Trench Crusade

2 Million Ducats...
27 days ago – Thu, Nov 07, 2024 at 08:43:15 AM

Crusaders,

If 1 million was already a number we considered fanciful, then 2 million is just mind blowing. We sincerely never thought we’d get this far…

Thank you all again for everything. We will make Trench Crusade into the game you all want and can play for years to come.

Of course, you’ve all read my words of thanks more than enough so I’m going to turn the proverbial mic over to the games creators:

Tuomas

I have no words to convey both my gratitude and excitement for the support the community has given to us. We will strive to be worthy of the trust you have placed on us.

First, we want to fulfil the Kickstarter until each and every one of you has everything you pledged for. This is our sole focus for the immediate future.

But afterwards? Your support has ensured that in the future we can look at things like the Hebrew Knights, the Church of Metamorphosis, the Lithuanian-Polish Commonwealth Hussars, the remnants of the Varangian Guard, the horrors of the Path of the Beast, and much, much more. Let us walk this path together. 

Mike

Thank you all for believing in our weird little game. Your support means the world to me and i look forward to dreaming up freakish weirdos for you  all in the years to come!

James

Well, mind suitably blown, I am finding it hard to put my gratitude into words… To all you valiant pilgrims (and despicable heretics), I bestow upon you the biggest, soppiest, most heartfelt virtual hug I can summon! Because of your ducats, I can continue sculpting those freakish weirdos that keep falling out of Mike’s brain and into his sketchbook. Thanks so much you bloody amazing people.

Campaign rules
27 days ago – Thu, Nov 07, 2024 at 06:48:50 AM

Greetings Crusaders,

The updates the last couple of days have been pretty “heavy” (and we’re so grateful for everyone’s support on them) so let’s talk about something a bit more fun today!

The new campaign rules are now live!

These are the rules that allow you to play linked battles where you build your warband, fight bitter battles, gather experience and learn new skills. Explore the secrets of No Man’s Land, perform Glorious Deeds, request reinforcements from your Patrons and increase the maximum number of warriors you can field. Compete with your friends to see who emerges as the victor of this small slice of the Great War!

These playtest rules have already seen much use in the hands of Trench Crusade enthusiasts around the world, but they are not quite yet finished - they still lack some elements, such as rules for each Scenario mentioned (we suggest you use the Random Scenario generator in the meanwhile!) and the Court of the Seven-Headed Serpent does not yet have their full Glory Item list for example. This should not stop you from tasting the thrills of the Campaign mode, and it allows you to start planning your future warbands!

Like with the rules, should you find any issues, be sure to leave them in the comments and we’ll make sure that they get fixed.

Have a great day folks!

The future of Trench Crusade
28 days ago – Wed, Nov 06, 2024 at 08:54:29 AM

Greetings Crusaders,

We couldn’t start this update without once again thanking all of you for your support, and when I say support, I don’t just mean pledges. The amount of encouragement, understanding and just general excitement for what we’re trying to do with Trench Crusade is THE biggest motivator for us. So thank you.

As mentioned last week, the team had a long conversation this weekend about the success of the Kickstarter, what it meant to us and where we wanted to go from here. We’ve decided to commit our feelings here, in text, so that everyone can read it at their leisure, auto-translate it into their language, etc.

What was Trench Crusade meant to be?

Trench Crusade was built from the ground up by Mike, James and Tuomas, all whilst working their day jobs. I (Jamie) joined them over the summer and am still the only one who’s been full time on it. 

We managed to put together a range of over 60 miniatures, full rules, unit profiles and a campaign system for this campaign. Already a time consuming and expensive effort. Not to mention everything we put into caring for and growing the community, without whom this game wouldn’t be what it is today.

We expected around 4k backers and maybe $400k-500k in pledges. Yes, obviously we had hopes for much more than that but to us these were fanciful numbers and not ones we could base a realistic long term plan on. After all the fees, production and paying back the money we’d invested in the development of the campaign, the original sum we expected was going to leave us with a healthy warchest to continue development of rules and miniatures as we had been doing. Growing the game over time along with the community.

