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 scarletsquig wrote:
One thing with the three types of model on a sprue thing...

Have you considered that you might, instead of making a reasonably-good goblin/hobgoblin/bugbear monster sprue...

... instead make the best damned goblin sprue on the face of the earth, sell hundreds to warhammer/kow players and leave hobgoblins and bugbears for metal?

It's clear which one out of the three will be the seriously big seller if done right, and you can utilise people buying your plastics for Warhammer/ KoW to launch other things, whereas your typical mass-battle fantasy player is not likely to be interested in the mixed sprue as they end up buying stuff they don't need (hobgoblins and bugbears), which increases the cost for them.

The second you put all three unit types on the same sprue you're saying "only buy these minis if you're playing our game", and killing off a huge source of potential income.

I respectfully disagree with this point. I believe it comes down to the price per Goblin, and I think that one multi-sprue could indeed be the optimal initial offering for a small company. As long as the price per Goblin is a good deal better than what GW offers (currently $1.75 per Goblin at full retail, $1.4 at online retailers), then "bonus Bugbears and Hobgoblins" can't be any sort of a downside to people that want Goblins in bulk. I think gamers in particular would be unlikely to say "Well, yes this box does cost less per Goblin than my other options, but who needs all these extra miniatures in hard injection plastic that come along with the box?" The massive success of Kickstarters that basically offer a pile of miniatures in a horrific medium speaks volumes about how most gamers feel about, well, how much value they place on volume. Even if not everything they are getting is exactly what they want.

Additionally, there are a lot of people who are unwilling to start a whole army if they can't have a unified visual aesthetic across the whole army. The Minion Miniatures designs seem to fall in the category of "goblins that don't really have the GW aesthetic." By including Bugbears and Hobgoblins in the goblin box, you get a good mix of potential units that all have a unified aesthetic.

I also think that there is a real benefit to starting out making it clear that you are playing for all the marbles (you want people to play your game). A good enough ruleset can sell miniatures too. I think Dreamforge games is an excellent example of this. His miniatures can clearly be proxied into 40K games, and the unit breakdowns and broad design choices are clearly intended for this purpose. But at the same time, there are people interested in the Iron Core ruleset, and it has been clear from the beginning that Mark was playing to win, while still taking advantage of GW's massive failure to preserve their once super successful gaming/hobby ecosystem. Basically, make it possible to use your miniatures in GW games, but don't make it their only selling point.

In short, I think the multi-unit sprue is a great idea.

Thanks for the feedback guys... it is really appreciated and its nice to know people appreciate the work that's been put into the project.

We have had some long hard thoughts about the make up of the boxed sets and I think its 70/30 in favour of a mixed boxed set rather than a single "race" boxed set. However, to combat this issue we are looking into making the Goblin sprues available as part of the Kickstarter and perhaps having a smaller Goblin only boxed set available afterwards to please both parties.

I have yet to discuss this with the manufacturers but there should not be too many issues in this regard.

I will have some more artwork for you shortly, including an image of the soon to be sculpted Kickstarter exclusive miniature, the Goblin Skulk!....

The Goblin Skulk is kind of an Underdeep spy, an assassin and a scout. He is a master of poisons and stealth... but as he is a Goblin he is also a cowardly little fellow!

As soon as we have the finished piece I will post it for the world to see!

Since there are already a number of manufacturers who make multipart plastic zombies, you should consider making it a nonhuman zombies kit. Dwarves might not be a good pick since their dead are less likely to be buried somewhere a necromancer can get to them, but something like goblin zombies is something people aren't going to find anywhere else.

Outside of Titan Forge, I don't think anyone really bothers making undead goblinoinds. I can't think of any that have ever been done in plastic either.

Have we seen your bugbear concepts yet?

Is this the bugbear?



If so, I see what you mean about it being close enough as a troll proxy.

However, I wouldn't be too enthusiastic if it was only that one pose available, it'd need to have some variety of pose/ arms/ heads etc. before I'd consider it for wargaming.

Yeah, that was the illustration I was wondering about being a Bugbear.

Facial structure seems pretty similar to the goblins, but then again, they're all supposed to be in the same racial pool, so that shouldn't be too surprising.

I guess I'm a bit predisposed towards the D&D bugbears, in all their shaggy glory (which never exactly has set well with me in regard to being part of the same group of races, when they look totally different).

The asian stylings on the armor are a nice touch too.

