STAR EAGLES: Reflections on Kickstarter Project Expectations

When Kickstarter launched a decade ago, on April 28th, 2009, it helped to create a new kind of business model that allowed businesses and individuals to raise capital for projects in a new way. No longer did creators have to rely on loans, credit cards, and families when attempting to fulfill their dreams of being a toy maker, an inventor, a novelist, a game designer, or a host of other dream jobs. Instead, they could market their ideas to the "crowd" in the hopes that enough people would be interested in the project that they would contribute money to the creator. People could microfund or contribute large sums and support creators in their projects.

Kickstarter is now a vital revenue stream for small and medium scale creators to launch businesses or business projects, but the supporters have evolved as the platform has evolved and not always for the best. Because of the quality and success of a number of excellent Kickstarter projects, the games of Monte Cook Games starting with Numenera or the Battletech video game come quickly to mind, some people have come to believe that all projects should be as professional as these and that backing a project is more like being a pre-ordering customer than being a dream fulfilling patron. To be fair, there are huge projects like Critical Role's recent animated series project that make the patronage component very clear, but as much as I love Cool Mini or Not their highly professional projects have muddied that water somewhat.

None of this is to say that Kickstarter is "only for the small." Indeed, the platform was designed for projects of all sizes and scopes. It was meant to be used by businesses big and small as a means to fund projects that might not otherwise be funded.

And that gets to the crux of the platform. It's for projects big and small that might not otherwise be possible. It is a project enabling platform and not a pre-order system. A perfect example of the kind of small project that Kickstarter was created to enable is the Star Eagles project by Ganesha Games. 

Ganesha Games is the kind of one man shop game company that could not have existed before the internet made international communication fast and easy, changes in global banking allowed for the instant sale of international products possible, and batch print on demand services enabled the cheap printing and shipping of rulebooks. The company is currently based out of a flat in Italy and is run by the one man game designing machine Andrea Sfiligoi. They haven't hit the big time, but they make excellent game mechanics and their designs have an excellent reputation. Andrea's Song of Blades and Heroes has inspired an entire community of spinoffs and even resulted in a couple of rule books using the basic mechanics published by Osprey Publishing, a major publisher in the wargaming community.

Andrea managed to build his successful business for years without a Kickstarter, but eventually ran a project called Star Eagles in May of 2017. My guess, I haven't asked him, is that Andrea saw that there was an opportunity to grow his small company into a medium sized company and if this is the case the Star Eagles seemed a good candidate. Star Eagles is a 1/285th scale game of tactical star ship battles that uses a version of the Song of Blades and Heroes system modified by Damon Richardson to be a perfect fit for tactical space battles. The project sought a modest budget of $16,000 with which Andrea would publish a paperback version of the rulebook, tactical movement templates, condition markers, and both resin and metal miniature space ships for use with the game. It was pretty ambitious and it's clear from the marketing material that Andrea had plans for the project should it succeed at a much higher level than initially asked. For example, you can see the proposed game box Andrea hoped to manufacture if the project managed to benefit from economies of scale.

Good news for backers was that the project received enough funding to be fulfilled as promised, but the bad news for backers was that it didn't succeed at a level high enough for Ganesha Games to benefit from economies of scale and transform the company from a small to a medium sized gaming company. The project received $26,688 in pledges from 330 backers, of which about 10% would have to go to Kickstarter corporation and whomever processed the payments. That left Andrea with about $24,000 to manufacture the project, but there were some additional complications. First the 330 backers were divided into 11 categories and each of the categories were promised different packages of material ranging from only the pdf of the rules to full sets of minis, templates, dice, etc. All of this from a one man shop with no ability to benefit from economies of scale.

So...how did they do?

There have been some backers who have complained, but from my perspective I think they did an exceptional job. Given that the scale of the project pretty much meant that some of the items, the resin minis, effectively had to be molded by hand, I am really impressed. I imagine the molds were based on 3D printed models based on Damon's computer designs, but the molds likely had to be hand pressed by the production company. Let me walk you through my package, which was the "Two Squadron Starter Package."

