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Due to the mad rush of people over to the couple of massive campaigns that started in the last few days we have a small number of early bird pledges have opened up!
We also have a new limited quantity pledge level coming later today which I think people are REALLY going to like :-)
So, we are in our final week! We have a whole host of cool stuff to show you and reveal in this final week and we are starting off by unlocking an amazing new pledge level which is limited to just 40 places because it is SUCH good value we can't give away TOO many :-)
A lot of people expressed an interest in pro-painted miniatures but didn't want to jump up to the 'Artistic Director' level to get ALL their game models painted (of which there are a couple still available for anyone who wants the ULTIMATE reward level!)...
Also, people wanted to see a pledge level that included the two most exciting newly unlocked miniatures 'D1X1E the robot stripper and 'Strong Man' the genetic mutant as standard rather than having to buy them as extras...
So... we have listened!
The new 'Managing Director' pledge level includes EVERYTHING in the 'Director' pledge level including all stretch goals already unlocked (and any we unlock in this last week) PLUS those two new miniatures PLUS it also includes your choice of ANY one EXTRA human sized miniature available in the campaign pro-painted by Slayer Sword winning painter and creator of Armoured Syndicate, Ben Jarvis!
Here is the AMAZING bundle you get:
We are also close to unlocking TWO new stretch-goals which will both involve adding FREE items to the 'Director' and 'Managing Director' level pledges so your reward bundle will only keep getting better as this last week progresses!
We also hope to have some very, VERY exciting news about a cross-over with another live project later this week which, for backers of both, means yet ANOTHER free miniature!
So, my thanks again for all the support for this campaign so far, please, keep sharing the campaign wherever you can and keep up the discussion on the games forums and social media!
Talking of which, we have now reached our limit for the competition so all 20 of the free sample miniatures have now been claimed. If you have messaged us and/or replied to the last update to tel us you have completed the task, then congratulations, you are getting a FREE miniature!
Look for another cool competition for MORE free stuff coming later this week!
Thank you all!
Ben & the AS team
that new pledge level is great value, especially considering one of the human sized minis will be painted by Ben Jarvis
Since we opened the new pledge level a LOAD of the lower level Early Bird pledges have opened up as people upgrade!
There are a good few of the £52 'Executive' level Early Birds open which gets you the full boxed game with 10 high-end resin miniatures including one large mech, plus a bunch of free stretch goal items..
Then there's now more than 10 of the £109 'Director' level Early Birds now open which get you the game, plus an extra MASSIVE mech, four other add-on miniatures PLUS another 5 free stretch-goal miniatures already unlocked PLUS two other new miniatures we are about to release this afternoon! You are now getting about £200+ value of miniatures and game for half price with this pledge!
Can't really afford to go above executive right now. Will there be more stretch goals there or is everything moving forward going to be for the higher end levels?
Betsy, an AI cruise missile has been unlocked, and the Tarantula - a 130mm high Dromeda robot - has been conditionally unlocked (*). Lastly Small Paul - a member of the Vegas gang - has been added for FREE (subject to T&Cs).
This is proving to be an interesting project.
(*) The Tarantula will be unlocked if 12 people pledge for it, so far 11 have said the will.
Now it to its last 20 hours. Two new stretch goals unlocked: the Towering Tarantula mech and a pair of casino chips (to continue the Vegas theme) which count as luck tokens in the game.
With 11 stretch goals unlocked and one more very cool one to go... I wonder if we can unlock the full 3rd faction for the game in these last few hours/!
Check out our Halloween reveal of the last member of the 'Vegas Freaks' faction 'Giggles the clown' below... plus have a look at the massive bundle of premium resin miniatures you now get in the 'Director' level pledge!!
So this is supposed to be "backers only" but I'm not a fan of that. Other people need to know what's up with these guys..
Sculpting progress and pledge manager
Dear backers
Firstly my thanks for your patience over the last few weeks, I want to start by giving you a bit of an explanation as to why things have not been moving as fast as expected and where we are with the project before showing some pics of the sculpting progress on the new models etc. Sorry, this is a bit of a long one!
So, I have always been of the opinion, from my first Kickstarter campaign back in 2013 onwards (this represents the 6th campaign I've run) that it is best to be 100% open and honest with backers from the start. To keep them informed about what is going on and involved in any decision making process that will affect what they receive for the money they have invested in me and my idea above all else. I have gained the nickname 'Captain Overshare' as a result but so far, my experience has shown that being as open as possible is by far the best way to operate.
