Mind, the pictures they have been posting everywhere but on KS for the last few days have just been pics from the previous update, to remind us that yes, they update.
But whatever, they said it now: January 2014. As said before, let's see them actually get this one right, that would go a long way towards things.
I like the alternate Hilda options. Glad they turned out good. For a minute, I was afraid they might cock it up.
On a more serious note though, has there been any word on whether or not we will get an alternate hand for Punky? The throat-cutting gesture is still throwing me off.
I just wish half of the models weren't pigeon toed. I know it's often part of the French design aesthetic, but it looks unnatural and silly - and distracts from otherwise-great looking models. (I said the same thing about Remy's KoW Ogres and their knock-knees).
Azazelx wrote: I just wish half of the models weren't pigeon toed. I know it's often part of the French design aesthetic, but it looks unnatural and silly - and distracts from otherwise-great looking models. (I said the same thing about Remy's KoW Ogres and their knock-knees).
I agree completely. Without meaning to kill this thread, I do find the need to "effeminize" all the female sculpts with ridiculous pigeon toes a bit worrisome.
On a more serious note though, has there been any word on whether or not we will get an alternate hand for Punky? The throat-cutting gesture is still throwing me off.
(So, I've been struggling for days to keep myself from posting this, but... I'm weak in some ways.)
Oh pigeon toed, that's how it's called in english! But yeah I dislike it tremendously, even though I can accept it here but it is looking absolutly silly. It is an disease and I don't even understand why real woman should do this strange pose. I can understand it in Silent Hill with the nurses since they're unnatural, scary, sick, it fit's them do walk with the legs like that but I would've prefered the legs on these figures in normal position.
I can definitely back the 'never seen that pose in real life' idea. But honestly, I never notice it on the minis unless someone points it out. It seems like a bit of a pin-up pose to me, but it doesn't look like it's unfeasible or anything. And if I'm willing to accept a soldier with cybernetic limbs and zombie-making bullets, I don't think I'm really going to throw stones at her unrealistic pose.
Still, I think that the figures with the ball-socket assemblies will be able to be posed in a variety of positions, yeah? Or was I wrong about that? Hopefully, that would make it to where people who don't want pigeon-toe poses don't have to have them. For their boxes, obviously. I didn't think the characters would have ball-socket joints. Still, as mentioned, it should be a piece of cake to rotate the leg a few degrees to a more aesthetically pleasing pose, shouldn't it? Or am I way off base?
Still lament that Aura is getting some of the nicest looking models, but it will be worth it in the end when she's put them through the Chaos Guard wringer.
Nope, waiting until the first wave is ready to go if I recall, although it is something I'd like more explanation on.
Even though my pledge allows for one of each, I have an excess to use in the troops and heavies section and It will be annoying if we have to do a partial order, remember what we've used then get a second wave, third etc. I'd rather just make the whole order then break it down if I'm paying for shipping waves.
Even though my pledge allows for one of each, I have an excess to use in the troops and heavies section and It will be annoying if we have to do a partial order, remember what we've used then get a second wave, third etc. I'd rather just make the whole order then break it down if I'm paying for shipping waves.
They got rid of the requirement to spread out your order between heroes, troops etc during the kickstarter. You just need to pick what you want up to the pledge total - I want lots of troops and just a few heroes (plus no heavies)
The reason for my comment where based on the comments by RH during the Kickstarter. Maybe I read it wrong but it seemed to indicate we would be picking from the units/heroines as they became available and not choosing it all in one go. Hence the possibility for confusion if we are meant to track it all.
If that's wrong, I'll be fine, but its hard to judge until we see the actual pledge manager.
I see what you mean - I'd like to see all the renders before making a choice, but not have to wait to get my minis (it'll likely be long enough as it is!). My own choices have changed as the new renders have appeared - some look great, others don't interest me any more. I'm hoping to go heavy for troops (to mix and match), with only a few heroines mixed in.
I'm hoping we can add to our pledges a little in the pledge manager. I know I want everything I've selected so far, but want to add a squad of troops and a squad of heavies, and Volga the KST banner bearer.
Aaagh. Wish I hadn't read that. I was hoping to add a bit more when the pledge manager came out, but now I'm likely to do the same and keep 'topping up' my pledge.
Well, they were talking about the ability to add funds via the pledge manager. Which makes sense, given it'll pretty much have to be an online shop to handle all the options available.
Silly questions, but in light of the hiring of a dedicated communications person, has there been any... uh, communication recently?
I see there is a response to comments on the Comments page from yesterday;
Hi everyone! Thank you very much for your feedback. Just saw a couple of comments I wanted to address:
Alejandro wanted to know if we could create an alternate head for Yoko without an eyepatch: we're working on it, but I can't guarantee it at this point.
He also asked if Katrina Zerga would also have an alternate hand with wrench rather than pistol, like in the concept art. Yes, that is a very good point, and we'll make sure t provide that option.
Lapin Blanc is asking about seeing back views of the sculpts. That's an excellent idea. We've got quite a lot on our plate, of course, but we'll get some out ASAP for you guys.
He's also asking if the Jailbirds' backpacks will be a separate item: unfortunately, that on't be possible.
@JackStreicher: That won't be possible. However, you may want to check out our box of 10 Mantis which are currently available, you will find some compatibility there: http://bit.ly/L87NRq
Have I missed anything a bit more illuminating? Also, very interested to see what "we'll get some out ASAP for you guys" actually translates to (in fairness, it's a request for pictures of something they have already shown pictures of, just from a different angle, not the most strenuous time investment).
Still, nice to see some alternative sculpt ideas/concept art corrections in the works, I suppose.
I'm not even convinced that they can deliver anything by April anymore. They would have to be incredibly synched with all of their contractors to get a pledge manager out, then back, then format it, plan production, pass the order, fit into the foundry schedule, receive everything, do QA, prepare shipment, transit and delivery.
Don't forget, they are doing their own pledge manager, so that will also be built to their precise, exacting standards of high perfection. Expect this sooner or later: "Ze minis are done, but we're still working on the pledge manager!"
Just be glad they aren't a Spanish company, we'd all go insane with the constant siestas.
I think Raging Heroes would have to kick it up a notch to reach "siesta" status.
Have they responded to any concerns about the pigeon-toes? Frankly, I find them more problematic than boob-plate when it comes to suspension of disbelief. It's hard to be the toughest girl in the galaxy when you spend most of your time in the orthopedist's waiting room.
However, I can easily believe they are the elite when it comes to finding the hidden images in Highlights Magazine.
Just be glad they aren't a Spanish company, we'd all go insane with the constant siestas.
I think Raging Heroes would have to kick it up a notch to reach "siesta" status.
Have they responded to any concerns about the pigeon-toes? Frankly, I find them more problematic than boob-plate when it comes to suspension of disbelief. It's hard to be the toughest girl in the galaxy when you spend most of your time in the orthopedist's waiting room.
However, I can easily believe they are the elite when it comes to finding the hidden images in Highlights Magazine.
I think that's just a posing issue that will be correctable on any of the models you assemble. Ones that are one piece might still have that, but I don't think the pose has reached 'genetic aberration' extremes yet, just runway model pose extremes. There still isn't an official word on it yet, but I didn't think it was huge on their priority list. (Or the priority list they would have if they had a priority list, rather.)
As a side note, I only JUST NOW realized your avatar is a dog in front of the Stargate. For the longest time I thought it was a dog in a psychic hood.
Bob, is it me or you've kicked up your cynicism up a notch? In any case, keep it up, I like it!
Thank you. I think it's just the way the holidays affect me.
I also tend to feel this DSM IV-worthy psychological need to be a voice of dissent sometimes. Like Lot, maybe? How did things turn out for him?
Anyway, I do want to buy some of their figures, and I would love to buy even more if they didn't have certain deal-breaker flaws. After Dreadball, Sedition Wars and Bones, I just can't rationalize buying any resin or restic models that require a "fix", even if it just means hot water treatment. I'm not the one who named the range "Toughest Girls in the..." and then gave them stereotypical 'little girl' submissive foot poses* that destroy their credibility.* Might as well put them in foot binding. Hopefully, continuing the conversation will make Raging Heroes aware of the issue so they can adapt their style or offer options that are less "stylistically French".
*There's a reason why pigeon toes are used for comedic effect--they immediately mark someone, anyone, as the "girl" in the situation.
As for my avatar, I have another one with my dog in front of Gozer's pyramid, presumably saying, "Zuul!" I miss my doggy.
But yeah, the evil nazi version of Charlie is adorable, I had no use for him at first, until I kept facing an opponent with Huron Blackheart, now whenever I face him, my own lord commissar brings along her own pet.