Let's start with the quality of shipping. The fulfillment company was Alternative Armies in Scotland and as you can see, the box had a bit of a rough trip.

Rough as that box looks, it's actually one of the better looking boxes I've had shipped from the U.K. Some day I'll discuss just how brutal GamesQuest shipments have been for my merchandise. Regardless, it's not the exterior that matters, it's whether what was inside survived intact and Alternative Armies wrapped the items up securely.

Layer upon layer of bubble wrap protected the items inside and they were a sight to behold.

From my initial glance, it looked like everything was in the package and a later inventory showed that everything was there. While there were some small issues with the "color" of the resin casts, they were fully able to be assembled and had nice detail that will look very good when painted. Of course, "when painted" is a loaded term for miniature gamers as that might be never.

The shot below gives a good sense of what the ships will look like when assembled.

 

And a wide variety of ships were provided to allow for a good gaming experience.

 

Close up, you can see some nice details and you can see how some thought went into making assembly easy for hobbyists.

 

As nice as the resin figures where, it was with the metal figures that the set really showed its quality. These casts were fully complete and didn't require any assembly.

 

They also featured some pretty cool designs. 

 

 

If I did have one small complaint, it would be that the bases were of the same resin as the miniatures rather than the clear plastic shown in the initial Kickstarter. It's not a deal breaker, and these will look good painted, but they would have had more utility as clear plastic. That aside, the ability to set the dice in the bases is a nice modification.

 

The cards were of good cardstock and had good illustrations of the ships and all of the statistics you need for play.

 

 A real strong point was in the templates. It's likely that these were done by Litko Plastics, since Ganesha has some templates available from that supplier, and they always do good work. Many of these templates work for all Song of Blades and Heroes based games.

 

The turning template is really well designed and intuitive.

 

 

 Overall, I think that this is an excellent project from a small company. I wish they had been more successful as I would have liked to see what they could have done benefiting from economies of scale, but this is a yeoman's effort and is exactly what Kickstarter was designed to allow.

 

Dungeons and Dragons with 11 Year Olds is a Great Way to Spend Spring Break

A couple of weeks ago, my daughters History and Mystery asked me if I would be willing to run a D&D adventure for them and their friends as part of a Spring Break sleepover party. My response was as excited as it was swift. After dancing a quick "I win at life!" jig, I told them that I would be more than happy to run an adventure for them and their friends. My daughters and I have been playing My Little Pony: Tails of Equestria - The Storytelling Game for a little over a year, so they have a good amount of role playing game experience. As excited as I was at the prospect of running a D&D game, I wanted to make sure that the event was perfect and that it spread the love of D&D to a whole new generation. This meant that I had to approach the event with a plan, not just any plan, a master plan, ...mwa..ha...HA!!!

The first thing I did was ask James, one of my regular gaming group, if he would be willing to play in a D&D session with me and my daughters a week before the sleepover. I would have asked the entire gaming group, but our schedules are extremely difficult to juggle and we are lucky if we can get together once a month. James has one of the more flexible schedules and he not only agreed, he was as excited as I was. I knew James would be a good player mentor to bring over as he and I met when I was running 4th Edition D&D Encounters at a local game store with a group that included young teens. He's helpful without being condescending and is always "all in" to making sure others have a good time. That session was a great success and the girl's experience with My Little Pony meant that they didn't really need mentoring at all. The only real challenge was character creation. We built the characters using D&D Beyond and I began to see the first hints of what it's like to play D&D in a "post-Appendix N" world. While my daughters love to read, they haven't read a lot of what's in Appendix N or even much derivative of it. The closest they have is Adventure Time, How to Train Your Dragon, My Little Pony's D&D episode, and Norse Myths. Those go a long way, but they don't go all the way. Explaining the Paladin class as "what Finn is" works fine, but explaining what a Bard is or the nuanced differences between Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard took some time. Time well spent though as their friends had even less connection to Appendix N literature and derivatives, and zero exposure to Tolkienesque archetypes.

