although they don't seem too clear on what material/factory they plan to use which is a bit worrying as if they have not got somebody lined up I don't know how they can be sure of the costs/timescale
"Creator SCALE GAMES 36 minutes ago
Martin Lymer : the material will behigh quality plastic injection molding. but we do not decline using resin or metal according to the results of the KS."
A better picture of what's in the starter box from their website:
All of it really depends on the rules honestly. Although it's interesting that they also use the concept of cards and resource play during games. I've been writing a rules set with the same ideas, so that's a bit of parallel creativity there. The concept is from RTS games, but I think can add something to tabletop games.
I think people have become a lot more accepting of extra boardgame style components on the tabletop nowadays, especially since adding more interesting elements without components and add-ons can make the rules crushingly complex and bloated.
The sculpts and art style are good, but some elements are a bit basic in terms of detail and design. A lot of the design is also a more derivative than usual, most likely because they use people who's last job was working on those past games like AT-43, and drawing from the same modern scifi look that Mass Effect and the like draw from.
Too bad there's no comparison pics, although there will probably be some by the end of the kickstarter.
For 35mm, they probably mean closer to the scale that GW setup, that weird "heroic" 28mm that everyone uses nowadays. It's more honest to call it 32mm-35mm.
plastictrees wrote: Really impressed by this on the first look. Goal is pretty high but they really seem to have their stuff together.
This exactly. The miniatures look really good and their style fresh but I think the amount the seek to collect is very ambitious. I wish good luck!!
they'll make it, probably even in one day.
The bigger issue imo, is down the road if they don't enough funding to do the stuff in plastic or everything will they switch it up well after the KS is over, as quoted by Orlando.
I see them getting near a million, don't know if that would be enough to cover the cost depending what is down the road in terms of stretch goals.
Been waiting for this to show up. It's been a while since a kickstarter had virtually only good minis and no meh ones. Might be focusing on this for my sci-fi figure fill. Still - it depends on what material they'll be using in the end.
i will be happy to get those Vulkan suits in good plastic...
i loved the look of the AT-43 tac. arms, but hated the bendy plastic, so i never bought any...
they look like they will be fun to paint...
Looks interesting. Material is confirmed as NOT restic/PVC in the comments. 1st choice is injection molded hard platic ABS like Dreamforge/GW. If not, then resin or metal. I think the creators need to clarify what funding they need for plastic if it is higher than £90k. Once they do that, I'll likely back this.
I'd back it for no other reason than that. A shame about the high price per model though.
Basically a jab at the dead dog s#!t material.
From time to time you can get nice minis.
But 9 times out of 10, the miniature ends up being a bigger disappointment than George Lucas.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
willb2064 wrote: Looks interesting. Material is confirmed as NOT restic/PVC in the comments. 1st choice is injection molded hard platic ABS like Dreamforge/GW. If not, then resin or metal. I think the creators need to clarify what funding they need for plastic if it is higher than £90k. Once they do that, I'll likely back this.
Aye!
I don't mind metal after dealing with restic. But metal seems better suited for malifaux and infinity size games.
In a game where I need 30 or 40+ troops, it's a bit painful
Well to satisfy my own need to know - I asked what material and for them to confirm that not restic means not PVC as well (There has just been too many different definitions from different companies to make any assumptions). The answer I got is a great one and I am at ease:
we are aiming for a quality product But we have not yet choosen the exact material. It will not be any kind of pvc do.
Hope this helps you
I'm hoping this means HIPS or some kind of polystyrene like all good kit producers use.
Man. Gotta admit I'm pretty blown away by this. Production values are there. Scale Games has clearly invested quite a bit into this already. They have physical product already, not just ideas. And the paint jobs on those minis are fantastic. I want one of everything. But these are certainly not cheap. But at the same time, if we hit all the revealed stretch goals, we're already talking quite a few freebies.
I decided to back it. They need to give more clarity on what material they will be using though. They are giving the impression they don't even know yet.
I'm liking the look of the minis a lot, but 35mm... that's going to kill a lot of the options for using the miniatures with other games. Which is likely intentional and also pushes people to use their terrain.
Going to have to think in it a bit, designs are great, scale not so much.
Yeah, if the material depends on th result of the kickstarter, it might be helpful for them to actually say as much in the pitch, with the relevant goals for each option.
If they don't actually have that information yet, that wouldn't bode well for the project as whole, really.
I don't expect to hear anything soon in regards of material and price point.
I hope after the kickstarter ends we don't end up getting a update 6 months months from now saying after budge concerns they have to switch material from original decided choice. Like that one kickstarter.
I see some designs I rather like. Unfortunately, none of them are available a la carte. Most of the really cool ones are currently only in the starters. If I do back this, it's only going to be for one or two things.
I really wanted Duel Fighters, but due to a wage hiccup at work I missed out. I'm loving all the designs so far, I really want all of it... Although the kickstarter backlog grows...
AegisGrimm wrote: Well, I guess as long as the original company is so dead they can't sue you, you can absolutely steal their IP designs for your models.........
Beyond the features that are forced by the fact that a person has to wear the suit, the similarities are the vambrace mounted weapons and the use of an enclosed cockpit instead of a separate helmet. The TacArms are not the only suits which have that configuration.
The scale is .... odd, but I could honestly see adding in a few 35mm scale WW2 Germans and Moderns for one of those outer end colonial armies, or adding in Mal and the Firefly crew in there, as well as the tanks and other vehicles you can find down at the local toy store for Halo. I really wish there were some already available figures to look at before buying into this.
The AT-43 look is amazing, but at the same time, I remember the good look of the game in a space of a year the company going to complete dogs and me with 3 armies and a bag of egg on my face, along with quite a few other gamers in my area.
Awesome looking game for sure, but hat scale is going to chase off a lot of people.
I'm curious why the scale is such an issue. Aren't half the models fully armored or aliens/orcs/somthing not human? Why would the scale matter at all for those? And at 35mm vs the usual 32ish, why wouldn't they just pass as the "Descendants of Dolph" or something?
Alpharius wrote: Scale will be an issue for some (many?), but damn the models look good!
And at least it won't be another 'restic' disaster!
Keep in mind that restic is injection moulded plastic too. Seriously not seeing hard plastic in this, the goal is too low.
I do like the look of this, but not sure about the "multiple card decks and resource expenditure" aspects of the game.
I prefer wargames without card decks (and the MtG-style metagame that goes with them) and fethloads of counters.
I know you're a bit of a Mantic Super-Fan, but I'm pretty sure you know exactly what I meant about 'restic' here.
The creators of this KS know too, as I'm pretty sure they've already said it won't be 'restic', it will either be hard plastic, 'real' resin, or metal.
Alpharius wrote: The creators of this KS know too, as I'm pretty sure they've already said it won't be 'restic', it will either be hard plastic, 'real' resin, or metal.
To be fair, 'Restic' isn't really a thing. Its a buzzword created by Mantic for marketing PVC miniatures, and there may be unfamiliarity with the term.. especially with a new company.
Its still an Injection Molded Plastic, just not Polystrene or ABS... and it can be a hard plastic... just like Poly Urethane.
Mantic didn't create the word, in fact they never refer to this shoddy material as 'restic' they use the term 'sprueless plastic'. It is awful for infantry sized figures and fine for monstrous sized infantry and larger.
I would go with assuming these will be resin minis. Simply because all the character models are already made in resin, albeit in 75mm scale.
And for the record, their resin casts are absolutely top quality, I have a couple. The Abyssal Warlord is on of the finest minis I've had my hands on in the last 12 months.
overtyrant wrote: Mantic didn't create the word, in fact they never refer to this shoddy material as 'restic' they use the term 'sprueless plastic'. It is awful for infantry sized figures and fine for monstrous sized infantry and larger.
Good point, and spot on.
If it can't be 'real hard plastic' then I'd be OK with "real resin, like the FW stuff" or maybe even metal.
There should be a sticky about materials - and frankly "resin" is all materials that are viscous fluids that turn in to permanent solids. So even pvc is a resin when used in production. The good stuff is strictly speaking poly urethane resin and there are a lot of varieties of that as well.
There are just too many unspecific loose terms thrown around by a lot of companies and most of the time when we don't get specifics other than "resin" or "hard plastic" it's because being specific would be a negative for them...
At this point I am taking Scale Games at their word wanting to make this a High Quality product, given the quality of their existing catalog of large scale stuff. The unspecific nature of the material is probably down to popularity rather than funding. If this seems to be popular enough to have a sustainable future - I am sure they have some means or credit with the banks to push for HIPS or some form of polystyrene. There was a nice thread here on dakka about the economics of styrene plastics saying that you need to sell about 5.000 units to break even with the molds if I recall correctly, unless you charge a premium/unit. It's a big investment and not something worth doing if it's not generating enough buzz. It's a bit of a gamble as clearly stating polysterene or "like gw" gives a certain quality assurance that boost the numbers, but if those numbers don't meet the expectation
If they go the PU resin route with these - it's going to be a lot of work like someone mentioned. At least metal is good for spincasting and I believe that's the most likely material for this at this point.
Disclaimer: Feel free to ignore my musings as they are only speculative.
overtyrant wrote: Mantic didn't create the word, in fact they never refer to this shoddy material as 'restic' they use the term 'sprueless plastic'. It is awful for infantry sized figures and fine for monstrous sized infantry and larger.
They called it 'Resin Plastic' at first, which is where Restic comes from.
The minis look great, the terrain looks good and versatile. The scale is a turn off though as it limits the compatibility with other miniature ranges. *If* these end up being hard plastic, do we know if they will be multi-part poseable?
