Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

The final goal..... or so they say. Sophie is in the core pledge now.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
The Graveyard and Mythos expansions have just made all my future Call of Cthulhu campaigns easier to run... and I won't lie... even as a designer on Strange Aeons, i'll probably be playing it with the Bones stuff as the value is probably triple or more what Uncle Mike can offer.

Any chance the SA guys can work with RAFM, Green Eye Games, and/or Reaper with SA? Frex, you could contact Reaper and ask them if you can design a SA scenario around their Mythos expansion. Give it away with free quickstart rules or something.

SA forum on Lead Adventurers : http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?board=45.0

Did anyone find a PDF that had instructions for assembly? Looks intuitive, though.

Wave one open as well. Not feeling the core set this time around.

By Sigmar, that solar is timely.

That's the surliest looking Solar this side of Sigmar's goons.

If the model is that beeffy I'll get one.

Gotta say, this one didn't do much for me. There wasn't much in the Core set that really appealed to me. Bones 2 had A LOT more stuff I was interested in. It felt like it had better variety, too. I'm also pretty disappointed at the lack of sci-fi on this one. Both previous Kickstarters had quite a bit peppered throughout, but this one only really seems to have had three, the Black Corsairs, the Sledgehammer (which could be argued isn't actually sci-fi at all), and the mouselings. I guess we won't be getting that IMEF Bulldog in Bones. Why bother teasing it if you weren't going to include it?

Because us "sci-fi grognards" do not belong in Reaper's demograph according to the fans?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also..



They're done.

They've got plenty saved for the next kickstarter I suppose.

 Barzam wrote:
Gotta say, this one didn't do much for me. There wasn't much in the Core set that really appealed to me. Bones 2 had A LOT more stuff I was interested in. It felt like it had better variety, too. I'm also pretty disappointed at the lack of sci-fi on this one. Both previous Kickstarters had quite a bit peppered throughout, but this one only really seems to have had three, the Black Corsairs, the Sledgehammer (which could be argued isn't actually sci-fi at all), and the mouselings. I guess we won't be getting that IMEF Bulldog in Bones. Why bother teasing it if you weren't going to include it?

Mebbe it was one of those SG's or expansions that the campaign didn't get near enough.

I think Reaper plays it safe. Too safe. They started with the roleplaying market (they actually first released Scrye life counters for Magic but thought they should seek other markets), and they've branched out into roleplaying, whch meant D&D, which meant Not-sf. GW (and now Mantic) has shown us there *is* a market for sf miniatures, but not a sf roleplaying market. Reaper has decided not to enter the vertical "give away the rules, sell the miniatures" model that GW and Mantic have. If you look at the Reaper forums, it's all about painting. Reaper has chosen to outsource CAV and license the same engine as Warlord. The prepainted Legendary Encounters has only *one* thread. Still reverse engineering here, but I think that's why you see some models which show their generic fantasy roots, but are unplayable from an RPG standpoint. Reaper does dabble, and its staff members will include miniatures *they* want. It had a sf set, some Mythos, and the Victoria BFG, but these are only a few figures out of the many a hardcore collector would want. We've already seen posts that the Reaper Mythos expansion didn't have enough monsters.

Is this a good model? Well, Bones III didn't fund as well as Bones I and Bones II. I think this is in part because of its focus on the American market, but also because it stuck to a scope smaller than other companies. Had Reaper risked entering the miniature wargames market and had international distribution, it could have been Mantic. Had Reaper risked making boardgame market and sold miniature-laden boardgames, it could have become CMON. We'll see how long Reaper will last.

We'll see how long Reaper will last?
Well, they were founded in 1992... so I think the answer is.. a while..
I didn't like the low volume of sci-fi and the fact that they shied away from a 4th expansion. I also would have liked to see more focus on terrain and Warlord, which they claimed there would be. However, I don't think I could say they've made any fatal errors so much as going a different direction than I would've liked.

