Blunders on the Danube: Wizard Kraft

Showing posts with label Wizard Kraft. Show all posts

Thursday, August 13, 2020

Wizard Kraft Rivers, redux

Unfortunately, a year or so ago, the bulk of my collection of Wizard Kraft blue rivers disappeared to parts unknown. I really love this stuff (see my pots related to their Kickstarter a few years back), and there really isn't anything else quite like it. Fortunately, I was finally able to procure replacements and more for all of the rivers I had purchased over 20+ years direct from William.

20 l;near feet of straight 1" (water width) rivers, including 3 foerds, some 8" and 4" sections, and many with rocks as well. Virtually none are the same!

32 x 45 degree curves!

Once again, almost no two pieces are exactly the same, and many have the new "rocks" added as well.

1" extras of various kinds

It isn't obvious at first, but 2 Y's can be used to make an island within a river, such as at Landshut! I love the new swamp designs William did for the Kickstarter as well. The end pieces come in very handy, and two of them together can make a small lake or pond.

I use 2" (water width) rivers for major rivers (in 28 mm), such as the Danube or the Elbe.

Once again, each piece is unique!

2" extras....

3 Forks, 15 curves (William included quite a bit of langniappe with my order!), 4 end pieces and three swamp pieces.

Tim from the UK participated in the order as well, and got this awesome collection of 1/2" rivers (streams). Using much less of the resin, flock, etc that William uses to create these pieces, the set was surprisingly reasonable.

The Kickstarter back in 2016 kind of exhausted William, and he decided to go with just selling at local conventions thereafter, for the most part, but has done mail orders for some past or highly interested new customers. With no conventions happening this year, he's open to some additional orders. If anyone is interested, I can put you in touch with him.

Sunday, November 19, 2017

Wizard Kraft - the remainder of the Kickstarter product arrives!

The balance of my large pledge for the Wizardkraft Kickstarter was delivered last week. Unfortunately, William has suffered from a variety of health and product ingredient problems that delayed his fulfilling the pledges as quickly as he had hoped. I was in no rush for the product (aside from the dry river beds/wadis that William had already delivered in time for Historicon in July, so it was never an issue to me; indeed, I suggested he fulfill my order among the last of them in order to get product out to other backers sooner. Here's what I received...

First up is my "Basic Box" ($75 pledge), which was a 1" river set with a number of special backer reward items.

This medium sized lake was a backer reward for pledges of $25 or more.

This small swamp was an early bird special for the first 30 backers of $25 or more.

This 12" river ford piece was an early bird special for the first 25 backers of $75 or more.

These two Y pieces were an early bird special for pledges of $150 or more. It is seen with two 6"30 degree curve pieces (one with rocks) from the "Basic Box" set. I especially like the way that you can make islands using these pieces.

This interesting piece with a river running through a swamp was part of the early bird special for pledges of $250 or more...

as was this river originating (or ending) in a swamp.

Two 12" river lengths were part of the Basic Box set; this is the 1" water width, blue water, temperate flock version of the set.

Also part of the "Basic Box" were one each 4" and 8" segments; I find these very handy when setting up terrain for a historical battle.

Three more 4" curved sections, one with rocks, completes my "basic Box" river set - 5 feet of rivers in all, not including the various extras. .

Next is a different, new item - a plowed field set . I think the two angled fields were included by William as bonus items. William says they are deliberately sold without crops so that you can add your own (or not). I have some strips of "potato plants" that will look good with these.

A close up of the largest field to show the texture and mixed flock colors.

With some of my leftover pledge funds, I got some more items - One large and one small swamp - "temperate" flock with muddy water. Very nice!

A really useful 1" to 2" transition piece, with rocks.

Another transition piece, this one from dry river bed to blue water.

A 1" to 2" 135 degree curved transition piece.

Four each 8" and 4" sections, 2 with rocks. I already have a great many 12" straight pieces. These help a lot with the flexibility of a river layout. The ability to add rocks top pieces is a new feature resulting from the Kickstarter. I like them!

I went a bit crazy with my Kickstarter pledge trying to get the project over the top, so there's also a whole 1" large river set, seen above. This one is to be donated to Jared's middle school Wargames club next month. This set includes 1 each of the Small Straight, Small 45 Degree Bend, Small 45 Degree Bend and Transitions sets. (In total, 3 x 12" straight, 1 x 8" straight, 1 x 4" straight, 1 x 12" bend, 2 x 6" bend, 3 x 4" bend, 1 x left and 1 x right fork, 1 center fork, and 1 x 12" section with Ford). Aside from a couple of small pieces on back order, the above, along with the large dry river set received in July , completes my Kickstarter rewards.

Hopefully, William will finish delivering the last of the backer rewards shortly, and then will be able to resume accepting new orders soon thereafter at Wizardkraft terrain.

