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That's an understatement!

Still hard to believe that The Others made 1.5M and Warpath is still struggling to get up to 400K.

Or...not.

I think that The Apocalypse box set will end being one of their best sellers ever...

 Alpharius wrote:
Still hard to believe that The Others made 1.5M and Warpath is still struggling to get up to 400K.

Or...not.

There's more money in the boardgaming (no assembly or painting) than miniatures gaming (assembly and painting). Warpath is funding the same as Mantic's other miniatures gaming projects, Deadzone and Kings of War.

Mantic's Dungeon Saga made money ($1M) because it, like CMON's projects, went after boardgamers and miniatures gamers. My guess is that since it was a generic fantasy dungeon crawler, or it didn't have Eric Lang's recent popularity, or it wasn't promoted as well as The Others (doubt the last one), it didn't make as much money as the Others.

This.... Board games have always made more money then miniature based wargames (with a small few exceptions) Mantic did very well with DS and I reckon once the dust has settled when it lands we will be getting a Project Pandora one.

I don't think the Eric Lang popularity is a new thing. The guy has made a lot of popular board games. It's not like having his name attached to Kaosball made that into a huge hit for CMON either.

Big cool looking minis sell, especially when they're at a good price and hold a lot of detail (and from a boardgaming perspective) don't need to be put together and are set to go as soon as you open the box.

Mantic don't do too shabby when they try to play in that arena. Remember that the original Deadzone tried to cater to board gamers as well and was able to break a million long before Dungeon Saga did. The second Deadzone campaign seemed less focused on creating a product that would appeal to board gamers, going more the route of Necromunda in being a boxed game with more of a hobbyist appeal.

Overtyrant hit it right on the money though. If and when Mantic get around to redoing Project Pandora (hopefully similar to how Vermonter and company envisioned it), with one piece plastic figures, boards, plastic tokens and all that jazz, I'm sure they'll have another million dollar campaign on their plates.

 Alpharius wrote:
Still hard to believe that The Others made 1.5M and Warpath is still struggling to get up to 400K.

Or...not.

I think that The Apocalypse box set will end being one of their best sellers ever...

Why? Miniatures board games are the big money, and CMoN knows it. Just look at their project by type, and it's clear that preassembled miniature board games do better than the ones you need to build, which do better than the non-minis games. Soda Pop Miniatures is the same way, going back to the well with SDE : Legends after successful SDE:FK and NAS miniatures board game Kickstarters. Or Conan. Heck, even those shady fethers behind the new not-HeroQuest...

It's no accident that the average backer pledged enough for the base game + Apocalypse - that's a killer set, and I may pick it up at retail.

 Alpharius wrote:
That's an understatement!

Still hard to believe that The Others made 1.5M and Warpath is still struggling to get up to 400K.

Or...not.

I think that The Apocalypse box set will end being one of their best sellers ever...

They should make a boardgame with the miniature rules as an add on

Don't say that,

Prodos are trying that with AvP and that's not going too well

 cincydooley wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
Cincy is pretty much always going to defend CMON's choices, quality and so forth as he's an insider and does some occasional work for/with them - so it's probably a moot point choosing to argue any of that with him.

CMON could do it if they wanted to, but they simply don't want to. It's pretty straightforward.

Not really defending in this instance. Rather, telling you the deliberate choice that was made.
It's why a lot of the promos aren't ever for sale; due to the likeness issues were they to be sold it could elicit negative reactions from the likeness holders/IP owners. The situation with Marvin and Eva from Zombicide 1 prompted all that.

With the promos it makes perfect sense. With other non-KS-exclusives like the Apocalypse Demons or Sons of Ragnarok it simply comes down to them not wanting to. They could if they wanted, to, but they choose not to. It simply is what it is, and, you know, fine, whatever - but arguing that those specific reasons are why you can't just pledge for non-copyright infringing add-ons which are also entirely funded by the KS campaign of the moment is a bit more of a stretch.

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:

I don't think the Eric Lang popularity is a new thing..

BGG's finally noticing him with Blood Rage and Arcadia Quest.

ced1106 wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
Still hard to believe that The Others made 1.5M and Warpath is still struggling to get up to 400K.

Or...not.

There's more money in the boardgaming (no assembly or painting) than miniatures gaming (assembly and painting). Warpath is funding the same as Mantic's other miniatures gaming projects, Deadzone and Kings of War.

