I know i have been trying to keep this firmly under wraps btu i think ti might be worth while to make sure that I am on the right track with this by posting a bit of a sneak peek into the direction I am traveling.

Below is the first of one of the human faction's grunt figures. This guy is intentionally simple because I plan to engineer some cross compatible modularity into as many of the figures as possible.

Also I have pictured the very beginning stages of one of the game's big beastie creatures. This thing will be the mount for a faction champion. It is for a different faction than the grunt pictured here but I felt it would be handy to give a bit of breadth to the concept so you might be able to better picture where I am going with it.

Anyway I hope you guys like where this is going but please tell me if you think this is a waste of time.






Mod Edit - More pics from Tre! Click on his name at the top of each quote to jump to that point in the thread:

 tre manor wrote:


Alright y'all. HEre is a small peek at two of the nine. These will have hand weapons and shields. The equipment will be suitably worn. The weapons will probably be some sort of short swords and the shields will be round shields of some kind of metal sheet so not very big. These will represent the most basic form of melee grunts. I am hoping as this effort develops to have the opportunity to follow a few other ideas I have for various types of undead, but for the beginning this is the offering.

There will be nine of these " grunts " ( never fear I have a better term for them int he rules and fiction ) in the starter set along with a pair of living cultist acolytes and a somewhat more vital undead warrior hero and a controlling NEcromancer. The undead in this game are going to be FAR more powerful of an enemy than what is typically seen in gaming and fiction in general. Undead always terrified me as a kid because I wondered how you can kill something that is already dead. The undead of contemporary fiction have definitely lost that kind of ominence. I want the undead fo this world setting to bring that back in spades.

 tre manor wrote:



Ok Y'all, here are the new preview pics...... I am not sure I am 100 % sold on the lizardman design. It is still a little too anthropomorphic for what I was aiming for...BUT this would be one of the lesser lizardman warrior minions. This kit would be part at the top of the neck and at the waist and at the left elbow IF I go modular. There would be 2 options each for legs, torso, head, shield, and weapon at least to start out with.

Then there is the Beta Mutant warrior. This kit would part at the top of the neck and at the waist. There would be 3 options for legs and torsos and four options for heads and weapons as at least one of the torsos would have a two necks. These guys are going to define bizarre. The entire faction will as a matter of fact. This head option has one eye, there will be another option with three eyes, and another with four eyes, and another with two. This torso has three arms, there will others with four, or just two, or three with one on the opposite side. Their skin textures will each be unique as well.

That may be going out on the limb a bit too far but the hell with it, I want to create an opportunity for artists to really just go berserk and truly be creative. That is really the overall driving ethic behind the design of the project as a whole. I really want people to feel encouraged to write their own visual stories in this game / world. I want to see artists REALLY being artists free from the constraints of " painting by the numbers " so-to-speak......That really comes across wrong...... what I mean is to say that I do not want to confine artists to the standards of the " real world". I want people to feel absolutely free to paint the skin of their barbarians Purple with green hair if they want. Freedom to be freaky and have FUN with their creations.

anyway these are the candidates for the third faction in the first KS. It may be that both fo them get included btu I am goign to concetrate my efforts on one or the other first and once that one is done, if the funding allows the opportunity then the other will be included.

Ok here they are..........

 tre manor wrote:

Time for another preview??

This is the first of the greater Undead Warriors. These are Undead whose spirits are more tightly bound to their mummified remains and generally act as the personal guard of the Liche Priest hood or High ranking cultists. They are smarter and stronger and more co-ordinated than the lesser undead. They are not totally autonomous but they also do not need the same level of management by the necromancer or the closer proximity to the animating necromancer either.

I have plans to make 3 or 4 of these and then a cultist hero to lead them in battle.

 tre manor wrote:


New PReivew Time!

This is the Liche Priestess who animates the undead warrirors previewed thus far.



And this is one of the art element WIPs for the undead faction for the campaign page and rules book.

 tre manor wrote:


As promised. This is one of the Bua Bua or Mutant " faction ". This woudl be a middle ranking grunt.

I am JUST abotu to head otu to dinner with the family but I will eb back to answer questions as needed.

Cheers!

Tre'

Images are copyright Red Box Games 2009-2014

Modularity is such a good idea! I think it was a big hit with the orcs from your second KS. Any chance the orcs would be included in this project? (With the same sculpts, not new ones). I am very tempted by those for when you get them up for sale

Looks good.

That loincloth clad dude is looking pretty awesome, and I'm intrigued by the big beastie. I want to know more about this super duper secret project!

Modularity is a GREAT idea for grunts (imo).

And the human is looking aces. Is he going to be some sort of nearly-naked berserker?

I've long-thought that what Tre needs to really get his sculpts in a lot more hands is some sort of skirmish game for his fine minis. I hope the "secret project" is something along those lines.

Please tease me with more giant monsters please.

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
Please tease me with more giant monsters please.

Context really is everything, isn't it?

Very much interested in where this one's heading!

I'm going to guess bronze/stone age fantasy and the big beastie is a dinosaur.

The sculpt looks fantastic. I think Tre does some of the best musculature in the business.

If Tre does dinosaurs, that's game over for my wallet.

Would be very excited to see some though!

The big beastie reminds me of the Tyranid monsters in the Wobbly Model Syndrome Comic:

http://www.wobblymodelsyndrome.com/comic-270.html

Firstly I want to say I am a fan

Secondly I have some qualms about the muscle dude. However seeing how this is still a wip it's probably why.

1) His knee joints look puny in comparison to the rest of him as all other joints are bigger.

2) He has a very modern look to him, like a current body builder imho. I think I get that feeling because he is quite slender and that makes him look tall thus I find it hard to place him in a loin cloth context other than cosplay. For some reason I keep assuming he is wearing a wristwatch or a portable time travel device. Another reason might be the bald/shaved head

Anyway I am looking forward to seeing more!

Are you planning on having these in metal, plastic (sprued hard plastic) or resin?

Thanks guys!

i do not want to give too much about this away just yet. I have a lot more work to do before it is really ready to debut.

Suffice it to say that this will be a big and ambitious project. It is NOT connected to the existign RBG fantasy line. It is scale compatible but not intended to be a part of the same world.

It will be have a game launched along side the minis. I have been working on the game for a very long time and I have been working ont he setting for a VERY long time.

At first at least the game will be a smaller model count skirmish game with games using between 8 and 12 models per side. However the rules are engineered to be scaleable to allow for much higher model count games if the development of the miniatures line can support such games.

The initial offering will be starter sets for at least 5 " factions " with each set containing 1 champion, 1 big beastie ( sometimes these will be the same entity or a team ), a set of melee grunts and a set fo missile grunts. Grunts will all be cross compatibel with every other figure of the same type in the same faction. Some factions will even be cross compatible with one another. The point is to allow players to customize their forces as much as possible to make every war band much more personal and unique. This will be further facilitated int eh rules and fluff. The game won;t follow the same strict faction structure as what is common in table top gaming.

The figures are intended to be produced in metal for now. The big beasties will probably be in resin. I am checking in to plastic production but I WILL NOT compromise on quality. Hard plastic is most likely not going to be a possibility due to the detail level of the figures.




Critiques....... This is pretty much exactly why I posted. I am trying to stylize the look a little bit but I do not want to go too far with that stylization. As always I do very much appreciate any feedback and criticism. So, the knees need thickening? That is easy enough. the anatomy is intended to be a bit more heroic than realistic. BUT again I do not want to go too far with it.

anyway I will be posting about this as it develops! I am very excited and renewed by your enthusiasm for this!

Tre, I love your miniatures and would really be interested in a skirmish game. Do you have time scale in mind?

I wouldn't be too quick to make the knees thicker: right now Olympic speed skating is on, a sport that builds huge legs. The thing is, while the thighs and calves get bigger, the knees... are like anyone else's knees. Simple reason of course: there are no muscles in the knees, only the ligaments and bones that are present in anyone. So the reality is that however big the muscles of the leg get, the knees kinda stay the same.

As always Tre, you are a true master of anatomy; that physique is amazing, looks like it could have come out of an anatomy text book.

Sweet - a whole new line, 5 new factions, big gribblies and a game to go with them! Looking forward to seeing this. (Even though I need another game to follow like I need another hole in my head).

In a way it's better to have a whole new line for the game because it's nice and tidy compared to trying to reincorporate the existing line.


*Edit - And I do think the knees look a little skinny, not width-wise, but depth-wise. In that 4th picture the side view in particular. He looks very prone to his legs breaking in half.

Schmapdi wrote:
And I do think the knees look a little skinny, not width-wise, but depth-wise.

This is what I meant, I realise now I should have specified.

Searching for a picture was kind of lol

If it's a small skirmish game I can live with metal, but if its for units I.e 10+ models each unit then its hard plastic or nothing for me I'm afraid. But as you say its a very small model count.

You CAN get great detail on hard plastic just look at the new Wyrd Malifaux kits, there the best hard plastic kits I've seen and they can hold there detail just as much as resin or metal, just pick up a box and you'll see what I mean. Though I know there a lot more expensive to tool (kinda makes me wonder how Wyrd did it). Anyways good luck with the project I'll more then likely chip in a few quid as I'm a sucker for skirmish games. (As long as the international shipping is ok as that has stopped me putting in a lot of money into other American projects.)

Edit: also having seeing the Kingdom Death hard plastics (online mind, not in hand) then it does start to put to rest that you can't get as good detail on hard plastic then metal/resin.

Problem with hard plastic, is the cost of tooling. I'm much happier with metal anyway.

I'm certainly interested. I hope there's a fair showing for the female gender as well.

Nice work Tre.

 tre manor wrote:


Critiques....... This is pretty much exactly why I posted. I am trying to stylize the look a little bit but I do not want to go too far with that stylization. As always I do very much appreciate any feedback and criticism. So, the knees need thickening? That is easy enough. the anatomy is intended to be a bit more heroic than realistic. BUT again I do not want to go too far with it.

anyway I will be posting about this as it develops! I am very excited and renewed by your enthusiasm for this!

I definitely agree that the knees are too skinny. I honestly thought the guy was still WIP from the thighs down and you were just bulking out the forms for the knees and calves. If I may offer another suggestion I would thicken up his hip muscles. (the gluteus medius for example), he currently looks a bit like his torso just disappears into his loin cloth line without any of the connecting muscles. For example if you thickened up the muscle group that starts down at the base of his spine (kind of inbetween his buns) and runs up to his lower spine, I think it would make the lower to upper body flow look a bit better, they would also naturally be more pronounced than they currently are given the pose at his apparent body fat percentage.

Again, beautiful work, just trying to be helpful. I love the dynamism of the pose and the amazing face in particular.

Well the Wyrd and Kingdom Death plastics are the best you can achieve for the medium but there really IS a difference between the detail that is possible in hard plastic and the detail that is possible in metal, resin, or restic. I could write a LENGTHY explanation of that but I really don;t feel like it right here. Suffice it to say that I am just not sure that hard plastics are the right material for this project. The start-up investment alone for what I want to do would range well over $100,000.00. I am little gun shy of that kind of start-up investment. I am trying to keep plastics production in mind during the design and sculpting of the items btu I am also not going to ignore the opportunity for AWESOMENESS!!! for the sake of plastics production either.


As to when this will go up....... Well I want to have as much of the initial offering sculpted and ready to go as possible first and I want to have as much of the full faction lists concepted and ready to go into funding as well. I am think this may be going up around June or so with an expected delivery date around November or so. I want to be sure that I hit this one out of the park so I am taking my time and making sure that everything for it is right.

Will this be a kickstarter?

yes. I don't think I could ever afford to get it started on my own even in the best of business times.

To give some perspective the starter sets will require between 12 and 15 molds and I want to launch with 5 or 6 factions. Then consider also that some of these items will need to be resin cast and that the metals will range in volume from light to very heavy.

I also want to make a rule book and setting guide, cards for gameplay and actors within the game, fancy boxes for the faction starters etc.

LOTS of money!

Is there a timescale

I'm seriously excited for this.

As a 'self-contained' game, there won't be any "scale issues" to worry about at all!

To echo the above question - Any idea on 'when' for this one?

I will be looking closely at this and as you say if its only 8-15 model count then metal/resin would be ok, but I would still worry about international shipping (especially if you won't be charging P&P for USA backers).

We will have to agree to disagree about quality of plastics versus metal and resin, I'm no expert I just know IMO when I look at Wyrds plastics next to say my Infinity and Rackham and other metal miniatures side by side.

Am looking forward to see what you come up with rules wise and fluff wise. I really liked how Megalith games had there rules and fluff in seperate books. I'm also a real sucker for add ons like t-shirts and maps.

Well I do not mean to besmirch the quality of work coming from Wargames Factory. They ARE the best in the business and very nice and honest business people, BUT I just really do not think that hard plastic is the right way to go with this project.

As to time frame for this project...... I am aiming the KS for June with a delivery time between August and October of this year.

One other consideration for Metal and Resin vs hard plastic.... I can set up production and fulfillment in the UK / EU.

That beastie is clearly a Duck billed Dinosaur. Sounds good to me! The dude looks good.

I totally agree that metal / resin is the way to go here.

For hard plastic to shine (or even be possible!) you have to sculpt with it in mind, and I can't see you doing that

It takes a different kind of expertise, and when people go into it without experience, can do more harm than good. But resin would be preferable to metal, for me.

Same here - I'll take resin (REAL resin!) over metal any day...

 tre manor wrote:

I also want to make a rule book and setting guide, cards for gameplay and actors within the game, fancy boxes for the faction starters etc.

Will there be PDFs? Will you make a token non-mini pledge for people interested in just having the background, as a way to get your foot in their proverbial door?

Like the miniature but he needs to be beefed up in the arms and legs section, he looks like a natural body builder who hasn't drank water for a week.

and about your money comment

I'd suggest that perhaps you might want to consider launching with 2-3 factions rather then 5-6. You can then follow up with additional campaigns for the additional factions.

I say this based on the following:

1) KS issues and fulfilment issues. 5-6 factions seems like an enormous number of unique sculpts (even allowing for modular models), and we know how that can go. Fewer sculpts and fewer figures should mean a slightly simpler campaign to manage and faster turnaround.

2) Doing a book as well - printing is a whole other beast to producing figures - and of course, delays on one end will affect the whole project.

