Conan: Hyborian Quests

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**Theophony**

I asked about a week ago in the KS comments if there had been any word (pictures preferred) of MIKH's work because he had singlehandely delayed other KS. I really didn't think they would touch it with a ten foot pole, but one of their reps answered a whole slew of questions including mine

-> Any word (pictures really) of the work done by MIKH? The man has singlehandedly stalled other kickstarters, and I don't want to see this one slip because he can't hit a deadline.
Yes I purposefully kept an eye on this one, his last model is nearly finished, I should be able to show it to you shortly

Good to know his work ethic is known by more than just backers in the industry.

**Alpharius**

I think the creators here also have an "inside track" when it comes to MIKH too...

**JohnHwangDD**

Alpharius wrote:
Mikh IS awesome, but sloooooow.

Unfortunately, he is sculpting the one mini which is holding just about everything up for ARENA REX - Leo the Lion.

OTOH, look what just completed for Blood Rage...

2 weeks ago, it looked like this:

How is it that CMoN can have a giant wolf sculpted from scratch in less than 2 months??

**ced1106**

Easy. CMON doesn't waste time or money on unimportant tasks like responding to customer support emails, or answering questions on KS after they have your money.

**JohnHwangDD**

OTOH, CMoN has something like a 100% delivery rate, no failures. For how many KS they've launched, that's something of a minor miracle.

**cincydooley**

ced1106 wrote:
Easy. CMON doesn't waste time or money on unimportant tasks like responding to customer support emails, or answering questions on KS after they have your money.

I mean, I know this is going to come with some colouring, since I'm a pretty firm and vocal CMoN supporter, but that just isn't true.

**Azazelx**

To be fair, they have a mixed history there.

**cincydooley**

Azazelx wrote:
To be fair, they have a mixed history there.

Absolutely.

But to say they just don't do it is completely false.

The really probably could use some dedicated CSRs. I don't think they have any; rather, I think everyone has multiple duties.

**Theophony**

I still just want a MIKH update

**Wehrkind**

MIKH: Eroder of Dreams. Sloth of a Thousand Eventual Young. Gastropod of Despair. Destroyer of Kickstarters.

**Theophony**

Wehrkind wrote:
MIKH: Eroder of Dreams. Sloth of a Thousand Eventual Young. Gastropod of Despair. Destroyer of Kickstarters.

Friend of Monolith

.

The responded to my request on the kickstarter page for an update on Mikh's stuff with

"Funny you should say that....."

Really, that's all they said in response. Another person on there posted a link to Mikh's page which has pics of some work in progress, but still not completed models, he thinks they might be posting his models in the next update. I asked for more of an answer from them, haven't seen anything yet.

All other models are looking ace right now

**Gomez**

Have you guys seen his blog? He's got a couple nice posts about first piece for Conan... I know he's not the speediest fellow, but he does do some cool updates there when he gets around to it.

**Theophony**

Saw the update, but also was wondering how many and which models he signed up for. There's other sculptors out there doing just as good if not better models at a much faster pace than what we see from MIKH. I've got enough money invested here where I want to actually see results, and I've seen his results in other kickstarters, so being a pest to them might just get them to stay on him and get stuff done in time.

**Wehrkind**

Theophony wrote:
Wehrkind wrote:
MIKH: Eroder of Dreams. Sloth of a Thousand Eventual Young. Gastropod of Despair. Destroyer of Kickstarters.

Friend of Monolith .

Not sure why I am getting a wagging finger... Should I care about MIKH being a friend to Monolith? Does it change the fact that almost every KS he is involved in seems to have delays due to his speeds, and it makes people cranky?

**Theophony**

Wehrkind wrote:
Theophony wrote:
Wehrkind wrote:
MIKH: Eroder of Dreams. Sloth of a Thousand Eventual Young. Gastropod of Despair. Destroyer of Kickstarters.

Friend of Monolith .

Not sure why I am getting a wagging finger... Should I care about MIKH being a friend to Monolith? Does it change the fact that almost every KS he is involved in seems to have delays due to his speeds, and it makes people cranky?

Sorry, the finger waving was because monolith claim him as a friend and won't let them down. It's the next bad idea.

