Empress Miniatures Kickstarter

A study in frustration,

Some consideration on  my first Kickstarter.

Well it is almost one month after the launch… Empress Miniatures had gone whole in the pacific project. Release date is projected for Christmas. It has a whole load of awfully awesome figures. I have to be happy. I spent money in it. I have to be satisfied.

Well I am not, or at least not completely.

 

The miniatures are great. I saw them in the metal at salute, and the pictures are very good. As you can simply see by yourself.

The initial proposal was well thought, if a bit small. You have 20 different miniatures per range (and the two USMC variations, Helmet and boonie hat so it is 40 for the USMC).  The price is 35£ (well if they had not put the thing on the day of my VIVA I could have grabbed the early birds for 30£) per 20 miniatures postage included. It is not cheap, but is a bit cheaper than average prices around. I have pledged for one full group of USMC in helmets and one full PLA.  Now while I cannot complain on the basic kickstarter options, the so called stretch goals had been an huge disappointment. You had plenty of special forces for the US side (already provided by other manufactures), a small selection of PLA troops, one vehicle that is useless for the project, a 4 pack Australian range that… well… I am not interested into in this form (too small, no support weapons and the lime)  and useful packs only toward the end of the line. 

I am loath to criticize my friends from Empress Miniatures, but well, I realized that after the initial order I did not care about the stretch goal. In my humble opinion they were largely unrelated to the topic and made (except the last and largely unattainable ones) more to please the crowd rather that enhance the value of the package.  I would never have appeased the crowd. Well, as people who knows me personally,  I am not someone that minces words even when it is in my interest to do that… so I will not mince words this time. The crowd (actually a small group of no more than 5-6 individuals on the kickstarter website had only confirmed me that the bulk of wargamers are plainly stupid without any hope for recovery. Well, I have formed this opinion in countless game shows in Italy and reading the posts in several forums, including those pool of infinite idiocy and cheap wisdom like BGG and TMP. The Empress Kickstarter had been just a confirmation.

Two things have popped up to my eyes (again). Firstly the fact that wargamers always ask for product that are already available in our niche market. Secondly that the crowd are always wanting the fashion things of the moment. They wanted Seals for operation Neptune. Well, you have a crappy movie, you have books… but how many time you can do such a scenario? How many time you can make similar actions? Also everyone seemed to have forgot that these things are already available. Eureka does them and are quite nice. What the net result is? That you have a lot or repetition in flashy more or less useless things and then you lack the backbone of the basic forces you need. The other requests were also useless, helicopters, trucks and other stuff that frankly has no place in average table.  Again vox populi, vox dementiae.  I hope the team will still expand the range with proper packs anyway.

So in conclusion what I think of this kickstarter?

Well I am happy to have supported empress. I am happy of the fact that the USMC and PLA will be made. On hindsight I think that the random addition provided by the Kickstarter will in turn be useful for the Empress’ catalogue. On the other hand I think that the Kickstarter in the end lacked soul. The droolers would have drooled anyway even if Empress gave them teddy bears. I have seen their ilk on TMP countless times. Everytime a new product appears some people drool notwithstanding the product itself. 

Kickstarter could be a viable approach to funding new range. It is in no way from the pre-order systems companies like GMT uses for serious wargames. Yet I am not captivated by the stretch goal system. Well, give me a serious and coherent plan from the start, not just thrown in miniatures based on the whim of people that I consider the bane of the hobby. Instead of having two god fleshed out ragnes we have bit and pieces of three and a bit with no coherency. Let’s face it, if you talk about a conflict between US and PRC the MATV is something you will not use. The type 05 presented as last goal or a type 99 MBT would have been much more appropriate. Of course the MATV, if it will ever be produced in the resin will be useful for Iraq and Afghanistan, but it does not belong to this kickstarter, like the silly divers and frogmen. In conclusion while I am satisfied with my pre-order and I wish Paul and Keith (and their wives) a great success, I am not really taken by the whole Kickstarter approach with stretch goals. I just prefer a simple pre-order that spell in advance what will be available. 