3) I think it's fair to say that you have quite a few fans. Many of these people will want to collect more than one of your factions, and quite a few will want to collect them all. Doing 2-3 in the first wave KS and another 2-3 in subsequent waves lets people afford to buy more models across several campaigns than having to limit themselves in one campaign. For others, it also lets the existing models sell better due to the heightened interest of a current KS (for subsequent campaigns) and people pick up the rules and get keen to start playing. Look at all the people playing DeadZone during the campaign using alt minis - you'd have whole factions available for people to pick up.

If you do this in resin, Tre, just take my money.

Looks promising. I can't wait!

 Azazelx wrote:
I'd suggest that perhaps you might want to consider launching with 2-3 factions rather then 5-6. You can then follow up with additional campaigns for the additional factions.

I say this based on the following:

1) KS issues and fulfilment issues. 5-6 factions seems like an enormous number of unique sculpts (even allowing for modular models), and we know how that can go. Fewer sculpts and fewer figures should mean a slightly simpler campaign to manage and faster turnaround.

2) Doing a book as well - printing is a whole other beast to producing figures - and of course, delays on one end will affect the whole project.

3) I think it's fair to say that you have quite a few fans. Many of these people will want to collect more than one of your factions, and quite a few will want to collect them all. Doing 2-3 in the first wave KS and another 2-3 in subsequent waves lets people afford to buy more models across several campaigns than having to limit themselves in one campaign. For others, it also lets the existing models sell better due to the heightened interest of a current KS (for subsequent campaigns) and people pick up the rules and get keen to start playing. Look at all the people playing DeadZone during the campaign using alt minis - you'd have whole factions available for people to pick up.

This does sound like good advice. I don't think this project necessarily has to be enormous coming out of the gate to be succesful.

 Azazelx wrote:
I'd suggest that perhaps you might want to consider launching with 2-3 factions rather then 5-6. You can then follow up with additional campaigns for the additional factions.

I say this based on the following:

1) KS issues and fulfilment issues. 5-6 factions seems like an enormous number of unique sculpts (even allowing for modular models), and we know how that can go. Fewer sculpts and fewer figures should mean a slightly simpler campaign to manage and faster turnaround.

2) Doing a book as well - printing is a whole other beast to producing figures - and of course, delays on one end will affect the whole project.

3) I think it's fair to say that you have quite a few fans. Many of these people will want to collect more than one of your factions, and quite a few will want to collect them all. Doing 2-3 in the first wave KS and another 2-3 in subsequent waves lets people afford to buy more models across several campaigns than having to limit themselves in one campaign. For others, it also lets the existing models sell better due to the heightened interest of a current KS (for subsequent campaigns) and people pick up the rules and get keen to start playing. Look at all the people playing DeadZone during the campaign using alt minis - you'd have whole factions available for people to pick up.

This!

I had to get out of the previous RBG kickstarter because of unexpected expenses, but I would like to get in to one of Tre's Kickstarters. I think that a small kickstarter with a limited amount of miniatures/factions with more reliable delivery date would be more appealing to me at least.

Based on the sculpts is this going to be some sort of Frazetta-esque fantasy skirmish game?

Thanks for the advice guys.

Your advice is especially intriguing Azazelx. Very good points. I am not afraid of my ability to fulfill what I have on hand but having that many moving parts could easily lead to delays in production. The hard part would be picking which 3 factions to start out with. I think all of the factions I have designs for right now are awesome and they all play off of each other and the central setting theme so well.

That would certainly move the launch date and delivery forward quite a bit as well.

Book printing.....yes, that will be a hurtle to overcome being my first shot at it. I am doing some research on that and plan to tap a few contacts I have to help make that happen a bit more smoothly. I would not immediately hinge everything else upon that though. I suppose a quickstart rules set with a setting and faction overview could work well enough in the first campaign to get things going and I could save the hard back book for a dedicated campaign.

I had considered a lot of this already and was intending to do as much of the up front production work as I could manage / afford before launching anyway hence the delay. I had NOT considered the advantage of having a number of figures available with quickstart rules being available at full price during a second related campaign though. That is good thinking. Thank you.

Ok that is what I am goign to run with then. Now I guess it is time to get it into gear on gettign the rules organized for printing.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Whoops! Sorry I had forgotten to answer questions..........

Not a duck billed Dino, sorry. This is the mount of a Barbarian Champion and barbarians prefer horns and big teeth to duck bills.

This guy pictured is nto intended to be thickly muscled. Think of him like Spiderman, very lean and lithe. And the intention was in fact to give him the physique of someone who had lived a desert his entire life.

 tre manor wrote:
Not a duck billed Dino, sorry. This is the mount of a Barbarian Champion and barbarians prefer horns and big teeth to duck bills.

This guy pictured is nto intended to be thickly muscled. Think of him like Spiderman, very lean and lithe. And the intention was in fact to give him the physique of someone who had lived a desert his entire life.

Sounds cool, Tre . If I could make one request, and I think I speak for many of your fans:

Please write a nice, paragraph-long description of each character explaining their background, and perhaps a page-long description of each faction. You can then copy/paste these and not have to explain the design elements that you chose. It would also get all of that excellent world-building/background out of your head, and down on paper for all of us to see

 bbb wrote:
Based on the sculpts is this going to be some sort of Frazetta-esque fantasy skirmish game?

I certainly hope so!

Give me a counts as Death Dealer, and we'll all be good to go!

Argh, I am likely to buy pretty much anything Tre makes. If this is a post apoc game or something, dear god.

Seconding Azazel's point about the staggering though, I would probably buy more in total if the KS are staggered as I would be intimidated by the large sum- it's easier to manage two medium purchases over a longer time than one large purchase all at once.

 Da Boss wrote:
Argh, I am likely to buy pretty much anything Tre makes. If this is a post apoc game or something, dear god.

Seconding Azazel's point about the staggering though, I would probably buy more in total if the KS are staggered as I would be intimidated by the large sum- it's easier to manage two medium purchases over a longer time than one large purchase all at once.

And you don't get the stink eye from the spouse. $45 for Tre's Njorn KS project went unnoticed. $250 for the RBG KS got me the stink eye.

You know, when I said "manage", that is pretty much exactly what I meant

I mean, not that my lovely missus actually watches what I buy that closely, but I usually disclose it in the interests of transparency. Foolish perhaps, but it's a lot easier to get away with in little bite sized chunks.

I like the phrase "stink eye" though!

Ill be another vote for a lower faction count in the initial offering.
Keeps things simple for backers and more manageable for Tre.

Looking forward to seeing what's in store.

Yeah, I was in the doghouse for the first RBG Kickstarter too...

Now this is a project I am REALLY interested to see. The models in the pictures look amazing, but this is something expected from Tre. I keep a close eye on this.

Yeah! Less factions equals less upfront costs, which equals less threats of physical harm from the missus.

If you want to run a few mini ones every couple of months, would that be possible?

 Da Boss wrote:
You know, when I said "manage", that is pretty much exactly what I meant

I mean, not that my lovely missus actually watches what I buy that closely, but I usually disclose it in the interests of transparency. Foolish perhaps, but it's a lot easier to get away with in little bite sized chunks.

I like the phrase "stink eye" though!

I disclose as well, but I have a monthly hobby budget that is not $250. So that requires more than the normal, "I put a $45 pledge on a KS. It should fund next month," or "I grabbed a couple new X-Wing boosters at the shop tonight." The stink eye is that you-don't-recall-a-time-that-I-recently-spent-$250-on-something-just-for-me-do-you look. I dislike that look...mostly because it is well-deserved...

However, Tre includes cool shirts in his big KS projects, and the missuss loves a good shirt. A spoonful of sugar and all!

hah hah Weeble. Don't let me get you into trouble!

Yeh the more I think on it running smaller more focused campaigns over a longer period of time makes great sense. Chiefly it allows me to really focus my energy and stay more " in the moment " rather than being beholden to a strict work plan over an extended period of time. I know that two of the first factions will be the barbarians and the undead faction. I figure those will make sure fire successes. The third one is a toss up between about 6 other faction ideas. This discussion has really been helping to fuel the creative fires. I did not get much done on this project today as I was working on the Erebius for Mierce today, I should get back to it tomorrow though.

Tre, will the modular orcs be on the list of factions? No problem if not, but I thought you might've sculpted them with this in mind- they seem like a great fit. Would save some sculpting and molding costs, to boot!

 tre manor wrote:


Thanks for the advice guys.

Your advice is especially intriguing Azazelx. Very good points. I am not afraid of my ability to fulfill what I have on hand but having that many moving parts could easily lead to delays in production. The hard part would be picking which 3 factions to start out with. I think all of the factions I have designs for right now are awesome and they all play off of each other and the central setting theme so well.

That would certainly move the launch date and delivery forward quite a bit as well.

Book printing.....yes, that will be a hurtle to overcome being my first shot at it. I am doing some research on that and plan to tap a few contacts I have to help make that happen a bit more smoothly. I would not immediately hinge everything else upon that though. I suppose a quickstart rules set with a setting and faction overview could work well enough in the first campaign to get things going and I could save the hard back book for a dedicated campaign.

I had considered a lot of this already and was intending to do as much of the up front production work as I could manage / afford before launching anyway hence the delay. I had NOT considered the advantage of having a number of figures available with quickstart rules being available at full price during a second related campaign though. That is good thinking. Thank you.

Ok that is what I am goign to run with then. Now I guess it is time to get it into gear on gettign the rules organized for printing.

Thanks Tre'
I'd suggest picking three factions with the most divergent looks or based on the most popular tropes. Since I haven't seen what your upcoming figures look like, I'd think that humans, elves and orcs (or analogues) would work well, with perhaps swapping out the "orcs" for the most divergent and bestial faction you have. "Good humans" that people can somewhat relate to are a must for one of the launch window factions, I'd say. Maybe have a think about it, pick three that you like and see what the feedback is on your forum and any other interactive/social media locations you're active in (facebook?) - as well as here on Dakka, of course!

Starting with Quickstart rules sounds a good idea. Make them cheap or free on the web (or a mini-rulebook from the first KS and a stripped down version as a free PDF) - that allows playtesting and feedback for a hardcover or perfect bound rulebook in subsequent campaigns. Second campaign is for the "proper" rulebook and 2-3 more factions.

Perhaps 3rd + subsequent KS campaigns could be based around "new lands" expansion books with 2-3 additional factions from the new locations and a couple of new models for existing factions that have some lore connection to the new expansion lands. (as friends, invaders, arch-enemies, etc).

Anvil recently put out a nice little booklet with their KS, and Mantic do a good job with their "no frills" free PDFs for people who just ant to get models and get playing as quickly as possible - which is how people were playing DeadZone during the campaign. Hm. You could almost make up "official-unofficial" packs of RBG models of existing stock to sell before/during the KS if you have a PDF of Beta rules to make available during that time. People who are excited and publicly posting and talking about playing (and enjoying) your game (even alpha/beta rules) during the campaign make for very good viral marketing, since it's genuine enthusiasm.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Barbarians and Undead sound like great choices for the initial offerings.

Or just delay this KS a bit and then launch how you wanted to initially?

Whatever works for you - I know we're all really looking forward to this!

Ritides; Nope the orcs are for the existign fantasy line....I HAVE to come up with an official name for it.......However there will CERTAINLY be a orc equivalent faction in this new project. They won;t be an " Oh those are Orcs! " kind of thing but they will be an " Oh those must be the ' orcs '. " kind of thing.

This project's primary focus is going to be unique identity. I want people to know which line these items belong to when they see them without havign any other clue other than what they see.

Az, thanks again man. Great advice. Yep the Barbarians in this initial offering would be the " good" guys and the Undead would definitely be the " bad " guys though that distinction won;t always be the same as the line develops.

Now I am trying to decide between an in between kind fo faction or another evil faction or another good faction. Though I would prefer to totally toss out the idea of factions and absolute faction identities. I like the idea of defining the actors within the world as being good or evil based on their individual ethics, associations and agendas rather than which " faction " they belong to. I will of course offer pre-written characters for each faction / race that will be either good or evil btu I also want players to feel encouraged to write their own stories within the world and for those stories to be freely defined.

So the Barbarians could be defined as beign melee heavy and the Undead as being magic heavy....... I guess the third faction should tread the middle ground??

The quickstart rules will be a free booklet included with the faction starters. So a VERY stripped down version fo the rules just to get people playing. Remember the old Confrontation quick start rules booklet that came int he blisters?? That is kind of what I am thinking here, only in a larger format. So yes a PDF would also be available and would not interrupt any sales from the rules booklet.


Thanks Alpharius, I think I will actuall ybe able to make a better success by splitting it up. While on one hand waiting until i have a lot more " factions " to start with it also means it takes longer to get started and I will have to ask for more money to get complete forces for each faction represented, which could easily back fire. So I think this way I can focus on just a smaller selection of forces and flesh them out more fully faster with less money. Given the competition this year I think I might be best served to keep my ambitions in check and go for the smaller dollar amounts distributed over a wider number of people. I am really not going to ask for more than I absolutely have to have to make the production and fulfillment happen so don't expect to see a million dollar campaign out of this one. I will of course plan for every possibility but I am only going to expect to fund the starter sets ( one big beastie, a champ, a set of melee grunts and a set of ranged grunts. ) maybe one or two alternate heroes, and one or two special units for each of the initial factions.

Tre - sounds fair!

Are you thinking that the next KS for this project will be a lot faster to launch to then?

Maybe, it depends on how long it takes to get these first grunt matrixes cast in resin and back in hand.

Argh about the orcs, but fair enough . Could you comment on your plan for selling them, though- will they be put up in the webstore? I wasn't sure if you got extra metal stock cast when you had them made, and you had mentioned you'd sculpted more bodies for them... those really intrigued me.

I may hold off and see what factions you're offering here, it just seemed like a great way to use sculpts that were really popular that you'd already had sculpted and cast, which I think even had ranged and melee options, and were modular... would've fit in so well as that third faction.

So if you can comment on how you'll be selling those, I'd appreciate it

Meanwhile, here I have two thoughts- perhaps the third faction could be ranged heavy (if the others are melee and magic). And I think finding a good resin manufacturer would make it way more popular- look at what Mierce is doing, people love resin! Even at a higher price, and for a low model count game that works.

Sounds like something I could back on ks. Admittedly the postage always buggers up my plans for us ks but if you had a uk distributor id probably jump in having seen your previous work.

