cancelled Beyond the monolith 1/6

[SamuraiJack]

 

 

 

[Knight of the Dinner Table]

Preview page:

 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/806316071/664132760?ref=b71vgr&token=97543db1

 

If you are interested, go there and see for yourself, I don't know what to think yet (or I don't want to know what I think ...?). Complicated ... forces loyal backers to buy packs that contain miniatures they already have (and the backer discount is not really enough to offset that) ... but ... see for yourselves.

[Adrift]

Is this a situation where the seller is using KS as a retail site vs. funding new stuff?

[Maledrakh]

I do not really think they are using KS as a retail site.

 

What they are trying to do is to release a miniatures-agnostic 2-player battlesystem base set without miniatures, so that in future KSers they can sell "setting" sets with just the bits that are needed for that specific setting (such as miniatures) and thereby save both themselves and backers some cash since they will not have to put all the mechanic-related bits in these setting sets. The base set covers the mechanics with rulebooks, dice, token"cubes" and whatnot. In theory this lets you play with any miniatures and setting you want. They are talking about beein in talks with several known IP holders, such as CMON to make new setting sets at a later date....

 

...and they are using the Conan IP as the incentive to buy said base game, with their first "setting" set. Only it is not a single set, there are many sets with different minis....

 

...with existing miniatures from Conan, Mythic Battles. Pantheon and Claustrophobia 1643 available in the sets (and a few new ones)...

 

...but not just that, they also are mixing in an expansion for Conan Boardgame (the "legacy" set and the "book of skelos") that are NOT the 2player battlesystem, but simply a way to get the bits into the hands of people who do not own all the previous Conan-expansions to actually use the "books of skelos" that contains alot of new rules and scenarios for that game....

 

...and they are making an utter shambles of the presentation, as almost everyone who comments are confused as to actually what they want or need to pledge for if they have X, Y, or Z from before...

 

However, the miniatures sets are actually really good value for money just for the minis, and the miniatures themselves are really good quality for boardgame PVC. I can attest to this as I have most of them already.

 

The battlesystem rules are AFIK the same core rules used in the Conan and Batman games.

 

 

[SamuraiJack]

threads merged

[kodiakbear]

6 hours ago, Adrift said:

Is this a situation where the seller is using KS as a retail site vs. funding new stuff?

 

2 hours ago, Maledrakh said:

I do not really think they are using KS as a retail site.

 

What they are trying to do is to release a miniatures-agnostic 2-player battlesystem base set without miniatures, so that in future KSers they can sell "setting" sets with just the bits that are needed for that specific setting (such as miniatures) and thereby save both themselves and backers some cash since they will not have to put all the mechanic-related bits in these setting sets. The base set covers the mechanics with rulebooks, dice, token"cubes" and whatnot. In theory this lets you play with any miniatures and setting you want.

 

Well I bought Mythic Battles. Pantheon just for the minis even if it is a high rated game, so if this means I can get just the minis for Mythic Battles Ragnarök I am all for it.

[Knight of the Dinner Table]

That will be a long time in the future (if at all). What they are offering now are packs of minis of former Kickstarters (some of them were "KS exclusive" - yeah, this is still a Kickstarter, but selling them again under a different name leaves a sore taste ... especially if this goes retail?). Ragnarök KS is in summer, I doubt they will sell packs of those minis (and then only Ragnarök minis in a pack - here they mixed Mythic Battles, Claustrophobia and Conan) this year.

[ced1106]

8 minutes ago, Knight of the Dinner Table said:

What they are offering now are packs of minis of former Kickstarters

 

I thought they offered new sculpts as well. The bundles have new and old sculpts, with the explanation that the new sculpts are what drove the up the price.

 

Well, whatever.   Monkeysloth on Dakka has been following the pre-campaign, and his posts break down the campaign into more understandable parts. Highly recommended if you plan to pledge. 

