.Mikes. wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
[pologies, didn't mean to trigger anyone.

I haven't been following this particular discussion, but the quoted phrase is used exclusively by people who have lost an argument think it will somehow save them some face by trying to paint the other party as hysterical ro irrational.

Free advice: it doesn't.

You say that but I'm baffled as to what argument Hybrid Son was supposed to be making.

NinthMusketeer - "These factions are so aesthetically similar that I swapped half the models between factions and you didn't notice."

Hybrid Son - "Nonsense! And you cheated by making it greyscale! Now allow me to prove how different they are by asking you to identify which of the two factions this piece of artwork belongs to. I'll also specify that you're not allowed to cheat... thus undermining my own point by implying that the factions are so interchangeable you can't even tell which is which from their own, fully-coloured artwork."

 vipoid wrote:
+Hybrid Son - "Nonsense! And you cheated by making it greyscale!

There was an explicit attempt at misdirection. I mean, it's like the most basic thing about close-up magic! You focus the attention of the audience on your left hand, so they don't see what you do with your right hand. And that's not me being paranoid, Ninth Musketeer explicitly says so.
This is much more telling about Ninth Musketeer talents at manipulation than it is about how distinguishable the faction looks.

 vipoid wrote:
Now allow me to prove how different they are by asking you to identify which of the two factions this piece of artwork belongs to. I'll also specify that you're not allowed to cheat... thus undermining my own point by implying that the factions are so interchangeable you can't even tell which is which from their own, fully-coloured artwork."

Great. Could you tell, Vipoid? Because if so, I rest my case.

A faction's color identity is part of its identity. And, in the concept art they are quite different. So with a few tweaks to the actual sculpts and paints, that can be fixed.

I've done concepts, sculpts, and worked with concept artists. It's mainly a translation issue that can be fixed... if PP listens to people enough to do so early on. This is not an intrinsic issue to the game, and even if the current sculpts are final, as each faction gets more units and the workflow matures the differences between factions will grow. Then when the old molds wear out they can update the original units like they've done in the past.

Besides, at least it's not endless legions of the same space marines. Right? Riiiight?

Simple digital desaturation isn't the best indicator, because you literally lose the color info without punching the levels/contrasts up to compensate. You see this if you try to just desaturate a film to make it black and white. The reality of proper black and white films use a lot of techniques to alter the contrast. Although silhouettes, being pure black on white (or reverse) work as well.

LASTLY. These are all human models of basic troops. There's literally only so much differentiation you can do before you

I give PP a lot of crap, buuut some of you guys are fixated on this far, far beyond preferring more distinct units.

Let's drop this OT argument about the edited pic, please - everyone has made their point, and it's time to move on (or take it to PM, if you can keep it polite and all parties want to continue).

Any further posts on this tangent will be removed...

Thanks all

If we can't talk about the sculpts and we can't talk about the market W:NM is launching into what can we talk about in this thread?

If you read my post again, it is only the edited pic tangent that needs to end - anything about market, sculpts, etc is fair game!

For myself, I was super excited at the start, and am still interested. If I was local to Boss Salvage, it'd be a no-brainer . Maximum chonk!!

I'm not sure why people keep saying that the two factions we've seen so far are hard to distinguish. They're very clearly different, with many different visual signifiers. Aside from looking like they were created by the same artist and come from the same setting they don't actually look very similar at all.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Great. Could you tell, Vipoid? Because if so, I rest my case.

To be perfectly honest, no, not without cheating.

I can tell that it's the more Tau-like of the two factions (as opposed to the other, which was more Infinity-esque). However, I can't remember whether that makes them the Marcher Worlds or the Iron Star Alliance. Nor, I fear, are the names themselves especially useful when it comes to distinguishing between them.

Low faction identity is the reason I never started infinity. Minis are a bit too similar in my opinion. But still not to the same affect, as armies presented here. And at least Infinity has gorgeous minis.
Any army in greyscale could still be easily identified in 40k, WFB, AoS, Hordes, KoW. Even Malifaux won’t suffer as much. Warcatser? Yeah, nah...

For me its not the difference between factions, but that a good few factions in Infinity look far too similar within themselves. Aleph has a lot of characters, but they don't really feel like they stand out from each other enough to my view. I think this is enhanced there because a lot of the detailing they have is very fine detailing (hard to paint) and also a lot more subtle, esp on the tabletop as opposed to in product photos.

Lets also not forget Warcaster only has one troop and one heavy on show at present. There's still ample room for more diversity within factions as the armies get larger - and I'm sure we will see some of that in the KS

Here's some Marcher art ripped out of PP's IG:



Rangers



Hunters

Hunters look great, Destiny in the house

Wow, very destiny! And I actually love the infantry (chunkiness and all - Infinity's fiddly metals constantly broke apart for me and required painting touch-ups). Just wish they'd change that head-in-torso look on the big robots >.<

 jake wrote:
I'm not sure why people keep saying that the two factions we've seen so far are hard to distinguish. They're very clearly different, with many different visual signifiers. Aside from looking like they were created by the same artist and come from the same setting they don't actually look very similar at all.

Marcher worlds are very old school PP. Ragged cloaks over makeshift armor, jacks that are mostly 3 large orbs side by side as the upper torso.

I feel like the Paladin stuff is a little more curved than I would expect from what is clearly inspired by Menoth, and that leads to it being less distinct, but there's very little in common with them structurally. If anything, I think they just need stronger color palettes.

Necro-pirates stand out over the other two significantly and do a better job of conveying their inspirations.

I really like the Marcher stuff. There's a nice hodgepodge feel to them.

KS, er, kicking off tomorrow Wed 4th March.

https://home.privateerpress.com/warcaster/?fbclid=IwAR3N0zcvTLVQ8h9Hs5hZHA0jPE9q1DQ0pUJY6vSPbD7RgP9PORQBT_Y-aoM

I mean, I COULD see myself getting some of the models sometime in the future for a game like Star Breach? I have to admit I do like some of the Destiny or Old Republic-stylings in the concept art. I see that more than some people see the "Infinity ripoff".

There's a part of me that really likes the idea of a "Science Fiction Fantasy" game that is the polar opposite of the art style of 40K.

The bummer is that I haven't really liked the gameplay style of Warmachine since the original MK1 days.

Well it’s entirely different gameplay from Warmachine, so that might not be an issue for you.

Well... not entirely, but almost all the core aspects are different.

A few things that are still same or similar to Warmachine:
* Arc (Focus) resource management, although everyone is 7 Arc (for now). However, how to distribute Arc and how it's used is drastically different.
* Models still individually target and shoot each other, even though there are units/squads that act together.
* Cover rules mostly the same, although fewer terrain rules overall for simplicity sake.

I'll edit the list as more people remember stuff. Sometimes it's useful to see what's staying the same, if only to illustrate how much has changed.

I mean, apparently there isn't even a point system when building armies, just a unit list of things to summon in that you have to balance out.

Looks cool. Any word on material yet?

 weasel_beef wrote:
Looks cool. Any word on material yet?

metal I heard.

I've come around a little on the game over the last few days. I'm still not going to buy in at the Kickstarter stage but if there was a demo being played I'd stick around to watch it and see if I could take a turn next.

 Canadian 5th wrote:
I've come around a little on the game over the last few days. I'm still not going to buy in at the Kickstarter stage but if there was a demo being played I'd stick around to watch it and see if I could take a turn next.

still kind of curious as to the price for the kickstarter.

I just hope its a long KS and not a "1-2 week" affair.

 thekingofkings wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:
I've come around a little on the game over the last few days. I'm still not going to buy in at the Kickstarter stage but if there was a demo being played I'd stick around to watch it and see if I could take a turn next.

still kind of curious as to the price for the kickstarter.

I'm curious as well.

I think that if they come out swinging in terms of value for money that'll change a lot of minds in a hurry, mine included. If it's viewed as being too expensive that could kill it on the spot.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 thekingofkings wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:
I've come around a little on the game over the last few days. I'm still not going to buy in at the Kickstarter stage but if there was a demo being played I'd stick around to watch it and see if I could take a turn next.

still kind of curious as to the price for the kickstarter.

I'm curious as well.

I think that if they come out swinging in terms of value for money that'll change a lot of minds in a hurry, mine included. If it's viewed as being too expensive that could kill it on the spot.

Thinking the same thing.

I wonder if there will be a Retribution of Scyrah faction that just uses the current models, they would fit right in.

 Nostromodamus wrote:
I wonder if there will be a Retribution of Scyrah faction that just uses the current models, they would fit right in.

Personally I'd like it if they launched with 4 factions, that way if the price is good I might convince my 4 man kitchen table gaming group to give it a look. We tried 40k but the investment is too much and the games are too long for anybody besides myself to be invested.

 Nostromodamus wrote:
I wonder if there will be a Retribution of Scyrah faction that just uses the current models, they would fit right in.

Fairly sure it was mentioned that none of the factions would be recognisably linked to Warmahordes, other than Cyriss (which might just be in the background).

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Nostromodamus wrote:
I wonder if there will be a Retribution of Scyrah faction that just uses the current models, they would fit right in.

Personally I'd like it if they launched with 4 factions, that way if the price is good I might convince my 4 man kitchen table gaming group to give it a look. We tried 40k but the investment is too much and the games are too long for anybody besides myself to be invested.

What did you think of "Kill Team". But yeah 4 factions would be nice. make it a little more variety.

 thekingofkings wrote:
What did you think of "Kill Team". But yeah 4 factions would be nice. make it a little more variety.

We never tried it. I suggested either Kill Team or Necromunda but our host bought Gloomhaven and that scratched our group's tactical itch. I suspect that the group would also vote down this game but one never knows.

The Kickstarter opens up Wednesday, March 4th! https://www.facebook.com/OfficialPrivateerPress/photos/a.218535387049/10156857538142050/?type=3&theater&ifg=1

I watched the 1 hour 30 mins staff playthrough on youtube and despite my earlier negativity I have to admit it's got my interest given the mechanic of returning killed units etc

Nothing more annoying that having that expensive new unit killed turn 1 and that's it for turns 1-6. The mechanic with the portals seems risk/reward based.

The pricing of the KS could be another killer though along with delivery timeline. I don't see anything involving China going well for the foreseeable future and it's not impossible to rule out disruption in the US, and for us in England we've got the shipping uncertainties of Brexit post December 2020.....

 TwilightSparkles wrote:

The pricing of the KS could be another killer though along with delivery timeline. I don't see anything involving China going well for the foreseeable future and it's not impossible to rule out disruption in the US, and for us in England we've got the shipping uncertainties of Brexit post December 2020.....

They're aiming for June apparently, so I suspect everything is more or less ready to go from a production standpoint. This is mostly a preorder/direct retail kickstarter to bring attention to the project. Metal means they're almost certainly doing things in house and while I'd not be surprised if some of the other materials are done in China, but its looking like this has been in the production pipeline for a while and likely finished enough that they could launch it with just models or something to get it out the door under the worst scenario.

 LunarSol wrote:
They're aiming for June apparently, so I suspect everything is more or less ready to go from a production standpoint. This is mostly a preorder/direct retail kickstarter to bring attention to the project. Metal means they're almost certainly doing things in house and while I'd not be surprised if some of the other materials are done in China, but its looking like this has been in the production pipeline for a while and likely finished enough that they could launch it with just models or something to get it out the door under the worst scenario.

I'm not worried about the KS being well supplied, my worry is about the supply of product going forward. Given PPs history I think this is a valid concern.

Then let's just hope Warcaster's rules aren't the only aspect of PP that changed drastically.

Going down to 30 employees is a big change. The new CEO should also be moving things in a better direction. Anyone saying that the new CEO isn't in charge needs to get their head checked, as pretty much all of these changes started when he did, and started basically after MK3 really started slipping, and MonPoc failed to restart.

A quick search online shows PP is actively recruiting new manufacturing related positions, almost a good sign except it's for positions that should already be filled.

Where are all the aliens? The rules are intriguing, but if all the factions are mech and power armor it's not my cup of tea

WUWU wrote:
Where are all the aliens?

The Fermi Paradox strikes again.

This is one area that, despite my own inclinations, it's a good business move to have the first factions be primarily humans.

Human or humanoid armies far outsell more outlandish aliens, even if you factor in support level.

But, PP would be foolish not to add some in sooner than later.

 Vertrucio wrote:
This is one area that, despite my own inclinations, it's a good business move to have the first factions be primarily humans.

Human or humanoid armies far outsell more outlandish aliens, even if you factor in support level.

But, PP would be foolish not to add some in sooner than later.

It would be cool to see aliens/mutants as the Hordes style counterpoint to all the high technology but I agree that it should come in the second wave of releases.

 vipoid wrote:
To be perfectly honest, no, not without cheating.

I'm surprised, as I gave the answer directly above the question.
"for instance, the Marcher Worlds use of cloth, cloaks and hoods that contrast with the pure metal of the Iron Star Alliance much much harder to notice"
For now, it's really the obvious thing to distinguish them.
Doesn't work for the jacks, but the Iron Star Alliance jack seems like it wears an upscaled version of the solo armor, so that help: same back thingies, same "sword and armor knight" feel.

 vipoid wrote:
However, I can't remember whether that makes them the Marcher Worlds or the Iron Star Alliance. Nor, I fear, are the names themselves especially useful when it comes to distinguishing between them.

The Iron Star Alliance has Iron in the title, they are the lawful neutral types, with the big organized hightech forces.
The Marcher Worlds are the rag-tag bands of rogues.

My understanding is the metal and resin have always been done in house, it was just the plastic they outsourced.

Also MonPoc failed to relaunch? That games been doing pretty well to my understanding. At least as well as any non-Warhammer game.

WUWU wrote:
Where are all the aliens? The rules are intriguing, but if all the factions are mech and power armor it's not my cup of tea

This is something that game companies (especially small ones) said again and again- Aliens, especially if they're anything but humans+pointy ears/blue skin sell much worse than humans. It's sad, but makes sense. Almost anyone can pick one flavor or another of human and empathize with the army, but make spider-people, and all the squid-alien fans won't buy it, and neither will anyone else but the few people into spideraliens.

The third race are aliens.

 TwilightSparkles wrote:
The third race are aliens.

The third faction are humans, we’ve already seen artwork for them. The non-humans are later.

This looks so desperate

 Stevefamine wrote:
This looks so desperate

I don't think so, not when they've got the moulds made and are producing in-house. They are aiming to deliver in June which means that they are almost purely using this as a pre-order. Kickstarter is simply a platform that's well marketed and known. Not forgetting its not free either, KS takes a cut of anything they raise. This likely is going to allow them to prepare for the launch, but perhaps also provide money for investment into the next wave of releases after. Allowing them to keep the release rate at a decent pace, esp in the opening months.
Plus they've still been releasing Warmachine/Hordes and Mon Apoc stuff. I'd agree it would be worrying if their releases for those games had vanished

It should also build some hype for the game when it commercially launches.

Spartan was also releasing up until they didn't, and also did cast in-house. Different company, somewhat similar approach (how many boardgames and cardgames did PP do over the years?), but that's pure conjecture.

Cronch wrote:
Spartan was also releasing up until they didn't, and also did cast in-house. Different company, somewhat similar approach (how many boardgames and cardgames did PP do over the years?), but that's pure conjecture.

True, however at the same time Spartan was slow on completing their first KS (it was still delivering when they were starting the new one and they went under). Plus they'd for years done this odd thing of instead of supporting their current game; they'd start a brand new one and would often only focus on releases for one game at a time. So they'd have a game, sell it well, then almost abandon it for another game. Bloating their range adding more games at the same time. Plus loads of missed deadlines and such. It also didn't help that their owner was in hospital/sick for a good portion of their last year or so. I think that was one of the big tipping points for them which was making their situation worse

The warning signs were there. Though I think they also partly got caught short since they up and died very suddenly. I recall at the time people thinking one of the banks/investors/debetors suddenly called in the debt without any mediation. Of course I don't think we ever learned what their full debts were etc..

PP has kept up with their core game, their side game and their specialist mini-crates. Plus board games are sort of one-and-done deals anyway and different to the long term support people expect for a wargame. Right now the biggest risk would be if they've got loads of debt over them. KS is far preferable to taking out loans/investors and loading themselves with debt. It's what often sinks companies when things take a downturn.

 AduroT wrote:
My understanding is the metal and resin have always been done in house, it was just the plastic they outsourced.

Also MonPoc failed to relaunch? That games been doing pretty well to my understanding. At least as well as any non-Warhammer game.

I don't think they'd be developing models for a campaign system if it wasn't selling. It's been doing fairly well here. I really need to start up my Destroyers on that note.

Anyone know what time this is scheduled to march forth?

2pm Pacific

So that's 10pm GMT? Gah loooooong wait!

Went ahead and grabbed an early bird. We will see if I keep it.

It's live!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/privateerpress/warcaster-neo-mechanika/description

Almost 100k already!

