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 Alpharius wrote:
I'm still shocked at how slowly this one's moving.

I've no doubt it will spike towards the end, but this is an under performer for CMON to date, and possibly also due to how much cincy hyped it up!

But seriously, I think it suffers a bit because it's a larger scale game. The skirmish games, I think, are more appealing to some people. I think its also suffering because there are a LOT of people holding out for Confrontation 4, which makes a lot of sense if you do like it aesthetically. Personally, I really like the models, and I think the game system is pretty cool, so I'm obviously in. I think they're also suffering due to Relic Knights being so tardy (perhaps justly, perhaps unjustly; it depends on whom you place the blame for tardiness). I think if Relic Knights has already been delivered, I think this guy is a lot bigger.

But it is what it is. I still like it

 Wehrkind wrote:

 RiTides wrote:
Wow, those actually look pretty cool

A friend's Zombicide 2 is about to arrive, I can't wait to play it! Will have to point these out to him.

You have a friend that isn't me? Because, you know, mine's already here, and Angela already ordered the little tiny card sleeves...

I do, a mutual one (Mark A.). He was planning to bring it to the store to play last Wed, but it didn't come in in time... hopefully this means he has his, too . I have yet to actually get to play it, despite seeing it played a few times!

Maybe I'm misremembering the mechanics of Relic Knights (isn't it played on a mat?) but has a true table top wargame done better than WoK so far?

 plastictrees wrote:
Maybe I'm misremembering the mechanics of Relic Knights (isn't it played on a mat?) but has a true table top wargame done better than WoK so far?

So relic knights is true skirmish, 3x3 play area, with like, 3-7 models and the card system. I think it did like, $920K.

Deadzone did $1.2MM-- I think a lot had to do with terrain too.

Wild West Exodus 'only' did $330K

Arena Rex did...$225K

So, I mean honestly, WoK is doing fine comparatively. I expect, depending on what the stretches or add ons become from here, that it'll close anywhere between $550K and $650K. Thats really not shabby.

Exactly!

Does not compute!

Though I suppose his point is about the aesthetics and how they may not be as widely appealing as they could be otherwise?

 Alpharius wrote:
Exactly!

Does not compute!

Though I suppose his point is about the aesthetics and how they may not be as widely appealing as they could be otherwise?

Right, Confrontation was gorgeous, but stuck, for the most part, to established fantasy tropes. Here are your knight guys, your undead guys, your short angry guys, your elves.
I'd assume that very few people are buying a WoK army to use in another system, whereas you can very much see that happening with a broad enough Confrontation re-vamp.

WoK has some excellent models, but there is enough uncertainty about the material still (I think) to put off some collectors/ painters. They would likely have already bought copies of the original resins anyway.

It's ending just before the Darklands KS2 starts right? Decisions...

I mean, I've been hands on with the plastics (the demo models that are in the same material as the production models will be) and I was really happy with the material. It was, IMO, sharper than the detail on the Sedition Wars minis, and all of the weapons were in the standard hard plastic like any GW weapon. I think you'll be happy, plastictrees, honestly. I was able to see the flat resins juxtaposed with the plastics, and the difference was pretty negligible. I'd say the detail sharpness is just a step below what Poots is pulling of with the Kingdom Death Plastics.

I'm really curious to see what the Dark2 KS will bring me. I can't speak highly enough of those models.

Again, I think the final tally on WoK is going to really hinge on any other add ons they throw in there. They're going to get a ton of traction from the Zombicide crossovers (which I think are pretty cool). If they end up doing a few SDE crossovers, you can almost automatically chalk up another $100K or so.

I'm actually not worried about the quality myself. From pictures and feedback I'm confident they will be solid.

I was speaking more to the fact that this likely won't hit $1 million, unlike so many other CMoN Kickstarters. I think a pure TTG, with some of the 'limitations' specific to WoK mentioned above just whittles away certain buyer groups.

I had added to my Ancient King when the big guys were stretched, but I think I'll be sticking with just the AK+postage and picking up 2-3 factions. I honestly think that they've done a really good job of maintaining interest, I just know I'm going to drop $500+ on Darklands.

