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Dark Severance - I'm looking to get everything except the vehicles for Ares, Riff and Sayx.

I've got a $100 EB Assault Trooper.

What's the best way to go about this?

Since there's an alternate BITSIE for free, I'm thinking maybe it is to go with SAYX vs. RIFF as the box set, and adding everything else on individually?

For some reason, you only pay for shipping for pledge levels, not for add-ons, though I can see them eventually changing that?

Also, update:

Update #13

Nov 20 2014

Gameplay Styles
1 comment
10 likes

Hello backers,

After seeing some of you requesting a little bit more information on how each faction plays, we have put together a quick summary so as to give you a better idea of how they work:

ARES

The Ares have strong armored troops that outclass almost all other races in a one-on-one fight. Their great sense of individuality makes them reluctant to follow orders, meaning that they will usually have few command points and cannot play many cards each turn. Ares heroes focus on boosting their squads and armor.

RIFFS

The Riff have regular troops that excel in close combat, but they tend to have weak armor. They have a standard leadership with little focus on equipment, so expect less emphasis on the armory deck. Riff heroes focus on direct damage and close combat boosts.

SAYX

The Sayx have regular troops which come with a variety of equipment options. They have great leadership, meaning that they can play a lot of cards each turn. Sayx heroes focus on deck and initiative control, and on using krithium as efficiently as possible.

HARVESTERS

The Harvesters have cheap troops that don’t excel at anything, however they excel at krithium usage. They are bad at generating command points from heroes, but can harvest it instead from dead enemies. Harvester heroes focus on reviving their troops or sacrificing them for boosts.

As an added bonus, here are a few renders to keep you excited!

have they said if they want you to add shipping to the pledge of if post KS is ok?

 Malkaven wrote:
have they said if they want you to add shipping to the pledge of if post KS is ok?

Their reply was basically: "It is up to you"

I would still recommended people to do it now as it adds to the campaign total but if you can't no problem in adding it later

Might go for two starter boxes now, not sure what else I want. All render dependent though I guess.

I wish they had gotten some sculpts done for the Sayx or Harvesters since the last Kickstarter. I'd really like some idea how those will turn out.

There is a SAYX sculpt done - he's in their scale (!) model shot with the ruler and the other miniatures...

I'll definitely go for Sayx vs Riff. Militaristic brutes vs nazis in space, what's not to love? They also have the best addon sculpts/concepts imo.

Update #14

Nov 20 2014

Presenting: Virus
Comment
2 likes

"I am fascinated by the behavior of the artificial intelligence that are the Harvesters, and how they handle their "exceptions ". Take this subject for example, Virus, one of the most dangerous of these beings. We theorized that he had a deadly and highly contagious disease when he suffered the assimilation process. However, and even though he is a danger to the rest of the Harvesters troops, he is kept with special care only for his ability to spread the disease within enemy ranks. It’s as if the possibility of increasing the lethality of this being justifies risking their own army. An entire platoon could end up infected by disease if he made a false step or a poorly coordinated maneuver, but of course... that does not usually happen in the Harvester ranks."

- Dr Johan Bartels

 Alpharius wrote:
I'm looking to get everything except the vehicles for Ares, Riff and Sayx. I've got a $100 EB Assault Trooper. What's the best way to go about this?

Since there's an alternate BITSIE for free, I'm thinking maybe it is to go with SAYX vs. RIFF as the box set, and adding everything else on individually?

After getting some coffee and looking at options more. That is a good point about the Bitsie alternate for free. Honestly the best method that I can see is (KISS) "EB Assault Trooper + Add-ons", no double pledging. Providing I didn't miss any troops and I'm doing my math correctly, it comes to $465 with shipping for 81 miniatures in total.

Breakdown and Comparison:

 Alpharius wrote:
For some reason, you only pay for shipping for pledge levels, not for add-ons, though I can see them eventually changing that?

Albino Squirrel wrote:
I wish they had gotten some sculpts done for the Sayx or Harvesters since the last Kickstarter. I'd really like some idea how those will turn out.

