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It is not two extra henchmen... it is two extra *sets* of henchmen, from whichever factions you want. So 10 extra figures

 Ian Sturrock wrote:
Yeah, I like the miniatures well enough, but they're asking for Hasslefree type money for (at best) CMON PVC level of quality. I don't see that being good value. There's nothing wrong with decent PVC minis but they're much better for mass battles than skirmish games, in terms of levels of detail and character.

If it's CMON quality I agree. But if they can match this quality then I have no issues with it.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 endtransmission wrote:
It is not two extra henchmen... it is two extra *sets* of henchmen, from whichever factions you want. So 10 extra figures

Well that would be a little better. Where did they say that, 'cause at the moment the graphic just says two henchmen reinforcements?

Manchu are you able to update the thread title please, to let people know the KS has started? Might help it along a little.

Shame it is such a long wait for release (over a year!), although I guess they have to scale up their production. And hopefully at least it has more chance of being accurate.

On the upside the poor value and long delay mean it's super easy to make the decision to skip this one and wait for the reviews, and for someone else to build up a community of players, etc.

PVC? Annnd...nope. However, I'm excited to see some of that new terrain, the Boggenbridge stuff will be slick when it's available at retail.

It depends what quality though.. a lot of the CMoN stuff (Zombicide: BP etc.), Conan, The Walking Dead has excellent quality sculpts, with tons of defined detail, at the same level.

I think with the free UK P&P it's worth while going in on the £40 pledge level, outside of the UK I guess you at least have the bonus of the UK currency being at a pretty low level now.

Except for those trying to order from North Korea apparently, who are forbidden from pledging at all!

Maybe a bit twee but might also get a mug, think the art for this is really cool..

I have to disagree a bit there. I own Z:BP, Conan, etc. and while the quality is okay (for the price), they're nowhere near as good as a quality metal or HIPS type product. And definitely not for the bumped price in a product like this.

I can cope with that quality when I'm getting 200-300 miniatures for a steal, or using them exclusively in a board game, but they're not on the level of a proper wargaming miniature for the most part.

Now that being said, 4Ground is one of my favourite companies and they never do things by halves, so I'd like to be proven wrong and they've teamed up with the best PVC mini makers in the world or something...but I won't be buying in on faith for that type of material turning into quality minis.

This one looks interesting, but due to all the issues raised in the last few posts, it becomes rather easy to join the "Wait For Retail" brigade on this one.

I especially want to wait and see what the quality of the PVC figures turns out to be here too.

I do, of course, wish them the best of luck on this campaign!

EDIT

Also, thread title updated!

They will definitely not be getting an interest free loan from me. Not at the "value" presented here, and with the unknown PVC quality. Plus, I agree with Manchu that the gimmicky items are a big red flag.

Shame too since I really liked what I saw up until now.

~Eric

 Alpharius wrote:
This one looks interesting, but due to all the issues raised in the last few posts, it becomes rather easy to join the "Wait For Retail" brigade on this one.

Seems very wise. Also thanks for updating the thread title!

 Taarnak wrote:
They will definitely not be getting an interest free loan from me.

Well said.

I also really like 4ground scenics. But they appear to be out of their wheelhouse here. It's an ambitious project and I will no doubt support it at retail if everything works out.

I'll make one last post to sum up what I think they did wrong with this project then I'll stop posting here and stick to badgering them on the comments section. I'm going to stick with my pledge for now. I've spent more than £70 on a round of drinks on nights I have no memory of, so it's not a great amount in the grand scheme of things.

First off they set their expectations too high. The last stretch goal in their initial plan was the fourth faction unlocked at £150K. They've got this faction planned out, so they know they are going to be released whether they hit the target or not. But having goals that are a long way out of reach stops people pledging for them until they are unlocked, which slows down the amount pledged, which adds up to those goals being further out of reach.
I've no idea why they thought they'd get anywhere near £150K to begin with. Based on other games I would have expected this one, if run well, to top out at £75K, and probably less. Their whole kickstarter seems to have been planned out on an expected pledge total that, if they'd done their homework, they would have realised was completely unrealistic.

