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£150K is a big, big goal, but if reached, should mean they can actually make this thing...

Update #1!

£165,000 - Wihtgār

Welcome to this, the first update for Darkholds: Ancient Barrows - and it's a stretch goal!

Due to popular request, we have added the very first stretch goal for this project, set at £165,000 to unlock - and it's the Wihtgār!



Once we reach £165,000, a new Wihtgār warrior sculpt (whose name is Oswine) will be introduced to the game. Half of the 12x Wihtgār warriors included in the box will become Oswine, with the other six remaining the original Wihtgār warrior, Cynemund.

4x Free Wihtgār!

As well as that, backers of the Darkholds: Ancient Barrows reward (including any early bird versions) will receive an extra 4x Wihtgār warriors (two of both different warriors) - for free!
OPTIONAL BUY - The Dead of Black Barrow

With the addition of the above you'll also be able to purchase The Dead of Black Barrow for £20 ($26) as an optional buy.



This box-set will include 2x Wihtgār Champions and 18x Wihtgār warriors (nine of both different warriors), giving you a total of 20x Wihtgār to dominate the heroes and henchmen - or use in the Darklands tabletop wargame, of course!

overtyrant wrote:
Only had a quick flick through, I'll have a proper look later when the opp arrives, but I did not notice any SG and the tiles look a bit cartooney and something looks off about the cards in general, can't quite put my finger on it. Minis look lovely though they are the resin ones and not the plastic ones right? Was that mentioned clearly on the KS page. I'll get a proper look later.

They confirmed the tiles are WIPs. I'd anticipate them being more in the Darklands gritty aesthetic when completed.

So the only optional buy so far is the skeleton box? Hopefully they'll give us something else to pledge money for.

Man, this was under the radar for me. Got excited but then saw it was yet another fantasy guys vs undead board game. If they had done just about any other army as the bad guy I probably would've been all over this.

No no no, you don't get it. These skeletons are different and and interesting because they have




Zzzzzzz--wha? snort. Must have fallen asleep for a moment. What was I looking at again?

I definitely think this has an aesthetic of its own, as does Darkholds generally.

It's possible that this isn't your kind of thing, but then that's fine! It's not going to be everything for all people, and the games that try that usually fall in-between two stools.

The Mierce skeletons are the best on the market, imo - they're why I'm pledging! Although I did just notice it's only one sculpt per unit, which is a major drawback... I'm considering putting these funds directly to Mierce for resin ones, to have more variety.

Here's the KS link from last page:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mierceminiatures/darkholds-ancient-barrows/description

Early birds just sold out but there's a second tier for only a few pounds more!

 MLaw wrote:
Man, this was under the radar for me. Got excited but then saw it was yet another fantasy guys vs undead board game. If they had done just about any other army as the bad guy I probably would've been all over this.

And yet, unlike all those other ones, not a zombie in the box...

At least Ghosts, wraiths, Giant spiders, and Beetles are different then, Zombies, fast zombies, fat zombies (that uxplurd!), Giant Zombie monster, repeat.

They have said that in future expansions to the game, there will be goatmen on the Fomoraic Ice sheets, the weird rat people and mutants of the Ysian dungeons, and Vikings n' Trolls. They have a lot of different stuff they can play with, but yeah, in the end, it is heroes vs. Undead, as that has been a proven game seller for many companies.

I'm with you, I loved that Massive darkness had not one zombie in the box, but I think if Darkholds is successful, they'll move away from the undead realms very quickly. Then we can have undead heroes as players!

 skullking wrote:

At least Ghosts, wraiths, Giant spiders, and Beetles are different then, Zombies, fast zombies, fat zombies (that uxplurd!), Giant Zombie monster, repeat.

Exactly!

Not sure how people are missing *that*!

I'm still skeptical - but cautiously optimistic - that the PVC will come close to the usual Mierce high standards for sculpt and casting quality.

Jutes were already one of the more popular kindreds for Darklands, and that will probably only increase if this Campaign is successful.

Now, where's the OP, to keep the title and first post updated?!?

Eh they seem to be doing something right with their undead, because the Jutes are always good sellers and bring in backers. Plus they do offer a different look as ancient dead. GW's undead like hot garbage from the 90's and Mantic's have a rather distinct Army of Darkness vibe.

plus no censorship of the images needed

(unlike if they picked Ys with darling Torku and Druc )

Ah, there's the OP!

