Dragon's Cache - Series 1

Get ready: Dragon's Cache Vol. 2 coming soon!
7 months ago – Wed, Aug 27, 2025 at 07:02:39 PM

Hello adventurers!

We hope this update finds you all well and enjoying your Dragon's Cache minis, whether it be painting and/or on the table in your latest quests.

We're incredibly excited to announce that our next miniatures Kickstarter project, Dragon's Cache Vol. 2, is set to launch on September 9th!

We're here today to rally pre-launch support and excitement for the project. You can stay up to date on everything going on with the campaign at the pre-launch page here: Sign-up to follow on Kickstarter!

Dragon's Cache Vol. 2, the follow-up to last year's Dragon's Cache, is an all new collection of fantasy miniatures injection cast in thermoplastic resin in-house right here in St. Louis, and in a very first for Next Level Miniatures, also available as .STL files for all you 3D printing wizards and warriors out there!

We've been cooking up an infernal bounty of exciting new models for your minis collection, featuring hellish fiends, ravenous undead, demon-possessed heroes and a whole lot more! 

Be sure to follow the project as we reveal more of what's in store as the launch date approaches.

As a first for one of our miniatures campaigns, we've created a Partnership Program for the most steadfast of supporters. By becoming a partner for $1, you'll receive the brand new (and fearsome) Death Knight and Zombie Butcher miniatures as part of your pledge absolutely free! The $1 will be credited back to you in the pledge manager after the campaign to apply towards your shipping costs. *Note: you must back the campaign at a $49 or higher pledge level to qualify.

Join us today and follow Dragon's Cache Vol. 2!

Thanks for your support of our projects and we hope to see you again at launch!

Project Update #16 - Fulfillment complete and more!
10 months ago – Sat, Jun 14, 2025 at 09:02:33 PM

Hello everyone, we hope you're having a wonderful weekend! We know it's been a bit since we've done a traditional update post so we wanted to pop in and fill you all in on the project and what's next for us. Let's get to it...

As of a few days ago, all pledges have been fulfilled except a few which had payment issues. So if you haven't already received your pledge, or seen the shipping notification email come in, please contact us at [email protected] so we can look into it for you.

We know the fulfillment time for this project was fairly extended, which wasn't our intention from the outset, but we thank everyone for their patience as we worked our way through everyone's pledges while we tackled other business items along the way. In the future we're planning to adjust how we handle fulfillment so this shouldn't happen again.

Now that fulfillment is complete, all of the models from Dragon's Cache are now available for purchase on our webshop here: https://www.nextlevelminiatures.com/collections/dragons-cache in case you want to pick up any additional minis.

Speaking of the webshop, the Dragonborn Swashbucklers from our first ever Fan Vote are also available for purchase now. Check them out here.

The Fan Vote also selected a Tortle Battle Smith which we showed off last time. This time, we're showing off his trusty Steel Defender companion. Both of them will be available soon on our webshop!

Origins Game Fair

Next up is to let you all know that we will be an exhibitor at Origins Game Fair this coming week, June 19-22. If you'll be in attendance, please swing by the booth (#1452) to say hi and chat. We love to talk minis with our fans!

Dragon's Cache Vol. 2

Is it getting hot in here? Now that the first Volume of Dragon's Cache is wrapped up, we're ready to roll out the promotion for Dragon's Cache Vol. 2! We'll be revealing models periodically as we lead up to launch (currently targeted for mid/late-August). We're incredibly excited to show off all the awesome new minis we've been cooking up.

Dragon's Cache Vol. 2 is taking a decidedly more sinister turn than Vol. 1. With infernal horrors and servants, malevolent undead, demon-possessed heroes and more, Dragon's Cache Vol. 2 will be a little larger than Vol. 1. And as you may have noticed from the teaser graphic above, yes, there will be a new huge dragon too!

We have a VIP program we're putting the finishing touches on as well. So if you backed our Rounders Dice campaign earlier this year, you'll be familiar with how it works. We'll have all the details for you all soon, but for now we'll leave you with the two minis you can get free for joining the VIP program and then pledging once the campaign launches...