From the updates section:

I have written countless Kickstarter updates in the past many years, but this is the first time I have ever written one before the launch of a campaign. I wanted to have this ready to post right after the launch of the Warcaster: Neo-Mechanika Kickstarter Campaign so that we could all be on the same page as to Privateer’s intent with this game and this Kickstarter.

This will not be the last Warcaster Kickstarter. As you can see by how we have structured the rewards in waves, we are Kickstarting four months worth of content. Our plan is to do this every three to four months, Kickstarting blocks of content ahead of their releases, to ensure we are producing to demand and delivering the product to everyone who wants it.

Whether you are a player or a retailer, we want to reward you for your early pledge through Kickstarter. Every publisher wishes they could have a crystal ball, to know how much of a product they’re going to sell in the future, but traditionally, we just have to speculate and no matter what, it’s always too much or too little. Kickstarter provides us the next best thing to a crystal ball and helps us manage our business accordingly. And for the hassle of having to go to Kickstarter to place your order, we will do our best to make sure you get a greater value for your pledge.

To be totally transparent, we make about the same margin on an individual reward pledge as we do from a retailer pledge. So, if you’re more comfortable purchasing through your local game store, we encourage you to encourage your LGS manager to get behind this Kickstarter and stock the product line. Retailers who back the project will be shipped their rewards at the same time we ship to individual backers, so there won’t be any lag time if you’re getting your goods from a store that backs our campaign. We will, however, ensure that rewards are sent to all backers (retailers included) before product is shipped for a general public release.

So this is our manifesto for Warcaster: Neo-Mechanika, now and for our foreseeable future:

• We here at Privateer are going to work our hardest to bring you the best game experience we can, with the best models we can make.

• We have priced our rewards in line with how we currently price our products for general public release. After what we pay out in commissions to Kickstarter, credit card processing and shipping costs, we make about the same as we do if we sold the products traditionally, but Kickstarter gives us a platform and toolset to manage our business proactively instead of reactively, and to make sure that we’re making the right decisions so that we can keep achieving the number one goal, which is delivering you the best game experience and models that we can.

• We will do our best to make sure your pledge is rewarded with added value to your purchase as well as to your interactions with us.

• We will deliver on our projected timeline. But if something unforeseen goes off the rails, we’ll keep you informed and course-correct as quickly as possible. We don’t expect your confidence, we know it is our job to earn it.

• This is just the beginning. But it is also highly experimental. We hope that it works! We hope that you understand our motives and our reasons, that you like what you see and that you will be confident in backing this project. We are setting out to create a new model for the delivery of our products in an era of great change in how the game industry as well as how retail in general, works. We will endeavor to learn from each Kickstarter with the goal of improving each subsequent effort, because we believe this is the way of the future.

• We love you for your passion. We are grateful for your support. And we hope that this moment is the shared experience of a launch for a fantastic new tabletop miniatures game that you will enjoy for years to come. We have big aspirations for Warcaster and we would love to bring everything that we’ve dreamed up for it to life. With your support, we will.

On behalf of everyone at Privateer Press, thank you for your support. There is no Privateer without you.

Matt Wilson
Chief Creative Officer

Hm, pricey.

Our plan is to do this every three to four months, Kickstarting blocks of content ahead of their releases, to ensure we are producing to demand and delivering the product to everyone who wants it.

Every 3-4 months is definitely a troubling sign, they need that much new cash in?

Yeah, no. Do not want this as a sale model for anything.

Sounds like they're saying up front that the first time an every-four-months kickstarter fails, they're crashing the game.

I like what I'm seeing. Probably don't need to buy in on the kickstarter, but I'm interested in giving it a try as it gets to retail. The heavy warjacks designs are far more interesting than the lights. 25 models in a "full" army is a good number overall.

 LunarSol wrote:
I like what I'm seeing. Probably don't need to buy in on the kickstarter, but I'm interested in giving it a try as it gets to retail. The heavy warjacks designs are far more interesting than the lights. 25 models in a "full" army is a good number overall.

I feel exactly the same. I'll jump in on the game but not the KS. Glad to see it's already funded.

Free US delivery is keeping me interested. Though I'm still not sure I need to play this game over finally getting my Cryx on the table ...? Maybe stretch goals will convince me now is the time. Or maybe Ankh's KS date will be announced and I'll come to my senses

Mostly cool to see where they're headed with the third faction and the second waves of infantry, heroes and heavies.

Wow, they are really strapped for cash.

Fancy marketing speak aside, that's the reality of it. Don't really trust Wilson though.

Still, I like the rules.

For a layman, why is this an indicator they're strapped for cash?

It seems like a safe way to produce what's needed and gauge if it'll be a profitable business model in the long run? I honestly don't know a whole lot about business practices, but I don't see an issue with this compared to other miniature businessss.

Speaking for myself, I'm interested in this once it hits retail.

I'm not sure what to think about the announcement of how they're doing things but if it really lets them be proactive rather than reactive, as stated...I think it could be beneficial to them?

Also: still loving the Marcher Worlds. The Privateer Press painting bits are spoiling how stuff works a bit, seemingly, and the Dusk Wolf with a Scout Cortex and a Sniper Rifle plus Particle Accelerators x2 sounds beast.

I think their trick is to use KS as a platform to encourage bulk buying from their customers in large waves. This is basically giving them big lump sums to work with rather than a trickle feed of income.

I think they are basically tapping into the KS miniatures effect/market and using it to push things forward at a faster pace than perhaps trickle/regular sales would allow. I think with their PG program down and a few other aspects as well as some hiccups with global distribution through retail it might be easier for them to do these big bulk pushes to get their name and game back into the market whilst also giving them cash to rebuild after their move and some downsizing.


Securing $100K at launch on a 16 day KS (which is risky because its all in one month not split over two - ergo two pay cheques) is a big achievement and I think shows that there's a very valid market for the game. Especially considering that roughly half the moulds appear to already have been made and in production. Ergo that they have, though their own investment, already got a good way along.

Basically a lot of KS use much of the money to pay for moulds, designers, production equipment, factory rental etc... PP already has most of those bases covered.



It's an interesting experiment and the best thing for PP is that if if fails at some stage; they can either change and react to the market or drop and abandon. Because the "next wave" is done through a KS investment; if the KS fails to fund then the next wave fails to happen. What happens then is either PP abandons something that isn't working and is dying off before lumbering themselves with stock and products for a failing product line.
In theory they could do all this without PP, however I suspect that investing in the right back-end and marketing to get the same level of attention and consumer trust; would quickly eat into the margin that KS takes.

Already over 150K, although I think a lot of that might have been panic-backing for the early bird

The game sounds really promising, I am super torn!!

I think its less of a cash issue and more of a way to work around distribution. Same reason so many other companies are struggling to get their product to stores and incentivising direct sales where possible.

I do think its interesting that these seem to be designed around being only sold as sets. It's looking like 3 SKUs per faction at the moment: Starter Set, Unit+Solo, Heavy Jack with everything designed for multiple purchases.

It's both. It's a practical move to pull when you're low on cash, but Kickstarter takes its significant cut. So you end up foisting both extra cost and risk onto consumers. Although honestly the risk of this not fulfilling is little as they produce in house.

So... they're using Kickstarter as a pre-order system, asking people to pay full price for models four months before release. I'd say that's a bold move, but the fact that it's funded would seem to suggest that people are ok with this idea, bizarrely.

I can't help but wonder how many of these rolling Kickstarters people will continue to be ok with, though. I can get people jumping on the initial game to get things started, but unless they're going to start publishing unit rules ahead of time, buying everything for the game sight unseen would get old, quickly.


Also, why is the rulebook sideways? I can't express just how much that would irritate me to have on the shelf...



On a positive note, I think the reavers are my favourite models from the range so far, and I'm looking forward to seeing the models for the witch hunters.
ea

I think the whole rolling KS thing is their plan today, however how long they can keep that going I think is up in the air. Their manifesto also notes that they know its an experiment so chances are they'll react as the market reacts.

Who knows, they might use this method for two years and then shift to regular distribution as things settle; or perhaps the KS system will remain for a decade. They might even use KS to build their own market for a year or two and then use their own web-store run systems to cut KS out of the middle (not forgetting that KS is cut out of any pledge manager added funds).

I think the fact that they are up front with their experiment is a good thing. Plus as its all money up front for future expansion each time; if something does go wrong there's a safety net of time to make changes.


I think the first $100K was the panic buy for the limited tier - the next $50K has been on top of that.

 insaniak wrote:
Also, why is the rulebook sideways? I can't express just how much that would irritate me to have on the shelf...

I always loved the old school sideways BFG rulebook, so have to disagree here

And I gave in and backed!

It's not really that impressive to me that they got $100k in one day - that's nothing. Have seen way shadier KS with way crappier products manage those numbers.

The "We're gonna do a KS every 3-4 months to expand the game" is interesting and, to me, is further reason they DEFINITELY should have made these in plastic. If you are literally crowdfunding as you go why not go big? Instead of 100k to make 3 starter sets in metal they could have easily hit $500k, 800K or more make the same kits in plastic which would have made a product a LOT more people would be excited about and not the "this looks sorta OK I'll wait until it hits retail."

If they went plastic there is no way they'd be able to deliver before the next KS (and they'd probably struggle to do so before KS3)

plastic manufacturing has long lead times even in China were there is more capacity, and PP clearly wants to cut down on that aspect of things (and the attendant ordering a big shipment of stuff they have to warehouse)

The KS fully backed within 30 mins......

As for the "KS each wave of the game" that seems to be going on. Is this any different to Fantasy Flight or Asmode or Steamforged and almost every baordgame etc that they have ever produced in recent times. Darks Souls, Zombicide, many of the Star Wars games etc etc.

As much as a HATE it, it seems to be the direction that every company is going in. It reduces risk and helps to maximise profits. Can you blame PP for doing what everyone else is doing.

As a WM/H player, if it keep the money flowing into the company, im happy tbh. I wont be getting involved in NeoMec but i hope it does well.

Can anybody imagine the gakstorm that would kick off if GW tried to kickstart anything?

 Canadian 5th wrote:
Can anybody imagine the gakstorm that would kick off if GW tried to kickstart anything?

Depending on what they launched GW could easily take the KS record for miniatures - ergo earning millions from it. Heck they already sell and ship millions worth of product per year.

Of course there's a gakstorm almost every time GW releases anything, or doesn't release anything on some sites. Heck there's 3 pages of arguing right now about an Imperial Guard troop release that isn't even rumoured and its got to a storm of complaining in less than a day.


So yeah I'd expect a good few on Dakka and a few other groups would complain - and GW would make an absolute killing in terms of how much their KS would raise.



Heck the much asked for plastic Thunderhawk would be the ideal kind of product GW could fund through KS if they wanted to have a basically no-risk investment. Considering that GW has all the production equipment in-house it would purely need to raise money for time and materials.

That's the funny thing. If GW were to say.... launch Mordheim on KS it would be a gakstorm.... and also fund for a million dollars. People like to complain, but they also like to spend money on shiny toys.

Also... every time someone uses Kickstarter for what its "supposed" to be used for and fails, the gak is far worse. Lets not pretend that anyone backs something unless they see it as a purchase.

So right now it seems the best use of KS is for established companies to use it to launch risky products that people say they want, but might not actually buy. It may not be the dream, but its the compromise people are actually willing to drop money on.

And the rulebook is up:
https://home.privateerpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/WC-Rulebook.pdf

Those prices

 TwilightSparkles wrote:
Those prices

Good or bad?

They're basically retail.

 Vertrucio wrote:
They're basically retail.

Yeah. They said they were selling them for retail plus enough to give KS it's kickback. It's all part of the Manifesto they posted in the KS.

Cataphract wrote:

 TwilightSparkles wrote:
Those prices

Good or bad?

You decide!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/privateerpress/warcaster-neo-mechanika

Bluh, "strike dice." Pass.

I think they're medium-high. You get about the same number of models, some cards and tokens as a kill team starter but with a small premium for metal.

I'm not going to back but if I happen to see a starter in a local store this summer, I might grab it.

One thing I hated about WM/H was the tier list and synergy build arounds. So I won't really know if that's what they're doing here until the next KS launches and the game has been in player's hands for a few months. Monsterpocalype had issues with chase models during its random years but they did a better job when it was buy what you want.

I like the miniatures and I like the monsterpocalypse style reinforcements where things keep coming back. I just need to wait and see whether or not Privateer leaned anything from the tier list CID mk3 crap that made me hate WM/H.

I dunno if those prices are good enough to match retail from a lot of the other games I buy figures for. I agree with the medium-high sentiment. The units are especially pricey, although PP stuff always struck me as pricey for the last few years. Even in metal, 25 US for three figures is quite a lot. Infinity figures are already too much for me when it's 30 dollars for four figures.

Those prices feel like they should be 20 to 30% lower than they are. That's a hard pass from me.

Yeah, I was initially planning on bidding for a 'starter' of each faction, so I could share with friends, but this is a bit expensive for that, particularly as I'm looking at upping my reaper bid and have some 40K and Heavy gear projects I want to work on.

 Canadian 5th wrote:
Those prices feel like they should be 20 to 30% lower than they are. That's a hard pass from me.

Warjacks aren't bad at 30, but every single infantry figure is priced like a solo/character.

 Mmmpi wrote:
Yeah, I was initially planning on bidding for a 'starter' of each faction, so I could share with friends, but this is a bit expensive for that, particularly as I'm looking at upping my reaper bid and have some 40K and Heavy gear projects I want to work on.

Isn't Reapers open for utterly ages though?


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And they've hit $200K which unlocks the pair of model Void gates!

 AegisGrimm wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:
Those prices feel like they should be 20 to 30% lower than they are. That's a hard pass from me.

Warjacks aren't bad at 30, but every single infantry figure is priced like a solo/character.

I was just looking at the starter boxes and $130 for what amounts to a 2-player demo is a bit steep. If it was closer to $100 to get that first taste and I was sure that I could still get models 12 months from now it would be a much easier sell.

NVM I found the rules.

The models look pretty underwhelming at those prices. They also do look at lot like infinity models to me.

Their aversion to unique sculpts in units is killing me. 3-man units in triplicate for a full force? And multiples of the same sculpt solo? For those prices? GTFO.

There is no value here for an unknown game, even with full rules release. I am not going in for 2 starters to try and hype my buddies, and I highly doubt any of them will either.

 skrulnik wrote:

Their aversion to unique sculpts in units is killing me. 3-man units in triplicate for a full force? And multiples of the same sculpt solo? For those prices? GTFO.

There is no value here for an unknown game, even with full rules release. I am not going in for 2 starters to try and hype my buddies, and I highly doubt any of them will either.

Each sculpt in the unit is unique at least. And the stretch goals seem to include alternate sculpts of some of the solo models (hopefully those aren't KS exclusive - though if they aren't that's going to lead to some serious SKU bloat right off the bat - maybe they'll come in 2 packs?) But yeah looking at the sample lists in the rulebook - the scale of the game seems quite a bit bigger than what I had envisioned and taking multiple units of the same 3 sculpts is sad - and unit variety will probably be lacking while they are getting things off the ground.

But... but, don't you know that not every company is GW and that we shouldn't expect nice models or materials from PP because they're just a small group of blokes working out of a garage... I exaggerate but, at those prices we deserve more unique sculpts if not poseable kits.

Schmapdi wrote:
The "We're gonna do a KS every 3-4 months to expand the game" is interesting and, to me, is further reason they DEFINITELY should have made these in plastic. If you are literally crowdfunding as you go why not go big? Instead of 100k to make 3 starter sets in metal they could have easily hit $500k, 800K or more make the same kits in plastic which would have made a product a LOT more people would be excited about and not the "this looks sorta OK I'll wait until it hits retail."

Plastic would have meant an 18 month turnaround instead of 3-4 months, and would have meant having to outsource production instead of doing it in house, and would thus also be subject to delays outside their control.

Crowdfunding plastic is asking the question 'Does this get made or not?'... where the question PP want to be asking is 'How many of these do we need to make?'

Regarding the quality of the material - I've got tons of resin models, many from the most high end options in the industry, and PP's new resin Still impresses me. I believe their standard now is that the main model is resin and only the weapons are metal. If they follow that here, it will be awesome. The more resin, the better, imo!

 insaniak wrote:

Schmapdi wrote:
The "We're gonna do a KS every 3-4 months to expand the game" is interesting and, to me, is further reason they DEFINITELY should have made these in plastic. If you are literally crowdfunding as you go why not go big? Instead of 100k to make 3 starter sets in metal they could have easily hit $500k, 800K or more make the same kits in plastic which would have made a product a LOT more people would be excited about and not the "this looks sorta OK I'll wait until it hits retail."

Plastic would have meant an 18 month turnaround instead of 3-4 months, and would have meant having to outsource production instead of doing it in house, and would thus also be subject to delays outside their control.

Crowdfunding plastic is asking the question 'Does this get made or not?'... where the question PP want to be asking is 'How many of these do we need to make?'

