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I am wondering something and figured it best asked to be sure.

I want to launch with at least 4 faction sand have a 5th ready to go if the process allows. However I having difficulty prioritizing which factions to be 4th and which to be 5th. The reason it is important is obviously funding needs to be in place for it to work and production time is a primary consideration. I want to try to deliver this quickly if possible so I am purposely keeping the scope under control. I want each of the factions to have access to the same diversity of troops and characters so the way that goals will progress is that initially there will be 4 starter sets, one for each faction. So I want to be sure I offer the most broadly desired factions. The definites are the " Barbarians ", the Undead, and the Amazons, but then I hem and haw over whether the fourth faction should be the Mutants, or the beastmen, or the slave rebels?

So if you had to pick one of those only which would be the one you would pick?


I doubt we will see all of those as full factions in this KS BUT I will have at least one or two items from each ready as mercenary unit stretch goal add-ons if the funding far exceeds the necessary production for the 4 starter sets. I won't try to cram an additional faction if it does nto appear that the funding will allow for the full faction to be added to a full competitive level as the first four but the way the rules for the game are goign to be set up will allow for almost any faction to use models and units from other factions as mercenaries.

Four Factions will be VERY helpful as that seems to be the magic number to entice people into either buying all 4 OR buying one or two, knowing that there's enough 'variety' already baked in to hopefully guarantee (as much as these things can be guaranteed) a diverse gaming experience.

As for the 4th - I'd vote for Mutants, then Beastmen then Slave Rebels.

If you can also offer up concept sketches for the 'down the road' factions that aren't part of the KS but are "Coming Soon(ish)", that's often well appreciated too!

Good luck here - and I can't wait!

The mutants are my favourite faction of what you've showed so far

Thanks yall. Mutants are a pecial favourite for me so I lean towards them as fourth but I wnt to be sure I ask first.

I definitely want to introduce at least one character or unit from several different " factions " over the course of the campaign. The first non faction specific add-on WILL be a unit of slave minions as slaves are a universal element of the setting's culture. Therefore they are going to be found in almost any large warband. Though they will have differing point costs and abilities depending upon whom they are controlled by.

Anyway just some food for thought.

Id push off the slave faction, just because you already have two human factions, and aesthetically I imagine they are similar to barbarians/amazons (which are already going to be similar-ish). Go with the most visually distinct.

Beastmen or Mutants IMO. The more monstrous factions the better for me. Of course I'm already sold on the Amazon/Lizardmen.

1.Beastmen

2. Slave rebels

3. Mutants

I think either Beastman or mutants would be fine - if I had to guess, I'd say Beastman would sell a little better, though.

Well thee are not beastmen in the way of GW beastmen.

I figured - but beastman are a pretty common thing in a lot of RPGS and whatnot too generally speaking?

Have we seen any sneak peeks of the beastmen or the slave rebels? I don't recall. I liked the mutants, though, so they would be a good choice in my book.

I think Mutants are a definite 4th faction. For faction, I lean towards beastmen, but I'd like to know what they would look like and what sort of influences they are based on before deciding. If the slaves have a particularly cool look that might sway me.

Well the slaves are basically just humans with either no armour and crude weapons or scavenged armour and scavanged weapons.

Well there are a few different types of " beast " men planned. The first beastmen are monkey / ape thing men. very crude weaponry and no armour. Lizard men are technically a beast man race as well.

Ape Men sound pretty cool, I'd love to see your take on that.

Aha, the beastmen are the ape-men you were talking about earlier. I'm quite interested in those, might put them before the mutants in my wish list then!

I'm just glad that the conversation if back and flowing in here!

Have you come to a 'material decision' on this one yet?

And, perhaps more importantly, a date on when this Kickstarter will launch?

material is going to be hard PVC ala Wrath of Kings, PP, Relic Knights, etc. I will be sculpting tje figures with the limitations of the material in mind, not compromising on detail but trying to be sure that I avoid what I consider to be the most consistent problems which relate to design.


KS........ well this all depends on how long it takes me to get the initial sculpting done ( I am guessing about a month or two to sculpt everything I want to include in the campaign 10-15 figures per faction for 4 factions....... less for the bare essentials. 6-8 figures per faction. ) and get a hands-on quote from the manufacturers involved; plastic, cards, playmat ( hopefully ) boxes, dice ( hopefully ) etc .

