Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 scipio.au wrote:


Fair enough. I'm going to simply assume that companies don't always tell all of the truth, even to their most loyal fans - instead choosing what information to share, leak, mislead on or withhold completely. I almost added into my large post above that I assumed that adding the alternative sculpts would bump the game to 10 or 11 players per team, (just like Bloodbowl!) but I felt it was already a given, and said by others.

Actually Blood Bowl teams usually came in 12 player boxes and you were at serious disadvantage in leagues, if you didn't have full 16-players at your disposal.
(So many sweet cas... substitutes needed.)

Squiggy. Mate.
Stonehaven Miniatures, also known as "who?" made over 80k with their nice sculpts of random dwarf adventurers. Do you really, honestly, truly think that Mantic were in any doubt that they could/will make $80k from this kickstarter? One they have clearly designed much more clearly and cleverly than their initial one, right down to taking notes from 2-week-old Relic Knights and having "early bird" discounts which front-load the initial pledges and obtain additional early momentum.

Ronnie and co are far from stupid. They are in fact very smart. There's no doubt in my mind that this one will make at the very least $250k. If they're willing to throw in a decent amount of "added value" as in their last campaign, they'll easily hit $500k

Now how much did they need to release the referee? $40k? Extra players? $80k?

We haven't seen the new teams offered yet. They may have juggled some of the loot around after seeing how badly RK stalled when they went straight after the nickle-and-dime extras, so the additional teams might not come till there's more momentum, but these goals so far are all a given. The 50k trophy? That'll be a version of what they'll give away at the many tournaments they intend to support as opposed to something made especially for this KS. Do I have a problem with any of this? No. No I do not. But it's not all wide eyed and wonderful and working things out on the fly. This is a "properly" well-designed campaign.

Since we can already see the skaven and dwarf teams are sculpted and painted, perhaps their stretch goals will be a couple of extra sculpts for each, and included in their team boxed sets at retail, for evermore?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 adhuin wrote:

Actually Blood Bowl teams usually came in 12 player boxes and you were at serious disadvantage in leagues, if you didn't have full 16-players at your disposal.
(So many sweet cas... substitutes needed.)

I was trying to remember what came in the boxed core game - the plastics, rather than the metal boxes. I always supplemented the boxed sets with a few blisters and converted more players from WHFB back in the day. I got my 3rd edition of BB when it came out in the coffin box, with the card sets rather than the skinny box reprints later on, and those figures have been scattered to the four winds, so it's been quite awhile.

I'm not "up in arms" by any means. I just think that them only needing 20k as an initial goal is clearly an arbitrary, easily reached amount. ($20k for what exactly? What does the base level let them do? Release the game?)

I'm also not naive. If the ref was really going to be a separate figure, it'd be on the release schedule price list and not their first stretch goal. Be dispassionate about the whole thing for a moment. Step back mentally. Do you think they were actually in any doubt that they'd hit $40k? ergo - "fake" stretch goal.

Of course there was no doubt that they'd hit $40k and make a plastic ref. None. There certainly wasn't any doubt they'd hit $20k, although 2 hours is pretty crazy. But if this KS had not been done, you would not have gotten a plastic ref. It would have been seperate, and in metal, and the game still would have been $80 and not had any alternate sculpts. Just by having a KS, they were pretty much guaranteed to have that in the base game, by not having a KS at all, there would not. Mantic has proven that they'll half-ass things if they have to front everything themselves.

Now, I'd RATHER the KS included all these things as the initial, larger goal and just take longer to get there. I'd RATHER the goal be something crazy like 100k and have it epic and awesome and show you all this amazing stuff and slowly build to that. But all these big projects have been going in this direction of small, easy initial goal with multiple stretches because it works better. I don't like it, but it gets money in faster this way and in the end it's all the same thing. If mantic had made the initial goal $40k to get it made with a plastic ref, it's the same as a 20k and another 20k stretch. It's not a fake goal, you still would have had to pledge just as much, it just happens over time instead of all being there from the get-go.

