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Desert of the Dead, fantasy wargaming miniatures!

Created by TrollTrader

Mummies, elves, halflings and other fantasy miniatures from an undead desert.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

RUMBLESLAM Friday
over 3 years ago – Fri, Aug 07, 2020 at 01:57:49 PM

Hey all

I asked Lewis to give me a little info on the RUMBLESLAM team from this campaign and here is what he came back with.

Hi everyone! Lewis here from TTC. I've been asked to come over and have a chat about the new RUMBLESLAM wrestlers. Well you don't need to ask me twice to talk about thegame of fantasy wrestling!

The Pyramid Piledrivers

Our brand new team (from a brand new casino) are called the Pyramid Piledrivers, and they play very differently to any other RUMBLESLAM team!

They're similar in make up to most other teams. They have two WEIGHT 1 characters: the Shabti. Two WEIGHT 2 characters: a Withered Master and Anubti Doorkeeper. Finally they also have a WEIGHT 3: the Yeetle. So far, so similar, right? Well that's about as far as the similarities go!

Shabti

Our WEIGHT 1 characters are both Shabti. No Shabti Brawler and Shabti Grappler or anything. They're just basic, rubbish Shabti.

The Shabti are the cheapest wrestlers in the game, costing only 100K in Dosh (alright technically the Halfling Ref from the last Kickstarter is the cheapest, but the only thing he can do is give someone a pasty!). For that measly amount of Dosh you get one of the worst statlines in the game. With worse dice than Skeletons, Goblins, Sprites, and everything else, they really aren't that great. 3MP and 3AP are poor, although they have 5 Stamina, which for WEIGHT 1s isn't too bad.

Usually this is the point where I talk about a wrestler looking bad on the face of it, but their special abilities saving them. Well, not this time! Decaying Touch gives a bit of a boost with 1S attack, but it does 0 damage. It does give -1MP though, so it's not all bad! I mean, it's pretty bad.

Ahh! A Passive Ability! Surely now they'll start to make sense?

Oh, the Passive Ability just means they move slower.

Aren't you glad you backed this team?

Yeetle

Right, we have 2 of the worst wrestlers to ever participate in RUMBLESLAM, so what about the rest? Let's skip straight up to the big guy. Girl? I don't know, it's hard to tell with beetles.

The Yeetle is a manifestation of the Sun God, able to summon the colossal burning power of a star in the ring. Should that be illegal in a wrestling match? Probably, but try getting close enough to tell Yeetle that.

This hard-cased wrestler has a statline you'd expect. With 2G+1 DEF you'll struggle to land any damage on it! It also has a great GRAPPLE stat, and surprisingly 4AP on a WEIGHT 3. This is more like it! With a massive THROW of 6, you know the Yeetle is good at yeeting things. It only has 8 Stamina, which is pretty low for a big wrestler. It makes sense though - if you're tough enough to crack that outer shell, Yeetle is squishy on the inside!

Solar Smash uses a Grapple attack to do DAZED which is always welcome. Yeetle also has a massive 5 DMG on its Turnbuckle Ability, which it can do in one round thanks to the extra AP! That's a massive deterrent to your opponent from hanging around the Turnbuckle.

Yeetle's Active Ability is called Khepri's Blessing. Summoning the power of the sun to lob it at an opponent was something we really wanted to have in here. It's on the model, so yeah, you can throw the sun! Basically the sun is counted as a random WEIGHT wrestler, so make your Live Ammunition attacks all you want! Up to 4 potential damage, but on a blank Yeetle hurts itself (obviously Khepri gets a bit annoyed at all the requests).

Anubti Doorkeeper

Okay, we've got a bit of momentum here! Next up, the most expensive WEIGHT 2 rookie (tied with the Glory Seeker).

The Abunbti Doorkeeper is going to be your main heavy-hitter in the Pyramid Piledrivers. She's fast, she's tough, she's strong, and she has a couple of great attacks.

Her statline speaks for itself. With so many silver dice, there's not much she's not good at. That's the statline to rival a lot of Superstars! And she should really be hunting them down.

Her Bast Bodypress is a particular favourite of mine. It's a lot of AP but does 3 DMG and gives her an extra Brawl attack thanks to Fury. With 3 Silver in both Grapple and Attack, she'll most likely succeed in both of those, if not Beatdown too! The Jackal Drop also has the all-powerful Throw 2 special rule - that's a big deal!

Spiritwalker is a Passive Ability shared by the Doorkeeper and Yeetle. Basically they're good friends with Death, and rise from the tomb so often that they automatically remove any Knocked Down counters at the end of the round. Opponents are going to have to keep them down for good, otherwise they're going to keep on fighting!

Withered Master

Alright, here's our final Pyramid Piledriver rookie, and this emaciated character is the one that keeps the whole team together. With innate magical power, the Withered Master has control over her fellow mummies and monsters.


