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Need links so we can read replies.

I ran the above through three seperate translates.

Point 1 at the bottom appears to me to mean the writer agrees with Dionisio not to make updates, and shared undisclosed reasons why.

I can only think of one reason to avoid making updates, and having undeclared agreement from others hints that the reasons for doing so are the same all round.

Though I would be fascinated if there was any other reason, especially as the miniatures are good enough they really ought to be advertised.

From what we are seeing, and having reported seen October is a reasonable target, November allowing for delays.

That soon? Wow I'm going to get my copy of this before AvP at this rate.

Many thanks for continuing to bring the news here guys, it's really appreciated.

And AVP is in the shops, told a mate about it yesterday evening and his copy is being delivered tomorrow. Why are backers having so much problems getting their while non backers are getting their copies, discount copies even?

If there is an October ship for Heroquest its actually then in a race with Dungeon Saga, which is almost on its way but held up in port in China for last minute printing.

AvP is on sale at retail as Prodos need to raise the money to send backers theirs.

Where is October coming from? The french post says November/December and I'm still not sure we'll see it this year.

 DaveC wrote:
AvP is on sale at retail as Prodos need to raise the money to send backers theirs.

Ok thanks.

 DaveC wrote:

Where is October coming from? The french post says November/December and I'm still not sure we'll see it this year.

Several sources. Including the Spanish bloggers who took a group trip to Gamezone and interviewed Dionisio.

More topically it is according to gpires what one of the most reliable sources on the Spanish forums is still saying:

 gpires wrote:
This has happen more than once, but he could get it right this time around since Sagres, a spanish user with inside sources in GZ, is still betting on October and says that things have to go terribly wrong for the game not to be shipped by christmas.

It's very unfortunate that GZ's silence is forcing us to rely on rumors and guesses.
But I think that the general feeling is that the game is very close to being finished.

Back when the Spring deadline was announced in E-Minis, several people spoke out saying that it was very optimistic and it was very unlikely that it could be ready before Summer.
Now some of those same people say that shipping before christmas is a very real possibility.

If you want some links about this, and since the thread about HQ25 at http://www.heroquest.es was closed by the admins, I have been reading the latest rumors at:

http://www.darkstone.es/index.php?board=110.0
(users hardhead and werty have spoken in skype or in person with Dionisio more than once)

http://www.forocoches.com/foro/showthread.php?t=3521804&page=39
(user sagres claims to have "bothan spies" inside GZ and has proven several times that his inside info is mostly reliable)

http://www.lessouterrainsoublies.fr/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=93
(user Le Maître Du Donjon, who is also the forum admin, is GZ's french translator also known as HeroquestFrance)

[edit]
The german preorder website has changed the 17-09-2015 date to 26-11-2015.
http://gamezoneminiatures.de/startseite/heroquest-25.html
[/edit]

--
GPires

News!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZR19PQHvOU

Gargoyle and giant snake

Gargoyle 0:40
Gargoyle on plinth 2:30 (we have seen this before, but not with a scaling miniature)

Snake 3:30 and(1:30 unfinished e-sculpt with scaling model)


Other news. A short while back I wrote to Gamezone about the coverage on Dakka and the lack of an English language review channel.
Yesterday I received a reply email saying that a bag of minis was heading my way. Pity the reply came just as I was leaving town for three weeks.
It might take most of that time for the bag to arrive anyways so. In three weeks time I will see if anything has been sent, and if there is anything new I will take still shots with and without a space marine for size comparison.
In all likelihood this means claiming it from the local post office so all this will occur/begin on Friday 16th October.

I asked for a female vampire so I could try the sheer fabric techniques discussed on this thread. If I get one I will blog the paintjob.

I did ask specifically for the female vampire, some character, monster and furniture pieces. I also asked for anything we have not yet seen and gave a list including male elf and archer-raider (who might be the miniature we are seeing next to be gargoyle from 2:30). Who knows, I might have some reveals for Dakka. In any event I have committed myself to reviewing the stuff I get right here on Dakka,
It will be mid October, we might be told our orders are on their way by the time I get to do this, or we might still be waiting and Dakka will get to debut new sculpts, who knows..

Nice work Orlanth! Whilst I wouldn't expect you to receive anything we haven't seen before, seeing a photo or spanish video from someone online will be nothing compared to seeing the quality of the sculpts first-hand. I just hope they end up looking as good in real life! I don't envy the job of having to try and paint that vampire though!

With regards to the video, I REALLY like that gargoyle, the runes carved into the horns and wings look awesome. It seems huge though, no way it will fit into a single square on the board.