Well, still, if you want some superior USMC and PLA miniatures there are 4 days to go, so please pre-order them if you like them. I know that this will not help me in getting the miniatures I want (too far away along the queue), and that probably will just satisfy the idiot-gamers, but still will support Empress Miniatures that I like and support.    

and here is the link I expect you to click ASAP...

Devil Dogs and Dragon

The Marines Have Landed

Time to send the Marines!

As usual the post will mix a little fluff and some (bad as usual) pictures. 

The III Marine Expeditionary Force

The other main component of US Force China is the III MEF. Once being a full Amphibious Corps, the Vth, the III MEF has shrunken and grown according to the whim of Washington. At the moment, It has been expanded to MEF sized again, but until March 2025 it was just a single Expeditionary Brigade, the 4^th.  The expansion has been hurried and unit have been thrown up as fast as possible to create some sort of deterrent force in time. Still they are the most organized and cohesive force beside the PLA. The III MEF comprises the full 1^st Marine Division, the 3^rd Marine division (still a sort of rump, it was brought up to strength in 2015 for the China War then after the ceasefire again reorganized as a rump to save money), and the 4^th Marine Expeditionary Brigade. The Two divisions comprise the Vth Amphibious Corps and the 4^th MEB is the theatre reserve.   The Marines have not changed much in the past 10 years. The failure of the F-35 Project has left with a legacy force of proven F-18 and AV8B. The airframes have been constantly updated and probably they are much better than the amorphous machine that was supposed to replace them (yes I do not like the Joint Silly Fighter,  ask the BAE program manager…). Vehicles had stayed the same. The china war stopped the corps cold with his idea of replacing the LAV and the war expenses killed the AAV replacement program. To a certain extent the 2015 War in China has sent shock waves and almost frozen several new equipment programs worldwide. Huge losses in equipment, the realization that depending on technology for game changing miracle was a fool’s errand, and the necessity to rapidly expand conventional forces to cope with a conflict of such proportion have forced a revision of several programs (plus I got to use my toys that is the main reason of the campaign…). To a certain extent the US had been force to quickly refurbish older generation tanks (M48A5 and M60A3) for the 2015 war and it still maintain large stocks of them to allow rapid mobilization of reserve forces at bargain prices.

The 4^th MEB

Having been the only resident unit in Shanghai the 4^th MEB (or, like some officers called it the 4^th Marines) had been a critical element in US policy in China. In the last three years the brigade has provided mainly a standing force and security patrol (mounted, dismounted, and riverine) along the easternmost part of the Blue Line. It has never been employed along the ‘Corridor’ to Beijing. While officially in a reserve posture the Brigade had several clashes with bandits that have recently escalated with the rise of the CPPW (Chinese Party of Peasants and Workers). The Brigade is made up of the 4^th marines (3 battalions) one artillery battalion from the 11^th Marines (usually on rotation), and company sized attachment from the 1^st Tank battalion, 1^st combat engineer Battalion, and other support units. The command staff was drawn from the 1^st Marine division. Usually an additionally afloat MEU was on call. With the deployment of the 3^rd and 1^st Marine divisions in spring and early summer 2025 the Brigade had been restructured and named III MEF Theatre Reserve. It has lost the 2/11^th Marines and the company attachments, but gained several reserve elements, the 1/23^rd, the 4^th Tank Battalion, the 4^th Light Recon Battalion, the 4^th Combat Engineer Battalion,  the 2^nd battalion 14^th Marines (155mm Artillery) and elements of the 4^th Amphibious Tractor Battalion. The reserve attachments are intended to be temporary  while the administration and the JCS debated the idea to call to active service the whole 4^th Marine Division. The speed of the Russian assault and the semi-conventional Tet style offensive of the CPPW in the area around shanghai ensure that the brigade was committed as it was, instead of being the nucleus for a third Marine Division in China.