TBH, I can't think of a single situation in which any company can legitimately do a "we'll add X to all copies forever" stretch goal without being open to "Yeah, well, pretty sure you guys were going to do that anyway" thinking.

I have a hunch that the Veermyn and Forgefather "team unlock" rewards might be something like 2 free models (one of each type) for Jack, and 4 models for Striker.

You can use models from other races in your team, they are needed for the underdog rules which randomly generate players from the basic 4 teams, so there will be a valid use for just having 2 of the models.

Whereas striker level will probably get a nice boost to 12-model teams. Not going to be surprised if it's a full 14 for each team in striker by the time this is done, they only need 3 more "alt sculpt" stretch goals of $10k each to make that happen.

All just speculation at this point, but I agree that this is very well planned.

Whatever happens, I'm fairly sure they're just going to stick with the freebies and not mess around with any of this "$40k stretch goal to unlock a mini that you have to pay another $10 for" malarky that CMoN get away with.

Relic Knights with its "you get to choose only 2 free models, and pay for the rest" structure is kinda sucky, so the absence of that in the pledge levels is encouraging.

Looks like they've cherry-picked the best idea (early bird) from that campaign and ditched the rest in favour of making sure that they're constantly adding free minis.

 Kalamadea wrote:

Of course there was no doubt that they'd hit $40k and make a plastic ref. None. There certainly wasn't any doubt they'd hit $20k, although 2 hours is pretty crazy. But if this KS had not been done, you would not have gotten a plastic ref. It would have been seperate, and in metal, and the game still would have been $80 and not had any alternate sculpts. Just by having a KS, they were pretty much guaranteed to have that in the base game, by not having a KS at all, there would not. Mantic has proven that they'll half-ass things if they have to front everything themselves.

Over the course of today, I've slowly changed my perspective. I've gone from "This boxed game is poor value! WTF are they thinking?" to "DERP, idiot! (me). They're probably going to make it an $80 game that's worth $80 - this is the hype machine we're riding, and almost/all of the WE WILL MAKE THE WHOLE BOX BETTER goals aren't stretching anything, and are part of the $80 game. We're just preordering and building hype, rather than really improving the base game."

Now, I'd RATHER the KS included all these things as the initial, larger goal and just take longer to get there. I'd RATHER the goal be something crazy like 100k and have it epic and awesome and show you all this amazing stuff and slowly build to that. But all these big projects have been going in this direction of small, easy initial goal with multiple stretches because it works better. I don't like it, but it gets money in faster this way and in the end it's all the same thing. If mantic had made the initial goal $40k to get it made with a plastic ref, it's the same as a 20k and another 20k stretch. It's not a fake goal, you still would have had to pledge just as much, it just happens over time instead of all being there from the get-go.

It's just clever marketing. $100k is a million miles away, but another $10k or so is achievable - within reach. The smaller increments are part and parcel aimed at the way human psychology works. We saw this in Red Box Games' KS when Tre's goals were too far apart for such a small enterprise, and the thing stalled badly for a time. Of course they're raising capital to produce the game. Without the $250k this brings in, maybe the game would have been another dinky little DKH-style release, but they're banking on X amount from this in order to produce an $80 game, complete with (hopefully) a good quality box, thick tiles, 10 or (maybe even 15 by the end?) players per team, plastic tokens, etc. Maybe we'll even get plastic-core cards by the end?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 scarletsquig wrote:
TBH, I can't think of a single situation in which any company can legitimately do a "we'll add X to all copies forever" stretch goal without being open to "Yeah, well, pretty sure you guys were going to do that anyway" thinking.

Of course they're all open to that way of thinking. But so what? We're not talking generalities, so drop the strawman distraction. Look specifically at the $40k goal and the plastic ref. Kalamadea gets it.

