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 Col Hammer wrote:
Also, "painfully expensive"? That got a LOL from me...

Painful because I'm trying every which way to justify a pledge for this, and I'm close, but everything is just too expensive for what you get.

I think the 2 african pledges are good deals if you want the minis. about $2 a mini with some large ones and you get game boards that could be reused for the right game.

the American one is very meh as it's got less minis for the buck which the some of them lazy stereotypes because Mythic couldn't be bothered to do a google search. Nor are their any "center piece minis"

To me the prices are fine as I include the gaming material to the stuff I'm getting (looking forward on playing the game actually), but if one is only counting the plastic, then it might be less exciting.
The Wendigos are big models, ogre sized.

The all in price will be announced in monday, so then we'll see if there is a discount for those who want everything (me).

Also, during the Leo live, Leo talked how they are contemplating if they will sell just the add ons to those who only want maybe one or two of the add ons (like they did in Joan of Arc).

Leo also showed the Solomon Kane figures next to some other figures like a space marine (new tall marine) and khorne blood reaver and rising sun figure.

The sizes looked great next to each other, so SK range will work alongside other ranges just fine IMO.

SK range contains lots of great non combatant figures that I havent seen many on other figure ranges, great for RPGs I guess.

Ya, the miniatures are great for RPGs and the boards are too -- especially if you use the 2d20 system (that conan is) since Mythic is still following the monolith Conan board game design for tiles which the 2d20 system also uses.

While I like to do custom stuff when I'm able for my RPG scenarios it's always nice to have a fallback that takes 0 effort.

As to the size of the minis, isn't the ogre just 50mm-ish? so 4 of that in the Americas probably only covers the snake or horror so that expansion looks even worse comparatively.

an all in level (+$200) has been announced showing what's still to unlock in outline if not detail

leading immediately to cries of $45 isn't much of a discount

(just under 20%, about standard for online retailers in todays maximum discount from so many manufacturers)

why is the art book there ($25), we need an all in without it for +$175 (as clearly the book is so good it's not discounted at all in the discounted bundle)

Wonder if today's the day they start adding rather than bleeding backers

Considering $45 is one of the expansions for free it's a good price. People just are greedy.

Ya, kind of dumb they put the art book in but they have to do probably at least 1k of those for any printer to take them this is a good way to ensure that. And the more they print the cheaper that becomes so the more money for Mythic.

They're still showing a heavy bleed of users but up 40k so pretty much par the corse for this game.

Like that all-in price. Mythic does a good job of trying to keep customers happy, especially after botching this campaign so much to begin with. $300 is at the bottom of what they said it would cost, you're basically getting the artbook and the mini-expansion for free, and the first two expansions had pretty good value to boot, which is rare for a KS campaign. Still not sure what they're going to do about the basic pledge people stuck with only $110 in hand, because the value there sucks for a Kickstarter, and it's hard to get people to forget it's a Kickstarter. "Well our game suffers from card bloat to the point where we spend half your money on them and therefore can't give you nearly as many miniatures as our competitors, NOW GIVE US A DAY'S WAGES!" is not exactly a sales pitch I'd want to have to deliver.

frankelee wrote:
Like that all-in price. Mythic does a good job of trying to keep customers happy, especially after botching this campaign so much to begin with. $300 is at the bottom of what they said it would cost, you're basically getting the artbook and the mini-expansion for free, and the first two expansions had pretty good value to boot, which is rare for a KS campaign. Still not sure what they're going to do about the basic pledge people stuck with only $110 in hand, because the value there sucks for a Kickstarter, and it's hard to get people to forget it's a Kickstarter. "Well our game suffers from card bloat to the point where we spend half your money on them and therefore can't give you nearly as many miniatures as our competitors, NOW GIVE US A DAY'S WAGES!" is not exactly a sales pitch I'd want to have to deliver.

The artbook and the poor New World expansion moves the all in off the buy list for me. Even at $300 they still can't even crack the $2 a mini threshhold for PVC miniatures ( granted they have abs weapons and sculpted bases, so a little above one shot pvc, but still). $300 buys you 4 GW start collecting boxes shipped. Considering they are sending you a tiny forest worth of cardboard in every box, shipping has got to exceed $50 USD for this one, making the all in even less appealing.

The day started out negative, and based on today's numbers after the all in reveal, they got less than 4% of their backers to convert to an all in. But their share of all-in conversions will continue to rise as backers keep walking out!

@franklee, I loved your summary of their sales pitch! Like I kept trying to say in the comments, the number of cards required to play is not a feature, it is a bug.