Secondly they didn't focus on the game. My first impressions were that this could be the successor to Mordheim. I watched the play video and it's long and not exciting, but I can see the game mechanics will make for a fun game. So where's the emphasis on how much fun and exciting the game will be? I'd have been hammering home hard that this is Mordheim with modern gameplay, this is what you've been waiting decades for. This is your campaign system, heroic development, random events, better gameplay than Mordheim, more sophisticated than Frostgrave, that you are going to be playing for years to come. But instead we get barely a squeak. On the kickstarter page talk of the actual game is buried way down the page. They screwed up by not putting the game first.

Next there's the background. The gameplay info being buried down the page - what do you think it's buried under? Boring, derivative, unexciting, generic fantasy fluff. Generic fantasy settings (especially ones that rip off other generic fantasy settings like this one has done with Dragon Age) are ten a penny. NOBODY CARES! And the name of the game itself, "The Legends of Fabled Realms", may well be one of the worst titles for a game I've had the misfortune of discovering. And if the fluff writing in the rulebook is on par with the blurbs next to the models on the kickstarter page then God help them, it's going to be truely bad.

Fourthly - They didn't focus on the game! (yeah it's the same as the second complaint, but for a different reason). A bunch of models, rulebook, cards, dice and tokens for £40 is perfectly reasonable. It gives you what you need to play a game at a price level that will encourage punters to take a stab. On the opening day, apart from the throw away lowest pledge level, this was the pledge level that the campaign should have been built around. The next pledge level was £200. You get two starters (good), a large rulebook (contains everything that's in the smaller rulebook and extra fluff pages of their awful setting, so meh) and a load of their pre-existing terrain. Why? Sell the game, not your pre-exisitng stock.
Then we jump to £400. At this level you get all the stuff at £200, plus everything that gets unlocked. Almost all of the unlocks are game specific (finally!). But to get this deal you have to spunk a load of money on their pre-existing terrain! They eventually introduced a £70 level for two starters sets, which was actually good. But if you are only interested in the game and not the terrain, your next pledge level was £400. Why the hell didn't they do a £200 level that was focused on the game without the terrain baggage? You're 4Ground and you are reputed for making terrain. But this kickstarter is for a game, not for you to offload stock. Focus on the game!

Fifth - unrealistic prices. I've done the breakdown already in this thread to show that the £200 and £400 are not good value for a product that you won't receive until the end of next year. I won't do it again but it's enough to say that the "£150" of terrain you get with those pledges is not a good deal (especially not when they had to add extra stuff at the last minute when they realised the "deal" they were offering was actually worth less than what they claimed). They still have the game mat showing as £35, which is unreasonable. The card expansions consist of seven cards each for £3. That means they want £30 for all 70 cards. You can pick up card expansion packs for other games that have over 100 cards in them for less than £10 - so again, unrealistic pricing. And then we add in that it's PVC, which a lot of people don't want to pay those prices for, which brings us to the next problem....

Six - it's PVC! There's nothing wrong in principle with making a game PVC. But you damn well make sure you are up front about it and if you don't want to scare potential backers off then you make sure you have an accurate representation of the product standard available. You only get one chance at first impressions and if you haven't got a representation of the product ready to wow us with then people who don't want PVC aren't going to look twice.

There's more that I could bang on about (the bloody useless picture stretch goals! Having essential game components like the additional cards as stretch goals. Mugs and pre-existing products being used to bump up the pledge total. MUGS!) but I shan't. 4Ground took a stab at something they've never done before and it honestly looks like they did no homework to prepare themselves.

edit: And a big number seven they just informed us of .... You know all that pre-existing terrain they want you to throw loads of money at - the same stuff you could order, now, from Wayland for cheaper. You won't receive that terrain until late next year when the game ships.

I was quite interested when Ive seen the minis at salute. I also raised the question there about PVC material and they said if enough interest was raised they may consider resin versions of the minis, which I may add that are amazing IRL.

Personaly I dont support KS and was thinking on cheking and getting some of these minis at next Salute but looking at the time frame on the KS looks like none of them will be ready and on sale by then which is a huge mistake if you ask me… 2 years of salute with only preview minis and no product for sale is not ideal believe me.

I was looking forward to seeing this, maybe getting a low entry starter, then if it was good, get the rest at retail...

However an end rrp of £45 for 8 pvc figures, a mini rulebook, some cards and a slack handful of dice. That's way too pricey for me. I like to buy 2 factions at start, then get 2 more later and use them to get friends interested using demos.