Mantic's Dungeon Saga made money ($1M) because it, like CMON's projects, went after boardgamers and miniatures gamers. My guess is that since it was a generic fantasy dungeon crawler, or it didn't have Eric Lang's recent popularity, or it wasn't promoted as well as The Others (doubt the last one), it didn't make as much money as the Others.

Im sure it has nothing to do with Mantics crappy plastic quality (I find it to be very brittle and thin, feels cheap really), or terrible sculpts/design, or the fact that they are unabashedly copying GWs IP in an attempt to steal over GW gamers.

chaos0xomega wrote:

ced1106 wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
Still hard to believe that The Others made 1.5M and Warpath is still struggling to get up to 400K.

Or...not.

There's more money in the boardgaming (no assembly or painting) than miniatures gaming (assembly and painting). Warpath is funding the same as Mantic's other miniatures gaming projects, Deadzone and Kings of War.

Mantic's Dungeon Saga made money ($1M) because it, like CMON's projects, went after boardgamers and miniatures gamers. My guess is that since it was a generic fantasy dungeon crawler, or it didn't have Eric Lang's recent popularity, or it wasn't promoted as well as The Others (doubt the last one), it didn't make as much money as the Others.

Im sure it has nothing to do with Mantics crappy plastic quality (I find it to be very brittle and thin, feels cheap really), or terrible sculpts/design, or the fact that they are unabashedly copying GWs IP in an attempt to steal over GW gamers.

Or the fact that Mantic has urinated all over backers multiple times with changing things (plastic to restic, maps to posters, we'll reopen the pledge manager again later to your stuck with what you got) and failing to follow up with backers( I still haven't gotten my living legend pledge even though they sent me my Blaine on dinosaur saying this completes your order). They told backer wait three weeks before sending your missing items list after posting that everything has shipped and showing how few undeliverables they got back, then haven't bothered to contact us since that date to say anything.

I think they've burned their name pretty good in the wargaming market. They say they want to help retailers, but Kickstarter does the opposite of that. Plus they keep offering the same items in the next KS for the same or very close to it price. Plus the whole pledge $1 to get in now box compared to CMON which will allow the $1 backers, but they don't advertise it and it gets asked a hundred times each campaign. So with CMON they have to pay up front and get higher totals just from that perspective.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
Still hard to believe that The Others made 1.5M and Warpath is still struggling to get up to 400K.

Or...not.

I think that The Apocalypse box set will end being one of their best sellers ever...

Why? Miniatures board games are the big money, and CMoN knows it. Just look at their project by type, and it's clear that preassembled miniature board games do better than the ones you need to build, which do better than the non-minis games. Soda Pop Miniatures is the same way, going back to the well with SDE : Legends after successful SDE:FK and NAS miniatures board game Kickstarters. Or Conan. Heck, even those shady fethers behind the new not-HeroQuest...

It's no accident that the average backer pledged enough for the base game + Apocalypse - that's a killer set, and I may pick it up at retail.

I should have phrased that a bit better - I know board games are really popular now, and well don ones, with Big Names attached, will do very well indeed.

I'm more surprised that WARPATH isn't doing a lot better.

As far as The Others go, the monster miniatures here are really, really well done - they seem to be pushing the boundaries of what can be done for board games with 'board game plastic'!

chaos0xomega wrote:

Im sure it has nothing to do with Mantics crappy plastic quality (I find it to be very brittle and thin, feels cheap really), or terrible sculpts/design, or the fact that they are unabashedly copying GWs IP in an attempt to steal over GW gamers.

To date, I've only build some of their older HIPS models, made by Renedra, but the plastic in all of their Renedra kits (at the very least) is very good. And yes and no on the IP front. I'm happy to call a skaven a skaven and a squat a squat, but let's not pretend that the vast majority of GW's IP isn;t anything more than a new spin on an old trope, and sometimes barely that much.


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 Alpharius wrote:

I should have phrased that a bit better - I know board games are really popular now, and well don ones, with Big Names attached, will do very well indeed.
I'm more surprised that WARPATH isn't doing a lot better.

That's a bit off-topic isn't it? Don't make me report you to the mods!

