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 insaniak wrote:

... why then is Infinity one of the best if not thee best selling Sci fi tabletop small scale skirmish game in the market place?

Because it's a good game?

It is a good game, but the miniatures are also gorgeous. Issues of true/heroic scale aside, Infinity has some really sexy miniatures (and I'm not just talking about the ones in tight catsuits). There might be some people who don't like any Infinity miniatures, and those people are called Al-qaeda.

Desirable miniatures are undeniably important for drawing people into a game. I would say more important than rules or fluff. I know I certainly didn't buy SDE because I really wanted to roll dice that have tiny hearts on them. I just liked the miniatures and thought I would check it out.

I think that's what is really missing from Maelstroms Edge. There are no models there that I just have to have. The Epirians might have hooked me in with the multi-part poses, but I actually prefer the cheapo EM4 troopers-- which is a terrible thing to say because those guys are nasty crap -- but it's also true. Even though I can see the Epirians are much nicer sculpts with lovely attention to detail. The assembled whole just doesn't do the parts justice.

EM4 Troopers: (view at your own risk)

I've been watching the new CMON kickstarter "B-Sieged: Sons of the Abyss". and that has turned 150k now on just the first day. It doesn't even look that special (certainly no Zombicide). Ninja All Stars hit about 100k on the first day too. I don't see why Maelstroms Edge couldn't also be up to 100k by now, if people really were loving the miniatures. Perhaps it is my own bias confirmation, but the fact that we're now on day 5 and the kickstarter is just limping past the 30k mark, makes me feel that the market is really only luke warm in its response to the miniatures. Which I guess is okay, the project still got funded and will probably tip 100k by the end, but it isn't exactly taking the gaming world by storm. That's a shame because I think a lot of the ingredients are there ready: good story, experienced devs, a preassembled user base... Just need to get all those cylinders firing.

The forum could have been an invaluable resource in field testing the response to things like "assless chaps" before production. It's a shame it wasn't used more. I understand the reluctance to go public too early, but still. It feels like these plastics are so far developed that it is now way too late to hear critique, while the artwork and characters are too underdeveloped to power the kickstarter. Raging heroes, for example had a serious butt load of great concept art before it launched. Kaddar Nova is more deviant-art than concept art, and he's looking quite lonely.

Those games you mentioned are boxed boardgames, which people really, really want for some reason. I think it's because it's because boardgaming has become a big hobby and much more acceptable to the public, compared to traditional miniature games.

There's a reason why Gangfight is making a boxed boardgame version of Blackwater Gulch, and CMON and the like are pumping out version after version of boardgames that are miniature games in all but name and extras.

I backed to support Dakka although I don't have a lot of use for the miniatures currently, without some reworking. I am however more interested in the terrain sprue. I'd buy just that 10 times over.

I get the miniatures are heroic scale or rather WH40K heroic scale so they can probably mingle and mix with them. Unfortunately most of miniatures tend to be either 28-35mm and more true proportion (not technically true scale) so they don't mix well with my WH40K.

 insaniak wrote:
I believe yakface and legoburner have both posted their justification for this in previous posts, but it essentially boils down to the fact that, for gaming miniatures, the exaggerated proportions make it a lot easier to tell what is what on the table, which makes for easier gameplay.

I agree and disagree. ^_^ Can someone explain how LoS is determine with ME?

The only reason I ask is because I'm being lazy to look it up right now. Most games I play today tend to use a LoS from the miniatures perspective, even cylinder with Infinity. As a player I'm always close to the table, looking at my sight lines, who see's what and where I can move to take advantage of cover. I'm not playing the game from multiple feet away.

I do understand from a casual look, heroic scale (I like to say heroic bulk) can make things easier to spot. In most cases though that is why games use exaggerated weapon sizes. I'm ok with exaggerated weapon sizes since the loadout is what normally is important if you are playing a WYSIWYG game. Otherwise I simply ask for clarification of the player (especially if playing with proxies) since a good portion of that information would be public information. I don't usually need to know what is on the table because I already have a pretty good idea what is where and who is what.

 Smacks wrote:

I've been watching the new CMON kickstarter "B-Sieged: Sons of the Abyss". and that has turned 150k now on just the first day. It doesn't even look that special (certainly no Zombicide). Ninja All Stars hit about 100k on the first day too.

There is a world of difference between boardgame kickstarters (even if they happen to include minatures) and miniature wargame kickstarters.