On behalf of the Loud'n Raging/Raging Heroes Team, Charlie, Harry and Jinx wanted to take this opportunity to wish a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!
And if you'd like to have them all on one image, here's a little tryptic:
Oh, and we ran a caption contest on our Facebook Page for Christmas Charlie, and here's the winning entry, by Cole Blaquesmith. (For those who don't know, this is a reference to the traditional Christmas song "Deck The Halls"):
Coming next:
We'll be back soon with a New Year's update: it won't feature new sculpts (that will be in the next one, later in January), but it will include, among other things, back views of many of the sculpts we've already shown you, since some of you had the good idea to request this. You'll also see photos of new 3D prints, photos of test casts that we've done with our spin-cast resin foundry on pre-existing Raging Heroes minis, and a recap of 2013 and a preview of our plans for 2014.
Shipping through the Holidays
Just thought I should mention that if, by any chance, you've been thinking about getting your hands on Raging Heroes' other minis (such as Olga, Ivanka, or Malinka Kurganova, for example, or some of our cool Dark Elves or a few other tasty morsels...), we wanted you to know that there is no rest for the wicked and, as such, please know that we will be preparing and shipping orders throughout the Holidays.
Guess this confirms that they're not ready for a January release eh.
Yeah, that does confirm it. Given the time between the last update with renders (7th Dec, 2013) and the likely date of the next update with renders (27th Feb, 2014) we're looking more and more like a first wave shipping in March 2014 at the earliest rather than full completion by March 2014.
Though I can see them spinning this as still being on time, saying that the delivery date of March 2014 was only for those figures that were available at the original funding goal rather than for the mythical combination planned for the first wave.
Well, at least it was an update out of nowhere without any announcing ahead of time, unless we missed it, I for one do not frequent the comments section on KS, too full of it.
Mathieu Raymond wrote: I'd like to revise my bet to be deep in June, possibly July for the first wave, if I can?
Pffft, if we keep changing the dates we'll never get a winner.
I think we're all losing at this point...
Seriously though, this update reminded me of the "this ninja prevents a grade lower than C" memes on the internet. Look, we gave you unrelated drawings and are keeping stuff that exists already for a later update, just because.
BrookM wrote: I think we said that way before the campaign had ended.
Oh heck yeah. I got warned after my first post in this topic, before I even pledged. I appreciated the heads-up then and appreciate it even more now. Had I not known, I'd be all disgruntled and whatnot. Now, I wait in sublime peace for the eventual arrival of my miniatures.
BrookM wrote: I think we said that way before the campaign had ended.
Oh heck yeah. I got warned after my first post in this topic, before I even pledged. I appreciated the heads-up then and appreciate it even more now. Had I not known, I'd be all disgruntled and whatnot. Now, I wait in sublime peace for the eventual arrival of my miniatures.
Well, at least we won't be going all "I told you so! I told you so!"
BrookM wrote: I think we said that way before the campaign had ended.
Oh heck yeah. I got warned after my first post in this topic, before I even pledged. I appreciated the heads-up then and appreciate it even more now. Had I not known, I'd be all disgruntled and whatnot. Now, I wait in sublime peace for the eventual arrival of my miniatures.
I'm with Jim......serenity now....they will arrive one day......
We won't be showing you any of our new sculpts today. But we just had to cheer in the New Year and send you our warmest wishes with an Update, so here are many other news and things that you may enjoy and be interested in, as well as new, never-seen-before images of the Toughest Girls of the Galaxy.
And we already have a new Update in the works with many more new sculpts, as we are currently finishing all the Command Group boxes (25 new sculpts!), and other Heroines too.
There's quite a bit of info below, so here's a quick summary of what's included:
Jailbirds Best Wishes
New views of the TGG
We'll sell no wine before it's time...
Test casts
“Spin-cast” Heroines?
New 3D Prints
The sculpting of Jinx
Looking back on 2013 and what's up in 2014 (including 2 teams, the game, more background, video hangouts, TGG Plush Chibis...)
Dark Elves and Sisters of Eternal Mercy Kickstarter
Pledge Manager
Sneak peek of what's to come in the next Update
Jailbirds Best Wishes
Oh, by the way, Punky and Blondie wanted to give you their very own best wishes for the New Year. Well, they didn't want to, but you know how it with Harry's beer barrel... Things just happen They ended up shooting selfies in the wee hours of New Year's day. While we could not recover the actual SnapChat photos, Alex, our concept artist, caught them in the act.
And now, for something completely (errr... a bit) different...
First of all, one of your fellow TGG backers asked us if it would be possible to see back views of the sculpts we've already released.
Indeed, we've been so caught up in the process of sculpting the minis, and then preparing renders for you all that we completely forgot to do this before.
So, here's a quite strange series of images... They show a bunch of characters who all look like they couldn't care less about you... Or, more charitably, we could perhaps say that they are all resolutely turning their back on 2013 and looking out to 2014! Something we can all emulate Anyway, we think you'll find plenty of cool details on these images!
We'll sell no wine before it's time...
While reviewing some early test casts of the TGG Troopers just before Christmas, we had A LOT of discussions about several small details that were still bugging us. Things like some of the accessories that seemed a tad too small. A head that could have been a touch bigger. Things like that. Nothing really major, but frustrating small problems that, once they are in the production casts, are with all of us forever.
OK, so we're picky!
If the TGG Kickstarter had not been so successful, we would have no choice but to let those issues go because we would not have the financial means to polish everything up to the last detail. However, thanks to your amazing support, we can allow ourselves to be super picky and give you the best possible quality. In this case, this means that we are going to reprint and then remaster a certain number of Troopers to make sure they all fit perfectly well together before we can give the final approval for production casts.
This means that since we did not give our green light for the production casting of the Troopers yet, and because most of our partners were closed for a 2-week period, we are slipping a month out on this release :(
It is always quite heart-wrenching to decide to add some extra time, and so, inevitably, delays to the production process. We know how much you guys are waiting to get your hands on those minis. Not to mention the extra costs involved (although this one is more heart-wrenching to Mireille than to any of us). But since you keep on telling us that you want the best possible quality from us, and also because we're probably too perfectionist for our own good, we do think it's the right thing to do.
We don't have the exact production date for the TGG Troopers yet, but we should know more soon, now that we are back working with our partners. However, please note that this is not affecting the first wave of Heroines, who are tracking for production for late January/early February as mentioned in a previous Update.
As we already mentioned, we've also been working a lot with our foundries over the past few months. Now, just before we're about to produce the first TGG troopers in spin-cast resin, here is a test that has been done on one of our pre-existing miniatures, the fairly complex Brunhilde on War Steed with Great Banner. This miniature is already available in white metal and we thought it would make a perfect test subject for a full production run before producing the TGG Troopers.
We must say that we are extremely excited with the results. The crispness of the details is pretty amazing, the material is very easy to work with, it is easy to glue and to sand and to bend (if you let it rest in hot water before doing so). The occurrence of bubbles is very minimal, even on this prototype run, before any fixes have yet been applied. And we already have several approaches and techniques in the works to reduce their occurrence even more. The only concern to date is that, sometimes, some parts come out of the mould a bit bent. But as we mentioned earlier, this issue can easily be corrected by immersing the piece in hot water for a few minutes and then bending back in place.
The successful conclusion of this testing and prototyping process may not appear like a big deal, but it is in fact a huge achievement: for confidentiality reasons that you will easily understand, we can't go into the work and development that were needed to achieve these results, but it has been a very large endeavour and we are very happy to see it come to fruition.
“Spin-cast” Heroines?
This directly brings us to a question that was asked a few weeks ago: “Will you make the Heroines available in plastics?”
Once again, we do want to clarify that, when we are not using white metal, the material that we use is spin-cast resin. So it is somewhat between plastics and resin. As you can see on the Brunhilde pictures above, it is a material that brings out the finest details.The plan has always been to produce all of our Heroines in white metal, and the the rest in spin-cast resin, with the exception of the limited number of high quality hand-poured resin Heroines that come with the Connoisseur Box and Add-on.
However, since the production of the Kickstarter has so far been progressing well and without any major hiccups, we are now considering the possibility of also making the Heroines available in spin-cast resin too, for those of you who would prefer this material.
At this point in time, we can't assure you that this will be feasible, but it's looking like a distinct possibility. In any case, however, it would mean that these spin-cast resin Heroines would be produced after all the the other spin-cast miniatures are done. So, that would mean a later delivery date.
Of course, we are interested to know your thoughts on this:
-> Is this an option that would interest you?
-> And if it is an option that you would choose, and because it cannot not be done any faster, will you be OK to wait, say, an additional 2-3 months for them?
Oh, and please bear in mind that the Heroines will, in any case, be definitely available in white metal as originally planned.
