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Miniatures Adventure => Fantasy Adventures => Topic started by: Andrew_McGuire on October 04, 2020, 02:57:26 PM

Title: Anyone playing Conquest?
Post by: Andrew_McGuire on October 04, 2020, 02:57:26 PM
Subtitled: The Last Argument of Kings? I'm hearing a lot about it everywhere but on LAF. Surely, this must change.
Title: Re: Anyone playing Conquest?
Post by: Dentatus on October 04, 2020, 06:57:12 PM
It pops up on my radar every now and then but it's mostly absent. Aren't they large scale figs? 40mm?
Title: Re: Anyone playing Conquest?
Post by: Bloggard on October 05, 2020, 08:58:34 AM
looked at it a few times ... figures don't grab me somehow ... but by gum they must be large- the 'giant' figure in the core box is apparently almost 'a foot' tall.
Title: Re: Anyone playing Conquest?
Post by: Mammoth miniatures on October 05, 2020, 12:54:14 PM
Nice sculpts but The idea of painting ranks and ranks of extra large miniatures is a bit...eh.

I will probably pick up some of the character sculpts tho since they look like fun painting projects.
Title: Re: Anyone playing Conquest?
Post by: Knight-Captain Tyr on October 05, 2020, 01:21:31 PM
If the miniatures weren't absolutely gigantic I probably would have jumped in.

I wish the creators all the success in the world, but don't understand why they felt the need to go supersize on their range. They would sell more miniatures if they could be used in other games too, and probably tempt a lot more 28mm purists to try out their game proper.
Title: Re: Anyone playing Conquest?
Post by: Elbows on October 06, 2020, 06:48:54 AM
Add me to the list of "if they weren't feckin' huge I'd be all over it".  It's as frustrating as Red Box Games is for me sometimes.  I have a heap of fantasy miniatures, but certain ranges are either far too small compared to the rest, or, in this case, waaaaay too big.  Conquest miniatures look freakin' gigantic.

I've less than zero interest in the game, but I would have been buying up kits for use in my dungeon crawl, 100%.  I've bought Reaper, Frostgrave, Oathmark, Fireforge, etc...because they all work together.  I think Para Bellum really screwed the pooch on this, personally.

Making a rank and file fantasy game is already a super sketchy/risky idea.  Then to make sure you can't use the figures with...anything else?  Asinine in my opinion.  It's as if you're voluntarily trying not to succeed.
Title: Re: Anyone playing Conquest?
Post by: Andrew_McGuire on October 06, 2020, 04:02:41 PM
Making a rank and file fantasy game is already a super sketchy/risky idea.  Then to make sure you can't use the figures with...anything else?  Asinine in my opinion.  It's as if you're voluntarily trying not to succeed.

That doesn't seem to far removed from GW's business model. Admittedly they scrapped WFB but there seems to be a likelihood of it returning in some form (as may have been intended all along,once the market seemed ready). From a cynic's perspective, Conquest seems to be an attempt to fill the perceived gap first. Come to think of it. a game could probably be designed about this.

Perhaps a closer parallel would be CMON's HATE, which clearly wasn't intended to succeed, at least in the usual sense of being a cash cow, because it was only ever available to Kickstarter pledgers. That's not the case with Conquest, of course, but it does suggest that there is some place for very niche releases. Para Bellum must have great confidence in theirs to make it incompatible with anything else.

I'm, to say the least, ambivalent about the figures myself, as much because of the oversized weapons and grotesque / baroque styling - neither exclusive to this manufacturer - as their sheer size. My eventual decision whether or not to buy the starter set will be more influenced by an assessment of the strength of the rules.
Title: Re: Anyone playing Conquest?
Post by: Mammoth miniatures on October 06, 2020, 05:08:38 PM
I did wonder if the scale was a form of future proofing - like they looked at the size of GW models and the general trend of companies to copy GW's sizing and said"well this way we might look odd now, but in 3 years we'll be the standard."
Title: Re: Anyone playing Conquest?
Post by: Andrew_McGuire on October 06, 2020, 05:35:27 PM
Well, you're a mammoth - you would say that. Good point, though. No one can say how far scale creep will go.
Title: Re: Anyone playing Conquest?
Post by: Malebolgia on October 07, 2020, 06:44:20 AM
Looked at some of the miniatures...but found the prices to be very high. But now I understand that they are on the big side it makes sense. But then they are in no way interesting to me lol
Title: Re: Anyone playing Conquest?
Post by: Elbows on October 08, 2020, 11:53:52 PM
That doesn't seem to far removed from GW's business model. Admittedly they scrapped WFB but there seems to be a likelihood of it returning in some form (as may have been intended all along,once the market seemed ready). From a cynic's perspective, Conquest seems to be an attempt to fill the perceived gap first. Come to think of it. a game could probably be designed about this.