Plus I will need to amass more art and get the fiction more thoroughly filled out. the rules will be a beta version at KS launch and probably for at least a few months there after.

So probably not until the first of the year at least? I think I'd be fine with that.

Looking forward to it in any case!

Try to get the 'hard PVC' that CMON used for Wrath of Kings - that stuff was the best of the bunch...

And knowing that you'll be sculpting with the material's limitations in mind is good to hear too.

Maybe up the size a bit overall too?

I would have been more than OK with metal though!

Ape man would be my choice. Could really gives a distinctive look to your setting.

And happy that you didn't went with metal. It was my main concern initially.

PVC ought to be a bigger concern than metal!

I mean, sure, SOME strides have been made lately, but I still 'trust' metal WAY more than PVC!

I remain cautiously optimistic here, but...

PVC is definitely on some people's warning list- hopefully some of these newer kickstarters that have apparently "fixed" the material(Conan, 7 Sins) will put out something that will give people more trust in it.

Not sure I trust Conan or 7 Sins yet as neither has released!

CMON seems to have solved most of the problems as seen in WoK (while using harder stuff for weapons and such) and some Blood Rage previews.

 Alpharius wrote:
Not sure I trust Conan or 7 Sins yet as neither has released!

CMON seems to have solved most of the problems as seen in WoK (while using harder stuff for weapons and such) and some Blood Rage previews.

That's why I said hopefully they'll put something out. Concerning Wrath we knew beforehand they do larger models just fine(although iirc some had concerns with him as well), but it's the human-sized figures that a loss of detail is usually noted.

At the very least there will be a display again at Gencon. I believe they were production test models? Or just the Wrath?

I haven't seen the WoK stuff, so I don't know how well they use the material.

Agreed!

That's my concern here as well - 'human sized' 28mm to 32mm sized miniatures made with PVC often end up with a severe case of 'no face' syndrome...

I've seen some pretty good detail on finely proportioned PVC though.

I'd be on the side of PVC being okay as long as attention is paid to where the mold lines end up. Mold line on a face is basically a deal breaker. Apart from that, it's okay I guess.

I'd also (probably fairly uniquely) be happier with dynamic monopose than hard to assemble multipart (I love my RBG Orcs but keeping the weapons in their meaty fists is a chore!)

Hopefully Tre will go the 'harder plastic' route for weapons too...

I am in fact communicating with Dust Studios for the production on this project as well as the studio that handles a few other big name plastic lines. There will never be a mold line crossing a face on an RBG figure. Ever. I will take very special pains to make sure of this.

In fact I am trying to design the figures in such a way that parting lines will either be in areas where they will nto be easily visible or VERY easy to clean off. I am very well aware of the pains peopel have with PVC mold lines and I will take every effort I can to mitigate this.

Scale...... I am really nto sure that increasing the scale is really the right thing to do. However I DO see the need to change the way I do certain things to make the figure more painter friendly. CRoss compatibility is really not even a notion I have in the design for this game. It is going to be entirely it's own thing. this is nto fantasy with a new lick of paint this is a whole new sub genre with fantasy as it's root. Much in the same way that Kingdom Death of a new sub genre of Fantasy and Relic Knights is a new sub genre of Sci Fi. I do not mean to say that thsi will be SO far out of left field that you could not find uses for the figures in other games I am just saying that you will not look at these figures and think " Oh! That woudl make a great Dwarf Proxy or that woudl make a great Norse Barbarian proxy " instead you might look at these figures and think " Oh that would make a great primitive alien. " or " This will make a great Atlantean barbarian. " In some of these instances scale won't even be a consideration ( Mutants, Demons, and Lizardmen particularly ).

But just to allay any fears I am using the Zombiecide 1 figures as scale reference for the normal human proportions.


Detail in plastics........ This is something I have always harped on and been very very leery of through the metoeric rise of Kickstarter. I think that the main problem lies in design where many artists simply have not ( until recently ) had enough experience sculpting for plastic production to know how to avoid problems due to the process itself. I think that exaggerating certain features of the face ( part between the lips, depth of the cheeks from the brow and nose bridge, cut of the eyes etc ) I can avoid "nofacitis ". I have seen PVC figures with pretty damned good detail even if the detail is not as sharp as metal.

