5/28 update Concepts for Feedback
almost 7 years ago – Tue, May 28, 2019 at 02:22:35 AM

Hello everyone, here to give a brief update regarding our creative flow. 

With all of our projects, we've started with concept work, sculpted and eventually rendered. When we post items to facebook we will not always do so with immediate finality in mind. As we are waiting for the KS to naturally resolve, we are taking the time to get crucial feedback to make sure your wants are attended to. So we can meet in the middle, I would like to explain a little about why we gear our choices in a particular way. 

Brainstorming

I am a retailer who sells mainly to clients focused on mass war games. We had a very distinct lack of fauns that had not been looked at in our games. Beast like men were often depicted by GW beastmen, so they were the common denominator. For me though they didn't fit the core lore and background of what fauns in these situations would be seen as: a race of whimsy, just as much to trick you, as they may to save, one of the nest neutral races. Fauns are not known for their combat prowess, but for the purposes of argument, they do in the games we cater to. To help us design them, we looked for a source that closely resembled their battle doctrines and the closest example I could think of a few years back were the Thracians. 

The amount of source material for Thrace is broad because there were not many historical attempts to unite them, so they were easily confused for celts, as they were for dacians, greeks and scythians. Despite that, they were recently theorized to be the major motivation for the Trojan War (large silver deposits).  

In warfare, thracians were notoriously known as skirmishers. When greeks fought with spear, thracians were a bit more practical, donning wicker shields and their choice of javelins, sling or bows, outpacing their heavily armored opponents. Did they spurn combat? Not in the least. Thracians adopted wicked blades, which many will know by the falx, and rhompaia (though the sica was also quite popular).  Skirmish warfare often lead to the eventual shock and awe of the blades to break the morale of their foes. 

Their way of fighting inspired poor men to step up, teaching them to use light shields, clothing and speed to maximum efficiency . 

Which is where we bring this up,

We had been looking at ways to create new torsos for the female fauns, not necessarily immediately, but in preparation for the 20k goal. Based on feedback from those on facebook, it was clear that excessive amounts of clothes took away from the charm of what you might have had planned for the fauns. For example,  what some view as a smock, we saw as garment that reduced the blows of slings, potentially javelins and arrows. 

The thracians had handy hacks, like using animal fur to catch their enemies in melee, as they might have used it to break the momentum of a javelin. And in light of the female garment on the first torso, a way to break up monotony. To improve it, we would have to do a few things, such as shorten the length of the clothing, tighten it closer to the body, and/or separate the front and back of the clothing as to give players the ability to don them like capes or protective gear.  

But let us know what you think, in the off chance we could do a Thracian style add on for those interested in clothing vs purely bare skinned. 

Minotaurs

On  that note, we have some rough concepts coming up from the Minotaurs. Tim has agreed to work on renders of both a faun and minotaur (while reducing the weapon) to show case how they might look to you. Keep an open mind as they should be interpreted as heavily WIP. 

Take care folks,

Robert

12k Add On
almost 7 years ago – Sun, May 26, 2019 at 12:56:55 AM

Hello folks, looks like the pace is still going well. We are here to turn it up a notch once more. For pledgers with army in a box, we will now be adding a shield pack (10 shields) after 12k. Those with multiple army in a box pledges will effectively double (or in one case triple) the amount of shields received by this bonus. 

Pledgers have the option of wicker  and/or bark shields. Be happy to mix and match when final surveys are taken care of. 

Alternatively, we will have pewter shields available for add on, for $6. Ideally this will help those who want to mix and match shields, or customize their warriors (shield aesthetic on back will be my ideal dream here). 

Thanks every one, have a great weekend. 

Robert

Error from last update
almost 7 years ago – Sat, May 25, 2019 at 12:22:55 AM

Quick note, I made an error in last nights update, minotaur trio is still at 11k not 12k. And for those backing, we will be lifting the one minotaur brute rule for pledgers who have more then one army pledge. The trio of minotaurs is in the army in the box, plan is still to put those out to you soon. 

10k Goal Broke!
almost 7 years ago – Fri, May 24, 2019 at 12:06:08 AM

It was about 5 am my time when I woke to the news that we broke 10k. These last few days were an incredible rally to break 10k. Every last bit of you helping, have made this project a reality, so this prompts us to work that much harder to bring you to the next stretch goal (though in likelihood it might be broke by then). 