(Still no updated title or 1st post though... )

both were updated when it went live, title, link, box contents and video

maybe you're seeing an old cached page?

Conditionally backed ... Mierce in plastic is very, very interesting ...

OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:both were updated when it went live, title, link, box contents and video

maybe you're seeing an old cached page?

Wha...?!?

I'm not seeing an updated title, referencing the first update has been posted, nor is that info in the OP!!!

Manchu wrote:Conditionally backed ... Mierce in plastic is very, very interesting ...

This is - allegedly - going to be matching CMON's best PVC to date - Blood Rage and such.

Blood Rage minis were very nice.

Combine that with the promise of 'hard plastic' weapons here, and sculpts made with PVC shrinkage in mind, and we could be in for a real treat, both in terms of quality AND price.

 Alpharius wrote:

OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:both were updated when it went live, title, link, box contents and video

maybe you're seeing an old cached page?

Wha...?!?

I'm not seeing an updated title, referencing the first update has been posted, nor is that info in the OP!!!

I'm saving that for tomorrow to have a legitimate excuse to give it a morning bump (Mwah Ha Ha Ha)

Fair enough!

It will be interesting to see how this one moves after the Day One Rush is over.

Hopefully...nice and quickly!

A significant number of backers over anything I've seen for a Darklands project for some time already, if nothing else there'll hopefully be a network effect from all those people over the coming days.

Well, yes, the whole 'board game' vs. 'war game' (with complex rules, fiddly resin (!!!) mutlipart models that need to be - assembled!) thing.

Plus the 'buy in' here is a lot less than a 'typical' Mierce KS, especially given the amount of miniatures we'll get!

 Pacific wrote:
I definitely think this has an aesthetic of its own, as does Darkholds generally.

It's possible that this isn't your kind of thing, but then that's fine! It's not going to be everything for all people, and the games that try that usually fall in-between two stools.

Shrug. I'm really looking for something to buy from this campaign.

Have you considered the board game it's explicitly set up to finance?

So I know most of the example miniatures are just painted resin models, but will they be resculpting all the items in the box as 3D computer models? Seems like a great time to bang out two more mound beetles to get that Unit finally finished for Darklands. Plus new dreaguth and Gast figures would be pretty awesome for most people who already own the original miniatures.

I hope there's an extra cardset you can buy which has other Jute models like the centipede, bat thing, human warriors, & Gast king. Would give people who want to expand the game, or who already have the figures,even more to enjoy.

Last Boss Tower Banbrecca!

 skullking wrote:
So I know most of the example miniatures are just painted resin models, but will they be resculpting all the items in the box as 3D computer models? Seems like a great time to bang out two more mound beetles to get that Unit finally finished for Darklands. Plus new dreaguth and Gast figures would be pretty awesome for most people who already own the original miniatures.

I hope there's an extra cardset you can buy which has other Jute models like the centipede, bat thing, human warriors, & Gast king. Would give people who want to expand the game, or who already have the figures,even more to enjoy.

Last Boss Tower Banbrecca!

I believe they said that any models that were already sculpted via 3D sculpting software would use the work previously done. Anyone minis that don't will get sculpted as 3D computer models but be based on the existing sculpts. Don't quote me on that though.

I got an early bird, but this is looking less and less appealing. Mierce doesn't seem willing to put any skin in the game. With the first stretch goal on the distant horizon, my bet is that we won't get much more for our money than what they are already showing. Mierce sells expensive resins. Doesn't mean they have to sell expensive PVC. I am unwilling to pay a premium for PVC years in advance just because of some brand attached to it. Yes, this is a good price for Mierce miniatures, but these are not Mierce resins, nor is it a good price for PVC, especially with so many repeat sculpts.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Have you considered the board game it's explicitly set up to finance?

You mean me? Yeah, I considered paying about $100 for the dozen to score of models I actually want from the campaign. Then I soundly rejected that proposal and mock-slapped my face for even mentioning it.


That kind of thinking leads to GW levels of spending.

The repeat sculpts are my issue... I didn't have time to look closely when it first launched, but each unit of 10 skeletons has one pose! That's not really comparable to the resin units, imo, and I'd rather pay more for the variety the resins offer, personally.

RiTides makes a strong point. This is probably not a good way to build a collection of Mierce miniatures for miniatures wargaming. But is a dungeon crawler board game with extremely nice sculpts worthwhile? We'll see. These games are already successfully with lower quality miniatures, at a (somewhat) lower price point.

