Journal #13 - oh, those beautiful new tiles!

Much is happening in Pedion-verse, which I would really like to share! But what I really want to do with this blog post is to show off -without a shred of shame- the newly created beautiful pictures of Tile Types unlocked as Stretch Goals during the Kickstarter. But some business first...

No, this is not a real Greek beach, is Pedion Coastline tile... more below ;)

Pledge Manager (and extra pre-orders) are Live; lock your stuff!

You will pleased to know that the pledge management system is up and running, and all backers have received an invite to lock their pledges. Almost half of them have actually gone and finalized their rewards already, so we are moving on! The Pledge Manager is set-up as part of the Pedion e-shop. This has another advantage: not only can backers add more last minute stuff to their pledges, but people who missed the Kickstarter have their (last) chance to pre-order Pedion Battlefield Sets! The Pledge manager will be open up to the end of the month, so not much time left to take advantage of Kickstarter prices and shipping.

New, Unlocked versions of Tile Types

As many may know, we unlocked an awful large number of new themes, tile types and combinations during the Kickstarter Campaign. Because of the hectic rhythm of those days, we managed to create prototypes for only a few of them -those of the first Stretch Goals reached- like Green Grass Ponds, Craters etc. However, there were a LOT more stuff made available, mostly as extra options to the existing tile types, which we did not manage to show during the campaign but only to describe it.

While we were mass-preparing tiles for the backers' orders, we also made sure that these unlocked options were implemented. We wanted to have a picture of at least some of the new options available for the Pledge Manager, so the backers could have a better idea and base their choice in what they saw and not what they read.

Another cool fact about the tiles/add-ons you will see below is that they are not mock-ups or prototypes - they are backer stuff. So, here are some images to see for yourselves, and we are very proud of how they are turning out!

Frozen option for the "Pond" tile: a special liquid glass option for the Winter themed boards with a pond included. The pond is complete cast in epoxy resin.

The Frozen Pond tile (winter theme, liquid glass)

River with floating ice pieces: Staying in the Winter theme, another option of displaying the river surface was to add floating ice pieces. The idea is not to have a completely frozen river, but to show how cold it is, and perhaps assign some wargame attribute to the ice pieces (perhaps making the river passable?). Notice the darker blue/black of the winter water.

The ice floating pieces are cast in white/blue transparent resin

Two river tiles joined. The upper tile represents a "Ford" tile, with a winter dirt road reaching the riversides. The "square" shapes showing on the river banks are magnetic hardoints for trees, walls, bridges, buildings etc

Now, to our pride and joy, the Coastline tile types. Coastline/Riversides were requested by the backers and unlocked close to the end. The Straight, Concave and Convex tiles will be of two types (2 different molds). The delta and the open water of one type (molds in progress). The tiles you see below are cast in resin or resin and liquid glass for the respective version. Also, the "water" tile sides also connect magnetically (we did not want to have to apply constant pressure on the tile corner by clipping velcro). Also, ALL the sloped beach part is Magnetic, so players can snap walls, bunkers, artillery or anything else on them.

Coast tile, Straight beach, type I, Green theme, Painted Version

Coast tile, Concave beach, type I, Green theme, Painted Version

The straight and concave tiles connected

Coast tile, Convex beach, type II, Green theme, Liquid Glass Version

another view of the beautiful liquid glass version

Urban Road Tiles: about midway during the campaign, a stretch goal unlocked which is a personal favorite. Now you can get a series of tiles to create a board of an urban environment, ready for man-made structures like buildings, ruins, factories, sandbags etc. Skirmish games become more and more popular and with urban tile options you could get the basis for a neighborhood, be it a fantasy village, a modern town or a futuristic off-planet settlement. Backers had already seen our cobblestone/dirt road version, now we present two variations of the many available: a scifi straight road tile, and a 28mm modern crossroads tile.

