I asked about a week ago in the KS comments if there had been any word (pictures preferred) of MIKH's work because he had singlehandely delayed other KS. I really didn't think they would touch it with a ten foot pole, but one of their reps answered a whole slew of questions including mine
-> Any word (pictures really) of the work done by MIKH? The man has singlehandedly stalled other kickstarters, and I don't want to see this one slip because he can't hit a deadline.
Yes I purposefully kept an eye on this one, his last model is nearly finished, I should be able to show it to you shortly
Good to know his work ethic is known by more than just backers in the industry.
Easy. CMON doesn't waste time or money on unimportant tasks like responding to customer support emails, or answering questions on KS after they have your money.
ced1106 wrote: Easy. CMON doesn't waste time or money on unimportant tasks like responding to customer support emails, or answering questions on KS after they have your money.
I mean, I know this is going to come with some colouring, since I'm a pretty firm and vocal CMoN supporter, but that just isn't true.
Wehrkind wrote: MIKH: Eroder of Dreams. Sloth of a Thousand Eventual Young. Gastropod of Despair. Destroyer of Kickstarters.
Friend of Monolith .
The responded to my request on the kickstarter page for an update on Mikh's stuff with
"Funny you should say that....."
Really, that's all they said in response. Another person on there posted a link to Mikh's page which has pics of some work in progress, but still not completed models, he thinks they might be posting his models in the next update. I asked for more of an answer from them, haven't seen anything yet.
Have you guys seen his blog? He's got a couple nice posts about first piece for Conan... I know he's not the speediest fellow, but he does do some cool updates there when he gets around to it.
Saw the update, but also was wondering how many and which models he signed up for. There's other sculptors out there doing just as good if not better models at a much faster pace than what we see from MIKH. I've got enough money invested here where I want to actually see results, and I've seen his results in other kickstarters, so being a pest to them might just get them to stay on him and get stuff done in time.
Wehrkind wrote: MIKH: Eroder of Dreams. Sloth of a Thousand Eventual Young. Gastropod of Despair. Destroyer of Kickstarters.
Friend of Monolith .
Not sure why I am getting a wagging finger... Should I care about MIKH being a friend to Monolith? Does it change the fact that almost every KS he is involved in seems to have delays due to his speeds, and it makes people cranky?
Wehrkind wrote: MIKH: Eroder of Dreams. Sloth of a Thousand Eventual Young. Gastropod of Despair. Destroyer of Kickstarters.
Friend of Monolith .
Not sure why I am getting a wagging finger... Should I care about MIKH being a friend to Monolith? Does it change the fact that almost every KS he is involved in seems to have delays due to his speeds, and it makes people cranky?
Sorry, the finger waving was because monolith claim him as a friend and won't let them down. It's the next bad idea.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Hopefully, Monolith put a clock on MIKH for completion, with penalty for delays.
Looks like MONOLITH really are friends with MIKH!
So much so that he's done with his CONAN sculpt before he's done with his ARENA REX stuff - which is...odd, to say the least.
Good thing MONOLITH got someone else to sculpt the lion though - we all know about MIKH, LIONS and SCHEDULES...
Oh?
MIKH's Conan the General looks quite good!
Good thing Arena Rex wasn't important.
More likely, MIKH wasn't feeling it, and Conan was new and "fresh", so he was "inspired" to work on it, compared to the Arena Rex thing that's just been sitting on his desk.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Alpharius wrote: I hope people will now 'let' RRG start selling stuff in their online store...
And why wouldn't they? If RRG has retail-ready product, and backers can have their stuff shipped, then RRG should be able to sell. If the backer chooses to wait until everything is done, that's on the backer for trying to save pennies on shipping.
And why wouldn't they? If RRG has retail-ready product, and backers can have their stuff shipped, then RRG should be able to sell. If the backer chooses to wait until everything is done, that's on the backer for trying to save pennies on shipping.
Sadly, there's been enough vocal pushback from a small minority that RRG won't do it.
Here is the latest update in full, but damn can that Rémy Tremblay sculpt !
#105
One man and his lion
Posted by Monolith Board Games LLC
Good evening folks, yet another update for you all as we continue to work on the Pledge Manager! First up, we have General Conan sculpted by the incredibly talented Mikh!
Sculpted by Mikh
Sculpted by Mikh
And then, we have King Conan’s Lion by Viktor Dragosani.
Sculpted by Viktor Dragosani
Sculpted by Viktor Dragosani
Ok, so the title was kind of misleading... I actually have 2 men to show you! Presenting Taurus!
Sculpted by Rémy Tremblay
Sculpted by Rémy Tremblay
Sculpted by Rémy Tremblay
Also, we are aware that a lot of you needed to see confirmed postage costs before the 60 day refund policy wore out. I know we haven't been very communicative on this but please be aware that postage is an extremely tricky issue and we want to give you acurate and confirmed information. The pledge manager is fast approaching and as promised, we will let you know as soon as we have an exact date. In the meantime, we will not be able to give out quotes to everyone who has requested them. Therefore, we will be asking you to wait for the pledge manager to go live and it will be able to give you an exact number. We have already given fairly precise estimations for the US, Europe and other countries and we stand by these numbers. As a reminder, they are still shown at the bottom of the project page on Kickstarter. For Australia, Canada and New Zealand, we are currently negotiating shipping rates, so in order to not cheat some out of a full refund after they have received their quotes, we will be extending the duration of our “No Questions” refund policy for these countries until we can give them the exact numbers for their shipping. For all other countries, there has been no new developments and prices will most likely remain as shown on the project page. I'd like to apologise to you all for the inconvenience and thank you all again for your continued support.