And yet, it's totally do-able. Do a first wave with 4-5 starter boxes (depending on how much they fund) Get those out the next year. It's not like they don't also have WM/H and Monpoc to keep their fans occupied in the meanwhile. They could release heroes/solos in resin for Warcaster on occasion in between kickstarters to add variety and keep people interested. Lotta games now float on a yearly-ish KS cycle. In 5 years time they'd actually have a nice base for a modern miniature game instead of jumping bravely back in 1997 to a primarily metal game.

They wouldn't need to ask "how many of these do we need to make" because they'd actually be able to sell the damn things.

 RiTides wrote:
Regarding the quality of the material - I've got tons of resin models, many from the most high end options in the industry, and PP's new resin Still impresses me. I believe their standard now is that the main model is resin and only the weapons are metal. If they follow that here, it will be awesome. The more resin, the better, imo!

It's not though - they say it right on there Q&A - "Right now, most of the models we’ve previewed so far will be made in metal, even the warjacks. " https://home.privateerpress.com/2020/02/20/warcaster-neo-mechanika-answers-to-your-burning-questions/

Schmapdi wrote:

And yet, it's totally do-able. Do a first wave with 4-5 starter boxes (depending on how much they fund) Get those out the next year. It's not like they don't also have WM/H and Monpoc to keep their fans occupied in the meanwhile. They could release heroes/solos in resin for Warcaster on occasion in between kickstarters to add variety and keep people interested. Lotta games now float on a yearly-ish KS cycle. In 5 years time they'd actually have a nice base for a modern miniature game instead of jumping bravely back in 1997 to a primarily metal game.

Yes, it's doable, but logistically difficult, and you're left either doing multiple waves of kickstarters with nothing actually being released, or forcing everyone to wait a year or two between releases. Neither of which are going to promote a healthy customer base.


I don't get the 1997 comment, to be honest. Most of the industry that isn't Games Workshop is still using metal and resin, and will be for some time yet.

 insaniak wrote:
Yes, it's doable, but logistically difficult, and you're left either doing multiple waves of kickstarters with nothing actually being released, or forcing everyone to wait a year or two between releases. Neither of which are going to promote a healthy customer base.

I don't get the 1997 comment, to be honest. Most of the industry that isn't Games Workshop is still using metal and resin, and will be for some time yet.

Most of the industry doesn't survive more than a decade either, poor materials and a lack of deep pockets investment at launch may play a large part in that. If you want to play in this pool you have to expect to be compared to the best the industry has to offer.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:
Those prices feel like they should be 20 to 30% lower than they are. That's a hard pass from me.

Warjacks aren't bad at 30, but every single infantry figure is priced like a solo/character.

I was just looking at the starter boxes and $130 for what amounts to a 2-player demo is a bit steep. If it was closer to $100 to get that first taste and I was sure that I could still get models 12 months from now it would be a much easier sell.

A lot of time the prices of the KSer buy in include the free stuff (just masked as being unlocked) so I wonder how the price will look as funds go up.

 Monkeysloth wrote:
A lot of time the prices of the KSer buy in include the free stuff (just masked as being unlocked) so I wonder how the price will look as funds go up.

I'd still rather a cheaper buy-in than the current price with extras.

To be clear, metal is not a 'poor material' for wargaming miniatures, and many gamers still prefer it to plastic, for various reasons.

Badly cast metal is bad for multi-part models. But choosing metal is not inherently going with an inferior option.


And, ultimately, plastic just isn't a viable option for most companies. Sure, you can sneer about them not investing enough, but it's not actually that simple. Even aside from the cash consideration, there are only a handful of people in this industry who can actually sculpt the sort of plastic models that GW are producing (and most of them work for GW) and even fewer places with the knowledge and experience to mould and cast them. If you can get into their production queue.

Plastic is slightly more do-able than it was a decade ago... but even so, I rather suspect that 3D printing will have replaced conventional manufacturing long before injection moulded plastic becomes a viable option for most miniature companies.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Monkeysloth wrote:
A lot of time the prices of the KSer buy in include the free stuff (just masked as being unlocked) so I wonder how the price will look as funds go up.

I'd still rather a cheaper buy-in than the current price with extras.

There's always a tough battle for pricing what people will pay and what will actually make you money. Monolith, for example only has made money off of one KSer (Batman season 2). The others either lost money (conan) or made enough to fund the next project.


Onto Matt's manifesto. They have been talking for about a year (even just recently) about more RPG stuff. If they move to Kickstarter to fun more Iron Kingdoms I'm all for it. They have, in my opinion, one of the most fascinating and well developed settings for gaming in.


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 insaniak wrote:


Plastic is slightly more do-able than it was a decade ago... but even so, I rather suspect that 3D printing will have replaced conventional manufacturing long before injection moulded plastic becomes a viable option for most miniature companies.

You're not wrong. Titan Forge just hopped to Pateron a few months ago with STLs and is one of the largest now in terms of backers (over 3000). At $10/month for the basic package that's some easy math to guess what their minimum they're earning is. I'm printing out stuff for Fallout I got off of Thingivers and I'm spending 25 cents a figure roughly (including consumables like the LED screen). And in the past 2 months all the players are fighting over selling their sub $200 resin printers (though some resins melt the plastic vat so you may start seeing prices in the low $200 instead with better material).

 insaniak wrote:
To be clear, metal is not a 'poor material' for wargaming miniatures, and many gamers still prefer it to plastic, for various reasons.

Badly cast metal is bad for multi-part models. But choosing metal is not inherently going with an inferior option.


And, ultimately, plastic just isn't a viable option for most companies. Sure, you can sneer about them not investing enough, but it's not actually that simple. Even aside from the cash consideration, there are only a handful of people in this industry who can actually sculpt the sort of plastic models that GW are producing (and most of them work for GW) and even fewer places with the knowledge and experience to mould and cast them. If you can get into their production queue.

Plastic is slightly more do-able than it was a decade ago... but even so, I rather suspect that 3D printing will have replaced conventional manufacturing long before injection moulded plastic becomes a viable option for most miniature companies.

This speaks to an industry-wide lack of investment more than plastics being impossible. GW has shown that they clearly aren't impossible as long as you're willing to make the effort and other companies. Beyond that, plastics seem to be better if you want more poseable and customizable models. It's just easier to chop up and kitbash with plastic than it will ever be with resin or metal.

If you're still dropping metal on us it better be either gorgeous or dirt cheap and this is neither of those.

 Monkeysloth wrote:
There's always a tough battle for pricing what people will pay and what will actually make you money. Monolith, for example only has made money off of one KSer (Batman season 2). The others either lost money (conan) or made enough to fund the next project.

This is why I tend to avoid KS. That and the last thing I jumped in on took so long to deliver I wasn't interested in it once it finally shipped.

Oh wow, metal jacks! To be honest, I'm even more in now. Some of my best gaming memories are building and running all the metal trollblood heavies, was a travesty when they swapped to inferior sculpts in PVC!

That explains the price a lot better now, too...

I've been digging into the rules and love the void gate deployment being standard, should mix things up from the "line up and meet in the middle" quite well!

Metal minis, retail pricing, crappy early bird pitched firmly at the US market and unfriendly shipping, combined with weird waves that should have been prepped in advance of launch?

That'll be a hard pass from me.

 insaniak wrote:

Schmapdi wrote:

And yet, it's totally do-able. Do a first wave with 4-5 starter boxes (depending on how much they fund) Get those out the next year. It's not like they don't also have WM/H and Monpoc to keep their fans occupied in the meanwhile. They could release heroes/solos in resin for Warcaster on occasion in between kickstarters to add variety and keep people interested. Lotta games now float on a yearly-ish KS cycle. In 5 years time they'd actually have a nice base for a modern miniature game instead of jumping bravely back in 1997 to a primarily metal game.

Yes, it's doable, but logistically difficult, and you're left either doing multiple waves of kickstarters with nothing actually being released, or forcing everyone to wait a year or two between releases. Neither of which are going to promote a healthy customer base.


I don't get the 1997 comment, to be honest. Most of the industry that isn't Games Workshop is still using metal and resin, and will be for some time yet.

Most of the industry? I don't buy GW and I don't buy metal, and I am beyond spoiled for choice. There are too many options that aren't metal. A modern, big name company kickstarting a game of metal miniatures is just sad.

I think that's the rub. Privateer Press is only big in name only these days. Whatever happened with Warmachine has really bled them dry.

Anyone saying gamers prefer metal modelsobviously hasn't had to try assemble most of the metal Warmachine Cryx range.

Or the large metal jacks. That had a weight comparable to a brick. They had modelsi used entire tubes of superglue on.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

This speaks to an industry-wide lack of investment more than plastics being impossible. GW has shown that they clearly aren't impossible as long as you're willing to make the effort and other companies[i]. Beyond that, plastics seem to be better if you want more poseable and customizable models. It's just easier to chop up and kitbash with plastic than it will ever be with resin or metal.

If you're still dropping metal on us it better be either gorgeous or dirt cheap and this is neither of those.

The "effort" GW made was hitting gold with the LotR-license boom and in turn investing that into manufacturing. Sadly, that is not an option that is open for most tabletop companies.

 TwilightSparkles wrote:
Anyone saying gamers prefer metal modelsobviously hasn't had to try assemble most of the metal Warmachine Cryx range.

Or the large metal jacks. That had a weight comparable to a brick. They had modelsi used entire tubes of superglue on.

Metal definitely has it's place in the modern tabletop market, but I would agree that big multi-part models is not that place

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Most of the industry? I don't buy GW and I don't buy metal, and I am beyond spoiled for choice. There are too many options that aren't metal. A modern, big name company kickstarting a game of metal miniatures is just sad.

I actually said that most of the industry uses metal and resin, not just metal...



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 TwilightSparkles wrote:
Anyone saying gamers prefer metal modelsobviously hasn't had to try assemble most of the metal Warmachine Cryx range.

Or the large metal jacks. That had a weight comparable to a brick. They had modelsi used entire tubes of superglue on.

GW has had some multi-part metal models over the years that make PP's early efforts look like finely crafted masterworks. But as I mentioned before, the fact that badly made multi part models exist doesn't change the fact that metal does have its good points.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
Yes, it's doable, but logistically difficult, and you're left either doing multiple waves of kickstarters with nothing actually being released, or forcing everyone to wait a year or two between releases. Neither of which are going to promote a healthy customer base.

I don't get the 1997 comment, to be honest. Most of the industry that isn't Games Workshop is still using metal and resin, and will be for some time yet.

Most of the industry doesn't survive more than a decade either, poor materials and a lack of deep pockets investment at launch may play a large part in that. If you want to play in this pool you have to expect to be compared to the best the industry has to offer.

That's nonsensical. With that approach, no new company should ever open.

Anyway, while metal jacks are a bit annoying, their biggest sin is being so bland I have no particular urge to buy them. Why should I, they offer nothing new.

Currently at $229K it seems some of the frenzy of launch hour has eased off a little, however that's still a very respectable and impressive value for a first day funding.

Backers only now get a pair of Wallpapers from the micro-stretchgoals.

Also they've hit $225 which has unlocked the neoprene map at $45 which should ship in the August wave.

The next unlock is more scenarios for the core rule book at $250K. Though the big target right now is the $300K which unlocks some alternate variation models for the leaders and a bountyhunter (all factions). After that there's the $350 goal which unlocks variations for the light warjacks - a target I very much hope they reach and it sounds like a good few here would like them to reach too for variety on the table.

Also some scale mockups have been added to the end of the KS page. These are photo compositions rather than a straight photo so they give a good idea of the scale difference, but might not be perfect:

The jacks are smaller than I imagined them. Didn’t realize these were the smaller light jacks.

From the comments regarding material:

Privateer Press - Creator
5 hours ago
Currently, our plans are to produce most of the line in metal. Larger, bulkier, more massive pieces may and will be produced in resin. You can pretty much bank on resin for the heavy warjacks. Warjack weapons are currently planned to produce in metal, as are the light warjacks in the starters. This could change based on when the prototypes are delivered to our mold makers. So far, I can report that they have cut molds for the Marcher Worlds starter and everything in that is metal.

Personally, that sounds great to me. Resin on the big jacks (except weapons), metal on the small stuff. I'd take this over PVC anyyyyyyy day.

Like Overread, I really want to hit that alternate solo and light jack sculpt goal. With over 230k in the first 24 hours, I'm hopeful it will get there . Also glad for my sanity that they kept it to a short campaign lol!

The alternate light jacks, from what PP said in the comment, are going to get added as an option for people with higher pledges to just swap in.

$310 for "OUR MOST RECOMMENDED REWARD TIER".

Heh.

The aesthetic here is just not appealing to me - it is everything that is not that good about Warmachine models mixed in with a healthy does of Generic Infinity.

Maybe the rules are really good though?

I like the aesthetic, and I’m intrigued by the rules, but the lack of variety is what’s discouraging me at the moment. That and the prices. I’m too used to expecting a better Kickstarter discount to persuade me to give up my sweet sweet employee discount at the flgs, and I’m just not seeing it here.

 Mmmpi wrote:
Yeah, I was initially planning on bidding for a 'starter' of each faction, so I could share with friends, but this is a bit expensive for that, particularly as I'm looking at upping my reaper bid and have some 40K and Heavy gear projects I want to work on.

Comes to about $200; which is pretty average for a kickstarter. It's just not the overwhelming number of models you get from PVC and honestly... most every kickstarter I've never gotten around to painting has involved an overwhelming number of models in PVC.

That said, I think its a fair price. Not a great price; not outrageously expensive just... about what I'd expect, for better or worse.


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 AduroT wrote:
I like the aesthetic, and I’m intrigued by the rules, but the lack of variety is what’s discouraging me at the moment. That and the prices. I’m too used to expecting a better Kickstarter discount to persuade me to give up my sweet sweet employee discount at the flgs, and I’m just not seeing it here.

The more accustomed to the models the more the differences stand out to me, though the color palettes homogenize things more than I'd like. That said, the heavy jacks seem to have significantly more variance at least in the concept art. I'd really like to see how much they give the factions a distinct identity.


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dyndraig wrote:

The "effort" GW made was hitting gold with the LotR-license boom and in turn investing that into manufacturing. Sadly, that is not an option that is open for most tabletop companies.

This.

It's also worth noting that even if you can afford it, injection mold plastic takes a pretty high volume of sales of every sculpt to make back the cost of the molds. That's why, even as the biggest company in the business, GW is still making some things in resin if they think they won't get the number they need and why characters and the like come with such a ridiculous price tag. As much as we like to think otherwise, this hobby just isn't that big; and most sculpts honestly don't sell enough to break even if they were done in HIPs.

I'm backing this up. I love skirmish wargames and sci-fi, and since the death of Dark Age, I was kinda trying to fill the gap in my hobby with w40k. Never liked INfinity. I dislike metal models to begin with.

I know my local store is Pre-Ordering but not sure if I should do one separate?

Cataphract wrote:
I know my local store is Pre-Ordering but not sure if I should do one separate?

Retail prices tend to be higher than the ones you can get on KS. It's one of the main reason to back a campaign, especially when it is already funded.

Talk to the store. Supporting them makes it worth it for them to support the game which will likely get you more players overall.

 Khornate25 wrote:
I'm backing this up. I love skirmish wargames and sci-fi, and since the death of Dark Age, I was kinda trying to fill the gap in my hobby with w40k. Never liked INfinity. I dislike metal models to begin with.

You do know these are mostly metal though right?

These won't be anything like the fiddly metal bits on at least early infinity models, though - everything's chunky

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Cataphract wrote:
I know my local store is Pre-Ordering but not sure if I should do one separate?

Yes have them "put you down" for what you want -- that is excellent incentive for the store and no risk to you if something happens.

I think PP isn't steep discounting this product line because they are planning to do multiple KS's in quite succession with quick delivery. So there is some discount, but not the insane almost "at cost" discount that some other KS do offer. Plus quite a few KS have come unstuck because they offer things at steep discount - get a massive number of orders to the point where production costs for them go up because now they've got 2 months instead of 1 months worth of production; almost all at-cost price so there's little overhead/buffer to help soften the blow of the increased costs. Not to mention any increases due to unforeseen delays and issues.

PP has got their own income and reserves, but at the same time they've set themselves tight deadlines. They need high sales, but they also need profit in those sales and not such a steep sale price that they scupper their own production potential to meet their deadlines.

I'm not convinced, however, that the best discounts will be got from backing the KS. I'm sure the usual online discounters may sell it so that it will be as cheap, if not cheaper, to get it from them rather than backing here?

grahamdbailey wrote:
I'm not convinced, however, that the best discounts will be got from backing the KS. I'm sure the usual online discounters may sell it so that it will be as cheap, if not cheaper, to get it from them rather than backing here?

