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I've seen reports that the Castellan is coming in at $85 (US), probably not surprising, but dissapointing

I'm not sure how well the Relic Knights line does and/or if it survives at those prices.

Especially after how the KS 'restic' versions performed.

It's available on the Soda Pop store already at $84.95.

Seems pricey to me but I'm guessing it's about right for that much resin. Still, a bit too rich for my blood.

 Dentry wrote:
It's available on the Soda Pop store already at $84.95.

Seems pricey to me but I'm guessing it's about right for that much resin. Still, a bit too rich for my blood.

Pricey - yes. But there is an even better word to describe that price -- absurd. Very few will pick up that model at that price.

But I'm sure most will be able to pick it up for 50-70% discount later. Just like right now on Amazon I see the Harbonath and the Diamondback both available for $15 shipped each. Relic Knights tend to really vary on price online, checking Ebay and Amazon. A few months ago, there were some fire-sale items when it looked like RKs was a one-and-done.

Overall, happy to see the news about new releases and further support of the game, but SP isn't helping the game gain popularity with the MSRPs on the models.

Mez

There is a big difference between buying KR KS castoffs and new RK product. I would not expect fire sale pricing on the new stuff, due to newness and rarity alone.

At that price you could just buy a gundam knight kit it was inspired by.

Please inform me of this comparable Knight Gundam kit Jehan, because the only one I know of is the 15,000+ yen Gundam Cloth kit from the early 90s.

Already own all the SD versions!

$85? Wow, that is pretty spendy. I could probably get the new SDE 2.0 when that comes out.

When Soda Pop started they had a range of about 1 miniature -- the original Candy and Cola special edition -- plus some fairly vague fluff about future ranges and game rules. More individual figures came out, usually with a fluff connection to Relic Knights although there weren't any rules. I bought a lot of them just because I liked the figures. I wasn't interested in the game, which didn't exist at that point anyway.

The company was like a boutique producer of anime themed SF figures. I liked that. I'm a bit old school in the sense that I don't think about buying a game with a specific set of models, I think about buying models I like that I will be able to use in a variety of SF or fantasy RPG or Skirmish games.

While the Relic Knights obviously weren't an afterthought because Soda Pop were talking about them from the beginning, basically the company has gradually bootstrapped itself from a few guys doing something as a sideline into a team doing more stuff as a full time job. Fair play to them.

I don't think there's any doubt that Soda Pop's big success has been the Super Dungeon Explore range, also that Kick Starter became key to their business model. This is true of most of the startup figure companies of the past 10 years.

And I suppose there might be something in the "these aren't really game pieces, these are collectible models to build and paint that you can play a game with if you want", which is apparently the strategy that GW has been adopting of late.

It's just a bit aggravating to have been part of the Kickstarter, to have waited a LONG time for any product to show up, and then be told shortly afterwards that the rules are being replaced, that all existing models will be really expensive and only really sold in the US, and that all future models will be extremely expensive and only really sold in the US. Well within Sodapop's rights, but the entire thing has just been rather disappointing!

 Bioptic wrote:

It's just a bit aggravating to have been part of the Kickstarter, to have waited a LONG time for any product to show up, and then be told shortly afterwards that the rules are being replaced, that all existing models will be really expensive and only really sold in the US, and that all future models will be extremely expensive and only really sold in the US. Well within Sodapop's rights, but the entire thing has just been rather disappointing!

I think 99% of the miniature games that succeed on Kickstarter fizzle out within a year of release (or worse, are largely forgotten in the year(s) long time span between KS and release). Outside of CMON and SPM's chibi games - which are more board games than miniature games - the only halfway successful ones with any longevity were Mantic - and even those fizzle out for the most part, just slower (Deadzone, Mars Attacks, Dreadball, and I suspect Walking Dead). I guess what I'm saying is don't back pure miniature games on Kickstarter expecting them to stick around. Board games with miniatures though? Go for it. Those do great.

I actually think SPM's continued support of Relic Knights, however late and expensive it may be, is laudable and somewhat rare. I suspect the success of their chibi games are funding more Relic Knights, making it more a labor of love than a successful product.

Also, expensive resins are a totally fine business model, I think. If you don't expect mass distribution (and most Sodapop fans that would be interested in Relic Knights are probably capable of finding their webstore) then they just have to cover artwork and costs for the initial sculpt, and can almost make the resin on -demand. No enormous blocks of expensive metal, no steel moulds for plastic production.

I am sadly all too aware of the fate of the average Kickstarter skirmish game! But 2012 was a different, headier time, where modern plastic production was going to bring affordable skirmish gaming to the masses, and videos of the creators excitedly playing their labour of love convinced you that you'd stumbled across something uniquely special. Ah, to be young again...

On a slightly different note, what is this Rail Riders thing they keep posting wanted posters from? The only info I can seem to find, besides those posters, is a comment here or there in the SDE:L kickstarter.

EDIT: Ah, it's not Rail Riders, it's Rail Raiders - which is why I wasn't finding anything. Ignore me.

Rail Raiders is a thing that SPM/ND is trying to make happen. We'll see to what extent SPM has resources to push this forward in addition to the huge Legends KS pile of to-do activity.

We'll see what happens with Rail Raiders and Legends. I'm very curious about the Legends pledge manager as it has no close date right now. I suppose that makes a sort of sense since they're not done creating the materials for it and production can't start until after that.

Hopefully this will allow me to make my pledge, the more they delay its closure the more hope I have...

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
Please inform me of this comparable Knight Gundam kit Jehan, because the only one I know of is the 15,000+ yen Gundam Cloth kit from the early 90s.

Already own all the SD versions!

Something like this?

Or you could make a mashup of a few, 1/144 scale are around 10$ here

Rail Raiders Infinite KS launches April 4th @ 2PM EDT

http://ninjadivision.com/rail-raiders-infinite-kickstarter-begins-april-4th/

I'm officially tired of Super Deformed/Chibi.

I'm not tired of them! But not only are the Sodapop releases rather thick on the ground right now, they need to make assurances that they can actually create a fun, balanced game that doesn't waste your time.

Tried Ninja All Stars the other day, and it went down like an inflatable concrete donkey.

"Yes, the rulebook has a spine, and is 80 pages long, but only like 20 pages of that apply to what we'll be doing. They're sort of scattered all over the place though, so..."

"Yes, I know the stars on their bases aren't facing the same way as the models are. Yes, it's quite hard to track 8-way facing on a model standing on a dot that has a circular base."

"I don't understand line of sight. I just don't. The diagram contradicts the rules, the forums didn't have an answer, and I can't see how the 'imaginary line' actually intersects any of the actual terrain dots, so I...suppose that [a shot passing across two walls and a tree] would be legal? No, that's stupid. Just use our best judgement?"

"So...this Ninja has an activation token, and a stealth token, and a cursed token, and a lucky token. Wait, didn't the stealth token come from the ninja standing next to it? There's nowhere to put these things."

"Okay, so there's difficult terrain, and raised terrain, and obscuring terrain. But those last two don't appear on the board, but structures are actually both raised AND obscuring terrain. Obscuring terrain blocks missile attacks, but not adjacent ones...I think. Raised terrain still doesn't stop you from attacking adjacent enemies either...wait, what does it do? Let me check the book again."

"Okay, I'm rolling 4 dice for attack, you're rolling 4 dice for defence, so that leaf cancels...no wait, that's fire, it cancels water. But I can re-roll one of my attack dice, but that would just mean that it can potentially cancel your remaining Spirit, but that doesn't matter because I'm the attacker on an equal number of dice, so that means that I'm choosing the result from my own dice."

"Really really sorry, it said 90 minutes on the box..."

Reading that, I want to laugh and cry at the same time.

Yeah, reading that doesn't exactly inspire confidence in this new game very much.

At least I'm at a point with SDE where I feel comfortable enough with the rules that I can keep a game running pretty smoothly.

Hopefully this rail raiders is a bit tighter in the rules department.

Otherwise, if I do back it, everything is just going to go towards a reskin of Shadows of Brimstone to make it the SD version!

Yeah, their rulesets aren't exactly what you'd call "polished"...

We'll see about Rail Raiders. The wife and I mostly bought NAS for the chibi ninja models, with a hope that the game might be cool. Still haven't tried the game (Kingdom Death takes up pretty much all of our board game time, otherwise, we're playing EDH). I kind of like the style of the models previewed thus far, but I'm not a big enough fan of... Space western? to buy this specifically for the models. I don't know, we shall see!

Price, price, price...if rail raiders is a $40 boardgame I'm in. If it's a $100 (or more) I'm out (probably). I have limited space, time and money, so we'll see.

I really doubt it will be $40 -

I'll be in on it as long as it's NOT a crazy big KS. If there are a few factions around 6-10 minis a faction then great. But I don't want to 200 minis (like all the generic ninjas in NAS) to have to deal with.

*** - and reading the link it looks like it will be small! Yay!

"Rail Raiders Infinite features multiple unique Raiders and three unique Tinstar Lawbot models—marshall, sheriff, and deputy—all sculpted in Soda Pop Miniatures incredible chibi style"

If it ends up under 20 minis I'm all over this.

Relic Knight April Release Preview:

Rust Bucket


Har Ancient


Jenner the Seeker

Rustbucket looks cool. Unfortunately concept art isn't a finished/test model. This reminds me a bit of the Kickstarter- you don't really know what you'll end up with.

Noh and the Dark Paladin look cool.

Always down for more Noh.

 Sinful Hero wrote:
Rustbucket looks cool. Unfortunately concept art isn't a finished/test model. This reminds me a bit of the Kickstarter- you don't really know what you'll end up with.

a painted version was on the previous page, it looks great but I fear costs beyond what I want to pay