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Is that barbarian wielding a flaming hammer sword??? Will you sell that glorious weapon as a separate bit?


Those minis are pretty amazing, the shieldmaiden on dragon especially. My only complaint is that the dragon has holes in his wings. I hate that. All y'all mini sculptors need to stop doing that.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Is that barbarian wielding a flaming hammer sword??? Will you sell that glorious weapon as a separate bit?

It's 54mm scale, I'm not sure how you'd plan to use that @BobtheInquisitor :-)

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Those minis are pretty amazing, the shieldmaiden on dragon especially. My only complaint is that the dragon has holes in his wings. I hate that. All y'all mini sculptors need to stop doing that.

Thank you, we take this as a constructive comment :-D
There is no changing this particular mini now, but it's valuable feedback for future works!

 Alpharius wrote:
I had to double-check to be sure, but they did say:

we have just ventured in the 54mm area for the first time with the release of two display items

and it does say '54mm Scale' on the pic, so Shieldwolf is certainly OK in how they're advertising it.

Now, how much call there is for 54mm stuff vs. 28mm/32mm stuff remains to be seen!

Yeah, we've seen some of the newer companies mistakenly list larger figures before or otherwise mis-speak about scale.

54mm and other large models can be big with some of the painting groups. WAMP tends to stock that sort of thing and the Industria Mecha or whatever is closer to 54mm.. so I think there's room.


Shieldwolf - I mentioned WAMP above.. you might want to contact them and see if they're interested in stocking your kits. A lot of non-gamers tend to drift towards them and they do have an online store and that audience is pretty used to more premium type kits aimed at pro level painters. Also, did you still need me to look at that document for proof-reading? I know it's a bit late but I have a bit of free time now. Shoot me a PM on either thing and we can talk if you want

@MLaw
pm'ed!

Next week we are releasing project "Monuments of Glory-2" which will conclude in two waves, we were due to release it a couple of days ago but unfortunately run a week late due to packaging issues (yep, the things a client never learns about :-) but they do happen).
We are also releasing in Wave-2 something inspired from Warcraft, we think people will like it but we are waiting for your opinion on it!

Thank you for reading :-)

The new update makes your confusing fulfilment system even more confusing. One pledge manager but another to come later in September or something, but you're now not allowing changes? What the absolute feth? I didn't fill in the initial PM because it was without a doubt the most horrible one I've ever encountered. I'm interested in doing it once, and doing it properly in a straightforward and clear manner. Not involving in any way a system that gives negative balances. And yes, I'm now angry.

Today's update has a dagger in a back scabbard...

This isn't an inherently terrible idea, though for most people, it's not one's first choice as a way to carry a dagger.

What is terrible is that the hilt is pictured below the shoulder, making it impossible to draw with any kind of fluidity or speed. You would have to grasp the pommel with your fingertips, pull the dagger partway out, then hope it doesn't slide back in the scabbard before you can get a proper grip on it. If you were wearing any armour on your right arm, even this might not be possible (even mail and padding will add enough bulk to ever joint that your range of motion for fairly unnatural and atypical motions like this will be massively reduced).

I must admit, I really would have preferred the "armored" versions not to have boobplates :(. Apart from the fact that breastplates don't really fit with their barbarians aesthetics... it's an opportunity missed.

"Oh, look, another boobplated female! Or you can choose to just have them clad in fur bikinis, too!" Yawn.

The additional bodies really are two steps forward, one step back.

SW: Historical gamers/girl gamers/people who don't like bare bellied warriors, you get additional.bodies! Everyone else can use them to have more models!

Crowd: Yes! Yes! Thank you!

SW: And they will have boob armour!

Crowd: Booooo-urns!

https://frinkiac.com/gif/S06E14/770869/773572.gif?b64lines=
(gif in link form 'cause I don't know if the forum likes puctures posts)

I'm lucky enough to be a good sculptor, so I can simply add normal plate armour to the bodies or anything else, but it is kind of a funny situation

I don't *totally* hate boob armour for Amazons. It seems like the female version of Greek muscle armour.

I would still vaguely prefer less booby boobplate, though, or no boobplate at all.

@Azazelx
I have thoroughly responded via pm :-)

@Albertorius @Binabik15
Tbh we didn't really think a lot about it, it's only being faithful to the concept artwork we had shown (and promised) during the project.
I can also post the links if you are interested from the KS updates we had posted at the time, I'm posting here an enlarged picture of what we had shown :-)



On top of that, we needed to keep a coherent line in which the resin heroes/characters would fit, as we had also shown during the campaign, here are the pics!

I like them

So do I ...
Nice work, SW!

They look great apart from the boobs. In fact the boobs look different then the concept.

