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 SolarCross wrote:
Aye well I not sure you would get a very different answer to your more specific question. I do agree that it is worth punting all the same, and there may well be a bigger market for it than any market research would suggest because as you say, sometimes people don't know they want something till they see it. I'm game for a project like this, though I think I would hold off on a kickstarter until a 2nd ed. 1st ed can be ebook with paper counters sold for peanuts with totally trivial production costs (just time really). Then for 2nd ed when you want to start punting out physical books and actual resin/plastic/metal miniatures you can look at a kickstarter or other source of funding (bank loans actually are cheaper than crowdfunding if you can get them) with the added bonus that you already have some profile and funds from the 1st end before soliciting for extra funds.

I guarantee that people need to see it before they'd get into it. There isn't really anything like this out there today, and the look is *completely* different from what people have been playing.

The prototype could do it as paper over a GW base, but it needs to have some height.

Production would be PVC sculpted base toppers with a 1st rank overhanging lip.

Kickstarter is marketing, and for fancy blocks to take off, you'd need to get the word out in a splashy way.
____

This is a mockup of what I'm talking about:


It's a 12x18 multi-block of 216 infantry on a single 1x1.5" base. The top is just heads - only the front and sides are detailed, while the back is for unit identification.

It is 100x as many models as you'd fit in 28mm, for a true mass battles look.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

I guarantee that people need to see it before they'd get into it. There isn't really anything like this out there today, and the look is *completely* different from what people have been playing.

The prototype could do it as paper over a GW base, but it needs to have some height.

Production would be PVC sculpted base toppers with a 1st rank overhanging lip.

Kickstarter is marketing, and for fancy blocks to take off, you'd need to get the word out in a splashy way.
____

This is a mockup of what I'm talking about:


It's a 12x18 multi-block of 216 infantry on a single 1x1.5" base. The top is just heads - only the front and sides are detailed, while the back is for unit identification.

It is 100x as many models as you'd fit in 28mm, for a true mass battles look.

I take your point on kickstarter as being useful as a marketing tool as much or even more than as a source of capital. How about this? 1st ed is written up and then published as an ebook (just core rules and a campaign with printable paper armies). A kickstarter for minis and a physical book is launched to coincide with the publication of the ebook. Then the ebook benefits from the marketing hype created by the kickstarter and the kickstarter benefits from the existence of the ebook for it gives a tangible taste of what the project will produce on completion. A free download of the book could also be one of the benefits for funding. At least a draft of the rules needs to be completed before the kickstarter begins anyway to minimise the chance of delays on fulfilment, so we may as well epublish it then and begin monetising the work as soon as possible.

Key questions that need be resolved before continuing are:

3mm or 6mm?

3mm is great for really authentic numbers but I'm not sure that the inevitable loss of detail from going that small is really worth that benefit. One of the functions of a game piece is communicate what it is, at 3mm the unique details that might communicate that are so small or non-existing that labels are needed to facilitate that and there is a certain loss of immersion goes with that.
6mm is a little less radical, epic 40k was on that scale at least, it carries just enough detail that labels aren't absolutely required to communicate identity and probably is "mass-able" enough to give the big battle feel, even if it can't do the numbers 1:1 for a big battle.

Block size and shape?

This is dependant quite a lot on the scale which is settled on but there are one or two considerations that can be mulled over before.

A perfect square per element? I think this would have some advantages that will only become apparent when thrashing out the actual rules for movement and combat resolution.

Elements with not more than 3 or 4 ranks? Could be really handy for seige warfare where battlements will need manning and wouldn't normally hold more than a few ranks. A game with masses of small scale troops means siege warfare gets really exciting because big castles that actually fit wholly on the table becomes a thing that can happen so it is something the game really should be able to do to really make the most of the potentials with the scale.

Having elements with only 3 or 4 ranks will either mean very small fiddly elements if they are also perfect squares or mean they are considerably wider than they are deep which might prove awkward.

