October 2025
The prototype for “1809:Talavera” is being printed…
We are expecting its arrival this month and some independent online previews/unboxings by the end of the year.
You can preview the game’s components here.
Version 2.5 of the “Fix Bayonets!” series rule book is available for download here.
You can download the changelog here.
A small errata for Albuera can be found on the game’s page.
August 2025
“1809:Talavera” is being play tested…
We are currently using our VASSAL module for our next “Fix Bayonets!” game to play test its scenarios. We plan on requesting prototypes/review copies from our printer in the next few weeks.
You can preview the game’s components here.
Watch the French battalions, boosted by a surprising series of favorable die rolls in the end, take the fateful Cerro de Medellin hill and rewrite history in our first finished play through of “Scenario 2: The Morning Assault”!
July 2025
All our backers’ rewards have been shipped!
As of last week, we have sent their copy of “1811: Albuera Second Edition” to all our Gamefound backers.
The preview page for our next game is up!
“1809: Talavera” will be our next entry into the “Fix Bayonets!” system, preview the components here.
We hope to be playtesting our new game on VASSAL next month and produce prototypes and review copies in the fall. A Gamefound campaign will probably be launched for it in the beginning of 2026.
June 2025
The games have arrived in our Japan warehouse!
We plan on starting to ship to our backers next week (23rd of June) and we will then open our online store here.
The Albuera pledge manager is still open for those few still needing to finalize their pledge.
Finalize your pledge now (13 of you left!)
The Albuera pledge manager is open
and late pledges are still available at a discounted price!
The games are enroute to our warehousing location and should arrive in mid-June. We plan on starting to ship to our backers in late June/early July. We will then open our online store and close the late pledge option on Gamefound.
We thank everyone for their patience!
April 2025
Finalize your pledge now!
The Albuera pledge manager is open!
To all our backers: please go to the Gamefound page linked above to enter your shipping information and pay your taxes and/or shipping fees.
Production of the game has started at the factory and we expect a mid-May shipping date to our final distribution location in Japan. Depending on customs clearance and shipping delays, we think we will be able to start shipping the game to our backers by mid-June/early July at the worst.
We thank everyone for their support in making this game a reality!
Albuera is funded!
The campaign has ended!
The pledge manager phase will open soon for the backers to finalize their pledge (shipping/taxes/rewards).
In the meantime, the VASSAL module for the game is out and downloadable from the VASSAL module page.
You can now create a secure account on our site (for future use).
This feature (Login /Create account) will be fully implemented when we open our online store after the backers’ copies have all been shipped.
March 2025
Watch us PLAY the game (on VASSAL) with Eric live this Monday March 3rd at 5pm PST/8pm EST !
Our second session will air on March 17th 5pm PST/8pm EST!
The VASSAL module we will use in this event will be released for everyone to enjoy after the campaign funds.
Matt was gracious enough to praise the quality of our components in his unboxing video of one of our preview copies.
Thank you Matt for this great overview, hope you find time to put the game on your table!
Watch us chat about the game with Eric live this Wednesday February 19th at 5pm PST/8pm EST !
February 2025
March 1st launch for our updated campaign!
As stated in our announcement earlier to our backers:
“It is unfortunately time to cancel the campaign as we barely reached 50% of our goal with 5 days to go.
However, we really want this game to be printed and found a possible solution to make it happen.
Now that we have a better idea of the actual backing we can expect, we pleaded with our manufacturer to agree to halve our print run to reduce our production costs: they agreed (to 300 copies instead of the industry minimum standard of 500).
We are therefore re-launching an identical campaign in March with half the funding goal of the initial one.
The new campaign is already setup as a draft and is currently waiting approval from Gamefound, it will launch with identical pricing to the current one as early as possible (although we got rid of the early bird tier to simplify things). This would effectively just delay the shipping of the game to you by a month or two.
Please keep following this page until you get the link to the new campaign. If everyone transfers their pledge, funding is assured.
We will launch as soon as approved by Gamefound and hope all of you will transfer your pledge to the new campaign. Your pledge here will be cancelled along with this campaign's cancellation: the only thing we kindly ask you to do is pledge on the new campaign.
This is our first time crowdfunding and we now know what a realistic goal should be for our product. We apologize for the inconvenience and the extra wait but we will not give up on making this project a reality for our backers.”
Find our new re-launched campaign here.
January 2025
January launch date to be announced soon!
Happy New Year 2025 to all!
We will give everyone a few day's notice before our crowdfunding campaign launch that we expect in the second half of January.
Please be ready to support us early if you want to benefit from the early bird price!
Also, for one last look at our components and an overview of the game play, watch the great video that Zilla Blitz put out last week:
Good news for those who play remotely:
a VASSAL module for the game is being worked on and will be released after the campaign funds!
December 2024
We are planning on an early January launch!
Happy Holidays & Merry Christmas!
We want to let you know that we will be off and celebrating with our family until January 6th 2024.
We have had a few videos posted about the campaign on YouTube recently. Check out the following links:
Gamefound page launched!
We are (previewing) live on Gamefound!
The link above is just a preview page and the project won’t fully open to pledges until we get enough “traction” in the form of follows/comments/likes/etc. We expects to get a few YouTube video reviews or mentions in December and we will update our timeline depending on the response. If everything goes according to plan we expect a 30-day campaign launching early January.