Having turned my daughters into the player mentors for their own gaming group, the time came to choose the adventure I'd be running. While I am happy to wing it with my own group, though we do post wing it book keeping to maintain world consistency, I wanted to have something with a solid structure that could be run in a short time. I did what any reasonable person would do and asked my friends on the Book of Faces for their advice on what adventure to run. I was quickly met with a number of responses regarding HOW I should run an adventure for young gamers. An answer to a question I didn't ask, and answers that didn't really provide anything I didn't know. Much of it was very good advice, but it wasn't advice that a 20+ year gaming veteran who has run games for tweens at game stores in the past needed. I needed advice on an adventure that could be run in four hours. I received some good recommendations, but they either came too late or were for Pathfinder. In the end, I looked through my own gaming collection to see what I could run and settled on the first Dungeon in a Box adventure: Caravan of Peril. This was an ideal choice.

David Crennan, aka "America's GM," designed the Dungeon in a Box product to fill the exact niche I was looking for and I've been a fan of his from the Saving Throw Show for quite some time. The great thing about Dungeon in a Box products is that they come with almost everything you need to run a vibrant and immersive adventure, right out of the box. All you need are the D&D rules. His box includes all the character miniatures you need, battle maps, a flexible short adventure, and some great replay value due to some evergreen content in every book. In this case, there are three pieces of evergreen content: a random caravan generator that allows you to populate any caravan with interesting characters, a random events table that is very flexible and much more in depth than a wandering monster chart, and a new type of magic item that adds depth to a campaign without breaking the game system. Below is a picture of the contents of Caravan of Peril, along with additional minis representing the player characters.

As you can see above, Crennen has provided a battlemap showing the caravan resting for the evening. In addition to the caravan on the map, he also provided a play tile of an additional wagon. This additional wagon becomes important in game play as the adventure continues. There are a number of transparent standee miniatures that have fun illustrations on them and that cover all of the creatures you need for the adventure, except for spiders. Thankfully, Trash Mob Minis has some excellent spiders that are perfect for younger gamers. You need spiders. Finally, there is a world map that hints at the larger setting of the Greenwold. It's a fantastic product and I cannot recommend it enough.

Having selected the adventure I was going to run, the next step was to to my Dungeon Master prep. I carefully put together my DM adventure worksheet, a sample of which you can see below.

The images on the worksheet are from the Trash Mob Mini set listed above and the stats are from the Roll20 SRD Compendium. I find that having sheets with the stat blocks of creatures and space to track damage to monsters is very helpful when running a D&D game. No need to pause and look things up and no need to flip though rule books. With the ability to cut and paste, this is only about 20 to 40 minutes of prep time for this adventure. The harder part was naming all the non-player characters that the kids might ignore. If you look at my worksheet, you'll see that I came up with twelve NPC names and jobs. I was able to use the caravan generator to assign the jobs, but other than the first two names the other names are all mine. I was particularly fond of Harald Pickleshipper, but the players never chatted with him. Having prepped as much as I could, all that remained was the session.

As with the the twins' earlier session, we began with character creation. Let's just say that everyone, and I mean everyone, wanted to be a wizard as their first choice. After some discussion of how the different classes complemented each other, we were finally able to get a relatively balanced party. One of the kids even agreed to be a Cleric. The final party was as follows: Claudia the Aasimar Paladin, Emmy the Aasimar Cleric of the God of Magic, Fluffkins the Elf Wizard, Gwynneth the Changeling Wizard who changes the color of her hair every hour, Nummy the Golden Dragonborn Barbarian, and Skybolt the Copper Dragonborn. Character creation took over an hour and most of that time was spent describing the various classes. Everyone knew what a wizard was, but the audience was very unfamiliar with most traditional fantasy classes. They may play Minecraft and Portal Knights, but they don't think about it the same way a D&D player does. It was interesting describing D&D classes in Portal Knights terms instead of the other way around. I helped the kids pick minis for their characters, and the majority of the minis were selected from the excellent Wardlings series by Wizkids games. Every player wanted a pet, and every wizard wanted a familiar, this worked out perfectly. Since pets in games like Portal Knights have little to no "game" effects, the kids weren't disappointed that only wizards could scout ahead using their pets. After assuring one of the players that she wouldn't be facing Demogorgon today (she HAD seen Stranger Things), the group of six young girls was ready for their first D&D campaign to begin.
 