One concerning thing about this project isn't just dropping backers, it's the low engagement by people who are there, which kind of surprises me. Joan of Arc was at around $200 per backer with ten days to go, the average on SK went up today but it's only $142. I know the comment section has a small group of "positive" backers who live there, but apparently there's a lot fewer of them than JoA. It's not just a matter of getting backers, the backers who are there are not that into it.

Again, I think Mythic are a quality group, but they just didn't get their ducks in a row for this one. Everything is at cross purposes. They want to do an adventure board game where the minis aren't the focus, but it's a minis game. They want to do way too many cards, but instead of counter-balancing that with choices to allow them to still include a lot of minis, they did larger, more detailed minis with hardly any multiples. They want to do larger more detailed minis with hardly any multiples, but they have to stay true to the original short stories so half the minis have to be just bland, regular townspeople. I understand that good feeling that the "pure" choice gives you, but they've taken the pure choice at every turn, without mediating things with reality. It's cool they're going outside the box, but make one decision to help you out commercially already.

frankelee wrote:
One concerning thing about this project isn't just dropping backers, it's the low engagement by people who are there, which kind of surprises me. Joan of Arc was at around $200 per backer with ten days to go, the average on SK went up today but it's only $142. I know the comment section has a small group of "positive" backers who live there, but apparently there's a lot fewer of them than JoA. It's not just a matter of getting backers, the backers who are there are not that into it.

Again, I think Mythic are a quality group, but they just didn't get their ducks in a row for this one. Everything is at cross purposes. They want to do an adventure board game where the minis aren't the focus, but it's a minis game. They want to do way too many cards, but instead of counter-balancing that with choices to allow them to still include a lot of minis, they did larger, more detailed minis with hardly any multiples. They want to do larger more detailed minis with hardly any multiples, but they have to stay true to the original short stories so half the minis have to be just bland, regular townspeople. I understand that good feeling that the "pure" choice gives you, but they've taken the pure choice at every turn, without mediating things with reality. It's cool they're going outside the box, but make one decision to help you out commercially already.

Yeah, and while they are large, the virtues aren't really going to be useful in other games. They would actually be more useful to me if they were human sized. I still don't know why a booklet with numbered paragraphs couldn't replace ALL the discovery cards. You apparently don't need the random element of a card declined since you are told what card to get. I would say they want to claim the miniatures are premium, but then there are a bunch of boring repeats. I'm not sure yet if it is so much a board game as a narrative experience with the illusion of control.

Maybe I'll be able to sell all the cardboard to somebody.

 Gallahad wrote:

Yeah, and while they are large, the virtues aren't really going to be useful in other games. They would actually be more useful to me if they were human sized. I still don't know why a booklet with numbered paragraphs couldn't replace ALL the discovery cards. You apparently don't need the random element of a card declined since you are told what card to get. I would say they want to claim the miniatures are premium, but then there are a bunch of boring repeats. I'm not sure yet if it is so much a board game as a narrative experience with the illusion of control.

Maybe I'll be able to sell all the cardboard to somebody.

That's an under-noted part of the problem, that I also was thinking about. Those Virtues just come across as playing pieces to me, the people are miniatures, the Virtues are like fancy chess pieces pulled out of a set. They were going for the same idea as Mythic Battles Pantheon, but those are at least Greek Gods as miniatures, the Virtues are just... big playing pieces.

I like the idea of them being cards over being a booklet, I like dealing with cards more than I like looking through a book, but at what cost? I think I'll have fun playing the game which is keeping me willing to buy, but I recognize I'm was way pre-sold coming into this as a big Mythic fan, and that's not most people. If IDW Games was making this, I probably would have bounced early on because the value is poor, and why give a company upfront payment a year early when they're not acting as if that was a big deal that demanded value in return?

If I got the game I'd use the virtues as statues and just use them as terrain.

frankelee wrote:

 Gallahad wrote:

Yeah, and while they are large, the virtues aren't really going to be useful in other games. They would actually be more useful to me if they were human sized. I still don't know why a booklet with numbered paragraphs couldn't replace ALL the discovery cards. You apparently don't need the random element of a card declined since you are told what card to get. I would say they want to claim the miniatures are premium, but then there are a bunch of boring repeats. I'm not sure yet if it is so much a board game as a narrative experience with the illusion of control.

Maybe I'll be able to sell all the cardboard to somebody.

That's an under-noted part of the problem, that I also was thinking about. Those Virtues just come across as playing pieces to me, the people are miniatures, the Virtues are like fancy chess pieces pulled out of a set. They were going for the same idea as Mythic Battles Pantheon, but those are at least Greek Gods as miniatures, the Virtues are just... big playing pieces.