I have a hunch that the Veermyn and Forgefather "team unlock" rewards might be something like 2 free models (one of each type) for Jack, and 4 models for Striker.

Me too. I just said as much in my last post (while you were posting this). It'll be to bring them more or less to parity with the Orks and Marines. I'd go with 10 man team boxes, but you might be privvy to a little more than I am...

Whatever happens, I'm fairly sure they're just going to stick with the freebies and not mess around with any of this "$40k stretch goal to unlock a mini that you have to pay another $10 for" malarky that CMoN get away with.
Relic Knights with its "you get to choose only 2 free models, and pay for the rest" structure is kinda sucky, so the absence of that in the pledge levels is encouraging.
Looks like they've cherry-picked the best idea (early bird) from that campaign and ditched the rest in favour of making sure that they're constantly adding free minis.

As I said, and I think we can agree - Ronnie and co are clever and will have been reviewing Sedition Wars carefully, and watching both Reaper and Relic Knights just as carefully. I asked them to elaborate on the paint, so hopefully we'll seen an answer to that shortly. It'll be interesting to see if the other Star Players are $10 add-ons, BOGOFs or just added to "Striker". I don't think there'd be any real opposition to an amazing KS-only $-add-on figure down the line. People don't minfd a little extra for something special. They just resent feeling like they're being milked. Mantic probably have their KS-exclusive figure already designed and/or sculpted. Maybe an Ogre who can play for any team?

 scipio.au wrote:

 Kalamadea wrote:

Of course there was no doubt that they'd hit $40k and make a plastic ref. None. There certainly wasn't any doubt they'd hit $20k, although 2 hours is pretty crazy. But if this KS had not been done, you would not have gotten a plastic ref. It would have been seperate, and in metal, and the game still would have been $80 and not had any alternate sculpts. Just by having a KS, they were pretty much guaranteed to have that in the base game, by not having a KS at all, there would not. Mantic has proven that they'll half-ass things if they have to front everything themselves.

Over the course of today, I've slowly changed my perspective. I've gone from "This boxed game is poor value! WTF are they thinking?" to "DERP, idiot! (me). They're probably going to make it an $80 game that's worth $80 - this is the hype machine we're riding, and almost/all of the WE WILL MAKE THE WHOLE BOX BETTER goals aren't stretching anything, and are part of the $80 game. We're just preordering and building hype, rather than really improving the base game."

I dont quite agree. It sounds like they have half of what they need to print the game, What they would like to do is add more plastic pieces to the set, but all they can afford is cheaper metal tooling costs for all the extra miniatures. Kickstarter is a good way to deal with that situation (and is sorta the same theing thats going on with reaper atm). If we dont help out, they have enough plastic molds to make the basic boxed set, with few poses and no umpire. The more money they make from preorders, the more they can tool up molds for additional plastic sculpts. Once they have the molds the plastic miniatures barely cost anything. I do think the "hype machine" will carry the game across the finish line and add a lot of stuff to make it worth 80 dollars, but i do think that there is some common sense behind the kickstarter. We are building the infrastructure so to speak. More infrastructure more goodies.

This is all my humble opinion and in no way transferred into my consciousness by our Mantic Overlords

How about we think of it as a company who has just had a massive campaign recently and saw how effective Kickstarter can be.

They decide now is the time to kick off their sport boxed game and have a a plan for it.

Current Mantic Plan for Dreadball = X for $80.00

However, the majority of their seed money has just gone into providing the loot from a previous kickstarter...
After looking at the beans (and counting them twice) they come to the conclusion that they can only afford to provide half of what they want in the game. Oh noes!

Current Availability of funds for Dreadball = X/2 for $80.00

For whatever business reasons they don't want to be sitting on this game until money magically pops into existence so they accurately represent what X/2 for $80.00 would get a pledger and see what sort of response people give them.

- If people think it sucks, it will fail the kickstarter and they will have to wait for another time or release it entirely themselves down the track.