New 3D prints
Here are a few pictures of the new 3D prints we received just before Christmas, some of which are incomplete. Our 3D printer was closed for 2 weeks during the Holiday season (as were indeed all of our suppliers) and he did not have time to finish every single part of every miniature we sent him, which is why, on the images, below, you can see, for example, an incomplete Natasha. However, he tells us that the missing parts are on their way. It's off to the foundry right as soon as we receive those missing parts, which means that our first batch of Heroines should be ready for shipping in late January or, (better safe than sorry), early February.
The sculpting of Jinx
As a special New Year treat (in France, New Year wishes are exchanged throughout the entire month of January!), we also wanted to share with you a time-lapse video of Jinx being 3D sculpted.
What you see here being done in just a few minutes is actually about 3 days of work, with much back-and-forth between 3D sculptor Andrea, Sculpt Supervisor JR, Art Director Benoit, and acting Posing Supervisor Mireille. Indeed, as mentioned before, sculpting Raging Heroes miniatures is always quite the team effort.
Looking back on 2013 and what's up in 2014
As you know, 2013 has been a pretty amazing year for Raging Heroes! The success of our TGG Kickstarter has completely redefined what is possible for us as a company, and what kind of projects we can tackle.
During 2013, our team increased from 3 to 10 and continues to grow. We have created completely new and very effective workflows. The overall quality of our sculpts has stepped up to the next level. And we can now be even more demanding on the quality of our output without flirting with bankruptcy... We've also been able to begin setting up a wider and more regular presence on social medias to share with you more images and insights in what we're doing.
So, what does this mean for 2014?
Well, of course, the first thing we are doing is working hard on delivering the TGG Kickstarter. That is our topmost priority.
A second team
But in addition, as we know that every project we work on demand a long period of single-minded focus, we have decided to set up a second Raging Heroes team. The plan is to have each team work on its own project in parallel but staggered fashion. This means that as one team is working on sculpting and outputting a project, the other one is working on researching and developing a new line of minis. In this way, we can have a more regular release schedule.
We also realised that once a project like the Toughest Girls of the Galaxy has been launched, it has a life of its own. Without a second team, the life of a project would have to be suspended for a fairly long period (at least a year) during which we would work on, for example, the Dark Elf Invasion and the Sisters of Eternal Mercy... This hardly seems fair to all of you who have been so supportive of the TGG project! You'd probably like to be able to add new units or characters to your army, such as the Old Guard we showed you in a previous Update, or any other unit that would strengthen your army.
And so, having two teams working side-by-side will eventually allow us to release new miniatures for one project while at the same time working on another project.
The game!
2014 should also be the year during which we'll launch the first version of our game. Many of you have been asking about this, and so we plan to have at least an early version of it this year.
More background...
Stories 2014 will also be the year during which we discover more about the TGG universe and its secrets. You'll find out why this universe is at war, and the very strange events that have upended the flow of human history.
Video Hangouts
The 3D Sculpting and Art Direction Webinars have been a very inspiring experience for us, and so we are thinking about setting up Google Hangouts to be able to share with you a bit more about the way we work. We are not sure exactly how we'll do this yet, but what we have in mind right now is to do some mini Webinars during which we would show you some very specific aspects of our sculpting and developing work. They won't go as deep in details as the Webinars (which ended up lasting 8 hours long in total!), but it will help you get a more technical behind-the-scenes look at what we do. I know we already talked about this, but we expect to set it up this month, so stay tuned for more on this soon. It'll be like spending a few moments with us in our studio.
TGG Plush Chibis and more...We also have plenty of other projects. Here's an example:
We've been contacted by several independent artists who tell us that they would like to expand on the TGG world and characters, sometimes in quite unexpected ways...
One has offered to create a few chibi plush versions of some of our TGG Heroines! We thought it could be a fun idea: we often see on our Facebook page that Raging Heroes fans actually enjoy sharing the Hobby with their kids, in whatever way possible. So we gave the go-ahead for a prototype Raging Heroes chibi plush toy/puppet. We hope to have it in a couple of weeks.
So please tell us:
-> What do you think?
-> Would that be of interest to you?
Dark Elves and Sisters of Eternal Mercy Kickstarter
As you know, Alex, our Concept Artist, has had much time on his hands since he finished designing the TGG characters. Therefore, since August, he's been working on adding new designs and exploring new directions for our Dark Elf Invasion and our Sisters of Eternal Mercy. He worked so well that even if we still have not begun focusing on this project yet, he has probably done 2/3rd of the DE designs, and big chunk of the Sisters'.
And so, as we did last year before launching the TGG Kickstarter, we will now begin to regularly share with you several designs for this upcoming project. There is no definite launch date for this new Kickstarter, although it would be nice to see it happen in late Spring 2014.
Also, and this is very important, please know that the Dark Elves and the Sisters of Eternal Mercy will both be available in 2 versions: Sci-Fi and Fantasy.
Fluff Alert! We'll soon begin unveiling bits and pieces of the dark and twisted background for these new factions!!!
Pledge Manager
We do keep receiving questions about the elusive Pledge Manager. So here's a formal reply on this:
At first, this being our first Kickstarter project, we thought that the Pledge Manager was something that we should provide as quickly as we could. But wiser minds prevailed. During the last few months, we realised that not only was there no real reason to rush out the Pledge Manager, but even more so, there were actually a lot of reasons for holding it back.
First of all, when we finalised some of the TGG sculpts, it became obvious to us that several of them were even better than their concepts. Therefore, asking you to choose your rewards based only on the concepts would not be fair to you. This was confirmed by many messages we received: many backers told us they wanted to see as many sculpts as possible before making their final selection.
At one point, we thought we'd release the Pledge Manager approximately at mid-point between the end of the KickstarterPledge period and the delivery date. But, with new sculpts being shown and having our mailbox filled with comments like “Wow, I never though this mini would turn out so good, now I'll have to get it too!”, waiting as long as possible was the better choice.
So our intent is to have the Pledge Manager available about a week before the release of the First Wave. This will allow us to present in the Pledge Manager as many sculpts as we can (as opposed to concepts) before you have to make your Rewards selection. And it will allow you to order from the First Wave selection, if that is what you want.
Sneak peak of what's to come in the next Update
Just to whet your appetite, here are 2 pictures showing the guys' computer screens here at the studio, so that you can get a feel for what they are working on.
OMG! How dare they draw new art when they should be doing nothing but sculpting! This latest communication just shows what little communication we get! Rage rage rage!!!
How dare they show the back shots of the sculpts people asked for.......
and showing a test spin of their 'plastic resin' shocking
actually a decent update,
my only 'hmmmmm really?' is the spring 2014 idea for KS nuns and elves as I really want them further forward in fulfilment before they start another project at full speed because no matter how many extra staff are brought in the key people (who make decisions & sign off on stuff) WILL get distracted
Wow, that is really cool to see! I don't see much consideration about whether the part is castable or not- I guess with the methods they're using (metal or spincast resin, which I think implies a slightly flexible mold) it's not as important to worry about undercuts.
Very, very neat seeing the process of sculpting that!
Yeah, several of them do indeed look a little on the flat side.
I hope we get some decent heads-up before the DE and Sisters Kickstarters come along, though. I want to get in on both, but I'm going to need to save up for them.
H.B.M.C. wrote: OMG! How dare they draw new art when they should be doing nothing but sculpting! This latest communication just shows what little communication we get! Rage rage rage!!!
Oh goody, so having finished with berating those of us who had no prior experience with the company for the dual crimes of not being psychic and expecting some basic standard of professionalism, we've moved on to just taking the piss. Do us a favour eh; skip to the part where you get bored and go back to poking away at your usual sparring partners? Ta.
As for the update...well I suppose being told the same things over again and being thanked for giving them loadsamoney is better than snark or silence. And they're getting better at telling us there are going to be more delays, in that they are now telling us about them before the delays actually occur. Still, at least I can now possibly make a bit of cash out of this fiasco; I've got a bet on with a mate about which will arrive first; our RH first-wave stuff, or our entire Metal Beards orders.
I'm sorry, was there anything to get excited about, in this one?
Now I know how to say smoking can kill in Spanish, though.
I'm just looking to get your opinions, not nitpick. I would have liked to have seen those out-of-proportions heads and limbs, (like the legs aren't) to see how bad they truly were.
The Brunhilde spincast looks promising, I gotta say. I wonder how it takes paint, does it have to be pre-washed?
I'm not sure what to say, it's something I suppose? Sure, there's another delay, surprise surprise, but at least we've been told that the next update will have new stuff in it.
Perhaps a bit selfish, but I really hope that they do not launch their project until this one is over and done with. Sure, it's a waste of a perfectly good team and whatnot, but I cannot see this end well in any way shape or form the way they are doing things now. Maybe they're still blinded by the success of the first campaign and are hoping for another big hit, but that way might lie hubris and failure.