Urban Straight road tile: 7cm, light blue "plastisteel" surface, Caution line sides, light grey "plastisteel" tile texture, FULLY magnetic

X Crossroads Urban tile, 14cm road, Asphalt, 28mm scale pedestrian stripes, Magnetic sidewalks, Sandstone tile texture

Variant River Flows: Along with the more exotic, scifi themes for our boards, unlocked two new "river" flows, lava and green toxic... stuff! These fillings can also be applied to fill craters, ponds or even "seas"/"lakes". Check them on Grey waste and Red planet tiles. The Red planet tile has a more alien look with special minerals. Again, the square shapes are actual magnetic hardpoints.

Lava flow on regular Grey Wastes theme, painted version

Green toxic river, painted version

Sci-Fi Crystal Formations: even better than minerals, backers can now order MAGNETIC crystals which give a very scifi look on their boards. If they look realistic, it's because they are fully based on real Jade formations. They are cast in transparent coloured resin, at various shapes.

purple crystal

green crystal

"clear" crystal

cobalt blue crystal

I have even more stuff to show you, especially the new Elevation change System we developed; but it will have to wait till my next blog post. If you liked the new stuff and the images, please share the word with people interested and -of course- get yourselves some in the eshop!

Good gaming all,

George

PEDION Battlefields just got better: another Stretch Goal achieved!

Bring out your farmers! Another Stretch Goal reached: Crops Tile is available! And this comes in addition to the 1st Stretch Goal, unlocking the Desert and Winter themes for the Battlefield Sets!

The fabulous farmers of +David Yeomans and Anne Yeomans attacked on a Crops/Orchard Tile

Oh man, this Kickstarter brings forth feelings and emotions which are definitely not the norm for a 40-year old. So, let me give you some insight on what has happened during the last week (going backwards to the previous blog post):

2nd Stretch Goal was reached, unlocking the Crops Pedion Tile

Yesterday our pledge total reached and surpassed £20000, making feasible the design and production of a Crops Pedion Tile. Crops, orchards and other types of fields are quite common in rural areas, especially in temperate climates. They tend to cover most of the gently sloped areas which are suitable for farming; the exact same areas that commanders historically have repeatedly chosen to give their battles. So, I thought it would make a valid addition to Pedion, to be able to expand and enhance your battlefields with the representation of farmed lands.

The basic Crops Tile: a Sown area and a Crops field 

The tile is designed having the base scale range of Pedion (15-28mm) in mind. It consists of two distinctive areas that the players may declare as they please: a sown area, planted with low vegetation, and a dirt field.

The "dirt" field; actually a magnetized area for add-on terrain depending on your whims 

Characteristics:

• The tile displays two actual fields, in sizes compatible with 15-28mm scales.
• The dirt area is actually magnetized, so it can be used to clip magnetic features onto it. 
• The tile comes with Crops "rows" and some Orchard fruit trees. Players can use the dirt field as flat ground, or connect the provided features any way they want. They can create a full crops field, an orchard, or a combination.
• When miniatures move through the terrain, the magnetized features can be removed temporarily, to allow placement of units without any fuss (no more soldiers staying on top of your crops!).
• As Pedion is further developed, more features will become available to clip onto the field: other types of orchards, vines, even whole farmhouses.
• The tile includes magnetic hard-points all around its edges and across its centerline; their purpose is to attach columns of the Pedion Wall System, the next Stretch Goal of the Kickstarter Campaign.

Check out some of these features in the photos:

Magnetized Crops "rows" clip on and off to allow miniature placement and movement

Field can be used as orchard (final product will include 4 fruit trees)

Combination of crops and tree line

The magnetic hard-points on the tile edges...

...used for hedges (Wall System)

Cannot get enough of Pedion? Introducing the PedionAMMO subscription

For some time now, I was trying to find a way for Pedion owners to easily expand their Sets. You see, Pedion is not only modular, but its main design advantage is its ability to constantly expand. So, a week ago I have had that light-bulb moment about a subscription based service; the response in the project's comments section was overwhelmingly positive. So now we have our own "Loot Crate", and it's called PedionAMMO (yes, like ammunition).

