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 tre manor wrote:
I might have made some different design decisions but ultimately I guess I am judging it by the all together wrong rubric.

Well, hopefully the Conan boardgame will increase interest in not-Conan miniatures appealing more to the non-boardgamers. I've been looking for them, and I can only find not-Conan and not-Sonja figures.

Maybe the gentleman at Red Box Games could put out a few not-Belit sculpts...

ced1106 wrote:

 tre manor wrote:
I might have made some different design decisions but ultimately I guess I am judging it by the all together wrong rubric.

Well, hopefully the Conan boardgame will increase interest in not-Conan miniatures appealing more to the non-boardgamers. I've been looking for them, and I can only find not-Conan and not-Sonja figures.

Maybe the gentleman at Red Box Games could put out a few not-Belit sculpts...

Would you be able to recognize Belit with her clothes on?

Yep I have considered producing a " Belit".

Oh snap, croc is involved on this project.

Prestor Jon wrote:

Would you be able to recognize Belit with her clothes on?

Strangly the only Tre-sculpted mini I got around to actually buy before it was discontinued is the topless witch woman, because I had a definite use for her (Druid Wilder proxy)

tre manor wrote:

Ok I will admit that I judge more harshly than others so I will give you that. But what I am seeing here are mold lines. It is my understanding ( which admittedly might be inaccurate ) that mold lines in PVC models are difficult to remove or reduce. I thought that that was a problem for people.

It really depends on the PVC and the way the mold lines are placed. I haven't cleaned my Babylon Dust stuff yet, but older soldier models where okay to clean up, if the new stuff is even better I won't mind the material being used for rank'n'file or boardgame stuff. Now the gloves on the Axis gorillas were a horror to try to clean, finicky details with lots of round surfaces and not a lot of room for tools is not a good thing to attempt with PVC.

My worst experience: The Super Dungeon Explore minis took away my will to live and I spaced working on them over the better part of a year. You cant slice mold lines away without creating a step or a flap of overhangingmaterial, you cant properly file it, scraping is impossible. Urgh. The dragon mouth is stuff of nightmares. I heard the material got slightly etter with the expansions, that's the only thing making me looking forward to my FK stuff without dread.

My third and last PVC batch is some Hordes stuff, with ranges from terrible (Fennblades) to okay-ish (Feral Warpwolf and some other stuff from the two player starter). I don't buy morevof their plastics, though, terrible pricing for the quality you get.

i really think it needs a lot of planning and straight up more experience with the material and every company trying to get satisfying results by simlpy taking their usual sculpts and get made in PVC will fail to deliver a quality product.

Are the Conan sculpts going to look good in PVC? I don't know, because the only Dust figures I've seen the original sculpts of I haven't seen the models in the flesh I have seen the sculpt for a female sniper with slender limbs, though, and I know from online complaints and pics that those tiny appendages turned out horrible in manufacturing). I think your assessement is quite good, though. It doesn't help that the Picts are the only sculpts I really like, so now pledge from me so far.


PS: The Others I'm hoping will turn out in a way that I can throw money at my screen without remorse, though. Good thing they'll run Blood Rage
first, let those backers be guinea pigs

PPS: My first post and largely off topic, but how could I NOT respond to one of my favourite sculptors. Looove your understanding of anatomy. But seriously, there's so much of your stuff I wanted to buy sometime and before I had money/time for it it was gone. Even your newer stuff, the crazy naked guys with big weapons are gone from your site?

Sorry Binabik. PM me with wht you are looking for and and I will see if I have any of it left.

$55 is too high for me for an expansion that doesn't seem to add anything to the core set experience other than 4 more scenarios. It was hoping for a campaign at that price.

My other concern which extends to all of the stretch goals and add-ons, is that as I understand it, each scenario has a set list of miniatures to use. There is no "create your own army" option for each scenario. So that $55 expansion only gets me four more scenarios and the extra pieces don't add anything to the scenarios I already own. Sure, fan made stuff you might say, but I'm not paying $55 on the hope I might like what fans make up. I'm basing the replay value on the game's actual content, not what fans or I might make up for it later. Likewise, Baal Pteor at $10 might be ok if he could be used in every scenario, but $10 for a figure that can only be used in two scenarios has significantly less value as a board game piece.

Even if it was just in a "skirmish mode" like Star Wars: Imperial Assault, there would be a lot more replay value if you had point values for each model and could make your own balanced list of heroes/villains based on the point values to make things fair. Then each new model gives you more options rather than just some variety when you play their specific scenario. You could still have an "official" suggested list to make things as close to the stories as possible, and a point total value for variant replays where an additional layer of strategy comes from picking different models and seeing how they work in each scenario.

I don't want just a list of what minions come with the expansion, I want details on their abilities. What makes a "tower guard" or "honor guard" different from a "guard" or a "javelin thrower" different from an "archer" in the game? The board game angle of the marketing is really low on information. Why don't we get to see their exact stats and abilities for each new stretch goal and add-on if they have been in testing for as long as they claim? Why don't we know exactly how many scenarios have been unlocked so far via Stretch goals in an easy to find place on the front page of the kickstarter? The stretch goal mini's are supposed to have scenarios to use them with, but I haven't seen any official info on how many.