So, I have a couple of issues at present that have delayed things.
Firstly, the biggest issue is the amount of money raised by the campaign versus the amount of work still to be done to get it into production...
Of course we had VERY good advice from the best games creators and games company owners in the industry and reason to believe the campaign would raise a minimum of double what it actually ended up raising so we have started from a significant disadvantage from where we expected to be. What I guess a lot of people wouldn't realise with a Kickstarter like this is that the money needs to not just cover the production of the physical goods but the salary/time of whoever is doing all the design work, graphics, layout, logistics, ordering etc to make it all happen.
There was approximately £500 or so left available after all bills were paid and production costs taken into account from our campaign, at present that has been spent and there is about 350 man hours or more of work still to be done to reach the point we can start shipping the game. As I am essentially a 1 man company with no other source of income OTHER than Black Phoenix Games Ltd, that means 2 months of my work, which can't be paid for. After that is done, I then need to undertake a further 200+ hours of miniature painting to get all the painted models done that have been requested, another 6 weeks or so of work which currently can't be paid for as the campaign didn't raise enough to cover that time.
To compound the problem, (and I am not going into significant personal details at this stage) we had a very serious medical diagnosis in my close family about the time the campaign ended which has meant I have lost a lot of time the last few months and will continue to do so until May. To further make matters more difficult another family member seriously injured themselves and had to be nursed in my house for 5 weeks over Christmas meaning further weeks of my time were lost.
We're now at a stage where I am simply having to spend what time I have doing work that will bring in an income to support my family for the next few months. Work is still progressing on Armoured Syndicate but it is of course MUCH slower than originally anticipated, I had hoped to have all artwork done and be going to production of the printed materials by now and there is still hundreds of hours of work to be done before production can begin.
So... I wanted to again thank you all for your patience as things have not gone as well or as fast as I had planned when the campaign launched. I have held off putting the pledge manager live because: A: the final sculpts are still not yet completed but should be done by next week, B: I have not yet had time to complete the massive amount of work required to get that manager system up and running but mainly C: I wanted to make a decision as to how best to proceed with the project, what delays there were likely to be and what I can do to fulfill the project as close to on time as I can... BEFORE asking for any more money from anyone for shipping etc.
So... as you'll see below, sculpting is progressing... Small Paul, the cross-over miniature with Purgatory is now pretty much complete and looking suitably evil...
We are also pretty close to a finished sculpt for the Tarantula, the Sentinel turrets and the 'Giggles' clown robot as well, I'll send images of those when they come in, probably within the next day or two.
In terms of the pledge manager.... I will continue over the next week or two to determine the best way forwards for you as backers and for me to stay on top of things and put forward some proposals in the next update in a week or two from now.
Please don't think this means the campaign will not be fulfilled... it will, I just need to determine the best way to do that, how long it will take and, above all else, give you guys who have invested in me and my idea, the chance to have a say in how we move forwards.
My sincere thanks one last time for your support and patience, we still have the scenery project waiting in the wings but again, I want to make a decision on what we are doing to move Armoured Syndicate forwards before continuing with any more work on that.
You are always welcome to e-mail me at: ben@blackphoenixgames.com and I'll be happy to answer questions and chat about the project, you can also reply to this update (though that may take longer to answer) and message me through Kickstarter directly or through our Facebook page.
All the very best
Ben
So.. first.. in the campaign page, they identified this as the 3rd campaign they've run. Second, they seem to have lied about the planning and even production. Prodos is their mini manufacturer. Third, this is not their first doom and gloom style update. The ship seems to be sinking and the captain is occasionally poking his head out to tell us everything will be ok. I'm sympathetic to the personal problems but I feel like they're stringing backers along until there are no options left but to either gouge us to cover the disparity in cost or try to do a nondeliver or some other situation.
I assume that those phantom Kickstarters were ones he participated in working under a different company. still, I went in low because I was afraid something like this might happen. The previous one did actually deliver though, didn't it?
Again, to be open about things the main problem I've had progressing the Armoured Syndicate project has stemmed from the fact that the actual funding target to cover the time and costs to get the game and models produced was about £25,000 minimum. No we didn't ask for £25K but it's what we expected as the minimum amount the game would raise and, as any creator will tell you, setting a funding target is not just about deciding what a project will cost and plugging that number in to Kickstarter. The big games companies often only set targets of $30,000 to $50,000 for their games with 100+ plastic miniatures in them. The tooling for those miniatures cost $100,000+ so if that's what they raised they'd be out of business, but it's a calculated risk based on performance of past projects, performance of other similar games and products and a whole host of other factors with the aim of having a very small target you break rapidly and then plough through stretch goals to maintain momentum.
