Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I think the minis look excellent myself, they're the main appeal for me, especially the Earth and Air sets. Fire set is really good too.

Here's some new pics from the update, really nice minis!



Only the ice set seems to have maybe missed the mark a little in terms of the large gauntlets that the pieces have, but it's still pretty good and we haven't seen the whole set yet, only the king, queen and pawn (and the pawn looks great!), so it's too early to judge it.

Remember, these have to be one-piece non-dynamic miniatures that fit on very small diameter bases without falling over to properly fulfill their role as chess pieces so there are certain restrictions in place that they have to conform to.

You can't have big jabby horizontal spears getting in the way of other models or top-heavy models leaping off their bases and falling over while you play.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
Yes, the sculpts could be better, but look ok in my opinion for a chess set, I am puzzled with the extra king though, why would I or anybody else want a model that is useless in the game (you can have only 1).

Terrain.

Or maybe even a strategic objective.

Or place 2 kings facing each other to recreate that scene from Never Ending Story where the sphinxes shoot pew-pews at Atreyu.

 Zweischneid wrote:
Alessio Cavatore was kind enough to grant me an interview as well.

http://pinsofwar.com/loka-interview/


Includes a preview of the Vayu Rook (Air Chess Set)!

Many thanks to Alessio!

While this looks cool... I just keep expecting there to be more detail / for the detail to be sharper. I understand that people are saying these are game pieces, but you can't have it both ways... either they're just board game pieces, and the quality is lower, or they're models and you should feel fine paying model prices.

Not that I think the prices here are too high, I just think the commentary on the pieces makes them out to be more than they are. They are certainly very cool as board game pieces, and the reason I'm keeping an eye on it is that they are tempting...

Keep in mind that what you're seeing in these photos is a picture of the mini that is blown up to 4-6x actual size depending on your monitor.

These are all 28mm minis with the King and queen naturally being a fair bit taller.

 Pox Apostle wrote:



Nice interview Zweischneid! I've enjoyed watching/listening Alessio speak on Beasts of War and Mantic videos and podcasts. He seems like a very nice and down to earth guy who is easy to speak to.

Yup. He's definitely an awesome guy to chat with. In fact, we strayed of the "loka-topic" quite a few times, more often than is seen in the write-up (cause it would've just burst the limits of what's reasonably i a blog interview). He's clearly a great guy to just chat with endlessly about all things gaming, miniatures, history, and more or less everything else.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Keep in mind that what you're seeing in these photos is a picture of the mini that is blown up to 4-6x actual size depending on your monitor.

These are all 28mm minis with the King and queen naturally being a fair bit taller.

Yes, but that's true of any models shown on here. In fact that's how we're used to looking at previews; they're not getting an unfair shake with the pics (if anything the pics have been a bit small).

Well, here's the whole set painted by Paul Scott Miniatures





http://www.paulscottminiatures.co.uk/

Off of the facebook page today

The Air set looks lovely, definitely my favourite out of all of them.

The only model I really do not like is the earth queen and her is just the branches.

Do want

Terrain tiles stretch goal has been reached, next up is the Air set at $60k:



Also, a sample rules .pdf has been posted:

http://gallery.mailchimp.com/e62f0c35454fa3ba687404d69/files/LOKA_rules_WIP.pdf

nice looking set that, like the king and queen

One big question I have, why is the water queen and king in the wrong position?

She wears the pants in that family.

Hopped on over to the KS and saw that an early bird knight had opened: I popped in and grabbed that sucker quickly. I'm officially in, and I agree with Squiggy: air looks awesome, but I love the fire queen, earth elemental, undead queen and bishops and there are a few others I enjoy too. I'll enjoy painting up my own chess set too.

^^ you can grab individual models now if you want those extra models you talked about...

The more I see pics, the more I appreciate the FIre and Air forces, and dislike the Earth Kingdom.



KING - I really liked the concept art. The sculpt just looks like an Elf in a chair.
QUEEN - I want to like her, but she's too human like for tree hands, or not enough tree to pull them off.
BISHOP - I actually think this is the best model in the group.
KNIGHT - I like the Centaur concept, but his head is huge, bestial, and ugly. It makes me think of Chaos instead of nature.
ROOK - It looks wimpy as a Rook, and an Earth Elemental.
PAWN - Not Generic enough. It also bothers me that Dwarfs would be subject to an Elf King. In fantasy those races usually clash, even if allies. Maybe just too much LOTR for me growing up.

could always ask to swap the earth set with the air?

also, they've just announced a new contest on Board Game geek...

