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When I checked out the campaign the first time, I do not believe there was a solo mini option at all: one had to pledge for the whole band. Now that there is a solo mini option, I'll take it.

It's not the choice of material putting me off. If it's going to be separate weapon arms then I'd much prefer resin so they don't fall off at the drop of a hat.

the price doesn't seem too crazy for resin either, even with the low £/$ we have now.

Non EU postage is a concern, it would add on about 25% of a warband's cost. Obviously this may just be impossible to solve.

The main problem is they are just more Red Box barbarians, with a (slightly) different look. The new project seemed to offer exciting possibilities to go crazy and do stuff that no one else is doing, concepts that get you interested in the world.

I also know it's been said before, but I'd really like to see poses that aren't just neutral stance with their legs spread. Something more dynamic would be perfect - even if that means less multipart possibilities.


I don't want to be overly negative, I love Tre's sculpting (especially the females) and would be very glad to have him separate me from more money in the future.

1. Make them bigger, and chunkier. Make them fit with the biggest games' figures, no matter how much you don't want to. GW plastics especially. Make them more like Forgeworld proportions though. Increased utility in the customer's eye will increase sales.

2. Make them more different. I honestly thought they were more barbarians from the main line. Where is all the different looking stuff you talked about?

3. Name your manufacturer. I will not support Prodos if I can help it. I'm not as bothered if it were Trollforged (and I know you said it isn't) since Ed is a guy who bit off more than he can chew, but Prodos are bad actors in my opinion.

4. Related to point 3: Show some samples. Show that the material is good for gamers. Use a video if you have to.

That is all I can think of.

I agree with the size thing. I was sooooo disapointed when i received my zombies from RBG first kickstarter.. really felt cheated.

I personally like the minis and the concept around them. Judging from posts in different forums I was expecting that there would be more interest in a Conan-Hyborean Age theme world but it seems that it is not the case. I consider Tre's minis among my favourite in the industry and especially his 'naked' barbarians. Therefore I would pledge just for the minis regardless of any rules to accompany them. I also have no issue with resin, although I find that metal fits better to Tre's sculpts. The only reason I did not back this and also that I am not going to back any project outside the EU anymore is the recent huge increase in customs in my country. I think an EU distributor is essential for sales in Europe (and preferably not a UK based anymore).

In case the project is canceled I would really like to see the current sculpts become part of the Evil Barbarians line.

As another European, I have to write my 2 cents too.
I always see the Red Box projects and think they are really cool. Then I look at the shipping costs (not listed) and the total lack of support outside of the USA.
Even for a box of 10 barbarians, I can't estimate my final price. Shipping could be anywhere from 10-30 Euros, import tax is another 19%. Not something I'm willing to pay. So I have to pass on these projects again and again.

Well I can say definitively that it is NOT Prodos doing the casting. I have asked the caster if I can name them but they did not answer the question directly.... we sort of got side tracked talking about NOT naming the other companies they have done work for out of respect for their privacy. The guys who would be handling this are 30+ year veterans of the metal and resin casting industry. I am going to just get some samples made and start popping them in to orders so that people can get an actual first hand view of them.


I think that obviously this campaign needs to cook a little longer.


As for the really out there different stuff...… I was afraid to really go as far as I wanted to with the difference of the design and theme. Apparently that was a big part of the problem.


scale; I wont change my scale. I specifically started RBG to get away from the heroic scale stuff. I know that GW is successful but so are a lot of other companies that don't do GW scale.


eflix29...….. I am sorry that you felt cheated by the size of the zombies in the first kickstarter. The zombies ARE smaller than my usual RBG scale, but that is largely by design. Emaciated husks of living people are MUCH smaller than living healthy people. In the case of the trollsforge resin there was a significant degree of shrinkage on a lot of the models.


I am not at all offended by any advice given so please do not feel sorry for giving it. I clearly misjudged this project and I need to go back to the drawing board and follow my first instincts.


The SDSP will be back and better, but in the mean time I need to focus my efforts on making some money with something a little more tried and true.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
one last thing I meant to address is the foreign distribution...…. I am not at ALL opposed to the idea. I just have never found anyone who would do it outside of hasslefree and that arrangement is no longer viable. I will do my best to set something up for the next KS.

When you say scale, do you mean proportion wise or height? Or both?

I agree it was the sculpts for the most part - you've just got to go for your vision, no "safe" generic barbarians. It actually isn't safe at all, since not many people need/want those!

