Welcome to a long overdue update on Conquest of the Gods. Some of you have been in touch asking when the game and the models will become available and if the game is still in development, the short answer is yes the game is in development. Life can, as they say – get in the […]
Welcome to the overdue update on Conquest of the Gods! 2016 has had a somewhat chaotic start for me in my personal life, and as they say life can get in the way. However I am happy to report that progress has been made and things are moving forwards (just not as quickly as planned).
Norse: All models have been sculpted, book art work has been finalised and these are now finished! Nothing new here to show off but I can advise that Thors rules have been given a tweak thanks to some very helpful playtesting feedback.
Egyptians: All models have been sculpted, I am re-sculpting one of the models, adding another unit to the range. The need to add another sculpt came out of play testing and is almost finished. One more piece of artwork needs to be done and then this section of the book is also finished – this should all be sorted by the end of April. Dan Mitchell has been doing a great job in finishing up this part of the book, here is the recently completed artwork for the Alpha Sphinx.
Greeks: Final unit has been sculpted and I am waiting on the final files for the unit to arrive and then they all sculpted. I am going back and making a minor edit to the hoplite miniatures as im not happy with their Doru (long spears), they tend to bend too much when being transported – another small edit ill make thanks to playtesting. The talented George Evangelista has started the final illustration for Greek section of the book. I expect that the Greeks will be off my list by the end of April. George has finished a few pieces recently; here is the last one he completed – the mighty Spartans.
Japanese: Oliver Cook has been working on the final amazing sculpt that I previously previewed for the Japanese. It is a giant, the mighty Gashadokuro and I am happy to report that the model itself sculpted and we are in the process of making a few adjustments to his scenic base and breaking him up for prototyping. The artwork for the Miko and Kannushi has been started by the talented Abigail Sins, and once that piece is finished she will move on to the Gashadokuro artwork, completing the Japanese section of the book. Each culture has a priest model/unit. For the Japanese we have a Miko and a Kannushi – here are the final models (note the streamers on the Mikos’ fan are straight because these will be cast in metal so you can bend them to your preference):
Also here is an updated preview of the above mentioned Gashudukro
One of the reasons the art work takes a while is that I don’t commission each piece until after we have sculpted the miniature, this is to ensure that the artwork matches the sculpt. This has been an ongoing bugbear of mine with other games for years, so its important to me that when you look at the artwork in the book it aligns with what we have produced in the miniatures range.
I also found time to re-review the books fiction and found two small plot holes that I had to fix, this allowed me to write a new combat scene between two of the gods that I am going to have someone proof read for me before I insert it into the book. Once the above mentioned artwork is finished I can finally move on to having the final quotes and proofs for the book printing done. I will be also looking to do a digital release of the book, and will confirm details on this once I have signed the book off as finished.
On to the miniatures production. I have sourced a vulcaniser and plan to pick it up soon – I have been chasing this machine up for the better part of a year now but am assured it will be ready in a few weeks. Once I have picked it up, I will look forward to sharing some pictures with you all. I will also be importing a spin casting machine, allowing me to cast all of the metal miniatures in-house, in turn, this will help me sell them at a more competitive price. I had planned to be sharing news on the vulcaniser in this update but unfortunately, it will have to wait for a future update. I have some 3D prototyping to do, and will be focusing my efforts on that in the coming months as I start to get my in-house moulding up and running. For those interested, here is a couple of pictures from one of the recent play testing sessions, please excuse the unpainted models, these are play test models and have been broken, dropped and some have been used for testing paint scheme ideas.
