"War is Coming: Shieldmaidens vs Orcs" Topic

"That's the name of the new mass-combat fantasy miniatures game by Shieldwolf Miniatures, who have their Shieldmaidens vs Orcs Kickstarter campaign for the game running now…"

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Amicalement
Armand

Just adding that the base set of Shieldmaiden vs. Orcs offers some 200+ in value for 100 (+postage), and if/once they reach 60k another 40 minis are thrown in. Risk an eye, its probably worth it.

War is Going.

From reading the post about why they cancelled it, they were expecting to blow past their goal by ten times or more to fund an entire range of kits… and got angry and took their ball home when people just gave them all the money they asked for and more but didn't take them on Mr Bones' Wild ride. Really doesn't show them in a good light.

I mean, getting upset that the funding surge slows or stops after a week? That's what happens! You don't cancel a successful Kickstarter because it funded in a week and slowed down unless you really screwed up your expectations and planning.

Or maybe they knew what the project would really cost, projected that they wouldn't achieve it, and thought it better to cancel the campaign now than for the project to end in failure, bankruptcy and public fury in two years' time, like multiple others.

Kickstarters that set high but realistic initial goals tend to not make them, but those that set unrealistic low goals often make them ten times over. However, there is a trap in that which maybe they recognised and circumvented. On my reading of their post, they did the responsible and considered thing.

I agree Muerto. No harm done. I understand they will be back with a new approach, taking it slowly. Seems the backer only wins with this one. No real need to complain.

At least they were smart enough not to go the route of All Quiet on the Martian Front, Winter War – Baker Company, Defiance Games and a host of other Kickstarters that failed.

@fullerena @Muerto
We didn't get mad/angry @fullerena, although we can comprehend people saying/thinking we did. We were sad. Yes, sad. We thought we were finally getting a break, we have in our hands a product very few are offering (army wargaming) and frankly even less can support (a combination of already being a known manufacturer, quality and service) this time period.

Top that with the fact we were receiving numerous complaints of how our stretch goals weren't adding "value", yeah, we were definitely doing something wrong, no denying that. How would YOU feel if you were already offering something really good and people just didn't think it was… "good enough"?

To answer your comment on the cancellation, you DO cancel a project when expectations are for two full armies, but you see that instead you'll be merely unlocking a couple of kits. Should we have put a 100$K funding goal? We are no KS company that already has thousands of followers behind them nor is this product going to make it into retail anyway(!), we are a company set out to produce some of the best miniatures (in both resin and plastic) ever produced, we put our money also and we genuinely need the additional funds to put these in production.

Should we have stuck around and kept whatever we gathered instead? Yeah, maybe we should have, maybe as some people said we dropped the ball too early. It's only human after all and besides we think there's a reason for that option being available. We didn't wait for a last-second turn to see if our "gamble" worked out, simply because we do NOT gamble! It has taken too much to build our reputation and know-how to risk it all for something so small…

But that's not what we set out to do and the combination (of what we were getting and what people were asking) was killing us. What is done is done, we secured the backers and are actively working with them on fixing this so it can work out for everyone. You can check on the comment section if you like.

We never saw a "cancel project" something that could ever backfire on the backers, on the contrary it's the creator that risks losing. If anyone thinks this was an easy choice for us, oi, you couldn't be more mistaken, we had been waiting for this so long now!

Finally, we want to state for the record we don't use "fake" funding targets and we don't use "fake" stretch goals, we may still not be very familiar with the platform but are honorable people and we dare anyone to prove otherwise. The 30K funding goal was set in order to start building on that and it comes as no surprise that it is going to rest the same (30K) in KS-2.5 launching (hopefully) this month.
On top of that, we are still keeping the "money-back guarantee" like we had in both KS-1 and KS-2.
The differences are this time we are keeping whatever KS-2.5 funds and on the contrary are cancelling the "only one Kickstarter per year" since this Policy instead of helping us seems to be causing more issues.
Last (but not least) we will have shown a draft of our KS-2.5 to avoid any nasty surprises when the relaunch takes place.

Hopefully you have read this in a positive manner, the tone I assure you is very friendly and we would not like to be misunderstood behind the computer screen, I just wanted to take the opportunity and say something from our part without allowing an emptiness in which people could (justly) speculate.

For anything you'd like to ask please let us know, if we haven't answered to someone or to something it's simply because we honestly missed it! :-)

Should we have put a 100$K funding goal?

Yes, if that was the amount you actually needed to fund the project, of course you should have done.

The 30K funding goal was set in order to start building on that and it comes as no surprise that it is going to rest the same (30K) in KS-2.5 launching (hopefully) this month.

What, you're going to once again put a funding goal that isn't your actual funding goal ? Or are you now saying that 30K is your actual funding goal and you will go ahead with the project if you only make say 35K ?

@Marshal Mark
We will disagree, we discussed this very prior to launching via emails + private messages and also talked in private with a lot of people, some of which backers from our KS-1; everyone agreed setting the goal too high for everything we wanted to fund would result in never getting the chance to ever fund. "Take it slow and it will explode".
Guess what. It didn't.

And YES, since some people speculate we "low funded" the necessary goal, even if we collect e.g. 30,001$ we WILL proceed in tooling and delivering what was promised. It's the best way to prove to people we aren't fooling around and that's the reason we are actively forming (along with the backers feedback) the KS-2.5 version. We are stubborn and passionate people and we will see this through by giving it one more chance, just like we did back at KS-1, even when things went to hell. Noone complained there ;-)

But (you may ask) in that case why didn't you proceed with KS-2 as things stood? Well, if it was a mistake cancelling, then we are the ones who are ultimately going to pay for it, right?
In the meanwhile we are fixing the SG map so maybe more people will end up backing without us risking any more funds than the ones we are already committed to contribute.

@Sheildwolf Miniatures…

Well said. If you feel there is something wrong with the KS – PULL THE PLUG – before you get burnt! Don't become the next Ernie Barker (AQotMF).

You can always make adjustments and re-launch if you feel so inclined to do so.