Bones 6 Enthusiasm and Commentary

[Guyra]

It could also just be a high quality render of a regular sized skeleton, and they've used it because it looks cool.

 

I imagine it would be looking more downwards if it was a giant. And probably have a different pose that doesn't look like it's about to lunge at something its own size. Of course, I might be wrong - that does happen! (A lot! 😂 )

Edited March 30, 2022 by Guyra

[Minsky07]

Preview from Christine Van Patten live yesterday of Bones 6 mini sculpting. I have not listened to the entire show so I do not have all specific details about it. I think the final pose might be different to sketch with arms crossed on chest, it was kind of posed like that at the beginning of the live. The only other tidbit that I heard was that the character had Vandern's from Arcane vibe to him.

It looks fairly cool though.

Edited March 30, 2022 by Minsky07

[Guyra]

That does indeed look like it could be a cool tavern patron mini to have. 😄

[bojesphob]

Here I was, all content to be painting Bones 1-5 stuff, and trying to get ready to move. I told myself I'd probably skip Bones VI if it happened before we moved, and it looks like it will be happening about when we do. But I saw the dragon that was previewed... and... well.... I don't NEED another dragon, I mean, I only have 14 and about a dozen in line for my 3D printers.... But it's SO cool!.... Ok, I'm in for the dragons at least.... And maybe the undead.... and the crypt.... Maybe the chibi stuff for my daughter....

 

 

Of course, this is the SAME conversation I had with myself with Bones V, and ended up spending around 800 dollars on it. 😃😄😆😂😭

[Pezler the Polychromatic]

10 hours ago, Cyradis said:

 

In classic or Bones Black material I'd be inclined to agree. In metal or good resin, it can and has been done. Dunno about Bones USA material.

From what I've seen with my Bones USA mini, it has the best fidelity out of all Reaper's materials.

[Chaoswolf]

2 hours ago, bojesphob said:

Here I was, all content to be painting Bones 1-5 stuff, and trying to get ready to move. I told myself I'd probably skip Bones VI if it happened before we moved, and it looks like it will be happening about when we do. But I saw the dragon that was previewed... and... well.... I don't NEED another dragon, I mean, I only have 14 and about a dozen in line for my 3D printers.... But it's SO cool!.... Ok, I'm in for the dragons at least.... And maybe the undead.... and the crypt.... Maybe the chibi stuff for my daughter....

 

 

Of course, this is the SAME conversation I had with myself with Bones V, and ended up spending around 800 dollars on it. 😃😄😆😂😭

Join the club!

[Great Khan Artist]

So, if the regular Reaper superfans spend hundreds of dollars on Bones kickstarters every time they have one, who are they really for? Are they for the dedicated Reaper boys and girls or do they draw new people into the hobby? I'm not being snarky, I'm curious to know how many new painters are created out of the kickstarters.  

[TaleSpinner]

34 minutes ago, Great Khan Artist said:

So, if the regular Reaper superfans spend hundreds of dollars on Bones kickstarters every time they have one, who are they really for? Are they for the dedicated Reaper boys and girls or do they draw new people into the hobby? I'm not being snarky, I'm curious to know how many new painters are created out of the kickstarters.  

 

Every Bones KS has expanded Reaper's audience and reach.  These KS's have been some of the best things for marketing minis to new people and growing the hobby in general.  The hobby was stagnating before Bones 1.  The number of new people who flood into the hobby after each has been mind numbing.  The rapid growth of ReaperCon from a few hundred people at the factory back in 2013 to filling a convention center as it does now is a direct side effect.

[Guyra]

29 minutes ago, Great Khan Artist said:

So, if the regular Reaper superfans spend hundreds of dollars on Bones kickstarters every time they have one, who are they really for? Are they for the dedicated Reaper boys and girls or do they draw new people into the hobby? I'm not being snarky, I'm curious to know how many new painters are created out of the kickstarters.  