Alpharius wrote: I agree - but you apparently didn't back Arena Rex and/or aren't reading the comments section there or the thread here...
Yes and yes, but no.
It seems that RRG has allowed themselves to be held hostage by a slow subcontractor and a minority of backers, which simply illustrates how badly-managed they are. It's as if RRG (and the backers) don't understand the point of using KS to launch new product into retail...
Geez -- You guys need to create a "whitelist" of these resin and metal miniatures companies worth backing. I keep hearing nothing but nightmares about these companies! ):
I've backed Johnny Lauck and Dark Sword Miniatures, and get the impression that they have the sculpts and mold ready before the KS. RAFM apparently has a sculptor who will fill in if another drops out. Alien Assimilation Host is taking forever, but I was only in for the bases.
Good luck! I'm already spending too much money on miniatures boardgames, and dungeon terrain, so guess I"m fortunate to have missed out these other projects. ):
The very unsurprising news that they won't hit their October ship date was made official today in the latest kickstarter update. They suggest sometime between Christmas and first quarter of 2016 as the new target ship date, but mid-2016 or later seems more realistic to me. Chinese new year almost always significantly delays shipping of miniatures produced there at the start of the new year.
As promised last week, here is the king of all that is gribbly: Thaug !
Complete with plenty of tentacles for dragging terrified victims into that gaping orifice I can only assume is his maw.
Thaug is a very scenario based model, your heroes won’t be fighting him every day, and neither would they want to, he is probably the most terrifying monster in the game.
Only expect to see him during scenarios involving deranged sorcerers and holes in the fabric of space and time.
That is a very big gribbly! I like!
And the bad news...
The good news aside, I’m afraid I’m going to have to announce something that a lot of you have feared for some time now. We are not going to be able to carry out delivery as promised in October. We tried our best despite everything to keep to it, but it is now clearly impossible for us.
First of all, and this is something I feel it’s important to admit even if for some, it may seem evident: this is our first project, your support and enthusiasm for the project blew us away, which is a good thing! However, the sheer scale of the project totally blindsided us and it has been a learning experience ever since February.
The biggest setback was of course the Amazon situation. Due to the delay in receiving the money, we are way behind in the preproduction process. Still, we strived to move ahead and assembled enough money to produce the Book of Skelos, as you have seen, but the majority of the work is only just getting under way.
Due to this delay, we are also going to miss our predicted start date for manufacturing, pushing us back even further. That’s not all, however. As pleased as we were, and continue to be, with the result of the campaign, we originally only planned for around $1.5 million. This means we have a lot more to produce than expected and we’ve had to adjust our estimations because of it. All this extra time is now pushing Conan’s production schedule dangerously close to Christmas and the Chinese New Year that follows after, which, as anyone will tell you, is a very difficult period to get things done in.
Here's the gist of it: We are still hoping that, against all the odds, you guys will get Conan under your Xmas trees this year (ie. delivery date: December). However, as much as we intend to strive for it, it’s unlikely and we may well be looking at a delivery date during the first trimester of 2016.
Once again, I can only apologize for the frustration this causes, as I’m sure that, much like ourselves, you guys can’t wait to get your hands on the game. You can count on us to keep working hard at it and we’re doing all we can to speed things along. For example: Managing both the production and pledge manager with our current resources has been an uphill battle, so we have recently brought on another team member in order to help us push through this phase.
Thank you again for your understanding. Despite these setbacks, we still plan on producing one of the finest games to ever grace your tables, bear with us and we will not disappoint you.
I am shocked, shocked that they won't make October delivery.
Even more so that they're still targeting December. We'll see. I think CNY 2016 is more realistic, but I'm glad they're pushing for sooner vs later.
Mr Morden wrote: You would have thought someone would have kickstarted a compaign to make a generic kickstarter pledge manager full of bells and whistles
Such things already exist, like Backerkit and Pledgemanager.
So originally I backed for king plus one of each of the kickstarter only boxes, campaign book and a second box of black guard (since one scenario requires 10 of them from what I heard). But now I'm wondering if I should just go king + barbarian and skip the extras. The not red Sonja didn't look right to me, wolves can be bought later, the campaign rules will wind up on line and the sabertooth tiger looks disneyish. I looked at that and it's well over 300 figure , over 400 if you count all the tables, benches, chests and furniture as single pieces and as "figures". Plus that will give me a second storage box special to keep them in. Do you think that's over kill? Or do you guys suggest getting the exclusives even though they aren't that great.
Alpharius wrote: I'd think it should really just be 'as long as they pay', period.
Agree.
I'll never understand the, "they should pay more" attitude.
Oh I think a nominal $1 late fee should be charged. After all most KS allow the token $1 pledge to be boosted later, but not even tossing the dollar in to begin with??? Though I've skipped some that I wish I hadn't because I didn't have the spare $1 to put down at the time.
Theophony wrote: So originally I backed for king plus one of each of the kickstarter only boxes, campaign book and a second box of black guard (since one scenario requires 10 of them from what I heard). But now I'm wondering if I should just go king + barbarian and skip the extras. The not red Sonja didn't look right to me, wolves can be bought later, the campaign rules will wind up on line and the sabertooth tiger looks disneyish. I looked at that and it's well over 300 figure , over 400 if you count all the tables, benches, chests and furniture as single pieces and as "figures". Plus that will give me a second storage box special to keep them in. Do you think that's over kill? Or do you guys suggest getting the exclusives even though they aren't that great.