Perhaps a closer parallel would be CMON's HATE, which clearly wasn't intended to succeed, at least in the usual sense of being a cash cow, because it was only ever available to Kickstarter pledgers. That's not the case with Conquest, of course, but it does suggest that there is some place for very niche releases. Para Bellum must have great confidence in theirs to make it incompatible with anything else.

I'm, to say the least, ambivalent about the figures myself, as much because of the oversized weapons and grotesque / baroque styling - neither exclusive to this manufacturer - as their sheer size. My eventual decision whether or not to buy the starter set will be more influenced by an assessment of the strength of the rules.

Yeah, I don't think we can compare to GW as they're a massive company - probably the only 'massive' gaming company if we exclude collectible card games.  They create the market that they sell to and have a massive captive audience.  An upstart company/new game does not...hence why I find it really silly to just blow everyone out with scale.

There's scale-creep which occurs quite slowly, and then there's scale explosion.  Don't get me wrong...I think the minis look great, I think the story sounds good, but these are easily 40mm miniatures and nothing approaching the 25/28/32mm style of other companies.

(https://www.dakkadakka.com/s/i/at/2019/4/20/d0e2ad39146bb327cb48a9f1deedd9d6_36660.jpeg__thumb)

This is a normal human fighter being shown against a 40mm(ish) Primaris marine, and an already heroic 28mm guardsman on the right side, etc.  I really hope this game survives and takes off, but I can't help feeling it'll show up at 60% off on Miniature Market within a year or two.
Title: Re: Anyone playing Conquest?
Post by: Andrew_McGuire on October 26, 2020, 05:55:01 PM
I'm still not playing, but have just downloaded and printed the quick start rules, having received my first expansion pack (Steel Legion) today, essentially to see what they're like. (I don't have the core set, or anything else as yet, but having read reviews on Board Game Geek, I believe the game is definitely worth looking into).

I've just discovered there is a quasi-skirmish version of the rules, which I won't be printing as it's 143 pages long:

https://www.para-bellum.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/FirstBlood.pdf

With regard to the models, I'm not put off by their size as so many appear to be, but they do seem a bit fiddly to put together, particularly as no instructions are provided, though these can also be found on the website.
Title: Re: Anyone playing Conquest?
Post by: Elbows on October 26, 2020, 09:08:55 PM
I'm not put off by their size on their own merit, but rather...they'd be utterly useless with the other hundreds of fantasy miniatures I own, and absolutely wouldn't fit at all in my 25mm squared dungeons, etc.

If someone is fully interested in just Conquest, I'm sure that's not a problem at all.  But having an entire second line of miniatures which are 20-30% larger than the rest of my miniatures puts this at a complete "nope" for me.  The beauty of fantasy miniatures, for me at least, is how many different things you can use them for.  Thus, these not fitting with any other companies' fantasy miniatures is an issue for me, too big of an issue.

Shame as I rather love the look/lore of the game!
Title: Re: Anyone playing Conquest?
Post by: Mammoth miniatures on October 26, 2020, 10:54:36 PM


I've just discovered there is a quasi-skirmish version of the rules, which I won't be printing as it's 143 pages long:




And here i was worried about changing my rules from 3 pages to 16...
Title: Re: Anyone playing Conquest?
Post by: jetengine on October 26, 2020, 10:55:23 PM
Just seems like another attempt at taking WFBs "Rank and Flank" crown but with some changes to the races and making the miniatures at an odd scale for propietary reasons.
Title: Re: Anyone playing Conquest?
Post by: pixelgeek on October 26, 2020, 11:21:01 PM
I'm not put off by their size on their own merit, but rather...they'd be utterly useless with the other hundreds of fantasy miniatures I own, and absolutely wouldn't fit at all in my 25mm squared dungeons, etc.


