Outlaw Miniatures CEO Romeo Filip took to Facebook yesterday to announce several big changes coming to Wild West Exodus to help the company better compete in the growing and competitive miniature wargaming market.
Wild West Exodus is Getting Digital Elements
The first big change is that as of yesterday, December 14th, all unit cards for every unit in the game is now available online in PDF form for free. The change was made in order to help the company quickly and easily keep unit stats updated without having to constantly re-print new batches of cards every time there’s an update. Unfinished Business Kickstarter backers will still receive their Limited Edition unit cards with the latest version of the rules.
The second big push into the digital realm is the addition of an army builder app on the Wild West Exodus homepage similar to the one available to Infinity players. The army builder will also feature a simplified format for unit cards on printed army lists, showing basic stats to better help players keep track of vital stats during games. The army builder will be available on the website in its first iteration, with a mobile app version slated for after the 2.0 main rules update.
Free Starter Set Available from February 1st, 2015
The final portion of the announcement, and probably the biggest, in my opinion, is a 100% free version of the starter set will be available from the website on February 1st. I’m not referring to just a PDF of the Quick Start rules, and I mean the entire starter set! The site will have PDF files containing cardboard cutouts of every unit in the starter set to give players a no-risk option to try it out and see if it’s the game for them (hint: it is!) before dropping $100 USD on the set containing the models.
This is a risky move, to be sure, but it does show that Outlaw Miniatures is watching the market and responding to the needs and demands of the market. Starting a new game can be a risky proposition, depending on where you live, as you have to worry about either the size of the local player base or how open people are to switch to a new game system entirely. The free version of the starter set will greatly help in showing off the game’s strengths, with the cost being a few sheets of cardstock, some printer ink, glue, and time. Much easier to go with than the proposition of spending $100 USD for many people and gaming groups.
