Red Box Games Dwarves and Goblins and Orcs OH MY !!

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**tre manor**

Egadz! Yes that will work! Sorry man. I totally forgot to update that! I will get on that now.

**judgedoug**

tre manor wrote:
Egadz! Yes that will work! Sorry man. I totally forgot to update that! I will get on that now.

Thanks Tre! you're the best!

**czakk**

Latest update: Orc Brutes, then Wolf Riders, then Goblin Hero.

Hey everybody!

Ok after much humming and hawing over what to do next I have decided that the Orc Brutes will be first up. This set will include 4 new torso options each fitted for universally interchangeable heads and weapons. The weapons will be heavy weapons and will plug into a socket at the top of the leading hand. There will be 4 weapon options ( 2 swords, 1 axe and 1 mace ). These will use the same heads as the orc footmen and will also use the same legs options as the footmen. The set will of course include all options necessary to make 4 complete figures ( 4 torsos, 4 sets of legs, 1 sprue of heads, 1 sprue of weapons. ). This set will be made available as a ranks option upon reaching the $30,000.00 mark.

The Stretch Goal there after will be a set of 4 goblin wolf riders. This set will include 2 sets of 2 unique wolf options and 4 universally interchangeable goblin riders. The riders are planned to be totally separate from the wolf bodies and cast as single piece items in metal. This is subject to change as I get in to the actual process of sculpting the items. I am fairly confident though that I can make this plan work well. This set will be available as a paid for add-on for $25.00 per set when we hit the $36,000.00 mark

The Stretch Goal there after will be a Goblin Wolf rider Hero. This set will include the Alpha Wolf ManSlayer and the Goblin Chieftan BlackFangs. BlackFangs will be cast separately from ManSlayer and both will be metal cast. ManSlayer and BlackFangs will be available as a paid for add-on for $10.00 when we reach the $40,000.00 mark.

After that??? Who knows? More Orc legs options? Orc heads Options?? Orc Clan Chiefs ( armoured elites ) ? Maybe Black Fangs a foot? Or The Orc Spearthrowers, or perhaps Dvergr War Staff? We will have see when we get there!

For now here is a very quick and rough sketch of the first of the Orc Brute torso options.

**Trodax**

Squeee for orc brutes with big two-handed weapons!!! Well, the wolf riders will most likely be very cool too, but now I'm foremost hoping we hit $30K.

**RiTides**

Yeah, those will look great

can't wait for a WIP of them and/or the orc hero.

**Da Boss**

This is the first time I've followed a KS the whole way through. I'm super tense now that we're in the last few days. I hope there's a significant bump because right now I'm glued to the pledge total

Not helpful considering I've piles of work to do!

**judgedoug**

I feel awful as I may have to drop my pledge :(

**RiTides**

Da Boss wrote:
This is the first time I've followed a KS the whole way through. I'm super tense now that we're in the last few days. I hope there's a significant bump because right now I'm glued to the pledge total
Not helpful considering I've piles of work to do!

I really hope it gets a bump! Unfortunately, just to be a small raincloud on the horizon here, I think there were 2 issues. The first is that I feel the momentum really got halted when the main pledge levels were locked, and remained so for a number of days. That happened on the 25th, I believe, and while there was still a lot of pledging the next day or two, it quickly dropped off once folks who were already paying attention had gotten their pledges up to snuff:

Maybe it's not totally cause-and-effect, but I feel it's really hard to attract new backers when you've locked up your top 3 pledge levels! It made the other pledge levels not have the sliding scale needed to entice people to pledge big. Granted, the pledge-per-backer is similar to Tre's bigger kickstarter, but he had a Lot more backers then whereas this is more his loyal / hardcore fanbase, I think.

Another part of that is due to this, which I'll copy from the first page:

redcapscorner wrote:
EDIT: Having done a little more research, I rescind some of my earlier comments. I'm not actually getting the backer updates for reasons not worth getting into, but I just read them and feel caught up. I'm bummed trollcast didn't work out, though. I had contributed to this Kickstarter on behalf of my store, to start carrying Red Box products, but with the switch back to metal, I'm going to have to pass on continued involvement. Tre, if you want a retailer's input, metal minis don't sell to roleplayers (unless they were sculpted in the 80s), and they're honestly a pretty hard sell to wargamers too if you're trying to get them to play your game system. Your fantasy metal mini customer is likely one of the following:

1) a second edition D&D grognard, who more often than not likes his minis like he likes his rules: poorly designed and badly outdated.
2) a wargamer who is disenchanted by GW (easy to find), but hasn't found what he or she's looking for in Hordes or Malifaux (much harder to find) AND who views modeling as a secondary concern to gameplay (which is even harder to find, because let's face it: the people who are more into good rules than hobby potential left GW for one of the aforementioned years ago).

