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Have to be honest Mercs has passed me by until this point. Not because it doesn't look cool, but the 'small skirmish near-future sci-fi' niche has been filled by Infinity for me - and I think that game is very tough to beat when it comes to sculpt quality.

But, if this is going to be a board game, am definitely a lot more interested! Will be watching with interest.

I think we're in the same boat there Pacific - INFINITY fits the bill perfectly for me too...

These pics are of the metal minis that have been base coated in grey,....

Agree w/ Psychotic Stom: I'd imagine that they would use the same material as the MYTH minis,.... I have those in-hand: and the plastic is pretty darned good. I'd say somewhere between PP and GW.

now,... there is no guarantee, until the KS page goes up; but in only makes sense for board game minis to be plastic, and for them to go with what they know from the MYTH project. My BIG question is how they will be set up to work with bases? will there be easy cross over with the tabletop game? I would have to think that they would do this (either have them on 30mm bases,... or maybe on a smaller flat base that could easily be glued to the top of a 30mm base for use in the tabletop game.

I hope we all find out on Wednesday of this week!!!!

There is little sense to make a boardgame minis that need extensive assembly (meaning really big guy who would not otherwise fit in box slotting part A to part B) or not been plastic, since this is the expected minimum from the boardgame community.

The minis shown don't appeal too much, and the statement issued is a tad aggressive for my delicate constitution. And as a non US backer there's the potential to get screwed a la Myth.

I'm a bit confused by all the uproar over their comments (in their own comments section).

I would think that every company would have faith that their product is good,... heck, I would think many feel that their game is the best. What is it about this that hacks everyone off?

To put it plainly, people feel the comment has arrogance that is not deserved given their performance so far, especially when directed to somebody else who despite whatever quality issues there might be, managed to get many projects delivered on time.

Should they have faith in their product, sure, but they should not express it that way and on a side note, when people say hey your product is nice and all, but there are many projects that compete for my wallet now and maybe yours could be better with some breathing space, they could listen a bit more.

DBX (sci fi sports boardgame)is a sequel, meaning it has already a following who is already committed, unlike their recon, the SDE (fantasy dungeon crawling boardgame) is again a sequel that has an already committed following and both are boardgames, if they think because their boardgame is a sci fi dungeon crawler that it will not have a vastly overlapping following they are really in delusion.

They have showed they can produce nice boardgame systems and I really like their art style, but in contrast with Myth were the sculpts fit their art style and are good, so far their Merc sculpts, recent examples from this thread, do not convince, I am not sure if their overall product would be as strong as they say and could beat to pulp the competition of two already established systems that have an already committed following.

Well seeing as how the games still haven't arrived in their warehouse, we'll probably not be seeing Recon until next week.

Shucks. Hopefully they can continue to tease out bit and pieces of info about it until then.

Confirmed in the Myth update it looks this won't start until they can ship at least 1 copy of Myth to a backer so they can say they've started so the longer the shipping delay the longer this gets pushed back.

.... Both deliveries (for Myth) delay the Recon KS. We were hoping to launch it Wednesday. At this point, it would be foolish. I suspect it will slip to next week.

New Myth comment -- Recon KS to start Friday 3/14!

Will be interesting to see this one.

 DaveC wrote:
Confirmed in the Myth update it looks this won't start until they can ship at least 1 copy of Myth to a backer so they can say they've started so the longer the shipping delay the longer this gets pushed back.

.... Both deliveries (for Myth) delay the Recon KS. We were hoping to launch it Wednesday. At this point, it would be foolish. I suspect it will slip to next week.

That's... an interesting reason. 1 copy?

If they can start shipping before the start of their next KS, they can stake a claim to some sort of moral high ground, I guess!

To be fair,... The only quote that came from them was that they wanted to be able to begin shipments prior to kicking off the new KS,.... No one ever claimed to want to ship just one box.

I've seen plenty of other Kickstarters launch a new campaign well prior to delivering the previous one.

I think the idea is that many of the domestic backers would have received an email confirmation with tracking number by the time RECON launches,.. And that the vast majority will have received that first shipment prior to the funding date for RECON.

Seems foolish to split their attention at such a time, when we know the focus will absolutely be on securing more funding for the second campaign.

Why is it a bad idea to make sure you've started fulfilling orders from the previous KS before starting a new one? Besides, it isn't like you need the entire company's staff covering KS updates. 1 or 2 people could probably cover the MERCS KS while the rest of the staff work on fulfillment.