I think this is pretty much the general opinion of everyone I have talked to about this game. Great minis but they won't match with anything else.

How do their figures match up with AoS minis?
Title: Re: Anyone playing Conquest?
Post by: Mammoth miniatures on October 27, 2020, 02:13:23 PM
I think this is pretty much the general opinion of everyone I have talked to about this game. Great minis but they won't match with anything else.

How do their figures match up with AoS minis?

still too big - for all the people bemoan GW having large minis, the human minis (what few there are) are still the same size they were 10 years ago. the standard human fighter from conquest is taller than a stormcast eternal.
Title: Re: Anyone playing Conquest?
Post by: Andrew_McGuire on October 27, 2020, 04:44:26 PM
When it comes to the model size issue, I'm in a slightly different position to most, having a modest collection of 40mm Elastolin figures, as well as a (very) few metal 40 mm fantasy figs from an Italian company whose name I can't remember: neither remotely enough to make a difference, but just sufficient to constitute an excuse for buying more.

I should be assembling some of the Steel Legion in the next day or two and will have some better ideas then. Sadly I can't promise comparison images due to my lack of digital photography skills and facilities.
Title: Re: Anyone playing Conquest?
Post by: pixelgeek on October 27, 2020, 05:00:11 PM
the standard human fighter from conquest is taller than a stormcast eternal.

Holy heck!
Title: Re: Anyone playing Conquest?
Post by: Andrew_McGuire on October 27, 2020, 05:23:58 PM
The official 'scale' quoted on the website is 38 mm. The size of the bases, interestingly, is 25 mm, though I'm sure it must be larger for the character models such as this chap:

Title: Re: Anyone playing Conquest?
Post by: Mammoth miniatures on October 27, 2020, 07:26:30 PM
Holy heck!

Indeed.
Although i suppose a stormcast standing up straight might just be taller.


As an aside, it's very silly bu t i just really don't like the subtitle. I know what they were going for but "last argument of kings" just makes me think of two kings having a bit of a spat outside the school gates. It's also just a little awkward to say, it fumbles out of the mouth rather the rolls off the tongue. This really is just me being pedantic tho, I have heard the game is excellent.
Title: Re: Anyone playing Conquest?
Post by: Elbows on October 28, 2020, 06:45:40 AM
Then I'll suspect you'll adore the expansion due out in June 2021, "Conquest: Last Slap Fight of Queens".
Title: Re: Anyone playing Conquest?
Post by: Bloggard on October 28, 2020, 10:04:19 AM
figure looks great - lovely paint job.

I like the 'last argument of kings' - thought it was a historical quote, and :
https://firstlaw.fandom.com/wiki/Last_Argument_of_Kings

guess it's better in the Latin, but still think it has a ring to it. Very much so in fact.

* actually - having just re-read the thread and seen the post about the skirmish rules - 'first blood' ... now there is a bit of a duff title (unless you're a rambo fan I guess).

y'know, think I might pick up the core-set while it's still available. Whole thing is growing on me.



Title: Re: Anyone playing Conquest?
Post by: Andrew_McGuire on October 28, 2020, 05:31:25 PM
As an aside, it's very silly but i just really don't like the subtitle. I know what they were going for but "last argument of kings" just makes me think of two kings having a bit of a spat outside the school gates. It's also just a little awkward to say, it fumbles out of the mouth rather the rolls off the tongue. This really is just me being pedantic tho, I have heard the game is excellent.

There's a review of the core set on YouTube by someone who shares your view of the subtitle, apparently on the grounds it doesn't sound sufficiently butch:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7l03845Bs0&t=786s

To save valuable time, he hasn't actually played the game, having only just received the set, but shows and comments on the components, including, of course, the vexed issue of the size of the minis.
Title: Re: Anyone playing Conquest?
Post by: Bloggard on October 29, 2020, 10:38:24 AM
good unboxing / constructing thing for seeing size compared to a variety of other miniatures

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUjlYMAjQdk


 ... and boxed set duly delivered.

Contains a lot of rather large miniatures (which look great) ... and a rather small rulebook by way of balancing things out.
Had kind of expected a full-size A4 job, so a bit disappointed there.