CMON have an established reputation for producing those boardgames. And people can feel 'safer' backing an all-in-one game... It's a one-off purchase that they expect to give them a few hours of fun, before they move on to the next one.

Spiral Arm Studios, by contrast, is a new player in the market, and people are reluctant to jump on board new wargames, as a rule. There's a more significant time and cash investment to get really into the game, and any game is also at the mercy of how many people in a given area take it up (nobody wants to be the one guy who wants to play that game that nobody else is into), and that makes people hesitate.

Even with that, though, the total figure is ultimately not as important as the fact that MEdge still hit its funding goal in 20 hours.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
You convinced me to take a look. I'm not much of a rules guy, and I haven't played Infinity, WMH or most of the other big games to compare this to, so take my opinion as that of a wargaming novice. So far, it looks like a ton of bookkeeping. Keeping track of command points, activations, victory points, stat cards for versus rolls, and suppression tokens. I can't imagine wanting to play this with more than 4, maybe 5, units per side.

It seems like this game will be all about who is least suppressed and who gets to move, as opposed to who wipes out whom. I guess that makes the game "tactical", but it also sounds intimidating for a casual player. The rolls certainly have a huge impact on the game, to the point where I can't imagine people who hate random charge distances are going to like it. The best strategy seems to be "roll well".

The discipline checks (where you're rolling the squad's Willpower against the amount of Suppression it has) are the really 'big' single rolls that can swing things quite a bit, because if you fail them, your defensive fire is practically non-existant or you can't choose what action you want the unit to take, etc.

However, it is important to know that both sides have the ability to manipulate these rolls to a large degree. For example, if you're the player trying to suppress an enemy unit, if you can get that enemy unit with triple the suppression compared to its Willpower characteristic, then that unit automatically fails its discipline checks. So you know exactly what you need to do to get that enemy unit to a point where it has absolutely zero chance to pass that test.

On the flipside, as the player with the suppressed unit, you're able to spend your command points to reduce your unit's suppression (as long as they're within 18" of a command model). So if you have a unit that is heavily suppressed but you absolutely need to make sure it activates properly, you can save your command points and make sure they're available for that unit. And of course a unit with no suppression on it automatically passes discipline checks, so if you can get rid of all their suppression, there is no chance for failure in that regard.

So absolutely, in critical situations you sometimes have to pull the trigger and gamble on a discipline check passing/failing with the knowledge of how likely it will be to pass/fail based on how much suppression there is on the unit, but you can also take the steps to be 100% certain if you feel it is critical to your plans.

During the sample turn, the Karists' Mass number was used to determine how many Penetrations they could take before leaving the fight, but in the stat area, it lists Fortitude as the number of Penetrations a model can withstand. Contractors have both MAS and FOR stats, which do not match, so how many Penetrations can they take?

One of the challenges of trying to make a ruleset for a game that doesn't feature that many models, is that you can't just have the models get killed instantly or else the game is over pretty much immediately. That means you need a way to track damage, and in a lot of games that means marking damage on unit cards. I've never been a huge fan of this because it means you have to keep asking your opponent all the time how much damage each enemy unit has when things start getting hectic...in other words, you can't 'see' the damage directly on the table. Therefore, having suppression markers on the table is in a roundabout way, a method to track damage on a unit without having its models getting killed. It also doubles as a morale system at the same time, which I like.

So in this game, there is a 'Mass' characteristic, which represents a model's overall size and strength. A standard human sized model has a Mass of 2, a small drone has a Mass of 1, and bigger models have a Mass of 3, and so on. If you do enough damage to a model within a single round of shooting to equal their Mass, then they suffer an injury, and the majority of models can only suffer a single injury before they die (the amount of injuries they can suffer is equal to their Fortitude characteristic).

If you inflict damage on the model but don't do enough to cause an injury, this damage still causes the unit to accrue suppression (1/2 the amount of damage inflicted on the model, rounding up when necessary). In this way, you can have standard infantry models that are still kind of tough to kill, but without any kind of damage tracking beyond suppression. And as the attacker, if you do damage to a model, but aren't able to kill it, you're still getting rewarded by causing them to suffer suppression.

However, obviously for models like characters and bigger models like vehicles, etc, you just can't jack up their Mass characteristic and that be it, because it would just be feast or famine...you'd either kill the whole guy in one round of shooting or just cause suppression. For those 'tougher' kind of units where you expect them to be able to keep on fighting despite taking damage you do need an actual secondary damage track, which in this case is the 'Fortitude' characteristic (which tells how many injuries the model can suffer before it dies).

