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Still not a single update on the Dwarfs. I'm glad I only went in for $30...

You'll probably get the figures from the Warpath KS before you get the ones from AoW anyway...

I think that's a valid concern, and I brought the same one up in regard to "Betty" in the Bombshell Babes KS. On the other hand, Mantic's newer KoW and DreadBall greens that have been shown are (mostly) the best figures they've shown in their catalogue to date. Aside from some questionable ones like the Female Vampire's head, Mantic's new stuff is quite impressive.

I wonder how he's going with the indiegogo stuff that people already paid for months ago like the multiple dwarven units and things like the limited edition standa--- oh, I'm sorry. It's too much, I just can't keep a straight face!

RoninXiC wrote:

 scipio.au wrote:
I wonder how he's going with the indiegogo stuff that people already paid for months ago like the multiple dwarven units and things like the limited edition standa--- oh, I'm sorry. It's too much, I just can't keep a straight face!

I don't get your point.

Avatar of War NEVER claimed to release all units in the next weeks. They clearly stated that they are trying to get everything released early 2013. They also said, that they fell behind in shedule and lost a few months, delaying everything into mid 2013.
You clearly have no idea how crowdfunding works.

Hi there guy. Try not to be so rude, for starters. I probably have a better idea how crowdfunding works than Felix. For example, I know that communication with your backers/customers is key. Since July, I've received a total of two updates from them. Even during the campaign, Felix presented as arrogant and unwilling to either communicate or offer much value. He pissed away his customer goodwill and has shown to be unreliable. This is why his Kickstarter barely eked out $40k in the end, when based on the quality of his sculpting it should have gone well over $100k. The debacle with his not-chaos-warriors pre-orders shows that this is typical behaviour. Great sculptor, awful businessman.

If you want to see "how crowdfunding works", try looking at Mantic Games and their Kings of War or Dreadbowl efforts. Or Dreamforge Miniatures, or Stonehaven Miniatures. Not to mention Reaper. Customer goodwill is worth a lot of money. Providing updates to your customers goes a long way to earning and keeping goodwill. Both IGG and KS offer a mechanism to communicate with your customers with regular updates.

Expecting people to follow your own forums or facebook is arrogant, when it would only take a few minutes each time to update all of your backers. Felix doesn't even bother to upload pictures/updates to the English portion of his own forums as often as he does the Spanish pages. Would I pledge to AoW again? Probably not. Maybe just a small token amount if he offered something like the standard bearer again. Why? Well, if Felix can't be bothered, why should I?

RoninXiC wrote:
isn't 40k double the amount they set their first goal? That is not "eked out". That is quite a success for sucha small company.

But that's not the point: You said : "I wonder how he's going with the indiegogo stuff that people already paid for months ago like the multiple dwarven units and things like the limited edition standa--- oh, I'm sorry. It's too much, I just can't keep a straight face"
So you clearly made fun out of people who pledged. So who's rude? It's you.
Since the end of the project, they HAVE posted pictures of their two finished units + a drawing of a golemthingy. So they ARE providing some information. It's not a lot,but it's just not true that they aren't saying anything.

40k is appallingly small for what AoW should have done given the quality of the figures. I know it, you know it, Felix knows it. I actually pledged as well. I'm making fun of AoW, not the people who pledged. You do seem a more than a little touchy and defensive though. And still rather rude.

Finally, they haven't bothered to use the built-in tools of Indiegogo to keep all their pledgers in the loop or informed. (You know, people who gave them money upfront for products they may take a year to deliver on.) It would take minutes to do so. Instead they are lazy and arrogant, and choose to deliver updates to their pledgers in a way that the people who gave them the $40k have to actively seek out rather than providing their investors with the information to their email box.

For all of my issues with Felix, the quality of his sculpting isn't one of them. I'll get these once they hit retail.

To be honest, that's a lot earlier than I expected to see it.

Mr Gutsy wrote:
I really don't have a problem with AOW expanding their Chaos range, from what i understand they're using a different sculptor (Sergio.) for the Chaos models while Felix is focusing on the IGG Dwarves.

At this point i just want AOW to be direct with us the backers, because they're coming dangerously close to the final expected release date of January 2013 and yet they've only produced a fraction of what was supposed to be completed by this time.

What they need to do is release a proper Official announcement via IndieGoGo that the campaign is behind schedule, because the longer they wait to admit they've experienced problems the worse the negative reception will be.

Yeah, it's Felix from AoW - that's why I only went in for the Standard Bearer, based on their/his track record for timeliness and communication...

Just as long as we all remember to buy them from retailers who have stock, and not direct from AoW...

edit - nuked doublepost

Well, I used to get them from Maelstrom Games.

More recently, I've been buying That Sort Of Thing from Firestorm Games.

They've got a pretty good range of AoW stuff, and offer a 10% discount and worldwide free shipping for orders of more than 30 squids.
I just noticed they're now stocking Raging Heroes as well...

Anyway, the guys there have great service, which is why I've been buying a lot from them since the demise of Maelstrom..

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Sadly for Avatars of War you might be waiting a lot longer than that.

They do great work but really are SLOW

(but then again if Felix gets inspired by Humans with mustaches, then that's what he'll sculpt even if he hasn't finished what he's doing now)

This.


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 Bolognesus wrote:
...except AoW is quite competent, just extremely boneheaded.

Also, this.


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 agnosto wrote:

Personally, I love AoW's models; I have the Ogre Hero but I had to buy it from an online retailer because AoW never seems to actually stock anything.

Also, this. It's the only way to sensibly buy AoW models.

