!!IMPORTANT!! DTL Update Post

Hello Fellow Trappers!

We find our selves at the end of another year and we are so grateful for everyone new and old who have joined us here at the lodge. There are going to be some changes coming in the next year and we want to let you know about them so you can be aware of our roadmap. This post will cover structure and price changes in tiers for next year, The future of DTL and OPR compatible armies, changes to the loyalty models, Update on the Skyback Lodge and news about next years projects. So lets' dive in! This is important so we strongly encourage all patrons to read this completely.

Tier Restructuring

Starting in February DTL will be changing the current tiers. The following changes are being made. The explorer tier will be discontinued, it has never had more than 10 patrons so we are cleaning house and removing it. We have decided in turn to no longer make terrain every month unless it fits a certain set well or we feel we have something to add. Instead we'll be focusing on more minis. The trapper tier will now include all the minis in the themed set including any terrain that might be available. This tier may or may not be a playable army each month depending on what was voted on. If a set can work as an army we will make rules for it. Regardless each set will continue to have 5e stat blocks and lore and monsters usable for dnd.

We want to continue to make armies and have an option that caters exclusively to wargammers so we are making a new tier starting in February called the "Soldier Tier". This tier will be subject to a vote much like the "trapper" tier. Each month we will take a collection of some of our previous models that could be compiled into an army and rerelease them with army stats. We will also sculpt new models to flesh out each army so they have a full list of infantry, heroes, cavalry, monsters etc. This will mean creating more poses/variants so an existing model has alternate weapon options, as well as having enough models to field a full unit. It will also mean completely new models in cases where certain units might be missing. The first army we are releasing will be the Ooze kings army in February and it will be compiled of all the oozes from Septembers oozes vs mimics set, The plasmoids from the Astral Sea set in November, as well as the ooze dragon from earlier this year and ooberon from November of 3 years ago. We will be making some ooberon variants as well as more oozes and plasmoids to fill out units and brand new gelatinous cube models. March will be the first month where patrons will be able to vote on the next army. We will be making a post detailing the Ooze army and a poll for the march set shortly.

In light of these changes the veteran tier will no longer be focused on lodges and terrain + minis. Instead it will be a combination of the trapper and soldier tier releases. You will get everything released for that month. We will also be discontinuing the massive lodges each month. They are very expensive to make, they are often the least printed model, and sometimes we feel like we really have to force it in there when the theme just might not need one.

Price Changes

This last year was financially tumultuous for many and in turn we saw costs go up across the board. Specifically the costs of our sculptors have slowly risen over the last 2 years. In turn we have decided to increase the price of our tiers to reflect that and the value we believe we are offering to patrons each month. Starting in January the Trapper tier will be priced a $12 instead of $10 and the new Soldier tier will also be priced at $12 with the Veteran tier being priced at $18. This next part is very important do not skip! This will only effect new incoming patrons. Existing patrons will not see their pledge increase and will stay at their current pledge amount. Only patrons signing up in January will be signing up at the new price. If you unsubscribe however and sign back up you will have to resubscribe at the new price. We believe we are offering fantastic value even at this new price point and we hope that this will allow us to continue to grow.

Loyalty Models

Ever since we have started doing loyalty models we have made them all dragons but starting with the February model we will instead be releasing "behemoths". Since we are discontinuing monthly lodges we still want a way to release them every so often and we have released enough dragons for a lifetime and will be releasing more every month so we have decided to make loyalty behemoths. These will be large monsters on +160mm bases. Some may be lodges but not always. When applicable we will provide OPR stats for models that coincide with an existing army. For those who missed it we also re opened our annual subscriptions again which means you can get all previous loyalty models plus a years worth of future models all included with a year subscription for 16% off. You can learn more about it here in our recent post.

The Skyback Lodge Update

For those of you who have been with us for a long time you will remember when we unlocked the Skyback Lodge almost 2 years ago. It has been a very long journey from then to bring this thing to life. It was the first massive mini we had made and we ran into a lot of problems along the way. Finally though we are nearing the finish line. The cutting of the model has been completed and we are now ready to start test printing in the coming weeks. We are looking for people who would like to volunteer to help test print it. Anyone willing to help will receive the entire DTL stl library upon completion of the testing phase. Once testing has completed we will be releasing the model to all former and current patrons. The model is massive and will be almost 5ft long and over 2ft wide from fin tip to fin tip. Printing will require both fdm and resin printers and will include a detailed assembly guide to help build the model. Originally we had planned to make a scaled down display version as well as a version of the whale without the building. Due to the issues we have had with the model we will no longer be able to release a version with out the building and we aren't sure about a scaled down version yet but we will do our best. If you are interested in being a test printer then message Austin on discord and he will add you to the private test printers channel.

What's next?

Next year we plan to release our first Kickstarter Chonkers and Chalices! We are taking our time to get it right but we are excited for it to go live. It will be a set of 3 chonky monsters each with their own adventure module. We don't have an exact release date yet but we plan to release it the 1st quarter of next year.

Additionally we will be working on getting all the lore and stats from previous releases available online for easy cataloging and reference.

Later this week we will be releasing a survey to get feedback from our patrons. You will be able to give us any feedback and let us know how we are doing. This will help us guide the patreon this next year.

Once again thank you to all our amazing patrons for another great year and we can't wait to see what next year has in store! And as always!

May Your Blades Stay Sharp and Your Flesh On Your bones