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Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/24 20:27:54


Post by: Kaine Larson


Mod Edit: Monsters of Underdeep 2 is live!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1629942774/minion-miniatures-the-monsters-of-underdeep-2


For those of you who have not heard of us before, Minion Miniatures is a new company looking to produce a range of multi part plastic miniatures with others made of high quality resin and white metal.
Our initial offering with this Kickstarter are the Goblin and Zombie Gravewalker multi part plastic miniature sprues.
Please visit our Kickstarter page for more details.





The Zombie Abomination faction has the use of some amazingly horrific creatures. This is the sculpt for the Flesh Golem, an unstoppable behemoth on the battlefield!!! This miniature will be available in high quality resin and will stand 55mm to eye level!

Minion Miniatures is a new Fantasy Miniature manufacturer with plans to release a whole range of plastic, metal and resin miniatures support our new fantasy skirmish game called Underdeep.


A close up of the "green" sculpted by the amazing Robby Crawforth. Whats amazing is the level of detail captured by Robby in a mini that measures 22mm to eye level!!

Underdeep takes place underneath the world of Morn, crushed by decades of war. Now it is the time of the creatures of the Underdeep to have their time… The game focuses on the battles and machinations of the pivotal races of the Underdeep including Goblins, Orcs, Gnolls, Drow, Undead and many more besides. The difference in this world is that the Sunsiders are generally only minor players in this vast world, a world where evil battles evil on an almost contestant basis.



Bugbear Ironshield and Hobgoblin Legionary (in deathmask). The hobgoblins will be resin or white metal models with a choice of bare heads or deathmasked heads. Both of these models will be available as stretchgoals (the hobgoblins will be part of a 5 model boxed set). The Bugbear Ironshield will be high quality resin and stand approximately 70mm tall.


Goblin Headcleaver and Goblin Archer. The headcleaver is part of the supporting range and will be available in white metal as a stretchgoal. The Goblin archer will be a multipart plastic piece available in the plastic goblin boxed set.

A close up of a Zombie Gravewalker showing facial detail. This model will be part of the multipart plastic Zombie Gravewalker sprue. The photo shows the fantastic level of details captured by our sculptor Victor.

The basic Kickstarter will allow us to release the plastic sprues for both the Zombie Abominations and Goblinkind with our basic rules being free and downloadable when the KS launches. We want the community to help us develop the rules throughout the KS and beyond to make them as exciting and entertaining as possible.

The game, Underdeep, is a skirmish based game with armies typically ranging from 20 to 70 models but in some cases much larger forces can be used. We also plan to release a mass combat game at a later date.

We are very open about the use of our miniatures and understand that many people would like to use our miniatures for other game systems and roleplaying games. We have therefore broken our pledge levels down to allow pledgers to form huge armies or just to buy a few of our miniatures. A pledge of £1 opens our addon store to you with lots of goodies and more being added as stretchgoals are hit.

Our plan is to run a Kickstarter campaign in September of this year to release the initial starter set and plastic miniatures with our stretch goals providing supporting metal and resin figures like Bugbears, Flesh Golems, Zombie Hulks and many more besides.

Please visit our Facebook page for a more in depth look at the art and information on our Kickstarter. We would also appreciate it if you would LIKE our page.

https://www.facebook.com/minionminiatures

The plastic miniatures are being manufactured by Renedra, the worlds very best plastic miniature manufacturer. This means the miniatures will be of the absolute highest quality available and good value too.



Plastic Zombie Gravewalker - Please note this is not a final pose but for illustrative purposes.


The Zombie Hulk will be a huge and imposing model standing at nearly 80mm in height. This model will form part of the supporting model range, will be made of plastic and will be available as an early stretch goal.



Necromancer and Liche Priest - Both models will be stretchgoals and be available in resin/whitemetal.

If the Kickstarter is very successful another boxed set, in plastic will be available… the Lizardkin. The Lizardkin dwell in the distant swamps and mires of Morn and many make their homes in extensive, damp underground caverns. The picture below depicts a Lizardkin Brave but the faction can also call upon Kobolds (diminutive and plentiful lizard like humanoids), Deathscales (enormous primitive lizardkin) and Troglodytes (stupid, slow but hugely strong). Some tribes even tame huge Dire Monitors to use as mounts and beasts of war!



We will begin posting regular updates on here and other forums, as well as our FB page. We would be delighted to hear any questions you may have and to hear your views.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/24 20:58:33


Post by: bbb


Sounds cool. Any concept art or sculpts? Why the mix of models in the goblin box set?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/24 21:08:51


Post by: Kaine Larson


All the concept art is on the Facebook page at the moment. I would love to post it on here but I am doing this independently of my marketing chap and I have the computing skills of the average slug! Please have a look at the Facebook page as we have all the Goblin concept art there at the moment.

In answer to the other question we wanted to theme each boxed sets with several types of each creature and to also allow players of the Skirmish rule set to get a small, playable force in one boxed set. We also wanted to make the models accessible to role-players too who could buy a box or two and have range of models to use.

There will be a whole range of metal figures available in support as well as small plastic blister packs for characters.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/24 21:14:39


Post by: ulgurstasta


Looks promising, Do you have a website or is all concept art just gonna go up on facebook?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/24 21:19:40


Post by: Kaine Larson


Website is in development. Facebook is just for starters and we wanted to get some idea of the interest levels which so far has been amazing! We have some models being sculpted at the moment but work on the three ups will not be started until after the Kickstarter. The Kickstarter exclusive limited edition model is being scultped firsst and some concept art will be available on the Facebook page very soon. The website will be up and running by the end of May.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/24 21:23:56


Post by: scarletsquig


Like the sound of this, but will need to see some sculpts first.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/24 21:28:25


Post by: Kaine Larson


Please keep checking back on the Facebook page as some sculpts will be available soon. I'm sure you will like them! The first model is the Kickstarter exclusive miniature, the Goblin Skulk.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/24 21:55:28


Post by: Rolt


Great looking concepts so far Kaine, I especially appreciate the fact that you clearly have your own vision and style rather than being another not-warhammer range, always refreshing to see.

My only advice is just make sure you supply plenty of concepts, WiP and if possible some sculpts and test resins to show people what they're gonna be backing for later in the year, and most importantly if
you are going to get involved in the community for feedback, ideas and such, make sure you keep it up. There was a KS recently called the The Kingdom that was also aiming to create full hard plastic armies,
great concepts, fantastic execution, but they were marred by the fact that they basically appeared out of nowhere asking for a lot of money without any sort of established fan-base, so it failed as you expect and
we haven't heard much from them since. Now look towards someone like Mark from Dreamforge games a guy who hasn't stopped showing people stuff, getting involved on forums and otherwise building
people's trust in his vision and you'll see a very successful product range in which every KS will only get bigger, when they happen.... I need you shadowkesh.

Not trying to chew you out or anything, just friendly advice.

Also do you want someone to thrown some of your pic's up on here, will take about 5mins to do for ya.



Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/24 22:01:56


Post by: Kaine Larson


Thanks Rolt. I am new to Kickstarters and we do need a LOT of money to do what we need to do. The Kickstarter will not be for a while but we have a lot coming and an excellent artist who is giving us exactly what we want! As soon as the website is up and running and the sculpts begin to show themselves I am sure we will be seeing more and more concept art and photos etc. We will also have a downloadable version of our Underdark themed skirmish game too which has been thoroughly play tested.

Any advice is more than welcome as this is a learning curve for me and my team! But we are determined to succeed and deliver the best plastic miniatures available!

Thanks again!!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/24 22:20:46


Post by: Rolt


Also you guys planning on doing any ratmen or other types of beast races? Because I'd be pretty down for that, even if their a few years off.

I'll be a great idea to get some images in the first post, it'll attract peoples attention better than text alone, so just for future reference Kaine, in order to host images from Facebook to Dakka, simply do the following:

On Facebook click on to your image to make it full scale, then right click onto the image and press "copy image location", than within your post right click "paste", then highlight the entirety of the pasted address by left clicking
and dragging the blue bar over it, then click on the "Image" tag on the Dakka posting system (located at the top of the text bar) and you should see something like this: [image]mywaifuimagestuff[/image]

If it all works:

Hope that helps.





Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/24 22:27:38


Post by: Kaine Larson


Thanks Rolt


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Images now added.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/24 22:39:16


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


Some interesting looking designs.

Will check facebook out when I get home, and will keep an eye on things here.

One question I must ask, which I ask of every company that posts on Dakka- will there be lizards?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/24 22:40:42


Post by: Kaine Larson


Oh yes!!! There should be one of the Lizardkin concepts on the first post. We have a Lizardkin boxed set planned with a load of other miniatures themed around them!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/24 22:48:26


Post by: AlexHolker


The art's looking good, even if goblins aren't my thing. Could you tell us what other races you have in mind?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/24 22:55:57


Post by: Kaine Larson


The initial boxed set will be the goblin-kind boxed set with 12 28mm multipart plastic goblins, 6 hobgoblins and two enormous bugbears (see the pic above). The bugbears will be about 50mm tall. The second boxed set will be either Zombie Abominations with Zombie Gravewalkers, Flesh Golems and Zombie hulks (again enormous!) or it will be Lizardkin. The Lizardkin boxed set will be kobolds, lizardkin and Deathscales (again big lizardman brutes). We also have plenty of other ideas floating around with the following high on the list:

Orcs
Gnolls
Undead
Minotaurs/Ogres/Cyclops (possibly one boxed set with loads of options but we have not decided yet)
Dwarven Treasure Hunters
Drow
Sunsiders (basically adventuring groups)
Trolls

We plan on developing the world to make a mass combat system as well after the skirmish game. When we do that we will do more development of the overland races as well.

The idea of the skirmish game is based around groups of raiders or small battlegroups that are fighting either in the Underdeep or raiding the surface world. Each player will have from 10-40 figures and fight using a variety of interesting scenarios.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/24 23:34:03


Post by: Rolt


Sounds awesome, I would especially be in for the Lizardkin, Gnoll, and Drow factions, although from a KS funding perspective your better off making the Zombie Abominations the second set. Zombie related games and projects
are always insanely popular on KS (for what ever reason), it could help you pull in some much needed traction during the early funding periods and more importantly build up a critical mass of backers, both for current and future,
just make you have the concepts up for them from the start.



Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/24 23:58:06


Post by: AlexHolker


I'd have to see the composition first, but if it doesn't have too much dead weight a multipart plastic Drow box would be nice.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/25 00:36:30


Post by: cerealkiller195


these are very inspired looking miniatures, can't wait to see what the kick starter has to offer?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/25 01:00:50


Post by: scarletsquig


One thing with the three types of model on a sprue thing...

Have you considered that you might, instead of making a reasonably-good goblin/hobgoblin/bugbear monster sprue...

... instead make the best damned goblin sprue on the face of the earth, sell hundreds to warhammer/kow players and leave hobgoblins and bugbears for metal?

It's clear which one out of the three will be the seriously big seller if done right, and you can utilise people buying your plastics for Warhammer/ KoW to launch other things, whereas your typical mass-battle fantasy player is not likely to be interested in the mixed sprue as they end up buying stuff they don't need (hobgoblins and bugbears), which increases the cost for them.

The second you put all three unit types on the same sprue you're saying "only buy these minis if you're playing our game", and killing off a huge source of potential income.

Don't fall foul of "Jack of all trades, master of none", even Ronnie Renton said the one thing he'd do if starting over with Mantic would be putting stuff like war machines and elites into resin plastic and focusing on making a much higher quality set of basic infantry in hard plastic. As the last company that tried (and failed) to make a profitable fantasy line at Renedra tooling prices it might be worth having a look at their history and what went right (their undead) and what went wrong (almost everything else, the elves never paid back their mould cost).

Anyway, all the best of luck. It's certainly a bold move to be going with hard plastic and targeting a very over-saturated market (skirmish games) at the same time as a company with no established brand recognition.. kingdom-death levels of quality in the sculpts and some rather nice KS deals might just be able to swing it. I can tell you straight-up that your plan of no 3-up sculpts before the KS is over is not going to work, it's just not the way that Kickstarter rolls these days, you can use it to pay for tooling but only after you've knuckled down and sculpted some of the stuff.

Rolt is bang on the money with zombies, I do also think goblins are a good #1 pick... GW ones are overpriced/ cartoony, Mantic ones are excellent sculpts with terrible tooling quality. You can come in and blow both of those away if you do it right and I just don't see where bugbear monsters on the goblin sprue helps you with doing that.

How about 2 sprues? One with goblins, the other with bugbear/ hobgoblins?

This way you could still have the minis you want for your skirmish game while avoiding the inflexibility of "must buy bugbear monster for every X goblins" that will put off a lot of wargamer buyers.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/25 04:09:01


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


I like Squig's ideas.

Now I can see your lizards. Look good. I guess I can live with another line of naked savages if they look like that. I will cross my fingers for a more armored one!

The goblins are pretty unique. I'm curious to see what they'll look like all tooled up.

My curiosity shall definitely be piqued.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/25 04:28:19


Post by: Barzam


Interesting designs. I will say I'm a bit disappointed that they're the savage style lizards as well. Nobody ever seems to want to make technologically advanced lizardmen.

Now, are you planning on anything to appeal to the non-fantasy gamer? I'm cool with the occasional fantasy kit, but my heart lies with the sci-fi genre. What are you going to do to bring in my money?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/25 06:55:28


Post by: Kaine Larson


Scarletsquig, you make some excellent points. I would have to say that it is our aim to appeal to as many people as possible with our plastic sets. We Will have our own rule book and game but our emphasis has always been diversity. We wanted to tap into one of he other huge markets as well, the roleplayers, whose only real plastic offering at the moment is Reaper miniatures Bones range. I must admit that the thought of having an inexpensive monstrous creature on a sprue would have appeal and that buying a couple of boxed sets and having some GW troll substitutes could be a selling point but I do see your point in regard to the hobgoblins and that it would put off a goblin player. It is certainly something we need to consider.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/25 06:57:26


Post by: Bolognesus


 Barzam wrote:
Interesting designs. I will say I'm a bit disappointed that they're the savage style lizards as well. Nobody ever seems to want to make technologically advanced lizardmen.

Now, are you planning on anything to appeal to the non-fantasy gamer? I'm cool with the occasional fantasy kit, but my heart lies with the sci-fi genre. What are you going to do to bring in my money?


Dude. Let them get one plastic range out there first, already. This one project is ambitious enough


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/25 16:18:12


Post by: ulgurstasta


An Underdark-themed skirmish/wargame is growing on me, how far have you come with the rule-set and what are the guiding design principles?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/25 17:01:25


Post by: Paradigm


I like the look of those designs, the goblins are looking much more like LOTR/Elder Scrolls/classic look, which I prefer to the GW 'Big-nose' style.

I like the idea, especially for a Skirmish game, of having multiple unit types boxed together, even if on different sprues, as I assume the aim is to get you a playable Skirmish force from just one box, which is a great selling point and something that I think a lot of people would be inclined to go for.

I agree about keeping the sprues separate, and maybe offering specific race sprues as add-ons for those wanting to build an army, but certainly a box with multiple unit types in would be a great starting point.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/25 23:45:52


Post by: AlexHolker


For the Drow, how about something that can be assembled either as a Giant Spider or as a Drider? The Drider option would give you something uniquely Drow, while the Giant Spider option means it has a good generic use as well.

Give us sprues for female Drow (Clerics/Nobles, Fighters/Rogues), male Drow (Wizards, Fighters/Rogues) and Driders/Giant Spiders, and you'd cover the major bases - more variety can always be added with various slaves.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/25 23:48:50


Post by: Ernster


I LOVE the concept art! I will be watching this with interest as the goblins look cool and Gnolls in the future.... There has to be a book with the concept art as your artist is awesome!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/26 02:47:03


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


Those Hobgoblins give off a bit of a Samurai Kingdom Death vibe to me.

I can get behind that.

Have we seen any of the Bugbears yet?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/26 03:43:19


Post by: Schmapdi


I second SSquigs advice, and will add (to correct another Mantic mistake) - make sure to include proper plastic command bits (with a real sculpted banner) and a few extra heads for variety (if only one sprue - enough bits to make 2 different command groups would be ideal).

Would also be smart to have a few weapon options if you're only making the one basic kit. What I used to want Mantic to do was:

Sprue 1 - 10 soldier bodies, 10 heads, weapon arms for 2-3 different weapons.
Sprue 2 - "variety/command sprue" - half-dozen extra heads, champ weapons, instruments, banners, "fun" bits.





Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/26 04:51:12


Post by: Gallahad


 scarletsquig wrote:
One thing with the three types of model on a sprue thing...

Have you considered that you might, instead of making a reasonably-good goblin/hobgoblin/bugbear monster sprue...

... instead make the best damned goblin sprue on the face of the earth, sell hundreds to warhammer/kow players and leave hobgoblins and bugbears for metal?

It's clear which one out of the three will be the seriously big seller if done right, and you can utilise people buying your plastics for Warhammer/ KoW to launch other things, whereas your typical mass-battle fantasy player is not likely to be interested in the mixed sprue as they end up buying stuff they don't need (hobgoblins and bugbears), which increases the cost for them.

The second you put all three unit types on the same sprue you're saying "only buy these minis if you're playing our game", and killing off a huge source of potential income.



I respectfully disagree with this point. I believe it comes down to the price per Goblin, and I think that one multi-sprue could indeed be the optimal initial offering for a small company. As long as the price per Goblin is a good deal better than what GW offers (currently $1.75 per Goblin at full retail, $1.4 at online retailers), then "bonus Bugbears and Hobgoblins" can't be any sort of a downside to people that want Goblins in bulk. I think gamers in particular would be unlikely to say "Well, yes this box does cost less per Goblin than my other options, but who needs all these extra miniatures in hard injection plastic that come along with the box?" The massive success of Kickstarters that basically offer a pile of miniatures in a horrific medium speaks volumes about how most gamers feel about, well, how much value they place on volume. Even if not everything they are getting is exactly what they want.

Additionally, there are a lot of people who are unwilling to start a whole army if they can't have a unified visual aesthetic across the whole army. The Minion Miniatures designs seem to fall in the category of "goblins that don't really have the GW aesthetic." By including Bugbears and Hobgoblins in the goblin box, you get a good mix of potential units that all have a unified aesthetic.