I would have gone in for just a rulebook if the figure prices were too high, but that seems pointless as I'd need cards which come with figures.

Guess this is a game I'll keep an eye on, rather than jump in.

Wow what a post Henry.. reason I come to Dakka is that you'll occasionally get a comment like that.
Agree with the sentiments, hopefully there will be some changes with the project and we'll end up with a better game for all (and one that can fulfil its undoubted potential)

I think there must have been a fair few comments about the PVC issue, check out the latest update below:

Resin Or PVC

One of the things we want to discuss with you all tomorrow is whether you would prefer all the miniatures (from starter sets/add-ons) to go from PVC plastic to resin. There are pros and cons for both and I want to go a little into the reason we originally chose PVC.

First resin;

Pros: If we do the whole kickstarter in resin it means that we can change the stretch goals again, adding in more miniatures, unlocked faster. We will also be able to potentially be delivered sooner as production does not need as much tooling etc. Resin is easier to convert and modify.

Cons: Some people are not keen on resin, resin miniatures are more prone to breakages and resin products are more expensive.

Then PVC;

Pros: can come pre-assembled get the product out of the box and go. Les prone to breakages than resin, less paint chipping than metal. Less expensive than resin meaning the products we sell at retail are less expensive than they would be, therefore more people getting into the game.

Cons: Some people are not keen on PVC, the product is not as easily converted, takes longer to deliver, longer gaps between stretch goals due to tooling costs etc.

The reason we originally went for PVC was due to how easy it would be able to get people into the game and how resistant the material is to damages. We also wanted a product that would be very easy to use out of the box (almost following the philosiphy our buildings have with being pre-painted). We really want feedback from all our backers so let us know what you think and if you can join us for the live discussion tomorrow.
The downside with this decision is we can only use one material, so PVC or Resin will be a permanent choice, so we want as much feedback as possible.

Comments below look like a mix between people wanting either. I suppose the problem is that there is arguments for both, and a lot based on what quality of PVC is being used..

Another update has just come out and based on the 55 replies so far, pvc is still winning, but a resin upgrade option has been added. Sadly the resin upgrade is £12 *per starter*.

The PVC figures are being produced by the same people that deal with Conan, Mythic Battles, the forthcoming Batman and the CMON games (amongst others).

We have just unlocked the fourth faction set and another small piece of terrain and accompanying scenario has been added to some of the levels for free

I don't understand why their prices are so high, especially the extra £12 for resin figures. I'd have thought that for £40 resin would have easily been covered already (it's only 8 figures). All this feels like is that they are charging retail prices for their kickstarter (and even at retail that price for 8 PVC miniatures and a book is a bit rich).

Either way, I've dropped my pledge for many of the same reasons Henry mentioned in his post. It's a shame too, I really wanted to like this game, I just can't justify the price.

 Zethnar wrote:
I don't understand why their prices are so high

Have you ever bought anything from 4ground?

Their buildings are lovely (honestly I think some of the best on the market) but they do not come cheap.

The price per mini is not 'cheap' per se, but the guys have got a good track record.. it's not that expensive compared to a lot of other wargaming stuff on the market, definitely think its worth a punt for a starter or two if not the terrain addons.

They make great terrain - I don't think they've got a track record to speak of when it comes to miniatures.

Now, if the PVC is going to be from the same place that's already done all those listed up there...that's...good.

But, a lot of those 'good' PVC miniatures are the larger figures, the monsters.

There's not a lot of really good 'human sized' stuff in PVC - it still isn't comparing all that well with resin (real resin) or metal.

 Alpharius wrote:
They make great terrain - I don't think they've got a track record to speak of when it comes to miniatures.

Now, if the PVC is going to be from the same place that's already done all those listed up there...that's...good.

But, a lot of those 'good' PVC miniatures are the larger figures, the monsters.

There's not a lot of really good 'human sized' stuff in PVC - it still isn't comparing all that well with resin (real resin) or metal.

I'm going to have to disagree with you there mate! (well.. partly! )

Some of the best CMoN stuff, Conan, Walking Dead etc. doesn't have the mental detail level that you can make with resin or metal, but I think is good enough for purpose and still looks fine with a half decent paintjob.
Certainly the detail can be well enough defined that with anything other than a high-res super close up photo it's perfectly serviceable.
And you can do more with it if you have the will - check out some of AAN's work in the P&M sections.

