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The AOW figures have been kind of tempting for some conversions. Have any of you guys picked up their Chaos range? What is the plastic they're using? Is it restic or actual plastic?

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.

Another distraction to them finishing off the Indiegogo

Lots of concept art for the Cirlea faction for Warthrone

http://www.avatars-of-war.com/esp/web/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=83&Itemid=122

Cirlea is the largest and most powerful political entity, economic and military Saga. The heart of the empire is in Castria cirleano in Cirlea peninsula, but their territorial possessions extend beyond: South to the very shores of the Sea of Sand, and the East, thanks to the Navy cirleana, beyond Coráceo Sea, where the viceroy of New Castria govern a large territory beyond the seas.
's battle cry of hosts cirleanos is feared in every corner of Saga ... Santiago and closes, Cirlea!

have not begun to sculpt miniatures for this army but I can see how it looks this nation of Saga and download your army list for Warthrone

(that said it looks interesting, and worth looking out for when it starts showing up in store)

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.

They'll never see a dime from me direct. And it's unlikely they'll see a dime from me thru standard distributers.

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...

I'll say it again though, that concept art is bloody lovely! A fantasy Iberian imperial power sounds right up my alley! :O

Still waiting on my Dwarf BSB

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

 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.

Unfortunately, AoW is running their IGG incredibly bad. Extremely slow progress, a lot of sidetracking going on, zero to none communication. It's quite bad.

THey aren't even using Facebook anymore :( Last post relevant to the indiegoog project was about two months ago...

RoninXiC wrote:
THey aren't even using Facebook anymore :(

There are big companies also not using facebook

The REALLY big mistake, Kroot, that they have done so far is to not make any movement on sculpting the standard bearer, which almost half of the pledgers are in for only that one model. So, they could satisfy half of their backers by sculpting that ONE freaking model.

On top of that, they've got 7 more units to sculpt (or 8 if you count the gunners which have only been shown in green, not cast, form) plus all of the characters, an artillery piece, 2 stone giants, etc that was unlocked.

Those units each are supposed to have 10 sculpts. So, 70 more sculpts just from the units, plus another dozen sculpts for characters et al.

To have THAT much stuff outstanding, but to be working on other things and showing little to no movement on the campaign... is extremely poor form. You'd be out of your mind to preorder anything from them, and it's laughable that they could try to run another campaign with how they're doing thus far.

They need to lay out a timeline for completion, get to work sculpting units, and first and foremost, sculpt the standard bearer and satisfy half of their backers.

It's not rocket science... it's something that any person would know, and certainly people have given them this feedback, but they are stubbornly refusing to do so.

Any desire I had to support them evaporated with the way they have treated their backers... at this point, basically cutting and running with the money! If they feel they shouldn't be painted with this brush, they should speak up and update their backers, and get to work on what they raised money to do.


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Oh, and if this was Kickstarter I'd be contacting them and invoking the "good faith effort" clause about their being obligated to at least attempt to complete the project they raised funds for. On IndieGoGo, I think there's even LESS accountability, if that's possible... and AoW are being the bad apple that will spoil the bunch in that regard, imo.

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.

That's too bad to hear since the one IGG campaign I backed went smoothly, much smoother then the majority of my Kickstarter campaigns. The IGG campaign was for Clan Ito from Bushido.

 RiTides wrote:
The REALLY big mistake, Kroot, that they have done so far is to not make any movement on sculpting the standard bearer, which almost half of the pledgers are in for only that one model. So, they could satisfy half of their backers by sculpting that ONE freaking model.

On top of that, they've got 7 more units to sculpt (or 8 if you count the gunners which have only been shown in green, not cast, form) plus all of the characters, an artillery piece, 2 stone giants, etc that was unlocked.

Those units each are supposed to have 10 sculpts. So, 70 more sculpts just from the units, plus another dozen sculpts for characters et al.

To have THAT much stuff outstanding, but to be working on other things and showing little to no movement on the campaign... is extremely poor form. You'd be out of your mind to preorder anything from them, and it's laughable that they could try to run another campaign with how they're doing thus far.

They need to lay out a timeline for completion, get to work sculpting units, and first and foremost, sculpt the standard bearer and satisfy half of their backers.

It's not rocket science... it's something that any person would know, and certainly people have given them this feedback, but they are stubbornly refusing to do so.

Any desire I had to support them evaporated with the way they have treated their backers... at this point, basically cutting and running with the money! If they feel they shouldn't be painted with this brush, they should speak up and update their backers, and get to work on what they raised money to do.