- If people like it and buy the bare minimum, well it is a start and the name of the game is out there even if it is less than what Mantic had hoped to provide.

- If people really like it and pledge for a certain amount of it then Mantic can provide the planned X for $80.00 Woot!

- If people go great guns and are excited by the "extras" that the increased pledges provide then Mantic has the opportunity to grow the product to the X*2 = $80.00 mark where pledgers get all 4 basic teams, trophies, extra poses and what have you because......they got enough seed money to pay for all these things they wanted AND MORE! And because they could do it all at once they will kick some of the goodness back to the pledgers.



Ok, so that's how I see it.

Am I prissy about it not being the "full game"? Not at all, they were very open with how much it would be and what you would get in it.

Would I like more in the box? Yes, yes I would, I would love 8 teams in the box but it isnt going to happen and is unrealistic to expect it for $80.00. I would be happy with some extra poses, a few star players and the options to buy some extra teams on the cheap. Ohhh maybe a different pitch or two with extra effects on each. Like a Ver-mynn one with holes you can go down and pop out a random different one.....ok I am digressing.

Am I bummed that I can't think of any more of these questions? Damn right I am! It was so clear in my head before I started think about double sided card boards.

nkelsch wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:
It's dishonourable to make a competing product and beat GW on price?

Hey, that business model worked for Samsung! Wait a minute... what? Lost a suit and forced to pay 1 billion dollars? oooooh... Maybe making original products might be worth considering as taking your competator's products, duplicating them and charging less doesn't always work out well.

I don't think you should bring that in nkelsch, the whole thing is a bit of a joke. Samsung is actually the largest company in the world (it will survive whatever dubious lawsuits are thrown at it), and perhaps most amusingly the chipset used in the iPhone is actually made by Samsung!

I don't think there are any kind of similarity in terms of belligerence between GW and Mantic - Ronnie Renton was apparently the 'most liked guy at GW' when he worked there, a really nice chap by all accounts, and I can't imagine GW going after Mantic to try and claim intellectual property rights over the latter's releases. As others have pointed out, they are all generic fantasy tropes that Mantic happen to be releasing at a lower price, and a lot of them (the orcs for instance) are quite different in terms of concept.

Yeah I agree, I don't think it is a case of illegal copying, more that you would hope that a group of young thrusters like Mantic would use their skillz to go slightly more away from the milieu that they have come from.

Some of their stuff looks good (and I include Dreadball now I see it not quite as a BB clone) but allot is just a bit uninspired.

Anyway I posted a question about the pitch, I demand answers!

@ Scarletsquig - regarding the teams, please can you change your first post? You can have 14 players in your team - not 8!

I got to see the components recently, world apart form Pandora quality with that crappy box. This is a proper Fantasy Flight Gears of War quality game when it comes to the cardstock (proper box, proper board!), just with MUCH better miniatures...

On the subject of originality, TSR's Monsters of the Midway (1982, four years before Blood Bowl) might have something to say...

GBL wrote:

I dont quite agree. It sounds like they have half of what they need to print the game, What they would like to do is add more plastic pieces to the set, but all they can afford is cheaper metal tooling costs for all the extra miniatures. Kickstarter is a good way to deal with that situation (and is sorta the same theing thats going on with reaper atm). If we dont help out, they have enough plastic molds to make the basic boxed set, with few poses and no umpire. The more money they make from preorders, the more they can tool up molds for additional plastic sculpts. Once they have the molds the plastic miniatures barely cost anything. I do think the "hype machine" will carry the game across the finish line and add a lot of stuff to make it worth 80 dollars, but i do think that there is some common sense behind the kickstarter. We are building the infrastructure so to speak. More infrastructure more goodies.

Putting a different spin on the above, one could say that Mantic is basically holding the game hostage: either we donate enough money to make it actually worth $80 or it will suck and it will be our fault.

 lord_blackfang wrote:


Putting a different spin on the above, one could say that Mantic is basically holding the game hostage: either we donate enough money to make it actually worth $80 or it will suck and it will be our fault.