Reaper's making a hard dive into plastic because it outsells their metal 5:1, and hell, I don't even carry metal Reaper anymore except the Pathfinder-branded stuff. It just doesn't sell. Unless you continue with plastics, I worry you're just going to struggle to find your market, which is a shame because you're a phenomenal sculptor and clearly a deeply committed and passionate guy. I honestly contribute the success of your first Kickstarter in large part to your loudly switching to plastic at around the same time Reaper was already dragging thousands of roleplayers to Kickstarter looking for minis.

This is all just food for thought. I know you have a great base of deeply committed customers, and if this were a hobby for you, I'd stay quiet on this, but hearing that you're switching back to metal is setting off all the same alarms for me that would be sounding if someone told me they wanted to open a video rental place. Don't do it, Tre!!

I have a feeling that this is also true of the Imbrian Arts kickstarter, despite the quality of both Tre and Jody's work, people got excited and pledged BIG due to the possibility of resin/plastic. People just aren't as interested in metal as much anymore.

I know there are other exceptions to this, most recently this kickstarter, which almost crossed 100K and I believe is all-metal:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/centerstageminis/tome-of-horrors-complete-28mm-heroic-scale-miniatu

But there's a huge amount of things on offer there. Personally, the sculpts didn't appeal to me and I heartily support both Tre and Jody as true artists. But from a business standpoint, I think resin would be a lot more lucrative than metal. Unless Tre plans to run 20-30K kickstarters every half year or so, I'm not sure that this is the way to be going, personally.

Everybody wants plastic, of course, and nobody can have it. But I figured these were things worth considering and discussing

. I think the value is pretty great on some of the ranks here, especially for metal minis, but it's going to become a harder and harder sell in the future, rather than an easier one.

**tre manor**

The current RBG catalogue would not transition to plastic. If Plastic is truly the only way forward then RBG as it is now will be left behind. I hate to say it but it is the truth.

If you want figures the caliber of what I offer in the Red Box Games line then it is metal or Resin. If I go the resin route then the prices must go considerably higher, and truth be told people barely notice when I practically GIVE RBG figures away. So trying to move into resin will be nothing but disaster. I attempted it with the HelsVakt KS campaign and we can see the result.

Many companies advertise these great high detail renders and resin masters claiming that the plastics will look just like these models but I have yet to see any of them actually deliver that level of quality, or even close in some cases. Until I see it for myself I will not take money from anyone based on product that I cannot actually deliver upon.

There is no plastic manufacturer, no method currently in existence that could mold the orcs and capture the levels of detail on those figures.

I suppose that I could be the real problem in this equation, but I feel obligated to continue to provide for the people who have so generously supported me over the years with RBG. I feel that to abandon the RBG style as I have defined it over the years for the sake of plastic manufacturing would be to abandon their expectations.

I truly do appreciate all the support I have been given thus far and I hope that I can continue to provide a true high quality product for an affordable price for years to come.

AT

Well, most decently detailed plastic miniatures come in multi-part kits because of the limitations of the molding process.

I'm sure you would be forced to cut up your sculpts pretty extensively to get them suitable for injection mold tooling.

I've definitely never seen any single-piece injection molded miniatures with detail to rival an RBG sculpt, but I'm no expert...

**Bossk_Hogg**

tre manor wrote:

Many companies advertise these great high detail renders and resin masters claiming that the plastics will look just like these models but I have yet to see any of them actually deliver that level of quality, or even close in some cases. Until I see it for myself I will not take money from anyone based on product that I cannot actually deliver upon.

My problem is they often DO look just like the renders. But that the renders were sculpted blown up to 50 times normal size, so when you get a 28mm figure, the deail is too weak, and parts are just to thin and unfeasible. Had it been a real sculpt, the impracticality of things like making a figures tiny wispy beard a separate piece would have been caught, or havign too faint detail would have been apparent to the sculptor. Thats my biggest beef with, for example, some of Wyrd's plastic sculpts. Even on your more true scale figures, you know to exaggerate some detail because it just wont stand out otherwise.

What about resin?

**tre manor**

My problem is they often DO look just like the renders. But that the renders were sculpted blown up to 50 times normal size, so when you get a 28mm figure, the deail is too weak, and parts are just to thin and unfeasible. Had it been a real sculpt, the impracticality of things like making a figures tiny wispy beard a separate piece would have been caught, or havign too faint detail would have been apparent to the sculptor. Thats my biggest beef with, for example, some of Wyrd's plastic sculpts. Even on your more true scale figures, you know to exaggerate some detail because it just wont stand out otherwise.

