Dungeon Saga: Dwarf Kings Quest Kickstarter Final 10 Hours

The current mantic kickstarter has reached in final 10 hours with about 850K raised.  They need 925K to add a Dragon expansion which I am not really hot for myself but whatever.  Maybe they will get more stuff in it if they break the first stretch goal  Since I last checked in the basic pledge has picked up plastic doors, like 5 demons, a large yet to be revealed undead monsterous creature, and about 8 missions plus Abyssal Dwarf rules.  So some nice bonus but nothing that makes it a must buy value in terms of miniatures.

Dungeon Saga: Scenario 1 Playthrough

In my continuing coverage of the Mantic Dungeon Saga kickstarter,  I played the real scenario provided with the alpha rules.  The first two test games, Journeys from the East and West,  are more of training exercises to help you learn the rules and are not designed to be balanced.  This scenario starts with all four heroes together at the entrance of a small room with 6 piles of bones and 2 armored zombies (represented by Reapers Bones Liches/Wights) and 2 normal zombies.  Behind the zombies are two pairs of doors which need to be opened to get to the next stage of this scenario.

Dungeon Saga: Journey From the East

Last night I got a chance to run through the second of the training missions for the Dungeon Saga Alpha rules.  The set up is to train in spells and range attacks with the Heroes being the Elf Ranger with her bow and the human wizard.  The bad guys are 2 archer skeletons, 3 regular skeletons and 5 piles of bones to reinforce the skeletons during the game.  The heroes start near 2 magically warded doors and need to open one of them by casting the break ward spell on one a total of 5 times.  Since only the wizard can do this the archer is there to delay the advance of the Bones.

Dungeon Saga: Dice Mechanics Probability Analysis

Anyone who follows this blog will know that I have an interest in the probabilities in Gaming.  I have my Math Hulk series where I examined the attacks in Space Hulk for all the possible interactions.  I played around with an X-wing attack calculator and even calculated how many missiles to the center of a Razorback before the advent of hull points.  Today I am going to look at the Dungeon Saga dice mechanics.

Dungeon Saga Kickstarter: Final Week Check Up

The Mantic Dungeon Saga: Dwarf Kings Quest kickstarter is now in its last week.  I looked at the progress last week and report that the project in my eyes was sort of in the fair value stage.  Mantic is an essentially professional kickstarter company that builds its kickstarters to be at the point they will be a good value but not anything amazing.   The project has moved mostly in a parallel direction in terms of value over the last week.  They added a Hero to the base game, finished the 25 dollar Greenskin expansion with 18 monsters and 1 villain, and starter a 25 dollar Demon expansion with 8 minis(update 10) with a Bonus Hero being placed in the base pledge.  The base pledge also picked up some expansion models finishing a 9 figure set for the greenskins and starting with 3(update 4) demons.  So a total pick up of 8 models for 57 (58 Currently) models plus the dungeon decor in the 100 dollars.

Reaper Announces Bones II Kickstarter will Miss Initial Shipment Date

Reaper in their lastest kickstarter update let everyone know that they will not be shipping on time again.  It appears that this time they decided to actually check there production samples to prevent the appearance of any more alien cowgirls and children.  Some failed the inspections so the molds will have to be redone.  I was on reaper a lot about this before backing the second kickstarter and am glad that they are trying to maintain the model quality better this time even if it slows down delivery.  The models are supposed to be my christmas present so hopefully they will still make it.

I think I had a feeling like this was going to happen.  I hardly every comment on the kickstarter updates but about a month ago I was asking why we were not see more production sample since they were supposed to be shipping so soon.

Dungeon Saga: Journey from the West

So Mantic posted the alpha rules(which are not currently linked on the front of the kickstarter) for the Dungeon Saga game along with 3 starter scenarios.  I recently picked up a couple of the older mantic boardgames at clearance prices from their site.  I also get an extra dungeon tile set which matches those needed for the demo scenarios.  I was able to get the minis for the first two scenarios from my Bones line and even whipped out my Dungeonbowl doors since the first two scenarios are about opening the doors to the dungeon.

Lego Ghostbusters: Who you gonna Call?

Lego released a Ghostbuster set a few months ago from their consumer designed line.  The box comes with 508 many small pieces for $49.99 and is only at Lego Stores or through online merchants.  No decals which is great.  Everything is printed.  The box is a nice tab lock one that allow the set to be kept together after it is assembled.

