Bones 6 Enthusiasm and Commentary

[ksbsnowowl]

The ants are fresh. The Bog Shambler, and the 25th anniversary mini’s. The Nightmare and Mongrelfolk. The teased werebear. All those are nice. The Gnoll add-on is okay; I love the aesthetic, but the price isn’t really worth it. 
 

By this same funding point (~$850,000) in Bones 5 we had a Huge Green Dragon, a Huge Black Dragon, several ‘wargame units’ that were great for both war games and RPG’s (elven rangers, boulderkin, Dragonfolk, Grave Kings, catfolk, troll squads, undead dire wolves), a Fire Giant, a catapult, and the first Encounter set (troll bridge). The 3rd and final stage of Dungeon Dwellers was the next unlock we were working towards. 

 

Lots of it was great stuff in Core, but also lots of it was great, unique stuff as add-ons, which drove people to pledge more. 

 

All of that was in the first 5 hours. We’re 6 days into Bones 6. Same number of unlocks, but nothing that makes me (or a lot of others, apparently) want to pledge more. 

[Minsky07]

26 minutes ago, ksbsnowowl said:

By this same funding point (~$850,000) in Bones 5 we had a Huge Green Dragon, a Huge Black Dragon, several ‘wargame units’ that were great for both war games and RPG’s (elven rangers, boulderkin, Dragonfolk, Grave Kings, catfolk, troll squads, undead dire wolves), a Fire Giant, a catapult, and the first Encounter set (troll bridge). The 3rd and final stage of Dungeon Dwellers was the next unlock we were working towards. 

 

All of that was in the first 5 hours. We’re 6 days into Bones 6. Same number of unlocks, but nothing that makes me (or a lot of others, apparently) want to pledge more. 

My thoughts on that are that Reaper was trying to not front load it as last time and have more enticing middle of the campaign, which kind of correlates with no waves. So no time incentive for early pledges. 

This probably backfired as the initial progress was smaller and we did not get to the level where more new stuff was to be added. The middle of campaign was supposed to be more active with pledge level raising at a higher rate than usually, and goals reached at a higher pace than so far (hence breaking down of expansions into 5).

It seems to me that Reaper is trying to actively remedy that situation with more advance on SG reveals. I wonder if reaching 1mil goal will significantly change type of stretch goals.

 

Obviously, I am no kickstarter expert or have any evidence to support those claims. Just my two cents on the KS so far. Also hoping for the best, despite being already over $200 in.

 

[Chris Palmer]

Interesting measure of enthusiasm: : Just saw that the Bones 5 Enthusiasm thread reached page 60 on the second day of the Kickstarter!   This thread didn't reached page 60 until the 6th day of the Kickstarter. 

 

Maybe because there's nothing new to see and talk about?  We've seen most of what's coming in the foreseeable future already.  By dumping most of the reveals on us in 24 hours, there was no opportunity to study and discuss each reveal on its own. 

 

Is that better or worse? I don't know.  The Kickstarter as a whole is still far from over.  It seems every Kickstarter has the point where the grumbling sets in, I just don't think anyone expected it this early. 

[YronimosW]

1 hour ago, Grumpy Gnome said:

In my opinion the slower KS6 start is not down to the core set sculpts or increasing numbers of 3d printers….it is down to the current state of the world. So many delayed kickstarters, so much uncertainty, so many price increases across the board. Things out of the hands of Reaper. 
 

I know I was hoping for a solely US based KS this time and I am in Germany not the US!

 

 

It's definitely not the core set sculpts.  I think there might be something to the 3D printer theory:  there's a lot of people who only seem to be interested in backing for the sorts of big items that can't easily be 3D printed, and who have absolutely no interest in the little stuff. 

 

There's also the fact that we've got 10 years and five previous Kickstarters worth of Bones figures behind us at this point - some backers are simply tapped out, and there is lots of competition out there today for plastic gaming miniatures - I could list a dozen companies doing that now, in addition to 3D printing options.