As stated above Anvil did a very cool pre kickstarter kickstarter to test the waters and release some inital figures before the main event. The mini book they did was excellent and they are releasing the beta rules to backers to playtest before the main event. It may be worth you checking out what they did. Plus they do really nice resin casts ;

Any idea on a possible launch date?

Yeh, I was really disappointed to have to scrap all of that extra work that went in to the alternate orc bodies. I had to scrap those for the same reason I had to scrap the KS orc torsos. Remember the issue with shrinkage in the arm fittings? That affected the alternate bodies too. To make moatters more costly I had had those bodies cast into the hundreds as well and I could not recover the costs of those castings in full ( a lot of what I am charged for castings is the labour cost of casting them ) so not onyl did I lose all the money that went in to moldign those items I also lost most of the money that went in to castign them for distribution as well. That was a HARD pill to swallow. Those will come back eventually but not just yet. As for the Orcs funded int he kickstarter. They will be available in the web store in the next week or so. I have a restock on the way ( thanks to the money from KS 3 ) that will allow me to begin selling them as regular items in the store.

Resin production is something I am looking in to. Valiant is a great source for resin manufacturing BUT they are SWAMPED with resin work right now. I am trying to think long term with this so I going all resin might not be the way to go. I am exploring the option though.

I cannot imagine that this will launch before April I want to have everythign I expect to fund sculpted and hopefully mastered before the campaign even begins.

Ah, I did not realize you had had to scrap the alternate orc bodies. Was that in an update or forum post somewhere? Sorry to hear that! Is that common with metal molding / do you normally "oversize" to account for shrinkage, or what was different about those bodies and arm fittings?

Great to hear about the regular orcs coming to the webstore, and about your plan to have everything sculpted before April... that sounds quite cool!

 Alpharius wrote:
Or just delay this KS a bit and then launch how you wanted to initially?

Smaller works better for all kinds of reasons. To use a rather extreme example, look at the original RBG campaign and the most recent one. Ridiculous, you say? Well, the casting was out of Tre's hands in both campaigns. But one involved a new supplier and a new material for Tre that was proven in testing and their own products. Consider the Trollcast aspect to be like the printing aspect in that sense - out of Tre's hands, and despite the best assurances, not all worked out all that well. Of course, printer issues do happen (DeadBall, Sedition Wars) so it's not like I'm making up a straw man there...

Tre:
Can we hope for some female miniatures in the same style as the Njorn? With that I mean female fighters who look strong and confident wearing armour similar to the guys (or at least armour that actually protects...) and not combat strippers... Or if they are scantly clad, that they are not more so than males of the same factions and are in fighting stances, not pin up poses.

 jorny wrote:
Tre:
Can we hope for some female miniatures in the same style as the Njorn? With that I mean female fighters who look strong and confident wearing armour similar to the guys (or at least armour that actually protects...) and not combat strippers... Or if they are scantly clad, that they are not more so than males of the same factions and are in fighting stances, not pin up poses.

Tre has some great female Njorn models that I think are some of the best female fantasy miniatures on the market.

Such as Vilhanna

And Svanhild

And Ylvfriodr

weeble1000 wrote:

 jorny wrote:
Tre:
Can we hope for some female miniatures in the same style as the Njorn? With that I mean female fighters who look strong and confident wearing armour similar to the guys (or at least armour that actually protects...) and not combat strippers... Or if they are scantly clad, that they are not more so than males of the same factions and are in fighting stances, not pin up poses.

Tre has some great female Njorn models that I think are some of the best female fantasy miniatures on the market.

Such as Vilhanna

And Svanhild

And Ylvfriodr

I agree that they are some of the absolute best female miniatures! Thats why I want more of them!

Glad you are exploring resin. I've been super impressed by the resin offerings from a number of sources lately (Mierce, Anvil Industries, Victoria Miniatures, Maxmini).

I think people are primed to pay a bit more for resin as well (over metal or most plastics).

Looking forward to this a lot (might have said that already).
Barbarians and Undead are right in my 'buy boutique minis without thinking' wheelhouse, so you're off to a good start.

Not related to the super secret project, but this is the only live RBG thread in N&R so

http://www.puttyandpaint.com/projects/4073

The Nightwatch painted by Roman Lappat (jarhead)




all (bar mice and dog) are RBG minis

 tre manor wrote:


Ritides; Nope the orcs are for the existign fantasy line....I HAVE to come up with an official name for it.......However there will CERTAINLY be a orc equivalent faction in this new project. They won;t be an " Oh those are Orcs! " kind of thing but they will be an " Oh those must be the ' orcs '. " kind of thing.

This project's primary focus is going to be unique identity. I want people to know which line these items belong to when they see them without havign any other clue other than what they see.

Az, thanks again man. Great advice. Yep the Barbarians in this initial offering would be the " good" guys and the Undead would definitely be the " bad " guys though that distinction won;t always be the same as the line develops.

No worries, tre' - I actually like the sound of that (if my take on what you mean is correct) "Barbarian tribes" could easily be aligned to "good", "evil" and everything in between. Men fighting other men is pretty much our entire history as a species, after all. And with a bit of creative lore, Undead can also easily be tweaked to have a lot more depth than "evil skeletons = bad!" After all, the Dead Men of Dunharrow (Army of the Dead) were neither really good, nor evil. As long as people in an initial offering have something they can identify with as "good guys", it's all good.

Now I am trying to decide between an in between kind fo faction or another evil faction or another good faction. Though I would prefer to totally toss out the idea of factions and absolute faction identities. I like the idea of defining the actors within the world as being good or evil based on their individual ethics, associations and agendas rather than which " faction " they belong to. I will of course offer pre-written characters for each faction / race that will be either good or evil btu I also want players to feel encouraged to write their own stories within the world and for those stories to be freely defined.

Of course, and that's the same sort of thing I was just touching on - and gives much more depth than simple D&D-style alignments - but in terms of psychology - and especially for a new game, people like to be told who the "good guys" are, and many will gravitate towards "good guys" or "bad guys" on that basis alone, so it's good to have (and keep) some form of generalised background which gives a general tone but also allows flexibility on behalf of the player - if only to say something like

"Most barbarian tribes of the north worship Frejasif, the goddess of goodness, while their cousins in the more sparsely-populated south tend to worship Hel and Ull, and have a much darker outlook on the world around them..." - ergo - you now have Barbarians who are mostly "good" while allowing for "evil" barbarians at the same time.

So the Barbarians could be defined as beign melee heavy and the Undead as being magic heavy....... I guess the third faction should tread the middle ground??

Either a middle ground, or a radical or unusual visual aesthetic. (Or both!) Barbarians and Undead both use well-worn, comfortable and popular fantasy tropes. A third faction is a good place (IMO at least) to throw in one of your most different looking/unique factions. This is where you could throw in your Lizardmen, or Fimir, or Zoats, or Snakemen, etc - a faction with a look much more unique to your new gameworld.

The quickstart rules will be a free booklet included with the faction starters. So a VERY stripped down version fo the rules just to get people playing. Remember the old Confrontation quick start rules booklet that came int he blisters?? That is kind of what I am thinking here, only in a larger format. So yes a PDF would also be available and would not interrupt any sales from the rules booklet.

Sounds good. Get them out ASAP (even beta rules) with a suggestion of "good playtest models" from your existing range and you should hopefully get a bit of a spike in sales during the actual KS as well as a healthy number of pledges.

I finished the first grunt matrix for the third faction last night. I am REALLY looking forward to people's reactions to this one! the third faction will be an equally balanced faction. Magic, Melee, and Missile.

yep I had to scrap all that work and it was costly believe me. I did over compensate on the fitting sizes for the orcs but apparently it was nto enough. Ah well. Live and learn. :/


Automatically Appended Next Post:


Sorry i was hasty in my response.

Yeh that piece ( could it be called that?? ) by Roman is PHENOMENAL! That is an incredible amount of work he put in to that. what an amazing artist he is. I do not knwo how i will ever repay that favor!

And one more note on the third faction for the opening of the new project. I think it will be the most popular of the three. It ticks quite a few boxes.

And yes there will be more female Njorn in sensible armour. That is one of the goals of the RBG fantasy line; To make female adventurers look like they are actually going on an adventure rather that to a sex party.

I would kill for some Tre sculpted snakemen. Melee, ranged, and spellcasters. Just FYI Tre!

Just put down the first of the undead footmen.... Done all except for his head weapon and shield. I will not be able to make them modular as the posing restricts the universality. I am DEFINITELY in the groove on this project. I might actually be done with the sculpting by the end of MArch!

Sounds very good, Tre!

Edit: I was referring to the prior post above, got ninja'ed by the man himself

 tre manor wrote:

And one more note on the third faction for the opening of the new project. I think it will be the most popular of the three. It ticks quite a few boxes.

Magic, Melee, and Missile. They are some sort of elves, aren't they?

not quite.

I completed another grunt for a fourth faction last night. Depending on how this goes I may just kickstart several starter sets and then expand the armies in a second kickstarter.

 tre manor wrote:


And yes there will be more female Njorn in sensible armour. That is one of the goals of the RBG fantasy line; To make female adventurers look like they are actually going on an adventure rather that to a sex party.

You make it sound like a sex party isn't an adventure ...

 tre manor wrote:


not quite.

I completed another grunt for a fourth faction last night. Depending on how this goes I may just kickstart several starter sets and then expand the armies in a second kickstarter.

This sounds great - especially if it means you'll be launching this sooner now!

 judgedoug wrote:
I would kill for some Tre sculpted snakemen. Melee, ranged, and spellcasters. Just FYI Tre!

Snakemen in the same style as Rackhams? I would buy a ton of those, or an elf/spider hybrid.

So when is the next sneak peek?

 Gallahad wrote:
So when is the next sneak peek?

Well said

Can we have a few more pics of that Rhino looking creature?

Please?

The next sneak peek will be the first of the undead after I finish his weapon and shield. I am REALLY happy with the way it turned out and I am REALLY excited about showing it off. Hopefully tomorrow afternoon if my wife lets me work tomorrow.

The big beastie is going to be a ways off getting done just yet. That one is going to have a fairly complex skin texture and barding. It will be a centerpiece model so I am taking my time with it being certain that everything is exactly as I want it to be.

 tre manor wrote:
The next sneak peek will be the first of the undead after I finish his weapon and shield. I am REALLY happy with the way it turned out and I am REALLY excited about showing it off. Hopefully tomorrow afternoon if my wife lets me work tomorrow.

The big beastie is going to be a ways off getting done just yet. That one is going to have a fairly complex skin texture and barding. It will be a centerpiece model so I am taking my time with it being certain that everything is exactly as I want it to be.

Undead! Great!!
Can't wait to see it.

95% finished........

9 undead warriors

1 undead Warrior hero

1 cultist acolyte ( there will be two in the set. )

1 necromancer priestess

1 greater Demon

Should be done with all of these by tomorrow afternoon. Then on to the barbarian starter set.

 tre manor wrote:
The next sneak peek will be the first of the undead after I finish his weapon and shield. I am REALLY happy with the way it turned out and I am REALLY excited about showing it off. Hopefully tomorrow afternoon if my wife lets me work tomorrow.

So given your latest post, I think we're due for that sneak peak

You sure seem to have been a busy bee Tre! And now you need to sneak peak us!

Ahem...


*SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!*

I'm a bit excited by this. I believe this is a good time for the 'take my money' meme.

I will post a sneal peek tomorrow.

Give us a peek Tre!

Ok Tre. This is the day after tomorrow. Where's the sneak peak?

 tre manor wrote:
I will post a sneal peek tomorrow.

OK, it's Monday now... *nudge*

He's probably spending time with his family or sculpting instead of showing us pictures! He must be destroyed!!

 plastictrees wrote:
He's probably spending time with his family or sculpting instead of showing us pictures! He must be destroyed!!

Not until he shows us those pictures

Right. Then we can destroy him.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Wait. If we do that, then no minis. Never mind. I guess we'll just have to wait.

hah hah! Sorry guys the Wife unit dragged me otu ona bike rider this mornign and is now out fo the house with her niece for the afternoon. I am sittign the boys. I WILL get a pic of one of the undead grunts up tonight though I promise.

I finished the necro prietess yesterday as week and I am REALLY lookign forward to showing her off!

Brief respite on the destruction! You are on notice!
Also: Yay!

 tre manor wrote:
hah hah! Sorry guys the Wife unit dragged me otu ona bike rider this mornign and is now out fo the house with her niece for the afternoon. I am sittign the boys. I WILL get a pic of one of the undead grunts up tonight though I promise.

I finished the necro prietess yesterday as week and I am REALLY lookign forward to showing her off!

when can I buy some orcs tre?

 tre manor wrote:
I am sittign the boys. I WILL get a pic of one of the undead grunts up tonight

Referring to your children as 'undead grunts'... is that an American thing?

Looking forward to that sneak peek quite a bit!

You have a short reprieve.

czakk wrote:

 tre manor wrote:
hah hah! Sorry guys the Wife unit dragged me otu ona bike rider this mornign and is now out fo the house with her niece for the afternoon. I am sittign the boys. I WILL get a pic of one of the undead grunts up tonight though I promise.

I finished the necro prietess yesterday as week and I am REALLY lookign forward to showing her off!

when can I buy some orcs tre?

I was wondering that, too!

Alright y'all. HEre is a small peek at two of the nine. These will have hand weapons and shields. The equipment will be suitably worn. The weapons will probably be some sort of short swords and the shields will be round shields of some kind of metal sheet so not very big. These will represent the most basic form of melee grunts. I am hoping as this effort develops to have the opportunity to follow a few other ideas I have for various types of undead, but for the beginning this is the offering.

There will be nine of these " grunts " ( never fear I have a better term for them int he rules and fiction ) in the starter set along with a pair of living cultist acolytes and a somewhat more vital undead warrior hero and a controlling NEcromancer. The undead in this game are going to be FAR more powerful of an enemy than what is typically seen in gaming and fiction in general. Undead always terrified me as a kid because I wondered how you can kill something that is already dead. The undead of contemporary fiction have definitely lost that kind of ominence. I want the undead fo this world setting to bring that back in spades.

Looks awesome Tre. Is there an overall feel for all the factions? High fantasy, Celtic/Nordic etc?
What size base are those on (you knew that was coming).

Looks very cool, although not modular that I can see (maybe that is just the other factions?).

Looks great!

They look great; I love the Red Box zombies, and these are in similarly twisted and twitching poses. You can just tell that these husks of men have had their humanity and soul stripped from them.