I used to buy them from Maelstrom. Now I buy them from Firestorm. if they don't have stock of something, I ask them to cancel it and sub something else in. Works for me!

I'm actually not too upset with Felix on this one. The reason being that after what passed for communication and reason with him while the campaign was active, and the fiasco with the Chaos Warriors, I went in (for just the standard bearer) with absolutely no expectation of him acting rationally, quickly or sensibly. I do trust him to come through eventually, just not anytime soon.

Hard to be disappointed when you go in with expectations that low..


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Mr Gutsy wrote:
I've been wondering lately if money might be a big factor as to why AOW is so far behind schedule, they only made $39,575 with their campaign and set out to produce 10 Multi-part warcast Dwarf regiments, (along with a mortar/crew and 2 living Ancestor models.) And 4 Hero models, (Including the Warcast dwarf king mounted on a bear.)

compare that to Mantic who managed to raise a little over 9 times as much money ($354,997) and are producing 20 new regiments and 7-8 new hero models. Granted Mantic were also funding the printing of a rulebook and included a ridiculous amount of freebies. But even doing some rough guess work as to how much that would cost, there is still such a large difference between the amount of money Mantic and AOW each have available to produce their regiments.

I don't think the money would matter. AoW is artist-owned, and Felix sculpts whatever he wants to anyway for the AoW line, does it slowly, and does almost all of it himself. Honestly, the IGG Money is just pay-way-upfront AoW preorders.

Mantic on the other hand freelances their sculpting, (I'm pretty sure neither Ronnie nor Orcy do the sculpting!) so they pay artists for the concept art, per sculpt etc. Hence the money goes out to pay for the commission work.

(He) can be (one of the) Heroes.

Just for one day.

You really didn't miss much of a discount at all, and you saved yourself the hassle and stress of having to deal with AoW directly. Just buy them from a retailer when they come in - that's my plan!

grefven wrote:
Personally, I am quite fed up with AoWs customer service, or actually, lack of it. I quite regret backing their IGG campaign, and I honestly believe that I will never get the value back.

So, if anyone believes in them and want to build a dwarf army, feel free to contact me and you can take over my IGG pledge.

That's why I just went in for the Standard Bearer. Frankly, I'm not sure if I'll ever see that, either.

 Kroothawk wrote:
Just about to be released:
Avatars of War: Lord of Pestilence with weapon & shield

That's a nice model. I'll pick that up next time I buy from Trolltrader or Firestorm.

I suspected that his fulfilment would be awful. There were enough horror stories about the Chaos Warriors. That's why I only went in for the Standard Bearer.

Without being snarky, this is probably a good thing. AoW minis are essentially a WHFB-proxy range anyway, and the last thing Felix needs is more distractions like translation, given the endemic sculpting delays and production issues that the AoW side of his business is suffering from.

I've only got a bunch of metal character-type models, not their chaos boxed sets. The metals are as good as they look in pictures. Beautiful models.

 RiTides wrote:
These crowdfunding campaigns are definitely a double-edged sword. You get money upfront... but if you don't deliver, it can become like a millstone around your neck. Looks like it will be that for AoW the longer they fail to make any real progress on what they've pledged to do.

For some reason, I get the feeling Felix doesn't much care. I'm not even being snarky with that comment.


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 Scrub wrote:
I love the artwork and I love the look of AoW's models, I've even bought one as a present for a friend (which was a big hit!) but I'm cautious about buying stuff from them for myself or getting too invested in the idea of building warbands or armies with their models, as lovely as they are, because of the bad rep they've been getting for fulfilling orders...

Great models. Only buy anything AoW through retail though.


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 Kroothawk wrote:
Can someone summarise indiegogo promises made, kept and not kept so far? Was there communication on progress to pledgers?

He doesn't use the Indiegogo messager to communicate with backers AT ALL. Some (one? a couple?) of the units have become available, but to find out you need to go to his forum, look on their facebook page etc - i.e.: you need to chase them.

After my experience with AoW and Bruno's Goblins, I won't be backing anything else on IGG again. Kickstarter experiences are disappointing enough, but both IGG ones have been truly awful.

 Kroothawk wrote:
To be fair, the kickstarter started after the Chaos Warrior sales desaster. So everyone on Dakka was aware that:
1.) AoW doesn't communicate
2.) AoW doesn't deliver in time.
3.) AoW likes to start new projects before older ones are accomplished.
So even if they made a Dark Elf army, I wouldn't have pledged. AFAIK, there were explicit warnings in the kickstarter thread. Not that I defend AoW's behavior, but it is something I was expecting.

Absolutely correct on every count - and exactly why I only went in for two of the standard bearer (IGG exclusive, $15 inc int'l shipping.)

The reason I'm so relaxed about this one compared to how bent out of shape I get about other Kickstarters is because this is literally just the kind of attitude and wait I expected from Felix. (Also why I wasn't willing to go in for a larger amount).

Even so, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if he decides to renege on it in some way, considering the $15 for the BSB includes international shipping. I - quite literally - considered backing for this one figure to be a gamble. And still do, really.


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(how's that for low expectations?)

Oh Felix, how you make me laugh, so.

Because Felix is as pig-headed as he is a talented sculptor.

My "confidence" in Felix was well founded - clearly I made the best choice by only spending a very small amount on the one figure from the IGG campaign that was exclusive.

I wonder if he plans to do another KS/IGG down the line? Because, you know, cutting his nose off to spite his face is a great way to get that goodwill pumping.

What are these ones made out of, again?

I mean spin-cast, or restic? I read somewhere that they weren't going to be in GW/Renedra style hard plastic sprues...

I'd like them cast in Finecast resin, Bob. Can you see to it?