 

But I think you're absolutely right that economic, geopolitical, and market forces that are a little bigger than Reaper are at play:  War in the "Bread Basket of the World", with dire predictions about the availability of food in upcoming months hardly does wonders for consumer/backer confidence.  Due to the war and other reasons, there's a sudden looming shortage of the petroleum that the plastic for miniatures is made from - not to mention the petroleum that fertilizer to grow the suddenly scarce food from, and the gasoline and diesel and other fuels for manufacturing and shipping minis world-wide... shortages lead to uncertain prices for worldwide shipping and for the materials the minis are made from, price increases are inevitable, and unpopular (higher prices for Bones Black figures was already a running theme in complaints the last  couple years, but especially so this year:  "It costs more to get less!"  It costs more to produce less, that cost rolls downhill and hits everyone on the way down.)  The COVID pandemic, its lockdowns, and the consequences on job security hurts consumer/backer confidence.  US foreign policy has been turbulent, and China has been acting aggressively toward her neighbors, leading to yet more uncertainty concerning the nation that manufactures Bones figures for Kickstarters, and Reaper's own USA - again, doing little for consumer/backer security.  BREXIT and other shipping and courier complications have don't little for good will among ROW backers (Australian shipping has long been troublesome for Reaper, and the ROW seems to be joining that club.)  Supply chain troubles in/around California where Chinese-manufactured Bones products would be imported to Reaper.  Massive international political demonstrations from and political crackdowns on truck drivers who who would be delivering stock for Reaper.  And on and on....

 

That is, many many reasons for backer statistics to be a little bit depressed this time around.

 

And that's before we even think of addressing the fact that Reaper fine-tunes its strategy with each new Kickstarter, so that every new Kickstarter is a little different.  This time around, there are no waves - and thus no particular incentive to back immediately.  Reaper has apparently made keeping the Pledge Manager open after the Kickstarter a more or less permanent fixture - there is no particular incentive to back during the Kickstarter.  The price of entry to "lurk" and decide if you want to back has risen from US$1 to $10, making it less attractive to just back for a nominal amount to see where things go.  I'm not sure it's officially confirmed, but I heard Reaper might be throttling their campaign schedule's stretch goal numbers early in the Kickstarter, to spread more attractive goals closer together through the middle of the campaign, where things are traditionally slower.  The more expensive Bones Black is now the de facto standard for Bones Kickstarter production.  ROW shipping is different, and does little to encourage backing from the ROW, on top of all the other reasons the ROW might be nervous.  Etc. - a lot of things are being run differently, and it's unclear which factors are simply delaying backers until the end of the Kickstarter, or until the Pledge Manager reopens, and which factors are shutting backers out altogether.

 

And then, I think, there's the backers themselves.  I think Reaper might well be better off without many of us who have been backing things for a while:  the mood is getting uglier and uglier.  We've been accumulating a collection of backers who seem to pay the minimum backing amount every Kickstarter for the privilege of sitting in the comments section and insisting that Bones 3 is doomed to failure, that Bones 4 is the worst Kickstarter ever, that Bones 5 is a total failure, that Bones 6 has jumped the shark, and that anyone who is anything less than completely on board with this being Reaper's biggest failure yet in a long series of failures are sycophant fanboys.  I'm not sure the positive comments are any better.  It has to be a bewildering and discouraging environment for new backers to wander into, and I see that as a running theme among new backers for this Kickstarter:  "I'm a new backer, everything looks great, I don't understand why everyone thinks this Kickstarter is terrible....." 

 

The Enthusiasm thread isn't particularly enthusiastic half the time, either. It's not that I think there should be no criticism at all, it's just that the whole mood for the last three Kickstarters has seemed unrelentingly and insistently pessimistic.    The new folks who are having a good time are an antidote, as are those moments where something gets revealed that finally makes the unhappy customers a little happier, but all that only goes so far.