No, I mean they should finish Wave 1 fulfilment before starting the new campaign, instead of waiting until they've essentially shipped 1 box so they can start the new campaign.

1 or 2 people to cover KS updates? How many employees do you think most of these small companies actually have? Typically when a KS starts, the publicity blitz starts, and it's all hands on board/online for pimping their new wares.

It's pretty transparently so they can add "and we're now shipping our previous campaign" in the Risks and Challenges section and point to it when people ask "Hey, where's my overdue stuff from the last campaign?"

 RiTides wrote:

 DaveC wrote:
Confirmed in the Myth update it looks this won't start until they can ship at least 1 copy of Myth to a backer so they can say they've started so the longer the shipping delay the longer this gets pushed back.

.... Both deliveries (for Myth) delay the Recon KS. We were hoping to launch it Wednesday. At this point, it would be foolish. I suspect it will slip to next week.

That's... an interesting reason. 1 copy?

Yeah I was just being somewhat facetious that said they showed a picture of the very first box ready for shipping

So Friday it is busy weekend with 2 ending and potentially 2 starting

 Azazelx wrote:
No, I mean they should finish Wave 1 fulfilment before starting the new campaign, instead of waiting until they've essentially shipped 1 box so they can start the new campaign.

1 or 2 people to cover KS updates? How many employees do you think most of these small companies actually have? Typically when a KS starts, the publicity blitz starts, and it's all hands on board/online for pimping their new wares.

It's pretty transparently so they can add "and we're now shipping our previous campaign" in the Risks and Challenges section and point to it when people ask "Hey, where's my overdue stuff from the last campaign?"

I understand the sentiment here. I think that it would be great if it all worked that way (that companies could wait so that we have proof positive that they know what they are doing).

You say that they are a small company,.... and I think that is a big driver here,..... They are no longer just a few friends running a side business out of a basement. They are now a full time business; and that means that they have business plans, schedules, rent, salaries to pay, etc.

In the time during the delay of the MYTH shipment; a business can't just sit on their hands (all the MYTH design work is done,.... just waiting on production and shipment). So they have been busy moving forward with a couple of other projects that will release this year outside of KS, and on RECON (play testing, art, video, and all other sorts of Kickstarter prep). They have admitted that the KS campaign has been ready to go for some time,... but that they wanted to wait to begin the MYTH fulfillment (which I think is to be commended)

But, they can't just keep pushing this launch back....... they have schedules to meet,.... cross promotions with other projects,... plans for convention tie ins, etc...

I'd imagine that this will follow a similar path to MYTH,.... start in March, end in April, ship in Jan (yeah,.... estimated)

That's understandable, yamato, but there's a business incentive for them to wait, too- KS1 backers no supporting the next campaign until they've at least seen Something from their prior investment.

I.e. voting with your wallet... businesses listen to that. They'll probably do fine anyway, but I'm not so sure that starting a month earlier than what would otherwise generate quite a bit of buzz and goodwill (assuming the product from the first is good?) is such a smart business move, after all.

Yes, by all means they should have been working on it while waiting for the other to deliver... but with it being so close to delivering it'd odd to push forward instead of waiting a month or so.

At the end of the day, is the "timing" of the Kickstarter so crucial for a full/blown "Kickstarter-company".

They can "push-back" the MERCS Recon Kickstarter itself, without necessarily pushing back the MERCS Recon Delivery (much), and simply have a more polished product (by another week or three) when they do Kickstart it (and thus possibly more to show for non-Myth backers, as well as the good will of Myth-backers). They might get the money a month later, but more of it.

The "but-its-just-preorder" criticism might come up, but that one is rarely heard there days and might well be the lesser evil for them in their current situation.

all good points,.... though I'm not sure how to define a "Kickstarter Company" ???

is that a company that started on KS,... or one that does their primary business on KS?

They have been around for a while with their MERCS IP,.... but only recently moved into other areas. It looks like KS will be integral in their future plans; but apart from the core MERCS products they are also coming to market this year with several others outside of KS (Conflict, Emergence Event, and the MERCS RPG)

@RiTides - I think the idea is that their domestic backers will have it before the RECON KS ends,... so I'm not sure that waiting two more weeks would change things much? by the time Friday hits,... their estimates have 1000 to 2500 wave one shipments completed (all with an e-mail and tracking info to the backers),.... the excitement of people getting MYTH during the campaign just might be a big catalyst for this KS,.... but who knows? I surely do not.

 yamato wrote:
all good points,.... though I'm not sure how to define a "Kickstarter Company" ???

is that a company that started on KS,... or one that does their primary business on KS?

