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Just copypasta it here, Timmy.

 Azazelx wrote:


Having written up everything I have now done above, I'd honestly skip the fantasy stuff entirely for the time being

I hope this is not the case being only in it for the fantasy stuff, and the return of most of their backers from the first one who backed a fantasy only campaign... I am sure they would still get the money they need but it would leave all of their fantasy backers out to dry...

They already have two fantasy armies, so a third one whose bits (weapon arms) are compatible with their previous fantasy army could be quite an asset.

"@Shieldwolf, Im glad everyone is ok bar the evil man-flu.

It certainly sucks that you most likey have been a target of "fake news" IP infringement letter, its certainly odd that your replies bounce back and cant be sent to sender!

I have been waiting on the reply of cancellation before posting anything about the campaign in case there was some serious health issues, your not going to like this but i hope you take it constructively!
Like you say in your update the Warmadians have been on the bill for some time( 2015/16), even this campaign has them listed as the title and even listed 1st as does your contract(as commented by you) but where are they?, quite a few previous backers also wondered where they were!

The Feb update on the Shieldmadian re-launch KS asked us to vote on what Dragonbreed will would like to follow the Warmaidens, you listed the wolves and paladins and asked us to choose, which we did and the wolves won hands down as it was more thematic, however in the update comments, campaign comments section and some forums a few of us had desires to convert the paladins into Sisters of Battle and the seed for sci-fi was planted and next update you stated you are looking at taking on a sci-fi expert and rushed to get into the sci-fi market, admittedly you done quite well in 6ish months to get some cool sculpts and concepts together but they are far from perfect, square elbow pads, boxed gun grips(what was you thinking!?) static poses, oversized guns, the tanks are pretty cool i couldnt really fault them!

Once you decided to do sci-fi you should have had another vote as basing peoples sci-fi "want haves" on peoples fantasy "what haves" was stupid as the paladins would have won hands down with a sci-fi vote!, people are calling out for Sisters of Battle in plastic and will more than likely pick up a bunch of cool proxies especially in plastic, im my opinion the wolves wouldnt have sold half as much and i think the wolves vehicles would have sold better than their minis counterparts.

Which brings me on to the actual sci-fi minis, apart from what i already listed you need to drop the duel use of fantasy and sci-fi leg/bodies as they will not sell that good especially if another company or GW release multi-pose not/Sisters of Battle, no sci-fi sprue i know uses a "rank and file" static front facing legs and body, (if there are please point me in their direction) they need some dynamic poses like running, knelling, walking etc and have the bodies separately so they can be angled with arms for carrying a weapon 2-handed etc.

Some of the pledge levels were all over the place as it was pointed out a few times during the campaign and it seemed to flavour the sci-fi crowd, even the whole campaign seemed aimed at the sci-fi crowd, leaving us fantasy guys a bit left out, i said when you announced the duel campaign of sci-fi and fantasy it wouldnt be a good idea as you had to try and keep both "camps" happy and you, i and your 1st KS backers know how hard it was to have 4 or 5 faction at once and keep everyone happy, it also stops us regular Shieldwolf supporters giving you our usual amounts of cash, ie i spend @$200 in the campaign and @$200 in the PM so if you have separate campaigns for the themes you will get more money out of me/us and vice versa as we would be getting a good deal in return, personally i dont spend much at retail as i do a lot of spending on here, i like to help creators and get a good/better deal than you get in the shops, i love a good bargain!

Having the preview page up a couple of weeks before launching would have been a great idea as we could have pointed out a lot of the things that were wrong with this campaign but for some reason even with a few of us asking for it you put it up late one night about 12-18hrs before launch and i bet no constructive criticism was given unlike on the preview for the last successful campaign you did, why did it go up so late and was there any comments on it?

Am i dissapointed in how this turned out!? yes, will i return!? more than likely as i want my Grand yetttiiii! i hope you seriously rethink your sci-fi plan as the problems listed were big enough for many people to comment about and get the campaign closed, remember your fantasy specialist and only just jumped on the sci-fi bandwagan, dont make rookie mistakes."

"I personally think they should keep sci-fi and fantasy separate and run campaigns for each of them at say 6 month intervals, no more than 1 of each themed KS running at a time so hopefully it doesnt effect each other. but can @Shieldwolf handle that sort of workload!?, it would certainly help get their factions out, if they carry on as is, its going to be 2020+ before they can flesh all their factions out!"

 Smokestack wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:

Having written up everything I have now done above, I'd honestly skip the fantasy stuff entirely for the time being

I hope this is not the case being only in it for the fantasy stuff, and the return of most of their backers from the first one who backed a fantasy only campaign... I am sure they would still get the money they need but it would leave all of their fantasy backers out to dry...

As I've said, I'd personally happily back all four of the initially announced figures, but it's essentially it comes down to business decisions versus "vanity project" ones. As Bob said, they already have two Fantasy armies (plus the stuff in resin) and SW going all-in on sci-fi for one single KS campaign isn't exactly the overly-dramatic "leaving all their fantasy backers out to dry". I'm sure you don't believe that they would not return to Fantasy.

My key point here is that a focused campaign is better than a scattershot one. I'd rather see a sci-fi focused campaign, followed by a fantasy-focused campaign rather than half-and-half each time, which then splits the backers' funds for those people who aren't willing or able to simply double their pledges for multiple factions, and also gets people backing the specific thing more stretch goals - which keeps the wave moving along - instead of "well, the next stretch goal doesn't do anything at all for me" indifference for those who back for one as opposed to the other. I mean, as a fantasy-only guy, would you give two gaks about a stretch goal that adds jump packs to the sci-fi sisters? Of course, not, it's merely something in the way of ...heavy flails or whatever.

 Original Timmy wrote:

Like you say in your update the Warmadians have been on the bill for some time( 2015/16), even this campaign has them listed as the title and even listed 1st as does your contract(as commented by you) but where are they?, quite a few previous backers also wondered where they were!

I did wonder about that myself, but (believe it or not!) I was trying to avoid critiquing every little thing in this campaign, and only comment on the most egregious issues. Let's be honest, there were a lot of those.

The Feb update on the Shieldmadian re-launch KS asked us to vote on what Dragonbreed will would like to follow the Warmaidens, you listed the wolves and paladins and asked us to choose, which we did and the wolves won hands down as it was more thematic, however in the update comments, campaign comments section and some forums a few of us had desires to convert the paladins into Sisters of Battle and the seed for sci-fi was planted and next update you stated you are looking at taking on a sci-fi expert and rushed to get into the sci-fi market, admittedly you done quite well in 6ish months to get some cool sculpts and concepts together but they are far from perfect, square elbow pads, boxed gun grips(what was you thinking!?) static poses, oversized guns, the tanks are pretty cool i couldnt really fault them!

