Yay, my package from Gravity Bay arrived today! All the toys and goodies from the Rapture kickstarter! Here is a quick photo log of my unboxing - it feels like Christmas came six weeks early :)
Here's the unopened box. Hmm, how did the painted minis get there?
Well, before we actually open the box: My plan for painting is
1. I got a few items ready for the tabletop over the last year, while waiting for the kickstarter shipment.
The figures on top of the unopened box are the ones I bought from the Gravity Bay online store before the kickstarter went online (here's my report on these), pretty much exactly one year ago. The Angel, the New World Order guy and the mercenary standing on the box are painted already, the basecoated Atlantis guy shown further below with his new comrades is still waiting for great color scheme ideas.
I have also worked on some terrain (I don't have much terrain in general, and even less for this scale of 30mm skirmishes in a near-future post-apocalyptic setting), and some civilians so the Angels have someone to hunt (these minis and the terrain are all from non-Gravity Bay sources, and not part of the official kickstarter package).
2. As soon as the box is open, I plan to work on the Angels first. They are the most unique fraction of this game, and tickle my creative instincts. Once I have, say, 80 or 100 points worth of Angels I can already try first games against NWO and proxy the missing humans with minis from my old Warzone collection.
3. I will then try to get a playable set of NWO humans to replace the non-Rapture proxies, and probably tackle the Atlantis guys last (to have something exciting and "different" to look forward to).
But that's in the (hopefully near) future, let's get back to the box. This is what you get with the Ultimate pledge:
This is what comes out:
Top from left to right: Starter boxes New World Order (high tech humans) and Atlantis (fish people), rulebook, starter box Angels, card covers and erasable pen to check off life and morale hits.
Bottom row: extra minis for all three factions (beyond the starter pack content) from a white, padded envelope (no useless packaging waste from blisters or boxes which only make sense in retail stores), extra mission cards (partly from the extra "Mission Pack") and unit cards for the extras and the special minis that were available before the kickstarter.
So let's look at the boxes in more detail. The starter boxes all contain minis, a pack of unit cards, and a very simple fast start rules summary.
The Atlantis box has an additional card with the water areas for a special Atlantis rule (these guys can kind of teleport between different bodies of water on the playing area).
Here's another closer look at the Minis:
And the same for the NWO humans:
What I really love about these minis (as I said at length in my initial impressions post) is the scale size and proportions of the minis. Fingers aren't as thick as forearms and arms aren't as thick as thighs, and the head-to-toe size varies nicely between different minis. The humans are small and slender enough to give the Angels a chance to look really huge in comparison, without being grotesque bulky bad guys on steroids.
Here's another look at the extras:
The cards for the pre-kickstarter minis available at events and through the online store are included in the kickstarter shipment, the minis aren't. That was intentional "overdelivery" to ensure noone is stuck on the old unit cards in the preliminary format, and, I guess, also to motivate other kickstarter backers to attend future events where these minis might become available again (there are rumors that Gravity Bay will be at the online Mag-Con event end of November, and have some of them available there), and to visit the online store when it reopens some time early next year.
Here are my teaser minis and the corresponding cards - note that the mercenary in the middle even comes with a set of loyalty cards that are used in the game to determine his priorities.
And here are the Angels (large but few - another nice aspect of the game is that it has really different factions with different gameplay, not just different looks).
Before we select the minis for the first round of painting, let's take a look at the rules. They come as a really solid, beautiful hard cover with glossy full color pages, a delight for bibliophiles like me.
Placed on top of the full rulebook you see the small cardboard fast start rules that are in each starter pack, and an example of a unit card with really nice, frameless card art (new design compared to the pre-kickstarter samples), unit stats (bottom) and check-off boxes for life (left) and morale (right).
The card backs have brief reminder text about all unit special rules - these are the little details that make such a huge difference for playability for occasional gamers like me who can't memorize all the rules. I so hate fiddling around with rule books, cheat sheets and army lists during the game just to remind myself of special rules - having all of that on the unit cards makes play flow much faster.
Now let's get back to the first mini-project, the Angels. Here is what we get:
On top the five Angels: three from the starter, Galmon (top left) as kickstarter extra, and Morael (center) is the pre-kickstarter teaser. Of course, the Angels will get arms and huge wings attached, this picture has just the bodies to avoid clutter.
At the bottom left you see an example of a pair of cards describing a faction specific mission with tasks and victory points for the Angels. Note that the two guys in overalls are not part of the kickstarter and not even from Gravity Bay, I just wanted to use minis instead of cardboard mission targets, and to have something to paint while waiting for the official stuff.
Bottom right you see some of the pre-cut card board markers to show mission targets, indicate unit status and track remaining actions/reactions for each unit.
Now to pick the first Angels to add to the one I already have (Morael) for some early gaming. Unfortunately, Morael is worth 20 points. The starter box contains two Angels for 30 points each and one baddie worth 40, and the kickstarter extra (Galmon) also costs 30. So I can't make a 100 point force containing Morael :(
Anyway, let's start small, augment Morael with two 30 point Angels and begin with 80 points a side. So these two guys, Galmon and Seeiah, will be first on the painting table.
Stay tuned for progress reports - if you look at my
historical tabletop endeavors on this blog, you will see that it takes me less than three to five years to put playable new armies on the table for these large unit games. Let's see how long it will take for a small unit skirmish game.