If we consider that a 20mm x 20mm base is as fiddly as we want to get then a 10mm scale can give us 3 rank squares no smaller than this. At 6mm a 3 rank element would only be about 12mm deep and so would need to be something like 40mm long to keep to a 20mm x 20mm equivalent area. At 3mm a 3 rank element is 6mm deep and so would need to be a crazy 80 odd mm long to keep to a 20mm x 20mm equivalent area. Though I suppose at 3mm you could have a few more ranks and have smaller base area.

Warmaster Seige warfare -v

To answer your questions & comments:

Yes, the Kickstarter needs to be rules complete prior to launch - a new game like this needs to be Quickstart Print & Play ready (for FREE!) at the start of the campaign, with a digital rulebook included in the basic digital-only tier. It would monetize as part of the KS, but you wouldn't sell the draft - it's FREE! marketing.

If the entire point is to enable a 1:1 figure:ground scale ratio, then 3mm is ideal, but I could see 4mm for painting purposes. I have the ID plate on the back of the unit to designate specific unit, weapons, etc. along with the flag on the front.

Once you're going up to 6mm, it's not obvious why not 10mm like Warmaster? Remember, the point of the exercise is something that really does look like massive 1:1 battles from God's Eye View.

I prefer 25x40mm as the ideal size, as it allows more figures per base, to aggregate men and bring base count down for a given engagement size. Perfect squares still have corners and such. Note that WFB did OK with non-square units (in general), including ragged ranks and non-square Cavalry / Chariot / Monster model bases.

Siege warfare isn't really that much fun, even tough Castles look awesome. Also, the scale of a siege is really city rather than battle. You'd really want to do Jerusalem (or Masada). And the main problem in a siege is that NOTHING HAPPENS. Also, the ranges of siege artillery are proportionally huge. And it doesn't balance well at all. I might go with abandoned Castles as a collection of exotic terrain, but I'd avoid sieges altogether, rather than twist the concept so that the tail wags the dog.

I don't like 20mm squares, as they're too fiddly for my purposes here, and I want to keep the item count as low as possible, to make the game itself as painless as possible. 25x40mm, please.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
To answer your questions & comments:

Yes, the Kickstarter needs to be rules complete prior to launch - a new game like this needs to be Quickstart Print & Play ready (for FREE!) at the start of the campaign, with a digital rulebook included in the basic digital-only tier. It would monetize as part of the KS, but you wouldn't sell the draft - it's FREE! marketing.

I would offer it free to those that pledge but sell it to those that don't, as an ebook it needn't be expensive even then, just a few quid. If the rules would be just a flimsy AoS style ruleset I can see it being thrown away for free to anyone but I suspect the rules should have a bit more substance than that. A fair bit of artwork will need to go into making the printable armies, that is worth something too.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

If the entire point is to enable a 1:1 figure:ground scale ratio, then 3mm is ideal, but I could see 4mm for painting purposes. I have the ID plate on the back of the unit to designate specific unit, weapons, etc. along with the flag on the front.

Once you're going up to 6mm, it's not obvious why not 10mm like Warmaster? Remember, the point of the exercise is something that really does look like massive 1:1 battles from God's Eye View.

I prefer 25x40mm as the ideal size, as it allows more figures per base, to aggregate men and bring base count down for a given engagement size. Perfect squares still have corners and such. Note that WFB did OK with non-square units (in general), including ragged ranks and non-square Cavalry / Chariot / Monster model bases.

