Now this is surprise! I didn't expect it to actually go live for months! Exciting!

Regarding the "Sculpt me a alien leader" pledge, Can it be any non-copyrighted humanoid alien or does it have to be "Cro-Magnoid" Alien?

Anything that sounds vaguely practical.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

I am hesitant so far. If I contribute it would be for the good cause at the moment. Knowing what you are capable of, I do not think that the stuff looks finished designwise yet. It also sounds a bit unusual to build a crowd funding effort like this. Why both amies at once? Why not finish one sprue first and then go for the other? Seeing as you have no particular rule set atm anyway, that would not affect interest I think.

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Nitpicks Knapsack (Scratchbuilding and 3D designing and printing and painting)

Well, I do plan on applying a design nudge to the alien vehicle that I thought of in the night, and as pledges rise I'd hope to be able to add extra model types (leaders, alien slaves, heavy weapons, etc).

But remember that plastics constrains the total level of detail that's possible - details on the sides of models especially such as rivets are extremely difficult to achieve - "undercuts" (if you know what those are) are impossible to achieve in plastic.


Because it would cost £2000 more to do them on separate sprues.
That's £3000 in pledges, once you take out costs & fees.


I'm starting at a realistic level, and working upwards.


Here's my rough development plan for pledge levels:

- £2250 - Plastic Sprue.
- £3500 - Plastic Terrain.*
- £6500 - Split project into two separate Sprues.
- £onwards - Extra infantry model types.

*Due to its comparatively simple design, this sprue will be cheaper to produce.

I'll also be sprinkling in metal kits after we hit £2250, for examplea super-heavy alien vehicle, human tanks, and upgrade kits that plug onto the human IFV to convert it into being artillery or AA platforms.

And just for you, if we hit £3500, I'll release a rules system based on our already well-tested Timeline: 300's rules (resource management RTS style rules system).

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Many thanks!

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

E&C the sht is inspired. Maybe if it works it should be a modular design like your plastic ifv. The sht is a base hull that can be converted to a long range shooty sht, medium range lots of shooting sht, a amphib infantry carrier with cabin at the back and one that shots and carriers. And a ramsackle one for the cro mags. Also ill be pledging for 4 boxes next few days.

Those of us who like e&cs work should harass people so we get over the 50% mark quickly

Thanks!
It's only an early WIP but I think I've found a hull shape that I like.

Yep, that was part of my plan. Specifically I was going to supply it with 3 basic options -
- Transporter version (some short range guns)
- Heavy cannon version (less short range guns, but includes a big ordinance gun)
- Heavy laser version (as above, but with a huge laser instead of a cannon)

The two heavy weapons could be used as field guns if you didn't want to put them on the vehicle, if you preferred.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Really wish the project the best!
Not really in the need of them two armies but will try to pledge something nevertheless when my next paycheck comes in

Hope your PR team gets some good exposure going!
Would love to see some stretch goals become reality.

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I'm not going to quote this reply cause that much text is... well a lot. But thanks for clarifying your strategy E&C! Now I get why and when you do what you do.

I realize you cannot add undercuts or minute details. My earlier comments about the small alien vehicle had more to do with the design of the overall shape of it which looks a bit too unramshackly and symmetrical. Make it a halftrack with not so neat tracks and give the cabin a bit less symmetry and it's a definite go.

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Nitpicks Knapsack (Scratchbuilding and 3D designing and printing and painting)

Terrain ?! Tell me more !

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

I think your priorities are wrong - seperate bases should definitely be the first stretch goal (you can then fit more models on each sprue), followed by leaders/others, seperate human and alien sprues and only very late on bother with terrain.

Models are the main draw and terrain takes up a lot of sprue space and might not be suitable for everyones game worlds e.g. some wanting gothic buildings others wanting futuristic buildings.

Edited to add: after thinking about it more I'd go further and think you really must leave out terrain entirely from stretch goals. The kickstarter is explicitly for '6mm scale armies' and should focus on doing that as well as possible, rather than going off into tangents. If this kickstarter does well then by all means do another for terrain in future.

I like the Boarks and could have use for some, but wouldn't buy the current set due to the single pose. It's a throw-back to the bad old days and I want variety. If there were 3-4+ basic Boark warrior models (after heavies, characters, slaves, ect were done) then I might buy.

Also, the more I think about it, the more I think having bases on the core sprue is a terrible idea strategically that will signifigantly reduce the support you'll get. The point of the plastic sprue should be for people to be able to buy a large amount of models for cheap and at the moment it's not that great value- as one commenter on the Wargamer au thread points out you can get similar numbers of models (with more variety of types) from Exodus Wars for around that price (without bases). I hadn't done any calculations myself but my first impresion on seeing the kickstarter sprue was of being underwhelmed by the amount you got on there. Some people might like the bases but many people have an existing preference for bases e.g. rectangular or square, or are happy making making their own out of cardboard, wood or low value coins, in which case the bases are useless.

You should had a lot more models on the sprue to make it really attractive value and then had an early 'stretch goal' of an optional bases sprue at an additional cost per sprue, giving people the choice. That Dungeon tiles crowd funder had a lot of optional extras for more money like this and did well.

Would dropping the bases save you 600 quid in tooling costs? (or are they cheaper than models, due to simple geometry?)

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My shifting projects

I'm considering running parallel stretch goals - set up separate funding Pledges and people can choose which goal they would like to pledge towards.


The sprue you just described would cost around £7100 in setup costs.
Which equals to about £14,000 in funding pledges (because pledges are subject to an 8% cut for paypal & indiegogo, and a big cut for production & postage etc.).
And that's just for one sprue, the numbers speak for themselves as to which goals we should work towards first.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

It may do - but by contrast the unfettered support we may have received from doing separate sprues might never have reached the funding goal at all (£25,000-£30,000 or so to get two separate fully featured sprues funded, depending on complexity).


So it's slightly better value as it stands, and it's plastic so postage is cheaper.

I can do this - any early pledges for the mixed sprue that want to swap to a different sprue type after it becomes available as a stretch goal will be able to email us when the crowdfunding ends and swap over freely.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter