pre-launch Bones 6 pre-hype discussion

[Nunae]

I think Chronoscope would be great as Encounter Sets. Personally I just buy fantasy miniatures for gaming, but I'd make an exception for a cute, themed steampunk encounter. As a diorama or whatever. And people who want Chronoscope for gaming would have a few coherrent figures bundled together.

[WhiteWulfe]

I agree to the thought process of encounters for Chronoscape.  I really really did want to support the expansion, but sooooo much of it was things I would never use, let alone paint.  If it had instead been three or four sets it would have been a lot easier to justify. 

[Adrift]

I’m in the camp that doesn’t care much for Chronoscope. Mind you, I have some from prior Bones KS projects, but it sits in a box. The only thing I wanted from bones 5 from that line was the nightgaunt and my buddy @chaosscorpion was kind enough to send me his. I do like the idea of them tossing chronoscope out as encounter sets vs full on expansions. They should probably toss out a chronoscope encounter set alongside a fantasy set or stretch goal however, given the lack of enthusiasm for that line as a whole. 

Edited January 23, 2022 by Adrift

[Evilhalfling]

I am just not feeling it this time.   I will probably by a few add ons 

the long PM and 5.5 means it really hasn't been very long since the last big purchase. 

I don't even know what I would be looking for.  

 

Bones 5 numbers 

33 painted (205 bought) 

1 huge dragon (5 bought) 

[kristof65]

13 hours ago, Chaoswolf said:

I'm not a marketing expert or anything, but I honestly think they'd sell more Chronoscope figures if they sold them in smaller groups that go together.

 

So, yeah, I'm hoping they don't do a Chronoscope expansion.

It'd be pretty cool if they made a bunch of smaller groups of Chronoscope figures available, though.

I told them in B4 and B5, and now again for B6 that I didn't want the big Chronoscope expansion - I'd rather have smaller themed sets, even if they cost me more per figure.  I didn't buy the one in B4, but I have spent well over $100 on the individual figures I wanted from that expansion.  I only bought the one in B5 to "put my money where my mouth is", even though it wasn't the greatest deal for me - I got a lot that is going into BoGW. 

 

In addition to doing Chroscope encounter sets, I'd like to see them expand on the figures they already have in Chronoscope. They obviously know what their best selling Chronoscope figures are, so why not build the encounters around those best sellers? For figures like the Nova Corp or IMEF, I seriously doubt anyone who currently has every single one of those figures is going to pass buying some more poses. I would snap up something like a futuristic jeep being driven by NOVA Corp or IMEF investigating an alien hive, or even another 4-5 grey aliens. 

On top of those Chronoscope figures where there are already multiple poses, there are at least two dozen other single figures in the line that are begging for alternate poses, like the Blood Nebula mercenary, the Rach and Malvernis soldiers, the Steampunk Aquanaut, and more.  Take some of the top sellers, and create encounters or groups for them like they did with the hooded & robed elves in B5. 
 

13 hours ago, Lidless Eye said:

I know they said the stretch goal of the...what was it, Blackstar Heavy Corsairs?...early on as a smaller set in one Kickstarter was to test if they should even bother doing a Chronoscope expansion that time.  Even as a single themed set, they said it was one of the lowest sellers.

I'll bet the Blackstar Corsairs would have been a better seller if they had hyped them before the KS like they do with sneak peaks of the dragons and monsters these days, and then packaged them for retail in a single box set like they're doing with the encounters. 

I know that Chronoscope and the "eras" it covers are so wide open that they'll never be as strong a seller as fantasy is. But I also look at it and see so many missed opportunities for Reaper to make it a better seller than it is.

 

For example, I think they've been disserving the Chronoscope brand by including figures in the Bones Black line that really should be tagged/labelled as Chronoscope. I realize they're a different material than the rest of the Chronoscope line, but I don't think they're doing themselves any favors by not labelling them as Chronoscope.  At the very minimum, those Bones Black figures that are Chronoscope should show up on their page when you do a search with the keyword "Chronoscope", but they don't. 

[Cyradis]

5 hours ago, Evilhalfling said:

I am just not feeling it this time.   I will probably by a few add ons 

the long PM and 5.5 means it really hasn't been very long since the last big purchase. 

I don't even know what I would be looking for.  

 

Bones 5 numbers 

33 painted (205 bought) 

1 huge dragon (5 bought) 

 

I painted the evil cabbage and primed the dragons and the overgourd. So...... yeah. Some dragons got a red spray of the airbrush so that they were red at the table, but no real painting. My actual lizard sometimes plays The Dragon too anyway. Zevran the Bearded dragon is fueled by worms and crickets and bok choy instead of paint haha.

