The World Of Twilight

It has begun!

Mike has just launched the Casanii of Anyaral kickstarter! Over the next two weeks we hope you will join us in trying to make this new range a success.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1280484354/world-of-twilight-the-casanii-of-anyaral

 You can now join in and make a pledge for your very own Casanii hunting party, or even splash out and have a particularly wealthy trader, Loranti Pargal, to protect. Head on over to the kickstarter now to find out more, plus Mike has got lots of ideas that he's looking forward to sharing during the course of the campaign!

There is a special early bird bonus miniature for the first few backers, so there’s added incentive to go and have a look right away!

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Congrats on breaking through the total in no time at all.  Unfortunately I couldn't get on at 8 so missed out on the little Daxu fella, is there any chance you'll put him up as an add on?

I would swear I've seen the Daxu before, but I can't remember where.

This may be where you saw it?
The Daxu has been available in the store for a while with the new sculpts.

As usual, Mike underestimated the interest in his World of Twilight.  The Kickstarter was fully funded in under 5 minutes.  A number of stretch goals have been announced (and a couple achieved).....

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Latest update......

Tonight I’ve just heard back from the caster and I’m excited to announce another new model for the range! I’ve been hinting at some of the bigger beasts for a while, so it’s time to give you the opportunity to field something a bit larger in your forces.

The Hadera Riders are a relatively common addition to the Casanii Tribes that roam the vast plains. They may not be quite as fast as the Erillai Riders, but they give a great vantage point and can pack an impressive kick!

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New stretch goal..........

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One of the great things that Mike got to do in the Travels through Anyaral campaign was the reference cards and he would like to do a small deck of cards to go with the Casanii. If we can get to £5,000 then Mike'll release a set of cards to cover all the Casanii releases that will be available as an add-on. Mike will also do a special card for Loranti that will be included for free with him.

Spreading the Word!

We’ve had an amazing level of support so far, but it would be great to see more people getting introduced to Anyaral. Do you have any advice for sites we should be pestering? Do you have forums you frequent or facebook groups that you could share a bit about the project! Forums for other games (like Frostgrave or Dragon Rampant) might also be worth a visit. Any help would be awesome and might just prompt some more goodies for the campaign…

If you reply to this update with links to anywhere you’ve posted then Mike will do a prize draw later in the campaign and the winner will get a little something extra in with their pledge (he's thinking a couple of rogue mutts would always be handy…).

Unleash the Beasts!

There has been a lot of talk about the huge beasts that roam the Casanii lands, so now it is time to open these up as an option for the campaign! Mike had a lot of fun sculpting all these beasts, so he hopes you like them.

The Erillai in particular will be handy for scenarios, but Mike will also come up with rules for using the other beasts… You can add the individual beasts to your pledge, or unleash the whole menagerie to be protected by your Casanii!

(https://bengalmin.smugmug.com/2016-Kickstarter/i-KQm7g9Q/A)

Update #7:

"We are eight days in and we have just one week to go!

Thus far we’ve got the core force ready to go and Joe has very nearly finished the Hadera and Onsegar riders painted – he’s assured me that he’ll have some photos of the force tomorrow! I personally can’t wait to see how they all look together as it’ll be a first for me as well.

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Where next?

You’ve all been helping a lot with suggestions of where to go next! The suggestion of alternative arms for the warriors seems obvious now and I’m particularly liking the idea of having some atlatl wielding warriors who can throw their spears from afar.  Feel free to suggest more ideas!

Then there are the ideas for characters! The deadline for the character design contest was last night and we got some fantastic well thought out entries (which you can see here), any of which would work nicely as a character. I’m not sure if Jake Thornton’s entry counts as cheating (he has far too much experience doing this sort of thing!) but there is a lot of food for thought across all the different ideas. I guess I need to choose a winner, but I expect a lot of the concepts may find their way into future Casanii characters! Expect me to announce winners and some further developments of these ideas over the next week, as well as the opportunity to add them to your pledge.

