[Kickstarter] Shieldwolf:War is coming (Battle Orc Wyvern review page #11!)

[The Red Graf]

So yesterday I was taking a survey to see if I preferred the Shieldmaidens with command at $35,000 or without at $25,000. Now I have an email informing me that they will not be available until $60,000 and may not have a command. Wow, because the world needs more orcs. My interest in this kickstarter is vanishing over the horizon almost as fast as the Shieldmaidens.

Refresh my memory, can I cancel a pledge?

[Tordenskjold]

Tordenskjold, I honestly have no idea what you're looking at concerning the straps. They all look like pretty clear layers to me, it doesn't look at all like the straps are carved into the skin/fur of the lion. :/

The pose is another story, personally I don't think you can worry too much about 'realism' when it comes to riding lions though. For mine, I think the hasslefree one looks incredibly awkward- it'd be almost impossible to swing a weapon from an unstable position like that. It does look cool though, so I'd probably still get it if I were into scantily clad girls on giant cats.

Look at the straps on the tail:


No detailing what so ever, dentures worked directly into the material of the mini. And on the matter of realism I think you can and should generally care when you are crafting a mini, human proportions and general anatomy presumably also exist in whatever world the game takes place in.

As for my taste in miniatures I must presume you are trying to insult me. I am into well crafted miniatures and I call it as I see it; there are flaws on the Shield Wolf lion that are not present on Kev White's tigress. That 'scaintly clad female' is modelled after mr. White's wife by the way, you'll have to take your concern about her up with mr. and mrs. White, not me. I'd love to see you calling mr. White a pervert for sculpting a model of his wife - maybe turn your eye inward, eh?

 

So yesterday I was taking a survey to see if I preferred the Shieldmaidens with command at $35,000 or without at $25,000. Now I have an email informing me that they will not be available until $60,000 and may not have a command. Wow, because the world needs more orcs. My interest in this kickstarter is vanishing over the horizon almost as fast as the Shieldmaidens.

Refresh my memory, can I cancel a pledge?

Luckily yes you can! Consult your pledge manager on Kickstarter.com

[The Red Graf]

Luckily yes you can! Consult your pledge manager on Kickstarter.com

Thanks.

I have been thinking about this a bit and trying to decide why it irked me so much. I think it is because Shieldwolf has been talking about how they are bringing us new armies for a new game. Great, there are a lot of Red Sonja, Viking Girl, Valkyrie models out there, but we have never had a heroic 28mm plastic box set of female Barbarian's before. That actually is newish and certainly interesting to me. However, here we are several days into the Kickstarter and that newish feature that polled so well before the release is being hidden behind a lot of stuff that we have seen done over and over by other companies and in some cases done better by other companies (Ogres carrying cannons, Orcs doing anything). Even the Shieldmaiden General figure is a false flag because a girl on dragon is just a girl on a dragon without an actual army to lead.

It looks like Shieldwolf has figured out what we really want and is planning to hold that thing hostage to increase there overall Kickstarter. I suppose that counts as sound business strategy.

[Timbor]

Keep in mind that plastic kits are incredibly expensive to build and produce moulds... to make a KS with that as the sole goal with no other ramp-up for a relatively small startup has a much lower chance of success.  Best to have a few other things to offer for backers to join in the meantime.  Look at the Pro-Gloria indiegogo campaign - they required 30k euro (thats what, $40k?) for one plastic kit, and they could not get there.  I think 60k is reasonable for the shieldmaidens.  They are already at 25k in the first couple days... many KS campaigns follow a rough 33-33-33 split where the first third comes in the first couple days, the second third during the bulk of the campaign, and the final third in the last two days.  I think they have the ability to fund at least the shieldmaidens.

I will keep my pledge in this for now.  I really don't get all the vitriol against Shieldwolf here.  What did they do to piss so many people off?  As for the concerns about the straps on the lions tail... I did not know that many people focused so close on the underside of a lion's tail.  There are, what, two straps on the kev white tiger?  Of course he is going to put some extra detail on those straps when there are only two.  That is often the point of his sculpting style - less is more, low fantasy, simple, well defined and proportioned sculpts.  The Shieldwolf stuff is busier, high fantasy.  Saying a whole model is crap because an extremely minor and not visible part of it is not as detailed as the rest kinda blows my mind.  As for the engraving not being deep enough to be painted well on 9/10 figures painted... to me that just says that 9/10 painters are not skilled enough to bring out the details. 

[The Red Graf]

I would have been much less concerned if they had not, in my opinion, moved the ball. They proposed the shieldmaidens at a much lower point and then raised the bar for them by almost double while moving from a dual use box with full command to a single use box without command. For now I am leaving my pledge in place.

Follow up here, apparently there was a badly written communication last night and Shieldwolf was in fact communicating the cost of tooling the dies for the plastic shield maiden kit, 25k, 35k, and 55k depending on the options not not the stretch goal to unlock the kit. So I was wrong.

[MattW]

Look at the straps on the tail:

Really...? That's it?

No detailing what so ever, dentures worked directly into the material of the mini. And on the matter of realism I think you can and should generally care when you are crafting a mini, human proportions and general anatomy presumably also exist in whatever world the game takes place in.

As for my taste in miniatures I must presume you are trying to insult me. I am into well crafted miniatures and I call it as I see it; there are flaws on the Shield Wolf lion that are not present on Kev White's tigress. That 'scaintly clad female' is modelled after mr. White's wife by the way, you'll have to take your concern about her up with mr. and mrs. White, not me. I'd love to see you calling mr. White a pervert for sculpting a model of his wife - maybe turn your eye inward, eh?
 

You're now shifting your argument to proportions? Shield wolf clearly state that they're sculpting in 'heroic' 28mm. Proportions go out the window.

You couldn't have read me more wrongly when it came to the scantily clad women thing. I meant nothing more than that fact that she's not wearing many clothes, which is an objective fact and not intended as a moral judgement.

I don't know why I'm even writing this post, given that I'm not even getting on board this kickstarter, and I'm not at all interested in lion mounts, whether they're ridden by scantily clad women or men in puffy sleeves. 

[Captain Blood]

I've temporarily edited this thread pending review of some comments made. Please keep it civil.
Thanks.

[Shieldwolf Miniatures]

So, 5th race revealed, an update coming soon! 

And the number of backers in this project keeps on rising, great! 

[Shieldwolf Miniatures]

Updated! #17! 

[Shieldwolf Miniatures]

Here's one for those who can't bother digging...   

[Shieldwolf Miniatures]

And here's his buddy! 

He's coming to say "hi"... 

[Timbor]

Those goblins look very nice, indeed.  Looking forward to seeing more!

[Shieldwolf Miniatures]

Thanks @Timbor 
Goblins were nicely accepted by the community but we still have a long way to go to unlock their war-machines, cavalry etc... These 2 chaps at least will logically be funded! 

[Shieldwolf Miniatures]

Wyvern funded!!! 
We are pretty confident Olivier Nkwetti is going to deliver a beautiful sculpt on this one... 

[Shieldwolf Miniatures]

The Orc rider of the Wyvern unlocked as well!

Awesome!