For those of you who are not interested in game design, this next bit may be quite a bore to read. I am also in the middle of re-designing the points cost system for the miniatures and I thought I would share my thoughts on this rather complex process. There has been an ongoing debate within the game design circles around model points systems and if they really bring about game balance. The basic premise of model points costs is that each model is worth a certain number of points, this, in turn, helps balance the power of models against one another as most games are limited to a specific number of points – for example, you take 1000 points worth of models, more powerful models are worth more points. The major player in the industry recently launched a new (ok, recycled might be a better term here) game system that controversially did away with the traditional points system, seeking to find game balance in other ways. The major issue with points systems is that the formulas used to create them can be somewhat subjective and ultimately the game designer makes those subjective decisions. So we are left with an imperfect formula, made by imperfect human designers that often result in what gamers call power creep, where newer models are more powerful as the systems used to design them evolve with the designers understanding of what they can get away with through the rigors of playtesting. To try and future proof conquest of the gods I have created a horribly complex formula that includes variables from the next 3 planned expansion books – will this result in a perfectly balanced game? I’d be lying if I said yes, but I think it will be better balanced than some of the other systems out there. After all I still have to subjectively start with what 1 point is worth and make subjective assumptions about some of the specific model rules, but I am playtesting the new system with a lot of rigor to bring you something that has some degree of in game balance. I would be interested to hear people’s thoughts on model points systems and what factors they like and find frustrating about them.
That’s it for this update. We are inching closer and closer to an actual release! I have had a few stockists contact me who are keen to support the game, so I am pushing hard to get the in house casting up and running ASAP!
Happy gaming until next time
John
Demigod Games
It is spring here in Australia, and the change in season has brought more than just warmer weather and blooming flowers.
My first piece of exciting news is that Conquest of the Gods is now a registered trademark! This is an important step in developing any game and gives the brand that extra layer of confidence moving forwards. This is an important milestone, as it helps both in the short term with publishing the rulebook and provides a strong foundation for releasing the future content I’ve got in the works.
The final few sculpts are now progressing at a steady pace. I have a couple of work in progress pictures to share; more details on what these are and how they work in the game will be forthcoming once they are finished. I will be interested to see if anyone can guess what the second render is going to be once finished.
The artwork is also running to schedule, with production on track for completion this year. Here is a sample of one of the new pieces that George completed this week. It depicts a scene from the fiction: an encounter with Charon on the banks of the river Styx.
One of the unfortunate things about creating a labour of love like this is that while there’s always other artists and modellers to help pick up the slack if one of them stumbles along the way, there isn’t anyone who can do the same for me. So when life gets in the way, the best I can do is reshuffle the to-do list and press on. To ensure I’m making the best possible product, I’m having to push the release schedule back in order to allow myself the time to properly review and finalise things in the production pipeline. While that’s getting resolved, it’s likely the online store won’t be able to go live until December or early 2016.
The silver lining here is that it’s given the artists and modellers a little more breathing space to further refine their work, as well as giving me more time to fine-tune the gods and work some kinks out of the logistics side of the equation. The plan is to have the starter sets for each of the 4 factions up for sale as soon as practicable. The miniatures are all sculpted, so now it’s just finalising card printing and figuring out the quickest way to get these starter sets into your hands (I’ve been stockpiling bubble-wrap and packing peanuts like canned beans in a bomb shelter).
I look forward to providing an update in the not too distant future on the books final stages and some news updates on the production end of things.
It is time for another update on Conquest of the Gods. Over the past month things have been steadily inching closer to completion. Here is an overview of what’s been happening.
The book:
The book had another round of edits this month, tightening up some of the looser elements that I identified needed tidying up from play testing. The core game rules are pretty solid now and I am not foreseeing many (if any) changes to them between now and final publication. I have also been grappling with the issue of miniatures point’s costs – a fairly topical issue in the community at the moment. The points cost of most of the models work well, although I think there is room for improvement here so this is something I plan to roll into some broader local playtesting with a larger gaming group. Conquest of the Gods, I have intentionally designed the game so that you are not standing around waiting for your turn – a few of the more complex rules for some of the gods were slowing things down so they needed an adjustment. In most cases this was just a simple wording adjustment.
Art assets continue to flow in at a steady pace. Forrest Immel and I have gone over all of the Norse artwork as a set, and Forrest has done a final review pass all of the Norse artwork, so that entire section of he book is now ready for printing. The other sections of the book should be at this stage within the next few months! George Evangelista recently completed the artwork for the Greek Harpy. The miniature was sculpted some time ago and had its resin and metal production moulding done some time ago. As a reminder, here is the sculpt.
And here is the artwork.
As with everything else for the game, we did not hold back and I think this piece and I am very happy with how it has turned out. George has also posted a censored version of this piece viewable on his Facebook page, the uncensored version will be what appears in the book.
