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Oh, I love being not dissapointed! Getting excited about this thing!

Well snakemen never really made sense to me. Lizardmen on the other hand are perfectly believeable. I am really going out on a limb for this setting / game. There will be a lot of familiarity but there will also be a lot of originality as well. I am hoping that to the degree that this project will be very different it will cleave out it's own niche in the market.

This will be a fantasy setting but it is NOT a tolkeinesque fantasy setting. It is not hyboria either btu if I had to say it was like any other setting Hyboria would be one setting that would have a lot of thematic similarities.

a good example is that you will never see any characters in this setting with plate mail armor, or chainmail armor.....or much of any armor at all really. You will also never see a crossbow. This is more of a primitive setting. That said the figures are certainly usable with any given fantasy game or pulp game but the setting they are imagined in a very different setting.

All of that sounds great Tre, I'm looking forward to hearing and seeing more of this.

With inspiration from the Hyborian Age, something I would love to see would be some good old man-apes. Either a gorilla-sized beast that you'd typically see Conan desperately wrestling, or the more human-sized freaks, generally found as the degenerate ancestors of the inhabitants of some long lost city. That would be awesome. You know, this kind of stuff:

.............................Not to worry.

Tre, could you comment on modularity? You had mentioned it before, will there be other sculpts included that are modular? That is a really big draw for me!

SQUEEEEEE!!!!!

Sorry, I meant:

ROAAARRRR!!!!! Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud (fists banging on chest).

Lizardmen are better than snake men, so I am happy about that!

I will try to contain my speculation until we see more, but I am happy to see a "primative" fantasy setting like this develop. If everyone is at a similar (ish) tech level things really make a lot more sense. Some games that have handguns and cannons on one side and then a bunch of guys with pointy sticks on the other make no real sense.

 tre manor wrote:


.............................Not to worry.

Oh.

So, there goes my plan to monitor my model spending this year.

Aside from my disappointment at a lack of sexy sculpted armour (Come on, you need rich, noble cultured types to beat up) this looks awesome.

If there are going to be metal weapons, there's no reason to avoid metal armor!

..... I am giving away more than I wanted to but I suppose it won;t hurt to offer a little more info. There is one faction that has a higher level of technology than the others but it is not a vast difference that would make the other factions any less able to compete effectively. This faction does have some armor, just not " modern" armor.

And to be honest all factions have "armor " just maybe not made fromt he typical materials of traditional fantasy.

Modularity...... This IS somethign I want to work. However it means a lot of variables. Experience has taught me that variables do nto contribute to success. The more variables there are involved in the effort the more likely that that effort will encounter difficulty or possibly even failure. I want this effort to flow like water.

That said I AM still planning some degree of modularity in the 'grunts " of the barbarians and other factions. I could not get the look I wanted to achieve with these undead if I made them modular. For these undead modularity would have meant that they needed either more clothing ( to bulk them up ) or more general anatomical bulk. I wanted these guys to look like Mummies from an ancient jungle or desert civilization. That meant they needed to be as lean as possible with as little clothing as possible.

With that in mind I had to pose the bodies a particular way to be sure that their arms were as supported as I could make them.....it also went alogn with the character of the undead in the fluff to be posed that way.....There will be a group of stronger undead that will be modular. These undead have enough bulk that I can pose them however I want to and they can be cut in the way that they need to be for the level of modularity I originally envisioned. I have one of these greater undead sculpted already so I will try to get a picture of it up sometime soon. I first want to be sure that my plan for modularity will work and will not work against the pricing structure I have planned.

So, for now Modularity is still in the works but I am still approaching it with caution. I DO NOT want this kickstarter running in to problems in production and delivery.


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..................edit to answer Alpharius.........there will be SOME metal weaponry, but it won't be a common thread in every faction.

I'm really looking forward to this one!

And having modularity in the 'grunts' but unique hero units/characters should be fine.

Now, on top of the Hyborian/Death Dealer/Frazetta vibe, I'm getting a nice Confrontation vibe too - good times!

 Alpharius wrote:

Now, on top of the Hyborian/Death Dealer/Frazetta vibe, I'm getting a nice Confrontation vibe too - good times!

I try not to connect this project with Howard's world, as this would be a bit unfair for Tre's original creation, but it's true that a feeling of "dark" and "primitive" fantasy is what I am expecting and looking for. Something like Darklands from Mierce but even little more fantasy, but you know... "dark"

As Alpharius said if the feeling os close to the ones of Frazetta's drawings, images of the original Conan film and the Savage Sword of Conan comic, then nothing can go wrong

Those undead look amazing, as long as there will be no repeatability in models for a warband then happy days. I was disappointed that there was not going to be any snakemen (snakemen silly but lizardmen not I find amusing) but I've just found out that Mierce are making snakemen so I'm happy.