[Lidless Eye]

1 hour ago, kristof65 said:

I told them in B4 and B5, and now again for B6 that I didn't want the big Chronoscope expansion - I'd rather have smaller themed sets, even if they cost me more per figure.  I didn't buy the one in B4, but I have spent well over $100 on the individual figures I wanted from that expansion.  I only bought the one in B5 to "put my money where my mouth is", even though it wasn't the greatest deal for me - I got a lot that is going into BoGW. 

 

In addition to doing Chroscope encounter sets, I'd like to see them expand on the figures they already have in Chronoscope. They obviously know what their best selling Chronoscope figures are, so why not build the encounters around those best sellers? For figures like the Nova Corp or IMEF, I seriously doubt anyone who currently has every single one of those figures is going to pass buying some more poses. I would snap up something like a futuristic jeep being driven by NOVA Corp or IMEF investigating an alien hive, or even another 4-5 grey aliens. 

On top of those Chronoscope figures where there are already multiple poses, there are at least two dozen other single figures in the line that are begging for alternate poses, like the Blood Nebula mercenary, the Rach and Malvernis soldiers, the Steampunk Aquanaut, and more.  Take some of the top sellers, and create encounters or groups for them like they did with the hooded & robed elves in B5. 
 

I'll bet the Blackstar Corsairs would have been a better seller if they had hyped them before the KS like they do with sneak peaks of the dragons and monsters these days, and then packaged them for retail in a single box set like they're doing with the encounters. 

I know that Chronoscope and the "eras" it covers are so wide open that they'll never be as strong a seller as fantasy is. But I also look at it and see so many missed opportunities for Reaper to make it a better seller than it is.

 

For example, I think they've been disserving the Chronoscope brand by including figures in the Bones Black line that really should be tagged/labelled as Chronoscope. I realize they're a different material than the rest of the Chronoscope line, but I don't think they're doing themselves any favors by not labelling them as Chronoscope.  At the very minimum, those Bones Black figures that are Chronoscope should show up on their page when you do a search with the keyword "Chronoscope", but they don't. 

I agree, Chronoscope should stay its own branding/labeling.  I was surprised it wasn't with the newer splits and branding.

[Werkrobotwerk]

15 hours ago, Chaoswolf said:

RE: Chronoscope expansions.

 

See, the problem with Chronoscope expansions is that everyone says they want 'em, but when Reaper puts 'em in a Kickstarter, nobody buys 'em. When no one buys them, Reaper then wonders, 'Why did we waste all this time and money to create these Chronoscope figures that everyone claims they wanted?' I don't work for Reaper, so take the next line with a grain of salt. I'm not positive, but I'm fairly certain that Chronoscope expansions have been the consistently lowest sellers in every Bones campaign that has offered one.  The reasons why nobody buys them are numerous, but they mostly boil down to " I want Chronoscope stuff, but not THAT. " There will be other reasons like  "I already have all those in metal", or "I've already got a 500 figure zombie horde, I don't need any more", but mostly, it's that everyone has a different idea of what they want, and what a Chronoscope expansion should be.

 

And that is part of the problem.

 

For as 'large' a category as fantasy is with it's elves and orcs and trolls and wizards and dragons, it's absolutely tiny when the other category (Chronoscope) is literally EVERYTHING ELSE. Cowboys, aliens, scuba divers, clowns, zombie apocalypse, post apocalypse, steampunk, cyberpunk, super heroes, Wizard of Oz, WW1 doughboys, bikers, axe murderers, cyborgs and so on ALL fit into the Chronoscope category.  For simplicity's sake, let's say that a hypothetical expansion would have 50 roughly man sized figures in it, or 30-40 if there a few larger sized figures. There's no way that anyone could ever hope to make a coherent 35 to 50 figure expansion set from such a disparate range of figures. Every Kickstarter, that's what people expect Reaper to do, though. So they do it and everybody is disappointed. " Why did they put cowboys and superheroes together? That doesn't make any sense. I'm not gonna spend money on that, I can only use half of it".

 

I like Chronoscope stuff. I also hope that Reaper DOESN'T include a Chronoscope expansion this time around. Here's why:

 

Let's assume that:

Person A wants cowboys and wild west stuff

Person B wants zombie apocalypse stuff

Person C wants superheroes

Person D wants space aliens

Person E wants steampunk stuff

 

If all five of those groups of figures were thrown into a box together, not too many of those boxes are going to sell because 'there's too much stuff I can't use/don't want'. Let's say that they sell 1000 of those boxes, but they also sell 10000 each of whatever other expansions that they offer. Reaper is going to think long and hard before they bother to offer a Chronoscope expansion again.

 

Now, let's suppose that instead of putting all that stuff together in one box, they just make them available as an add on or expansion to the core set like they did with IMEF and Nova Corp stuff way back in Bones 1. So, they could put a group of 5-6 superheroes into a group for $10 or what ever. They could do the same with each of those other types of figures mentioned above. That way if you want cowboys, you can pledge extra money for them. If you don't want them, you ignore them and  you can get your Chronoscope stuff the way that you want it, without all that other stuff (that somebody else wants).