The girls role played well during the early role play heavy encounters and seemed to enjoy my various character voices. When I gave one my best "Artful Dodger" voice (which I am certain would horrify my British friends), the girls really engaged with that character. Sadly, that was Ulmeer Tweetweaver and not Harald Pickleshipper. Some of the girls were reticent to "act" and others weren't, but all had a fun time during these scenes as I exhausted myself to make sure that everyone was included in the scenes. I didn't want any one player to dominate time and energy, which is something that can naturally happen even with experienced gamers. Over the course of the journey, the players had a couple of skirmishes and managed to tame an Owlbear, who was quickly given the name Albert the Owlbear. I found this really funny as that's what most Owlbears are called in my regular group too. It was nice to see intergenerational humor, even without shared Appendix N or Monte Python references. I will also add that the flat minis, or minis in general, were invaluable here in showing the players what the monsters look like.

After a few hours, and a few smaller fights, the time came for the first half of the big showdown. Dun, dun, DUNNNNN. In this scene, a goblin tribe sends wolves to harry the camp as they attempt to use a tamed Ogre to haul away and steal one of the caravan's wagons. An exciting fight ensued where the players succeeded in part due to their taming of Albert the Owlbear.

Having finished the first half of the big boss fight, the second half comes after the players track where this raiding party originated, I looked at my watch to see that it was past eleven at night. I knew the girls would want to have some time to themselves at the sleepover, so I ended the session there with the hope that they would all want to play again in the future.

It was a great time and one from which I learned many lessons, as I always do when gaming with new groups. The biggest challenge this time was conveying a sense of a traditional fantasy adventure when the group didn't have much experience with the genre. For example, I was surprised that my daughters were the only ones who had seen The Dragon Prince or Trollhunters on Netflix. Given that things like Adventure Time are as much a deconstruction of the archetypes of the genre as they are depictions of those archetypes, they only serve a certain level of utility in bridging the gap. All of the kids are still pretty confused regarding why Bards are a thing. And no, I didn't mock Bards. Looks like it's time to pull out some Celtic mythology off the shelves for bed time stories and to point out the places in the Norse Tales where skalds play a role.



Can't wait for the next session.

Mutants and Masterminds releases "Powered by Champions" Rulebook

[Edited Shortly After Posting -- This is an April Fool's Joke. I fell for it.]

When the Mutants & Masterminds role playing game was published in 2002, it accomplished something that many thought impossible. It created a workable and balanced superhero game that used the d20 system of the 3rd Edition of Dungeons & Dragons (link is to 3.5 edition) as its foundation and played like comic books read. Now Mutants & Masterminds is taking another wonderful step and releasing a "powered by Champions" version that will highlight one of the game's inspirations.

When Wizards of the Coast released the 3rd Edition rules set, they had created an Open Gaming License that allowed others to make role playing games and products using the mechanics of 3rd Edition without the need of additional licensing. The Open Gaming License contained all the permissions and restrictions that would apply to the new game. When Wizards of the Coast released this license, there were a number of super hero games that were quickly published by a number of independent designers. These games included, but was not limited to, The Foundation by Team Frog, Blood and Vigilance by RPG Objects, Comic Book Super Heroes RPG by Black Drink Creations, and a d20 version of Silver Age Sentinels by Guardians of Order.

