Conan and the Lamentation of Kickstarter.

I'll admit to having a Conan fetish..It all started with the Savage Sword of Conan black and white Comics I started picking up around the late 70's , a time when the rest of my friends where all about the original Star Wars movies. I quickly started gobbling up the original (BWS) Marvel series as well so by the time I was 16 and the Conan the Barbarian the movie came out, I was freaking out as I owned literally 100's of various Comics and Books, reading all the original Howard stories I could get my hands on at the time. Flash forward 30 something years and I of course picked up Age of Conan , The Strategy Board Game, at the time published by then hungry for titles- Fantasy Flight Games.

The thing about board games is I own very few because I rarely play them. I do like playing them very much and I often revel in memory of my one and only 8 hour Twilight Imperium Session. However these heady board games are of no interest to my wife, and any gaming time I do get I am always with serious miniatures hobbyists, so despite all our love of board games, it was only on a proverbial blue moon that we actually stopped playing "X"  miniatures games and played a board game with a decent group.

Still back in November of 2014 , 16 months ago..that fact I had never actually played Age of Conan, The Strategy Board game..didnt stop me for getting in the Kickstarter that Ares Games , new owners of the games license had launched  re -publishing the game with a hefty expansion. now coined. "Age of Conan, Adventures in Hyboria."

great box  art , in fact all the art on the new cards and in game is very much to my liking classic 70's Conan.

So this expansion has arrived today, since I owned the base game, I just got the expansion and retooled original components and put up some extra for some very nice "King Conan" official coins that can be used in place of the coin counters in the game and also for whatever type gaming you like.

The expansion is packed solid with all kinds of neat stuff including miniatures that expand the core game and its play style. All of which I have zero clue of what they do or are used for -because I have never played this game, even thou Its been in my closet since probably 2010.

The additional  conundrum I faced is right after I bought into this, not 3 months later in February of 2015 is that from out of nowhere Monolith Games launches it own Kickstarter  for its very own Conan Miniatures games with amazing 28-32mm plastic figures!, of course I freak out and buy into that too...( after many delays due to miniatures QA and delivering so many miniatures from the factory, we are currently looking at delivery late this year, 1 year past the original est. delivery date.)

 Now the Core pledge here , which I bought into with only a select few add ons, is literally 100's of miniatures. I've been working hard to prune my collection the last year and have done a pretty good job. although I still have along way to go just to shed myself of stuff I havent touched in 5+ years! let alone the host of vintage items, I have come to terms with parting with.  SO. To get to the point of this post, despite my Conan fetish I need both of these like I need  a hole in the head. Its extremely unlikely I will ever get around to playing either of them, despite my best efforts to and even thou I would really like to. but its just doesnt seem feasible or realistic. So the reality is both of these will be going up for sale , the board game with expansion, ASAP, (thou I am keeping the Coins) and the Miniatures game when it arrives. Although there I am keeping the extra Yag Kosha and Brom based sculpts of Conan and Belit  to paint up for the shelf here.

The lamentation of Kickstarter is a powerful thing, these things all seem like great ideas at the time because you are waning nostalgic and invested in the intellectual property enough that it hooks you in like a shark in a feeding frenzy.  Then when the euphoria is long long gone, most likely 2 years later it finally arrives and you find yourself saying wow this is really cool? but so what?. In reality I have shed all of large format army games over the last 2- 3 years, Warhammer, Hail Ceasar, Flames of War. because its really only realistic that I make time to paint and play smaller skirmish type war games. There comes a certain point where you must challenge your hobbies aspirations, look yourself in the mirror and say "what the hell am I doing?"  (I find even my love for Bolt Action being tested just recently due to investment of hobby time versus the actual payoff of return in the fun department.)

In Schwarzenegger's 1982 Conan, he has what has become one of the most well remembered lines of the genres history, when asked by the Mongol General, "Conan, what is best in life?" he replies

"Crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of their women."

Conan never had to worry about Kickstarter.