I like the idea of them being cards over being a booklet, I like dealing with cards more than I like looking through a book, but at what cost? I think I'll have fun playing the game which is keeping me willing to buy, but I recognize I'm was way pre-sold coming into this as a big Mythic fan, and that's not most people. If IDW Games was making this, I probably would have bounced early on because the value is poor, and why give a company upfront payment a year early when they're not acting as if that was a big deal that demanded value in return?

Because of their size the virtues overshadow the titular man himself on the board! They are just too big. It might be different if the shadows were similarly these big menacing shapes/avatars instead of sheet ghosts doing the conga.

Re the cards, I get instantly bored just thinking about keeping 2000 cards organized not only by chapter but also by number.... Talk about a nightmare.

I absolutely love the SK stories, but I might very well end up being one of those EBs that leaves. The value just isn't there for me, and it is pretty clear that they are doubling down on the less backers for more money strategy ( to bad effect). There hasn't been a single "must have" expansion that got even a quarter of backers to pony up for it.

They want to do larger more detailed minis with hardly any multiples

I would say they want to claim the miniatures are premium, but then there are a bunch of boring repeats

MG just cannot win here, can they?

Re the cards, I get instantly bored just thinking about keeping 2000 cards organized not only by chapter but also by number.... Talk about a nightmare.

That's no different than 7th continent. Just put the cards in numbered order once and you're good to go. Most of the cards won't be shuffled ever.
Those card decks that will be shuffled, can stay shuffled. No extra sorting out there either.


They posted a picture of SK figures alongside other figures. These are perfectly fine to use alongside other ranges.

Space Marine (Warhammer 40K), Warrior (Rising Sun), Vampire (Solomon Kane), Conan (Conan), Solomon Kane (Solomon Kane), Leonidas (Mythic Battles), Bandit (Solomon Kane), Khorne Warrior and Stormcast Eternals (Shadespire)

This is really a niche game trying to cast a wide of net as possible and not doing a good job at it. Franklee summed it up well.

frankelee wrote:

They want to do an adventure board game where the minis aren't the focus, but it's a minis game. They want to do way too many cards, but instead of counter-balancing that with choices to allow them to still include a lot of minis, they did larger, more detailed minis with hardly any multiples. They want to do larger more detailed minis with hardly any multiples, but they have to stay true to the original short stories so half the minis have to be just bland, regular townspeople.

If they had lots of multiples I think they'd get more intrest in the minis crowd. Today's announced SG was a single wolf....yea. Now that's fine for the game but it's not really going to get anyone new to pull out their wallet. If they had some SGs that just were "double the number of towns people" that eventually got you up to a lot more copies of the generics it would make a more enticing package at very little cost. Conan and Mythic Battles both did this and Conan, like this game, had no real use for the extra duplicates outside of increasting that total count on the KSer page.

Speaking of minis. The darkeness "virtue" they added for compeditive game play is pretty dang cool.

I was so excited a Solomon Kane game was coming out but I just can't get behind the game play.

At best, for me, I could see playing this as a solo game not to exclude other players with the dice-passing, turn-yielding yawn-fest it seems to be.

But, as developed, it just doesn't appeal to me and the costs are too great to buy in for the miniatures, alone. Considering that they are at a larger scale than most of my other miniatures and for an era I don't have any game in I'm out, sadly. I really wanted to like this.

So the Red Shadows expansion is revealed:



By me, it's okay. Seems to suffer from the same problem the rest of this campaign has: there are 23 minis in the box, but only 7 of them are "individuals", with one character done twice, and then it's 8 more African warriors, 4 more African villagers, and 4 shopkeepers(?). I was for some reason imagining Le Loup's gang would be fleshed out, with like 4 or 5 cool henchmen, but they didn't. It's a little too little, with too much of the least important things. With an all-in I'll have all the minis I'll need for a D&D campaign about African tribesmen set in Africa.

With an all-in I'll have all the minis I'll need for a D&D campaign about African tribesmen set in Africa.

yep, I'd love that personally but not at $300. I'd consider just the $200 add on but I don't want the core pledge. $2ish a mini isn't a bad price compared to what's out there.

 Myrthe wrote:
I was so excited a Solomon Kane game was coming out but I just can't get behind the game play.

At best, for me, I could see playing this as a solo game not to exclude other players with the dice-passing, turn-yielding yawn-fest it seems to be.

But, as developed, it just doesn't appeal to me and the costs are too great to buy in for the miniatures, alone. Considering that they are at a larger scale than most of my other miniatures and for an era I don't have any game in I'm out, sadly. I really wanted to like this.