The commander of the Brigade, General McDaniels, had been the main point of contact with the other national contingents and the PLA, often straying away from official guidance from the State Department’s Mission to keep the multinational force together. His work with other officers still ensured that when the enemy offensive came there was some kind of cohesive response. The 4^th MEB had also spawned the man who, almost singlehandedly destroyed the Administration plan to cut and run.  

The Miniatures

 

The Marines are Eureka, bought at salute in 2012 and finally completed last April. Now have been reinforced by 2 MG and one smaw team waiting in the painting line (actually waiting until miss Mya is back into London so I can get my forward deployed painting set again). I have decided to go for a Desert Marpat theme opposed to a woodland. Well it was a quite difficult decision. I like both schemes (and you can see the images of the Recon team in Woodland) and probably I am a bit better with the woodland than with the desert. Still the troops had been secured with the aim ot employ them into Fallujiah and Anbar province first. The first fire team had been painted almost immediately after Salute 2012. I am not 100% sure of the scheme, It works from a distance but well… I am more satisfied with the Multicam and ACU. The pictures I have seen in recent books are sometime puzzling, sometime the overall impressions look more creamy (as in my guys) sometimes more sandy. The rationale is that some of the Marine Units deployed are coming from different theatres so they are saddled with the equipment already distributed. The III MEF had been hurriedly built. On the other hand the Majority of 28mm Scenarios will use only one reinforced squad usually, so probably I will be able to have sufficient troops in woodland Marpat. I will definitely  do Woodland when I will get the Empress new arrivals… (well first KS has to… well… start). Supporting this force I have 2 deAgostini LAV25 die-cast (1/43 more or less) that I have repainted in three tones  NATO camo and 2 Hobby master 1/56 M1A1, one desert and one NATO Camo that are quite nice. It was a real shame that hobby master did not pursue its range of 1/56 vehicles.

Well I found an old image of the desert version of the M1A1...

The weathering was done by default I paid it very little (around 28$) and I was really impressed.

The M1A2!

Well I found some pictures of my Imprint M1A2... yes the eagle eyed will have spotted it before... it is also on Imprint website...

Anyway here it is in NATO 3 tones camo!

I Like it, I like the camo (again the flash killed a bit and made the green look quite strange... I promise I will take better pictures!)

The US Army is coming!

A Brief Description of US Army Forces China and US Army Force Korea.

By 2025 the bulk of forward deployed Army units were stationed in China, Korea with attendant reserves in Hawaii and Japan. At the height of the first phase of the US commitment to China in 2015 more than 10 division equivalent had been deployed there. In the ten subsequent years the force has shrunk down to one full division (4^th Infantry) Defending Beijing, to Forward Divisions command (1^st Armoured and 25^th Infantry)  stationed in Shanghai without real troops assigned and to full divisions in South Korea, (2^nd Infantry and 1^st CAV) watching the new DMZ. Usually one or two brigades were deployed in rotation to Shanghai to provide some show of force. By December 2024 the USAFC was at its minimum levels, with the talks of withdrawing two of the BCT (Brigade Combat Team) from Beijing and the two Forward Division Command post from Shanghai. In a duel of wills and wits between State (advocating withdrawal of the entire USAFC) and Defense (asking for deploying at the least the components of the 1^st Armoured and 25^th Infantry) the SECDEF was able to have a brigade of the 25^th and a National Guard Brigade sent to China in January. Increased instability and a scandal damaging the reputation of the entire State Department Mission in china (their director of operations had been caught using State and Defense channels to smuggle archaeological artefacts and people from China) strengthened the hand of Defense allowing the SecDef to win presidential authorization to deploy a an additional brigade from Hawaii to China. Further embarrassing revelations on the extent of the crappiness of the State Department China team, including discovering the Head of the Mission, Ambassador Laureen Carleton being in cahoots with a planned Russian-backed group of plotters in shanghai, further allowed the deployment of an additional brigade of the 25^th to China. A series of sharp attacks along the corridor linking the Yangtze River Basin and Beijing involving regular Russian troops  in March and April 2025 further deteriorated the situation until the 1^st Armoured division was finally put on alert for deployment overseas.  When the Russian launched their Operation Spring Dawn in early June 2025 The USAFC were in a better position than six months before but still woefully unprepared. 

