BY CROM! Conan Rise of Monsters prepainted miniature combat game's Kickstarter is now Live!

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**Nostromodamus**

Someone asked on their FB page if there would be a pledge level for both starters.

They replied "yes".

So those graphics aren't the only pledge options that will be available.

**PulposaurusJohn**

Hi everyone,

Last i heard the Kickstarter goes live at 10AM EST tomorrow, friday july 31st. I will post any updates if it goes live earlier than that but your best bet is to check out our facebook page first thing in the morning tomorrow for any updates https://www.facebook.com/conanminiatures?ref=aymt_homepage_panel

Here are a few more of the sample minis, everything but Conan are currently Gypsum prototypes. Conan however is a heavy firm plastic. I got to see them in person for a brief time and Conan seemed very durable. Conan looked good enough to be a multipart plastic kit.

Hopefully someone will be answering questions, either myself or one of the guys working Gencon, during the kickstarter.

As for why this is being called "massive combat" when the starter boxes come with 15 models each, similar to Xwing buying a starter box is a great way to start but once the kickstarter launches tomorrow you'll see how many other options we came up with to flush out armies and give it that really large scale feel!

The priests of Set

King Conan Himself.

**Nostromodamus**

Great to hear from you John!

I'll be looking out for the KS launch tomorrow

**ced1106**

Some veteran names behind this project...

Jack Emmert is a co-founder and current CEO of Cryptic Studios. He has launched numerous award-winning games including: City of Heroes, City of Villains, Champions Online, Star Trek Online and most recently Neverwinter. Previous to Cryptic, Jack contributed to a number of different RPG lines, including Deadlands and Marvel Super Heroes.

Shane Hensley is the President of Pinnacle Entertainment Group. He’s written and created dozens of award-winning miniatures, roleplaying, card, and video games, has worked on licenses from Star Wars and Army of Darkness to Marvel, and has successfully licensed his own properties to television and video games.

Timothy Brown is the award-winning designer of Dark Sun and 2300AD, and was Director of Creative Services at TSR supervising the best of the AD&D game worlds, including Ravenloft and Planescape. He is a Brand Manager for Pinnacle Entertainment Group and recently ran his own successful Kickstarter campaign to launch an original new game world, Dragon Kings.

George Vasilakos is the President and Art Director of Eden Studios. He has worked as Art Director and Creative Director of licensed games for his company and for Last Unicorn Games, Decipher and Wizards of the Coast including properties as the Buffy the Vampire, Army of Darkness, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek and Dune.

http://pulposaurus.com/about-us/

Although not a miniatures game, Dragon King fulfilled back in April. AFAIK, Shane Hensley has miniatures experience, but their last miniatures game was back around 2000.

EDIT: Shane Hensley, of Pinnacle Entertainment and Savage Worlds RPG fame, has run seven KS, mostly RPGs : https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/545820095/created

Deadlands: Great Rail Wars miniatures: https://boardgamegeek.com/images/boardgame/12957/deadlands-great-rail-wars

From FB: "We are paying for premium paints from the factory - many manufacturers have 3 degrees of painting and we want to pay for top tier - because Conan demands that level."

*Sets alarm for 7am PST*

**PulposaurusJohn**

BY CROM! The Conan Rise of Monsters kickstarter is now live!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2060871444/conan-rise-of-monsters/comments

**overtyrant**

I'm in for the EB Warlord set. Hopefully this can reach quite high for the SG!

**Nostromodamus**

EB Warlord here too (backer #1!).

Quite high funding level here, hopefully that doesn't put people off as honest funding levels sometimes do.

Prices seem a little high but I have to keep reminding myself this all comes painted!

**PulposaurusJohn**

Our thoughts exactly, and they are NOT poorly painted miniatures made out of cheap plastic, no expense has been spared to make this game look amazing.

Thanks for your support guys, feel free to ask any questions and ill try to help out. I can't wait till i get my copies!

**Nostromodamus**

PulposaurusJohn wrote:
feel free to ask any questions and ill try to help out.

Do you have plans on making the Fate Decks as add-ons?

Will the full game rules and the stats for all models be in the Campaign book?

If someone pledges $1 (no reward), can they select add-ons?

