Of Reivers, Monsters and Towers

The last few weeks have been a bit of a blur, if I'm honest. Time seems to accelerate as you get older, and I can't believe it's been nearly a month since I last updated you on the goings-on at Mierce Towers! So here's a quick update while I have a bit of time on Saturday morning...

Maari and the Reivers

Not really a band, next month's brilliant battle host for the digital subscriptions will include the all-new Maari as well as no less than four units of reivers and two units of reiver horse - a veritable swag bag of new miniatures, and that's not including the pin-up version of Maari if you're subscribed on this very webstore! Here's a sneak peek:

Rafael Callegari has been very busy indeed on these guys and they really are a wonderful addition to Darklands - quite apart from being superb chaos marauder types for other games!

A Monster a... not quite a Month

Well, I haven't quite managed to get a monster a month out to you but that's probably because a) I underestimated how much work Adannwg was going to be and b) I did give you three in autumn... and October was the corpse-dragon!

Anyway, Adannwg's casting is just about finished for the pre-orders, I think it's just the rider that I need to print, so now we're moving onto Uuluu the backwhale. This has a slightly different problem - it's not the quantity of parts, it's the bloody size of them! I've printed a few master parts already, but I've had to split his body into a clam-shell (a bit like Crémharunc, which you'll know about if you have him) to save resin and to ensure he doesn't weigh a ton on the battlefield. But mostly to save resin.

As you can see, the two halves should fit together fairly easily with the ball sockets; which is something I'm considering for all of our miniatures.

Socket to 'Em

Most of our miniatures are in parts, as I'm sure you all know, and in the past we have used rectangular plugs and sockets for them, but I can't help but wonder if there's not a better way; certainly, ball-joints for wrists and hands work well, allowing you to place your weapons where you'd like, but I confess I prefer hands on arms and separate arms from torsos; so maybe for shoulder joints. But I'll keep thinking about it...

Back to the monsters. Well - Uuluu is in progress, I hope to have most of him printed next week, and in rubber the week after; but as always, snags can occur and I do think I'll have to revise production of him to December in cast resin. Then of course I have Ilkulkaag to do, and Iskarnos, and the corpse-dragon; I don't have four staff any more, so these things now take a lot longer. Which leads me to thoughts of December's monster... and whether there'll be one!

Mierce Towers

We love giant monsters here at Mierce, as we're sure you're aware, but it's quite possible we love giant monsters carrying war towers more - so why don't we do more, but digitally (with the proviso that you can purchase them physically, but it will take a while)?

So we're returning to Kickstarter in early January with an awesome three to four week War Towers project that will include:

• NEW Backwhale War Tower with gillspear crew
• NEW Paracerox War Tower with Thulean raider crew
• NEW Tartarask War Tower with demiballistarii crew
• NEW Ysian Chimeric tower with rogue-drune crew... more secrets to be revealed as and when...
• EXTRAS for the mammox, ettenwiht, khelon and razh-horror war towers and whatever else I can cram in!

Here's a sneak peek of the backwhale tower...

We'll always produce miniatures ourselves, in cast resin and Grey Wulf, but we have to be realistic - the new tariffs and customs plus shipping costs are causing major issues with physical sales. The digital side of things has exploded in recent years, and my resistance to it has collapsed - I'll have to go with the trend. There'll be digital options on the project for everything, including the mammox war tower - well, only the war tower; you'll still have to purchase the mammox itself in resin*. Note here that if you do purchase the towers physically, we'll do the monsters in cast resin and the towers / crew in Grey Wulf resin. As the backwhale and paracerox are already in progress, and a lot of parts will be able to be re-used such as tails and legs and what not, these guys shouldn't take too long.

*...and yes, I have thought about a scanner for our traditional miniatures. But they're bloody expensive, and I'm not sure they'll be that good quality unless they're super bloody expensive. Maybe one day...

100 Warlords

These guys are shipping each week and I do aim to have these all out to you before Chrimbo; I will combine packages where I can to save all your tariffs and customs as well as post cost, so bear with me if we've got other things in the pipeline for you.

Digital Schedule

Speaking of the backlog, I will of course be addressing what's left to sculpt over the next few months as battle hosts; the reivers are next, of course, and they really will be bloody awesome, but this is what you can expect over the next few months (backlog items in bold italic)...

• December - Maari, Reivers, Reiver Horse*
• January - Ciniod, Gairmorlom/Gairlom and the Wild Oghurüc
• February - Cweld, Ghulas, Gryreghulas and Nihtbats
• March - Chaagmuth, Gabrax and Gabrox
• April - Grigg, Brutes, Brute-Beasts and Rend-Vras, a combined Vras/Ysian masheroony
• May - Geoguth and Wereofor
• June - something COMPLETELY NEW!! Huzzah!

*Kaarstan is also in progress and will be ready next month, but he won't be part of the battle host

What this means is that by May the sculpt backlog will be done, if not the production; a proud moment for me, as it's been a long hard slog chasing after that can I've been kicking down the road for years. All being well, and assuming you guys keep supporting us (which you must do please because if you don't, we won't get there), we'll get there next year and that backlog millstone will finally be gone.

I'll speak more of the backlog next time with progress on that. Until then, keep it Mierce, people - and get on that 75% off cast resin monster Black Friday madness!