Regarding scale, your recent sculpts have been totally fine. They only thing to fix is the wide-legged stance, they don't fit on bases with their legs so far apart and it doesn't help anyone, as people are usually talking about height when they refer to scale. Legs need to fit on bases and not all be so wide, imo!

Height hasn't been an issue with me with Tre's stuff for a long time, and I believe when he talks scale he means proportions as I don't believe he's a fan of "heroic" big heads and hands.

The stances are tough as I know why Tre does them, and they're pretty much a trademark of his, but it is hard when you want to use his stuff for a game system and you're supposed to use 25mm bases but you need 40mm bases (yes, I do have several RBG figs that have like a 23+mm gap between legs).

@Tre: I'm in it for 8.00, and my own opinion is as follows:

A) Keep your stuff the same scale, Tre- your stuff meshes with hasslefree miniatures in a great way, and are in a way a world unto yourselves that is better proportioned and more realistic than so much else out there. And that's one of the main draws for your product, at least for me.

B) That said, I think alot of your fans suffer from more than a little Barbarian fatigue. I know that thing I'm WAAAAAAAY more interested in seeing is the hoplite concept. I don't care about frozen Northmen anymore. Everyone does them to death, everyone does their Conan, their Cimmerians and Vanir etc. And to be honest, you're one of the best ones who've ever applied themselves to the concept.

I want to see the sunny south, the parallels to the Aquilonians, Nemedians, or the factions inspired by them. That's what interests me as a consumer waaaaaaay more.

C) I also think a point of hesitation is that the game these guys will come with is separate from this kickstarter. I'm really intrigued about what it might be, but I'm not necessarily plussed about going in on two different kicktstarters to flesh out a single idea.

 tre manor wrote:
Well I can say definitively that it is NOT Prodos doing the casting. I have asked the caster if I can name them but they did not answer the question directly.... we sort of got side tracked talking about NOT naming the other companies they have done work for out of respect for their privacy. The guys who would be handling this are 30+ year veterans of the metal and resin casting industry.

Personally, I find this superwierd. If the company delievers high quality, they would want all PR they can get to get more customers. They are a business after all, which runs on having customers. Being all secret and not saying who you are just feels like an odd behaviour coming from a business. As I've mentioned before, hiding behind anonymity means that they cant be held accountable for poor quality by the end users.

It's a manufacturing thing. Companies don't want competitors to know who/what they use so a competing quality product doesn't come out. The producer Tre wants to use may have clauses where they can't talk about who their customers are nor can their customers talk about who they are so that other people don't try and use them. It sounds silly to us but it seams like it's not all that uncommon now days -- at least in this hobby.

 Monkeysloth wrote:
It's a manufacturing thing. Companies don't want competitors to know who/what they use so a competing quality product doesn't come out. The producer Tre wants to use may have clauses where they can't talk about who their customers are nor can their customers talk about who they are so that other people don't try and use them. It sounds silly to us but it seams like it's not all that uncommon now days -- at least in this hobby.

No one is talking about knowing who their other customers are, or having access to the secret formula to their resin/plastic/whatever compound, but only to know who they are. By knowing who they are they can be held accountable in a completely different way if they release sub-par quality, or screw stuff up.

And it still sounds like a very wierd business decision to have a NDA so that other people don't try to use them. But I guess some companies get money to pay their bills from other things than paying customers.

I think one of the main problems was the generic nature of the design. Tre could have billed these as "Helsvakt Berserkers" and nobody would have batted an eye. In fact, due to the reuse of the Helsvakt heads, these are arguably more Helsvakt in design than anything else.
I think they need more design elements tied to the ancient southern/eastern civilizations on which the hyborean age is based to give them a little bit of a wow factor, and not make them feel like the same thing we've seen a dozen times.
Also, I would love to see Tre sculpt something with a different stance. The wide bracing legs are getting very very old.

Hey Tre,
Nice to see you doing another KS, but ... why did I learn about this here? Was there a reason you didn't send a note out to your previous backers to say you were doing another KS? I would have loved to have learned about it earlier, and would have jumped in for sure ($55 for 10 barbarians? Sure!)

Please take advantage of your fans (and don't listen to those folks who might be a bit negative here - they have the option of turning off notifications, but I don't have the option of turning on notifications that you don't send!)

