Trench Crusade: Backdrop Books von Jon Hodgson

Bei Kickstarter gibt es neue Fotohintergründe für Trench Crusade.

Handiwork Games is teaming up with Factory Fortress Inc to bring you official Trench Crusade Backdrop Books!

Handiwork Games produces a range of backdrop books in A4 and A3 sizes for miniature enthusiasts to put behind their miniatures, aimed at levelling-up their mini photography.

These were awarded third place in the On TableTop Accessory of the Year 2024, and have seen two successful kickstarters. They’re extremely simple to use, and such an easy way to bring your minis to life! Simply select a scene, put it behind your model, and take some photos! If you want to do more, adding a plinth and some scenery is really, really easy.

Now Backdrop Books are heading into the world of Trench Crusade! We’re offering two new books in A4 and A3: Visions of War and The Golden Seal.

The first book Visions of War presents a mix of 32 battlefield images to drop behind your figures. You’ll find classic Trench Crusade images by Mike Franchina, as well as brand new, officially approved art from Jon Hodgson and Paul Bourne. You can choose to back for Visions of War in A4 or A3.

Here are some example backdrops which we’ve already completed:

The second book The Golden Seal presents a more esoteric take on Backdrop Books, with 32 atmospheric and stylised thematic images which perfectly frame your Tench Crusade miniatures and bring them into a new world of art and symbolism. You can choose to back for The Golden Seal in A4 or A3. Here are some example backdrops which show the kind of thing we’re making:

Like a lot of folks, I grew tired of photographing my miniatures against a boring blue board. I tried using landscape photographs, but it made my miniatures and scenery look weirdly stylised and out of place. As an illustrator, with a lot of landscape paintings on hand, it was a natural step to print some paintings and use them as backdrops. And it worked! We’ve since completed 2 successful Kickstarter campaigns for backdrop books, and it’s now super exciting to be making a set for Trench Crusade.

The books themselves are A4 or A3 in size, with 32 pages in full colour.

A3 and A4 are international paper sizes:
A3: 16.54 x 11.69  inches (closest to Ledger size in the US) that’s 420 x 297mm
A4: 11.69 x 8.27 inches (closest to US Letter-sized) which is 297 x 210mm

The pages are the heaviest stock we can source, coming in at 250gsm.  Do note though, that this is not a board book. The pages are heavy paper, but paper nonetheless. The covers will be 350gsm heavy stock to protect those pages, and give the book some extra resilience.

(If you’re an existing customer of backdrop books, you may note we’ve upgraded the paperweight from our first releases – we have a new printer who can do even heavier paper, so we use that now!)

The pages have a silk finish, which balances depth of colour and fidelity of printing with a reasonably low amount of reflectiveness.

The binding is a „wiro“ style binding – a metal spiral that runs up one of the short sides of the book. This lets the cover and pages fold right back on themselves, staying flat and open to form the backdrop for your photos.

Each page is a unique scene – we don’t expect you to work around the wiro binding.

We print our Backdrop Books in the UK, which means no lengthy wait for shipping from far afield to our warehouse, and we know the workers who make them are treated ethically, and receive proper pay and conditions for making our hobby products.

„As a fan of Mike Franchina’s art for two decades, I’ve been following Trench Crusade with keen interest. It’s been amazing to see it coalesce into his juggernaut of a setting, and I’ve been so delighted to see it reach so many gamers. Such an imaginative and well-realised world, with such great minis, and a culture of modelling and kit-bashing is a perfect fit for what we do!
I’m super excited to see what people create with our Trench Crusade backdrops!“

We’re going to run a very simple campaign, and it’s only 2 weeks long. Everyone is weary of the stretch goals game, so we’re offering the books right away at full page count, with no more to „unlock“.

We do have a couple of additional things we’d like to offer if we do really well – half of which are free electronic bonuses for you, the other half being a physical add on which we might unlock. But we have to be lucky enough to fund first!

We will be doing daily updates, swerving between showing off some of our favourite set ups and example photos for inspiration, and tutorials and tips on how to get the best out of Backdrop Books.

About Trench Crusade

Trench Crusade is a skirmish-scale tabletop miniatures game that plunges players deep into a horrifying alternate timeline. During the Crusades a heretical band of Templars dared defy the Almighty, unleashing the forces of Hell upon the Earth. Over 800 years later, in the Year of Our Lord 1914, this merciless war between the forces of Heaven and Hell rages on in a cataclysmic struggle that will decide the very fate of humanity’s soul.

Find out more about Trench Crusade at https://www.trenchcrusade.com/

Find out more about Backdrop Books: https://handiwork.games/jon-hodgson-backdrop-books

We’re about a third of the way into each book, with plenty of backdrops painted and a clear schedule for the rest. We’re aiming to deliver the books to you at the beginning of 2026

Are these books suitable for other settings and miniature ranges? Of course! They’ll work very well for any grimdark or weird war setting.

We also have our full range of existing backdrops available as Add Ons. If you want to get them sooner than this campaign will deliver, just grab them on our web store right now.

We’ll charge shipping after the campaign in a pledge manager for two reasons.

1. It lets you spread the cost
2. The world is wild right now, and we don’t want to end up losing a load of money on the shipping, and end up really stuck getting you your books.

The are estimates with each reward – please be aware the estimate for Add Ons might add up way higher than you’ll actually be charged – we can’t make the system calculate the savings of bundling books together, and we’d rather estimate high than low.

We work with an expert fulfilment partner who provide duty paid services for the EU and the US.

Quelle: Trench Crusade Backdrop Books