No, I won't send you an actual ammo crate, this is a mock-up

The PedionAMMO Subscription Service is a way for you to receive monthly Pedion goodness and expand your boards, or even start new Sets. This monthly service will include lightweight, compact additions. Subscribers can expect to receive (non-exhaustive list):

• Tiles (plain, broken ground, forest floors, roads, and if possible even rivers). The tiles may be of types unlocked during this campaign, or new themes that I design for Pedion in a later date. I was thinking of running an annual poll for each year's theme (eg Green, desert, scifi etc). 
• Sets of trees (magnetic)
• Rock formations (magnetic)
• Wall system parts
• Grids
• Hill parts 
• Pedion Blank Tiles
• Other promotional stuff, like Pedion PrintTiles (gaming mat tiles), FoamGrass etc

You can subscribe either for 1 month, or save some money by going for the 6-month and 12-month subscription packages, which offer a discount of -10% and -20% respectively for Kickstarter backers! There are two ongoing rates, only due to differences on shipping costs:

1. The base monthly cost for residents of Europe is £10, and
2. The base monthly cost for residents of USA, Canada, Australia and the rest of the World is £11.5 (~$17.5 US)

The above costs include shipping; and it goes without saying, the retail values of the included items will cover/exceed this rate. The Subscription service will commence after the Project's fulfillment, namely December 2015.

Before the 2nd, there was the 1st: Desert and Winter ground variations were Unlocked!

Five days ago our Pledge Total surpassed the £18000 limit, thus unlocking for all current and future backers out first Campaign Stretch Goal: the availability of Desert and Winter (Snow) ground types for your modular battlefields. What will this mean? As a free Upgrade, all physical rewards with terrain tiles can now be of three variants: the original "Green Spring" theme, the Desert theme and the Winter theme.

When "locking" their rewards after the campaign, backers can choose the Ground Type of any or all Tiles in their Sets/add-ons to become Snow/Winter or Desert.
Though the new Ground variations do not introduce completely new tile types, they do bring some exciting variations in existing tiles. Specifically:

• Forest tiles in Desert boards will include palm trees instead of temperate forest trees. But you can upgrade your palm-tree "forest" to become an Oasis with a small pond in the middle. Or you can completely forgo the vegetation option, and turn your "forest" tile into a "Badlands" tile, with magnetic rock formations (mesas) to clip on the tile.
• The same option of snow-covered badlands can be used by backers of Winter terrain as well; you can upgrade your "forest" and substitute your trees for magnetic snow-covered rocks. The rock formations will be available as a stand-alone add-on as well.
• The river tiles in Desert board will also have the painted option of "Dried creek". In Snow variations you can upgrade painted or liquid glass rivers to have small pieces of drifting ice in the "liquid glass" water (just for aesthetics or to actually help fording).

I am in the process of creating sample prototypes of tiles in the two new themes. While not all are finished yet, here is a glimpse of some tile types in the Desert theme. Please keep in mind that these are a Work in Progress, and although 95% ready, they still lack some details (like flocking and some extra sand effects).

Desert Broken Land tile - includes a magnetic hard-point

Same tile, with a desert rock formation clipped on; The rock is an example of the rocks you can get for creating "badlands" instead of "forests" in your Desert board

Straight Road tile, in Desert theme, with Asphalt surface. Road markings add realism but limit the tile usage only to 15-20mm scales as they delineate traffic lanes

Next Stretch Goals

But all these was only the beginning, believe it or not! Now two more Stretch Goals -one Social and one depending on Pledge Level- are within breathing distance. Actually, the "social" one may well be realized the moment your reading these lines, we are that close: when we reach the number of 130 backers, each one of our physical reward levels will get an extra, free Tree. Plus, in case your Set or/and add-ons include Forests, each Forest tiles get one free tree as well. Only 2 more backers are needed!

The next pledge level Stretch Goal is also close, at £23000, and it will unlock a NEW kind of  terrain add-on: the Pedion Wall System. You have seen examples in photos and videos, and the Stretch Goal will allow the creation of mold for realizing these designs. And we are less than £2500 away!

Thank you for reading this far, and I hope you will get on the Pedion train, or even bring some hobbyists with you!

Good gaming,
George