The entire point is massed battles on a practical scale, 1:1 body counts & ground scales does give massed battles with authenticity but that matters a bit less for fantasy/sci-fi than it does for historical. Something is lost for getting that authenticity, everything is a trade off, it may be that 6mm is good enough at practical massed battles without losing too much in other respects. I'm not quite sold on 3mm, I guess. I still think 10mm would do quite well enough for a fantasy game and 6mm gets close enough to the massive horde thing without reducing everything to near invisible specks. In a fantasy game not everything will be blocks of infantry, we have to also consider how dragons, chariots, trolls, giant eagles and such will look and work on the scale. Also some infantry will be shorter than 6ft tall equivalent.. dwarfs, goblins, halflings. How will swarms of critters like rats, bats and snakes look and work? 3mm will be rather brutal to these elements, I think.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Siege warfare isn't really that much fun, even tough Castles look awesome. Also, the scale of a siege is really city rather than battle. You'd really want to do Jerusalem (or Masada). And the main problem in a siege is that NOTHING HAPPENS. Also, the ranges of siege artillery are proportionally huge. And it doesn't balance well at all. I might go with abandoned Castles as a collection of exotic terrain, but I'd avoid sieges altogether, rather than twist the concept so that the tail wags the dog.

Well the larger part of most seiges is waiting to starve out the defenders but that isn't the part we play on the table. We play the actual attempt to break in and sally out. Is the siege of Minas Tirith or Helm's Deep not dramatic enough for you? I think a siege element is indispensable even for the extra challenges it poses for rule crafting.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

I don't like 20mm squares, as they're too fiddly for my purposes here, and I want to keep the item count as low as possible, to make the game itself as painless as possible. 25x40mm, please.

Do not movement trays mitigate the fiddly aspect well enough?

I found a blog post examining some 3mm infantry blocks made by Peter Pig, it is worth a read.

This block measures some 26mm long by 6mm wide, and has nicely delineated individual figures, with a level of detail that allows a suggestion of muskets, belts and shoulder belts/sashes to be visible:
---
The troops are depicted in a close formation of four ranks, with the standard bearers quite properly placed in the middle to the rear of the front rank. There are 20 figures in each rank, for a total of 80 men.

- SteelonSandBlog

The gold standard for KS games is to have a PnP rulebook released at the start of the campaign.

If 3-4mm is possible, then I'm not interested in 6-10mm. I own some 10mm Warmaster, and the effect simply can't be as pronounced as 3-4mm, particularly for mass European battles. If we ever wanted to do Asian battles, 3-4mm is mandatory. The smaller the figures, the better.

Also, Giants & Trolls, would simply be 25/10mm, which we know already works. Easy.

Swarms are an issue, but that's inherent to swarms. However, they will properly look like waves, so it's fine.

LotR siege? Magical gunpowder bombs? Surfing down stairs? Dwarf tossing? No thanks. I'll enjoy my sieges at the hexboard scale, where turns are weeks-months, and the most important factor is water.

If doing sallies, I could see that, but I still don't have any desire for it.

I like movement trays. But bigger bases are still better.

 SolarCross wrote:

Close enough for me. If redone as PVC over a standard base, it'd be better.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

If 3-4mm is possible, then I'm not interested in 6-10mm. I own some 10mm Warmaster, and the effect simply can't be as pronounced as 3-4mm, particularly for mass European battles. If we ever wanted to do Asian battles, 3-4mm is mandatory. The smaller the figures, the better.

Also, Giants & Trolls, would simply be 25/10mm, which we know already works. Easy.

Swarms are an issue, but that's inherent to swarms. However, they will properly look like waves, so it's fine.

Okay 4mm might just carry enough detail to please me. Speaking of Asian battles, how about doing the game with a fantasy aesthetic that draws more from Asian history and myth and not so much from the usual Tolkien rip Nordic / European thing? I think it would be pretty cool to give fantasy a fresh feel.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

LotR siege? Magical gunpowder bombs? Surfing down stairs? Dwarf tossing? No thanks. I'll enjoy my sieges at the hexboard scale, where turns are weeks-months, and the most important factor is water.

Well aside from the odd goofy bits, obviously...

Siege is in, the game has to have it, not necessarily for the first few editions and maybe only as supplemental optional ruleset but it has to be there. "More ways to play!"

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

I like movement trays. But bigger bases are still better.

In a way a movement trays are exactly the same thing as bigger bases, except better for having the extra flexibility in easy removal and adding of elements. Granularity is generally desirable over clunky big chunks.