One could say that about every game (miniature, board, video, or otherwise) on Kickstarter then.

Or, it could be that these extras truly weren't in their budget for the game, and the KS will give them the necessary funds to include them. Just sayin'.

 English Assassin wrote:
On the subject of originality, TSR's Monsters of the Midway (1982, four years before Blood Bowl) might have something to say...

Good find. Can't wait to see the response...

~Eric

 lord_blackfang wrote:


Putting a different spin on the above, one could say that Mantic is basically holding the game hostage: either we donate enough money to make it actually worth $80 or it will suck and it will be our fault.

That is a peculiar logic.

You are aware that the majority of projects on Kickstarter fail to meet their goals. Are your responsible for their failures because you didn't fund?

If Mantic (or anyone else) puts an offer on the site that doesn't seem worth your money, don't fund it. How can it be your fault?

Anyway I posted a question about the pitch, I demand answers!

I don't have any idea how to respond to "I'm not sure about the board, can anyone shed some light?".. what do you want to know?

The board is thick board game board, folds in the middle, the hexes are used for movement, the numbers on each side track turns played and current score... the 123 on each side is the injured/foul bench, the solid colour hexes are the goals, and the glowy hexes in front of them are the strike zones where you can attempt to score from.

@Black Nexus: Was answering a question focused on "how many on the pitch?". For basic games that is 6 + 2 subs, although I've added an extra piece that mentions up to 14 for league and exhibition play... didn't have time to look through the advanced rules on an initial read-though.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:


Putting a different spin on the above, one could say that Mantic is basically holding the game hostage: either we donate enough money to make it actually worth $80 or it will suck and it will be our fault.

That is a peculiar logic.

You are aware that the majority of projects on Kickstarter fail to meet their goals. Are your responsible for their failures because you didn't fund?

If Mantic (or anyone else) puts an offer on the site that doesn't seem worth your money, don't fund it. How can it be your fault?

What I meant to say is that Mantic is trying to shift the blame for a sub-par product.

 scipio.au wrote:

I was trying to remember what came in the boxed core game - the plastics, rather than the metal boxes. I always supplemented the boxed sets with a few blisters and converted more players from WHFB back in the day. I got my 3rd edition of BB when it came out in the coffin box, with the card sets rather than the skinny box reprints later on, and those figures have been scattered to the four winds, so it's been quite awhile.

The original Blood Bowl box set (2nd Ed) came with mono-pose plastic humans and orcs, can't remember how many offhand. Positions were inicaed by colored plastic rings on the bases. The game also came with a cool styrofoam pitch.

The 3rd Ed box set came with 12 Humans and 12 Orcs, with a different sculpt for each position - Blitzer, Thrower, Lineman, and Catcher (humans) and Black Orc Blocker (Orcs). Those particular minis were never available for sale separately, AFAIK, so it wasn't possible to have a full plastic team without trading bits. You needed 2 extra Blitzers and 2 extra blockers/catchers for each team (plus a few linemen) to be able to field a full roster.

The 3rd Ed metal teams were usually 11 figures, and for a long time there was no way to fill out positions without buying a 2nd metal box. Blisters only contained Star Players, except for the Chaos Dwarf team, which was only available in blisters (but, oddly, was the cheapest team to get the full roster, because you didn't have to buy a bunch of unnecessary figures). Not all star players or positions were available, either.

It wasn't until after BB was relegated to the Specialist Games ghetto that GW started making it possible to buy a full team without buying 2 metal boxes.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
What I meant to say is that Mantic is trying to shift the blame for a sub-par product.

Not really seeing that anywhere? They present a kickstarter with very clear explanations of what is in the box. If you don't like it you don't support it.
Very far from shifting blame, hell just coz you don't think it is great value doesn't mean other people don't like it or aren't willing to support it as is.