Even if they are posted with a note that these are still being tested and subject to change, it would be better than nothing. I haven't even seen a list of what the exact abilities are of the base and king set models are yet. Rules still aren't posted yet. As a miniature collection I know I will get at least a decent deal with the King pledge, but it's funny that they use simpler poses and one piece sculpts to appeal to board gamers, but the actual board game part of this whole thing has a very small amount of official information on the kickstarter page making it look like they are more focused on selling a miniature collection.

Couldn't you just make up your own rules to play that way ? Not the same I know, but you'll have the stats and the minis, which is the hard part.

You could, but that is very much the domain of an RPG (where you are getting a weighty rule set to facilitate the creation of worlds and scenarios) rather than a boardgame (where you are paying a premium to have everything ready to play out of the box and properly playtested). I suppose the debate is not whether you'll actually be able to *use* all of the Kickstarted extras, it's whether the expansion in particular represents value compared to other boardgame expansions of similar price. Compared to the typical $50 CMON on, I don't think it does.

Of course, right now the pound is just tanking against the dollar (I think 1 dollar = ~70p on Paypal currently) to the extent that I'm delaying paying for shipping on existing projects, so I may be feeling the sting a bit more harshly than the Americans!

Edit: I suppose you can try to bridge the gap, like Warhammer Quest did and Mantic's Dungeon Saga is also promising to do - have tons of scenarios, but also include stats for a massive variety of models and the ability to mechanically generate scenarios rather that hand-craft every element.

We're a bit behind on the stretch goal images...

We've just broken through the vampire Akivasha, so that's another villain unlocked.


Next up is her coffin/sarcophagus


Conan has also been voted most anticipated game of 2015 on BoardGameGeek; though I suspect this has something to do with the poll being advertised in the kickstarter on a regular basis...

BGG's always been plagued by the Cult of the New. KS just emphasises it!

Actually, thanks to the poll, I heard about Mysterium. One player gives the others clues through the art on the cards. If the other players start drawing the wrong conclusions...

Stretch goal stretching happens again. We are at $50k to the next stretch goal, must be running thin on any "extras" now. We started with the goals at a $25k spread and they've slowly crept up to 50k apart.

Think I'm going to go with the king pledge and the basic extras, and most of the add ons except for the expansion and the $25 two figure pack as I just don't see the benefits of those yet. Still have plenty of time to watch and see if they add anything to them or give us a better idea of why they are charging the prices for those.

Stretch goal gaps always increase as the funding and backer numbers go up. It's a natural part of any KS as they have to start fulfilling more and more pledges. I don't see why this is such a big issue with people. We're already getting an amazing deal and any future SG is gravy. They could just NOT give us any more freebies, but they continue to do so, they just have to cover their costs too.

It doesn't mean they're necessarily running thin, just that they 1) have to pace themselves since there's over 3 weeks left of the campaign, and 2) the greater the number of backers, the greater the cost of adding something for all backers past and future. Of course, the added costs of a single plastic model + shipping weight are going to be pretty negligible, but that's the principle.

Zombicide Season 3 had stretch goals all the way until the end, and was a $3 million campaign. The stretches hit $100K gaps at a certain point, and then eventually $300K. Beyond a certain point, it's just what they can get away with to maintain the pace of the campaign and encourage new backers.

Something that Mantic does, and I'd like to see here, is pumping up the value of add-ons with stretch goals. It makes the stretch goals more likely to be bought, and a better prospect at retail as well. And would alleviate some of the pricing concerns as they stand - what if the expansion was a whole linked campaign with monsters, heroes, and lots of new terrain?

Doesn't cost them any more to produce (the tools and production run would have been paid for), and you end up with something almost essential for fans of the game & series, even if they buy it at retail later on.

@alexC, sorry, I'm not trying to say anything bad about the stretch goals, or not getting enough free stuff. Like I said in my posts I haven't followed kickstarters too closely over the last year or so, so not sure of the trends. I understand economies of scale, and how more people jumping in means more outlay for them, it still just seams strange to me how quickly these have adjusted. Of course that could be due to how fast the kickstarter is going, still 3 weeks to go

 TwilightSparkles wrote:
Couldn't you just make up your own rules to play that way ? Not the same I know, but you'll have the stats and the minis, which is the hard part.

I don't want to buy a $55 expansion and feel like I am having to count on fan made content to get more than 4 scenarios out of it.

I'm just surprised there isn't more focus on the actual game play of this expansion. We have a very basic plot summary of assassinate the wizard, and get captured and try to escape the burning tower.

We have no details on what any of the miniatures do. What makes an honor guard different from a regular guard, or a javelin thrower different from an archer? When we are told these have been in development for a long time, but the lack of details on game play is a bit worrying. There is a new rules video up that I will watch later. I thought Myth looked really cool in their sample play videos and explanations too, but the initial rule book was a disaster and they weren't translating from another language.