To be blunt, my opinion is that the tanks are TOO "chibi". You know how the sisters' guns were oversized? (and the shieldmaidens before them - particularly the resins?) They did that with the tanks as well (and the turrets, and even the chassis). Put a render side by side with a photo of a predator and it just takes the thing too far to "chibi-style" proportions when a better option would be to ape the other company's proportions more closely, or if they have to be tweaked (feels like lawyer advice to me), to tweak them just slightly more towards "realistic" than "super-deformed cartoon".

Once you decided to do sci-fi you should have had another vote as basing peoples sci-fi "want haves" on peoples fantasy "what haves" was stupid as the paladins would have won hands down with a sci-fi vote!, people are calling out for Sisters of Battle in plastic and will more than likely pick up a bunch of cool proxies especially in plastic, im my opinion the wolves wouldnt have sold half as much and i think the wolves vehicles would have sold better than their minis counterparts.

Agreed on both counts, since the wolf vehicles could slot right into an existing SW army. Hoenstly, the overly neat, circular wolf pelt tabards, etc, bother(ed) me a great deal. Too neat and rounded as they were just looks wrong to my eye.

Which brings me on to the actual sci-fi minis, apart from what i already listed you need to drop the duel use of fantasy and sci-fi leg/bodies as they will not sell that good especially if another company or GW release multi-pose not/Sisters of Battle, no sci-fi sprue i know uses a "rank and file" static front facing legs and body, (if there are please point me in their direction) they need some dynamic poses like running, knelling, walking etc and have the bodies separately so they can be angled with arms for carrying a weapon 2-handed etc.

Agreed again. As nice as they are - what's one criticism of the Shieldmaidens that keeps coming up? Yep. Overly-static posing. It's that WHFB "Rank 'em up." aesthetic. But newer games and figures don't feel a need to stay strictly tied to only having a "standing around" pose. (with hair blowing wildly in a dozen different directions!) They don't have to have the same amount of motion as Witch Elves, but something like the AoS Khorne guys would be a good compromise for fantasy models. Even the old marauders had that nice variety. As you say, the sci-fi stuff needs more motion than the WHFB-inspired fantasy, ideally with separate torsos and legs. My best advice would be to basically buy a box of Sisters of Silence and ape those posing options. You can't copyright a stance.

Some of the pledge levels were all over the place as it was pointed out a few times during the campaign and it seemed to flavour the sci-fi crowd, even the whole campaign seemed aimed at the sci-fi crowd, leaving us fantasy guys a bit left out,

Funny. I felt the opposite way. I thought the sci-fi pledge offerings were (frankly) a bit rubbish with the 10-woman boxes, which was off-putting from the word go.

i said when you announced the duel campaign of sci-fi and fantasy it wouldnt be a good idea as you had to try and keep both "camps" happy and you, i and your 1st KS backers know how hard it was to have 4 or 5 faction at once and keep everyone happy, it also stops us regular Shieldwolf supporters giving you our usual amounts of cash, ie i spend @$200 in the campaign and @$200 in the PM so if you have separate campaigns for the themes you will get more money out of me/us and vice versa as we would be getting a good deal in return, personally i dont spend much at retail as i do a lot of spending on here, i like to help creators and get a good/better deal than you get in the shops, i love a good bargain!

You're right on the money with keeping both camps happy, and I think that's again a real danger with going for both sci-fi and fantasy paladins. Seeing the plans for 7...
I also agree that separate campaigns will get more money out of backers than combined ones. People have limits. Though for me, honestly, I've soured on kickstarter a great deal now, and so I'm much more careful with what I back. The sci-fi just offered poor value compared to what I could buy essentially today, at retail, with my money.

Since September 19th, when I found out about this campaign and put $50 down, I've bought Mortarion, 2x Deathshroud Terminators, 2x Blightlord Terminators, Admech Modex, Admech Datacards, AM(Guard) Codex, 2x AM(Guard) Datacards, Death Guard Codex, Death Guard Datacards, Primaris Reavers, AoS Firestorm campaign box, Frenzied Goretribe, 2x Blood Angels Orbital Intevention Force, 2x Stormboyz and a Start Collecting Orks box. Plus some paints and a bunch of PS4/XBox one games. And a FW order just before the 19th.

Now I want to support Shieldwolf, and I know my spending patterns are ...unusual (a bit of OCD to be sure), but to offer 10 plastic sci-fi sisters with blocks for hands, oversized guns, oversized backpacks... to be delivered in a year's time (or more, because KS delays). Well, that's just not going to compete well for my money. Because that's what it is. Shieldwolf isn't a charity. I like them and want to support them, but they (or any KS creator) aren't charities. They're businesses. When I want to give to charity, I send the local animal shelter some money (and I do - and then I have to ask them to stop spamming me for more!)
KS is a two-way street, and as I keep saying, I don't expect CMON-style freebies, but come on. Don't fething insult me with 10-figure boxes of sci-fi right next to 20-figure boxes of fantasy for the same price... because as a consumer, I do find that insulting. Not personally insulting, but an insulting expectation to back that.

So the existing campaign only got $50 from me, and I happily spent hundreds and hundreds on gak that I can buy and have delivered and use right now.

Having the preview page up a couple of weeks before launching would have been a great idea as we could have pointed out a lot of the things that were wrong with this campaign but for some reason even with a few of us asking for it you put it up late one night about 12-18hrs before launch and i bet no constructive criticism was given unlike on the preview for the last successful campaign you did, why did it go up so late and was there any comments on it?

Absolutely correct. I can't reiterate this enough. Preview it properly or not at all. Don't half-arse it.

Am i dissapointed in how this turned out!? yes, will i return!? more than likely as i want my Grand yetttiiii! i hope you seriously rethink your sci-fi plan as the problems listed were big enough for many people to comment about and get the campaign closed, remember your fantasy specialist and only just jumped on the sci-fi bandwagan, dont make rookie mistakes."

I'll (probably) continue to back each of Shieldwolf's campaigns - both fantasy and sci-fi - but they have to be for something I want with a reasonable pricing/value, and set up intelligently and logically. Honestly, if I didn't like the guys there to the extent that I do, I'd have walked away long ago and stopped giving a gak or posting in their threads. That's how I've felt about Mantic for some time, and I've pretty much gotten there with RH as well after their second figure-only KS.

"I personally think they should keep sci-fi and fantasy separate and run campaigns for each of them at say 6 month intervals, no more than 1 of each themed KS running at a time so hopefully it doesnt effect each other. but can @Shieldwolf handle that sort of workload!?, it would certainly help get their factions out, if they carry on as is, its going to be 2020+ before they can flesh all their factions out!"