I would define it as a company where people are thought to be, as you put it, "just sit on their hands", when there isn't a Kickstarter running. The implication is that Kickstarter campaign(s) are critical to their companies finances. If they weren't, they could just do another 6 months (or 6 years) of non-Kickstarter stuff (e.g. MERCS) without an issue.

If there is pressure to have "kickstarters running" so that company isn't in some kind of unprofitable idle state, I would call it a "Kickstarter-company".

 yamato wrote:

I understand the sentiment here. I think that it would be great if it all worked that way (that companies could wait so that we have proof positive that they know what they are doing).
You say that they are a small company,.... and I think that is a big driver here,..... They are no longer just a few friends running a side business out of a basement. They are now a full time business; and that means that they have business plans, schedules, rent, salaries to pay, etc.

In the time during the delay of the MYTH shipment; a business can't just sit on their hands (all the MYTH design work is done,.... just waiting on production and shipment). So they have been busy moving forward with a couple of other projects that will release this year outside of KS, and on RECON (play testing, art, video, and all other sorts of Kickstarter prep). They have admitted that the KS campaign has been ready to go for some time,... but that they wanted to wait to begin the MYTH fulfillment (which I think is to be commended)

But, they can't just keep pushing this launch back....... they have schedules to meet,.... cross promotions with other projects,... plans for convention tie ins, etc...
I'd imagine that this will follow a similar path to MYTH,.... start in March, end in April, ship in Jan (yeah,.... estimated)

But.. using that logic, they should have already started the new campaign. Why not go full pelt on 300-500 per day (their estimate) for 10 days and send them all out (not counting us overseas scum) before starting the new campaign? They've been delaying the start of the new campaign for weeks so far simply for PR purposes. Why not delay it for another 10 days and make all the backers happy? Not to mention being able to ship the base game to wholesale and retail and add it to their webstore to start making actual money faster once they finish base game fulfilment to (US) backers.

If their rent and salaries are dependant on getting cash in quick for Mercs to pay their wages and rent, then they may find they're in real trouble before too long. Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul rarely works out well long-term.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 yamato wrote:

@RiTides - I think the idea is that their domestic backers will have it before the RECON KS ends,... so I'm not sure that waiting two more weeks would change things much? by the time Friday hits,... their estimates have 1000 to 2500 wave one shipments completed (all with an e-mail and tracking info to the backers),.... the excitement of people getting MYTH during the campaign just might be a big catalyst for this KS,.... but who knows? I surely do not.

Well, it can affect how much of a big, healthy start their new campaign has, along with overwhelming positive happy bunny thoughts from people with brand-new toys in the comments with relatively few "Where's my fething stuff?" posts and no need for a Disgruntled vs White Knight gak fight since it sidesteps that situation before it could happen rather than creating it.

Preview up on Beasts of War:

http://www.beastsofwar.com/mercs/lock-load-mercs-recon-coming/

Some cool new pics:

Tile images-


Player Board-


Security Forces Cards (non MERCS enemies)-


Enemy AI Cards (Movement & Event)-


Finally; what looks like an expanded room scenario tile called "Breach and Clear"-


If you go to the link at the top of the post you can also see one of the EUInc minis that we have not seen as well as one of the Security Forces minis.

The tiles seems very cartooney to me, not sure I like them or not....

Yeah I have to agree on the tiles - it suited Myth not so sure about these though they look very sparse (or under detailed at least) perhaps they are WIP.

Not sure this is a day one for me more of a wait and see but Myth got me right at the end it became to good to pass up.

It needs tweaking in my opinion, the style fitted Myth tremendously, but needs work for Mercs.

I really like Keith's art and actually really really like the mercs minis I have. They're about the closest thing, IMO, to good Infinity stand ins.

I'd like to see my copy of Myth hit my doorstep, but I have faith in Keith and Brian.

I like Keith's art, but I do not like most of Mercs models, I feel they fail to translate his art in miniature form, something Myth has done at a really good level.