Well that is mostly true but the dirty little secret of plastics manufacturing is that there is a threshold of detail that the bits are able to cut and that thresh hold is not sufficient to capture detail that can be captured by hand with traditional sculpting methods and rubber molding materials and methods. Then there is also the matter of Zero Draft. That means that the mold parts must release the casting without catching ANY part of the model. This means ZERO under cut. Under cut is what you are thinking of when you think of " detail ". So when you must reduce under cut to zero you essentially lose detail int eh process. Think of the difference the same way that there is a difference between Analog TV picture and High Delfiniton Digital imaging. Or the difference between the graphics of HALO to HALO 4. This also has a big impact on the curvature of the models as well. The pose is restricted by the necessity of zero draft and there fore to have a more dynamic pose you must also cut your model into multiple pieces.

Cutting RBG models up would not solve the problem. The facial features of the figures would just flat NOT carry over to the molds.

At the end of the day the fact remains though that either, one; the audience does not really care about detail and quality, or two; the audience does not KNOW that they care about detail and quality until they actually see the difference first hand. The problem with number 2 is that by the time the audience DOES see the difference it is too late, their money is already spent and the company that DID produce quality has either moved on to less rigid standards for the sake of being able to compete or has just decided the effort is not rewarded well enough to be worth while anymore. Number one is only a problem if a provider is unwilling or otherwise unable to make the transition to lesser quality.

**Da Boss**

Love these kinds of frank posts about the realities of the industry, very informative.

And for me, stating stuff like this clearly is some of the best PR you can do, Tre. I appreciate honesty and straightforwardness.

It does seem like resin or something like restic will eventually be very common for minis, but it seems there are many kinks to be worked out of the process before it is reliable.

**Schmapdi**

I think rules would help. I love a lot of RBG stuff - but scale differences mean I can't really use it for anything else.

I'm not a big collector of stuff "just to have" - but start making factions of things with clearly designed leaders/elites/grunts and I'm a sucker. (Even though, no, I never actually play anything, ever)

You've got some of the best sculpts in the business, your minis are pretty darn cheap. Get some decent Mordheim-like rules for war bands of 10ish minis, and some nice, interesting fluff and boom, success!

OK, it's probably not as easy as that sounds. But I still think it's a good path to take.

**Da Boss**

The miniatures scale well with the LOTR miniatures produce by GW, and many fit with the LOTR range pretty well theme wise. That game utilises small warbands with heroes so it seems like a good fit if you want rules to use while waiting for Tre to publish his own.
Song of Blades and Heroes is also a ruleset that is all about the fantasy warbands and it is usable with this scale.

I've also been thinking that there is potential to run Dungeons and Dragons as a sort of "wargame" where one player runs a party of adventurers and the other runs a "list" of monsters and adversaries. Kinda like D'n'D minis but probably just using the full game rules of 4th edition (which is a surprisingly good miniatures game).

**Azazelx**

Da Boss wrote:
The miniatures scale well with the LOTR miniatures produce by GW, and many fit with the LOTR range pretty well theme wise. That game utilises small warbands with heroes so it seems like a good fit if you want rules to use while waiting for Tre to publish his own.
Song of Blades and Heroes is also a ruleset that is all about the fantasy warbands and it is usable with this scale.

I was about to suggest both of these rulsets. Additionally, Fanticide is a warband/skirmish sized game explicitly designed to work with whatever is in your collection. It also has a hell of an author's pedigree.

**mattyrm**

I've got plenty of money burning a hole in my pocket after some enforced sobriety for the last fortnight..

feth it, I'll have a sack of gobbos.

Great sculpts by the way...

**RiTides**

I was in a store last night looking at the single sprue injection molded characters GW made... they're quite nice. I bought an OOP confrontation blister while I was there (metal). The detail is amazing, but obviously... they went out of business! For many reasons...

But seeing yourself or the Rackham/Confrontation sculptors, or Jody of Imbrian arts, make the necessary adjustments to have your art cast in other mediums would be great, imo.

Hindsight is 20/20, but seeing the awesome models I got from KS1, it's obvious some parts aren't well suited to trollcast. The material is amazing- for what it is. But it's not metal, and some sacrifices must be made.

If anything similar is tried in the future, that must be kept in mind, imo. Maybe your weapons will always have to be metal, if you want them hair thin like they are now

. But for many hobbyists, those are unusable because they're so likely to bend/break.

