sculpts of the Kavenid fleet in order to have all the three GRAVETIDES fleet in STL form.

As a result, the Drifting Mausoleum has finally appeared in the virtual space of our monitors.

Work is underway on the other vessels of the Kavenid fleet and on some variants of their current design.

Some finer aspects of the GRAVETIDES rules are still worked on, and a ‘wargame’ version to be played on an hexed map is under development.

Rules videos are suspended indefinitely as they are very time consuming to make and have not received any significant feedback.

Stay tuned for updates.

‘How to Play GRAVETIDES’ – The first video

Hi!

The first “How to play GRAVETIDES” video, where the game components are reviewed and described, is finally on line.

Despite its simplicity, it took us a lot of efforts and retries to be able to produce it, and our admiration for professional YouTubers has grown enormously.

We wish to be able to make more and better content faster and to keep you interested in the GRAVETIDES project.

As usual, Stay Tuned!

https://youtu.be/V5qshqVRhFU

GRAVETIDES Rules– Experimental Activation

Hi!

With the intention to give a better idea of how the core GRAVETIDES rules play, this is the first of a series of posts in which we will both describe specific aspects of the rules and discuss some experimental rules proposals.

In this post will be described an experimental ships & squadrons activation rules based on the blind drawing of colored cubes that should add a bit of uncertainty and ‘fog of war’ to GRAVETIDES naval battles.

The same rules with some minor adaptions may be applied to other naval fantasy games.

If successfully play tested this new activation rules will eventually become part of the GRAVETIDES core set.

For each fleet in game a number of colored wooden cubes corresponding to the total of its ships (Flagships and Independents) and squadrons (groups of three vessels acting together) are placed in an opaque container (for example a dice bag), with each fleet using cubes of a distinctive color, different from the one used by other fleets.

To complete the pool, a number of cubes equal to the division by 5, rounded down, of the total of ships and squadrons in game is added to the container.

These cube must be of another color different from the ones corresponding to the fleets in game.


For a game with two fleets each composed by a Flagship, two Independents and two squadrons, place in the container a total of twelve cubes, five of one color for the first fleet, five of a different color for the second fleet and two of a third color ([5+5]/5 = 2).


For example, the pool will contain five black cubes, five red cubes and two yellow cubes.

Following the Initiative Order determined at the start of each Turn, players alternate nominating up to three ships or squadrons of their fleet to be activated, drawing a corresponding number of cubes from the container.

Players can Move & Fire one of the previously nominated ships or squadrons for each cube of the corresponding fleet color drawn, placing them near the ships and the Command ships of the squadrons to mark their activation.

Conversely, each drawn cube of different fleets colors allows the opposing players to move and fire with one of their ships or squadrons.


After nominating one ship and one squadron, the first player in Initiative Order draws from the containers two cubes getting one of its fleet color and one of the opposing fleet color. The player can move and fire with the ship or the squadron nominated before, and the enemy fleet can do the same with one ship or one squadron of its choice.


For each cube of the color not corresponding to any fleet, a ship or a squadron nominated for activation by the drawing player can only Move OR Fire.

The player chooses which of the previously nominated ships or squadrons move or fire, placing the cubes near their models to mark their activation.

After nominating two of its squadrons, a player draws from the containers two cubes getting one of its fleet color and one of the color not corresponding to any fleets. The player can move AND fire with one of the squadron, while the other can only move OR fire during the same Turn.

When all ships and squadrons have received an activation cube the Move & Fire phase of the Turn ends, followed by the Boarding and End phases as described in the main GRAVETIDES rules.

One or more cubes of a further different color can be added to the poll described above in order to trigger, when drawn, special events like a change in weather, the activation of sea monsters or the appearance of a strange marine phenomenon.

These rules are still under play testing and, so far, seem to work well.

What do you think of them?

Criticisms and suggestions are welcome as always.

Stay Tuned!

In Failure We Learn

Hi!

This post is a reflection about our last Kickstarter and the possible reasons of its failure, written both to help us understanding what went wrong and to possibly collect your feedback, thoughts and suggestions.

Going straight to the point, we think that the main reason we failed was due to our incapacity to see a big change that has affected the hobby of miniature gaming in three years from our first successful Kickstarter for the undead war fleet: 3D printing.

When we devised the ICE, LIGHTNING & FIRE Kickstarter for our three fantasy war fleet we thought that having physical resin model cast in resin was still something our potential pledgers would appreciate and were also ready to pay for, and for this reason we didn’t worried too much about the high cost of resin casting and its consequences on pledge levels.

But we were wrong.

During the campaign, one of the pledgers of our first Kickstarter (thank you!) and other people pointed out that while the warships were OK, the market for such niche models is expecting to be able to buy digital files (STL) and print them autonomously on the now ubiquitous 3D printers.

Looking at the other on-going Kickstarter campaigns in the same period when our one was online, a very high percentage of them were indeed offering very good-looking miniatures in STL format.

Despite this late realization we left the Kickstarter live for its entire planned period, registering a good number of people that were observing the campaign, meaning that there was interest in what we were offering, but with only a few observers converting into real pledgers by the end of the campaign.

This, added to the undoubted advantages that selling STL brings in, like zero costs on casting and shipping, possibly being faster in creating more models, and leaving the buyers to print the models at any scale they desire, has convinced us that the correct way to proceed is trying to offer digital models after having all our current warship translated into that format.

All the above to say that we will try to be back with a new Kickstarter, the format that seems to better fit our purposes, offering low cost digital files of our war fleets for personal use only, in the hope to generate enough interest to continue with our GRAVETIDES project, that aims to create never-seen-before fantasy naval fleets with their gaming rules.

The final answer is: what’s your opinion on this?

Are our conclusions sounding or you see other reasons of our failure that still defy us?

Thanks for taking the time to read all this, your feedback will be really appreciated.

Stay tuned.