Tales of the Trenches Miniature Warband on Kickstarter: War Nuns, Barbed Wire and the Vow of the Bandages
- Sarah
- May 2
- 9 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
The Tales of the Trenches miniature warband on Kickstarter is built around a single image that stops you cold the moment you encounter it: a line of blindfolded sisters marching through barbed wire and artillery fire, guided by nothing but faith and the voice of their Trench Matriarch. Giuseppe Chiafele, former Forge World and 'Eavy Metal painter, raised €23,821 from 215 backers against a goal of €8,796, funding at 270%. Four prior campaigns delivered on time, digital files within 24 hours of pledge manager close every single time. The late pledge is open via MyMiniFactory now.
Tales of the Trenches Miniature Warband: Campaign Overview
Platform | Kickstarter |
Funding Goal | €8,796 EUR |
Amount Raised | €23,821 EUR |
Backers | 215 |
Campaign Status | Closed, late pledge open via MyMiniFactory |
Estimated Delivery | May 2026 (digital) / Jun 2026 (physical) |
Format | Physical resin + presupported STL files |
Creator | Giuseppe Chiafele / Axia Painting, Italy |
Quick Verdict
Who Will Love This Campaign
Trench Crusade players looking for an officially compatible Trench Pilgrims warband with genuine narrative depth and Italian craft behind every sculpt
Grimdark miniature collectors who want darkness that earns itself through lore rather than wearing it as aesthetic decoration
Painters drawn to 32mm heroic scale figures with old-school comic-book composition and the kind of surface detail that rewards patient, unhurried brushwork
3D printing hobbyists who want presupported STL files tested across multiple continents, climates and printer models before a single backer received them
Main Strengths
Giuseppe Chiafele is a former Forge World and 'Eavy Metal painter with four successfully delivered campaigns, all fulfilled on time with digital files within 24 hours of pledge manager close
270% funded by 215 backers, a devoted community that has followed this creator across five projects in the same narrative universe
Presupported STL files in three formats: unsupported STL, presupported STL, and Lychee .LYS project files with customisable supports, the most complete digital package in this hub
Custom duties waived for EU, USA, UK, AU and NZ backers, with regional print-and-ship partners already operational on three continents
Possible Limitations
All tiers priced in EUR, creating currency risk for non-European backers at the current exchange rate
No commercial printing license in this campaign, personal use only
Giuseppe runs this as a solo venture with collaborators, not a studio production, which is simultaneously this campaign's greatest creative strength and its most honest operational constraint
Is the Tales of the Trenches Miniature Warband Worth Backing?
Yes, without hesitation. The Tales of the Trenches miniature warband on Kickstarter is the only campaign in this hub where the lore is not atmosphere — it is doctrine. Every sculpting decision is a consequence of a story Giuseppe built before he picked up a stylus. Four delivered campaigns. Digital files in 24 hours. A former Forge World painter working at an independent scale because he wants to sculpt figures that nobody else will. The Golden Digital tier at €79 gives you 18 core Sisters plus every stretch goal unlocked during the campaign, with nothing to add manually and nothing to chase later.
What Is the Tales of the Trenches Miniature Warband on Kickstarter?
Eight hundred martyrs were beheaded on the Hill of Minerva the day the city fell. Inside the cathedral, a group of sisters barricaded behind pews-turned-trenches and altars-turned-firing-positions loaded their weapons and recited psalms — ever more softly, ever less convinced anyone was listening. They waited for rescue. They waited for a miracle.
The miracle arrived headless.
The city chaplain, executed at the gates, did not fall. He walked toward the enemy with a small wooden cross in his hands and nothing above his shoulders but the faith that had animated him until moments before. His executioner converted on the spot. His own soldiers killed him for it. The sisters witnessed everything from behind the cathedral glass. And at dawn, one by one, without a vote, without a debate, they deprived themselves of sight. Not as punishment. By choice. So they would no longer carry the evil they had seen. Their eyes were gathered and preserved in the Crypt of Eyes, visited before every battle by the gloved hands of those who might not return.
This is the founding doctrine of the Trench Sisterhood. They march blind because sight, for them, is not a tactical asset. It is a thing they gave away on purpose. The Tales of the Trenches miniature warband on Kickstarter is 18 figures built entirely around that single, irreversible, theological decision.