Of course, with such a high funding goal, stretch goals are perforce on the distant horizon. Mierce is almost certainly being realistic about its costs here. I think we are looking at an accirate picture, with little to no invisible big money investment behind the scenes.

 Manchu wrote:
RiTides makes a strong point. This is probably not a good way to build a collection of Mierce miniatures for miniatures wargaming. But is a dungeon crawler board game with extremely nice sculpts worthwhile? We'll see. These games are already successfully with lower quality miniatures, at a (somewhat) lower price point.

Of course, with such a high funding goal, stretch goals are perforce on the distant horizon. Mierce is almost certainly being realistic about its costs here. I think we are looking at an accirate picture, with little to no invisible big money investment behind the scenes.

Another interpretation of the realistic funding goal and stretch goal is this: Mierce isn't willing to put any of their own money into this.

The first stretch goal is roughly $20,000 USD from the funding target and it isn't even a freebie, they are just replacing some of the miniatures in the box with an alternate sculpt.

There are 68 miniatures in the box, but I count only 22 unique miniatures, which is a pretty weak offering in PVC for this price point. We are also talking about miniatures that are already sculpted. I'll grant they will need to make some modifications to the existing digital sculpts, but you cannot convince me that modifications are as expensive as sculpting them from the ground up.

I think that this is a pretty poor value proposition and a weak show from Mierce who are basically asking the backers to pay premium prices 1.5 years in advance for repeat sculpts in an inferior material. Alternatively, in a few weeks I can pick up Massive Darkness shipped for the same price with the same quality material with (it looks like) more unique sculpts and more big monsters...same genre of game, known miniature quality, in my hands in a few weeks...

Mierce is going to have to do better if they want my money.

Wow, they have to raise almost 100 euros more just to get to the first stretch goal, which is just an alternate sculpt that's already made? This kickstarter looks like it might die a slow death, like many other simiarly framed kickstarters.

I like meirce but this is probably only worth its price in resin. As others have said regarding zombicide, most cmon kickstarters of this type (black plague, green horde, massive darkness) contained between 150 and 200 models for $100-$120. Oh, that also included multiple enemy types, with multiple sculpts of each enemy, heroes, large monsters/dragons, etc. Not to mention quality sculpts too.

They did so by throwing freebies out like mad with quick and easy stretch goals.

This looks like similar quality with far less bang for the buck. I guess we will see where this one goes...

Mierce are not a company that's making millions a year (CMON made almost $22 million) so they basically can't afford to put money into the project to produce an artificially low funding target

(beyond the money time an effort they've put in to develop it which for a small company isn't going to be insignificant)

Every sculpt added is an additional tool needed for the production run (and means the tools you have already are used less thus making each mini you get from them more expensive), as described the box is going to need 24 sculpts, at least 2 of which are going need to be multipart so that's only £6250 each not including other costs which is pretty good (and probably only achievable since they've now got their own in house 3d sculptor in Bob Plociennik so at least part of the process isn't subcontracted)

That's not to say I wouldn't love more variety in the whit (skeletons), but I think we've got to be realistic about it and hope the project does well enough to allow them to add it. I'd far prefer less variety and a delivered product than overpromising in the hope of a funding explosion ending up with either an 'oops we can't do it with this cash' or worse an attempt to fulfil which fails

Welcome to this, the first update for Darkholds: Ancient Barrows - and it's a stretch goal!

Due to popular request, we have added the very first stretch goal for this project, set at £165,000 to unlock - and it's the Wihtgār!





Once we reach £165,000, a new Wihtgār warrior sculpt (whose name is Oswine) will be introduced to the game. Half of the 12x Wihtgār warriors included in the box will become Oswine, with the other six remaining the original Wihtgār warrior, Cynemund.

4x Free Wihtgār!

As well as that, backers of the Darkholds: Ancient Barrows reward (including any early bird versions) will receive an extra 4x Wihtgār warriors (two of both different warriors) - for free!

OPTIONAL BUY - The Dead of Black Barrow

With the addition of the above you'll also be able to purchase The Dead of Black Barrow for £20 ($26) as an optional buy.



This box-set will include 2x Wihtgār Champions and 18x Wihtgār warriors (nine of both different warriors), giving you a total of 20x Wihtgār to dominate the heroes and henchmen - or use in the Darklands tabletop wargame, of course!