Shoot, you get some asian style armored lizards up in here and you've got my wallet locked down pretty much for as long as it takes to populate my shelves completely with them.

I love the concept art, however I'd be worried we end up with a disappointment like Mantic games. I'm not sure what would convince me, I'll see when it goes live.

As a chaos dwarf fanatic I would advise the following with regards to hobgoblins.

If you sell them in plastic and want to shift a lot of sprues you'd be wise to have them as a set entirely on their own (or as part of a sprue with the bugbears that you cut the sprues to sell).

If I were to buy the hobgoblins I'd be looking for a minimum of 10 designs, an even split between bows and hand weapon/ shield. 10 designs of each would be better.

Yours would be the best plastic hobgoblins out there, bar none. HOWEVER, I would seriously consider ditching the "human" visages concept completely for these guys and do a stylised version of their own heads instead everywhere you've used that idea.

So the one with the 'human' helmet would just have a really evil looking hobgoblin helmet instead.

Also, do a couple of heads with moustaches.

Can I also suggest that you guys take a careful look at the anatomy of the hobgoblins, as aside from the heads and hands they look like human proportions. Which imo is not right for hobgoblins, I'd make them hunched over a bit or bow legged. Bow legged is harder to sculpt well than hunched over.

Edit

In this photo I've hunched him over a bit and also stretched his head

That is indeed the Bugbear. There will be two on the basic frame with some different arm combos though probably working in a two handed weapon theme. There will also be some supporting metal or resin models too. The hobgoblins have been designed more around the D&D mould of the hobgoblin, martial, human mimicking in a way. I personally don't like the Old GW hobgoblins and we are never going to appeal to everyone. However we take all points on board and we will have a look at the more hunched look too.

Some nice looking art being shown in this thread, will certainly be keeping an eye on things as they progress.

On the subject of a combined box, depending on the relative sizes I could see fantasy players going for it and using the hobgobs/bugbears for different types of orc in their army. It does depend a lot on how they scale relative to one another though.

I am also one who recommends not going for a hybrid sprue. People who want to use them for Warhammer (and depending on price there could be a hell of a lot of these) will want just a single line item only, not having to purchase sprues which have models on them they might never want to use.

Keeping your sprues separate is good business as it allows you to easily branch them off to separate boxes should you want to, rather than having to deal with a jumbled 1 sprue deal. Malifaux figured this out when they saw their crew box sets weren't able to be easily separated out due to parts being on one or two sprues for the whole crew, and now has instead shifted to making individual sprues for single models or grouped miniatures. It makes a hell of a lot more sense in the long run.

If you *have* to have it all as one sprue, have it as a separate part containing it's own pieces, joined to the rest of the sprue by a plastic channel, which can easily be snipped off so you can then sell them as two different items, rather than having a 'take it or leave it' approach which won't be useful to anyone interested in buying a mass amount of your miniatures.

I for one love your goblin's style. They look incredibly menacing and really well done, and fit for a race that lives underground. I can just imagine their pallid skin and bulbous eyes now. Really really well done. Now make it so I can buy hundreds of these cheaply, please

Edit: Actually it would be easier to make 2 sprues in total thinking about it. One sprue can have the 12 goblins on it, with a host of add-on's for people to customise their goblins with (bows or melee, different legs and ability to pose them different ways), and the second can be one with 6 Hobgoblins in their own marked off square/rectangle section, with options, and the other part (joined by some sprue injecton areas that can be easily snipped away) can be the 2 Bugbears, again with options.

That way you can do the following - Package up a bunch of goblin sprues together to sell to the people who want armies of them, have them and the other sprue available to put into one box to make a quick gaming set, and as a third option sell either the hobgoblins or bugbears separately. You'd win all the way around here using that method.

Whilst I know you want your own rule system to do really well and have people play your game, it'd be a lot more advantageous to offer something which could also be used to play other exisiting games, games where there is a market for cool looking miniatures at a great price that isn't being serviced as well. By doing so you'll be able to not only earn back the cost of the molds and tooling, but you'd also get people interested in your own system too ("hey if the miniatures are this great, I wonder how the game is?"). That's the easier way to success, rather than saying "No, we want this to be mostly about our game, so buy them like this or not at all". Be flexible, the rewards are there if you are, and you'll have a hell of a lot more luck with this kickstarter than if you went with something which doesn't help people who want to buy a ton of your miniatures a way to do so easily.

