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I pulled out of my pledge just a bit ago. I love the miniatures, but to get all of the Kickstarter exclusive ones, the cost is just more than I can bear right now...especially with how difficult it can be to get all my other games to the table.

I was on the base pledge and was happy with it. However in the end I quite liked the French crew and thought they'd help the games replayability. Also chipped in some extra bucks either to complete the crew with matching heroes but perhaps I'll choose something else come the pledge manager.

Bear in mind there's a very good chance if you get a crew expansion from CMoN at a convention you'll also get an exclusive or three.

Just noticed - if anyone has non-buyer's remorse - you can still pledge through the end of January, there's a link on the main Kickstarter page.

The link is:

http://www.cmon.com/pledge/store/products/rum-and-bones-late-pledge/

Tempted...

I see the late pledger option, but I'm not biting.

If I were jumping in, it'd be $180 + S&H to get the base game and both major expansions - that's quite a bit more than I'd want to commit to this game. To me, it's just overpriced at $200-ish, to say nothing of adding all of the extra hero figures.

Schmapdi wrote:
Just noticed - if anyone has non-buyer's remorse - you can still pledge through the end of January, there's a link on the main Kickstarter page.

This actually makes me quite happy they're doing this. A lot of my hesitation in keeping my initial pledge was that my job situation is a bit uncertain right now, so didn't want to invest a lot of money in a Kickstarter at the moment...but I'll have a much better idea of things by the end of January.

So CMON may still end up getting my money in exchange for sweet pirate minis...

Just commit to the base game, then. I'll never understand the need to get all the things now. Especially when they'll be available later.

I was hoping for some westernized One Piece designs... Oh well. Some of these figures are pretty cool, but it seems like it might be a good game with 'hero overload' as both Zombicide and AQ have pointless hero overload and is a bit suffocating with no real gameplay increase.

 cincydooley wrote:
Just commit to the base game, then. I'll never understand the need to get all the things now. Especially when they'll be available later.

KS exclusives, higher retail prices, availability, shipping and the ability to be "over and done with it" all contribute. The middle three perhaps holding more weight for those of us overseas than for people in the US.

It's a little unclear whether KS exclusives drive purchases from anyone besides CMoN, and even then, it's because those KS exclusives are usually non-core homages.

Personally, I'm not big on the exclusives.

We're talking about why people make all the purchases upfront in the KS - ie direct from CMoN

Yes. I'm thinking of a few non-CMoN KS in which we backed for basically 80-90% of the gameplay right off the bat. $250+ each time.

The big purchase was driven more by completionist tendencies and awesomeness of stuff.

In those cases, there wasn't a lot of KS-exclusives available or purchased. Had they been chock full of exclusives, we might not have backed as we did. If at all. The whole KS-exclusive thing just doesn't excite me.

Either the game is good, or it isn't. If it's good, I'll buy it and it doesn't need gimmicks.

Unfortunately with CMON the exclusives make up a pretty big chunk of the game sometimes, so you can't just "get things later."

Not grabbing everything but the 3-hero packs you lose out on:
Exclusive heroes/cannons for the Asian/French factions and the 2 add-on pirate "factions" (the cross-over one and the all lady one). Which make those all "buy now or never."

And god forbid you want to buy at retail sometime (which, ostensibly is the point of Kickstarter - bringing products to the market). Then you lose out on the above, plus like 10(ish) more exclusives, and the ability to play Mercs as a faction. And the kraken/sea dragon. I wouldn't want to get a game that only had 50-60% of the content available.

I think a lot of how you approach CMON comes down to how frequently you intend to play the game.

Personally, I will play a game a couple times and put it away for a long period of time before coming back around to it. Or it may just sit for quite some time before I even get to it The extras tend to add no value (for me) as they will probably never get played with or just take up closet space for a long period of time.

One thing about CMON, there are so many exclusives and freebies, I always back with the knowledge that I'll put the extras on eBay as soon as they come in. Sedition Wars has been the only lemon, but so far, I've always been able to get more than the amount I pledged for just the extras, effectively getting the core game for free plus a little profit.

Schmapdi wrote:
I wouldn't want to get a game that only had 50-60% of the content available.

I guess?

The content is always made available. The only thing that isn't are the miniatures. Rules and gameplay pieces have been made available for them.

I find my life is much less encumbered by not have to worry about being a completionist.

My one small hangup on this one (despite the lack of fishmen) is now that mercs have their own tide deck, what will they use for their crew and boat(s)?

If I don't buy any expansion crews, they're basically stuck using what's in the box. Skullkickers would look a bit odd commanding legions of the undead, don't you think?

Not a huge deal, but it would have been nice to have an optional purchase of extra Wellsport deckhands in a different color to go with the mercs.

I guess I just need to get one of the expansions to squelch my inner nerd's complaints.

 cincydooley wrote:

Schmapdi wrote:
I wouldn't want to get a game that only had 50-60% of the content available.

I guess?

The content is always made available. The only thing that isn't are the miniatures. Rules and gameplay pieces have been made available for them.

I find my life is much less encumbered by not have to worry about being a completionist.

To me, the miniatures are the content. Rules-wise I can proxy whatever mini for whatever other mini I want. But I can't sculpt an Asian pirate-guy holding a clownfish.

