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Scottywan82 wrote:Or a sweet zombies multi-part plastic kit.

I'll take 8.

Seriously. I'd be all over a good multpart zombie kit.

kenshin620 wrote:

brettz123 wrote:Right now I would say it isn't looking good for them making it. I am surprised they have raised so little.

Ehh they still got a good chunk of a month left. I'm sure they'll make it. But still it isnt all that surprising imo that this seems quite....slow compared to others

Indiegogo is a tad lesser known compared to kickstarter (or from what I have seen anyways)
AoW is quite a smallish company, even compared to Mantic. Companies that primarily make single figures compared to army centric stuff usually are dime a dozen. Not saying AoW though isnt one of the best though.
There is a huge negative stigma with Warcast production, which may come off as AoW not knowing what they're doing
While they have great figures, it might not inspire many people to buy into a bunch of concept sketches with not real set deadlines in the near future

Looks like donors are slowing down on this. At the current rate he wont make it unless it picks up again sometime.

Does anyone have any ideas why this one isn't working out? Felix puts out some quality product so I would have thought he could raise 20k fairly easily. I haven't thought about it very much but I am wondering if not having any real new product yet has hurt the fund raising.

So let me get this straight. The company will take my money, now (or whenever the thing expires), charge full price for the "incentives" and then ship what I bought some year or so down the road?

This sounds less like a kickstart type campaign and more like a desperate pre-order scenario. You could just as well wait until they actually start producing the product and buy it sight-seen at that time.

I'm probably going to dump some money on Mantic because their 3/$25 deal on Ogres and Werewolves is too sweet to pass up. You see, that's how you encourage investors to throw money at you.

I am surprised at the choice of dwarves, they are far from a popular army.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:I am surprised at the choice of dwarves, they are far from a popular army.

Perhaps that is what this Indiegogo is for? To measure interest?

MeanGreenStompa wrote:I am surprised at the choice of dwarves, they are far from a popular army.

Felix loves Dwarves. And it's what he's best at sculpting too IMO.

I wish they would drop the price on some of the big tours. Nobody has opted for a single one. I'd drop the price by $500 and let 5 people go instead of 4. It might drum up some interest in them. Better yet drop them completely and put a "Get one of everything AOW produces in the next 5 years" for 5 grand or so. A drop on the "master sculpt" thing might make those sell too.

I'm surprised the "get your own hero" sculpted isn't more popular, given the quality AoW produces. But then the pricing on that is kinda messed up. It's $1500 and includes either of the following: 100 miniatures (perk value, $205) or 40 miniatures painted by AoW's in house painter, top quality level. (perk value... $1200!). Meaning you're paying either $1300 or 300 for the dwarf sculpt itself. For $300 I think a lot of people would jump to get their own Dwarf made!

MeanGreenStompa wrote:I am surprised at the choice of dwarves, they are far from a popular army.

Felix: "What would you like to see first in plastic?"
Forum: "Witch Elves."
Felix:"Dwarfs? Okay, done. And next?"
Forum: "Witch Elves."
Felix: "More Dwarfs? Okay. Anything else?"
Forum: "Witch Elves."
Felix: "Okay, started a indigogo fundraiser on a complete Dwarf army."
Raging Heroes: "We just made metal Witch Elves, most successful release we ever had."

Maybe Felix just doesn't plain like witch elves. I can see why that could very well be the case.

mattyrm wrote:I just saw this and I love AOW minis more than Mantics....

Same here, but given the recent track record on delivering for Felix and Co., I will be waiting until there's something in stock to ship.

And then, I will build a Dwarf army using his models!

I want him to get on with the chaos ranges... They will provide him with the financial success to go on and make less popular ranges... like dwarves...

Spoken like a true Ork/c - Dwarves rock!

Clearly Felix loves Dwarves, so...

But yes, sorting out the issues with the existing Chaos Warriors regiments and making more in that line will get him a LOT of money...

I would absolutely love to get in on his dwarfs, but can't justify it given the uncertainty of when they'd get produced / etc, based on the chaos models.

I really wish them success with them, though- the dwarves they have made are absolutely gorgeous!!!

I really want an all/mostly all AoW Dwarf army, but I don't think he's going to hit his target on this one.

Since he did NOT use the Indeigogo "Flexible Funding" option, that means is he doesn't he gets NO money at all.

I wonder what that means for his plans?

His dwarves are totally awesome, better than GWs, as I said I bought a box of beserkers and I love them, they are better sculpts than GWs.

But, there seems to be no incentive at all to bother buying them in this manner. Its no cheaper for starters, I got my Beserkers on ebay for £22 with free postage. If I buy into this, I pay instantly, get feth all product for 6 months, and then have to pay $105 for 50 guys?!

$105 comes to £68. Im confident I will get them cheaper, and I will get the models within a week of paying, so what possible incentive is there to back his funding drive?