Not that I have any stats available, but I do see people post stuff online, saying things like "this will be my first Bones KS", or "I've heard Bones KSs are a good way to start out getting a collection of minis", so I do think it boosts the hobby for a lot of people relatively new to it. Personally, I got started with the Bones 4 KS after barely having done any miniature painting before that.

It's equally much for those whom have been in the hobby for a long time though, and want to expand with a bunch of cool, well priced stuff - as well as "regular Reaper superfans spend hundreds of dollars"(which I totally did myself, with Bones 5). 😉

But in the end, the Bones KSs are for Reaper themselves, being able to make a lot more products by offering good prices on bulk prepurchases for whomever might enjoy their products. And there are a lot of different types of hobbyists, gamers, and collectors out there. 🙂 

[Joshinminn]

4 minutes ago, Guyra said:

Not that I have any stats available, but I do see people post stuff online, saying things like "this will be my first Bones KS", or "I've heard Bones KSs are a good way to start out getting a collection of minis", so I do think it boosts the hobby for a lot of people relatively new to it. Personally, I got started with the Bones 4 KS after barely having done any miniature painting before that.

It's equally much for those whom have been in the hobby for a long time though, and want to expand with a bunch of cool, well priced stuff - as well as "regular Reaper superfans spend hundreds of dollars"(which I totally did myself, with Bones 5). 😉

But in the end, the Bones KSs are for Reaper themselves, being able to make a lot more products by offering good prices on bulk prepurchases for whomever might enjoy their products. And there are a lot of different types of hobbyists, gamers, and collectors out there. 🙂 

 

Well, Bones V was my first foray into miniatures, and it brought me into the hobby hard. Can't wait for the unveiling to begin! I remember the fever-pitch pace slows down in the middle...

[MoonglowMinis]

54 minutes ago, Great Khan Artist said:

So, if the regular Reaper superfans spend hundreds of dollars on Bones kickstarters every time they have one, who are they really for? Are they for the dedicated Reaper boys and girls or do they draw new people into the hobby? I'm not being snarky, I'm curious to know how many new painters are created out of the kickstarters.  

I started out just collecting minis, never dreaming I would paint them.  I read online about the Kickstarters and must have started collecting after Bones 3 ended.  I was bummed and worried that I would never get an opportunity to get bulk minis for such a good price.  Collected older KS sets on ebay. Late Backed Bones 4. Backed Bones 5. Will definitely back Bones 6.

Bones Kickstarters are all over the internet as recommendations for cheap ways to start collecting.  As long as people keep getting into the hobby (whether it be gaming, collecting, painting, whatever) there will always be new backers.

I'm more curious to see how long it'll be before previous backers start dropping off. But with the improvement in quality, there's a big motivator for old backers to get improved versions of older sculpts.  And though we all talk about reaching that critical mass of minis, there's always that "1 cool dragon" or the "can't pass this up" expansion.  So I think Reaper's got something good going.

[YronimosW]

On 3/28/2022 at 8:02 AM, Minsky07 said:

I think furniture and mini size would be a problem with such dimensions.

The scale of one inch base miniature next to one inch round table would look out of proportion. So most furnishing would have to be twice the size to seem passable.

I know it is general issue with minis and terrain size on battlemats, but it leads to a need for oversized buildings. 100 ft sq room should be fairly sizeable room. Yet it can only fit in 4 minis and nothing else.

 

On 3/28/2022 at 8:40 AM, TGP said:

Step 1)  Get rid of the 5ft diameter man-hole covers glued to the bottom of every miniature. I would have a problem walking around in my house or any other building if I had such a thing stuck to my boots. 

Four people standing in a 10x10 foot walk-in closet is kinda crowded. 
 

That is not a big room. 

 

It's worth remembering here that gaming minis are NOT scale models - you can fit a lot of people into a phone booth or a clown car, and it can make an entertaining game to do so, and probably a memorable role-playing experience besides, and as a scale model a phone booth full of people would definitely be a conversation piece, BUT it's really not the best way to use gaming miniatures.