When people asked for a few spare bodies without exposed midriffs, I think the vast majority were thinking it would look similar to the bodies on the left of this pic:



These are just plain awesome.

These new ones:



Are like the worst of both worlds . Honestly, I think they look terrible, especially with this pic:



I mean... that just doesn't work together at all. I followed your campaign closely, and just because you showed VERY rough concept art doesn't mean you're committed to this. Especially since they are doubling as Rangers, they'd look WAY better with the chainmail torsos like the original 4 bodies. This is even more true if you can't fit the 5th chainmail torso body on the sprue, as it sounds like you don't think you can. Mixing the chainmail torsos and these torsos into a single unit is going to look really bad and satisfy no one.

It isn't just the torsos, it's the whole package from what I can see, you've put in "Warmaiden" looking bodies into the Shieldmaidens box. The problem with this idea, is that this is doubling as a Rangers box. The plate armor just doesn't work with the Rangers at all, it should be saved for a different unit (to be made in the future) that is more heavily armored! Could anyone actually paint these to match the original 4 bodies? It's like an amalgamation of the worst of both concepts, with plate armor torso, chainmail midriff, and then random plate armor on the legs - one even has a boot that looks leather on the left, and plate-armor boot on the right! The other has a tuft of fur on the top of their left boot, even though now it's supposed to be plate-armor.

This just doesn't work at all . Could you please put out a backer poll (you could even do a Backers Only update, and ask people to put their vote in the comments) on whether they would like 2 matching torsos, or these 2 new plate-armor style ones? These just don't work with the unit, don't work at all with the Rangers components, and are a really bad mix. Save it for the future Warmaidens sprue, and give us 2 bodies that match and work well with the unit, please!

I'm not totally appaled by the boobplate but the simple chainmail-clad bodies shown in the pic RiTides linked to in the beginning of his post really do look so, so much better.

There's no point feeling shackled to the designs of exsiting heroes, since IMO it's no problem (and may even be a positive) if heroes differ a bit in their outfits. Helps them to stand out.

Exactly - heroes are special characters and much more likely to have plate mail armor. For the unit to be a mix of plate mail, chainmail, and ranger components will look really bad. As I pointed out above, one of the new models even has a half/half look on their boots! (One is leather looking, one is plate mail)

The best armor is always reserved for the elite units and heroes, and I'd like to see that look saved for the Warmaidens, so they can have a distinct look. The plate mail on these reminds me Very much of those concepts, and those will also have more armored helms, and so it will totally work together as a package. But when combined with the less-armored Shieldmaiden and especially Rangers components... it just doesn't work.

You could save these two sculpts for future Warmaiden use (and could even use them as concepts for your next campaign for this army, if you want to fund that more heavily armored unit) and then just modify the existing chainmail and leather boot sculpts to get 2 more bodies here. I hope you'll consider letting the backers vote on this, especially since the 5th original body doesn't sound like it will fit on the sprue! As it is, you'd have a box with Ranger components (cloaks / etc), Shieldmaiden components (chainmail and leather boots), and Warmaiden-like components (plate mail torso armor and boots). That combination just doesn't make sense, and since we'll be down one original body already from what you were hoping to include, it would be awesome to let the backers weigh in on this!

I personally don't mind the plate armor, but you guys do have a good point in that it seems like it should be reserved for tougher/ more experienced/ more important troops rather than just interspersed among the rank and file.

I had planed on mixing up everything, so I'm not as invested in a unified look, but I can certainly see why many would want that.

I agree that you should let the backers take a vote on it.

With the caveat that one way or another we *do* end up with some plate mail wearing women in plastic at some future point!

I really don't like the metal plate additions either, although for slightly different reasons. The mix of styles is really awkward in that they have late period plate (segmented and articulated) mixed in with early period chain and fur. I understand that other factions in the game have more advanced armor designs, and so perhaps the war maidens have looted them or something. The problem is, why did the other factions have boob plates? The style comes across less as "mix and match salvage added to chain" as "specifically designed random add-ons." I don't think that conveys the feel you are going for.

I would also note that changing the nature of the plates would go a long way towards fixing this issue. Instead of the rolled, layered steel, use flatter plates that look more like leather or simple steel. Consider these armor styles:






Any of those 4 could be put over chain and look good, with or without female curves. (Preferably with!) The bonus is they can be painted as either leather or metal because they do not have the obvious "Steel armor" aspects of the plate parts you have now. That sort of variety allows the owner to choose what they want them to look like. The current designs don't even need to be changed much. The legs need fewer sharp angles on the armor, instead a more rounded shin, for instance. The torsos similarly need fewer flutes, and possibly a shift to more, smaller plates instead of large contiguous ones, etc. As the armor stands, it really mixes eras in an odd way, and can't be easily painted up to look like one style or the other.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, also, just chain mailed bellies would be fine too.