Those of you who have been long-time Next Level Minis fans will undoubtedly recognize our ever-popular Death Knight from Dragon's Hoard Vol. 1. For this campaign's VIP program we're including an all-new variant pose! Along with it, we've also included a quite grotesque Zombie Butcher. Look, we never said they were gonna win any beauty contests!

Both of them will be yours for just $1 if you join the VIP program for Dragon's Cache Vol. 2 (plus the $1 is credited back to you in the pledge manager to apply towards your shipping, and if you don't wind up pledging for the campaign it is refundable). So please stay tuned as we will have all the details on how to sign up ready very soon.

That's all we've got for today. We'll be back soon with another update post soon after we return from Origins. Thanks again for reading everyone, have fun and stay safe out there!

Project Update #15 - Fulfillment Progress and other odds and ends
11 months ago – Fri, Apr 25, 2025 at 01:00:27 PM

Happy Friday to you all once again! It's time for another update post to cover what's going on with the project and a few other tidbits. So let's dive in!

As of today we're about 80% done with fulfillment. We got another batch of shipments out yesterday (lots of UK, EU and AU in this batch), so if you're outside the US and still waiting for your pledge to ship check your inbox as you may have a shipping notification and tracking number from us. We're still working as quickly as we can to get the remaining shipments out and many of the them are the more complicated ones with lots of a la carte add-ons which take us longer to put together. We know it has taken longer than we'd have liked, but we had a confluence of things all happen over the past 3 weeks that have stretched our labor thin trying to accommodate it all. We're in major catch-up mode, but there's some light at the end of the tunnel coming up.

One of those things that caused us to divert our labor away from fulfillment for the past week is that we finally received our shipment of retail packaging from the factory last week. Originally we'd been expecting it to arrive about a month ago. You may recall us mentioning back in February we were attending GAMA Expo to promote our new retail packaging to store owners at the event. Now that it has arrived, we've been packing up those retailer orders we received to get those out to gaming and hobby shops around the country - maybe even to a shop near you! We should have those completed next week and then we'll be back to full on Kickstarter fulfillment after that to wrap things up.

Next up is the debut of the Tortle Battle Smith. For those that aren't aware, he was chosen as part of the Fan Vote we held over the winter to choose three new player character models for us to make. We decided he was looking a little lonely so we're also working on a Steel Defender model to go along with him! We should have the finished versions of each to show off by the time the next project update post is due. After that it's on to the Goliath Druid!

The Dragonborn Swashbucklers from the Fan Vote that we showed off earlier this month are in the mastering phase of production so they'll be available on our webshop soon!

Past that, our Rounders Dice campaign just wrapped up last week, but Late Pledges are still available on Kickstarter if you missed out.

And we'll be beginning promotion of our next Dragon's Cache project soon as well, so keep an eye out for that as we preview upcoming models leading up to the launch.

Thanks again for reading and we'll be back with another update in a few weeks. Have a wonderful weekend!

Project Update #14 - Fulfillment Update, Humble Bundle, a Sneak Peek and more!
about 1 year ago – Thu, Apr 03, 2025 at 01:17:11 PM

Good day everyone! We're back with another project update for you all, along with some other news about things going on in the world of NLM. Let's dive in!

Fulfillment is still underway and we're now at almost 70% completion on fulfillment. If you haven't received your shipping notification yet, please hold tight. We're working through pledges as quickly as we can and getting batches of shipments out just about every day. Once your pledge is packed and ready to go you'll receive a shipping notification email from us that will include your tracking number. We appreciate everyone's patience as we get through packing all the shipments.

Next we want to let you all know that we have a Humble Bundle with our friends at Frog God Games that is currently going on. If you aren't familiar with Humble Bundle, it's a platform that gives creators and publishers the ability to offer a group of products for an amazing price with a portion of the proceeds going to a charity of their choice (or your choice if you have one you'd prefer to choose instead).

Our Bundle with Frog God Games features not only PDFs of some of their most popular publications, but also STL files for 52 of our most popular models going all the way back to Dragon's Hoard Vol. 1, including the four Elementals, Red Dragon, and Death Knight! We've never offered any of the STL files of our models for sale, and we get asked to do so often, so this is a pretty unique event. If you're one of the people who has asked us before, now's your chance! Even better, pre-supported and non-supported versions are included so whether you're a 3D printing wizard or just a dabbler we've got you covered.