 Azazelx wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

Im sure it has nothing to do with Mantics crappy plastic quality (I find it to be very brittle and thin, feels cheap really), or terrible sculpts/design, or the fact that they are unabashedly copying GWs IP in an attempt to steal over GW gamers.

To date, I've only build some of their older HIPS models, made by Renedra, but the plastic in all of their Renedra kits (at the very least) is very good. And yes and no on the IP front. I'm happy to call a skaven a skaven and a squat a squat, but let's not pretend that the vast majority of GW's IP isn;t anything more than a new spin on an old trope, and sometimes barely that much.

To my knowledge, GW is the first to put elves and dwarves in space, so thats something. I'm hardly a GW fanboy, in fact I haven't played the game since shortly after the previous edition dropped. I've spent the past 2 months or so selling off the majority of my GW product, but even I find Mantics business 'model' kinda sad.

 Alpharius wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
Still hard to believe that The Others made 1.5M and Warpath is still struggling to get up to 400K.

Or...not.

Why? Miniatures board games are the big money, and CMoN knows it.

I should have phrased that a bit better - I know board games are really popular now, and well don ones, with Big Names attached, will do very well indeed.

I'm more surprised that WARPATH isn't doing a lot better.

As far as The Others go, the monster miniatures here are really, really well done - they seem to be pushing the boundaries of what can be done for board games with 'board game plastic'!

Oh, sorry. As far as Mantic Warpath, the fundamental problem is that it's another Warzone / Vor / VOID / Relic Knights (sorta) / Medge - a wannabe 40k that just won't ever be 40k. Worse, that it's really derivative of 40k, intentionally or subconsciously - if I wanted to play 40k, I'd continue to play 40k, rather than gamble on Warpath. And the Mantic approach of bridging GW product simply doesn't work, because it's a tacit admission that their game doesn't stand on its own. Far better had they gone the Flames of War / Warmahordes route and done something completely different. Or even reconcepted the game as a skirmish board game a la not-Blood Bowl. That would have put them on more equal footing with the Others.

When you say the Others minis are pushing the boundries, I wonder if you backed Journey : Wrath of Demons?
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1588487845/journey-wrath-of-demons
I believe that Journey currently represents the high water mark of actual mass-production plastics for a miniatures board game. It is gorgeously detailed and the large models really show it off. Between J:WoD and KD:M, I am really loving this whole boutique boardgaming thing, which is another part of the reason why I didn't back the Others - it doesn't quite compare to what I got with those two games. Sure, I got half as many models with J:WoD and KD:M, but they are amazing.
____

chaos0xomega wrote:
I've spent the past 2 months or so selling off the majority of my GW product, but even I find Mantics business 'model' kinda sad.

How did that go, and what did you keep vs sell? Is your ex-GW money feeding board games like the Others?

 Alpharius wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
Still hard to believe that The Others made 1.5M and Warpath is still struggling to get up to 400K.

Or...not.

I think that The Apocalypse box set will end being one of their best sellers ever...

Why? Miniatures board games are the big money, and CMoN knows it. Just look at their project by type, and it's clear that preassembled miniature board games do better than the ones you need to build, which do better than the non-minis games. Soda Pop Miniatures is the same way, going back to the well with SDE : Legends after successful SDE:FK and NAS miniatures board game Kickstarters. Or Conan. Heck, even those shady fethers behind the new not-HeroQuest...

It's no accident that the average backer pledged enough for the base game + Apocalypse - that's a killer set, and I may pick it up at retail.

I should have phrased that a bit better - I know board games are really popular now, and well don ones, with Big Names attached, will do very well indeed.

I'm more surprised that WARPATH isn't doing a lot better.

As far as The Others go, the monster miniatures here are really, really well done - they seem to be pushing the boundaries of what can be done for board games with 'board game plastic'!

When you have so many tabletop gamers wanting nothing but HIP ( a very unrealistic material to produce miniatures in) that only 2% of all miniature companies will ever produce in, and these few being made up of ex GW employees who have experince with such materials that no new company could ever have, and gamers complain constantly about metal or resin, always asking when comapnies will produce in HIP or refusing to buy until they do. a large part of this mind set is from being indoctrinated by GW to always want HIP.