We took advice and predictions from the biggest and best in the business, I mean literally the largest and most experienced companies in the Kickstarter games world, as well as having seen/worked with dozens of campaigns along similar lines by our friends and colleagues. We had a pretty good grounding to predict a final funding total of between £30,000 and £50,000 based on the work done, the style of game, the big name game designer used and the work/money spent on development and marketing.
No, I'm not sure what went wrong, a few games that should have raised £50,000+ last Sept, Oct fell flat and didn't raise anywhere near what was expected, it may have been bad timing, it may have been market saturation, we still aren't sure, but it has meant that us and at least a few other small games companies have had to abandon crowd-funded games as a viable commercial venture. The risks are just way too high.
Armoured syndicate cost about £50,000 to get to Kickstarter, I knew that was a risk to invest that in developing a miniatures game but it seemed likely we'd make that back within a year of launch if the game did vaguely as well as other similar miniatures games with a similar size figure range. It turned out it was in fact a bad investment.
The plan after the campaign ended was of course to immediately hit the pledge manager and try to raise a further £5000 - £6000 to cover the shortfall but having then looked at the time required and the costs involved it appeared we'd need to raise £12,000+ in the pledge manager to get the game to market and that's extremely unlikely, generally a pledge manager will raise between 25% and 30% of what the campaign raised.
We of course made the decision earlier this year to postpone the game itself and just focus on getting the miniatures made, which saves a few thousand pounds of expenditure and a couple of months of man-hours on rule development and packaging etc but has had a double effect on the commercial prospects for the project. Firstly, by no longer having a boxed board game to promote, our hopes of raising more in the pledge manager by promoting the game more have diminished, likewise, our plans to sell the game to retail have evaporated as well as we no longer have a game to sell. The other effect to take into account is that we are expecting to have to pay out £2000+ in refunds to the backers for the loss of the boxed game (as mentioned in previous updates) should everyone want the refund instead of more miniatures.
So... where do we stand and what's the plan?
Ok, well, first off the current situation is that, we need to get the pledge manager up and running and try and raise enough money from that to cover postage costs plus the refunds. We also need to cover the £3K or so shortfall in cost of production we need to fill from expenditure from the original campaign funds on finishing the sculpting etc that was paid out as soon as the funds hit our account.
In total we need to raise about a further £8000 or so to ensure we can get the refunds paid and the miniatures shipped out to everyone.
That sounds a lot but about £2,000 of that is guaranteed as no shipping costs were charged on the campaign so all of those still need to come in via the pledge manager.
What else are we doing?
Well, we had planned a couple of other mini campaigns and other things to raise funds which we are, for now, incorporating into the pledge manager to make it a bigger deal and to attract more new backers/customers.
Firstly we are including the scenery elements we had already developed for Armoured Syndicate when it was to be a skirmish game in the pledge manager. These have already been developed and sculpting paid for so we might as well include them. This is likely to include all of the scenic elements shown in the first AS campaign as you can see below:
Basically It's so hard doing this give me money for extras so i can get out what you paid for he then lays out a timeline.
Spoiler:
So... I have spent some of the past week putting together a proper plan of what needs to be done and when it needs to be done by to keep things on track. I have to be realistic with my health and time available whilst maintaining an income from my other work otherwise I risk causing myself even greater issues later down the line. With that in mind here is how I see thing progressing now:
Mid June: I will have the 3D models of all the remaining miniatures over to our 3D printers/casters for production. At this point I will have final accurate pricing for every figure.
Early to mid July: I will launch the pledge manager (including all the extras mentioned above) and will begin PR for that to raise extra funds.
Mid August: I will begin placing orders for miniatures and show you all some work in progress as the first batches of figures begin to be delivered.
Mid to late August: I will launch a mini campaign for the steampunk etched detailing parts under our 'Etch-Master' brand and hope that raises a few thousand of extra profit which will go towards Armoured Syndicate production and fulfillment.
Late August: The pledge manager will close and we will place final orders.
Early to mid September: Fulfillment will begin on all rewards.
Early October: We will aim to have shipped all of the AS rewards by this stage.
