War Prime Sci-Fi Miniatures Come To Kickstarter

[JonB]

War Prime Sci-Fi Miniatures Come To Kickstarter

The miniatures include design by a Diablo and Borderlands veteran.

Kingmaker games has launched a Kickstarter for a new line of Sci-Fi miniatures called War Prime. The miniatures, representing a variety of aliens, soldiers, and vehicles from a far-future setting, are in the same 28mm scale used by most other popular Sci-Fi tabletop games - most notably Warhammer 40,000. Citing an increase in the cost of miniatures in the past few years, Kingmaker hopes that its War Prime line of minis will stand as a lower-cost alternative to others' products. If the current Kickstarter successfully funds, Kingmaker will distribute their miniatures through online channels afterwards.

War Prime is set in a future space where humanity rules a large empire that is being decimated by a "cosmic anomaly of unknown origin." Seeing the humans' weakness, other alien races step in to conquer long-lost territory or simply seek revenge on the dominant species.

[kickstarter=ericsexton/war-prime-tabletop-miniatures]

You can check out the full project on Kickstarter. [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ericsexton/war-prime-tabletop-miniatures]

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[Soviet Heavy]

They look like someone spliced a terran marine with a 40K astartes

 

[Baresark]

A cheaper but comparable game to tabletop Warhammer 40k, we should all be interested. That shit is way too expensive.

 

[Ignatz_Zwakh]

So...Warhammer 4000K but affordable? Sneaky.

 

[epicdwarf]

Personally I don't like it. This is almost Fortresscarft levels of copying. Making an almost carbon copy of someone else's work is just wrong.

 

[Simalacrum]

How affordable is "affordable"? Because it had better be about 1/5th of the price of Games Workshop. I love the universe and such of Warhammer 40K, but that shit is just far, FAR too overpriced. Its about time some competition came along and forced them to re-think their pricing model.

 

[J Tyran]

Good luck to them, for themselves and for the sake of Games Workshop. Maybe if they get their arses kicked enough they will sort themselves out, these guys are supporting things like "Bitz" and kitbashing which are pretty important things to a lot of war gamers. Stuff that GW have gone out of their way to stamp out when they used to support it, GWs treatment of retailers has been even worse than the customers too and those guys are as much as lifeblood of the community as the players themselves.

A company that deals with the small hobby shops and online retailers in a fair way will find itself with an inherent advantage in the first place as they are more likely to get shelf space and website updates, combine that with decent prices on the miniatures in the first place and support for the hobbyists and modellers and they could do well.

I don't want GW to die and I have liked the 40k universe for decades but their anti consumer and anti retailer practices crossed the line a long time ago, unless they shape up they deserve to go out of business.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Making an almost carbon copy of someone else's work is just wrong.

Spoiler: Like Games Workshop doesn't do this either.

If the image doesn't show up, use this link
http://1d4chan.org/images/4/48/TauOrigin.jpg

Warhammer 40K is built on homages, appropriations, and downright ripoffs. It just has twenty years of lore built up.

 

[PunkRex]

It looks way to similar to 40K and even though i'm all for sticking it to those money hun-

0_0

Wa... was that a alien riding a dinosaur?

 

[Atmos Duality]

Making an almost carbon copy of someone else's work is just wrong.

Spoiler: Like Games Workshop doesn't do this either.

If the image doesn't show up, use this link
http://1d4chan.org/images/4/48/TauOrigin.jpg

Warhammer 40K is built on homages, appropriations, and downright ripoffs. It just has twenty years of lore built up.

...And twenty years legal experience too. Good lawyers can enable nearly any business strategy.
Even those that are the most infuriatingly hypocritical.

 

[Vivi22]

Looking at the artwork I smell a GW lawsuit coming in 3, 2...

 

[Daemascus]

Hope some of that money is going to hiring some good lawyers.

 

[Gitty101]

I wish them the best quite frankly. As others have said, GW pricing is so ridiculous when compared to other tabletop wargames.

 

[Hagi]

Sincerely hope this succeeds, sounds like a promising thing.

May donate once they get some stuff sorted out for the EU.