November 2024
After finally selecting the manufacturer that provided us with the best quality/service, we asked them to ship us a few pre-production copies pretty much identical in quality/content to the final mass-produced product.
We are currently in the process of forwarding those copies to content creators, influential in the hobby, that will help us boost our visibility.
We calculated that we need approximately 200~230 backers in order for our campaign to succeed. So far we are not reaching that number yet thus the need to get the word out there!
Our two playthrough videos for Scenario 1 (the short infantry only introduction. scenario) and can give new players an idea of how the game is played, along with a read of the latest rules (2.2).
Hello everyone!
We have a winner! We have indeed selected our manufacturer for “1811: Albuera” and so we ordered from them a few pre-production copies that should be pretty much as close to the final product as can be.
We also published part 1 of our “How to play” video for scenario 1: you will find it here.
The play-through gives you an overview of basic game mechanics as far as infantry goes. Familiarity with the core rules (v2.2) might help you follow the flow of the game. They can be downloaded here: v2.2 Rules
We plan on sending review copies in November to Youtube Wargame reviewers in order to boost our exposure before pre-launching the crowdfunding campaign on Gamefound in December.
Late October 2024
Coming soon on
October 2024 newsletter
Arrival of our 3 prototypes for “1811:Albuera”.
In the past two weeks, we received physical copies of our three prototypes. As we are new in the business, we asked for the help of three different game manufacturers to test them on customer service, prices, manufacturing quality, component fidelity to our blueprints and shipping efficiency.
The first prototype we received arrived in a large and heavy box containing a fully mounted map. While the map was quite heavy duty and impressive, the printing quality of the counters and cards was not and we cannot accept that as a final sales product. Additionally, the weight and form factor of the box (larger than “standard GMT” boxes) seem too bulky for anything but a “deluxe collector’s edition” type of wargame. The charts, dice and booklets were industry standard.
The second prototype was quite different. The box was lighter (cheaper shipping costs!) and had the standard small wargame size that most of us know. The booklets, charts and dice were essentially of the same quality than those of the first prototype but the cards were slightly larger and without printing flaws. The counters however were a pure joy to look at, feel, punch out and manipulate! The map however came folded in 8th with very thick (almost rubbery) paper, difficult to unfold and lay down on the table. I contacted the company to advise them that, if we make our final choice for a paper map, I would like thinner paper (similar to the one used by GMT/MMP/Compass). This would make the map less unwieldy and less susceptible to damage at the creases.
A week later, the third prototype came with slightly thinner cards, booklets and charts of similar quality as the first two and a sturdy glossy box with a form factor close to the thick GMT COIN boxes.
The counters were beautifully printed in vivid colors, easily punchable with slightly rounded corners and just a slight drift on the back side of two of the five sheets. The map, cut in two halves to fit the box, was mounted and printed matte which gives it a slight ‘period’ look. Both halves aligned, not quite perfectly but not off enough to cause any game play or visual discomfort.
After review, we think that prototype 3 was the winner both in terms of quality and box format. We will settle on a manufacturer after we get our final production quotes and then prepare the crowd funding campaign.
A video of the unboxing will be up on our channel shortly.
Playtesting and corrections
After we put the prototype 1’s map on the table with prototype 2’s counters and markers (box 3 arrived too late), we started immediately testing, once again, the historical battle scenario to see if the latest rules changes were not inducing strange game behavior.
The game seems to run fine and the morning of May 16th, 1811 saw the French army cross the Albuera river to face the Spanish on the hills and the British in the village.
We finished the scenario after a 3 afternoons of play (frequently interrupted for rules tweak and corrections) with a French automatic victory around the 3:00pm turn.
This play test allowed us to finalize version 2.1 of the rules. You can see the changes from the first edition and download them here.
Thank you for reading our first production update. We will keep you posted on our progress within the next month!
Fred
August 2024 announcement
The GameCrafter just announced yet another price hike (see their website).
This, we believe, makes our boxed games products just too expensive to justify producing and selling.
Fortunately, we started the process, a few months ago, to attempt a switch from the print on demand system to the more common [crowdfunding -> bulk printing at industry standard level -> online sales] model.
Our first attempt at such venture will be to initiate a Kickstarter campaign for the second edition of our "1811: Albuera" game.
This edition will feature many changes and improvements from the original, including a re-write of the core rules. For more information on the reboot of Albuera, click here. For an overview of the new components, here.
We are currently in talk with a few manufacturers for the production of a physical game prototype and will be choosing which one to go with after assessing components quality versus production costs.
It should take one or two months to evaluate our prototypes and setup the promotional materials for the various online platforms we use (our website, Facebook and Kickstarter). We will then launch our Kickstarter campaign to gather the funds for the initial print run of 500 units of the game.
Only if the campaign gets funded will we be able to go ahead with production. If it fails, we will have to consider closing the door on all our boxed games projects.
As such, we are discontinuing the sale of our two original "Fix Bayonets!" games on The Gamecrafter. Other products (free, add-ons for other games) will still be available there for sale as print-on-demand items.
If this course adjustment succeeds, our plan is to produce volume III for "Fix Bayonets!" which will be "1809: Talavera" then release "1810: Bussaco Second Edition" in 2025. We will then work on completing "Tracers & Torpedoes Core Set" for future release, also following the crowdfunding model.
For more information on pricing and how our company is evolving, see the FAQ.