Looks like we're minority then, as most people will gladly pledge again for the other stuff. You'd think that the road we're on now would make people a bit more cautious, but all it takes is a slew of belated previews, which do look nice mind, to sway the masses.
Would it be too early to call it now? TGG will be put on a temporary hold while they're giving it their all to run the next KS as best they can. Or would that be too much of a low blow?
Don't know about that. That would be quite something. But you two aren't the only ones who won't be backing another of their kickstarters. Maybe it's easy for me to say, since I'm not particularly interested in dark elves or sisters, but even if they came up with something right up my street... wouldn't back them.
I am very much interested in their sisters but the post-campaign impression they left me with so far has not been favourable.
I'd much rather see them deliver first before they start on something else. That way we can start the whole circus all over again anew, instead of doubling the problems and other delicious things.
edit.
Come to think, didn't they state in a previous update that they wouldn't do a thing until the TGG were done? Could be mistaken here but..
They said TGG was their priority certainly, but how far they went with it I'm not sure. I'm sure it will be, to be honest. But I think they will end up overlapping. After all, I'm really struggling to envision full completion here before autumn/winter.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Even without other KS distractions.
Given that I've been a customer of TSR, WOTC, White Wolf, Games Workshop, and Hasbro for decades now, I'm no longer turned off simply by simple inefficiency, contempt, or even malfeasance from my gaming companies. Really, I don't mind getting stuffed in the barrel so long as I know what they're going to poke through the knothole. With Raging Heroes, I know, and that's more than I can expect from other larger, more successful companies. As long as we get at least wave 1 sent out before the new KS, I will consider buying in to that one as well.
Given that I've been a customer of TSR, WOTC, White Wolf, Games Workshop, and Hasbro for decades now, I'm no longer turned off simply by simple inefficiency, contempt, or even malfeasance from my gaming companies. Really, I don't mind getting stuffed in the barrel so long as I know what they're going to poke through the knothole. With Raging Heroes, I know, and that's more than I can expect from other larger, more successful companies. As long as we get at least wave 1 sent out before the new KS, I will consider buying in to that one as well.
Fair.
And, by the way, even though I almost certainly won't be backing the next KS, I'll absolutely definitely be subscribing to the Dakka thread.
I guess there's that, relinquishing a first class seat on a train that could derail or smash into a wall. Or it could reach its final destination, with a massive delay, but there.
H.B.M.C. wrote: OMG! How dare they draw new art when they should be doing nothing but sculpting! This latest communication just shows what little communication we get! Rage rage rage!!!
When was fulfilment supposed to be finished again? Oh yeah, in 8-12 weeks. From now. How impertinent of us to suggest that they should have been getting their sculpting gak together earlier instead of taking a holiday and playing with flickr.
The thing about the update that kind of bothers me (yes, really) is that this update could have easily been sent out in about 5 or 6 parts as over a month's worth of weekly updates, instead of a bi-monthly mega update.
my only 'hmmmmm really?' is the spring 2014 idea for KS nuns and elves as I really want them further forward in fulfilment before they start another project at full speed because no matter how many extra staff are brought in the key people (who make decisions & sign off on stuff) WILL get distracted
They're fething insane. They want to launch 4 more factions when they will barely have delivered anything at all on this one.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
BrookM wrote: Looks like we're minority then, as most people will gladly pledge again for the other stuff. You'd think that the road we're on now would make people a bit more cautious, but all it takes is a slew of belated previews, which do look nice mind, to sway the masses.
Would it be too early to call it now? TGG will be put on a temporary hold while they're giving it their all to run the next KS as best they can. Or would that be too much of a low blow?
TGG goes on "temporary hold" for two weeks when a pretty butterfly goes past their window. Of course they'll stop paying attention to their existing KS while pimping the new one. At least communication will be awesome relating to the new KS products, only for about a month.... Even that hardly makes them unique, as every mult-campaign creator seems to do that - Mantic, Red Box, CMON, et cetera.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Jimsolo wrote: Given that I've been a customer of TSR, WOTC, White Wolf, Games Workshop, and Hasbro for decades now, I'm no longer turned off simply by simple inefficiency, contempt, or even malfeasance from my gaming companies. Really, I don't mind getting stuffed in the barrel so long as I know what they're going to poke through the knothole. With Raging Heroes, I know, and that's more than I can expect from other larger, more successful companies. As long as we get at least wave 1 sent out before the new KS, I will consider buying in to that one as well.
I figure that they'll need people to buy their products at retail once they're out there. I figure that's where my support is most needed in their future endeavours.
I would not back another project if it was run on KS like TGG was and handled post-KS like TGG was. The teething issues this project had were staggering, but I think RH have learned quite a bit in the process - but it may be too little too late for some people.
I think RH mishandled their first KS enough that I'm happy to see the product coming to fruition (finally), but I am unsatisfied with the post-campaign management and general inefficiency of the company to keep their backers informed and content. Also, it'd be nice to hear them admit, genuinely, that they were way over their heads initially and they've since pulled back on the reins for scopes of future projects, and taken the things they've learned and applied them properly.
I think the "success" of this Kickstarter will be the process RH developed to actually function on the scale that was required, yet they weren't ready for, after the TGG KS. It sounds like their design and modeling process has improved significantly, and they're starting to present themselves more like professionals than hobbyists.
The failure I think was that they bit off more than they could chew by producing three full new ranges of miniatures without first having the tools in place and ready to accommodate the scale and scope of the project. They also seemed overly confident they could meet their deadlines, when it looks like now they may have trouble getting Wave 1 out the door before March.
I'd rather see them do a KS for a single line of miniatures for one genre only, nail the concepts, and have some early renders of things they're working on instead of trying to design a project with several ranges at once that snowballs out of control then sputters out like TGG did. The KS campaign needs to be flexible enough to handle spikes and lulls, and keep backers interested. They still need to work on their update process (way too much stuff per update imo).
I think they can do better, and I think they most likely will for future projects, but they have some major hurdles to jump over if the community is going to genuinely get behind them again. We need to see finished product in hand before they even consider starting a second KS.
I think the "success" of this Kickstarter will be the process RH developed to actually function on the scale that was required, yet they weren't ready for, after the TGG KS. It sounds like their design and modeling process has improved significantly, and they're starting to present themselves more like professionals than hobbyists.
If they have learned so much and made such great leaps in sculpting, how come sculpts that were 80% done are still WIPs? I'm not targetting you, it's more of a rethorical question. If their sculpting process is so great, how come they had to resize so many pieces? They had access to people willing to debate and "focus group" their sizing for them right here (not me though, I stop seeing differences after so many hours).
And like it or not, they are actually using the funds from this KS to bankroll the other projects, they said themselves the funds allowed them to hire those extra people that are not working on TGG.
But yes, the minis will be delicious. The FLGS that agreed to be a dropship for them here has half a heart to forget about it all.
To be fair on them, didn't the Kickstarter for the TGG say it was in part going to fund a new universe/system and all the associated gubbings in the long term as well. If so, what they have done is pretty much what they said they would do.
Less boasting, less ego stroking, less telling us about the how great a success this all is, as it all amounts to nothing until the campaign has been successfully completed and every backer has received his or her pledge.
I don't see why they should be, though. Product is different, and they can rake in twice as much money by making them separate.
If you remember the deadzone kickstarter, there was grumbling everytime an announced series of stretch goals were not to some backers' liking... I don't think Raging Heroes could survive another round of shamefully negative comments.
In the meantime, BrookM, you should be ashamed that you missed your chance to inform us that someone took a huge dump on their tumblr page. I mean, they dumped stuff on their tumblr page.
I stopped checking in after those creepy topless dolls.
I'll just check in now aaaaaaaand what the feth is this? What the feth are those? Why the feth are nazis and MacDonalds part of the same holocaust diorama?
Worse, I think I might dump my stuff to recoup my "losses." I had high hopes for the digital Adepta Sororitas codex, but I just can't see the fun in making it my main detachment. So I'll just get a few heroines, troop boxes, and sell off the rest.
That tumblr feed makes me think they hired Clothaire Rapaille as their PR guy. (He'd been hired by the city of Quebec to "define and create a vivid image of the modern Quebecer" as a promotional tool. His final report was a bizarre rant on our inadequacies and psychoses, and a press conference that was byzantine in its tangents. Delicious)
Well at least we'll probably have the new guard codex before I have to decide what I want, don't want to go and grab a counts as marbo only to have him disappear from the codex.
And whatever you want to say about this company... they are light years ahead of some others in the ethics department, even if they act like douches sometimes. Go ahead, look at the Defiance thread.