Her statline is pretty standard, if a little weak on DEF and DEX. With +1s on both ATT and GRP though, she makes a good berserker. High MP helps her get in there, but a tiny Stamina of 6 means she's extremely fragile. She also costs 250K (now it's a 3-way tie for most expensive WEIGHT 2), so what are we missing?

Well, before we look at anything else, let's see what Tethered Together does.

Basically, you can use the Withered Master to control the rest of your team. Your Shabti are able to perform an Afterlife Armbreaker, complete with the 2S+1 attack power! The Withered Master can stay out of harm's way as the rubbish Shabti suddenly become very useful. The Crowd Pleaser offered from it is also useable by either the Shabti (replenishing Stamina) or the Withered Master herself (which gives her +2 AP for next round).

The Anubti Doorkeeper and Yeetle can also do an Afterlife Armbreaker (although since their GRP is usually higher it's a bit of a waste), but they also get the option to perform a Horus' Lariat. This handy Rope Ability does Knockdown, and it effectively means you can spread out your team throughout the ring and no one will be safe!

Of course, the real trick is getting your wrestlers into position to make use of these skills, but that's what the Marching Orders Active Ability is for - it gives 3 squares of movement to Shambling wrestlers, dividing it up as you see fit. Very handy!

The Withered Master is absolutely the lynchpin that this team is centred around, supported by the bodyguarding long-ranged support of Yeetle and the all-around awesomeness of the Anubti Doorkeeper. The Shabti are very rubbish, but a couple of good rounds with the Withered Master will make even them a scary prospect for your opponent!

King Pandinus

That's the team covered, but you lucky backers are also getting 2 brand new Superstars thrown in to your sets as well! When these go to retail the Superstars will come separately, so you all got a great bargain here!

King Pandinus is just great. I mean seriously good. At 350K he's not the cheapest Superstar around, but he really brings the pain. 4 Gold dice in total on his stats show he means business, and he's actually even tougher to damage than the Yeetle! He's also crazy fast (it's all those legs), so beware to enemy wrestlers!

The King has a Devastating Turnbuckle attack that also has a good chance of a follow up hit thanks to Shove 2 (imagine doing that to every wrestler in base contact - and he's on a big base!). His Giant Stinger ability is an easy way to deal out a lot of Dazed rolls, and if you pass his Crowd Pleaser, it makes your opponent roll extra dice and multiplies the result by 2! Finally Pinchy gives all his Brawl attacks Bleeding.

King Pandinus doesn't have many sneaky little tricks - he's a straight up fighter. With great Attack, decent Grapple, and a couple of strong skills, if you want a no-nonsense fighter, that's your guy. Paired with the Pyramid Piledrivers, he's a fantastic stand-alone wrestler, able to perform on his own without having to worry about synergy - which is something you can really need if the tide of the fight starts to turn.

Queen Cleo

Speaking of no-nonsense fighters... well, Queen Cleo is not that. Pandinus' wife has a few tricks up her bandaged sleeves! Not only does she have an awesome, unique model with amazing art, but she's quite a wrestler too!

A more nuanced statline awaits Cleo, with plenty of silver dice and a couple of golds in there for good measure. It's a pretty hardcore amount of dice, right there. She's not super tough though, and that 1G 1C DEF can turn on you, with only 8 Stamina to get her through the battle.

Queen Cleo's Imploding 810 Splash is a pretty great turnbuckle attack, giving her lots of extra movement and it only costs 2AP (well 3 after climbing up). The hands that she walks on flip her high into the air!

The rest of her skills really need us to have a look at Underworld Counters.

This is a new form of counter, unique to Queen Cleo. They stop all movement through, and count as being outside of the ring if thrown onto them. Already that can throw a lot of annoyances to your opponent. Use the counters to block their movement out of their corner, stop rope attacks or even block off turnbuckles.

Queen Cleo generates Underworld Counters via her Dead Elbow Rope Attack, which not only does 3 DMG, but puts one down in a square moved through. Her Crowd Pleaser also creates a new counter, but it has to be in base contact with an existing one. The breach to the Underworld grows larger!

Aside from stopping movement though, Queen Cleo can command the grasping hands to pull enemy wrestlers down to them. A Billion Souls forces an enemy wrestler in base contact with an Underworld Counter to make a 3+ DEX roll or get Knocked Down, ready for the Queen to close in for the KO.

Queen Cleo is definitely more subtle in her uses than King Pandinus, but with such a great toolbox of abilities she is sure to find a place in your team. Also, check out that awesome looking new HEEL card! The deep purple compared to the golden yellow of the regular cards shows her evilness at a glance, and complements her style nicely!

There we go, the full low-down on the upcoming wrestlers from Diamond Oasis casino! Who's excited? I know I am!