Cyporiean wrote: They called it 'Resin Plastic' at first, which is where Restic comes from.
Hehe yup, and it is exactly that, but unfortunately it's not at all what we would associate with any of the individual words that brought fourth images of high quality and durability in our minds. PR at it's best. Now it's synonymous with a shedload of minis needing a hot bath and a manicurist session
Hmm.. scale is off, can't use the minis for other games.
Dealbreaker, same as Thon.
overtyrant wrote: Mantic didn't create the word, in fact they never refer to this shoddy material as 'restic' they use the term 'sprueless plastic'. It is awful for infantry sized figures and fine for monstrous sized infantry and larger.
Incorrect, their first use of the term sprueless plastic was in the Dreadball Kickstarter, or possibly later. Before that point (for over a year) they referred to it exclusively as either Resin Plastic or Plastic Resin.
Alpharius wrote: Some would make good 'true scale marines' though.
I'm far less concerned about using these miniatures in other games than I am about not being able to use all the terrain I've got...
This is one of the issues I had with the Shadows of Brimstone KS. I wasn't terribly interested in the game, but the models were rather nice. But at the ~35mm scale, they just weren't compatible with my current collection of models and terrain.
Generally speaking, I'm not much of a scale nut. I use Knuckeduster models alongside Black Scorpion, for example. But once you go past ~30mm heroic or 33mm true-scale, things get too out of whack visually. 35mm is a weird space between the dominant ~28mm wargame scale and larger 40mm or 50mm scales, which are pretty popular in some areas.
Now, I'm not saying it's a bad thing. If the company wants to push that scale, more power to 'em. But bucking established market trends comes with a price. If you are going to do it, I think you've got to be comfortable with that reality, and realize that you are going to have a harder slog to prominence or a smaller customer base.
There's nothing inherently 'wrong' or 'stupid' about going in that direction, and I think it is good to see more diversity in the market. The models thus far look pretty darn nice, especially for digital sculpts. Of course, as digital sculpts, I expect that one could quite easily adjust the scale of the models if one was so inclined. Times, they are a-changing.
They may be going in that direction so you have to use there figures and no one else's. I'm finding recently that when I'm starting new game systems I'm not always using the particular companies models as I like others more or fibd said companies miniatures to expensive. Two examples I can think of is I use mostly Sedition Wars Strain models fir Deadzone and a mix if GW, Reaper and Avatars of War for Godslayer and plan to use GW Dark Elder for the new faction fir WM. Though this does work both ways as then people won't buy your models to proxie as others. They must be EXTREMELY confident in there Rule System for people to move to do this. I've pledged for this for the boxed game plus 2 starters, but with me as always I'll wait till the end of the campaign to see if the value will be there after streach goals etc....
Hmmm... Nice looking figures, but I'm afraid the scale all but rules me out from getting any. Those are just *too* far from the vast bulk of the rest of my figures (and terrain!) to be really interesting. Maybe some of the Battlesuits will be of interest, but that'd probably be it for interest from me.
scarletsquig wrote:Hmm.. scale is off, can't use the minis for other games.
Only if you use them to represent normal humans...
Alpharius wrote:Some would make good 'true scale marines' though.
This.
I could see myself getting some of the basic troops for this game provided the basic troop is completely covered in power armour type stuff and always have closed helmets. The alien beasties, being larger, might work great alongside normal 28mm stuff as big alien beasties. Like all the different size creatures in the Halo universe or something.
After seeing the larger size of the miniatures, I'm more interested in the troopers for other games, but totally not interested in the game and miniatures as a complete package.
I'm actually happy with the choice to go 35mm. After 4 years of mini painting, I'm fed up with 28mm. It's just too small a scale for me to enjoy painting anymore.
If I stay in this it will be with the expectation of using the minis for the game, so the scale doesn't mean anything to me.
I can't imagine terrain being completely off. All the lasercut stuff that I have (sitting in the box it was shipped in, in my basement) would work with 35mm from what I can tell.
If anything it makes it slightly more interesting to me as it distinguishes it a little from Infinity as far as my painting/modeling interest goes.
plastictrees wrote: If I stay in this it will be with the expectation of using the minis for the game, so the scale doesn't mean anything to me.
I can't imagine terrain being completely off. All the lasercut stuff that I have (sitting in the box it was shipped in, in my basement) would work with 35mm from what I can tell.
If anything it makes it slightly more interesting to me as it distinguishes it a little from Infinity as far as my painting/modeling interest goes.
Speaking of Infinity, I would be 100% behind a KS to recast that entire product line in 35mm. Infinity figures are amazing, but 28mm truescale is one of the most frustrating scales to work with. Makes pinning nearly impossible in a lot of cases.
Apologies if someone has seen me say this elsewhere (It continues to bug me enough to warrant posting when I usually just lurk) but this is 'not' in any way a 35mm game.
It's a 40mm game, they have now admitted this. That unhelmeted human is 40mm tall at least and the humans are the shortest of the available races.
I really like the look of the miniatures, and this will probably get me back into the sci-fi genre....it's everything Mantics attempt at a boxed skirmish game should have been. I'm quite happy with the scale as well, having no similar game I would proxy them in for, but it is the stretch goals that confuse me. The basic game is met at £90000;
+£10'000 add one miniature, then add an additional
+£15000 for a squad of 5 troops, then
+£30000 for one miniature
all the other's are £15'000 jumps, I can see that they would have to tool a hero level character and the cost vs sales of this one miniature. ...and therefore it is the same cost as a squad you are already producing, but why the £30'000 gap on the third stretch goal? And is the following £15'000 gaps reasonable if they end up using resin or metal?
Hard to tell really, as it all depends on how much of their own money they are spending (is £90K all they actually need or is there a big investment on top from them)
it could be that this represents extra cash needed to secure production line time at the factory
it could be they have an unseen intermediate goal with no art/description yet that will be slotted in
or it could be at that point they feel they'd need an extra person on the team and the extra part pays a salary
And, with WWX and a few other games operatinig at this bigger scale, there are some more options out there.
I've got a TON of Infinity SF themed terrain though, and if this one was in that 28mm or 28mm 'heroic' scale, I'd be in for probably 2x of what I am now, with no threat of backing out.
I'm still on the fence here, but I am leaning on the 'stay in' side...
basement.dweller wrote: There should be a sticky about materials - and frankly "resin" is all materials that are viscous fluids that turn in to permanent solids. So even pvc is a resin when used in production. The good stuff is strictly speaking poly urethane resin and there are a lot of varieties of that as well.
There are just too many unspecific loose terms thrown around by a lot of companies and most of the time when we don't get specifics other than "resin" or "hard plastic" it's because being specific would be a negative for them...
[/url]
I can see a new marketing tactic by companies.
What will your miniatures be made of?
Our miniatures will be made of the finest grey non-metal material on the market.
And, with WWX and a few other games operatinig at this bigger scale, there are some more options out there.
I've got a TON of Infinity SF themed terrain though, and if this one was in that 28mm or 28mm 'heroic' scale, I'd be in for probably 2x of what I am now, with no threat of backing out.
I'm still on the fence here, but I am leaning on the 'stay in' side...
They don't have cross over themes though.
I can use my scifi terrain with Infinity, Mercs or my scifi mash up of bolt action. And may the gaming gods forbid... Relic Knights
The only reason I went in on a game like Arena Rex was because I do not have any terrain that is suited for the theme other than perhaps craters.
They look nice enough. I'll check this one out when/if it makes it all the way to retail and has some reviews out on the system. I'm not a big one for cards, generally speaking. Out of scale minis aren't the total dealbreaker for me that they are for others, but from unknowns in an unknown material and unknown rules...
Artemis Black wrote: Apologies if someone has seen me say this elsewhere (It continues to bug me enough to warrant posting when I usually just lurk) but this is 'not' in any way a 35mm game.
It's a 40mm game, they have now admitted this. That unhelmeted human is 40mm tall at least and the humans are the shortest of the available races.
When asked what scale the figures were in, it was 35. Now your adding in that there are larger scale figures, in a market of gaming in 28-32 scale?
That is the issue, BTW. It didn't work out so well for Inquisitor, it won't work out well for this one if people are put off by the scale.
At the end of the day, I'd honestly like to see a rules/ quick play. I'm honestly interested, the figures to me are top drawer, the stuff on deck is extremely well put together, with box art, painted figures, well put together pitch, discussion, open season stuff on the fluff.
The game has potential. Add in a gak load of diorama terrain from Tamiya, Revel, or Italia, and there is an awful lot of stuff that this game could bring to the markets.
It might even do well if you added in stuff from other toy lines, such as Marx, AMC, or resin terrain from other well known players.
Aside from my outright burnout from KS at the moment, and the ongoing skepticism that I have for it right now, I'd really like to see some of these figures right now. I honestly am tired of waiting for these KS games. I don't see the need to, and really don't want to, wait around like a chone for a year for them.
I'd like these guys at this company to send out a squad set and a quick play rules pdf before I commit to something of this scale/ size change. 1 it would open up discussions and the issue of the scale, two, we would be able to see what this is really about before we get wrapped up in some sort of KS shenanigans that we aren't anticipating with something like this.
¿Which scale do you use for Fallen Frontiers miniatures?
At ScaleGames we have chosen to scale O (O gauge), where 7 mm correspond to 1 foot. In this way a model of 1.80 m (6.8 ft) in reality, will measure 40mm in total.