As with a number of the many of the sculpts and illustrations for the game this one is based on a real person and I have to thank the harpy’s model Rebecca for being a good sport throughout the artistic process.
The miniatures:
With only a couple of models left to sculpt, my attention has been focused on the prototyping and production end of things. This week a batch of prototypes arrived that im keen to share. I have taken some photos, but i have to apologise in advance for the quality of these pictures, i am still learning how to take macro pictures without having lighting issues!
The Scion Wolf sculpt is here and is ready for resin moulding and casting. Im very happy with how it has tuned out.
The Norse Valkyrie has finally been prototyped. This bad girl has presented a few challenges that im very pleased to say have been overcome. The wings will be heading off with the above wolf for resin prototyping whilst the rest of her will be headed to the vulcaniser for moulding with a number of other metal miniatures.
The Oni is the only mid-sized creature I have not shown off yet, this is because I’ve had a couple of minor issues with his hair and his weapon arm. The hair was not fitting on to his head as I wanted, so one of the local gamers who is a handy painter and sculptor is having a go at tidying that up for me by hand over the coming weeks. Originally the Oni’s right arm was going to be cast in metal so you could bend the fingers around the resin weapon. This would have allowed me to do weapon variants later on, but that has been scrapped. Casting the hand in metal is a major pain in the rear. So I have re-prototyped the weapon arm with the weapon in it. This will be heading off to resin casting along with the other parts above.
Thankfully this is also off my list and I should be able to preview him in a month or two. The Oni is the last resin miniature I need to tie up for the games starter sets, all of the other resins I am working on are standalone models that are part of the broader range.
I will be re-prototyping some of the basic infantry models over the coming month to make them easier to cast, and to fix some very minor scale issues that are bugging me. These new prints will be moulded in the vulcaniser I need to drive to Sydney to pick up. I’ll be making time to do that sometime over the coming month.
Well that’s about it for this development blog. Stay tuned for the next one, as I plan to show off some play testing photos and hopefully some new production moulds. As always, thanks for your interest and support. Like many of you, I can’t wait to see this game out there in the hands of gamers.
Until next time, may the dice gods be with you.
John
Demigod games.
Thanks to a hard drive failure this update has been somewhat delayed. The good news is that i recovered everything and have set up a new, more reliable back up system, and my update is finally here!
One of the (several) major holdups to releasing the miniatures range has been recently overcome, that being progress on the resin casts for Horus, Hachimans base and the Egyptian Uraeus. Resin casts of the greatest of 50’s whip are also here! These were some of the more complex resin parts to cast, and now that this hurdle is over, I can focus on sorting out the final pieces of the puzzle to get the game and miniatures released.
The images below are quick photos of my play testing models, these are by no means the ‘studio’ models that will get painted up, but are the ones that will suffer the abuse of play testing.
Greatest of 50 with flex resin whip
Horus
Ureaeus
As previously mentioned, the flames for the Ureaus have been cast separately in a transparent red resin. This has pushed the price of that particular model up slightly, so I am still trying to work out of the flames will be included with the snake as a standard part, and if people will actually put the flames on the model. You may also notice that he has no fangs, I was not happy with these and have resized them and will be re-prototyping them and casting them up with my next batch of metal models.
Egyptian starter set group shot
Hachiman
In casting the Japanese Oni we found that casting one arm in metal was not the right way to go, so we have just exported a new arm with the weapon in hand to 3d print, I also encountered a small issue with his hair that I am in the process of fixing and will provide some info on in my next update, with some luck, I’ll have pictures of the Japanese starter set to share.
Hem Netjer on base
Adam Weller, an up and coming 3D artist here in Australia has been working on the Egyptian Hem Netjer unit. There were some fun challenges is taking my concept and turning it into a functional model – the idea is that the mummy being summed out of a levitating dish, the blood spilling over the edges are holding up the dish and mummy, giving a 3d area under the model.
Adam has recently established his own 3D business here in Australia, he has a particular passion for sculpting busts, you can check out Adams work over at his website http://www.creativejoosis.com
Our talented artists have been producing more illustrations for the book, here is one from Forrest Imel, the art for the Housecarls previewed last time.