I'll be here patiently waiting for my TGG with a dumb, sobered expression on my face.
tl:dr
Not content with not releasing product, they had a successful KS but rather than do that, they allegedly accepted money from another KS in exchange for tooling and casting work. Allegedly that money is also gone.
Mathieu Raymond wrote: And whatever you want to say about this company... they are light years ahead of some others in the ethics department, even if they act like douches sometimes. Go ahead, look at the Defiance thread.
I'll be here patiently waiting for my TGG with a dumb, sobered expression on my face.
Uh... There is some bad news.... You know how it was taking so long to get prints of their 3d sculpts?
RaginShiroz is using Defiance Games for manufacturing!!
Mathieu Raymond wrote: And whatever you want to say about this company... they are light years ahead of some others in the ethics department, even if they act like douches sometimes. Go ahead, look at the Defiance thread.
I'll be here patiently waiting for my TGG with a dumb, sobered expression on my face.
Uh... There is some bad news.... You know how it was taking so long to get prints of their 3d sculpts?
RaginShiroz is using Defiance Games for manufacturing!!
Dun-dun DUNNNNNN.
(Not really.)
Seeing as RH actually has prints in hand, they're light years beyond Defiance's capabilities. Not hard to beat a company that's too busy soiling their own name. I'm amazed that DG still qualifies as a "company," and at this point hasn't been classed as a full-blown three ring circus.
I'm still trying to finalize my pledge over at Skykadia...
iPaint, I wouldn't bother with that at this point in time. There are too many unkowns and plenty of time before we get to see Wave 1 nailed down. You know you'll change your mind once you see the next round of shinies.
BrookM wrote: Right, they better jump to it, chop chop, it's annoying that we still don't know what's in wave one.
Current best guess is all the troops boxes and maybe one each of the Support Weapon teams per faction, along with the previewed Heroines. I'm not expecting much else besides that.
I'm more looking at what I want quantity-wise for factions. I'm leaning heavy on Kurganova right now, with a handful of Jailbirds as flavor filler, with practically no Iron Empire. So most of my purchase may be directly from wave 1, with the remainder being a handful of Heroines and a few support options later down the road.
Since heroes is what they do best, I'd have expected to have seen a lot more of them crop up in Wave 1, to be honest. And for them to bang out the freebies first, get all of those out of the way.
Indeed you are. Again, that might be part of the revolutionnary design process they put in place. Who are we plebes to know of such things? G'nite people.
Philistine! Do you not know fine art when you see it? Now go away and play with your filthy American friends, I am going to smoke cigarettes and drink wine for the next two weeks. It is part of my creative process! [/exaggerated French accent]
You can have it shipped in waves to a drop ship location or you can probably pay extra shipping for each wave.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
KalashnikovMarine wrote: Philistine! Do you not know fine art when you see it? Now go away and play with your filthy American friends, I am going to smoke cigarettes and drink wine for the next two weeks. It is part of my creative process! [/exaggerated French accent]
Just, you know, keep your arms down when you're living the good live Claudette, the sight on unshaven pits is giving me bad arthouse movie flashbacks.
Yeah, that's what I'm planning on. I'm expecting around 12 months from now. Possibly 6 months after the first wave of heroines and troops become available to the general public
I'll be cashing out with the first wave, thankfully. And even that's pushing it, given the blatant lies about everything being almost done six months ago.
I'd like to cash out. I want 3 boxes of snipers which I reckon will be wave 2 or 3 (I did ask, but they couldn't tell me). Everything else I want might be in wave one (troops, command boxes and some heroines). If everything but the snipers are in wave one, I might just cash out.
Because, I really do think it's at least Christmas before the finish is even beginning to look close.
Truthfully at this point I'm considering selling my pledge to someone else. Money in the hand seems better than cheesecake in the infinitely-unknowably-far-away bush.
I had hoped to cash out the with first wave, but the one mini I am in for, Wolfenstein, is as of yet status unknown, despite being one of the first minis they showed off for this whole thing.
BrookM wrote: I had hoped to cash out the with first wave, but the one mini I am in for, Wolfenstein, is as of yet status unknown, despite being one of the first minis they showed off for this whole thing.
I'll be cashing out and flogging everything I don't want for myself on ebay. If they ever pull their heads out of their backsides and actually look like becoming a group of professionals rather than a vanity project, I'll consider buying the later wave stuff at retail, at the deepest discount I can find.
I'd go mad with the troop boxes and flog those on the usual sites, plenty of people who didn't get in on the "fun" and still want a squad or platoon of ladies.
As is, whenever they deem to finalize the first wave and tell us when it will be available, I'll probably go with a $15 troops boxed set of Kurgas as storm troopers for my Guard army or a box of Jailbirds as Raiders for my Fallout project.
Thankfully, at this rate the Guard codex will be out before the girls are, so I can see if storm troopers will be worth taking or not.
I'll cash out. My co-pledger can handle the ulcers if he wants to stay in for other stuff, but my hands will be clean at that point. But after the last week of hubhub, I'm actually glad this one is calm.
I'd hate for them to have over-extended themselves and go belly up, though. As recent events have shown, it can happen.
I'm in it for the long haul, I suppose. I've got my Skycadia pledge all figured out, and I'll just wait for those minis in whatever wave they happen to arrive in.
The problem is, of course, that if one is at the level where the freebie package is attached, what do you do?
If you want to cash out in the first wave, there does not (as far as I recall) exist a way to trade in those figures for value, so you are stuck with needing two shipments, or waiting until the end (or at least until the entirety of the freebies are shipping).
Sadly, I still have my (foolish) hopes up for the fem-wolves, which is probably just silly on my part at this point.
alanmckenzie wrote: Whenever I think about cashing out, I totally forget about those freebies. Yeah, looks like I'll be in for a while. Wave 3, maybe 4? March '15?
alanmckenzie wrote: Whenever I think about cashing out, I totally forget about those freebies. Yeah, looks like I'll be in for a while. Wave 3, maybe 4? March '15?
Which level/freebies are those?
Lieutenant level.
#1: Ash, Tank Gunner
#2: Kristina Karlstein, Armoured Division Officer
#3: Jaheda Kano, Armoured Division Officer
#4: Harry the Baby Hippo, Jailbirds' mascot
#5: Svetlana, the Light of Freedom (read her story)
#6: Raven, the Chain Breaker (read her story)
#7: Jinx, the Iron Empire mascot (read his story)
#8: Charlie, the Kurganovas' mascot
#9: Nertha, the Faceless Mother (read her story)
#10: Lucky Lucy, Jaibird Spotter
#11: W101, Iron Empire Cyber Zombie Bodyguard
#12: Nurse Karoline, Kurganova medic
#13: 1 new Lulu
#14: Natasha, Com Operator
Think the only ones we've seen progress on are the mascots, Natasha, that's all I think, unless I'm wrong.
I'm in over the lieutenant level, so if I only want to pay shipping once (which I do), (or cash out on all wave 1 stuff and run), I'll need to wait on all the freebies to be finished anyway, even if I was only intending to spend my pledge on wave 1 troop boxes.
Maybe. Though I'm not sure how they prioritise. I suppose all the heroines that were the original focus of the ks, you know, the ones that were 80% complete, would be first, followed by the troop boxes.
Have we even seen work on half of the ~38 heroines yet? Maybe, I'd need to look.
The freebies were stretch goals, maybe hastily put together sketches (not part of the original 100%), so who knows what wave they'll be part of.
EDIT:
At a very quick glance, we've seen renders of 18 of the heroines. That based on a very quick scan of the updates.
alanmckenzie wrote: Whenever I think about cashing out, I totally forget about those freebies. Yeah, looks like I'll be in for a while. Wave 3, maybe 4? March '15?
Which level/freebies are those?
Lieutenant level.
#1: Ash, Tank Gunner
#2: Kristina Karlstein, Armoured Division Officer
#3: Jaheda Kano, Armoured Division Officer
#4: Harry the Baby Hippo, Jailbirds' mascot
#5: Svetlana, the Light of Freedom (read her story)
#6: Raven, the Chain Breaker (read her story)
#7: Jinx, the Iron Empire mascot (read his story)
#8: Charlie, the Kurganovas' mascot
#9: Nertha, the Faceless Mother (read her story)
#10: Lucky Lucy, Jaibird Spotter
#11: W101, Iron Empire Cyber Zombie Bodyguard
#12: Nurse Karoline, Kurganova medic
#13: 1 new Lulu
#14: Natasha, Com Operator
Think the only ones we've seen progress on are the mascots, Natasha, that's all I think, unless I'm wrong.