When we say that a human is 35 mm in FF we refer up to the eyes, not total, since is commonly used as a standard among brands selling kits of 54 or 75 mm.
This was the text that accompanied the size comparison picture in update 4.
you can find a number of their products on CMON's album painted by world class artists.
Their paint sets are excellent too, particularly the metallic sets, the alchemy ones. Probably the best true metallic paint on the market right now.
Using O gauge does mean you can use a whole heap of 1/48th scale commercial stuff for scenery and so on, so while it wont fir with the 28mm stuff, there is plenty of commercial product available.
This looks like it has a lot of potential but from just reading their KS page it has a lot of strangely worded clauses. Currently the rules for the game are a mystery and I think the English translation of them could prove very problematic.
On the plus side the minis look great to me, but again the general mystery of the final materials is a bit odd.
That and there are just so many great miniature games out there at the moment it is hard to see where this fits in.
you can find a number of their products on CMON's album painted by world class artists.
Their paint sets are excellent too, particularly the metallic sets, the alchemy ones. Probably the best true metallic paint on the market right now.
Using O gauge does mean you can use a whole heap of 1/48th scale commercial stuff for scenery and so on, so while it wont fir with the 28mm stuff, there is plenty of commercial product available.
Are you aware of any building kits that 1/48 that would fit in the genre?
Te occasional factory kits could fit in, but for the most part, terrain kits out there wouldn't really fit in theme wise. WWII era, wood structures and Spanish missions.
Yeah, most model railroad stuff is based on the past. Futuristic layouts are really only popular among Japanese model railroad hobbyists and that region is dominated by 1:150.
I've decided that since this is likely going to fund, I'll take my usual wait and see and grab some of the Ares troopers once reviews and feedback from people with the final models in hand becomes available. I like the idea of true-scale marine analogues with a sleeker, more futuristic look, so hopefully they turn out well.
frozenwastes wrote: Yeah, most model railroad stuff is based on the past. Futuristic layouts are really only popular among Japanese model railroad hobbyists and that region is dominated by 1:150.
I've decided that since this is likely going to fund, I'll take my usual wait and see and grab some of the Ares troopers once reviews and feedback from people with the final models in hand becomes available. I like the idea of true-scale marine analogues with a sleeker, more futuristic look, so hopefully they turn out well.
Hmmmm, I am looking at some of those Japanese model trains, pretty damn sleek. Tempted to buy one make a enlarged casting to use for infinity and mercs.
Artemis Black wrote: Apologies if someone has seen me say this elsewhere (It continues to bug me enough to warrant posting when I usually just lurk) but this is 'not' in any way a 35mm game.
It's a 40mm game, they have now admitted this. That unhelmeted human is 40mm tall at least and the humans are the shortest of the available races.
And Arty wrote a really good de-bunking of this KS HERE Text below - I'm too lazy to correct all the code to show the images - go and read it at source if you want them
Spoiler:
I've had a few discussions around the web the last week about a kickstarter that popped up. It started fairly innocent, Mcfonz posted up some images of minsi in the Shed and we oohed and ahhed etc. because the sculpting was pretty damn good. Of course at the time we thought they were standard 30odd mm figs. We later learned they were claiming '35mm scale', one might think that meant to the top of the head and would still make them pretty good and would match a lot of stuff. That's when certain arguments popped up. I wanted to put my thoughts on them all in one place...
"35mm scale".
Nothing in this Kickstarter is 35mm anything. After 3 days of being asked 'how tall are your minis' and repeatedly answering with '35mm scale' they finally posted an image of their minis next to others...
Image
That places that human at 40mm easy (the Terminator is 37mm and on a slightly deeper base). The other factions are even larger.
They then updated the front page of their Kickstarter to say "35mm to the eyes", also not true.
Their comments section is full of people saying that they'll match Dust minis and WWE minis etc and despite someone constantly replying to people nobody has corrected those mistaken assertations.
They only posted the scale image after receiving £50k in pledges and it's now buried as a tiny pic on page 2 of their updates, you actually have to go looking for it.
Larger Scale Minis Used for Advertising and Misleading Photoshopping
This image is being used for advertising what you get...
Image
The red 'Bitsie' is a 75mm miniature with her hair photoshopped a different colour - http://tinyurl.com/ocqdfg8
The Green Riffs seem to be renders, even though they have actual minis they could use instead. Notice that the renders of the Riffs and the Ares guys have photoshopped bases, they have photoshopped out the real 25mm bases from the Ares troopers and photoshopped in larger bases. Coincidentally this makes the minis look much smaller than they are. I can't see any other reason for doing this.
That's the 40mm mini from the earlier scale shot. Notice the rail on the gun looks considerably softer, less gap between the ridges. And the armour lining looks shallower and softer too. in my opinion (And this one is 'just' opinion until someone posts an image of the blue painted one next to anything) the blue one is an even larger scale printout than the green one, which as seen above is already a 40mm figure.
You might ask why I'm bothering with this. Honestly, it's just bugged me. Every time a Kickstarter comes along and grabs a lot of people into it, that's a large part of the customer base for future kickstarters in the sci-fi/modern/fantasy genres. And every time a Kickstarter disappoints those people it runs the risk of leaving them burned on kickstarters in general and thus lessens the customer base for anyone who wants to run a future kickstarter. I see people commenting on kickstarter threads all the time saying exactly that.
For me this kickstarter has numerous issues, some even bordering on mis-selling. Using images of larger scale minis, misleading photoshopping, outright stating the wrong scale, not being clear what material the finished products will even be in (repeatedly stating that they want hard plastic, but not stating what material they will be in if the project funs at 90k only), not answering straight questions with straight answers and so on.
I figured it'd be nice to stick this all in one thread somewhere in case someone asks me what my problem with them is.
It boils down to this: The minis are significantly larger than other well known games, aka 40K.
While many will bemoan how that means that you can't use these minis as part of their older games (again, namely 40K), the fact of the matter is that this is an entirely new, self contained, game.
The issue of terrain comes up, but in terms of terrain, all scifi terrain is so badly scaled nowadays that 40mm will not matter that much compared to GW's "heroic" scale.
I honestly think that if you want to play a game, get in on the kickstarter and ignore the people that are making too much of an issue out of scale.
If you want minis to use in other games, namely 40K, well there are plenty of other games and manufacturers out there. Heck, there's more miniature game companies active now than ever before.
Vertrucio wrote: It boils down to this: The minis are significantly larger than other well known games, aka 40K.
Just to clarify, that's not my issue at all. I have zero problem with them being larger scale, good for them if they wanted to try and create a new gaming scale. My issue is with the misinformation presented by the Kickstarter about the scale and various other things.
Honestly, I think that misinformation probably has more to due with the developers not being native English speakers or writers, as well as cultural differences where they refer to things of a certain size via different terminology.
But yes, a developer should openly state what scale their minis are.
Vertrucio wrote: Honestly, I think that misinformation probably has more to due with the developers not being native English speakers or writers, as well as cultural differences where they refer to things of a certain size via different terminology.
But yes, a developer should openly state what scale their minis are.
They should. And it's difficult to see how language problems lead to them using 75mm minis for advertising a game they claim is 35mm scale
To be honest it's also hard to see how '35mm to the eye' means 'all the minis we've shown so far, including the only humans, are multiple mm taller than that' in any language either.
There's a thin line between sales tactics and being dodgy.
I think this will definitely end up made in what the wide gaming world calls restic. My guess is the company have seen the restic backlash online and decided to make early promises it won't be, but are unwilling to commit to anything else*.
A year after the project ends, they will make an announcement that due to spiralling costs, they will have to make all the models in "a plastic resin formula that still definitely isn't restic". When the stuff does finally show up, at least 6 months later, there will be no appreciable difference between the models and those of Mantic et al.
*They may have hoped bandying about the magic words 'hard plastic' netted them an early £500k or so, which would have given them a bit of safety net to start talking up plastic sprues.
Sooooo, Artermis...will we be seeing you in the Hasslefree thread now that you have popped your lurk bubble?
But back on track, 35-40mm shenigans I am fine with, I am a bit concerned when they show off models of different scale and don't specify that they are not the finished product.
There is a big difference in proportion between the (other) Artemis, the Inquisitor scale Space Marine (54mm) and a regular (28mm) Space Marie so I definitely get that people could be quite upset.
Riquende wrote: I think this will definitely end up made in what the wide gaming world calls restic. My guess is the company have seen the restic backlash online and decided to make early promises it won't be, but are unwilling to commit to anything else*.
.
Why would you possibly think that?
They have a five year history of using a traditional resin to make miniatures. I have some of the 75mm ones, and its as good quality as McVey, Figone or anyone else.
If they dont make them in plastic, the logical outcome will be using the material they already use to produce an entire range of miniatures with.
Riquende wrote: I think this will definitely end up made in what the wide gaming world calls restic. My guess is the company have seen the restic backlash online and decided to make early promises it won't be, but are unwilling to commit to anything else*.
.
Why would you possibly think that?
They have a five year history of using a traditional resin to make miniatures. I have some of the 75mm ones, and its as good quality as McVey, Figone or anyone else.
If they dont make them in plastic, the logical outcome will be using the material they already use to produce an entire range of miniatures with.
I don't see that as the logical outcome at all. If they have to make X number of Y miniatures, and they've only got £Z to do it, who's to say that resin is going to be affordable? It's a boutique material after all. I'm not 100% on this as I wasn't a backer, but wasn't the McVey-made Sedition Wars done in a restic style material?
