In this episode of the Valhalla Games podcast Dan and Rex talk about the 80th anniversary of the invasion of Sicily and Italy game day held in Sydney, 18 March 2023.

Will the allies get a foothold in the soft underbelly or will Italy kick them off, back into the Mediterranean? Perhaps more importantly will the Primosole bridge book scenarios and terrain stack up against the expectation of the veteran Bolt Action players of Western front gamers in Sydney Australia?

Subscribe in your podcast app by searching for Valhalla Games or play in the web player by clicking on the image below.​

Images and video of the day to follow at https://valhallagames.net/youtube shortly(ish).

Wargames illustrated reviewed our book on YouTube. (spoiler alert they liked it).

We are particularly happy with this as WI aren't shy to say what they think, as it should be who wants glowing reviews on everything never pointing out the issues! 

We want the truth and we can handle it.

Both Dan and I subscribe to WI prime and get their magazine in 'e' format and to be honest I often by the paper copy as well. Its a great read, a great wargaming YouTube channel and this video is a well made and very detailed look at The Primosole Bridge campaign book, check it out.

The Valhalla Games web store is now live at this location:

https://www.valhallagames.net/store/

The web site is just out of the shrink wrap so ANY issues at all let us know. Adding freight zones is proving to be troublesome, if your freight zone/country is not listed let us know or if you have any other issues please contact us here.

 Hi All! Its been so great to get your messages about receiving your books and your initial thoughts. We are very proud and pleased to say they have been overwhelmingly positive!!!

Thanks for your patience with the uploading of the Tropical Fallschirmjäger painting guide, its now uploaded and ready to help you get those FJ ready to fight for Primosole Bridge! Just scan the QR code in the hobby section of your book to take you directly to the video on YouTube, or for those of you still awaiting the mailman, follow the link below to get a headstart on getting your FJ ready;

[Click the image below to view the video]

Speaking of Youtube and other social media- we need your help! We need you to share your thoughts and reviews on 'The Battle for Primosole Bridge' far and wide. Those of you who do YouTube especially - please upload a video and share with us and the wargames community your reviews!!

We Have a limited number of books left, but gauging further demand will allow us to not only assess our next steps with the CURRENT book, but will also help build brand recognition and allow us to bring you future products too!!!

Lets see those reviews everyone! Thanks in advance for all your help.

Kind Regards, Dan and Rex

The last QR code video for 'The Battle for Primosole Bridge' campaign book is nearly complete, just a final image and then editing. Won't be long now, get you paint brushes ready for Dan's tropical Fallschirmjäger paint guide including; general workflow, paint colours and tips.

We are pleased to report that The Battle for Primosole Bridge campaign book has been shipped to all backers and pre-order customers (excluding 5 people who haven't got their address to me yet).

Thanks to our logistics partners War and Peace Games Australia the process was smooth and quick. A HUGE thanks to Ian and Sean for their help with that. 

If your buying wargames products, in Australasia please check them out at https://www.warandpeacegames.com.au/.

You should receive your shipping email with tracking information direct from Australia Post in the next couple of days.

Dan and I are extremely happy with the final result, and we think you will be too. We have shot a video of a flick through of the book but what would be the fun in that, we are going to keep you in suspense a few days longer. Once we see reports of sightings of the book 'in the wild' we will release some video to whet your appetite for those shipping to destinations further afield.

As you should be aware The Battle for Primosole Bridge book is in print production right now. 'Shipping day' (to you) is planned for 29 June and the printers have confirmed that they are on target to have the bulk delivery to us in time for that.

Its time to collect addresses for all backers and pre-orders. We have deliberately not collected addresses before now so that we didn't have to deal with address changes but now is the time when we need to collect your information and collate everything for an efficient shipping process.

To enable this, we would appreciate it if you could reply to this survey ASAP with your details. Remember if you have ordered two books they will be sent to the same address. 

Thanks again and we are excited to nearly have to book on its way to you.