Also, a word of warning from the lessons learned from Mantic kickstarters - Don't scrimp on the miniatures. By that I mean ensure you have fantastic sculpts made (the best you can ideally), the best tooling and as many options as you can make for the sprues. If you cut corners, say "close enough is good enough", and think that volume = quality, then you'll fail in the long term, like a lot of Mantic's horrible Kings of War sculpts. They won't pay for themselves over time, and your name will become synonymous with "cheap, but bad" levels of quality. Make something really really awesome, see how good a price you can get it out there for, and people will flock to your door to hand you their money. You want to think long term success here, not short-term gain. Go for broke on making quality stuff, and you'll be rewarded for it. I have a ton of restic stuff from Mantic I am still trying to clear and I can tell you that the sheen of it falls away really quickly.

I like the concept art, so that will be enough to make me have a closer look once the miniatures start showing.

One thing we have decided upon from the beginning is ultimate quality. We have Bob Naismith sculpting the 3ups along with Renedra doing the manufacturing for us. You can we by the quality if the artwork that we want high standards everywhere. The drawback here is manufacturing costs which will be high, but high manufacturing costs will return an excellent product. The kickstarter total will be high but achievable which is why we need as much support as possible. We should have some pics of the Kickstarter Exclusive miniature soon along with some full colour artwork too.

In regard to the rules, the system will be D6 based. We experimented with custom dice, different dice types and card driven rules but the D6 system found most favour during play testing. The system is a skirmish level rule set using cards provided in each blister pack and boxed set for statistics. There will also be books released to to support this. Primarily a force is made up of an Overlord (your general as it were) and a selection of other characters should you wish to use them. The rank and file choices are either minion, henchmen, brutes or Titans. Minions always operates in small groups or units of three and include troops like goblins or kobolds. Henchmen will be capable troops like hobgoblins, drow warriors, orcs etc. Brutes are huge support models like bugbears, trolls etc and Titans are creatures like dragons, giants etc.

Models are activated using the command attribute of the Overlird and other Herod in the force. This command total is has a random element with each player being able to activate and use a number of command points before play switches and then switches back again. Command is spent to allow models to charge, move, rally etc but can also be spent to activate special actions unique to each unit type.

Combat uses multiple d6 in order to generate success based on an opposed roll. The more success a model generates determines what he does in combat. One success may be a normal hit, two successes might mean a critical hit is scored which is more potent and three successes for a bugbear for instance means a cleave attack or hammer smash for example which hits all models in base contact.

The rules are still being play tested so not all of the exact special rules have been agreed yet but this gives you an idea of how they will play. There are also rules for magic using a stat called flux. Flux is generated each turn by a magic user and more powerful spells may squire more than one turn to cast. Generating flux is dangerous and can cause real problems if you generate more than you can safely handle!

The basic rules will be available for free as a PDF download when the kickstarter begins but a full rule book will be available part if the kickstarter too. We also have plans to develop amass combat version that will involve large units of creatures but more in the vein of 40k than wfb.

^ Rules sound a lot like Deadzone (command pool for activations, opposed rolls with crits), so I'm interested already!

The unique crits for each model sound like a lot of fun.

Since it's skirmish, will there be campaign rules?

Any info on setting? Wilderness, ruins or a broader, more generic ruleset?

The more info on this the more I'm liking the sound of it. There might be room in the market for a really good traditional fantasy skirmish game, especially with Confrontation long gone and there not being much like it left around. Get the quality there and try to rustle up the ex-Rackham crowd by wowing them with amazing sculpts. They have money!

Hard plastic = check;
Renedra or WGF = even more check;
Possibly good ruleset = check;
Nice sculpts = (??? Good artwork does not always mean good sculpts, you need your 3-ups or renders sorted and painted ASAP, I would recommend not launching the KS without them, showing off the good stuff late-campaign is no good, 50% of the views for the entire campaign will be on the first three days and the public will not look twice if they don't like what they see or there's nothing to see).

I know that last point is repetition, but it really can't be stressed enough. To use an example very close to your own bugbears, this was the totally badass concept art for Mantic Trolls. These are the terrible models sculpted after the original concept art was discarded for some newer concept art which backers never got to see. Lots of KS projects over the last 3 years with a total failure to turn 2d concept into 3d sculpt have left your average backer very wary of backing a bunch of pencil sketches.

The bugbear plans sound great!