I'm going to stick at $300 with shipping (which is pretty much king and exclusive minis, campaign book and a few non exclusive minis) and just get what I need for the campaign based scenarios since that is the only real games id probably play with this game. However where do you find out what models you need for the campaigns?
i actually hope there is a huge amount of late pledgers to this game because it would only ensure that this game receives several more expansions and minis for release. The whole entitlement for pledging is kinda absurd considering there is very little risk with kickstarters and most of the early bird pledgers get a discount regardless.
I think I've decided to get the king pledge and the kickstarter exclusive items and a second set of the black guard. Going king and barbarian would just get so many more duplicates and I could use each map on a single side, but I think between this, Blood rage and Zombicide bp I'm set for figures till....forever.
As for what figures you will need for each campaign I don't think they have a list out there just yet, but they mentioned during the campaign that one adventure would require Conan, his guard captain and 10 of the blackguard.
Theophony wrote: I think I've decided to get the king pledge and the kickstarter exclusive items and a second set of the black guard. Going king and barbarian would just get so many more duplicates and I could use each map on a single side, but I think between this, Blood rage and Zombicide bp I'm set for figures till....forever.
As for what figures you will need for each campaign I don't think they have a list out there just yet, but they mentioned during the campaign that one adventure would require Conan, his guard captain and 10 of the blackguard.
Did they ever post that list of what figures you'd need to do all the missions?
Because the Pledge Manager for this one is now open - and man is it expensive if you want 'everything'...
Theophony wrote: I think I've decided to get the king pledge and the kickstarter exclusive items and a second set of the black guard. Going king and barbarian would just get so many more duplicates and I could use each map on a single side, but I think between this, Blood rage and Zombicide bp I'm set for figures till....forever.
As for what figures you will need for each campaign I don't think they have a list out there just yet, but they mentioned during the campaign that one adventure would require Conan, his guard captain and 10 of the blackguard.
Did they ever post that list of what figures you'd need to do all the missions?
Because the Pledge Manager for this one is now open - and man is it expensive if you want 'everything'...
I'm probably going to just pick up the boxed expansions and a few of the single characters. There is way too much stuff to go all in on this one.
Alpharius wrote: Did they ever post that list of what figures you'd need to do all the missions?
Because the Pledge Manager for this one is now open - and man is it expensive if you want 'everything'...
Ask in the Comments and Updates!
For me, I'm getting the Game and ignoring the expensive expansions. Maybe $20 worth of adders. But really, I think there will be more than enough gameplay in the base game and SGs unlocked.
I wound up getting a refund on this. Hated to do it, but I'll get more out of Zombicide: Black Plague. They keep sending me updates, but won't send me the pledge manager, so I'm not invited anymore anyways .
This and Z:BP look like they'll be the last KS I go in really big on for a long time, perhaps forever. I'm tempted to go all-in on this. Any kind of current idea these days on when it might actually ship and in how many waves?
2 updates and they still haven't said. Was gonna get all the exclusives but the shipping is dumb, maybe one of the chainmail armor girls but I don't need 'wolves'
One of the comments I saw stated two weeks... If you can access the PM, I think it's in the FAQ. Anyhoo, I went for all the KS exclusive stuff (King pledge, campaign, and any KS exclusive add-ons (Black guard, Sabre-tooth etc) - as even if they don't help, I foresee they'll have value for exclusivity. OTOH, I've not gone for any of the ordinary expansions or add-ons, as I see no point - I'll be able to buy them at retail anyway, and what I'd save on discount, I'll gain back on no shipping fee from a FLGS, and keep in my pocket for another year anyway.
I just found this in the comments about shipping time window:
"So as to be certain that we can hold to our revised shipping dates, we have decided to split fulfillment into two waves. YOU WILL ONLY PAY FOR SHIPPING THE FIRST WAVE. THE COST OF THE SECOND ONE WILL BE COVERED BY MONOLITH.
WAVE 1 - First quarter of 2016: Base Box, Stretch goals and Add-Ons (all of them but not the Artbook/campaign)
WAVE 2 - Summer 2016: Expansions (Nordheim, Khitai, Stygia) + Artbook/Campaign"
Makes sense, it was clear from the beginning of the campaign that there was no way they'd hit October 2015. So push the above two dates out by 3-6 months each and we've possibly got our timeframe.
The majority of the Kickstarter contents will arrive during the first quarter of 2016. The only exceptions are the 3 expansion sets (Khitai, Nordheim, Stygia) and the campaign book add-ons which will arrive on your doorstep towards during the summer!
I went pretty light on the PM. With most of the things being available for retail post campaign, I'll wait to see how much of this I actually end up playing.
RivenSkull wrote: I went pretty light on the PM. With most of the things being available for retail post campaign, I'll wait to see how much of this I actually end up playing.
We're well in to Q1, and the recent Updates suggests that Conan is moving along just fine.
Update 147 wrote:Well, today is quite the date, it’s been a year since we launched the Conan project and although we did not make our original time frame, we are so very close to seeing the game on tabletops everywhere!
I can’t give you a more precise estimation for delivery at this time, there are too many things we can’t control. If anything comes up, you guys will be the first to know!
Production is still going well and we can now show you the finished versions of Conan the Mercenary and the Hyperborean primitive
Spoiler:
And more production stuff:
Update 148 wrote:
Spoiler:
Finally, some of you have been asking for more information on the beginning of the shipping phase and, although we are constantly in contact with our factories, we have no specific date yet. We expect to be able to give you a more precise answer within the next week or so.
The minis are looking nice enough, and I look forward to playing this game!
I think we'll be lucky to see this finished before the end of the year. They'll launch their ancient Greek themed KS the moment the first boxes leave their HK shippers, though. Probably with a projected fulfilment date of December 2016...