I also realised there was one model that wasn't yet rendered (we didn't have it on our spreadsheet as the campaign just missed it on stretch goals but we ended up making it anyway!) Currently its a little top heavy so we will be making some a few adjustments before this gets printed and heads off to the mould room.

Nick P also asked to see the Liche lord on Chariot which I may have previously missed

Back next Friday!

Wednesday Update, not the new normal!
over 3 years ago – Wed, Aug 05, 2020 at 10:30:11 PM

Hey all

Don't get too excited yet, its only the very early stages but shipping is starting! We are shipping pledges as they are ready so it is literally just a few single miniatures at the moment but hey its a start! I think it is going to take 2 months to get everything run and out the door (roughly 100 (of 500) of the items with smaller order quantities required don't have full production moulds made yet but we are smashing through them at pace now). This is my best estimate and could be wrong, we will have a better idea in a couple of weeks so please keep checking the Friday updates for the most up to date information. Local Lockdowns in England due to Covid could see us delayed but right now we are fully up and running. We are updating the backerkit status to shipped once the order leaves so if you want to know if your order is on its way please check there.

What to do when your order arrives

Check it

Paint it

Send us pics. Nick P who was a backer on this campaign recently sent us images of what he did with his miniatures from our Halfling Kickstarter.

One, Two, TREE!

Great work Nick! Now we want to see all of your DOTD miniatures. If you have finished adding some colour to your models then don't be shy and let us see! [email protected] is the place to send your images and then we can share them with everyone else in the coming updates.

Don Roach, our man on the ground in the USA who normally manages all of our shows out there is currently putting some time into painting instead. We sent him a box of resin to meet with his paintbrush and to quote him on arrival.

'Models are here. These are seriously some sweet sculpts.'

Mummy WIP
Rear

Loving how these are looking with some paint on them! I will share more of this pieces over the coming weeks!

Back Friday with some RUMBLESLAM goodness!

Late Friday update!
over 3 years ago – Sat, Aug 01, 2020 at 11:29:37 PM

Hey all

Sorry, really short and later in the day than normal update today. The week has been a bit of a blur and trying to co ordinate new staff for the project among all the Covid enforced work place restrictions has been not my favourite thing to do!

I think shipping will commence on Wednesday of next week (In case you didn't see previous updates this is only smaller packages at first and will ramp to the big ones over the coming 2 months) and I will post an update on Wednesday with the further shipping info as well as the promised RUMBLESLAM update on the Friday.

I snapped a pic on my phone that I was excited to share though so check this out!

Big Titan

Back Wednesday!

Moulding Moulding Moulding
over 3 years ago – Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 04:31:27 AM

Hey all

We have a whole load of new starters learning the ropes in the resin production room and its greatly increased our production capacity. So much so that our assembly guys are now crying out for reinforcements too!

Models!

The mould room has seen a wave of fresh faces who are now cleaning up masters and those who previously handled that step are now cutting out moulds to head downstairs.

Looks like an elf to me!

Tom is finishing the last of the 3D prints

Shes Massive!

He also sent me over the final Vishgor

Vishy
Some poses

I was asked about the Carnevale miniature from this campaign last week as apparently she has not featured in these updates. Here she is in all her glory!

Noble

Shipping will begin next week (its only some very small orders going out initially but its a start and will be followed by larger ones each week as more product fills the shelves. Next weeks update will hopefully show the first few (very small) pledges going out the door and have a more detailed explanation of how we are managing this and when you should expect your items (This will still be a couple of months for most of you so don't get too excited yet, but do get a bit excited as its starting :D)

Boxes of miniatures for picking

Lewis has also given me some info on the RUMBLESLAM team from this kickstarter which I will share with you on the Friday the 7th! Save the date Lee!

 Back next week!

Titan & Vishgor
over 3 years ago – Fri, Jul 17, 2020 at 10:08:21 PM

Hey all

As you know we have been having some alterations done to the vishgor to end up with a more fitting end model. 

Mole or lizard?

Everything was looking much better now with the exception of the head so we got Rei to do some more sketches


Lots of options

Then we all had a vote as to which one we wanted to take futher and asked Rei to adapt it a little more

Moving aHEAD with this

This was the winner sent back to the sculptor and I think it looks far better. We have asked for a couple of changes.

Much better, wider head to come and front fangs to go!

We wanted the head wider and the front fang teeth removed. Next week I will have final posed renders. At which time they should already be printed and off to be made into production moulds.

In other news I snapped a pic of the 2UP titan being mastered last week that I totally forgot to share with you all. So you can see it now! With a halfling for scale :)

TITAN

This is going to be a very impressive model.

We had interviews this week for no less than 10 new staff with a view to increasing our production capacity so we can get this all out the door and into your hands as quickly as possible.

Katie and Kim are sorting orders into what should be available to dispatch first etc and will give me an update on expected shipping dates for the next update. I am told that we will be sending in excess of 150,000 square 20mm bases along with these models!

Back next week!