In the same boat as you. I think expecting the same $$ as Zombicide for, well, anything just is unreasonable. Zombicide is a friggin juggernaut.

I think there are a lot of reasons why this game may not be doing as well as previous CMoN Kickstarters. Fantasy games always seem to do poorer than future/modern TTG's. KoW and Darklands made less than this one. KD is the only "fantasy" game that did better than where KoW is at currently.

It has surpassed CMoN's last KS, Kasoball. The last KS that had a similar format for a minimal level of pledges.

 cincydooley wrote:
I mean, I've been hands on with the plastics (the demo models that are in the same material as the production models will be) and I was really happy with the material. It was, IMO, sharper than the detail on the Sedition Wars minis, and all of the weapons were in the standard hard plastic like any GW weapon. I think you'll be happy, plastictrees, honestly. I was able to see the flat resins juxtaposed with the plastics, and the difference was pretty negligible. I'd say the detail sharpness is just a step below what Poots is pulling of with the Kingdom Death Plastics.

I'm really glad to hear this...

I'm still a bit nervous about the quality of the Relic Knights stuff - some of what we've seen looks on the 'soft' side.

Good to hear that we won't be seeing that on this one!

I gave this a look over after Mantic promoted it.

Like the look of the fishmen faction, not keen on the others.

It seems a bit here and there... is this a Bushido clone game where it's all supposed to be Chinese/Asian themed, or what is it?

I do like the structure of the kickstarter though, where you get to choose your factions at the $100 level rather than having them fixed. The upfront statement of RRP is good too.

Bushido clone? There's a single Asian faction.......

That's what happens when you race through Kickstarter details on ponyback.

Back with another update, bringing you the news that cincydooley and RiTides don't want you to see!

$400k breached! Onwards to $450k!
Update #45 · Sep 10, 2013 · 42 comments

We've hit our $400k stretch goal upgrading the pictured Rank 1 leaders with bits or variant poses!



So... what's next on our plate? How about a bit of fluff.... in physical form?



When the Ancient King roamed the world in his mortal form - he's a Kickstarter and convention exclusive since he won't be making an appearance in the game, and is way too powerful to field.

Get him free if we hit this stretch, if you pledged $200 or more (or an Ancient King EB at $190)! Otherwise if you really want him (he's cool looking), he's $10. We repeat - this dude has no rules, but will have a Gold Deck card.



And not to worry, we've got more freebies planned if we breach this goal!

$425k reached! 50% more infantry for the 3rd infantry box
Update #46 · Sep 11, 2013 · 11 comments




An additional 50% more Leaders and Infantry will be added to these boxes below! These bonus models are Kickstarter only, and not added to the retail boxes.



So the Brood Warriors (for example) will ship with 1 bonus leader and 3 additional Brood warriors.

Love the rules for WoK but none of the factions do anything for me at all...

Fight the power Alph! Ritides and Cincy can't hide behind their ivory towers forever!


Now, I am off to the ivory tower for a few hours....

I may be repeating ploints that have already been stated, but I'm at work and dont have time to read through 15 pages of posts...and I really have to get this off my chest.

The guys behind Wrath of Kings are some of the best artists/sculptors in the industry. The only thing missing is Aragorn Marks to make this new line of miniatures truly best in class.

Now, as much of a fan-boy as I am, I am going to explain why I will NOT be backing this project.

I started collecting Confrontation back when CMON was New-Wave mail order games (despite their awful customer service) and they were importing the models from France. There was a rough fan-translation of the rules floating around, but really I was intrigued by the elegant beauty of the sculpts and the truly amazing studio paintwork they used to advertise the models. I watched as Rackham grew and gained their much deserved respect and popularity. They took on new talent (and changed the scale of their minis), and produced some of the best graphically designed products ever to be published in the gaming industry. I still have boxes of Confrontation minis, extensive collections each from about half of the factions in my garage....