I also think that there is a real benefit to starting out making it clear that you are playing for all the marbles (you want people to play your game). A good enough ruleset can sell miniatures too. I think Dreamforge games is an excellent example of this. His miniatures can clearly be proxied into 40K games, and the unit breakdowns and broad design choices are clearly intended for this purpose. But at the same time, there are people interested in the Iron Core ruleset, and it has been clear from the beginning that Mark was playing to win, while still taking advantage of GW's massive failure to preserve their once super successful gaming/hobby ecosystem. Basically, make it possible to use your miniatures in GW games, but don't make it their only selling point.

In short, I think the multi-unit sprue is a great idea.



Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/26 10:50:17


Post by: Kaine Larson


Thanks for the feedback guys... it is really appreciated and its nice to know people appreciate the work that's been put into the project.

We have had some long hard thoughts about the make up of the boxed sets and I think its 70/30 in favour of a mixed boxed set rather than a single "race" boxed set. However, to combat this issue we are looking into making the Goblin sprues available as part of the Kickstarter and perhaps having a smaller Goblin only boxed set available afterwards to please both parties.

I have yet to discuss this with the manufacturers but there should not be too many issues in this regard.

I will have some more artwork for you shortly, including an image of the soon to be sculpted Kickstarter exclusive miniature, the Goblin Skulk!....

The Goblin Skulk is kind of an Underdeep spy, an assassin and a scout. He is a master of poisons and stealth... but as he is a Goblin he is also a cowardly little fellow!

As soon as we have the finished piece I will post it for the world to see!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/26 12:46:31


Post by: AlexHolker


Since there are already a number of manufacturers who make multipart plastic zombies, you should consider making it a nonhuman zombies kit. Dwarves might not be a good pick since their dead are less likely to be buried somewhere a necromancer can get to them, but something like goblin zombies is something people aren't going to find anywhere else.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/26 13:50:35


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


Outside of Titan Forge, I don't think anyone really bothers making undead goblinoinds. I can't think of any that have ever been done in plastic either.

Have we seen your bugbear concepts yet?



Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/26 13:53:55


Post by: scarletsquig


Is this the bugbear?



If so, I see what you mean about it being close enough as a troll proxy.

However, I wouldn't be too enthusiastic if it was only that one pose available, it'd need to have some variety of pose/ arms/ heads etc. before I'd consider it for wargaming.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/26 14:06:14


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


Yeah, that was the illustration I was wondering about being a Bugbear.

Facial structure seems pretty similar to the goblins, but then again, they're all supposed to be in the same racial pool, so that shouldn't be too surprising.

I guess I'm a bit predisposed towards the D&D bugbears, in all their shaggy glory (which never exactly has set well with me in regard to being part of the same group of races, when they look totally different).

The asian stylings on the armor are a nice touch too.

Shoot, you get some asian style armored lizards up in here and you've got my wallet locked down pretty much for as long as it takes to populate my shelves completely with them.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/26 14:17:40


Post by: Zond


I love the concept art, however I'd be worried we end up with a disappointment like Mantic games. I'm not sure what would convince me, I'll see when it goes live.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/26 14:44:28


Post by: Grimstonefire


As a chaos dwarf fanatic I would advise the following with regards to hobgoblins.

If you sell them in plastic and want to shift a lot of sprues you'd be wise to have them as a set entirely on their own (or as part of a sprue with the bugbears that you cut the sprues to sell).

If I were to buy the hobgoblins I'd be looking for a minimum of 10 designs, an even split between bows and hand weapon/ shield. 10 designs of each would be better.

Yours would be the best plastic hobgoblins out there, bar none. HOWEVER, I would seriously consider ditching the "human" visages concept completely for these guys and do a stylised version of their own heads instead everywhere you've used that idea.

So the one with the 'human' helmet would just have a really evil looking hobgoblin helmet instead.

Also, do a couple of heads with moustaches.

Can I also suggest that you guys take a careful look at the anatomy of the hobgoblins, as aside from the heads and hands they look like human proportions. Which imo is not right for hobgoblins, I'd make them hunched over a bit or bow legged. Bow legged is harder to sculpt well than hunched over.

Edit

In this photo I've hunched him over a bit and also stretched his head


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/26 16:19:23


Post by: Kaine Larson


That is indeed the Bugbear. There will be two on the basic frame with some different arm combos though probably working in a two handed weapon theme. There will also be some supporting metal or resin models too. The hobgoblins have been designed more around the D&D mould of the hobgoblin, martial, human mimicking in a way. I personally don't like the Old GW hobgoblins and we are never going to appeal to everyone. However we take all points on board and we will have a look at the more hunched look too.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/26 16:34:37


Post by: prankster


Some nice looking art being shown in this thread, will certainly be keeping an eye on things as they progress.

On the subject of a combined box, depending on the relative sizes I could see fantasy players going for it and using the hobgobs/bugbears for different types of orc in their army. It does depend a lot on how they scale relative to one another though.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/26 17:14:21


Post by: Fenriswulf


I am also one who recommends not going for a hybrid sprue. People who want to use them for Warhammer (and depending on price there could be a hell of a lot of these) will want just a single line item only, not having to purchase sprues which have models on them they might never want to use.

Keeping your sprues separate is good business as it allows you to easily branch them off to separate boxes should you want to, rather than having to deal with a jumbled 1 sprue deal. Malifaux figured this out when they saw their crew box sets weren't able to be easily separated out due to parts being on one or two sprues for the whole crew, and now has instead shifted to making individual sprues for single models or grouped miniatures. It makes a hell of a lot more sense in the long run.

If you *have* to have it all as one sprue, have it as a separate part containing it's own pieces, joined to the rest of the sprue by a plastic channel, which can easily be snipped off so you can then sell them as two different items, rather than having a 'take it or leave it' approach which won't be useful to anyone interested in buying a mass amount of your miniatures.

I for one love your goblin's style. They look incredibly menacing and really well done, and fit for a race that lives underground. I can just imagine their pallid skin and bulbous eyes now. Really really well done. Now make it so I can buy hundreds of these cheaply, please

Edit: Actually it would be easier to make 2 sprues in total thinking about it. One sprue can have the 12 goblins on it, with a host of add-on's for people to customise their goblins with (bows or melee, different legs and ability to pose them different ways), and the second can be one with 6 Hobgoblins in their own marked off square/rectangle section, with options, and the other part (joined by some sprue injecton areas that can be easily snipped away) can be the 2 Bugbears, again with options.

That way you can do the following - Package up a bunch of goblin sprues together to sell to the people who want armies of them, have them and the other sprue available to put into one box to make a quick gaming set, and as a third option sell either the hobgoblins or bugbears separately. You'd win all the way around here using that method.

Whilst I know you want your own rule system to do really well and have people play your game, it'd be a lot more advantageous to offer something which could also be used to play other exisiting games, games where there is a market for cool looking miniatures at a great price that isn't being serviced as well. By doing so you'll be able to not only earn back the cost of the molds and tooling, but you'd also get people interested in your own system too ("hey if the miniatures are this great, I wonder how the game is?"). That's the easier way to success, rather than saying "No, we want this to be mostly about our game, so buy them like this or not at all". Be flexible, the rewards are there if you are, and you'll have a hell of a lot more luck with this kickstarter than if you went with something which doesn't help people who want to buy a ton of your miniatures a way to do so easily.

Also, a word of warning from the lessons learned from Mantic kickstarters - Don't scrimp on the miniatures. By that I mean ensure you have fantastic sculpts made (the best you can ideally), the best tooling and as many options as you can make for the sprues. If you cut corners, say "close enough is good enough", and think that volume = quality, then you'll fail in the long term, like a lot of Mantic's horrible Kings of War sculpts. They won't pay for themselves over time, and your name will become synonymous with "cheap, but bad" levels of quality. Make something really really awesome, see how good a price you can get it out there for, and people will flock to your door to hand you their money. You want to think long term success here, not short-term gain. Go for broke on making quality stuff, and you'll be rewarded for it. I have a ton of restic stuff from Mantic I am still trying to clear and I can tell you that the sheen of it falls away really quickly.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/26 17:18:20


Post by: grefven


I like the concept art, so that will be enough to make me have a closer look once the miniatures start showing.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/26 22:22:57


Post by: Kaine Larson


One thing we have decided upon from the beginning is ultimate quality. We have Bob Naismith sculpting the 3ups along with Renedra doing the manufacturing for us. You can we by the quality if the artwork that we want high standards everywhere. The drawback here is manufacturing costs which will be high, but high manufacturing costs will return an excellent product. The kickstarter total will be high but achievable which is why we need as much support as possible. We should have some pics of the Kickstarter Exclusive miniature soon along with some full colour artwork too.

In regard to the rules, the system will be D6 based. We experimented with custom dice, different dice types and card driven rules but the D6 system found most favour during play testing. The system is a skirmish level rule set using cards provided in each blister pack and boxed set for statistics. There will also be books released to to support this. Primarily a force is made up of an Overlord (your general as it were) and a selection of other characters should you wish to use them. The rank and file choices are either minion, henchmen, brutes or Titans. Minions always operates in small groups or units of three and include troops like goblins or kobolds. Henchmen will be capable troops like hobgoblins, drow warriors, orcs etc. Brutes are huge support models like bugbears, trolls etc and Titans are creatures like dragons, giants etc.

Models are activated using the command attribute of the Overlird and other Herod in the force. This command total is has a random element with each player being able to activate and use a number of command points before play switches and then switches back again. Command is spent to allow models to charge, move, rally etc but can also be spent to activate special actions unique to each unit type.

Combat uses multiple d6 in order to generate success based on an opposed roll. The more success a model generates determines what he does in combat. One success may be a normal hit, two successes might mean a critical hit is scored which is more potent and three successes for a bugbear for instance means a cleave attack or hammer smash for example which hits all models in base contact.

The rules are still being play tested so not all of the exact special rules have been agreed yet but this gives you an idea of how they will play. There are also rules for magic using a stat called flux. Flux is generated each turn by a magic user and more powerful spells may squire more than one turn to cast. Generating flux is dangerous and can cause real problems if you generate more than you can safely handle!

The basic rules will be available for free as a PDF download when the kickstarter begins but a full rule book will be available part if the kickstarter too. We also have plans to develop amass combat version that will involve large units of creatures but more in the vein of 40k than wfb.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/26 22:24:56


Post by: scarletsquig


^ Rules sound a lot like Deadzone (command pool for activations, opposed rolls with crits), so I'm interested already!

The unique crits for each model sound like a lot of fun.

Since it's skirmish, will there be campaign rules?

Any info on setting? Wilderness, ruins or a broader, more generic ruleset?

The more info on this the more I'm liking the sound of it. There might be room in the market for a really good traditional fantasy skirmish game, especially with Confrontation long gone and there not being much like it left around. Get the quality there and try to rustle up the ex-Rackham crowd by wowing them with amazing sculpts. They have money!

Hard plastic = check;
Renedra or WGF = even more check;
Possibly good ruleset = check;
Nice sculpts = (??? Good artwork does not always mean good sculpts, you need your 3-ups or renders sorted and painted ASAP, I would recommend not launching the KS without them, showing off the good stuff late-campaign is no good, 50% of the views for the entire campaign will be on the first three days and the public will not look twice if they don't like what they see or there's nothing to see).

I know that last point is repetition, but it really can't be stressed enough. To use an example very close to your own bugbears, this was the totally badass concept art for Mantic Trolls. These are the terrible models sculpted after the original concept art was discarded for some newer concept art which backers never got to see. Lots of KS projects over the last 3 years with a total failure to turn 2d concept into 3d sculpt have left your average backer very wary of backing a bunch of pencil sketches.

The bugbear plans sound great!

Can you give us a breakdown of the intended sprue layout for your first sprue?

How many goblins, hobgoblins, bugbear to a sprue? What weapon types for the goblins, are they interchangeable? Separate, swappable heads or not?

Lots of questions, but it's all stuff you'll be asked anyway, the more of it already answered in advance, the better!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/27 00:18:08


Post by: overtyrant


I'll have to have a closer look at the rules but I'm tired of D6 as itdoes not lead to enough didifference of stats. Most of the games I play now use D8s or D20s.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/27 00:56:07


Post by: Gallahad


Oh my word. I wish Mantic success, but their KoW kickstarter is basically a textbook example of how to take a quarter million dollars and a ton of community enthusiasm, and turn it into a pile of junk that no one will ever buy at retail. Seriously, a quarter of a million dollars and they managed to not make a single "must have" unit!

I digress. I would like to hear answers to the questions that SS posed as well. The rules sound very interesting.

You must, must, must have 3ups to show before you launch, at least for the first sprue or two. Good 3ups +Renedra will buy you a lot of pledges.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/27 08:51:59


Post by: Kaine Larson


Ok. So many questions to answer! I will do my best.

Firstly I will discuss the sprue. Up until now all the discussion with the sculptor and with the manufacturers has been around a mixed sprue concept. This would have included 6 goblins, 3 hobgoblins and a 2 bugbears. We were going to do command separately but the positive reaction we have had from the wfb and kow players has been great and a little unexpected which has led us to change our plan slightly. I will now look at perhaps doing two sprues one holding the goblins and the other holding the hobs and the bugbears. This will enable us to sell the Goblinkind boxed set and also to sell the goblin sprues independently for the mass troop enthusiasts. I will also enquire about adding a command section to the goblin sprue that will enable you to make a banner bearer, musician and a leader if needed bit making them normal goblins too. The basic boxed set of goblins could then be perhaps 20-24 in number. Weapon options will be short bows, sword and shield and spears.

Getting all the three ups done before Kickstarter is going to be difficult for me but I have enquirer about getting at least some of them done before the Kickstarter begins. I am aiming for the boxed set to be no more than £20.

The world setting is called Morn, a pretty desolate place, scarred by century old conflicts. The wars on surface world eventually exterminated he great empires leaving only small and isolated communities and kingdoms. Meanwhile the fractious races of the Underdeep have been stiring and raids on the surface world have been becoming more and more frequent. The game will focus on the raids and skirmishes between the various individual Underdeep races and the surf e dwellers known as Sunsiders. I will give more information later in regard to the world and the surface world will be more heavily detailed when it comes to us releasin the mass combat game with various Sunsiders houses and factions available.



Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/27 13:27:31


Post by: corgan


All these sound very interesting really and the concept art looks great too. The feedback was very useful and I like the fact that you take into account. I will keep a close eye on this project.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/27 17:43:42


Post by: Avian


I've been looking for some mixed fantasy boxes just like you describe to play small skirmish games, so this is right up my alley. If the models look nice I'm in for sure.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/27 21:52:06


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


20 pounds for a box of plastic like you describe should be quite a deal, especially if there's the usual kickstarter bonus type stuff thrown in when this is ready to launch.

Setting sounds interesting, especially as it sounds less focused on humans even more than usual. That is a big plus for me- we never use humans in our home!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/27 22:04:56


Post by: Rolt


That sounds like a great choice Kaine, it should keep both the skirmish and mass-battle crowd equally happy, and at £20 whats not to like.

Out of question do you plan to take this approach with all that factions?



Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/27 22:31:05


Post by: Kaine Larson


I think so. I will need to experience how it would work logistically, but as a player of wargames and a collector of miniatures I would appreciate a company taking me in to consideration as I think it goes a long way. Selling sprues separately is something that Perry Miniatures do very successfully and I have a huge respect, not only for their amazing levels of quality but also the ease with which you can get the figures you want at fantastic prices.

We plan many other packs ( I think we have the next 10 boxed sets loosely decided upon) and certain packs wont need it. For example I think the orc pack will be fairly straight forward with maybe one or two options for larger orc beserker types. The Gnoll sprues will probably contain generic hyena men types with maybe some hyena models as well. The Lizardkin boxed set will contain kobolds, lizardkin and Deathscales (which are basically huge lizardmen killing machines) This kit could easily substitute for other armies with may be the kobolds on one sprue and the lizardkin and Deathscales on the other. The other thing to remember of course is that there will be a huge range of resin and/or white metal miniatures to support our range as well as independent plastic (not plastic resin) characters. The first couple of stretch goals will be the plastic goblin shaman and the plastic goblin chieftain. Both will be similar to GW's plastic character blisters.

I had the artwork back for the Goblin Skulk this evening and I should be posting it within the next day or so. As mentioned before it is the Kickstarter exclusive miniature available to everyone who pledges at a certain level.

One other thing I have a musical maestro working on a ambient/themed music CD which will also be free with the Kickstarter. It will have awesome tracks like "Bugbear Buffet" on it. I am sure we will have more details on this nearer its completion!!!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/27 22:53:04


Post by: Taarnak


I love your concept art, and your fiction sounds interesting.

Not at all excited about your chosen sculptor.

When do we get to see something concrete? A 3Up Green perhaps?

~Eric


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/27 23:32:20


Post by: Kaine Larson


Sculpting will start very shortly. One thing is for sure, Bob has more experience of 3up design and the constraints of designing 3up models than anyone. His experience is key and I am sure the resultant sculpts will be awesome. We want the kits to be perfect and I will not be cutting any corners at all.

The Kickstarter will begin in early autumn 2014 and we are not frightened about making the initial Kickstarter funding levels as high as they have to be get the quality we need. The kickstarter will be used to produce as much if the initial range as possible and we intend to start other kickstarter very quickly to make additional plastic kits.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/28 22:16:17


Post by: Kaine Larson


The Goblin Skulk is here! This miniature will be the Kickstarter Exclusive model and will be available as part of most of pledges.

The Skulk is a master spy, assassin and scout. They are usually goblin outcasts that have had to survive in the darkness of the Underdeep without their tribe around them for security. They are also rangers of sorts. They know every inch of the caverns that they call home as well as having an intimate knowledge of the mosses, lichen and fungus found in the darkest recesses of their surroundings. They use this knowledge to brew poisons with which they coat their jagged blades.

What do you think?



Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/29 00:10:49


Post by: Mr Morden


Some really lovely art work


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/29 00:50:25


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


Goblin skulkers gonna skulk?