The Warband: 18 Sisters Who Only Know Forward
Every sculpt in the Tales of the Trenches miniature warband shares one compositional truth: there is no defensive pose in the entire range. No sister is crouching behind cover. No sister is looking back. Every model is moving toward something, which in the context of barbed wire and artillery means they are moving toward the worst thing on the table, on purpose, without being able to see it.
The Trench Matriarch anchors the warband. She is the voice. She is the only orientation these women have. Around her: Sisters mid-crawl through wire, Sisters at the moment of contact, Sisters already through the obstacle and still advancing. The sculpts capture consecutive moments in the same inevitable movement from the trench lip to the enemy position. As a painted group on a display base they tell the whole story without a single word of lore required.
Stretch goal models expand the roster with additional Sisters, the Ammo Servus support model, and specialist figures that extend the warband's tactical range within Trench Crusade's Trench Pilgrims faction. Golden tier backers receive all of these automatically. Standard pledges receive stretch goals marked as free during the campaign.
The range is built at 32mm heroic scale, matching proportions with the most widely used wargaming miniatures on the market. For integration with older game systems, Giuseppe recommends printing at 95% size.
The Trench Crusade Connection: Why This Warband Exists Now
The Tales of the Trenches miniature warband on Kickstarter did not emerge from nowhere. It is a direct creative response to Trench Crusade, the most significant independent miniature wargame Kickstarter of 2024, which raised $3.33 million from 20,170 backers and introduced a grimdark WWI-horror game system that has since built one of the fastest-growing wargame communities in the independent market.
In Trench Crusade, the Trench Sisterhood plays as Trench Pilgrims: a faction defined by fanatical devotion, expendable zeal, and the kind of faith that treats incoming fire as secondary information. The mechanical identity of the faction maps directly onto the lore of the warband. They advance. They absorb punishment. They do not stop. For Trench Crusade players who want a Trench Pilgrims warband with genuine narrative coherence behind every model rather than generic grimdark aesthetics, the Tales of the Trenches miniature warband is the most fully realised independent option in the current market.
Compatibility extends beyond Trench Crusade. The Sisters work within Warhammer 40,000 and any major wargame ruleset using the 28-32mm standard.
A Forge World Painter Working at Human Scale
Giuseppe Chiafele spent years in Nottingham inside Games Workshop's professional painting divisions. Forge World and 'Eavy Metal are, without exaggeration, where the best miniature painters in the world go to work. The standards those studios apply to every figure that leaves them are the benchmarks every commission painter in the hobby is measured against globally.
He came home to Italy. He resumed commission work. And then, rather than painting other people's visions, he started making the figures he actually wanted to paint — the ones nobody was producing. Not the named heroes and the named monsters. The anonymous figures. The NPCs. The civilians. The sisters on the edge of someone else's story who have their own story running parallel and just as fully realised.
The Tales of the Trenches miniature warband is his fifth Kickstarter project. The previous four were fulfilled on time. Digital files went out within 24 hours of pledge manager close, every time, without exception. That is not a lucky streak. That is a production philosophy.
The Digital Files: Three Formats, Three Continents of Testing
The presupported STL package for the Tales of the Trenches miniature warband is the most rigorously tested digital product in this hub. Every file was printed multiple times across different continents, climatic zones, temperatures and printer models before being submitted to the manufacturer for final proof. The files backers receive are the exact files used for physical production — supports already optimised, geometry already validated, results confirmed across every test environment.
Three formats are included:
Unsupported STL for printers who prefer full control over support placement and orientation.
Presupported STL matching the physical production run exactly — same geometry, same attachment points, same results.
Lychee .LYS project files with fully customisable supports for Lychee slicer users who want to adjust point size and compenetration without rebuilding from scratch. This format is genuinely rare in independent miniature Kickstarters and reflects the depth of technical investment behind this campaign.
All digital files delivered via MyMiniFactory's pledge manager. Cloud storage included at no additional cost, with all future Tales of the Old World range updates delivered automatically to the same library.
Giuseppe's personal printing parameters shared in the campaign: Elegoo Saturn 4 Ultra, Elegoo ABS 3.0 8K resin, 25°C with a terrarium heater cable maintaining ambient temperature stability. For older printers, the Lychee files allow support point adjustment to compensate for lower UV output.