I agree on keeping them separate, but 6-month intervals is too fast. I'm also not sure how many of the fantasy female kits are supposed to be distinct armies as opposed to different units within one army, so I could see fantasy campaigns covering hopefully 2 kits at a time (or more, but realistic expectations). The single most successful campaign that SW can do right now though, would be SoB-proxies. Both on the front-end and in getting new people on board to hopefully grow "the 400" in follow-up campaigns - which then potentially benefits subsequent fantasy campaigns as well.

edit - speelings

Azazelx wrote:

Spoiler:

The Feb update on the Shieldmadian re-launch KS asked us to vote on what Dragonbreed will would like to follow the Warmaidens, you listed the wolves and paladins and asked us to choose, which we did and the wolves won hands down as it was more thematic, however in the update comments, campaign comments section and some forums a few of us had desires to convert the paladins into Sisters of Battle and the seed for sci-fi was planted and next update you stated you are looking at taking on a sci-fi expert and rushed to get into the sci-fi market, admittedly you done quite well in 6ish months to get some cool sculpts and concepts together but they are far from perfect, square elbow pads, boxed gun grips(what was you thinking!?) static poses, oversized guns, the tanks are pretty cool i couldnt really fault them!

1) To be blunt, my opinion is that the tanks are TOO "chibi". You know how the sisters' guns were oversized? (and the shieldmaidens before them - particularly the resins?) They did that with the tanks as well (and the turrets, and even the chassis). Put a render side by side with a photo of a predator and it just takes the thing too far to "chibi-style" proportions when a better option would be to ape the other company's proportions more closely, or if they have to be tweaked (feels like lawyer advice to me), to tweak them just slightly more towards "realistic" than "super-deformed cartoon".

Once you decided to do sci-fi you should have had another vote as basing peoples sci-fi "want haves" on peoples fantasy "what haves" was stupid as the paladins would have won hands down with a sci-fi vote!, people are calling out for Sisters of Battle in plastic and will more than likely pick up a bunch of cool proxies especially in plastic, im my opinion the wolves wouldnt have sold half as much and i think the wolves vehicles would have sold better than their minis counterparts.

2) Hoenstly, the overly neat, circular wolf pelt tabards, etc, bother(ed) me a great deal. Too neat and rounded as they were just looks wrong to my eye.

Which brings me on to the actual sci-fi minis, apart from what i already listed you need to drop the duel use of fantasy and sci-fi leg/bodies as they will not sell that good especially if another company or GW release multi-pose not/Sisters of Battle, no sci-fi sprue i know uses a "rank and file" static front facing legs and body, (if there are please point me in their direction) they need some dynamic poses like running, knelling, walking etc and have the bodies separately so they can be angled with arms for carrying a weapon 2-handed etc.

3) Agreed again. As nice as they are - what's one criticism of the Shieldmaidens that keeps coming up? Yep. Overly-static posing. It's that WHFB "Rank 'em up." aesthetic. But newer games and figures don't feel a need to stay strictly tied to only having a "standing around" pose. (with hair blowing wildly in a dozen different directions!).

Some of the pledge levels were all over the place as it was pointed out a few times during the campaign and it seemed to flavour the sci-fi crowd, even the whole campaign seemed aimed at the sci-fi crowd, leaving us fantasy guys a bit left out,

4) Funny. I felt the opposite way. I thought the sci-fi pledge offerings were (frankly) a bit rubbish with the 10-woman boxes, which was off-putting from the word go.

i said when you announced the duel campaign of sci-fi and fantasy it wouldnt be a good idea as you had to try and keep both "camps" happy and you, i and your 1st KS backers know how hard it was to have 4 or 5 faction at once and keep everyone happy, it also stops us regular Shieldwolf supporters giving you our usual amounts of cash, ie i spend @$200 in the campaign and @$200 in the PM so if you have separate campaigns for the themes you will get more money out of me/us and vice versa as we would be getting a good deal in return, personally i dont spend much at retail as i do a lot of spending on here, i like to help creators and get a good/better deal than you get in the shops, i love a good bargain!

4a) You're right on the money with keeping both camps happy, and I think that's again a real danger with going for both sci-fi and fantasy paladins. Seeing the plans for 7...
I also agree that separate campaigns will get more money out of backers than combined ones. People have limits. Though for me, honestly, I've soured on kickstarter a great deal now, and so I'm much more careful with what I back. The sci-fi just offered poor value compared to what I could buy essentially today, at retail, with my money.

5) Since September 19th, when I found out about this campaign and put $50 down, I've bought Mortarion, 2x Deathshroud Terminators, 2x Blightlord Terminators, Admech Modex, Admech Datacards, AM(Guard) Codex, 2x AM(Guard) Datacards, Death Guard Codex, Death Guard Datacards, Primaris Reavers, AoS Firestorm campaign box, 2x Blood Angels Orbital Intevention Force, 2x Stormboyz and a Start Collecting Orks box. Plus some paints and a bunch of PS4/XBox one games. And a FW order just before the 19th.

4b) Now I want to support Shieldwolf, and I know my spending patterns are ...unusual (a bit of OCD to be sure), but to offer 10 plastic sci-fi sisters with blocks for hands, oversized guns, oversized backpacks... to be delivered in a year's time (or more, because KS delays). Well, that's just not going to compete well for my money. Because that's what it is. Shieldwolf isn't a charity. I like them and want to support them, but they (or any KS creator) aren't charities. They're businesses. When I want to give to charity, I send the local animal shelter some money (and I do - and then I have to ask them to stop spamming me for more!)
KS is a two-way street, and as I keep saying, I don't expect CMON-style freebies, but come on. Don't fething insult me with 10-figure boxes of sci-fi right next to 20-figure boxes of fantasy for the same price... because as a consumer, I do find that insulting. Not personally insulting, but an insulting expectation to back that.

So the existing campaign only got $50 from me, and I happily spent hundreds and hundreds on gak that I can buy and have delivered and use right now.

Having the preview page up a couple of weeks before launching would have been a great idea as we could have pointed out a lot of the things that were wrong with this campaign but for some reason even with a few of us asking for it you put it up late one night about 12-18hrs before launch and i bet no constructive criticism was given unlike on the preview for the last successful campaign you did, why did it go up so late and was there any comments on it?

6) Absolutely correct. I can't reiterate this enough. Preview it properly or not at all. Don't half-arse it.

"I personally think they should keep sci-fi and fantasy separate and run campaigns for each of them at say 6 month intervals, no more than 1 of each themed KS running at a time so hopefully it doesnt effect each other. but can @Shieldwolf handle that sort of workload!?, it would certainly help get their factions out, if they carry on as is, its going to be 2020+ before they can flesh all their factions out!"

7) I agree on keeping them separate, but 6-month intervals is too fast. I'm also not sure how many of the fantasy female kits are supposed to be distinct armies as opposed to different units within one army, so I could see fantasy campaigns covering hopefully 2 kits at a time (or more, but realistic expectations). The single most successful campaign that SW can do right now though, would be SoB-proxies. Both on the front-end and in getting new people on board to hopefully grow "the 400" in follow-up campaigns - which then potentially benefits subsequent fantasy campaigns as well.

edit - speelings

God knows how you split the quotes up lol, so i numbered them,

1 )Yes i remember reading your post about that and nearly commented at the time, imo they dont look "chibi" not for me anyway, the tanks had too many "edges", they would have to be very "rounded" for them them to be "chibi", the wolf pelts etc were all removable which was the only thing i wasnt sold on, yes it would be good to try and get some side-by-side comparisons somehow, maybe some one who is good at "photo shopping" stuff could sort it out, just need the GW tanks on a measurement cutting pad.