The nice thing about having this split is that you can have a smaller model that makes sense to be Mass 1, but for whatever reason it is incredibly durable, and in that case you can jack up its Fortitude characteristic. And yes, the Fortitude characteristic does have to be tracked, but a simple set of tokens or a different colored miniature die works perfectly fine.

The ending conditions seem very cutthroat, which is probably great for tournament play, but won't go over so well when halfassing with friends. The VS rolls remind me of the old Star Wars RPG, so I'm cool with them.

Its actually not perfect for tournament play because it can lead to some games ending fairly quickly and the players having to wait around for the next round. Although Warmahordes has this same kind of issue and nobody has a problem with that, so its probably fine.

But honestly, when it comes to beer & pretzel gaming I don't think having a game be able to be over at any time really kills anything. In so many games we kind of 'know' the game is more or less over, but (some of us, like me who likes to play to the bitter, bitter end) we keep playing just because those are officially the rules of the game.

Here, you're keeping track of the score of the game as it goes on, and you both know the exact stakes. It creates a whole different kind of tension that I think (hope) you'll find different and refreshing, but I don't think it is frustrating because its the rules of the game and everyone knows it is coming. If the game ends early, you either just rack up another game or go grab a bite to eat.

It feels like there was a lot of pertinent information left out or glossed over during the intro and sample turn.

Absolutely. Its kind of the nature of a gameplay sample. You're trying to explain as much as you can without going overboard on explaining all the small details. There is definitely lots more cool stuff to dig into.

Raging heroes isn't a board game (do they even have a proper game?). They don't scale well with anything, and the Toughest Girls in the Galaxy was their first Kickstarter. Yet that managed over 200k on the first day IIRC.

 Smacks wrote:
Raging heroes isn't a board game (do they even have a proper game?). They don't scale well with anything, and the Toughest Girls in the Galaxy was their first Kickstarter. Yet that managed over 200k on the first day IIRC.

So you can repeat my previous statement, and replace the references to 'boardgame kickstarter' with 'kickstarter for alternate miniatures intended primarily for use in Warhammer 40K', if you like.

They had lots of artwork and renders that looked fantastic. They also had sex appeal.

The Kaddor Nova art looks like it was really rushed. At least, I assume it must have been. It is the weakest art of the campaign. Cleaner sketches, like the design art used by Mantic, might have been a better way to go.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Yakface, thanks for the answers!

Just curious, but why do command unit bonuses only apply to units within a certain distance of the commander? Don't they have radios?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Yakface, thanks for the answers!

Just curious, but why do command unit bonuses only apply to units within a certain distance of the commander? Don't they have radios?

Lol , yes you're right, they most certainly have radios (or the equivalent). However, when you're playing a TT wargame, most people seem to appreciate some sense of localized command and control, where the choice of where to place your command models has some effect on the game.

So even though we know they can all communicate with each other, when a command model is within a certain distance of one of his units, we imagine that he's better able to read their situation and provide them with orders more efficiently...so a set range of 18" is what is used to help represent that.

I thought command models mattered because they were the killiest units..? Isn't that how it works in real life? Patton and MacArthur are known for their impressive personal kill tallies, yes?


Although, now that I think about it, Yamamoto was out of line of site with his units for much of the war.

 insaniak wrote:
So you can repeat my previous statement, and replace the references to 'boardgame kickstarter' with 'kickstarter for alternate miniatures intended primarily for use in Warhammer 40K', if you like.

Meh, it's not like Epirians wouldn't fit with 40k. Maybe you should have done girls in assless chaps instead

Actually, out of curiosity, what will be Dakka's stance on the depiction of women in their games? After seeing the success of lines such as Infinity, RK, TGG et all, it does seem like there is a lucrative market for sexualised characters. Or will MEdge be all PG 13?

 Smacks wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
So you can repeat my previous statement, and replace the references to 'boardgame kickstarter' with 'kickstarter for alternate miniatures intended primarily for use in Warhammer 40K', if you like.

Meh, it's not like Epirians wouldn't fit with 40k. Maybe you should have done girls in assless chaps instead

Actually, out of curiosity, what will be Dakka's stance on the depiction of women in their games? After seeing the success of lines such as Infinity, RK, TGG et all, it does seem like there is a lucrative market for sexualised characters. Or will MEdge be all PG 13?