Mantic and McVey have got the right idea. Lash me up with a couple of freebies, even small ones, and Ill be all over it.

Exactly!

OGRE, Zombicide and Sedition Wars are examples of crowd funding done 'right'.

This one... not so much.

Which is a shame, because as you noted, his sculpts are generally miles ahead of his competition - and I would have spent at least $190 on this one IF it was set up with better incentives, etc.

orc master wrote:read the info on the indigo site again,
the ones marked as done are already for sale on his website and true retailers,
the ones planned are already sculpted, but not yet released,
and the ones with the Yeeeeah in front are the goals of the fundraiser that have been passed so far

I understand, you're reading this from the main IGG page:

[PLANNED]: Miniatures in this category will be done. These are the miniatures we were already able to sculpt and produce before this campaign.

However, in the forums, people keep asking Felix to stop shooting himself in the foot with the (terrible? arrogant? you choose!) way he's managing the fundraising, and he keeps being stubbornly difficult. They have been asking for him to show the greens, to help increase support. In direct contradiction to the information you're referring to, which as you correctly state is posted on the IGG site - his reply:

Gaelion
Post subject: Re: Dwarf Army funding campaign!Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 10:22 pm
AoW Overseer

Joined: Wed Mar 05, 2008 5:22 am
Posts: 1423
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Sorry, I really can not offer anymore minis-related stuff.

Otherwise the campaign would not be profitable for us.

There are no greens, I am now sculpting Apoc regiments, not Dwarfs yet, it says that clearly on the campaign details. Anyway, if the already sculpted AoW dwarfs together with the concept art is not enough to tempt collectors to perk, then there is really nothing I can do about it!
_________________
Miniatures gamer, sculptor and collector

There are no greens, I am now sculpting Apoc regiments, not Dwarfs yet,

There are no greens

no greens

I still wonder about the fate of this entire project when he fails to reach his target funding level.

He gets zero dollars if he doesn't hit $20K...

Maybe he considers Witch Elves then

Alpharius wrote:I still wonder about the fate of this entire project when he fails to reach his target funding level.

He gets zero dollars if he doesn't hit $20K...

Well I'd rather see a project get redone almost completely to entice investments and excitement, rather than float on by with half the goal and possibly half the motivation/production

As much as I love Dwarves and their sculpts in particular you couldn't get me to put down money on this. It's a medium term risk with zero reward. Mantic and Sedition Wars are where my money will likely be going.

I actually registered on the AoW forums on the weekend and wrote up a post for Felix offering feedback, since he's an outstanding sculptor and I really would like to see him succeed. Since the AoW forum requires manual authorisation, and it's been three days (that's why the pledge amounts on Mantic and SW are out of date) with no sign of authorisation, (unless it got eaten by my spam filter and deleted?) I'm going to post it here instead. Of course, as Felix has said he doesn't read any other forums, it's mostly for our thoughts at this stage - and because I didn't want to waste the effort I put into the post. Maybe someone here with AoW access would like to repost it there?

Hi Felix,

Some feedback/opinions for you.
Firstly, I've been a fan of your work for many years now. My first AoW purchases were made back in 2007 when the only way to buy the figures were from the early verion of the webpage and the figures came in zip-lock bags - Dwarf Hero, Elf Hero, Goblin Hero (now renamed). Since then I've bought many more through retail channels.

The Indiegogo timing is poor/unfortunate. I only found out this one exists yesterday, and my budget for this period has already gone to Mantic and McVey. I'd also never heard of IGG before this. I have to say though, that this KS lacks the "extra value" that I would need to be willing to pay today for miniatures I will receive next year or even later. If I am paying for them to be made, KS-style, I do expect a lot more than at retail.

I don 't see a good idea offering more miniature based perks. We are offering the minis at a lower price than their price upon release or pre-order, so we are doing less benefit, thus we are losing money compared to simply selling them as a pre-order or release.

In many ways you are not.
You're selling them before they are even made or sculpted. People are investing in them before buying GW or KoW dwarfs which they might otherwise buy in the meantime. Anything sold now is extra profit. You're assuming that you will only ever sell X amount of figures. I counter that with additional value in the KS you will sell a large number of figures which you would otherwise have never sold. It's not a zero-sum game. I was not in the market looking for some space mutants and more space soldiers, but when I saw McVey's Sedition Wars offer, I was sold. Just as today I'm not looking for a bunch of Dwarves, but if the value was exceptional, I would be on board. It's not a zero-sum game.

Tours are neither here nor there for me - whichever company they are from. I live in Australia, after all. I don't care about Tours or tickets to Mantic's game day or Painting with Mike. I'll never be able to use them. There's no benefit to me as an investor, but my money is as good as anyone else's, though.