Something of interest to everyone that backed the Conan board game...
Modiphius are launching their RPG today and part of their preview text included this little gem (bold-ed)
Now let's take at look at the books you can expect beyond the illustrious core book and Conqueror's Edition! These are all beautiful 112 page full colour hardcover books with high quality Arctic White paper content (the same as Mutant: Year Zero if you have seen those books). We'll be working our way through these in order but we're also going to be splitting them up with some stunning geomorphic adventure tiles which feature similar movement spaces to Monolith's Conan boardgame (the Conan RPG does not use grid movement).
I know they said before that they were going to work with Monolith to have a two way support. It looks like this includes new boards that could be used in the Monolith game. Hopefully this means we'll also get boardgame scenarios for some of the rpg missions and rpg tales that utilise the Monolith boards... we can dream
It'll deliver eventually. I'm just hoping that we can expect it between December 2016 and March 2017 and not have it turn out to be like Journey, which is an absolute clusterfeth.
Journey: Wrath of Demons? I received Wave 1 and played the full campaign. No regrets there. Still waiting on Wave 2, which they are working on. They just Updated yesterday. Not so bad.
As far as clusterfeths go, I've still got money in Robotech...
Overall, I see Conan more akin to Journey than Robotech - late, but delivering.
Yeah, after 2? 3? months of dead silence, they've had 1 update about resins and now a non-update update.
We've heard nothing about production since (at least) Wave 1 shipping back in June last year. Which was when the resins (which they're still fumbling with) were supposed to go out as well. Still no mention of the extras of models from the core box, either - which you'd imagine would have been produced already.
It's a lot closer to Robotech than you might think, at least at this stage. I doubt we'll be getting anything from them in 2016. They clearly don't have their gak together at all.
Monolith wrote:As it stands, the official planning shows that the King and Barbarian pledges will be ready to go by the end of June with the Stretch goals flowing behind mid july. This should leave us with everything on the water by late July, meaning that they should be arriving at hub around the end of September, leaving shipping to begin in October.
This is the planning for the 1st Wave. The second wave (add-ons, campaign, expansions) will be the next on the block and we will let you know as soon as we have fixed dates.
So, when we asked if it was going to be October, and Monolith said "yes", they really meant "October, next year". After Gencon, but hopefully for the holiday season.
So a full year late, like various other long-delayed KS. I hope the content and value justifies the huge delay.
I think we can give them some leeway for being victims of their own success -- any KS project that succeeds to that degree is likely to cause delays due to the increased scale of every aspect of the job.
That said, they don't seem to be very professional or experienced at project management, either, given that they seem to have been dreadful at calculating how long any stage of the project would take, and don't seem to have allowed for any delays.
Value still looks really good even if the game turns out to be poor... and the game looks fun so far. I'm really glad they've taken the time to get rules writing help from FFG (though again, they should have planned for that from the start).
They should have learned from cmon. CMON got a lot of flack about loss of detail for zombicide seasons 2 and 3, rum & bones, and b-sieged. This was all due to:
This is why CMON went with a more muted color scheme for the heroes in black plague and blood rage, which worked very well. I think the mini looks great, but wish they had used a ore tan or grey color so the details would pop without painting.
Looking back thru the updates I see the ugly cheap looking dice. They even further clutter an already busy die with additional little symbols, for the color blind, because one guy in the comments wouldn't shut up about it. I'm afflicted with an aversion to ugly, gak looking dice, where's the special dice made just for me :-)
ArtIsGreat wrote: Looking back thru the updates I see the ugly cheap looking dice. They even further clutter an already busy die with additional little symbols, for the color blind, because one guy in the comments wouldn't shut up about it. I'm afflicted with an aversion to ugly, gak looking dice, where's the special dice made just for me :-)
They didn't make braille dice to accomodate blind gamers either. So inconsiderate...
Igor Sandère : "Folks, I had those minis in my very hand, months ago, brought by Fred Henry at home when we had a Conan event with fellow "prototype team" members (we are the teams in charge of creating additionals scenarios to be available on the website during launch for the add-ons and SGs to whom prototype of the games had been sent). I can assure you they are comparable to Blood Rage minis (wich I just received back then). That afternoon I primed a pict in white and whashed it in sepia, then dry brushed it with white/bone color and the result was stunning (I'll post the link to the picture tomorrow, not at home atm)"
From the comments, their mistake was that they wanted to show off the paint job, so they went with a poor unpainted picture.
With plastic being translucent, particularly with lighter colors, it's difficult to take an accurate picture. (Sometimes, you can' t get a good picture with unpainted metal!) While CMON seems to have the skill, even Reaper Miniatures had this issue when they first released Bones.
My vote is a primer then a wash, but then you have the complaints by customers who want an unpainted picture.
So, some rather good news to share concerning production today. Everything is proceeding as planned (for once!) and we have plenty of photos to share!
Once again, please bear in mind that the models are not the easiest thing to photograph in this setting and that they are of the highest quality as promised!
This is the miniature box for the Barbarian Pledge level:
And some of the contents:
Here you can see the dice and dice bag. Note that these are not the production dice but the samples from before, hence the Orange is slightly off.
So photos are all very well and good but where does this leave us? Well, I’m happy to report that we are on track for the October delivery date!
We’ll be receiving more and more production samples in the coming weeks and we’ll be sure to share them with you as we receive them!
Asmodee’s upcoming release of Monolith Edition’s Conan board game into the game trade, scheduled for the fourth quarter, is going to carry an aggressive $100+ retail price.