Tales of the Trenches Miniature Warband: Pledge Levels
The smartest entry point for most backers is the Golden Sister Warband Digital at €79. It is the tier that removes every decision from the campaign experience: 18 core Sisters plus every stretch goal unlocked, free and paid, added automatically without manual pledge management. For a campaign run by a solo creator where the stretch goal roster grows as the campaign builds momentum, the Golden tier is the difference between getting everything and spending the campaign clicking add-ons.
For painters and collectors who want physical resin on the shelf rather than files on a hard drive, the Golden Sister Warband Physical at €139 delivers the same complete roster in high quality resin from Madn3ss Casting Studio in Italy, with no customs fees for EU, USA, UK, AU and NZ backers.
The outlier worth knowing about is the ALL-IN STL at €269 — not for this campaign specifically, but for the entire Tales of the Old World universe. It includes all four previous warbands at early bird pricing alongside the Trench Sisterhood, starting at over 100 models. For a collector who has discovered this range late and wants the complete digital catalogue in a single pledge, it is the only tier that makes that possible.
Risks and Considerations
Giuseppe runs Tales of the Trenches as a solo venture with collaborators. That is both the creative strength of this campaign — every aesthetic decision is made by a single vision — and the honest constraint that backers should factor in. Four prior deliveries mitigate this risk considerably, but a solo creator operating across physical production, digital fulfillment and community management carries more personal operational load than a studio campaign.
Currency risk is real for non-European backers. All tiers are priced in EUR and late pledge pricing via MyMiniFactory carries a 10% premium over Kickstarter campaign rates.
No commercial printing license is offered. Personal use only.
Should You Back the Tales of the Trenches Miniature Warband on Kickstarter?
There are campaigns in this hub with bigger funding totals and larger studio names behind them. There is not another campaign in this hub where the lore, the craft and the creator's biography point in exactly the same direction so completely.
The Tales of the Trenches miniature warband on Kickstarter gives you 18 grimdark Sisters sculpted by a former Forge World painter, compatible with the most exciting wargame system of 2024, available in three digital formats tested across three continents, fulfilled in 24 hours, at a price point that the biggest studios in this space cannot match at the same quality level.
The late pledge is open so you can still back the Tales of the Trenches Miniature Warband on Kickstarter via MyMiniFactory. The Crypt of Eyes is waiting.
Editor's note: For the full GizmoCrowd guide to grimdark miniatures and wargames on Kickstarter - from Trench Crusade - compatible warbands to complete skirmish systems - visit our miniature games hub.
FAQ about Tales of the Trenches Miniatures
What is the Tales of the Trenches miniature warband on Kickstarter?
Tales of the Trenches: The Trench Sisterhood is a Kickstarter campaign by Giuseppe Chiafele / Axia Painting offering a 32mm grimdark miniature warband of war-nuns who march blind through barbed wire and artillery fire, guided by faith and the voice of their Trench Matriarch. Available as high quality physical resin and presupported STL files.
Beyond the miniature category, GizmoCrowd's Kickstarter tabletop game reviews cover RPG systems, trading card games and board games with the same editorial depth.
Is the Tales of the Trenches warband compatible with Trench Crusade?
Yes. The Trench Sisterhood is officially compatible with Trench Crusade and plays as the Trench Pilgrims faction. Compatible with Warhammer 40,000 and other major wargame rulesets using the 28-32mm standard.
What STL file formats are included?
Three formats: unsupported STL, presupported STL, and Lychee .LYS project files with customisable supports. All files are the same ones used for physical resin production, tested across multiple printers, climates and continents.
Where are digital files delivered?
Via MyMiniFactory's pledge manager platform. Cloud storage included at no additional cost. All future updates to the Tales of the Old World range delivered automatically to the same library.
Is there a commercial printing license?
No. Personal use license only. Commercial printing and resale of physical prints is not permitted.
Are there customs fees?
No customs for backers in the EU, USA, UK, Australia and New Zealand. Physical models produced and shipped regionally: Italy and EU by Madn3ss Casting Studio, AU and NZ by Miniature Horde in Melbourne, UK, USA, Canada and rest of world by Only-Games.
Is the late pledge still open?
Yes. Available via MyMiniFactory's pledge manager at a 10% premium over Kickstarter campaign pricing. Models added transfer to your library immediately.
Who is Giuseppe Chiafele?
A former Forge World and 'Eavy Metal painter based in Italy, creator of five Kickstarter campaigns across the Tales of the Old World range. All four prior campaigns fulfilled on time, digital files delivered within 24 hours of pledge manager close.
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