Reference cards – Expansion Deck 1

A couple of nights ago I announced the next stretch goal to release the Casanii cards (plus a free bonus card for Loranti). In addition to those cards I’ve been working on the first expansion deck. In the last campaign I released cards for all the models in the Chronicles of Anyaral book, but since then I’ve released a bunch of new models. I’ve included rules in issues of the Twilight Traveller, but until now I haven’t got cards into production. The first expansion deck contains 16 cards plus a card with all the new abilities on. You can add this deck to your pledge for £4, but if you backed either the Kedashi or Dehran playtest packs last time then you will get a deck for free as a thank you.

You can now also add the original card deck to your pledge for £10.

I've done an updated graphic for some of the new add-ons, although I realise I'll have to update it again as soon as Joe has finished his painting!

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The astute among you might have noticed that I've added the mutts as an option following a few unsubtle hints that they might be a good idea!... "

Every copy of Loranti will now come with a reference card as a bonus! Plus, I'll release an expansion deck of reference cards to cover the full Casanii range. As with the first expansion deck, the deck will contains 16 reference cards, plus a cover and an ability reference card. You can add the Casanii deck to your pledge for £4.

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Now onto the next stretch goal:

Those of you who have been following Twilight on the forum or an Facebook might have noticed that I've been getting the occasional hint about doing more grishak jenta... Grishak jenta are young devanu hunting beasts, but to date I've only had the one sculpt so there has been some enthusiasm for me to sculpt another one! I promised I would finally get at least one more sculpted this year...

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Devanu aren't the only ones to make use of the grishak as hunting beasts... Although most fubarnii have the common sense not to try and train them, there are rumours of a young casanii feral who has developed a strange affinity with a couple of the beasts.

I had been planning for the grishak jenta to just come as a group of 5 jenta (including at least one new jenta sculpt) with an older grishak to lead them and this set can be added to your pledge straight away as an add-on for £15 (plus £1 for postage outside the UK). The group can be used for scenarios or added to the heavily outnumbered Devanu to give them a chance against the Casanii!

In addition, if we reach £6,000 then I'll sculpt a new special character for the ferals, who will come with a couple of new grishak jenta to keep him company!

Coming soon: Casanii Accessories

I am a real sucker for interesting accessories for my different forces in wargames! As such I like taking every excuse to create cool accessories for Twilight and the Casanii aren't going to be an exception :-)

I've been looking into dice, initiative counters and combat stones and I'm hoping to have more details to announce in the next few days... I think I'll aim to add the accessories as a single set, so you can get everything you need to personalise the force.

The Casanii so far...

Joe has now finished the huge pile of Casanii I've been throwing his way and sent me a nice big family photo!

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Latest update from Mike................

The Engineer 

In the previous campaign I included two 'Engineer' pledges where I had the pleasure of working with two backers to create a couple of really unique characters. Jasmin came up with 'The Falconer' while Wouter brought life 'The Herder Queen'. I also gave the equivalent of an Engineer pledge to Ben and Louise as a thank you for their help with the last campaign and that also generated a very unique addition to the range! (Who will be getting released at Salute in a few weeks time...).

After the success last time I've decided to introduce the pledge level again and see if anybody would like to have a go!

If you pledge for this you’ll get the opportunity to work with me to design a character for Twilight! The process will be as follows:
•Firstly, we'll exchange a few emails to scope your character (or even chat at Salute if you are there). She (or he) can be a Fubarnii (any race) or a Devanu (or even a Kedashi or Trebarnii if you are particularly inspired!) and can sit on a small or medium base.
•After the initial conversations I’ll do a sketch of the character and flesh out the background.
•It may take a couple of refinements, but once we are both happy* then I’ll go ahead and get him sculpted and cast in resin.
•I’ll design a specific stat card for your character for use in Twilight and if he fits, then I’ll include him in the next book as an official part of the game.
•I’ll then send you a little parcel containing several casts of your figure (5 copies if he’s on a small base, 3 copies if he’s on a medium base). I'll also send you a copy of the card when it goes into production.
•The character will become a permanent part of the Twilight range and you will have placed your mark on the world of Anyaral!