Yes the money is on the sci-fi paladins for sure, it may "upset" a few of us fantasy backers who looked forward to advancing with the next fantasy theme to flesh out our Shielmaiden army, but they are a business and would be mad to not go for the "big seller", just a shame it was all "cock-eyed" this time around and like you say they could gain some new blood that could then spill over to their next KS project.

2) Yeah i didnt like them they reminded me of floor rugs, but the resin ones were ok and actually had a fur effect on the edges unlike the plastic ones which looked stitched around the edge! i hope it gets looked at like the gun grips.

3) "rank & file" is ok to a certain degree for fantasy and it is what Shieldwolf wants for their game "War is Coming" as it is a mass battle game, but even some "movement" to the poses would be most welcome, but mass battle games are dying off(apart from the historic games) and turning into skirmish games and personally i think Shieldwolf should make their minis a lot more "dynamic" as it will attract that crowd more, like i mentioned how long until Shieldwolf has the armies ready to release their rules, fantasy mass battle could unfortunately be dead and buried by then!

4) Il explain that a bit more, yeah it wasnt a good idea to split the box to 10 and not put the funding $5K higher to start with 20 all round, none of us would have been any the wiser and it would have been fair from the offset, that way the 1st SG wouldnt get "wasted" when it could have unlocked some cool sci-fi item, the value of items in the $200 pledge was pretty good and i think the sci-fi pledge saved a bit more, but who needs 100 static posed sci-fi girls,

I was in for $200 and was struggling to find what pledge/pledges/pledge + add-ons i wanted and was prob looking at doing some troop swaps with my mates to get rid of some of the 100 if i took the top pledge, i was going to let the campaign run and see what was unlocked and suggest a new pledge with less minis or a mix of minis etc, there was others enquiring too.

Keeping sci-fi and fantasy separate should be top priority as there are too many people to keep happy all at once, as for paying now and getting a year later i have no problem as long as what im waiting on is worth it and obviously turns up, i think of it as a type of "pre-order"(no not the shop type many backers think KS is)

5) Boy thats a fair bit of plastic!

6) Too true, i think it was one of the biggest mistakes Shieldwolf did, apparently a couple of backers commented on it and im not sure if they published the preview on FaceBook, personally i think at least 2 weeks before launching they should publish previews.

7) I just used 6 months as an example maybe 9 but that would be for them to figure out as we dont know their workloads etc, imo it would be Shieldwolfs best bet at getting their ranges out in retail sooner than later, but i imagine it will be a lot of work running 2 campaigns at a time and without sounding nasty can they handle it?

The Shieldmaiden army consists of multiple factions, im sure Shieldwolf will correct me if i got it wrong or missed out someone, the 'Maidens(standard troops), Warmaidens(berserker), Dragonbreed(heavies/mercs) consisting of Wolf Sisters, Sisters of Tallareum and the warriors from the east that havent been revealed yet, all those factions have monsters and other various things associated to them, the male barbarian tribe is also listed under them, that is only 1 faction and there are another 8 listed on their site, they also have elf renders kicking around too! their rulebook only has 4 factions listed in it the Orcs, Krumvaal Northern Alliance, Talliareum Ogres and the Kingdom of Talliareum (Human), so there is a ton of stuff Shieldwolf want to do.

Im very interested in Shieldwolfs response/s to all the comments on here and the KS that us backers have posted, but it might be next week as it sounds the "man-flu" has set in hard!

 Azazelx wrote:

 Smokestack wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:

Having written up everything I have now done above, I'd honestly skip the fantasy stuff entirely for the time being

I hope this is not the case being only in it for the fantasy stuff, and the return of most of their backers from the first one who backed a fantasy only campaign... I am sure they would still get the money they need but it would leave all of their fantasy backers out to dry...

As I've said, I'd personally happily back all four of the initially announced figures, but it's essentially it comes down to business decisions versus "vanity project" ones. As Bob said, they already have two Fantasy armies (plus the stuff in resin) and SW going all-in on sci-fi for one single KS campaign isn't exactly the overly-dramatic "leaving all their fantasy backers out to dry". I'm sure you don't believe that they would not return to Fantasy.

I do tend to be dramatic... but Shieldwolf's business model is kickstarter. So a focused scif only campaign would run 1 month then have a year before it delivers. Then if they go back to fantasy at that point (which is not a guarantee if the scifi exploded in popularity) would run a month and then have another year for delivery...So at best the fantasy people would have to wait 2-2.5 years before they got anything new to expand there interests. 2.5 years is not a small amount of time... But as you said from a success for Shieldwolf standpoint that is not so much a concern for them...

I agree with What Original Timmy said though, if they did a KS every 6 months or so, and shifted between Scifi and Fantasy, that would work... fully knowing that the fantasy would have a lower funding expectation...

Please don't quote large unbroken blocks of text (I've added some spoiler tags above) and even the broken up quotes are getting a little excessive guys . If it's clear what you're replying to, try not to quote all of it, just the relevant parts. It makes the thread easier for everyone else to read.

Thanks all, any questions just PM me!

Hey Azazel and Timmy we've been chatting over in the KS comments section so I figured I would join you guys here to continue the discussion. So that you recall my posts, I was writing under the name "David Harrison" on the KS page. As a refresher, this campaign was my first time on KS, and I came into it from the 40K world.

Azazel, you're comment that SW was essentially looking for a grand slam with this campaign, when what an early stage comapny needs to focus on is racking up consecutive singles and doubles before swinging for the fences, is especially on point, and deserves to be highlighted again and again.

You both bring up very valid down-side risks of running a dual fantasy/scifi campaign. However, at least from my own subjective experience, I think one potentially upside is the possibility of crossover sales from the scifi crowd into the fantasy range. Personally, I came into the campaign looking to back the SoF faction, but, because I liked the overall aesthetic of the models so much, by the end of the campaign I ended up deciding that I would also back for SoT troop, and simply planned to re-base them and pretend they were close combat troops wielding energy weapons.

After deciding on that, I happened to be poking around SW's website when I found the lion-riders, which in my opinion, are one of the coolest and original miniatures I've ever seen. If they make an appearance in the new campaign as cavalry for the troops, then I'm probably going to pick up two squads of the four riders. At that point, I'd have something starting to look like a Talliareum army, which would probably need some orcs, or skeletons, or shield-maidens as baddies. Any of said baddies would be bought at a later date at retail from SW's sight. Perhaps I'm an exceptional case, but it's highly unlikely that I am strictly unique. Therefore, as far as organically growing "the 400", I think the process I've articulated might be a viable and realistic model. In the same way that 40K is driven by its iconic factions, the SMs, SW could use this opportunity to refine their designs and make the paladins into their iconic faction. Because this market niche is currently empty, it seems like a wide open opportunity to me. This does have some risks, but if the paladins don't end up being embraced as the core faction by community it's easy to simply bring forward a new faction to carry the banner. Ultimately what I am saying is that, done properly, an entire game system's worth of factions, can be built around a single "heroic" faction.