Rex and Dan

Kickstarter surveys have been sent, pre-order emails requesting the same should be sent tonight.

Hi Everyone!

Rex and I hope this update finds you well. Just a quick update for now; we have entered what we hope will be the final week of the books preparation for sending to the printers! That's right – at the end of this week 'The Battle for Primosole Bridge' will be sent to the printers for review by them, the production of the proof copy, then then print run itself!!! Based on current estimates we are perfectly on [revised] target for 'shipping by the end of June'.

We will provide another update after the proof is approved by us and the printing has started. Shortly after that we will ask for delivery address details. We have left collecting delivery address details until now so that there would not be any address changes, ensuring that we post your book to the correct location.

For now, here is a photo of the last photo ever to be taken for 'The Battle for Primosole Bridge'...

Talk soon with another update, we are excited and we hope that you are too.

Dan and Rex

Hi everyone, what a busy period it's been since the last update!

Rex has moved heaven and earth to get the remaining photography pretty close to being done for the book. A few 'whites' (the popular type of shot you see in publications that have just the figure, vehicle etc on a white/transparent background) remain for a couple of places in the book, then photography is all done!

For many of the photos of a full or 'deeper' table set up we needed to capture (there's a LOT of these!), Rex used a process where he 'stacked' differently - focussed shots on top of each other... a hugely time-consuming process that entailed the taking of over 1600 photographs! But the results are worth it we believe, and we feel confident, after looking at the end result, that you will think so too when you hold the book in your hand and see how good they are!

Secretly up to now, we have engaged the services of a professional artist to assist with the creation of the scenario maps for the book. We have now received the final artwork and WOW! what a result! This is another part of the book we can't wait for you to see!

To whet your appetite, Rex has done a video of the new fully sculpted Primosole Bridge table and will be releasing it in the near future which will get you excited for the book and give you some ideas for your table at home. It's fantastic- when I saw it first and it allowed me to take in the board for the first time I was astonished at just how great it was.

We received the massive shipment of your free sprues from Wargames Atlantic, and they are sitting patiently for when it comes time to send out your books to you.

We just wanted to say we have really appreciated your patience and kind words of reassurance after our delay in fulfilment until end of June primarily due to freight issues. It has been really heart-warming, thank you.

We have made every attempt to reward you for your patience and wanted to share with you that the book has now grown in size to over 100 pages!

Thanks everyone, talk again soon.

Regards,

Dan & Rex

We hope this update finds you safe and well wherever you are.

Rex has done amazing work on the (Now finished!) additional table for the book...we can reveal now that Rex has made an additional table for the initial assault on the bridge and which also stars in many of the detailed close up shots in other scenarios within the book.

I think it looks amazing, and Rex has really outdone himself yet again- you are in for a treat! That means you are going to see TWO versions of Primosole Bridge in the book- one representative and one closer to scale. The first photos from this new board are REALLY impressive!!

The Hobby section has now been expanded greatly from what was first envisaged also, with extra detail being invested into the detail of how to build terrain for the campaign and how to build up an impressive table layout for your games and/or photography of them in progress!

Wargames Atlantic have informed us that the free plastic Italian sprues are also winging their way in freight to us ready for inclusion with your book!! Thanks WA!

Now for the not so good news; The transit time of the final shipment of miniatures to Rex for photography was grossly outside our timeframes we had planned. Previous shipments for the book under the same shipping constraints have taken approx. A week, with 10 days maximum. This shipment took almost FIVE WEEKS.

Added to this, the printers have asked for an additional editing/production process for our images prior to printing. Rex has been working on our existing images night and day, but still has some yet outstanding. It also means additional work on the final photographs too.

The fact the final photography has been delayed almost a month, and now there is additional work for each of those photos has really damaged our print and dispatch schedule.

We had planned to be dispatching the book before end of April, but for these reasons we need to push this date back. We do not want to have any further issues that mean we need to do this again, however, and so we would rather make a bigger correction now and ensure we are within this new timeframe.