That said.. they took this long to get into the plastic miniatures business that Wizkids, WotC, and many others have been into for quite a while.. a lot of people hail that as revolutionary but I think they're just a bit late to the party. They are bringing new excitement into the world of roleplaying though and making it more accessible in a lot of areas. I don't think they're going anywhere anytime soon.

I don't think Reaper aspires to be Mantic. Mantic's focus is on big armies, fast- they're a good enough company. Reaper puts a tremendous amount of love into its idiosyncratic, niche miniatures. They'll make the finest coral golem you've ever seen, and put mice in space marine armor like nobody's business.

Like all miniature companies, they will have bad sculpts- but I don't think any sane person could call Reaper derivative or a knock off company. Mantic is starting to emerge from that, but for now they're still pretty much not-GW.

 Gitzbitah wrote:
I don't think Reaper aspires to be Mantic. Mantic's focus is on big armies, fast- they're a good enough company. Reaper puts a tremendous amount of love into its idiosyncratic, niche miniatures. They'll make the finest coral golem you've ever seen, and put mice in space marine armor like nobody's business.

Like all miniature companies, they will have bad sculpts- but I don't think any sane person could call Reaper derivative or a knock off company. Mantic is starting to emerge from that, but for now they're still pretty much not-GW.

Not knockoff for sure but they do hang a pretty hefty hat on that DnD IP. Not knocking it by a longshot but I gotta call that spade a spade. They work with Paizo pretty often from my understanding so it's implicit from that partnership but things like Froghemoth, Tiamat, Terrasque, etc are more or less D&D creations (afaik).

This ended pretty much where I figured. I did think for a while that they would climb just over 3 million but closer to the middle the 2.7-2.9 range was starting to look more realistic. It was definitely interesting to watch it unfold.

 MLaw wrote:

 Gitzbitah wrote:
I don't think Reaper aspires to be Mantic. Mantic's focus is on big armies, fast- they're a good enough company. Reaper puts a tremendous amount of love into its idiosyncratic, niche miniatures. They'll make the finest coral golem you've ever seen, and put mice in space marine armor like nobody's business.

Like all miniature companies, they will have bad sculpts- but I don't think any sane person could call Reaper derivative or a knock off company. Mantic is starting to emerge from that, but for now they're still pretty much not-GW.

Not knockoff for sure but they do hang a pretty hefty hat on that DnD IP. Not knocking it by a longshot but I gotta call that spade a spade. They work with Paizo pretty often from my understanding so it's implicit from that partnership but things like Froghemoth, Tiamat, Terrasque, etc are more or less D&D creations (afaik). .

Give that Pathfinder pretty much IS D&D.... duh?

 Laughing Man wrote:

 MLaw wrote:

 Gitzbitah wrote:
I don't think Reaper aspires to be Mantic. Mantic's focus is on big armies, fast- they're a good enough company. Reaper puts a tremendous amount of love into its idiosyncratic, niche miniatures. They'll make the finest coral golem you've ever seen, and put mice in space marine armor like nobody's business.

Like all miniature companies, they will have bad sculpts- but I don't think any sane person could call Reaper derivative or a knock off company. Mantic is starting to emerge from that, but for now they're still pretty much not-GW.

Not knockoff for sure but they do hang a pretty hefty hat on that DnD IP. Not knocking it by a longshot but I gotta call that spade a spade. They work with Paizo pretty often from my understanding so it's implicit from that partnership but things like Froghemoth, Tiamat, Terrasque, etc are more or less D&D creations (afaik). .

Give that Pathfinder pretty much IS D&D.... duh?

Perhaps you missed where I was pointing to specific IP things where Paizo has no claim. That's what my comment was geared towards, not the familiarity between the two systems.

I'm giving them $10 for mice.

Pretty weak overall IMO.

 MLaw wrote:

 Laughing Man wrote:

 MLaw wrote:

 Gitzbitah wrote:
I don't think Reaper aspires to be Mantic. Mantic's focus is on big armies, fast- they're a good enough company. Reaper puts a tremendous amount of love into its idiosyncratic, niche miniatures. They'll make the finest coral golem you've ever seen, and put mice in space marine armor like nobody's business.