These games varied in quality. All of the games were playable, but some were better simulations of comic books than others. The quality of simulation seemed to be linked with how closely the rules tried to keep to the 3rd Edition rules. The closer the system played to D&D, with classes and levels, the less the game felt like comic book gaming at the table top. In the case of a game like Silver Age Sentinels, which had an excellent system of its own in its non-d20 version, some where surprised that they would attempt a d20 version. Such was the nature of the early d20 boom that even successful games like Deadlands and Traveller, released d20 versions as ways to increase brand recognition and gain exposure to more players.

Mutants & Masterminds displaced or reimagined many of the core concepts of 3rd Edition, like class and levels, and added elements from the classic DC Heroes Game by Mayfair Games. Those elements become even more evident in the 3rd edition of Mutants & Masterminds. The influence of DC Heroes is most visible in the freeform and narrative nature of the combat mechanics. Many D&D mechanics, like flanking, are legacy "Zone of Control" mechanics from both miniature and chit-n-hex wargames. These legacy mechanics are wonderful for the use of miniatures and ensure that certain combat situations are clearly visible on the table, but they are harder to implement without miniatures. My own 3rd edition group began using miniatures (though they were Steve Jackson Games' Cardboard Heroes minis due to the low cost) because we all got tired of asking "is this creature flanking?" Mutants & Masterminds streamlined the combat system toward narrative play and modified the character creation system to be an abstract point buy system similar to DC Heroes and Champions. It was a marvelous combination that resulted in that impossible achievement noted above. It was a super hero role playing game, using a d20 based system, that played like the comic books read. Since its publication it has become one of the best selling super hero games of all time.

The super hero role playing game community is an interesting group though. They tend to collect as many games within the genre as they can and like to borrow ideas from one game and put them in another. A trend in the early super hero rpg scene was for publishers to include rules to port characters from one system to another. That is not a trend that one sees often today, but it is one that Green Ronin appears to be embracing with their latest announcement. Not only will they be providing a version of the Mutants & Masterminds game powered by the Champions RPG engine. They will be releasing a host of products using their IP and other super hero game mechanics. They announced this move today with the creation of the  System Upkeep, Collaboration, & Knowledge Exchange Roundtable.

Here is a copy of that announcement:

For far too long, we here at Green Ronin have stuck our head in the sand and focused entirely on the Mutants & Masterminds game engine, ignoring the many other superhero game systems that came before. And ultimately, that kind of myopia doesn’t benefit anyone but ourselves. Our fans deserve better. We’ve long partnered with Steve Kenson’s Adamant Entertainment to bring you Icons Superpowered Roleplaying, and so we have reached out to the creators of other amazing superhero game engines, both active and defunct, to begin the new Mutants & Masterminds System Upkeep, Collaboration, & Knowledge Exchange Roundtable. Our goal is to bring you the great Mutants & Masterminds products you love, for the systems you play! Releasing at the end of this month is the new Mutants & Masterminds: Deluxe Champions Handbook, powered by classic Champions 3rd edition! Everything you need to play a Champions-powered Mutants & Masterminds campaign, complete with extensive point-buy systems our fans already love, plus tracking END to pay for your powers, sorting your attacks in Killing and Non-Killing, and many other elements that add a much-needed authenticity M&M has always lacked. A lot of you will ask “why not use Hero System, Sixth Edition or Champions Complete?” And that is an excellent question. One which I have no answer to. Licensing is a strange mistress and the rites must be observed. 

We’ve been hard at work to fill out the System Upkeep, Collaboration, & Knowledge Exchange Roundtable line, and you’ll be seeing monthly releases to support it for the next year. After the release of the Mutants & Masterminds: Deluxe Champions Handbook this month, expect soon-to-be fan favorites like Freedom City powered by Villain & Vigilantes, Emerald City powered by Heroes Unlimited, and Rogues Gallery powered by Street Fighter the Storytelling Game!

It's great news for the Mutants & Masterminds brand and it's great news for super hero gamers.