They have not done any for the Harvesters that I know of yet. Given how they have translated the existing sculpts so far, based on their sketches I'm fairly sure they will be pretty good. As for Sayx they did do Tarko Staklen and also have a video looking him over:

 Bacms wrote:

 Malkaven wrote:
have they said if they want you to add shipping to the pledge of if post KS is ok?

Their reply was basically: "It is up to you"

I would still recommended people to do it now as it adds to the campaign total but if you can't no problem in adding it later

The counterpoint to that would be that enhancing the pledge level with your shipping hurts FF twice. First it artificially enhances their total and increases the likelihood of having to give people free stuff with no extra sales to compensate and secondly it means Kickstarter and Amazon payments will take their cut of the shipping, whereas if it is added later via a pledge manager or direct requests then the cut from whatever servic they use is normally considerably smaller.

Yeah, I'd definitely say it is smarter and more helpful for Scale Games if people do NOT add in their shipping now!

Maybe somebody should mention that in the FF comments as folk are actually starting to add postage costs on. If Artemis mentions it people will do the opposite what he recommends.

 Pilgrim_uk wrote:
Maybe somebody should mention that in the FF comments as folk are actually starting to add postage costs on. If Artemis mentions it people will do the opposite what he recommends.

At this point I would want until we at least pass 90K. I would like to hear what they keep hinting at. Other than upgrading the PDF playmats to actual playmats or adding a booster, I'm not sure what new 'hidden' surprise they have. They seem to think it will be great... which it could be but I also know sometimes creators think something is really cool and everyone else is like 'meh'.

Gotta love the Internet. The guy who was repeatedly claiming the last Kickstarter was in plastic is now responsible for multiple people adding their postage to their pledge. I'm pretty certain I saw Scale say 'You can add it you want' instad of 'please God don't add it now' so to be fair he's not entirely to blame.

(I am assuming it's because he just says things in longform with bg words rather than he argued with me and I'm Satan ala Pilgrims explanation ).

I think the big news is the addition of the campaign book?

Update #15

Nov 20 2014

Up next... Tharken 17 Campaign!
1 comment
8 likes

Hello everyone,

Here is a list of the content you can expect to find on our painting DVD:

Ares

Painting armor: Ares armor painting process, including alternative schemes.
Battle wear: We will use some techniques to simulate aging and chipping damage from combat.

Riffs

Musculature: We will paint a berseker to see the techniques used in muscle painting adapted to Riff skin tones.
Weapons: We will see color schemes for different guns and mixes to make your army stand out on the field.

Sayx

Faces: We will use a Sayx to watch the painting process of a human face. Also we will reveal the secret to give them a realistic apearance.
Clothes: We'll paint a Sayx uniform with an alternative scheme and see how to paint fabric wrinkles.

Harvesters

Non-Metallic Metals: Techniques for painting armor pieces in a stunning non-metalic style.
Skin Effects: We will review tricks to apply putrefaction and injuries on the battered Harvester skin.

$95,000 - Tharken 17 Campaign [FREE]

 Alpharius wrote:
Yeah, I'd definitely say it is smarter and more helpful for Scale Games if people do NOT add in their shipping now!

In the short term it really shouldn't matter. For the purpose of running a campaign, numbers always increasing are actually more useful than not increasing. Part of proper planning for a KS, the project manager should have already calculated the Kickstarter and Amazon fee's to determine their actual fund goal, along with stretch goals. KS does charge 5% and amazon charges 3-5% (depending if the funds came from a bank account, US credit card, International credit card or amazon stored funds).

It also greatly depends on what backer kit / pledge manager service they use. They could create their own and bypass a lot of fee's, there still tend to be credit card fees though for them. It is usually easier to use a service, then you don't have to deal with any security issues on your side. For an example I'll use the most common one used today, which is backerkit.com. It could potentially be worse depending on what backer kit service they use and what plan/services they use. Some backer kits charge 2-5% of your campaign funds and can have a clause to pull another 0-20% of funds raised in the backer kit. It is all really planning on the project manager side to determine if they expect to get a lot of dollars coming from the kit or if they don't. And some people have made the wrong choice unfortunately because they didn't think there would be a lot of add-ons.