Look at mantics games, poor sculpts and very poor art direction but they succeed in the 400 000 mark ( i wouldnt call that a failure at all) but companies with the best miniatures in the industry such as the current Mercie kickstarter is just at 27 thousand british pounds (last i checked) a mere fraction of Mantics kickstarter. Why? because gamers are so focused on the mind set of HIP over everything else that they lose site of great quality miniatures, rules, setting and everything else.

So when companies like mine look at the market we see that if we ever want to get anywhere even if we produce the best quality sculpted minis, gamers will never support us as well as the HIP companies or even at all if we produce in metal and or resin.

Table top miniature gaming has become a market highly focused HIP only with a few exception companies like PP , Infinity ect. Their is much more of a market in miniature board gaming , a much better likely hood of being supported on kickstarter to help get your first few games out to start your company. You can produce in PVC which is yes a far less quality material than all the other options out their, but is by far way more affordable than HIP will ever be. With this being the case, we can produce a succesful game and full product in an industry that is far bigger and more welcoming of new companies. So hence this is why miniature board gaming is growing and each kickstarter outreaching the average miniature ones.

If you yourself dosent like this, then begin supporting more miniature tabletop games, expsecially ones produced in metal and resin because the numbers dont lie if you want to get into the gaming industry right now, miniature board gaming is the right path to go on for new starting companies and older ones alike. Gamers are voting with their wallets and more and more companies will be going over to miniature board gaming.

Wrath of Kings is still struggeling to get a foot hold and their product is produced in HIP, Dark Age is having a very hard time gaining traction in the market even with brand new stunning sculpts. Gamers seem to want cheap HIP "toys" with poor sculpting and detail over high quality miniatures, so since HIP is not affordable even kickstarted the better path is to go with Miniature board gaming.


( Also to note, their are many very interesting styles of games you can do in the miniature board gaming market that you just could never do in the tabletop area, many gamers want only a few set styles of games were board gamers are much more open too new and interesting ideas, sorry if this offends anyone but this is what i have seen time and time again.)

When you say the Others minis are pushing the boundries, I wonder if you backed Journey : Wrath of Demons?

Kingdom Death called, they would like to have a talk with you regarding the quality of their minis vis-a-vis Journey.

How did that go, and what did you keep vs sell? Is your ex-GW money feeding board games like the Others?

Right now I'm down to a few books which I'm trying to sell off, a large Daemons army that Im debating selling, and odds and ends from Tau/Eldar that I'm not sure what to do with, as well as a large Ogre Kingdoms force which I intend to keep as a modeling project. The value of the stuff I've sold has rather notably depreciated, moreso than usual (used to be able to get about 50-60% retail for used stuff, now im getting 25-40% if I'm lucky), I believe this reduction in value is a result of a combination of general disinterest in the game, especially when it comes to models/armies that aren't currently 'top-tier', and the increasing prevalence of chinese recasts as well. The money is most definitely being used for products from other companies, especially board games (I've picked up zombicide, backed the others, late pledged black plague, trying to late pledge Lobotomy, bought someone elses Kingdom Death pledge), but I've also been buying more Infinity, Warmahordes, and Malifaux stuff recently, as well as Wrath of Kings, X-Wing, Armada, and Halo Fleet Battles.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Look at mantics games, poor sculpts and very poor art direction but they succeed in the 400 000 mark ( i wouldnt call that a failure at all) but companies with the best miniatures in the industry such as the current Mercie kickstarter is just at 27 thousand british pounds (last i checked) a mere fraction of Mantics kickstarter. Why? because gamers are so focused on the mind set of HIP over everything else that they lose site of great quality miniatures, rules, setting and everything else.

I think you're addressing the symptom and not the problem (or something). Mierce isn't getting the same funding as Mantic because of *VALUE*, not because of a dislike for resin. HIPS is, simply put, orders of magnitude cheaper to produce models in than resin or metal is. I can give Mierc $100 and I'll get 5-10 miniatures total for that contribution... or I could give CMoN or Mantic $100 and get 50-100 miniatures in return. Yes, the quality of the Mierce minis is much better, detail wise, but the CMoN/Mantic stuff looks cool enough to make up for it.

Wrath of Kings isn't in HIPs, and we were talking about PVC/"Boardgame Plastic" in terms of 'pushing the boundaries', and KD: M is, of course, in HIPs.

You call Mantics sculpts poor and yet you have some strange looking wolf things that I wouldt touch even if they only cost 50p a pop.....