As for the figures themselves......Well some figures will be multi part kits which are goign to made in such a way as to allow people to pose and customize their forces. This has always been a goal here. I want people to tell their own stories with their war bands. I want people to look at warband creation in this game the same way a role player looks at character creation or party creation in a role playing game. Thsi will make balancing the system very difficult but I think it will be very rewarding to do so.

So a lot of the figures will be " kits " where people will be able to interchange heads, torsos ( with the upper arms attached ) hand options ( right and left forearms with weapons in hand ) legs and certain armor pieces and decorations ( shoulder armour, head dress elements, various decorative elements) etc to make their forces a bti more unique and personal.

There will usually be two or three different troop types with each of the types havign cross compatible parts. Obviously there will have to be some kits that will not interchange with ALL parts ( SOME heavy weapon fighters won;t be able to make use of all elements for example ) but or the most part all parts withint he same faction will interchange across that faction. So you could take a set of unarmoured legs and pair them with a heavy armoured torso, a bare head , one heavy armoured weapon arm on the right and an unarmored shield arm on the left and a particular back standard that might have a special game rule applied to it to grant it's wearer immunity to fire or the ability to safely leap the height of 5 men up and 5 men across once or twice per game or for a specific cost of action points ( magical jump pack ). Or maybe you give the same figure a demon mask that grants him a breath weapon attack or an aura of fear which reduces his enemies morale or melee skill?

These effects will be represented in card form BTW for some insight into how the game works. These cards will be " played " as expendable resources.

Aaaaaaaaanyhoo............. Yes there will be multipart kits to allow for customization in varying degrees. Some figures will be highly customizable and some will be less customizable ( heroes and special characters etc ) and then there will be some figures which will be single piece. These will usually be the cannon fodder figures or less prominent unit types, cultist acolytes and the Piteous Beset ( lesser undead ) for the Undead faction spring to mind.

Any multipart figures will always be fitted for easy assembly with plug an socket fittings, ball and socket fittings, piloted pin points etc.

Harder plastic weapons...... Again this is entirely possible but may ultimately depend on funding. Those harder plastic bits have to cast from a more expensive tool.

I am trying to build all costs in to the price though.

I am going to keep the price as low as possible. At first, the starter set might not seem like a fantastic deal ( I am figuring about $5.50 per figure in the starter set initially ) but if the funding allows the deal will get progressively better as more backers join in. I am going to plan that most stretch goals will add to the starter set with a very few add-on sets coming after the starter sets have been well built up and made a better value per figure. It will really all come down to the number of backers who join in. That said I am not planning this to need 1000's of backers to succeed. Right now, based on my estimates and what I plan to produce maybe 900 backers total will fund everything I have planned.

Also there WILL be early birds pledge levels. As much as I have bemoaned the practice I have come to understand it's benefit and usefulness. These early birds will offer a substantial discount on each set but will be very strictly limited and will of course grow in value with the development of the campaign.

The starter sets will include initially:

1-3 " masters " ( these are the leaders )
1-2 " greater " monster minions ( Specialists )
6-8 " lesser " minions ( grunts ) *

And if funding allows will expand with;

2-4 " lesser " monster minions
1-2 Heroes ( auxiliary leaders )*
2-4 additional alternate " lesser minions ( more grunts )*
2-4 " Greater " minions ( auxiliary specialists )*

*modularly fitted for customization.

Each figure will have a character card included with it describing it's basic game rules. There would be other decks produced for items, spells, powers, effects, events, terrain, scenarios, etc. Each faction starter would also include a few faction specific item, spell, power, event cards.

So the intial barbarian starter might look like;

Shaman x 1
Demon Summons x 1
Lesser Warriors x 6 ( sculpt a + b + x 3 )

and expand as such;

SG 1 + Lesser demons summons x 2
SG 2 + Lesser Warrior Hero x 1
SG 3 + Lesser warrior alt sculpt c
SG 4 + Berserkers x 2 ( sculpt a )
SG 5 + Lesser warriors alt sculpt d x 2 ( 8 total figures per set )
SG 6 + Berserker hero

Each Stretch Goal would also expand ALL factions in funding. So no one would be sat waiting for " their turn " at a stretch goal.



THIS IS ALL STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS based on estimates without the actual figures on hand so these plans are subject to change but this is what I am planning right now based on months of research.


So anyway I need to get back to work. These figures won;t sculpt themselves!

Cheers Yall!

Tre'

It all sounds...really good!