I've allowed a bit longer for delivery on this one, but if she’s done earlier then I’ll send her straight away! The Engineer pledge will be £250 and you can add any other pledge levels by simply adding the value to the total. 

* The small print… As you may have noticed, I'm quite picky about what goes into this little world I've created! In the highly unlikely event we can’t come to an agreement on the initial sketches then you will have the option to cancel your pledge and I’ll return the Engineer pledge value (less fees). This really wasn't an issue last time!

And a bit of an Easter egg...

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Grishak Update

I thought you might like to see a quick work in progress shot of the new grishak jenta... I hope you like how they are turning out! I've also updated the front page with details of how to get hold of these little 'beauties'.

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Just 2 days to go! Yikes!

It's a big update today, but there is lots to do! We finally announce the winner of the contest, unleash the Dompak Riders, ask for help with what last minute figures to add and announce the next stretch goal (in case we need it)!


Casanii Character design contest!

First up I would like to announce the winner of the Casanii Character Creation Contest! I have to say that all five entries succeeded in capturing the essence of the Casanii and would fit wonderfully in the world. I’ve struggled to choose a winner, but I’ve ended up just choosing the figure I most want to sculpt and play with in the game… Seb ‘Taelan’ Stuart’s On’saa.

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The blade wielding On’saa will be a fun addition to the Casanii forces, exemplifying the speed and combat prowess of the Casanii.

As for the other entries? I’m really tempted to add them all to the range in some form, although I’ll take a little longer to make sure they look just right. I certainly want to sculpt Jake’s little inventor with his carrier-mutts…

I'll sculpt the On'Saa over the next month or so and you can add a metal copy of him to your pledge for £5.

(There may be the opportunity to get him cast in resin as a special edition piece, but if I do that I'll give you the opportunity to pay a little extra to upgrade at that stage or stick to the metal version).

The Feral Dompak Riders

The feral tribes have never been averse to taking the occasional risky strategy to prove themselves, but there are those who manage to excel at the crazy ideas! The dompak riders set out to capture the mighty dompaku by luring the beast beneath the branches of the joaba trees where their tribe-mates are waiting in the branches. These foolhardy youngsters drop down on their target armed with nothing more than a crudely made harness that they quickly loop around the long neck. This approach is far from safe and it is not unusual for the unfortunate ferals to be trampled beneath the powerful hooves. However, if they are successful in controlling the beast then they have a powerful platform from which they can fight!

One of the young casanii will take control of the dompaku while others will cling to its back, using the raised platform to their advantage when hurling stones at their enemies and to inspire the other ferals in the band.

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This is one of those projects that was probably a bit foolish, but that I simply couldn’t resist doing! The model will be cast in resin, although it might end up with some metal components. It will have at least three riders (controller and two slings), but might have another one as well as a bunch of baggage. The model will of course be playable (although I’m not sure if he will have cards in the main deck – if not then I will sort cards for you eventually)!

You can add him to your pledge for £30!

The final stretch

As we near the end of the campaign there are still so many things I would love to do to round out the force! These are ideas that I’ve been mulling over, but that aren’t actually sculpted yet… I’m cautious about adding models to the campaign that haven’t actually been sculpted yet, but I’m confident that I could do a good job of a couple of these in the available time. I’m struggling to decide so I would love to hear a few more opinions (which I may of course ignore…).