And.. 4ground haven't done miniatures before but think they are pulling in sculptors from elsewhere (would need to check on that one as to who exactly, but the CADs themselves look exceptional)
Think their quality of products released so far in other areas has to stand for something - in the same way as someone like BMW wouldn't suddenly release a piece of rubber with holes in it if they started selling umbrellas (sorry that's a terrible example!)

I find your faith in 4Ground's ability to do something they've never done before...interesting!

I certainly hope that they can pull it off though, and that everyone is happy with the final product.

Offering a 'real resin' option is a good move.

But given the (lack of) value and the long lead time, waiting for retail appears to be the right play here!

I have to agree with one of the above posters about 4Ground having ideas of the KS hitting high and doing so quickly, as evident by the 1st lot of SG shown(dont get me started on the £15K needed for 2 free art prints lol) and the fact they plan on shipping in waves of 1000 with #3000+ being delivered after retail!

Re-guarding resin minis when i spoke to Cad at UKGE the resin was planned for retail after KS and being labelled a collector series with PVC for the KS minis and the game in general,

Now the joke of the resin vs PVC poll is over(open 14-15hrs and 54 votes out of 300) and they have added resin upgrades at £12 a starter, the only prob i have with mixing minis of the 2 types is the resin ones will be slightly bigger, they had the orange 3D prints for both PVC and resin side by side and theres a noticeable difference, i just hope they release all the minis in resin not just a select few like its been hinted at on the campaign!

http://imgur.com/a/KXVvF

The terrain will ship earlier if your willing to pay 2 lots of shipping, it was in the KS live video, the 1st half hr or so talks about PVC if your interested

I wonder how much of their £56K is made up of money from the terrain that inflates each pledge!?

Going for plastic for this was a bad idea as they'll never attain the numbers to really justify it (much like CROM) just due to it being a miniatures game which always pull in less the boardgames. In fact this is really mirroring CROM in tearms of how much it's being backed and what you get for $100 -- though the minis here are way nicer sculpts just to begin with.

They should have just had a hundred pound sweet spot with metal miniatures, pdf rulebook and stretch goals. Instead we get a lot of over inflated add ons to help pay for the PVC molds and wasted stretch goals like on art prints that no one wants.

That price point is really important as people really want a basic price that lets them play the game and go along on the stretch goal train. Just surprising to me how many companies don't understand that or are hoping to be the exception.

Yeah, PVC for a super niche skirmish game is baffling.

Just watching through the Q&A session from last night, so I'll update this when interesting bits come up.

- Digital sculpters are the same used by Monolith for Conan, Mythic battles and Batman.
- The material and quality is aiming to be the same as the giant snake in Conan, which is fantastic quality imo. Detail is exceptionally sharp and non-flexible. they specifically held up some of the lighter plastic Conan figures and went "Not this", but this:



- Resin was discounted as the primary manufacturing material of choice because during playtesting and the initial test casting there were a lot of breakages on weapons.
- They are looking at the hard plastic for weapons on figures as the samples from Mythic Battles are apparently very nice and as they are using the same factory, the experience is there.
- They are looking at reducing costs of the resin upgrades, especially for the £400 level where it would rack up very quickly indeed
- The manufacturing process will be overseen by someone that used to be the manufacturing exec for Hornby who looked after their overseas manufacturing
- The pdf options will probably have a KS print version available, so a book of all the scenarios from the terrain sets and the two warbands that were previously in the stretch goal list
- There is another A4 book coming in the KS that is more of a roleplay/background book. In the levels where you get two A4 rulebooks, it will be possible to swap out one of these for the new book instead for less duplication
- You can pay some extra postage to get the terrain early
- Beta rules will be made available to all the backers after the beta weekend as a pdf download/dropbox link
- The delivery date given is a very conservative date to make sure everything has time to be manufactured and go through the full QA process. They would rather be conservative and maybe deliver early, than promise much earlier in the year and fail to deliver on it, or have to cut corners.
- The QA process is going to be done by them in the UK. The factories will ship all the different components to 4Ground where they will QA all of the models and pieces as they go into the packets. Anything slightly miscast or bent is going to be rejected and not packed to maintain a solid quality product.

