"Fife & Drum Gives You $50 of Free AWI Minis" Topic

The current Fife & Drum AWI Kickstarter project is giving away over $50 USD of free minis to every pledge level. This is in addition to the rewards that you can earn at each pledge level. So no matter what you pledge, you are going to get over $50 USD worth of free AWI figures.

Let's review the freebies available to everyone :

1) Spirit of '76 vignette of 3 miniatures
2) mounted British or American officer from the existing range
3) 24 Hessian infantry when they go into production

link

Actually everything in the list above adds up to a retail value of $63 USD, so this deal is practically a no-brainier when it comes to the value that you receive by backing the Fife & Drum Kickstarter deal.

Take advantage of this deal by clicking on the link and make your pledge today.

We have $13,675 USD in pledges as of this posting, so our project is already funded and we have hit stretch goals of $8,000 USD and $12,000 USD which have unlocked the British Legion cavalry and Hessian musketeers, respectively .

Help us hit the next stretch goal of $16,000 USD to unlock the Hessian grenadiers and jagers.

I thank you in advance for your support.

Fritz

OK, that is a great deal if available at every pledge level, even the lowest. Is that correct? Beautiful miniatures.

Yes, that is correct.

Fantastic figures sir. My compliments to the sculptor, and everyone else involved.

Hi Fritz

Apologise for what is probably a dumb question to those "in the know" but does everyone at every pledge level get the bonus figures?

Right now your cavalry are listed at $5 USD each on your website – so 30 would be $150. USD The Tarleton's Quarter pledge level gives you 30 cavalry plus a couple of other figures for $200 USD so it doesn't look like that good a deal.

I have never used KickStarter before so please excuse my ignorance.

Simon

hi Simon,

Just to say with regards to Kickstarter, I too was somewhat perplexed by the variety of projects and incentives on offer initially. Having supported a few now I tend towards seeing Kickstarter as a means of getting things I would want to buy into production, not as a shop in itself. It is the investment you are providing to start a process, not shopping with delayed delivery.

As for the Fife and Drum Kickstarter (I am already a backer btw) remember there are the extra 24 Hessians which can be swapped for 8 more cavalry plus the bonus mounted officer plus the vignette, these take the 'value' over $200 USD and consider that the p&p is only $15 USD that too would be a saving on postage. Also there is a lot of time still to run so there is plenty of opportunity for more freebies!!

An added bonus for me is that Richard Ansell is sculpting these and I am happy to pay for his fantastic figures.. I have lots of his Alban Napoleonic miniatures and they are a delight.

I really wish this range matched in size the Perry's AWI.
Dennis

is there a big difference?.. as I have ordered some perry figures to go with them..

St Anselm
That may just be an assumption on my part because of the way they are always advertised. I may be wrong. Does anyone have figures from both ranges that could shed some light?
Dennis

found a link which suggests they are quite close.. a bit of variety isnt so bad in my eyes

link

St Anselm,
The legs seem so thin and the bodies seem a bit flat for me. However that might be just the positioning in the pictures. I have a mate headed to Historicon and I my ask him to get me a pack to see for myself.
Dennis

St. Anselm has done a very good job of explaning the "value proposition" to the Kickstarter deal. So, what he says.

Basically, given the freebies, in your mind, add $63 USD of free stuff to what you are pledging to determine the approximate value of figures that you are getting at any pledge level. So for example, at $200 USD you are actually getting around $263 USD worth of figures and that does not include the subsidized shipping.

You can gain further savings by using the add-ons of $115 USD and $200 USD, which leads to discounts of up to 30%.

I really wish this range matched in size the Perry's AWI.

What would be the point of copying another company's range of figures?

That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Look, there are a lot of fine AWI figure ranges and it is not for me to do the comparing and commentary on other companies' figures, other than to say that I looked at what was available and nothing really got me all that excited. So I started my own range so that I could get the style and types of figures that I wanted in MY own armies.

When I saw the work that Richard Ansell was doing with the Alban Napoleonic and Minden SYW figure ranges, I knew that his sculpting style ticked all the boxes for me in terms of what I was looking for in a figure range. I like his work so much, that I sold off most of my existing SYW armies and started all over again with Minden Miniatures.