 English Assassin wrote:
On the subject of originality, TSR's Monsters of the Midway (1982, four years before Blood Bowl) might have something to say...

Thanks a lot!
Now I want a Hydra-Judge miniature.

$50k goal is hit, trophies for all!

Pretty sweet that you get this freebie even at the $30 level.

What I meant to say is that Mantic is trying to shift the blame for a sub-par product.

and what exactly do you think is above-par?

DreadBall is quality.

Any chance of being able to keep this thing on topic? I hate to bring this up but they've just like, passed through a stretch goal... might be news in a thread about you know, the DreadBall kickstarter.

@ scarletsquig, no worries, was just saying cause it's slightly misleading.

I pledged into it. 150 bucks. I probably shouldn't have.... but oh well. Who needs to make a car payment anyways!

Sadly I am all KSed out, after Kings of War, Sedition Wars, Red Box, Reaper and Fractured Dimensions...

As I believe some here had their reservations about gender equality in dreadball, so here's a quote from the KS comments page:

Creator Mantic Games about 4 hours ago wrote:
Ha - Space Elves v Space Lizards: Why choose? (DISCLAIMER - I'm not saying we're doing either team...)

Though we're really looking forwards to seeing Roberto Cirillo's concept of the all-female Corporation team.

"Ice cream, Ice Cream"

 English Assassin wrote:
On the subject of originality, TSR's Monsters of the Midway (1982, four years before Blood Bowl) might have something to say...

 English Assassin wrote:
On the subject of originality, TSR's Monsters of the Midway (1982, four years before Blood Bowl) might have something to say...

oooh.... Nice find!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ddogwood wrote:

 scipio.au wrote:

I was trying to remember what came in the boxed core game - the plastics, rather than the metal boxes. I always supplemented the boxed sets with a few blisters and converted more players from WHFB back in the day. I got my 3rd edition of BB when it came out in the coffin box, with the card sets rather than the skinny box reprints later on, and those figures have been scattered to the four winds, so it's been quite awhile.

The original Blood Bowl box set (2nd Ed) came with mono-pose plastic humans and orcs, can't remember how many offhand. Positions were inicaed by colored plastic rings on the bases. The game also came with a cool styrofoam pitch.

The 3rd Ed box set came with 12 Humans and 12 Orcs, with a different sculpt for each position - Blitzer, Thrower, Lineman, and Catcher (humans) and Black Orc Blocker (Orcs). Those particular minis were never available for sale separately, AFAIK, so it wasn't possible to have a full plastic team without trading bits. You needed 2 extra Blitzers and 2 extra blockers/catchers for each team (plus a few linemen) to be able to field a full roster.

The 3rd Ed metal teams were usually 11 figures, and for a long time there was no way to fill out positions without buying a 2nd metal box. Blisters only contained Star Players, except for the Chaos Dwarf team, which was only available in blisters (but, oddly, was the cheapest team to get the full roster, because you didn't have to buy a bunch of unnecessary figures). Not all star players or positions were available, either.

It wasn't until after BB was relegated to the Specialist Games ghetto that GW started making it possible to buy a full team without buying 2 metal boxes.

That all sounds right. I got 2nd Edition for Christmas one year, and spent the day (or one of the days after) playing with a friend. 3rd Ed came much later, and my Orc team was made up of the plastics, plus some of the original metal BB figures that I still had, then the plastic plus some WHFB figures with cut-down SM shoulderpads, then I got the metal box and started proxying a few of those in for the plastics as I got them painted, and finally some of the newer WHFB/40k Plastics in combos.

My Chaos Dwarves just had some WHFB figures press-ganged into the team.

This thread is pretty cool...

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/846814/anything-more-on-the-rules-before-i-pledge

 Black Nexus wrote:
This thread is pretty cool...

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/846814/anything-more-on-the-rules-before-i-pledge

Good find. Thanks!

$60k goal reached, 4 free minis for everyone!

Even if you aren't backing this kickstarter, you still get the 4 free minis.