They seem to be carrying a bit more jewelry (necklace, armband, is that a big earring?) than what you typically see in your mindless undead. That, combined with their loincloths, is giving me some kind of tribal vibe. Also, I could be wrong but it looks like at least one of them has a back scarred by whip lacerations. Are they former slaves?

Looks very nice. Zombies arez our friendz.
Looking forward to more info, wish I could sculpt like that

 Trodax wrote:
They look great; I love the Red Box zombies, and these are in similarly twisted and twitching poses. You can just tell that these husks of men have had their humanity and soul stripped from them.

They seem to be carrying a bit more jewelry (necklace, armband, is that a big earring?) than what you typically see in your mindless undead. That, combined with their loincloths, is giving me some kind of tribal vibe. Also, I could be wrong but it looks like at least one of them has a back scarred by whip lacerations. Are they former slaves?

Yeah I'm getting a real northern Africa meets Haitian Voudou vibe. Mixed with a bit of Robt. E. Howard this seems like it could be a real aesthetic powerhouse! Very exciting.

Not whip lacerations. I was tryign to make them look like dried husks. Mummified undead. So their skin is somewhat loose and withered looking. You cannto really see it all that well in the photos bu their entire bodies are covered with that texture.

I am glad you guys are liking this! Very encouraging!

Are those 20mm or 25mm bases Tre?

And can you post a shot next to a Gynnade or Helsvakt dude?

These are great! Really looking forward to the kickstarter.

Looking great Tre! They look like they will paint up very nicely too. That texture will respond well to some washing and the jewelry will give a nice pop of interest and allow for some good variability in look. You could easily do the jewelry as gold, bronze, copper, or even jade.

They look soulless and implacable, rather that vicious and hate-filled, which is cool. Almost reluctant. They would look great out in front of a dynamic, animated cultist.

Wait, mummified?
Hmm,.. Egyptian mythology inspired? Ooh, or maybe a clash of mythologies?

I'm getting a strong "Conan" and "Age of Hybperboria" (?) vibe here...


...and I'm loving it!

 Alpharius wrote:
I'm getting a strong "Conan" and "Age of Hybperboria" (?) vibe here...

It's 'The Hyborian Age', but yes, I'm getting that vibe too, and oh what a sweet vibe it is. When I first learned of Red Box Games, it was the Njorn and Helsvakt that really grabbed me by the loincloth when I saw how incredibly perfect they were for useage in Conan the RPG (and The Keeper simply is a Stygian sorcerer). Looks like these undead are going to be able to fit right in there too. I love it.

Looks great. I have a set of your Lesser Undead and they are excellent miniatures, these guys look excellent as well.

Agreed with everyone about the pulpy aesthetic!

Looks like I know where my hobby money is going in the next couple of months...

 Trodax wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
I'm getting a strong "Conan" and "Age of Hybperboria" (?) vibe here...

It's 'The Hyborian Age', but yes, I'm getting that vibe too, and oh what a sweet vibe it is. When I first learned of Red Box Games, it was the Njorn and Helsvakt that really grabbed me by the loincloth when I saw how incredibly perfect they were for useage in Conan the RPG (and The Keeper simply is a Stygian sorcerer). Looks like these undead are going to be able to fit right in there too. I love it.

That's what I get for trying to remember how to spell it AND try to accomplish that on an iPhone!

I would be totally in for an Age of Hypnotoadia setting.
Autocorrect is this generations muse.

"Hither came Conan the Librarian, black-haired and sullen-eyed..."

I read a whole bunch of Conan while biking and camping around County Kerry a few years ago. Really enjoyable stuff, especially if you're into Dungeons and Dragons. And can ignore all the dated sexism and racism! I am primed to like this.

I hope there's a lizardman race. I have been waiting for a cool looking lizard or serpent person race to be done in 28mm for so friggin' long. GW Lizardmen are okay but I really want something less cartoony.

Sorry Doug! Thought I had posted the base size. Yep these are pictured on 25 mm rounds. They are sized identically to the current RBG lesser undead. I will say only that thus far based on what everyone is specualting no one is goign to be disappoitned int he theme of this effort.


and yes.......there will be lizardmen.

 tre manor wrote:


and yes.......there will be lizardmen.

If this is going to be a Hyborian age feeling project, I would say snakemen than lizardmen. Although I have no doubt than any mni from you will look awsome!!!

Oh man, I am excited now!

Tre Manor scale lizardmen. This could be expensive for me!

Just went and downloaded some Robert E. Howard from Project Gutenberg, as preparation!

Oh, I love being not dissapointed! Getting excited about this thing!

Well snakemen never really made sense to me. Lizardmen on the other hand are perfectly believeable. I am really going out on a limb for this setting / game. There will be a lot of familiarity but there will also be a lot of originality as well. I am hoping that to the degree that this project will be very different it will cleave out it's own niche in the market.

This will be a fantasy setting but it is NOT a tolkeinesque fantasy setting. It is not hyboria either btu if I had to say it was like any other setting Hyboria would be one setting that would have a lot of thematic similarities.

a good example is that you will never see any characters in this setting with plate mail armor, or chainmail armor.....or much of any armor at all really. You will also never see a crossbow. This is more of a primitive setting. That said the figures are certainly usable with any given fantasy game or pulp game but the setting they are imagined in a very different setting.

All of that sounds great Tre, I'm looking forward to hearing and seeing more of this.

With inspiration from the Hyborian Age, something I would love to see would be some good old man-apes. Either a gorilla-sized beast that you'd typically see Conan desperately wrestling, or the more human-sized freaks, generally found as the degenerate ancestors of the inhabitants of some long lost city. That would be awesome. You know, this kind of stuff:

.............................Not to worry.

Tre, could you comment on modularity? You had mentioned it before, will there be other sculpts included that are modular? That is a really big draw for me!

SQUEEEEEE!!!!!

Sorry, I meant:

ROAAARRRR!!!!! Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud (fists banging on chest).

Lizardmen are better than snake men, so I am happy about that!

I will try to contain my speculation until we see more, but I am happy to see a "primative" fantasy setting like this develop. If everyone is at a similar (ish) tech level things really make a lot more sense. Some games that have handguns and cannons on one side and then a bunch of guys with pointy sticks on the other make no real sense.

 tre manor wrote:


.............................Not to worry.

Oh.

So, there goes my plan to monitor my model spending this year.

Aside from my disappointment at a lack of sexy sculpted armour (Come on, you need rich, noble cultured types to beat up) this looks awesome.

If there are going to be metal weapons, there's no reason to avoid metal armor!

..... I am giving away more than I wanted to but I suppose it won;t hurt to offer a little more info. There is one faction that has a higher level of technology than the others but it is not a vast difference that would make the other factions any less able to compete effectively. This faction does have some armor, just not " modern" armor.

And to be honest all factions have "armor " just maybe not made fromt he typical materials of traditional fantasy.

Modularity...... This IS somethign I want to work. However it means a lot of variables. Experience has taught me that variables do nto contribute to success. The more variables there are involved in the effort the more likely that that effort will encounter difficulty or possibly even failure. I want this effort to flow like water.

That said I AM still planning some degree of modularity in the 'grunts " of the barbarians and other factions. I could not get the look I wanted to achieve with these undead if I made them modular. For these undead modularity would have meant that they needed either more clothing ( to bulk them up ) or more general anatomical bulk. I wanted these guys to look like Mummies from an ancient jungle or desert civilization. That meant they needed to be as lean as possible with as little clothing as possible.

With that in mind I had to pose the bodies a particular way to be sure that their arms were as supported as I could make them.....it also went alogn with the character of the undead in the fluff to be posed that way.....There will be a group of stronger undead that will be modular. These undead have enough bulk that I can pose them however I want to and they can be cut in the way that they need to be for the level of modularity I originally envisioned. I have one of these greater undead sculpted already so I will try to get a picture of it up sometime soon. I first want to be sure that my plan for modularity will work and will not work against the pricing structure I have planned.

So, for now Modularity is still in the works but I am still approaching it with caution. I DO NOT want this kickstarter running in to problems in production and delivery.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
..................edit to answer Alpharius.........there will be SOME metal weaponry, but it won't be a common thread in every faction.

I'm really looking forward to this one!

And having modularity in the 'grunts' but unique hero units/characters should be fine.

Now, on top of the Hyborian/Death Dealer/Frazetta vibe, I'm getting a nice Confrontation vibe too - good times!

 Alpharius wrote:

Now, on top of the Hyborian/Death Dealer/Frazetta vibe, I'm getting a nice Confrontation vibe too - good times!

I try not to connect this project with Howard's world, as this would be a bit unfair for Tre's original creation, but it's true that a feeling of "dark" and "primitive" fantasy is what I am expecting and looking for. Something like Darklands from Mierce but even little more fantasy, but you know... "dark"

As Alpharius said if the feeling os close to the ones of Frazetta's drawings, images of the original Conan film and the Savage Sword of Conan comic, then nothing can go wrong

Those undead look amazing, as long as there will be no repeatability in models for a warband then happy days. I was disappointed that there was not going to be any snakemen (snakemen silly but lizardmen not I find amusing) but I've just found out that Mierce are making snakemen so I'm happy.

Very impressed. I'm keeping an eye on this one of course.

Well the undead will be a horde faction so Undead players will be able to field twice the number of models that the barbarians field.

REH.....yeh I am big fan of the Conan works but Conan is much more modern and mundane than this setting will be. This is going to be high fantasy of a very different vein. When I say High Fantasy I do not mean pageantry and penache I mean wild concepts and epic millieu. I really want to cleave out an all new niche int he market similarly to what Wyrd did for Horror Punk with Malifaux or what Privateer PRess did for Steam Punk or what Wild West Exodus is doing for Weird West


Wanting to steer conversation a bti more productively to the ends of the kickstarter planning. Which third faction should I work on; I am trying to decide between the faction with the lizardmen, the faction with the weird mutants, or the faction with the armoured fighters, or the faction with the Apemen? The undead are now done and the barbarians get underway in full today. I imagine they will be done by the end of the week next week or sooner.

I personally am leaning more toward the mutants because they are the most fun and different faction I can imagine, but then the lizardmen seem a sure fire bet and are a lot of fun as well.

Cheers y'all!

tre'

I'm guessing the Barbars are mele focused, whilst the undead are magic focused so I would suggest a ranged focused force. When I say focused I don't mean just mele, magic or ranged but when I here barbars I think of hitting someone in the face with an axe, when I here undead I think a horde being summoned whilst dark magic flies about.

How weird are the mutants? I think the lizard men would be the better third faction, just for the sake of visual diversity, but that's only with me making certain assumptions about the mutants.

I'm pro-Lizardman, if you want me to state my biases clearly!

I will likely get everything though, if I can afford it. I like the sound of the setting (vague as it sounds) quite a lot. Getting images of a "fantasy post apocalypse" or Darksun-esque world in some ways. Though perhaps it's a "biblical" era fantasy, more so.

In any event, very excited.

My personal favorite would be the Apemen. Seems like I'm on the outs, though.

Tre, pick the third faction that most shows the setting. Barbarians are fairly generic, and undead are in every game setting ever. So, make sure that third really sets the scene as it were.

Lizards! Get those right in your usual style and quality and my pledge is guaranteed.

I think the KS should launch with FOUR factions:

1) Undead
2) Lizardmen
3) Barbarians
4) Armor Wearing Faction

And as always, sprinkle in enough female models to whip everyone into a pledging frenzy.

That seems like a good list to me.

There is a Female Necromancer, and the Barbarians will have a Female Warrior Priestess..... there is one faction planned that is at least half female.

My list would be:
Undead
Lizardmen
Apemen
Barbarians

 tre manor wrote:
Which third faction should I work on; I am trying to decide between the faction with the lizardmen, the faction with the weird mutants, or the faction with the armoured fighters, or the faction with the Apemen? The undead are now done and the barbarians get underway in full today. I imagine they will be done by the end of the week next week or sooner.

I personally am leaning more toward the mutants because they are the most fun and different faction I can imagine, but then the lizardmen seem a sure fire bet and are a lot of fun as well.

Lizardmen or mutants sound great to me. Armored fighters would also be cool... apemen I think are a bad idea for the initial campaign, at least, as they're not something as many people are into from what I've seen.

 tre manor wrote:


There is a Female Necromancer, and the Barbarians will have a Female Warrior Priestess..... there is one faction planned that is at least half female.

Shouldn't they all be roughly half-female? (at least the humanish factions).

And I'd go with Lizardmen, then Mutants (if maybe the KS does well enough to fund a 4th).

It depends on how "historically correct" you want to be (for want of a better term). I know it's a fantasy world, but it's still based on ours. Having the lizardmen be 50% (or 90%) Lizardwomen would be just as "correct" since they're entirely made up, after all.

 Azazelx wrote:
It depends on how "historically correct" you want to be (for want of a better term). I know it's a fantasy world, but it's still based on ours. Having the lizardmen be 50% (or 90%) Lizardwomen would be just as "correct" since they're entirely made up, after all.

Heck, that would be one of the rare cases where a race of "Lizard-women" (an all female species) would be both cool (well, I tihnk so) and scientifically justifiable.

'Cause, you know, science is very important in sword and sandal games... Science!

"Apemen"?

Where they mentioned?

I know Howard had a bit of a 'thing' for evil/demonic apes and Apemen, but I think Apemen should be WAY down the list and no where near KS1.

Well, my personal favorite would be the ape-men, but I think RiTides and Alpharius have good points that they are definitely the most obscure (and won't sell as well). In contrast, I think I would be the least excited about lizardmen, but they might be the most popular choice. The mutants sound fun, are they of the radiation-induced boiled skin type, or the cthulhoid tentacle-for-face type?

Honestly, though, I think I'll be going for pretty much everything (if wallet allows) whichever factions you go with. I'm ridiculously excited about this!

i think apemen could be really cool and original. I vote for them

 tre manor wrote:
REH.....yeh I am big fan of the Conan works but Conan is much more modern and mundane than this setting will be. This is going to be high fantasy of a very different vein. When I say High Fantasy I do not mean pageantry and penache I mean wild concepts and epic millieu. I really want to cleave out an all new niche int he market similarly to what Wyrd did for Horror Punk with Malifaux or what Privateer PRess did for Steam Punk or what Wild West Exodus is doing for Weird West

So a bit of a Dark Sun flavour?