Id things continue to go to plan, then we are still on track for release this year, noting I need some more capital to move more of the casting in house. When I do finally release the game, ill have the infrastructure in place to produce more content for this and several other planned games.
Thanks again for your support!
John
Demigod Games
Hello and welcome to the latest update on the colossal project that is Conquest of the Gods!
I have received a few emails over the past two weeks asking for updates on the game, sculpts and information on purchasing the miniatures. An update is way overdue, in part due to personal circumstances but also due to my focus on play testing and moulding and production. I am aiming to launch the starter sets and rule book at the same time and then follow up with the rest of the range fairly quickly.
I receive regular requests to buy the miniatures, so i have to flag up that the miniatures are not yet for sale, this is the most common question I get asked. The site and development blog are really here as a way for me to share the journey with those of you who are excited about the project. I plan to get most of the games miniatures range available for sale this year (2015), assuming I get everything I need moulded. Whilst I want to release them as soon as possible, i am not going to rush the release until I have everything organised. This includes finalising each models rules so its rules statistic card can be printed. I do not plan on selling the miniatures early without their stat cards to people who want to use them for other systems. So with that out of the way, let’s go over where things are up to.
Of the 116 individual sculpts over 47 unit entries for the core rule book, there are only 4 models left to sculpt for 3 entries in the book. This is not including a couple of other sculpts that are nearing completion over the next couple of weeks. My plan is that by Easter the few that are being worked on at the moment will be finalised and the final 4 sculpts will be under way, one of these is the Japanese giant that has been a fun and complex challenge to design.
Since my last update a number of models have either been finished or brought very close to completion, of these is the female sphinx for the Egyptians. I received an email specifically about this sculpt recently, so it’s time to show you how we got on with this one.
This beautiful sculpt is a multi-part design with some interesting interchangeable parts. The heads are interchangeable as you would expect, but the hair on each of these is also interchangeable, giving you some great options. For those who don’t like nipples, the breasts can be covered with an optional breast plate and the collar is also an optional part.
Here she is with the other three previously revealed creatures in this size category; an unfortunate Egyptian archer is also pictured for scale. As you can see we have one of these ‘cavalry’ sized mythical creatures for each army.
Another one that is nearing completion is the Norse Jotunn – I have shown this one before, and he has been slowly nearing completion. The delay on this is due to Carly working on the upcoming Warhammer 40,000 Regicide computer game. We have finished his artwork and he should be tied up pretty soon and ready to send over for prototyping and moulding.
Yes, those victims are to scale with the infantry in the game, meaning those are roughly the same size as most of the humans you will find in the other popular ‘heroic’ 28mm/31-32mm scale ranges.
And here are some other work in progress goodies that I plan to tie up over the coming month:
Shinobi – 5 poses; Work in Progress
Housecarls; Work in Progress
Broadly speaking the bulk of the range has been prototyped. There have been some minor issues with moulding that are being worked on, specifically the quality of some casts are not meeting my standards. In resolving the issues i am also looking at being more cost effective by moving more of the production in house. This means making a few significant investments at my end that I am slowly doing over the next few months. Costs and quality control have been challenges with some of the metal miniatures and I am seeking to address these as part of the wider investments I am making.
The rule book is nearing completion; it is in Beta. Play testing has been great fun and identified a few minor tweaks, and one or two major ones. One of the major play testing issues being worked through is balancing the models points costs and identifying any imbalance issues between the units. I may do a slight rescale on the Alpha sphinx to accommodate some rules tweaks for him, making him slightly smaller. The rule book has a few more art assets to go, these are taking longer than expected and could delay the release slightly.
So in sum, things are going quite well. I will look forward to providing another update after Easter when I should have some more news.
Until then, may the dice gods be with you.
As a caveat this news went out to our news letter subscribers earlier today. Today’s post is a follow up from the Conquest of the Gods Kickstarter campaign that i closed early the other day. Some of you were disappointed that I stopped it early and today I wanted to go over why i closed it and where to next.
So what happened?
