Age of Annihilation - Backer Trend and Discussion

[Tornado]

Can you do cavemen?
A lot of people have neanderthal DNA and may not appreciate that representation of their elders.

[Good Pig]

Originally Posted by Tornado

Can you do cavemen?
A lot of people have neanderthal DNA and may not appreciate that representation of their elders.

It's okay. I think we're grandfathered in with the Quasatch Hunters.

[IAmBatman]

Originally Posted by Tornado

Can you do cavemen?
A lot of people have neanderthal DNA and may not appreciate that representation of their elders.

As a resident Batcave Man, I approve of respectful representations of them.

[UtahScott]

Originally Posted by CapAp

It isn’t that they don’t fit, it’s exactly what you stated - they don’t feel like “everything”, they feel like all the same thing - techno-fantasy creatures clearly meant to fit into the same “universe”. A techno-fantasy universe. Techno bugs, techno raccoons, techno pirates, techno demons. It feels more like warhammer 40k than HeroScape.

If this feels like the battle of all time to you, cool! I hope it funds. It just doesn’t to me. And after being excited originally, I’m not after seeing the units.

Too many depressed people everywhere, and I need to rant.
@CapAp , you are letting your disappointment overwhelm your wonder. Remember the Battle of all Time? Morpheus from the Matrix and the Men in Black? Legolas and Samurai? Sgt. Drake as our avatar, fighting in a strange land, but the people at his left and right are still worth fighting for? Orcs on dinosaurs? That's still here.

You want a steampunk airship, and this has one! Not only that, it's an aircraft carrier that can launch a flying squad like a StarCraft Protoss carrier. Awesome! You want a shark, and you get a hammerhead shark that throws harpoons in the enemy's face. That's better than a shark with frickin' laser beams, man. Nobody thinks of a harpoon-throwing pirate shark, but we've got it!

"Techno-pirates." You say that like it's a bad thing. Craig van Ness, this is his baby. He always says the reason HeroScape is unique is because it's a game parents buy to play with their kids. In 1977, I was six years old, and my parents took us to downtown to 3rd South in Salt Lake City to see Star Wars. The space Western. Han Solo, the lovable rogue smuggler, in a cantina, shooting Greedo with a blaster. That's a techno-pirate. Han Solo forming an alliance with other four-armed cantina aliens, with the crew of Firefly, and the Guardians of the Galaxy. Throw in members of Davy Jones' crew from Pirates of the Caribbean. That's our Dawn Raider Syndicate, and you can play it with your kids, and your friends, and it's awesome.

You want Frankenstein. The Marro are our Frankensteins, skinless horrors with tubes growing out of their bodies, ragged metal blades and armor fused with bone and living flesh. They have sixteen army cards, more than anything else in the game. What about a different kind of Marro, more metal this time? That's the IronClad collective, so now we can throw in the Terminator movies, but it's not a metal skeleton, it's Skynet's giant mecha spider with a living cyborg skull and it wants to kill you and it's awesome. And a giant clawed oven driving around the board on a treadmill and you can cook your friend's dudes alive and it's awesome. No, actually I lied, it is a metal skeleton, it's a trio of T-8000 torsos (say that three times fast) with Ghost Rider chains driving around the board on BB-8s and it's awesome.

"Techno-bugs." No, just bugs. BIG bugs. The queen from Aliens. In HeroScape, she infects you with parasites, but they're giant shrimp. It's goofy and it's awesome and I keep hearing the Muppets' Swedish chef from their YouTube "Popcorn" video. "Shrimpiez? Shrimpiez!"

YouTube "Popcorn" video

AND we get an actual GIANT WALL OF BUGS and no game has ever had a GIANT WALL OF BUGS before and this GIANT WALL OF BUGS can actually transform into a separate mob of individual BUGS and we've never had transforming units in HeroScape before and it's awesome. @Dysole approves!

"Techno-raccoons." No, Rocket Raccoon! Guardians of the Galaxy again! And all of Jessie's Toy Story critters but now they have guns and can shoot stuff. We get battle beavers? How can you not smile at the phrase, "Battle Beavers?" Awesome!