I really would not say that this setting is based on the history of our world. There are a few nods to various cultures from otu workd btu there is also a LOT of alienness.

MArio......yes. But different.

Apemen.....well they are not neccessarily Apemen. they are primate-like but are nto just a bunch of semi upright simians nor are they just a bunch of brutish subhumans. Everything in this world will have a bit of twist to their character and theme.

Lizardmen females........ These are few and far between and are generally not encountered outside of the immediate area of their lairs. There are two types of males, lesser drones who have nto matured to the point that they can sire eggs and thorn backs which are much more brutish and dangerous bu themselves are few and far between and almost never co-operate, regardless of stripe they are all dumb as rocks.

I just finished the first of the barbarian grunts. I decided that the first one pictured in this thread just did not quite do the trick so that one will end uo the first matrix for another faction's grunts.

 Buzzsaw wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
It depends on how "historically correct" you want to be (for want of a better term). I know it's a fantasy world, but it's still based on ours. Having the lizardmen be 50% (or 90%) Lizardwomen would be just as "correct" since they're entirely made up, after all.

Heck, that would be one of the rare cases where a race of "Lizard-women" (an all female species) would be both cool (well, I tihnk so) and scientifically justifiable.

'Cause, you know, science is very important in sword and sandal games... Science!

My main point being that human factions "should" be 50/50 isn't based on any part of our many, many centuries of rich history made up of killing one another with sharp and blunt objects - and that humans being 50/50 is in many ways more of a stretch than non-humans being 50/50 (or more!) females.

 tre manor wrote:
I really would not say that this setting is based on the history of our world. There are a few nods to various cultures from otu workd btu there is also a LOT of alienness.

MArio......yes. But different.

Apemen.....well they are not neccessarily Apemen. they are primate-like but are nto just a bunch of semi upright simians nor are they just a bunch of brutish subhumans. Everything in this world will have a bit of twist to their character and theme.

Lizardmen females........ These are few and far between and are generally not encountered outside of the immediate area of their lairs. There are two types of males, lesser drones who have nto matured to the point that they can sire eggs and thorn backs which are much more brutish and dangerous bu themselves are few and far between and almost never co-operate, regardless of stripe they are all dumb as rocks.

I just finished the first of the barbarian grunts. I decided that the first one pictured in this thread just did not quite do the trick so that one will end uo the first matrix for another faction's grunts.

First: no lizardmen females in the game (I assume from your description)? Boo.

Second: Slightly more substantive, the entire Lizardman faction is "dumb as rocks"? That... doesn't seem like a great building block for a faction...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Azazelx wrote:

 Buzzsaw wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
It depends on how "historically correct" you want to be (for want of a better term). I know it's a fantasy world, but it's still based on ours. Having the lizardmen be 50% (or 90%) Lizardwomen would be just as "correct" since they're entirely made up, after all.

Heck, that would be one of the rare cases where a race of "Lizard-women" (an all female species) would be both cool (well, I tihnk so) and scientifically justifiable.

'Cause, you know, science is very important in sword and sandal games... Science!

My main point being that human factions "should" be 50/50 isn't based on any part of our many, many centuries of rich history made up of killing one another with sharp and blunt objects - and that humans being 50/50 is in many ways more of a stretch than non-humans being 50/50 (or more!) females.

Oh, to be sure. Although this may be an area where crass commercialism may properly outweigh accuracy, as it were.

 Azazelx wrote:

 Buzzsaw wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
It depends on how "historically correct" you want to be (for want of a better term). I know it's a fantasy world, but it's still based on ours. Having the lizardmen be 50% (or 90%) Lizardwomen would be just as "correct" since they're entirely made up, after all.

Heck, that would be one of the rare cases where a race of "Lizard-women" (an all female species) would be both cool (well, I tihnk so) and scientifically justifiable.

'Cause, you know, science is very important in sword and sandal games... Science!

My main point being that human factions "should" be 50/50 isn't based on any part of our many, many centuries of rich history made up of killing one another with sharp and blunt objects - and that humans being 50/50 is in many ways more of a stretch than non-humans being 50/50 (or more!) females.

Well, with Lizardmen/women - I'd just assume they'd be a mix but we'd be unable to tell the 2 genders apart (much like we can't generally tell in Lizards). And while Human history our armies weren't a mix of 50/50 - we weren't surrounded by lizardmen, apemen, the undead, mutants and whatnot. I think pressed from all sides like that EVERYONE gets a weapon handed to them whether they like it or not.

That's my take on "lizard folk", you might not be able to tell the difference

Also, armies being mostly male for some factions makes perfect sense, although a more evenly mixed faction could be cool. The lizardmen being all male would be totally fine with most folks, I think.

 Buzzsaw wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:

My main point being that human factions "should" be 50/50 isn't based on any part of our many, many centuries of rich history made up of killing one another with sharp and blunt objects - and that humans being 50/50 is in many ways more of a stretch than non-humans being 50/50 (or more!) females.

Oh, to be sure. Although this may be an area where crass commercialism may properly outweigh accuracy, as it were.

Sure, and to be clear - I don't mind what Tre' does with his models. I was just arguing the point that the poster made back there about "humans should be 50/50" (but not necessarily other races) was a bit ...odd.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 RiTides wrote:
That's my take on "lizard folk", you might not be able to tell the difference

Also, armies being mostly male for some factions makes perfect sense, although a more evenly mixed faction could be cool. The lizardmen being all male would be totally fine with most folks, I think.

Hence "lizardmen", eh? I agree though - Sexual dimorphism can of course vary wildly, so with very alien races or anthromorphic animals we may well be completely unable to tell the difference. Or it could be huge. Or Tre could just sculpt giant tits on everything.

 tre manor wrote:
I really want to cleave out an all new niche int he market similarly to what Wyrd did for Horror Punk with Malifaux or what Privateer PRess did for Steam Punk or what Wild West Exodus is doing for Weird West

Wild West Exodus is some sort of tortured West Punk amalgam. One step to the side of Malifaux without the class. I'm not a fan of all of the Malifaux artwork, but at least it has class.

Gaaaa...west punk, what a terrible phrase. Throw some rivets on it, make it more spikey, put in a hood...it's like 3.5 D&D art. Why, oh why would someone use a shield with a wildly curving shape and spiky metal riveted to it...why?

Oh, and I think Lizardmen would draw attention as a KS faction.

I think it would be cool with a 50/50 gender human faction. Why would suspense of disbelief stretch to lizardmen and necromancers, but not female fighters?

Just no cheesecake please. Let the females be equipped like their male counterparts and look like confident deadly fighters. Just like the amazing female miniatures Tre already made.

WEll there will not be any cheesecake per se BUT this is a setting where the weather never gets cold so everybody runs around in the bare minimum of clothing. Armor is also nto something you see a lot of.

gender equality...... I did nto mean to insinuate that there won;t be a good mix of female and male models per faction. I was trying to cleverly hint at the composition of one of the factions........... So I guess I will just come out with it.......


The lizardmen are not a faction unto themselves. They are a Thrall race subordinate to an all female cult. They are dumb as rocks because they do nto really need to think for themselves. Their Priestess masters tell them what to do. I figured I could not go wrong combining Amazons and Lizardmen into one package.

Also I did nto mean to insinuate there woudl never be a model for the female lizardfolk. There will be but they will nto be obviously female in the way that humans are....no scaly boobs I think.

They might eventually evolve into a faction unto themselves though. There are elements in the fiction that open possibilities for a lot of variety in the existing factions and races. I won;t be breaking my own rules though so not to worry for consistency in the fluff.

west punk.....yep, it had to happen eventually

Yeah, Amazons and lizardmen in a single faction will likely be popular

...Aww. Okay, the undead still do look cool

Definitely have the amazon / lizardmen faction in the ks.

 tre manor wrote:
WEll there will not be any cheesecake per se BUT this is a setting where the weather never gets cold so everybody runs around in the bare minimum of clothing. Armor is also nto something you see a lot of.

Thats cool! Little clothing is no problem as long as it is consequent! Just hate it when the male of one faction is wearing full plate and are in fighting stance and the females are wearing skimpy clothing and are in a pin up pose...

For shame!

In TRE We Trust jorny!

Amazons with thrall lizardmen definitely sounds like a winner. It kind of reminds me of the Axibalan Empire faction in the Shadowsea skirmish game (by AntiMatter Games); it has female priestesses-sorcerers leading beastmen. It was my favorite faction in the Shadowsea KS they ran; beautiful women leading hideous beasts just seems like a combination that works well (it reminds me of my very happy marriage ).

 Alpharius wrote:
For shame!

In TRE We Trust jorny!

Forgive me! I am a weak soul!

Nearly finished with the first Amazon grunt, the first Empirial grunt ( " armoured " guys ) and the first Barbarian grunt. Now comes the dicey part....parting them for modularity.

That doesn't count as our next 'sneak peek', does it?

Pic - please!

 tre manor wrote:


Nearly finished with the first Amazon grunt, the first Empirial grunt ( " armoured " guys ) and the first Barbarian grunt. Now comes the dicey part....parting them for modularity.

One of the good things about the Mantic trolls are the arm modularity. The shoulder is cut at an angle to the arm muscle (bicep/tricep), and the arms have that same cut area, so you can put any of the different arms onto that torso and it looks fine. I'm trying to find a good picture to illustrate what I mean... you can kinda see it here
http://forum.manticblog.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5308&d=1374715011

Oh yeh I knwo exactly where and how I want to part them for modularity but remember that was the problem in KS 2.....Shrinkage between the joins made them not work properly. That si somethignt hat is difficult to avoid completely.

Not to worry, pics to come later.

Will you be able to have them cast ahead of time, or is there any other way you can avoid having the issue encountered previously with the modularity? Looking forward to seeing how you pull it off

I know this isn't going to be exactly Conan themed, but I went and read some anyhow. Now even more excited for this project. Hoping some pics are coming our way soon, though I understand you're busy with KS1, 2 and commission work!

Just wanted tolet everyone know that the new releases are up in the store....Well new to the store at least. It is all of the Kickstarter 2 and 3 stuff. I apologize for the lack of pics for the orcs and goblins. I am working on those today and I shoudl have them up by tomorrow morning. I am also goign to be trying to get some painted images of all of the new stuff over the upcoming months. That is my biggest priority this year; to improve my marketing materials and advertising presence.

Anyway as per the update from Valint this morning all molds are made and the goblins shoudl finish casting this week. The Njorn shoudl eb done castign early next week and that puts them all in hand sometime next week as well! FINALLY!! Back to business as usual!!

I also have received three boxes from Ed. One of which contained extra gynnade krigare bodies. These will be offered for sale once i can restock the metal weapons bits to go with them. It is not much though so it will probably go quickly. I will post a newsletter before the items go live int eh store and give an exact time of release so you can be ready to nab them when they go live.

Thanks for hanging in there with me through all of this y'all!!

Cheers,

Tre'

http://www.red-box-games.com/

Maybe Tre needs to start another thread - he's updated the webstore with new product from the KSs.

Thanks Czac!

I have finished the first of the Amazons today...... well all except the end fo her spear and her shield. The Atoan Hero is done, I have one of the mutant grunts sculpted, and I have finished the Undead warrior hero as well and I have finished the first of the Empirial grunts.....now I am thinking I will get started on the apemen after all.

I will post a newsletter before the items go live int eh store and give an exact time of release so you can be ready to nab them when they go live.

So where can I sign up to subscribe to this newsletter; I checked the Red Box site but didn't find it. Would like to have a shot at those Helsvakt.

 tre manor wrote:
Thanks Czac!

I have finished the first of the Amazons today...... well all except the end fo her spear and her shield. The Atoan Hero is done, I have one of the mutant grunts sculpted, and I have finished the Undead warrior hero as well and I have finished the first of the Empirial grunts.....now I am thinking I will get started on the apemen after all.

Now I would really want to see some pics of them! Very excited!!

Hmm......looks like I accidentally let one of the faction names slip. The Barbarians are called the Atoa.

How about accidentally uploading a picture or two?

hah hah! Oh you.....

I promise I will get a picture up later today. Which piece first? The Atoan Hero? The Undead Hero? Lizardman minion? Mutant minion? Empirial Minion??

mutant

Tre, on that note you mentioned you would be uploading pics of the Orcs which are in your store now... I would really love to see that, as I don't think I've seen a comprehensive pic of the pieces and it would help show what the difference between the two sets offered in the store is, for folks deciding between them.

Yep those are goign up today.

 tre manor wrote:
hah hah! Oh you.....

I promise I will get a picture up later today. Which piece first? The Atoan Hero? The Undead Hero? Lizardman minion? Mutant minion? Empirial Minion??

No, now this is harsh...
If you have all these ready, we would like to see a pic of each

Yep, all of them, just to make my day a better day.

The mutant or the lizardman who be cool.

but to join in with everyone else, all of them

If I'm only going to get one, it'd be the Lizardman minion.

I'd love to see more than one though!

I was going to say the armored one, which I think is the Empirial Minion?

But then I read this:

 Ken Oakley wrote:
Yep, all of them, just to make my day a better day.

and find myself agreeing with Ken!

If I truly have to settle for only one sneak peek, it would probably be the mutant; I'm really interested in seeing what direction that faction will take.

But why have one when you can have ALL THE PICTURES?

It's so hard to make everyone happy. I know you don't want to disappoint anyone. Soooo, you should show one of everything. This way it takes stress off of you and makes everyone happy. Problem solved.

hah hah Ken. I tell you what.... I will preview two figures tomorrow. I accidentally broke the damned weapon hand off of the empirial grunt today so I am fixing that.

I am not sure how far off I am from launching this effort though so I am uncertain how much I want to show off just yet. I am fairly confident in this effort now and I am on fire sculpting and concepting but I do not want to screw it up by jumping the gun in my excitement for it.

I am going to nail this one it is just too dear a project to me.

Lizardman if we must choose one.

One human and one non human maybe? I am really looking forward to this!

Ok Y'all, here are the new preview pics...... I am not sure I am 100 % sold on the lizardman design. It is still a little too anthropomorphic for what I was aiming for...BUT this would be one of the lesser lizardman warrior minions. This kit would be part at the top of the neck and at the waist and at the left elbow IF I go modular. There would be 2 options each for legs, torso, head, shield, and weapon at least to start out with.