The first three days of the Kickstarter went brilliantly, we hit 5k on the first day and by the end of day 3 we had hit $10,000, a sizeable chunk of the $22,000 funding I was seeking. It was looking great, then day four the campaign stalled, and day five saw almost $1000 fall off the campaign, it was falling backwards fairly fast. So it was at this point that I acknowledged a few issues with the campaign and decided that it was better to pull the plug on it and re-assess things.
The lead up to the campaign was quite frantic; I ran a gauntlet of issues to get the Kickstarter live. Mat our painter injured his arm, there were technology issues with the video content, some of my suppliers were behind schedule in sending me things such as dice, casters were behind schedule in getting me some of the miniatures in time for the campaign and several of the stretch goal sculpts were behind schedule. This all accumulated into me having to try and sell 3D renders and concept art instead of the actual miniatures, something I wanted to avoid from the onset. The original plan was to have it all done by October, and then order the casts of the models within 3 weeks of the campaign ending and delivering the while thing early next year, at least one month ahead of the promised schedule… Well as you can guess, that was not going to happen. I do not believe in over promising and under delivering, and that’s where things were headed.
The launch date actually moved three times due to some of the above delays and when paired with issues around double bookings and availability of adverting space, the dates that ended up being available for the campaign were less than ideal with the campaign ruining over the lead up to Christmas when people typically have less money both due to spending on Christmas gifts and sending on the pre-Christmas sales such as black Friday in the US. Rather than acknowledge this early on I pushed on to try and meet the arbitrary deadline I had set myself, during a less than ideal time of year to fill the gap that was available for the advertising when I really should have waited for a better time in the new year when everything was ready AND the advertising space was available.
Why stop it?
Launching without the painted production models was a huge mistake as it did not sell the miniatures in their best light, the images I posted did not show off the amazing detail that is in them, and really was done to just get it live given the pre-launch issues that came up. I should have delayed things and waited until all of the production casts were back and had them all painted up before launching, even if it took a couple of months. I also needed a game play video, now this was planned but time just got the better of us on that one. Posting the alpha rule as a PDF as a way to band aid this was probably not the best solution – not that anyone has actually commented on the rules to me, but it underlines the next point.
Conquest of the Gods is not just a miniatures range, it’s a game system with a fully supported range of miniatures. This did not at all come across in the campaign and is something I needed to resolve, it was going to be a tough thing to sort out on the fly. The boxed sets include cards and a book that were not pictured with the models, again another issue I failed to resolve before launch and people really did not have a clear sense of what they were getting unless they read the text for the campaign, It would seem a number of people backed it by just looking at the pictures and did not read the text.
This made the campaign purely about the poorly presented miniatures, and if I’m honest, it put me into the category of being someone who makes alternative miniatures for other games and not a start-up independent games studio. The alternative miniatures market that is already well provided for with several companies doing cheap alternative plastic models for the established games (I know a few guys in my team are cringing at me saying this publically). I am making a new game system with a fully supported range of high quality miniatures, I am confident what once people give the game a go they will love it! I think I failed to present the wider game on Kickstarter and focused too much on just the miniatures. I also really needed to better explain what the wider plans for the game are and how the expansion content will support existing armies as well as introduce new ones.
What’s next?
I plan to get some if not all of the base range ready for sale sometime in 2015. I want to build a community around a good game system and its range of miniatures with organised play events, campaigns and painting events. I am considering adding a few pages to the book to add an organised play section in the back of the book to help players organise and facilitate their own events.
On reflection, I question if Kickstarter is the way to go this kind of start-up. I realised during the campaign that in the context of table top games, Kickstarter has really become more of a pre-order service and a place to find cheap models more so than it is a capital raising platform. If I go back to it in the future, I will look at it in that capacity and not as a start-up that needs early stage capital. Several of the larger companies’ use it Kickstarter a pre-order e-commerce platform with great effect. In a way, this experience has turned out to be a huge positive as I now realise that there are more cost and time effective was to generate the capital I need.
I was contacted by several overseas distributors interested as well as a few Australian based stores before and after the campaign who are keen to stock the game once I’m ready to do a general release. I was also approached by a couple of people who are interested in investing in the company and this is something I will need to weigh up and consider very carefully. In short the future of Demigod Games and Conquest of the Gods looks bright despite the Kickstarter ending prematurely.