Riquende wrote: I think this will definitely end up made in what the wide gaming world calls restic. My guess is the company have seen the restic backlash online and decided to make early promises it won't be, but are unwilling to commit to anything else*.
.
Why would you possibly think that?
They have a five year history of using a traditional resin to make miniatures. I have some of the 75mm ones, and its as good quality as McVey, Figone or anyone else.
If they dont make them in plastic, the logical outcome will be using the material they already use to produce an entire range of miniatures with.
I don't see that as the logical outcome at all. If they have to make X number of Y miniatures, and they've only got £Z to do it, who's to say that resin is going to be affordable? It's a boutique material after all. I'm not 100% on this as I wasn't a backer, but wasn't the McVey-made Sedition Wars done in a restic style material?
What does the McVey kickstarter have to do with this. You seem jus hell bent on inserting 'restic' into this project for some reason, I have no idea why.
In terms of resin miniature production, I'd put Scale 75 in the top twenty in the world. I'd say McVey resin production was at the same level. Occam's razor suggests that when the company state the final material wont be a restic variant, and have no experience in plastic but an entire company built off resin production, the outcome should they not have the money to make the steel moulds for hard plastic production, is that they will be in a quality resin, just like every other miniature they make.And no, it isn't 'boutique'. Resin figures of comparable size usually cost less than a GW plastic character model.
There are lots of other non-PVC thermoplastics that they can use with a variety of different mould and tooling costs. Both Reaper Bones and Privateer/Mantic sprueless plastic is PVC based but they're quite different in the final form.
Does the kickstarter say what material the figures will be made of? If it just says plastic, then that could be anything and assuming it's harder grey PVC like mantic would be very, very premature.
I'd keep asking about it in the comments section until you get a straight answer.
What does the McVey kickstarter have to do with this. You seem jus hell bent on inserting 'restic' into this project for some reason, I have no idea why.
I'm not hell bent on anything, the topic just keeps coming up on the N&R board and I was musing on a possibility. I would suggest that the backers are hellbent on shouting down any legitimate concerns over things like the material the project is being made in, but that's standard fare for KS backers these days so I'm not holding it against you. I bought up Sedition Wars as Studio McVey are (were) known for being primarily a boutique resin studio, then Kickstarted a 'great deal' of a board game that turned out to be a restic-style material.
I don't know this company, so if you're confident you're going to be getting however many resin pieces for whatever pledge level you picked, then good for you, hope it happens.
Not sure you have the first idea what Occam's Razor means though....
I'd be questioning whether they could produce this quantity of 'traditional' resin figures at the prices they are talking for the boxed sets. There are 38 figures in the boxed set for £65.
That's before VAT is accounted for - assuming that they declare their sales properly, any EU sales should have VAT deducted leaving £54.17
If we said the cost of the box, cards, scenery etc was £4.17, that leaves 38 figures for £50, or £1.32 per figure. I suspect that you cant produce traditional resin figures at that sort of price and you need a more industrialised process like spincast metal, spincast plastic (restic) or injection moulded plastic.
Slightly speculatively, but Scale 75's 75mm resin figures cost roughly £25. These will have about 8 times more resin in them than the figures here, so on material cost alone, I would expect these figures to be about £3 retail (£2.50 exc VAT), but I suspect the labour time, mould costs, sculpting fees etc aren't reducted by the same amount, so my ballpark guess would be that these figures *should* retail at about £5 (£4.17 exc VAT) - which would make this a 67% discount in the Kickstarter.
There's a *LOT* of guesswork and rough working above, but the numbers don't feel right to me for this project to be possible in traditional resin.
Edited to change "injection moulded resin" to "injection moulded plastic" D'Oh!
Yeah anyone who thinks that they are going to fulfill this kickstarter in high quality standard resin is nuts
Even if they can make all the moulds and do all the casting themselves for free it'd cost a fortune in materials alone and take 'forever'. If they don't do any of that in house then they have zero hope. Resin has never even been mentioned.
(And their 75mm figures cost about £40 + VAT)
Their realistic choices are pvc/restic/etc or proper hips injection moulding. Even in China, 90k is not going to cover all the moulds they'd need to make for the proper hard stuff imo. so either they're fund matching from somewhere or they're desperately hoping it's going to significantly overfund.
Everyone brings up a lot of good points in here - and the whole scale thing should absolutely be cleared up ASAP.
I'm less concerned about a 'new' scale than I am over potential material concerns.
I really don't want any part of 'restic'/'sprueless plastic'/'PVC' anymore - but as noted, if something in high volume and lower pricing isn't going to be 'hard plastic', it looks like it will unfortunately be in that crap material instead.
A quick and dirty calculations puts this kickstarter funded by limping over it's 90k goal at having to make over 30 thousand minis plus vehicles, scenery, box sets and peripherals like dice etc.
45mm chunky guys in armoured suits aren't going to fit a bundle to each sprue, that's going to be a 'lot' of tooling for proper hard plastic.
Alien vs Predator is doing "real urethane resin" (hand cast / from a silicone mold) for a large kickstarter, though, so it's not totally out of the realm of possibility. Not sure how the cost-per-model on these campaigns compares, though.
Artemis Black wrote: Apologies if someone has seen me say this elsewhere (It continues to bug me enough to warrant posting when I usually just lurk) but this is 'not' in any way a 35mm game.
It's a 40mm game, they have now admitted this. That unhelmeted human is 40mm tall at least and the humans are the shortest of the available races.
And Arty wrote a really good de-bunking of this KS HERE Text below - I'm too lazy to correct all the code to show the images - go and read it at source if you want them
Spoiler:
I've had a few discussions around the web the last week about a kickstarter that popped up. It started fairly innocent, Mcfonz posted up some images of minsi in the Shed and we oohed and ahhed etc. because the sculpting was pretty damn good. Of course at the time we thought they were standard 30odd mm figs. We later learned they were claiming '35mm scale', one might think that meant to the top of the head and would still make them pretty good and would match a lot of stuff. That's when certain arguments popped up. I wanted to put my thoughts on them all in one place...
"35mm scale".
Nothing in this Kickstarter is 35mm anything. After 3 days of being asked 'how tall are your minis' and repeatedly answering with '35mm scale' they finally posted an image of their minis next to others...
Image
That places that human at 40mm easy (the Terminator is 37mm and on a slightly deeper base). The other factions are even larger.
They then updated the front page of their Kickstarter to say "35mm to the eyes", also not true.
Their comments section is full of people saying that they'll match Dust minis and WWE minis etc and despite someone constantly replying to people nobody has corrected those mistaken assertations.
They only posted the scale image after receiving £50k in pledges and it's now buried as a tiny pic on page 2 of their updates, you actually have to go looking for it.
Larger Scale Minis Used for Advertising and Misleading Photoshopping
This image is being used for advertising what you get...
Image
The red 'Bitsie' is a 75mm miniature with her hair photoshopped a different colour - http://tinyurl.com/ocqdfg8
The Green Riffs seem to be renders, even though they have actual minis they could use instead. Notice that the renders of the Riffs and the Ares guys have photoshopped bases, they have photoshopped out the real 25mm bases from the Ares troopers and photoshopped in larger bases. Coincidentally this makes the minis look much smaller than they are. I can't see any other reason for doing this.
That's the 40mm mini from the earlier scale shot. Notice the rail on the gun looks considerably softer, less gap between the ridges. And the armour lining looks shallower and softer too. in my opinion (And this one is 'just' opinion until someone posts an image of the blue painted one next to anything) the blue one is an even larger scale printout than the green one, which as seen above is already a 40mm figure.
You might ask why I'm bothering with this. Honestly, it's just bugged me. Every time a Kickstarter comes along and grabs a lot of people into it, that's a large part of the customer base for future kickstarters in the sci-fi/modern/fantasy genres. And every time a Kickstarter disappoints those people it runs the risk of leaving them burned on kickstarters in general and thus lessens the customer base for anyone who wants to run a future kickstarter. I see people commenting on kickstarter threads all the time saying exactly that.
For me this kickstarter has numerous issues, some even bordering on mis-selling. Using images of larger scale minis, misleading photoshopping, outright stating the wrong scale, not being clear what material the finished products will even be in (repeatedly stating that they want hard plastic, but not stating what material they will be in if the project funs at 90k only), not answering straight questions with straight answers and so on.
I figured it'd be nice to stick this all in one thread somewhere in case someone asks me what my problem with them is.
That's a useful write up, thanks. I did note as soon as seeing the page the renders shown on bases, but if those base sizes are not standard that would be a bit misleading. Interesting nonetheless, but seems like one to wait till retail / till they deliver something to show what they can do in the miniature arena.
Yes it is, Artemis! We're all in this together... glad they finally clarified, hope they can do it! But that's going to be a lot of molds, and they seem to have no experience in this area of production. Like McVey and others :-/. Hmmm....
Well they've been saying repeatedly until just now that the material depended on the funding. As you get nothing unless fully funded then that could only have meant that basic funding meant lower quality material.
This clarification completely reverses that.
Technically they now only need the 90k to fully deliver the 30 thousand 40-50mm hard plastic figures, box sets, vehicles, scenery, dice, paint sets and so on. I'm heartily wishing them success in their 90k funding goal *beam*
This was interesting. I'm pretty sure they keep an eye on this forum.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Like I mentioned a couple of pages back, I am sure they are ready to back this up with their own funds as well. If it proves popular enough their best choice is HIPS and and that breaks even if the contents of every mold sells 5000 units.
PU resin for the figures is not a realistic choice. The only reason they would not do HIPS is if this does not look to get as popular as they hope. I thought metal was more likely, but given the sizes of the models that does not seem likely either anymore.