Schmapdi wrote:


To me, the miniatures are the content. Rules-wise I can proxy whatever mini for whatever other mini I want. But I can't sculpt an Asian pirate-guy holding a clownfish.

We see the completely opposite. I can proxy whatever mini I want for an Asian Pirate guy holding a clownfish, but I can't make and playtest the rules for him.

It really depends on how you view the equation. We're on a miniatures-dominant board here, and so it's no surprise that people view the figures as an integral part of the content - equal (or even more) weighted than the rules.

I mean, you know I've been looking to get hold of a Sheldon (Dave?) for Zombicide. The rules are available, but unless I have the original figure (or a good proxy - in this case none available out there for Shelly) it's not the same - especially when we're at the point of painting the heroes to look like their characters and the extra characters are so very much pop-culture homages - which is a huge part of CMoN's KS/Marketing scheme at this point.

It's a different kettle of fish if we're looking at, say, Pandemic.

 cincydooley wrote:

Schmapdi wrote:


To me, the miniatures are the content. Rules-wise I can proxy whatever mini for whatever other mini I want. But I can't sculpt an Asian pirate-guy holding a clownfish.

We see the completely opposite. I can proxy whatever mini I want for an Asian Pirate guy holding a clownfish, but I can't make and playtest the rules for him.

I find that confusing though - if you have the figure, you can use rules for really any other pirate in the game for him (rules that have been playtested/balanced already). Or you can make your own rules (theorycrafting/homebrew rules/just plain ole wishing stuff was better or worse - seems to be a pretty popular past-time on the forums) as long as it's not for a tournament or something really official. Anybody can do either of those things.

Very few people though have the ability to sculpt a decent mini. That's where the rarity comes in - and IMO is what makes it the content. I'm very unlikely to find anyone else making an acceptable Asian pirate holding a clownfish I can use (Though with Reaper around, God Bless them - I can't say that with 100% certainty).

I love pirates, and skirmish games, and minis, and the idea of a MOBA-style skirmish game is very appealing. But the style and quality of the sculpts is too variable, as is the theme, so I passed on this one. Especially given the uncertainty as to whether the rules will be any good.

 Ian Sturrock wrote:
I love pirates, and skirmish games, and minis, and the idea of a MOBA-style skirmish game is very appealing. But the style and quality of the sculpts is too variable, as is the theme, so I passed on this one. Especially given the uncertainty as to whether the rules will be any good.

The rules are very good. You can view them if you'd like. There's really not any uncertainty as to that because we've got multiple anecdotal accounts and the rules are available for your to peruse.

I really like to wait for a bunch of independent reviews, based on long-term play, before I commit that much to a new game.

 Ian Sturrock wrote:
I really like to wait for a bunch of independent reviews, based on long-term play, before I commit that much to a new game.

Then say that the first time. Don't act like you can't read the rules and playtest the game on your own right now, because you can. We've played the game about 8 times since they released them on the KS page, and the game is incredibly fun and fast.

Let's not kid ourselves: any of those "independent reviews" won't be based on long term gameplay. All of the major boardgame reviewers play the game once or twice before putting up their reviews.

BGG often has reviews that are like "After 10 plays", etc.

I would have probably been convinced if the sculpts themselves had really grabbed me.

Yeah, I'm in a similar spot, where unless the minis are great, I'm pretty wary about not seeing any sort of independent reviews after a few games. I felt pretty burned by a few recently, so it's taking more and more for me to consider just about anything.

 spiralingcadaver wrote:
Yeah, I'm in a similar spot, where unless the minis are great, I'm pretty wary about not seeing any sort of independent reviews after a few games. I felt pretty burned by a few recently, so it's taking more and more for me to consider just about anything.

Out of curiosity, what do you feel burned by?

Schmapdi wrote:
(which, ostensibly is the point of Kickstarter - bringing products to the market).

Ehhhh, you may assume that is the point of kickstarter because a majority of KS in the wargaming arean seem to be by established businesses looking to produce product and then support that product at retail, but I can tell you it is *NOT* the point of Kickstarter to bring products to market. Lots of KS are simply to make a project a reality, have a single run of the product and then be 'done' with no plan or expectation to make more.

And there is never any obligation for for a company to provide support or retail availability post KS. They can literally produce the product then close up shop.

Limited run minis which have no plans for second printing or retail sales happen more than you think on KS. Especially for smaller sculptors who want a product made but don't want to run a company. A single run makes sense, defers costs and wraps stuff up.

 cincydooley wrote:
Out of curiosity, what do you feel burned by?

Not counting ones which were okay but didn't live up to expectations...

I increasingly felt Myth was unprofessionally executed the more I played it, and didn't like their weird overzealous christian thing. The others aren't miniatures-related so aren't so relevant, but suffice to say other games with nice presentation but disappointing content. I might ragequit KS's if Kingdom Death falls into this category, and I'm very wary at this point of anything where I haven't been able to find and thoroughly read reviews of other products by the company at least.

Arena Rex has been the only KS I think I had meet or exceed every expectation right out of the box, and even they have had pretty poor communication and some substantial delays so are far from perfect.