Which would you like to see done? I’ll announce the last couple of releases tomorrow and you will have the opportunity to add them to your pledge (or play it safe and add them later through the pledge manager…).
•Shaman – this would be moderately good in combat, but would be more of a supporting model with Tactician and Inspire type abilities.
•Atlatl wielding warriors – a variant on the basic warriors, but carrying spear throwers rather than the standard spears and shields.
•Blade warriors – a variant on the basic warriors, wielding a pair of curved blades.
•Tracker – an elite scout equipped with the standard bow, but with a few more tricks up his sleeves.
•Feral slings – a couple of ferals wielding slings to give the feral packs some ranged options (aside from those hanging off the side of the Dompaku…)

New Stretch Goal - Casanii Accessories

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We are making good headway towards the £6,000 stretch goal, so it’s a good time to announce what else we are working towards… If we can get to £7,000 then I’ll do a set of themed accessories for the Casanii. The set will include some laser-etched dice, a set of resin combat stones and a set of stamina counters. The combat stones will of course be a bit different to the previous sets, with a nice elegant rounded feel to them. I’ve been having a play with sculpting them already and I think they will work really well!

 

The On'Saa is definitely the best entry. Not only was it beautifully presented, I also like the fact it isn't an unique character but a title.
Congratulations Taelan!

It's the final day of the Casanii of Anyaral Kickstarter!
There's still time to get involved if you REALLY need a heroic looking warrior-lizard riding a huge bird-lion...

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Just 24 hours to go!

It’s been a great ride so far, thanks to you all! Now we are in the final stretch so it's a last chance to spread the word if you haven't bored all your friends already!

Project progress and more stretch goals!

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Last night we managed to reach another stretch goal so I’m going to be sculpting a new Feral to accompany the grishak jenta! She’ll be a unique, named character and certainly a little bit crazy and dangerous (I’m quite tempted to name her after my eldest daughter…). I’m afraid there’s not much more to show yet, but if you are mad enough to trust me you can add her and the two new grishak to your pledge for £10!

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I’m really hoping we get to £7,000 so I get a good excuse to do some accessories!

The observant of you might notice that I've finally got an icon for the Casanii - Seb Stuart has done the honours again (he previously did the dhogu icon)! (but I promise that had nothing to do with him winning the character design contest - the On'Saa is just awesome).

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In the unlikely event that you all get really carried away then I’ll add another stretch goal to get some postcards of Laura’s artwork…

The Shaman 

Last night I asked you what extra model I should add in the final hours and there’s been an almost unanimous request that I sculpt a shaman… Who am I to disagree?

When Laura first started drawing the Fubarnii she sent me the following sketch, which immediately sold me on the fact that she really understood how they should look and feel!

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The Casanii in the image struck me as being a great basis for a shaman and has been at the back of my mind since… I think she would need more ‘stuff’ (that’s a technical term), but I liked the lean feel to her.  What do you all think?

I’m going to work with Laura to refine the character and she’ll probably look completely different once finished, but if you would like to add her to your pledge she will be £6 for the metal model. In game terms she will be a relatively cheap elite who will enhance your force, but won't be particularly combat oriented!

Another stretch goal reached overnight! :)
The Casanii accessories will be £6 and will contain at least: 2 Casanii dice, 12 combat stones and 10 stamina counters.
You will also be able to add these to your pledge after the campaign once I've got some test casts of the combat stones and I've got the designs sorted for the dice so I can firm up on the contents!  :)

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Six hours left.........

There's one hour to go, so I guess this will be the last update before the end of the campaign!

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Thank you all so much for joining in over the last couple of weeks. I’ve spent the best part of a year slowly bringing this force to life before tentatively launching it into the world and it is incredibly gratifying to see them accepted so enthusiastically! We reached our 100th backer today, which is frankly astonishing!

I think no small part of the success goes to Joe’s incredible paintjobs that really bring my little (and not-so-little) sculpts to life, so there is an extra big thank you to him. He’s working on his own equally mad project at the moment, so I thoroughly recommend you check out his ‘Odyssey’ when it launches in the next couple of weeks. He will also be at Salute (on the stand just next to mine), so feel free to drop by and tell him how much you love his work!

