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Yeah, I'm sure if you can really consider something to be retail when it's only available on the company's web shop, hidden beneath everything else and can only be found if you search through the individual blister relases. I mean, most of you probably didn't even know those figures existed until they were posted in here.

And yes, the actual Mercs figures themselves are very nice.

Not all of them, but their majority is good and some examples are above very nice.

 Vermonter wrote:
The miniature versions of the current MERCs generally impress me.

There are a few newer sculpts on the MegaCon site, all of which look like they'll be included in Recon, that I'm less excited about, though:


FCC Saboteur


Scientist


Lost Margin Raider

For me, they don't uphold the standard set by the current tabletop releases.

(These are currently available metal versions, not works in progress.)

#1 I own the FCC Saboteur, got him for a different game.

He is actually a very nice and very detailed miniature. The picture doesn't do him justice. Mayber it's the odd angle. Any real criticism on this mini IMHO should be aimed at shoe-horning him into a future setting where (almost) everyone is running around in armor and with futuristic ballistic weapons while this guy has an AK-47 strapped to his back. Plus - trucker hat on guy in a suit just doesn't fit. But for a mini for a game set in the MODERN era, it's really a great fig.

FURTHER - this figure was at least pictured so a pledger had some idea of what he was getting.

#2 that really is an UGLY mini. BUT... I hold the actual Merc team members up to a high standard, followed by expecting the cameos and op-force minis to be nice, but honestly the 'special scenario guys', I can't really blame them for reaching to the back shelf and grabbing an old sculpt. I hope and expect the technician/janitor/VP etc to be fresh and better, but I am just not going to worry about such a fringe guy.

#3 Lost Margin. It's a kinda meh sculpt...but it is a freebee AND it was shown on the KS so at least it isn't a surprise turd. But honestly the whole Lost margin seems very 'thrown together'. Did they ever even define what was going to be in the lost margin expansion pack?

It seems to me that a lot of stuff was rushed with this KS. Yes, part of that was due to convention schedule, but then you need to get more stuff done up front or leave one guy behind. I'd also think it would make sense to reveal both new stretch goals as well as additional purchases allowing existing backers to commit more funds rather than expecting all further funds to come from new backers.

TLDR; 1 of 3 is actually nice. I'll have to see more turd minis before I get worried.

Problem with the one you like is, as mentioned earlier in this topic, you can't hold a flaming bottle that way and throw it without getting burnt. The detail may be great, the pose is not so great.

 CptJake wrote:
Problem with the one you like is, as mentioned earlier in this topic, you can't hold a flaming bottle that way and throw it without getting burnt. The detail may be great, the pose is not so great.

meh. for me it''s his boozing it up bottle not his throwing bottle

 akodo1 wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
Problem with the one you like is, as mentioned earlier in this topic, you can't hold a flaming bottle that way and throw it without getting burnt. The detail may be great, the pose is not so great.

meh. for me it''s his boozing it up bottle not his throwing bottle

Which doesn't explain the sculpted on flames coming out of the neck.

Maybe it's some really viscous booze he's sloshing around instead?

Just a little brief background on the genesis of the saboteur figure,....

A couple of years ago; there was a forum contest which allowed gamers to submit concepts for the 6th member of the FCC House 9.

This was based on a sketch by one of the forum members. The alternate head ended up being representative of the winner and his trucker hat,....

Also, the concept is that he does not have armor as he is either a disgruntled worker, or someone who has infiltrated another con's workforce,... The concept works surprisingly well in the TT game,... And I was very skeptical from the start.

I would hope that he will come with an OpFor card as well,... It could make for some great flavor.

 CptJake wrote:

 akodo1 wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
Problem with the one you like is, as mentioned earlier in this topic, you can't hold a flaming bottle that way and throw it without getting burnt. The detail may be great, the pose is not so great.

meh. for me it''s his boozing it up bottle not his throwing bottle

Which doesn't explain the sculpted on flames coming out of the neck.

You could always just remove the flames from the bottle. I doubt they'd be hard to snip off. Then he just looks like he'd be having a great time.

 Barzam wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

 akodo1 wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
Problem with the one you like is, as mentioned earlier in this topic, you can't hold a flaming bottle that way and throw it without getting burnt. The detail may be great, the pose is not so great.

meh. for me it''s his boozing it up bottle not his throwing bottle

Which doesn't explain the sculpted on flames coming out of the neck.

You could always just remove the flames from the bottle. I doubt they'd be hard to snip off. Then he just looks like he'd be having a great time.

Plus, the non-bottle arm is separate peice, so it is easy to put it almost straight up. I considered clipping all but one of the fingers off...

New sculpts, nobody else posted yet it seems:

GCC Judge



EU Medic



KemVar Engineer



SecFor 1 Pose 2


Better looking sculpts than the scientist, that's for sure!

Judge looks awesome! The rest are solid.

They are a bit soft, especially on the fingers, but overall solid pieces.

I think I saw someone compare the judge to Deathstroke the Terminator. I think that's an apt comparison.

Honestly gives me a bit of hope for the stuff we haven't seen sculpted yet (or even know what kind of figures they might be), especially after the last few figures they'd shown off and we've been ragging on around here.

I really like the judge, the rest are decent. Having said that, the helmet/beret thing looks really bad on the medic.

I really like the security guard. I backed this primarily for the big heap of cyberpunk models I can use for RPG games and he looks super useful for the kind of setting where not everyone wanders around in full body armour.

I think they look good. The Judge's armor kind of reminds me of N7 armor though. I think I know how I'll be painting mine.

The sculpts look really great, agree with everyone that the judge looks awesome. A large amount of great looking miniatures at the end of this one.