Dungeon Saga Kickstarter: Half Way

The Mantic Kickstarter for Dungeon Saga: Dwarf Kings Quest has now reached the half way point as I was going to review where I feel it stands in terms of value and where I think it should go and what information is still poorly presented.  The boxed game now includes 7 Heros, 4 Villians, and 18 Monsters with the lowest pledge throwing in a 9 Monster Undead pack, 6 Monster Pack for the Expansion, 1 Hero from the Expansion, and 4 Kickstarter exclusive characters.  There are also 3d plastic dungeon dressings which I am not sure if they are part of the basic game box or an extra.

GW Getting Very Desperate

Is it just me of does GW seem to be getting very desperate for sales.  They are releasing the Grey Knight Codex and Grey Knight stuff when they have not even finished all the space wolf releases.  While there is nothing inherently wrong with releasing new products, seems to me that they are going to run out of good looking minis and tested ideas pretty fast.   Some might say after the look of the recent space wolf models that they have already run out.  If they run through all the codexes in like 2 years  are they going to update the edition again at such a rate.  With the remaining players stand for an new edition in 2 or 3 years again.  I know all the games out there are being new editioned at a faster rate than ever before but this seems a bit excessive.

Do You Buy or Sell Games Workshop in Australia?

If so you should be aware that GW is trying to get permission to change their trade terms to forbid companies from selling GW products without a physical shop.  Now in the US they can just do this if they want to by essentially not selling to companies if they can trace the online cart sales to them, but down under they need the governments permission to do it.   While they filled the request earlier this year without informing any of their trade partners, the case has not been decided yet and people are allowed to comment on the proposal.

Details can be found in the post linked above.  I would probably look to quote from GW's own financial reports about how the CEO mocks people who think video games are competition.  Highlight how they think there models are exceptional and players want their worlds.  I would also highlight the fact the GWs own online store runs anti competitive exclusive limited edition products that sell out very fast.  This products force people to shop at their webstore the stores they say they are trying to protect from sales of those products and sales of additional carry on products since the exclusive products are often released at the same time as other new related products which customers will often just buy at the same time for convenience.

Spend some time, do some research and write both heartfelt and data driven.   Ask questions about why the products are so expensive compared to the rest of the world.  Note that since the retail prices are higher, the trade prices are also probably higher.  Ask if GW claims that these higher prices are required due to high costs of business in Australia, then wonder if the GW Australia subgroup is paying the same amount to the parent company for the products as the North American Subgroup.  Suggest that if they are not reasonably similar that GW prices are not really reflecting the cost of business difference in Australia but are instead being used to unfairly profit from the already limit sources of their product available to Australia consumers by making GW Australia the sole allowed importer but charging them rates not comparable to other regions.

Will it help, who knows.  Can it hurt, probably not as long as people keep the GW rage down.

Chainmail Miniatures Game: Dwarf People's Guard

A couple of months back, I noted that I was looking for the stats for some of the wizards of the coast Chainmail line.   While I have yet to get anyone who has the stats I was looking for I did net one of the model boxes on ebay recently.  The dwarf people's guard set had two different models.  The sculpts are not bad but they are definitely on the planar side.

The models were actually pretty low cost for Set 4 and came with the special rule Shield Mate +2 which grants a +2 AC bonus from melee attacks to any friendly model in base to base contact with the People's Guard but any attacks directed at the friendly model can instead be directed at the people's guard.  Not bad little ability.

How Do You Gauge Value in Gaming?

In a recent discussion of the Mantic Dungeon Saga Kickstarter with the game designer, I commented that the box seemed a little light still.  It was comparable to other games off the type but the cost is currently higher.  He noted that while judging games by their contents is useful, the real value of the game is how often you can use it and how much fun you have.  This is of course true and if my wife used that gauge on my gaming stuff none of it would have much value in her opinion.  This is what makes assigning value to things so subjective and leads to lots of arguments in comments sections anytime people look at prices.  For example the Reaper Bones Kaladrax above was very cheap during the kickstarter but the quality is sort of low and how often do you really have a use for a giant skeleton dragon.