Can't wait to see some of those sculpts once you guys get them rolling in.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/29 12:08:44


Post by: Kaine Larson


I should be able to start posting some in progress pics of the sculpt very soon!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/29 12:52:01


Post by: Tyr13


Definitely some promising concept art. Id be careful not to get overambitious though; for instance, plastic characters, while nice, probably wont sell well enough to justify the tooling costs. Very few people would need more than one, two sets at most. It just makes more sense to stick to resin or metal for stuff like that. Similarly, dont try to put out too many factions and boxes at once. Take your time, start with maybe two, three at most, and really try to make them *perfect*.

Also, definitely try to keep different models on seperate sprues. It just makes more sense in the long run. Good luck!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/29 13:19:11


Post by: scarletsquig


Yeah, quite surprised at plastic characters, nothing really wrong with a nice 1-piece metal for those and save the tooling resources for something else. In a similar fashion, rather than doing a command sprue, a banner arm and a horn arm in metal can do the job just as effectively.

However, if you can comfortably make either of those happen within your budget then there's no complaints from me.

20-24 goblins with sword/spear/bow for under £20 sounds perfect! I guess you're thinking sprue of 12 with 4 of each?

Make sure to have a "heaping pile of goblins for £100" pledge level when you launch the KS, think you'll find that it'll be more popular than you might expect.

If the sculpts turn out as well as the concepts, I'll most likely be eyeing up at least 200 goblins. It is a brilliant first faction to launch with, simply due to the sheer quantities of minis that an army requires (in fact, that's part of the appeal of collecting it in the first place, you get these massive hordes that look amazing on the tabletop).

All you'd have to do is convince 100 wargamers to go in for an army-sized pledge level and you'd have a good chunk of your initial goal sorted already.

With skirmish gamers interested in the system, you'll need to sell them on the extended range of metal add-ons and sort out "everything you need for this faction" bundles (then add another faction and sort out another bundle, and so on...).

I do also second the appeal for caution in the scope of the first KS... a maximum of 4 factions is probably for the best to ensure you can keep the quality there

Also, heavily overestimate your "expected delivery date" on the KS page, by at least 3-6 months. Far better to have an unexpected surprise of being able to deliver early than deal with people angry that its late. Doesn't make any difference to when the product actually ships, does matter to people psychologically.

Other than that the best advice for a KS campaign I can think of is as much direct communication as possible. Every forum even remotely connected to miniatures or board or RPG gaming should get a visit from you personally and kept track of and responded to. Quick on the ball with KS comments really helps as well, even just having a conversation in there can get you some new backers if they think you're awesome and friendly and likely to maintain that through fulfilment rather than the "no communication for 18 months after, we're holier than thou" approach that some KS creators take. Fortnightly updates post-KS to keep backers informed and showing off new sculpts is also great, let backers know in advance that this will be the plan and that you won't "go dark" as soon as the project finishes.

It all has a knock-on effect, ideally you want to make people so enthusiastic that they start promoting the project themselves.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/04/29 18:47:58


Post by: Kaine Larson


The idea behind the plastic characters is that you will be able to make 2 or 3 variants from each boxed set with loads of customisation for players using other kits. The other commercial aspect is that while tools are expensive, plastic isn't and the casting is easy and quick. You would be suprised how cost effective it is. We are probably going to have just the goblins available first of all with the hardback rules, plastic characters, metal and resin models as stretch goals along with the other faction boxed sets. We will need to make lots of money for the Zombie abomination boxed set to be available. We have enough time booked with the manufacturers to make two boxed sets.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/02 01:20:29


Post by: scarletsquig


Exchanged a few PM's with Kaine and I am now very very very excited for this Kickstarter.

I can't elaborate much on why I'm excited due to promising my silence, but I'm already itching to hit the pledge button.

Advice - Start saving money. As soon as the launch date is confirmed, mark it in the calendar. You are going to want to be in on this.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/02 09:14:31


Post by: Azazelx


So they've acquiesced to all of your demands, I see?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/02 10:24:06


Post by: scarletsquig


Not quite, my several dozen requests for hard plastic unicorns cast in glittery HIPS fell on deaf ears.

Anyway, this is going to be awesome, my wallet may not agree though, especially if all 4 factions get funded.

Also, considering the Underdeep setting, anyone who already has or is getting Dwarven Forge terrain (or the upcoming battlesystems fantasy stuff) is probably going to be rather happy with this since it'll be a perfect fit.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/02 10:54:30


Post by: AlexHolker


 scarletsquig wrote:
Anyway, this is going to be awesome, my wallet may not agree though, especially if all 4 factions get funded.

Are drow one of those factions? Blink once for yes.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/02 11:16:20


Post by: Kaine Larson


Thanks for the kind words Squig.... and your demands for glittery unicorns were not totally ignored (keep a look out for out next My Little Pony unicorns and the Were "care" Bear set).

The focus of the KS is Goblins and their kin with stretch goals adding more factions to the pool. i think we will only do three for this Kickstarter with more factions coming in the future.

This time we will be focusing on:

Goblins and Goblin-kind (Goblins, Hobgoblins and Bugbears)
Zombie Abominations (Zombie Gravewalkers, Flesh Golems and Zombie Hulks)
Lizardkin (Kobolds, Lizardkin and Deathscales - Giant Lizardkin Warriors)

The stretch goals will unlock the last two plastic boxed sets and the resulting metal/resin models and packs as well. There will be tonnes of addons available too so stay tuned!!! Keep an eye on our face book page at present and you will see the Goblin Skulk Limited Edition KS sculpt going up soon with some WIP shots too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh and to answer the next question, when we succeed with the KS (and I HOPE we will), the next KS will focus on three new factions of which Drow will be making an appearance. Remember the first KS needs to happen for these to be released so your support would make a great difference to us. We will be looking at putting some spider bodies in with this kit too!!!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/02 11:30:00


Post by: scarletsquig


@Alex: I have no idea, think Drow are definitely one of the more commercially viable picks out the list posted though, since there's a direct analogue for Warhammer/ KoW with that faction, with neither company really hitting the right mark or even coming close to the D&D roots/ atmosphere of the faction.

And it'd be a great opportunity to properly do the Drow as subterranean elves with a thoroughly creepy art design rather than the boring "elves with spikes" approach that everyone else takes.

Ratmen are another one that could have potential from the perspective of both the game world and selling a mountain of sprues to skaven players.
Again, it's another classic that could be taken somewhere interesting and possibly take inspiration from properly gribbly rodents such as the star-nosed mole rather than the cartoon hamster style of the GW skaven.

The subterranean setting offers quite a lot I think and really marks it as unique from the start.

There's potential for tentacled horrors lurking in underground lakes, fire demons from the deep (Balrog style) as well as some more fantastical "journey to the centre of the earth" style craziness (the novel, not the movies has some rather cool stuff like electrically-charged gas condensing around the cavern ceilings providing lighting).

@Kaine - Ah, three factions is the plan? Sounds good. I'll be in for a titanic goblin horde and smaller skirmish sets of the other two.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/02 13:32:56


Post by: AlexHolker


 scarletsquig wrote:
Ratmen are another one that could have potential from the perspective of both the game world and selling a mountain of sprues to skaven players.
Again, it's another classic that could be taken somewhere interesting and possibly take inspiration from properly gribbly rodents such as the star-nosed mole rather than the cartoon hamster style of the GW skaven.

I would argue against that one - rats, ratmen and wererats are more an Urban Underground thing than a Cave Underground thing.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/02 13:48:16


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


I'll take rats over Drow any old day, but I'm just pleased that the lizards will have a shot at being part of the initial Kickstarter.

Your deathscales sound intriguing, and if you end up having any armored lizardmen than I know where all my money is going.

Quite honestly though, based on what we've seen so far, I'm very excited to see what all the factions will look like!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/02 15:35:01


Post by: frozenwastes


I like the concept art so far. If renders/sculpts/prints turn out faithful to the concept art, I think this is going to be a cool line. Identifiable with traditional representations of monsters, but also looking fresh and new.

I won't offer any advise about how to develop products for the miniature market though. I honestly don't know what type of approach a new participant in the market should take other than people like obvious buy-in points and in a Kickstarter, there should probably be a sweet spot.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/02 16:08:55


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


A sweet spot with manageable stretch goals.

I think one question that needs to be asked is what currency would the campaign run in?

I would assume in pounds since you guys are based in England, right? There isn't any denying though that when people see those dollars signs the pledges do seem to rise up a bit more.

I don't know what it entails to have a UK based company have a US currency campaign though. Mantic always seems to be able to do it though.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/02 16:51:37


Post by: Kaine Larson


I don't know if it is possible for a KS to run both here and across the pond with a simple currency converted price?? That would seem logical but I have not seen if that is possible or not.

Ratmen may be a possibility but we have a long list of other factions that we are already designing. Orcs will be one the next KS goals for us after the initial KS, provided all things go well. We will be doing something very different with them! They will be miles away from the GW alternative!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/02 19:50:27


Post by: Kroothawk


28mm Minion Miniatures! Finally




Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/03 00:14:30


Post by: AlexHolker


@Kroothawk: Please remove the second gif from your post. It's five bloody megabytes.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/03 12:36:51


Post by: sing your life


 Kroothawk wrote:
28mm Minion Miniatures! Finally


Except they're not actual minions, consequently I have literally no interest in this product range.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/03 15:22:37


Post by: scarletsquig


They're goblins! Paint 'em yellow and blue and you can call it "close enough". It has been done with smurfs.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/03 19:33:58


Post by: Mr Morden


Thats pretty awesome /scary


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/03 20:19:14


Post by: sing your life


What the big wheel supposed to be representing?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/03 20:31:49


Post by: AlexHolker


 sing your life wrote:
What the big wheel supposed to be representing?

A Doomwheel, probably.

Now quit posting off-topic stuff.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/03 20:37:48


Post by: Kaine Larson


I have had the first photo's back from the sculptor in regard to the greens and they look great. Should have a full image to post very soon so you can see how the concept art has been portrayed in miniature. 3up work will be starting within the next month and we even have some really nice full colour artwork coming shortly too. Keep an eye out!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/03 21:08:47


Post by: Gallahad


I'm excited to see them Kaine!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/03 21:20:29


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


Scared by Squig's enthusiasm. He usually doesn't veer to far off from my own tastes... except for the ponies.

If it's as good as he thinks, then hopefully this will raise enough to hit those lizard boxes. That's all I care about, regardless of how nice the goblins look.

Gimme a date so I can mark my calendar already!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/03 23:13:14


Post by: Kaine Larson


At the moment the best I can say is it will likely be August this year.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/03 23:26:55


Post by: scarletsquig


@highlord: It's going to be wonderful. One of those "no-brainer, just hit the pledge button already" Kickstarters.

I don't normally make memes, but here's one that I think will accurately sum up the average reaction to this KS launch:

Spoiler:


@Kaine: August sounds good, should give you some more time to get some sculpts sorted and the rules tested... and the hype train up to full steam.

Might even be able to save up £300 or so for it by then (yes, this is going to be one of those kickstarters where you wonder where your $500 went).


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/03 23:48:21


Post by: Kaine Larson


Thanks Squig. Provided the initial Kickstarter goes well will will also be making some terrain, possibly in plastic and or resin. The idea here will be to make some stalagtite and stalagmite clusters, some tombs and other bits. This has already been discussed, but you are quite right, there is so much out there at the moment. We also envisage there being surface raids against Sunsider farmsteads where two rival factions could fight. The rule book will be packed with scenario options.

We wanted the rules system to allow you to play the game in caverns, swamps, woodlands, sewer systems....whatever you want. During play tests we have found the game plays best on a 4x4 or 6x4 table. We usually use 4x4 with smaller forces. Most of our games are played out with large rock formations, stalagmites and stalagtites etc, generally on our battleboards painted grey to represent the inside of a cave system. You can expect at least twelve different scenarios in the book (if the stretch goal is hit of course).

We will be releasing the rules pdf a couple of weeks before the Kickstarter starts which will be available from our upcoming website and from the Kickstarter page. This will be a basic interpretation of the rules to allow you guys to get started. It will have the stats in for most of the basic troops types from the three factions available in the kickstarter.

Each boxed set and blister will come with the models stats on cards to enable you to use them effectively whilst playing the game. There will also be a stretchgoal in the Kickstarter that will be a deck of cards giving magical weapon upgrade to characters.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/04 09:08:38


Post by: Avian


What kind of bases sizes are we looking at with these guys?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/04 09:15:06


Post by: Kaine Larson


The rules use 25mm round bases but they will be supplied with your choice of 25mm round or 20mm square bases for the goblins, or 25mm square for the larger infantry. The bugbears and other "Brutes" as they will be known will be supplied with 35mm round or square bases. Your choice.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/04 09:35:17


Post by: sing your life


 AlexHolker wrote:
 sing your life wrote:
What the big wheel supposed to be representing?

A Doomwheel, probably.

Expect the army uses the Chaos Dwarf rules, so they couldn't have Doomwheels.

Now quit posting off-topic stuff.

I wasn't posting off-topic stuff, Kroothawk was posting off topic, I was commentating on his post.


Replies in bold.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/04 16:19:35


Post by: Gallahad


Kaine Larson wrote:
The rules use 25mm round bases but they will be supplied with your choice of 25mm round or 20mm square bases for the goblins, or 25mm square for the larger infantry. The bugbears and other "Brutes" as they will be known will be supplied with 35mm round or square bases. Your choice.


This sounds great. With scale creep over the years, most infantry looks very squished on 20mm square.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/04 17:26:01


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


That sounds absolutely tiny!

Then again, when all you paint and work with are Privateer's Trollbloods and Mierce monsters, everything looks miniscule as it is.

Look forward to checking out those rules. Hope they play fast! I like the idea of magical item cards too. Reminds me of the old Mage Knight 2.0 stuff- in a good way!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/04 20:55:18


Post by: Da Boss


Wow, missed this til now!

Great choice of openers- I love goblins, and I have been waiting for some hard plastic lizardfolk that I'd actually like to buy for AGES!

I am likely not going to pledge without seeing a 3up though.

That said, what is the planned "scale" for these. Are we talking heroic 28mm like GW or truescale 28mm like some of mantic's, most historicals and LOTR/Red Box Games?

The concepts are fantastic, and I would love to be impressed enough to pledge!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/04 21:12:02


Post by: Kaine Larson


More on the heroic side I would say. We will have some 3ups done before the kickstarter but we won't have all of them done. I am not a sculptor and they are hugely expensive to do. I will try and get as many done as possible before the kickstarter begins. I will certainly have some of the standard greens done along the way. One thing I can assure you is that the quality will be excellent. I am a perfectionist and a complete figure snob myself. I don't buy poor or average sculpts and certainly won't have them as part of my own range!!! Work on the first of the 3ups starts very soon. I may be able to get some head shots done fairly quickly.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/04 21:22:08


Post by: corgan


I am really waiting for a picture of some of the first actual goblin models.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/04 21:28:50


Post by: scarletsquig


As long as they're not *too* heroic... there's definitely a balance to be struck there between twig-thin spear shafts (GW LotR) and 6-foot long one-handed swords as wide as the model's torso. (GW Warhammer).

Especially with proportions, as soon as those start getting too ridiculous, I instantly switch off, no matter how good the sculpting is.

I do like your sketches a lot and think that a direct 3d conversion of them would work great for the models.

I mostly prefer truescale with some slight heroic scaling, just enough to get away from the kind of scaling that historicals use, but not enough to look horribly goofy.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/04 21:44:56


Post by: Da Boss


If it's more heroic, I'll probably pledge big for Lizards if they look good. I've got a lot of Gobbos of various kinds already. If they are impressive enough though I could be persuaded!

Best of luck with this.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/04 21:51:35


Post by: Kaine Larson


The models will be more like the Perry's Lotr range but they will be more robust than them. I will settle for a happy medium between the two. I will give you a size comparison as soon as the first green is done. I will also paint a couple up to give you an idea of how they will look. There will be nothing too extreme in this range. I like realistic looking miniatures and there will certainly not be any "swords as big as the wielder" syndrome, certainly not with goblins!!! Wait for the pics of the models and make your minds up!!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/04 21:52:04


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


I hope there's a nice "get your foot in the door" pledge level for around $20-$25. It might just be for a couple sprues, maybe a sample of 1 of each kind, but it will sure help people like me who might be wary of dropping hundreds of dollars on an untested product by an unheard-of company. Then, there are the add ons...



PS: Note how I used "dollars" instead of "pounds". That was intentional. Anything that costs 25 pounds (plus shipping?) is not an impulse buy. And Kickstarter still tends to skew towards an American bias. Dollar signs will bring in more pledges.

PPS: You should ship all Australian orders first. That will really throw people off-guard.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/04 21:55:40


Post by: corgan


 scarletsquig wrote:


I mostly prefer truescale with some slight heroic scaling, just enough to get away from the kind of scaling that historicals use, but not enough to look horribly goofy.


I second this


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/04 22:23:41


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


Lizards are okay in heroic scale. They're fantasy lizards, the bigger the better I say! I am also crazy, so please take that into account as well.

I guess those would be the Deathscales you mentioned though. Lizards have got to be bigger than a typical human I hope. Both Barzam and myself and hoping we see at least one civilized lizard with some armor on!

Have we heard anything about what the various undead models will be like?

Also thinking bigger picture for a moment- when all is done with the campaign, do you think you'll be working with a pledge manager? Might not be a bad idea to explore those options- especially ones that allow us to use paypal!

Being a teacher sucks sometimes, as it means I have to be a bit more strict with my finances in the summertime (even though I get my paycheck distributed all 12 months of the year, August and September are always a bit tighter).


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/04 22:49:16


Post by: scarletsquig


Heroic vs. truescale isn't really about size, more about proportions, how large the weapons are in relation to the rest of the mini and how large the hands, feet and heads are in relation to the torso (and sometimes, how small the legs are if you've got a french sculptor who does that weird leg thing that all french sculptors do).

A giant berserker lizardman can still happen, and be truescale as long as he looks like he's got the muscles to swing the huge weapons he's holding (from the sketches that looks very likely!).