I'm in over the lieutenant level, so if I only want to pay shipping once (which I do), (or cash out on all wave 1 stuff and run), I'll need to wait on all the freebies to be finished anyway, even if I was only intending to spend my pledge on wave 1 troop boxes.
I'd forgotten half of those
this campaign just became even more awesome (if guaranteed to be more than a bit late)
I think the really cool part about the freebies is it gives you a little bit of ALL the armies. I'm giving the bulk of my financial love to the KST but the IE and Jailbirds have some cool models and aesthetic as well. So I get to have some of that for the model shelf.
Just curious, genuinely I'm not totally clear on the process, but what exactly is involved in gathering their images? I asume they are talking about renders, as that is what they usually mean when they say "sculpts". Aren't renders all produced in-house?
alanmckenzie wrote: Just curious, genuinely I'm not totally clear on the process, but what exactly is involved in gathering their images? I asume they are talking about renders, as that is what they usually mean when they say "sculpts". Aren't renders all produced in-house?
Pfff, use of the term "produced" is an insult to their Completely Unique and Unparalleled Non-parallel Creative Process(tm). These are true artistes, they do not "produce", they create, they conjure raw wonder from the ethereal realms of imagination and form it, shape it, into things our poor mortal minds can comprehend. They cannot be harried or rushed, they must be free to give themselves to the Muse, to spend hours on end engaging in what might to us dull creatures appear to be slight rotations of a 3D model in a programme before finally rendering a picture from exactly the perspective they started with at the beginning, but is actually a crucial part of ensuring our sad, pale, twitter-weaned senses are capable of apprehending their genius without driving us utterly mad.
Ah, thanks for the clarification Yodhrin. Here's me thinking that it's down to the time it takes to get their masterfully created French digital images translated into something that our twitter weaned minds can comprehend.
This process involves subtly changing the colour of every pixel, one by one.
From the comments on that facebook post. Last night.
"They should have all been done tonight, but not only did the renderer fall behind but half were rejected by the Art Director and Sculpt Supervisor, so tomorrow, the machine will have to go in overdrive..."
Hilarious. If they are only just realising that half of them aren't up to scratch, what has the "Sculpt Supervisor" been doing all month?
I wonder if this batch of rejects includes any of the heroines that were 80% complete in May?, June was it?
I actually shelled out for the Art Direction and 3D Sculpting seminar (on top of a Lt. level pledge. Gack!) and in order to get through the large number of minis that need to be produced, they indeed have a mix of in-house and external people working on the designs and sculpts.
They also showed the designs for several of the heroines where the art director would reject something several times before they could "generally" approve something and narrow the changes down to certain parts of the model. So yeah.. while it boosted my confidence in the quality of the final product, I also got the impression that things are going to continue like this until August at the earliest.
alanmckenzie wrote: Just curious, genuinely I'm not totally clear on the process, but what exactly is involved in gathering their images? I asume they are talking about renders, as that is what they usually mean when they say "sculpts". Aren't renders all produced in-house?
Pfff, use of the term "produced" is an insult to their Completely Unique and Unparalleled Non-parallel Creative Process(tm). These are true artistes, they do not "produce", they create, they conjure raw wonder from the ethereal realms of imagination and form it, shape it, into things our poor mortal minds can comprehend. They cannot be harried or rushed, they must be free to give themselves to the Muse, to spend hours on end engaging in what might to us dull creatures appear to be slight rotations of a 3D model in a programme before finally rendering a picture from exactly the perspective they started with at the beginning, but is actually a crucial part of ensuring our sad, pale, twitter-weaned senses are capable of apprehending their genius without driving us utterly mad.
Okay... I snorted into my coffee on that one. Well done. Well done, indeed!
I've had some nice photos come out of my iPad Air. Takes some practice and balancing but it works. I haven't needed to buy a camera yet, but it may be a future purchase at some point. I need a better place to take pictures before I shell out cash for a better camera, though.
Each update, they cover 80% of the remaining distance?
I like to think of them as accelerating to the speed of light; they're never going to make it, and the closer they get the more their timeline diverges from ours.
You guys know how to lighten up a boring Thursday night.
I've only seen the first two generations of iPad's camera, and it is clearly not up to the task of #deliveringperfection and showing #superhidefdetails that our French overlords seem to favour.
Although I agree about the iPhone, I have been printing more and more pictures for customers and the resolution can be quite acceptable. More than the 1400 by 1800 which is our minimum, at any rate.
To be honest, I'd be ok with either. Still don't know how they haven't grasped how much people prefer, and are placated by, small, regular updates. Even with minimal content. Mierce and their friday updates have it absolutely correct. This weird thing they have about showing wips is ridiculous, frankly. Even GW do it.
Agreed, at this point weekly updates would work better, just show off one or two minis at a time, not a whole batch at once. Unlike Kingdom Death, which is well past that stage now and can sate us with a monthly update, RH can do just that, give us small updates to keep us in the loop, preferably through KS instead of the social media they keep harping on about.
BrookM wrote: Agreed, at this point weekly updates would work better, just show off one or two minis at a time, not a whole batch at once. Unlike Kingdom Death, which is well past that stage now and can sate us with a monthly update, RH can do just that, give us small updates to keep us in the loop, preferably through KS instead of the social media they keep harping on about.
#Whatever
The same social media that we were weaned on? I thought they were above that. Either way, the only thing they seem to post on it is images of random pics from 2 month old updates...... and weird, non-related stuff. Delicious, but weird and non-related.
BrookM wrote: Agreed, at this point weekly updates would work better, just show off one or two minis at a time, not a whole batch at once. Unlike Kingdom Death, which is well past that stage now and can sate us with a monthly update, RH can do just that, give us small updates to keep us in the loop, preferably through KS instead of the social media they keep harping on about.
#Whatever
The same social media that we were weaned on? I thought they were above that. Either way, the only thing they seem to post on it is images of random pics from 2 month old updates...... and weird, non-related stuff. Delicious, but weird and non-related.
#iwanttheprguysjob
Aye, it is weird that they keep reminding us of older updates, but I guess they want to be sure that everybody gets to see the goodies before they are swept away like grains of sand, flowing into that tiny hole in the hourglass.
Each update, they cover 80% of the remaining distance?
I like to think of them as accelerating to the speed of light; they're never going to make it, and the closer they get the more their timeline diverges from ours.
Each update, they cover 80% of the remaining distance?
I like to think of them as accelerating to the speed of light; they're never going to make it, and the closer they get the more their timeline diverges from ours.
I love you guys so hard right now
(Punctuation left to the reader's imagination!)
A properly placed semicolon makes this statement spicy.
On topic, are we sure they're using the Gregorian Calendar?
Holy gak the troops all look damn good! Looks like I'll be getting myself at least a small squad of regular KST and heavy KST to compliment my heroines. The good news is the pledge manager will let us do that!
Ivanka's new sculpt was underwhelming though, something about her ushanka is just... off.
They're casting in a new material for the first time. So why is half the rank and file standing on one foot, at an angle? Do they not understand the risk that their entire line will be ruined by snapped or warped ankles?
Quite an update indeed, with lots of good stuff on display.
Also, yay, finally a rundown of what the first wave includes: "This First Wave is intended to include Yoko, Tania, Nathasha, Mimi, Volga, Vera, Irina, Hilda von Stroheim, Blondie, Bernadette, Cruz, von X, Aaqila, Tarja, Sashenka, Mortaria, Katrina Zerga, the 5 Lulus + the Freebee Lulu, and the 3 mascots (Charlie, Harry, Jinx)."
Though I am going to echo what AlexHolker said: A new material and all those models standing on one foot / toe at those angles? I do not see this ending well.
I was going to get a Kurganova command set, just to bail out early, but two of those poses.. Not sure if they'll survive transport and handling by others.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Maybe I'll sit tight and wait for Irina Vega to pop up instead.
Everything looks pretty tremendous. Drakkan, in particular, looks incredible. I think my IE army is going to look just fantastic. Still think it's going to be at least Christmas before I have it all in hand, but, although we always said the quality was going to be good, I've really been extra impressed by it.
Still being a relative newbie to this KS stuff, how common is it that models from wave 1 end up on the regular web store before the fulfillment is complete. I can see how it would make business sense but it does leave something of a bad taste in the mouth if a lot of the things you want end up in wave 3, doubly so with how slow this one seems to be.
Ignatius-Grulgor wrote: Still being a relative newbie to this KS stuff, how common is it that models from wave 1 end up on the regular web store before the fulfillment is complete. I can see how it would make business sense but it does leave something of a bad taste in the mouth if a lot of the things you want end up in wave 3, doubly so with how slow this one seems to be.
Yeah, that's a bit of a bug-bear for me also. I think it's quite likely that much of this stuff will end up in stores before my (all in one) wave ships. Suppose you just have to think about how much cheaper our stuff will be. Sorta try to weigh it up that way. Not that I'm going to get round to painting them til at least 2015 anyway, but still kinda just want them in hand, soon as.