 

The 1" (equivalent to a miniature 5') bases assume that your gaming minis need a little moving/breathing room to swing their swords and cast their spells effectively, while the 1" grid makes for some weird building models (if strictly adhered to), even as it provides some really convenient movement, range, and other such rules.

 

I've noticed that manufacturers of 3D dungeon tiles sometimes have to do some scale-creep in their tiles - boosting the 1" grid to 1.5" for example - to allow room for 3D walls and oversized 28mm Heroic scale weapons and shields and so on that give a heroic-sized human more than a five-foot-square footprint.

 

Gaming miniature "scale" is weird!

 

 

 

39 minutes ago, Great Khan Artist said:

So, if the regular Reaper superfans spend hundreds of dollars on Bones kickstarters every time they have one, who are they really for? Are they for the dedicated Reaper boys and girls or do they draw new people into the hobby? I'm not being snarky, I'm curious to know how many new painters are created out of the kickstarters.  

 

The original Bones Kickstarters, at least, existed as a crowdsourcing tool to help Reaper source the money for some extremely expensive molds to manufacture the minis with:  it was a tremendous up-front cost, which could then produce some relatively low-cost minis in large quantities.  The Kickstarters then were a way for Reaper to raise the money to produce a great number of minis in a (then) experimental new material, while the Kickstarter backers could get a lot of minis at an outlandishly low price a little bit ahead of the general public as a reward.

 

Back then, at least, the Kickstarters attracted super-fans, bargain-hunters, and your Friendly Local Gaming Stores looking for a great way to stock up on a lot if inexpensive minis, a bit early, while really being pretty serious business in terms of risk and reward for Reaper as a small business: there wasn't really a practical way to fund such an experiment otherwise!

 

The Kickstarters have been massive successes on those terms:  for the first Kickstarter, I don't think anyone expected the results that Reaper got - if I remember rightly, it set records that still look impressive today.  Nobody was sure whether the second Kickstarter could compare - would the same backers come back?  Would the Bones Kickstarters become victims of the first one's success?  And so on - but Bones 2 set records as well - and every Bones Kickstarter since the first has been a smashing success.

 

I'm not sure I see much of an emphasis on gaming stores supporting these Kickstarters as I used to - I believe there used to be some dedicated tiers just for business backers.  And, I think the experimental angle has certainly changed:  Bones isn't as weird an experiment as it used to be, and has been embraced by the gaming community, while making serious inroads with painters and so on as well as the quality of the detail and material improved with Reaper's experience.  Reaper seems to have been able to add more and more molds between Kickstarters as time goes by, and really has just about gotten to the point where they can produce all the models they could have originally imagined, and then some, so maybe the target audience for the Kickstarters has shifted a little over time.

 

I think you'll still find superfans and bargain-hunters among the primary backers, though many of the original ones probably have some huge stockpiles of minis by now in their Piles-of-Shame.  A lot of older backers have noted that they're ready to stop backing Kickstarters that would provide them with more of the same things they've already been rewarded with for past Kickstarters.  It looks to this outsider like much of the original investment in molds has been met, and Reaper has been investing since then in new production techniques like digital sculpting, new processes and materials like Bones Black and Bones USA, and with Bones USA fulfilling a long-running dream of bringing Bones Production to America.

 

Reaper's newer target audiences seem to have been rather a bit more ambitious than the original Kickstarters must have imagined, though:  we're seeing fan-favorite expansions, huge terrain like small buildings and sailing ships, some rather dramatic encounter sets, some elaborate world-building and storytelling for the miniatures that opens up the door to popular min-settings/genres like Dreadmere or Brinewind, as well as experimental new products like busts and coins, and more:  a lot of these products suggest that Reaper feels pretty confident about the Kickstarters today, and are using them as an opportunity to test the waters to see what the limits might be for what can be done with the Bones material.

 

It's worth noting that this Kickstarter, like many previous ones, seems likely to include a nice variety of popular products that appeal to different sorts of backers:  large batches of common figures like skeletons and zombies for tabletop gamers, old standbys like goblins and orcs, popular requests like stirges, experimental pieces that might have only a niche appeal (coins, for example), terrain for wargaming or diorama-building, and the ever-popular dragons for collectors and painters as well as more traditional gaming pieces....