Heroic scaling is when laws of physics get discarded in favour of artistic styling. Your run-of-the-mill miniature cheesecake chick with a gigantic 6 foot long weapon casually held in one tiny-wristed hand is a good example:

Spoiler:


Doesn't make it a bad mini, just one that favours a more bombastic sculpting style.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/04 22:57:22


Post by: Divine_Tyranny


Cool concept art, will be keeping an eye on this!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/04 23:03:50


Post by: Rolt


 scarletsquig wrote:
Heroic vs. truescale isn't really about size, more about proportions, how large the weapons are in relation to the rest of the mini and how large the hands, feet and heads are in relation to the torso (and sometimes, how small the legs are if you've got a french sculptor who does that weird leg thing that all french sculptors do).


Okay I'm curious here, what is this weird "leg thing" that french sculptors do?



Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/04 23:05:04


Post by: AlexHolker


 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
Lizards are okay in heroic scale. They're fantasy lizards, the bigger the better I say! I am also crazy, so please take that into account as well.

I guess those would be the Deathscales you mentioned though. Lizards have got to be bigger than a typical human I hope. Both Barzam and myself and hoping we see at least one civilized lizard with some armor on!

I would suggest not being heroically scaled, but inhumanly scaled. The length of limbs, shape of the torso, size of the head and how the spine curves are all things that would change what the lizardmen would look like, ranging from the humanlike posture with bent legs of these D&D kobolds to a more forwards-angled posture like this art from DeviantArt.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/04 23:06:14


Post by: Kaine Larson


The Zombie Abomination boxed set will be based around the insane workings of a Necromancer and a Liche Priest who will both be available as part of the faction as stretch goals. The basic boxed set will be the following:

Zombie Gravewalkers - these will be your basic zombie type but with a difference. I have had the idea of making them very much instruments of an insane mind. The Necromancer kits them out for war, attaching all manner of spikes and blades to them Some of the arms will be stumps with weapons attached. Some will have metal jaws or bots of armour. Their posing will be very twisted, with one drooping shoulder, feet pointed inwards etc.

Flesh Golems - These are even more hideous versions of the the Zombie Gravewalkers. They are large lumbering constructs, formed from various parts of different creatures, Think Frankennsteins monster but with one arm larger than the other, some human parts, some lizardkin parts, some orc etc,

Zombie Hulks - These guys will be huge! They will be huge ogre like creatures resurrected and modified for war. They will be bloated and stitched with guts exposed in places. We have designed them with huge spiked chains.

Lizardkin

The Deathscales will be huge too. They will be like lizardkin but much more heavily built with huge upper arms and chest. Concept art will be available soon for these guys too.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/04 23:13:28


Post by: Rolt


So their going to be less on the side of normal zombies and more Frankenstein's evil army. Sounds cool to me.

Like others I'm very much looking forward to seeing more lizardkin concepts and I personally third a more civilized beastmen showing up (not necessarily the whole army), seriously
the whole Pegan-estque, howling at the moon, evil for the sake of it type of beastmen has become so over played, would be nice to see something different.



Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/04 23:19:33


Post by: Barzam


So, I know I said I'm not that into fantasy, but Tambulaine had mentioned that you guys have Gnolls planned? Goblins and lizards are of no real interest to me, but if you do have hard plastic Gnolls planned for some eventual release, I think I may have to back this.

EDIT- I see you are planning somewhat armored zombies. Okay, I give up. I'll be backing this for sure now. I like the sounds of those undead. Will I be able to have zombies decked out in battered, rusted out plate armor?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/04 23:24:36


Post by: Kaine Larson


Some of the zombies will be armoured, most definitely!!! The Gnolls will be part of the upcoming release schedule and are definitely at the top of my list!! I have always fancied a beast army full of gnolls and hyena's...sounds great!! Its likely the next three boxed sets after the initial three will be Gnolls, Orcs and Drow but we are also toying with making a Minotaur boxed set too. All of these are defeinitely in the pipline. But lets get the first Kickstarter funded first!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/05 00:28:52


Post by: AlexHolker


Kaine Larson wrote:
The Deathscales will be huge too. They will be like lizardkin but much more heavily built with huge upper arms and chest. Concept art will be available soon for these guys too.

That doesn't sound very good - like the "Mantic Leg Syndrome" that Scarletsquig was talking about. I would suggest a barrel-shaped torso rather than the inverted triangle associated with the human male ideal, and legs powerful enough to avoid falling over.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/05 00:41:59


Post by: Kaine Larson


Wait till you see the concept art. The few sketches we have done so far look awesome. I don't think you will be disappointed. It's hard to describe without showing you the pictures.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/05 02:12:19


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


Yeah, no Frech style knock kneed poses, please!



Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/05 04:23:25


Post by: Schmapdi


 scarletsquig wrote:


Heroic scaling is when laws of physics get discarded in favour of artistic styling. Your run-of-the-mill miniature cheesecake chick with a gigantic 6 foot long weapon casually held in one tiny-wristed hand is a good example:

Spoiler:


Doesn't make it a bad mini, just one that favours a more bombastic sculpting style.


Somebody doesn't know that most supermodels are inhumanly strong and could wield a 6 foot sword like it were a butter knife. Hence the "super."


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/06 20:42:22


Post by: Kaine Larson


The only things to have ludicrously large weapons will be ludicrously large monsters! Our first full colour piece of art will be available soon for the rulebook and website. Looks great so far. More play testing this weekend and we should be able to sign off on the rules PDF. We expect to have this available for free at least a couple of weeks before the KS starts!!! .... And I almost forgot. Zombie Abominations artwork is coming too!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/06 21:07:17


Post by: corgan


Can't wait to see it


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/06 21:21:47


Post by: Kaine Larson


I can't wait to see the final piece too. Should have it within a day or two. It is a depiction of the Goblins in all their subterranean glory!!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
We will also have some of the prints available as A2 special edition prints when the KS begins if anyone wants one as an addon!! - obviously you will have to wait to see it first before you make that decision!!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/23 23:18:53


Post by: Kaine Larson


Ok....so it took a bit longer than I thought to get the artwork back. I would love to hear what you think of it. Please have a look at the facebook page too...



Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/24 06:09:24


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


Hope some spiders end up on a sprue at some point as well.

You've got my interest piqued, that's for sure.

Any time you want to tease us with new artwork, we're more than happy to oblige you around these parts!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/24 07:23:45


Post by: Symbio Joe


That is one of my favourite Torchlight artworks! I mean... it is defenitely not Torchlight.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/24 08:35:50


Post by: Kaine Larson


We are planning to do a plastic character pack with the shaman having a spider familiar as in the pic. We also will be making a dungeon vermin line with giant rats, spiders etc.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/24 09:51:43


Post by: Paradigm


The artwork is amazing, and reminds me very much of artwork by Tony DiTerlizzi (most famous for the Spiderwick books) with a bit of Chris Ridell thrown in. Its a style I like very much indeed, so I'll be following this.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/24 11:14:27


Post by: Kaine Larson


Thanks... We have the mega talented Gollorr doing all our art. He has some awesome stuff on his deviant art account. Worth checking out. We have a load of concept art coming of the zombies next so should be cool!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/31 09:50:41


Post by: Kaine Larson


The concept art for the zombies should be ready soon but I would like to hear some opinions on what people would like to see. Our concept so far is to have the Zombie Gravewalkers, your traditional zombie as it were but with a difference. We wanted to show an insanity in all their faces due to their unnatural resurrection. They will all look mad! They will also be modified for war with ancient armour from old crypts and tombs. Because these guys are expendable the necromancersand their henchman do not spend too much time and effort on these guys. As the leather armour straps have rotted away the armour is nailed to their bones. As they are too stupid to be trusted to hold a blade the weapons are
stuck into their arm stumps or riveted into their flesh.

The Flesh Flesh Golems are hideous creatures made entirely from the corpses of large creatures with appendages sewn on to make them more potent in combat. These guys are generally 7 foot giants. Think Frankenstein's monster brought to life by Clive Barker and you will be halfway there.

Zombie Hulks are huge rotten carcasses of a long unrecognisable creature. Much like Golems they are adapted for war. Extra limbs add to their huge bulk. We have gone for a stinking corpse theme with all three with lots guts and entrails to make them truly disgusting!

Any suggestions would be appreciated!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/31 09:55:56


Post by: Paradigm


Sounds awesome, and a very unique take on Zombies, more Frankenstein that usual which is pretty cool. The idea of zombies as 'machines' of a sort, built for certain things is nice as well and again, outside the norm.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/31 10:00:06


Post by: Azazelx


The art looks good, and the undead concepts all sound good as well.

If I can make a suggestion - typical art (and models) for undead tend to festoon them in skulls and bones and such on their armour.

Unless they come from a culture of undead filled with active artisans - or from a culture that used to revere images of death on all of it's troops (Totenkopf to the power of 10!) - or the Necromantic magic that animated them also magically changed their eagles and lions and ravens into skeletons and bones - then despite how much of a trope it's become, it doesn't actually make any sense in context.

If you're raising an army of the undead from where they fell on a long-forgotten battlefield, etc, they would have the decayed remnants of what they wore as living soldiers. And so probably not festooned in bones and skull totems...



Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/31 10:08:29


Post by: Kaine Larson


I couldn't agree more. We are going to go for a bone armour idea for the necromancers as they are able to control it to an extent. However nothing will be festooned with skulls. These guys are a bit more practical than that! A dead bloke with bolted on metal for more effectiveness in combat. Simple as that! There will be no decorated zombies here apart from maybe a evil sigil or two to show they have been magically raised.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/31 10:41:17


Post by: AlexHolker


Kaine Larson wrote:
Any suggestions would be appreciated!

I won't be buying them either way so feel free to ignore what I say, but I don't think the two opposing types of zombie mesh very well. The Frankenstein's monster angle certainly seems to be more popular, and it hasn't been run into the bloody ground like the rotting corpse angle has. I would abandon the stinking corpse theme and stick with fresh or preserved corpses - the sort that you could actually physically stitch together without it all falling apart.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/31 20:08:51


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


Personally not of fan of the guts and junk hanging out.

Do like the idea of stitched together monstrosities however.

My problem is I've never been a big fan of undead in general.

I won't pass judgement until I've at least gotten to see what you have in mind.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/05/31 21:47:58


Post by: Barzam


I on the other hand am a huge fan of the undead stuff. I like the sound of both the stitched together and the rotting messes. If the stitched together guys look even remotely like the Flesh Golem Reaper made, I think I could be very happy with those.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/01 01:04:09


Post by: adamsouza


I'm a big fan of the zombies with stuff nailed onto them so they won't drop it concept.

They are expendable and equipped accordingly. I like it. It's a level of fantasy world practical you don't normally see.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/16 17:00:48


Post by: Kaine Larson


Ok... I know its been a while. Sculptors are still sculpting so no greens for you to see just yet... however the first concept art for the Zombie abominations has been done.

This is the basic zombie warrior...the Zombie Gravewalker! They are the point and release homing missiles of the undead world. They are created by their masters and ressurected using unholy, daemonic magic. The unwilling corpse is bought back to unlife with the soul of its former master still trapped inside with no ability to control what it does. This terrible act causes the soul of the creature to go insane! As the zombie form has no actual mind and attacks only through instinct it has no ability to hold and use weapons, therefore its weapons are and armour are bolted directly to its bones!



We will have more zombie abominations for you shortly including the Flesh Golem, Zombie Hulk, the Necromancer and the Liche Priest!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/16 17:03:45


Post by: Paradigm


That looks great! Just how I imagined it from the description, and rather more dynamic than your run-of-the-mill shambling corpses.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/16 18:03:40


Post by: Kaine Larson


I'm pleased you like it...the others are really cool to. Our artist hit the mark exactly with these. We wanted to get a certain amount of insanity behind their eyes!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
We have also updated the colour artwork....the magic effect looks cooler now!



Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/16 20:31:32


Post by: AlexHolker


Kaine Larson wrote:
This is the basic zombie warrior...the Zombie Gravewalker! They are the point and release homing missiles of the undead world. They are created by their masters and ressurected using unholy, daemonic magic. The unwilling corpse is bought back to unlife with the soul of its former master still trapped inside with no ability to control what it does. This terrible act causes the soul of the creature to go insane! As the zombie form has no actual mind and attacks only through instinct it has no ability to hold and use weapons, therefore its weapons are and armour are bolted directly to its bones!

The flavour text feels like you're trying too hard to be edgy. You state that the fate of the soul is irrelevant to the behaviour of the zombie, so saying it's trapped and insane is just grimderp for the sake of grimderp.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/16 21:06:10


Post by: Kaine Larson


I wish I knew what grimderp meant...I think I am too old to understand...


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/16 21:29:09


Post by: plastictrees


Kaine Larson wrote:
I wish I knew what grimderp meant...I think I am too old to understand...


He's trying to show his disdain for 'grimdark', the often over the top atmosphere most associated with Warhammer 40k and Fantasy Battle.

You should generally feel free ignore anyone that crafts their criticism using internet slang.
I think that the fact that your zombies are ressurected with the soul trapped inside is a relevant differentiator for your zombies, and the art looks great of course.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/16 21:31:54


Post by: Kaine Larson


Many thanks! I am nearer 40 than 30. Such things go over my head!! Resurrecting the dead and having them fight for you is pretty dark anyway I would thought...


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/16 21:33:47


Post by: Mysterious Pants


I just discovered you guys- I'm loving it. I'll wait for your kickstarter eagerly.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/16 21:55:32


Post by: AlexHolker


 plastictrees wrote:
He's trying to show his disdain for 'grimdark', the often over the top atmosphere most associated with Warhammer 40k and Fantasy Battle.

I am showing my disdain for poorly done grimdark. This is the lowliest of the undead, and you've already got two different bits of pathos that each diminishes the other.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/16 22:55:30


Post by: HisDivineShadow


 AlexHolker wrote:
 plastictrees wrote:
He's trying to show his disdain for 'grimdark', the often over the top atmosphere most associated with Warhammer 40k and Fantasy Battle.

I am showing my disdain for poorly done grimdark. This is the lowliest of the undead, and you've already got two different bits of pathos that each diminishes the other.



People may take your arguments more seriously Alex, if you didn't sink your talons into the most inane, petty details, then proceed to spew like you do for pages on end.

I like the concept. Im excited to see what these guys put out.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/16 23:01:16


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


Seems like a nice undead addition if that's your thing.

I do like the idea of bolting and strapping all their gear on. Hoping we see at least one figure with stuff nailed to his head, at least as an optional part.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/16 23:04:09


Post by: Kaine Larson


Oh I think we can manage that!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/17 00:11:13


Post by: plastictrees



This is the basic zombie warrior...the Zombie Gravewalker! They are the point and release homing missiles of the undead world. They are created by their masters and ressurected using unholy, daemonic magic. The unwilling corpse is bought back to unlife with the soul of its former master still trapped inside which allows it to still qualify for a prime rate mortgage!

Made some changes to the existing lore for Alex.

Do we have a timeline on the crowdfunding campaign?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/17 01:22:23


Post by: Talking Banana


I pretty much had to pick between Sci-Fi and Fantasy to make my budget work, and fantasy is out for me.

That said, these are the best goblin concepts I've ever seen. I also like the undead concept.

I wish you tremendous success with this.

And then I want to see you build on that success and launch an equivalent Sci-Fi kickstarter, using the same concept artist.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/17 07:17:54


Post by: Barzam


Kaine Larson wrote:
Ok... I know its been a while. Sculptors are still sculpting so no greens for you to see just yet... however the first concept art for the Zombie abominations has been done.

This is the basic zombie warrior...the Zombie Gravewalker! They are the point and release homing missiles of the undead world. They are created by their masters and ressurected using unholy, daemonic magic. The unwilling corpse is bought back to unlife with the soul of its former master still trapped inside with no ability to control what it does. This terrible act causes the soul of the creature to go insane! As the zombie form has no actual mind and attacks only through instinct it has no ability to hold and use weapons, therefore its weapons are and armour are bolted directly to its bones!



We will have more zombie abominations for you shortly including the Flesh Golem, Zombie Hulk, the Necromancer and the Liche Priest!


Okay, I take back everything I said earlier in the thread about not having anything that is catching my interest. THAT is exactly the kind of undead I've been wanting for YEARS! Why does nobody else produce armored zombies? Instead, everyone always either has them naked or wearing rags. If the rest of the undead come out like this guy, I'm backing this all the way.

My one question though, why do necromancers never put helmets on their zombies? Their heads are their weak points. You'd think they'd want to cover it up at least a little bit.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/17 08:24:25


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


 Barzam wrote:

My one question though, why do necromancers never put helmets on their zombies? Their heads are their weak points. You'd think they'd want to cover it up at least a little bit.


That's why I said they have to have a head with stuff bolted on to it.

Plates around the neck, ropes tied to the head and shoulder pads to keep it in place, helmets nailed on... you know I don't even like undead very much but I could pick a few up like that.

Just remember how your undead fared against my reptilian forces last time!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/17 08:38:13


Post by: Paradigm


 Barzam wrote:


My one question though, why do necromancers never put helmets on their zombies? Their heads are their weak points. You'd think they'd want to cover it up at least a little bit.

Because everyone knows the Zombies are the Bad Guys, and that headshots are double points. It's so the good guys can kill them easier.

That said, some helmets or even bolted on plates would be cool. The recoloured artwork is great too!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/17 10:31:58


Post by: Kaine Larson


I'm pleased you guys like them. We are probably going to have many head options available on the plastics frame and we may even release some additional heads in resin at a later date. Hopefully I should have the flesh golem soon.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/17 11:21:26


Post by: sing your life


Kaine Larson wrote:
I'm pleased you guys like them. We are probably going to have many head options available on the plastics frame and we may even release some additional heads in resin at a later date. Hopefully I should have the flesh golem soon.


I suppose your work isn't bad, but until I see actual minions I just can't be interested in your product sorry.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/17 16:41:45


Post by: Kaine Larson


As promised... here is the flesh golem!

The flesh golem is parts of many creatures, bound together with flesh manipulating, necromantic magic and imbued with the soul of daemon. The daemon happily goes about its business enslaved only to the commands of its master. Hence the need for chains when not required...



Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/17 16:59:59


Post by: Sirio


I'd really like to see the green of this. Also, this is going to be metal? If so, could you could post some of the metal casts, that would be great so to see the quality of the minis from Minion Miniatures.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/17 17:00:59


Post by: Paradigm


That is brilliant... he looks so confused!

'How did that third arm get there?!'


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/17 17:03:36


Post by: Kaine Larson


The models are being sculpted as we speak. Most of the models seen will be plastic models with the rest of the supporting models in metal resin. The greens are being 3d designed and for the plastics range. We will have a few images and three ups to show you when the Kickstarter launches so you will be able to see the quality before you decide to pledge.

We also have some traditional greens being sculpted that will be with us very shortly.

Keep your eyes peeled. More concept art to come before the greens...


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/17 17:38:28


Post by: tre manor


yall's concept artist is REALLY great.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/17 22:05:27


Post by: Kaine Larson


Why thank you! His name is Grigor and he is amazing. He has bought my vision alive!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/18 01:41:07


Post by: Barzam


Yeah, I like the looks of that thing. Is it wearing a sack over its head though? Or is that loose, tattered flesh?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/18 04:58:00


Post by: Schmapdi


 tre manor wrote:
yall's concept artist is REALLY great.


Agree - I'm not a big fan of undead factions in general. But your concept art so far them is fantastic. I hope it translates well.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/18 05:45:01


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


I do love random haphazard creatures like that, what with all sorts of random parts stuck together. Especially so when they've got extra limbs for no real reason.

A figure like that deserves to have all sorts of random bits stuck on the sprue to play with.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/18 06:46:47


Post by: scarletsquig


That's a cool concept for undead, having the magic controlling them being a demon.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/18 09:50:05


Post by: Azazelx


 HisDivineShadow wrote:
 AlexHolker wrote:
 plastictrees wrote:
He's trying to show his disdain for 'grimdark', the often over the top atmosphere most associated with Warhammer 40k and Fantasy Battle.

I am showing my disdain for poorly done grimdark. This is the lowliest of the undead, and you've already got two different bits of pathos that each diminishes the other.


People may take your arguments more seriously Alex, if you didn't sink your talons into the most inane, petty details, then proceed to spew like you do for pages on end.
I like the concept. Im excited to see what these guys put out.


I don't know why people care so much about some fluff for models. In the end they're just toy soldiers and their fluff is whatever the hell you decide it is... I think the Fungus-fluff for GW's Orks is beyond moronic, along with the term "Mon'Keigh". I just ignore both - in my version of 40k, neither exist. And Squats still do. If you don't like the fluff around these zombies but the models look cool, who cares about a tiny bit of background?



Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/25 17:45:21


Post by: Kaine Larson


This is the Liche Priest... The Liche Priest is the most powerful of the undead within the Underdeep. He wields unimaginable dark necromantic powers that allows him to raise and manipulate the dead. Few who face this horror live to tell the tale...

This figure will be a Stretch Goal when the Kickstarter begins later this year.



The idea behind this model was to evoke a feeling of an ancient warrior, mummified and lying entombed somewhere within the Underdeep. He has been designed to be a contradiction.. he appears both weak and powerful. His frail limbs contrasted against his powerful pose and the fact that the dead worship him at his feet. I think it makes him more creepy!

We are actively seeking feedback so feel free to let us know what you think...


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/25 18:05:02


Post by: edlowe


Thats a seriously cool liche! Looking forward to this launching.

will there be multiple options for assembly, such as alternative heads or arms?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/25 18:10:11


Post by: Kaine Larson


There will likely be options with this model. Originally this was going to be a plastic model but it is now likely to be resin. There should be at least one head and arm option.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/25 18:50:02


Post by: Paradigm


Looks great! The aesthetic of this project has been spot-on so far.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/25 21:04:01


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


Please tell me you guys will put a ruler next to your figures when you've got samples ready.

Will he come with some sort of a base insert? There's a lot going on with all the hands rising up.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/25 21:18:08


Post by: Kaine Larson


Sure... We can do that. I'm just waiting for the sculpts to come back! As soon as I have them you can see em!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
...and yes the base decoration will be part if the mini!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/25 22:19:05


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


Good to hear.

Just don't line all the figures up in front of a tape measure.

Once we've got all these undead sketches out of the way, can we see more lizards?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/25 22:25:39


Post by: Rolt


Seriously cool design, can't wait to see it in miniature form.

@Highlord
Damn, I so badly wanted to make that joke, I think warprime have made wargaming history.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/26 00:21:26


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


I hate to say it but that's going to have to become a dakka/ minis requirement from now on.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/26 02:04:11


Post by: Barzam


There's only one thing I'd suggest for this guy. I'd like to see an alternate head with some kind of death mask. Something like what the Dragon Priests from Skyrim wore. I think that'd up his creepy factor a bit more.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/26 14:42:10


Post by: monders


I'm moving soon, so money is going to be pretty tight for a little while so HURRY UP AND LAUNCH!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/26 14:56:04


Post by: Malkaven


Schmapdi wrote:
I second SSquigs advice, and will add (to correct another Mantic mistake) - make sure to include proper plastic command bits (with a real sculpted banner) and a few extra heads for variety (if only one sprue - enough bits to make 2 different command groups would be ideal).

Would also be smart to have a few weapon options if you're only making the one basic kit. What I used to want Mantic to do was:

Sprue 1 - 10 soldier bodies, 10 heads, weapon arms for 2-3 different weapons.
Sprue 2 - "variety/command sprue" - half-dozen extra heads, champ weapons, instruments, banners, "fun" bits.






I'd like to see different weapon/assembly options as well. The drawings looks good so far.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/26 15:17:45


Post by: Kaine Larson


We are planning to do this. The big question at the moment is whether to keep the hobgoblins and bugbears as plastic or to simply make them in resin and metal. This would of course be the same for the flesh golem and zombie hulk and for us to put all if our plastic resources into the goblins and zombies? This may make the kickstarter cheaper in the long run. We are estimating that with with sculpting costs and tooling costs with Renedra we would need to start the KS at around the £60k mark. Unfortunately making quality plastics with the best designers and the best plastic model makers does not come cheap! I would also like to say that this leaves only a minimal amount if profit for Minion Miniatures as a company so we are able to produce additional boxes to sell.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/26 15:31:32


Post by: Malkaven


I'm in the US and I backed my first KS from the UK, mierce, and shipping was not included in that KS. My bank/cc dinged me twice to convert the currency because I had to pay shipping after the KS. I'm not sure if others from the US experience this or visa versa but allowing people from other countries to tack on shipping to their pledges may help them out. Food for thought.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/26 16:47:37


Post by: tre manor


Kaine Larson wrote:
We are planning to do this. The big question at the moment is whether to keep the hobgoblins and bugbears as plastic or to simply make them in resin and metal. This would of course be the same for the flesh golem and zombie hulk and for us to put all if our plastic resources into the goblins and zombies? This may make the kickstarter cheaper in the long run. We are estimating that with with sculpting costs and tooling costs with Renedra we would need to start the KS at around the £60k mark. Unfortunately making quality plastics with the best designers and the best plastic model makers does not come cheap! I would also like to say that this leaves only a minimal amount if profit for Minion Miniatures as a company so we are able to produce additional boxes to sell.



be careful there. Quality IS very important and I applaud your dedication to the satisfaction of the backers but do also remember that not profiting is not going to help you deliver the product. I have made that mistake myself. Businesses need profit to survive and thrive.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/26 17:11:15


Post by: Kaine Larson


I think transparency is the answer here. To get a high quality product and leaving us with around ten grand to produce additional miniatures sounds fair to me. The KS in this format will hopefully suit everyone!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/26 19:39:37


Post by: Gallahad


Put out the best goblin and zombie sprues that you can. Leave the big stuff for metal or resin initially.

Have your stretch goals add stuff to the sprues or add in command sprues and other fun bits.

You may consider having your initial funding goal just be to fund the goblin sprue in fact. A low initial goal and then 'stretchgoals' seem to have a certain psychological impact. Then have stretch goals adding in bits, bugbears in metal, etc. up until you reach the point where you can afford to do the zombie sprue, then do the same thing with the zombie sprue.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/26 20:13:54


Post by: Kaine Larson


That total is just for the goblin sprues! The tooling costs are enormous, many people don't realise just how much it costs to get the metal tools made. However, once we hit our goal, each stretch goal will make two models or model sets available. One will be free to all pledges of a certain level, the other will be added to the addon store to be purchased separately. I have looked at cheaper options for the tooling, but I don't think it's worth it. Simply stated, Renedra make the best quality plastic miniatures I have ever seen. Each tool is hand made... not CNC machined which means the end product will be great! As a gamer, I think quality is the most important thing. The manufacturing will also mean the final product will be cheap! Which is good for you guys! Our early bird option will probably be around £110 and give you close to 200 goblins!!!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/26 21:08:31


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


What currency will you be running the campaign in?

For whatever it's worth, there does seem to be less hesitancy for people to pledge (and pledge big) when the total is in US dollars. Even if they have to add on shipping (which I would expect).

Considering I've seen just as many little campaigns doing this as often as I've seen the likes of Mantic and other big Euro game companies, it might be worth looking into.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/26 21:09:52


Post by: edlowe


What kind of figure would you be looking at for a 'one of everything' pledge (like the sweet spot pledges from mantic) ?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/26 21:15:04


Post by: Kaine Larson


The dollar format is something I am seriously considering.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I am trying to keep the format simple for the KS. So many are overly complicated. As I said in the earlier post, the early birds will enable pledgers to get a whole load of plastic miniatures (196 I think) along with the Goblin Skulk KS exclusive figure and one of each of the free stretch goal packs or miniatures. On top of this pledgers at this level can purchase from the addon store. All of the addons will be much, much cheaper than retail. There will be larger pledges available which will give pledgers the opportunity to take home huge amounts of sprues. It is important to note that these sprues can be mixed once the stretch goals open the Zombie Abominations and Lizardkin plastic figure stretch goals. One thing you can rest assured... If you pledge you will get a whole lot of minis for not much cash!!!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/26 21:44:20


Post by: Duskland


It might be worthwhile for you to consider a conservative initial kickstarter rather than go big from the start. It seems like customers for miniature kickstarters have become more discerning (from recent offerings like final frontier). Having a small successfully delivered kickstarter to prove your concept would probably help out a second more expansive kickstarter immensely.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/26 22:20:35


Post by: Kaine Larson


That is good advice. However plastic models are not cheap to manufacture. You cannot manufacture good quality plastic miniatures with a conservative KS target. All I can say is that people will receive great value for money with this KS, somewhere between 0.62p and 0.50p per model if pledging on our Early Birds. That is half the price of the GW equivalent! Once the stretch are achieved each pledger will receive additional models free too. I want to make this an opportunity to good to miss!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/26 22:28:49


Post by: edlowe


All sounds good so far, just curious if your target launch date is still this year?

Plus a bucket load of plastic sprues is my ideal outcome from this ks


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/26 22:41:42


Post by: Kaine Larson


Yeah. We are aiming for the fourth quarter 2014. We are very close to having sculpts back. All the art work, graphic design and rules are written. We just need the models!!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/27 05:22:14


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


Looking forward to your goblins. I won't be buying any zombies, but wish you luck with them.

I really hope you do something else in plastic, especially if it isn't something that's been done to death.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/27 06:14:33


Post by: Duskland


Sorry, by conservative I meant doing a kickstarter for a half dozen metal/resin miniatures this summer. You want something easily deliverable in a month or two so that when you launch your kickstarter in Q4 you have something to reassure potential customers. "Look here, we've already delivered this other kickstarter on time. We know what we're doing".


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/27 06:34:47


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


 Duskland wrote:
Sorry, by conservative I meant doing a kickstarter for a half dozen metal/resin miniatures this summer. You want something easily deliverable in a month or two so that when you launch your kickstarter in Q4 you have something to reassure potential customers. "Look here, we've already delivered this other kickstarter on time. We know what we're doing".


Would that really reassure anyone? Producing plastic is totally different, and a successful KS for plastic minis will have at least one order of magnitude more backers to ship to. Besides, there have been so many forgettable metal or resin KS campaigns already that no one will remember them. The age of Dreamforge is over.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/27 07:53:16


Post by: Azazelx


 Duskland wrote:
It might be worthwhile for you to consider a conservative initial kickstarter rather than go big from the start. It seems like customers for miniature kickstarters have become more discerning (from recent offerings like final frontier). Having a small successfully delivered kickstarter to prove your concept would probably help out a second more expansive kickstarter immensely.


Kaine Larson wrote:
That is good advice. However plastic models are not cheap to manufacture. You cannot manufacture good quality plastic miniatures with a conservative KS target. All I can say is that people will receive great value for money with this KS, somewhere between 0.62p and 0.50p per model if pledging on our Early Birds. That is half the price of the GW equivalent! Once the stretch are achieved each pledger will receive additional models free too. I want to make this an opportunity to good to miss!


Without trying to be a dick, you want to try and be half the price of the GW equivalent at retail. If your models cost 75% of what the GW ones do at retail, then you're going to lose a lot of business as many people will just pay a little more (not that much more, given the realities of discounters) and buy the GW ones instead - which already fit their existing army aesthetic.

Don't look at GW's inflated prices and try to slightly undercut them - you will fail. Look at the historical stuff that's also put out by Renedra and go for that level of quality and price.
https://www.perry-miniatures.com/product_info.php?cPath=23_34&products_id=2471&osCsid=adhdqui3enp1oi6adbbcoolmh2
WR 1 Plastic Wars of the Roses Infantry 1450-1500, bows and bills (40 figures). You can build up to 30 bowmen, up to 18 billmen and includes 4 fully armoured command. £20.00
That's 50p each, at retail for Renedra-produced hard plastic armymans with individual options and command. Yours may have different details, and be fantasy rather than historical, but those are really just superficial differences. It's very much the same thing.


I'd strongly suggest that the hobgoblins and bugbears - and maybe even the flesh golem and zombie hulk should be a followup campaign. Better to do several small campaigns, and do them well than yet another overblown, over-extended, over-freebie-stretch-goal campaign that turns into a year-delayed nightmare for all involved.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/27 08:10:15


Post by: OrlandotheTechnicoloured


Perry miniatures has the luxury of being owned/run by sculptors (who get paid for a day job at GW) but love their historical still

so there is plenty of opportunity to avoid a lot of the sculpting costs, and offset costs against future profits in a longer term fashion than a company that has to pay it's way alone

(they could also benefit from price breaks from Renendra as long term repeat customers?)

so while those prices would be attractive they may not be realistic


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/27 09:00:12


Post by: Sirio


Kaine Larson wrote:
We are planning to do this. The big question at the moment is whether to keep the hobgoblins and bugbears as plastic or to simply make them in resin and metal. This would of course be the same for the flesh golem and zombie hulk and for us to put all if our plastic resources into the goblins and zombies? This may make the kickstarter cheaper in the long run. We are estimating that with with sculpting costs and tooling costs with Renedra we would need to start the KS at around the £60k mark. Unfortunately making quality plastics with the best designers and the best plastic model makers does not come cheap! I would also like to say that this leaves only a minimal amount if profit for Minion Miniatures as a company so we are able to produce additional boxes to sell.


 Gallahad wrote:
Put out the best goblin and zombie sprues that you can. Leave the big stuff for metal or resin initially.

Have your stretch goals add stuff to the sprues or add in command sprues and other fun bits.

You may consider having your initial funding goal just be to fund the goblin sprue in fact. A low initial goal and then 'stretchgoals' seem to have a certain psychological impact. Then have stretch goals adding in bits, bugbears in metal, etc. up until you reach the point where you can afford to do the zombie sprue, then do the same thing with the zombie sprue.


Kaine Larson wrote:
That total is just for the goblin sprues! The tooling costs are enormous, many people don't realise just how much it costs to get the metal tools made. However, once we hit our goal, each stretch goal will make two models or model sets available. One will be free to all pledges of a certain level, the other will be added to the addon store to be purchased separately. I have looked at cheaper options for the tooling, but I don't think it's worth it. Simply stated, Renedra make the best quality plastic miniatures I have ever seen. Each tool is hand made... not CNC machined which means the end product will be great! As a gamer, I think quality is the most important thing. The manufacturing will also mean the final product will be cheap! Which is good for you guys! Our early bird option will probably be around 110 and give you close to 200 goblins!!!


Well, with all due respect (and don't take this the wrong way), but I don't know if you realize where you are standing or if you are just hoping this KS will go over the roof. I like your ideas and concept, but if that's how much you need in order to push forward your project, then I don't see how it's doable. Even if you reach out and people support you (which at the prices you wrote down, that's -25% from GW, which I don't find an "incredible" bargain, especially if it's reserved for early birds?) how many goblins are people going to buy using the same sprue? How many weapon options are they going to have? I immagine hand-weapons+shields, bows, spears? That's 3 different weapon combinations, which should be a minimum for someone wanting to make so many goblins. And I assume the command will be included in this first 60K, I mean gathering 196 goblins and hoping the stretch point gets met in order to get the command, it's just too much to ask for. You can always upgrade the offer to 250-300 goblins but I already find the 196 goblins offered more than plenty. It's like GW's clanrats from IoB, after you've done your first block of 40-50, then it's practically just too many of the same thing...
So let's assume there will be enough people who want to make 196 goblins with these combinations. Even if you erase the "early bird" option (which I believe you should) that's 110£ (you said that above) from each. In order to reach 60K, you'll need 545 backers as a minimum. And that's them pledging all for the same 1 single product! (I think it's also obvious at this point that shipping is included at this pledge level, right?). Using "Renedra" as a known manufacturer sounds cool but will not guarantee you success since nobody knows you and noone has ever bought from you before. (I repeat, do not take this the wrong way) As others mentioned before, the Golden Age of KS where KS just showed artwork and some 8-10 sculpts is clearly over. You need to show product, professionally painted, you need to have a history and then some. And that still doesn't guarantee success! A known manufacturer puts his reputation at risk (see how well it worked out for AoW and Mantic), an unknown manufacturer however puts at risk... oh well... nothing! The entire risk is on the backer's shoulders.