Like all miniature companies, they will have bad sculpts- but I don't think any sane person could call Reaper derivative or a knock off company. Mantic is starting to emerge from that, but for now they're still pretty much not-GW.

Not knockoff for sure but they do hang a pretty hefty hat on that DnD IP. Not knocking it by a longshot but I gotta call that spade a spade. They work with Paizo pretty often from my understanding so it's implicit from that partnership but things like Froghemoth, Tiamat, Terrasque, etc are more or less D&D creations (afaik). .

Give that Pathfinder pretty much IS D&D.... duh?

Perhaps you missed where I was pointing to specific IP things where Paizo has no claim. That's what my comment was geared towards, not the familiarity between the two systems.

Froghemoth and Tarrasque are both in the first Bestiary...

I'm not a fan of Chibi or mousling figures, but the add on mouslings, in power armor, with a head swap, would make mighty fine Squats

 Laughing Man wrote:

 MLaw wrote:

 Laughing Man wrote:

 MLaw wrote:

 Gitzbitah wrote:
I don't think Reaper aspires to be Mantic. Mantic's focus is on big armies, fast- they're a good enough company. Reaper puts a tremendous amount of love into its idiosyncratic, niche miniatures. They'll make the finest coral golem you've ever seen, and put mice in space marine armor like nobody's business.

Like all miniature companies, they will have bad sculpts- but I don't think any sane person could call Reaper derivative or a knock off company. Mantic is starting to emerge from that, but for now they're still pretty much not-GW.

Not knockoff for sure but they do hang a pretty hefty hat on that DnD IP. Not knocking it by a longshot but I gotta call that spade a spade. They work with Paizo pretty often from my understanding so it's implicit from that partnership but things like Froghemoth, Tiamat, Terrasque, etc are more or less D&D creations (afaik). .

Give that Pathfinder pretty much IS D&D.... duh?

Perhaps you missed where I was pointing to specific IP things where Paizo has no claim. That's what my comment was geared towards, not the familiarity between the two systems.

Froghemoth and Tarrasque are both in the first Bestiary...

Be that as it may.. Paizo holds rights to that, not Reaper. They made a really big deal about it not being able to be a 1 for 1 translation. I'm not exactly sure why you've decided to take such a contrarian stance but it's kinda rude.

Actually, if anyone holds rights to it (Froghemoth, as the Tarrasque is a real mythological creature) it would probably be Frog God as it was a Gygax original. They published it under the OGL so its pretty much public domain.

 Laughing Man wrote:
Actually, if anyone holds rights to it (Froghemoth, as the Tarrasque is a real mythological creature) it would probably be Frog God as it was a Gygax original. They published it under the OGL so its pretty much public domain.

I'm pretty sure early on when people were asking for Froghemoth, Bryan mentioned that they were talking to Paizo but he didn't think they'd get it ironed out (using their visual interpretation) in time. The Terrasque thing was from Bones 2 and right on the heels of that kickstarter getting shut down by WotC where they were trying to make a terrasque miniature for gamers. Perhaps Reaper is being overly cautious perhaps not.. I am just telling you what I've observed. Remember, this is a company that doesn't even feel like they're allowed to put existing merchandise into Kickstarter as a stand-alone pledge reward.

As to them doing stuff like what we're talking about or any other major mythical deity.. I'm glad they're able to do what they're doing. In the instance of the 5 headed dragon.. eh.. they're being careful about that one as it does not match up to anything I found showing Tiamat or Takhisis in any pictures in a google search.. Of course the base similarities are there but Reaper named it differently, styled it differently, and has made no indication of what the colors should be so they're probably safe in that regard while still giving us what we want. Things like the Aboleth, Otyugh, Rust Monster, Beholder, etc.. well.. they are mighty good at tap-dancing around that line. Again.. I am a gamer and if they didn't do that stuff, we would be stuck with oop lead, horrible pre-paints (some not all), or really expensive kits from Otherworld, GF9, etc.

 adamsouza wrote:
I'm not a fan of Chibi or mousling figures, but the add on mouslings, in power armor, with a head swap, would make mighty fine Squats

My wife has all the mouslings.