For an example let us say it would of been $100,000 KS campaign if everyone added in shipping costs.

Now let's say that same campaign did end at $100,000, everyone included their shipping as part of the campaign.

So using the above examples and numbers, lets be a little more realistic. Given its the holiday, how the campaign is going and the assortment of forces we can safely predict that they could gain another $50,000 through the pledge manager, especially if they decide to open it up to new backers. Infamy is already at $7200, MERCS Recon is well past $150,000... granted I'm not putting this on that scale so I'm basing it off a combination of KS data.


Starting with our $100,000 campaign if everyone added in shipping costs, that ended at $85,606 because everyone didn't add in their shipping costs. Now we'll add in the $50,000 made in the pledge manager and recalculate:

Again the same campaign ending at $100,000, everyone included their shipping as part of the campaign. Now we'll add in the $50,000 made in the pledge manager and recalculate:

It is fairly clear that a larger campaign should be using Entrepreneur plan, although it has been my experience that a good portion still end up picking Standard plan. Again though the differences in amounts, in terms of when they add shipping aren't that great. You aren't saving the company themselves a lot of money. It is a double edged sword though, because by not adding in shipping you could be hurting your campaign if people don't believe stretch goals are obtainable. That tends to have to do with the stretch goal choices, the amount differences between stretch goals, when they reveal, etc. There unfortunately isn't one set of rules to follow as each campaign tends to operate slightly different in terms of what their backers want and directions they can go.

In the case of FF since we're dealing with $10k stretch goals, there is more than enough leeway to account for inflation from the shipping... in particular it would be more helpful for their campaign. Some campaigns when they have $5k stretch goals and they are throwing freebies left and right or new sculpts, it could potentially could bite them in the end. Infamy for example had stretch goals varying from $2000-$7000 between. They weren't bad stretch goals, their market is slightly different and it worked out for them. Mercs on the other hand had $30-50k, but you were getting a lot of miniatures because they were in plastic. They are also a bigger company so the tooling was for plastic, they are also bigger company. FF given what they are given out though couldn't follow either of those paths, they sort of have to develop their own. Some of them have been pretty good and some are average but overall I don't think there will be issues. So far they have given themselves enough leeway and room given the information that is out there.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Alpharius wrote:
I think the big news is the addition of the campaign book?

Unfortunately that is kind of a meh for me. Campaigns can be popular but since they haven't released enough information, demo's of gameplay and what that campaign includes... it doesn't pull me in. I'm sure, it will however for those that like Harvesters. If it came with a couple miniatures or a boss or some new mechanic, then maybe it could be interesting.

After skimming through rules though, starting to sort through fighting styles... I'm going to make a modified home brew and call it Craft Wars (can't call it Star Craft and can't call it Star Wars)... but for some reason playing Star Craft reminded me of this game. It is probably due to the resource management, gaining minerals, managing your forces. Drop your command center, troops on planet, use them to create your foot-hold to move forward and create more troops. I could fashion Ares Troopers like Terrain Marines. ^_^

I still think it is a mistake to include shipping now and have it potentially 'unlock' stretch goals - but I guess this is only a problem if they're not smart about it, and they seem to be a bit better...prepared and organized this time around.

I'm just glad to see this one doing well and moving forward.

I love the look of almost everything here...

A lot of assuming a lot of things DCM and I will assume the Project manager knows what he is doing. They do read this forum and this thread have said nothing here so silence is acceptance that they are willing to take a hit or not.

Most campaigns do have people add on shipping... I think I've actually only backed 1 or 2 campaigns (out of almost 100!) where I had to add it on later.

I think smart creators account for it in their stretch goals already... but certainly having it be "optional" to add it is probably not ideal, as you can't totally account for it either way then in calculating how much has been raised.

In all KS in which I participated, I pay for shipping during the KS and when I get the PM runs using that money to buy things and I had to pay again for shipping
So after all might not be bad idea

Caballero Negro wrote:
In all KS in which I participated, I pay for shipping during the KS and when I get the PM runs using that money to buy things and I had to pay again for shipping
So after all might not be bad idea

Actually, that's a very good point, and will probably be the case for many of us here too!

