Unboxing: Oathsworn Miniatures: Burrows & Badgers - New Blood

I was aware that Kickstarter campaigns could run for varying lengths of time, but it wasn't until Boxing Day that I realised that a really short campaign could do surprisingly well.

Why Boxing Day? Well, that was when Oathsworn Miniatures ran their New Blood Kickstarter for their Burrows & Badgers line - and ran it for just 24 hours.

The combination of the two things struck me as a bit odd - you'd expect potential customers to be busy on Boxing Day with family affairs, while most Kickstarter campaigns rely on the first and last 2 or 3 days to raise the bulk of their funds. Stripping a campaign down to 24 hours, especially on Boxing Day, felt like it should've been a disaster.

Instead, the micro-campaign was a roaring success, funding in less than 20 minutes and eventually raising nearly nine times the initial funding goal from over 300 backers. I'm still not sure exactly how they did it, but I recently received the fruits of the campaign, so I reckon it is time to take a look...

Unboxing: Bad Squiddo Games - Ghosts of Gaia

Sometimes, following people on Facebook can be an expensive proposition.

As it happens, I follow Kev White of Hasslefree Miniatures fame. Back in November, he plugged a Kickstarter that was being run by Bad Squiddo Games. For those of you who aren't aware, Bad Squiddo Games is the miniatures company being run by Annie Norman, who you may know better as the Dice Bag Lady.

Bad Squiddo were running a campaign for female post-apocalyptic gang figures - a bit Mad Max, a bit Necromunda Escher, that sort of feel. I'll be honest, there weren't many of the initial sculpts that grabbed me, and I forgot to close the tab on Chrome.

Fast-forwards a week or two, and I realised I still have a Kickstarter tab open¹. Before I closed it, I thought it'd be interesting to see where the campaign was up to - and that's when I saw the two packs of gun pigs, and the option to order them as the core of your pledge. For those of you who are unaware, the gun pigs are two sets of four figures, featuring guinea pigs armed with some quite serious weaponry.

While I have no specific uses for heavily-armed rodents, the models were cool, and I'm all in favour of cool models. As a result, I found myself backing the campaign, when I didn't initially expect to. Fast forward to the first week of February, and my new pets were collected from the sorting office - and I thought you'd be interested to see how these look.

Unboxing: Macrocosm Miniatures - Dark Dwarves

I first found out about Macrocosm when I was at UK Games Expo 2015, where their stand was tucked away on one corner in a particularly cramped trade room. While I wasn't looking for anything in particular, their Digger Corps and Malignancy ranges caught my eye, and the gent behind the stand was willing to cut me a deal on the Sunday, which is always appreciated.

When I heard they were doing a Kickstarter campaign to make some Dark Dwarves, having picked up the range previously released by Hasslefree Miniatures, I decided to back it to both support a small company and get some quite cool armoured Dwarf models. While I wasn't a major backer, I did spring for two 5 Dwarf units and a character, as a potential starting point for a force for Dragon Rampant.

The campaign went pretty well for Macrocosm, raising £6,713 against their initial goal of £1,000. Delivery was listed as November 2016, so I'd mentally pegged them as arriving in the new year - imagine my surprise, then, when I received a package towards the end of September.

With the package in hand, I thought it might be taking a look at what was inside. And yes, I know it's taken me nearly a month to get to this point...

Unboxing: Infamy Miniatures One Shot - Goblin Chieftain

Despite not yet having assembled or painted anything from them, Infamy Miniatures have impressed me since they started up. Leading off with a small IndieGoGo campaign, then a Kickstarter for the upcoming Infamy: Welcome to the Big Smoke game,

Having backed both of those endeavours, I was interested when James announced the Kickstarter campaign for the first model in his One Shot range, the Goblin Chieftain. While Goblins aren't usually my cup of tea, this sculpt had enough character to it that I was interested - and when a pledge option opened up that allowed me to pick up this figure, along with 54mm versions of a couple of the characters from the Big Smoke, I jumped right in.