Can you give us a breakdown of the intended sprue layout for your first sprue?

How many goblins, hobgoblins, bugbear to a sprue? What weapon types for the goblins, are they interchangeable? Separate, swappable heads or not?

Lots of questions, but it's all stuff you'll be asked anyway, the more of it already answered in advance, the better!

I'll have to have a closer look at the rules but I'm tired of D6 as itdoes not lead to enough didifference of stats. Most of the games I play now use D8s or D20s.

Oh my word. I wish Mantic success, but their KoW kickstarter is basically a textbook example of how to take a quarter million dollars and a ton of community enthusiasm, and turn it into a pile of junk that no one will ever buy at retail. Seriously, a quarter of a million dollars and they managed to not make a single "must have" unit!

I digress. I would like to hear answers to the questions that SS posed as well. The rules sound very interesting.

You must, must, must have 3ups to show before you launch, at least for the first sprue or two. Good 3ups +Renedra will buy you a lot of pledges.

Ok. So many questions to answer! I will do my best.

Firstly I will discuss the sprue. Up until now all the discussion with the sculptor and with the manufacturers has been around a mixed sprue concept. This would have included 6 goblins, 3 hobgoblins and a 2 bugbears. We were going to do command separately but the positive reaction we have had from the wfb and kow players has been great and a little unexpected which has led us to change our plan slightly. I will now look at perhaps doing two sprues one holding the goblins and the other holding the hobs and the bugbears. This will enable us to sell the Goblinkind boxed set and also to sell the goblin sprues independently for the mass troop enthusiasts. I will also enquire about adding a command section to the goblin sprue that will enable you to make a banner bearer, musician and a leader if needed bit making them normal goblins too. The basic boxed set of goblins could then be perhaps 20-24 in number. Weapon options will be short bows, sword and shield and spears.

Getting all the three ups done before Kickstarter is going to be difficult for me but I have enquirer about getting at least some of them done before the Kickstarter begins. I am aiming for the boxed set to be no more than £20.

The world setting is called Morn, a pretty desolate place, scarred by century old conflicts. The wars on surface world eventually exterminated he great empires leaving only small and isolated communities and kingdoms. Meanwhile the fractious races of the Underdeep have been stiring and raids on the surface world have been becoming more and more frequent. The game will focus on the raids and skirmishes between the various individual Underdeep races and the surf e dwellers known as Sunsiders. I will give more information later in regard to the world and the surface world will be more heavily detailed when it comes to us releasin the mass combat game with various Sunsiders houses and factions available.

All these sound very interesting really and the concept art looks great too. The feedback was very useful and I like the fact that you take into account. I will keep a close eye on this project.

I've been looking for some mixed fantasy boxes just like you describe to play small skirmish games, so this is right up my alley. If the models look nice I'm in for sure.

20 pounds for a box of plastic like you describe should be quite a deal, especially if there's the usual kickstarter bonus type stuff thrown in when this is ready to launch.

Setting sounds interesting, especially as it sounds less focused on humans even more than usual. That is a big plus for me- we never use humans in our home!

That sounds like a great choice Kaine, it should keep both the skirmish and mass-battle crowd equally happy, and at £20 whats not to like.

Out of question do you plan to take this approach with all that factions?

I think so. I will need to experience how it would work logistically, but as a player of wargames and a collector of miniatures I would appreciate a company taking me in to consideration as I think it goes a long way. Selling sprues separately is something that Perry Miniatures do very successfully and I have a huge respect, not only for their amazing levels of quality but also the ease with which you can get the figures you want at fantastic prices.

We plan many other packs ( I think we have the next 10 boxed sets loosely decided upon) and certain packs wont need it. For example I think the orc pack will be fairly straight forward with maybe one or two options for larger orc beserker types. The Gnoll sprues will probably contain generic hyena men types with maybe some hyena models as well. The Lizardkin boxed set will contain kobolds, lizardkin and Deathscales (which are basically huge lizardmen killing machines) This kit could easily substitute for other armies with may be the kobolds on one sprue and the lizardkin and Deathscales on the other. The other thing to remember of course is that there will be a huge range of resin and/or white metal miniatures to support our range as well as independent plastic (not plastic resin) characters. The first couple of stretch goals will be the plastic goblin shaman and the plastic goblin chieftain. Both will be similar to GW's plastic character blisters.

