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Alright Folks!

I know you're all keen to get your hands on some Kindred, I am certainly keen to get the files out to you, but as its our first time on backerkit, its our first experience with the backend of backerkit, and there are a few timings I wasnt aware of when we started here. They all make sense, but now I can give a proper timeline. We ALSO have some small announcements and things to show off - So thats very exciting too.

Step 1: Payment
Upon the completion of the campaign, roughly $10,000 of pledges were 'failed collections' - Basically whether it be banks, cards, funds, users or platform, someone somewhere said no. Since then, this number has been corrected down to $6300. This is because people have the opportunity to find alternate payment solutions, try other cards, use a prepaid visa etc etc - Whatever alternate solution they find. This is because the payment collections on backerkit are done via stripe, and from what we can see, some banks and financial institutions take umbrage with this, and decide they should be allowed to tell you where and how you can spend your money.
Backerkits guidance on this is to allow everyone TWO WEEKS to correct payment information, because after surveys have gone out, you will nolonger be able to correct your payment and your pledge will be cancelled.

This doesn't mesh particularly well with out in house schedule, and our workdays, so we are instead going to give slightly under two weeks. This means there are 7 days from now remaining to fix any payment issues you might have to secure your pledge.

Step 2: Survey
All campaigns have a survey, and after this window for payment correction closes, we will be launching ours. For most campaigns, this survey collects information about shipping, options on items where required etc. For our campaign, it is mostly a formality. The survey is your entry point into the pledge manager, and allows you to confirm the details of your pledge before proceeding. We do have a few questions for our Commercial License tiered holders who will need to fill out some details, and we also have ONE question related to, well, marketing. We'd love an honest answer to this, as it will help guide our game development after Sisters of the Old Blood.

Much like the payment phase, the survey we do need to allow people time to complete and return. There is a limited window to do this (Two Weeks) so MAKE SURE YOU COMPLETE YOUR SURVEY WHEN YOU RECIEVE IT
This will ensure no further delays to receiving your files.

Step 3: Pledge Manager
Somewhere between Step 2 and 3 (Honestly, its a bit nebulous to me if you get access through the survey or after the survey) - you will be directed to the Pledge manager. Here you can alter your pledge, collect new add ons (if you want) and people will be able to late back. Late backing is more expensive, as the campaign is now finished, but for those late to the party it will be possible to dive in here. At this stage, you will be able to download your files through the backerkit pledge manager. You can return here to access your files any time through your backerkit account.

Summary
So ultimately it will be approximately 3 weeks before you can all download your files, this will be slightly disappointing to some, but for most, entirely normal with crowdfunding campaigns. We will be better prepared and able to forecast and warn people about the post campaign delay for our next campaign. However, with this said, there is a silver lining;

In all likelihood the FIRST Stretch Goal Miniature/s will be available for download alongside the launch minis.

Jackson has commenced sculpting the first unit, we chose this one for specific reasons related to scheduling the rest of the work behind the scenes. Rumor engine style, we are including a tiny snippet of a WIP miniature, you can guess what it is...

SO THERE YOU HAVE IT
That pretty much covers all the launch details, but we promised a few small announcements, so here they are:

We have officially found the sculptor of our bust for the Kindred of the Abyss - Victor Aguilar del Bosque - Victor is an exceptionally gifted professional and award winning sculptor - If you're a fan of the Mini Painting Youtube crowd, you might recognize the name as the sculptor of some of the fantastic wood elves from Miniacs brush box and model campaign and also Squidmars Champions of Sona campaign. Murray, Jenn and Myself have ALL painted models sculpted by Victor, and we love his work. So we were extremely excited to hear he was happy to be onboard.

We have ALSO found our Cutaway artist - You see, in searching for artists in this genre, it became increasingly obvious that this was somewhat of a dying art form. The amazing artists who created the visual dictionaries, star wars fact files etc that kids like me grew up on have either passed on or are working at extremely high positions in major companies, IE: Lucasfilm. So we were so glad to have discovered Juuso Laasonen - Having grown up with the same inspirations, Juuso has become extremely skilled at creating cutaway art - in fact one of his earlier pieces you might be familiar with, i'd certainly seen it around the internet numerous times!

This particular piece was considered, paraphrasing here - "A fun sketch for myself that I was hesitant to post"

Juuso has worked on heaps of 40k Fanart, which was certainly one way we knew we were right for each other, but he has worked on a huge catalogue of work, from commissions, to sketches, to passion projects

Check out his art here



That is all for today, we will be back with an update next Monday, which should be the Survey links for you to start filling out!
Thanks - Dave

ITS ALMOST OVER!

Thats right, the campaign is nearly done, its been an exciting ride - But really, it means the journey is just beginning. Thanks to all of your support, the Kindred are going to become a fully fledged faction, everything we need for our mystery game system. A lot of people have pondered what kind of game its going to be, with the main question being "Full Wargame" or "Skirmish Game" - We cant give away much yet, and a lot is subject to change, but the simplest answer, which will also explain the scope of units in this campaign is "Somewhere inbetween"

We strive to create a game with a little bit more complexity, uniqueness and depth within its units, more reminiscent of classic Warhammer, however at a scope and scale that is manageable to build, collect and importantly, play. In house, I (Dave) have been referring to it as "Platoon Scale" - The forces at work in our universe rarely muster in large armies, and are more focused as raiding warbands. The presence of vehicles alone should suggest this will not be a 6-10 model skirmish game.