 

So, these Kickstarters seem to still be catering to superfans, and they also seem to be picking up new backers who missed the first few Kickstarters, but I think they're also aiming toward finding new markets, new customers with different demands, and finding new business opportunities for Reaper.  But, more than anything else, the Kickstarters have always been aimed towards adding products to Reaper's catalogue, for sale to ordinary gamers at retail or in Reaper's online store, for customers who may hot have backed or even heard of the Kickstarters:  ordinary gaming mini customers at FLGS 's everywhere, who are looking not for huge stashes of Kickstarter rewards, but just that one perfect mini to represent their PC, or a handful of goblin or a great giant or dragon for next week's game, or whatever.   The ordinary customer is Reaper's bigger picture - the Kickstarter backers simply help to make it possible for Reaper to better serve those ordinary every-day customers.

 

 

 

 

 

[bojesphob]

1 hour ago, Great Khan Artist said:

So, if the regular Reaper superfans spend hundreds of dollars on Bones kickstarters every time they have one, who are they really for? Are they for the dedicated Reaper boys and girls or do they draw new people into the hobby? I'm not being snarky, I'm curious to know how many new painters are created out of the kickstarters.  

 

 

I think they're for both the super fans (such as myself) AND for trying to bring in new people. I know, personally, that I've convinced at least one person per kickstarter to join in new (except III, which I missed when it actually happened and bought stuff from later). It's a fun experience overall, and seeing the reveals during the campaign, then seeing ideas go from rough sketches to actual figures that you get in the mail is unlike any other company that creates figures in my mind. Reaper really makes the process visible and enjoyable, and I personally don't mind sending them bunches of money for the entertainment AND the really awesome miniatures. Some people have had issues in years past, but with 20k+ backers, someone is going to be unhappy at some point no matter how good a company is.  That said, I feel it's rather telling that there are so many people like myself that keep coming back for more

[crowsandbones]

2 hours ago, Great Khan Artist said:

So, if the regular Reaper superfans spend hundreds of dollars on Bones kickstarters every time they have one, who are they really for? Are they for the dedicated Reaper boys and girls or do they draw new people into the hobby? I'm not being snarky, I'm curious to know how many new painters are created out of the kickstarters.  

I found a new recruit on RTB Pro Tips twitch stream just this morning & this is their first Reaper kickstarter. I only joined the Reaper party AFTER bones 5 had closed so I was a late pledge, and haven't looked back since.  I'd say that the superfans probably just show themselves more than the rest by staying engaged, here in the forums and elsewhere on social media.

[Pegazus]

2 hours ago, Great Khan Artist said:

So, if the regular Reaper superfans spend hundreds of dollars on Bones kickstarters every time they have one, who are they really for? Are they for the dedicated Reaper boys and girls or do they draw new people into the hobby? I'm not being snarky, I'm curious to know how many new painters are created out of the kickstarters.  

Back when Bryan was still part of Reaper, he mentioned once that goblins paid his mortgage. The mooks and cannon fodder are the bread and butter while figures meant for painting are basically advertising the company. So it’s not so much painters as it is the larger gaming community. And I don’t think that’s changed much. Now, it may be a lot more painters percentage wise putting the money up front in the KS, but I believe it’s the gaming community’s sustained purchasing afterwards that keeps the lights on, and provides the incentive to do another one. And as word spreads about the absolute value each KS brings, those players becoming DMs see an excellent opportunity to get a starter collection going. Thus a lot of complaints/comments get written from KS veterans about why so many low level figures are added to the core. So Reaper has a balancing act between new DMs, veteran KS backers, and the painting community.

 

I think they’ve done quite well walking that line considering I am prepped for my sixth time of saying “I’m only going to get those figures I really want via add-ons and retail”, only to have too much value added into the sets and buy them instead.