Based on the works of Robert Howard and designed by Frederic Henry (Timeline, The Adventurers), Conan is an overlord-style game of adventure for two to five players (see “‘Conan’ Board Game’”) packed with plastic miniatures. Monolith funded the game through a $2.5 million Kickstarter campaign. Asmodee will be handling the distribution of the game into the trade following the fulfillment to Kickstarter backers, starting in the fourth quarter of this year.
The updated component list for the game includes 74 plastic miniatures, 4 hero sheets, a plastic “Book of Skelos” used by the Overlord player to manage the game’s enemies, 2 double-sided boards, 45 tiles, 9 custom dice, 75 plastic gems, 55 cards, 148 tokens, and 2 rulebooks. The game is for 2 to 5 players, ages 14 and up, and each scenario plays in about an hour and a half. MSRP is $119.99.
For $119 retail I'm glad I went all in on this Kickstarter not only was the king pledge cheaper then the retail amount but you litterally only get 1/3 of the minis that retail does. However the community rep said that monolith only makes $3 per Kickstarter box sold so that makes some sense regarding the retail pricing.
I'm a little disappointed most of the add-ons are not going to be sold at retail. I didn't pick up any guest boxes or expansions and a few add ons such as the dragon and black ones. And the Facebook commentor said the guest boxes nor the dragon or black ones or many of the scenery and door packs won't be sold at retail. Kinda bummer considering they weren't marked Kickstarter exclusive and even had the retail price they planned on selling them for. I really wanted a set of black ones.
gungo wrote: I'm a little disappointed most of the add-ons are not going to be sold at retail.
IIRC, We were told that the expansions might not make retail. Unfortunately, this isn't the first KS whose non-exclusive expansions won't make retail.
One definite gap with KS is that, while it will make the funds necessary to produce the molds and backer copies, it doesn't otherwise help a creator make it to retail. That is, a KS will help with the fixed costs (eg. molds) of a project, but not the marginal costs (eg. retail copies) of it. The traditional distributor-retailer model requires a deep discount, and many KS companies cannot afford this (otherwise, they wouldn't need to use KS).
One random thought is that, since there are effectively only a few OLGS compared to the hundreds (?) of LGS, KS companies that cannot provide product at the terms set by the traditional distributor-retailer model could bypass distributors and sell directly through online retailers.
The only update that said the nonexclusives might not make retail was in regards to bases and extra sets like scenery. The community rep on The Kickstarter pretty much said the nonexclusives would make retail. However you are correct Kickstarters doesn't garauntee any models at all even at what you purchased. It still doesn't change the fact I still thought it would be detailed and would like to pick up a set of black ones if givenThe chance. There is hope monolith created a few extra sets to sell post Kickstarter or I can find a set of black ones on eBay at scalper prices but I'm not terribly hopeful on a Kickstarter with only 16,000 backers and most of them likely didn't order the black ones add on.
Not the last time something said on KS disappeared into the ether. ): Why companies make expansions they know are unlikely to sell is beyond me, although FFP and SPM have shown you can sell mini-expansions direct to customers on through an online store front, while still having retail sales. What Cthulhu Wars did was have a second KS for its second round of expansions -- seems not impossible enough. Ares Games showed that you could run a KS project for an expansion of a game alongside the base game. CMON, of course, releases expansions in the guise of "standalone" sets. Maybe Monolith could have saved the expansions for another KS and disguised them as a Conan standalone boardgame as well. :/
ced1106 wrote: CMON, of course, releases expansions in the guise of "standalone" sets.
Maybe Monolith could have saved the expansions for another KS and disguised them as a Conan standalone boardgame as well. :/
Except, CMoN's Zombicide Season 3 "Rue Morgue" is the best edition, by far. Whether you look at it as an expansion or a standalone, it's a beautiful refinement of the Zombicide game.
For a KS like this, better they get their money upfront while people are excited, rather than a fraction a year later, after the bloom is off the rose
Yes, we confirm that all the add-ons will be shipped in the first wave as originally planned. We have been able to squeeze them into our production and we wanted to make you a "surprise"
THE FIRST WAVE NOW INCLUDES THE CORE BOXES (KING AND BARBARIAN), THE STRETCH GOALS, AND ALL THE ADD-ONS.
THE SECOND WAVE NOW INCLUDES THE 3 EXPANSIONS (NORDHEIM, STYGIA AND KHITAI) AND THE CAMPAIGN BOOK.
To clarify the boxes references some of you have received:
- a box reference ending with FR means it's a box only in FRench
- a box ending with EN means it's an ENglish box. Only the core boxes are in a single language.
- Everything ending with FREN means it's in both languages so you will receive tiles, sheets... in both languages.
Finally, we will be at the Essen fair this year, sharing a booth with Mythic Battles. You can come and play Conan at Hall 2, booth F-115.
My son got his a couple of weeks ago, and we played three games of it within the first day. It's really, really good. The game is excellent -- easily the best dungeon bash out there.
The minis vary in quality. I would say that they are on average better than Bones, but not quite as good as Blood Rage. Same kind of material as both (complete with bendy spears etc.). I don't much like most of the Conans, but the giant snake is absolutely fantastic, as are pretty much all of the monsters.
Mine finally showed up today. Looking forward to cracking it open later and hopefully getting a chance to play it soon.
After two years, I'd basically forgotten about it. Always just assumed I'd see it "eventually". I'd bet $3M in orders, and 16,000 copies left them a little swamped.
Kinda surprised so many people bought into all those expansions without playing the game. I mean, almost none of the add-ons were KS exclusive, and the discount wasn't that good off the MSRP. But hey, people still pre-order video games months in advance in this day and age. One born every minute and all that, lol.