Having said all that a dual campaign would need to be run very precisely to achieve this synergy. I truly believe that one vital aspect to accomplishing this is some form of lore, or links to it, on the main campaign page. Basically the backer walked in the door for the SoF, and while he's there the campaign should persuade him to look at the SoT as well. As quickly as possible, the backer should be able to know the backstory of the Kingdom of Talliareum, what dragonbreds are, and when he should care about those sword-wielding, cape-wearing nuns from the middle ages. Perhaps the easiest way to accomplish this would be to simply brand all of the minis as Sisters of Faith, and explicitly state that they represent the same religious order from different ages of the same fictional world. This would also have the added benefit of providing a robust, legal defense should any IP infringement lawsuits arise. The kingdom of Talliareum is SW's original IP, and any order which serves that Kingdom would be original IP as well. The final benefit I see is that it would create a unique market niche for SW in the scifi space, namely their own in-house created fictional world, instead of being just one more proxy model company.

I think some of the risks of a dual campaign can be mitigated by ensuring that the SGs, especially the early ones, apply equally to both fantasy and scfi. Some ideas are additional head models, helmeted heads, shields/power-shields, jetbacks/more orante capes, additional religious iconography, more posing variations, additional melee weapons that fit both armies, etc. At higher levels the unlocks could give a model to both faction, e.g. an SG unlocks a new vehicle and a new monster. This wasn't possible in the previous campaign because of the sheer number of factions, seven, that were involved, but I could picture it working with only two factions. That being said, as many have pointed out, the base campaign needs to be viable on its own once it is funded. We cannot have a situation where $40K comes in to fund the paladin campaign, and SW decides to cancel because the backing didn't live up to their expectations. Backers will probably be forgiving of the last campaign's considering Angelos's explanation, but I doubt they would come back a third time around.

As an aside, regarding the SoBs, I think, given the concept work for the SoF, SW's take is superior to the original. Unless GW were to radically alter the aesthetic of the SOBs, and not merely update the models, I am confident in saying that I would prefer the SoF to the official kit. The SoBs seem off in that they lack the ornate, domineering look of an order of religious warriors. This look is something I definitely see in the SoF, and should there be any new official kits from GW, might help them stand out as a strong alternative.

Lastly, I hope that SW does give us time to preview the next campaign before it begins. There really were some day one errors that may have caused the campaign to lose potential backers, and I really do think we could help SW avoid that the next time around.

Sorry about the late reply, djh. I got sick(er), and then went back to work sick. Now I'm just tired.

Yeah, I really don't know why they keep cancelling campaigns that have hit their finding targets. It's really not a professional look, and it turns backers off on one hand, and even sours their supporters. They need to set up campaigns that they'll be happy with if they fund at the actual target, with all backer reward options that are reasonable at that target and don't reply on doubling the target to make them worthwhile. And yeah, trying to fund seven armies worth of HIPS kits at once is just crazytown for a company the size, and with the limited following that Shieldwolf has at this time.

I also think that they need to focus more on one or the other of fantasy or sci-fi. As I've said, I'd happily buy all four of their shown concepts (provided value and tweaks were made) but it's not about me, or even you. It's about the masses outside of the 400, and going for the biggest and best target of the time. We all know that target, right now at least is Sisters. That way they grow their backer base and don't do the whole thing where they split their stretch goal rewards across two disparate lines (assuming they want to use stretch goals and unlocks to increase the overall total). Focus is what's needed. Get the sisters funded, that gets more people on board, then add heavy weapons/assaulters with jet packs, heroes, vehicles, etc and instead of 1 kit each for 7 disparate lines/armies, they might get 3, 4 or 5 focused kits that actually creates a complete product line.
One that's in demand yet unavailable.

As Shieldwolf grows, they'll also need to start replying more on the "current" stuff on offer to provide the value. With 400 backers it's no huge deal to offer the Orcs again, but at some point they begin to devalue their existing product lines. To use yourself as the example here, you're hoping that the lions will be offered at a discount in the next campaign, rather that just buying them now. I'm not having a go at you, just pointing out how offering all that's gone before in the pursuit of a bigger total now starts to devalue the existing product after awhile. I know that for all of the money I've spent on Mantic Kickstarters in the past, I think of their models (particularly the restic) as literally without any monetary value. Like, I recently bought Mortarion, and 2 boxes each of Blightlord and Deathshroud Terminators. While I got them at a discount, there's no denying that they're expensive as feth. Would I pay even a fraction of that for Mantic's models? As they say: No chance in hell. There's a time to leverage all the existing assets, and a time to tone that sort of thing down. I'm not really sure where Shieldwolf is in that equation yet, but as they grow, offering everything they've done in the past at a discount to bump the KS numbers becomes less of a smart move.

Background is something that's both valuable and useless to different people. I actually did some of the clean-up and rewriting on the lore for SW a couple of years ago (for free), but my interest/drive kinda fizzled out when they cancelled that other project which was funded. Having said that, I'm actually pretty over it when it comes to Yet Another Rather Generic Fantasy IP To Pair With Yet Another Miniatures Line But-Look-We-Have-A-Twist-Here. Let's look at it this way. Do many people outside of Raging Heroes care about their background Special Snowflake Background for their models, or do they just want Sisters, Dark Eldar and and Dark Elves? (many of whom show their boobies!)

I think that showing visual source material is a better IP protection than Special Snowflake Background. I don't think that some fiction written by the guys making some new models counts as a robust legal defence in the slightest. I mean, we all know that they're all Proxyhammer models just as we all know what 9th age actually is. Having a background that explains the space religious order of blahblah that's been written specifically to justify not-SOB models who have weapons that look just like bolters is probably less useful than showing reference pictures of a FN-SCAR-L with it's stock removed or folded and barrel shortened as the inspiration for that same weapon. Probably along with some sketches that show how that design was taken and modified. Likewise, showing pictures of Faora and a bunch of GIS pictures from anime and so on as inspiration for the space armour is probably more useful there than text telling us they they like to pray to and kill for their god who is totally not the emprah.

As for the design of the non-sisters (both types). There's hits and misses there. The brick-gloves, oversized weapons. Oversized pauldrons that belong in either War Machine or World of Warcraft (or both). I do like the ab armour, though. We never got to see the back of the models, which is unfortunate - since it means we're unable to give any feedback on what is basically 50% of the models. (given the ...uneven design choices like those hammer-hands.)

Despite the silence here, I see SW has been posting on their KS comments page.

Repeatedly cancelling projects that have met their funding goal just tells me they are flakey and aren't willing to see projects through if it doesn't meet some undisclosed parameters.

Definitely not a company I would be willing to trust my money to in the future.

Eh. I trust them to deliver on any completed projects. Their products are good quality. I might as well back out of mercenary self-interest even if the romance is gone.

I think they need to put in a bit more sculpting work beforehand - having a few fully posed sculpts would help a lot, and things like the enclosed hands could be easily fixed ahead of time if they show it to some people privately first and get feedback.

