Bones Kickstarter II

So as you can see by the sidebar of this blog, and probably everyone else's blogs, the second Bones kickstarter is underway.



I'm already in, because they learned a critical lesson - sell early adopters faster shipping.* I pledged almost immediately, after some annoying errors trying to get Kickstarter to tell Amazon.com to let me pledge.

So far it looks good - skeletons I can use, interesting monsters, lesser demons I can use, some "character" figures I can trade or use. I like the Bones for their relative cheapness as playing pieces, and although I haven't plowed through what I got the first time I can always use more. After all, I have minis I bought over a decade ago waiting for paint (some even older - unpainted lead from my 1980s boxed sets), but always handy if I suddenly need a figure of that particular pose and type.

I'm glad they color-coded the a la carte add-ons vs. the core stuff.

I'm a little ambivalent about the "Core Expansion" set idea, though - $50 for a new ever-growing pile of minis is a good deal. But already there is about half of it I really want, in bunches (Derro! Dragon-turtle-thing! Whatever those demon-things are!) and others I don't need even one of (scorpion, dragon, stone giant). So it becomes a real question - do I crack my budget and get it, hoping to trade away the extras for something useful? Do I pass and hope I can get the components of the set I want for less than $50 retail? This is why I passed on the Dwarven Forge kickstarter - lots of stuff I wanted, but bundled with stuff I'll never use, so I'm better off waiting . . . even if the per-item price goes up a lot.

That's annoying, really. Like I said, I have a budget - and now I can't pick only the stuff I want (those water elementals might be nice, I love the rat-men) if I also get that combo. I almost need to find someone to pre-trade with - "you buy the rats and I'll give you X, Y, and Z from the core expansion." That's tricky, though.

Still, I'm pretty happy with the kickstarter and I hope more people jump in. I'd be happier with pre-paints, but Bones are good enough.


* By the way, nothing discourages me more as a backer than limited-run cheaper versions of a backer benefit that is sold out. $25 for the first 1000 guys, $30 after? If I see that and the $25s are gone, I probably don't back the kickstarter because I feel cheated paying $5 extra. Rewarding speed in with speed out, though, that I can get behind - I don't feel like I'm cheated out if I get in late, just getting on line a further down than the others.