Well they've got the distributor/store KS prices up on the KS. So you can roughly calculate what a store is paying for a block of sets; work out what might be a going rate per set and then you know the stock price. From there you can guess at what the store might charge for it. You know they won't sell it for less than the price they paid for it (stores only do that on lines they are dropping entirely and its way too early for this game to get close to that).

grahamdbailey wrote:
I'm not convinced, however, that the best discounts will be got from backing the KS. I'm sure the usual online discounters may sell it so that it will be as cheap, if not cheaper, to get it from them rather than backing here?

Yeah I’m sure it will all be in a mini market sale for 80% off next year like most of PP’s products.

 Nostromodamus wrote:
Yeah I’m sure it will all be in a mini market sale for 80% off next year like most of PP’s products.

Just noting that PP stuff that came out in the last few years is always hella expensive on MM, haven't seen it discounted past the mandatory 15%, and believe me I've been watching. It's just the ancient / meta-bad stuff that's been dunked over and over.

Yeah, I think they adjusted course on that hard since after a while it made no sense to buy locally. Not sure if that really had the desired effect, but it does make it less attractive to sit out the KS (although not so much that no one will buy in later - the mistake of overly discounting KS offerings on a wargame, imo).

Yeah, not knocking them for not discounting the KS much, if at all. It's a big mistake so many KS runners make to get backers and end up not having any left to run a stable business.

But knowing how miserly PP was with money directly, sometimes I wonder if it's really going where it needs to.

The super steep discounts haven't happened on any of the recent stuff. I keep checking.

I really like the designs. Marcher Worlds have started to grow on me. Giving me a Tau auxiliary vibe.

I want more bang for my buck though. I don't need CMON levels of crazy model piles (I don't mind though) but I need a bit more to entice me.

 LunarSol wrote:

It's also worth noting that even if you can afford it, injection mold plastic takes a pretty high volume of sales of every sculpt to make back the cost of the molds. That's why, even as the biggest company in the business, GW is still making some things in resin if they think they won't get the number they need and why characters and the like come with such a ridiculous price tag. As much as we like to think otherwise, this hobby just isn't that big; and most sculpts honestly don't sell enough to break even if they were done in HIPs.

<glares at resin Eisenhorn that's so riddled with bubbles that it loses all detail>

Just look at FFG's Legion. They started with semi-soft castable plastic despite the

That said, there are desktop plastic production technologies coming around the bend, but to get them to high mid volume now requires more investment than a miniature game studio can provide.

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
I want more bang for my buck though. I don't need CMON levels of crazy model piles (I don't mind though) but I need a bit more to entice me.

I expected (and was ready to back) at an Infinity like price point. The two player starter is literally double (quick Amazon check). And based on the rule book is seems an Organized Play force will be significantly larger than I expected. 15 units+3 heroes, the current starters come with 4 units. So far is seems like stretch goals might add 1, 2 if lucky minis to the value.

powerfamiliar wrote:

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
I want more bang for my buck though. I don't need CMON levels of crazy model piles (I don't mind though) but I need a bit more to entice me.

I expected (and was ready to back) at an Infinity like price point. The two player starter is literally double (quick Amazon check).

Well, there's your problem right there. You're looking on Amazon, which tends to have things fairly deeply discounted from weird storefronts on the Infinity side of things.

And which two player starter are you looking at? Icestorm? Red Veil?(which retails for $99) Coldfront? Wildfire?(whopping $129) Because each of those has different price points.

And based on the rule book is seems an Organized Play force will be significantly larger than I expected. 15 units+3 heroes, the current starters come with 4 units. So far is seems like stretch goals might add 1, 2 if lucky minis to the value.

From what it reads, it is "up to" 15 models.

Current starters come with 4 units, but that's what these actually are: 1 player starters. The Head to Head pledge level spells out that it's just two of the single player pledge levels bundled together.

 Kanluwen wrote:

powerfamiliar wrote:

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
I want more bang for my buck though. I don't need CMON levels of crazy model piles (I don't mind though) but I need a bit more to entice me.

I expected (and was ready to back) at an Infinity like price point. The two player starter is literally double (quick Amazon check).

Well, there's your problem right there. You're looking on Amazon, which tends to have things fairly deeply discounted from weird storefronts on the Infinity side of things.

And which two player starter are you looking at? Icestorm? Red Veil?(which retails for $99) Coldfront? Wildfire?(whopping $129) Because each of those has different price points.

And based on the rule book is seems an Organized Play force will be significantly larger than I expected. 15 units+3 heroes, the current starters come with 4 units. So far is seems like stretch goals might add 1, 2 if lucky minis to the value.

From what it reads, it is "up to" 15 models.

Current starters come with 4 units, but that's what these actually are: 1 player starters. The Head to Head pledge level spells out that it's just two of the single player pledge levels bundled together.

I don’t know much about Infinity apart from liking the aesthetics, so I just looked at the first hit for “infinity starter” (well second, first is a sponsored car part). It appears to be Icestorm for $71 (with free shipping).

When it comes to the 15 unit thing, from the rule book it felt like your extra units are kinda like a sideboard in MTG, which is also “up to 15”, but I’ve never seen anyone show up at a local event (or higher) without the full 15. Or how WMH armies are “up to 2 forces”, but no one shows up with one. I assume when organized play kicks off the vast majority of players will have the full 15 units and 3 heroes in their list, and those who don’t will fee disadvantaged.

Nope. 70 dollars for 6 miniatures is crazytown, I am not interested. Do not much like the aesthetic, do not trust PP as a company not to mess it up.

Still, better if it succeeds for people who are into it, so I wish them luck. Would be sad to see the company tank.

Don't forget with MTG having 15 cards or not in a sideboard doesn't really impact game length in a measurable way. Meanwhile in a wargame putting 5 models down per side produces a very different game and very different speed of game to putting 15 models down per side.

That's before you add in that some wargames have different rule sets for different scales to adjust things to suit variation in scale.


In short you might well find that the average games settles at being more models; but it won't mean that there are never smaller games nor demand for smaller games. Plus when the game is brand new, smaller games will be more common anyway as more people will be learning the ropes of the rules and still building up forces.

powerfamiliar wrote:

I don’t know much about Infinity apart from liking the aesthetics, so I just looked at the first hit for “infinity starter” (well second, first is a sponsored car part). It appears to be Icestorm for $71 (with free shipping).

FWIW, Icestorm is pretty ancient at this point (6 years), discontinued, and likely to be replaced within the next year. It's cost is something of a product of inflation and even then its a good 66% MSRP. The original box went for $110.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:

In short you might well find that the average games settles at being more models; but it won't mean that there are never smaller games nor demand for smaller games. Plus when the game is brand new, smaller games will be more common anyway as more people will be learning the ropes of the rules and still building up forces.

I'm not sure how impactful larger forces will actually be on gametime here. The timer on the the game is based on number of activations rather than anything to do with army size. In some regards the system punishes you for spawning too many things, so I suspect it will be pretty easy to play with a 10 unit army, even if your opponent brings a full 15. You're mostly just at a disadvantage of choice.

the comparison pic showing the jacks to be similar volume to wm/h lights really makes the price even worse. I thought they were the size of WM/H heavies.

I read the rules and they look really good. I like monpoc more than wm/h so I like the hybrid of the two.

I REALLY like the core aesthetic of the models, and have had a Khador warband since the very, very first releases by PP, but there's just too many other indie skirmish games out there giving the same game-size to justify the cost it would take to get a worthwhile sized pledge.

I want a game where you field a warband of 6-10 models with a big mech or two included, but that would be pretty pricey in Warcaster, and right now would have a lot of identically-posed models.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Mmmpi wrote:
Yeah, I was initially planning on bidding for a 'starter' of each faction, so I could share with friends, but this is a bit expensive for that, particularly as I'm looking at upping my reaper bid and have some 40K and Heavy gear projects I want to work on.

Comes to about $200; which is pretty average for a kickstarter. It's just not the overwhelming number of models you get from PVC and honestly... most every kickstarter I've never gotten around to painting has involved an overwhelming number of models in PVC.

That said, I think its a fair price. Not a great price; not outrageously expensive just... about what I'd expect, for better or worse.

It is a fair price, but it's a "I'm building a small personal army" fair price.

Right now, I'm inclined to wait and see if my group is going to pick it up first. I already have a few games I'm promoting, and don't really need to add to that list ATM. I'm not too worried about missing this, as so far the alternate stuff isn't anything I'm worried about missing, and the other unlocks are things I don't typically care about.

 Overread wrote:

grahamdbailey wrote:
I'm not convinced, however, that the best discounts will be got from backing the KS. I'm sure the usual online discounters may sell it so that it will be as cheap, if not cheaper, to get it from them rather than backing here?

Well they've got the distributor/store KS prices up on the KS. So you can roughly calculate what a store is paying for a block of sets; work out what might be a going rate per set and then you know the stock price. From there you can guess at what the store might charge for it. You know they won't sell it for less than the price they paid for it (stores only do that on lines they are dropping entirely and its way too early for this game to get close to that).

If you are looking for a deal on Warcaster, the KS is not the place to go. Per PP themselves on the first KS Update:

To be totally transparent, we make about the same margin on an individual reward pledge as we do from a retailer pledge. So, if you’re more comfortable purchasing through your local game store, we encourage you to encourage your LGS manager to get behind this Kickstarter and stock the product line. Retailers who back the project will be shipped their rewards at the same time we ship to individual backers, so there won’t be any lag time if you’re getting your goods from a store that backs our campaign. We will, however, ensure that rewards are sent to all backers (retailers included) before product is shipped for a general public release.

...

We have priced our rewards in line with how we currently price our products for general public release. After what we pay out in commissions to Kickstarter, credit card processing and shipping costs, we make about the same as we do if we sold the products traditionally, but Kickstarter gives us a platform and toolset to manage our business proactively instead of reactively, and to make sure that we’re making the right decisions so that we can keep achieving the number one goal, which is delivering you the best game experience and models that we can.

So, you are paying retail on the KS. Love it or hate it, they aren't shying away form it.

And FYI, the Retailer Starter Package is $630 for 18 Command Boxes. That's $35 a Command Box, which is half the $70 Command Starter Sets cost.

Line of Sight posted a KS guide.

TLDR:
For Skirmish it'll be $175-$185, depending on faction. For full sized games $335-$345.

 alextroy wrote:


And FYI, the Retailer Starter Package is $630 for 18 Command Boxes. That's $35 a Command Box, which is half the $70 Command Starter Sets cost.

The store will still be selling it at $70. That's how they get their cut.

The store will still be selling it at $70 for the first few months. Then at 15% off. Then at 30% off at every sale period. Then at 30% clearance sale. Then at the more realistic 50% off clearance sale. Then at the market price of 80% off when they actually want to get rid of it.

 oomiestompa wrote:

 alextroy wrote:


And FYI, the Retailer Starter Package is $630 for 18 Command Boxes. That's $35 a Command Box, which is half the $70 Command Starter Sets cost.

The store will still be selling it at $70. That's how they get their cut.

That's what I'd expect. $70 is the retail cost and your local store will probably charge you whatever discount or markup from retail they do for everything else.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
The store will still be selling it at $70 for the first few months. Then at 15% off. Then at 30% off at every sale period. Then at 30% clearance sale. Then at the more realistic 50% off clearance sale. Then at the market price of 80% off when they actually want to get rid of it.

Aye, but what you're missing is the timescale. Clearly your proposing a very short timescale, whilst those interested in the game are expecting a much much longer timescale. With hopes that some of those 80% drops will be sparked by future replacement model sculpts of existing ones on a model line and game that has maintained itself for years to decades.


Onto more positive viewpoints they've now unlocked 3 more scenarios for the rulebook and put up and update which includes links to the concept stat cards https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/privateerpress/warcaster-neo-mechanika/posts/2776808

They've added some new goals too including a digital art concept book and 5 new weapons for light warjacks at $400K. Considering they are currently on $260K they've got a chance for that and I hope they make it. Things like 5 additional weapons is a big addition to those units and increases their diversity a lot. It's clearly something that is intended to happen within the games design.

Looking over the alpha stat cards that were released. Defintly going to go with AC. I love the idea of the marauder being a cheap man-jack and the terrain shenanigans sound fun.

Pity the jacks will all be metal. These models look more balanced than WMH warjacks, but I still know I'm going to have to pin something somewhere.

I did not specify a time scale, no, but most of these kinds of KS releases tend to hit affordability in about two years and rock bottom about 4 years out. For customers chasing the dragon, that’s practically an eternity—for a Kickstarter campaign, a wait of years is meaningless.

In this case a wait of years would be a disaster. They're expecting to get this stuff out in 4 months.

 ChargerIIC wrote:
Pity the jacks will all be metal. These models look more balanced than WMH warjacks, but I still know I'm going to have to pin something somewhere.

I still sort of find the metal choice strange on the jacks, vs resin, since there's a degree of customization with hot-swapped weapons (I think?) Screams magnetization, while metal definitely doesn't to me.

I'm a kickstarter fanatic and a big fan of both PP and Infinity, but charging retail for this kickstarter is dumb. When other companies charge retail for their kickstarters like CMON at least they throw in tons of value (exclusives, tons of minis, etc.).

Here they are giving away desktop wallpapers?

Unless they start making a compelling reason to "preorder" now at retail pricing, I'll support this game when it goes to retail for cheaper on stores like MM.

At the same time with only a few months from KS to retail chances are PP doesn't want to flood their own market to the point where retail has no chance at picking up customers because the KS was so heavily discounted.

In the end the bonus to backing now as opposed to in several months time at retail; is that backing now enables PP to produce more. Ergo things like alternate sculpts and additional weapons.

 Boss Salvage wrote:

 ChargerIIC wrote:
Pity the jacks will all be metal. These models look more balanced than WMH warjacks, but I still know I'm going to have to pin something somewhere.

I still sort of find the metal choice strange on the jacks, vs resin, since there's a degree of customization with hot-swapped weapons (I think?) Screams magnetization, while metal definitely doesn't to me.

Yeah this might actually be a deal-breaker for me . They are going to add 5 new weapon options for the light jacks... meaning you'll have 10 options, right, all or many of which could be duplicated? There's no way you're going to want to build new jacks for all those options. Particularly because they are currently in one pose (although that will hopefully become two if they hit the stretch goal). That would be so many duplicate models if you want options!

So, you almost have to magnetize, or make some sort of peg system. And yet they didn't make pre-made magnet holes in the Marcher faction, which has already had molds made for it. And they don't plan on doing it for any of the others. Honestly, that lack of thought for the player base who is going to try to jury-rig a solution to this, for every jack, by every player... it just boggles my mind, and really has me doubting my commitment to such an effort, even though I love the rules shown so far. Modeling is a big aspect of the hobby, and you can't be that oblivious to what you'll be basically requiring every player to do...........

The only explanations I can think of are that they either don't want to make this an option to try to sell more of the same jacks, or that they didn't think of it ahead of time (which would be understandable). If they responded and corrected the mistake, this would be fine, but they don't show any sign of doing that from what I can see. I know time is short - but this will be a huge issue for every single player who buys into this game, and they've got to get it right. So yeah, could be a deal-breaker, imo... not just for me, but for the life / health of the game picking up enough players to be viable.

I did ask about magnets and they did mention in the comments that it was something they were thinking of in relation to the new weapons - though more in the sense of "leaving space to drill slots to fit them" rather than; say, AT's approach of leaving specific magnet sized gaps in the sculpt.

Metal core body is fine for magnets, its the weapon options that really need to be resin to make them lighter

But if anything, they've said they're doing the opposite - resin core body for the heavy jacks, and metal weapons. This matches what they've done with their warmachine releases, too.

With all those weapon options, not designing in the magnet holes, or some sort of peg (with many models still being sculpted, and the vast majority having no molds yet) is just untenable, imo. That would be sooooooooo much customization required by every single player, and working with metal to boot!

I just saw a preview of the cards.The abilities look a bit complex , kind of heavy like warmachine. Does anyone have any feedback on this?

Actually on one faction's is a bit crunchy, the rest are very straightforward, now that I have had a closer look.

Does anyone know what color the Marcher Worlds faction cards are? I think they are the tan ones...

The Cypher cards release so far are not faction specific. Those may come later. You just build a rack cypher deck with the following rules:
* Minumum 12, max 15 cards
* 3 of each type of Cypher
* Only one of each specific card allowed

So, theoretically, with the rules released and us knowing what's on the cards we could start playing this game with proxies right now if we wanted to.

I've already made a bunch of paper proxies that I've been sharing around the net, should be easy to find.

From the comments:

Gary Hall
2 hours ago
Do I have to have buy multiple copies of a warkack and customize each with which load out I want for a particular list?

---

Privateer Press - Creator
2 hours ago
When you make a list, that Warjack needs to have those weapons attached to it for the whole game. So, if you're gluing the weapons to the Warjack, then yes. However, we recommend magnetizing the weapons and connection points on the Warjack, so you can swap weapons whenever you want!