To make this all a reality I need to cover three major areas of cost;
Enough jibber jabber, what’s on the way?
The plan is that 2015 will see the release of the starter sets as well as some of the models that were lined up as expansion goals once I have my hands on that laser and a packaging solution I’m happy with. These will probably go straight up on to an online store as well as going to the few stores who want to stock the game. I’m not currently planning on re-doing the Kickstarter as the money and time I would need to invest on re-launching that would be much better invested into the above items to finish everything off. I might consider Kickstarter after everything is finished, but the more I think about it the more I think it’s probably not the best platform for what I’m doing and for what I am trying to achieve for my brand. I think would be much better off having a launch sale or something along those lines for those who really just want some kind of discount to get in on the ground level.
2015 will see the moulding and casting of as most, if not all of the models, including the larger models. I’ll continue to just just chip away at them one at a time, slowly releasing the entire launch range over a 12 to 18 month period. I also plan to tie up the core rule book and release it electronically as well as doing a print run of the Mini-rule book to go out with the starter sets. The big leather bound version full of art and fiction will get printed as soon as i have the capital to do a minimum print run.
So here is a taste of things to come, behold the 3D model we are about to break up for printing, the mighty Jotunn for the Norse army.
In closing
By looking at a number of other options I will have more capital to play with as I’m not spending money on advertising, giving 10% to Kickstarter etc… and by taking this approach i can do it without having to stress about meeting pre-determined delivery deadlines and the logistics involved in doing a major world wide release all in one go. I can instead release it at a pace that is comfortable for me and the company, after all I’m doing this for fun and to share my passion (my income is not dependent on the games success). For some reason I got it in my head that I had to do a ‘Kickstarter’ to launch the game… this resulted in me losing sight of what is important for my, my game and its long term future.
I think because many of the game sites have built an industry around Kickstarter and in some cases are almost dependant on it, I had this false perception in my head that Kickstarter was necessary– this is of course silly, I can release the game the old fashioned way in stores, conventions and (not so old-fashioned) online. This lets me focus my efforts on building a loyal fan base and a building a community around the game.
I will be releasing more details on what’s on the way for each army as with this change in direction, I don’t need to keep things as secret. I was only keeping them secret to announce them as stretch goals for Kickstarter and I think we can throw that concept to one side and just focus on what’s important, making the best game with the best miniatures range we possibly can.
Hi everyone and welcome to another Conquest of the Gods preview! Today i am going to give you all a small taste of what i hope to be unlocking during theKickstarter campaign. I have designed the campaign to include a number of stretch goals, each stretch goal will essentially fund things like printing the hard cover book and the moulding of the models beyond the starter sets that i have not had the personal finances to fund the moulding for myself. Reaching the stretch goals will inject the funding and let me release these much sooner as it is pretty slow going when they are just being funded from whats left of my wage after i have paid the bills. In all but a couple of cases, the stretch goal models have been sculpted and are ready for prototyping. The Conquest of the Gods core rule book will feature 46 different units, covering over 100 sculpts, of these the starter sets only make up a portion of what i have planned.
This is also a great chance for me to show off the scale of the range a bit more and help you all get a better grasp of my vision for the game. Before i show the larger models, here is a reminder of the scales as shown in one of my previous posts:
Now here is a selection of some of the stretch goal models sitting among our already impressively large Minotaur.
From left to right we have a Japanese Ashigaru (these will come in units), a Greek Orthrus, a Norse Valkyrie, the Greek Minotaur, an Egyptian Alpha Sphinx and a Greek Cyclops.
I have already prototyped a character cyclops (polyphemus) who is ready for moulding, so there is no risk in regards to if i can deliver these, i just need the funding….Here is a quick photo of the head of Polyphemus next to a Greek Lochagos, please excuse the bent spear, this play test model has been dropped, trodden on and survived an attack from my 3yo daughter.
The above imaged do not give the Orthrus the credit it deserves, its a fairly large model by most peoples standards so here is a closer look, keeping in mind that the Ashigaru is a 31mm scale (from the feet to the eyes) miniature. The tail and chains are straight as these will be cast in metal so you can bend them to help customise the look of your model.