Gasmasked Mook wrote:
I really like the security guard. I backed this primarily for the big heap of cyberpunk models I can use for RPG games and he looks super useful for the kind of setting where not everyone wanders around in full body armour.

I definitely think that there need to be more models of this type - someone who's not a marine, or smuggler, or in power armour, and in great enough quantities that they can be used as mooks. That said, I find the face on this one to be...odd. Like a classical Greek mask, lacking eyebrows, wrinkles or folds in the skin, or any kind of emotion. I suppose I'm not really familiar with the art style being employed here - a bit cartoony, but without the typical expressiveness associated with that.

The Judge mini looks excellent; my only criticism would be that his wristblade should have sharper definition. This Kickstarter is definitely shaping up to be one where the exclusives are genuinely worthwhile - I really hope they make all the exclusives purchasable individually for those looking to get extras.

Incidentally, didn't Megacon call this figure an "alternate pose" Judge? So does this mean we will be seeing this guy again in a different pose in the GCC box? If so, that would be fantastic.

The Kemvar and Euro guy look solid. Not the best of the line, but fine. A head swap will cure the Euro guy of his pizza-dough hat fetish.

The SecFor's body is fine, but his face looks unfinished.

In case anyone else here is wondering about how the MERCs might scale with Mantic minis, I found this image online:



Assuming the Judge is about as tall as the ISS figure shown above, he'd make a fine special Ops Enforcer.

On the other hand, since Enforcers have superhuman proportions in the Warpath universe, those thinking about using MERCs minis to flesh out the normal-sized humans in their Deadzone Rebs faction will probably be out of luck. But on the other other (third?) hand, the blog author also says that the ISS figures have different proportions than the Texico ones, and are noticeably taller. So some MERCs factions may blend better with other companies' lines.

Regarding soft detailing, the German blog I pulled the comparison image above from states that the ISS figures had such soft definition that he found it frustratingly difficult to determine where the mini's details began and ended, somewhat apparent from the paint job. The photo comparison above is intended to demonstrate the ISS figure's lack of definition relative to the Mantic Enforcer's. (Note that this is not my opinion, as I didn't write the blog entry and I've never seen an ISS figure in person. I'm just passing along this guy's critique for whatever it's worth.)

Those that kann Deutsch can read more, or argue with the original author, here: http://www.brueckenkopf-online.com/?p=75540.

I'm getting a little worried about this, the newer figs are much better than that truly awful scientist, but it seems like they're rushing the sculpts too much. It's the same sculptor as the original CCC figures and I LOVE his style, I'm still pissed that I missed out on his Effigy minis line that he took out of production to work at Megacon, but he's been getting sloppy. These look rushed, like he's trying to do too much detail at once instead of letting pieces harden and going back later for details.

I like the style of the EU medic a lot, but the vents/lights/greebles on his forearm and shoulder armor are perfect examples of this: the lines are unevenly spaced and a bit too rounded, you can tell they were sculpted at the same time as the pads themselves instead of doing the detailing as a seperate step after the plates had hardened.

Years ago when the CCC were being released (before MERCS was a game) he would post WIP of the figs he was sculpting and each one was done in multiple stages over a couple weeks, and they are still the best of the MERCS minis. The CCC figs were a special project, a labor of love with no time limit and it shows. The newer stuff you can see where he was going, but it just looks like he skipped a few steps and cut a few corners to get them done and move on to the next thing.

I think a lot of these will be figs I need to paint in some extra detail instead of being able to let the model do most of the work. Sad for me, because I don't usually have the time to paint miniatures to that degree anymore, so most of these will probably stay bare plastic when I get them

I tend to agree...

I'm nervous enough here to probably keep my pledge at $10, maybe add in a few things, but stay away from the $220 I was thinking of going up to.

The ISS soft definition was brought up in the kickstarter, they claimed it was a first run error and it has been fixed.

Didn't McG say they were going to try and have photos available of just about all the sculpts when the pledge manager hits?

Hope so.

I'm still interested in seeing what those embossed damage disks are going to look like. The 3d terrain stuff too.

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
Didn't McG say they were going to try and have photos available of just about all the sculpts when the pledge manager hits?

Hope so.

Me too - and that's pretty much the only way I'll be upping my pledge.

After their recent mess-up and indirect screwing over of international backers in the Myth KS, I think anyone who's not in USA should be somewhat hesitant of adding anything to the pledge manager.

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:

SecFor 1 Pose 2

This one reminds me of Sven-Ole Thorsen, anyone else think that?


pic from The Running Man

It honestly wouldn't surprise me if that was intentional, knowing these guys and their penchant for 80s action movies.

Nice! Hadn't thought of that

Update #62 May 13 2014
Begin Your Reconnoiter
16 comments Like 46 likes
All the sculpts in the base games are done. Here is a shot of the two alt SecFor poses.




The art for the offices is in full swing. The event decks are done. The agent decks are done. The Missions and the OpFor cards are not finished yet.

Sculpts

Tom is working on stretch goals, specifically KemVar and GCC.
Bobby Jackson is working on the USCR sculpts and Waza sculpts.
James Van Schaik is working on House 4 and some of the special employees.
John Bear Ross is doing CPP -209.
Bryan Steele is working on locations, Conner and the Lost Margin Thrasher.
Other people are working on Drones.
All told, we have 25 miniatures in sculpting right now over 6+ sculptors. I will continue to update you on the progress. We are moving quickly with this. We are looking at 80% of the ENTIRE KS sculpts done by the end of July.

I will post an update similar to Update #60 in a few weeks.

Pledge Manager

We are hoping the pledge manager opens up in late June/early July. We’ll keep you updated.