 

I'm not a marketing expert or anything, but I honestly think they'd sell more Chronoscope figures if they sold them in smaller groups that go together.

 

So, yeah, I'm hoping they don't do a Chronoscope expansion.

It'd be pretty cool if they made a bunch of smaller groups of Chronoscope figures available, though.

 

Honestly the smaller themed packs would probably be the way to go. I've gone in for all of the chronoscope packs, but the bones 5 one was almost a skip for me, just because of the zombies.

 

At the same time when ever the bones 5 chronoscope robots hit retail I'm looking to get 2-4 more copies of each. 

[Corsair]

@Reaper Ron I hope you can see a possibility for making Chronoscope more appealing and then more profitable. We would love to have a great couple of reasons to hype and grab lots of packs!

[Waylandrk]

Loving the dragon sketch but not feeling it for the other one.  I have a personal thing against dragons with horns.  Seems to have become a thing since Warcraft hit the world and they really don't do it for me, much prefer the older, hornless, designs.

 

Suspect with having moved house as well that I'll be waiting to see if they do splits of the main sets again as well.  Last time i picked up some of the bits out of the core set rather than the whole thing, just couldn't justify the cost of the core set, especially when I got the Greek, Brinewind and deep sets and only wanted about 1/3 of the models in each box.

[haldir]

54 minutes ago, Waylandrk said:

Loving the dragon sketch but not feeling it for the other one.  I have a personal thing against dragons with horns.  Seems to have become a thing since Warcraft hit the world and they really don't do it for me, much prefer the older, hornless, designs.

 

Suspect with having moved house as well that I'll be waiting to see if they do splits of the main sets again as well.  Last time i picked up some of the bits out of the core set rather than the whole thing, just couldn't justify the cost of the core set, especially when I got the Greek, Brinewind and deep sets and only wanted about 1/3 of the models in each box.

 

Reaper has always split up the Core sets, dating back to Bones 1.

[Marc]

Do we know yet if these will all be either Bones Black and/or Bones USA?

[Smokestack]

Another bones kickstarter. I will of course be in... but Bones 5 didnt hold much for me. The pirate ship was pretty much it, though I did like the ghouls encounter and the Vampire encounter and got several copies. And ended up getting 80 cannons in the 5.5 offer.

 

I like bones for rpg encounters in my pathfinder game. Which is kind of my i have never gotten the Chronoscope sets. Individually there have been pieces i have liked in all of them, but never in teh quantities i wanted to be able to use them. If they had smaller focused sets like others have mentioned, I could justify getting it and even doubling up on the focused set for the numbers I need. 

 

I am strangely excited for Bones 6 even though 5 was my lightest showing. 

[Great Khan Artist]

On 1/20/2022 at 6:37 AM, BlackCatHobby said:

I think there was a semi-confirmation of an Egyptian themed expansion from Ron on ReaperLive a while ago. Can't remember if there were any more mentioned....

 

I certainly hope there is. The map showed the adventuring party from Bones 5 heading into the desert as funding goals were unlocked, but we never made it there. I'd also like to see a few more of the Desert Adventures set guys. There is no archer, but the Jalahadrans would be perfect archers. 

 

I feel the same way about Chronoscope almost everyone else does. I really like the mythos stuff, but it was only 1/3 of the stuff I would buy. Selling piecemeal on the internet doesn't work for me to justify buying the set for a few minis I do really like.

 

The way Bones 4 and 5 were broken up worked really well for me, I was able to buy almost everything I wanted in the Kickstarter without having to wait for retail. I would've bought more, too, but I couldn't afford it.

[R2ED]

@Great Khan Artisti agree that some kind of Arabian nights feeling set would be pretty cool.  Sand dwelling, arid landscapes, oasis - you know the feeling. 

 

I'd also be interested in some kind of sewer dwelling set or creepy underworld. 

 

Fun forest terrain would be cool - mushrooms, shrubs, trees, brush. Small forest huts.

 

Dragon eggs, hoard piles, fun characters shielding from flames, acid, frost, etc.  We have so many dragons, but having characters in poses that reflect they're defending from a dragon rather than having a strong pose like they are not afraid.  C'mon... it's a dragon.  I want to see faces with fear or awe.

 

If there were characters that could look like they are eating - orks at a campfire with poultry legs, owlbear ripping into a hero or animal, bar folk with mugs or food to their face.   Poses that could be fun to paint in action. 

 

Collection of doors. Wood.  Steel. Locks. Barred.  Derelict.  Any kind! Or... have a bugbear bursting through a door.

 

Just some thoughts.