 SolarCross wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Close enough for me. If redone as PVC over a standard base, it'd be better.

I'm leaning towards resin over plastic. The higher level of detail you can get with resin will count for double at 4mm. I think plastic at that scale will look too blobby. Also with resin infantry blocks can be cast as a single peice instead of a multi-part kit which reduces the fiddly factor. With game pieces that small the extra cost of resin is more tolerable, it will still be the case that a 1000 soldiers will cost only a few quid.

If I were doing it, I'd start with Agincourt, which is a real favorite. Then add the non-human Tolkien Fantasy races and Monsters as expansions.

I prefer not to explicitly "Orientalize" things, which is what would be the likely outcome. Also, I think that there is nothing wrong with revisiting the existing Dwarf / Elf / Orc models. I would have no issues making Dwarves implicitly not-Arabic, Elves implicitly not-Asian and Orcs implicitly not-African - which is something that GW has been slowly marching toward.

I specifically recall WFB adding Siege and did not care for it. Our group tried it several times, and it was never really satisfying. The inherent imbalances of a static defender (who has not actual need to sally) and an attacker (who has no real world ability to storm) means you're moving away from the realism that 1:1 figure:ground scale supports. It's a huge investment for little payoff.

Movement trays work fine on perfectly flat tables. Not good for any sort of realistic, undulating, punctuated terrain. My version of Agincourt had 300 total bases. You'd be at 600 bases? 900?

Resin is more expensive, while PVC would have detail no worse than the pewter you showed. With modern mold cutting, PVC would be more predictable and consistent due to mechanical "lights out" production. PVC could be single part, but I prefer consistent bases for ranking.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
If I were doing it, I'd start with Agincourt, which is a real favorite. Then add the non-human Tolkien Fantasy races and Monsters as expansions.

I prefer not to explicitly "Orientalize" things, which is what would be the likely outcome. Also, I think that there is nothing wrong with revisiting the existing Dwarf / Elf / Orc models. I would have no issues making Dwarves implicitly not-Arabic, Elves implicitly not-Asian and Orcs implicitly not-African - which is something that GW has been slowly marching toward.

My favourite historical battle is Carrhae, because I have a thing for horse archers. It was a pretty one-sided battle despite being grossly outnumbered the parthians slaughtered the Romans so it probably wouldn't do for a basis for a starter box type match up, not without some tweaking anyway. Heavy melee vs horse archer is auto-win for the horse archer.

I never really saw elves as crypto asians, though I can see how GW orcs did sometimes drift dangerously close to an African vibe though they talk like a caricature of English working class. By moving the aesthetics out of nordic / euro myth & history I wasn't thinking of orientalising the classic non-human factions but more with the human factions. In place of WHFB morte d'arthur french/english Bretonnians, German / Holy Roman Empire and Russian/Polish Kislevs I was thinking for the human factions Iranian/Parthian, Chinese/Korean, Japanese and maybe Indian.

As for the classic non-humans, it might do to drop them out for asian myth. Elves and Dwarfs are cut straight out of Nordic mythology, Orcs were Tolkien's invention I think, I don't know they would translate that well. Dwarfs could lose the nordic vibe they often get, and go full steampunk. Elves meh dunno. I might do better to research asian myth for non-humans: Nezumi, Oni etc.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

I specifically recall WFB adding Siege and did not care for it. Our group tried it several times, and it was never really satisfying. The inherent imbalances of a static defender (who has not actual need to sally) and an attacker (who has no real world ability to storm) means you're moving away from the realism that 1:1 figure:ground scale supports. It's a huge investment for little payoff.

I suspect that would be down to a failure of those rules to create the right incentives. I have some ideas for how to stimulate more dynamic sieges but I guess that will be for another time to explore.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Movement trays work fine on perfectly flat tables. Not good for any sort of realistic, undulating, punctuated terrain. My version of Agincourt had 300 total bases. You'd be at 600 bases? 900?