If you look at GW and talk about the value of their products, everyone's views are very colored by their current attachment level to the games.  This is probably stronger on the 40K side due to the higher "original" IP content.  If you want to play or model in that world, GW has done a fairly good job of holding that as its own.  While there are some casters out their making resin parts in the same design schemes, they are not a significant threat to GW other than perhaps a slightly positive corrective force on pricing.  In Fantasy, this attachment level is probably weaker and hence I think we have seen GW very focused on 40K for example by skipping the expected update of WHFB this year to update 40K.  I have a feeling if you took a large collection of assembled GW models(not painted) and asked general people how much they cost you would get values significantly lower than the prices and costs much more in line with sizes and number of models as opposed to the current pricing very much influenced by how new the kit is as GW saw all the flak they got for the cross the board price increases so they just put significant up jumps in newly released kits.

In terms of a kickstarter with relatively generic fantasy setting, the fun level of the game is going to hard to determine a value for since if it is a real kickstarter the game part is probably very much in a prototype stage.  Now I could put trust in the producer to do a great job, but you might have no real experience with the producer.  I have definitely seen mixed reviews of mantic stuff in the past.  Since you cannot play the real game with friends before buying it or really even look at the components that will actually be produced other than prototype mock ups that might or might be actually representative of what is delivered. it is hard to gauge the value of these.  I am sort of left with the mass of stuff combined with a little hopeful enthusiasm to decide at what point some offer seems to good to pass up.

Dungeon Saga Kickstarter: One Week In

Mantic has moved their Dungeon Saga Kickstarter into its second week.  The got 325K of pledges (preorders) for the game for the first week but that was dominated by the first day 200K haul from 2000 pledges.  After the first two days the number of new pledgers drop significantly to about 125 per day average.  To keep the totals going up they have started adding more optional upgrades.  The first real upgrade that adds significantly to the game is the Warlord of Galahir expansion for 25 dollars you get 12 more minis, new tiles, cards and scenarios.

While this addition is not badly valued I am wondering if it will pick up extra stuff or parts of it will go into the base pledge as the title says warlord but I see no villain or heroes in that pack, as the base game still seems pretty weak for me at 100 dollars.  Putting the parts of the expansion into the basic pledge makes it look like a better value but would also encourage people to add the expansion to get the best use out of the pieces.  You can see this in the 250 stretch goal where a set of 3 goblins shows up in the base pledge.  They added solo and full coop play to the game for both hero and villain sides which is interesting but the model count is still pretty low at 42 and they have not added any new tiles or monsters in a while.

I personally would like to see it pick up a couple of more monsters types and female heroes for the base game.  They have attached rules for KOW monsters and added upgrades for KOW models at a pretty good value but starter pledge is lacking compared to other Dungeon Crawlers.  It is also hard to judge the value since they are so vague about the dungeon tiles and number of scenarios.  I would probably like to see 10 heros, 8  villians, and 12 monster types for 100 dollars.  They have 3 weeks to get there so we shall see it they can get into my wallet.

I did check out the alpha basic rules last week.  The combat mechanics are fast but the rules are certainly very basic with only 3 stats for characters (move, attack dice, defense value) and an feat.  Movement is also very restrictive where you cannot move from one square in the opponents front arc (squares on front facing and one on each side) to another square in his arc or another enemies arc.  Looks like you will have to fight your way through the narrow chambers.

Redesigning Castle Ravenloft Boardgame

So my daughter saw me looking at stuff about the Mantic Dungeon Saga kickstarter and asked me about playing one of our D&D Coop games.  So I got them out of the storage area and picked the Castle Ravenloft to play with her on Sunday while the youngest was napping.  Now she is really not ready for a game like this so I "help" her as we go with choosing the best attack and keeping track of her treasures and monsters.  We made it through 2 adventures and provided a good reminder of the structure of the games.  These games have great value(Ravenloft on Amazon current 37 dollars shipped) in the components with like 40 minis in each and quality tiles with 5 heros who each have like 10 powers to choose like 4 or 5 for different slots so probably like 12-20 different combinations of powers for each character possible, but the structure of the game play really could use some work.  So I have been thinking about it.

Where is the Gaming Community Going?

GW’s recent results and the latest Mantic kickstarter got me thinking about the health of the miniature wargaming community.  Now it could be said that we are in a golden age of miniatures wargaming with great new models coming out every week from different companies and a new game being launched through kickstarter seems like on a monthly basis but all these minis and games have me worried.  Players only have so much time and money and no one is really working hard to expand the market anymore.