 

I don't know how ReaperJon and the rest do it:  trying to reply to the comments from such a tough crowd all night, night after night, and somehow keeping upbeat about it! 

 

I think a lot of us long-timers maybe need to get a new hobby to spend our time on for a while, so that the new backers can have some fun on their own.  The comment section is starting to feel a bit "toxic", for lack of a less loaded description.  Even I look over what's revealed so far, and get excited - there's a lot to like - while keeping in mind the unique challenges in this Kickstarter to temper my expectations against.  And I feel pretty good, until I read the Kickstarter comments, and I walk away from those feeling so depressed and discouraged and gloomy, I just want to walk away from the whole thing and clear my head.

 

Anyway, I digress - however the psychology behind it works, I think the backers themselves are a big factor sucking a lot of the energy that might otherwise be there from this campaign, and the two or three "dismal failures" that came before it.

[TaleSpinner]

17 hours ago, Guindyloo said:

I have not once ever been underwhelmed by your sculpts so hush or I'm gonna have to yell at you later. 😠😛

 

You'll probably yell at me for something anyway; I'm just preloading you with a reason.

 

 

31 minutes ago, Chris Palmer said:

Interesting measure of enthusiasm: : Just saw that the Bones 5 Enthusiasm thread reached page 60 on the second day of the Kickstarter!   This thread didn't reached page 60 until the 6th day of the Kickstarter. 

 

Maybe because there's nothing new to see and talk about?  We've seen most of what's coming in the foreseeable future already.  By dumping most of the reveals on us in 24 hours, there was no opportunity to study and discuss each reveal on its own. 

 

Is that better or worse? I don't know.  The Kickstarter as a whole is still far from over.  It seems every Kickstarter has the point where the grumbling sets in, I just don't think anyone expected it this early. 

 

I wouldn't read too much into that.  Participation in the forums has been dropping significantly in the last couple of years as people who prefer Discord, Twitch, and FB have moved to those platforms.  During previous Bones KS's, this was the only place to have a civil/moderated discussion away from the toxic KS comments.

 

[Jeronimus]

33 minutes ago, YronimosW said:

...

Much as I also find myself somewhat disappointed at this point, you have made your point very well and I agree to a certain extent.

 

I am also in for a small amount at this point. Firstly because I do want to spend less than I did before - so really, I should be happy that certain things don't quite seem worth it for me. That certainly doesn't mean this Kickstarter is going to be an absolute failure, and I wouldn't want it to fail - but I'm not being deliberately contrarian when I say I haven't felt much grab me in a way where I feel I'd be foolish to miss out. The strategy in presentation has changed, though, and psychologically it has obviously had a different effect on myself and others than what was intended.

[Magnus Brickson]

6 hours ago, ksbsnowowl said:

Oh, we get some porcs to go with the orcs.

[MoonglowMinis]

Also bummed at the slow unlocks. Worried about what that might mean.

 

Trying not to dwell on that as this is the one place that doesn't seem absolutely bogged down in angry comments.

 

Really excited for those pigmen! Such potential! Are they a native race? Curses humans? Something else?

 

I love when Reaper gives us something a little odd that's not lifted from a published book. And yet despite that, I can easily run it with a wereboar statblock.

 

Just hope they unlock soon.

[Darcstaar]

For some reason, the first thought that pops into my head is that porker with a cleaver chasing down the dwarf butcher who is holding a pig, and a pitched cleaver battle ensues.

[Jeronimus]

I can be positive when I want to be, I really, really do love the Pig Butchers. Right up my alley. My first thought might be to use them in a horror situation, a little story about our excessive consumption of meat, seeing how we feel when you bring the humans into the slaughterhouse and the pigs take revenge. Now you know what's in those longpig sausages that have been so popular around town! Perhaps this is a Ravenloftian curse that befell the workers of a cannibal slaughterhouse...?