- Legacy system advancement:
- Heroes record wounds caused and spells cast. Each gives you one point to spend; you can then upgrade some of your stats/dice. To spend this, select a stat/dice to upgrade, roll a D6 and add the amount of points needed for the upgrade. You have to roll over a certain value to see if you actually learn the new skill... so there is no certainty that that experience will actually pay off. I kind of like the uncertainty that can bring...
- The starter sets include rules on designing your own characters, so you don't have to use their figures at all if you don't want to.

They seem to also have lots of plans for expansions, more warbands and different ways to play too... so... interesting.

Remember PVC has significantly more shrinkage during casting than resin,

so to end up with an equivalent sized figure at the end you need a larger master for the PVC version than for the resin one

They didn't even consider metal? That's usually the default material for smaller games.

They did investigate metal first, but thanks to our wonderful politicians, Brexit (amongst other worldwide issues) has caused the price of metal to skyrocket with no sign of it coming down.

Some other updates today.

The pledges that come with the £150 terrain packages will get a choice of two in the pledge manager; one is shown in the picture, the other is a pack of Daldorr terrain that will interlock with the £70k stretch goal buildings.

The gaming mat also has three choices: Grass, Snow or Barren earth.

There are also more timed unlocks to be added every few days. These are free to the relevant pledges, regardless of when you pledge. No idea what these are yet.

Oh. the update regarding upgrading the £200/£400/£800 pledge levels to all resin was in there too. This is capped at £12 per starter set, all the other figures that are not resin, but included in your level will be upgraded for free; so the £200 level that is £24, 400/800 is £48. As part of this they have confirmed that this includes the *10* extra reinforcements (2 sets of all the non-character figures from starter sets of your choice) given at 400/800 levels... so there is definitely a number against those extra troops now.

The wagon kit comes with 3 linked scenarios and some character cards for the special characters in the stories. No extra figures though.

Some rules bits from the comments:

4ground wrote:The way terrain interacts in a mechanical sense is mainly increasing your defence against attacks and slowing movement. You can climb buildings/cliffs doing a stamina test and moving 2" per face symbol (success, critical or super critical) if you fail to traverse the wall you stay where you were. If you test while going up a wall and roll only blanks you fall taking an attack with one red dice per 2" fallen.

4ground wrote:Regarding narrative dice, in the book it covers how you would use the white dice to be a 50/50 dice, 1 in 3 and 1 in 6 (also technically 5 in 6 for really easy things). They are only supposed to be used in narrative games as tournament players would not appreciate them (which means we do use it a lot)

This last one was in response to a question about people flipping over wagons, jumping across gaps or generally interacting with things in a more cinematic way.

I watched halfway through the demo game on BoW and have to say it seemed a pretty boring system. I cancelled my pledge and will have a look again at the finished product when it hits retail.

I like most of the big minis from the Conan game -- the snake is a particular standout. But the game is also very good, and the value is *incredibly* good overall, in terms of the number of miniatures at a given pledge level. That's why I backed Mythic Battles, having seen how good Conan was.

Edit: And the human-sized minis in Conan are not especially good. Not really any more than Bones quality on average, and definitely not up there with Blood Rage (though BR was a particular standout for PVC).

Eight minis for £40 is still boutique level pricing, not Conan style pricing.

Eight for 40 is more metal pricing to be honest. That's 5 quid a figure not even taking into account the other things in the starter. I feel like the Brexit excuses is pretty poor. It's not that it's caused metal prices to fluxuate too much it's more that they don't know what the trade contract with various countries will be so they don't know what the price will be (fair argument) so instead they chose the dumbest route possible for how they wanted to kickstart their game.

It also doesn't help that because of CMoN and Conan people expect really lots of minis from a kickstarter doing PVC. You're looking at like 30+ figures for 40 quid to meet expectations.

Conan was able to do such high volumes so they pretty much charged like 50 cents per figure. Of course to get enough backer interest to do that volume you have to change that amount in your KSer to attract enough people so it's kind of a catch-22.

I feel like it's just beating a dead horse at this point but a 2-player starterbox that was the only choice, like Mythic Battles, is really the only way you can go with plastic for a new game.

Edit:

And the human-sized minis in Conan are not especially good. Not really any more than Bones quality on average, and definitely not up there with Blood Rage (though BR was a particular standout for PVC).

I have to disagree here. Have lots of both and at the human size Conan are way better then bones. Better detail and easer to paint especially as the flexible bones has issues with paints and some primers.