This is maddening to me. At least someone at PP recognizes how crazy it would be to try to build all different jacks, and yet the suggested solution is for every customer to carefully drill matched position magnet holes in the metal warjack bodies, and in each weapon, and make it all swappable themselves?

Without premade holes, only a tiny fraction of players will do this, and the alternative is bluetac or gluing. It really is a deal breaker...

Does anyone have the ear of a decision maker at PP to bring this up? They need to address it, and with metal they can actually do it (and need to, as it's so hard for their customers to)...

Could they use the color-coded rings that CMON uses so that players can put a ring whose color represents the chosen weapon option over the bases of their armless jacks?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Could they use the color-coded rings that CMON uses so that players can put a ring whose color represents the chosen weapon option over the bases of their armless jacks?

In friendly play do whatever you like, for tournament play (if it ever comes to exist) it looks like it swapping arms or nothing.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Could they use the color-coded rings that CMON uses so that players can put a ring whose color represents the chosen weapon option over the bases of their armless jacks?

I think Bob was poking fun at how some folks tended not to fully build / etc Warmachine armies... but that's seriously what this is destined for unless they make the weapon system more user friendly...

 RiTides wrote:

Without premade holes, only a tiny fraction of players will do this, and the alternative is bluetac or gluing. It really is a deal breaker...

Does anyone have the ear of a decision maker at PP to bring this up? They need to address it, and with metal they can actually do it (and need to, as it's so hard for their customers to)...

It was confirmed that there's 3mm holes for magnets in the jack sculpts.

Although it may not be all the potential spots due to space. They did sculpt with magnetizing in mind.

 Vertrucio wrote:

 RiTides wrote:

Without premade holes, only a tiny fraction of players will do this, and the alternative is bluetac or gluing. It really is a deal breaker...

Does anyone have the ear of a decision maker at PP to bring this up? They need to address it, and with metal they can actually do it (and need to, as it's so hard for their customers to)...

It was confirmed that there's 3mm holes for magnets in the jack sculpts.

Although it may not be all the potential spots due to space. They did sculpt with magnetizing in mind.

There’s no holes. There’s flat areas to drill holes.

Well, of all the things that could be a problem with miniatures, no holes pre-drilled for magnetizing options is a pretty First-World problem.

I mean, nowadays such things are just a sign of the times, but "Back in my day" gamers just shrugged and did industrious things like that themselves, rather than having it be a black mark against a company's product.

To me, more variety in sculpts are more important, because that's something I can't do.

Fair points, Aegis! I'm feeling a lot less emo about it after seeing the below, too.

Here's a video showing some guys magnetizing a dusk wolf:
https://m.twitch.tv/videos/562853469

The end result is pretty great! I'm much less intimidated by the idea now... so elbow grease it is

Considering that the biggest issue with drilling your own magnet holes is finding a good spot that fits and lining them up, sculpted guides takes care of much of the hassle, even if not perfect.

Oficial PP Warcaster magnetisation vid.


https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=N07vQaABUUM

Seriqolm wrote:
Oficial PP Warcaster magnetisation vid.


https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=N07vQaABUUM

It's not like anyone is going to paint these anyway but it's insane to magnetize metal. I love and in many cases prefer metal models and with proper assembly, prep, and care they hold up just fine. However adding removable parts into the equation is crazy and expecting people that are used to working with plastic to do any of this in 2020 is baffling.

Anybody who learns anything has to start somewhere. The only reason any of us "old guys" know anything even a little out of the norm is because of the first model where we had to do it.

I think he's referring to paint chipping - I'll be brushing on a heavy gloss coat followed by a less glossy spray sealant. It will take a lot to avoid metal-on-metal chipping, but hopefully that will do the trick.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Anybody who learns anything has to start somewhere. The only reason any of us "old guys" know anything even a little out of the norm is because of the first model where we had to do it.

We did it due to lack of choice, and lack of options NOT too.

This is 2020. Those other options abound nowadays. Companies must remove as many barriers of entry to their product as possible. Asking customers to drill metal/resin hybrid models could and would put some potential customers off.

They're not asking customers to do that. You don't actually have to build your models with swappable weapons...

 silent25 wrote:
2020 is not 2005 and trying to stand out is a lot harder.

Exactly. How many "lifestyle" games can a miniature gamer afford? I've been picking up dead miniature games for the sculpts, and, even then, I'm dropping $50-$100 per game line. Looks like Warcaster has a $130 buy-in for two factions. How much more will this game cost for someone dedicated to a miniatures game? And will there be that critical mass you need so that you're not the only person you know who's spent all this money on a game? I picked up the PP "grab bag" during the holidays, and liked the sculpts. But they're still sitting in the closet because I have several thousand other unpainted miniatures in the house.

 ced1106 wrote:

 silent25 wrote:
2020 is not 2005 and trying to stand out is a lot harder.

Exactly. How many "lifestyle" games can a miniature gamer afford? I've been picking up dead miniature games for the sculpts, and, even then, I'm dropping $50-$100 per game line. Looks like Warcaster has a $130 buy-in for two factions. How much more will this game cost for someone dedicated to a miniatures game? And will there be that critical mass you need so that you're not the only person you know who's spent all this money on a game? I picked up the PP "grab bag" during the holidays, and liked the sculpts. But they're still sitting in the closet because I have several thousand other unpainted miniatures in the house.

I hear you. There was a clearance sale of some of the Wrath of Kings stuff over at Miniature Market this week, and a couple kits I had been eyeing were at 1/7th the retail cost. I still passed knowing the stuff will likely be gone forever, but because I have so much stuff in the pile the shame of shame, even limited stuff is being passed on by me.

Still looking at this, feel PP started on the wrong foot with the Iron Alliance. Looking at Aeternus, they should have been the opposite faction to the Marchers. They have a more distinctive style to go with the digital and dust look of the Marchers. And like the Marchers the more I see them. While the first look of them made me think of Tau (color and box guns), the mix of tech and rags is a nice mix. The Iron Alliance just looks like Infinity ripoffs.

Still they made their goal, so hopefully this is more than enough to keep PP running. From what I had heard from people still close to PP, MiniCrate was their main source of income these days. WMH had become pocket change.This was before the launch of MonPoc, but seeing how that is doing now, it is still likely the case.

looks like per the FAQ stores are getting the short end of the stick -- PP is only sending them stretch goals of one bundle for each faction, not each starter. So if 18 people order from the store and every faction is accounted for, the store will have 3 sets of stretch goals to parcel out. My FLGS owner is writing them tomorrow, not happy. We as a group understand PP is making less, but damn ... we want to support our shop but still get the cool stuff. It's frustrating.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Well, of all the things that could be a problem with miniatures, no holes pre-drilled for magnetizing options is a pretty First-World problem.

I mean, nowadays such things are just a sign of the times, but "Back in my day" gamers just shrugged and did industrious things like that themselves, rather than having it be a black mark against a company's product.

To me, more variety in sculpts are more important, because that's something I can't do.

Honestly, while it may be "first world" problem, toy-soldier games are a first-world product to begin with. I think it's not unreasonable to expect companies to improve their products instead of going "well, when I got my first table saw it had no security switch, we just lost our limbs and liked it" to someone pointing out an obvious feature

I take it Menoth didn't survive into this setting then? I loved the Protectorate's fluff and had hoped to see something akin to them in this, because I love theocratic factions.

There's a poll on Reddit with a decent number of responses as to which faction people will pick up. I was absolutely floored to see Iron Star Alliance wwaaayy down at the bottom. I expected them to be up at the top, what with the 'clean' knighly-aesthetic, bright colours and being the Nasty Imperialist Evil Empire(tm).

Im surprised nobody has brought up the retailer angle. I'm in a number of group chats and forums with retailers nationwide and can say that I've seen very little in the way of interest or support from retailers for this game. The general sentiment seems to be "Privateer Press is cutting me out of being able to make any money on this product line by going direct with Kickstarter, so I won't be carrying their game in my store".

This could change if the game turns into a huge hit of course, but for the most part tabletop wargames live and die by their retail presence - this is why games like AoS and 40k are so successful (as well as WMHDs in the past), and why games like Blood and Plunder and Dropzone Commander remain niche hobby games that most people will never see played in person outside of a convention. As of time of writing, a total of 34 retail pledges have been made - which is dismally low (especially taken in comparison to the 1500 "consumer" tier pledges that have been made). If you assume all 34 retailer pledges are in the US, thats less than 1 per state - I expect there may well be entire regions of the country without any retail presence for this game whatsoever.

Interestingly, that makes me a bit more interested in pledging. I had been content to sit this out, as I have learned from experience that backing this sort of game on Kickstarter usually means that I overpaid for a product line that was dead on arrival which I could have purchased at bargain basement prices 6 months after release online. The fact that so few stores have hopped on board makes me think that we won't see the typical drastic over-supply of product that typically outstrips demand and forces products into clearance.

Then again, I get a standing discount of 25% off at my LFGS, so I'd probably be overpaying anyway.

I'm going to ask my store about getting stuff, even if not through the KS. For the campaign, they mentioned things needed to be bought in case quantities (6 of each item) to qualify for retailer discount. But that can't be the case for later, normal retailer orders, right? 6 is a lot if you want to carry more than just starter sets, if you're taking a risk and trying to establish a new game in the local community. Curious to hear if any retailers know one way or the other?

chaos0xomega wrote:
Im surprised nobody has brought up the retailer angle. I'm in a number of group chats and forums with retailers nationwide and can say that I've seen very little in the way of interest or support from retailers for this game. The general sentiment seems to be "Privateer Press is cutting me out of being able to make any money on this product line by going direct with Kickstarter, so I won't be carrying their game in my store".

This could change if the game turns into a huge hit of course, but for the most part tabletop wargames live and die by their retail presence - this is why games like AoS and 40k are so successful (as well as WMHDs in the past), and why games like Blood and Plunder and Dropzone Commander remain niche hobby games that most people will never see played in person outside of a convention. As of time of writing, a total of 34 retail pledges have been made - which is dismally low (especially taken in comparison to the 1500 "consumer" tier pledges that have been made). If you assume all 34 retailer pledges are in the US, thats less than 1 per state - I expect there may well be entire regions of the country without any retail presence for this game whatsoever.

Interestingly, that makes me a bit more interested in pledging. I had been content to sit this out, as I have learned from experience that backing this sort of game on Kickstarter usually means that I overpaid for a product line that was dead on arrival which I could have purchased at bargain basement prices 6 months after release online. The fact that so few stores have hopped on board makes me think that we won't see the typical drastic over-supply of product that typically outstrips demand and forces products into clearance.

Then again, I get a standing discount of 25% off at my LFGS, so I'd probably be overpaying anyway.

Thats a weird take for retailers. From what I can tell the discount that retailers are getting is the same or better than what they would get through a distributor. They have to order it directly from the company instead of the distributor (which retailers hate doing), but because of that they have a MUCH better chance of getting what they ordered (distributors often don't have items in stock and have a bad habit of subbing in other products if the product you want isn't currently available).

As far as I can see the only downside for retailers is having to order directly instead of through their distributor. As I said before, most retailers hate that, and not for nothing. Retail stores often order hundreds of distinct products every month, and having one or two distributors to order from makes it easy and helps save on shipping costs. So a lot of retailers won't even consider ordering anything thats not available through their distributor.

But in reality, ordering directly from PP or any other publisher isn't hard. In fact, its often barely any extra work at all*. I've been working in the industry for over 15 years, on both sides of this, so I know. If a store doesn't want to order directly from a company its often because the company isn't offering a good discount, or the company isn't delivering their product on time. That doesn't appear to be the case here at all. So that leaves convenience. And ordering a game directly from the publisher isn't actually a very big inconvenience at all. It usually only takes about 20-30 minutes a month. *Of course, if a retailer is doing that for 20 different companies it really adds up, and that by itself has led many, many retailers to stick JUST with what their distributor can provide.

The thing is, this approach PP is using isn't new, and its become more and more common over the last 10 years. In fact, while distributors are really valuable for opening up markets and connecting publishers with new stores, a LOT of companies would prefer to deal directly with stores when they can. Once a relationship is established, the company can cut out the distributor and save money on both shipping and warehousing while getting a bigger return and providing the store with the same or better discount. That arrangement doesn't work for every publisher and every store of course, and its something that distributors try hard to dissuade, but more and more companies are pursuing direct sales, and its very likely to become more and more common in the future.

To your second point, it seems like PP have specifically planned this Kickstarter to NOT create a huge glut of extra starters. Someone mentioned Wrath of Kings earlier (was that you? Anyway, I'm sure you know what I'm about to say). That game faced the problem of there being so many cheap starters available that interested players simply skipped buying at retail and instead bought heavily discounted on ebay. Which led to retailers giving up on the line, and eventually dumping their product to deep discounters (which accelerated the problem). PP seems to be trying to avoid this by specifically selling at retail prices and making sure that retail store who order through Kickstarter get theirs at the same time as everyone else (and can offer their standard discounts, making purchasing from them more attractive). Its a smart approach.

Honestly, if I were still working in retail I'd be going out of my way to hype my customers on this project.


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I'd also suggest that the sentiment "but for the most part tabletop wargames live and die by their retail presence" is far less true than it used to be (although theres still a LOT of truth in it).

The market is changing, and retail stores are becoming less of a component. Far less people buy their miniatures games from retail stores now than they used to, and far less people rely on finding other players at those stores than they used to.

Retail stores are still great and vital for many games of course, but we've already started to see games that establish a foothold without much retail presence (Infinity is a good example, a game that became popular in the US well before it was available in many stores here). I think that this will continue to be the case, and more and more companies will be making their games with the assumption that stores mostly won't be stocking them.

chaos0xomega wrote:Im surprised nobody has brought up the retailer angle. I'm in a number of group chats and forums with retailers nationwide and can say that I've seen very little in the way of interest or support from retailers for this game. The general sentiment seems to be "Privateer Press is cutting me out of being able to make any money on this product line by going direct with Kickstarter, so I won't be carrying their game in my store".

Most will carry it after it hits the distribution chain just they do so many other products like pretty much anything from CMON if people play it.

jake wrote:Thats a weird take for retailers. From what I can tell the discount that retailers are getting is the same or better than what they would get through a distributor. they have to order it directly from the company instead of the distributor (which retailers hate doing), but because of that they have a MUCH better chance of getting what they ordered (distributors often don't have items in stock and have a bad habit of subbing in other products if the product you want isn't currently available).

As far as i can see the only downside for retailers is having to order directly instead of through their distributor. as I said before, most retailers hate that, and not for nothing. Retail stores often order hundreds of products every month, and having one or two distributors to order from makes it easy and helps save on shipping costs. So a lot of retailers won't even consider ordering anything thats not available through their distributor.

The only downside? I'm guessing that you have never backed a kickstarter from a known company that has bellyflopped whether temporarily or permanently due to some point on the spectrum from incompetence to greed. IIRC (admittedly my info is out of date) stores typically only get charged when the product is shipped from distributors or sometimes have 30-60 day grace periods which include a return possibility as well whereas with KS you pay upfront for a product that optimistically will arrive 6 months after the date stated with no returns. I don't think PP will fail to deliver but it would be stupid to think that there is zero chance of it happening. At best, they're paying many months in advance for a product instead of right before or after it arrives. That's a downside in my book when you're running a business with small margins to begin with that is struggling to remain relevant. YMMV.

Thats a weird take for retailers. From what I can tell the discount that retailers are getting is the same or better than what they would get through a distributor. they have to order it directly from the company instead of the distributor (which retailers hate doing), but because of that they have a MUCH better chance of getting what they ordered (distributors often don't have items in stock and have a bad habit of subbing in other products if the product you want isn't currently available).

As far as i can see the only downside for retailers is having to order directly instead of through their distributor. as I said before, most retailers hate that, and not for nothing. Retail stores often order hundreds of products every month, and having one or two distributors to order from makes it easy and helps save on shipping costs. So a lot of retailers won't even consider ordering anything thats not available through their distributor.

Its not weird at all. The piece you are missing/don't seem to understand is that games like this are very niche and have very limited demand. In most cases, tabletop games (in general) meet or exceed the demand for the product while on kickstarter and retailers struggle to sell the product in stores afterwards as a result. This is why most kickstarter games are generally available on clearance a few months after release at most major online retailers (if they are even available through retialers at all) - those products don't sell because everyone who would have bought it already has it courtesy of the direct-to-consumers model of kickstarter. As a result of this, retailers are increasingly reluctant to support kickstarter games or order them in, which has lead to all sorts of supply problems within the industry - publishers forecast retail demand based on the demand for the product on kickstarter, if the game explodes in popularity they will usually sell out near-instantly because they simply didn't print enough copies to meet that level of interest and often have to run a kickstarter for a reprint of the game. If retailers go in heavy on a kickstarter and the game turns into a lame duck publishers and retailers end up with a glut of product that they struggle to move sitting on their shelves. A lot of retailers increasingly view Kickstarter games as speculative investments ("I can make a lot of money if the popularity and demand for this game explodes once backers receive it") which is further exacerbating these issues as retailers tend to be conservative as to what they are willing to bet on, and a lot of the time those bets are informed by the companies previous track record, i.e. "Gloomhaven turned out to be such a huge deal that I would be crazy not to order in 20 copies of Founders of Gloomhaven" - and now Founders of Gloomhaven is selling for pennies on the dollar everywhere because the game sucked and retailers bought ridiculous quantities of the game thinking they would have another hit on their hands.