Overall, a good update. Just a shame that they missed their deadline by about an hour or so. Especially given that the content was written at the start of the week and they were just waiting for someone to keep taking photos with his iPad until they managed to keep their hand still long enough to get rid of the blur.
Now, whilst the renders do look good, there's not much that holds my interest this time around. Sure, there's the CS troopers, but they're pretty much just the same as the regular troopers with some different poses and bits. There only looks to be one heavy / special weapon on display though.
The one heroine shown, that I'd pencilled into my list, Ivanka, does look a little off. It's either the overall pose or the fact that her hat looks like it's just a big ball of hair. Where as the concept has it as a much more defined hat with straighter edges and overhang.
The brief run down of the first wave is nice to finally see. Though I suspect it'll change before we actually see the pledge manager.
Finally, the sister art looks acceptable. Though they don't seem to be as enthusiastic for space nuns as potential customers do. (Not the only company like that) based on the fact that they're showing us one concept rather than the dozen or so we had for elves the first time they were shown. Either that, or they're listening to backers and not inundating us with not directly relevant stuff.
alanmckenzie wrote: Whenever I think about cashing out, I totally forget about those freebies. Yeah, looks like I'll be in for a while. Wave 3, maybe 4? March '15?
Which level/freebies are those?
Lieutenant level.
#1: Ash, Tank Gunner
#2: Kristina Karlstein, Armoured Division Officer
#3: Jaheda Kano, Armoured Division Officer
#4: Harry the Baby Hippo, Jailbirds' mascot
#5: Svetlana, the Light of Freedom (read her story)
#6: Raven, the Chain Breaker (read her story)
#7: Jinx, the Iron Empire mascot (read his story)
#8: Charlie, the Kurganovas' mascot
#9: Nertha, the Faceless Mother (read her story)
#10: Lucky Lucy, Jaibird Spotter
#11: W101, Iron Empire Cyber Zombie Bodyguard
#12: Nurse Karoline, Kurganova medic
#13: 1 new Lulu
#14: Natasha, Com Operator
Think the only ones we've seen progress on are the mascots, Natasha, that's all I think, unless I'm wrong.
I'm in over the lieutenant level, so if I only want to pay shipping once (which I do), (or cash out on all wave 1 stuff and run), I'll need to wait on all the freebies to be finished anyway, even if I was only intending to spend my pledge on wave 1 troop boxes.
You know, I'd forgotten those as well. I guess the question now becomes do I cash out in W1 and then just pay shipping for the freebies when the final wave ships in December 2015?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Buzzsaw wrote: Some good, some bad, but one thing really hit me as, wow, that's... dumb;
Spoiler:
Seriously, the trooper all the way on the left. What the heck?
Doing a door breach - the proper way. (mule kick) Obviously.
I'd feel quite comfortable cashing out in Wave 1, with what are the tentative contents. I'll admit, it does help that I have a dropship to receive the rest of my freebies at. I won't lie.
They look good. I wanted to get away from the skullz and eagles, but the KST have got me a bit meh. The heels' will get trimmed to be thinner soled, though.
They should auction off those rejected 3D prints, though.
Now see, this update really brings home exactly why these guys piss me off so much; most of that stuff looks amazing, the scale looks to be exactly what I was hoping for(the "Goldilocks" zone of Forgeworld humans - not full-on GW heroic scale, but not too skinny and fragile looking), and that Sisters preview art look bang-on.
It's just a shame the quality is marred by their arty-farty attitude and near-total inability to manage their time.
Did you pledge for one of the Webinars, or for the Connoisseur Box or the Connoisseur Add-on?
Then by now, you should have received an email message giving you the location and password of the recordings of the Art Direction and the 3D Sculpting Webinars we presented back in December.
These two webinars went on much longer than expected, and so, you are looking at over 7.5 hours of video, instead of the planned 5 hours.
We went deep into the most important notions that we rely on to create Raging Heroes miniatures, and we tried to explain them in the most approachable manner.
If you haven't received your email, please contact me.
If you wished you had been able to be a fly on the wall, then please know that we are about to do some Google Video Hangouts that will be recorded and shared, and that will cover aspects of our work.
These Hangouts will be available for free to everyone. Of course they won't go into as many details as the Webinars did, but they will give you a good feel of the work we are doing on a daily basis.
So they recorded it for the participants, which is very nice and I have to think might be due to my suggesting that there'd be now way anyone could retain all that information otherwise!
And, they'll be recording some free Google Hangout sessions for everyone. Win-win
Cypher-xv wrote: Guys when is this scheduled to come out at retail? Missed the ks since I spent what I had on the robotech ks.
Well, if we're very very lucky, those of us who are Left Behind come Judgement Day will be able to enjoy purchasing the newly released Raging Heroes model line as some compensation for having to reside in an eternal hellscape
Cypher-xv wrote: Guys when is this scheduled to come out at retail? Missed the ks since I spent what I had on the robotech ks.
Well, you can always contact them and ask if it's possible to pledge still through paypal. They did have that option available (it's how I pledged). Not sure if it's still open since it said "closing soon" but then again, Raging Heroes has their own special version of soon, or quick, or in the near future. Ah, let's be honest, time flows differently for them than for the rest of us
Cypher-xv wrote: Guys when is this scheduled to come out at retail? Missed the ks since I spent what I had on the robotech ks.
Well, you can always contact them and ask if it's possible to pledge still through paypal. They did have that option available (it's how I pledged). Not sure if it's still open since it said "closing soon" but then again, Raging Heroes has their own special version of soon, or quick, or in the near future. Ah, let's be honest, time flows differently for them than for the rest of us
It's still possible to pledge through Paypal. Just go here and follow all the instructions.
Quick question, as we rapidly approach the point where everyone is going to have to start making some tough decisions: has there been a confirmation on whether or not Punky will be getting a hand swap? I'd really love to pick her up, but the head swap they showed us in the update before last has convinced me to switch to Vera Krabbenhoft for my flag bearer if Punky is going to be stuck with the 'throat-cut' hand.
stonefox wrote: The latest update says they're going to include an option for spincast resin. Isn't that the same method finecast used and is why it was terrible?
I don't think so. There was a lot of discussion about 'spin-cast resin' during the campaign, with several people calling it 'restic' and saying it was worse than Finecast, some people claiming it was the most superior method of model creation in existence, and a lot of people being confused on what precisely it entailed.
But no, I don't believe it is the same process as Games Workshop Finecast.
Jimsolo wrote: ...some people claiming it was the most superior method of model creation in existence...
These people are stupid. We have had many examples of companies who switched to some form of restic claiming it is the best thing since sliced bread, and the results are always gak. Some were extremely gak like Finecast (more expensive than metal, more fragile, full of holes and collapses under its own weight), while others were just a little bit gak like Mantic's (twice the price of proper plastic, warped and torn from the sprues), but they were all gak.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: You forget that the Raging Heroes models will be raptured away to the right hand of The Lord, where they belong.
I guess I'm pretty lucky that I dropped my pledge down from the initial "Go BIG, Go HARD"-type level to the much, much lower $150 or so that got most of the freebies. It's much easier to maintain a level of bemused sarcastic snark this way instead of the Raging Angers I'd be having otherwise.
BrookM wrote: Regarding that walker, will there be different pilots? I'd hate to have to get three and be stuck with three bored out of their mind pilots..
BobtheInquisitor wrote: You forget that the Raging Heroes models will be raptured away to the right hand of The Lord, where they belong.
I guess I'm pretty lucky that I dropped my pledge down from the initial "Go BIG, Go HARD"-type level to the much, much lower $150 or so that got most of the freebies. It's much easier to maintain a level of bemused sarcastic snark this way instead of the Raging Angers I'd be having otherwise.
Now that I think about it, that's how much I dropped on Robotech Tactics. It's a good think I didn't splurge on the MAC II Monster, or I'd be bitter and vindictive. Or more so.
I'm not sure how I would be if I dropped more than I have on this one myself. My brother and I dropped $700+ on Kingdom Death and despite the setbacks there, I'm cool with it. Here, I'd probably die from spontaneous combustion or something if I dropped that much.
And damn it, so much for the walkers then.. Then again, by the time they go on sale I'll probably have caved in and bought good old regular multi-pose Sentinels anyway.
BrookM wrote: Regarding that walker, will there be different pilots? I'd hate to have to get three and be stuck with three bored out of their mind pilots..
they said in the update that she is a stand in until the actual pilot is finished... nothing to say that she won't be bored out her mind either though.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Hopefully you'll at least get interchangeable heads though.
