On Tuesday, we are launching Aesir Fleet II, an expansion of our range of The Expanse-style tail sitters, building on the Knarr Light we released this month as a tribes exclusive.
As many of you may know, I’ve been ill for a long time, and I’ve had to scale back operations, putting the focus of 2nd Dynasty solely on ongoing Tribes releases. We’ve worked hard however to increase the bang for your buck. We’re finally in a place where we can start focusing on other projects again, and this smaller Frontier is designed to help create a buffer so we have the resources to do so.
The Knarr Heavy and Knarr Light, with a spaceman to scale
This mini-campaign expands the Aesir Fleet with two additional vessels, the Knarr Light, which is a ship's boat and light cargo duty transport rated for launches of up to 0.4G, and the Knarr Heavy, a dedicated interplanetary transport with a generous payload and expanded living quarters for long duration voyages.
Both designs are not only brand new Aesir Fleet vessels, but also offer multi-material ready colour FDM 3D print files and gorgeous instruction manuals. We made aYouTube Short of the Knarr Light to see how amazing this comes out!
Colour FDM printing can achieve amazing results - the completed Knarr Light! (ignore my blurry thumb)
We took all the lessons learned from Aesir Fleet to create these amazing pieces that can be printed either on your traditional FDM printer in a single filament colour and painted, or on modern multi-material printers with spectacular results!
Colour FDM vs painted; the printed Knarr Light next to the painted Valkyria
Rewards/Pledges
As a returning backer, we are offering you a 25% discount on the entire campaign!
Use the Code:
AesirAdmiral
at checkout for 25% off all reward tiers.
Pricing (before discount) for the Knarr Light will be $14.95 (going up to $24.95 on the store after), the Knarr Heavy $19.95 (going up to $29.95 later), and the Knarrlector (both) will be $29.95.
All rewards will include the stretch goals/milestones we unlock, such as chemical tankage, enclosed ladderwell, and a more traditional conical nose for dense atmospheric operations.
A WIP of the Knarr Heavy engineering room.
In addition to the Knarr, if we get 10K in support, we will be unlocking the Gungnir, a brand new ship not based on the Knarr at all - it has the engine block of a Ratatosk, but has a triangular nose with a spinal railgun mount. The Gungnir, named after the mythical spear of Odin, is a dedicated mobile defense platform, and will dramatically increase the value of all reward levels.
We Would Love Your Support
Even though we are so grateful for your support on our original campaign, we hope we’ve created a compelling enough argument for you to pick up the Knarr variants and add them to your collection. We know times are tough, so if you can’t back us financially at the moment, we’d just ask that you help spread the word about the campaign to those you think might be interested.
The shipyards are temporarily shut down - union strike - annoying I know - we'll have production back up immediately, but with a reduced workforce. We anticipate ramping up again just as soon as the union busters do their thing and whip the workers back into shape.
In plain English, Ablin is now on summer break. The Ratatosk Mission Module and Cargo Boarding Craft will be completed when he gets back in three more weeks. Instructions on the remaining ships are in active development, although the PDF versions will take a while longer as Lise-Lott is also on holidays. So far, aside from the odd questions, the deck by deck build plates are working for most people, and if you assemble as you print, issues are less likely to arise.
However, in a final crunch before the holidays, Albin got out the Interior Cargo and updated the Alternate Fusion Module to fit the Sleipnir and Fenrir. We also have 270 versions of Haena and Ratatosk, and full instructions of those ships as well!
Haena Minis done
Full Haena 1.0 with Instructions
Cargo done
Fusion core done
Ratatosk minis done
Full Ratatosk 1.0 with Instructions
As a reminder, physical prints start production in Q4, 2025.
Aside from the Ratatosk Mission Module and Cargo Boarding Craft, full instruction versions of Fenrir, Sleipnir and Nidhogg remain (active development), and the 270 and tactical minis of each (active development). We anticipate having at least one new ship model done per week. Full rollout of instructions will likely be completed by the end of August.