I had the artwork back for the Goblin Skulk this evening and I should be posting it within the next day or so. As mentioned before it is the Kickstarter exclusive miniature available to everyone who pledges at a certain level.

One other thing I have a musical maestro working on a ambient/themed music CD which will also be free with the Kickstarter. It will have awesome tracks like "Bugbear Buffet" on it. I am sure we will have more details on this nearer its completion!!!

I love your concept art, and your fiction sounds interesting.

Not at all excited about your chosen sculptor.

When do we get to see something concrete? A 3Up Green perhaps?

~Eric

Sculpting will start very shortly. One thing is for sure, Bob has more experience of 3up design and the constraints of designing 3up models than anyone. His experience is key and I am sure the resultant sculpts will be awesome. We want the kits to be perfect and I will not be cutting any corners at all.

The Kickstarter will begin in early autumn 2014 and we are not frightened about making the initial Kickstarter funding levels as high as they have to be get the quality we need. The kickstarter will be used to produce as much if the initial range as possible and we intend to start other kickstarter very quickly to make additional plastic kits.

The Goblin Skulk is here! This miniature will be the Kickstarter Exclusive model and will be available as part of most of pledges.

The Skulk is a master spy, assassin and scout. They are usually goblin outcasts that have had to survive in the darkness of the Underdeep without their tribe around them for security. They are also rangers of sorts. They know every inch of the caverns that they call home as well as having an intimate knowledge of the mosses, lichen and fungus found in the darkest recesses of their surroundings. They use this knowledge to brew poisons with which they coat their jagged blades.

What do you think?

Some really lovely art work

Goblin skulkers gonna skulk?

Can't wait to see some of those sculpts once you guys get them rolling in.

I should be able to start posting some in progress pics of the sculpt very soon!

Definitely some promising concept art. Id be careful not to get overambitious though; for instance, plastic characters, while nice, probably wont sell well enough to justify the tooling costs. Very few people would need more than one, two sets at most. It just makes more sense to stick to resin or metal for stuff like that. Similarly, dont try to put out too many factions and boxes at once. Take your time, start with maybe two, three at most, and really try to make them *perfect*.

Also, definitely try to keep different models on seperate sprues. It just makes more sense in the long run. Good luck!

Yeah, quite surprised at plastic characters, nothing really wrong with a nice 1-piece metal for those and save the tooling resources for something else. In a similar fashion, rather than doing a command sprue, a banner arm and a horn arm in metal can do the job just as effectively.

However, if you can comfortably make either of those happen within your budget then there's no complaints from me.

20-24 goblins with sword/spear/bow for under £20 sounds perfect! I guess you're thinking sprue of 12 with 4 of each?

Make sure to have a "heaping pile of goblins for £100" pledge level when you launch the KS, think you'll find that it'll be more popular than you might expect.

If the sculpts turn out as well as the concepts, I'll most likely be eyeing up at least 200 goblins. It is a brilliant first faction to launch with, simply due to the sheer quantities of minis that an army requires (in fact, that's part of the appeal of collecting it in the first place, you get these massive hordes that look amazing on the tabletop).

All you'd have to do is convince 100 wargamers to go in for an army-sized pledge level and you'd have a good chunk of your initial goal sorted already.

With skirmish gamers interested in the system, you'll need to sell them on the extended range of metal add-ons and sort out "everything you need for this faction" bundles (then add another faction and sort out another bundle, and so on...).

I do also second the appeal for caution in the scope of the first KS... a maximum of 4 factions is probably for the best to ensure you can keep the quality there

Also, heavily overestimate your "expected delivery date" on the KS page, by at least 3-6 months. Far better to have an unexpected surprise of being able to deliver early than deal with people angry that its late. Doesn't make any difference to when the product actually ships, does matter to people psychologically.

Other than that the best advice for a KS campaign I can think of is as much direct communication as possible. Every forum even remotely connected to miniatures or board or RPG gaming should get a visit from you personally and kept track of and responded to. Quick on the ball with KS comments really helps as well, even just having a conversation in there can get you some new backers if they think you're awesome and friendly and likely to maintain that through fulfilment rather than the "no communication for 18 months after, we're holier than thou" approach that some KS creators take. Fortnightly updates post-KS to keep backers informed and showing off new sculpts is also great, let backers know in advance that this will be the plan and that you won't "go dark" as soon as the project finishes.

It all has a knock-on effect, ideally you want to make people so enthusiastic that they start promoting the project themselves.