Stay tuned as excitement builds as we near the launch of the Kickstarter! There are more previews to come!
With only a week until the Kickstarter launches, things are heating up here at Demigod Games. The Kickstarter video is being edited by my talented mate Tim, who enjoyed several laughs as we tried to film the video with the limited resources at hand, i will do a development blog post on this for those who like to see what goes on behind the scenes when trying to create something like this on a shoestring budget.
Resin and metal models are arriving at a regular rate, as i have previously mentioned, all of the starter set models have been sent off to moulding, i have taken photos of the prototypes along the way and will share those as well as pictures of the production models throughout the Kickstarter campaign. My original plan was to only post photos of painted models, however time has crept up on my and the deadline for the launch is almost here. With that in mind for the Egyptian, Japanese and Greek sets, i will be showing of the 3D models, assembled in the software and then rendered to reproduce what will arrive, with the view to photograph the production models and upload them as they become available. This is because a handful of resin parts from each of the sets is yet to land here in Australia. For the Greeks the culprit is the blood for Ares spear, that should arrive here before the end of the campaign.
Today i want to share what will be released in the Greek starter set, as with the other sets, this one will include the mini rule book – this book is essentially just the rules section of the larger hard cover rule book. In the Greek starter set, you will receive 10 hoplites, 1 Minotaur, 1 Lochagos, and one Ares: Greek god of war.
Ares was a fun challenge to take on, i felt that he was one of the gods that was never done to my satisfaction in other ranges, so i hope you like the Demigod Games interpretation of this classic figure from the Greek mythos. As with all of the models in the range, we have avoided diluting the original concept of what each creature, god or unit is and have tried to deliver it in its purest form. This no compromises approach really gives the game an immense sense of scale, aligning if with the ‘clash of the titans’ on the tabletop look that concept that i started with back when the game was just an idea.
The hoplites have been deisnged to form a phalanx, and really come to life when you feild them in larger units, just for fun i threw 40 into the render engine to show you what they look like when you take a few of them
Mat, our talented painter is working away on the Norse starter set and i hope to be showing it off later in the week, between now and then ill do a few more posts giving you a look at the Japanese artwork, some of the expansion goals and that behind the scenes look at the how we filmed the video…
Once the painted miniatures are on hand i can also do the long awaited game play video!
I hope you are as excited about the Greek releases as i am, and for those of you wanting Vikings, you wont be disappointed, they are looking amazing!
John
Owner: Demigod Games
I am pleased to announce that the launch date for the Conquest of the Gods Kickstarter will be November 24. I am just ironing out the final details for a few things before the launch date!
What can you expect to see from the Kickstarter?
We will be launching it with army starter sets for each of the 4 factions. These are a great way to introduce people into the miniatures range and the game. I also think they are comparatively good value when compared with other similar starter sets from the main industry players. Expansion goals will open up additional units and models to add to your pledge. There will be a few free add-ons in the expansion goals but they will largely focus on opening up the models and units that need more funding to get into production.
What will each starter set contain?
Each starter set will contain 1 god, 1 basic commander, 1 monster (70mm) and a unit of 10 troops, though the number of troops in the Egyptian set is still being worked out due to the increased costs of having Horus in their set (it may mean getting 5 troops and a scarab swarm instead). With the exception of Horus and the monsters, the other models are all 31mm scale. Each miniature will come with a high quality timber base.
Where are we up to production wise?
The Norse set is being painted by Matt at the moment; the Greek starter set has been moulded and will go to painting before the campaign, I am waiting on a shipment back for a few of the resin parts (notably the blood for Ares spear). The Japanese and Egyptian starter sets are going through moulding over the next few weeks. Some of the resin parts probably won’t be ready in time but I can think I can work around this by showing off the master models.
The book is going through editing, and the artwork for all of the starter set units will be completed before the campaign! So we are on track with the book (assuming we generate get enough funding to print it!) the Mini (rules only) version of the book just needs a few art assets and it’s also ready to print off.
As always I will leave you with some eye candy, here is a first rendering of the planned contents for the Egyptian starter set.