Now I don't expect many people to do the same thing, but it gives you some insight into the passion that I have for creative, elegant, natural and realistic figures sculpted in a SCALE rather than a SIZE. When you sculpt to a scale, everything is in exact proportion to the real thing, thus the figures look like real people.

What else are you getting from Fife & Drum?

1. a complete range of figures, providing all three combat arms, for both the British and the Continental forces. We have over 100 figures in the range after two years of operation. Much more to come.

2. quality sculpting, but just as important, quality castings. Fritz hates picking off flash from his figures, so he uses the best caster in the business: Griffin Moulds Ltd.

3. a comprehensive range of artillery equipment and ancillary equipment such as ammo wagons and pontoon trains, that support the Fife & Drum and Minden Miniatures range of figures. We just added a dozen SYW French and Prussian artillery pieces, limbers etc to the range.

4. a strong focus on the period – we will cover everything in the 1777-78 Philadelphia to Monmouth campaigns. After that, we move South.

FYI, Here are some figure comparisons:

Hat (left), Perry (center), Fife & Drum (right)

Eureka (left) Perry (center) and Minden (right) – standing in for F&D

Hinchcliffe (left), RSM (center) and Minden (right)

Dennis: send me your e-mail and contact info and I will send you some free samples this week, thus you can see for yourself first hand.

contact me at

altefritz1740(at)yahoo(dot)(com)

And if you don't like the figures, that's OK too. There are plenty of alternatives these days, and that is a good thing, IMHO.

Having recently received some F&D samples I have to write that I was shocked but in a good way. If you like your models to display realistic proportions, and I do, then I think you'll like them a lot. I primed my first five figures and with a coat of white on them I can see that they have just the right amount of detail and look lovely to paint. Having now had them for a day or so I've totally grown used to their true-to-life proportions and now sit here wondering why other model soldiers aren't of similar build and why we, the buyers, don't demand it.

Now, here's a thing, each figure took about 40 seconds to prepare for priming. You will struggle to find a mould line and there are none of those dreadful worms and runners that drive me nuts trying to find and remove from some other figures.

This afternoon I did a silhouette test. Hold an F&D up to the light so it appears only in silhouette and your looking at a figure that looks remarkably human. I just think that most soldiers were relatively young men doing a lot of marching on a relatively poor diet so they are going to be on the lean side added to the fact that the uniforms of the era were fitted so the slender sculpts look quite right. Once you've grown used to them some other figures look positively corpulent by comparison.

Being slender I can base them to what wargamers might consider a tight frontage but that is in fact about a scale 30" per man. I know they often operated in more open order but I like the sense of mass that tight basing gives and it takes up less table space.

Der Alte Fritz,
Thank you for your offer. That is very generous. I didn't mean to spark a wildfire with my comments. I understand your rezoning and appreciate your enthusiasm. It is just that I see it in a different light.
While it may make sense if I were starting AWI as a new era but that is not the case for me. Since I already own figures to me ranges that I don't think are compatible with what I already have don't make much sense.
When I start a new era I always factor in that there is more than one manufacture that makes figures that I like. That way all my units are not doing the same action. It adds to the overall look to the battlefield. In my many years of wargaming I have never heard anyone comment on how accurate the proportions of miniatures are when they are painted on the table. For me it's the total effect of the units with the flags waving and when you can almost hear the musicians playing.
Bravo for your enthusiasm and I hope I did not offend.
Dennis

Dennis: no offense taken. Diversity is good, even I have a few Perry and Eureka figures in my collection. I found this picture that I took of some Perry 16th Dragoons and FD mounted officers so that you can eyeball them yourself:

I'm using Perry dragoons in my Historicon game since I don't have cavalry in the FD range yet. I use the Eureka Continental dragoons too for the same reason. Of course, eventually I will have my own cavalry and use those going forward.

Done and doner, kicked in I'm looking forward to this.

regards
dave

I just pledged. I saw some of this line of miniatures "In Real Life" at Historicon and they are fantastic.