Then they released AT-43. I was intrigued. I lamented the Pre-painted plastic aspect, but the rules were clean and fresh, the game was good and looked good! It really only suffered from some production and distribution delays (due to their new dealings with factories in China) and from only having 2 or 3 factions at launch.

I was already a Rackham Sentinel, and so I helped try to spread the word and get people into the game. I even convinced a few FLGSs to carry the product. I was even flown out to Origins in Vegas to help pimp the game at the industry trade show.

Then Rackham announced a new version of Confrontation and after a few months it finally came out that they were giving it the AT-43 treatment. A full re-launch of the entire miniatures line...in pre-painted plastic. And the rules, were basically the AT-43 rules with a few minor tweaks here and there to make it work with the fantasy setting. They took their entire existing fan-base (the people in love with the intricate details of their best-in-industry metal miniatures), and flushed it down the toilet.

They got through 3 or 4 f the factions before they simply hemorrhaged too much profit from loosing product sales from their metal minis fan base, and the high cost of setting up all the new manufacturing and mold making for their new plastic line. Bang. Dead. Bankrupt.

From the fallout, some of the artists went to work for other minis companies...I recognize some of the style bleeding into Helldorado, Aragorn did some freelance work for Privateer Press, and now works for GW. A few of them made the Cadwallon board game published through Dust Games and FFG. A few of them went over to work on Dust (striking similarities to AT-43). Guillotine Games knocked it out of the park with Zombicide, and we got to see the Cadwallon card game as well.

And so we come to Wrath of Kings. A fantasy army battle scale game (or medium to large skirmish if you like) in an all new fantasy setting....I need another fantasy battle miniatures game like I need another damn hole in my head.

Despite the bad taste in my mouth form what I just described above...I already have multiple Warhammer Fantasy armies (not to mention 40k, Warmachine, Infinity, Malifaux, Necromunda, Epic, BFG, and so on), and there's the hundreds of Confrontation minis I still have...patiently awaiting the supposed launch of Conf.4/Phoenix edition. There's the giant tub of AT-43 stuff under my stairs that hasn't seen the light of day in years.

I really wish them luck...but I assumed that these guys were going to be the ones re-launching Confrontation...so, I'm understandably a little miffed and a little confused.

Wrath of King has been on the go for a while

Confrontation might still be coming, or it might be out for the count at the moment

CMON spend time (and I guess money) on working on the phoenix ruleset for the Confrontation re-start,

but they got such a luke warm reception where confrontation fans got to see/playtest this new ruleset maybe they decided they needed to go back to the drawing board

Wrath of Kings has been on the drawing board for a while (2011 or earlier)

Yeah. Wrath of Kings has nothing to do with all of your problems with Rackham.

 Wehrkind wrote:
Fight the power Alph! Ritides and Cincy can't hide behind their ivory towers forever!

Now, I am off to the ivory tower for a few hours....

I was going to say exactly that, but you beat me to it

I have been watching this since it went live....althought I really like some of the factions/models.

What has pretty much pushed me away is that no one faction has all minis I like. In fact its about 50/50. So with that im mind I will prolly stay out of the kickstarter and hope maybe someday we see a decent re-launch of confrontation.

Dont really want a mass of extra unpainted minis sitting around i have not interest in just to get a handful I actually really like...not to mention a completely new game to go along with it. To me the creative time and effort would have been better funnelled into new content and all solid scuplts in a confrontation re-launch instead of into a competitive product.

That way they could also skip the subpar scuplts and concentrate on all units/figures people would want for each faction, esp when added to what is already there in the confrontation arena.

Just my 2cents but I havent backed anything by CMON yet.

 RiTides wrote:

 Wehrkind wrote:
Fight the power Alph! Ritides and Cincy can't hide behind their ivory towers forever!

Now, I am off to the ivory tower for a few hours....

I was going to say exactly that, but you beat me to it

You don't have to say what we all already know!

What is interesting so far is that all of the 'extra' and 'free' figures do not seem to be whipping everyone into a frenzy - even though the quality has been shown to be very nice, and the quantity is quite high!

