I think the only incentive is to get the different characters. Those are only available to all in backers. You can't get them in a pick 5.

I'm surprised because they were so vehement earlier about how unlocking stretch goals was absolutely financially necessary for the new characters and we should all shut up and put up money to make it happen. Now they just unlocked them all. I honestly expected them to allow duplicates of base figures and the KP trooper as an army builder to give value. I did not expect for a second that they would include all the characters.

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Here's my biggest concern with this Kickstarter. Unless I missed something, from what I've read on the campaign page there isn't anyone officially affiliated with "Chicken Fried Toys" that has any actual toy production experience. Casting resin parts in your garage is a whole different ballgame than running up a fully tooled and manufactured toy line. That lack of experience alone has me worried that they may not be fully prepared for the problems and issues that will come up. Having a love and passion for the genre is great but when the one person attached to the project with any kind of toy making experience has a long history of problems following through, that worries me. A lot.

I think these guys have the very best of intentions and applaud them for getting out there and trying to make something cool for everyone. But between the questionable attitude during the initial launch and the lack of experience, I worry this one might go down as a HUGE failure in the end.

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Alex says he's shooting for April/May for the Zombies, but I'm not sure when Falcone's 'Suits' figures are planned. Jason is also going to do his Animal Warriors again with more realistic figures and a different structure in Spring.



To be fair, practically nobody has experience at every stage of toy manufacturing *except* these small company people. BFS themselves were noobs to everything after the creative parts at the beginning. I'm not blind to CFT's status in the industry, but their use of the same factory that BFS and Marauder John used removes a *lot* of these issues. CFT basically only have to provide good master prototypes, good artwork for the cards (which Jason handled with aplomb, imho), and shipping out once everything's recieved from the factory. That last bit may sound like it's a negative critique against Aly/John, but my understanding is that his deficiencies were always in the areas that the factory will be handling, so please don't think I'm raising that issue again. I simply don't believe it comes into play with this project.

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I think Boss Fight and Marauder have paved the way, though, so some of the hardships have already been solved by them. There is a procedure in place to make these things now, and the really tricky part is the balancing act between the funding levels. I think if they had offered this as the All-In from the beginning, a lot more people would have gone All-In. I am considering upgrading from the Posse right now because of the change.

The main thing that needs to happen now, is that the people making all these KS campaigns need to get together and bang out a time table, because there just can't be five of these going all at the same time, there just isn't that kind of money out there. Not to mention, if they're all using the same factory, that's going to be a problem too.

Just curious, how much money does it cost for the cards/blisters? I suppose that's half the fun, but I'm one of those who would be opening everything anyway, so I'd just as soon get more stuff and less packaging.

Man, even if the individual KS starters could all get on one calendar, along will come GIJCC to muck it all up anyway -- it's such a different world now, having to make choices between products. In the end, we as consumers should 'win' ... but it will take the 'gotta get 'em all' people off the board.

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It looks to me that Boss Fight, Marauder, and CFT are all using the same bucks and figure design styles. I would think it should be more economical to merge as one and use the combined clout to do multiple lines under the same banner.

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Maybe they have from a fundraising perspective but nobody from Boss Fight or Marauder are working for Chicken Fried Toys (that I know of, other than some design work by BFS). Anybody can run a Kickstarter and raise money. The trick is production and fulfillment and from what I've read from their campaign page, CFT doesn't appear to have much, if any, experience producing action figures on this level. Boss Fight came from Hasbro where they had intimate knowledge of the ins and outs of factory production. Marauder has hands-on knowledge from factory producing their weapons and accessories. And both of those companies still had a steep learning curve when it came to actually manufacturing product. I haven't seen anything from the CFT guys that gives me the same level of confidence that I have in other Kickstarter companies and that's deeply concerning.

I hope I'm wrong and if I turn out to be I'll own up to it. I'd like to see this line make it out. But I have serious reservations.