Investing in HIPS with injection molding means they intend to keep selling this after the KS. That means they need it to get good reviews. While there are some shenanigans going on with photoshopping and the like - if they don't do a good job with the end product - reviews are going to kill this project once it gets out and it will have been for naught. A huge timesink on the company and a net loss of money, besides bad publicity. While everyone might make an honest mistake (a certain studio springs to mind), I highly doubt they have set out to fail. It would be commercial suicide and affect the already existing business.
In essence I am saying I believe they intend to put out a high quality product that survives a KS as a quick money grab operation would be highly detrimental to them.
"About the plastic material... it is a hard and difficult discussion.
You can check on FAQ section what we offer about the material.
Our target is to produce in high quality injected plastic, but the most important thing is the quality. "
*laugh* They're like a dead fish, flip flopping everywhere.
That said, yeah, they're being suspiciously vague about it :-/. "Injected plastic" allows for PVC, too, and "high quality" really doesn't mean anything. They keep mentioning GW, but in that case, they should just confirm to be using HIPS.
Definitely a project I will wait until retail on, as there are just too many unknowns.
RiTides wrote: That said, yeah, they're being suspiciously vague about it :-/. "Injected plastic" allows for PVC, too, and "high quality" really doesn't mean anything. They keep mentioning GW, but in that case, they should just confirm to be using HIPS.
There's a horrible thought: assuming GW-style plastic means Finecast.
RiTides wrote: That said, yeah, they're being suspiciously vague about it :-/. "Injected plastic" allows for PVC, too, and "high quality" really doesn't mean anything. They keep mentioning GW, but in that case, they should just confirm to be using HIPS.
There's a horrible thought: assuming GW-style plastic means Finecast.
They kinda sorta ruled that one out, thankfully.
I still think it is more than a little screwed up that they haven't just said what the material will be, and/or what funding goals equal what materials.
Maybe I'm just a bit paraoid now after SW/Mantic/RK - but I see this and think...'restic'. <<shudder>> then Azazelx my pledge.
Alpharius wrote: RhodeIslandTides - I don't think Artemis' points or misgivings are out of line at all.
I really like this one - but if they cannot, or will not?, definitively answer this question before the end?
No way am I staying in.
It's much more about commitment and finical understanding than current intentions.
They may come out and say the plastic will be just like the plastic miniature kits you get from GW on the frame/sprue.
What if 8+ months from now they say they cannot deliver on said promised of hard plastic miniatures (Hips) and must change material to something more economically sound.
I'm not a fan of the scale, but if it ends up being the next great table top game, why not? But if they can't deliver on said promises because of funding, you are basically getting a dead game.
What is the price range to make a mold these days for plastic miniatures?
I have an old scale modeler's magazine that talks about how many kits a company has to sell before they break even. It's a lot.
RiTides wrote: That said, yeah, they're being suspiciously vague about it :-/. "Injected plastic" allows for PVC, too, and "high quality" really doesn't mean anything. They keep mentioning GW, but in that case, they should just confirm to be using HIPS.
There's a horrible thought: assuming GW-style plastic means Finecast.
They kinda sorta ruled that one out, thankfully.
I still think it is more than a little screwed up that they haven't just said what the material will be, and/or what funding goals equal what materials.
Maybe I'm just a bit paraoid now after SW/Mantic/RK - but I see this and think...'restic'. <<shudder>> then Azazelx my pledge.
We need to create a group where we can discuss our horrors of such material.
We can call ourselves Restic Knights, in honor of the new horror that is to come.
Piston Honda wrote: What is the price range to make a mold these days for plastic miniatures?
Using WGF as a basis, around $20k in molding costs alone.. When I was budgeting out what we'd need to set as a goal for doing Brushfire plastics it was around $35~40k per 5 dudesman sprue of 30~35mm sculpt with multiple weapon and head options.
They apparently have the design work done already, they still have 4 factions. If their tool provider can make tools of a sufficient size, they could theoretically make one mould per faction where half is the basic troopers, and the rest the leader and special models. Then to fulfill orders, they simply snap the segments apart from one another.
The sculpts also look like they could be made in very few parts. Most in two parts and many as a single piece. This does increase the amount of figures they can fit on each sprue.
At 90k GBP, I think they'll meet all their obligations even if they go with a styrene based plaster injected into a steel mould. I just don't know if there will be any money left over to actually launch future production and distribution, not to mention actually put anything in the pockets of the people who are working on this. They need to print terrain, print boxes, ship everything and pay for as yet unforseen expenses.
If they can actually bring this to fruition though, they might have a chance of building up a customer base through direct online retail after the KS is fulfilled and they're ready to sell their new line to retail customers.
The absolute worst thing they could do would be to promise one type of plastic and then deliver another. I'm not interested in supporting the KS but I am interested in checking out the product at retail afterwords. If it turns out to be hard grey PVC, I definitely won't be interested. Especially after hearing about how it might be styrene like GW. Not to mention the forum and social media fallout of disappointing your KS backers.
I had backed as the mini are gorgeous but I decided to pull my pledge today as it's just really unclear on a lot of things. The language barrier adds a lot difficulty, they can barely handle communicating with basic statements which does not bode well for the rules which typically have much more complex structure due to technical wording. Due to scale the game is going to be standalone, which is fine provide you have a workable rules set, which given the language gap I don't think will happen. It's UK based how hard is it to find somebody who speaks English?
Choice of materials is purposefully being made vague/withheld which isn't good, if you are launching a line you should know from the get go what you primary material will be. Even if you upgrade later to plastics make it known from the get go that the models will be metal or resin, with a possible upgrade, not "we'll figure material out once we get there". The concern here is that the materials and process has everything to do with managing the ks funds correctly. It does not instill backer confidence if you don't have a solid game plan in place for the material as budgeting everything else for the KS hinges on that.
Also as pointed out earlier the sculpts are being misrepresented, it may not be with harmful intent but what we are seeing are not products in the scale they are promising. They weren't being very forthcoming about the project scale and even when they were pressed for answers they still gave a somewhat dodgey scale. 35mm to the eye when they are clearly much taller than that. A terminator measures in at 37mm to the top of the head give or take and yet they come up to shoulder height to the FF models.
It seems much more like an Indigogo project that's almost there but not quite. It has some really amazing looking models but everything else they are doing doesn't instill much confidence and stuff just doesn't smell right, for that reason I'm out.
I'll reconsider things if/when it hits retail and I'm able to see a finalized product but there's just too many things that are shakey to consider purchasing in advance.
Alpharius wrote: RhodeIslandTides - I don't think Artemis' points or misgivings are out of line at all.
I really like this one - but if they cannot, or will not?, definitively answer this question before the end?
No way am I staying in.
I'm in the same boat. They need to provide answers before the end of the campaign. I figure they will, as they will know a few days before the campaign closes roughly where it will end.
paulson games wrote: It's UK based how hard is it to find somebody who speaks English?
I don't think that it *really* is UK based. You have to be UK based to use the UK Kickstarter platform, and it's very easy to buy an off the shelf UK limited company (it would cost about $150-$200.
That looks to be what has happened here. A quick search on WEBCHEK shows
SCALEGAMES LTD
34 NEW HOUSE
67-68 HATTON GARDEN
LONDON
UNITED KINGDOM
Company No. 08695795
Date of Incorporation: 18/09/2013
A google search for that address gave me This link showing "(749 companies also use this postcode, this is probably a mail forwarding service address)"
So my take would be that Scale 75 have bought an off the shelf UK company in order to access Kickstarter's UK side rather than being actually based here, so I doubt they have any native English speakers on hand. Of course it means that my points earlier about the money they receive being net of VAT for EU purchasers are definitely true as they will have to comply with UK tax laws via this company.
It's not just about the size of the tooling. Larger tooling is a pain to change and more importantly requires much larger machines to run - not just to accommodate the tool, but because of the increased need for larger screws and bigger hydraulics.
Larger moulds require more energy to heat so that the plastic doesn't freeze before it has filled the mould, more cooling once the mould has filled, and bigger hydraulics to hold the mould halves shut against the injection pressure - which also has to be higher to fill the mould.
All this means larger machines are more costly to run, and there is a point of diminishing returns. Not to mention that you can get less machines in a given floor space.
So increasing the size of the moulds may not be an option, and even srtarting to design the moulds may well be a mistake if they don't know what material they are using. Diferent polymers have different coefficient of thermal expansion values, i.e. expand by different amounts for a given rise in temperature. So a mould cut for HIPS will be slightly different to one cut for ABS, even for the same components. Now the tolerances for this sort of thing may be greater than the differences between the materials, so there would be nothing to worry about.
paulson games wrote: It's UK based how hard is it to find somebody who speaks English?
I don't think that it *really* is UK based. You have to be UK based to use the UK Kickstarter platform, and it's very easy to buy an off the shelf UK limited company (it would cost about $150-$200.
That looks to be what has happened here. A quick search on WEBCHEK shows
SCALEGAMES LTD
34 NEW HOUSE
67-68 HATTON GARDEN
LONDON
UNITED KINGDOM
Company No. 08695795
Date of Incorporation: 18/09/2013
A google search for that address gave me This link showing "(749 companies also use this postcode, this is probably a mail forwarding service address)"
So my take would be that Scale 75 have bought an off the shelf UK company in order to access Kickstarter's UK side rather than being actually based here, so I doubt they have any native English speakers on hand. Of course it means that my points earlier about the money they receive being net of VAT for EU purchasers are definitely true as they will have to comply with UK tax laws via this company.
