New Miniature Prototypes, Conventions, and 2015

We've entered 2015 and I look to the new year with a great sense of excitement. Its a new year, and my partner and I have moved from Chicago to Milwaukee to start a new life. We wanted to save money and slow down our pace to concentrate more heavily on our personal projects, and Broken Contract is one of those projects. Even during the hectic and labored move, I kept my eye on the prize, and that's getting our introductory miniature line and game ready for the public.

The 3 newest prototypes from VisionProto. Talla Kellerman, Officer Hickley, and Trest the Gen-Mod Brute.

A few days ago a package arrived from VisionProto of three new 3D print prototypes. When I received the first two 3D prints back in October, I was struck by how I felt that the typical approach in wargaming of scaling all humans to the same approximate size felt odd. I envisioned each character we had created to be an individual and some should be diminutive, and some should tower over the others. To that end, with this latest batch of 3D renders I asked that Tim Barry keep the weapons to a consistent scale, but the characters should conform to a ratio system so that an average sized human male (5'10") should be a 31mm model. A hulking 7' tall gen-mod should stand 37mm and a petite 5'4" should stand 28mm. Seeing the end result I think really heightens the sense of individuality of each character. With that experiment a success, we can start to move full steam ahead.

All of the completed prototypes we've received thus far.

We now have five prototypes in hand, so its time for master molds and our first casts. I personally can't wait to have casts in hand that I can paint up and use for playtesting, demos, and to show off in my home display cases. With these five prototypes, we're also more than halfway to what I see as the minimum size of our first box set, which should contain at least 5 Breakers and 3 Prods. Tim is furiously working on more 3D renders this week and we should have several more ready for prototyping before the month is over. Geng Gendall is also working on art right now for Overseer Billins, the head of the Prods in the mines, and then Kollis, the Breaker Crew Leader will soon follow.

Personally, I've been working for the last month on Alpha Rules 2.0. I would have had them done in December, but the move to Milwaukee interfered with that deadline. Still, very soon I will post that up so that people can read them and play the game with proxies. I'm really looking forward to having the Alpha Rules ready for fine tuning and then approve them for graphic design.

The two big goals for the next 3 months will be to complete the rules and initial model range so that we can run a small Kickstarter and make a showing at AdeptiCon. These are lofty goals. The timeline is tight. But its possible. I'll dare to dream and work really hard to make it a reality, so watch this space!

2015, the insurrection is coming! Thanks for reading.

-Nick