Jasko is completely wrong when he suggests that "this is still a fundraiser! The idea is basically to pay more than usually, otherwise AoW would not raise any money!" Be very careful when listening to your biggest fans/fanbois when they say things like this. They are the most vocal, and will agree with anything you say and (claim to) buy anything you produce, but they are far from the reality of the mass market. While I am a fan of your work, if I want to give to charity, there are many far better ways to spend my money then giving to a small business/miniature producer.

Seeing that people who pre-ordered in Feb still do not have their Warriors Regiments is also a huge red flag. That alone is enough to stop me from investing. You would have been much better off fulfilling all these orders with apologies and mea culpas before undertaking this fundraising.

If these campaigns are based on selling the product at a discount i frankly don't see the "real" success then.
You will have more or less the same profit as when releasing a product.

The "success" is large amounts of money up front. Pays for your tooling costs and such faster before needing to save from the normal profits. More turnover, more miniatures sold and out and about in people's armies and in Tournaments where they will be seen by more people who in turn become advocates for your product. Things like this when successful are not an attempt to sell more units at as close to RRP as you can get - they are an investment in your business, and one you should be willing to make much less profit on if you want success. Mantic is going to use the money to create models which they will sell for years to come. McVey is improving his boxed set. They make a smaller profit on a few hundred or a couple of thousand individuals but turn those funds into an advantage for thousands in the future.

KoW has almost $75k from under 500 pledges. Under 500 individual customers. McVey has $180k from 1300 individuals. Is every one a lost sale at retail? How many are on board (like me) simply because of the huge value being offered? Do miniature gamers buy more, more, more product over the years? They aren't losing a lot of sales long-term, but they are creating a great investment/injection of capital into their businesses which will retain it's value for years. Sure, Mantic will make less profit on their werewolves and ogres when looking at these 500 people, but hey! They will have the plastic molds of these models for every other customer going forward. It's an investment.

I do not post on other forums, because we have the AoW forums, facebook, twitter, email and phone number to contact us. If I was posting on other forums i would end up half the day posting here and there! But anyone who reaches us through the forum, email or phone will have immediate info.

Felix.
People are not going to chase you. People are busy and don't care enough. I created an account on your forum to post this message and found it needs to be manually added. If I didn't feel strongly I simply would not bother. Most people post on their "home" forums and don't feel a need to post on every manufacturer's home forums. Many on forums don't use facebook or twitter either. It would take you an investment of perhaps 2 hours to post the same message on a half-dozen of the main forums (Dakka, BOLS, etc) to explain the updates to your casting process. You are the businessman here. If your customers aren't worth that investment in time (and the "personal touch"- which people love.) then that's your decision.

I don't think anyone is asking that you become a forum regular, but personally-posted updates every so often at the same time as some of the FB/Tweets would simply be leveraging the medium that you use to sell your product (the internets) more effectively.

Unfortunately, to me the value offered is poor and the timeframe is dubious and not to be trusted when I look at the Warriors Regiments. I love your sculpts and will gladly continue to buy them when discounted at retail (as I buy all my models) but the extra value is simply not there to justify paying for products today which I will not receive for a year's time, so I am better off keeping my money and buying some of the product at retail in 1-2 years' time when it's available.

You have just over 75 contributors for just over $9k. You should look at these people not as "retail sales lost" but as investors in the future of your company. Reward people for contributing, and you'll have more contributors. Don't just look at the money that Mantic and McVey have - look at what they offer their contributors. That's why they have so many pledges.

You need to look at these things not as lost retail sales or a version of preorders, but as investments made in your business at a much more favourable rate than you would get from a bank loan. If you get your molds and tooling made while still making any profit, you've done better than a bank loan, which would require interest paid on the principal. That's clearly the attitide that Mantic have with their KS, and why they're very generous with their perks, and why they in turn have so many pledges..

The problem is that you're treating this like you're making retail transaction to customers, when it should be treated like you receiving an investment.

I understand that my post is very critical, but please view it as constructive critisism, as that is the intent with which I write it.

Very well said.

scipio.au wrote:I actually registered on the AoW forums on the weekend and wrote up a post for Felix offering feedback, since he's an outstanding sculptor and I really would like to see him succeed. Since the AoW forum requires manual authorisation, and it's been three days (that's why the pledge amounts on Mantic and SW are out of date) with no sign of authorisation, (unless it got eaten by my spam filter and deleted?) I'm going to post it here instead. Of course, as Felix has said he doesn't read any other forums, it's mostly for our thoughts at this stage - and because I didn't want to waste the effort I put into the post. Maybe someone here with AoW access would like to repost it there?

All very well said. It seems like there is a mix of arrogance as well as just not understanding what these group funding projects are about on his part that is really hard to understand. If people are going to give you there money for a year or more they expect something in return. Maybe next time he will actually use kickstarter instead of indiegogo. Just seems like it wasn't very well thought out.