KS opened Jan 2015, closed Feb 2015, and it's Oct 2016, one full year after their Oct 2015 estimate.
I've been very curious to play it, and have been holding off pledging similar stuff waiting for this to arrive.
We didn't go for any of the expansions, as experience shows that it's a poor strategy when those are the most delayed items from a new company / project. Also, they just weren't particularly compelling from a price / content standpoint. I think it's insane that anybody fronts money for a video game.
I can see why people pre-order if they get a significant discount or some kind of tangible reward. Battlefield 1, for example, if you pre-ordered with Amazon Prime was 20% off, and you could get the game 3 days early with the deluxe edition.
Those are tangible rewards. However you could preorder on Amazon a week early and get the same deal as someone who ordered 6 months early. And at that point, it's not really a "pre-order", just an "order".
I broke open the boxes last night. It's packed to the brim with stuff. Model quality is decent, if not stunning. Some characters look better than others. But the sheer volume of items just in the basic King pledge is staggering. You'll need both boxes just to keep all the pieces around. The trays they come in are custom molded too (and have a box they fit into), which is good for easy and simple storage, unlike, say a game like Space Hulk where you'll never get all the contents back into the box once you've taken the models off the sprue, haha.
As you can see, it's almost impossible to even capture all the stuff in one picture.
People who invest a lot of time and effort into painting will want to get better alternatives though, obviously.
All in all, from a "first impression", I'm pleased. Obviously it remains to be seen if the game itself is any good, but that will have to wait because I'm out of town this weekend.
The (non-expansion) add-ons were definitely not worth it for the price - they don't even come with the promised missions in the box! Sculpt quality is highly variable, the $10 Sabertooth Tiger looks like a tiny melted mess, but the $15 for 5 Black Dragons are pretty nice.
Worth mentioning that some add-ons not marked as "Kickstarter Exclusive" may not actually make it to retail, becoming exclusive by default. My strategy of only buying exclusive add-ons seems to have been less than wise...
Bioptic wrote: The (non-expansion) add-ons were definitely not worth it for the price - they don't even come with the promised missions in the box!
Didn't they say the scenarios for the add-ons would be on their website?
I seem to remember something like that because I'd much prefer they come in the box, but c'est la vie...
Possible - I was just going off the text on the add-ons that stated the content, not any subsequent comments. Good to know, thanks.
The upside is that everyone gets to the play the scenarios, I suppose! Just swap out characters & monsters. But does mean that people have paid up to $12 for 1 single-piece 28mm boardgame model.
I honestly wonder if the number of boards is what will slightly less this game down - there are so many characters, monsters, scenarios (especially with the book add-on), but only 6 fixed maps to play on, the expansions adding another 2 each. Underlying game has had an extremely positive write-up so far though.
Nostromodamus wrote: Still waiting on my shipping notice btw. I guess it's my fault for ordering EVERYTHING...
I've not heard anything also, plus was a early backer and ordered about every expansion... I guess that means on Monoliths next kickstarter just buy the minimum amount to get your stuff first...
You would think they would do like every reaper kickstarter and start with order number one... But if Monolith gave no direction on how they wanted the orders to be handled,
Ship Naked can pick and choose to ship orders..only yellow packages and only on Tuesday if its not raining..
Shippers go easiest first. That's the smartest way to fulfill the most orders quickest. Base pledges should always go first. Then the small +1s. And so on.
HUGE pledges fulfill last, after the team knows where all of the stuff is and can pick it and pack it accurately and efficiently.
With this many KS having been done over the years, everybody should know that and understand that for big numbers.
So far, the only KS I've seen to break that pattern was KD:M Wave 2. But that was because there were large 4-figure pledges to fulfill, so Adam had a small part of the crew working from largest to smallest... It must have been ridiculous picking those first, hugest orders. I think that's pretty much the exception to the rule. And a pretty huge exception at that.
I just got mine today (basic barbarian pledge) and cracked the boxes open to go through the glorious piles o' minis. Most of the figures are up there with Blood Rage in terms of material/technical quality, but the sculpts are frequently. not as good. Not surprising as the Blood Rage sculpts are ridiculously good.
Interestingly it looks like the 'hero' figures are made with a different material and the details don't look as crisp as they do on the mooks and monsters. Hard to say if it's just the lighter coloring of the plastic that makes it harder to see details, or if there is an actual difference - I'm sure someone will start painting them soon and we'll find out then.
If we were only going to get one movie tie-in or reference, I'm glad it was the camel. His sculpt is great.
The map boards are good thick cardboard and I was relieved to see the art looks really good in person.
Re-read the rules and I'm excited to play - it seems like the system will move quickly but still allow for lots of options. I am curious to see how the balance works out between the overlord and the other players once the game is actually up and running.
The other thing that gripes me about this is the 2nd wave idea, the additional box sets and campaign book is delayed till next year..
But they have a ton of stuff completed for their new kick starter Mythic battles.. Why could they not put the resources towards finishing
their first kickstater before rolling out the next..
If you look at what is done for their new game and think how much could be done with the original instead it kind of makes me upset.
Yes.. I am still waiting for my stuff..and the new kickstarter is starting next week.. Sorry I can not go another round with this again..
Bioptic wrote: The (non-expansion) add-ons were definitely not worth it for the price - they don't even come with the promised missions in the box! ..