Then there is the Beta Mutant warrior. This kit would part at the top of the neck and at the waist. There would be 3 options for legs and torsos and four options for heads and weapons as at least one of the torsos would have a two necks. These guys are going to define bizarre. The entire faction will as a matter of fact. This head option has one eye, there will be another option with three eyes, and another with four eyes, and another with two. This torso has three arms, there will others with four, or just two, or three with one on the opposite side. Their skin textures will each be unique as well.

That may be going out on the limb a bit too far but the hell with it, I want to create an opportunity for artists to really just go berserk and truly be creative. That is really the overall driving ethic behind the design of the project as a whole. I really want people to feel encouraged to write their own visual stories in this game / world. I want to see artists REALLY being artists free from the constraints of " painting by the numbers " so-to-speak......That really comes across wrong...... what I mean is to say that I do not want to confine artists to the standards of the " real world". I want people to feel absolutely free to paint the skin of their barbarians Purple with green hair if they want. Freedom to be freaky and have FUN with their creations.

anyway these are the candidates for the third faction in the first KS. It may be that both fo them get included btu I am goign to concetrate my efforts on one or the other first and once that one is done, if the funding allows the opportunity then the other will be included.

Ok here they are..........

Whoa- that mutant is very cool!

But you knew I'd have to poke you about the below

 tre manor wrote:
Yep those are goign up today.

(regarding the pics of the orcs due up in the webstore)

Really awesome, I love the mutant.

I really hope that shipping wont kill this for me when it hits kickstarter.

Wow!

You're going to make a LOT of money on this line - and a lot of that LOT will be coming from me!

Can't wait for this one to launch!

Wow! Very cool stuff Tre! This range seems to be coming along extremely well.

 tre manor wrote:



Ok Y'all, here are the new preview pics...... I am not sure I am 100 % sold on the lizardman design. It is still a little too anthropomorphic for what I was aiming for...BUT this would be one of the lesser lizardman warrior minions. This kit would be part at the top of the neck and at the waist and at the left elbow IF I go modular. There would be 2 options each for legs, torso, head, shield, and weapon at least to start out with.

The lizardman looks amazing to me!!

BTW I have to admit something.
The lizardman's face reminds me of Godzilla (and a TRex also) and that of the mutant the infected from the "I am legend" film

great stuff. i really like the undead. I'm a bit confused though, you said you want the undeads to be really powerull, yet you also said that they will be a horde faction, Wonder how youll be able to pull this out

I think that was a "mutant" and not an "undead"?

Unless he was referring to this pic (but it's all the way back on page 4):



I'm not a huge fan of the lizardman above, I agree it's a bit too anthropomorphic. I'd love to see future ones branch out a bit more from the norm, as the mutant does.

As for the rules, it would rock if theyr was a stance mechanism, like in confrontation (you would divide your combat dice between attack and defense).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
yeah, was referring to this guy Ritides

Yes the Undead are going to be very powerful indeed, just not quite in the way that you might imagine hearing the word " powerful ". Dangerous might be the better descriptive.

Shipping costs...... I am actively trying to work out a foreign fulfillment point that will all but eliminate the import fees for the UK an EU, MAYBE Australia as well.

Glad you guys like these. After getting ht epics taken I though better of the shape of the mutant's head and bulked up his cranium a little bit.

I am still on the fence over the lizardman though.

DON'T CHANGE THE LIZARDMAN!

In fact, I like the 'anthropomorphic' LizardMAN look.

Yes, mostly because I'm an old school 1E AD&D kind of guy, but secondly, because it is awesome as is!

I like both the lizardman and the mutant. My best guess is that the Lizardmen and Amazon faction will pull in more backers than the mutant faction.

If you want to make the lizardman less anthropomorphic, you might consider narrowing the shoulders or even have a bit of a pear type shape ( I really like the meatiness of the legs and tail). If you look at many lizards, their shoulders are about as wide as their hips, so that may be an idea to make them look more "lizardy" but I think most people will be looking for what you sculpted- a "Lizard Man."

Tis an awesome lizard man.

Wow, I honestly love them both; the lizardman is a real brute and that mutant is frickin' insane! Awesome stuff.

Pics of the orcs are up:

czakk wrote:
Pics of the orcs are up:

They're very nice. I do find it a bit odd though - Tre's had 3 Kickstarters now to fill out his range of minis - only to completely abandon them to make 6 new factions for his upcoming project.

Was the new project (which I'm super excited about btw) just a jarring bolt of inspiration or something?

*Quoted to keep the pics readily visible.

 tre manor wrote:

I am still on the fence over the lizardman though.

The lizardman looks fething amazing. DO NOT CHANGE IT.

I'm not personally in love with the mutant, but it looks cool. A bit of an old-school Realm of Chaos-Slaves to Darkness 1988 mutant vibe to it. From back when GW was free and openly creative with their designs. In fact, I'd crosspost those to the Oldhgammer guys with their Antiquis Malleum project. They look like they'd fit into that old-school aesthetic amazingly well. Well, depending on their size.

Speaking of that - Tre' can we see the previews posed next to a GW-Warhammer figure, please? I don't even play Warhammer Fantasy anymore, and I'm not in any danger of returning to it, but side-by-sides are incredibly useful for working out if I want to go in or not on various ranges. I'm sure someone can post you a space marine and a GW orc. gak, I'll post you one from Australia if I have to.

I really like the mutant. Has a tars tarkas /barsoom vibe to me. Missing an arm though

Love the mutant and lizardman (still would of preferred snakemen though lol!) Not a fan of the Orcs. Though the rules will be selling the game to me though not the minis!

GW comparisons....I will see what I can do. I really do not like doing it though. These are " smaller " than GW figures. I will just come right out and say it. They are in keeping with my current ranges so they are definitely NOT GW sized. But I guess a side by side would not hurt.

Well the good thing about Mutants is that they are each different from the last. These won;t have much in the way of uniformity.

" Tre's had 3 Kickstarters now to fill out his range of minis - only to completely abandon them to make 6 new factions for his upcoming project. "

Well, I am not abandoning them. I am just pursuing another product line that I have REALLY been wanting to get to for a VERY long time. I am going to create everythign needed for this game to get off the ground and then launch the kickstarter and see what develops. If it funds well then I will pour every ounce of effort I have into expanding it immediately. I won;t ever abandon the existing fantasy line and I do have plans to expand it as well. This new project is one that I have wanting to get to for a VERY long time. I am very passionate about it and I think it cover a gap in the industry that needs covering.

not to mention I have been at the traditional fantasy stuff or 7 years now..... I think I need a break from it for a while. Recharge the batteries for the genre.

overtyrant wrote:
Love the mutant and lizardman (still would of preferred snakemen though lol!) Not a fan of the Orcs.

Are those Orcs part of this new upcoming game and line of miniatures though?

And...

overtyrant wrote:
Though the rules will be selling the game to me though not the minis!

Really?

I mean, I hope the game is good, and a lot of fun too, but...

...really?

 tre manor wrote:
GW comparisons....I will see what I can do. I really do not like doing it though. These are " smaller " than GW figures. I will just come right out and say it. They are in keeping with my current ranges so they are definitely NOT GW sized. But I guess a side by side would not hurt.

We know that, but it's incredibly useful as a consumer to know just how big or small they are - and GW's stuff is ubiquitous, so it makes for the best size comparatives. The other thing is that your different ranges/races have their own scales in them, so even knowing how big your Dwarves, Elves and Helsvakt are (since I own a fair few of each) doesn't help me with that Lizardman or mutant. And the Lizardman looks like he could well be the size of a GW Kroxigor, due the the amount of detail packed into him.

Well the good thing about Mutants is that they are each different from the last. These won;t have much in the way of uniformity.

I really hope the muties are large enough to fit in with the Oldhammer project. I could see you selling a pile more of them to the Oldhammer guys. The aesthetic of that one figure looks right on the money.

 Alpharius wrote:

overtyrant wrote:
Love the mutant and lizardman (still would of preferred snakemen though lol!) Not a fan of the Orcs.

Are those Orcs part of this new upcoming game and line of miniatures though?

And...

overtyrant wrote:
Though the rules will be selling the game to me though not the minis!

Really?

I mean, I hope the game is good, and a lot of fun too, but...

...really?

The orcs are part of the existing line - they are up in the store now.

The orcs are part of the Standard Fantasy, this new project is the Alien Fantasy.

Good points Az. And as far as the Mutants go, this one at least is taller than my humans are usually. I do nto knwo how big the Kroxigors, but this lizardman is bigger than my humans also. Not by an incredible amount but bigger none the less. This mutant also is one of the lesser variety, there are bigger mutants planned.

 Alpharius wrote:
I mean, I hope the game is good, and a lot of fun too, but...

...really?

I think that sentiment is more just because the figures won't really be compatible with other systems, so unless you're buying them just as painting project, you'll be pretty locked in to Tre's system. Which isn't a bad thing necessarily, of course, just what probably leads to a comment like that. It's also what would make me a little hesitant to dive in here since I would be buying these figures for this system only... but if the system is good, that's no problem

Yeah, I was trying to be funny - that may have come across as harsher then intended!

However, Tre seems like a guy open to beta testing the rules, and making changes where necessary.

I'm not too worried about the rules, and I know the miniatures will be great!

Since the mutant and lizardmen are not human a lot of the size/scale problems fade away

it's only when your mixing the same things (eg humand & humans) the real problems start

I'm really a huge fan of that Lizardman Tre (and the mutant as well), good work.

I'm really curious to see the Empirial grunt as well. I love the more proportional scale you sculpt in, and would love to have some armored figures in that scale, but I think making them armored in a love tech fantasy setting would be hard to do and yet make it unique. It seems lately all I see coming out as far as armored fantasy figures are Dark Age influenced (Viking/ Saxon influences are done to death , and it seems the "Men-at-Arms" type in quilted/ leather/ layered armor is becoming very common), Ancients influenced (Romans, Greeks, etc - Godslayer) or absurd plate armor that is covered in way too many spikes, buckles, and skull motifs. I think full helmets would be neat as well, it's something a lot of companies have been getting away from, but having "faceless" armored minions tends to make them more imposing.

I'm really interested in this project Tre, and looking forward to it!

I hope people will find the armour of the Empirials interesting. Actually the Empirial grunt I have sculpted now is not armoured at all as I wanted to establish the base line of lesser grunts first and then move up to the armoured troops. The more I work on this the more it begins to verge on an Army scale game. I am trying to steer away from it though.

No need to worry about the Empirials looking like Vikings or Saxons, or much else identifiable from traditional fantasy for that matter. I am trying to take every opportunity to give this project it's own identity. I want people to see any given figure from this line and say " Oh, that is a "such and such " model. " not " Oh that is a weird looking Viking/ Greek/ Knight " or whatever.

As for the rules. I have the basics figured out but I will be crowdsourcing the beta testing to the KS backers. So it will be thoroughly tested and changed as neccessary to make a great game. I am hoping that I might be able to afford to hire professional help in that effort as well.

As for the scale. I think with the development of 3d printing you are going to start seeing a LOT more true scale stuff than " heroic " stuff. At some point the community needs to move on from the dated methods and limitations of the 90's fashions of miniature sculpture.


The Mutant stands 35 mm tall in his pose and the Lizardman is 32 mm tall posed if that gives you any better idea as to the scale. The Mutant's feet barely fit within a 25 mm base and the Lizardman's feet are pretty much the same distance apart. So the Mutant would probably be 40-42mm tall standing upright and the Lizardman would probably be about 38 to 40 mm tall standing upright.


I am currently working on a different version of the lizardman mostly because I am not all together happy with the skin texture on this first attempt. I am not ditching this one unless I come up with something else that I feel is far superior.

 tre manor wrote:


I hope people will find the armour of the Empirials interesting. Actually the Empirial grunt I have sculpted now is not armoured at all as I wanted to establish the base line of lesser grunts first and then move up to the armoured troops. The more I work on this the more it begins to verge on an Army scale game. I am trying to steer away from it though.

No need to worry about the Empirials looking like Vikings or Saxons, or much else identifiable from traditional fantasy for that matter. I am trying to take every opportunity to give this project it's own identity. I want people to see any given figure from this line and say " Oh, that is a "such and such " model. " not " Oh that is a weird looking Viking/ Greek/ Knight " or whatever.

That's really awesome Tre, I'm definitely glad you are trying to give the game it's own identity (historical influences are nice and all, but I'm at a point I'd like to see something more unique), and I'm anxious to see how the Empirials turn out.

Personally I would really like to see a move away from the heroic scale in the industry, that's not to say I don't enjoy larger scale models, but heroic scale tends to make the heads/hands/weapons extremely disproportionate and look kind of silly. I've been really impressed with the RBG models I do own, and hopefully at some point I'll be able to add some more to my collection.

 tre manor wrote:

95% finished........

9 undead warriors

1 undead Warrior hero

1 cultist acolyte ( there will be two in the set. )

1 necromancer priestess

1 greater Demon

Should be done with all of these by tomorrow afternoon. Then on to the barbarian starter set.

just noticed the Demon at the bottom of the undead list. I'm hoping it'll not conform to the usual stereotype of horns and cloven feet? Im hoping for something much more alien.

It is totally NOT Bovine by any stretch of the imagination.

My idea of demon is a figure of a much more predatory nature.

One of the things I like about Tre's miniature scale is they work great with Dwarven Forge products. This is an added bonus for me and my gaming. When a party is moving down a darken hallway the miniatures don't look out of scale with the terrain. So, when does the next KS start? I'm in the Dwarven Forge KS right now but it won't keep me from pledging yours.

Thanks Ken!

Well it all depends. I think that between DF's caverns CMoN's Arcadia, MC's Mercs, and next up SP's SDE expansion it may not be a good time to try to dive in to an all new IP. So, for now, I am aiming at mid April to early May. Maybe sooner maybe later depending upon what transpires between now and then.

In that intervening time I will be working on getting as many sculpts finished and mastered as I am able to manage / afford and getting as much of the marketing materials and bells and whistles ready as possible. Not to mention writing fluff and rules.

I want this to be BIG so I am going to do the work to make sure that happens.

"When you're ready" is probably a better yardstick, because there's always going to be some big blockbuster launching on KS!

I've restricted my pledging on KSers. There's just a very few products I support now. I added up how much I had spent last year and almost had a heart attack. It's real easy to get carried away with the pledging. Red Box is of course one of the companies I support.