Saturday, August 12, 2017

Wizard Kraft Dry River Beds

Right on schedule, just a few days before I was due to depart for Historicon, William sent me a bunch of the "Dry River Beds with Desert Flocking" from the Kickstarter, which I was hoping to use (and did!) with my Chariot bash Saturday night at Historicon.

Here's part of the set on an incongruously green cloth.

The texturing of the beds is really nice.

The surface I'm displaying them, on isn't perfectly flat, which accounts for the minor mismatches at some of the joins, not the product itself!

Here's more pieces on a different background cloth.

I didn't reuse any pieces from the first picture on this one. One section has rocks on the bank.

This set would work well as a waddi in Africa, or a gulch in the American Southwest.

Still more pieces on a third type of cloth.

You can get sections with pools, with either blue water or muddy water.

Almost every piece is unique!

Close up of the "swamp"; the flock on the inner portion looks to be short static grass.

"Midnight at the Oasis?"

All; in all I received 6 x 12" pieces (4 straight, 2 curved), 1 each 2" and 8" straight, 1 "Y", 10 4" angles, 8 6" angles, 1 Swamp, and 2 ends - quite a lot of terrain! There is still quite a bit yet to come from the rest of my Kickstarter pledge, too!

Note that Wizard Kraft is not accepting new orders until William fulfills all of his obligations from the Kickstarter, which he hopes to do within the month.

Monday, October 3, 2016

Wizard Kraft modular terrain Kickstarter - the final stretch

Well, we're down to the last 3 days of the Wizard Kraft Kickstarter (ends circa 2:30 AM Friday, so a little over 72 hrs to go. I already increased my own pledge from $150 to $250, so I am putting my own money where my mouth is! As of now it is over 70% funded. Despite that, there are STILL some nice added incentives available:

First 30 (18 remaining) backers of $25.00 or more will also receive a swamp (6" to 8" diameter)

First 20 (5 remaining) backers of $75.00 or more will receive a 12" long ford straight plus the above early bird item.

So right now if you pledged $75 or more and it funds, you'd get both bonuses. Frankly, if you you're starting from scratch with this system, the $150 pledge is an even better deal. And once again, there is NO shipping charge worldwide for anything bought as a part of the Kickstarter. That in itself is a real value, especially outside the US!

At my request, William sent along some new sample photos of the variants he is working on already.

This is a dry river bed (with blue pools), with the "Arid" flock. The Arid flock looks to match that used on the Geohex "desert terrain" pieces. I really like this item, and my add on order will likely include some of these to use as wadis for colonial games, and/or the Ancient near East. I'd probably use Muddy water for mine, though. Or not - the blue is very pretty!

Here are samples of muddy rivers, with the green flock on the banks. I prefer the blue myself, but the dark water is certainly more "realistic". William is also working on pieces with rocks added, as are seen above. Muddy water with Arid flock would again seem another attractive option for dry locales. Note also the cool looking piece with the island in the stream.l William makes these by hand, so they are all a bit different! As I obsewrved in my earlier post, not only does the Wizard Kraft terrain look great, but it is quite flexible and durable - I have lost none of the flocking, even in pieces that have been in use for over 15 years. William guarantees these pieces for normal wear. Obviously, if you let your pet Tasmanian Devil jump up and down on them, they might be able to damage them!

Close up of the Muddy River pieces. William tells me the Tiger I is 1/49 scale and the muddy river is the 4 inch wide version. Personally, I favor narrow rivers, as they take up a lot of space on the tabletop. Thus I use the 1" rivers for the bulk of the water in my 28mm games (the measurement refers to the width of the WATER, so they are actually about 2" wide. I use the 2" rivers (which are about 3+ inches wide) to represent major rivers, usually un-fordable, such as the Danube, the Elbe, etc. Indeed, with my KS funds I plan to add some 1/2 river pieces to represent small streams. That size would seem especially suited to use with 6/10mm figures.

Here are some blue rivers with Arid flock and rocks. Once again, you can see the variety William works into these items. And once again, maybe I *do* like the blue better even with the arid terrain, So, you can get your rivers with water widths of 1/2", 1", 2", or 4 " (Or even 8' with special order, although that seems to be well into 54 mm gaming or single figure skirmish usage to me). You can get them with green or arid flock. You can get them with blue or muddy water.. or even unfinished or partially finished! That's, what - at least 16 different variants available?!!! Talk about spoiled for choice!

This is another item that William has prototypes for, and hopes to add to the range over time - beaches and water for naval/Amphibious games, plus swamps, fields, roads, hills, and more!

Finally, a gallery of just *some* of the games that I have run using the Wizard Kraft rivers (in this case, mostly the "1" width, and all blue with green flock) in the past 10 years. As you can see, I probably get more use out of my Wizard Kraft rivers than just about any other wargame item I own! So if you're on the fence about joining the Kickstarter, let me give you a gentle nudge to hop down and sign up now, before it's too late. Once again, it's over at 2:40 AM Friday, October 7th, which basically means just after Midnight Thursday - US Eastern Daylight Time.