To that end, we now have had to push back the forecasted dispatch date to no later than the end of June.

We are sorry for the delays and hope you can understand given the delays above. We are working hard behind the scenes to make this book have the WOW factor, and are disappointed that events have conspired to foil us with the finish line so close.  

Thank you to all of you who have been in touch with us with excited news of your hobby progress in preparation for the book, such as having printed off your free STLs and progress on new armies for the campaign...your enthusiasm is also inspiring to us! 

Talk soon! Dan & Rex, Valhalla Games.

Well, here we are...arriving at the first of our 'final times'...the last time we do a particular activity in prep for the books production ...

STLs have been sent within emails to all the Kickstarter backers (if you didn't get the email let us know at: https://www.valhallagames.net/index.php/contact), along with the contact details for WOW Buildings in case there are technical questions or other queries regarding the files.

STLs for the pre-order customers should be sent in the next 24 hours

The Final wargames Atlantic sprue numbers have gone to them for production and supply of the sprues to us.

In other news; while continuing his work on the (currently unrevealed) realistic scale battle board that will provide photos for the book ( and hopefully a board with which to attend some wargames shows/events sometime in our future!) Rex decided he needed some blockhouses and barricades. Having designed them for 3D printing, Rex has decided decided to share them here with you..... for free!;

https://www.valhallagames.net/index.php/barricades-and-blockhouses

So follow the link and print some off ( or get someone to do it for you and buy them a beer!) and get yourself set up for your scenarios when you receive your book!

In the 'background' but very much at the forefront of our minds and driving our timelines, we've been refreshing our quotes and checking lead-time with the printers.

Spread the word: pre-orders still open ( despite the free STL and sprue deal having finished due to our deadlines for those suppliers-apologies!), so if you want a copy, reach out and we will let you know how you can  place your order.!

There's a couple of weeks of hard work and immersion in the written content for the book as final editing is ongoing. Following that we have final photography and working through further logistical demands. Thanks for staying there with us in this journey- some of this stuff isn't the sexy/glamourous/exciting news to show and tell you about...BUT it is essential work to add polish to this production, and we hope in some small way you enjoy hearing about this in order to feel informed and reassured of the professional work going into the book.

Thank you and we will update you again in a couple of weeks time with another update! 

Regards, 

Dan and Rex

_{If this is all new to you and you would like to learn more about our WW2 campaign book 'The Battle for Primosole Bridge' you can find a video on our YouTube page explaining exactly what is in the book here: https://youtu.be/7sKSxdmukWk
The kick-starter has been funded and finished however, if you want to order a copy, at the time of writing this we are still taking pre-orders for the printed A4 softcover 80+ page campaign book, find the info about ordering here: https://www.valhallagames.net/index.php/the-battle-for-primosole-bridge-pre-order or simply contact us here https://www.valhallagames.net/index.php/contact for a price including shipping to your destination.}

 Happy New Year to you all. We hope you've had a happy and safe holiday period. The question arises though; What exactly have WE been up to early in the New Year?

Firstly (for those of you that didn't know!) the 'Assault on Johnny I ' scenario that will appear in our book was reverse engineered and re-edited for publishing in Wargames Soldiers and Strategy (WSS) magazine, issue 118.

This version of the scenario varies from that found in the campaign book in order to make it a stand-alone scenario for Bolt Action, but if you'd like a taster of what is to come, go purchase the issue and enjoy it - tell them we sent you ;) https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/wss-issue-118.html

What else have we been up to?; check out the Wargames Atlantic WW2 Italian plastic figures that Dan has painted for the book here: [continued below]

Dan has continued British vehicles and infantry for 151 Bde. In the Primosole Bridge engagement, and has finally just finished them… this means another bunch of minis to be sent over to Rex for photography for the book!

Rex continues to put a phenomenal amount of detail into the 'secret' table's construction, I can tell you it looks amazing and it isn't even finished yet!! He is detailing it as he goes so we can bring you all the tips for you to be able to build it yourselves when we reveal it to you.

