Reply To: Beyond the Monolith? Confusion!?!

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 3]

@zoidpinhead to clarify, buy more miniatures that you already own.

I have watched this develop over the last couple of weeks and whilst I do understand what you need to buy in order to get what you need to play, regardless of whether you are a new or an existing backer, the reason I think a lot of people are confused is that it’s really hard to see what you need to buy if you already own Conan but want to play the versus mode without having to buy things you already own.  The reason it is so hard to figure that out is very simple – it isn’t possible to do that. A lot of existing backers were expecting to be able to buy the new rules, reuse the miniatures they already own whilst maybe buying a some new ones.  I have so many criticisms of this campaign, not least because it is confusing to try and figure out what you need to buy (and they were very slow to communicate that).h

The funding goal seems unreasonably high for the amount of new stuff that is really being offered.  Almost all every miniature on that kickstarter is from a previous kickstarter. Compare that to a funding goal of $80,000 first time round where everything was new and it seems more like a cash grab than a genuine kickstarter. They certainly don’t seem to be funding €700,000 worth of stuff.

Duplication levels for returning Conan backers is shocking; between 50% and 95% commonality with the original game with no option for previous Conan backers to buy only what they need to play the new Beyond the Monolith game. The options are pay €45 for a faction box that optimistically you will own 50% of (but more likely upwards of 75%), pay €32 for just stat cards and a game board and proxy the miniatures yourself – €32 is a lot of money for a handful of cards and tokens and of course you then have to find some miniatures from somewhere.

The way the new game is designed feels like it was done deliberately to force people to buy again what they have already paid for. The number of miniatures required to make a complete faction box being slightly more than you would have as an original backer. For example you need 8 of things previous backers will only have 5 of but they won’t provide a box that allows people to buy the delta between King Pledge and Beyond the Monolith. The game boards that come in the faction boxes are almost identical to the ones in the original game; they have been changed just enough to make sure that the old ones aren’t compatible with the new scenarios.

The catch phrase when they announced Beyond the Monolith was pay less play more. It was supposed to “breath new life” into existing games. But what its actually turned out is “buy stuff you probably already own, play more”. The new Beyond the Monolith isn’t breathing any new life into my existing Conan game, what if is actually doing is selling me a brand new game, at full price. A new game the contents of which I already own 80%-90% but not quite in the right format to play the new game. As someone who has supported Monolith quite a lot since they launched in 2015 and backed Conan and Mythic Battles quite heavily, this feels a bit like a kick in the teeth. It isn’t going to ruin my enjoyment of the game I already own – Conan is still an amazing game. But it is probably going to stop me backing any Beyond the Monolith products in the future which is a real shame. I would have really liked to get in on the whole Conan skirmish game and Lord knows I have enough stuff for it! But I can’t justify paying €200+ to get the vs mode when I already own nearly all the stuff I would be getting.