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/contests/loka

Hi and welcome to the River Horse Loka: The World Of Fantasy Chess Contest in association with Board Game Geek!

We’re going to be releasing a new chess-inspired board game later in the year called LOKA: The World of Fantasy Chess, and we wanted to give you the opportunity to win a copy of the game!

LOKA is currently being funded on Kickstarter with the ultimate goal of funding four elemental themed armies,with a game building on the simple rules of Chess with innovative “bolt-on” rules for Dice Driven Combat, Fantasy Scenery and army selection, to offer you a brand new experience! Then of course we’re looking at a multiplayer version…

On offer we have some fantastic prizes with 5 Bishop Pledge levels up for grabs and one main prize of a Knight Pledge ($100) – that’s currently 79 miniatures worth over $180. Check out the Kickstarter Page for the full list of contents.

To win, all you have to do is answer these 9 simple multiple-choice questions!

Enter Now!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
new update for when the $60K goal is hit...

$65,000 – Dice and Faction Powers!

First up, those of you who have watched our gameplay video will know that Alessio favours an elemental dice combat system which makes use of a series of polyhedral dice – a system that starts with a four-sided die and moves its way up to 6-sides, 8-sides, 12-sides and even a 20-sided die the more support the model has.

If we hit $65,000, we can upgrade the rulebook to this shiny new system from the D8s we started with, and upgrade all pledges of Bishop ($50) with a set of 5 Polyhedral Dice.

Of course, we think some Faction-specific dice would be pretty sexy, so we’ll be adding these as extras that you can add-on to your pledge .

BUT! That’s not all…

Lots of you have been asking for faction powers – a way to differentiate between the elements rather than purely through army selection and aesthetics. Well, Alessio will add an optional Bolt-On to the rules that details how you can add faction powers to your games!

You'll be able to bring the power of the elements to the tabletop in new and exciting ways.

This will use a Card Deck system that, if we hit this goal, Alessio will start writing – and we’ll include a free 54 card deck to any pledge of Bishop ($50) and up to say thank you!

We’d love to hear your thoughts on what elemental powers we could have so please leave us your ideas in the comments!

To recap, that's polyhedral dice and faction power cards, plus 2 rulebook upgrades as well, all added to Bishop ($50) and up! We're really excited to be this close to being able to tool all four sets, thank you so much for supporting Alessio and LOKA!

And don't you go anywhere, this journey isn't over yet and we've still got plenty of things to show you!

Some new pics of the Ice King and Pawn:

Kicktraq has LOKA trending toward $92,889.

I'll be happy just to see it hit 75K.

I would be terribly disappointed if all 4 factions didn't make it into the Kickstarter.

I dont even play chess and I almost pledgeD. Gotta control myself. Kickstarter can addictive!!!

Earth Dragon wrote:
I don't even play chess and I've almost pledged. Got to control myself. Kickstarter can be addictive!!!

Just do it.

All the cool kids pledge Kickstarter these days.

 adamsouza wrote:
Kicktraq has LOKA trending toward $92,889.

I'll be happy just to see it hit 75K.

I would be terribly disappointed if all 4 factions didn't make it into the Kickstarter.

Well, they're about to change the $65k goal to be the 4th faction (Ice) so there's no question that all 4 sets won't get funded now.

They still need $75k in terms of actual cash to get the tooling done, but if the KS doesn't reach that amount, then Mantic will cover the gap themselves.

They want to give backers the confidence that everyone with a Knight pledge will have all 4 different factions available to them since a lot of people were waiting to see if that would happen before backing.

Edit: And new update, with some pics of the Ice faction, the new $65k goal:

EXCELLENT !!!

The forces of darkness will soon be at my bidding.....er..umm.. yeah... that's great news...

I was afraid I was going to have to double up on set I didn't really want another of there for a little bit.

anyone else going to be involved with the Alessio live chat?

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/945810/ask-alessio-live-chat

Its amazing how a simple swap in the order of streachgoals invigorated it instantly.

Good Stretch goals make or break a Kickstarter I say !!

Tangible items trump intangible.

Extra Rules for stretch goals is kinda meh. They should have always been there, but written in the middle of the kickstarter. Extra models, or improved game board, extra dice, are a physical increase to the contents of the game. They are a better goal, and draw extra attention.

The extra rules make me cringe just little bit. They should havbe been written and play tested a long time ago.

that's only true if you're thinking of it as if the game is already done which is obviously isn't. suspect if they released this through retail without KS it would be with 2 sets and the 3 bolt-ons, because what use are the extra rules without the extra components i.e. Faction powers, polyhedral dice.