Beyond whatever story I could come up with for these, they also seem very, very paintable. Bloody leather aprons over burlap tunics, ruddy/muddy pink skin, rusty iron chains and butcher's knives... I immediately want to paint them. The fact that it's three is also very good. Enough to begin building a D&D encounter out of these! That's what I loved about the Gatormen that came with the Fan Favorites in B5, or the Slithe in Dark Depths. You want some diverse sculpts on the table!

(On a similar, mildly related note, I had kind of hoped to see the twig blights from B5's core chosen as the mob sculpt for this Kickstarter instead of the zombies, because the 5e D&D modules keep having encounters just chock-full of blights, but now I have... three.)

Anyway - I remain very curious to see how and when these will come up in the campaign. I guess they'll be an add-on all by themselves, though I think it's definitely much more "out there" as a concept than the orcs and gnolls we have seen so far. Which is not to say they won't versatile in use - these could be a race of pig-men, they could be werepigs, they could be pig demons, or they could be pig-faced orcs, as suggested before. Honestly, I wouldn't mind having some non-butcher pig men (a noble pig king?), but I wouldn't mind these as the centerpiece to a 'slaughterhouse' kind of encounter either...

[snitchythedog]

I would suggest that Reaper think about previewing 3 or so items to unlock as was done periodically throughout the last five kickstarters.  Seeing what is upcoming is as much incentive as what has been unlocked.  My two cents.

[Cintra]

There've been a lot of questions on the KS Comments about how to pledge for additional items. New-to-Bones backers may benefit from a special update and/or a highlighted "How to Pledge" box at top of the Campaign page to explain. 

[Adrift]

52 minutes ago, Magnus Brickson said:

Oh, we get some porcs to go with the orcs.

These guys remind me of a cross between Gannon from Zelda, and the butchers from Little Nightmares.

[Thoramel]

6 minutes ago, Darcstaar said:

For some reason, the first thought that pops into my head is that porker with a cleaver chasing down the dwarf butcher who is holding a pig, and a pitched cleaver battle ensues.

 

This was my first thought as well!

 

As to the wider discussion of slower growth on this kickstarter I have a feeling that it's not entirely Reaper's fault that things seem to be moving slower this time around. Sure, some of the stuff is a little less exciting for some of the miniature buying market, as evidenced by all the comments on folks' disappointment. But we're also sitting here with inflation having risen to nearly 8% in roughly a single year. Which has a huge impact on people's disposable income. I know I'm looking at my personal budget and seeing wild increases in food, taxes and fuel that's making me way more careful with how I spread my hobby dollars around. It also isn't helping things that I went in for bones 5 in a really big way. And even though I paint through a lot of minis in a year (317 in 2021 alone), I have a pile of plastic here that I'm not getting through for several years just from the last kickstarter. And that doesn't include any of the other bones kickstarter stuff from 2 through 4 that is still sitting here. Or any of the wonderful minis from other companies I've supported in the last couple of years. Add all that up and the roughly $1500 I spent on bones 5 is going to be half that this time around no matter what they reveal. Point is, there very well could be quite a few people sitting there looking at their piles of unpainted minis and their household budgets and just saying "you know, I'm good for now." Or, at least, that's my opinion.

[AlonTey]

8 hours ago, ksbsnowowl said:

 

Heck yeah.  Now I don't feel so bad about not backing the Darkest Dungeon mini Kickstarter.  Fingers crossed these are in the core because these are rad.

 

I think the comments here about the "units" in the core set finally made me figure out why the core set, despite having a lot of great stuff, despite being something I intend to get, didn't galvanize me and why the ants were the thing that had me hyped.  I mostly get minis for the DM side of the table so what gets me most excited would be big monsters and goons in a variety of poses (can't stand duplicate minis).  Encounters, basically.  So hyped for the ants, skelemen, salamanders (eventually), trogs, kuo-toa, bugbears, etc...

Edited April 6, 2022 by AlonTey
missed a "not"