**Alpharius**

Prices do seem a bit high, and the usual 'Fake Stretch Goals' are in attendance too...

Still, I'm tempted, and I'll camp on an EB slot for now, to be sure!

**Nostromodamus**

Alpharius wrote:
Still, I'm tempted, and I'll camp on an EB slot for now, to be sure!

Same here. Still undecided on whether to stick with the pledge here or just use my Conan board game minis with Song of Blades and Heroes rules...

**ced1106**

$190 EB for the minimum two starter sets to play... Five additional miniatures by $1.1M... $25+ add-ons...

This is way too pricey for me, The team behind it *is* experienced in gamer hobbies and KS campaigns, although I would have liked to have seen them have run a miniatures campaign before.

I'm assuming the high cost of the project comes from the costs of the molds *and* the tier 3 painting service. Reaper's prepainted Legendary Encounters KS will be later in the year, and Reaper did a smart move by separating the mold costs and painting costs into separate campaigns (LE will use the existing Bones molds which have been paid for). That way, they're at least expecting to be able to offer prepainted miniatures at only a slightly higher price than their Bones miniatures during the KS. No idea of the paint job quality. The painting will be done with masks, rather than hand-painting, so I'm still waiting for the photos.

Anyway, I do suggest adding an entry for this game on BoardGameGeek, and making an announcement of it on the Press Releases "Crowdfunding Announcements thread (Kickstarter, Indiegogo, etc)" thread. HeroScapers might be a site interested in the prepaints. I hope this funds because I'd like to see that there really is a market for high-quality prepainted miniatures.

**Necros**

Looks great, high goal but it's refreshing to see a realistic number there for such an ambitious project. Good luck

**PulposaurusJohn**

I'm working on a write up for BoardGameGeek right now actually! thanks for the very polite feed back! Ill pass it up the chain.

**MLaw**

I'm in at Warlord but it's extremely tentative.
I don't know that I am excited about the mass-combat aspect of this. It looks more like a large skirmish game than a full on mass combat system.

I am excited about miniatures. There not being a miniatures only buy-in is disappointing. Likewise, having to watch this until the 48 hour mark to see if there will be enough miniature action to satisfy me is equally disappointing.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
I also want to throw in.. I am not excited in the least about this being pre-paint. I'm sure there are people who are. I have all kinds of pre-paints from Rackham to stuff I can't even remember. If I'm doing a whole army, I'm going to want to make sure they're painted the way I want :/

**Wehrkind**

I like how the cavalry for the Circle of Iron have a nice chorus line thing going. I think that will look very exciting on the table, perhaps with some orchestra pit terrain!

A mass battle game with so few sculpts is going to be a serious problem. Even Warmachine has ~2-3 sculpts per unit, and that still feels on the low side.

**Yodhrin**

Two issues I can see so far; first, no scale comparisons. Would be nice to see both relative(ie, your models ranked alongside those from other companies/the Conan boardgame) and absolute(ie, your models next to a ruler). Second, no mention anywhere I can find that the project is EU-Friendly: the exact final shipping cost is of less importance than where the package is coming from; a fair few EU folk are not going to buy into this when there remains the risk the package will be seized at Customs and slapped with 20% VAT and handling charges.

**PulposaurusJohn**

Currently, our only plan for Fate Decks is to get them in the starter boxes.

The different sculpts comes from stretch goals, i understand your concern but when your focused on how much fun you are having with the game the models having limited poses melts away.

I'll ask the higher ups to get some scale pictures put up on facebook i dont want to give you wrong information from my memory.

As for shipping, i know we are currently trying to find distribution partners to make shipping cheaper and safer for everyone. Best thing to do is follow our facebook page for more information. Again ill run this buy the higher ups and see if i can get an answer for you.

thanks for all your support and comments guys!

**MLaw**

Someone just posted this observation:

so if we reach $1,175000 we get 5 free minis to each starter set some dice and 8 tiles free but there are $365 worth of add-ons to buy .... sheesh!

Just so we're clear.. if I'm in at $150 and am still expected to buy $20+ characters to fill out my ranks with only 10 extra models added to the core dual starter, I will not be in at $150.

