BOT WAR Miniature Game, Kickstarter from Traders Galaxy

Bot War is an 8mm human scale skirmish game with models ranging in size from 8mm up to 120mm

Story

My name is Anthony and I am the owner of a one person Australian company called Traders Galaxy.  I am also the owner of Bot War Miniature Game.  Both company and game have come from humble beginnings and for the most part have been built with sweat (and sometimes blood! :))  in my home garage over the last 2 years. 

It's true that Bot War already has a passionate following of awesome gamers and hobbyists.  Previous versions of the game have sold pretty well across the world.  Bot War Second Edition, released a year ago, was my first "boxed" game that was financed only by customer preorders and my personal money.  Because of limited funds at the time, there were many things I wanted to add, but just couldn't.

So this year I feel its time to get everything in the game that I wanted to before.  And at the same time, release a bunch of awesome new miniatures in resin.  Previously, almost all Bot War models were spin cast metal.  However, this year I have already started to release my first resin miniatures.  Essentially this means that although this is my first Kickstarter,  I already have everything in place from 2 years of selling Bot War miniatures and products.  This includes multiple established contractors in manufacturing as well as, artists and sculptors.  Furthermore, I have deliberately limited the number of backers to what I am easily able to deliver, and like all good Kickstarters, hope to deliver ahead of the set date.

All of the Starter Set miniature sculpts and artwork are already completed, as are all of the stretch goal miniatures.  The upgraded rules are also written and only require design layout for printing.  Its just a matter of hitting the production go button.

In order to keep things super simple I have just a single pledge.   This pledge is for the Starter Set boxed game that includes 6 highly detailed resin Valiant miniatures, 6 highly detailed Atlantican miniatures, 50 energy cube tokens, 5 red shield dice, 5 purple attack dice, 4 black critical dice, 12 character cards, 1 A5 rulebook and a tape measure.  The first 200 pledges will also receive a Kickstarter Exclusive bounty hunter "Cadmia" miniature.

However that's not all!  And here is where the massive value kicks in.  For every 14 pledges after the first 200, EVERY will receive an additional free miniature.  So at 214 pledges everyone who pledged gets an extra free model.  228 pledges everyone received 2 additional models.  This will continue up to the limit of 500 pledges meaning that if this Kickstarter hits the 500 limit, then every pledge would receive an additional 22 miniatures on top the the Starter Set box (see images below for more details).

The Game

Bot War is an 8mm scale skirmish game where Humans, Mermen, Monsters, Aliens and of course, giant Bots, battle it out across an Earth set in the 1980's.  The background follows each of the 10 factions of the game straight after the near destruction of the Democracy (USA) at the hands of King Gills Atlantican forces.

The game is simple to learn but difficult to master due to the huge amount of freedom of choice within the game.  A typical game of Bot War is played on a 3ftx3ft tabletop battlefield using 5-10 amazing Bot War miniatures.  Each model generates energy, and this energy is used to activate each of your characters.  Each character may move, shoot, use a ranged attack, close attack, or even their super ability.

There are videos on my Youtube Channel showing the basics of the game and a few full games being played.  Check them out here

  This Kickstarter is to raise funds to produce the Bot War Miniature Game Starter Set (Third Edition).  In addition to this, funds will help finance more outsourcing for the miniature manufacturing in resin.   It presents a fantastic opportunity to release the new upgraded sculpts for the Valiant, Atlantican, Democracy, Red Star and Deceiver ranges.  Any left over funds will go towards outsourcing resin manufacturing for the existing range which is a crucial for the growth of Traders Galaxy and Bot War.

 Join the community here -

Traders Galaxy/Bot War Website:

Bot War Facebook Community (Primary source of Bot War info):

Bot War Youtube Channel:

Project email: tradersgalaxyksproject@gmail.com

 The Background

The year is 1985…..

For the last 40 years the Democracy had been the dominant power on Earth. Early in its reign the Democracy was the nation that inspired nearly all other nations. Its citizens had a vision, and their values brought out what was best in humanity. The nation held up freedom as a pillar of humanity’s very existence, and as a result the Democracy’s empire had been expanded to encompass most of the globe. At least this is this is how it started out, but like all empires before it, the inevitable happened.