 RiTides wrote:
I think they need to put in a bit more sculpting work beforehand - having a few fully posed sculpts would help a lot, and things like the enclosed hands could be easily fixed ahead of time if they show it to some people privately first and get feedback.

I totally agree, IMO Shieldwolf should set up a group on Facebook/G+/private forum with people from outside their workforce who will provide constructive feedback on their sculpts, ideas, campaign set-ups etc, and not filled with "yes men", put them under a "NDA" if they are worried that their IP will be shown before its ready etc, im in a couple of groups like that already for boardgames and miniature games and every creator/company owner has said it was a really good idea to set it up and said it helped them loads, because lets be honest the sci-fi "expert" they took on didnt seem that much of one by looking at the sculpts ie the big ass weapons, 1 handed weapons, the mummified gun grips(what the hell was that about!) etc, not insisting that Shieldwolf at least done a poll on the sci-fi range or even try to over-ride Angelos with the facts of what consumers are after reguarding sci-fi and especially the Sisters of Battle.

 Azazelx wrote:

Spoiler:

Sorry about the late reply, djh. I got sick(er), and then went back to work sick. Now I'm just tired.

Yeah, I really don't know why they keep cancelling campaigns that have hit their finding targets. It's really not a professional look, and it turns backers off on one hand, and even sours their supporters. They need to set up campaigns that they'll be happy with if they fund at the actual target, with all backer reward options that are reasonable at that target and don't reply on doubling the target to make them worthwhile. And yeah, trying to fund seven armies worth of HIPS kits at once is just crazytown for a company the size, and with the limited following that Shieldwolf has at this time.

I also think that they need to focus more on one or the other of fantasy or sci-fi. As I've said, I'd happily buy all four of their shown concepts (provided value and tweaks were made) but it's not about me, or even you. It's about the masses outside of the 400, and going for the biggest and best target of the time. We all know that target, right now at least is Sisters. That way they grow their backer base and don't do the whole thing where they split their stretch goal rewards across two disparate lines (assuming they want to use stretch goals and unlocks to increase the overall total). Focus is what's needed. Get the sisters funded, that gets more people on board, then add heavy weapons/assaulters with jet packs, heroes, vehicles, etc and instead of 1 kit each for 7 disparate lines/armies, they might get 3, 4 or 5 focused kits that actually creates a complete product line.
One that's in demand yet unavailable.

As Shieldwolf grows, they'll also need to start replying more on the "current" stuff on offer to provide the value. With 400 backers it's no huge deal to offer the Orcs again, but at some point they begin to devalue their existing product lines. To use yourself as the example here, you're hoping that the lions will be offered at a discount in the next campaign, rather that just buying them now. I'm not having a go at you, just pointing out how offering all that's gone before in the pursuit of a bigger total now starts to devalue the existing product after awhile. I know that for all of the money I've spent on Mantic Kickstarters in the past, I think of their models (particularly the restic) as literally without any monetary value. Like, I recently bought Mortarion, and 2 boxes each of Blightlord and Deathshroud Terminators. While I got them at a discount, there's no denying that they're expensive as feth. Would I pay even a fraction of that for Mantic's models? As they say: No chance in hell. There's a time to leverage all the existing assets, and a time to tone that sort of thing down. I'm not really sure where Shieldwolf is in that equation yet, but as they grow, offering everything they've done in the past at a discount to bump the KS numbers becomes less of a smart move.

Background is something that's both valuable and useless to different people. I actually did some of the clean-up and rewriting on the lore for SW a couple of years ago (for free), but my interest/drive kinda fizzled out when they cancelled that other project which was funded. Having said that, I'm actually pretty over it when it comes to Yet Another Rather Generic Fantasy IP To Pair With Yet Another Miniatures Line But-Look-We-Have-A-Twist-Here. Let's look at it this way. Do many people outside of Raging Heroes care about their background Special Snowflake Background for their models, or do they just want Sisters, Dark Eldar and and Dark Elves? (many of whom show their boobies!)

I think that showing visual source material is a better IP protection than Special Snowflake Background. I don't think that some fiction written by the guys making some new models counts as a robust legal defence in the slightest. I mean, we all know that they're all Proxyhammer models just as we all know what 9th age actually is. Having a background that explains the space religious order of blahblah that's been written specifically to justify not-SOB models who have weapons that look just like bolters is probably less useful than showing reference pictures of a FN-SCAR-L with it's stock removed or folded and barrel shortened as the inspiration for that same weapon. Probably along with some sketches that show how that design was taken and modified. Likewise, showing pictures of Faora and a bunch of GIS pictures from anime and so on as inspiration for the space armour is probably more useful there than text telling us they they like to pray to and kill for their god who is totally not the emprah.

As for the design of the non-sisters (both types). There's hits and misses there. The brick-gloves, oversized weapons. Oversized pauldrons that belong in either War Machine or World of Warcraft (or both). I do like the ab armour, though. We never got to see the back of the models, which is unfortunate - since it means we're unable to give any feedback on what is basically 50% of the models. (given the ...uneven design choices like those hammer-hands.)

Despite the silence here, I see SW has been posting on their KS comments page.

Going after what the market wants is the smart thing to do especially if you have something they want!, before the sci-fi seed was planted i think their game plan for releasing their fantasy was pretty good ie roll-out female "barbarian" minis with some great "war machines" and then expanding those races, Shieldwolf has some great races on offer and i would love to see a lot of those races get expanded, yes at the moment their minis are proxies for other systems and i see no problem with that, a product that can be used in multiple settings is more of a seller than one that cant imo.

Once Shieldwolf announced they are entering the sci-fi market and showed the races on offer the sci-fi paladins are more in-line of what consumers seem to be asking for some time now, it makes financial sense to go after that market with the paladins 1st and concentrate on the sci-fi side only, have completely separate sprues from the "static" fantasy sprues and try and flesh the range out fully in the KS, once that is over personally i would like them to do the Warmaidens which have been on the books for a couple of years or so, but where will the market be! ive said it before if they could have 2 KS going but spread out enough so it doesnt interfere with each other, that would be the perfect way to cater to both their sci-fi and fantasy customers!

As for cancelling the KS, i think it was for the best as it was a muddled campaign and if they come back with a fine tuned campaign they/us will all be better for it, IMO i think it was a massive mistake to not show us the preview page, if they had we could have pointed out/help improve things etc like we all did with the preview on the last cancelled KS, it does seem to be putting some off by cancelling and relaunching but like i said if any creator does it for the right reasons then im all good with it, but yes if we keep going through this process with every KS Shieldwolf does im sure some of us regular backers/fans/fan-bois will start to get fed up! reguarding a preview for the relaunch Angelos has said in a message to me that we will see it at least 2 weeks before launching!