We have just revealed our final bonus stretch goals - However, we consider all of these a blessing and a boon - We had optimistically planned on our original 55k final stretch goal as being 'everything we need to make what we want' - And now we are in a victory lap of making things we want, but we didn't necessarily need. Cutaway art, An Artist Bust, conversion parts for darker more religious toned bitz for using our models in other games - Its fun stuff that is as much for us as you - And every single one we hit is just an awesome bonus.

We've Been Busy
While for the duration of the campaign we are limited in our capacity to push forward with the project (The point of crowdfunding is to raise the funds to do just that) we have given Alysha the go ahead to start working on some art, and we wanted to share some Bingi with you today. What is a Bingi? What is a Bingus Boy? What is this goal we unlocked?

Exactly.

Its time to find out, while we share in development concept art, through to a completed work done by Alysha Lowery.

So heres the scoop - The Bingus Boys started as a joke, an in house comment when I (Dave) was riffing to Vaughn and Alysha about characters for the game and what we should name the faction. A fan of ranting about nonsense, I threw the name "The Bingus Boys" into the mix, as an absolute joke. (Thats right, the Kindred of the Abyss started their life in production as The Bingus Boys.) However the name stuck, people liked it, we laughed about it, and eventually it created its own kind of reality. We imagined what Bingus Boys could possibly be, could we include this production in house joke in the faction and not destroy the integrity of the project? Of course we could.

We conceptualized the idea of a duo, brothers in the Kindred, and imagined them being troublemakers, with Kindred shaking their fist shouting "THOSE DANG BINGUS BOYS" as they caused some new mayhem. Like a dirty foul underwater Dukes of Hazzard, the Bingus boys slowly developed an identity.

We wanted to create a dynamic of a weaselly Kindred Reaver, the older brother who manipulates his Malformed brother into all kinds of heinous tasks. The simpler brother being somewhat like Lenny from of mice and men, not knowing of his own strength and compromised of intelligence.

We went through multiple iterations, playing with this idea of Nascar drivers, hillbilly stereotypes, dodgy gamblers, truckers, moving through various incarnations and never landing on something solid. Ultimately, we decided the boys were just too silly to fit in the setting, as models, as gameplay pieces in the faction. So we decided to adapt them.

The Bingus boys of old still exist, we imagine their distraught neighbors shouting after them as kids and teenagers, getting up to mischief and misadventure, but those days are gone. Now the boys are reavers, leading a particularly savage raiding band of some renown, known as being some of the most wild and vicious Kindred out there. Gus, the big lad, wields a Harpoon cannon usually mounted on ships and submarines, whereas Ben, the cruel older brother, has a penchant for hunting targets from afar. The annoyed cries of Ben and Gus eventually contracting into Bengus, then Bingus, and with some nice art, great models and a paintjob, the Bingus Boyz will be wreaking havoc on your tabletops soon.

Greetings Backers!
It has been a little while, and we assure you nobody is more aware of this than us!
We have had a handful of requests for an update, but experience has taught me that if you're on the verge of releasing models, don't say anything until you actually can, or you will set everyone up for disappointment. That is where we were about a month ago, certain we would be about to hand over some more files.

Obviously that wasn't the case. However I wouldn't be making this update without news, and that news is - The Bingus Boys are now available.
 

Dan from The Lions Tower has done a fantastic job capturing the evocative likenesses from Alyshas art of the Bingus Boys.

Ben and Gus have grown from the small town brothers beloved by many to ruthless raid leaders. The first of our 'special characters' Ben manipulates his simple big brother into indulging in his many, many sadistic whims. While Gus walks through life blissfully ignorant to the horrifying carnage his is inflicting. Gus is a legend among kindred Malformed, and while Ben is tall, Gus is simply huge, the largest malformed to date that remains capable of simple conversation and focused effort. (The less said about the other malformed, the better). He is seen as a champion, a powerhouse and something of celebrity, all things Gus doesn't really understand.

The Bingus Boys are available for download right now. We look forward to seeing what you do with our first Character Models.

For those who are looking for a bit of a timeline - on this campaign, I do not want to make promises only to break them, so rather than dates, I will lay out the release ORDER and current progress.

Next up: 
Kindred Bust (Basically finished)
Kindred Bathysphere Scout Walker (Half complete)
Kindred Scatter Terrain (25% complete)
Kindred Landsub (Just commenced)
Cutaway art and Wallpapers (Awaiting Landsub sculpting before completion is possible) 
Kindred Command Squad (Not commenced)
Lore Primer (Requires all other elements to be finished)

For our next campaign, we have already begun the process of ensuring we have a much wider pool of sculptors with less busy schedules and more concrete timelines to reduce delays, unfortunately, the same goodwill and contacts that has made this campaign possible is also the reason for its delay - We have a very small number of talented but extremely busy sculptors who are basically working for us in borrowed hours besides running businesses with immense pressure on themselves. Many of these campaigns are run by either large businesses with in house sculptors or solo operations where the campaign is their entire world until complete, allowing them to produce minis far more rapidly. We are extremely grateful for our sculptors and their hard work, and rest assured this is never being forgotten or abandoned, we are as eager to see new sculpts as you all!


Once more - Thankyou for your patience everyone - And we wish you a fantastic holiday period and happy new year! We will hopefully be able to round out the campaign neatly in Q1 next year.