The wealth and prosperity of those early years bred corruption within the population. A secret cult arose like a cancer within the Democracy. A cult that craved power, it sought influence at every level of Democracy society.

This was never more prevalent than in the seats of political power. Here the corruption coalesced and evil coiled slowly around society like the body of a giant boa constrictor. The voices of good people were shouted down as the coils tightened their grip on power. Slowly the admiration other nations felt towards the Democracy turned into fear as the very breath of freedom was squeezed out. Only the equally corrupted Red Star Nations opposed the Democracy and the two nations formed a stalemate based on a “mutual destruction” scenario. The world was divided. The larger portion belonging to the Democracy and its allies, the lesser in the iron grip of the Red Star Nations.

This was the situation on Earth, when in 1981, a kingdom belonging to neither side rose up and attacked all surface nations.

Deep beneath the oceans of the Earth, an ancient kingdom thrived. The kingdom of Atlantica. Atlantica had been on Earth since the dawn of time. It covers much of the deepest ocean floors. Protected from discovery by the crushing pressure of the depths. Myths and legends of Atlantica existed on the surface, but the truth had long since passed into the realms of fairy tales or conspiracy theorists.

The Atlantican invasion forces were technologically superior to anything the surface forces could possibly hope to muster. Atlantican vehicles could operate equally well underwater as they could on dry land, making lightning strikes on coastal cities almost impossible to predict.

Within a month, nearly every coastal city on the globe was in Atlantican hands. Possessing the largest coastline, the Democracy was hard pressed. Its corrupted leadership was seemingly in disarray, and many felt the government much more suited to working clandestinely than to formulate any strategy to deal with the Atlanticans. Often this led to whole cities being abandoned by the Democracy government and millions of people being enslaved by the Atlanticans as a result.

Towards the end of 1981, things looked all but over for the Democracy. A terrible malady had descended on the population which sapped the very souls of the remaining population. The military had also fragmented into a mix of guerrilla forces supplemented by citizen militia. As King Gills himself marched towards the makeshift capital, the citizen militia braced themselves for the final battle. It would be death for certain, but many thought it better to die defending their home than in the slave pits of Atlantica.

The dawn of the final attack arrived with a portent flaming comet in the sky. Some thought it was the incoming initial barrage of some new Atlantican weapon. The Atlanticans thought it was another failed Democracy missile. Both were wrong. Strangely within the Democracy defensive lines, hope seemed to return. The malady that had descended in the early stages of the war had lifted.  Whether this had anything to do with the comet or whether it was some other important event, no one knows.

The comet was in fact, a spacecraft. The ship crashed down within the thinly held Democracy lines and from the wreckage emerged the first gigantic Bots known as Valiants. Not much is recalled of this first meeting, however an alliance was forged, and the beleaguered Democracy forces were suddenly bolstered by these new powerful entities.

This hasty alliance spelled doom for King Gills. Unable to combat the Bot threat, the Atlantican forces were literally smashed to pieces. By New Years Eve of 1982 the Atlanticans were in full retreat. Thousands of mermen died in what became a total route from the surface territories. In a month, the last of the retreating Atlanticans disappeared beneath the waves.

Despite victory, there were no celebrations. The world was in disarray and chaos. During the aftermath of what is now called the First Atlantican War the Valiants helped keep the peace and rebuild essential infrastructure. The citizen militia formed an interim government and the corrupted government cult was exposed. Cult leaders were put on trial, and many were executed by vengeful mobs or imprisoned. But the more important cult leaders escaped to tin pot nations in accordance with long prepared plans.

Here they maintained their power and the cult legitimised itself into Snake Corporation, a vile global corporation that traffics primarily in black market technologies. Snake Corp deals in anything that will bring them more power and with that, eventual world domination. They have no limits when it comes to achieving this goal.