And regarding scale: though I would prefer a bit more heroic, I don't mind your slightly smaller scale. One point to consider, however: these are burly, massive manly-men. So they should be slightly larger than a typical man from, say, Hasslefree other other lines you want to be in line with.

Is that the case?

Anyway, sorry I didn't see this sooner - I would love to get your figures for cheaper in a HIPS-style resin.

(and one last question: what's this about an Orc kickstarter? I didn't see any notification of this, and I'm not seeing anything on your listing of previous projects... Can someone provide a link?)

Good luck!!

Hordes of the Auld World.

grefven wrote:

 Monkeysloth wrote:
It's a manufacturing thing. Companies don't want competitors to know who/what they use so a competing quality product doesn't come out. The producer Tre wants to use may have clauses where they can't talk about who their customers are nor can their customers talk about who they are so that other people don't try and use them. It sounds silly to us but it seams like it's not all that uncommon now days -- at least in this hobby.

No one is talking about knowing who their other customers are, or having access to the secret formula to their resin/plastic/whatever compound, but only to know who they are. By knowing who they are they can be held accountable in a completely different way if they release sub-par quality, or screw stuff up.

And it still sounds like a very wierd business decision to have a NDA so that other people don't try to use them. But I guess some companies get money to pay their bills from other things than paying customers.

I was only speculating on that last part. I have no idea why a manufacturer not wanting a client saying that they use them so I can only guess that someone that uses the majority of their time may have such a clause as I've seen a few KSers over the past few years state their contract doesn't allow them to state who their using which always worries me that it's some company with a bad rep so they don't want to state. Tre, however, saying that he can't get permission yet seams to lead some credibility to what others have said.

Cancelled!!!

NOOOOOOO!!!!

Oh well - I look forward to the relaunch!

Sad - feels premature. There's usually a bump in the last 48 hours of a KS and it only had 3k to go. I feel like If he had ever posted any updated photos on anything or gave us pictures of anything in the new material it would have crossed the finish line, if only just.

Also sad to see he's going back to metal for the SDSP.

Shame. I really dislike metal after working with plastics so much. Tre's stuff is one of the few things I'll buy in it.

I agree - I prefer resin over metal, by far.

It doesn't seem likely that he'll offer both, so metal it is.

I hope we get shown/offered something other than Generic Evil Humans again too!

The last update for this KSer, post cancelling, said that Tre was going to still release these as multipart in metal which is a horrible idea. Metal sucks for multipart compared to other materials as it's just more failure points for the glue. I've got some of Tre's earlier multipart metal figures and while the sculpts are great assembling them wasn't.


Maybe if he was 3D sculpting them so that actual good connection joints could be created that would be one thing but trying to add them in after cutting up a putty & wired frame never turns out.

I heartily agree on the material discussion - multipart models are better in resin, and I hope he sticks to it for the SDSP! Material choice wasn't the problem with this campaign, but the content, imo. Just too bland...

Yeah - I'm not sure where he's getting the negative feedback on resin. I will say, for my own comments on it earlier in this thread, I just wanted to see something cast in it - since it's apparently a new formulation and super amazing or whatever. Hopefully he'll reconsider on that front.

I think the real problem was just that the barbarians shown were just kinda plain and generic (I think having 1-2 of them female would have helped too). I do hope the reworked ones are a bit more exciting and that the next attempt has some of the more interesting races included. I remember the previews he showed (like 3 years ago!?!?) being pretty spiffy.

Yeah, the preview sculpts were like a mutant, lizardman and an undead, I think? Much more interesting!

Word on the street is there's always a market for lizardmen.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 RiTides wrote:
I heartily agree on the material discussion - multipart models are better in resin, and I hope he sticks to it for the SDSP! Material choice wasn't the problem with this campaign, but the content, imo. Just too bland...

I feel bad now for sharing my concerns about a new unseen resin. That was when the only pledge level was the $55 warband, which is a lot to sink into an untested medium.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/578689.page

Old thread. Way more interesting stuff.

He probably turned away from resin as there were a few negative posts on Facebook about it. Plus, if you look at the past RBG KSers, they were metal and funded this one wasn't and didn't so Tre may be extrapolating from that.

Though I think not having characters and finished sculpts was more the culperate.

Yes! I was inspired enough to go digging for that thread. The sculpts are amazing.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/578689.page?userfilterid=23932

(yikes - in the time it took me to find that - 3 more people posted Including someone beating me to the thread in question )

Will just add that page 5 had a big long post by Tre about his plans for the game.