I’ll be continuing to work on the Casanii even once the campaign is over. I’ve got the Dompak riders to finish (I’m going to have a lot of fun detailing the harness!) then the Grishak Feral, the On’Saa and the shaman to sculpt. There are a few other little bits I’m tempted to do (maybe those atlatls or an elite scout…), so keep an eye on future updates!

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As with the last campaign there have been lots of people who have helped immensely with the campaign and I would like to have a way to say thank you by giving them the title of ‘Champion of the Casanii’. Firstly, those people will certainly get a mention when I finally do the next book (even if that is in a few years’ time…). In addition, last time I did a little bonus sculpt and I’m thinking I will have to do the same again. Everybody who has been enthusiastic enough to back for £150 or more will automatically be a Champion - thank you!

I will do an update once the dust has settled to announce all the champions and give some details for the bonus sculpt…

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I’ll be heading to Salute in London in a couple of weeks’ time! It’s always an amazing day and I’m hoping I will get to meet a few of you (both regulars and newcomers). I’m hoping I will have a limited number of early casts of some of the basic items (Loranti, the Starter Force, Telani, the Onsegar and the Hadera) with me on the day. All going well I’ll give more details nearer the time as to how you might be able to get your hands on these early…

Now it’s time to get back to watching the clock tick down and see if we can get to £8,000…

I'm going to leave you with one last group shot of all the models that Joe has been painting!

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What an amazing ride it was, another very successful Kickstarter. Well done!

Hurah! Got my coupon and handed in my order   :)

Me too!
Got my voucher, spent my voucher!
Anticipation levels high, very high.
Need to finish Saracen horse archers so my 'workbench' is free.

Yup, it's finally all coming together!
It'll take a little while to get everything ordered and in stock, but if everything goes smoothly then I'll hopefully be able to start shipping in about a month.

<tells self> patience, it's a virtue.  ;D

Haven't been on the forum in a while and can't find a thread with the picture in it but just wanted to say fantastic job on the Dompak rider model by Joe as seen on the Kickstarter update - it looks amazing!  I need my kickstarter to arrive so I can get some more WoT painting in!

Ben

I've only shared that pic for the Kickstarter backers... As soon as I've got those ready for dispatch I'll show the pics off and get him available on the store!
Would love to see your take on the Dompak riders :)

I've been shipping lots of Kickstarter parcels this week! Looking forward to getting everything sent out so I can get back to normal. And launch a new Casanii based painting challenge...  ;D

oooooooh......a Casanii painting challenge you say..........

Back to the colours :p

Terrain too? ;)

I've always got a soft spot for terrain  :)

I am glad to report that there was a package waiting on my doorstep when I arrived home today.  :)

Having (quickly) checked the contents, I am pleased to say that everything seems to be present and to have arrived safely.
I especially liked the way Loranti was packaged to keep him safe.  8)

I am looking forward to the weekend when I will be able check everything out fully.  ;D

My parcel arrived Friday. Looks great. Thank you for the young Loranti. Started painting already ;D

Hooray!  My package has arrived too - they're in the painting queue already (although its quite long so it could take a while...)

The Shaman looks great, tempted to try and put together a WoT themed Frostgrave warband!

Thanks!

The Cassanii have arrived on my doorstep. Hooray!
Everything is here and in good order.

The book and the mini's look gorgeous.

Woohoo! Great to hear you are getting your parcels!

There are still a few more to get sent out - I managed to run out of onsegar and hadera riders so im waiting for a restock... sorry if you are one of those who are waiting.

Got mine too :) The beasts are amazing and I'm looking forward to adding loranti to my growing trade caravan! Cheers Mike

Wohooo, finally my stuff is here :) Well, almost everything ;)

Great stuff!
What format would you guys like to see for a painting challenge? It'll start in November, but I'm not sure whether to run it for one month or longer.

Maybe longer, as there are a ton of new monsters, they should take some time.

Maybe do make a unit/,char/army/monster category?