Sorry if any offence was caused but hey there you go it's what I've seen....

overtyrant wrote:
You call Mantics sculpts poor and yet you have some strange looking wolf things that I wouldt touch even if they only cost 50p a pop.....

Sorry if any offence was caused but hey there you go it's what I've seen....

I think Mantic's design aesthetic is a little more divisional that some other lines seems to be.

I very much like the design of their Rebs faction. I put in for quite a bit with Deadzone, and was incredibly disappointed with the poor casting quality.

I also think their Orks (Orcs? Orcks?) look great. The Deadzone orks were also, far and away, their best castings.

And since you mentioned werewolves....Mantic's werewolves are just kinda weird looking to me. The placement of their fur is just odd.

As for The Others v. Journey: Dave C posted a comparison photo a while back. I have models from both, and I really don't see a difference in their production quality. What I think sets Journey apart is that their design aesthetic and overall sculpt quality are pretty universally lauded, and rightly so. Ray is amazing, and the new piece that Carrosco just sculpted for them is sublime.

So when companies like mine look at the market we see that if we ever want to get anywhere even if we produce the best quality sculpted minis, gamers will never support us as well as the HIP companies or even at all if we produce in metal and or resin.

They will if you can make a competitive value proposition. Problem is, value is more measurable as a function of quantity than it is as a function quality. Most gamers want a good middle ground between the two, but generally speaking the preference leans towards quantity moreso than it does quality. Gamers are hoarders and collectors, not hobbyists and artists.

Table top miniature gaming has become a market highly focused HIP only with a few exception companies like PP , Infinity ect. Their is much more of a market in miniature board gaming , a much better likely hood of being supported on kickstarter to help get your first few games out to start your company. You can produce in PVC which is yes a far less quality material than all the other options out their, but is by far way more affordable than HIP will ever be. With this being the case, we can produce a succesful game and full product in an industry that is far bigger and more welcoming of new companies. So hence this is why miniature board gaming is growing and each kickstarter outreaching the average miniature ones.

You'll notice that the games/companies you listed, PP and Infinity, are skirmish scale games that don't require a lot of minis. Thus the value proposition shifts in favor of non HIPS models, since I dont *need* hundreds of models, only 10-20. Also keep in mind, Battlefront, despite introducing HIPs minis, is and was dominated by metals and resin minis.

If you yourself dosent like this, then begin supporting more miniature tabletop games, expsecially ones produced in metal and resin because the numbers dont lie if you want to get into the gaming industry right now, miniature board gaming is the right path to go on for new starting companies and older ones alike. Gamers are voting with their wallets and more and more companies will be going over to miniature board gaming.

Again I think you're confusing things. The reason board games are more successful is because they are more accessible to wider audiences. Playing a 'true' tabletop wargame is expensive, it comes with the expectation that you build and paint expensive models, as well as building and painting a table to play on. Board games come prebuilt (and sometimes painted), and require no extra work. On top of that, everything I need is included in a single box, which also doubles as storage for it all (at least theoretically). I open the package and I'm ready to play. When I'm done, it packs back into the box it came in and goes on the shelf. On top of that, because they are being produced in cheaply mass-produced materials(contrary to your statement about PVC, HIPS is actually cheaper in the long run, PVC is only preferable because it has a lower initial production cost for mold tooling), I get more stuff for my dollar. No it might not be as detailed or as finely made as your product is, but it doesn't *need* to be. Its a gaming piece, not a work of art. Making expensive high quality models doesn't work if I need to purchase dozens of them to play a game.

Wrath of Kings is still struggeling to get a foot hold and their product is produced in HIP

Its not HIPS. Its also pretty popular, at least here in the North Jersey/NYC area. If they're struggling for market share its because they are operating in a very crowded niche of an already crowded niche market area, coupled with the fact that its a relatively new product line with not a lot of stuff to buy. I've invested about $120 and I already own more than I can use in the largest sized game possible (for my faction).

Dark Age is having a very hard time gaining traction in the market even with brand new stunning sculpts.

The models are nice, I own some, but the game is (in my opinion) kinda meh, not very easy to follow the rules, etc.

Gamers seem to want cheap HIP "toys" with poor sculpting and detail over high quality miniatures, so since HIP is not affordable even kickstarted the better path is to go with Miniature board gaming.

You sound really bitter.