I'll give the same opinion as someone else did, but without an initial Kickstarter since you are obviously putting a bit of money and time into this (and I respect that). Make some products, learn the Industry, sell some product, gain brand loyalty. Then you can move on to a Kickstarter. If you however wish to shoot your arrow and hope it lands where it should, then all good. And I'm happy to see you'll be doing this last quarter of the year, it shows you're being serious in preparing this and that's definitely very important if someone wants to have a successful crowdfunding project (as Tre knows better than the rest of us).

Also, I'd fix your FB page description "Minion Miniatures is a new fantasy miniatures production company who will produce 28mm scale fantasy miniatures in high grade plastic and white metal." Otherwise it's misleading and that's not good for you.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/27 10:07:00


Post by: Kaine Larson


Thank you for your feedback. The goblin sprues will be packed with options, different weapons, shields and a command option will be available in the basic boxed set. These will not be stretch goal addons. Each sprue will hold 12 goblins. In regard to pricing our EB will provide 196 goblins for around the same price as you could buy 100 GW goblins. That's 96 more goblins, plus the KS exclusive miniature, plus as many free stretch goals that are hit will be a good deal for a Goblin collector. That is not 25% cheaper than GW. That's nearer 50%! I want to give good value to people and a quality product. I have put a lot if my own money into this venture and I have hired the best artist and sculptors that I can. I hope it will be enough for people to part with their money as I am doing this out of a love for gaming and not to become "rich quick". I take all your recommendations on board and I will certainly do my best to provide a KS and a product that will be if the highest quality.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/27 10:50:43


Post by: Paradigm


The only thing I'd say here is that you do need to stick close to your goals and bear them in mind the whole way. Bringing in the people that want 200+ Goblins is great as they bring cash with them, but don't forget that you planned this as a skirmish game (unless, of course, you want to get the models out with this KS and the game itself comes after).

I'm not saying you will, and I'm sure you've already considered both sides of this, but there's been a lot of talk about army building here, which from what you said at the start is where this is going. I just figured I'd mention it.

Also, any idea when this will be seeing retail assuming a Q4 KS? I don't tend to go for KSers for various reasons, but I am very much looking forward to seeing some of these models in future.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/27 10:56:54


Post by: Sirio


Kaine Larson wrote:
Thank you for your feedback. The goblin sprues will be packed with options, different weapons, shields and a command option will be available in the basic boxed set. These will not be stretch goal addons. Each sprue will hold 12 goblins. In regard to pricing our EB will provide 196 goblins for around the same price as you could buy 100 GW goblins. That's 96 more goblins, plus the KS exclusive miniature, plus as many free stretch goals that are hit will be a good deal for a Goblin collector. That is not 25% cheaper than GW. That's nearer 50%! I want to give good value to people and a quality product. I have put a lot if my own money into this venture and I have hired the best artist and sculptors that I can. I hope it will be enough for people to part with their money as I am doing this out of a love for gaming and not to become "rich quick". I take all your recommendations on board and I will certainly do my best to provide a KS and a product that will be if the highest quality.

I'm glad you received this the way I intended it to. OK, 12 goblins on each sprue with weapons,shields and command. Those are some good and clear facts here on this KS lay-out.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/27 11:37:44


Post by: Kaine Larson


I'm trying my hardest to make it clear. What people will get and what I am trying to achieve. It's probably worthwhile giving people some background to Minion Miniatures. I am a wargamer, roleplayers and general table top gamer with25 years experience. I have been a professional painter and modeller for the last 15 years and have lots if experience writing rules both for roleplaying game, boardgames and wargames both fantasy and historical. I have never made any of my rules commercially available mainly due to career constraints but I think now is the time to start bringing my fantasy visions to other gamers and not just my friends and gaming buddies. I have worked in the miniatures business as well working for GW a few years ago and I also have experience working in small start up businesses and developing a brand. If there is anything else peeps want to know about me, the company, our aims and objectives please let me know!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/27 13:35:32


Post by: scarletsquig


For reference, GW goblins retail for £1.02 per mini.

Mantic goblins retail for £0.75 per mini and are horrible quality (I own 40, they suck and are never getting painted!).

Seriously, this pic says it all, and I can confirm that it's not just a bad photo, they really are that awful:

Spoiler:


I was super-eager to buy them when they were released, but the quality is garbage, completely mushed-out detail, really hard shiny plastic and a big "made in china" stamp on the sprue. So, I'm still waiting for someone to come along and make some good goblins at a price where I can buy the quantities I need and in a material (hard plastic) that doesn't take ages to clean and assemble. That's where this KS comes in.

Definitely a huge gap in the market there. And the "Perrys sell historicals for 50p" thing really is a dead-horse debate since they're not going to make fantasy models, ever. That debate only directly applies to fantasy human models which historicals can directly compete with. Historicals are a totally different (and larger) market to fantasy/ sci-fi, if a Napoleonic infantryman is 50p, that's because some people end up buying several thousand of them (I've seen historical displays with 10-20k 28mm minis on them) which allows the price to be set that low due to economies of scale factors which do not apply to fantasy/ sci-fi.

The KS is going to need money from any source to fund, wargamers, board gamers, collectors, skirmish gamers, painters, people who just want the rules etc.

Me buying my gobbo horde isn't going to "take away" from the creation of a skirmish game, in fact if anything I might get interested in the skirmish game as a result. Certainly interested in the lizardmen concepts if it gets that far, and the Undead are looking really great too, its not often you see the mad scientist theme with them.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/27 15:16:48


Post by: Vhalan


I like the concept sketch but dont play fantasy. Can you have a V .01 Draft of the rules availible at launch so I/we can see the direction you are headed in with the Skirmish game?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/27 15:30:57


Post by: Kaine Larson


A basic version of the rules will be available when the KS launches and possibly just before.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/28 10:26:19


Post by: Azazelx


 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Perry miniatures has the luxury of being owned/run by sculptors (who get paid for a day job at GW) but love their historical still

so there is plenty of opportunity to avoid a lot of the sculpting costs, and offset costs against future profits in a longer term fashion than a company that has to pay it's way alone

(they could also benefit from price breaks from Renendra as long term repeat customers?)

so while those prices would be attractive they may not be realistic


Ultimately, it's not the consumer's problem. If they want to have fantasy figures that are significantly different to and only slightly cheaper than GW's ones, they will fail. It might take some time, but they will at best find it hard to get out of the little niche. Maybe LotR players might take them up in numbers.
How about WGF? 25 figures for US$22. Sure, the excuse there is that WGF own the means of production, etc. To the end consumer though, that's irrelevant.

Basing prices so closely off GW's ever-inflating prices is commonplace in the industry, but ultimately foolish. We all know that GW have been pushing the envelope for the last 10 years on how far their price elasticity will stretch. Going in with significantly different figures for a product as both specific and niche as goblins at a price close to GW's might get Scarlet Squig overly-excited, but it's not going to be a great recipe for long-term success. These guys need to be basing their prices off the best value they can possibly offer, not off a negligible saving from GW's laughable RRP.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/28 11:38:24


Post by: scarletsquig


^ Well, shieldwolf miniatures are currently selling their stuff quite nicely with exactly the same business model that you claim is an automatic "doomed to failure", and that's without even using kickstarter.

There is definitely an upper limit on retail pricing, which is probably why Avatars of War hasn't had as much success (and switched to restic instead), but unless there's a competing product at a lower price (and equal or better quality), the point is invalid as far as actual real-world comparisons go.

And Malifaux is currently thriving as a fantasy skirmish game which sells hard plastics for around £5/model. High quality can trump low pricing, but only if it gets taken seriously.

With pricing what I've seen with players looking to get into a game is, they want a cheap starter set (Ideally in the £20-£30 range) that gives them everything they need to play.. after that, they don't mind if the add-ons for it are a bit pricier.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/28 11:55:55


Post by: Eilif


 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Perry miniatures has the luxury of being owned/run by sculptors (who get paid for a day job at GW) but love their historical still

so there is plenty of opportunity to avoid a lot of the sculpting costs, and offset costs against future profits in a longer term fashion than a company that has to pay it's way alone

(they could also benefit from price breaks from Renendra as long term repeat customers?)

so while those prices would be attractive they may not be realistic


This is partly true and I agree that perry prices might be hard to match, but I disagree a bit on the reasons. The long term customer Renendra price break idea is purely speculation. It's far more likely that any price break might get would be based on quantity ordered. Also, it is an advantage to have a day-job, but lots of sculptors work for themselves and other companies (though admittedly usually freelance). Tre Manor, Tom Meier, etc, etc.

The real advantage that Perry has is twofold. First, they have built an excellent and long-standing reputation in Historical, Sci-Fi and Fantasy miniatures. Their name stands for quality and their products reflect this. Second, their plastic kits in particular represent extremely sober-minded analysis of what kits the historical gamer will need to have multiple sets of. They can be quite confident that when they make a plastic kit that it will sell and sell very well.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/28 12:09:37


Post by: Azazelx


 scarletsquig wrote:
For reference, GW goblins retail for £1.02 per mini.

Mantic goblins retail for £0.75 per mini and are horrible quality (I own 40, they suck and are never getting painted!).

Seriously, this pic says it all, and I can confirm that it's not just a bad photo, they really are that awful:

Spoiler:


I was super-eager to buy them when they were released, but the quality is garbage, completely mushed-out detail, really hard shiny plastic and a big "made in china" stamp on the sprue. So, I'm still waiting for someone to come along and make some good goblins at a price where I can buy the quantities I need and in a material (hard plastic) that doesn't take ages to clean and assemble. That's where this KS comes in.


So the upshot of that is that Mantic's goblins are gak. How well do they sell? I'll certainly never buy any. I'd clearly rather pay 25p more and buy GW's ones. For the insignificant price difference, I'm sure that's the overriding choice for all but Mantic's biggest fanboys.




Definitely a huge gap in the market there. And the "Perrys sell historicals for 50p" thing really is a dead-horse debate since they're not going to make fantasy models, ever. That debate only directly applies to fantasy human models which historicals can directly compete with. Historicals are a totally different (and larger) market to fantasy/ sci-fi, if a Napoleonic infantryman is 50p, that's because some people end up buying several thousand of them (I've seen historical displays with 10-20k 28mm minis on them) which allows the price to be set that low due to economies of scale factors which do not apply to fantasy/ sci-fi.


No. See, this is where you're allowing your own personal desires to cloud your judgement. You personally really want a shitton of models with "goblin" stamped on them, and that's fine. I'd probably buy a couple of hundred of them myself via the KS. The point is that if these are also going to retail for 25p less than GW's goblins, while not even being a bad copy of the GW style, then they're probably also going to fail in the market as badly as Mantic's ones, based on
1) lack of enough company-specific superfans to support them.
2) people will just buy GW's "proper-looking" goblins at a 20% or 30% discount from online retailers.



The KS is going to need money from any source to fund, wargamers, board gamers, collectors, skirmish gamers, painters, people who just want the rules etc.
Me buying my gobbo horde isn't going to "take away" from the creation of a skirmish game, in fact if anything I might get interested in the skirmish game as a result.


All this, I agree with.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
 scarletsquig wrote:
^ Well, shieldwolf miniatures are currently selling their stuff quite nicely with exactly the same business model that you claim is an automatic "doomed to failure", and that's without even using kickstarter.

There is definitely an upper limit on retail pricing, which is probably why Avatars of War hasn't had as much success (and switched to restic instead), but unless there's a competing product at a lower price (and equal or better quality), the point is invalid as far as actual real-world comparisons go.


You mean Shieldwolf's Mountain Orcs (20 models for €25.00) compared to GW's Savage Orcs (10 models for €23.00)? Those ones where the Shieldwolf models at retail are a fraction over half of the price of the GW ones?

Great example. For my argument. Not so much for the Minion retail pricing model.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 scarletsquig wrote:
^ Well, shieldwolf miniatures are currently selling their stuff quite nicely with exactly the same business model that you claim is an automatic "doomed to failure", and that's without even using kickstarter.

There is definitely an upper limit on retail pricing, which is probably why Avatars of War hasn't had as much success (and switched to restic instead), but unless there's a competing product at a lower price (and equal or better quality), the point is invalid as far as actual real-world comparisons go.

And Malifaux is currently thriving as a fantasy skirmish game which sells hard plastics for around £5/model. High quality can trump low pricing, but only if it gets taken seriously.

With pricing what I've seen with players looking to get into a game is, they want a cheap starter set (Ideally in the £20-£30 range) that gives them everything they need to play.. after that, they don't mind if the add-ons for it are a bit pricier.


Being blunt here - how many people will give two gaks about yet another small scale fantasy miniatures skirmish game started on Kickstarter? Compared to the real market for this stuff, which is not-warhammer? And I say this as someone who would probably back this KS, no longer plays Warhammer and instead plays KoW. (with models from whatever looks good to my eye, which would include these goblins.) You or I might try out the skirmish game, but unless it beats out the others in the same genre we're likely to play, we'll just go back to Mordheim or SBH or whatever, and use the goblins mostly for KoW. I'm assuming that you're like myself, JudgeDoug and others in that you'll use your X figures for anything you damn well please rather than segregate them by manufactuer's-own IP stuff. (And that these will be your KoW goblin army).



Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/28 17:03:41


Post by: Kaine Larson


There are some other things to point out here. Perry miniatures are smaller in scale, generally in starchy poses that look good en masse and in many cases are only two three piece castings. This is not always the case as some of the kits have multiple arms etc but not all if them. The fact that fantasy models tend to be in different poses (generally more dynamic), tend to be split at the waist (as ours will be) and have a variety of weapon options means that we cannot fit as much on a sprue. GW's models are smaller, you cannot pose them as well and ours will be significantly cheaper. These numbers are preliminary and are subject to change a little and any savings we can make for the customer we will do so. I am trying to make a product with a different aesthetic, cheaper than GW with as high a quality as possible. I can either make great models for 35 - 50% cheaper than GW or super cheap models in poor plastic from the far reaches of the world for 50-60% of the cost. I can understand and respect your opinion but I cannot please everyone.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/28 22:26:02


Post by: ClockworkChaos


Well I can say from what you have shown so far I am highly impressed. I am not a big fantasy player by any means (actually I hate almost all fantasy ideas, no idea why, but none really grabbed me) but your stuff seems different and unique so I think when it comes around (and I am glad that it is later in the year as I am out of cash now) I will get some of the undead. I like you are focusing on quality. I agree with you 100% that great models for 35 - 50% cheaper than GW is the best idea. Just offer what you can within your means. Keep it realistic and it seems like you will do fine.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/28 23:32:00


Post by: Kaine Larson


Thank you for your kind words. For every critique it's nice to here some positivity!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/28 23:48:07


Post by: Azazelx


Kaine Larson wrote:
There are some other things to point out here. Perry miniatures are smaller in scale, generally in starchy poses that look good en masse and in many cases are only two three piece castings. This is not always the case as some of the kits have multiple arms etc but not all if them. The fact that fantasy models tend to be in different poses (generally more dynamic), tend to be split at the waist (as ours will be) and have a variety of weapon options means that we cannot fit as much on a sprue. GW's models are smaller, you cannot pose them as well and ours will be significantly cheaper. These numbers are preliminary and are subject to change a little and any savings we can make for the customer we will do so. I am trying to make a product with a different aesthetic, cheaper than GW with as high a quality as possible. I can either make great models for 35 - 50% cheaper than GW or super cheap models in poor plastic from the far reaches of the world for 50-60% of the cost. I can understand and respect your opinion but I cannot please everyone.


It's not about "pleasing everyone" - or even myself. I'm likely to back your KS as it stands. I'm trying to be a voice of caution and reason.

Perry Miniatures humans would likely be the same size or taller as your goblins, unless your goblins are going to be giants in WFB. So, a non-issue. All of the Men-At-Arms (the box I'm using as my example) have single-pose torsos/legs (not split as you're saying yours will be). Separate heads, two arms each, plus alternate arm options (rifles, crossbow, spears) with additional bucklers. The smaller (command) sprue comes with pavises, 2 more bodies, 11 heads, drum and a variety of weapon arms and add-on weapons. So most of the MAA are 4-piece models, not counting the additional details. Yours sound like they will be 5-part.

But you raise a good point here. Do you (or will you) have 3-d prints to show exactly how large the final goblins will be? Proper, scaled size shots with a ruler will be very important.
Spoiler:


Emphasis here on "proper" - these are textbook "how not to".



35%-50% cheaper than GW is not what was being bandied around earlier. 50% is the number that I kept seeing for the kickstarter's early birds - not retail. While I have no doubt that your KS will offer value for money, my concern is that once they hit retail if they are only 25% (again, the number that kept being used) then your investment will fail at retail, or simply be something that people pick up once in a while. Unfortunately, Scarlet Squig seems to have completely lost all sense of objectivity in this thread based on his own personal interest (the Shieldwolf example he gave was awful - their models are literally half the price of GW's and follow the same aesthetic, right down to including one of those silly 2-man spears).

Look, I'm really not trying to be a dick here. I'm likely to back your KS and buy all of the goblins I'll ever need in the campaign at a great price. My concern is what happens post-KS, which is where it's really going to succeed or fail. Pricing figures that don't closely align to the GW aesthetic at GW-25% is a recipe for failure.

I also really think that doing only the goblins in this Kickstarter is the smartest thing to do. Do one thing and do it well. Not all of this "if the campaign does well, we can also HIPS tool the...." stuff. That way leads to nothing but massive delays and worse. Stretch-goal craziness is a bad thing and leads to terrible over-extension. Don't believe me? Ask, oh, say, ANYONE who has run a kickstarter and then tell the backers why yours will be the only one ever that's different. Despite you being a startup while others have had established companies, contacts, supply chain and more.

Now feel welcome to write me off as just some random dumb know-it-all witch on the internet, or the "I know better than you, and everything will be fine" but I've been in this game for at least as long as you have, and I've seen plenty of companies and competitors come and go as well as been a backer of and watched some real trainwrecks of KS projects in the last few years. I hope your project is a great success, but being conservative with the amount of stuff you attempt to produce is going to be the key to that for the KS. Pricing will be a huge factor post-KS.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/28 23:49:35


Post by: Talking Banana


Nothing insightful or inspired to say, as Clockwork Chaos pretty much spoke my mind for me. I'm pretty strictly sci-fi, but your concepts have me intrigued. I'm no expert, but I also see this KS campaign doing well, provided the sculpts live up to the concepts. I very much look forward to seeing the greens when they're done.

