Through the Breach Quality Update and Future Purchases

I would like to update some information from my post about product quality from the kickstarter package I received for the Through the Breach RPG. My initial impressions can be found here. The quality is still good. The majority of the update concerns the female multi-part model.

The top of the shoulders on the female models is even with the top of the heads on my other Malifaux models. This includes both metal and plastic models along with the male multi-part model the female multi-part model was packaged with. This height difference is in the legs. Many of the legs have a gap between the bottom of the pants and the shoes that may be trimmed out to compensate for this discrepancy if desired. It will be harder to fix on models wearing jeans. I would first try just below the knee.

Wyrd reported a problem with a previous run on the model being out of scale and these models are supposedly smaller than that run had been, but they are still on the tall side. The difference was such that they were able to get more parts onto the sprue after fixing the old run. The female heads are slightly smaller than the heads on my other Malifaux models. This makes the overall model slightly taller than other models sold by Wyrd Miniatures, but not overwhelmingly so unless shown up close and when level with the models. It is unlikely to distract from games when viewed from above or across a table.

I believe Wyrd might be aware of this issue, but not before they shipped the kickstarter. In the updates it read like the female multi-part model was the last thing to arrive aside from the hardcover book and they started shipping the packages out almost immediately after the models came in. The multi-part male model was available for sale during Gen Con where the female multi-part model was not.

Another quality issue that is likely limited to kickstarters is there were not enough bases packed with the two sprues to place all the models on. The kickstarter packaged the male and female sprues together, but only provided enough bases to accommodate either/or. The sale description on the company's website states the male sprue can make eleven models so I speculate it will only be the kickstarters looking for more bases.

The books have been holding up well so far. A three year old has been playing with one in limited doses and I have been doing things like placing the book page down while open then letting cats walk across them. I am thinking about getting at least The Fated Almanac (Player's Handbook) spiral bound so it can take years of abuse, but it is holding up surprisingly well so far.

In my reading of the books I have not been tripping over any glaring grammatical errors. I do not mean to imply that they do not exist, but in reading both books at least once they seem to have decent proofreading put into them.

The cards I received slide more than I would like in spite of being textured. I still do not think I will sleeve them as they are highly resistant to tears, creases, and stains as far as cards go.

Right now I am looking at additional purchases. On top of the kickstarter contents, I would like to buy some more card decks. I want at least one for each player. I also want each deck to have different backs. The game uses one communal deck and each player makes their own deck of thirteen cards which may be added to later in the campaign. The Fatemaster does not usually draw cards and can use the communal deck so there is no need for an individual deck there. Different backs makes it easier to separate out which card goes where if they happen to get mixed up. I currently have two older Malifaux decks with different backs along with the one from Through the Breach. I will be picking up a minimum of two more decks, but will try to locate four more with different backs which uses the Malifaux suits. Wyrd sells a few different ones I do not own yet, and I can always sleeve cards to mark different decks depending on what I can get locally.

That is it for this quality update and purchase plans. The only other thing I can think to possibly purchase at this point is miniatures. You can make a lot of different player characters from the multi-pose models so I do not feel the need to buy more models except possibly to act as NPCs. I have over a hundred Reaper Bones and hundreds of Games Workshop models I can use for NPCs so I am covered there. I feel Sisters of Sigmar, Goblins, and Skaven models can slide into the setting fairly easy appearance wise or as stand-ins. If you are playing with a group that already owns a variety of factions in Malifaux then you are probably covered for NPCs if the players are willing to show up with their models.