Big shout out to the Kings of War community and the avid followers of the project! I've contacted Darius, our concept artist, to coordinate pics with Tim over the weekend.   

In the mean while, we've discussed proportioning and tone so the weapons will not be over blown. The answer this we just need to effectively pick out points in the axe and reduce in size by about 15-20%. We are also narrowing the minotaurs to two scale mail, and one unarmored hulk.   

Quick note on Centaurs   

With the 3x4 for the centaurs being unlocked, we need to assure everyone that we do not want to waste precious sprues if you feel you want to use the faun torsos for warriors as well. The compromise here is to make sure that the other half of the 3x4 has a few torsos to go along with the horse body, and some arms to work with shields. This way, if you have left over parts from the faun sprues, they can find nice homes. But the mention of shields brings us to a nice segway.   

What We Have Today 

We had a backer bring out an idea for a shield today. A bit interesting. So you may notice wicker in the shield styles we already have. This is a ight and somewhat durable material, meant to deflect objects and perhaps take a minor blow or two away from the fighter. The trade off was that it gave the warrior a bit more speed, so could be seen as arguably cheap and effective.   

The style of shield you will see below takes some notes from shields made from tree bark. Not too much unlike a shield made of wood, where the effectiveness was based on the amount of layers or thickness, it could then be lined with hide and cloth.   The contrast is that the bark being used instead of the thicker wood, meant that it could be lighter, while offering surprisingly decent defense to the wearer.   

What this means for you is that Tim took some time out of his day and made this shield to coexist with the other wicker style shield. It has similar merits: its in line of draft for plastic, universally adaptable for both faun sexes, and can be laid upon the back. It is also a nice flat surface for hand painted symbols, or potentially a transfer.   

We will be establishing a shield pack add on, 10 shields=$6. Players will have the choice of wicker style shields or this new bark shield coming to you soon.

(Kickstarter is rather glitchy today with pics, so here is the link to the pic below!) 

New Shield  

Progression

Next stop is the 12k trio of minotaurs, followed by the extra parts sprue at 20k. Been lots of talk for new torsos, and left side oriented weapons for dual wielders. 15 days left, lots of things can happen, and still 430 people set for reminders! 

Take care, and have a wonderful day tomorrow! You've put a big smile on my face. 

Robert Dunham

5/22 Update Minotaurs and Something About the Kickstarter
almost 7 years ago – Thu, May 23, 2019 at 01:02:20 AM

5/22

Minotaur Trio in Progress- Weapons

Our Minotaur Brute is posing today with a WIP battle axe that Tim has crafted just the other day. We are intending this to be among the three featured in the upcoming Minotaur trio, along with a claymore (war loot) and a stylized shield and sword combo, inspired by Ajax (the sheer bulk of the shield a testament to his strength). Based on feedback we are going to tone down the size of the axe to make it fit better in proportion to the Minotaur body. 

The trio will borrow from the scale mail aspect, befitting other greek aspects to the east. Items such as the sling are still on the chopping block, as Tim finds time to squeeze them in. 

Progress

We are nearly 92% of the way. Based on the following im seeing, roughly 400 folks have set reminders before the kickstarter ends. The reason of note to you is that once the goal is seen to be passing its funding goal, it makes it a worthwhile consideration to backers who were on the fence before. Pushing past the 10k mark means female fauns, and centaurs, but more importantly more visibility and potential backers to improve what you get from the sprues you are about to receive. 

When we went into this project, we went into this with some cool things in mind: we wanted to avoid a long wait time, and we wanted to give backers great quality.

To do this we

• Got files ready in plastic
• Found a molder that could provide fast turn around times with molding
• And invested ahead of time to know our risk before moving onto crowdfunding

If there is value to be seen here, its not only the quality of the models that will come out, but how fast we can get them out. Instead of waiting a year, this project should have the biggest parts of the project done in months. 

And we have great talent helming the sculpts. We are even working now! 

Reflection

Making plastic miniatures cannot be done by one person well, it takes an army. Share, comment, pledge, help us break this 10k barrier. let us kick ass at what we do. 

Thank you everybody!

Robert Dunham