So I was instructed to get these.

 Gitzbitah wrote:
Mantic is starting to emerge from that, but for now they're still pretty much not-GW.

Yep. I'm wondering if sf mini's sell, or sf mini's that match a house style sell. That is, if I have space marines, I'm going to want them to match the GW style. I don't want half of my chapter buying their armor from Fred's armory shop, and the other from Joe's. I'd expect them to have a uniform look. OTOH, If Reaper put out some Ork Freebooters, I think they'd come up with some terrific sculpts even non-GW players would buy! With Mantic putting out their own game system, they can transition from not-GW to Mantic, gradually changing the sculpts away from GW to their own system. But Reaper wouldn't be able to do that, since they don't have their own game system that they're supporting. (They're not really supporting Warlord.)

But, considering how much I dropped on this KS (and pledged for the current TerraTiles KS), I'm perfectly fine if they do this sometime in the not near future!

Biggest head scratcher I came away with was there were a lot of sculpts shown off at Reapercon that never made it in. From those photos I had assumed they were going to be in Bones- after all, a lot of the stuff shown then did end up in the material.

Off the top of my head we saw sculpts for, but never got-

- The pumpkin cart.
- Chibi classic monsters
- The IMEF Bulldog

I guess they'll be in the inevitable Bones 4? Or maybe we'll start to see new Bones releases trickle out over the year? Who knows.

There was some neat stuff at the very end, but I don't get why they didn't show that stuff off during the course of the campaign. Reaper really seems to play it safe.

ced1106 wrote:

 Gitzbitah wrote:
Mantic is starting to emerge from that, but for now they're still pretty much not-GW.

Yep. I'm wondering if sf mini's sell, or sf mini's that match a house style sell. That is, if I have space marines, I'm going to want them to match the GW style. I don't want half of my chapter buying their armor from Fred's armory shop, and the other from Joe's. I'd expect them to have a uniform look. OTOH, If Reaper put out some Ork Freebooters, I think they'd come up with some terrific sculpts even non-GW players would buy! With Mantic putting out their own game system, they can transition from not-GW to Mantic, gradually changing the sculpts away from GW to their own system. But Reaper wouldn't be able to do that, since they don't have their own game system that they're supporting. (They're not really supporting Warlord.)

But, considering how much I dropped on this KS (and pledged for the current TerraTiles KS), I'm perfectly fine if they do this sometime in the not near future!

I think the problem is, that for so long GW were more or less it for sci-fi miniatures outside of model kits for Star Wars and similar.
Now we have stuff like MERCS, Infinity, Warmachine, Deadzone/Warpath, a whole slew of 15mm sci-fi games, Dust, and Anvil Industries has a new one coming out. Then a few sci-fi board games that will likely develop into skirmish games like HINT and a few others (would have to dig but there's some neat looking ones out there.. just can't keep them all straight). Anyway, my point is, just from tabletop we're looking at a ton of different games with different visual styles. We're seeing pretty consistently from sci-fi focused kickstarters and conversion lines like PuppetWars, Kromlech, Maxmini, Scibor, Titan-Forge, etc.. that yeah.. there's a line for not-GW and we still don't know where the end for that is..but in the meantime most of these companies are slipping their own thing in there and it's actually working out pretty well.
So.. the point of this bit, is that there is plenty of room in tabletop gaming for Reaper to bring in a line.

Tabletop isn't where it ends though and a lot of the Reaper people are RPers. In my mind, this means that they tend to think in things from this perspective.
I admittedly don't know that many sci-fi RPGs. Shadowrun immediately jumps to the front of the list and it's obviously one of the more popular but Cyberpunk is it's distant cousin. There's also RPGs for Star Wars and Star Trek, Men In Black, Champions (superheroes) and a bunch of modern horror stuff from White Wolf. Most of this stuff I have experience with so I'll avoid googling more and get to my point. Between these games you could very easily throw down some things that are generic enough to work in many settings. The approach of taking a fantasy character and adding gadgets and a ray gun would also work if we're being completely honest. Their troll with a mini-gun is fantastic and they have elves with guns and frankly, sticking to that kind of thing would be enough to satisfy a few of us at the very least.