This is all dead on, the director of 'ScaleGames' is Spanish and lives in Spain. There is no UK team or anything, it's just a way to access Kickstarter.
Alpharius wrote: RhodeIslandTides - I don't think Artemis' points or misgivings are out of line at all.
I really like this one - but if they cannot, or will not?, definitively answer this question before the end?
No way am I staying in.
It's much more about commitment and finical understanding than current intentions.
They may come out and say the plastic will be just like the plastic miniature kits you get from GW on the frame/sprue.
What if 8+ months from now they say they cannot deliver on said promised of hard plastic miniatures (Hips) and must change material to something more economically sound.
I've never understood this as an excuse really, it's not hard to find out the price of something 'before' you start promising stuff.
My educated guess is that a number of the kickstarters that say they have met unexpected costs etc simply haven't and tried to emulate companies like CMON with a fake low-end goal to get a hype snowball and the stretch goals rolling. The problem is CMON is a huge company who, if it ever happened, could simply produce the game themselves regardless.
if 90k isn't enough to make all of these miniatures they are offering in proper HIPS then they will already know this. If they think it is enough then they shoudl simply say 'This is the material we will make things in if we fund'. Anything else is flim flam.
This update makes it look as if a lot of my existing terrain will work just fine:
Update #13
Jun 6 2014
Compatibility with other scenery
1 comment
13 likes
Hi folks,
We´ve been at a nearby hobby store (Thank you Goblin Trader) to take some pictures of our miniatures in different brands of scenery. We want to clear your concerns about compatibility.
Conrad Turner wrote:So increasing the size of the moulds may not be an option, and even srtarting to design the moulds may well be a mistake if they don't know what material they are using. Diferent polymers have different coefficient of thermal expansion values, i.e. expand by different amounts for a given rise in temperature. So a mould cut for HIPS will be slightly different to one cut for ABS, even for the same components. Now the tolerances for this sort of thing may be greater than the differences between the materials, so there would be nothing to worry about.
You're totally right. Going into this project not knowing what material you're going to be working with is pretty crazy. There's definitely technical limitations they need to take into consideration in advance. How do you know how much money you need if you don't know what process you'll be using the make the product?
EDIT: I'm also not going to actively pay attention to these and wait for them to hit retail after seeing the multi angle shots of the Ares troopers on the table. The heads don't do it for me, I hate their guns and there's something weird about their hips wings. And the female ones have big boob plates just looks silly given the overall proportions of the armour.
I don't really have much of a stake in this argument, but some people are really reaching for reasons hate, more than the problems that are already there. Let's focus on making them fix what are the real issues first.
The reality is that you can plan ahead for a variety of materials, the use of which is dependent on funding levels. I have in my planning documents a breakdown of how much funding I'd need to make my game in a variety of materials. The plan being that for a future kickstarter to clearly list that if X funding goal is reached the material type for Y miniatures would be Z. Of course, at this point all the complaints means I'm just doing pure resin.
The only thing they're really guilty of is just not stating things like that, and scale, clearly up front. That's a big deal, but don't go making conspiracy theories about them not knowing what they're going to make miniatures out of at all. That's the kind of typical internet overreacting that causes more problems than it fixes as it causes the arguments to jump all over the place before the crowd can solidify on these few important topics that can be easily addressed.
In the last pic where he is shown facing the wall, the wall section comes up a little over half of the miniatures height. That section is 28mm tall in height (28mm is at eye level for a space marine).
Based on that reference the model measures 50mm in height. (not including the base which would push it up to about 53-54mm in total height)
I'm not disqualifying the KS due to scale, I'm fine playing a game with it's own scale, however there are a number of other concerns that I have due to the language barrier and some of the stuff doesn't seem properly transparent to me, not a good tone to set when launching a kickstarter.
So the accusations that the sculpts shown were 75mm sculpts photoshoped on bases and not what they intended to produce are now forgotten since the models are shown to be the real thing and we now focus on size and the quite valid (and only) question of material?
Yeah, what's a bigger deal than material is the scale issue to me.
At 50mm, the issues of "restic" are likely diminished anyway, it's just weird that communication issues are coming up.
To that I say: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
Or rather, in this case, replace stupidity with not being a native English speaker, as well as being from a different gaming culture.
I also wonder if gaming culture is an issue as well. What's the gaming scene like in Spain? Perhaps they play a lot more games of various scales there, in general, as such a new game in a larger scale is not a big deal at all?
It just seems counter to any sensible person that they would want to actively hide any of that information.
edit: Anyone can make some weird accusations any time on the internet, especially with a void of other information.
It seems to me that most of the "butt hurt" comments regarding scale is because these models can't be ported over the WH40K.....my suggestion to those who feel that way is simple, stop repeating yourself, don't buy in, and go buy minis from GW vast range....duh?!?
I mean, just to be clear, this company isn't making WH40K, it's called Fallen Frontiers, so regardless of miniature scale, it works for the intended game.....WH4OK fan boys, I assume, were not the target audience!
I wouldn't mind, but the scale inaccuracies within WH40K are themselves savage to behold, why on earth would another miniatures company ever want to mimick it? Marines with no pelvis and shoulders that sprout from their ears is hardly a poster advertisement for human anatomy!
With regards to the scenery, again, the haters are gonna hate.....its clear from the photo is that the scenery is workable, and I find the in depth analysis of how these miniatures stack against the scenery laughable, especially when I see Space Marines placed in GW scenery that, if the scaling were anywhere near correct, the Marines would need to (literally) climb the stairs to ascend! Oh, and try and get 10 GW terminators into a Landraider.....yeah, that works!
A lot of the time, when people are playing wargames they have to suspend certain "realities" to help the game flow (see points above), there's no difference with these FF miniatures. They look well defined, and IMHO are considerably better for painting then the nearest comparison (Infinity Miniatures) which I find to be spindly, fidly, and a nightmare to paint and enjoy!
Right - personally I am only interested in what material they come in. Size is of less importance and I quite like the fact that they are larger.
So - Ares are supposed to be a bit smaller than Riff and still Ares are superhumans that are larger than normal humans.
Unless "normal" humans exist in the game though, the baseline for scale will be Ares. I did not find a good angle
picture to measure pixels and get an exact number for Ares so I did that with the Riff that are supposed to be a tad larger than
humans unless I am grossly mistaken (which can happen as I am "normal").
Not being sure of the base size I used the known measurement of the Mantic building floor that is 3" or 7,62cm.
Using the friendly grid there pretty much confirms the bases are 25mm. Assuming the aspect ratio is correct in the photo
and 1 vertical pixel = 1 horizontal pixel I just rotated the base and pasted two copies on top of another. This is 50mm.
Using the measuring tool in pixels and assuming the angle in the photo is negligable - top of his head comes to exactly 45mm.
I did not measure to his eyes, but it looks to me like that is close to 41mm.
Don't take this is fact as it's not, but it's a fairly accurate extrapolation.
PsychoticStorm wrote: So the accusations that the sculpts shown were 75mm sculpts photoshoped on bases and not what they intended to produce are now forgotten since the models are shown to be the real thing and we now focus on size and the quite valid (and only) question of material?
No, the 75mm miniatures 'are' still 75mm minis, nobody claimed these ones shown on the terrain were.
The red 'Bitsie' and the 145k stretch goal female commissar type are the 75mm figures.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
basement.dweller wrote: Right - personally I am only interested in what material they come in. Size is of less importance and I quite like the fact that they are larger.
So - Ares are supposed to be a bit smaller than Riff and still Ares are superhumans that are larger than normal humans.
Unless "normal" humans exist in the game though, the baseline for scale will be Ares. I did not find a good angle
picture to measure pixels and get an exact number for Ares so I did that with the Riff that are supposed to be a tad larger than
humans unless I am grossly mistaken (which can happen as I am "normal").
If you look at the earlier shots of the Riff and the Ares in full suits next to the game's own scenery they look pretty identical in height. The human female and male without helmets on look around 40-41mm so I'd say 44-45mm for the others is a reasonably accurate guesstimate.
Vertrucio wrote: I don't really have much of a stake in this argument, but some people are really reaching for reasons hate, more than the problems that are already there. Let's focus on making them fix what are the real issues first.
You know what else isn't constructive? Dismissing criticism as 'hate'.
I'm tempted to ask legoburner to just add the word 'hate' to the Dakka word filter. It seems to be massively over-used these days.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Delephont wrote: It seems to me that most of the "butt hurt" comments regarding scale is because these models can't be ported over the WH40K.....my suggestion to those who feel that way is simple, stop repeating yourself, don't buy in, and go buy minis from GW vast range....duh?!?
The issue with scale is nothing to do with them being usable in 40K or not.
As that raft of pictures show, at this scale they potentially don't work particularly well with people's existing terrain collections. Whether or not you're intending to use them in other games, having to go and build all new terrain for them is going to be a turnoff for many potential customers.
For others, the size issue is an aesthetic one. It's not necessarily a rational thing, and I don't know if I could pin down a reason for it... but I like 28-30-ish mm figures. The bigger they get, the less interested I am in them.
The fact that the material issue wasn't resolved before they started is a concern, since it affects the sculpting process as well. Showing off concept minis is pointless if they wind up having to be completely reworked for whatever material they finally decide to cast them in.
Or, they ran the cost benefit analysis and it came up on the stay quiet side. Or, the culture/language barrier means not only are the questions directed at them aren't getting to them properly, but then the answers aren't getting to us properly as well.