That brings us onto when to relaunch, not much has been said on how long all the legal docs will take to get ready in the background, which is what they seem to be waiting on before launching and in the comment section the other day they mentioned it should be done before Xmas, October has pretty much gone and imo only leaves November as December is a no-go on KS if you want a strong campaign that hits multiple SG's as there isnt enough money about, or relaunch in the new year, mid to late January after everyones wallet has recovered from Xmas.

@Mod, I think ive figured out how to do a "spoiler" EDIT maybe i havent, does it have the "spoiler" tabs and blanked out for other readers?

You need [/spoiler] to end your spoiler ..

Thanks il give it a go

EDIT: Cool i got it now, thanks again

They took on a "sci-fi expert"? Really? Before I make (thousands of) snarky comments on that, I'd love to read the info firsthand. Do you have a link to where that was mentioned/discussed? I'll certainly agree that the "expert" stuff seems sketchy at best. Full agreement that they need to set up a focus group of sorts made up of people that are willing to be very critical, and quite frankly - people that are willing to argue hard with SW and each other on points. Not to be argumentative arseholes, but because the campaign has the potential to make a huge difference to SW's future (not to mention at least $40k of backers' funds.) Yes-Men and Star fethers have no place in that kind of focus group, because we know their opinion already = they love whatever you show them or tell them that you'll do.



And yeah. If they wanted to keep with the original direction of fantasy kits, fair enough. If they want to add in sci-fi, then they need to do it properly, not scattershot/randomly, and be ready to adjust at the last minute (before launching) if need be. I'm one of the people that pushed for Wolf Sisters over nuns earlier this year, because they were more unique looking, because RH seemed to have that covered to an extent and were about to launch, and because of the "danger" that Celestine and the Gemini twins represented. I still think that Celestine and the Geminis represent a real danger, because GW could easily drop plastic Sisters on us any time, just as they did with the Genestealer Cults, just as they did with AdMech, just as they did with Deathwatch. The longer the wait, the more likely it is, as well. There's a "Safe" period that we're in right now with the roll-out of previous army codices for 40k, but once they're done (or almost done) then all bets are off.

I mean, what are we still missing that's basically guaranteed to have their own book?
Thousand Sons
Orks
Necrons
Dark Eldar
Tau
Blood Angels
Dark Angels
Space Wolves
Deathwatch
Chaos Daemons
Genestealer Cults

Then there's the "um, not sure" factions that may or may not get a full codex or be rolled into other books in their entirety:
Inquisition/Assassins
Knights
Harlequins/Ynnari

And then there's the Sisters (and Ministorum - also possibly combined with Inquisitors and Assassins) - along with other factions (new and old and "missing") that represent a significant number of new releases. This includes "maybe" things like Adeptus Arbites, and "very likely" things such as individual codices for World Eaters and Emperor's Children.

While I wouldn't expect any more new figures for 40k factions this year with Necromunda and Shadespire taking up the big release spots, we've got Nids and Eldar about to codex, there might be another codex release in December.

Once we hit January, though - all bets are off as far as the 40k release train. Yes there's still 6 months worth of books (based on 2-a-month) but they need to release new models within that timeframe as well. World Eaters and/or Emp's Children are probably the safest good picks, but I'd have Sisters as a third choice after those.

I think they'll do ok if they have Plastic Sisters on the market, even after the official ones are released - given GW pricing structure and the S̶a̶v̶a̶g̶e̶ Mountain Orcs apparently doing decently at retail - but obviously there's going to be a huge difference between having the only models available on the market and simply being alternative models. That particular Iron is red-hot right now, but it won't always be so.

...

The campaign was indeed a hot confused mess, but the fact that they saw fit to launch it in what was clearly such a fethed up state from day 1 was just clownshoes. Angelos suffers a bit from being too close to his stuff and unable to be objective enough about his projects or models. We had a back and forth about the sculpt quality of SW vs AoW and I eventually had to just tell him that we'll agree to disagree. SW has some nice sculpts amongst their range, but they're objectively just not on a par with AoW, and I say this as a guy who likes Angelos and Shieldwolf a whole lot more than Felix and AoW. There's a friend of mine who I do some painting for, who apparently told my wife yesterday (when I saw out of the room) that he thinks I'm one of the best painters in Australia if not the world. Now, I'm certainly decent, but I'm no way in hell anywhere close to being one of the best painters in Melbourne, let alone on any larger scale. But I'm the best painter that he knows personally, who does work for him.

That's where Angelos seems to be with his sculpts/sculptors, and apparently also with his campaign preparation and choices. That's not a good sign.

The fact that they cancelled it once funded because "numbers changed" certainly does shake even my faith in the decision making and overall planning. I mean if the numbers no longer added up 2 weeks after launching, then what does that mean for a campaign post-completion? What does it mean about the level or quality of SW's financial preparation? Now I personally think that they'd deliver even if it cost them money to do so, but I certainly see where Nostromodamus' perspective comes from, and I doubt he's the only one that feels that way.

Phew i just had to do some digging looking for any reference to a "expert", i found a couple one in a update and another was in a comment on another update, i remember seeing them as ive read pretty much every comment on the KS updates included!

"Sci-fi; while previously sci-fi was completely out of the question, we are seriously considering bringing an additional person aboard and proceed with external artistic guidance. Nothing precise is currently planned at the moment though while developing a sci-fi game has been excluded."

From update: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1273312680/war-is-coming-shieldmaidens-army-reboot/posts/1815710

"Shieldwolf Miniatures 5-time creator on May 12
@David
"snipped"... Take this with a pinch of salt since the inclusion of sci-fi has changed the inital layout I had been seeing and Angelos with his new advisor are the ones currently in charge of that so some things may have changed."

From comments in update: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1273312680/war-is-coming-shieldmaidens-army-reboot/posts/1882396#comments


While trying to find the above quotes i came across this reply to a question i asked about how many sci-fi troops per box..

"Shieldwolf Miniatures 5-time creator on May 11
@Tom
We think we have balanced everything nicely, you will see for yourselves. Infantry versions in plastic will go in twentys so same goes for the sci-fi crowd. Price might vary in retail due to us funding it and not the backers but that has not been decided yet. For the KS duration prices for either version are going to be the same. Same goes for the resin characters."

So it looked like the sci-fi were going to be 20 a box to start with, i wonder why they changed their mind!?




Automatically Appended Next Post:
I just noticed the title of the thread has changed, when did Shieldwolf change that?

This message was edited 137 times. Last update was at 09/10/2017 02:53:51 AM

Thanks Timmy. I'm dubious as to the quality of the advice they were given/took. Clearly I could have done a better job myself, and I doubt that I'm the only one between the people here and active in the comments.

It seems (on the surface, anyway) that the sci-fi numbers might have been changed in order to leverage sci-fi fans to pledge more $. Of course, the effect was just the opposite. As I said at the time, if the difference is $5k for a company to double the sprues, that's a joke. And not a funny one.

 Azazelx wrote:
It seems (on the surface, anyway) that the sci-fi numbers might have been changed in order to leverage sci-fi fans to pledge more $. Of course, the effect was just the opposite.