I hope you'll consider some sort of smorgasbord add-on deal for skirmish-oriented gamers. I'll never be looking to buy a large fantasy army, but I could definitely see getting smaller squads from each faction. Your plans definitely fall within my preference range (evil, monsters) - so far I'm interested in every faction that's been discussed and rumored in this thread. Wicked rather than goofy goblins, creative take on the undead . . . excellent stuff. Although for me, the best is yet to come: Lizardmen.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/29 00:27:37


Post by: Kaine Larson


Azazelx, your comments have been taken as intended, constructive assistance. We are going to be as cheap as we can be in the constraints of making some money back on our initial outlay but we will be releasing our skirmish game and mass combat game too. We don't want this to be a flash in the pan range and I want to provide an opportunity for many other gamers to enjoy our models other than just the WFB crowd. We would like people to use our rules but also to use out figures for other rule sets and also RPGs (I know I would love to replace my horde of metal ral patha goblins with something a bit lighter!!). It may well turn out that we can offer even more miniatures in the boxed set. We are still working with pricing etc. I can promise that the minimum number of figures in the boxed set will be 24 and possible as many as 36. The cost of the boxed set will be between 18 and 20 quid. No more.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/29 09:28:31


Post by: Paradigm


Sounds good, and if you are planning a mass-battle game with this setting as well, that'd be pretty cool, maybe even enough to get me back into Fantasy mass battle given the awesome art direction.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/29 10:49:44


Post by: corgan


@Azazelx I don't fully understand what is your point with Shieldwolf orcs. You say that they are the same aesthetic as GW and half its price. The quality of the material of the product is also equal to that of GW. Therefore I don't see what is bad about this deal.
I would really like a clarification on this.



Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/29 11:22:04


Post by: Kaine Larson


I think he was using Shieldwolf as a positive example. They are fine miniatures, in the GW style and you can get twice as many as GW offer for the same price. The is a very good deal. GW still package their goblins in 20's so the savings in price I can offer will not be as good. I am hoping to try and emulate Shieldwolfs models in both quality and value for money.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/29 11:34:38


Post by: corgan


Thank you for the response and the clarification. Your project seems very promising and serious and I will keep a close eye on it like on all good efforts. All the best for your campaign.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/29 12:58:35


Post by: Malkaven


if the models look anything like the concept than your quality will be better than GW so I'd be very impressed if the price was reasonable too.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/29 17:29:07


Post by: Sirio


 Azazelx wrote:
35%-50% cheaper than GW is not what was being bandied around earlier. 50% is the number that I kept seeing for the kickstarter's early birds - not retail. While I have no doubt that your KS will offer value for money, my concern is that once they hit retail if they are only 25% (again, the number that kept being used) then your investment will fail at retail, or simply be something that people pick up once in a while.


Even if Kaine manages to offer a great deal on this KS (which I'm watching with great interest) I agree it's of huge importance to see how much this will cost once it hits retail. As Tre pointed out, he'll need to have some profit out of this and his leaving the retail price at -25% from GW may not allow follow up sales and that may not be good for the company he is founding.

 Azazelx wrote:
Unfortunately, Scarlet Squig seems to have completely lost all sense of objectivity in this thread based on his own personal interest (the Shieldwolf example he gave was awful - their models are literally half the price of GW's and follow the same aesthetic, right down to including one of those silly 2-man spears).


I find this this to be neither true nor fair to the Greeks. I saw what Corgan wrote above but I'm not sure this is it. I don't mean to derail the topic here on these goblins but having read what the Shieldwolf guys are writing in Greek forums even if they haven't directly named GW they want to move away from the GW esthetic. Sure, some of their miniatures can been used for WHFB, I think it's evident, it will help them grow faster and bigger (them making this kit a 2-way use for either orcs or daemons was very clever) but it's not like they are copying the GW counterparts. Heck, if I remember correctly there was a whole debate on the head issue (some people loved it and some hated it!).
I don't know why Shieldwolf doesn't interfere here but they are not Avatars of War, they are doing barbarians and Arabs, what does that have to do with copying the "esthetics" of the big company? As for the 2-man spears, apart from the fact they look nothing like the GW spears, they admitted it was a language error and pointed to halberds. Haven't seen any Savage orcs holding halberds now, have you?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/29 20:42:04


Post by: Kaine Larson


I personally love the Shieldwolf orcs. Great figures and love the feral look of the heads. It's seems rather unfortunate that the two major races I have concentrated on are goblins and zombies, probably the only two 20 man box sets they still produce! I will make every effort to make the box sets as competitively priced as I can.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/29 21:55:38


Post by: adamsouza


I'm eagerly awaiting this Kickstarter.

Admittedly, I don't have any use for 200 goblins, but I'll be more than happy to join in for zombies.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/29 23:01:35


Post by: Kaine Larson


The breakdown of the KS does mean that Zombies will only be available as a stretch goal and again for the Lizardkin after them. Obviously I need to make enough money to machine the new plastics so there will be a substantial gap between the goblins zombies and Lizardkin. I will look into adding additional Earlybirds if possible to enable zombie enthusiasts to purchase vast hordes too! At least I hope that can be done!!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/30 00:44:26


Post by: corgan


Sirio wrote:


I find this this to be neither true nor fair to the Greeks. I saw what Corgan wrote above but I'm not sure this is it. I don't mean to derail the topic here on these goblins but having read what the Shieldwolf guys are writing in Greek forums even if they haven't directly named GW they want to move away from the GW esthetic. Sure, some of their miniatures can been used for WHFB, I think it's evident, it will help them grow faster and bigger (them making this kit a 2-way use for either orcs or daemons was very clever) but it's not like they are copying the GW counterparts. Heck, if I remember correctly there was a whole debate on the head issue (some people loved it and some hated it!).
I don't know why Shieldwolf doesn't interfere here but they are not Avatars of War, they are doing barbarians and Arabs, what does that have to do with copying the "esthetics" of the big company? As for the 2-man spears, apart from the fact they look nothing like the GW spears, they admitted it was a language error and pointed to halberds. Haven't seen any Savage orcs holding halberds now, have you?


Well said


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/30 01:50:54


Post by: Barzam


I've not been following too closely on this, did you show off any artwork for the lizards yet? What direction were you going to be taking them in? The usual Aztec/barbarian look most fantasy lizardmen have, or were you going to take it in a different direction and have them be a bit more civilized?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/30 02:24:24


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


Off the top of my head, the only civilized lizards I can think of are the Reptus stuff from Reaper.

I've got a lot of lizards too. Most tend to be wild savages. Snakemen too...

Mierce's Khthon snakes all wear armor and use actual weapons, for what it's worth. A few of Reaper's character snakes did too.

The only ones who ever seem to wear clothes/ armor regularly are dragonmen/ dragonborn/ draconians/ dragon inspired humanoids. Never the lizards.

Minion minis, please help add to civilized reptile culture!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/30 06:39:51


Post by: AlexHolker


Kaine Larson wrote:
I personally love the Shieldwolf orcs. Great figures and love the feral look of the heads. It's seems rather unfortunate that the two major races I have concentrated on are goblins and zombies, probably the only two 20 man box sets they still produce! I will make every effort to make the box sets as competitively priced as I can.

I'm just going to point out that fortune has nothing to do with it. If there is stronger competition with your Goblins and Zombies than with Lizardmen or your later races, there's no reason why you cannot leave the Goblins and Zombies until later and go for the low-hanging fruit first.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/30 07:35:25


Post by: Kaine Larson


Alex, this KS is not about being a WH or GW clone. I have designed a game to launch with my miniatures and always saw this as an opportunity to provide gamers. Wargamers and role players with an alternative to the other metal miniatures available. I didn't set out with the goal of competing against GW goblins and zombies and I was essentially aiming at a different niche, hence having the mixed boxed sets of goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears. As the preparation for the LS progressed I was advised that focusing on GW alternatives was a good move commercially to help get the KS funded. I saw that involving GW players with tempting KS offers would help me get the KS funded. I am not going to go for the low hanging fruit and become another GW clone company because it's not what the KS is about. I never had in mind to make a boxed set of plastic demons that I could produce 20 of for the same price as GW do ten but good luck to anyone who wants to. I just want to fund a skirmish game and produce nice figures that gamers can use for whatever they want. Besides, after downing the amount of money I have already spent on concept art, sculpting etc I don't think changing my focus now is going to be commercially viable.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/30 11:43:47


Post by: scarletsquig


Just wondering, is this the kind of terrain that might work well for your game?

Spoiler:




Looking likely that you'll be running a KS at the same or similar time to battlesystem's fantasy terrain, might be a good opportunity.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/30 12:29:01


Post by: Kaine Larson


That would work nicely!!!!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/30 12:46:38


Post by: Malkaven


Kaine Larson wrote:
Alex, this KS is not about being a WH or GW clone. I have designed a game to launch with my miniatures and always saw this as an opportunity to provide gamers. Wargamers and role players with an alternative to the other metal miniatures available. I didn't set out with the goal of competing against GW goblins and zombies and I was essentially aiming at a different niche, hence having the mixed boxed sets of goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears. As the preparation for the LS progressed I was advised that focusing on GW alternatives was a good move commercially to help get the KS funded. I saw that involving GW players with tempting KS offers would help me get the KS funded. I am not going to go for the low hanging fruit and become another GW clone company because it's not what the KS is about. I never had in mind to make a boxed set of plastic demons that I could produce 20 of for the same price as GW do ten but good luck to anyone who wants to. I just want to fund a skirmish game and produce nice figures that gamers can use for whatever they want. Besides, after downing the amount of money I have already spent on concept art, sculpting etc I don't think changing my focus now is going to be commercially viable.


How much emphasis will be put on using these miniatures in Underdeep vs other wargames? Will your system have its own hardcover rulebook? Will the rulebook be part of the box sets?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/30 13:16:44


Post by: Sirio


Kaine Larson wrote:
I just want to fund a skirmish game and produce nice figures that gamers can use for whatever they want. Besides, after downing the amount of money I have already spent on concept art, sculpting etc I don't think changing my focus now is going to be commercially viable.


I'm sorry but I don't follow. How can this be a skirmish game when you say that the Early Birds are going to get a deal of 196 goblins? I don't understand how not cloning GW but involving GW players works....?
More important (Malkaven got to me first) is there going to be a hardcover rule-book to this game? How many pages, when will this be available and when can we get a first glimpse or (even better) beta-version to test it? Will this be included as an add-on or incorporated as part of the pledge? (enough questions asked I think, lol)


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/30 13:18:23


Post by: Kaine Larson


The rules will be available free with the KS. There will be a full colour rulebook available as part of the Kickstarter stretch goals.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
There are several arly bird options for hordes of goblins and for starter sets for our game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I have tried to be clear here. We want you to use our miniatures for whatever system you want , RPGs, Warhammer, KOW or our own game. Our kickstarter will give you the option of purchasing to suit your needs. If you want tonnes of goblins great, if you need quite a few goblins but also want mix of other creatures then fine. Although the emphasis is on our game we cannot commercially forget other players as they will form a huge percentage if our key demographic.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/30 14:03:20


Post by: Azazelx


Makes perfect sense. Releasing the rules as a PDF (ASAP) with the KS also allows feedback, playtesting and revisions to be made before the book goes to the publishers. The last one anyone wants is a lovely looking, published rulebook that is filled with flaws, errors or ambiguities (see: McVey/Sedition Wars; Megacon Games/Myth).


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/30 14:13:45


Post by: adamsouza


This isn't a hard concept guys.

He has his own game with it's own miniatures.

If someone buys gobbos to play warhammer fantasy, that's good for him.

If someone buys gobbos to play warhammer fantasy,and then starts playing his game with the included rules, that's even better for him.

I bought Zombicide for miniatures for All Things Zombie. After I go the game, I stopped playing ATZ and switched to Zombicide.

How many people have bought Mantics Kings Of War miniatures intending on using them for Warhammer Fantasy, and then decided they liked Kings Of War better ?



Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/30 14:29:59


Post by: Azazelx


Kaine Larson wrote:
I think he was using Shieldwolf as a positive example. They are fine miniatures, in the GW style and you can get twice as many as GW offer for the same price. The is a very good deal. GW still package their goblins in 20's so the savings in price I can offer will not be as good. I am hoping to try and emulate Shieldwolfs models in both quality and value for money.


This is exactly what I was getting at. Thank you.

Corgan - Someone else was using them as an example for a different argument, but picked the wrong product, as the value and aesthetic of the Shieldwolf models simply backed up what I was arguing with that person about.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sirio wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
Unfortunately, Scarlet Squig seems to have completely lost all sense of objectivity in this thread based on his own personal interest (the Shieldwolf example he gave was awful - their models are literally half the price of GW's and follow the same aesthetic, right down to including one of those silly 2-man spears).


I find this this to be neither true nor fair to the Greeks. I saw what Corgan wrote above but I'm not sure this is it. I don't mean to derail the topic here on these goblins but having read what the Shieldwolf guys are writing in Greek forums even if they haven't directly named GW they want to move away from the GW esthetic. Sure, some of their miniatures can been used for WHFB, I think it's evident, it will help them grow faster and bigger (them making this kit a 2-way use for either orcs or daemons was very clever) but it's not like they are copying the GW counterparts. Heck, if I remember correctly there was a whole debate on the head issue (some people loved it and some hated it!).


"Not fair to the Greeks" was the way the game ended, not what I typed. The heads are a bit different by virtue of being lipless, and they could be used for Demons (or even Daemons) with the right paint (or have their heads swapped out), but they're not-savage orcs. I should point out that I have no problem with having a fantasy aesthetic similar to GW's. It's not like GW came up with all of the aesthetic themselves, anyway. Unless you count Blanche telling the artists to draw and glue skulls to everything as "creative innovation".
Spoiler:

There's also no shame or insult in making sure that your fantasy (or sci-fi) models are compatible with the "big fish" in the industry. It's an important consideration, and no doubt helps to sell a lot more models



I don't know why Shieldwolf doesn't interfere here but they are not Avatars of War, they are doing barbarians and Arabs, what does that have to do with copying the "esthetics" of the big company? As for the 2-man spears, apart from the fact they look nothing like the GW spears, they admitted it was a language error and pointed to halberds. Haven't seen any Savage orcs holding halberds now, have you?


Not all of their models - if I gave that impression, then I apologise. The Mountain Orcs were brought up as examples, and those were the kits I was responding to and writing about. Let's call a spade a spade here though - they didn't just happen to include a "halberd" option. And the function of those spears is clear - they're included for Savage Orc weapon proxying, and if you use them for something else, then that's great. But like I said, I have no problem with similar aesthetics, and my AoW models are as good or better than many of my similar GW ones. You seem to think I'm critical of Shieldwolf? I should assure you that I'm not. I have two boxes of the Orcs that we've been discussing, and also some of the Death Deceivers (who have a few more skulls than I'd like, but hey). The figures are great, and the service from Malcolm and the crew there was even better - I've got no hesitation in recommending them or their product to others. But none of that makes the Mountain Orcs any less designed for WHFB-compatibility or means that there's anything wrong with doing so.



Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/30 15:02:06


Post by: corgan


Thanks Azazelx I was not sure that I got your point, therefore I ask for the clarification.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/30 15:02:41


Post by: Azazelx


Sirio wrote:

I'm sorry but I don't follow. How can this be a skirmish game when you say that the Early Birds are going to get a deal of 196 goblins? I don't understand how not cloning GW but involving GW players works....?


Some of us play mass-battle games (WHFB, KoW, etc) but don't mind who makes the figures that we use as long as they look good to us.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/30 17:15:07


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


I'm just gonna throw this out: sci-fi is big. Sci-fi is popular. All it would take to tap this market is an optional upgrade sprue with some guns and helmeted heads and maybe some space goggles. Everyone loves space goggles.


Really looking forward to the goblins.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/06/30 17:45:08


Post by: Sirio


@ Azazelx OK mate, you've been clearer than crystal. I'm interested in this project and will wait for these goblins, I probably missed some stuff and got confused, my bad. I'll wait for more information in the following months from Kaine, I'm sure when his first sculpts show up things will heat up.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/05 14:17:33


Post by: corgan


Posted on Minion Miniatures' FB wall:





Looks really nice!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/05 16:16:37


Post by: Kaine Larson


Thanks Corgan... You posted it before I could!! The pics Corgan posted are of the Goblin Headcleaver. This will be a five miniature boxed set available in white metal as one of the stretch goals. We have gone for proportions in more in keeping with realism than the super heroic scale figures you see more often. The mini is very fine in regard to its proportions which I personally like. It stands about 25mm to the top of its head so it fits in quite well with a typical 30mm miniature like the GW figure used for comparison. We will have some of the digital sculpts for the plastic minis soon along with the Goblin Skulk. I will also get some 3d prints of the 3ups to show you along with some painted examples.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/05 16:40:25


Post by: Paradigm


Very nice! (I think I've said that a lot in this thread )

I like the more realistic scale and the mini is very dynamic and captures the concept art properly.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/05 16:42:45


Post by: Mattlov


Indeed, quite nice!

I can't wait to see the lizardfolk.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/05 18:00:51


Post by: Sirio


Lizards sound quite promising indeed. As for the goblin, can we have a comparison pic to a GW goblin? And when do you think the 3ups will be ready for us to have a look?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/05 21:00:15


Post by: Kaine Larson


I am hoping to have a lot more to show you in the next fortnight including more concept art.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/05 22:41:02


Post by: scarletsquig


Really liking the goblin sculpt, its a nice new take on them and I like how the face almost looks like a snapping turtle.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/05 22:54:22


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


I was going to say, the face is vaguely reptilian.

I like it. It could blend in pretty well with all the reptile I have, and the pile of unpainted greenskins from various companies could complement it well.