I'm in a similar boat. I love the IP, and saved up for a couple months for this KS, and I still waffle every day on whether I will get the core plus an expansion, or drop down to a dollar.

I'd buy just the miniatures for a modest discount in a heartbeat, but so far no luck convincing Mythic to offer the miniatures as add-ons.

Im even a big fan of all the samey African warriors!

The adventure "beasts of Bordeaux" has been fully added to the core box - six wolves, alpha wolf, herbalist and assortment of cards and maps of the forest.

Also, the last few days have been backer positive, more backers have arrived than left. So the disgrunted backers leaving has trickled to stop, for now. The last 48 hours will show the truth if there are more dropouts still lurking among the backers.

Yep, looks like 4 days now of positive.

There always are backers that leave in the last 48 hours but with most campaigns you never notice due to how many people are also pledging at that time.

We're actually still losing a decently unhealthy number of EBs each day, but the momentum has shifted so we're gaining more new pledgers than losing old ones at least. Before this campaign started I wouldn't have ever guessed this would make less than Joan of Arc, but they just missed the mark. For a company that only makes games for Kickstarter, they really should spend some time learning how to best work with it. This campaign made some strange missteps.

It is very frustrating to me that the core box will feature mostly stories not written by Robert E. Howard. The core box should have included Red Shadows, and then they could have left all their "Original" content as pricey add-ons. I mean if you buy the core Solomon Kane box you only get two small Solomon Kane stories and a fragment. The bulk of the actual Solomon Kane content is not actually in the core box!

I know!

And yet, even with all the missteps they are still probably going to clear a million!

 Gallahad wrote:
It is very frustrating to me that the core box will feature mostly stories not written by Robert E. Howard. The core box should have included Red Shadows, and then they could have left all their "Original" content as pricey add-ons. I mean if you buy the core Solomon Kane box you only get two small Solomon Kane stories and a fragment. The bulk of the actual Solomon Kane content is not actually in the core box!

Do you really think that MG would at this point start moving the contents of the core box and the add on boxes around? Way too late for that.

Also, all of the core box stories are Howard stories. The originals are in the stretch goals and the New World add on.

The red shadows story is way too long to put in as SG. It is the longest adventure of all of them (5 acts). We wouldnt be getting any other SGs during the campaign to get it...

They had to choose one continent (europe or africa) to put in the core box and they chose european stories.

 Col Hammer wrote:

Do you really think that MG would at this point start moving the contents of the core box and the add on boxes around? Way too late for that.

Also, all of the core box stories are Howard stories. The originals are in the stretch goals and the New World add on.

The red shadows story is way too long to put in as SG. It is the longest adventure of all of them (5 acts). We wouldnt be getting any other SGs during the campaign to get it...

They had to choose one continent (europe or africa) to put in the core box and they chose european stories.

In a Kickstarter exclusive game, the core set and stretch goal additions to the core set is a distinction without any difference. Also, accomplishing things in life comes down to triangulating between feasibility, competence, and cleverness, so I don't know about any definite reason Red Shadows couldn't have gone in the core box, and certainly there's no difficulty with feasibility there. If one plays the what-if game while not assuming it would have broken them financially to put something closer to 90 minis in a $110 core box (which should the thing which sells people on the game so they then spend even more on low value expansions, see Joan of Arc), then it's really possible.

I personally think they committed the great Kickstarter sin of taking their core pledge for granted. Not out of any malice, just accidentally got complacent. As an outsider to Mythic who's right in their target demographic, I can easily see several things they could have done differently and made more profit, not just revenue, and could have kept the campaign from stalling out.

But I definitely agree at this point people on their KS page should be realistic about what is and isn't malleable. Complaining at them that it isn't the way you want, when it's not going to change, but complaining at them like they should change it, there's just no point.

The counter argument is it's a Kickstarter Exclusive and if they want the die hard fans to give them more money, as it's now or never, they have to break out the popular stories into paid add ons or there's no huge incentive for people to buy more then the base pledge.

Right or wrong I understand why they did this.


The last add on has be reviled and it's rather meh. Basically their version of Frankenstein but not actually calling it that for whatever reason. They're clearly setting the price based off of cards and tiles as this is $20 for half the carboard and only 3 minis (though one looks to be quite big). Also, oddly, this has dropped completly out of the kicktraq top 20.

 Col Hammer wrote:
They had to choose one continent (europe or africa) to put in the core box and they chose european stories.

Pretty sure I read someone on BGG take umbrage at Africans being the bad guys in a boardgame. So, off to the add-ons Africa and America went. Possibly.

The KS is finally back to 6000 backers.

Million dollars reached. The last 48 hours are ticking...