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I totally agree with you MS. What happens if QC issues hit like they did with MTF? Do these guys have the communication and skill to resolve something like that, or even the wherewithal to scrap a run if it's not up to snuff?

Hell, there's been more than one Kickstarter where the organizers hit a wall and just cut bait. If the hurdles of actually getting this to reality prove too high for CFT to clear, you'd be out every last dime you threw in.

I was willing to risk that with BFS and MTF because of the track records of the people involved and my interactions with them through this site and in person. With CFT my interactions here and elsewhere make me less confident that they'll do what's right if things get rough, and since pledging to a Kickstarter is an investement with no assurance of a return, well, lack of confidence in the people you're investing in is a real hard thing to overcome.

Kickstarter is essentially crowdsourced venture capital. You aren't buying a product, you're investing in the people behind it. That's something that has gotten lost in the success of Kickstarter and is also where most people get into trouble with these things. There are no guarantees and you have to be prepared to accept the risk that it might not go well. That's why they are called "Rewards" and not "Preorders". If the project goes well then you get a reward for your investment. If not you take a loss.

That's why I'm very hesitant about any Kickstarter I consider backing and only back the ones that I have confidence in getting a return on my investment. Right now I'm not getting that feeling from this campaign.

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Negatory, nobody at BossFight had any 'factory experience' while working at Hasbro. They were all in the 'Art Department' working as contractors to Hasbro, iirc. Also, Marauder John's experience with weapons and gear wasn't useful for action figures or else the disaster of the first batch of MTFs would have been averted long before they got produced and shipped to his house only to discover their joints crumbled as they played with them.

Since CFT are using the BFS/MTF factory and are copying the MTF format (which is *very* different from the BFS format) any lack of experience CFT have at mass production is irrelevant since the experience needs to be with the factory staff where it is indeed at.

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Less relevant, sure, irrelevant, nah, in the end, I just can't trust these guys. But hey, best of luck to everyone who backs. I'd like for these figures to be eventually available to purchase, but I'm not risking my money trying to make them happen.

Yeah, that's understating it by too wide a mark, AV. BFS may not have had factory experience, but you can't dissect their experience into parts so as to say CFT is on the same level of experience.

More directly of concern here is the confidence the community had in BFS was well earned before a single figure had been made. And they showed how well they earned it, with the tireless work they put in on the ground in China at the factory.

I don't have the same confidence yet that this crew will do the same. And using the same factory doesn't mean nearly as much as everyone makes out. I agree it means something. Just not sure enough.

tl;dr - I'm not willing to let anyone ride the coattails of the confidence BFS earned, and suggest that they've earned the same.

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Looking at the hell screamers setup and what I remember of other previous figure KS campaigns, does anyone else think this one is trying for too much? They have 7 initial characters including the troop builder and then 9 more to unlock for a total of 16 unique characters that unlock at much higher money levels than other KS stretch goals.

I can't help but wonder if they went smaller would it be working better. Perhaps 6 initial figures with single figure, 3 figure, and all in options, then the equipment sets, the bartender, and the vigilante to unlock at much more attainable levels and everything available to anyone who contributes as add ons. Here is the lineup I'm speaking of. The two on the far right of each row would be the stretch goals.



It seems like if the initial goal was like $95,000 and the highest stretch goal was at like $175,000, it would be much easier than getting to an initial goal of $125,000 and stretch goals ending at $375,000.

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The only thing that would be worse for Chicken Fried Toys than not funding, would be just barely funding. now they'll be on the hook for producing figures for their All-In's that they never reached funding for.

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Yeah, that was definitely a risky move, pluv. And the riskier it is for them, the riskier it is for the backers. Unless they make adjustments and tool up fewer new pieces and milk the core ones even further.

Dusty - it was ambitious, I'll say that. And yeah I commented pretty early on that they may have been shooting too high. I wonder if maybe their approach would be doing better if the KSs were spaced out more instead of all lumped together?

I really don't even know what to think anymore.

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