With the Warhammer Adventures Series Games Workshop is on a Quest for Younger Readers. Do the Books Hit the Mark?

Games Workshop recently launched two new Warhammer related book series under the Warhammer Adventures label, one series for the Age of Sigmar fantasy setting and one for the Warhammer 40k science fiction setting. Games Workshop has a long history of publishing media tie-in fiction for their game lines. One can find Warhammer related novels and short stories dating back to the late 1980s with titles like Ignorant Armies and Konrad.  As of this blog post there are well over 100 Warhammer related novels with a number of stand out series like Gotrek & Felix and Dan Abnett's Ghaunt's Ghosts. Games Workshop, like TSR/Wizards of the Coast, have shown themselves to be excellent providers of genre fiction.

So the publication of a new line of books shouldn't be news, right? Normally it wouldn't be news outside of how it affected the metafiction, but this is Games Workshop's first foray into Young Reader Chapter Book fiction. Past Games Workshop fiction has been aimed at the 12 and older crowd, but these new series are aimed at readers aged 8-12. TSR/Wizards of the Coast published a number of books for this cohort, starting (and continuing to this day) with their Endless Quest series of books where reader choices. Games Workshop has not reached out to this audience in the past, though it's founders did with the Fighting Fantasy Gamebook series, and there is a reason for that.

Game Workshop's settings are in the genre frequently referred to as "GrimDark" fantasy and science fiction. This genre features settings that are filled with despair and violence and one might include writings like Michael Moorcock's Elric Saga or Karl Edward Wagner's Kane books as non-Games Workshop exemplars. Though the GrimDark genre predates Games Workshop, there can be little doubt that the neologism GrimDark has it's origins in the tagline of the Warhammer 40k Universe, "In the Grim Darkness of the Future, there is Only War." That line sets the tone for all of Games Workshop's game universes, so what room does that leave for fiction aimed at Chapter Book readers?

The simple answer to this question is, "plenty." As grim and dark as the Games Workshop settings are, they also have a history of adjacent silliness. Games like Blood Bowl and GorkaMorka take place in horrifically terrifying worlds, but they are extremely lighthearted. Games like these show a more kid friendly face, but this kind of appeal isn't limited to spinoffs. Games Workshop Grognards who followed the development of the Brettonian army in Warhammer Fantasy can testify to how the game became more kid friendly in the 90s. While the Brettonia of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Game of the 1980s was a place of corruption, debauchery, and vice that made Game of Thrones look civilized, by the time the Brettonians received their own book for the Warhammer Fantasy Battle Game they had been transformed into the noble knights of Howard Pyle and Roger Lancelyn Green rather than extras from Flesh + Blood. The company has always pursued younger players and has altered the tone of their setting to accommodate both young and old. I call their most successful attempts to bridge this gap "DimDark." It's grim enough that adults can enjoy it and see that it reflects the overall setting, while also being innocent enough that 9 year olds don't get nightmares.

So how do they fare this time? Do these new books manage to capture the feel of the setting, while still being "appropriate" for younger readers? The answer to this question is, "Yes, for the 40k inspired series and we'll have to see how the series develops for the Age of Sigmar inspired series." In a way, the answer reflects the depth of the settings themselves. The Warhammer 40k setting is long-standing and rich with detail, where the Age of Sigmar setting is newer and still not completely flushed out. To demonstrate this, let's examine the books in some detail.

We'll start with Warhammer Adventures: The City of Lifestone by Tom Huddleston. Not to be confused with the actor who plays Loki, Huddleston is an established author of young reader fiction who has written original fiction and media tie-in fiction for the Star Wars setting.