They moved up the add-ons from Wave 2 to Wave 1. The scenarios will be on the website 2017.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Bioptic wrote: I honestly wonder if the number of boards is what will slightly less this game down - there are so many characters, monsters, scenarios (especially with the book add-on), but only 6 fixed maps to play on, the expansions adding another 2 each. Underlying game has had an extremely positive write-up so far though.
Main issue on BGG has been balance, not the boards. If you swap, frex, a different weapon or spell than the suggested starting equipment, your hero may play entirely differently, depending on what monsters your opponent has, and the rest of the scenario design.
I think that's more of a feature, though. I have enough dungeoncrawlers where one weapon or spell is Always Better than another.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Nostromodamus wrote: I know, doesn't make it any less annoying that those who give them the most money usually get their stuff last.
Well, another reason to ship "simplest first" is that if there's a problem in fulfillment (and this includes shipping to domestics before internationals), they can fix subsequent shipments easier.
I really hope Monolith then automatically ships the corrected rulebook and components (which hasn't been addressed yet) in Wave 2, rather than wait for individual requests from Wave 2 owners.
From Monoliths last update, Ship Naked is only about a quarter through shipping packages from the previous update saying they were
about a third way done.. At this rate that puts us into December with the Christmas shipping season. This just means more delays..
Shipping simple first is just a method of losing customers unless they stated this before hand.. How you treat customers goes a long way..
And with messed up rule book;Cards that are incorrectly translated; knowing there is missing parts (apparently there was missions to
go with the box sets and extra gems and bases with the king set) with all need to fill out a new form to request it...
I'm not sure if this will make me want to come back for Mythic battles..
Genoside07 wrote: Shipping simple first is just a method of losing customers unless they stated this before hand..
Got any proof of that? Because CMoN ships simplest first, and their Zombicide-related KS have gained customers and revenue with each successive launch.
Not only that, but they no longer promise to fulfill backers before retail, and they're still going strong.
I am in for Mythic Battles, I think. I'm hoping they've learned from the Conan experience, and also (rather selfishly) hoping this doesn't take off quite so well as Conan did.
Genoside07 wrote: The other thing that gripes me about this is the 2nd wave idea, the additional box sets and campaign book is delayed till next year..
But they have a ton of stuff completed for their new kick starter Mythic battles.. Why could they not put the resources towards finishing
their first kickstater before rolling out the next..
If you look at what is done for their new game and think how much could be done with the original instead it kind of makes me upset.
Yes.. I am still waiting for my stuff..and the new kickstarter is starting next week.. Sorry I can not go another round with this again..
No matter how much stuff you can get for free...
Mythic Battles is not just by Monolith. It's a co-production with Mythic Games who did all the games design and art direction for it. Mythic Battles was ready to go to KS a lot sooner than now, but because Monolith came on board as a partner during the process the decision was taken to delay the campaign until Monolith began shipping the first wave of Conan so as to avoid generating bad feeling amongst the Conan backers. The creation of the Mythic Battles core set hasn't impeded Monolith's ability to finish production on Conan, and it could have come to KS even sooner without having any impact on Conan, but like I say they chose not to so as not to generate bad feeling.
Hmm, I hadn't realised it was a co-production. The Conan game is so very good, as a game, that I would definitely be picking up Mythic Battles if it was basically Conan with an Ancient Greece re-skin. What do we know about Mythic Games, and about the gameplay of Mythic Battles?
It's a head-to-head game in which you draft a force consisting of a god plus some monsters, heroes, and troops, and you win by either killing the opposing god, or collecting four of seven objectives on the board. You can play it 2-4 players and apparently there are going to be scenarios though I've no idea what they involve. If you want to see the gameplay in detail, Beasts of War filmed a full game - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kQR6oFpp4U
In terms of crossing over with Conan, I know the boards are fully compatible, and you can use Conan boards in Mythic Battles and vice versa, I have heard the MB minis will also convert, but that must involve statting them up differently as you couldn't use them in Conan with their MB stats. I don't know if the Conan minis will convert to MB though at a guess I'd say not as it wouldn't work as well.
Didn't read the article as quite frankly I can't be arsed to be subjected to the assumed content, but the likes of Valeria and Belit portray women in quite a powerful light.
Ok so they might have their tits out, but so does Conan.
Wow, that writer is dilusional. Conan is no different than lord of the rings... it was a stortyline written for entertainment many years ago to the target market at that time. It isn't about race, and Conan has allies from many countries who are heroes too. There are female heroes as well. And saving a princess? Yea, what's the big deal. She also forgot that conan is a barbarian and is almost naked most of the time too.
Folks like that writer try to delve into purpose, intent, and undertones that aren't there. Needless to say, she wouldnt get probable cause in court if she was looking for intent based on her theory. Anyone can speculate anything about any game, music, etc. I'm just glad she left the game scene, there is no point of having a poisonous attitude towards plastic soldiers, toys, and games like she had.
Good riddance. This game, art, and minis are freaking great. So glad I backed the game.
Well indeed it is a nice thing she decided to leave, I wonder how many things she poisoned before she did though, from the read I get the usual SJW vibe dismiss everything to push their own agenda...
But seriously blaming Conan for the results of this years US elections.... ?
I think she makes some solid points, notably that this game of the 21st century actually manages to be *even dodgier* in terms of racial and sexual politics than the stories that inspired it from the 1920s and 1930s.
Don't get me wrong, I love Conan, but I don't think it's unproblematic, and when I've worked with the IP myself, I've attempted to remain true to the original while also avoiding the most problematic aspects. And, I would argue that I've kept closer to the original, if anything -- my Conan RPG for Mongoose fifteen years back didn't have "healing potions" available in every treasure chest.
