Kickstarter Double Play – Hero Forge 3D Printed Miniatures and Dice Empire: Series One

This week I’ve spent a little bit of time on Kickstarter, and through my search of the site I’ve uncovered a couple of projects I felt needed to be brought to the gaming community’s attention. Well, the projects must have already gotten some of your attention because they’re both already funded with nearly a month to go on each one. I’m talking about Hero Forge’s 3D printed tabletop miniatures and Dice Empire: Series One dice sets.

The dream of nearly every tabletop RPG player is to have a model that represents the perfect character they’ve created. When describing the character they create a fantastic image in their head, and when it comes to materializing it in a miniature, a lot of us are left with what we can find. The team at Hero Forge wanted to change that, and they’ve set in motion something I think will become immensely popular. The company has put together software that allows you to completely customize and create a tabletop miniature that Hero Forge will then print using a 3D printer and ship right to your home.

You can add anything – from chain whips to helmets with giant horns – to your miniature and even choose what pose they’ll take. Afterwards you can choose the size and type of material used to print the miniature, getting exactly what you want. For a $30 pledge, you will get access to the beta site for Hero Forge to create your miniature before the rest of the public, and the ability to create a 28mm miniature that they’ll ship to you. More reward levels include more miniatures, and bigger ones to boot.

Secondly there’s Dice Empire: Series One. Something that all gamers can use is a handful of dice. The folks at Tinderbox Entertainment have decided to help spruce up the available range of D6’s by adding unique and custom sets for players to purchase. All together this Kickstarter campaign is offering 9 full sets of dice, each with their own custom paint job.  The dice look really awesome and I am really partial to the Mainframe set. Reward levels on this campaign allow you to mix and match your dice from the different sets, and if you pledge enough you can get up to 100 dice total! The campaign is more than funded, and the dice are set to ship in June.

Both of these campaigns are great, and with about a month to go there will be plenty of stretch goals to break through. I can’t wait to be able to create my own custom tabletop miniature through Hero Forge. I think it will definitely boost my motivation to play more tabletop RPGs. With the dice from Dice Empire my Warmachine games will be more interesting. Besides, the dice will make great giveaway products (hint, hint) and gifts! You can never have too many dice, right? Check out both of these great projects and back at your leisure!