But I digress, point is retailers are not generally fans of kickstarter to begin with, and the decision to make Warcaster a recurring Kickstarter game has alienated retailers as a result. Also,despite everyones insistance that the Warcaster kickstarter has been some sort of big success, the numbers don't really support that. The game is currently looking to finish between The Other Side and Wrath of Kings in terms of backer numbers and $ total, which isn't particularly great company to be in. Contrast this to a game like A Song of Ice & Fire which is one of the few "lifestyle" type games that started on kickstarter and has met success at retail, with almost 10k backers and $1.7 million pledged. Taken with PPs recent history and WMHDs beinga clearance rack game for the past 2-3 years, retailers see it as an uphill battle for them to climb in terms of getting their money back from sales.

Also, retailers *hate* distributors - especially Alliance which has developed a horrible reputation amongst retailers for their gakky business practices. Retailers use distributors more because the alternatives to doing so are limited (and in some cases there are no alternatives due to exclusivity agreements), not because its necessarily the way they want to do business. As you said, ordering direct from a company doesn't take a lot of minutes, but if you have to order from 50+ different ones it eats up your time quick. Games Workshop is basically the only company in the industry that works that way because its the only one big enough that retailers can justify the time investment. Asmodee would probably also fall into that category if they weren't distributing exclusively through Alliance.

The thing is, this approach PP is using isn't new, and its become more and more common over the last 10 years.

Just because it isn't new doesn't necessarily mean its a successful business model. I have something like 150 board games and miniatures games that I've purchased on kickstarter on my shelves right now at home. Only about 20% of those games are or were available in retail stores at some point, and quite a few of those were considered a "dead on arrival" product by retailers because even though the kickstarter might have pulled in a million + dollars the game simply didn't sell once they got the game in stock. Sure, there are exceptions to this, games like Zombicide and Blood Rage and Vast and Root which get a huge burst in popularity once they release and it flies off the shelf faster than the publisher can print them, but this has generally been the exception rather than the rule.

 warboss wrote:

jake wrote:Thats a weird take for retailers. From what I can tell the discount that retailers are getting is the same or better than what they would get through a distributor. they have to order it directly from the company instead of the distributor (which retailers hate doing), but because of that they have a MUCH better chance of getting what they ordered (distributors often don't have items in stock and have a bad habit of subbing in other products if the product you want isn't currently available).

As far as i can see the only downside for retailers is having to order directly instead of through their distributor. as I said before, most retailers hate that, and not for nothing. Retail stores often order hundreds of products every month, and having one or two distributors to order from makes it easy and helps save on shipping costs. So a lot of retailers won't even consider ordering anything thats not available through their distributor.

The only downside? I'm guessing that you have never backed a kickstarter from a known company that has bellyflopped whether temporarily or permanently due to some point on the spectrum from incompetence to greed. IIRC (admittedly my info is out of date) stores typically only get charged when the product is shipped from distributors or sometimes have 30-60 day grace periods which include a return possibility as well whereas with KS you pay upfront for a product that optimistically will arrive 6 months after the date stated with no returns. I don't think PP will fail to deliver but it would be stupid to think that there is zero chance of it happening. At best, they're paying many months in advance for a product instead of right before or after it arrives. That's a downside in my book when you're running a business with small margins to begin with that is struggling to remain relevant. YMMV.

Retailers also have the option to order after the Kickstarter is finished and the product is ready to ship, and those that do (according to PP) will receive their product shortly after retailers who support the kickstarter. so thats not a risk at all. Thats why I didn't list it as a downside. if anything, the kickstarter seems to be structured to specifically allow retailers to gauge interest in the product and then order later and still get the product as the game is being released.

chaos0xomega wrote:

Thats a weird take for retailers. From what I can tell the discount that retailers are getting is the same or better than what they would get through a distributor. they have to order it directly from the company instead of the distributor (which retailers hate doing), but because of that they have a MUCH better chance of getting what they ordered (distributors often don't have items in stock and have a bad habit of subbing in other products if the product you want isn't currently available).

As far as i can see the only downside for retailers is having to order directly instead of through their distributor. as I said before, most retailers hate that, and not for nothing. Retail stores often order hundreds of products every month, and having one or two distributors to order from makes it easy and helps save on shipping costs. So a lot of retailers won't even consider ordering anything thats not available through their distributor.

Its not weird at all. The piece you are missing/don't seem to understand is that games like this are very niche and have very limited demand. In most cases, tabletop games (in general) meet or exceed the demand for the product while on kickstarter and retailers struggle to sell the product in stores afterwards as a result. This is why most kickstarter games are generally available on clearance a few months after release at most major online retailers (if they are even available through retialers at all) - those products don't sell because everyone who would have bought it already has it courtesy of the direct-to-consumers model of kickstarter. As a result of this, retailers are increasingly reluctant to support kickstarter games or order them in, which has lead to all sorts of supply problems within the industry - publishers forecast retail demand based on the demand for the product on kickstarter, if the game explodes in popularity they will usually sell out near-instantly because they simply didn't print enough copies to meet that level of interest and often have to run a kickstarter for a reprint of the game. If retailers go in heavy on a kickstarter and the game turns into a lame duck publishers and retailers end up with a glut of product that they struggle to move sitting on their shelves. A lot of retailers increasingly view Kickstarter games as speculative investments ("I can make a lot of money if the popularity and demand for this game explodes once backers receive it") which is further exacerbating these issues as retailers tend to be conservative as to what they are willing to bet on, and a lot of the time those bets are informed by the companies previous track record, i.e. "Gloomhaven turned out to be such a huge deal that I would be crazy not to order in 20 copies of Founders of Gloomhaven" - and now Founders of Gloomhaven is selling for pennies on the dollar everywhere because the game sucked and retailers bought ridiculous quantities of the game thinking they would have another hit on their hands.

But I digress, point is retailers are not generally fans of kickstarter to begin with, and the decision to make Warcaster a recurring Kickstarter game has alienated retailers as a result. Also,despite everyones insistance that the Warcaster kickstarter has been some sort of big success, the numbers don't really support that. The game is currently looking to finish between The Other Side and Wrath of Kings in terms of backer numbers and $ total, which isn't particularly great company to be in. Contrast this to a game like A Song of Ice & Fire which is one of the few "lifestyle" type games that started on kickstarter and has met success at retail, with almost 10k backers and $1.7 million pledged. Taken with PPs recent history and WMHDs beinga clearance rack game for the past 2-3 years, retailers see it as an uphill battle for them to climb in terms of getting their money back from sales.

I'm neither missing that point or misunderstanding it. You said that retailers seem to feel that PP is cutting them out of sales. but thats not whats happening at all. instead, PP seems to be going out of its way to make sure this product launch is retailer friendly. they are purposely choosing a a more retailer friendly approach than most other games that launch on Kickstarter. retailers may be upset that the game is launching with a Kickstarter instead of a pure retail release, but they should also realize that very few games can launch with a pure retail release these days, especially since many retailers won't carry a new game at all unless it has some kind of proven track record. As has already been mentioned there are just too many games of this type for a retailer to carry everything, so they have to pick and choose. Which means publishers can't count on retail sales. they need to be able to make their own way. Kickstarter has become a proven way to do this.

Kickstarter (and similar platforms) will continue to be how more and more small and midsize games get released. Retailers can choose to get on board with this or not (and thats neither good nor bad, and certainly up to each individual store). But I maintain that its a weird take to say that PP is cutting retailers out when they seem to be trying hard to make this launch retailer friendly by selling at retail prices, offering industry standard discounts and making sure product is available at launch to retailers whether they participated in the Kickstarter or not. I'm not sure what more PP could do.

 jake wrote:

Retailers also have the option to order after the Kickstarter is finished and the product is ready to ship, and those that do (according to PP) will receive their product shortly after retailers who support the kickstarter. so thats not a risk at all. Thats why I didn't list it as a downside. if anything, the kickstarter seems to be structured to specifically allow retailers to gauge interest in the product and then order later and still get the product as the game is being released.

I wasn't aware of that and it does significantly diminish that particular risk. There are other reasons why (most sales happening within the first month which equates to kickstarter funding with a much smaller tail unless it blows up) but at least they're doing that.

chaos0xomega wrote:

The thing is, this approach PP is using isn't new, and its become more and more common over the last 10 years.

Just because it isn't new doesn't necessarily mean its a successful business model. I have something like 150 board games and miniatures games that I've purchased on kickstarter on my shelves right now at home. Only about 20% of those games are or were available in retail stores at some point, and quite a few of those were considered a "dead on arrival" product by retailers because even though the kickstarter might have pulled in a million + dollars the game simply didn't sell once they got the game in stock. Sure, there are exceptions to this, games like Zombicide and Blood Rage and Vast and Root which get a huge burst in popularity once they release and it flies off the shelf faster than the publisher can print them, but this has generally been the exception rather than the rule.

This is way off track from the point I was trying to make, but its worth pointing out that many "dead on arrival' games were actually very successful (and of course, many were not). Just because a game doesn't continue to sell and find a retail niche after a Kickstarter doesn't mean it wasn't successful. Sometimes sales through kickstarter are more than enough to be successful, and everything else is gravy. Similarly, there have been some Kickstarter games that never sought a retail presence and have continued to be successful. Kingdom Death comes to mind and is probably the biggest example. In any case, my point here is that publishers often have very different goals for their game during a Kickstarter and after a Kickstarter. The games you're mentioning here "Song of Ice and Fire, Root, Zombicide) are like Kickstarter greatest hits. But you don't need a greatest hit to be successful. of course, PP IS almost certainly looking for that kind of staying power with this game.

I think its also worth pointing out that the vast majority of games, no matter whether they launch on Kickstarter or not, are not successful. A 20% success rate is about industry standard.

I want to get back to my actual point. What I was trying to say is that the way publishers are producing games is changing, and Kickstarter and self distribution are becoming a much larger part of that (and more and more games are actually finding success with it). Retailers need to adjust to that, and publishers who want to keep retail business need to help them. And PP seems to be trying to do that.

To me it looks like PP is taking a very different approach than most publishers who bring their games to Kickstarter (where the typical concern is to sell as much as possible in order to fund the game and make money,and any availability to retailers is a secondary goal) . They're planning for ongoing product every 4 months through Kickstarter and retail, with monthly or bimonthly retail releases for stores that don't buy in to the kickstarter. And they're structuring everything to be retail friendly. Those are good signs for establishing the game and for long term growth. Of course, the project may crash and burn, or may never find a player base, but so far they seem to be doing everything fairly right.


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 warboss wrote:

 jake wrote:

Retailers also have the option to order after the Kickstarter is finished and the product is ready to ship, and those that do (according to PP) will receive their product shortly after retailers who support the kickstarter. so thats not a risk at all. Thats why I didn't list it as a downside. if anything, the kickstarter seems to be structured to specifically allow retailers to gauge interest in the product and then order later and still get the product as the game is being released.

I wasn't aware of that and it does significantly diminish that particular risk. There are other reasons why (most sales happening within the first month which equates to kickstarter funding with a much smaller tail unless it blows up) but at least they're doing that.

I suspect their plan is to use the first Kickstarter to establish the line, with the expectation that their future sales will be split between enthusiastic early adopters who use Kickstarter and fans who want to wait and see or just buy what they want at retail a few months later (at release). Thats not really an approach I've seen another company take, but in theory its really sound for both PP and retailers. IF they can convince retailers to actually carry the game.

If retailers don't carry the game (and the game is successful), I think you're right that most sales will end up coming through the Kickstarters. That may work out just fine for PP, but it will be too bad for retailers.

I personally think we're moving into an era where a game doesn't have to have a large retail presence to be successful. But a large retail presence is till worth pursing, especially for a game like this.


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Anyway, I'm not super interested in debating about their approach with this kickstarter and discussing it more (I feel like its a rabbit hole i could go down deep, especially since there are other people here who have interesting contrasting opinions). I already said what i wanted to say, and I may be totally wrong. So I'll leave what I said and probably won't continue with this particular conversation. These are just my opinions base don my own experience in the industry (and I appreciate hearing the contrasting opinions).

But... as someone who has literally never been interested in anything PP has done I'm finding their approach here extremely interesting, and I'm really curious how it will turn out. Even if this game doesn't take off i suspect this will be an approach other companies will mimick in the next few years.

Retailers don't want to buy direct because distributors give them 10 net 30 terms and volume discounts. This is why a lot of stores will give you a discount for preordering from them.

I can't imagine any retailer ever wanting to kickstart a project like this unless they have a group of players in the store that have essentially bought in ahead of time.

Checked it out, but it’s just not grabbing me at all. Good luck to Privateer, but I’m ‘out’ on this one. I don’t find the game, minis, or fluff compelling in any way. Too many other places I could spend $$$s these days than trying to get another game started up that will likely be ignored when it does release. We are definitely spoiled for choice these days, and while that is overall a nice thing, it means a lot of good games are effectively DOA along with all the other chaff that comes out of Kickstarter.

 jake wrote:

I suspect their plan is to use the first Kickstarter to establish the line, with the expectation that their future sales will be split between enthusiastic early adopters who use Kickstarter and fans who want to wait and see or just buy what they want at retail a few months later (at release). Thats not really an approach I've seen another company take, but in theory its really sound for both PP and retailers. IF they can convince retailers to actually carry the game.

If retailers don't carry the game (and the game is successful), I think you're right that most sales will end up coming through the Kickstarters. That may work out just fine for PP, but it will be too bad for retailers.

I personally think we're moving into an era where a game doesn't have to have a large retail presence to be successful. But a large retail presence is till worth pursing, especially for a game like this.
.

Their plan is laid out in the initial kickstarter update- every 4 month cycle will be a new kickstarter. The plan isn't to establish the line and then switch to a normal sales model, the plan is for kickstarter to be the primary sales model- even for retailers.

And if that doesn't work out, the experiment is over and they haven't really risked or lost anything (financially, anyway).
Wilson was pretty up front about the plan.

Voss wrote:
[Their plan is laid out in the initial kickstarter update- every 4 month cycle will be a new kickstarter. The plan isn't to establish the line and then switch to a normal sales model, the plan is for kickstarter to be the primary sales model- even for retailers.

And if that doesn't work out, the experiment is over and they haven't really risked or lost anything (financially, anyway).
Wilson was pretty up front about the plan.

The risk is that this continues to make them look weak financially and that if the game flops at Kickstarter 3 when the game is less than a year old it makes them look bad at reading the market which will further isolate them from getting back into the LGS scene. The metal models that don't come ready to magnetize also make them look lazy.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Voss wrote:
[Their plan is laid out in the initial kickstarter update- every 4 month cycle will be a new kickstarter. The plan isn't to establish the line and then switch to a normal sales model, the plan is for kickstarter to be the primary sales model- even for retailers.

And if that doesn't work out, the experiment is over and they haven't really risked or lost anything (financially, anyway).
Wilson was pretty up front about the plan.

The risk is that this continues to make them look weak financially and that if the game flops at Kickstarter 3 when the game is less than a year old it makes them look bad at reading the market which will further isolate them from getting back into the LGS scene. The metal models that don't come ready to magnetize also make them look lazy.

Not to mention the material itself. Privateer is rubbing shoulders on KS with boutique resin and even tiny miniature companies doing hard plastic (heck even Heavy Gear got their plastics funded). It just seems like they haven't kept up with the times.

Got potential. If they somehow get people playing it around here, I might join in. That is a big IF. If I have to organize games myself, I'll stick to what I already have.


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Maybe they should have done what 40K did to get its start... and made a space game you could play with your fantasy miniatures plus a few add ons.

 ScarletRose wrote:

Not to mention the material itself. Privateer is rubbing shoulders on KS with boutique resin and even tiny miniature companies doing hard plastic (heck even Heavy Gear got their plastics funded). It just seems like they haven't kept up with the times.

But, again, this assumes that plastic should be the default that every company is aiming for, and that's simply not the case. Some gamers don't want plastic. And resin isn't suited for a lot of sculpts. Resin/metal hybrids are a thing, but mixing materials is potentially confusing for new modelers, and the usual breakup there is resin for the body and metal for weapons and other pointy bits... which doesn't actually achieve anything much over an all-metal model, other than to make it a little lighter.

There are a lot of small companies out there still making miniatures in metal, and customers who prefer it that way. Whether or not there are enough of them to support this game remains to be seen, but it's not as simple as 'Plastic exists, so [company] producing metal models is doing it wrong.'

 insaniak wrote:

 ScarletRose wrote:

Not to mention the material itself. Privateer is rubbing shoulders on KS with boutique resin and even tiny miniature companies doing hard plastic (heck even Heavy Gear got their plastics funded). It just seems like they haven't kept up with the times.