I dropped $1600 and really not even bothered by any delays so far... my guard are waiting patiently and I've been going on a Ork conversion spurge in the meantime.
I didn't spend quite that much but I'm not all to bothered by the delay either, gives me tijme to finish (or at least reduce) my pile of unpainted models. I'l start getting impatient when I run out of models to paint and haven't received somethign yet, but that will be a, uhm, long way off I reckon.
For my two bits, I have 40 odd 28mm models to paint, and a hundred other damn things on my table. Adding more won't do anything for me at the moment, and I'd rather seem them take their time and produce the highest quality possible product.
For my two bits, I have 40 odd 28mm models to paint, and a hundred other damn things on my table. Adding more won't do anything for me at the moment, and I'd rather seem them take their time and produce the highest quality possible product.
Did you get the feeling they were rushing themselves, upon until this point?
I'm in for one of the Early Bird Captain pledges, and honestly, whenever the models are ready is when I'll start getting anxious to have them.
Until then, I have over 200 or so 20mm WWII infantry and a couple dozen 1/72 tanks to work on, as well as a pile of 28mm Reaper BONES and Zombicide figs to get to.
Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote: I dropped $1600 and really not even bothered by any delays so far... my guard are waiting patiently and I've been going on a Ork conversion spurge in the meantime.
Ooooh...lucky. I wish I'd had that kind of money free during the KS. I'm still sitting calmly on the whole thing. Not only do I have a metric buttload of models to paint, (including my Blood Angels, Grey Knights, Ultramarines, Salamanders, Tau, Dark Eldar, and Necromunda armies) but I also need to save up the scratch to get a killer paintjob on the models when I finally get them.
Well they mentionned March as the completion date for *everything*. We can give them some leeway because they overpromised at the end with those she-wolves and jetgirls and trikes an'stuff.
But yeah, I still smart about that missed September deadline. So does my co-pledger. Constantly. Every week.
For my two bits, I have 40 odd 28mm models to paint, and a hundred other damn things on my table. Adding more won't do anything for me at the moment, and I'd rather seem them take their time and produce the highest quality possible product.
Did you get the feeling they were rushing themselves, upon until this point?
Hahah. Hardly. I'm just saying I'm fine waiting till I can get all my crap at once.
I don't think I would complain too hard if the release got delayed long enough that we could look at the new 'dex before we had to fill out our pledges.
BrookM wrote: Isn't the first wave just a few metals though? No whatever they're cast in boxes of five troops?
So it appears from that last list they posted. Considering that we're coming up on six months behind schedule, they should just talk to Wargames Factory or whoever to see if they can get some good, cheap plastic made to bulk out their overpriced, untrustworthy restic.
BrookM wrote: Isn't the first wave just a few metals though? No whatever they're cast in boxes of five troops?
So it appears from that last list they posted. Considering that we're coming up on six months behind schedule, they should just talk to Wargames Factory or whoever to see if they can get some good, cheap plastic made to bulk out their overpriced, untrustworthy restic.
Doesn't it seem a little disingenuous to call a product 'untrustworthy' when we haven't seen any of it yet? Unless by untrustworthy you mean that you doubt it will ever appear, rather than just doubting the quality.
AlexHolker wrote: So it appears from that last list they posted. Considering that we're coming up on six months behind schedule, they should just talk to Wargames Factory or whoever to see if they can get some good, cheap plastic made to bulk out their overpriced, untrustworthy restic.
Doesn't it seem a little disingenuous to call a product 'untrustworthy' when we haven't seen any of it yet? Unless by untrustworthy you mean that you doubt it will ever appear, rather than just doubting the quality.
Look at the precedent. How many times have we seen a manufacturer tout some form of restic as the next best thing? How many times has the result been mediocre to crap? HIPS is trustworthy, in that it takes staggering incompetence from the likes of Mantic or Defiance to screw it up. HIPS doesn't warp. HIPS doesn't have air bubbles. HIPS doesn't collapse under its own weight. HIPS isn't torn off the sprues by some sweatshop worker. HIPS rewards high volume, low cost pricing.
AlexHolker wrote: So it appears from that last list they posted. Considering that we're coming up on six months behind schedule, they should just talk to Wargames Factory or whoever to see if they can get some good, cheap plastic made to bulk out their overpriced, untrustworthy restic.
Doesn't it seem a little disingenuous to call a product 'untrustworthy' when we haven't seen any of it yet? Unless by untrustworthy you mean that you doubt it will ever appear, rather than just doubting the quality.
Look at the precedent. How many times have we seen a manufacturer tout some form of restic as the next best thing? How many times has the result been mediocre to crap? HIPS is trustworthy, in that it takes staggering incompetence from the likes of Mantic or Defiance to screw it up. HIPS doesn't warp. HIPS doesn't have air bubbles. HIPS doesn't collapse under its own weight. HIPS isn't torn off the sprues by some sweatshop worker. HIPS rewards high volume, low cost pricing.
Again, though, even in the best of cases, I've yet to see HIPS ever produce the kind of intricate detail we're looking at in these minis. Raging Heroes has a proven track record of lateness producing quality models. Even ifthe medium is inherently untrustworthy, I'm still willing to trust them until they give me reason not to. (Trust them in regards to production quality, that is.)
You've said more than a few times how awful 'restic' is, but you were the first person I've ever heard use the term. (In this thread, even.) And when it came up earlier, there seemed to be a whole lot of confusion over what 'restic' was, what it wasn't, which mini lines had or hadn't used 'restic' in the past, and whether or not the Raging Heroes minis were even going to be 'restic.'
I guess if it winds up being Finecast all over again, you can laugh at me and give me a big 'I stated thusly.'
Jimsolo wrote: You've said more than a few times how awful 'restic' is, but you were the first person I've ever heard use the term. (In this thread, even.) And when it came up earlier, there seemed to be a whole lot of confusion over what 'restic' was, what it wasn't, which mini lines had or hadn't used 'restic' in the past, and whether or not the Raging Heroes minis were even going to be 'restic.'
"Restic" is the term I use for any of the myriad materials that aren't epoxy resin, HIPS or metal that every manufacturer and their dog invented that supposedly offered the best of both worlds - Finecast, Warcast, Trollcast, sprueless plastic, etc. Here, the characters are meant to be metal while the rank and file are restic.
Ah, I see! So it isn't all the same thing. I gotcha now.
I can definitely agree that Finecast was a less than optimal product line, and I've seen some other products that would fit into the 'restic' category that have indeed sucked the big one. Still, Raging Heroes says that they have a winning system, and I'm willing to at least give it a try before condemning it.
I've never owned resin pieces for any extended length of time. A lot of my plastic models have 'eroded' over time, and loss some of the fine details (the few that had really fine details) from handling and general wear-and-tear. Is normal resin more or less prone to this?
Well, if you keep leaving your models out in sandstorms, erosion is pretty much inevitable.
My epoxy resin models don't tend to break as often as some of my HIPS models, but that's only because I keep them in metaphorical bubble wrap. Thin pieces of resin tend to disappear if you handle them much.
Jimsolo wrote: Again, though, even in the best of cases, I've yet to see HIPS ever produce the kind of intricate detail we're looking at in these minis.
Kingdom Death will be putting that statement to the test.
Kingdom Death is actually going to make models worth buying? I've got as much faith in that as Alex does in restic. Anyone got a link to this new stuff? Or is it just the same puerile 'I-scanned-an-old-copy-of-Heavy-Metal-magazine-into-a-3D-printer' stuff KD has always done?
Jimsolo wrote: Kingdom Death is actually going to make models worth buying? I've got as much faith in that as Alex does in restic. Anyone got a link to this new stuff? Or is it just the same puerile 'I-scanned-an-old-copy-of-Heavy-Metal-magazine-into-a-3D-printer' stuff KD has always done?
Translation: I don't like Kingdom Death models, but I do like insulting them and those who do! Whee!
Seriously unnecessary. If you don't like the aesthetic, that's cool. The gak you slung above was uncalled for though.
Well, he did swing from arguing material quality to aesthetics. People were saying that if anyone was going to jam lots of detail into HIPS models, it was Kingdom Death. Complaining about the choice of details instead of staying on point is a little impolite.
On topic (as much as anything) I don't love the restic that PP uses at all, though I suppose it is better than metal for some things. I don't have to use as many pins, at least. I am personally biased towards epoxy resin, but I recognize that it isn't as good for mass production.
The big question though is "Will RH be the ones to get restics working well, without god awful mold lines and terrible pour and vent scars." The various materials we have seen so far have not been so hot to work with, so models made in them have to be really good to start to not be irritating. We'll see. Or rather, you guys will see here, and I will see if I ever receive a box from Relic Knights
But personally, I'm not seeing it.