I believe Lego has said a few times that he and the company are 100% against cheesecake. Realistic women or not at all.

 Smacks wrote:
Maybe you should have done girls in assless chaps instead

*cough*

Doing them first probably wouldn't work out well, but hopefully a second wave release would avoid the problems of the first.

 insaniak wrote:

 Smacks wrote:
Raging heroes isn't a board game (do they even have a proper game?). They don't scale well with anything, and the Toughest Girls in the Galaxy was their first Kickstarter. Yet that managed over 200k on the first day IIRC.

So you can repeat my previous statement, and replace the references to 'boardgame kickstarter' with 'kickstarter for alternate miniatures intended primarily for use in Warhammer 40K', if you like.

The first KoW KS? WarZone Resurrection KS? Neither game was really established or popular. I assume you mean that we can just keep on repeating your previous statement and changing the references over and over for different games and campaigns as excuses why the rather static response for ME after the first day is just fine, rather than taking any of the repeated specific aesthetic criticisms of this one into account. Just keep changing the metrics and deflecting the criticism. Admittedly, it's not like anything can be done about the various sub-par models in the range at this stage. As others have said, it's a shame more market research wasn't done on that front, given the marvellous resources, audience and opportunity that this website provides for that sort of thing. I wish I loved the models. If I did, I'd planning out and buying an army or three worth of models I might never even get around to build assemble or play - but I'd be buying them and planning to paint and build them. (Just like my Skeven, Zulus, Chaos Dwarves, Dwarves, about 10 chapters of Marines and CSM, ECW and War of the Roses armies and many many more - all of which I've happily bought.)

I mean, it makes sense that many of the campaign's supporters jumped on in the first day, and that it's doing the usual KS curvature thing now. But it's not exactly burning the house down, either. I certainly hope it's successful and the creators make their money back (and a profit), but I don't think it's going to set the world on fire. It feels like it'll be just another small indie sci-fi game/ruleset that has its devotees and just quietly exists for a few years.

The Kadaar Nova looks like either 1980's-early 1990's RPG artwork, (excepting the top end, like Liz Danforth) or modern fan art. It would not look out of place as a submission in IronWatch magazine or on a DeviantArt page. It's

I have to admit I'm baffled by why this isn't doing better. There are a lot of good minis in plastic, terrain options, and communicative creators. There are a lot of criticism, but considering how much Mantic made per KS, even after KOW1, MEdge should have gotten at least a bit more pledge gaming.

 Azazelx wrote:
The first KoW KS? WarZone Resurrection KS? Neither game was really established or popular.

Warzone was 'established' in the '90s, and a lot of the drive to ressurrect it was based on nostalgia. It wasn't a new product that nobody had ever heard of before. And Mantic had been around for some time before their first Kickstarter.

I assume you mean that we can just keep on repeating your previous statement and changing the references over and over for different games and campaigns as excuses why the rather static response for ME after the first day is just fine, rather than taking any of the repeated specific aesthetic criticisms of this one into account.

If you like.

To be clear, I'm not saying that MEdge is above any criticism. My point was simply that different kickstarters are different. It's not as simple as saying 'This one made fourteen gazillion dollars in its first 3 minutes, and it had butterflies in it, so that kickstarter that didn't make as much is clearly doing badly due to its lack of butterflies...'

There are any number of different factors that influence the success or failure of any given kickstarter project, and the design of the models is only one of those factors. The type of game, previous exposure on kickstarter, the reputation of the creators, how word gets around about the project, and I suspect in some cases more than a little luck all play a part, as does the structure of the kickstarter itself. From what I've seen, most of the miniatures-related kickstarters that have raked in the cash have gone for the 'offer small reward options, and make a killing on add-ons' route, which was something that the SAS guys wanted to avoid. The goal here wasn't to have the bigest kickstarter ever... it was to launch a game.


(I should also point out, in case it's not apparent already, that I don't speak for Spiral Arm Studios in any capacity. I'm not a member of the design team, although I've had a few peeks behind the curtain... my comments here are purely as a fan, not any sort of 'official' statement)

Yeah seems a bit odd for me. Just being right on top of dakka and being connected to dakka, I really thought it would see a bunch more support on the first day and throughout.

I guess the nice thing here is that the project is set to go even without the kickstarter, and we'll see all of this in retail (perhaps a bit slower, if things don't pick up and all that), regardless of the kickstarter's success.