Very impressed. I'm keeping an eye on this one of course.

Well the undead will be a horde faction so Undead players will be able to field twice the number of models that the barbarians field.

REH.....yeh I am big fan of the Conan works but Conan is much more modern and mundane than this setting will be. This is going to be high fantasy of a very different vein. When I say High Fantasy I do not mean pageantry and penache I mean wild concepts and epic millieu. I really want to cleave out an all new niche int he market similarly to what Wyrd did for Horror Punk with Malifaux or what Privateer PRess did for Steam Punk or what Wild West Exodus is doing for Weird West


Wanting to steer conversation a bti more productively to the ends of the kickstarter planning. Which third faction should I work on; I am trying to decide between the faction with the lizardmen, the faction with the weird mutants, or the faction with the armoured fighters, or the faction with the Apemen? The undead are now done and the barbarians get underway in full today. I imagine they will be done by the end of the week next week or sooner.

I personally am leaning more toward the mutants because they are the most fun and different faction I can imagine, but then the lizardmen seem a sure fire bet and are a lot of fun as well.

Cheers y'all!

tre'

I'm guessing the Barbars are mele focused, whilst the undead are magic focused so I would suggest a ranged focused force. When I say focused I don't mean just mele, magic or ranged but when I here barbars I think of hitting someone in the face with an axe, when I here undead I think a horde being summoned whilst dark magic flies about.

How weird are the mutants? I think the lizard men would be the better third faction, just for the sake of visual diversity, but that's only with me making certain assumptions about the mutants.

I'm pro-Lizardman, if you want me to state my biases clearly!

I will likely get everything though, if I can afford it. I like the sound of the setting (vague as it sounds) quite a lot. Getting images of a "fantasy post apocalypse" or Darksun-esque world in some ways. Though perhaps it's a "biblical" era fantasy, more so.

In any event, very excited.

My personal favorite would be the Apemen. Seems like I'm on the outs, though.

Tre, pick the third faction that most shows the setting. Barbarians are fairly generic, and undead are in every game setting ever. So, make sure that third really sets the scene as it were.

Lizards! Get those right in your usual style and quality and my pledge is guaranteed.

I think the KS should launch with FOUR factions:

1) Undead
2) Lizardmen
3) Barbarians
4) Armor Wearing Faction

And as always, sprinkle in enough female models to whip everyone into a pledging frenzy.

That seems like a good list to me.

There is a Female Necromancer, and the Barbarians will have a Female Warrior Priestess..... there is one faction planned that is at least half female.

My list would be:
Undead
Lizardmen
Apemen
Barbarians

 tre manor wrote:
Which third faction should I work on; I am trying to decide between the faction with the lizardmen, the faction with the weird mutants, or the faction with the armoured fighters, or the faction with the Apemen? The undead are now done and the barbarians get underway in full today. I imagine they will be done by the end of the week next week or sooner.

I personally am leaning more toward the mutants because they are the most fun and different faction I can imagine, but then the lizardmen seem a sure fire bet and are a lot of fun as well.

Lizardmen or mutants sound great to me. Armored fighters would also be cool... apemen I think are a bad idea for the initial campaign, at least, as they're not something as many people are into from what I've seen.

 tre manor wrote:


There is a Female Necromancer, and the Barbarians will have a Female Warrior Priestess..... there is one faction planned that is at least half female.

Shouldn't they all be roughly half-female? (at least the humanish factions).

And I'd go with Lizardmen, then Mutants (if maybe the KS does well enough to fund a 4th).

It depends on how "historically correct" you want to be (for want of a better term). I know it's a fantasy world, but it's still based on ours. Having the lizardmen be 50% (or 90%) Lizardwomen would be just as "correct" since they're entirely made up, after all.

 Azazelx wrote:
It depends on how "historically correct" you want to be (for want of a better term). I know it's a fantasy world, but it's still based on ours. Having the lizardmen be 50% (or 90%) Lizardwomen would be just as "correct" since they're entirely made up, after all.

Heck, that would be one of the rare cases where a race of "Lizard-women" (an all female species) would be both cool (well, I tihnk so) and scientifically justifiable.

'Cause, you know, science is very important in sword and sandal games... Science!

"Apemen"?

Where they mentioned?

I know Howard had a bit of a 'thing' for evil/demonic apes and Apemen, but I think Apemen should be WAY down the list and no where near KS1.

Well, my personal favorite would be the ape-men, but I think RiTides and Alpharius have good points that they are definitely the most obscure (and won't sell as well). In contrast, I think I would be the least excited about lizardmen, but they might be the most popular choice. The mutants sound fun, are they of the radiation-induced boiled skin type, or the cthulhoid tentacle-for-face type?

Honestly, though, I think I'll be going for pretty much everything (if wallet allows) whichever factions you go with. I'm ridiculously excited about this!