Announcing some version of restic, or hard plastic, or unobtainium probably won't matter in the end, especially for the scale of their game. We've seen actually good sculpts and casts of restic, usually larger stuff with enough form to hold the restic in place.
And if you look at the KS numbers now, despite all this bickering over scale, material, or whether or not they're being up front enough and giving us hard numbers/statements, they're still fully funded at 90,000 pounds, or roughly $150,000 USD.
Vertrucio wrote: Or, they ran the cost benefit analysis and it came up on the stay quiet side. Or, the culture/language barrier means not only are the questions directed at them aren't getting to them properly, but then the answers aren't getting to us properly as well.
If they ran the cost benefit analysis and are keeping quiet that doesn't bode well. Also they have a guy that are doing their rules translations to English and has been on the KS forum. Honestly I could see a cultural barrier if we were talking about Fidji or Bali, but Spain does not qualify at this level. Biggest cultural difference being the Siesta that I think most that partake find an excellent practice. As for language barriers as long as they are not like that desperate spanish housewife lady Mercedes I once met that kept saying "breastf*ck is the most important meal of the day" we're fine.
Vertrucio wrote: Announcing some version of restic, or hard plastic, or unobtainium probably won't matter in the end, especially for the scale of their game. We've seen actually good sculpts and casts of restic, usually larger stuff with enough form to hold the restic in place.
Hard plastic:
1) one of a gazillion different types of plastics in hard version including restic and pvc
2) Highly aroused plastic
3) Like hard drugs it leads to the dark abyss of addiction and plastic substance abuse.
Obviously hard plastic means 1) but which one makes a huge difference. So calling it anything other than the specific material or straight comparison to an existing product (gw for instance) is useless information. On that I agree. I highly disagree that material choice in their scale does not matter. Of course it matters. If it's a form of PVC it's more likely going to suck than not compared to other materials - and this based on track record. There is a game called "Journey" that is made in a similar scale and they did both resin copies for collectors and a pvc lineup of the same figures. For me the PVC counterparts look awful in comparison.
At least if you like to paint and collect like I do more so than game. I don't think PVC is necessarily bad - it's bad for people like me. Most people would also agree that there is a clear quality loss compared to other more reliable materials for fidelity purposes. Some manufacturers even willingly admit this (mostly because there is no way to spin the results).
Sorry for the ranty bit, this is not aimed directly at Scale Games, but I am so tired of this vagueness that seems to plague most KSs and this notion that PVC is as good for larger stuff. It can be good enough for some at most. Drakerys is using PVC and they are promising excellent results. I applaud their openess, but remain skeptic about their promises yet hope they produce some great stuff so I can buy it later. Their "sceneries" are being made in "hard plastic" for the love of.... I pledged $10 on the MERCS boardgame recently in order to have the opportunity to get the mercs figures in "hard plastic" as I assumed it meant HIPS. In reality it could turn out to be all pvc and they never said anything to the contrary.
There is no shame or downside to being specific about what material you intend to use unless that material sucks and then of course it matters. Being vague is what you do when you don't want to commit to something yet keep the promise and hope of something better. In worst case scenarious being vague is what you do when you don't want to be caught lying. It's PR clean and simple. As Alpharius mentioned earlier - they could simply state a ballpark number of how much they'd need to use a specific material. State at least what materials they are choosing between. Hard plastic or injection molded plastic means nothing. If they can't do that, they should at least explain why and what they are considering in more specific terms than have done up to this point.
Vertrucio wrote: And if you look at the KS numbers now, despite all this bickering over scale, material, or whether or not they're being up front enough and giving us hard numbers/statements, they're still fully funded at 90,000 pounds, or roughly $150,000 USD.
I'd say that's pretty big already.
There is a bunch of ladies with faulty implants that jumped on a groupon bandwagon a while back. I'm sure the facts were vague, but the price was right Regardless I am still pulling my pledge if I don't know what I am getting. And I've been looking forward to this ever since I got wind of it quite a while back. I think the designs are full of awesome.
The facebook thing was in from the very start. They have a roadmap of "stretchgoals" for x number of likes on facebook. I see that as highly effective marketing really. I kind of like restic more than fb though
SCALE GAMES 9 minutes ago
Hi folks. We can make production in ABS or PVC, this is why there is no a final answer. ABS is a good material but its so hard that it's very difficult to extract some geometries from the moulds. PVC is softer and its also a good choice but there are many many variants that its difficult to say one. But as we have said it will be a good material there are more than 25 golden demons among the team so quality will not be a problem.
Yep. Had enough of that crap. I was tempted to check out Mantic's latest offerings after seeing some painted finished miniatures, but fortunately the Restic Knight thread reminded me of just how not fun the material was the last time I worked with it.
ABS is a good material but its so hard that it's very difficult to extract some geometries from the moulds.
They say that like it's a bad thing. Better ABS or HIPS that forces them to design the cavities correctly than restic crap that lets them just rip and warp the miniatures pulling them out before they're fully set.
I agree with the material comments, so I pulled my pledge as quick as you like. I love how they reference the Golden Demons....do you get a Golden Demon for manufacturing excellence nowadays? I always thought it was for painting and model assembly?!?
Anyway, I was only interested in the miniatures, and seeing as that's the biggest risk factor in this venture I'll spend the money on p*rn instead!
I've just about given up on the comments section for this one too.
WAY too much sunshine blowin' going on in there.
People saying they have 'faith' that they'll chose the right material and there's no way they'd put out inferior quality miniatures?
Yeah...
There really should be no way that they do NOT reveal the material to be used for these miniatures ASAP.
BETA RULES ARE HERE THOUGH!
Update #16
Jun 7 2014
Beta Rules
Comment
2 likes
Hi, now you can download a copy of Fallen Frontiers beta rules.
This document is intended for you to familiarize with mechanics of the game but is not the complete rulebook. Over the next couple of weeks we will expand the information with examples, pictures and even some video. We also will open a forum to discuss the rules on monday.
Alpharius wrote: WAY too much sunshine blowin' going on in there.
Standard fare for any KS comments, really (at least whilst the project is live). In order to post you have to be a backer, which means you have a vested interest in muting the criticism (in case it harms being funded/getting to stretch goals).
You're right, of course, in that the (perhaps) overly aggressive positive types will be the majority, but with all of the bad PVC examples out there I'm still shocked at the lack of concern over material choice here.
Well I'm sitting on my eb pledge till the final days where hopefully everything becomes clearer. I still need to see examples from the manufacturer before comitting to this one, I was really disappointed with the warzone material after all the hype and promise of plastic figures and this seems very similar.
The rules aren't bad, but calling them a beta set is being polite. 16 pages, 3 of which are full colour art and the rest have very little actual text on for a full page.
It's sort of a rules pamphlet at best and they are incredibly basic. I've seen beter rules for people's demo games at Salute, anyone with an interest in wargaming could have knocked these up over the weekend at the pub.
But going by the comments section they will be hailed as the saviour of wargaming within a few hours. I really need to find a couple of these crazy cheerleaders for my future projects.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Vain wrote: Sooooo, Artermis...will we be seeing you in the Hasslefree thread now that you have popped your lurk bubble?
Yup, just waiting for our sale to b over so I have some time and I plan on being a little more active around more forums. Most time consuming is learning each forums rules for commercial representation and then the general 'feel ' of the forum like whether you're allowed to swear or be sarcastic. I am making a text file for each forum so I don't forget
Well I had to back out. PVC/restic is just not for me.
Even if the miniatures came out great with sharp detail, does not change the fact working with this material just sucks camel hump. And having to do it with 20, 30, 40+ figures?
No thanks. I want to be able to paint and play with my minis. My hobby time as been at a minimum as of late as well.
I get these promises such as the case with Drakerys that there are many types of PVC (true) but shouldn't let the issues of other miniature overshadow their product.
What process do they have that Mantic and CMON do not have access to? If it is true, what current example can they point to me that would make me believe such claims (I'm still waiting for a reply from Don't Panic, by the way). If the process is a new one, make gives them such confidence that it will work? What exp. do they have?
PVC/Restic material has been a blanket for companies to hide under so they can use the word plastic having people think they are going to get something similar to GW.
Okay, while I agree that the material has problems with detail, let's be honest here. Restic can't be much, if any, more difficult to work with. Different? Of course, but that much more difficult than metal or abs plastic, other than having to use super glue?
It doesn't scrape well, so mould line removal without destroying detail is a pain. It is often removed from moulds before it has completely hardened to allow undercuts, so miniatures are often twisted, some times never straightening properly even with hot water fixing. The detail of the miniatures can also be a lot worse when they are PVC.
I'm tempted just to pledge for paints. Although I night stay for the models even if PVC, sacrificing my sanity for final answers, proving my valour to the Restic Knights. I shall fall on to my sword, broken, bent, twisted. Not through injury but merely as I forgot to use hot water to straighten things out.
I think PVC just needs better branding: "Fire, steel and blood. For models that are not assembled but forged, choose PVC."
In all seriousness, I'm much more optimistic about the outcome here. Scale really does seem to be committed to quality (they claim that the final decision on material will not be a financial one), and when treated appropriately PVC can work decently well.
Do people remember Mantic's early non-Kickstarter stuff in this medium, like the Orc boar riders? Pretty crisp, minimal moldlines. I think a lot of Mantic's Kickstarter stuff was frankly rushed, and it suffered from hasty castings.
I think that the basic Sedition Wars stuff was mostly fine, and wave 2 suffered from scheduling and communication issues (e.g not factoring in the shrinkage).