Obviously you obliterated that within mere hours of the project being launched. Despite having a high funding goal compared to a lot of projects it took us under 8 minutes to fund and did not stop there. In all my years on Kickstarter I’ve only seen a few campaigns pull off this kind of growth and they were never as niche as a skirmish wargame!

Hence our efforts to readjust not only campaign related stretch goals but also our plans and expectations for the game in the long run.

Kickstarted to death.

First of all, I’m sure we can all agree that this would make an amazing album name if Mötley Crüe ever makes a comeback. 

More seriously though, this is something that can happen with very successful campaigns. It’s important to remember that the massive cash injections of campaigns like this do not automatically ensure long term sustainability. A knee jerk reaction of quickly scaling up your output and team size to try and match such unreasonable goals on a regular basis can have catastrophic results, not to mention you can very quickly lose sight of your original goal.

Our original goal was to deliver 60+ miniatures quickly and efficiently so that all of you could be playing Trench Crusade in a matter of months, not years. We intended to follow up the arrival of these with the book. 

Delivering on this original promise is still going to be our main focus and we won’t do anything to jeopardize this.

It was already a BIG decision to take an entire future campaign and fold it into this one. To put it into perspective that represents around 6 months work in terms of writing and playtesting alone. Not to mention all the other assets tied to it such as art and miniatures. That’s why delivery for the Carcass Front is slated for December ‘25 at the earliest.

This isn’t to say we won’t be growing our organization in light of this campaign, but it’s going to come in a measured and healthy manner. We prefer to manage expectations now, give ourselves some breathing room and, if possible, deliver earlier than expected.

Which leads into the question of more Stretch Goals. To be very clear about it: there won't be any more for this campaign. 

Now, that doesn’t mean that there won’t be a lot of new things coming your way in the future because of this campaign. In the next section you can read about the different things we are going to be working on. We asked ourselves if we should just include these as very high funding Stretch Goals but we feel that, at the best, these would have seemed disingenuous and added yet more content that we would need to deliver before we could call this campaign done.

I know some of you may be disappointed by this but you have my word that it will lead to a better game in the long run.

What is Trench Crusade going to be?

Everything we wanted and so much more.

Like I said folks, this kind of support changes lives. We’re still working out the business plan but I can tell you now that multiple members of the team will be going full time on Trench Crusade. 

There are few words that can aptly describe what this means to us. So we’ll keep it to a thank you for now and let our true appreciation show through in all the love and attention we intend to put into the game.

The rest of this year is going to be spent finishing this KS and the pledge manager, getting digital files out on time as well as troubleshooting any issues (more announcements from Atlas on that subject later) and getting the ball rolling on physical production. On that note, a lot has been happening behind the scenes between us and OG. They know how important the situation is and what successfully completing it could mean for their future as well as ours. So rest assured that we’re on it. 

The lion's share of next year will be committed to the Book and The Carcass Front in terms of rules and art. They will be our main priority. As far as miniatures go, there will also be a lot going on behind the scenes. It’s not like we don’t have over a dozen subfactions and multiple mercenaries that still need minis…

Once we’re clear of both the book and The Carcass Front though, we have more than enough ideas to keep us going for quite some time:

• New factions and minis
• Rules and scenarios for solo play as well as for including non player combatants in your games.
• Seasonal rules that will introduce new modifications, profiles, scenarios and more to keep your games fresh and that evolve to fit the ongoing narrative of this unending war.
• Matched play rules that will rebalance parts of the game for tournament play.

And future development isn’t limited to game content:

• An app to easily keep track of your warbands, scenarios and rules.
• The Trench Cryer (OG Mordheim players, you know what this is).

Not to mention that if we let Tuomas loose, he will lorebliterate the lot of you in a glorious shower of words.

And I’m not even going to start on all the cool stuff that will be coming down from our Third Party License program (see yesterday’s update).

To be perfectly clear; everything above is still nothing more than a rough concept at this time and listed in no particular order. All I can confirm for now is that none of this is going to start until we’ve delivered everything listed in this campaign and you won’t hear much more about it until after then either. As you may have guessed by now, we take our obligations here very seriously.

And that, crusaders… is all I can say for now. As always, I’ve tried to be as honest and open with you all as I can, without touching on every single subject and making this update even longer than it is already.