This game is awesome and silly and fun and we play with our friends and our kids. HeroScape 2.0 just launched Saturday and it's only been three days and people here are getting depressed and they're depressed on FaceBook and depressed on Reddit and they're depressed on BoardGameGeek.

Stop it. Stop moping. It's been three days. We still have 43 days. Get out there and tell people. Tell them to remember. Tell them to remember the fun. Remember DW9000 whiffing a 10-dice defense roll. Remember all these pop culture references. You have to make time for fun, and sometimes budget for it, and this newScape is going to be so. much. awesome. fun.

With friends and family, because nothing else matters.

[IAmBatman]

That airship is pretty sweet.

[TheIsamu]

I do hope for more historical themed armies since we got pirates (they felt like such a blindspot even when the game was still in print). I'd love to see Heroscapes's take on Spartans, Hussars, Landschneckt, Zulu, Mayans, Vietcong, etc. Probably won't happen without significantly changing up the aesthetic to match the reboots style though. I still don't know how to feel about Pirate Queen Bonny looking like a Mortal Kombat character.

[caps]

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

I mean, there have been a lot of posts with folks wondering why this doesn't have more support or actively encouraging folks to leverage the full force of their finances to make it happen, which seems like it invites a response from other folks. If that response isn't wanted, I guess that's OK, but it feels a bit like trying to silence criticism or different perspectives, which doesn't feel super healthy for the community.

We're all rooting for this to be successful, but I feel like it's fair to have an open, safe place to express where we're coming from, even if it's not all gung-ho positive. Suggesting otherwise feels like a bit of a "loyalty test" that I fear will make folks feel marginalized from the community. I was pretty heavily feeling that way the other day when I was told that we shouldn't be critical at all, just positive, and then was told to "go away" when I pushed back at that idea.

I hope our goal for folks who don't feel this is an incredible success so far isn't to get them to "go away." Personally I care a lot more about the health of the community after this campaign than the success of the campaign itself.

Sure, I'm just tired of reading the same criticisms over and over again. Yeah, we get it--there are multiple ways this campaign could be different that would make more sense to us. But it's not different, it is what it is. And what it is is our only chance to get Heroscape back on the shelves at stores and in our homes.

[IAmBatman]

I'll make you a deal: I won't mention how the campaign could be run differently anymore if you don't mention this is our only chance to get Heroscape back on the shelves anymore. Both have been said plenty. Both are likely true. Neither is going to change anything. This will fund or not fund based on its strength as a campaign and we have very little agency in that overall, so it's best to just wait and see rather than talking in circles.

[Master Roshi]

I agree that the figure set could have been more diverse; I believe that isn't the case because they wanted to flesh each faction out to be fully playable, rather than do what ROTV did and cover every genre but with only 1 or 2 figures. ROTV had no playable factions because of this. You couldn't run an orc army, or an elf army, or a samurai army, or an agent army, or a soulborg army, etc. This time around, you can play a coherent bug, pirate, animal, cyborg, or dryad army. This is fine and has it's own merits, neither are perfect, but this certainly seems like an appropriate start to a new figure set for Heroscape which would certainly be expanded in variety in the future.

[Good Pig]

I really like this aspect of having a few mini factions realized in one box. I thought after the daily previews there was no way this could all be in one set and assumed they were already teasing units coming in a future wave. Showing all of the previously unrevealed Kyrie units during the campaign was a nice cherry on top.

[Tornado]

The best part of RotV was no common squads.
Looks like this has that going for it.

[Rÿchean]

Originally Posted by Good Pig

I thought after the daily previews there was no way this could all be in one set and assumed they were already teasing units coming in a future wave.

They more or less did.

IMO, there is no way Vanguard is a single product if/when it hits retail.

Vangaurd with Stretch is basically the following:

1 Master set
1 Jungle Set
1 Ruin Set
1 Large Hero pack (sotm heroes)
1 Full wave of Figures and then some. (wave and a half????)