As well as that, as lockdowns due to COVID come and go, we are continuing play testing on various scenarios, making sure that they are well tested and as user-friendly as possible.

We hope your holiday period has been hobby-friendly and you've got some work progressing yourselves… maybe some Sicilian campaign armies?!!

For anyone that's been following along you will know that the Valhalla Games Kickstarter for "The Battle for Primosole Bridge" campaign book was a success. This campaign book is based on the WWII historical actions around the strategically important Primosole bridge during the Sicily invasion in 1943.

The book has been successfully crowdfunded and Dan I are working our way through the rest of the tasks that need to be completed before printing. I will be requesting the final number of free sprues from Wargames Atlantic on the 7 January 2022 and I just wanted to let you know that if anyone still wants to pre order the book and get the free Italians sprue you can do so up until 7 January.If we get your order before then we will include the sprue for you just the same as the Kickstarter orders

We will be doing the additional books pre-order via PayPal so that we don't have to go through the complicated and confusing Kickstarter system for adding any more books to the Kickstarter at this late stage.

If you're interested and would like the price of the book including postage to help you to make a final decision, please contact us here and I will email you a quote for the book (including free sprue) delivered to your location. The cost of the book is $55 Australian plus postage (remember to check your conversion rate - in your currency it may be half this cost!). The prices for pre-order will be an Australian dollars as that is where the book is being printed and shipped from.

The $55 AUD price, once converted, is the same as the Kickstarter price of $60 NZD (give or take a little for currency fluctuations between then and now), so both those ordering through the Kickstarter and now via the pre-order are paying the same amount.

The books are planned to be shipped out to all Kickstarter backers and for all pre-orders in April 2022, we are not planning to hold a warehouse full of printed stock so if you want it and haven't backed the Kickstarter doing a pre-order is your chance to secure the book, we think you're going to love it.

Contact us here https://valhallagames.net/contact and include your shipping country and I will get back to you will an obligation free price. Again just the reminder that the free Wargames Atlantic sprue offer with the book will end on 7 January 2022.

If you're at a loss as to what this is all about you can view all the detail here:

One week to go... Progress on yet-to-be-revealed content and EVERYONE* GETS A FREE ITALIAN SPRUE.

'The Battle of Primosole Bridge campaign book' Kickstarter has only one week to go. Initially funded in 26 hours we now have more than doubled our funding goal and have backers from all over the world getting ready to refight the historical battle from Sicily 1943. With only one week to go before the end of the campaign there is still time for this pre-Christmas/pre-end of year investment in your gaming for 2022 (and still have a few weeks before Christmas!).

As we have mentioned previously Dan and I have the book largely complete. However, along with fine-tuning our various assigned parts of the text and rules, Dan is painting more models for studio photos to include in the book while I am finalising our best terrain board to date for more in-game/in-battle photos. This new gameboard which has not been publicly revealed yet is a 10' x4', purpose-built, fully sculpted terrain board which is a beautiful representation of the bridge and its environs in [near] real scale for 28mm miniatures. It includes what we are calling the 'realistic bridge'. This new 3D printed bridge which we have not mentioned until now.

After a major rework of the original STL so that it exactly fitted our requirements and at over 120 hours of 3d printing its near 4' long and admittedly not for everyone's games room. Having said that Valhalla Games always aims to raise the bar so in conjunction with the already stunning gameboards we have revealed on the pages of the book so far showing the 'representational bridge' on a [more reasonable] 6x4 table we look forward to revealing the new board to you also. If you want to see all of that, you're going to have to back the book on Kickstarter and you only have a week to do it.