Personally, I want the highest quality I can, but it's not the only consideration. With something like those Orcs, or of course the goblins, plastic/plesin/restic would be a huge draw. But compromises would have to be made.

Just some thoughts

thanks for the thorough reply. Just thinking it through now, if small metal KS's is RBG's path, or something more radical. Dreamforge's metal KS got, what, 5K? Their plastic one got 200K. Here, it was only an 80K / 25K difference, but just thinking about the viability for the future.

**Guildsman**

So anxious to see where this kickstarter ends. We're frustratingly close to 25k and the orc leader, but now I'm worried that we won't reach it. As much as I'd hate to do it, I'd have to lower my pledge if that was the case.

**greywulf**

I will be putting in a bit more once I see if those other two figs will be added to the possible back catalogue options. I'll be adding a bit more anyway.

I'm really excited for this one. I wasn't a part of tre's 1st or 2nd KSs just because they offers didn't appeal to me, but everything I've seen in this campaign is talking to me. As I said in the KS comments, I don't even like orcs and never have but tre's take on them has really made me excited about orcs for the first time.

**Trodax**

Guildsman wrote:
So anxious to see where this kickstarter ends. We're frustratingly close to 25k and the orc leader, but now I'm worried that we won't reach it. As much as I'd hate to do it, I'd have to lower my pledge if that was the case.

Well, the orc hero is only $600 away now, so I can virtually guarantee you we'll reach him. I absolutely think we've got a good shot at the orc brutes too (there's always some extra action in the last two days). Only 62 hours to go!

Automatically Appended Next Post:

greywulf wrote:
I will be putting in a bit more once I see if those other two figs will be added to the possible back catalogue options. I'll be adding a bit more anyway.

I think Tre said that if it's a $8.99 mini available in his web store it's also available through the KS (but I also hope he gets the images up there so everyone can see that). Bolverk the Bold looks like another badass Njorn I won't be able to pass on, and I'm eyeing Black Armand too. Which were the ones you were interested in?

**fulop78**

Oh yes, no doubt the Orc hero will be in soon. The orc brutes though ... we'll see, I do hope but if we are not getting them then I'll just have me another rank of orc footmen.

**Da Boss**

I hope we get to the Brutes at least. Shame about the Wolf Riders if we don't make it. 2 Kickstarters waiting for those, now!
Does anyone know what exchange rate Amazon uses for the transaction? I was trying to check it out but I got a bit lost on the website. I have 238 euro on my prepaid creditcard and I want to up my pledge to possibly 256 dollars from the current 231. Looking at Google's exchange rate, I shoudl be fine but I'm a little worried I'll over shoot my limit if Amazon is significantly different.

**greywulf**

Trodax wrote:
Which were the ones you were interested in?

Kyrie Brighthelm

& Berochlene

These 2 in particular are must haves for me... and tre said they're going up, so yay!

I added $56 and that just might not be enough for all the others that I'm pondering, though.

**judgedoug**

Had to drop my pledge, which sucks. Moving in a few weeks but will paying double rent for a month and a half, so all my free funds have just disappeared til August. I _will_ be buying a bunch of figs as soon as they become available in Tre's webstore.

**tre manor**

No need to qualify Doug. You have been a big supporter and sometimes life just gets int he way. Thank you sincerely for supporting me and my efforts where you were able.

**The_Minsk**

Im a pledger from your furst campaign who is still waiting for my stuff, patiently I might add. Would ut be possibly to get sone orcs instead of the bits that are still to be cast?

**grefven**

I'd happily buy extra from the KS1 if it was possible (which it should be seeing how not everything is cast yet!). But unfortunately, Tre hasn't answered on the mails. :/ It's a shame, because a few of the HelsVakt are awesome.

**tre manor**

Have I not responded to questions from you Grefven? Man I am sorry. Can you resend them or are they through the KS system?

Minsk, thanks for your patience. as to your question....... Well that is a thought I will have to think over. The metal for the ORcs is going to be more costly than most of the items from TF and TF is so close to delivering on everything now. It is just a shame that they could not have delivered on everything before the close of this KS. There are however more than 100 packages going out today and tomorrow though.

**judgedoug**

tre manor wrote:
No need to qualify Doug. You have been a big supporter and sometimes life just gets int he way. Thank you sincerely for supporting me and my efforts where you were able.

Oh, I'll definitely be buying a bunch when August rolls around, so be sure to set aside a pile of gobbo archers, footmen, and wolfriders for me.