Years of lack of a real strategic direction in ground warfare coupled with internal battles between the COINistas and Conventionalist factions inside the Army had crippled what in 1991 was the best army of the world.  In the name of rapid deployment the Army is relying on Stryker brigade of proven combat incapability. Despite their disastrous performance during the 2015 China War and its associated Second Korean War the Striker had been retained as the main combat vehicle of the Army. The failure of producing and M1A4 program after the China War had further reduced the importance of the ‘legacy’ component, despite troops having nicknames the Stryker  the ‘Crappier’  during the last war. The disastrous performance of the 2^nd ID Stryker brigades in Korea and the virtual destruction of the 25^th Infantry against soviet armoured forces had done nothing to redress the balance. Until 2023 the Army was under the direction of General John B. Kramer, a convinced Naglite and COINistas  who was virtually opposed to the maintenance of the China Mission. Kramer command style, purging officers that did not share its own idea had further decreased the confidence of the US Army. In 2023 the appointment of General Robert K. Leonard, a form tank officer had gone a long way to redress some of the morale and efficiency problems, but not the equipment imbalance. The Army is still short of heavy divisions.  General Leonard had also been a staunch supporter of the necessity of finding  a complete solution to China, kicking the Russians out before removing US and Allied Forces. This has put him at odds with the official administration policy to find a way out as soon as possible. He had also lobbied, with varying degree of success, in the congress to increase support for the army and the necessity to keep a strong US gournd foce in China as balance to other factions. Privatley he had admitted that, barring a change of policy, the multination force is exercising a negative impact on China, fostering international enclaves, restraining the rearmament of the PLA, and being military inefficient.

At lower level the troops in china are a mixed bag. The 4^th ID is one of the top formation of the Army, and, being deploying in direct contact with Russian forces, being kept at high readiness. The unit deployed in southern China tend to be of uneven if indifferent quality. Troops are noted for poor relationship with other national contingent and, being rotated in and out as complete units to not have any idea of what the local conditions are. While the units have proved themselves able to carry out garrison duties and small security operations there is no evidence they are up to date in conventional operations. On the other hand, when General Church, the new commander of the re-activated 6^th US Army China (6^th USAC) in March 2025 training had stepped up, as unit readiness and overall effectiveness. Still the troops are worried about their own equipment and lightness.

Well…

The Infantry

Stop with the fluff… go with the pictures. Here are some of my 28mm US Army forces that have been earmarked for the project. I have decided to keep them in ACU rather than Multicam. Why? Oh well… I already painted them, the basic idea at the time (and if Empress put out also Koreans) was t use them for the 1-9 Manchus in Korea (you can see the Indianhead patches) and also for the Stryker units of the 2^nd ID deployed in Iraq.  From pictures the 2^nd ID seems to have kept the ACU. Furthermore they are also to be used in Iraq and Afghanistan historical scenarios. I will not repaint them. The miniatures are Empress (of course).   The colours of the infantry varies according to the pictures… but not in the reality…More on that later.

Vehicles

The infantry was supposed to be followed by my M1A2 and mt two  M2A2s but I cannot find the pictures so I have just the latest Hummer from Imprint I painted. It is armed with a Mk19 AGL to provide some fire support during convoy escorts.

Final Notes on taking pictures of miniatures.

Well for one I have some thoughts about photographing my babies. Using washes leaves a little invisible dust over the paint. You do not see it until you fire the flash. The flash has also spoiled the windows’ effect. Well it is embarrassing to get these stuff 3 weeks after you took the pictures and when you realize the subjects are around 1100km from you… I am lazy, if I had downloaded the pictures earlier I would have discovered how crappy they were and taken some new ones, plus I would have done a bit better job at Salute. Hall hail the crappy photographer. I am embarrassed but these are the pictures I have at the moment.