"Kicksmart: Heavy Metal by Acheson Creations" Topic

This is the first of a brand new editorial series where I will take a look at recent miniature and hobby related kickstarters that are open for pledges at the time the article was released.

My goal here is to bring new kickstarters to light as well as to give consumers information to make informed decisions.

This article is for the Heavy Metal kickstarter by Acheson Creations: link

If you have any kickstarters you would like me to look at, please let me know!

I think that was a great review. The observations you made are very accurate. I have seen the quality of the woek in person at conventions and while nice concepts, execution is poorly done. Still, many like and buy their product, so they are doing something right.

"many like and buy their product"

If you look at the Community tab of their kickstarter page it shows that all 31 of their backers are returning. They have a devoted fan base, but at this point it is quite small. I find it telling that there have been no new backers for this project, and it's at its halfway point.

I would love to hear why returning backers are pledging here, to know why they support these products. I would love to hear what they find to be of value as it would be an enlightening data point.

A couple of points:
1. We're not at the halfway point, we're only 6 days in and we funded within the first 9 hours.
2. Make sure you're reading the Community info correctly. The 32 backers currently supporting this project aren't new to Kickstarter but roughly half are new to supporting Acheson Creations.

How can we get more new supporters? Obviously we're advertising since this discussion is taking place within the comments of a news article. I think word of mouth is key.

@45thdiv – curious to hear what concepts you like but find poorly executed. We're also looking to up our quality.

Thanks for checking us out. It would be extra helpful if you both pledged some monetary support and shared. :)

Thanks, Bryan

@Stratos – you are correct. I did misread the community information regarding backers.

Nothing on the kickstarter page that interested me but i just shared your 28mm modern scatter terrain to a friend

Late reply, but Westfalia did something similar -- run a steampunk monkey KS and a Prussian army KS, albeit as two different KS. Why? Because both were made in metal. Westfalia explained that it didn't matter what the sculpts his casters were casting in, they were all made in the same metal material and it was better for him to cast the miniatures from both projects at once than separately. So I'm going to guess that that's why Acheson is running this all-metal KS. From a backer's point of view, the sculpts are all over the place. But KS is not a store. I'm going to guess that this format and using a KS works better for Acheson Creations like it did for Westfalia. It's not there to present a single-thematic set of miniatures by the same sculptors, although that would have made the KS seem less odd. Think of the reverse, a KS that had a single theme and consistency of sculpts, but done in metal, resin, and plastic. Pretty obviously, the casting expertise and resources would now be spread out more than a KS that only used one of the three materials.

Heavy Metal had the same number of backers but half as much money as their previous Dungeon Worlds 2 KS, which had a third as many backers and a $1 USDK more than a third of its previous Dungeon Worlds KS. That does show that Acheson made less money, but, with metal and resin miniatures, you don't need the funding levels plastic would need. I guess if Acheson Creations funds another Heavy Metal KS, they'll tell us what format they think will be best to use for that KS.