Humans do look rather like Space Marines, then again so many things look like Space Marines including no shortage of things older. The Kelk look cooler though and the teasers of the unannounced seem promising.

 

[el_kabong]

Can't wait to pit my army of totally-not-space-marines against the armies of totally-not-Orks and totes-not-Eldar.

As a 40K player, I see stuff like this all the time. Best of luck to them, but it seems like they're just taking the 40K setting, reskinning it slightly, coming up with a different ruleset, and selling it to us cheaper.

Cheaper is good, but the thing that gets people into tabletop wargames like this is community. It's hard to change the direction of communities like this when everyone has already bought into it to a substantial degree. Why has no MMO killed WoW? Because it has one of the largest communities that's invested a lot of time, so they aren't willing to leave it behind. This actually is a legitimate phenomenon known as the sunk cost fallacy.

With 40K, take the same amount of time spent using our MMO example and add upwards of $2,000 a person that they've invested. That's a tough thing to ask people who make up your core demographic to do. And, honestly, they probably won't.

The best thing you can do is offer a different, unique experience that isn't playing to capture players. Look at LoL and DotA. They became the next big thing by being a new thing rather than something that is just a fresh coat of paint on the old thing.

 

[Raziel]

Looking at the artwork I smell a GW lawsuit coming in 3, 2...

I'm honestly suprised they hadn't received a take down notice before this story posted. This has no chance of going forward. Even if the kickstarter could hire a lawyer to fight the suit they are clearly in the wrong here.

 

[Lightspeaker]

Look at LoL and DotA. They became the next big thing by being a new thing rather than something that is just a fresh coat of paint on the old thing.

Not sure that's the best example to use. Modern DOTA clones are very much a fresh coat of paint on an old thing.

Specifically they go all the way back to the Aeon of Strife map from the original Starcraft. Which was created as a sort of "streamlined" version of Starcraft itself, controlling a single hero unit. From there the idea was refined and along came the massively popular Defense of the Ancients for Warcraft 3 upon which basis League was built; with Valve picking up the license for DOTA itself to make DOTA2.

Being based on a ~15 year old concept isn't exactly a new thing.

 

[el_kabong]

Look at LoL and DotA. They became the next big thing by being a new thing rather than something that is just a fresh coat of paint on the old thing.

Not sure that's the best example to use. Modern DOTA clones are very much a fresh coat of paint on an old thing.

Specifically they go all the way back to the Aeon of Strife map from the original Starcraft. Which was created as a sort of "streamlined" version of Starcraft itself, controlling a single hero unit. From there the idea was refined and along came the massively popular Defense of the Ancients for Warcraft 3 upon which basis League was built; with Valve picking up the license for DOTA itself to make DOTA2.

Being based on a ~15 year old concept isn't exactly a new thing.

Standing on the shoulders of giants to offer something new is not the same as what I see going on in this kickstarter. Having roots in something does not equal no innovation and doesn't mean that it's invalid as a separate creative entity.

I'm not sure if you watched the same video I did, but this seemed like a direct play to try to offer 40K on the cheap, rather than being it's own creative entity, which is why I think it will ultimately fail. I mean, even the setting and major plot is lifted wholesale from 40K fluff: a collapsing human empire that is beset on all sides by alien attackers. In the grim, darkness of the far flung future, there is only war...and unoriginal, uninspired cash grabs.

 

[Ftaghn To You Too]

Looking at the artwork I smell a GW lawsuit coming in 3, 2...

I'm honestly suprised they hadn't received a take down notice before this story posted. This has no chance of going forward. Even if the kickstarter could hire a lawyer to fight the suit they are clearly in the wrong here.

They're fine. It's an utterly unnewsworthy kickstarter, as dozens of people have done the exact same thing. Many, many companies, notably Mantic, make their money entirely through 40k proxies. It's a time honored tradition that has been repeatedly defended in court.

 

[AstaresPanda]

oh wow. After watching the vid i really see what some people have said about the starcraft and 40k mashup. REEEEKS of it. BUT like many others when i was a kid early teens i did not have the cash to piss away on GW and soon totally fell out of it around 3rd or 4th edtion but still read the books