Can't wait to see what the plastics look like!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/05 23:05:17


Post by: Kaine Larson


Thanks guys. I was really nervous showing the sculpt as I wanted to get it as close to the concept art as possible. Of course you are always worried about how the community will respond. However, so far everything has been positive!! As I said there is more to come and I need to make sure the 3d sculpts work well with the traditional ones. I am trying to get one sculptor to work on a faction to get continuity but this is impossible when it comes to making the plastics which need a different specialisation. From what I have seen so far, the 3d sculpts are awesome. The other good news is that with the size if the miniatures now confirmed I should be able to cram more than ever on to the sprues!!!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/05 23:22:17


Post by: adamsouza


It looks great.

Personally, it looks a little more alien to me than Goblin, but that's okay by me, because I have more use for cool looking aliens than I do goblins at the moment.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/06 03:07:09


Post by: Talking Banana


 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I'm just gonna throw this out: sci-fi is big. Sci-fi is popular. All it would take to tap this market is an optional upgrade sprue with some guns and helmeted heads and maybe some space goggles. Everyone loves space goggles.


Really looking forward to the goblins.


Whether or not he releases an alternate "sci fi" sprue, I'll be chopping up his goblins (and hopefully his undead, lizardfolk, etc.) to mod them for a sci fi setting. As others have said, the goblin's non-traditional heads look more than a bit alien and that's a plus for me.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/06 03:17:58


Post by: Malkaven


Is that a furry tail on the goblin? Do you have a picture of the back of this model?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/06 05:55:39


Post by: Kaine Larson


Nope, no furry tails. As he is a Goblin Headcleaver he comes with a couple of dwarf heads for decoration. It's the absolute must have accessory for all Goblins this summer...


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/06 07:00:30


Post by: Menhir Games


i wanted to say that i apreciate the search of quality, the non-heroical deformous scale and the inclination of doing something different, it is way more dificult and harder than sticking to the "safe" and not original at all as the shield wolf savage orcs..

What a pitty tooling is so expensive.. and "worse", never going to use the moulds full life time (they can make 500.000 1 million impresion before it "dies").

Good luck!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/06 07:19:54


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


 Vermonter wrote:
 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I'm just gonna throw this out: sci-fi is big. Sci-fi is popular. All it would take to tap this market is an optional upgrade sprue with some guns and helmeted heads and maybe some space goggles. Everyone loves space goggles.


Really looking forward to the goblins.


Whether or not he releases an alternate "sci fi" sprue, I'll be chopping up his goblins (and hopefully his undead, lizardfolk, etc.) to mod them for a sci fi setting. As others have said, the goblin's non-traditional heads look more than a bit alien and that's a plus for me.


Yeah, I was joking at Mantic's expense, but Minion's goblins turned out to look like they might work as aliens. Oops.

Now I have to buy extra just to try modding some with guns.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/06 13:54:04


Post by: scarletsquig


I think I get the design ideas for the goblin now, the large eyes and ears make sense for them as underground cave dwellers... good night vision and hearing/ echolocation to find their way around in the dark.

It's more of a trologdyte/ cave dweller look, but sculpted far better than GW's attempt at that sort of style:

Spoiler:


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/06 14:58:13


Post by: Kaine Larson


I really don't like talking down other ranges but they really are pants. I'm not sure if it's the sculpts or the generally poor concepts for the Hobbit.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/06 21:22:00


Post by: Vermis


Kaine Larson wrote:
Perry miniatures are smaller in scale, generally in starchy poses that look good en masse... fantasy models tend to be in different poses (generally more dynamic)


The thing is, dynamic poses are a scunner to rank up. Even some of GW's identipose kits intended to rank up are a scunner to rank up, thanks to said pose or generally oversized minis. The first sculpt you showed doesn't look too bad in that regard, and you may primarily intend these to be used for your skirmish game, but if you intend to sell armyloads of 'em in order to hit that £60K, it'd help to be sure that they can rank up without battering eachother with weapons, shields, flappy cloaks etc. In short, to 'look good en masse'.

I'd say beware of falling into GW's trap, but it looks like you're coming from the other side: rather than GW's skirmish games - with super-duper dynamic minis - posing as battle games thanks to loads of said minis, you're aiming for mass battle scale manufacturing for your little skirmish game... Granted, you'll get sales for Warhammer or other fantasy battle gaming, and you've at least hinted that's part of your plan, but it seems like there's confusion over just what market you're trying to woo, and I'm not sure if you'll get sixty thousand pounds worth of confidence out of the uncertainty.

We have Bob Naismith sculpting the 3ups


Oh dear.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/06 21:44:44


Post by: Kaine Larson


The figure shown is not one of the plastic models. It will be a white metal figure and is extremely diminutive like a good goblin should be meaning there will be no rank up issues. But you are right. The metal figures are probably going to be more focused on skirmish gamers and GMs running RPGs. The plastics however will be manufactured with both mass wargamers and skirmish gamers in mind. Most issues GW figures have in regard to ranking up are simply down to owner construction. Ranking up with these little fellas won't be a problem as they are small, appreciable in height to GW night goblins. The parts will mean that the skirmish gamer could make more dynamic minis and the mass battle player could put together a more conservative pose. This will not be an issue. We have a number of sculptors working with us and Bob is certainly one of them. Bobs knowledge of plastic miniatures is immense and there has been a steady improvement in the quality of the plastics he has produced. His knowledge of what works in regard to plastics is most important to me. As I said before these figures will be 3d rendered and I can assure you that Bobs 3d work is extremely good.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/08 23:24:15


Post by: Kaine Larson


I've been waiting for this piece of artwork from our amazing artist Grigor with great anticipation as the sketches for it were just plain awesome. This is the Necromancer, a human expert of the dark arts driven into the Underdeep. There in the ancient catacombs, tutored by the ancient evil of a Liche, some survive to become masters of death. All that they touch succumbs to death and many if their victims walk once more in servitude to their new masters!!



Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/09 02:17:17


Post by: Malkaven


That necro is awesome.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/09 08:42:23


Post by: Paradigm


Very, very cool!

Will all this awesome artwork be making its way into a rulebook at some point? If not, do you plan (during the campaign or at retail) to do a 'collected artwork'-type book that features concept art like this alongside coloured/finished pieces like the goblins a few pages back? I for one love the artistic direction here, and collating that into one book (be it a rulebook or separate) would probably make a fair bit of money, even as an E-book.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/09 09:51:31


Post by: Azazelx


 scarletsquig wrote:
I think I get the design ideas for the goblin now, the large eyes and ears make sense for them as underground cave dwellers... good night vision and hearing/ echolocation to find their way around in the dark.
It's more of a trologdyte/ cave dweller look, but sculpted far better than GW's attempt at that sort of style:
Spoiler:


I'm really not willing to blame GW for WETA's designs. I didn't like the three trolls, either, but they were accurate to type.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/09 11:41:59


Post by: edlowe


The necromancer certainly looks epic, I love the beasts on the base do you think you will be doing some separate creatures like that during the campaign?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/09 15:26:15


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


How come nobody posted this?



Bunch of slowpokes around these here parts!

This is a render of the multi part plastic zombie grave walker. I like the mechanical hand myself. I know Barzam will be in 7th heaven having armored zombies finally.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/09 15:56:26


Post by: edlowe


 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
How come nobody posted this?



Bunch of slowpokes around these here parts!

This is a render of the multi part plastic zombie grave walker. I like the mechanical hand myself. I know Barzam will be in 7th heaven having armored zombies finally.


Looks awesome I have to ask though how much of that detail will we be able to pick out on the plastic figure?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/09 16:30:48


Post by: scarletsquig


^ Renedra are doing the tooling, so the answer is "lots of it".

Mantic's skeletons and elves have some crazily fine detail on them, including really shallow engraving on armor.

Really liking the look of that!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/09 16:48:21


Post by: Paradigm


 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
How come nobody posted this?



Bunch of slowpokes around these here parts!

This is a render of the multi part plastic zombie grave walker. I like the mechanical hand myself. I know Barzam will be in 7th heaven having armored zombies finally.


This is around 17 billion different kinds of awesome. Love the mechanical/necromantic/Frankenstein vibes! And multi-part plastic is even better!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/09 17:26:21


Post by: Kaine Larson


I was going to post this dude this evening.... only just got back from work to see that it has been done for me! This is most wonderful... the community posting things for me! I am glad you guys like him, Victor, our sculptor is also 17 billion kinds of awesome. We should have the Flesh Golem tonight.

It is important to point out now that due to demand/advice/tooling costs/psychic readings/the omens we will now be concentrating on the Goblins, Zombie Gravewalkers and Lizardkin in plastics. This means the hobgoblins, kobolds, flesh golems, bugbears etc will be made out of resin and or white metal.

This was done for a number of reasons really. Primarily I needed the boxed sets to be more simple and to reduce tooling costs. Whilst the tooling costs will still be high, I am hoping we can reduce them slightly.

I hope this doesn't cause too much in the way of disappointment!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/09 17:31:02


Post by: Paradigm


Concentrating on the 'troop units' in plastic is probably a very sound idea, they will probably be the most profitable, and so long as the casting is good, people don't really have any issue with more 'elite' or 'rare' units in metal/resin. (personally I'd throw in a vote for resin, but I don't know what general opinion is)


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/09 17:34:41


Post by: Kaine Larson


I think we will go for resin for the larger units and metal for the finer units. The reason behind this is that smaller units, even with high quality resin, have a tendency to break. I have visited three companies about casting in resin and they always look at the ankles first! I think the bugbears and larger creatures will all be resin with some of the finer minis, like the Goblin Headcleaver, being castle in white metal. Either way we will experiment and I have been told that there is not much difference in cost when you take into effect the length of life of the molds and the wastage there is in using resin.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Personally I do prefer resin.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/10 17:00:04


Post by: Kaine Larson


Thanks a lot. I had a WIP shot today of the plastic goblins... Looking great. Should have quite a bit to show you guys soon!!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/11 07:25:32


Post by: Azazelx


Zombie Render looks great, but really fine details, which makes me wonder how strong it will be. Too-fine parts such as that hand can be very fragile, and the shallow details on the face probably won't come out at all.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/11 07:36:18


Post by: Kaine Larson


If you are familiar with Renedra and the Perry plastics you will know how much detail these guys can extract. You will always lose some detail but with the plastic quality Renedra use the figures will be very tough indeed.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/11 07:42:24


Post by: monders


Should I just have my salary paid direct to you, Kaine? Saves messing about then, doesn't it?!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/11 08:39:22


Post by: Azazelx


I am, and have quite a few of both. My concerns stand.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/11 11:08:24


Post by: Sirio


What kind of bases are these going to have? Are they going to be round for skirmish style as illustrated above or thick warhammer type bases (Or even better both round and square in order to choose from)?
I think Renedra has some but they are for neither type of the ones really needed (skirmish or WHFB).

Another question, if your funding goal is 60K in order to get to the plastic goblins and then start unlocking the metal characters, what figure are we looking for concerning the zombies, and yet later on what will it take for the plastic lizards? I mean plastic tooling sounds good and all but I'm getting dizzy trying to imagine what it would take to bring this to fulfillment.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/11 11:54:33


Post by: Kaine Larson


I have a further meeting with Renedra soon so I am not in a position to confirm anything at the moment suffice to say that I am looking at reducing the costs if possible. When it comes to basing I will provide the Warmachine style lipped round bases although I am looking at supplying warhammer style square bases to give pledgers the chance to pick. The problem with this is that the more bases I buy the cheaper they get. Splitting styles means they cost more money, but either way I will do what I can to make this accessible to everyone!!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/11 12:24:52


Post by: tre manor


Trust me on this please. Pick ONE base style and supply only that. I made the mistake of using of too wide a range of bases and it has really been a problem for various reasons. Keep it simple is always the best way forward.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/11 12:25:25


Post by: Alpharius


I don't think Azazelx has been keeping up with this thread, maybe?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/11 15:10:42


Post by: Azazelx


?

How so?

Not angry enough?


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/11 16:36:02


Post by: Sirio


 tre manor wrote:
Trust me on this please. Pick ONE base style and supply only that. I made the mistake of using of too wide a range of bases and it has really been a problem for various reasons. Keep it simple is always the best way forward.


I don't think he can do that, we've seen two sculpts so far and they both need round bases since there is no way in hell that these would ever rank up. Also, goblins and zombies for WHFB need square bases, I doubt anyone would enjoy having to buy new bases only because the ones provided in the set are of the wrong type. Thus probably both should be included at this point, it will also help him differentiate from the rest of the competition.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/11 16:47:08


Post by: edlowe


Since im mostly looking at this for the skirmish campaign, would it be possible for the mass battle game to use movement trays similar to the lord of the rings mass battle game? Then you could keep the round bases for skirmish and plug them I the trays for the big battles. Oh course people will still base their figures as they desire.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/11 17:21:54


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


Skirmish for me as well. I prefer rounds, but I honestly could care less what they end up on. Not going to be bothered much if half my force is on squares, while the rest are on circles, and maybe even a few cavalry rectangles, because why the hell not?

I gotta agree with Tre- pick one style and save yourself the headache. People will base their stuff with whatever they want in the end anyways.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/11 17:24:13


Post by: Paradigm


It's also worth noting that you can get all sorts of bases at retail cheap, so it's not a massive cost for people to rebase their own models once they have them. Pick the ones best for your system.

Personally, I like 30mm lipped bases (Malifaux/Warmachine style) for Skirmish games.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/11 17:30:09


Post by: Kaine Larson


I have checked pricing and I should be able to do both during the kickstarter.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/12 11:44:39


Post by: Kaine Larson


The zombie Hulk is here. A mountain of flesh, bodies and parts of Underdeep dwellers formed into a single form. These creatures are lumbering behemoths, unstoppable hulks that only the mightiest, bravest foes can resist! Again Our artist has made the Zombie Hulk come to life with the details, I particularly like hands in its stomach holding its guts in its stomach and the humanoid form guiding the Hulk to its next victim!



Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/12 12:27:07


Post by: Azazelx


Kaine Larson wrote:
I have checked pricing and I should be able to do both during the kickstarter.


Any reason you've chosen to go for the WM-style round lipped/rolled instead of standard 25mm round? More skirmish games (such as LotR, etc) use the standard bases.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Nice hulk artwork!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/12 12:34:44


Post by: edlowe


Awesome artwork for the hulk


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/12 12:39:14


Post by: Kaine Larson


It's simply a personal preference and the preference of my gaming group. I think the lipped bases look great for skirmish games.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/12 12:55:35


Post by: Malkaven


loving the hulk as well. I'm getting pretty excited for this KS.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/12 13:01:27


Post by: Paradigm


Great artwork, and it looks bigger than I expected!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/12 14:15:47


Post by: HisDivineShadow


Kaine Larson wrote:
It's simply a personal preference and the preference of my gaming group. I think the lipped bases look great for skirmish games.

It may be sad to quote Joe Dirt but,

You need to give customer what they want, not what you want.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/12 14:25:47


Post by: Kaine Larson


And that's what I have done. Almost universally the people I have asked preferred the lipped warmachine style bases. Any evidence to the contrary and I will re think this. So far I have had only one request for the 40k style bases. I am very happy providing these bases for people if they order them. But I will only be supplying one type of round base and one type of square base.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/12 14:39:45


Post by: highlord tamburlaine


Shoot, I was all set to post that photo as soon as I saw it, and Kaine beat me to the punch this time!

How big of base will the hulk sit on?

From the artwork it looks BIG. I like BIG models.

How many limb attachment points is that thing going to have?

As I've said before, not a huge undead fan, but I'm a sucker for things with multiple extra limbs.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/12 14:43:53


Post by: Kaine Larson


It will be 40k dreadnought big!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/13 07:55:15


Post by: Azazelx


Kaine Larson wrote:
And that's what I have done. Almost universally the people I have asked preferred the lipped warmachine style bases. Any evidence to the contrary and I will re think this. So far I have had only one request for the 40k style bases. I am very happy providing these bases for people if they order them. But I will only be supplying one type of round base and one type of square base.


That's fair enough. I'd suggest that you run a poll before (or during) the Kickstarter campaign with as wide a range of your backers (potential, or better yet - actual) as possible. Anecdotal stuff isn't as useful as hard numbers for something like this.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/13 08:11:44


Post by: RoninXiC


Warhammer are almost the las game to have THEIR special kind of round bases.
Most other games don't care/give you the choice or use the lipped base.



Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/13 18:06:57


Post by: monders


Kaine does a grand job batting off the awkward Annie's. If I ran a KS I'd not have the patience to come on to the forums and remain so calm and level headed*

The Arcworlde stuff looks great on lipped bases, and WM/H look well too. I think GW have the visual identity with the 'standard' round bases.

But that's just my two pennorth!

*Im being flippant, such is my way. The other side of the coin though is there really are a some knowledgable and passionate people on here and they all just want something they're interested in to do the best it possibly can.

You're a good bunch.

Edited for ipad autocorrect shenanigans.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/14 06:09:07


Post by: Azazelx


RoninXiC wrote:
Warhammer are almost the las game to have THEIR special kind of round bases.
Most other games don't care/give you the choice or use the lipped base.


And Warhammer/Mordheim/etc are so insignificant, right?

As I said, a poll would be the way to go.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/14 06:57:32


Post by: Fenriswulf


Loving that Zombie Hulk! Are there going to be a few different styles of these with interchangeable arms? Would be great as you could modify them to look different across the group. But I am loving the designs thus far! I thought I would be mostly about the goblins, but I think I am now more for the Undead!


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/14 07:51:43


Post by: Kaine Larson


The hulks will come in a boxed set of a single model. We will probably have one body with a couple of heads and different arm combinations to make them look different.


Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/21 17:11:49


Post by: Kaine Larson


Here we hjave the Bugbear Ironsheild, my favourite concept so far. He is armoured and equipped to be an armoured bulwark against invaders. There are often smaller tunnels and caverns that can lead to Goblin lairs and Hobgoblin strongholds. These "weak spots" are often defended by Ironshields. The biggest and braveest bugbears usually peroform this funtion as they are powerful enough to wield the enormous towershields and inch thick armour plates their calling requires.



Minion Miniatures - First casts of the Minotaur Guardian and gargantuan Zombie Hulk! @ 2014/07/21 17:18:24


Post by: edlowe


Thats pretty darn sweet, how big is he going to be?