But, again, this assumes that plastic should be the default that every company is aiming for, and that's simply not the case. Some gamers don't want plastic. And resin isn't suited for a lot of sculpts. Resin/metal hybrids are a thing, but mixing materials is potentially confusing for new modelers, and the usual breakup there is resin for the body and metal for weapons and other pointy bits... which doesn't actually achieve anything much over an all-metal model, other than to make it a little lighter.

There are a lot of small companies out there still making miniatures in metal, and customers who prefer it that way. Whether or not there are enough of them to support this game remains to be seen, but it's not as simple as 'Plastic exists, so [company] producing metal models is doing it wrong.'

It's the better material for a mass market miniatures game (as opposed to say miniatures for RPGs which have more leeway on quality and tend to only be bought in ones and twos). The only exceptions I can think of are wargames that require metal either because of how fine the details are (Infinity) or how small the scale is (Flames of War and other 15mm or smaller scale games).

Neither of those exceptions apply here.

Some people prefer manual transmissions in their cars too, but if GM touted their "new" line of cars that are only manual they'd be a laughingstock in this day and age.

Privateer did plastic and was stuck with lots of stock when the game popularity waned. Metal/resin allows them to produce as demand is needed and not have to keep a large overhead nor have to wait 6+ months for a restock like we see with CMoN and FFG.

I prefer plastic too but I know why they do it and I don't begrudge them for it. They've been in the position to go plastic, tried it and it didn't work for them so they walked away.

Privateer plastic flopped because it took them (IIRC) a full year from announcement to actual delivery. It wasn't that they made a bad product, it was that they failed to live up to/timely satisfy the hype.

But I've made my point so I'm bowing out of the thread. We'll see how PP's horse and carriage does in the auto race.

Why I thought the PP plastic kits I did get was good, no plastic is a huge positive and much prefer it.

I got the impression PP hated doing the plastic. They had long lead times, suffered from delays, and were the most complained about kits for quality. I do wish they were doing their resin with these. That’s been pretty good in my experience. I’m surprised theyre not predrilled as they’d talked earlier about sculpting and designing the kits with magnetization in mind.

I'd disagree that if the experiment fails then PP has lost nothing ; you've saddled another group of people who gave you money with another dead game.

There is a limit to how many times you can annoy people before they just aren't interested in anything you do any more.

If PP was doing fine then they wouldn't be even trying a new system.....

My biggest plusfor plastic is you rarely get parts missing. When I played Warmahordes 1 in every 4/5 purchases had missing parts.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/privateerpress/warcaster-neo-mechanika/posts/2779132

$300K unlocked the variant sculpts for warcasters for each of the three races.

They've also added some new stretch goals to the bottom of the page including new warjack heads for each race; a hero that crosses across two armies a painting guide and some other stuff too. They've now got goals up to $500K (the new alternative heads).

 TwilightSparkles wrote:


If PP was doing fine then they wouldn't be even trying a new system.....

.

I sort of disagree with that. I love WM/H but the fact is that the game roster of models has become really bloated with some units never seeing play, just existing. PP cant keep on adding stuff forever. There are currently 15 factions and while the CID process has managed to balance stuff, the game can't expand too much more. This is why they have started doing other linked, but stand alone games like Riotquest and MonPoc.

PP still has a release schedule for WM/H for the next year or so. Including a new narrative campaign a-la Oblivion. But I would expect them to push the new game while also promoting but maintaining WM/H.

It just made good buisness sense to expand thier offerings.

 insaniak wrote:

There are a lot of small companies out there still making miniatures in metal, and customers who prefer it that way. Whether or not there are enough of them to support this game remains to be seen, but it's not as simple as 'Plastic exists, so [company] producing metal models is doing it wrong.'

Metals have their place, but that place is usually for very small companies that want to release one-off unique sculpts. At this point, Infinity sculpts could be in plastic and not lose any detail, but the small scale of the forces in question makes it impractical from their perspective (even though it'd make it SO much easier to actually release all the weapon options for each unit instead of getting a LGL in 2008 and HMG in 2013 and a combi rifle option in 2020)

Warmachine 40k instead offers copy-pasted poses for basic troops, no variations and incredibly uniform looks. They are simply not utilizing metal advantages at that point, and the force construction is much better suited to plastic than metals. Just like normal Warmachine became along the line.

 jake wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

Thats a weird take for retailers. From what I can tell the discount that retailers are getting is the same or better than what they would get through a distributor. they have to order it directly from the company instead of the distributor (which retailers hate doing), but because of that they have a MUCH better chance of getting what they ordered (distributors often don't have items in stock and have a bad habit of subbing in other products if the product you want isn't currently available).

As far as i can see the only downside for retailers is having to order directly instead of through their distributor. as I said before, most retailers hate that, and not for nothing. Retail stores often order hundreds of products every month, and having one or two distributors to order from makes it easy and helps save on shipping costs. So a lot of retailers won't even consider ordering anything thats not available through their distributor.

Its not weird at all. The piece you are missing/don't seem to understand is that games like this are very niche and have very limited demand. In most cases, tabletop games (in general) meet or exceed the demand for the product while on kickstarter and retailers struggle to sell the product in stores afterwards as a result. This is why most kickstarter games are generally available on clearance a few months after release at most major online retailers (if they are even available through retialers at all) - those products don't sell because everyone who would have bought it already has it courtesy of the direct-to-consumers model of kickstarter. As a result of this, retailers are increasingly reluctant to support kickstarter games or order them in, which has lead to all sorts of supply problems within the industry - publishers forecast retail demand based on the demand for the product on kickstarter, if the game explodes in popularity they will usually sell out near-instantly because they simply didn't print enough copies to meet that level of interest and often have to run a kickstarter for a reprint of the game. If retailers go in heavy on a kickstarter and the game turns into a lame duck publishers and retailers end up with a glut of product that they struggle to move sitting on their shelves. A lot of retailers increasingly view Kickstarter games as speculative investments ("I can make a lot of money if the popularity and demand for this game explodes once backers receive it") which is further exacerbating these issues as retailers tend to be conservative as to what they are willing to bet on, and a lot of the time those bets are informed by the companies previous track record, i.e. "Gloomhaven turned out to be such a huge deal that I would be crazy not to order in 20 copies of Founders of Gloomhaven" - and now Founders of Gloomhaven is selling for pennies on the dollar everywhere because the game sucked and retailers bought ridiculous quantities of the game thinking they would have another hit on their hands.

But I digress, point is retailers are not generally fans of kickstarter to begin with, and the decision to make Warcaster a recurring Kickstarter game has alienated retailers as a result. Also,despite everyones insistance that the Warcaster kickstarter has been some sort of big success, the numbers don't really support that. The game is currently looking to finish between The Other Side and Wrath of Kings in terms of backer numbers and $ total, which isn't particularly great company to be in. Contrast this to a game like A Song of Ice & Fire which is one of the few "lifestyle" type games that started on kickstarter and has met success at retail, with almost 10k backers and $1.7 million pledged. Taken with PPs recent history and WMHDs beinga clearance rack game for the past 2-3 years, retailers see it as an uphill battle for them to climb in terms of getting their money back from sales.

I'm neither missing that point or misunderstanding it. You said that retailers seem to feel that PP is cutting them out of sales. but thats not whats happening at all. instead, PP seems to be going out of its way to make sure this product launch is retailer friendly. they are purposely choosing a a more retailer friendly approach than most other games that launch on Kickstarter. retailers may be upset that the game is launching with a Kickstarter instead of a pure retail release, but they should also realize that very few games can launch with a pure retail release these days, especially since many retailers won't carry a new game at all unless it has some kind of proven track record. As has already been mentioned there are just too many games of this type for a retailer to carry everything, so they have to pick and choose. Which means publishers can't count on retail sales. they need to be able to make their own way. Kickstarter has become a proven way to do this.

Kickstarter (and similar platforms) will continue to be how more and more small and midsize games get released. Retailers can choose to get on board with this or not (and thats neither good nor bad, and certainly up to each individual store). But I maintain that its a weird take to say that PP is cutting retailers out when they seem to be trying hard to make this launch retailer friendly by selling at retail prices, offering industry standard discounts and making sure product is available at launch to retailers whether they participated in the Kickstarter or not. I'm not sure what more PP could do.

PP is hardly "going out of its way" to make this retailer friendly. They are doing the bare minimum by including a retail tier. Retail tiers have basically become the de facto norm for kickstarters that want to have any retail presence at all, including a retail tier and claiming that you're supporting retailers by doing so is peak laziness. As a serial kickstarter backer, and a project creator, "going out of the way" to support retailers would include retail-only releases that ensure that retailers have a guaranteed seat at the table for expansion/follow-on sales, rather than offering them the same exact product that consumers already have access to. Also, as I understand it from the discussions I have seen, retailers only get one set of free stretch goals, which further disincentives people from purchasing through their retail store if the campaign adds value to non-retail tiers by way of free additional models. CMON and others at least have the decency to offer a set of stretch goals per copy pledged by retailers during the KS campaign.

I’d grab a warjack or two, but yeesh. Those prices.

I'm looking at the KS, and while the Marcher worlds have grown on me, the price is the biggest turn off for me right now. It's very much priced at retail, for fans, and that's not something I can really handle right now.

I'm also a little disappointed that they're doing a large skirmish game (~20 models) but each faction has only three sculpts per core unit.

it's not really fleshed out enough for a serious wargame, and it's too expensive to splash into for a few neat models.

There is roughly the same amount of sculpt variety as what you see in Warmachine.

 LunarSol wrote:
There is roughly the same amount of sculpt variety as what you see in Warmachine.

Which makes it odd that they’re trying to capture a new audience, and then go and do things like they always have.
And the way in which the fans expect. If they want this to get big, they need to start listening to what the market wants.
And repeated sculpts in a unit of 3 is not one of them.

Its of a unit of 3. The sculpts are unique within the unit. Honestly, I can't think of games where that's any different.

 LunarSol wrote:
Its of a unit of 3. The sculpts are unique within the unit. Honestly, I can't think of games where that's any different.

40k often has enough bits to make each squad at least somewhat unique. Plus plastic is far easier to modify than either resin or metal so the hobby aspect is also there.

 LunarSol wrote:
Its of a unit of 3. The sculpts are unique within the unit. Honestly, I can't think of games where that's any different.

Yeah, me neither, but most games launch with more than one unit! The kickstarter is literally trying to sell multiple copies of the same three dude unit.

They are aiming squarely at gamers, rather than to hobbyists like GW. If I was all about the game I don't think I'd particularly care if the game pieces were repetitive.

 Polonius wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Its of a unit of 3. The sculpts are unique within the unit. Honestly, I can't think of games where that's any different.

Yeah, me neither, but most games launch with more than one unit! The kickstarter is literally trying to sell multiple copies of the same three dude unit.

Two units per faction. 3 solos, 2 jacks, 7 unique army building modules total; slim, but realistic. Most kickstarters offering more do so only the "see you int 2-4 years" timescale. This is far more what a new game tends to really launch with, and we can expect diversity as it matures. Knowing more of the road ahead would be nice, but at the same time I've been on these trains enough to know that it mostly leads to a lack of any new hype for years that really kills things post launch.

My gut says they're doing everything they can to have fewer unique SKUs and more content that is designed to be purchased multiple times. Looks like 3 per faction right now. The starter, the second unit+solo box, and the heavy jack kit. Seems like something far more reasonable at retail than most of their unique, character driven line, even if it lacks.... well, unique characters.

Nurglitch wrote:
They are aiming squarely at gamers, rather than to hobbyists like GW. If I was all about the game I don't think I'd particularly care if the game pieces were repetitive.

If that's the case go for cardboard standees or cheap boardgame style plastic pieces. It feels like they want to have it both ways here.

Given the trend of board games going with miniatures, it's kind of understandable, especially since miniature gaming is their wheel-house. I don't think they could sell a cardboard standee version of their games.

That said, there's definitely something to be said for having game pieces that are solid and weighty, and having that hobby dimension vastly expands both their market, and the customers' engagement with the game. I think it's all the unpainted stuff some of us have at home that keeps us in this thing.

Nurglitch wrote:
They are aiming squarely at gamers, rather than to hobbyists like GW. If I was all about the game I don't think I'd particularly care if the game pieces were repetitive.

Then why not use meeples for 1/10th the price?


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 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:
They are aiming squarely at gamers, rather than to hobbyists like GW. If I was all about the game I don't think I'd particularly care if the game pieces were repetitive.

Then why not use meeples for 1/10th the price?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Edit:ninja

It's funny, I'm currently waiting on some giant-sized 2" meeples for exactly that reason. I think they're going with miniatures because they can. I'm going with meeples because I can't.

 TwilightSparkles wrote:
I'd disagree that if the experiment fails then PP has lost nothing ; you've saddled another group of people who gave you money with another dead game.

There is a limit to how many times you can annoy people before they just aren't interested in anything you do any more.

If PP was doing fine then they wouldn't be even trying a new system.....

My biggest plusfor plastic is you rarely get parts missing. When I played Warmahordes 1 in every 4/5 purchases had missing parts.

This last, it drives me nuts, I am about the same ratio, 1 in 4 products either missing pieces or having wrong pieces. PP is terrible with this. All metal with this kind of ratio makes warcaster for me a soft pass which could turn hard.

On the plus side, that's only likely to be an issue with the 'Jacks, as the infantry look to be almost entirely single-piece models.

It's clearly a game designed for gamers, not hobbyists. Now please magnetize these fourteen tiny pieces to your warjack to unlock the full game mode.

WUWU wrote:
It's clearly a game designed for gamers, not hobbyists. Now please magnetize these fourteen tiny pieces to your warjack to unlock the full game mode.

The hobbyist magnetises the weapons. The gamer just glues the best weapons to the model and discards the rest. Or glues whichever weapons they prefer the look of on, and calls them whichever weapons they want to use that game.

Not necessarily - as sometimes updates change which weapon is best. The real gamer blue-tacs them on

I came up with my own personal solution to the issue of repeat sculpts - focusing on the skirmish level, 8 unit game! There, you could have all unique sculpts once the heavies are released and then up to the 15 unit game when there are more unique releases.

To be honest, in warmachine it was not that effective to repeat units too much anyway, and hopefully they same holds true here. So, that's my plan - no duplicate sculpts, and just add more when they release more options.

 insaniak wrote:
The hobbyist magnetises the weapons. The gamer just glues the best weapons to the model and discards the rest. Or glues whichever weapons they prefer the look of on, and calls them whichever weapons they want to use that game.

Hand of Glory is running a KS of generic fantasy metal miniatures, where sockets for the magnets (actually steel plugs) are molded into the miniature, so you can swap their also magnetized hands which hold different accessories.

Any reason why PP isn't doing this with some (not necessarily all) of their (metal and resin) miniatures? I recognize that interchangeable parts often means less narrative / expressive sculpts, but it's not like you can't have some sculpts interchangeable and others not.

PP are the only ones who could say why they haven't done that, but my guess would be because it's easier to design and cast models without magnet holes, and they didn't feel that enough people would actually care to justify the bother.

Which again, leaves everyone scratching their head. If the game is for "gamers" who don't care about miniatures, why stress the miniatures so much at all, why cast in metal instead of cheap pvc? crisp detail is the only advantage metal has.

If it's supposed to be "hobby grade" to quote another project similar to Warcaster (Battleborn had very similar aesthetic), then why so little variation and so plain sculpts?

The project clearly is stuck in the glory days of PP in terms of concepts, and has very confused identity.

Detail isn't the only advantage of metal. One of the most common reasons I hear people profess is simply that they like the heft of metal miniatures.

You seem to be seeing this as a very black and white issue, though, which is weird. Making models for hobbyists and therefore using plastic or resin, and making a game where the models don't matter so should be made from the cheapest possible materials are not the only two options here.

They've gone with metal (I would guess) because it gives good detail while being more robust and cheaper than resin, and they haven't used plastic either because they don't expect to sell enough to justify it, or they don't want to have to outsource production, or even simply because they like metal models and so that's what they want to make.

Yeah nah. The game is still a hobby game. This weird only a game for gamers narrative you're pushing really doesn't make sense. So much so that I'm not really going to engage you on that topic.

I can say from my casting experience is that such holes add extra points where molds can fail or wear. After a bunch of runs you'll see those holes partially filled in, or worse. It's just easier to make molds with fewer undercuts, especially so if it's a 2 part rubber mold for spin casting.

Maybe what they're producing is their compromise on reaching both gamers and hobbyists.

I'm just happy there are no repeat sculpts within units - so if you stick to one of each, you at least won't have duplicates. Hopefully they stick to that even if they eventually make a larger unit size.

If they are choosing metal because it is cheaper, why are they not leveraging that into more attractive prices for the consumers?