 Alpharius wrote:
"When you're ready" is probably a better yardstick, because there's always going to be some big blockbuster launching on KS!

Good advice. Launch when you have all your base sculpts finished and everything ready to go. This latest norse KS seems to be going smoothly because you had everything ready to go at the start.

And try to launch so you get a 1st, 15th and 30th in your KS period so people have 2-3 pay cycles to pledge.

czakk wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
"When you're ready" is probably a better yardstick, because there's always going to be some big blockbuster launching on KS!

Good advice. Launch when you have all your base sculpts finished and everything ready to go. This latest norse KS seems to be going smoothly because you had everything ready to go at the start.

And try to launch so you get a 1st, 15th and 30th in your KS period so people have 2-3 pay cycles to pledge.

More excellent advice there!

End of april, start of may sounds good. Any idea on the ks length?

Thanks Ken.

Tis true that there does always seem to be a monster KS going.

Good advice to jut launch when ready but to aim for the 1st 15th, and 30th.

As to length....well that really depends on what is ready to go when I launch. I would like to try to keep the campaign short and sweet though. Definitely no more than 30 days but I would prefer between 20 and 25 days.

I have really high hopes for this KS, I hope it goes really smoothly for you Tre.

The mutant is pretty cool, though the concept is less exciting to me than the lizardman one. I like the general size, shape and pose of the lizard, but agree that his skin texture could look a little more "real" perhaps, and I like the shape of his head but not the over-hanging fangs, I think they look kinda goofy. It's still one of the better lizardman sculpts I've seen, but I'd prefer fangs that are visible if they are bared or if the mouth is open, but not if the mouth is at rest as it is there.

Hope feedback is what you're looking for anyhow, I would still pledge for a lizard that looked like the one shown, those are just my thoughts.

I think a three-faction KS would likely spur me to try and get everything, and April/May gives me time to put aside a couple of hundred Euro for it. I'm also excited to see the orcs with Two Handers, which I have pledged for in KS2 but hadn't seen yet!

To be fair if there was a nice pledge level for the three inital warbands thats where id jump on aswell.

I'd have to see the barbarians first tho im rather interested at this point to hear more about the ape men, seeing the mutants makes me think they're going to be very cool. (Im kind of hoping for morlocks)

Im going to have to see about picking up some exisiting minis, anybody know who's the best uk stockist?

Thanks Da Boss, and yes that is for the feedback as well as the confidence.

There will be a pledge level to buy all three factions starter sets and all three faction army sets. I am thinkign that there will be a pledge level for each different faction starter and then a pledge level for each faction army set and then a pledge level for all three starters and all three army sets.

I will try to get a pic of one of the barbarians up sometime this week.

Morlocks.......probably nto morlocks btu cool none the less.

Any indication what the price point for those sets would be? (and what's the diff between an army set and a faction starter?)

I thought this was going to be skirmish level ie 15 fig max. Not sure I could afford an all metal army. Skirmish fine, not so much army level. Looking forward to hearing about the rules, I would obviously need to hear something about these before the end of the KS.

 edlowe wrote:


Im going to have to see about picking up some exisiting minis, anybody know who's the best uk stockist?

http://www.artemisblacks.com/redbox.shtml

I think 5/6 and 15/20 might be the 'skirmish' and 'army' levels though...

Saw the lizard.

I'm down.

Give me a pile please.

Hope we'll get a few that have learned to wear armor as well. Hope there will be some bigger reptilians lurking in the shadows as well.

Armored dinosaurs would pretty much make this the best kickstarter ever.

I can't disagree with that!

czakk wrote:

 edlowe wrote:


Im going to have to see about picking up some exisiting minis, anybody know who's the best uk stockist?

http://www.artemisblacks.com/redbox.shtml

Thanks Czakk

 tre manor wrote:


Thanks Da Boss, and yes that is for the feedback as well as the confidence.

There will be a pledge level to buy all three factions starter sets and all three faction army sets. I am thinkign that there will be a pledge level for each different faction starter and then a pledge level for each faction army set and then a pledge level for all three starters and all three army sets.

I will try to get a pic of one of the barbarians up sometime this week.

Morlocks.......probably nto morlocks btu cool none the less.

I think it would be a good idea to have also the option of buying two starter and army sets and choose between the three available. So if someone would just like try the game by picking two forces, he would have the option.

Well when I say " army " i do not really mean " army ". And when I said 15 figures maximum per side per game, that was probabyl a little hasty.

The idea that I have right now is that this game can be played between 2 players running 5 - 25 models each. 25 models each would be a HUGE game but bear in mind that there are horde factions which field larger numbers of models for less points.

I am still working out the balance but a sample low point value force might look like;

Undead-
Necromancer (1 )
Cultist Acolytes ( 2 )
LEsser Undead warrior Minions ( 6)

Barbarian-
Barbarian Warrior Priestess ( 1 )
Barbarian Warrior Minions ( 4 )
Barbarian Javlineer Minions ( 2 )

Amazon-
Amazon priestess ( 1 )
Lizardman Warrior Minions ( 3 )
Amazon Archer Minions ( 3 )

This would also be a good example of the starter set composition. The pricing of these is still a bit of an uncertain issue.

A high point value game might look like;

Undead-
Necromancer ( 3 )
Cultists ( 6 )
Lesser Undead ( 18 )
Liche Warrior Minions ( 3 )
Liche Warrior Champion ( 1 )
Greater Demon Minion ( 1-2 ) *

Barbarian-
BArbarian Warrior Priestess ( 1 )
Mounted BArbarian Warlord Champion( 1 ) **
BArbarian Warrior Hero ( 1 )
Barbarian Warrior Hero Warp State (1 ) *
Barbarian Warrior Minions ( 6 )
Barbarian Javlineer Minions ( 2 )
Barbarian Warp State minions ( 2 ) *
War Beast Minions ( 2 )

Amazon-
Amazon PRiestess ( 1 )
Mounted Amazon Warrior Champion ( 1 ) **
Lizardman Brute minions ( 2 )
Lizardman Warrior Minions ( 6 )
Amazon Archer hero ( 1 )
Amazon Archer Minions ( 4 )
Elemental minions ( 1-3 ) *

** Riding and afoot rules
* summoned / generated in the course of play under specific rules.

And that would be a good example of an " army " set.

The exact composition of the forces can be very different of course depending upon your strategic style or preferences. For instance you could field an additional 2 javlineers and 2 warrior minions in the high point barbarian army instead of the mounted warlord. Or you could field two mounted warlords and 6 warrior minions total. The way I am planning the KS is that the starter sets will be the first funding goal. Then the next stretches will unlock one hero per faction per stretch. After that the first special minions would go up and then after those the Champions would go up. And so on.

This way I figure that everyone gets a game ready force right out of the gate then gets to add on to it as they like over the rest of the campaign. If something does not fund then at least they won;t have an underpowered force. Each item funded will be offered as an add-on so if you want to buy 20 sets of the undead or barbarian warrior minions you can do so.

I am thinking that between now and the time that this launches i should be able to have all of the items listed above sculpted and most of them mastered as well.

the rules are still very much a WIP but I am trying to design this to be a very fast and fluid system while still maintainign a strong strategic play element.







Automatically Appended Next Post:
sorry missed a few posts whilst writing that previous reply.

The lizardmen probably won't wear armour, well at least not metal armour. They will already have a natural armour rating and a few other nice special rules that make them especially formidable in melee and make armour less important. the lizardman shown is one of the " lesser " variety. There are older and larger ones that push these around.

There will also be an option to buy all three starters or armies or all four if it comes to that.

Armoured Dinosaurs... that WOULD be awesome, but would either be VERY costly per model in resin or be a VERY expensive stretch goal to get them in plastic. Who knows what is in store though.

 tre manor wrote:

the lizardman shown is one of the " lesser " variety. There are older and larger ones that push these around.
Armoured Dinosaurs... that WOULD be awesome, but would either be VERY costly per model in resin or be a VERY expensive stretch goal to get them in plastic. Who knows what is in store though.

Good enough for me! The lure of bigger and badder lizards is all I need.

Sounds great. I'll repeat my previous question though (sorry ): what whould we expect the starter sets to cost? And the Army sets?

I am not really sure yet. It will depend a lot on whether I go modular or not. It also depends on the composition of the starter set. I would like to keep everything as uniform as possible but obviously there are going to be different margins in cost so that complicates things.

Give me a little more time to noodle the pricing and I will get back to you.

I finished the Empirial's High Priest yesterday. I am thinkign more and more that this may be a five faction kickstarter campaign. Barbarians, Undead, Mutants, Amazons, Empirials.

 tre manor wrote:
I finished the Empirial's High Priest yesterday. I am thinkign more and more that this may be a five faction kickstarter campaign. Barbarians, Undead, Mutants, Amazons, Empirials.

This is great news!!!
Please consider to post a pic of the Empirials. I would be really interested in them.
Also I think it would be a good idea to give the option of any army and number combination in the kickastarter. I mean someone to be able to make any possible combination of any army between two, three, four or all five factions.

I was hoping that it would be at least a 4 faction KS, but I'll take 5!

 Bolognesus wrote:
Sounds great. I'll repeat my previous question though (sorry ): what whould we expect the starter sets to cost? And the Army sets?

Your question is very reasonable Bolognesus, but I think it would be polite to not press too hard on pricing at the moment.

Pricing is a complex issue that could lead to serious financial harm if it is miscalculated, and I expect it would suck to spitball a price that it later turns out is not economically viable. You know what I mean? Then you'd be in the rough position of having to either increase the price from what you estimated or take a loss on the product.

The previews have been pretty exciting so far! I'm looking forward to seeing something of the Barbarian and more of the Undead models.

As to modularity...I guess my tastes have been changing a little bit over time, but when it comes to metal miniatures, modularity is really not as much of a concern with me as getting a well-sculpted, characterful piece. I tend to do less converting with metal miniatures, and in small model count games, repeat poses usually aren't that big of a deal. That said, head swaps do a lot to add a bit of simple modularity to a miniature.

I agree with Weeble 1000 I don't care that much for minis coming in several pieces. I prefer single cast miniatures.

Head and weapon swaps are normally fine for metal figs imho.

Yep pricing is very tricky.

The way it will work if I decide to go whole hog and try to fund all five from the get go is that the first goal will fund the starter sets for the Undead and the BArbarians. The next goal will fund the Amazons starter, the next goal will fund the Empirials and then the next the mutants. Then each successive stretch will fund an add-on to each faction. The problem I keep runnign into there is the probability that the earlier factions will end up with more available than the later factions.

I won't be " gaming " the system with this KS. I am going to ask for exactly what I need to make the production and fulfillment happen, so the unlocks won't be too expensive ( far apart ) which should help move them faster but it is still a little scary committing to such a broad spate of products.

 tre manor wrote:


Yep pricing is very tricky.

The way it will work if I decide to go whole hog and try to fund all five from the get go is that the first goal will fund the starter sets for the Undead and the BArbarians. The next goal will fund the Amazons starter, the next goal will fund the Empirials and then the next the mutants. Then each successive stretch will fund an add-on to each faction. The problem I keep runnign into there is the probability that the earlier factions will end up with more available than the later factions.

I won't be " gaming " the system with this KS. I am going to ask for exactly what I need to make the production and fulfillment happen, so the unlocks won't be too expensive ( far apart ) which should help move them faster but it is still a little scary committing to such a broad spate of products.

Couldn't stretch goals award one small upgrade to every faction funded.

you mean one stretch goal adding on to all currently funded factions?? It can if the value of the stretch goal covers the required costs. The problem there is that that only means that there is a larger gaps between goals being achieved which works against the psychology of the effort. It does not really make the goals happen more quickly.

For instance if the cost to produce a figure at the offered price is $5000.00 then for every figure in that goal milestone you need to make $5000.00. So to add five add-ons to a goal milestone you need to generate $25000.00.....which look sliek a REALLY high goal ( and it certainly is ) this will daunt potential backers because they have o garantee that their investment will pay off. Now if you divide that stretch goal into 5 individual $5000.00 goals suddenly you increase your chances of reaching that goal as the backers feel their investment is more likely to pay off than not. Even if not every backer is rewarded at the current stretch goal it is likely that enough of them will be to pass that goal and move on to the next.

I think that the key to success in any effort is to keep several smaller short term goals that are more easily achieved that all contribute to a much higher over all goal.

Considering the above costs you're looking at 50k to fund two 5 sculpt warbands? Considering the cost of single sculpts it looks like modular figures would be the way to go. Would it be excessively expensive to do say a five head sprue or a muti weapon sprue with hands attached. Just curious really how these things work out. Always nice to hear a bit of the 'backgroubd' work that goes into figure casting.

Oh, I wasn't trying to push matters - I figured since a lot of figs seem to be sculpted, an indication might be in the cards.

Totally agree on modular models, with a low model count game, it's not really much of an issue.
One potential issue would be those 20ish undead in a large battle; I'd hate to only have 4 or 5 sculpts for those. OTOH, modular models for the most numerous of units might not be a good idea.
...Would the old lesser undead 'work' or am I totally off-base there? Been planning to get a set of those for ages now anyway.

As to number of factions, well: you'll know best, but I'd say there's a real risk of overextending and not getting enough momentum if you go with too many factions, too early.
Three well-rounded, internally diverse factions is good - they'll each feel like a finished, 'complete' product rather than something half-baked because we didn't quite meet all the stretches needed to make them sufficiently varied.

There's always the option of adding in a fourth and fifth faction later either via stretches on this KS - or just a second KS, when this one's done!

In any case, a KS with a lower, more manageable funding goal generally tends to do better and the diverse, more complete factions would, IMO, sell better as a product than five less complete ones.

You seem to emphasize not getting in over your head and generally approach this all very cautiously - which is good! - and then get very enthusiastic with additional factions and whatnot; great to see the enthusiasm, but I'd urge you to take the same generally conservative approach to the number of factions initially funded/expanded.

And again, sorry if I came across as too pushy

I'd be down for a few faction specific KS campaigns.

Obviously I'm going to want some Amazons, but that would mean waiting until the funding hits high enough for them to even unlock.

If it doesn't get high enough, what's to encourage me to pledge (other than being a nice guy and wanting to see this succeed)?

That might be a lot more headaches on your end though, managing multiple kickstarters, one after the other to get all the factions funded. We might see fatigue start to set in.

Couple suggestions/observations:

- Remember why your last KS was only six minis. It's great that you're fired up creatively by this project, but businesswise it's way too early to take any risks with KS. Three factions is plenty to start with.