I don't know what I was expecting with the serpent, but I definitely wasn't expecting that! I thought it would maybe be coiled up, to occupy a 2x3 rectangle, not winding across what looks like half the board! I think this must have been why the broken wall markers have been included, there is no way on earth that that would fit in any of the standard rooms. I wonder if the different segments are purely for fitting it in the box, or if you will be able to slice it up in game. I can't say I'm blown away by its design, it almost feels too big for the scale of the game. Its a great sculpt though.

Congratulations on getting that bag of minis, Orlanth!

About the gargoyle, in the spanish forums they are saying that despite the pictures showing only 3D renders, some have already seen a physical gargoyle, so this one could not be has delayed has it looks.
As for the snake it is said that this is not the final design because the artist is still working on the head.

By the way, the miniature next to the gargoyle from 2:30 looks to me more like the "Condenado" because it has a sort of mask on his face.

--
GPires

I really like the snake, but was expecting one with linked segments, with and over/under horizontal split so the segments chain along square after square.
This instead looks like a solid piece, I cant see it being articulated to 'snake' down corridor squares, which was what I was looking forward to from the earlier rumours.
Still for someone who wants the set for miniatures it is a huge ugly fat wurm and could make a nasty and impressive monster.

When I sent Gamezone the email it was on the basis of the rumours that they were sending out bags to any who asked, as we are backers I thought it worth a shot, and gave commitments to follow up on that made sense. There is no English language coverage, so why not Dakka. I did ask for a small bag, so I don't know how much I will get, but in all honesty it would be greedy to ask for a bag like we see on the Forja Y Desvan videos, my painting is not that fast and I lack that guys fanclub of miniature painters.

I don't think that the door is necessarily being shut behind me, if you know what I mean. It would make sense for one or more of the pro painters on this thread to ask, so long as they are backers, and I think there are a few about. There is no shortage of artistic talent here on Dakka, and I would like to see what someone like Insaniak could make of that sheer fabric vampire bride.

As far as i can see it, the snake has some vertical cuts along itself.

Looking forward to seeing the mini reviews. Did they already arrive?

Greetings. I returned home an hour ago, and will be busy until the weekend proper.

However my package from Gamezone did arrive in the meantime and contained what I asked except for any unreleased sculpt.

So no Dakka exclusive it seems sorry, or was there......

Actually I learned a lot from the package I received , and DO have news as yet to be commonly explained elsewhere. It might have been mentioned on a foreign language site, and has been showcase, but as yet unconfirmed. I will spill the beans when I grab my camera and review the miniatures for you.

THE MINIATURES
In the meantime here is a list of what I got. Nine miniatures in total:

Dwarf Eradicator
Goblin with spear and shield
Basic set Mage
Female dwarf
Insane Mage
Female vampire - I specifically asked for this model and will be blogging the paintjob here on Dakka.
Knight with spear - The other miniature I specifically asked for. I will be attempting a conversion to pollaxe.
Armoury rack
Sacrophagus.

RESIN COLOURS
What I will say at this point is that different miniature are in different coloured resin. The female dwarf and male mage are red from the basic set
The terrain and expansion heroes are all in grey.
The goblin is green
And the vampire is a light purple. Unexpected but good.

RESIN QUALITY
There is some flash on some of the miniatures, normally those holding shield like the goblin and it is due to connecting limbs and weapons rather than lazy casting.
Some of this flash is fairly solid and will need careful removal. There is a difficult block of resin flash on the female vampire that needs to be cut out of th folds of her shroud. It will be a bitch to do properly.
Mold lines are nearly invisible, on some miniatures I had to search for it.


OVERALL QUALITY

You have seen the quality on the videos on YouTube, however when you handle the miniatures for yourselves hopefully soon, you may learn that the videos don't do them justice. These minis are excellent, on a par with the Avatars of War and Corvus Belli sculpts. The Insane mage, one of the more busy and details pieces, and the Knight with his florid armour are excellent casts with crisp relevant fine detail. Others are simpler but no less crisp. Even the basic goblin mook is an quality resin casting.
The care to attention and style is evident throughout. Some of the poses and expressions only show the meaning when you hold the miniature in your hands. I thought the Knights pose fairly staid, it is anything but. The way he is looking (through his full helm) and the way he is holding his arms show an energy that a picture cant easily convey. Sometimes the detail comes at a cost of painting skill requirement, this is not a boxset for the casual gamer despite its name. The Vampire bride has as difficult a head as I imagined it to be, the layering of sheer fabric on her face is fully blended in in places and I will have to estimate where the shroud covers and where it does not. Part of the mold line could serve as a seam, though this was not intentional and her leg will need a careful shave. Still I am clearly noting details I didn't properly see before, like her delicate claw like hands which are really fine and show her knuckles and elongated finger nails/talons clearly. Again some under the shroud, others not.

Fellow backers, I had high hopes for Gamezone's production quality. These sculpts deliver to those expectations. You are in for a treat when this is finally all done and shipped.