The scenario details a corporate dystopian future where you are left stranded on a hostile alien world and have to fight for your survival and your rightful paycheck from the company that just tried to stiff you.
We have all new modular terrain using GridForge, new tiles, walls, and exterior terrain as well to build a mining outpost and colony base. Corridors, science labs, engineering sections, communications relays, even several new vehicles. Check it out get the free minis here.
Ratatosk got its early adopter version released two weeks back. Already our fans are busy printing it!
The Railgun Emplacement was completed as well, and is now fully printable. It can fit on the Nidhogg, or replace one of the Torpedo Launcher units on the Ratatosk or Fenrir.
Currently the Haena is receiving the full treatment with instructions.
We plan to have several more miniatures done soon, and will be producing the stretch goals in the following order:
Alternate Fusion Core
Interior Cargo
Cargo Boarding craft
Ratatosk Mission Module
We are doing these in order of technical complexity.
Thanks for bearing with us during the rollout, and we should have another update in a couple of weeks.
Right now, the early adopter versions of Valkyria, Haena, Fenrir, Sleipnir Refit and Nidhogg are available on our STL pledge manager. This also functions as offering a way for backers who missed out on the campaign to make late pledges as well.
Our prototype of Haena is fully completed, although we are still printing the last few bottom decks. A lovely egg just in time for the weekend!
The pledge manager is located here on myminifactory.com, however, if you backed the campaign, we should have sent out a redemption email to the email address associated with your BackerKit account. See troubleshooting at the bottom of this update (backers only) for more details if you have issues.
Each of the five aforementioned ships include 3mf build plates for fast and easy printing. If you use OrcaSlicer, you can in fact even use 2nd Dynasty's own in-house settings. Build plates are divided up by level and include all the clips required for assembly. They are sized to fit a Bambu A1mini, meaning the can be imported to fit on most FDM printers.
We call these versions of the ships the "Early Adopter" version. Full documentation for assembly will take several months more to complete, and will first be released to 3Dio then in pdf format. However, don't be too intimidated! Assembly is pretty straight forward, and if you print one deck at a time, most builds should hopefully be obvious just with a little referencing of our isometric deck plans.
If you are not feeling adventurous, you are of course welcome to wait until more complete instructions are available.
The Ratatosk early adopter version was not completed in time for launch, but should be available in the next week or so.
So what's available now vs. coming in the next six to eight weeks?
Greetings backers! Thank you once again for supporting us and believing in us! This update is to just say hi, let you know we are getting close to our initial releases.
After a brief sabbatical to recover from several months of intense production, we are back in full swing and gearing up for our initial release on myminifactory.com.
At present, we are hoping to have the Early Adopter version of many of the ships ready to go on April 14th when we go live with the pledge manager.
What is the Early Adopter version? The entire ship, sans full instructions. Building the ships will be possible, however not completely painlessly. We will have some renders and full build plates to make it easier, but step-by-step instructions are several months down the track.
Currently, Valkyria is fully ready for launch. Albin is finishing up Fenrir and the Sleipnir Refit, and next week we hope to have another ship as well. We will probably do the Haena first, as it is a quick job. I think the Nidhogg will be done before Ratatosk, which is the only ship I think currently risks not being ready for the Early Adopter version.
Once the ships are all ready, we will prioritise add-ons and then achievements/stretch goals.
We will be integrating directly with MyMiniFactory for STL file delivery. We will notify you closer to the 14th about the exact details, but the gist is that we will send out redemption emails, and you will then just follow the links and find the STL files available to download on the date.
The Pledge Manager will have funding and pledge amounts shown in USD. Options for Stripe/PayPal are available if you want to buy add-ons or upgrade your pledge level. Physical models are not available to order on the pledge manager, but if you want them, please feel free to get in touch and we will see what we can do.
If you ordered a physical model of the Valkyria, you will be contacted individually when your production slot is getting closer. Of course, you can reach out at any point, but as mentioned during the campaign, the physical models will be produced in late Q3 or early Q4 of this year.