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/120/782171.page

 

 

[Knight of the Dinner Table]

14 hours ago, ced1106 said:

 

I thought they offered new sculpts as well. The bundles have new and old sculpts, with the explanation that the new sculpts are what drove the up the price.

 

Well, whatever.   Monkeysloth on Dakka has been following the pre-campaign, and his posts break down the campaign into more understandable parts. Highly recommended if you plan to pledge. 

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/120/782171.page

 

 

 

Yeah, there are some new sculpts "hidden" in those packs, but not worth the money if you backed Mythic Battles and/or Conan.

[Maledrakh]

44 minutes ago, Knight of the Dinner Table said:

 

Yeah, there are some new sculpts "hidden" in those packs, but not worth the money if you backed Mythic Battles and/or Conan.

 

as far as I can tell, most if not all the new sculpts (for Conan) are in the Legacy box, which it the one to get if you already have Conan and want to expand that game. (as opposed to the "universal" vs system). 

 

Many of the other "new" sculpts seem to be repurposed minis from Mythic Battles and Claustrophobia 1643.

 

Not that I have checked very thoroughly, I might be mistaken. 

 

I see the monster boxes as being similar to a bones expansion more than anything else, basically boxes of diverse minis with a loose theme, for a good price.

[Knight of the Dinner Table]

Even the Legacy box contains - for whatever reasons - a number of minis that backers of the Conan board game already have (if you bought some add-ons back then, this is even more true).

[Hestis]

19 hours ago, kodiakbear said:

 

 

Well I bought Mythic Battles. Pantheon just for the minis even if it is a high rated game, so if this means I can get just the minis for Mythic Battles Ragnarök I am all for it.

 

It won't work that way. They'll probably release what they are calling a "second life kit" for Mythic Battles (Pantheon and/or Ragnarok), but that would essentially be all the non-miniature components you would need (activation tiles, scenarios, etc...) to use your Mythic Battles minis with the new VS system.

[Orlando_the_Technicoloured]

4 hours ago, Knight of the Dinner Table said:

Even the Legacy box contains - for whatever reasons - a number of minis that backers of the Conan board game already have (if you bought some add-ons back then, this is even more true).

 

as this is primarily designed to sell the 2 player 'wargame' your going from a smaller scale game to a larger one you'll need more of some minis to play it so that's why they're included (and it also helps make the sets look better value by bumping up the number of minis since actually casting from a paid off mould is far cheaper than making new stuff from scratch)

 

it's also why your getting the 'discount' to account for the cost of these duplicate minis

 

 

[Knight of the Dinner Table]

Well ... I'd accept the "you're going to need more of some minis" for rank-and-file troops, but not really for character models. It may be different for people who bought the retail version of Conan, but backers who got all those stretch goals and bought add-ons have even a larger number of character models that are in the Legacy pack.

 

No matter, I've gone from "very interested, hope I can stay below 150 Euros" to "not for me" as I'm spending money on things I already have and I'm not interested in their skirmish game. I was naively expecting a lot more new sculpts and pledges that allowed me to get what was new without having to pay again for stuff I already have.

[ced1106]

I think many potential backers would agree with you. 

 

Monolith, I also think, is trying to be fair, but only in the way they see it, and it's causing more complexity and confusion than backers would like. 

 

I was thinking about how other companies do it. CMON pretty much chucks out the previous edition, and provides card upgrades so you can use your previous edition's miniatures (but will not sell them to you through the current campaign). However, they're not trying to support multiple formats (ie. Adventure vs. VS mode), nor are their scenarios designed for specific miniatures. FFG will sell you packs of models (eg. Star Wars) with cards, that you fit together into an army, and will sell an expansion with adventures that only use the core set and expansion. But I don't think the former format works well in a KS, as it wasn't well received during Batman S2. (For miniature wargames, retail doesn't an "all in" bundle for selling small expansions.)

 

This KS also *really* needs a flowchart or questionnaire that asks you what you want to play and what you have, then tells you what to buy, what you may want to buy, and why you're getting duplicates...