Indeed it was. But once again we took the hit in order to secure our backers, some people will appreciate that and others will keep on questioning it. As long as we have our mind in peace we will proceed likewise again and again, I wouldn't even have to explain that everytime a creator presses the "Cancel" button it costs money to the company whereas it doesn't take a single cent from any of the backers, so how some people come to think it's a "light" decision to take is beyond me.

 Azazelx wrote:
As I said at the time, if the difference is $5k for a company to double the sprues, that's a joke. And not a funny one.

Like I stated during the project being still live, it was a $10K gap which we switched in order to stop some people complaining for the "reduced value". Not to mention our co-funding tenths of thousands of euros in order to help make this happen in the first place and very good value being there from the start. Apparently we didn't communicate that well enough, we had lots of skin put into this, there's so much passion helping drive the company after all.

I haven't made it in time to read the rest from above -I'm sure Dimitrios will respond to any questions when he gets back-, I did read about 'funding 7 armies in HIPS', I'd like to just note that this was nothing like the first KS though that opted for 5 armies; all sprues here shared common items between them (weaponry, bodies ETC), this made it much easier to bring to fruition.

To echo an idea above, what do you think about setting up a private google/facebook group or the like, to get help/feedback while tweaking the scifi models, like Original Timmy suggested?

 Original Timmy wrote:
IMO Shieldwolf should set up a group on Facebook/G+/private forum with people from outside their workforce who will provide constructive feedback on their sculpts, ideas, campaign set-ups etc
...
put them under a "NDA" if they are worried that their IP will be shown before its ready etc, im in a couple of groups like that already for boardgames and miniature games and every creator/company owner has said it was a really good idea to set it up and said it helped them loads
...
Angelos with the facts of what consumers are after reguarding sci-fi and especially the Sisters of Battle.

It seems like it could really help, and give some of these folks who are eager to contribute (and know your market!) a chance to give private feedback on sculpts, and on what will or will not sell. Worst case you close the group, best case you're able to hit the nail on the head for what the market is looking for!

 Shieldwolf Miniatures wrote:
Like I stated during the project being still live, it was a $10K gap which we switched in order to stop some people complaining for the "reduced value". Not to mention our co-funding tenths of thousands of euros in order to help make this happen in the first place and very good value being there from the start. Apparently we didn't communicate that well enough, we had lots of skin put into this, there's so much passion helping drive the company after all.

You are missing the point. It shouldn't have been 10K or 5K stretch goal in the first place. If you needed that 10K to include 20 in the box, like the fantasy unit was, then that should have been included in the base goal, and the base goal been 10K higher.

Making them 10 per box, unless we make the stretch goal, then you get 20, just kept people interested in only them from backing, waiting for the stretch goal to be hit.

@adamsouza
This makes sense. Yet numbers told a different story, if the amount of sprues was to blame due to them being SGs and not the funding target, the project should have gone really smoothly once that was reached. Which, well, it didn't.
Or perhaps I didn't understand what you're saying or I'm missing something else? Kindly rephrase if that's the case :-)

 Shieldwolf Miniatures wrote:
@adamsouza
This makes sense. Yet numbers told a different story, if the amount of sprues was to blame due to them being SGs and not the funding target, the project should have gone really smoothly once that was reached. Which, well, it didn't.
Or perhaps I didn't understand what you're saying or I'm missing something else? Kindly rephrase if that's the case :-)

Most likely, people saw that the sprue count wouldn't boost until a certain level, so they hit the "Remind Me" button and went away. Had we gotten to the 48 hour point when the "Remind Me" emails go out, then possibly they would have pledged at that point, but who knows.

The people that watch the progress of a KS project every day are the creators and the people who have already pledged. You pretty much get two shots to rope in everybody else: the first time they see the project, and the 48 hour mark when they get reminded about the project (assuming it was enticing enough to get them to do the "Remind Me" on the first view). Unlocking stretch goals that boost perceived value does nothing for people who don't see it happen.

 Shieldwolf Miniatures wrote:


I haven't made it in time to read the rest from above -I'm sure Dimitrios will respond to any questions when he gets back.

Im taking this Angelos, personally i hope you take the time out to read all that has been written on here and the KS comment section since you cancelled, there is a ton of constructive criticism from a lot of passionate people who want your company to do the best it can, IMO you would be stupid to ignore some of it especially if your going after the best sci-fi miniatures out there and if the rumours are true 2018 could see GW finally releasing SOB and if you want to run with them you really need to drop the "rank and file" and the duel use sprues for fantasy and sci-fi and go multi-pose, you will only get one shot at this and do it properly or not at all, as a "half baked" effort wont stand up to the "big boys" sorry if it sounds harsh but reality is what it is!

Very true words from both Skarsol and Timmy.

 Shieldwolf Miniatures wrote:
@adamsouza
This makes sense. Yet numbers told a different story, if the amount of sprues was to blame due to them being SGs and not the funding target, the project should have gone really smoothly once that was reached. Which, well, it didn't.
Or perhaps I didn't understand what you're saying or I'm missing something else? Kindly rephrase if that's the case :-)

.
Problem is that people came in looked and decided to back or not on what they could see, as others have said they might have put remind me -I do that for is not sure of and usually forget about them until reminded.

I was one of several people that commented after pledging that the front page was very confusing even after the show had been achieved - all the initial section said that you only get 10 figures compared to 20 fantasy only the show bit told you you didn't, you need to tell people what they will get if they pledge very clearly as there are so many thing competing for our money including other is.

Its certainly has gone quiet on Shieldwolfs front, im still wondering if Angelos has read all the comments here and on KS!

Big lessons for Shieldwolf right now on Mantic's current KS about upfront value. After the early adopters got onboard it flattened out pretty much immediately and then took 3 days to fund. Mantic's campaigns all used to fund much faster than that.





Squig wrote a good post over in the Mantic thread - mostly about Mantic but it touched well on current backer mentality:

 scarletsquig wrote:
The core error is possibly the structure itself at this point - having a price point which factors in "it will hit $500k and have loads of goodies in it so we need to make it fairly expensive" as something guaranteed.
It isn't a guarantee anymore, especially if you can't show value at the start and flounder, Kickstarter will wreck you and recovering from that takes way more effort than getting it right the first time, its why we so so many rebooted kickstarters.

Kickstarter has changed a lot over the last 2 years, in that patience levels have trended towards zero, loads of kickstarters out there all the time, people have 5-6 that they're still waiting to receive, many others that they got and never played and something has to be really good or have very wide appeal to compete. Dungeon Saga and Terrain Crate hit the wide appeal sweet spot. Walking Dead was always going to be a guaranteed hit with the IP and ruleset that absolutely nailed it.

The bolded bits are especially pertinent for Shieldwolf...

The rest of 2017 is a write-off for good time to launch a KS. Necromunda release and Black Friday are both just around the corner, followed by Christmas. I can afford things, but all of those events trump anyone's kickstarters pretty hard. I'm sure that there are some that can still do gangbusters in this timeframe of 2017 and do gangbusters, but they're the exception rather than the rule.