**Wehrkind**

Ahh I see, gotcha now. Monolith is foolish to have expected the spotted slug to change his shorts on their behalf.

**JohnHwangDD**

Hopefully, Monolith put a clock on MIKH for completion, with penalty for delays.

**Alpharius**

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Hopefully, Monolith put a clock on MIKH for completion, with penalty for delays.

Looks like MONOLITH really are friends with MIKH!

So much so that he's done with his CONAN sculpt before he's done with his ARENA REX stuff - which is...odd, to say the least.

Good thing MONOLITH got someone else to sculpt the lion though - we all know about MIKH, LIONS and SCHEDULES...

**cincydooley**

I have a huge problem with this. I can't imagine this makes RRG very happy at all.

**Alpharius**

I hope people will now 'let' RRG start selling stuff in their online store...

**JohnHwangDD**

Alpharius wrote:
JohnHwangDD wrote:
Hopefully, Monolith put a clock on MIKH for completion, with penalty for delays.

Looks like MONOLITH really are friends with MIKH!

So much so that he's done with his CONAN sculpt before he's done with his ARENA REX stuff - which is...odd, to say the least.

Good thing MONOLITH got someone else to sculpt the lion though - we all know about MIKH, LIONS and SCHEDULES...

Oh?

MIKH's Conan the General looks quite good!

Good thing Arena Rex wasn't important.

More likely, MIKH wasn't feeling it, and Conan was new and "fresh", so he was "inspired" to work on it, compared to the Arena Rex thing that's just been sitting on his desk.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Alpharius wrote:
I hope people will now 'let' RRG start selling stuff in their online store...

And why wouldn't they? If RRG has retail-ready product, and backers can have their stuff shipped, then RRG should be able to sell. If the backer chooses to wait until everything is done, that's on the backer for trying to save pennies on shipping.

**cincydooley**

JohnHwangDD wrote:

And why wouldn't they? If RRG has retail-ready product, and backers can have their stuff shipped, then RRG should be able to sell. If the backer chooses to wait until everything is done, that's on the backer for trying to save pennies on shipping.

Sadly, there's been enough vocal pushback from a small minority that RRG won't do it.

Frustrating.

**Alpharius**

I agree - but you apparently didn't back Arena Rex and/or aren't reading the comments section there or the thread here...

**Pacific**

Here is the latest update in full, but damn can that Rémy Tremblay sculpt !

#105
One man and his lion
Posted by Monolith Board Games LLC

Good evening folks, yet another update for you all as we continue to work on the Pledge Manager! First up, we have General Conan sculpted by the incredibly talented Mikh!

Sculpted by Mikh

Sculpted by Mikh

And then, we have King Conan’s Lion by Viktor Dragosani.

Sculpted by Viktor Dragosani

Sculpted by Viktor Dragosani

Ok, so the title was kind of misleading... I actually have 2 men to show you! Presenting Taurus!

Sculpted by Rémy Tremblay

Sculpted by Rémy Tremblay

Sculpted by Rémy Tremblay

Also, we are aware that a lot of you needed to see confirmed postage costs before the 60 day refund policy wore out. I know we haven't been very communicative on this but please be aware that postage is an extremely tricky issue and we want to give you acurate and confirmed information. The pledge manager is fast approaching and as promised, we will let you know as soon as we have an exact date. In the meantime, we will not be able to give out quotes to everyone who has requested them. Therefore, we will be asking you to wait for the pledge manager to go live and it will be able to give you an exact number. We have already given fairly precise estimations for the US, Europe and other countries and we stand by these numbers. As a reminder, they are still shown at the bottom of the project page on Kickstarter. For Australia, Canada and New Zealand, we are currently negotiating shipping rates, so in order to not cheat some out of a full refund after they have received their quotes, we will be extending the duration of our “No Questions” refund policy for these countries until we can give them the exact numbers for their shipping. For all other countries, there has been no new developments and prices will most likely remain as shown on the project page. I'd like to apologise to you all for the inconvenience and thank you all again for your continued support.

**JohnHwangDD**

Alpharius wrote:
I agree - but you apparently didn't back Arena Rex and/or aren't reading the comments section there or the thread here...