Another Mantic Kickstarter: Dungeon Saga

Mantic is doing another kickstarter.  I do not know if they have delivered all the stuff on their last one but this is how they do things.  Pay now and get it in 1 year.  It funded in no time at all but they set that level very low and I think people were mainly pledging on potential.  The game appears to be an update of their Dwarf's Hold game.  The listing above is for through the first day of stretch goals but I still think it is pretty weak for 100 dollars.  I got my D&D coop games for like 45 dollars and they have like 40+ minis each and interlocking tiles.

I am a fan of these types of games but this one needs to grow quite a bit to separate me from my coin.  I would like to see more tiles definitely and a few more heroes and villians.  They clearly have another hero designed as he is on the cover art but not in the set.  I think maybe if they get the second expansion with the elves and orcs included in the 100 dollars, I might be tempted.

Mantic's business really does seem to be these kickstarters.  If you look up the Dwarf Hold on the website the original one is sold out but still linked to in certain places yielding 404 errors if you want to maybe know what it contained.  They have two products listed still, the Green Menace Game (Elves vs Orcs) which is clearanced priced at 15 pounds for 28 multipart models and the rest of the game stuff (compared to 100 dollars for the assembled different ones here) and a tile set for 8 pounds which is supposed to come with other stuff but now apparently does not according to a comment left on the page and unasnwered by mantic.

They mentioned they were doing add on wednesdays so I would not be suprised if the but the model sets for the other games in as those for like 25 dollars for the 25-30 models but that does not really help the bad starting value of the core offering here.

Deeper Look into GW 2014 Report

It is really hard to understand what is going on in GW sales and profits due to their structuring without knowing two things that GW does not reveal.  GW splits its company into a production side and a sales side.  Production designs and makes the products and they sells them to the Sales side.  The Sales side then either sells them directly at GW stores and webstore or sells them to independent trade stores.  When the sales team sells the product at retail they get the full list price but when they sell into the trade channel you only get a partial amount of the list price since there is a trade account discount so the store can still make a profit.

Now if you look at the two different sales channels in revenue, you are going to put artificial advantage on the direct retail model since each unit sold there generates more revenue.  Trade discounts vary but for GW, I would estimate that it ranges from 40-50% on average.  I have had retailers sell me stuff at 40% that was fresh ordered so I know they were getting better than 40% discount from GW.  When you determine the profits they also have the advantage when you look after subtracting what production charges for the product.  If you are getting the set at 40% list from production then selling it at 50% to a independent you have to sell 6 times the number of kits that the retail side needs to sell to get the same amount of income after subtracting off the cost of goods. Now retail has many additional costs when actually determining profits, but such a six fold advantage in that number might distort your view of the two channels.

Now to really look at this you have to know what the trade discount is on average (by revenue) and what the production and supply discount is.  GW has been nice enough to provide the trade and direct breakdown this year again which allows these values to be estimated.  If you assume that the average trade discount is 50% you find you need a product and supply discount of 37.5% which is 3/8 ths to get the intergroup sales number to match.  If you assume the intergroup cost is 40% list you get an average trade discount of 44.6%.  These values seem reasonable and they both generate between 50-55% of all unit sales actually going through trade.  Which makes trade seem more important than the less than 40% of sales when you look at revenue.  Especially if you remember that producing the kits gets generally twice the profits assigned to it than selling the kits.

If you take these numbers back to last year since they are not likely to change significantly, what is revealed is a large drop in trade sales in revenue on the order of 25 percent.  That is a huge sales drop.  That might not be accurate as GW might have changed the rate that production gets paid from the sales team.  It would have needed to be 42.5% last year and 40% this year.  This would definitely hide weakness in the sales channels by essentially forcing it on production.  I already found that GW placed 4M pounds of the exceptional costs associated with their restructuring of the management into the Production and Supply even though it was probably mostly a sales channel issue.  The profits associated with production and supply did drop by 9 M or about 30% and production and supply income from the sales division was down 15%.

So I guess the take home is either that the GW is trying to hide how poorly their sales division is doing at being profitable (68% drop in profits from sales division) or they had a huge drop in trade sales(25%) that they did not acknowledge in the report.