Once again, thank you all for your support. Keep your trigger fingers itchy, your shovels sharpened and your sacred text of choice to hand. This war ain’t ending anytime soon…

The Trench Crusade Third Party License
29 days ago – Tue, Nov 05, 2024 at 06:44:21 AM

Greetings Crusaders!

Today we talk about something very important to us: third party content for Trench Crusade.

As we’ve said on the main page, third party minis, kitbashes and conversions will always be welcome on a Trench Crusade table. Historically, they are what allowed the game to get its start and grow whilst we worked on the official range. We see no reason for this to change.

However, with the game officially launching and especially considering its success, we are going to have to steward our IP appropriately. Now, and I’m going to be very open on the matter, we do not intend to come across as heavy handed but we do need to lay some ground rules. I’m sure you can all imagine why.

This doesn’t mean that, like with a lot of other elements that are a fundamental part of this project’s DNA, we can’t think outside of the box and approach it in a manner that is honest, constructive, and community focused. 

That’s why, inspired by the TTRPG scene and especially games like MÖRK BORG and Mothership, we’re very happy to announce the upcoming Third Party License for Trench Crusade!

The Trench Crusade TPL

Anyone can make content for Trench Crusade. And we’re not just talking miniatures here but scenarios, campaigns, stories, art, music, whatever you like! We honestly can’t wait to see what you come up with!

If you intend to distribute this content for free then our only request is that you don’t include any of our official material, but we will be releasing a free content pack with basic assets that you can use. 

If you would like to monetise your creations, it gets a little more complicated but that’s fine too! There will be 3 “levels” for this:

Free - Obviously we don’t own the concept of a weird WW1 setting with religious undertones and we’re not going to pretend that we do. You are free to make whatever you like. However, please do not use our name or any official material. 

Compatible with Trench Crusade - You can submit your project to us in order to get permission to advertise it as “compatible with Trench Crusade”. This check is only to verify that the project meets our community guidelines and standards. You owe us nothing and the use of certain official material can be requested.

Licensing/Co-publishing - Officially licensing the TC universe. We obviously get a cut at this point but the product is “official” and we can also help you with development, distribution, etc.

This is a rough outline of what we’ll be putting into place and details may vary depending on each situation. We’ll have more precise info early next year when we officially roll this out. We also want this time to act as a grace period for the creators that already have TC content up for sale to decide what they’d like to do. 

Which leads to the question: What would an officially licensed TC product look like? Well, I’m glad you asked…

We’re very proud to announce that Westfalia, an international team of hobbyists and purveyors of fine miniatures, are Trench Crusade’s first official licensing partner!

The Red Brigade is the fruit of this collaboration; they will be running their own Kickstarter campaign in January 2025! You can head over to the project’s landing page now to sign up to be notified on launch!

As you will learn to expect from anything Westfalia touches, there are some amazing minis that will be up for grabs. The team has taken their vision of Trench Crusade and turned it into a stunning New Antioch inspired warband.

Despite having nothing to prove they still insisted on providing an awesome gift for everyone here: 2 free STL files which you can download here and include the much coveted Trench Dog!

But that’s not all. The Red Brigade will also feature lore written by Tuomas himself and a mini campaign telling the story of the titular group defending a remote village from the horrors of war. You can head over to their website for more details.

A big thank you to Westfalia for their support and I hope to see plenty of you on their campaign in January!

Of course, they’re not the only partners we have…

Baron of Dice

Of course you’ve already seen the Baron of Dice’s amazing work on the dice sets. We can’t recommend them enough for their quality:

These are officially licensed products that are available as an add-on here in this campaign and on their store if you’d like to pick them up at a later date.

Eldritch Foundry

We also have our friends over at Eldritch Foundry who slot nicely into the “Compatible with Trench Crusade” category.

Eldritch Foundry is a custom miniature builder service that has a load of assets that would be right at home in the trenches. Perhaps a good option for those of you that want a special miniature model for your leader, for example?

They’re also running a very cool campaign for coloured minis right now that you can go and check out too!

We’re very excited about this side of the project. We love the idea of what we’ve made inspiring others to create in turn and even make a living out of it. At the end of the day, that’s part of what brought about Trench Crusade.

As always, our thanks for all your support and we’ll be back again soon!