$55 might be a fair retail cost for the material components included, but if it only gives me 4 scenarios (2 of which will be from the website), that's a terrible cost per scenario. If there are official rules for making balanced substitutions of these and other figures into other scenarios then I would feel a bit better about the value. I'm not giving any value to fan made content unless there are official rules for creating that content in a balanced manner. Making something up is easy, making something balanced for both heroes and villains requires play testing. Less important in an RPG game, but Conan advertises itself as a game where both the good and evil sides are strategically balanced as a competitive game.

Value wise, compare the Conan expansion to Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) – Labyrinth of Ruin @ $59.99 retail ($41.49 online retailer price). It includes:

•A 48-Page Rulebook and Quest Guide
•17 detailed plastic miniatures and 2 custom dice
•119 Cards and 4 Hero Sheets
•18 Map Tiles
•91 Tokens
Included is a campaign with 19 quests. A new ally mechanics, where depending on which way you go, you pick up a healer or thief ally with mechanics for the overlord to try and win that ally over to their side. Four new heroes, new classes for the heroes, and it's compatible with their "quest vault" where players can create new quests and upload them for others on the FFG website. You also get new monsters, new treasure and a new dice that has more surges on it that goes with the new content.

The Conan expansion has:
4 scenarios (2 of which you have to get from the website later)
21 figures
1 big game board
1 small game board
15 equipment & spell cards
New stealth mechanics for at least one of these scenarios. New Fire mechanic for at least one of the scenarios.

There just seems to be a lot more actual game play in what Descent's expansion is offering and that is more in line with what I would expect at that price point (and the Descent is $13.51 cheaper from online retailers and would be shipped within a week). As a miniature collection, we don't have any pictures of the expansion's sculpts yet to make any descisions. The Barbarian and King pledge plus stretch goals is still a good deal though.

Ohh Akivasha - thats cool and tempting

I am thinking about backing at $90 Barbarian level. It seems that Barbarian gives plenty of stuff via the Stretch Goals, enough to play for a very long time.

The $135 King level basically adds a big expansion worth of stuff, including Thog, which is pretty cool. But is Thog & dice worth the extra $45?

And once we start down that road, don't we get the +$55 add-on expansion, too?

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I am thinking about backing at $90 Barbarian level. It seems that Barbarian gives plenty of stuff via the Stretch Goals, enough to play for a very long time.

The $135 King level basically adds a big expansion worth of stuff, including Thog, which is pretty cool. But is Thog & dice worth the extra $45?

And once we start down that road, don't we get the +$55 add-on expansion, too?

I'm thinking about it, but you also have to keep in mind that it is really that $105 Barbarian and $150 King ($15 Shipping for US).

I just don't know that it is worth that much to me.

 pretre wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I am thinking about backing at $90 Barbarian level. It seems that Barbarian gives plenty of stuff via the Stretch Goals, enough to play for a very long time.

The $135 King level basically adds a big expansion worth of stuff, including Thog, which is pretty cool. But is Thog & dice worth the extra $45?

And once we start down that road, don't we get the +$55 add-on expansion, too?

I'm thinking about it, but you also have to keep in mind that it is really that $105 Barbarian and $150 King ($15 Shipping for US).

I just don't know that it is worth that much to me.

$15 was the minimum for shipping iirc. Probably a tad higher with what you get now.

That's even worse. :(

And we don't find out until after the project ends and they have our money.

I'm backing it, but I hate this method.

So with all the unlocks, we might be looking at $90 pledge + $20-25 in shipping? So $110-115? That's less attractive than $90 flat.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
So with all the unlocks, we might be looking at $90 pledge + $20-25 in shipping? So $110-115? That's less attractive than $90 flat.

Maybe.

Maybe it will stay at $15.

We just don't know.

OK, thanks.

Have there been other kickstarters with "pay after you pledge" shipping lately? We have any idea what they ended up paying so we might can make a comparison?

Pay for shipping after campaign end is actually a reasonable thing to do because shipping rates can go up before you wind up fulfilling.

You can also offer 'free' shipping and build it into the pledge, or just eat any losses if rates go up. But I think Monolith is operating on some pretty tight margins here. One concern might be that they try to make any miscalculations by gouging on shipping rates.

Not to say that they will do that, but one simply doesn't know.

Lots of KS handle post-campaign shipping based on country.

The newer CMoN KS do this, along with Soda Pop, etc. Basically, it helps separate shipping costs from production costs, reducing cross-subsidy. It's a lot fairer, because each backer basically pays their own way.

The downside is that it slightly reduces international backing of US-based projects, because they need to consider that outbound US shipping has become super expensive due to increased fees.

But even with that there are KS that have made arrangements with different distribution hubs worldwide which have reduced the shipping fees for many, and even manage to get around some of the import fees associated with big boxes coming from abroad.

Sure, but finding a reputable company to handle distribution is a challenge of sorts. There are lots of distributors, and ALL of them claim to be honest, efficient, and good. ALL of them say they can handle your distribution, no problem. No extra fees, blah blah blah.

And then you sign a contract with them, ship six figures worth of stuff to them...

Sorting through the BS and vetting them takes time, isn't easy.