Quantity and casting quality don't matter if the original models aren't to your taste...

 spiralingcadaver wrote:
Quantity and casting quality don't matter if the original models aren't to your taste...

Right!

That's the point that's been brought up more than a few times.

It could be the Rackham flavor isn't floating enough boats, or the weird pasties battle women, or the pig-men, or...whatever.

I'm still surprised at the pace of this one though.

It makes me think that a Confrontation reboot might not be the Kickstarter Destroyer I thought it would be though...

Done right the confrontation re-boot can be a massive kickstarter success. Now its all a matter in how they do it.

Adding new content/miniatures is huge. I dont think a rehash of commonly available minis on Ebay will work well. It has to be new stuff and omg how about finishing the factions in the kickstarter- in other words Akkyshan and Sphinx need to be in it, they would be huge massive sellers if the rules are decent. Even new units for the older factions or re-scuplts would be sellers IMO.

Starters would be nice for people that dont have certain factions or didnt get stuff back then but they also need the options of new factions starters to really generate massive income from old players....Man even theme specific starters with minis to that theme being new an such would be great.

An honestly the old rules were decent just need some streamlining/balancing/clean up to be up with modern wargaming. From what I heard they went extremely to far with simplification in the playtest rules set they put out...many old time players had massive issues with what the new rules looked like from the feedback on dragonpainting.

Anyway.....Who knowsbut I bet if they listened to what the consumer wants the consumer would buy lots

I still buy Confrontation figs that are languishing at my FLGS from time to time. I love the aesthetic. This campaign has been hit and miss for me, though...

chaos45 wrote:
Done right the confrontation re-boot can be a massive kickstarter success. Now its all a matter in how they do it.

Adding new content/miniatures is huge. I dont think a rehash of commonly available minis on Ebay will work well. It has to be new stuff and omg how about finishing the factions in the kickstarter- in other words Akkyshan and Sphinx need to be in it, they would be huge massive sellers if the rules are decent. Even new units for the older factions or re-scuplts would be sellers IMO.

Starters would be nice for people that dont have certain factions or didnt get stuff back then but they also need the options of new factions starters to really generate massive income from old players....Man even theme specific starters with minis to that theme being new an such would be great.

An honestly the old rules were decent just need some streamlining/balancing/clean up to be up with modern wargaming. From what I heard they went extremely to far with simplification in the playtest rules set they put out...many old time players had massive issues with what the new rules looked like from the feedback on dragonpainting.

Anyway.....Who knowsbut I bet if they listened to what the consumer wants the consumer would buy lots

It is safe to say cheap plastic minis probably won't fly.

 RiTides wrote:
I still buy Confrontation figs that are languishing at my FLGS from time to time. I love the aesthetic. This campaign has been hit and miss for me, though...

Keep trying to get more Devourers but not easy - very pricy on ebay - so loving this kickstarter.

Played in a fun Confrontation tourney this year

All bitterness aside, I don't think its the miniatures that are making people shy away. They do look amazing. The 'Rackham' look is established and well liked, and these definitely fall in line and exceed expectations in some cases. I think the problem is, people don't need another miniature fantasy battles game.

I don't have anything against Rackham, especially the creative people that make their stuff so fething gorgeous. Like I said, if this was a Confrontation re-boot, I'd be all over it. I truly have a longing to visit Aarklash again soon.

I am a completionist, and the Zombicide Xover minis tempted me for half a second....but what it really comes down to for me is it's 'yet another miniatures game'

Even if I was smitten by Wrath of Kings enough to invest, trying to convince anyone else in my gaming group to invest the money, time, and effort into another medium scale miniatures battle game would be a snowballs chance in hell. I feel the market is reaching its saturation point, and I get the feeling I'm not the only one that feels this way. You need to really wow the minis gaming community now with something truly unique if you want them to buy in.

This kickstarter is doing better than I though it would though, and I attribute it to the rediculous amount of figures you get for your money, and the talent and reputation the artists/sculptors bring to the table. I really do wish them luck, and hope they turn their attention back to Confrontation again soon.