November: We will re-assess what to do with Armoured Syndicate and will consider whether it is worth pursuing another launch to get the game made in it's current format or whether we look at other options.
I am confident that is a realistic timeline from this stage forwards and gives me enough time to keep on top of everything and keep enough funds coming in to fulfill the best quality set of miniatures and accessories I can whilst keeping my own head above water financially.
I want to take this opportunity to thank the backers again for supporting the AS idea and my design vision for this near-future universe of rusty mechs and Latin outlaws, it's still something I have a lot of personal love for and I want to do the best I can with it under difficult circumstances. I am always open to ideas and suggestions from all of you on any front so please, e-mail or message me at any point, I am always here and will try to answer messages and e-mails as fast as I can.
Only now do I realize how much I prefer Pete Haines' "misprints" to Gav Thorpe's "brainfarts." :Abadabadoobaddon
It is because of stuff like this... that makes things unfortunately harder for "smaller" Kickstarters to be successful. If you know you needed "X Money", whether you set your goal for that and you weren't making towards the end of the campaign, then they should have canceled the campaign. It really is that simple. The missing money isn't going to miraculously appear. If they didn't know they needed "X Money" before the end, then it is being done wrong.
I guess it was a good thing I pulled out at the end. I almost stuck it in, because some of it looked interesting. I also like pledging to newer companies but I didn't like all the designs, there were other Kickstarters so I pulled out.
This is also exactly why I ran small campaigns, even though I've actually worked and been part of larger campaigns. I knew this was me solo essentially. I had to cancel because we weren't making the goal. I talked to some investors, pulled some strings and basically got a loan to cover a good chunk and relaunched with a smaller goal. Although it does suck to only do a small part and not do the whole thing, it is all about baby steps.
That is a shame though. I hate hearing about these type of things happening.
Dark Severance wrote: It is because of stuff like this... that makes things unfortunately harder for "smaller" Kickstarters to be successful. If you know you needed "X Money", whether you set your goal for that and you weren't making towards the end of the campaign, then they should have canceled the campaign. It really is that simple. The missing money isn't going to miraculously appear. If they didn't know they needed "X Money" before the end, then it is being done wrong.
He should have but he couldn't or he would have lost all the IP. Long story short if you backed his Etchmaster campaign you learned due to some accounting mistakes his company Megaton went insolvent and he had to by back all the IP and models for the new one. If he canceled this campaign then he wouldn't have had money to do that and I guess they would have gone to auction? Not really sure about UK law on this stuff. Anyway here's the quote on that from etchmaster kser:
We've held off re-launching Armoured Syndicate as long as we can but... I'll be honest, we've had no income of any kind for 6 months now and the new company has GOT to pay to buy back the assets of the old one (yep, we have to pay for stuff we already own again!) and that bill falls due in November... we have borrowed all we can borrow and now, we HAVE to get some more income flowing before we loose the second company in a year.
Dark Severance wrote: It is because of stuff like this... that makes things unfortunately harder for "smaller" Kickstarters to be successful. If you know you needed "X Money", whether you set your goal for that and you weren't making towards the end of the campaign, then they should have canceled the campaign. It really is that simple. The missing money isn't going to miraculously appear. If they didn't know they needed "X Money" before the end, then it is being done wrong.
He should have but he couldn't or he would have lost all the IP. Long story short if you backed his Etchmaster campaign you learned due to some accounting mistakes his company Megaton went insolvent and he had to by back all the IP and models for the new one. If he canceled this campaign then he wouldn't have had money to do that and I guess they would have gone to auction? Not really sure about UK law on this stuff. Anyway here's the quote on that from etchmaster kser:
We've held off re-launching Armoured Syndicate as long as we can but... I'll be honest, we've had no income of any kind for 6 months now and the new company has GOT to pay to buy back the assets of the old one (yep, we have to pay for stuff we already own again!) and that bill falls due in November... we have borrowed all we can borrow and now, we HAVE to get some more income flowing before we loose the second company in a year.
BUT.. he DIDN'T have money to buy it back.. he had money to make freaking miniatures.. ARG this pisses me off.
So much for being transparent. Sounds like this guy doesn't belong anywhere near a business. He desperately needed cash to buy back unprofitable IP, then blamed others when he knowingly raised below his requirements.
What a clusterfeth. This is why KS is now the domain of established companies. All this guy has done is ensure the next time someone comes to KS with an idea and a dream, people won't back them. Great job guy.