@RitTides
The warmaidens have leather/furs, they don't have plated armor nor chainmail. This is what they will look like when (hopefully) we manage to tool their kit as well

We did try to keep faithful to the concept artwork and in all honesty we think we did, OK, some minor additions like e.g. the skull on the left knee were our initiative but apart from that we are working on delivering what we showed and -very important to us- promised.

We try being 100% transparent and we would have no issue re-sculpting anything if needed, we really want this to be a kit people are really going to like; but it will cause perplessity when some backers stand out and say that's not what you showed me, I was planning to use this for "x", so it's no good for me now. What would we say to them them? Even if it's, I don't know, let's say for arguments sake only 1 out of 5 backers, that's 20%. What do we do then?

I love the leather armour over plate look.

For me, if you're going to stick with plate, and want it somewhat boob-shaped, the best look is something like the Nicmods female breastplate (this is polyurethane larp armour, but made to film industry standards).



More pics here:

http://nicmods.com/blog/

Shieldwolf, you showed only one small rough concept of what these bodies would look like, so no one is going to hold you to that (it's not an exact match, either). You even labeled that image "Proposed", it was obviously just a concept sketch.

It's much more important to make a good kit that will sell well, and right now, the renders you have shown just don't work together as a part of this kit / unit.

Will you consider making a poll for backers to decide?

I actuallyl ike the miss-matched armour with chainmail and plates Even for the Rangers. The example above and the red one and the one with yellow runes look all fantastic IMO. I'd be bummed if it they were all wearing chainmail only. At least a few tunics or fur vests over the mail if not armour.

I feel bad for SW, it's like taking care of a bag of cats (or is it fleas), everyone has a different opinion and the poor guys are mad enough to LISTEN to us evidentely crazy backers.


PS: I say don't worry about not 100% sticking to concept art if it results in a better product. I bet that it'd be 1 out of a HUNDRED complainig, if at all.

 RiTides wrote:
Shieldwolf, you showed only one small rough concept of what these bodies would look like, so no one is going to hold you to that (it's not an exact match, either). You even labeled that image "Proposed", it was obviously just a concept sketch.

We love interacting with the community but at the same time we hold a lot of being true to our word. At this point we admit there's at least a question mark born. Backers (but also hobbyists in general) should be listened to when they express opinions, we hold high regard to what they say, and we value the feedback. Dakka forum members in particular should be listened to as we find the community behind it usually offers constructive advice behind their opinions. Needless to say we are debating right now in our HQ...

 RiTides wrote:
Will you consider making a poll for backers to decide?

Yes, we are considering holding a poll. We will want to wait a couple of days probably for more feedback however before doing anything hasty.

If anything, I believe people will be more perplexed if the models turn out looking like this:


rather than this:


The latter is much more in line with my expectations.

I really don't like the images shown in the update - they just don't work well. If this was only a single unit kit then fair enough but as it is going to be a dual kit they just really don't look right together.

The two left hand bodies in the pick RiTides posted look so much better.

Shieldwolf please consider some sort of backer poll, whether asking for comments on an update, having a poll on your own website and asking backers to fill it in or just sending a mass email to backers asking for their thoughts and recording the replies.

Overall I think if you release as is then it could really hurt your sales long term. You say what if 20% of backers complain that they didn't get what you showed me but I think you may be forgetting what if 60% of backers don't like what they actually get. Just picked a number out of the air for an example but the vast majority of posts here are negative towards the bodies.

I think the left plate torso works. With the wolf pelt hiding the deep cleavage, it could pass for reasonable plate or probably even leather. The boob plate on the right only looks 'correct' if you give her a Mandalorian helmet with eyelashes.

However, I'm probably not the kind of customer Shieldwolf needs to worry about since I don't care about anachronistic armor types on my fantasy chaos warriors.

 Shieldwolf Miniatures wrote:
Yes, we are considering holding a poll. We will want to wait a couple of days probably for more feedback however before doing anything hasty.

Thank you, that's all we ask . It's certainly good not to be hasty - I was posting as I did because I was worried about the opposite, rushing ahead with these designs! Getting backer and general feedback, and then presenting two options, is very smart.

I think AdamBridger and Zywus both summarize it well above, too.

I poll announced through the Kickstarter campaign would be a very idea.

Among other things, it will hopefully give you a clearer picture of what most your backers want, and possible avoid the chance that you'd only be listening to a Vocal Minority.

I am more than happy with pretty much any of the designs above - a mxiture of types is also cool;

I'll just leave this pic here as she has been how i visuallised the Shieldmaidens from the start, helped by the Shieldmaiden bust.