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Oh, and if this was Kickstarter I'd be contacting them and invoking the "good faith effort" clause about their being obligated to at least attempt to complete the project they raised funds for. On IndieGoGo, I think there's even LESS accountability, if that's possible... and AoW are being the bad apple that will spoil the bunch in that regard, imo.

Pretty much my sentiments completely. IndieGoGo campaigns just make me nervous in general, as there does (shockingly) seem to be less accountability.

As someone that initially pledged for the dwarves, but jumped ship to only the Standard Bearer, I must say I'm glad I did. I LOVE the AoW models, but clearly Felix and the crew have different definitions of prompt delivery than a lot of other folks. I don't understand the incredibly lax attitude...

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.

No way I'm ever going to back them up again on any kind of kickstarter. Sorry, love the miniatures, like all of the people I've spoken to... but I can't take it anymore ...

Funding for IndieGoGo is handled by Paypal. While it is past the recoup period, you can still file a complaint. Enough complaints and Paypal will freeze the account and investigate. You won't get any money back, but AoW likely has their main bank account tied to Paypal and getting their bank account frozen will likely light a fire under them.

That is my understanding of Paypal anyways.

I avoided this project as well for all the reasons Kroot listed.

Can't everyone who pledged just sign a petition and we can start a class action suit or something? They got a good chunk of change and obviously aren't living up to what they promised.

Those of you who backed should post in the comments section on IndieGoGo and link to this thread. Perhaps if they see just how bad public opinion of their company has become, they will see sense and finish the standard bearer, give more regular updates, and generally behave in a manner which gets them a bit better press. As it is now, I would think they've lost more sales than they've gained through that campaign, and are continuing to do so by refusing to sculpt the standard bearer or update their backers.

Here's a link to the comments page to make it easy:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/avatars-of-war-dwarf-army/x/785674?c=comments

...Yeah, except things like that have been tried before and felix can be a real honey badger with anything remotely connected to the commercial side of his business. Shame, 'cause he's a great sculptor but he should really just be told to STFU, STFD and focus on the sculpting side of it all.
Seems AoW is doing a bit too well for him to be forced into that, though. The stuff they do put out is so damn good they can continue to limp by despite these obvious issues.

They know that "we" are not happy with the situation. They've been told several times on their forums and Felix HAS seen those posts...
Still.. not much has changed.

Thunderers and Pathfinders in July/August.

A reminder can't hurt, all the same! Even the most... steadfast... people can see reason when their business is being negatively affected in a way that could easily be addressed by them.

Felix seems to not be interested in making a lot more money?

Odd, but then, who knows what's what with them?

He definitely seems to tip the scales more on the "Artist" side vs. the "Business" side.

 Alpharius wrote:
Felix seems to not be interested in making a lot more money?

Well, he worked for GW once ...

While I'm not worried about getting my BSB "eventually" - I have to say AoW needs to hire a damn business manager.

They make great minis but they do, well, pretty much everything else required to run a minis company so poorly. And Felix does seem to have a stand-offish "who gives a crap" attitude when it comes to pleasing his customers. (And during the Indiegogo campaign itself - when a lot of people were begging him to make some small changes to help turn the campaign around ...)

Schmapdi wrote:
While I'm not worried about getting my BSB "eventually" - I have to say AoW needs to hire a damn business manager.

They make great minis but they do, well, pretty much everything else required to run a minis company so poorly. And Felix does seem to have a stand-offish "who gives a crap" attitude when it comes to pleasing his customers. (And during the Indiegogo campaign itself - when a lot of people were begging him to make some small changes to help turn the campaign around ...)

Which is really frustrating, as the multipart Dwarf Berzerkers may be my favorite multipart plastics that I own. They're beautiful.

Sadly, I think very few of the 'boutique' miniatures companies have any true business or project managers in their midst because they're such small operations. It's a shame, because having someone holding people accountable every day and keeping them on track really goes a long way.

A manager would not be any help is the owner/sculptor didn't feel 'inspired' to sculpt something

it still wouldn't get done

It's clear Felix is a true artist in terms of doing exactly what he wants to do. I'm sure the minis benefit from it, even if the business suffers

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
It's clear Felix is a true artist in terms of doing exactly what he wants to do. I'm sure the minis benefit from it, even if the business suffers

Then he just shouldn't take money from people in advance... it's fine for an artist to say "Screw it all, I'll do what I feel inspired to do." It's another thing to say "This is what I'm going to do, pay for it upfront!" and then not do it.