 Orlanth wrote:


Fellow backers, I had high hopes for Gamezone's production quality. These sculpts deliver to those expectations. You are in for a treat when this is finally all done and shipped.

That is fantastic news to hear

Many thanks for the write-up Orlanth you lucky, lucky bastard!

Thank you for bringing us news on this once again Orlanth!

I'm sure everyone here appreciates the work you are doing and will be waiting your videos eagerly.

On the spanish front, several backers have said that gamezone contacted them to verify/correct the shipping address of their order, or to confirm that their lack of "nickname/inscription request" means that they will no get anything written inside the box.

--
GPires

Hold on, I said nothing about me doing videos. I will however produce many stills, including close ups.

 Orlanth wrote:
Hold on, I said nothing about me doing videos. I will however produce many stills, including close ups.

Sorry, my mistake.
When you said "when I grab my camera and review the miniatures for you", I assumed videocamera.

But stills will also be highly appreciated, and the close ups may provide even better detail that a video.

--
GPires

Great news! I'm really interested to see some closeups of the insane mage, from what I've seen so far it seems like a really busy model, so seeing all the details up close will be great.

Thanks again for doing all of this Orlanth!

Looks like Orlanth isn't the only one to get his hands on some HQ25 minis before the rest of us.

One of the stores involved in the pre-orders called Goblintrader has announced on facebook that Gamezone sent them the "good wizard" and "evil wizard" minis that are offered with the pre-orders.
Anyone that has already paid the full amount of the pre-order can drop by the store and pickup the mini, or it will be sent with their next online order.
For those that have reserved but have not paid in full yet, the mini will only be sent when the full payment is made.

Source here:
https://www.facebook.com/GOBLINTRADER/photos/a.580933565305086.1073741839.120510311347416/992927327439039/?type=3&theater

Now, I know that these "good wizard" and "evil wizard" are not included in the crowdfunding and are pre-order exclusives, but I find it difficult to understand why the backers that paid almost two years ago have not received anything, but someone that goes to a store and pays now gets an exclusive mini right away.

I may be reading too much into this but it doesn't smell good.
Either the stores are pressing them hard because of the pre-orders failed deadlines, or Gamezone are in need of income and the stores won't send them the pre-order money without something in return.
I suppose that it is also possible that this could mean they have finally finished producing all the minis, and are about to start shipping the game to the backers but if that was the case then why won't they announce it officially?

Has expected, there are already several backers complaining about this in the spanish foruns.

--
GPires

I'm starting to feel a little dubious about it as well, to the point that I'm almost certain we won't be seeing our games this year. Why would they be sending out free stuff to people now if the completed games are going to be in our hands within a month or two? I wouldn't be at all surprised if theres still at least another 6 months to go, if we see anything at all.

How a project can go from 0-95% done in a year and a half, but then take over 6 months for the final 5% completely baffles me. The only logical conclusion I can come to is that they're simply lying to us, either in regards to what progress they have made, or to the fact that we're ever going to see a finished product, for financial reasons or otherwise.

Ok, guys.

I am now part of the problem.

I have the ducks in a row now, camera set up, a cleared desk to work on (in an over-cluttered small flat) graph paper for scaling, ink for highlighting details just waiting for a spare afternoon, and frankly procrastinating.
Tomorrow, promise.

One thing to be very clear on. I personally did NOT get any minis on the backs of complaining about lateness. I haven't raised that issue at all with Gamezone.

 gpires wrote:
.Now, I know that these "good wizard" and "evil wizard" are not included in the crowdfunding and are pre-order exclusives, but I find it difficult to understand why the backers that paid almost two years ago have not received anything, but someone that goes to a store and pays now gets an exclusive mini right away.

Because money.

See the Robotech RPG thread (which was 95% done two years ago when the KS started!) and the AVP thread. It's likely the company went into cost overruns, and needs more cash. Retailers don't fund KS, they place an order a few months before the product is ready to ship. So this mean cash-hungry companies ship to retailers first to get the money they need for other project costs, such as shipping to backers. It's common for a creator to produce product for backers and retailers at the same time to reduce production costs. But this means they need more money than what backers paid for production, which means the creator uses backer shipping funds for retail production.

Don't be too surprised if HQ25 shows up in European stores before backers are shipped their copies.

It is possible Gamezone underestimated the shipping costs. Apparently this is going to be a big box, and while shipping isnt free a heavy box can cost a lot more to ship than estimated.

I would not be upset if Gamezone starts shipping to retailers in order to raise funds to ship to backers. So long as the monies are used this way.

All of this is possible. It is also possible that this rumor is just a self-amplifying sound in a sound box, already seeding to other forums....

Is there any good evidence or a source stating that Dionisos wants to send to the retailers first?
(on the other hand, it wouldn't be a catastrophe, either)

Anderas wrote:
Is there any good evidence or a source stating that Dionisos wants to send to the retailers first?