Towards the latter half of 1982 things began to resemble a picture of general life before the Atlantican war. The Democracy was in ruins, but it had its soul back, and this burned brighter than it had in decades. Snake Corp was an ever-present threat, but they were exposed, weakened and in hiding.

Delegations between the Valiants and the Democracy worked to strengthen the relations between the two factions. It was during these talks that the origins of the Valiants became known.

The Valiants once existed in a spiritual universe. They possessed no physical bodies but instead consisted of powerful strings of code held together within a consciousness. This code was organised and sustained by the One, a supreme being of infinite power. Of all the Valiant codes, the most powerful was called Galaxy.

At some point in the Valiants past, Galaxy grew proud and rose up in rebellion against the One. Many Valiants sided with Galaxy and a war was fought within the spiritual universe. Eventually Galaxy and the rebellion was overthrown by the One’s champion, Ducal. Forced to kneel before the throne, the rebel’s hatred remained unabated. Their sentence; an eternity in torment via a stasis prison. Sealed within the nothingness of the prison, the rebels were sent out from the realm, doomed to float through spiritual space forever. However, fate had other plans, and something went wrong. The prison breached real space and was on a collision trajectory with Earth. A Valiant team led by Ducal was assembled to retrieve the prison and return it to spiritual space.

At the breach point of real space, the Valiants received strong metal bodies with which to house their codes, as well as a ship with which to easily traverse the physical realm. During this journey disaster struck, their ship colliding with the prison, severing it in several places. The largest part of the ship crashed into the Democracy lines which heralded the alliance. The other parts were scattered throughout the solar system.

The prison itself crashed months earlier than the ship deep in the Democracy forests. What happened to the prison and the rebel Valiants inside can only be pieced together through scattered reports and the Valiants own investigations.

It appears that two Democracy teams attended the prison crash site. The first was from a research team within the government. This team was made up of brilliant scientists headed up by the billionaire genius William Starr. The second team were government contractors from COILS laboratory. Later, all the government scientists including William Starr were found executed at the crash site. The stasis prison was also gone, moved to a secret COILS location.

Within that facility dangerous rituals and experiments were conducted on the prison. One of these caused an entity trapped within to escape. Removed from the One’s presence permanently, the Valiants inside the prison had been twisted and eternally corrupted. No longer recognisable as Valiants, they became known as Deceivers.

The escaped Deceiver, having no physical body, aligned its code with the closest code as corrupted as itself. This happened to be one of the COILS scientists. The nightmare scenario that followed resulted in the possessed scientist creating a giant Bot body. The Deceiver then downloaded its code into the body and proceeded to destroy everything in sight. Only one person escaped alive. The Deceiver then freed all its imprisoned comrades, releasing their codes directly into the ether. This caused the very atmosphere to be polluted with their malevolent code. Using the materials from the destroyed laboratory, the Deceiver then created a hellish Bot factory, manufacturing new physical bodies in accordance with the specifications embedded within each of the disembodied Deceiver codes.

The Deceivers, now possessing powerful physical bodies of their own, soon discovered that Ducal and other Valiants were on Earth and battles erupted between the two factions. Thus, began the Bot War which has raged almost 3 years. The struggle has now expanded globally, and additional factions have become embroiled in the seemingly endless conflict.

Risks and challenges

There are always risks associated with outsourced manufacture. For this Kickstarter these are greatly reduced because I already have an established contract with two resin miniature manufacturers who are currently making different lines of Bot War miniatures. In addition to this, all but one model has already been digitally sculpted. All this preliminary work has already been financed by sales from existing Bot War products. The shipping date for this project is scheduled for January 21. This is an estimation based on my experience delivering the previous Bot War boxed set and the current Bot War resin miniature delivery times. Finally, I have capped backers to 500 because I know that’s what I can safely and easily deliver.

A brief note on Covid 19 - There are no delays expected from the Covid 19 Pandemic. My resin production factory has not experienced delays at the time of completing this project and have done an awesome job delivering all existing orders on time. I hope you are all well and I humbly thank you for supporting my project.

Kickstarter
Traders Galaxy