What KICKSTARTER(S) are you BACKING and WHY?

Batman was not great, agreed. Conan is magnificent though in my opinion and I was hesitantly looking forward to more Conan content. I don't want this versus system they're pitching though and this campaign is a disaster.

Fred Henry posted some comments in French on the Monolith forums that basically states the company is going to shut down if this doesn't fund. Said they still haven't turned much of a profit and he doesn't want to spend his time attending to a business that is not successful.

I am an unabashed sucker for media surrounding the Battle of Britain. The story of Squadron 303 is fantastic. The Kickstarter for the game, 303 Squadron got it's hooks in deep. I liked the 303 game on the Polish Institute of Remembrance site, but never picked up the physical copy.

I'm excited to get it to the table. I'm also excited to paint the planes.

The projection and the buzz suggest that the Conan KS will fail to meet its (fairly realistic?) funding point. I feel like this has already been beaten to death, but this Conan campaign confused nearly everyone and frustrated about as many. I'm not pledged, though I have most from 2015/16, but when you sort through the mess, there's not all that much for original backers, especially "king"-pledge backers, and what there is is either at a pretty high price point for what one gets or involves proxies. And there are no reprints of the boxed expansions, which I gather were prohibitive to make the first time and redo this time, but still.

charlest wrote: Fred Henry posted some comments in French on the Monolith forums that basically states the company is going to shut down if this doesn't fund. Said they still haven't turned much of a profit and he doesn't want to spend his time attending to a business that is not successful.

Given their previous association, I wondered if Mythic would offer up a few shekels for some of their properties if Monolith were going under. But then I remembered Pascal Bernard is suing his Mythic pals for non-payment regarding the Joan Of Arc 1.5 Kickstarter, so money may be kinda tight right now. Not to mention the Mythic fracas escalating this week, with Pascal and Leo sparring in the Joan Of Arc BGG forums, so probably a bad time for them.

Yeah Mythic is having a ton of issues. I'd be fine if both Conan and Mythic Battles: Pantheon were done. Both feel more than complete to me.

charlest wrote: Conan is magnificent though in my opinion and I was hesitantly looking forward to more Conan content.

I'm a huge Conan fan and was the only one of my group that appreciated Age of Conan at all. Since no one else would play it, I sold it and managed to trade for a copy of Monolith's Conan last year. The problem is that I still can't find enough Conan fans to play it, since most have only the vaguest connection to the stories via the 1980s film(s.) I'm so tempted to try to to trade for more of it, but it would just be more stuff sitting on my shelf, at this point. Maybe it will be easier/cheaper to obtain if/when Monolith implodes and people sign off with no more content being produced.

charlest wrote: Fred Henry posted some comments in French on the Monolith forums that basically states the company is going to shut down if this doesn't fund. Said they still haven't turned much of a profit and he doesn't want to spend his time attending to a business that is not successful.

Wait, you’re telling me that a publisher founded on a big, everything in one go, 5 years worth of material in one project, some of it works, some of it doesn’t, some of it you just kind of figure out for yourself that followed that project up with an even bigger, more bloated, haphazardly thrown together game that pays respect to its IP in name alone and that they found a Den of Geek article about the top 10 weirdest Batman characters is having financial woes? Huh. Color me surprised.

Good. I hope it crashes and burns. Conan was great if sloppy fun, but responsibility for Batman and some terrible business choices should result in being snuffed out. And this going on social media and belly aching about how you’re not making money (when the solutions should have been obvious) and that you’re going to shut down the company is some cry for attention bullshit of the worst kind.

Jackwraith wrote:

charlest wrote: Conan is magnificent though in my opinion and I was hesitantly looking forward to more Conan content.

I'm a huge Conan fan and was the only one of my group that appreciated Age of Conan at all. Since no one else would play it, I sold it and managed to trade for a copy of Monolith's Conan last year. The problem is that I still can't find enough Conan fans to play it, since most have only the vaguest connection to the stories via the 1980s film(s.) I'm so tempted to try to to trade for more of it, but it would just be more stuff sitting on my shelf, at this point. Maybe it will be easier/cheaper to obtain if/when Monolith implodes and people sign off with no more content being produced.

(I’m going to come across as being heavy handed here, but please don’t take my tone as me being serious)

Tell your group to stop being shallow and getting hung up on the IP and just sit down and enjoy one of the best skirmish and 1vAll games of the last 10 years. If they continue to protest, call them all dogs, draw your sword and decapitate them.

I sold Conan after 2 plays, bought DOOM, and never regretted it.

hotseatgames wrote: I sold Conan after 2 plays, bought DOOM, and never regretted it.

You know, I think that was the right move.

There is a retail copy of Conan at my flgs and I’ve been wondering if it is worth it or if it is missing a lot of good (or necessary) ks content, as so many retail versions of ks games do.

I have been looking at this new ks and thinking they could have done a better job.

It would be a shame to see Monolith fail, I was looking forward to Mythic Battles Ragnarok after getting Pantheon and absolutely loving it.

I am glad I had second thoughts about Joan of Arc and only pledged the $6 to wait and see. That is a mess and someone on Reddit pointed out one of the original partners is running the company that has the messy Confrontation ks, which also lost the Call of Cthulhu license due to not paying royalties. So who knows. In any case, it’s not something I want to risk any money on any longer.

hotseatgames wrote: I sold Conan after 2 plays, bought DOOM, and never regretted it.

I, uh, actually have both. I forgot about Doom when I was thinking about 1vAlls I own as I was writing a few thousand words about The Others.

@Josh: I agree that they could try a little harder. But I have trouble steering most of them away from Euros most of the time. I have two hardcore reliables that will play ANYTHING, but everyone else is a random draw.

And Beyond the Monolith is officially dead: final Update .

Sounds like the Conan fans will get what you want in a couple of months with a project only for Adventure Mode. Personally I have no love for the Conan source material outside of the 80s movies (and the representation in the game is horrendous). I'll just maybe try some variants on the Batman game to see if I can tease out the fun from my box of toys.

Josh Look wrote: I wouldn’t go anywhere near anything by Monolith after how tremendously awful Batman was. Has to be my pick for the worst game of 2019.

Worst? Fascinating. I dig it. I've only played 6x, and the icon salad is a bit much - but my familiarity with Conan* helped my understanding of the rules. I've also been having a good time painting it.

* I think I prefer Conan.

I’ve been trying to put my finger on the reasoning that makes me feel ok about Monolith’s KS being shut down by a vocal (& fiscally withholding) fan base while feeling nothing but exasperation for the hypercritical/demanding fans in the Oath campaign. I think it comes down to the cynical FOMO culture that Monolith decided to instrumentalize, only to discover that it had... sort of created a monster. On the other hand, Leder Games seems to just be getting the usual background radiation of any contemporary KS campaign and hasn’t fanned the flames with stretch goal idiocy, etc. I guess it comes down to a basic idea: mind what you are cultivating.