- I don't think going modular is worth it on metal minis, especially in light of the costly problems you've had with it before. Perhaps you can design single-part metals with an eye to conversion? So that people who are so inclined can easily cut off and swap around hands or heads or what have you.

- It seems like all your recent sculpts are in wide stances, and while that's fine for individual minis I'd prefer to see some variation in the range.

- Speaking of, it's always a good time for more gender and ethnic diversity.

Personally I'm more into costumes than human anatomy, so this range isn't really my thing. Still, it's high quality, creative and presumably good value for money, so I might still be in for the KS. (Depending on how international shipping works out.)

I think the undead should have a model that's called a Wight.

Just because I've always thought that was a cool undead thing and name, and seems to be shamefully underused as well...

I think you'd do better to offer stretches for each faction, rather than two totally unlocked factions and several locked. It would give everyone something to look forward to, and not leave people pledging for something that might not exist (which happened previously).

Tre, I'd go back and read your own concerns in this thread about getting too excited and overdoing things.'

I think three factions is great for the first KS. It lets you offer single mini stretches at reasonable intervals that won't put off fans of the faction whose stretch isn't "next". It lets you control things and means you have a ton of stuff in the bag for KS2.
It might also mean that you can have some really neat stretch goals ready to go for those three factions rather than barely covering 5-6 factions equally for the same amount of money.

As a supporter I can see myself buying four factions over two KSs, I wouldn't be buying four factions in one KS.

Agreed- 3 factions is something I can save for, then spend on, in a reasonable amount of time. If it's 5 factions, it's unlikely that I'll be able to afford all of them, and I think long term you'll make less money off of me

I'm here to say that I'll probably be in for all 5.

Yes, but that's exactly the issue with previous campaigns- more races were listed than it was started with, and stretch goals were used to achieve them... but if people pledge with the hope of of mutants and they don't unlock, then there's a risk they'll drop out / etc.

Referring to this quote:

 tre manor wrote:
The way it will work if I decide to go whole hog and try to fund all five from the get go is that the first goal will fund the starter sets for the Undead and the BArbarians. The next goal will fund the Amazons starter, the next goal will fund the Empirials and then the next the mutants. Then each successive stretch will fund an add-on to each faction.

Again, this is exactly what happened with the second KS (before the re-launch)... tons of stuff was listed, but it wasn't all "unlocked". But if you list it, people will pledge for it... and if it doesn't unlock, you've got issues!

Better to fund either a smaller set of each faction, and then add on to each faction, or do less factions... having stretch goals be whole new factions / units caused issues before and I'd be cautious about doing it again!

Stretch goals adding a figure to EACH faction at once, would be the very best way to go, imo, no matter how many factions you choose to do.

RiTides idea sounds good.

Same thing I'm always telling my students- you gotta Keep It Super Simple!

$5K was just an estimate. Even if that is the ideal amount needed to pay myself for the effort and pay for the production as well I won't set the initial funding goal that high. I think that I will make up the difference once the production is paid for. So what I will probably do is set the initial funding goal for as little money as is needed for production and then go from there. I am confident enough in this project to go ahead and pony up the effort to make the figures. Once that is done though it will be up to you guys whether or not the molds get made and the castings get run. So I doubt VERY seriously that the initial goal will be even close to $50,000.00. Though I am optimistic I am also trying to be as realistic as possible and 50K is a BIG pill to swallow even in crowd funding.


Oh I did not feel pushed at all Bolognesus.

The lesser undead will have at least 9 totally unique sculpts, and I am still thinking on whether or not to convert several of those into even more. I guess ti all depends on how the funding goes. And yes they are perfectly compatible with my existing undead. The themes don;t really match but that may be a trivial thign to most.

I am definitely NOT going to get in over my head on this. I would prefer to limit this campaign to Barbarians, Undead, and Amazons but I also want to make the most of any opportunity that arises. That said for now I am going to keep my efforts focused on the original three.

Amazons would include lizards right?

I think Barbarians/Undead/Amazons is really good initial offering. Diverse aesthetic and appeal.

Oh, just wanted to say that I'm really looking forward to seeing some big creatures from you.

Good to hear.

about modularity: well, the lesser undead shown aren't all that easy to convert (arms would require significant sculpting skills); however, if they had separate heads it'd go quite a ways towards being able to at least not have completely identical models; might it be an option to cast them with heads with a hollow socket for a ball-joint-neck to slot into? could probably still be cast as a single piece (and having the socket slightly big wouldn't be an awful issue!).
Not sure if it's quite realistic but it'd seem like a rather cheap way to have more than enough variety in those buggers without burdening you with too much extra costs - once you get more than nine of them on the table "somewhat similar" starts to be rather less of an issue anyway!

Really happy to see that laser focus - expect as big a first-day pledge from me as I can swing at the moment

 tre manor wrote:


$5K was just an estimate. Even if that is the ideal amount needed to pay myself for the effort and pay for the production as well I won't set the initial funding goal that high. I think that I will make up the difference once the production is paid for. So what I will probably do is set the initial funding goal for as little money as is needed for production and then go from there. I am confident enough in this project to go ahead and pony up the effort to make the figures. Once that is done though it will be up to you guys whether or not the molds get made and the castings get run. So I doubt VERY seriously that the initial goal will be even close to $50,000.00. Though I am optimistic I am also trying to be as realistic as possible and 50K is a BIG pill to swallow even in crowd funding.


Oh I did not feel pushed at all Bolognesus.

The lesser undead will have at least 9 totally unique sculpts, and I am still thinking on whether or not to convert several of those into even more. I guess ti all depends on how the funding goes. And yes they are perfectly compatible with my existing undead. The themes don;t really match but that may be a trivial thign to most.

I am definitely NOT going to get in over my head on this. I would prefer to limit this campaign to Barbarians, Undead, and Amazons but I also want to make the most of any opportunity that arises. That said for now I am going to keep my efforts focused on the original three.

Going for three armies is indeed I think the best way. However I still would like to see a picture of an Empirial, even if their army won't finally be in the Kickstarter. And a picture of a Barbarian as well.
Many thanks Tre! I have no doubt that the final quality of the minis will be supurb!!

 tre manor wrote:
I am definitely NOT going to get in over my head on this. I would prefer to limit this campaign to Barbarians, Undead, and Amazons but I also want to make the most of any opportunity that arises. That said for now I am going to keep my efforts focused on the original three.

As others have said, keeping this reined in sounds wise. However you structure this, I would really make sure that the campaign still feels like a success even if it just barely gets funded and doesn't hit any stretch goals. That was the problem with KS2 (before re-launch); most people were pledging for 10 ranks but there were only a couple available at the funding goal. So if the funding goal is for the starters of three factions, I would definitely not put up any four- or five-faction pledge levels from the get-go! If the campaign does really well and you decide to add more factions as stretch goals, remember that you can always add new pledge levels down the line to cover this (continuously adding bigger and bigger pledge levels is how Stonehaven have run their three pretty successful campaigns).

A couple of other things I thought of, just throwing things out there:

* I will be in for as much as I can afford on this, but I would also not forget the guys and gals who might be only interested in a mini or two, and have no interest in the game or collecting complete factions. So I definitely think it might be worth it to have a low pledge that can allow people to just pick up for example one of the undead and a barbarian or whatever.

* The skirmish game rules. If you're thinking of launching this already within a couple of months and are still thinking of the game in general terms, it seems a bit premature to include a physical book in the pledge levels (I'm thinking it would be sad if printing ended up delaying everything). Are you thinking pdf rules only for this KS, or will this even be only for the minis?

* I think you may have said you don't want to do this, but have you considered including any of your existing miniatures as optional add-ons (I'm thinking mostly of your more general stuff like the lesser undead and dire wolves)? I'm thinking it could be a way to broaden the options, tempt a few more people in, and at least for me it feels better overpledging slightly for a future stretch goal if I can justify it with a "well, I can always get another bunch of zombies if we never manage to reach that goal".

Three factions. Not five.

Limit modularity to headswaps. Make it easier by using convex ball-type neck joints on unarmoured models or space marine-type concave neck joints on armoured figures. Use collars, etc to hide the joins. If you do "plug-in" weapons, then allow for swaps there. Or do what Andy from Heresy did with Boris:


No more is needed for a smallish game in metal if you have enough sculpts, and overly-modular metal figures are a fething painful nightmare to assemble.

Make it a fast, small, tight campaign. Deliver fully, then go again. Rebuild that rep.

If you're totally in love with showing off the fourth and fifth factions, do so by releasing only 1 or 2 figures per faction as "Special Teaser" figures - like Dreamforge did with the Shadowkesh handler.

Don't make them exclusive, though - at this stage it's probably a squandering of resources. Make them a "special preview" instead - they'd still be available months ahead of the rest of their ranges anyway.

Tre it may be worth you checking out Anvil industys first ks. He too was launching a new game but did a smaller limited kickstaryer to fund the first two pledges with an extra vanguard pledge which will give you more figures six months down the line with the option to play the beta rules. All be for the main ks starts later this year

5 factions, not 3.

And if not 5, 4.

3 just doesn't 'feel right' or 'make sense'.

All of that is, of course, completely up to Tre and what he feels he can do - just stating my personal preferences!

Yeh I am decided that this campaign will be strictly limited to 3 factions and only what I have sculpted when it is ready to launch. 3 factions means I can get it all ready faster and produced and delivered faster as well. THEN I can move on to factions 4 -6.


And for now I am going to just produce single piece non modular castings just to get the ball rolling. If demand is jut overwhelming for the game then I can always produce a set of modulars thereafter. The undead will be cast in a single piece but I will produce a conversion how to guide on the web site showing how to switch their heads around. I think that the best way to fund the undead is to fund two sets of 6 unique figures. The starter will contain the first 6 and then there will be an expansion to fund the second 6 booster.

yes there will be rules with this first KS but not an actual book. That will not come until the rules have been thoroughly play tested and refined. I want to print a small foldout sheet of the quickstart rules to go in with the faction starters though, but my first and foremost goal is deliver in a relatively short period of time.

backers will be able to buy the faction starters or buy a la carte, but the " rank sets " won't break up. Meaning you will be able to buy one Barbarian Hero or one Amazon Priestess or one set of Barbarian warrior minions or one set of Lizardmen warrior minions but not one Lizardman man warrior minion or one barbarian warrior minion. One lesson I learned in fulfilling KS 2 is that keeping the fulfillment simple is the best way to make sure it runs well and deliverd quickly.

I will have one pledge level per faction starter, and one pledge level for each combination of the three starter sets. I do nto think I will have pledge levels for full army sets as I won;t really have anyway to predict what that will hold until the end of the campaign. You will be able to add to your pledge though so you will be able to add additional sets of minions or additional heroes as you please.

Adding in a few previews of the other factions sounds like a good idea. I will think on that a bit. I do not think I will preview any of them until i am ready to fund them though. I think it would be wise to keep a little somethign up my sleeve so-to-speak.

Big BEasties. Yeh that is a big focus of the entire game idea!

I am also working on a special KS exclusive figure as well though but it is still just an idea at this point.

So this campaign will be for 3 factions and each faction will have:

1) One Hero
2) One set of minions/troops
3) One Big Monster

And then options for more within each category if funding goes high enough?

The starters will be;

mage
melee minions
support minions ( archers, javlineers, acolytes etc. )

Then the stretch goals will proceed as;
Hero
big beastie
Alt Hero
alt support minions
alt melee minions ( sp. weapon or ability type )

So are we down to 3 starting factions? That should be a bit easier pill to swallow.

What were the beasties going to be cast in? I can't remember and I'm feeling mighty lethargic and am unable to go back and check.

And any time you want to share pictures of those beasties, by all means, please do!

 tre manor wrote:


Yeh I am decided that this campaign will be strictly limited to 3 factions and only what I have sculpted when it is ready to launch. 3 factions means I can get it all ready faster and produced and delivered faster as well. THEN I can move on to factions 4 -6.


And for now I am going to just produce single piece non modular castings just to get the ball rolling. If demand is jut overwhelming for the game then I can always produce a set of modulars thereafter. The undead will be cast in a single piece but I will produce a conversion how to guide on the web site showing how to switch their heads around. I think that the best way to fund the undead is to fund two sets of 6 unique figures. The starter will contain the first 6 and then there will be an expansion to fund the second 6 booster.

yes there will be rules with this first KS but not an actual book. That will not come until the rules have been thoroughly play tested and refined. I want to print a small foldout sheet of the quickstart rules to go in with the faction starters though, but my first and foremost goal is deliver in a relatively short period of time.

backers will be able to buy the faction starters or buy a la carte, but the " rank sets " won't break up. Meaning you will be able to buy one Barbarian Hero or one Amazon Priestess or one set of Barbarian warrior minions or one set of Lizardmen warrior minions but not one Lizardman man warrior minion or one barbarian warrior minion. One lesson I learned in fulfilling KS 2 is that keeping the fulfillment simple is the best way to make sure it runs well and deliverd quickly.

I will have one pledge level per faction starter, and one pledge level for each combination of the three starter sets. I do nto think I will have pledge levels for full army sets as I won;t really have anyway to predict what that will hold until the end of the campaign. You will be able to add to your pledge though so you will be able to add additional sets of minions or additional heroes as you please.

Adding in a few previews of the other factions sounds like a good idea. I will think on that a bit. I do not think I will preview any of them until i am ready to fund them though. I think it would be wise to keep a little somethign up my sleeve so-to-speak.

Big BEasties. Yeh that is a big focus of the entire game idea!

I am also working on a special KS exclusive figure as well though but it is still just an idea at this point.

I really like the approach you are taking with this kickstarter. There have been far to many that blow up in size with the "base line" pledge of at least $100 or $150, and with a very complicated system of pledge levels. Keeping the pledge levels simple with a one pledge for one starter, one for two and one for all three sounds like a good plan. Some sort of small goodie for the pledgers like a exclusive miniature is a nice idea. Maybe included for the bigger pledges, and available as an add-on for the rest?

I can't imagine the pledge being much less than $100 - $150 if you want all 3 factions though...

I'm glad your thinking this through before starting the KS. I'm ready to pledge anytime your ready to start.

Thanks Ken.

Beasties will probably be cast in resin. Plastic would drag out production and delay fulfillment and mean a VERY high funding goal which woudl seriously disrupt the plan.