Nurglitch wrote:
Maybe what they're producing is their compromise on reaching both gamers and hobbyists.

“Warcaster: Honey, it’s time to settle.”

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
If they are choosing metal because it is cheaper, why are they not leveraging that into more attractive prices for the consumers?

Nurglitch wrote:
Maybe what they're producing is their compromise on reaching both gamers and hobbyists.

“Warcaster: Honey, it’s time to settle.”

The prices aren't bad, they just aren't "OMG This KS is so freaking awesome I can buy a hundred models for the cost of one at retail" kind of prices. PP is not steep discounting this KS, which isn't a bad thing. It's just that a lot of other wargame companies have offered steep discounts to encourage KS backing.

So, they’re far lower prices than PP’s normal retail prices?

 Overread wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
If they are choosing metal because it is cheaper, why are they not leveraging that into more attractive prices for the consumers?

Nurglitch wrote:
Maybe what they're producing is their compromise on reaching both gamers and hobbyists.

“Warcaster: Honey, it’s time to settle.”

The prices aren't bad, they just aren't "OMG This KS is so freaking awesome I can buy a hundred models for the cost of one at retail" kind of prices. PP is not steep discounting this KS, which isn't a bad thing. It's just that a lot of other wargame companies have offered steep discounts to encourage KS backing.

So, they're not leveraging the metal into cheaper prices if what you're saying?

Cronch wrote:

 Overread wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
If they are choosing metal because it is cheaper, why are they not leveraging that into more attractive prices for the consumers?

Nurglitch wrote:
Maybe what they're producing is their compromise on reaching both gamers and hobbyists.

“Warcaster: Honey, it’s time to settle.”

The prices aren't bad, they just aren't "OMG This KS is so freaking awesome I can buy a hundred models for the cost of one at retail" kind of prices. PP is not steep discounting this KS, which isn't a bad thing. It's just that a lot of other wargame companies have offered steep discounts to encourage KS backing.

So, they're not leveraging the metal into cheaper prices if what you're saying?

Think of the metal production as 'CoronaVirus' protection, given how many KS emails I've received telling me that production is now delayed. PP is producing these locally in England so they might be the most reliable supplier if Chinese based production slows down any more.

I fear that over here in the UK we are just about to start hitting the 'shut down everything for 3 months' button

hopefully we'll cope a bit better than Italy, but we're running about 10 days behind them on the infection curve and they've just done so

Honestly if "shut everything down" is going to be the action I'd rather it got started sooner rather than later. Though 3 months sounds rather long?

China's only just starting to get back online, and they could shut things down far harder than I think we will dare to do politically,

so I anticipate the gov will try a couple of weeks but keep extending and extending as infections carry on happening

https://youtu.be/vRvRuwUxVJY

A hands on video with some of the Warcaster models

Personally I'm torn between the Marcher worlds and and their "Browncoat" motley appearance of rough rebels against the universe. Plus they've got those huge rail-cannon type guns going on with their jacks.


Or the Aeternus Continuum with their bio-mech marauder and general asthetic; dark themes; twisted machine religion and their more feral looking jack with the huge claw and such.


Both are themes I really like and it sounds like Xenos are a fair long way off. The video also really interests me because seeing them in someone's hands they do look bigger and the casting and metal look really nice.



I just wish PP was showing a bit more stuff that would likely not hit until KS 2 or 3 or beyond - ergo getting a greater idea of the diversity and appearance of more of the armed forces. It's a bit like genestealer cults first wave at the present for me - there's a flavour and taste, but not enough to really make them feel like full "armies" as such. Of course because all three are in the very same position it evens out a bit as they are all competing on the same footing.

It's also interesting to see that even the few expansion models they are showing are mostly fitting the same kind of roles (at least based on appearance). It would be nice to see some variety, however it might be that balance wise PP is going for a game where armies are different in stats and appearance, but functionally have the same core structural elements.

 ChargerIIC wrote:

Cronch wrote:

 Overread wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
If they are choosing metal because it is cheaper, why are they not leveraging that into more attractive prices for the consumers?

Nurglitch wrote:
Maybe what they're producing is their compromise on reaching both gamers and hobbyists.

“Warcaster: Honey, it’s time to settle.”

The prices aren't bad, they just aren't "OMG This KS is so freaking awesome I can buy a hundred models for the cost of one at retail" kind of prices. PP is not steep discounting this KS, which isn't a bad thing. It's just that a lot of other wargame companies have offered steep discounts to encourage KS backing.

So, they're not leveraging the metal into cheaper prices if what you're saying?

Think of the metal production as 'CoronaVirus' protection, given how many KS emails I've received telling me that production is now delayed. PP is producing these locally in England so they might be the most reliable supplier if Chinese based production slows down any more.

Make no mistake, PP casts in metal because they have the tools, the equipment, and they pay their casters minimum wage. It's cheap and easy for them.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
So, they’re far lower prices than PP’s normal retail prices?

No, they are higher then PP's retail prices because they are passing the cut KS takes off to the customer while still expecting to take home normal retail profits themselves.

Here's how someone from the FB group is playtesting the jacks



Ingenius, but also demonstrates the problem... someone could make a killing pre-drilling / magnetizing kits!

 Ordana wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
So, they’re far lower prices than PP’s normal retail prices?

No, they are higher then PP's retail prices because they are passing the cut KS takes off to the customer while still expecting to take home normal retail profits themselves.

Now I’m really confused because I was asking in response to someone’s claim that the prices weren’t bad.

Pretty standard pricing. $15 for a solo, $30 for a light jack, $25 for a 3 man unit. That's pretty in line with anything else PP sells. Starter box rolls up to $85 value going for $70, which is basically a free solo plus the dice and stuff. Pretty standard bundle value. It's definitely not higher than retail.

 LunarSol wrote:
Pretty standard pricing. $15 for a solo, $30 for a light jack, $25 for a 3 man unit. That's pretty in line with anything else PP sells. Starter box rolls up to $85 value going for $70, which is basically a free solo plus the dice and stuff. Pretty standard bundle value. It's definitely not higher than retail.

*looks at the $50 price tag of a MonPoc starter, then a $40 WM/H starter*

$20 to $30 more based on the price of their other starters is not in line with their normal retail pricing.
This is significantly higher than any of their other games to buy into.
Plus, there’s shipping costs to factor in as well, unless you’re in the US.
It seems to me that they have pretty much reserved their market to the US alone.
I personally can’t justify upwards of $100US for a starter set.

No matter what you want to compare to this KS, it’s expensive.

They've hit £325K and thus unlocked the mercenary hero!


They've also issued an update to the value for some of the packs and increased the contents!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/privateerpress/warcaster-neo-mechanika/posts/2781990

The MonPoc starter is a $30 monster and a $20 unit pack with the dice and map being free. No discount on the models. The WMH starters are repacks of PVC jacks made literally a decade ago. The individual prices of the models in the starter are in line with PPs normal pricing and the price of the starter itself is in line or even a hair cheaper than the normal cost for such a bundle. It costs more, but its also a buy in that gets you closer to the real game than either of the two you mentioned.

 LunarSol wrote:
Pretty standard pricing. $15 for a solo, $30 for a light jack, $25 for a 3 man unit. That's pretty in line with anything else PP sells. Starter box rolls up to $85 value going for $70, which is basically a free solo plus the dice and stuff. Pretty standard bundle value. It's definitely not higher than retail.

The misconception seems to be that prices “pretty in line with anything else PP sells” are not registering as equivalent to “bad” when they should. They only barely seem good in comparison with GW prices. PP keeps shedding customers without acquiring new ones, and while their price strategy is not the entire reason it is certainly an important one.

The prices are pretty in line with metals and resins from other companies these days too. The main problem is just that most other games are running smaller model counts that make things seem a lot cheaper. I'm not sure of any major game these days that I can get a single model for less than $15 unless its really small or in PVC.

 LunarSol wrote:
The prices are pretty in line with metals and resins from other companies these days too. The main problem is just that most other games are running smaller model counts that make things seem a lot cheaper. I'm not sure of any major game these days that I can get a single model for less than $15 unless its really small or in PVC.

Depends on the game, I guess. I’m a fan of Bones, Nolzur’s, most PVC and hard plastic sellers that aren’t GW (with some exceptions), but they aren’t the real competition for this. Last weekend, MM sold Wrath of Kong’s minis for insanely cheap prices per mini. When Mk3 dropped, I found plenty of PP starters for $10 or less, Grind for $8, ASOIAF boxes for $10, SWLegion for $5 a box, and so on. Customers have more options now than ever before. Buying a large skirmish force at $15 per one dude and $30 for a robot may have seemed reasonable when there were no other options, but they don’t fly now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If I was interested in this for the game, the pieces would seem stupidly expensive compared to tokens or standees. If I was interested for the minis, I could buy similar ones at a fraction of the cost or wait a year for the miniature market correction to bring these to a reasonable price.

At least it's not $35 per plastic non-unique character.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Depends on the game, I guess. I’m a fan of Bones, Nolzur’s, most PVC and hard plastic sellers that aren’t GW (with some exceptions), but they aren’t the real competition for this. Last weekend, MM sold Wrath of Kong’s minis for insanely cheap prices per mini. When Mk3 dropped, I found plenty of PP starters for $10 or less, Grind for $8, ASOIAF boxes for $10, SWLegion for $5 a box, and so on. Customers have more options now than ever before. Buying a large skirmish force at $15 per one dude and $30 for a robot may have seemed reasonable when there were no other options, but they don’t fly now..

You can't expect a company to price a new range to match clearance prices from Miniature Market, though.

Yeah expecting companies to sell products at clearance prices (which are often below "at cost" prices and can even be below the price the retailer bought them for as well) is just nuts.

It's fair to want value for money, but expecting companies to basically pay to give you a product is insulting.



Sure you can argue that the game might be dead in a year and its perfectly fair to wait until then to find out if you don't want to buy in now.

They don’t have to match it. They just need to get low enough for their quality, community, or whatever other added value to top the scales. I buy new items I’m excited about at full price when they feel like a good enough value, even despite the existence of MM.

Typically, I find there’s a value for impulse buys that allows a potential customer like me to buy a new product the first time they see it on the shelf, but anything just above that price causes pause, allowing the customer to think and cool down. For an example, I used to buy Malifaux figures sometimes, but haven’t bought anything since they reboxed all their kits because the price was high enough to kick in my higher brain functions before I reached the register.

So what you're saying is we need to take you down to the pub for a few hours before you'll back the KS?

It wouldn’t hurt.

I do agree, market is saturated with such games and asking people to pay premium for product which is not premium is asking for a lot.

Privateer Press have ALWAYS been overpriced outside of battleboxes. People just forgave it because the game was good.

They are GW with less resources and less technically good models (aesthetics are a different argument).

 Da Boss wrote:
They are GW with less resources and less technically good models (aesthetics are a different argument).

And better rules. Don't forget the better rules. It's a big part of PP.

MK3 begs to differ...

MK3 Ruleset was fine.

Faction balance was the issue.

Faction balance is a pretty big part of the rules. But yeah, PP were always better at rules than GW.

 Da Boss wrote:
Faction balance is a pretty big part of the rules. But yeah, PP were always better at rules than GW.

.

Based on Dakka - isn't everyone better at rules than GW?

Genuinely trying to think of another game I have played with worse rules...drawing a blank. I am sure it must be out there though!

I just don't like Warhammer games. Playing warhammer tabletop equals taking as many dice as you can, throwing it. Any bad rolls you take again and rethrow. Then you take dozen or so dices who resulted in hit and then throw these. In the end from several dozen of dices you have several hits which actually had done damage and half of them are removed by enemy saves.

As for Warmachine, I dislike focus system as I think it is too strong and undervalues models themselves. Anything with focus can hit way too hard then fully powered and it makes completely irrelevant health, armor and weapon stats. All you need is one big beating stick and plenty of focus to buy a bazzilion of attacks. Nobody should be able to buy new attacks unless specifically stated or it is warcaster. I would enjoy game based more on attrition rather than alphas through threat ranges reaching half a table...

I wonder if Neo-Mechanika will feel better to play.

TBH from what I have played, GW rules are “good enough for what its looking to achieve”. It just amuses me when people try to fit the square GW ruleset into the round hole of competitive play and expect it to work.

I like WM/H due to the precision and accuracy of play. Things either “are” or “are not”. There is very little rule lawyering etc. BUT if I could live with the more general rules of GW then I am certain I would be into 40K or WHF or something like that.

Its not about slagging off GW’s rules. Its just acknowledging them for what they are. And the fact that for a huge swathe of the wargaming worlds, that is enough.

Sunno wrote:
MK3 Ruleset was fine.

Faction balance was the issue.

You know, other than be unable to charge a Knocked Down or Stationary model, and losing all gang up type bonuses on models suffering those conditions. And they totally did that intentionally and play tested it that way. Except for the charging part which they changed right away. And then when people pointed out the near dozen cases of models with gang up type mechanics having non-optional knockdown mechanics making them lose those gang up bonuses they eventually changed that too.

Also I like how you just casually throw out Faction Bonus as though one of the factions at launch was So Bad they had to redo the entire thing. They stopped putting cards in with models because of how fast they were being errataed and made obsolete. Mk3 was a giant cluster frak. They panicked when Warmachine started to slow down and rushed the new edition out and bombed it horribly and only hastened the downward spiral of which they’ve never fully recovered from.

Warcaster gives them a chance at a fresh start. Less models to have to balance initially. Not having some of the legacy issues they’ve refused to address in Warmachine (FA:U). I’ve heard some interesting things about the game, but I don’t know of anyone local getting it, and I’m already pressed for gaming time between MonPoc, Aristeia, Godtear, Guild Ball, and the Warhammers, so it’s getting a pass from me.

Sunno wrote:
MK3 Ruleset was fine.

Faction balance was the issue.

And the fact that it was app-driven too. That put a lot of people, myself included, off of the offering.

Mk3 was a mess. Throw rules hadn't even been tested when released (it was more effective not to aim at a target, you could accurately throw your own models to extend their threat range, etc). An entire faction's rules had to be remade from scratch afterwards. And their fix to the problems was to adjust the rules wayyyyyyy too frequently, on a rolling basis, which I personally really dislike...

I'm much more hopeful for this game, though! Starting over lets them get out from under a lot of the issues with warmahordes. And they greatly increased the value of the highest pledge level in the latest update.

 AduroT wrote:

Sunno wrote:
MK3 Ruleset was fine.

Faction balance was the issue.

You know, other than be unable to charge a Knocked Down or Stationary model, and losing all gang up type bonuses on models suffering those conditions. And they totally did that intentionally and play tested it that way. Except for the charging part which they changed right away. And then when people pointed out the near dozen cases of models with gang up type mechanics having non-optional knockdown mechanics making them lose those gang up bonuses they eventually changed that too.

Also I like how you just casually throw out Faction Bonus as though one of the factions at launch was So Bad they had to redo the entire thing. They stopped putting cards in with models because of how fast they were being errataed and made obsolete. Mk3 was a giant cluster frak. They panicked when Warmachine started to slow down and rushed the new edition out and bombed it horribly and only hastened the downward spiral of which they’ve never fully recovered from.

Warcaster gives them a chance at a fresh start. Less models to have to balance initially. Not having some of the legacy issues they’ve refused to address in Warmachine (FA:U). I’ve heard some interesting things about the game, but I don’t know of anyone local getting it, and I’m already pressed for gaming time between MonPoc, Aristeia, Godtear, Guild Ball, and the Warhammers, so it’s getting a pass from me.

Which Faction was so bad they had to redo it. I remember Skorne for Hordes had to be redone entirely but I can't remember which one they had redone for Warmachine.

It's Skorne - people refer to the game as one since both "halves" are fully compatible.

My local group got to playtest Warcaster this week, but unfortunately I was out of town that day. Folks are quite committed making their own standees / etc for it

Sunno wrote:
MK3 Ruleset was fine.

Faction balance was the issue.

Honestly, I've felt like faction balance has been better across MK3 than pretty much all of MK2. Skorne had to be redone but Skorne was terrible in all of MK2 and just never GOT redone like it needed to be. The only real difference was in MK2 the haves and haves not were consistent. Cryx and Cygnar and Circle were amazing a few factions occasionally got to compete with them but quickly faded back out when the big three adapted. MK3 has been more volatile with some HUGE mistakes (Khador having absolutely no reasonable method of attacking the Cryx battle engine was.... a problem) but in terms of faction balance and list variety I feel its been, at least no worse than MK2.

 RiTides wrote:


I'm much more hopeful for this game, though! Starting over lets them get out from under a lot of the issues with warmahordes. And they greatly increased the value of the highest pledge level in the latest update.

I'm hoping Warcaster is just a trial-run for rebooting WM/H tbh. Warmachine at a smaller-scale, with 3-man units, and less stupid synergy and stripped down factions without all the bloat? Sounds fun as hell. (Though PP would release the whole thing in metal again and no one would buy it).