At 4mm with 49 dudes per 20mm x 20mm base Agincourt would be 1300 bases... sigh. On monster bases 40mm x 40mm that comes down to 325, with around 200 dudes per base in 14 ranks with 14 files. Which again just highlights that 1:1 body counts might be just a tad over-ambitious. How much realism is really needed for a fantasy game? However 65,000 bodies are based at 3 or 4mm they are filling up a standard gaming table which nerfs the whole room for manoeuvre advantage of small scales. If you want Agincourt numbers and room for manoeuvre then 4mm and even 3mm is too big! 2mm or less.. but at that point why use sculpted minis at all, just pva fine sand to mdf squares, call each grain of sand a soldier, and you are good to go.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Resin is more expensive, while PVC would have detail no worse than the pewter you showed. With modern mold cutting, PVC would be more predictable and consistent due to mechanical "lights out" production. PVC could be single part, but I prefer consistent bases for ranking.

I don't like the detail on the pewter model above, it isn't good enough, so I don't find that too encouraging.

The Dark Elves have picked up a lot of Japanese, as have the Tau. Savage Orks, Spearchuckers are absolutely an obvious (racist) reference to blacks.

As I calculated above, 3mm Agincourt exactly fits on a standard 4x6 wargaming table. 4mm is "heroic" 3mm for painting purposes. Also, I'm looking at this as more Ancients than Fantasy.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
The Dark Elves have picked up a lot of Japanese, as have the Tau. Savage Orks, Spearchuckers are absolutely an obvious (racist) reference to blacks.

This is a bit off-topic but in GW's defence I don't think their intentions were racist. They are just pillaging / plagiarising memes as a short cut to fluff creation which is pretty much what everyone does in fantasy, Tolkien's famous works were a fairly heavy plagiarism of Nordic mythology for example. Orcs are rough, wild and primitive so they cast about for existing memes that reinforce that, some of the memes happened to be african like bones through the nose, some english working class, some such as magical tattoos and lucky blue face paint come from ancient to medieval celts. I don't believe the intention was to insult africans anymore than it was to insult english working class or celts.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

As I calculated above, 3mm Agincourt exactly fits on a standard 4x6 wargaming table. 4mm is "heroic" 3mm for painting purposes. Also, I'm looking at this as more Ancients than Fantasy.

Okay, but I don't think I need to go 1:1 with Agincourt or Carrhae to get the massed battle feel. At 6mm you can still throw down 5000 bodies per side while still having room for manoeuvre. It ain't 1:1 with agincourt but it still goes a long way from the 100 bodies per side you might see with 28mm WHFB. At 6mm everything will look better: armoured war elephants, horse archers, dragons, artillery, archers will be distinguisable from spearmen without the need for labels whilst still being massable enough for a big battle vibe. I think I am firming up on 6mm as the scale to go with, just my preference.

I'm thinking perfect square bases 20mm per side for everything except supersized entities.
man-sized infanty in close order formation: 25 bodies per base, 5 ranks by 5 files.
man-sized infantry in skirmish formation: 9 bodies per base, 3 ranks by 3 files.
normal cavalry: 6 mounts per base, 2 ranks of 3 files.
Ogre/Oni infantry: 4 bodies per base, 2 ranks by 2 files.
Monstrous cavalry: 2 mounts per base, 1 rank by 2 files.
1 chariot per base
1 war elephant per base
1 Artillery piece per base

Being from the UK, it may not code the same as to an American. To an American, they are obviously 1970s caricatures of blacks.

As for units & basing, to each his own.

 SolarCross wrote:

 Carlson793 wrote:
Really, I think it's a toss up between 15mm and 6mm. At 15mm, the models are still large enough that aging eyes can make them look really nice. At 6mm, however, you can have thousands of troops on a 6x4 table.

Is not 10mm a reasonable compromise if you wanted both large numbers and reasonable looks?

Again: "aging eyes". 15mm is the best I can manage with my current +250 readers...and I may soon have to supplement them with +300s or +400s. I can't even tell how far the brush is from a 28mm model without assistance these days.