So, is this the first bigger crowdfunding failure of the current crop? I wonder if we can see more in the near future, when more hopefuly miniatures makers join up in the cargo cult.

Agamemnon2 wrote:So, is this the first bigger crowdfunding failure of the current crop? I wonder if we can see more in the near future, when more hopefuly miniatures makers join up in the cargo cult.

I think a well thought out one with real tangible benefits (ie free stuff) will always do well as long as you have something to show ahead of time. In short I see this as failing because there is no product, just a promise of something way in the future, and you really aren't getting anything all that great for contributing. The thing is why not offer free miniatures when you are dealing with plastic sets? The tooling is the expensive part not the production. For instance why not just offer a free sprue here and there as a strectch goal? It is disappointing because Felix does a lot of good stuff.

kenshin620 wrote:Well I'd rather see a project get redone almost completely to entice investments and excitement, rather than float on by with half the goal and possibly half the motivation/production

I don't think there's any danger of that. Felix loves him some Dwarves.

I think Kroothawk sums up my personal feeling rather well (I'm a bit miffed about Felix playing coy for over a year about plastic Witch Elves... then going on to Chaos Warriors and Dwarves), but even if not for that, AoW's approach is a long way from the one that made Zombicide a success.

brettz123 wrote:I think a well thought out one with real tangible benefits (ie free stuff) will always do well as long as you have something to show ahead of time. In short I see this as failing because there is no product, just a promise of something way in the future, and you really aren't getting anything all that great for contributing. The thing is why not offer free miniatures when you are dealing with plastic sets? The tooling is the expensive part not the production. For instance why not just offer a free sprue here and there as a strectch goal? It is disappointing because Felix does a lot of good stuff.

This is a big reason why something like a plastic Witch Elves campaign (or at least adding a few Warcast -> plastic conversions to the Stretch Goals for his dwarf campaign) would be better. Plastic means that once you get over the initial bump you can just throw sprues at people until they donate more money, because sprues are cheap. Warcast is not good for a Kickstarter. It doesn't have the breathing room to throw in extras, in time or in money.

I know what I would do if I were Felix. I'd approach companies like wayland games/ maelstrom to 'buy' stock in advance at a slight discount. I imagine that would take them up to £20k fairly quickly.

Obviously they'd have to have strict terms etc.

AlexHolker wrote:

This is a big reason why something like a plastic Witch Elves campaign (or at least adding a few Warcast -> plastic conversions to the Stretch Goals for his dwarf campaign) would be better. Plastic means that once you get over the initial bump you can just throw sprues at people until they donate more money, because sprues are cheap. Warcast is not good for a Kickstarter. It doesn't have the breathing room to throw in extras, in time or in money.

There's not the room to throw in tons of freebies no, but there is some wiggle room to at least give a decent discount. OR he could do a "If we reach 25k everyone gets 10 free plastic slayers" since those are plastic, and already produced. I don't think all of Mantic's Ogres/Trolls/Werewolves etc are actual "plastic" either, but the resin stuff they often call plastic. But they're cheap enough still to throw in a free single or free unit after pledging so much cash.

There's a lot of things that could be done to turn things around, just no willingness to do any of them. As it is today marks the half-way point timewise (or maybe a little over it - I can't recall if it started at 30/31 days) and they're at a little under halfway to the bare minimum of 20k. I hope Felix has a contingency plan where he/the company can contribute any remaining few thousand they might fall short of at the last minute. (He can swoop in a pledge for the $5k tour himself for instance) so that they hit 20k and get to keep the money they did raise.

Meanwhile Mantic is creeping up on $85k, and Mcvey is sleeping on a pile of money. (All three started on the same weekend).

Grimstonefire wrote:I know what I would do if I were Felix. I'd approach companies like wayland games/ maelstrom to 'buy' stock in advance at a slight discount. I imagine that would take them up to £20k fairly quickly.

Obviously they'd have to have strict terms etc.

I think the problem with this idea is that most companies will be unlikely to buy into an item that doesn't exist, will not exist for a long time (something like a year or more), and the company they are buying from already has a reputation for not getting things done on time. These are all serious obstacles to overcome.

Schmapdi wrote:
There's not the room to throw in tons of freebies no, but there is some wiggle room to at least give a decent discount. OR he could do a "If we reach 25k everyone gets 10 free plastic slayers" since those are plastic, and already produced. I don't think all of Mantic's Ogres/Trolls/Werewolves etc are actual "plastic" either, but the resin stuff they often call plastic. But they're cheap enough still to throw in a free single or free unit after pledging so much cash.

There's a lot of things that could be done to turn things around, just no willingness to do any of them.

That's a huge problem with it - every time someone suggests throwing in some sweeteners - like those plastic dwarves, Felix turns around and talks about "profit". He also has a snide remark in there that was obviously made towards Mantic, which wasn't exactly a huge show of class...