Looking at those planned SGs.. wow.. not really sure this will ever get to a point where I think it's a good value.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

PulposaurusJohn wrote:
Currently, our only plan for Fate Decks is to get them in the starter boxes.

The different sculpts comes from stretch goals, i understand your concern but when your focused on how much fun you are having with the game the models having limited poses melts away.

Wha... really? So... why is it that so many of your stretch goals are alternate poses?

**NewTruthNeomaxim**

By KS standards this is some hyper premium pricing. Even "boutique" games like Kingdom Death had more "value" in their $25 add-ons.

I don't know... I like some of what I am seeing, but needing to hit 1.1million before we've received enough free added minis to remotely make this look palatable, is rough.

I think the lack of miniature gaming KS experience is showing, because the price/value gap is going to torpedo this KS.

**PulposaurusJohn**

**Nostromodamus**

Dropped my pledge already. After hearing more it just doesn't suit my needs.

Good luck though!

**PulposaurusJohn**

Sorry to hear that! Hopefully in the coming weeks we can release some more information that will reignite your interest!

Thanks for your input and being so polite about it!

**MLaw**

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
By KS standards this is some hyper premium pricing. Even "boutique" games like Kingdom Death had more "value" in their $25 add-ons.

I don't know... I like some of what I am seeing, but needing to hit 1.1million before we've received enough free added minis to remotely make this look palatable, is rough.

I think the lack of miniature gaming KS experience is showing, because the price/value gap is going to torpedo this KS.

For real.. it looks like a total lack of market research.

http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=9094390

Looking around at what other companies are doing and failing or succeeding at, what people are and are not pledging on.. you'd think anyone going this big on a project like this would have done some front end analysis.

Definitely dropping my pledge after the responses we've seen to legitimate concerns. What a crappy attitude for a startup.

**overtyrant**

I'm not seeing any rude responses to questions at all? Can you please quote the ones that were rude?

**Bossk_Hogg**

What is retail expected to be on this? $35 for 5 infantry is pretty pricey, but I'd expect them to be even more at release... $50? $25 for singles translates to $30 at release??

Attack Wing seems to run about $15 for the single more elite characters and $25 for packs of 6 grunts. This looks like it would be roughly double. I'm not sure the market would bear that. The figures do look much better, and the studio paint jobs are good, but it remains to be seen how well that actually translates into release product. It would have been good to have a production sample. Anyways, good luck!

**PulposaurusJohn**

I apologize sincerely if anything i have said came of rudely, was not intentional simply trying to get information out there! Sorry if i came off as rude.

**Bossk_Hogg**

overtyrant wrote:
I'm not seeing any rude responses to questions at all? Can you please quote the ones that were rude?

Same here, they've seemed nothing but polite and answered questions/critiques well enough.

**MLaw**

overtyrant wrote:
I'm not seeing any rude responses to questions at all? Can you please quote the ones that were rude?

It's not about rudeness, it's about the fact that the concerns over the lack of variation, model counts, prices, etc are being dismissed, ignored, or brushed off.

**Bossk_Hogg**

MLaw wrote:
overtyrant wrote:
I'm not seeing any rude responses to questions at all? Can you please quote the ones that were rude?

It's not about rudeness, it's about the fact that the concerns over the lack of variation, model counts, prices, etc are being dismissed, ignored, or brushed off.

Essentially your question is "why arent you offering more for cheaper?". There's no realistic, satisfactory answer to that question. They could come and give some marketing spiel, but in the end, you're either for the product at the price, or not.

I think it just is what it is on the price (which also factors in to model count and pose variety). Painting models to the caliber the game appears to be aiming for is going to be expensive. You've been pretty vocal you don't think its worth your money, which is fine. But I can also respect the lack of butt kissing to try and get you to come around, when odds are they really wont be able to throw in the number of minis needed to meet the standards. Now maybe they aimed too high on the pre-paint quality, and this wont fly. But the ship has currently sailed for them to offer what you want. Not every customer is worth the effort to land, particularly when they come to the table, arms folded, and demand a hard sell. Not desperately chasing after you isnt a crappy attitude.

FWIW, I'm not a backer or have any involvement, this is just my perspective from someone on the sidelines.