None, it was always said that the game will only reach the stores after the backers get them first, and the retailers have confirmed this several times.

But, what is actually happening right now is that the stores have already received the two exclusive minis for the pre-orders and are giving them to the clients that pay for it.
You can actually go to a physical store, pay 99€ for a pre-order and walk out with the exclusive mini in your hands.

This looks awfully like a move from a company that needs money fast.

Here are the two minis in question:
(taken from https://www.facebook.com/GTSMadrid)


--
GPires

Fresh news.

The official distributor for HQ25 in Spain, E-minis, has been getting so many emails about the HQ25 pre-order delays that they have decided to make a permanent FAQ for it in their website.

http://www.e-minis.net/heroquest-25-aniversario-i-74.html

This is directed at the pre-order clients and aims to calm them down and reassure that they can cancel and get the money back at anytime, but also as some information that could interest us backers.

E-minis says:
"What we have seen and held in our hands on our trips to Gamezone is impressive: the wonderful miniatures (much better that the 3D images), the cards, the dice, the board... all is crafted with extreme care and detail. If there had no been so much care with everything in the game, it would surely be already out, but the result would not have been the same."

"WHEN WILL HEROQUEST 25 FINALLY BE AVAILABLE?
The first games available will be sent to the backers that sponsored the crowdfunding. Next we will receive this special edition and begin shipping immediately to all of those that have a pre-order with us. The approximate date that we have is September, I mean November... uh, well, there is still not really a confirmed date.
While Gamezone wishes that everything is ready by Christmas, we cannot assure that there won't be one more delay, but we make a commitment to inform about this situation more frequently.
Our personal estimation is that it will be ready in the first trimester of 2016."

"To make up for the delays, we have negotiated with Gamezone an extra mini with the pre-orders. You can now chose two figures from: evil wizard, good wizard, zarcon and morcar."

At least they have narrowed it down to a trimester, and not a a season of the year.
I was Spring 2015, then Summer 2015, Fall 2015 and now we have moved on to T1 2016.

Looks like HQ25 won't make it to our Christmas trees one more year.


--
GPires

It will never get near any Chrtistmas tree near me. Christmas trees are for gifts. My copies are all for me.

Lol.

Ah well, it will still probably arrive before AvP.

Happy to wait for an excellent quality product, which it looks like this is going to be going on the previews thus far.

Until they move back to T2, then the T3.

Don't get me wrong, it's nice that e-mini's are doing this for their customers and making some attempt to keep people informed, but it's just more second hand, half-reliable information about a schedule that is so fluid it's almost a joke to call it that.

The only thing this genuinely confirms is that the plan is still to ship to backers first, debunking last weeks rumour about shipping to retailers to fund the deliveries to backers.

What we have seen and held in our hands on our trips to Gamezone is impressive: the wonderful miniatures (much better that the 3D images), the cards, the dice, the board...

So with the cards, dice and board allegedly done, we're only waiting for the remaining mini's, the rules and the DM screen (which is presumably being held up by the lack of rules, as it will probably have rules on the back).

 Gorechild wrote:


The only thing this genuinely confirms is that the plan is still to ship to backers first, debunking last weeks rumour about shipping to retailers to fund the deliveries to backers.

It wasn't a rumour, no one said this was happening. I remains an option though if Gamezone cant afford to ship. I for one said I don't mind if Gamezone have to do this, and still consider this as so.

Orlanth wrote:
It wasn't a rumour, no one said this was happening. I remains an option though if Gamezone cant afford to ship. I for one said I don't mind if Gamezone have to do this, and still consider this as so.

I know nobody said it was definitely happening, but it was a suggestion being thrown around (see below) due to the lack of any actual information.

ced1106 wrote:
Because money.

See the Robotech RPG thread (which was 95% done two years ago when the KS started!) and the AVP thread. It's likely the company went into cost overruns, and needs more cash. Retailers don't fund KS, they place an order a few months before the product is ready to ship. So this mean cash-hungry companies ship to retailers first to get the money they need for other project costs, such as shipping to backers. It's common for a creator to produce product for backers and retailers at the same time to reduce production costs. But this means they need more money than what backers paid for production, which means the creator uses backer shipping funds for retail production.

Don't be too surprised if HQ25 shows up in European stores before backers are shipped their copies.

gpires wrote:
I may be reading too much into this but it doesn't smell good.
Either the stores are pressing them hard because of the pre-orders failed deadlines, or Gamezone are in need of income and the stores won't send them the pre-order money without something in return.
I suppose that it is also possible that this could mean they have finally finished producing all the minis, and are about to start shipping the game to the backers but if that was the case then why won't they announce it officially?

Has expected, there are already several backers complaining about this in the spanish foruns.