( Also to note, their are many very interesting styles of games you can do in the miniature board gaming market that you just could never do in the tabletop area, many gamers want only a few set styles of games were board gamers are much more open too new and interesting ideas, sorry if this offends anyone but this is what i have seen time and time again.)

Still sounding bitter.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As an aside, I, personally (and most others I know) actually prefer working with resin/pvc (similar to Hawk/DZC, as well as wrath of kings or forgeworld) over HIPS. Its a more robust material that allows for greater detail. The only reason I like buying plastic minis is because I can get more for the same cost.

chaos0xomega wrote:

When you say the Others minis are pushing the boundries, I wonder if you backed Journey : Wrath of Demons?

Kingdom Death called, they would like to have a talk with you regarding the quality of their minis vis-a-vis Journey.

I own both KD:M and J:WoD, and you are making a preassembled PVC apples to DIY HIPS oranges comparison there. Apples to apples, you would have to compare the initial PVC KD:M items with J:WoD, and you would be hard pressed to claim it superior to Journey.

The real revelation is how KD:M hard plastic surpasses cold cast resin in many ways.

chaos0xomega wrote:

How did that go, and what did you keep vs sell? Is your ex-GW money feeding board games like the Others?

Right now I'm down to a few books which I'm trying to sell off, a large Daemons army that Im debating selling, and odds and ends from Tau/Eldar that I'm not sure what to do with, as well as a large Ogre Kingdoms force which I intend to keep as a modeling project. The value of the stuff I've sold has rather notably depreciated, moreso than usual (used to be able to get about 50-60% retail for used stuff, now im getting 25-40% if I'm lucky), I believe this reduction in value is a result of a combination of general disinterest in the game, especially when it comes to models/armies that aren't currently 'top-tier', and the increasing prevalence of chinese recasts as well.

The money is most definitely being used for products from other companies, especially board games (I've picked up zombicide, backed the others, late pledged black plague, trying to late pledge Lobotomy, bought someone elses Kingdom Death pledge), but I've also been buying more Infinity, Warmahordes, and Malifaux stuff recently, as well as Wrath of Kings, X-Wing, Armada, and Halo Fleet Battles.

That's too bad the bottom is falling out, so I guess I could try to sell off some of my Eldar odds & ends if I'd at least get my money back. If it's largely worthless, I guess it'll sit.

Very cool, and good choices. Nice variety there!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Erebus Studios wrote:
When you have so many tabletop gamers wanting nothing but HIP

So when companies like mine look at the market we see that if we ever want to get anywhere even if we produce the best quality sculpted minis, gamers will never support us as well as the HIP companies or even at all if we produce in metal and or resin.

Table top miniature gaming has become a market highly focused HIP only with a few exception companies like PP , Infinity ect. Their is much more of a market in miniature board gaming , a much better likely hood of being supported on kickstarter to help get your first few games out to start your company. You can produce in PVC which is yes a far less quality material than all the other options out their, but is by far way more affordable than HIP will ever be.

Wrath of Kings is still struggeling to get a foot hold and their product is produced in HIP, Dark Age is having a very hard time gaining traction in the market even with brand new stunning sculpts. Gamers seem to want cheap HIP "toys" with poor sculpting and detail over high quality miniatures, so since HIP is not affordable even kickstarted the better path is to go with Miniature board gaming.

I'm pretty sure you have no freakin' clue what you're talking about if you're making fundamental mistakes over labeling ("HIP") and materials (WoK).

HIPS = High Impact PolyStyrene - the Styrene is the important bit, because that's the part which requires the hard molds with zero undercuts and a 1.5-degree parting angle. Not specifying the plastic could just as easily reference PolyUrethane or PolyVinyl, which have very different characteristics. HIPS is what

CMoN is pretty much exclusively PVC, the material which dominates Kickstarter games miniatures (by dollar volume). CMoN's Wrath of Kings is primarily PVC with some HIPS weapons bits glued on. The PVC dominates the WOK production effort, not the weapon bitz.

That's too bad the bottom is falling out, so I guess I could try to sell off some of my Eldar odds & ends if I'd at least get my money back. If it's largely worthless, I guess it'll sit.

Very cool, and good choices. Nice variety there

The only reason I'm debating not completely abandoning the game is because every so often I do get the itch to play, mostly to remind myself why I don't play it anymore but otherwise I think I've moved on from GW product.