Yes and yes, but no.

It seems that RRG has allowed themselves to be held hostage by a slow subcontractor and a minority of backers, which simply illustrates how badly-managed they are. It's as if RRG (and the backers) don't understand the point of using KS to launch new product into retail...

**ced1106**

Geez -- You guys need to create a "whitelist" of these resin and metal miniatures companies worth backing. I keep hearing nothing but nightmares about these companies! ):

I've backed Johnny Lauck and Dark Sword Miniatures, and get the impression that they have the sculpts and mold ready before the KS. RAFM apparently has a sculptor who will fill in if another drops out. Alien Assimilation Host is taking forever, but I was only in for the bases.

Good luck! I'm already spending too much money on miniatures boardgames, and dungeon terrain, so guess I"m fortunate to have missed out these other projects. ):

**Karazax**

The very unsurprising news that they won't hit their October ship date was made official today in the latest kickstarter update. They suggest sometime between Christmas and first quarter of 2016 as the new target ship date, but mid-2016 or later seems more realistic to me. Chinese new year almost always significantly delays shipping of miniatures produced there at the start of the new year.

**Alpharius**

Did the Pledge Manager for this one launch yet?

I was hoping to up from $1 to...quite a bit when it did, but now I'm not sure if I missed it or didn't get an invite or...something else.

**JohnHwangDD**

It's good news / bad news.

Good news? Thaug! - or maybe it's bad news?

As promised last week, here is the king of all that is gribbly: Thaug !

Complete with plenty of tentacles for dragging terrified victims into that gaping orifice I can only assume is his maw.

Thaug is a very scenario based model, your heroes won’t be fighting him every day, and neither would they want to, he is probably the most terrifying monster in the game.

Only expect to see him during scenarios involving deranged sorcerers and holes in the fabric of space and time.

That is a very big gribbly! I like!

And the bad news...

The good news aside, I’m afraid I’m going to have to announce something that a lot of you have feared for some time now. We are not going to be able to carry out delivery as promised in October. We tried our best despite everything to keep to it, but it is now clearly impossible for us.

First of all, and this is something I feel it’s important to admit even if for some, it may seem evident: this is our first project, your support and enthusiasm for the project blew us away, which is a good thing! However, the sheer scale of the project totally blindsided us and it has been a learning experience ever since February.

The biggest setback was of course the Amazon situation. Due to the delay in receiving the money, we are way behind in the preproduction process. Still, we strived to move ahead and assembled enough money to produce the Book of Skelos, as you have seen, but the majority of the work is only just getting under way.

Due to this delay, we are also going to miss our predicted start date for manufacturing, pushing us back even further. That’s not all, however. As pleased as we were, and continue to be, with the result of the campaign, we originally only planned for around $1.5 million. This means we have a lot more to produce than expected and we’ve had to adjust our estimations because of it. All this extra time is now pushing Conan’s production schedule dangerously close to Christmas and the Chinese New Year that follows after, which, as anyone will tell you, is a very difficult period to get things done in.

Here's the gist of it: We are still hoping that, against all the odds, you guys will get Conan under your Xmas trees this year (ie. delivery date: December). However, as much as we intend to strive for it, it’s unlikely and we may well be looking at a delivery date during the first trimester of 2016.

Once again, I can only apologize for the frustration this causes, as I’m sure that, much like ourselves, you guys can’t wait to get your hands on the game. You can count on us to keep working hard at it and we’re doing all we can to speed things along. For example: Managing both the production and pledge manager with our current resources has been an uphill battle, so we have recently brought on another team member in order to help us push through this phase.

Thank you again for your understanding. Despite these setbacks, we still plan on producing one of the finest games to ever grace your tables, bear with us and we will not disappoint you.

I am shocked, shocked that they won't make October delivery.

Even more so that they're still targeting December. We'll see. I think CNY 2016 is more realistic, but I'm glad they're pushing for sooner vs later.

**Alpharius**

They're saying 'December ' only because they think they should - they don't mean it!

They know that's not happening and that they'll get bit by CNY 2016 (Early February) too.