Here's something that they could easily do that would work for both sectors and not even be outside of their wheelhouse.
Sci-fi lab. They already have consoles, just make some that are wider. Specimen jars with weird little alien, demon, monster baby things similar to the brain in a jar from Bones 3. Supervisor, technicians, a doctor with a mix of some just working, some terrified, some injured or dead. A team of mercenaries that are like shadowrunners (they already have tons of these), a couple of cyber succubuses, a big failed experiment for an enhanced person (very similar to the flesh golem in expansion 1 even), maybe some security robots, some corrupt private security, some armed EMTs (docwagon), an old dragon that has turned to technology to live out his final century and his heavily armored troll bodyguard with a heavy machine gun or grenade launcher or something.

Most of that stuff is extremely similar in nature to things they've already done or based on models they already have.
Tabletop players can use various parts of this for either objectives, scenery, or actual units to fill in their armies.
RPers would be able to build a scenario around most of this if not all. There's flexibility for different things.. throw in something generic like street thugs and it's an easy day. They already got at least one of the Hasslefree guys to do a sculpt for this past Kickstarter and HF is awesome at sci-fi.. This really doesn't make sense to me.

Reaper says they don't do Sci-Fi because it doesn't sell. Mantic does sci-fi and did well with DZ and Dreadball.. The Shadowrun games by HBS have both done really well and Games Workshop seems to have the exact opposite view to Reapers with their fantasy range floundering. Zombicide has done amazingly well. Infinity is kicking ass and it hasn't turned to Kickstarter AFAIK.. it does however have an RPG in the works.

This turned into a rant. For that I apologize. This whole issue has been frustrating for me and the silly way that it's being handled defies logic. I'll leave it at this and hope that Reaper has a change of heart towards Sci-Fi.

Well - while wanting the Mythos stuff for Arkham, and a Dragon for Conan..I think the Dagon fig might fit the bill perfectly for both! (The other Dragons are very 'D&D' otherwise...)

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
There was some neat stuff at the very end, but I don't get why they didn't show that stuff off during the course of the campaign. Reaper really seems to play it safe.

Reaper's run by accountants, so safe's probably fair enough. During the campaign, they used the Pledge Calculator to see the most in-demand add-ons, and have data from prior KS. Plus, staff members and the owner get to (ahem) play favorites with what pieces make the KS. Towards the end, Reaper threw in add-on after add-on which would normally only be unlocked at higher funding levels.

EDIT: OT, but if for those who wanted sf and didn't throw all their money at Reaper Miniature Market has a Daily Deal: Battlezones: 20th Century Brick - Town Centre : $55. MSRP: $100. Accessories are modern-day, so use 'em for Zombicide or something...

Which to be fair, is entirely their prerogative - the last time I checked, joining a kIckstarter didn't make you an automatic shareholder, so complaining about what minis they did or didn't include in the KS is tbh just entitlement issues -you can ask (politely) but don't whine - their company -their rules - and you can always buy or not - that's your choice.

My Group spent close to $500.

Two tia-nots, the Graveyard and stonedeep, Core set, and a butt-load of options. Pretty happy overall with the Core set.

Viridius looked bad, so we opted out of that dragon. I'm really Digging the Undying lords though. Can't wait to get them next year.

The Undying Lords were an absolute highlight. I can't wait to use the Graveyard expansion- imagine the awesome moment when you replace the tomb with the skeleton king kool aid manning out of it! The walls themselves will shudder with an eerie OHHHH YEAHHHHHHHHH!

My crypt will probably be wholly built as a diorama/Oversized dungeon tile for maybe a ravenloft one shot. I really wanted to get bones 2, but missed out.