*In other exciting news Wargames Atlantic have been even more generous to the project, we went to them cap in hand to see if we could get some more free Italian sprues to go with the books, they must be excited as their response was... I quote: "No limit - go for it." This means that EVERYONE that backs the book gets a random free Italian sprue from the box set here: https://wargamesatlantic.com/collections/world-ablaze/products/italian-infantry If we can get the new miniatures in time we will also include some images in the book itself for inspiration. (paint Dan paint!!). Do us a favour and hit that page in the link above so that they can see that their generosity is rewarded by interested potential customers.

We would like to remind you again that doubling up with a buddy and getting 2 books shipped to the same address is significantly less postage 'per book'.

Standby for even more exciting news in the next few days but get your pledge in now so you don't miss out as the next week fly's by. If we are able to add more content such as we have with the free sprue mentioned above we will. We won't be doing it as a 'stretch goal' but instead we will be retrofitting this extra reward into the original project, if we can give you more for the same price we will regardless of the final project total! (But don't stop nagging your friends to back it also).

Back it here(!): https://valhallagames.net/kickstarter ...or if you have done so already spread the word, did I mention its only 1 week to go ;-)

VHG_Rex

 WOW! Thank you everyone who has backed "The Battle for Primosole Bridge" already, and thank you for your interest to anyone who has just found our project and is here to find out more...

We certainly didn't imagine we would be at almost 200% funded at half way through the campaign! Thanks very much for your confidence in the book.

We continue to work doing editing and additional final photography for the book. Another load of miniatures is winging its way ( Airborne of course!) from New Zealand to Australia for further photography as we continue to capture images that fulfil our vision of bringing each element of the battle to life. We were confident we were on the right track even before we revealed some of the books images to you for this campaign- and now you've shown you are as excited by our work as we have been to bring it to you, we are so excited for all the images and content that you haven't yet seen in the previews!

We only have some 14 days to go!! If you are reading this and you haven't secured your copy yet, or your buddy is keen but has lost track of the time... now's your time to get that order in before the start of the busy festive season.

Perhaps Santa might bring some wargamers The Battle for Primosole Bridge? If he wanted to here is the link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/valhallagames/1015543703/

Funded!!:

Welcome to the first update of the now funded 'The battle for Primosole Bridge' campaign book Kickstarter.

Once again, we would like to thank everybody who has made this project a reality. By backing you will not only have a fantastic campaign book that you can enjoy and play for years to come but you have also helped to educate people as to the heroic efforts (on both sides) in a little-known historical campaign.

This project was funded in a bit over 24 hours and we can't wait to see where it goes in the next 26 days or so.

After a brief bit of R&R Dan and I are straight back to work on the book again. I spent a good long session taking more photographs in a more 'studio shot' type format over the last couple of days. Whenever we do this, we always get carried away and take many, many photos, not all of which are relevant to the book, and we have included one below. This one won't appear in the book because it doesn't match the historical equipment for the campaign. Nevertheless, we think it's a great photo and wanted to share it with you.

We also wanted to take the opportunity to thank the fantastic guys at Wargames Atlantic and WOW buildings for generously providing free goodies for early bird backers. There are still free sprues and STL files available on the 2 books 'buddy up' early bird deal at the time of writing.

Don't forget to visit WOW Buildings (https://wowbuildings.net/) and Wargames Atlantic (https://wargamesatlantic.com/) to check out their webstores. We are sure that there will be something there of interest to you. Dan and I certainly get motivated whenever we see new stuff which is why our respective war games storage areas are bulging at the seams.

We're really enjoyed people reaching out to us to tell us about how excited they are about the book what they're doing in terms of preparation and what they are most looking forward to playing. A little bit later on we'll be calling for photos of your battle prep. We would like to see what your building, painting, and preparing, it inspires us also. If you are planning for a new British para army to play with in the campaign (like I am) have a look at Valhalla games YouTube channel where Dan does a paint and learn video giving you the colours and some hints on painting British paras as well as interesting history on the uniform itself and don't forget British paras have maroon berets *not* cherry red if you turn up with cherry red berets to the table Dan will have words with you. :-)

Very soon my British paras will be looking just like Dan's that you can see in the photo below.

