Bones 6 Enthusiasm and Commentary

[oldschoolfan]

I'll be getting several of the stirges; like someone else mentioned they'll work great for any flying swarm critter.

[Inarah]

6 hours ago, WhiteWulfe said:

At least this one's still getting its regular updates.  Base Boss has months upon months of radio silence for example. 

 

The last I heard, like a couple weeks ago was that they were testing the shipping process, and a few lucky people would get email notifications that their stuff was shipping.  I'm not sure what makes this shipping process different than any others they've done that it needs to be tested.  I do get the feeling they have, maybe, one person working on it part-time. 

 

 

[WhiteWulfe]

10 minutes ago, Inarah said:

 

The last I heard, like a couple weeks ago was that they were testing the shipping process, and a few lucky people would get email notifications that their stuff was shipping.  I'm not sure what makes this shipping process different than any others they've done that it needs to be tested.  I do get the feeling they have, maybe, one person working on it part-time. 

 

 

My question in that regard though is...  Why was the last post on February 17th, with a statement there would be another update on March 3rd.  There have been other scheduled updates that have been missed (the November 2022 one I'll give a pass to since there was some serious turmoil that month for Reaper Miniatures), but radio silence from a company regarding something, as well as missing their own scheduled updates can be worrying.

 

But yeah, it does indeed feel like too many hats for too few people at times.  I myself am still waiting on whether or not to pledge for certain things, and am very thankful I had waited for them to decide because I wouldn't have been the happiest to suddenly had things I was interested in go from one of three plastic types to the sudden, and never before mentioned in a Kickstarter update "oh hey, 3d printed!"

[Goddesstio]

On 4/29/2023 at 6:58 PM, Olaf the Stout said:

I fail to see how keeping the pledge manager open stops them from focusing on the production.

It doesn't stop it, but people are holding out their money until they've finished announcing things. Once they announce the PM is closing, a bunch of people will make up their minds about what to buy, resulting in certain items jumping in how many are required. So if they have a bunch of people waiting on final material choice and currently have about 3000 core sets locked in, then announce PM closing and it jumps to 8000, that's going to affect timeline. So closing it tells them what to focus on. Doesn't mean they aren't starting production on things now though

[1dunnj]

Already been some discussion on discord, but I think its worth bringing it up here: dead men tell no tales, I really like the pirate king, but for 14$ I'm not sure the sunken treasure makes it worth it, compared to what you get in rot stump bog, or temple of the deep ones. I think i'd like more smaller scatter terrain (but that's personal preference and I'm not sure that would be a popular opinion. 

I think for retail they'd be wise to sell the dead men tell no tales pirate king, and sunken treasure terrain, as 2 separate blisters and not a big bundle.

[Inarah]

2 hours ago, 1dunnj said:

Already been some discussion on discord, but I think its worth bringing it up here: dead men tell no tales, I really like the pirate king, but for 14$ I'm not sure the sunken treasure makes it worth it, compared to what you get in rot stump bog, or temple of the deep ones. I think i'd like more smaller scatter terrain (but that's personal preference and I'm not sure that would be a popular opinion. 

I think for retail they'd be wise to sell the dead men tell no tales pirate king, and sunken treasure terrain, as 2 separate blisters and not a big bundle.

 

I was looking at that but wasn't overly excited by it. I already have the convention version of the central piece.  I like the extra pieces, but not sure I want to spring for the whole set.  Still probably cheaper than it will be if it ever goes to retail.  

 

 

[Guyra]

I have the original resin version of the center piece, myself. And it's a really, really cool piece! Probably one of the coolest and best sculpted pieces of terrain I've personally seen Reaper make.

 

And also personally, I think this power up would be worth it at $14 due to how good that piece is, if the two extra pieces didn't come on circular bases. It's like, why? They're not creatures? I know this is just a pet peeve of mine, though. So if that's not something that bothers you, I say it's worth considering. I'd likely buy it at $14 if I didn't already have the main piece, despite my little pet peeve about the two extra pieces. :)

Still need to finish painting mine up, though. Barely started it!

[Becca]

On 5/6/2023 at 12:45 AM, Goddesstio said:

Doesn't mean they aren't starting production on things now though

Have they said they've started production already? I only follow on here and kickstarter so I don't know what's said in other places. My understanding was production wouldn't start until after they got firm totals for things, so after the pledge manager closes. Otherwise the factory in China would be storing the pieces they make from now until whenever they finish producing all of them, which seems odd to me. But I don't know how this process actually works so maybe I'm just wrong.