I know deadzone got a lot further along before it stalled, but it was another long campaign that really built up towards the end and I could still see that happening here. Maybe not to that degree, but really I don't think MEdge really *needs* that level of funding.

It's the backer numbers I worry about. The more people who get Medged in the campaign, the larger and more viable the eventual player base will be.

Agree. The bigger the player base the more likely the rules would be able to matter for me and the less likely I'd just be buying it for models. Plus more people now generally means more people later which will help grow the brand.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
It's the backer numbers I worry about. The more people who get Medged in the campaign, the larger and more viable the eventual player base will be.

That is a good point, MEdge could be the greatest game ever made but if only 50 people play it then it'll be a complete waste of time. However I think with the numbers currently backing MEdge there should be a half decent playerbase at launch. Certainly enough for the backers to run around giving demo games to their mates, family members, gaming club, FLGS or who ever they play with. I will definitely be trying to get other members of my club involved one the game is in my hands. At the moment I would say that for a completely brand new and therefore unproven company this campaign is doing pretty well. It's certainly unfair to compare it to the likes of the Cool Mini Or Not's board game pre order campaigns, or established companies like Mantic or Raging Heroes.

Speaking of demo games I do have a couple of questions I might as well ask here.

Are there any plans for an official demo team ala Privateer Press, Mantic, Spartan etc?

and will the mission and unit cards be of a standard size so they can be protected in sleeves?

 Nick Ellingworth wrote:

That is a good point, MEdge could be the greatest game ever made but if only 50 people play it then it'll be a complete waste of time. However I think with the numbers currently backing MEdge there should be a half decent playerbase at launch.

Particularly since the majority of backers are in for the actual starter set, rather than just a handful of miniatures to use in another game.

Are there any plans for an official demo team ala Privateer Press, Mantic, Spartan etc?

I believe that had been discussed in the News thread, but is currently too early for them to say anything definite down that road.

 insaniak wrote:

 Nick Ellingworth wrote:

Are there any plans for an official demo team ala Privateer Press, Mantic, Spartan etc?

I believe that had been discussed in the News thread, but is currently too early for them to say anything definite down that road.

Fair enough it's easy to miss info like that in a near 50 page thread.

 Nick Ellingworth wrote:

and will the mission and unit cards be of a standard size so they can be protected in sleeves?

Yup, they will be roughly the size of MTG cards.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Nick Ellingworth wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
It's the backer numbers I worry about. The more people who get Medged in the campaign, the larger and more viable the eventual player base will be.

That is a good point, MEdge could be the greatest game ever made but if only 50 people play it then it'll be a complete waste of time. However I think with the numbers currently backing MEdge there should be a half decent playerbase at launch.

On this note, we have a really low barrier to entry as our scale compatibility means proxying is quite realistic, so people dont need to have the whole boxed set in their hands to get started with us and our 'learn to play' youtube video series will teach the absolute basics of the game which will be a great jumping off point for people who want to try it out in a bit more detail. Coupled with Dakka's exposure over the longer period, we are not concerned about player count at all, regardless of the kickstarter numbers (which as you say should be pretty solid anyway).

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I have to admit I'm baffled by why this isn't doing better. There are a lot of good minis in plastic, terrain options, and communicative creators. There are a lot of criticism, but considering how much Mantic made per KS, even after KOW1, MEdge should have gotten at least a bit more pledge gaming.

I can think of several reasons

No early birds so no forced rush to pledge (and no incentive for those waiting to pledge to keep checking for EB slots as folk drop out or move up)

A very long (by current KS standards) campaign.. it covers 2 pay days, but means there's no real hurry to get a pledge in

It's a new IP from a new company (even with Dakka as a name behind it) both potentially worrisome to KS backers

No add ons (yet?), so if you don't want it all you're not going to back (again once somebody's backed it's a lot easier for them to justify spending a little more cash for lots more stuff even if they don't really want it)

It's a wargame not a boardgame and I think that does make a real difference, both in terms of there being fewer potential backers, and being less attractive to completionists who will realise they will carry on having to buy stuff for this after the KS (unlike a 'one and done' boardgame)

They're showing the actual minis which are not to everybody's taste both in terms of looks and in terms of proportions (while experienced KS backers disregard concept art, there are plenty of inexperienced ones who DO back based on nice art which it's they assume will end up as perfectly scaled to what they want)

It's been very, very busy on KS in the March/April, lots of wallets and Credit Card are just empty