If you haven't heard enough of Dan and I, we just wanted to remind you that we are chatting on 4 podcast channels right now, Henry Hyde's battle chat, the South Wales Warlords Sounds of Battle Podcast, Brads Cast Dice (the same feed as the official bolt action podcast) and of course Valhalla games own podcast, here: https://www.valhallagames.net/index.php/podcast-ep22-campaign-book-incoming.

As always you can contact us here https://www.valhallagames.net/index.php/contact

*Final* (probably final) 'The Battle for Primosole Bridge campaign book' Kickstarter prelaunch information - only about 33 hours to go.

Sign up for the Kickstarter notification here (https://www.valhallagames.net/kickstarter) so that you will know when it goes live.

The Kickstarter is planned to go live at the following dates & times:

• New Zealand Friday 12 November 9am
• Australia - Sydney Friday 12 November 7am
• UK - London Thursday 11 November 8pm
• USA - New York Thursday 11 November 3pm
• USA - Los Angeles Thursday 11 November Noon/midday

From that list you should be able to work out your local time, the times are important because there are limited early bird offers (details below).

Buddy-up and save on freight:

The books will be shipping from Australia. If you are outside Australia in order to minimise freight costs we have created a 2 book pack deal shipping to the same address, consider ordering with a friend to reduce 'per-book' freight costs.

If you have not seen it the launch video it is live here: https://youtu.be/7sKSxdmukWk

More coverage:

Sounds of Battle Tabletop Media podcast interviewed Valhalla Games and their podcast is live now, they asked us all the hard questions about the book in relation to bolt action. They also reviewed a limited preview which we had provided. This was a fun podcast and we highly recommend listening and subscribing for a great mix of topics. My understanding is that all three guys plan to back the Kickstarter.

Cast Dice podcast plan to release an interview with Valhalla Games on the evening before the Kickstarter. This was a fun interview where we chat about the book and went into the detail of 'how the sausage was made' on several occasions. Brad is a fun guy and extremely knowledgeable, it's well worth a listen. I believe he plans to back the Kickstarter.

Henry Hyde, the author of https://thewargamingcompendium.com/, magazine editor and podcaster has interviewed us on his podcast Battle Chat. As an accomplished author and wargaming royalty we were proud to be told that our product was 'amazing' among many other compliments. Henry's interview takes a deep dive into Valhalla Games and Dan and my history, for wargaming and personal life. We hope that this podcast will be available during the Kickstarter period.

Valhallagames have also released our own podcast episode on the subject, subscribe to us by searching for Valhalla Games in your podcast app or use the web player

Here: https://www.valhallagames.net/index.php/podcast-ep22-campaign-book-incoming

Early bird free offers:

In the attached image you can see that we have been able to secure some free items for early bird pledges, there are only 50 early bird pledges available.

-Wargames Atlantic will be kindly supplying an Italian plastic sprue for the early bird backers from their forthcoming boxed set with each early bird book. https://wargamesatlantic.com/

-ADDITIONALLY, early bird backers will also receive a free 3D printable Italian building STL file generously supplied by WOW buildings. https://wowbuildings.net/ Full details in the Kickstarter, we love our WOW buildings and will feature one of their prints in the book in all its glory.

We sincerely hope you will partner with us to bring this project to life, this is a story that needs to be told and games that need to be played. Book is 90% complete right now and we look forward to being able to bring it to your gaming table.

Rex & Dan - Valhalla Games

Early bird give away items (limited offer)

Thanks to:

• https://wowbuildings.net/
• https://wargamesatlantic.com/

Podcast EP22: Campaign book Kickstarter - INCOMING.

Although other podcasts have done (and will do!!) a fantastic job of asking us the hard questions about the new The Battle for Primosole Bridge Campaign book (the Kickstarter is just days away now). Dan and I thought we had better say something ourselves on the subject :-).

Come with us as we discuss the book, the reason why we did it in the first place and a deep dive into the content.