[Guyra]

1 hour ago, Becca said:

Have they said they've started production already? I only follow on here and kickstarter so I don't know what's said in other places. My understanding was production wouldn't start until after they got firm totals for things, so after the pledge manager closes. Otherwise the factory in China would be storing the pieces they make from now until whenever they finish producing all of them, which seems odd to me. But I don't know how this process actually works so maybe I'm just wrong.

 

Most likely they've not started casting the actual minis, but started making the molds. That's probably the part that takes the longest time. Casting the minis is relatively quick, taking only a handful of seconds per mold. (And with each mold usually having multiple copies of a mini, if the minis are smaller, while the largest minis could need more than one mold alone.)

 

Of course, on the scale of Reaper Bones orders, it's going to be a lot of minis per backer, and there are probably way over 10k backers if you include late pledges. Even with probably several thousand minis produced per day at the factory once they start, it'll still be millions of miniatures being produced in total, so it's still gonna take some time.

Some minis will be produced at Reaper HQ though. The minis that will be high quality 3D prints or SiOCast("Bones USA") will be made there, though the majority will probably be Bones Classic and Bones Black minis produced by the factory in China. But I would not be surprised if they had already started casting the Bones USA minis and printing the 3D printed minis.

[Goddesstio]

Another thing, the molds themselves take up a lot of space, and they can't have all the molds out operating all at the same time. So if, for example, they finish the Briarwood molds first and know Briarwood is their biggest seller, they could start producing copies of that set while they finish up the rest of the molds. Yes, those pieces have to be stored somewhere for some time, but they would have had to store some stuff for a while no matter what. They most likely have all the storing and some general production schedules laid out before they started And they probably haven't started producing the minis yet, but they most likely have started making the molds at least, like Gurya said

[Adrift]

On 5/10/2023 at 2:47 PM, Guyra said:

Some minis will be produced at Reaper HQ though. The minis that will be high quality 3D prints or SiOCast("Bones USA") will be made there, though the majority will probably be Bones Classic and Bones Black minis produced by the factory in China. But I would not be surprised if they had already started casting the Bones USA minis and printing the 3D printed minis.

I’d like to see them begin fulfilling Base Boss 2. Their communication has not been great on that project. Plus, it’s just bases and is being done fully in-house. So I was using that project as a gauge for how well they’d be able to handle doing a larger scale fulfillment of Bones USA figures for the Bones 6 KS.

 

Base Boss 2 is way overdue on its fulfillment.

[WhiteWulfe]

6 hours ago, Adrift said:

I’d like to see them begin fulfilling Base Boss 2. Their communication has not been great on that project. Plus, it’s just bases and is being done fully in-house. So I was using that project as a gauge for how well they’d be able to handle doing a larger scale fulfillment of Bones USA figures for the Bones 6 KS.

 

Base Boss 2 is way overdue on its fulfillment.

Not to mention overdue on an actual Kickstarter update for that project.  The promised March 3rd update never happened, so it's been almost three months since the last one, which to me is a very worrying trend.  I'm still waiting on finding out what materials many things will be in for this one...

[R2ED]

There's a certain level of patience I have given all the changes that have likely taken place without Ed. Restructuring, reorganizing, and driving projects that would have been initiated when he was leading will have some hurdles.  I hope to see Bones 6 and Base Boss 2 will be the last of the communication disconnected programs. Having been through many management and leadership changes myself, it's easy to empathize with what is likely happening behind the scenes.  What could make a big difference is transparency and visibility, but that is entirely up to them to drive.  It would be great to hear how they are planning or getting in front of the next KS or crowd sourced projects with what they're planning on improving, having learned from what their customers are saying on these two. 

 

The biggest concern I have is if these project difficulties continue to mount, will they fail in the future. Big programs like this require so many resources, planning, and clear organization. I am hopeful the ball gets picked up and the 2nd generation learned and can carry on.  I have faith they'll see the miss on updates to their base and get positive change in the future projects. 

 

 

[Adrift]

And I’m not trying to be unsympathetic to the loss they experienced 6 months ago. Ed was more than just an accountant and despite hanging around them at tons of ReaperCons I was never clear on what role Brother Dave, worked alongside him, etc. I could certainly see Ed piloting every step of their projects inside of spreadsheets along the way.

 

My reference to Base Boss 2 entailed that fact that by the time they lost Ed that project was already not fond of updates, and was 3+ months overdue by the time he passed. 

[R2ED]

@Adrifttotally with you and understand.  I didn't intend my comment to come off as a retort to anyone else.  I was trying to share my experience with change in an organization and how it can derail things.  

 

We both want the same thing:  better communication.  I'm also saying these two projects get a little bit of leeway on my end due to the assumed factors involved,  but the next projects will need better steering.