The pace of reveals of stretch goals etc is slow.... A double edged sword this, showing more might gain more immediate pledges but does run the risk of them running out of stuff to show over the long campaign, and of people starting to panic that stuff they pledged for will not be reached so they pull money causing the campaign to flatline or crash (I think the ME team has it right here, but it is probably another reason things are running slowly)

and this is all going to sound very critical, when most of it isn't

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
They're showing the actual minis which are not to everybody's taste both in terms of looks and in terms of proportions (while experienced KS backers disregard concept art, there are plenty of inexperienced ones who DO back based on nice art which it's they assume will end up as perfectly scaled to what they want)

That's actually a really good point that I hadn't considered here... which is funny, given that the current trend of only having concept art to show off is precisely what has put me off a lot of Kickstarters on account of not being able to tell what the final product will look like.

In this case, the minis not being to some peoples' taste may well have cost them some backers who might have pledged on concept art... but it's ultimately probably far better that those people found that out before pledging, rather than later on...

Absolutely it's the right thing to do for the long term future of the game,

and my preferred option too

(the alternative would be to have concept art and be ultra faithful to it like Mierce but that's hard to do, and no dount even harder when you've got the limitations of HIPS plastic to deal with too)

I think the biggest positive of MEdge's treatment of using Kickstarter is they aren't going to be hit by false expectations once this is all over. I still watch a number of Kickstarters that promised the moon and have been reeling as they fail to meet deadlines and the offers they gave. This shouldn't be a problem at all for MEdge, and in that regard they should continue to have a growing level of positivity around the product as time goes on.

So I see it more as the slow-moving, well-built train versus the one with all of the bells and whistles that falls apart under its own invention.

IMO the longer time frame is going to hurt them more than its going to help them. 40 days is a long time for other KS to steal attention away from it.

Kicktraq has it projecting to $61k-$105k. I'll be very surprised if it gets over $100k

 insaniak wrote:
It's not as simple as saying 'This one made fourteen gazillion dollars in its first 3 minutes, and it had butterflies in it, so that kickstarter that didn't make as much is clearly doing badly due to its lack of butterflies...'

Actually, in spite of the above being a rather hyperbolic example, that is kind of how deduction works...

The rate at which people are joining the kickstarter is a secondary point anyway. This started with people giving feedback about the game. A lot of that feedback was directed towards the miniatures (the Epirians in particular). I felt that there was an attempt to invalidate that feedback by responding with things like: "some people like them. You can't please everyone."

And that would be a perfectly fair response if the kickstarter were really lighting-up. Critics would have to concede that they really do just belong to an anomalous minority of complainers. However, when we compare the kickstarter to other "similar" projects, the reception has been underwhelming. So perhaps what is being said aught to be listened to more closely.

As someone who frequently backs kickstarters, I have explained why I don't want to buy this game. When I look through the kickstarter overload topic, where people on dakka that buy kickstarters (target audience right there) are swapping stories. What I am not seeing is people listing MEdge among their purchases. Even Cincy, who appears to have backed every kickstarter miniature game ever, doesn't seem to be getting involved, and he has posted in this topic saying that he is uninspired by the miniatures. Yet still there seems to be a predilection towards invalidating that criticism, by saying "Other kickstarters are different. MEdge is somehow handicapped by its unique (and unavoidable) characteristics".

But this seems to be just a case of moving the goalposts now. For every excuse that OtT and Insaniak mentioned, there are kickstarters that have proven those things aren't a barrier to success. If anything I would say MEdge has been privileged: plastered all over the front of "the world's biggest" wargaming site, and a staff pick on kickstarter. So rather than argue it is some kind of "perfect storm" of unavoidable things, coming together in a "unique" way to stifle MEdge, how about some acknowledgement of what people are saying:" this miniature game needs more desirable miniatures".

I'm struggling to find an example on KS of a miniature game that "blew the lid off" without having that. Though interestingly, Impact's chibi miniatures dropped from over 3000% funded during their first kickstarter (concept art only), to a measly 148% for their follow up kickstarter (after everyone saw what they were making, and what nasty crap trollcast is). So again I say, when we're discussing factors that affect the success of miniature games on kickstarter, "on the miniatures" is the first (and second, and third) place we aught to be focusing. Especially when that is what people on the forum are expressing dissatisfaction with.

Hey now.... I've only backed 1 Mantic KS and didn't back either of Raging Heroes.......