The City of Lifestone begins its tale on a world of fire and fury called the Plane of Aqshy. For those not versed in SF/F lore, a plane is a universe in its own right. Aqshy is one of the many "Mortal Realms" of the Age of Sigmar setting and it is also known as the Plane of Fire. The book's protagonist, Kiri, is currently enslaved by Chaos worshiping Darkoath Barbarians. These barbarians are similar to the Bloodreavers featured in the Shadespire Boardgame. Kiri's mother is dying and tells her that she must flee this realm and find the city of Lifestone, located on Ghyran the Plane of Life, using the Realmgate recently unearthed by the Darkoath Barbarians. Lifestone is a place of scholarship and healing from which Kiri's mother fled due to a mysterious, and as yet unexplained, cataclysm. Though under normal circumstances, such an escape would be impossible, a company of Stormcast Eternals arrive and attack the Darkoath Barbarians providing a perfect distraction. The Stormcast Eternals, Champions of Sigmar and Opponents to Chaos, want to keep the gate out of the hands of the Darkoath Barbarians. This conflict provides Kiri with a chance to escape, even as she leaves her dead mother behind.

As an aside, this also provides a perfect segue into the Shadespire Boardgame, since that game's introductory units are the very Darkoath-esque Bloodreavers and the Stormcast Eternals. Though the game takes place at a location far from Kiri's slave camp, it really does make a nice tie-in to bring in new gamers and the Shadespire game is young gamer friendly in the highest.

After fleeing Aqshy, Kiri eventually finds the City of Lifestone, only to find that the city is not the vibrant and happy paradise she imagined. It is a solemn and dying city, who's once great fountain of healing has long since dried up. Kiri is on the edge of despair when she gets caught up in the machinations of two individuals a mysterious hooded woman and a sinister Shadowcaster. The hooded woman warns Kiri that the Shadowcaster kidnaps children, including her own child, but when Kiri meets those children (Kaspar, Thanis, Alish, and Elio) they don't behave like kidnap victims and instead tell her that they are fated to be together. Was the hooded woman a liar, or is the Shadowcaster using magic to enslave the children as a kind of wizardly Fagin?

The book is engaging on many levels and has at its core a good adventure spark. There are suggestions that the children are indeed linked by marks they bear, one for each of the Mortal Realms, and that their link might be connected with the cataclysm that overcame Lifestone a generation ago. The character mix has all the elements of a fantasy party.

There is our protagonist Kiri, who is untrusting of others and wants to go it alone.

 

 

She is joined by the warrior girl/woman Thanis, who sadly only has armored gloves and no sword. 

 

The mechanically minded Alish, who has a giant hammer that she uses to good effect. 

The sneaky Kaspar, who may or may not be the child of the mysterious hooded woman.

Finally there is Elio, the proto-witch hunter though a more scholarly witchhunter than one typically imagines in the Warhammer Universes.

It's a good mix of characters for an epic adventure, but due to the young age of the protagonists Huddleston's adventurer's actions are decidedly non-lethal. Kiri, for example, wields a slingshot (called a catapult in the book) which is effective at hurting, but not at killing, foes. Given that the setting is dim-dark, this lack of lethality hurts the plausibility of the storyline and undermines an otherwise epic tale. For some storylines, the lack of lethality by young protagonists would be fine, but this particular story has a scene where the adventurers fight a pack of Skaven. Given that the Skaven are portrayed as a lethal threat, the characters non-lethal weaponry seems unrealistic. It's a small flaw given that the book is written for 11 and under, but it is a flaw none the less. The book needs a little more "Grim" on the part of the protagonists to successfully pull off the new "Dim-Dark" genre.

Overall, the book is a quick and engaging read, but it suffers from the fact that the Age of Sigmar setting is still lacking in mythopoetic worldbuilding. Since the "Mortal Realms" diverges from many standard fantasy tropes, even as it uses them as a foundation, it requires more exposition of the mythic setting than is possible in a book this length. One cannot, for example, use their rough knowledge of the Holy Roman Empire to serve as a proxy for The Empire when reading these books. The "Celestial Realm" where the Stormcast Eternals live shares more with Asgard than with any other proxy, and even then the connection is not strong enough for the reference to serve as a proxy. I expect that as the series continues, and as the setting itself continues to be developed with lore etc., that this drawback will fade into the background.