Also, the new Tau are everything I wanted from this game when I first started in 2002 or 2003.

Erebus Studios wrote:


Wrath of Kings is still struggeling to get a foot hold and their product is produced in HIP, Dark Age is having a very hard time gaining traction in the market even with brand new stunning sculpts. Gamers seem to want cheap HIP "toys" with poor sculpting and detail over high quality miniatures, so since HIP is not affordable even kickstarted the better path is to go with Miniature board gaming.

That would be news to me. I've never heard gamers asking for sub-par quality sculpts even if they are in HIPS.

The reason HIPS is so popular among war gamers (primarily your hobbyists vs your average board gamer) you don't need a lot of effort in prepping, fling and sanding them vs PVS wish is like trying to cut a tire with a butter knife. HIPS does not snap as easily as Resin miniatures. And when comparing them to metal miniatures, paint bonds better to HIPS.

HIPS is just the ideal material in all regards particularly if your are a hobbyist. Still have some heavy metal fans who will only play and paint metal.

Any gamer would want a quality sculpt, but if that gamer is going to spend days, weeks or months painting an army/force they are going to want that rime to be enjoyable. HIPS provides that.


EDIT: and the WoK minis do not have HIPS bits they are ABS aka lego plastic.

Chaos0xomegA- As an aside, I, personally (and most others I know) actually prefer working with resin/pvc (similar to Hawk/DZC, as well as wrath of kings or forgeworld) over HIPS. Its a more robust material that allows for greater detail. The only reason I like buying plastic minis is because I can get more for the same cost.

In my experience PVC is the cheap material that generally holds less than perfect detail, resin holding excellent detail, and HIPS coming in between closer to resin.

 Piston Honda wrote:
EDIT: and the WoK minis do not have HIPS bits they are ABS aka lego plastic.

Thanks for the clarification - it's been a long time since I looked at WOK. I just remember the KS saying they'd be PVC with styrene weapons. ABS is actually a better material for weapons than HIPS, so kudos for that call.

I just want more Wrath of Kings, regardless of the material.

I get Arcadia Quest being the next in the que due to how popular it is, but I'd love to see the Wrath of Kings stuff start to see new releases as well.

Thanks for the discussion, all! (Re)learning a lot of stuff here!

fwiw, Another possible reason that Wrath of Kings isn't as popular may be that CMON realizes that the KS money's in boardgames with miniatures, not miniatures gaming. If you're gonna pay the employees, might as well make a better profit. Their last five KS projects were boardgames with miniatures. That doesn't mean CMON has entirely abandoned other sorts of games and miniatures -- The Grizzled is a coop Euro-ish card game that has been released directly through retail. (Pretty nicely received by BGG and under $17!)

You see this in a fair number of gaming and other industries. A company has limited resources so eventually drops a good but low-profit product for a higher-profit line. Games Workshop, of course, did this with their boardgames way back in the 1980's in favor for hobby miniatures. Thankfully, FFG has licensed and released new editions of many of these games.

I'm both surprised and impressed CMON hasn't taken any of its various properties and done an actual old fashioned dungeon crawl. While a lot of the typical components and mechanics of dungeon crawl boardgames have shown up across a lot of their own releases, there hasn't been anything akin to the older Quest type games that other Kickstarters are constantly trying to bring back.

Seems to me that's some easy money right there. It's also not like CMON are adverse to digging in to ground that other companies have covered fairly well over the years- I'm thinking mainly of their older games, like Rivet Wars, Kaosball, and Sedition Wars, but they seem to be moving off in their own direction as of late, which I see as a good thing.


Still, I wouldn't complain about CMON doing a proper exploration based dungeon crawler with piles of minis. Maybe they need to take Wrath of Kings that route. I certainly wouldn't complain!

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
I just want more Wrath of Kings, regardless of the material.

I get Arcadia Quest being the next in the que due to how popular it is, but I'd love to see the Wrath of Kings stuff start to see new releases as well.

You will start seeing new WoK releases rolled out as normal retail releases in 2016.


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 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
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Still, I wouldn't complain about CMON doing a proper exploration based dungeon crawler with piles of minis. Maybe they need to take Wrath of Kings that route. I certainly wouldn't complain!

Sounds like Masmorra - Dungeons of Arcadia might be up your alley.