Pledge just $20 to get everything! It really is an unbeatable deal and helps others in need - a true win-win.

Of course our Rounders Dice Kickstarter campaign is still ongoing and already funded (a big thank you to everyone who has pledged so far)!

If you're tired of those old dice you've been using for years, then Rounders Dice is just what you've been looking for. It's a complete polyhedral set presented in a way that has never been done before. Check out the graphic below for a quick rundown on why Rounders Dice are more fun and satisfying to roll than any other dice set you've ever seen!

Each set comes in a themed tin featuring artwork honoring classic RPGs of old with five different themes to choose from. Or go all in for the entire set - Pledge Today!

And finally, we wanted to share a sneak peek at our next miniatures focused Kickstarter. We haven't shared this anywhere else yet, so you all are getting the first look at some of the upcoming models for Dragon's Cache 2: Electric Boogaloo (working title 😉).

Dragon's Cache 2 will be a little bigger than this first series was and will also feature a brand new huge dragon as part of the line-up. We'll have more info on Dragon's Cache 2 coming soon!

And with that, we're done for today's update. Thanks as always for reading and staying informed on everything we've got in the works.

Take care and see you in the comments!

Project Update #13 - Fulfillment Underway, Rounders Dice Launch Date and More!
about 1 year ago – Thu, Mar 20, 2025 at 01:30:56 PM

Hello to everyone on this fine Thursday afternoon! It's time for another update post to go over the status of the project and other fun goings on here at NLM. Let's jump right in...

The first topic to go over, and we're sure the most important to our backers, is fulfillment. We began getting shipments out last week and as of today we've shipped out about 44% of pledges. Keep your eyes on your inboxes folks as once your pledge has been packed up you'll receive an email notification that includes your tracking number.

We're still making progress most days towards getting pledges out the door while we also take care of our usual day-to-day business operations (web orders, casting work for clients, etc.). So don't worry if you haven't seen your shipping notification yet. We're still working through the pledges as quickly as we can manage, but it'll take us at least a few more weeks still to see everything out the door. 

The next topic on the agenda is announcing that the official launch date of our Rounders Dice Kickstarter is this upcoming Tuesday, March 25th. This one has been in the works for a while, but it's finally ready to unveil and we're incredibly excited.

Extraordinary dice for extraordinary adventures, our Rounders Dice have extra sides added to to each die (except the d20) and are liquid-filled with sharp-edges for satisfying precision rolling every time! Each set of dice comes in a themed tin featuring artwork that is an homage to a classic RPG module from the past.

We've included some pictures of d20 prototypes below for "Dragon's Breath", "Azure Lightning" and the promotional Oversized d20 (these are prototypes for finalizing color pantones and the liquid-filled swirl effects, as such, the number font used on the final production dice will match the renders shown on the campaign page and promotional graphics and not those in the prototypes pictured here).

Please be sure to sign-up to be notified when the campaign goes live and checkout this page where you can learn how to get an oversized d20 added to your pledge for free!

Next up, both of the Fan Voted Dragonborn Swashbucklers are finished and ready to swing into action in April as webshop direct releases. Keep an eye out for their dramatic debut! The Tortle Battle Smith model (and its Steel Defender) is currently in the works and we'll have some work-in-progress images to show off in our next newsletter.

Last topic on the agenda is to let you all know our Wet Erase Vinyl Maps are now available for pre-order! The pre-order window will last until April 1st. After that we'll have them made and shipped out within two weeks - a quick turnaround indeed!

Produced in the USA, these maps are vibrant, scratch resistant and made with ultra-durable matte banner material. Rolls up easily to store and lays flat when in use. Simple to clean and spill proof too!

The first set of maps includes our original 5 Next Level Encounters themed maps, plus two brand new maps for a Bandit Hideout and Town Square. They're only $15.99 on pre-order (price will be higher at retail) and we've also got a bundle of all 7 maps for only $94.99!

We're basically printing to demand for these and aren't going to carry a deep standing inventory, so make sure to snag the ones you want while the pre-order window is open.

And that's the end of our update for this week. We'll be back with another update in early April and we'll have some sneak peaks at our next miniatures Kickstarter release as well. ;)

Have a good one and we'll see you in the comments!