Hmm, I've not come across any contemporary critics who ignored the age and era of his work, and I think I've got and read most serious criticism of Howard ("The Dark Barbarian" anthology and the Mark Finn book). Care to give some examples?
I'm not sure what your 2nd para means, sorry. The boardgame wasn't around back then. We have made a fair bit of social progress in the past century or so, though, which is great, right?
I think it's perfectly possible to base your game balance on the theme, rather than departing from the theme for game balance purposes. If you absolutely need a source of healing for game balance in a Conan game, it's probably not a very Conan-like experience, given that Conan tends to finish most fights covered in innumerable wounds. Given a choice of picking a locked chest in hopes of finding a healing potion, or charging headlong into the fray, WWCD?
See my comments above though -- I've already said I think this is a superb game qua game, probably the best dungeon bash type game available. It is a much better dungeon bash than it is a Conan game, though.
What I meant is that in his time I do not think he had any critics all the criticism I have seen is from modern authors and critics that judge his work with modern standards and to be fair to the man Howard at least according to wikipedia was quite progressive thinking for his era, he even wrote an article defending the intelligence of women, I cannot call him a misogynist.
That been said, since you touched it we have both progressed and recessed a lot in the past century n many subjects and on some we have remained stable for centuries, I think that is irrelevant on the subject and judging an old work on modern standards ignoring the basis it was build on and around is bad.
Beyond that both the article linked above and the shut up and sit down review objections she copies almost to the letter are ridiculous in their assumptions, so naked or almost naked women, that must be definitely a stronghold of misogynists bend on degrading women, a typical damsel in distress is in the rules described to be handled with the same rules objects are treated, sure it cannot be because these are the rules the designers feel it is best for the scenario it must be an ulterior motive to degrade women...
Intentions and motives where there is none demonetisation of people doing really nothing bad, I am quite sure the vast majority of people watching the female figures in Conan appreciate the beauty of the female form, say cool or whatever and not think "finally a game showing women what is their place", claiming on top of that that this is the reason US elections went this way propels it in such ridiculous grounds I start to wonder.
On the last part maybe you are right maybe they could do another mechanic to do the same thing maybe get a healing with kills, name it adrenaline or whatever, but I think they playtest it and decided to have a fixed healing instead of a generating healing, probably the fact actions is also the health does not help having a health buffer zone.
So, do you have any examples of those modern authors? Like I say, other than The Dark Barbarian anthology and the Finn book I don't think there are many; I guess there is the APA, and of course Moorcock's critical volume on fantasy covers him, but largely praises him. I've not seen *any* critical appraisal that judges him by modern standards, but I guess there must be some, since you have. Could you name some names?
You have to realise that treating the only female character in a scenario as a literal object, is going to be problematic -- and again is something that Howard himself never did! That's her and my point -- that though Howard can be problematic to a modern audience (as Moorcock acknowledges, while finding himself unable to condemn him due to the sheer vibrancy and power of his writing), this particular game manages to double down on those problematic aspects by being, in several measurable ways, more problematic than the source material.
Neither the article-writer nor I objected to naked women per se. I don't think there was anything prudish about the article, and I think it's disingenuous to characterise it that way.
Meh. It's not a big deal. Most Conan games are more game than they are Conan. This is a very, very good dungeon-bash, way more fun that Super Dungeon Explore or Descent. I don't think anyone is trying to "demonetise" it. Rather, if games are art (and I certainly think they are), they are valid for critique, like any other art. If anything, that exalts them, rather than demonetising them (demonising them? either could work I think, depending on what you mean).
Yea, the game does go over the top (or rather, the source material) in what seems to be an effort to be sexy and titillating, as the few stories I've read (and the movie, even!) seem more tame than the game is.
i think the blog author has a reasonable point. And I also think the game is good.
Oh wait she removed the lines that she and other Asmodee north america employees forced monolith to make the artwork of the damsel in distress with bikini because Amsodee threatened her with legal action misrepresenting the company and its employees, shut up and gak down likewise continue push how many naked breasts are there "joking" about it of course both object to the naked women, the article writer just goes a step further accusing the quite typical artwork as been a depiction of one step before rape (because in her mind this is the only thing that will happen).
Now the damsel in distress is a hostage an objective for the game if she is handled as an object why should they write an entire new set of rules that is essentially "this is handled in the same way objects are handled but we wrote an entirely new rule so that easily offendable people will not be so offended", its a waste of time and resources.
All of SDE. I bought the original, felt it took way too long to play for the arcade style action we'd been promised, loved the minis, bought Forgotten King because it supposedly streamlined the system, found that it was even worse, sold it, haven't been able to sell my original set yet (anyone?). A dungeon bash boardgame should not take five hours. Not in the 21st century. Conan will happily play in an hour.
I bought into FK for the same reason - it was supposed to simplify things. Did not. At all. Now the Betas are out, and they're basically where we were with the Original. -sigh-
Conan being a quick play is a good thing. No need to bog the game just because.
My experience (still just three games) is that it's more tactical, and has more interesting choices, in an hour than any iteration of SDE in five hours. Which is a pain. A game where you basically have to give up a whole day is fine if you are fourteen, and don't have the internet. It's no good for the 21st century though.
A friend of mine brought this out to the club yesterday. We played the intro quest (save the princess from the Pict village) through 4 times. The heroes saved the princess once.
It's a great game. The action point allocation system is fun.
I asked about a week ago in the 
.
, over 400 if you count all the tables, benches, chests and furniture as single pieces and as "figures". Plus that will give me a second storage box special to keep them in. Do you think that's over kill? Or do you guys suggest getting the exclusives even though they aren't that great.