Yeah, seems to me it makes more sense for the companies running the KS projects to not charge for shipping until they last minute when they have the actual shipping costs.

Both strategies make sense in some ways, but certain creators (like Tre Manor) have tried both and gone back to just charging a fee for it during the campaign.

It's a bit of a logistical headache to get every backer to pay you twice - most campaigns seem to have backers they can't get in touch with easily afterwards, which means they'll have rewards sitting around that they cannot ship, but which they can't get rid of, either.

So yeah, I personally really prefer to pay for everything at once, but I can understand campaigns which charge separately.

I guess it is an added incentive to ship 'on time'.

I can only imagine how much 'extra shipping' Kingdom Death is going to have to pay now...

 Alpharius wrote:
I guess it is an added incentive to ship 'on time'.

I can only imagine how much 'extra shipping' Kingdom Death is going to have to pay now...

Yeup.

I think it's probably very different for someone like Tre that is shipping miniatures only, as opposed to here and with companies like CMoN, MERCS, etc, that are shipping large packages with tons of add on options.

If Adam laid out to us how much he's going to end up having to pay extra for shipping, I could probably be persuaded (who am I kidding, almost certainly would be) to pay a little bit more for shipping because I don't want him to get completely fethed by that, because I do care about the product line and his long term business health.

It wouldn't surprise me one bit if the additional resin releases we're seeing are to help defer some of those shipping costs.

It's not so much of a hassle if you aren't offering 'free stuff' stretch goals as then it only hits you once and you can account for it much more easily.

In a campaign like this though, with a heavy boxset and therefore high shipping costs then the main thing that I'd be worried about is that if this hits 700 backers, which I think is a reasonable number, then that's 700 x $25-$60, let's be generous and say an average shipping of $35, 700 of those is 25 'thousand' dollars. Added to your campaign, unlocking 2-3 stretch goals, possibly of freebies so zero increase in actual sales (There may be a minor increase in sales if the unlocks are add ons). For example if you added that right now they'd have to give away pretty much a thousand free figures. So they have to hope this falls on unlock stretch goals, which normally are more common in the middle stages of a campaign while freebies get put in at the end to help with the closing spike.

Sending out shipping invoices manually via Paypal will net around $7-800 in fees, leting KIckstarter and Amazon take a chunk nets around $2000+. I'd pay someone to send shipping invoices later to save over a thousand dollars not even taking into account the possible thousands of free minis.

While we're talking numbers, it occurs to me that our previous calculations/estimates of costs to them etc. have't taken into account VAT. This kickstarter will almost certainly qualify them for it, if they aren't VAT registered as Scale 75 already. I doubt incorporating in Texas will help as the work is being done in Spain.

 Artemis Black wrote:
It's not so much of a hassle if you aren't offering 'free stuff' stretch goals as then it only hits you once and you can account for it much more easily.

In

It is if you have purchasable add-ons at all.

Honestly, I think the way CMoN is doing it now is probably the best way to do it. You estimate shipping, and then you have actual shipping at the end. The only better way is probably offering a "shipping credit."

I get that shipping is a pain in the ass for everyone involved, but I think, as a whole, we're far too spoiled by Amazon and Amazon Prime shipping. We shouldn't expect small companies running a KS to subsidize our shipping costs.

 cincydooley wrote:
Honestly, I think the way CMoN is doing it now is probably the best way to do it.

I'm shocked that you would say this, cincy, absolutely shocked

(Just kidding )

 RiTides wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
Honestly, I think the way CMoN is doing it now is probably the best way to do it.

I'm shocked that you would say this, cincy, absolutely shocked

(Just kidding )

That's fair

But really, the free shipping is nice and all, but I don't mind paying for shipping. Again, I think Amazon has spoiled a lot of people and given them unrealistic expectations regarding shipping in general.

"Free Shipping" is a ship that sailed a while ago in terms of Kickstarters.

Probably right around the same time we all thought projects would still mostly ship on time!