Finally, the fallen frontiers stuff is BIG. Even basic troopers are quite large, and appear to have quite deeply-cut detail from the models we've seen. It is a world away from the unarmoured true-scale 28mm stuff of Sedition Wars.
Do people remember Mantic's early non-Kickstarter stuff in this medium, like the Orc boar riders? Pretty crisp, minimal moldlines. I think a lot of Mantic's Kickstarter stuff was frankly rushed, and it suffered from hasty castings.
Detail was better, warping was just as bad. And on 2-part cav with thin spears, not so fun.
The quality has gone down since then, some of my deadzone stuff doesn't have faces.
We've been monitoring this Kickstarter from the beginning. As we've said before, we are all gamers here and we keep on playing and enjoying a wide variety of miniature games. We know first hand how much "real plastic" costs and having looked at this carefully it does leave a lot of question marks.
Nonetheless we wish them success and that they'll deliver what they promised since they have been now fully funded.
basement.dweller wrote: In worst case scenarious being vague is what you do when you don't want to be caught lying. It's PR clean and simple.
No offense but that's not PR. Where we stand it's probably considered as cheating. Again, no offense intended.
I'd have to think "Scale" has a plan, and knows both what material they're using if funded, and what materials they'll be able to use if over-funded by (x).
Not sure why this can't be clearly communicated though.
Alpharius wrote: I've been hearing some not so good things about Journey's PVC as well...
They were 100% transparent though. They even had separate pledge levels for PVC and resin, and posted side by side shots showing the loss in detail in PVC.
Alpharius wrote: I've been hearing some not so good things about Journey's PVC as well...
They were 100% transparent though. They even had separate pledge levels for PVC and resin, and posted side by side shots showing the loss in detail in PVC.
We haven't followed anything that has to do with Journey but if what Wilb2064 said is correct... then that's PR as it should be.
Hah - yes, since Marrow can just pop down to the factory in a car, the production examples (and pictures of the process) are quite a bit more detailed than normal! Without getting too off-topic, you can see the resin vs. plastic (mixture of PVC & ABS, as per Wrath of Kings) shots here:
Either way, I hope we get some feedback from Scale on Monday - they don't seem to do a bad job in responding, but language is clearly still a bit of a barrier.
Don't think I've seen such a hostile comments section on a ks before, especially where people are asking valid questions.
Doesn't look like the pledge total is moving much, shame I like the look of the game but would like some more transparency from the creators, unlike some of the backers I need more than faith to keep my pledge.
edlowe wrote: Don't think I've seen such a hostile comments section on a ks before, especially where people are asking valid questions.
Doesn't look like the pledge total is moving much, shame I like the look of the game but would like some more transparency from the creators, unlike some of the backers I need more than faith to keep my pledge.
I was considering backing for a £1 just to post the link to my RP thread then count how many people insulted me within the first hour. Could run a book
I said somewhere above about wanting some cheerleaders myself but I'm not certain if they do more harm than good when they are too rabid. On the one hand they are making up their own answers to people's questions and naysaying any doubts, which removes the need for Scale to comment themselves for the most part and when push comes to shove they will never have said any of the answers themselves officially. On the other hand newcomers might be put off by the sheer frothy lunacy and 'have faith' type malarkey.
"Darlin' you got to let me know
Should I stay or should I go?
If you say that you are mine
I'll be here 'til the end of time
So you got to let me know
Should I stay or should I go?"
Shieldwolf Miniatures wrote: We've been monitoring this Kickstarter from the beginning. As we've said before, we are all gamers here and we keep on playing and enjoying a wide variety of miniature games. We know first hand how much "real plastic" costs and having looked at this carefully it does leave a lot of question marks.
Nonetheless we wish them success and that they'll deliver what they promised since they have been now fully funded.
basement.dweller wrote: In worst case scenarious being vague is what you do when you don't want to be caught lying. It's PR clean and simple.
No offense but that's not PR. Where we stand it's probably considered as cheating. Again, no offense intended.
Yia sas pedia! Xerome pou eparxoun kai ellines pou kanoun figoures!
I also completely agree - leaving out information that might be bad is deception. That is unfortunately the reality of PR whether it's considered right or wrong.
As for Marrow and Journey I will quote myself here as I was not complaining about Marrow - I think they handled this excellently and that is the reason I pledged with them. I was adressing the notion that larger scale stuff in PVC don't suffer the same issues as small scale which is simply not true. It just doesn't suffer as much. If you look at the closeups there are so much details missing which is down to the material choice and it's limitations.
basement.dweller wrote: I highly disagree that material choice in their scale does not matter. Of course it matters. If it's a form of PVC it's more likely going to suck than not compared to other materials - and this based on track record. There is a game called "Journey" that is made in a similar scale and they did both resin copies for collectors and a pvc lineup of the same figures. For me the PVC counterparts look awful in comparison.
At least if you like to paint and collect like I do more so than game. I don't think PVC is necessarily bad - it's bad for people like me. Most people would also agree that there is a clear quality loss compared to other more reliable materials for fidelity purposes. Some manufacturers even willingly admit this (mostly because there is no way to spin the results).
Alpharius wrote: A Clash reference is always appreciated! (At least, that's how I know that song!)
I should note that since the one is already at around $150K , it is already doing well.
Clearly the scale of the mins didn't hurt - but might the material revelation?
I'm not entirely convinced the scale of the minis is 'known' still. Remember it passed 50k before the scale pic went up and now it's on page 3 or 4 of the updates and a tiny pic and if you jump in and read back through the comments you still see a lot more 'matches with Dust', 'goes with Deadzone scenery* etc. than 'Nothing in this kickstarter is smaller than 40mm and will not match anything you likely own'. The csale all the way at the bottom in the FAQ still says "35mm to the eyes" which is wrong 'and' still has the '6.8ft is 40mm' typo both of which make them seem smaller than they are.
I can easily see a number of pledgers being mistaken and then being quite annoyed when their stuff finally turns up.
I can't believe nobody has been talking about the rules yet. Personally i am glad i waited for the rules to come out before backing the game. They are clearly written by someone who has no experience in game design, and as of now they are "Book Keeping: The Game".
Right now they kept line of sight very vague, sounds like TLOS to me: "When a unit shoots it must select an enemy unit inside their line of vision. The line of vision is calculated from the attacker to the miniatures of the objective unit. Every single miniature capable to see at least one enemy miniature can shoot. Partially visible miniatures: Sometimes, some of the miniatures of the defender will be partially covered, and others will not be. In this case, the hits that can only hit miniatures under cover will be assigned in this group and the hits that can hit all will be assigned normally, distributed equally between all the assignable miniatures."
In general there are a bunch of things that are just kind of weird, here is something they call reference miniature: "To determine the facing of the unit during the game, a reference miniature will be used, whose facing will represent that of the whole unit. This way when we need to determine if a unit is flanked by the fire of an enemy unit we will use the position and facing of that miniature for the whole unit. In the units in which there is a commander we will use the commander as the reference miniature. In the cases where there are no commanders, the reference miniature will be the closest miniature to the source of the fire."
Attached you will find the rules. They are poorly translated, but that's what you get. In general this kickstarter seems like its purely driven by the high quality of art and models. If people had seen the rules from the beginning i am sure they would be way less funded.
Artemis Black wrote: I talked about the rules, by saying there's nothing to talk about It's a rules pamphlet that would probably fit on 3 or 4 pages of A4 in proper type.
Yea it's really just a very basic layout of common wargaming concepts without any concrete structure behind it. Seeing how they only have one amateur guy on the team writing the rules, and he has no experience in rules writing, i have little faith in this... Here is an interview thing that they did where they talk a little more about the game, basically the guy who writes the rules is a big league of legends player and he wants to incorporate video game elements into the game as much as possible. I... just... ugh...
cincydooley wrote: I'm confused. Who is shieldwolf miniatures and what do they have to do with this game? I thought this was Scale?
Shieldwolf miniatures are a seperate company and have recently launched a plastic orc warband box so know a fair bit about funding and producing plastic sprues. They were giving their own opinion on this ks.
personally I pretty much feel theres no way this ks will be plastic sprues but will definitely be pvc or some derivative. They would simply need a lot more cash.
Good point on the scale here - it is...odd, and perhaps not as clear as it should be.
That one reference/comparison pic was a little on the small side too...
From the FAQ:
On scale:
At Scale games we have chosen to scale O (O gauge), where 7 mm correspond to 1 foot. In this way a model of 1.80 m (6.8 ft) in reality, will measure 40 mm in total. When we say that a human is 35 mm in FF we refer up to the eyes, not total, since is commonly used as a standar among brands selling kits of 54 or 75 mm.
Material:
Inicially, we want to produce in injected plastic but some items (vehicles for example) can be casted in PU resin. In fact, the material is not closed and it will depend on the campaign result.
I think they should just tell us what the material is NOW, because they're 'fully funded'.
And they should tell us what level of funding will be necessary to get them all in 'hard plastic' - as I'd guess that's the goal we're marching towards?
Another thing that is pretty funny is the mentions that Dakka Dakka gets, and how people 'hate' and/or 'loathe' "Dakka".
As if "Dakka" is some sort of Hive Mind, or that there's some sort of majority or consensus here!
Ironically enough, the Kickstarter comments sections are the more likely place for that type of unwelcoming thing...
I think they should just tell us what the material is NOW, because they're 'fully funded'.
In general it feels like they themselves did not figure all of these things out, which is why we are getting no concrete information and half-baked rules...
It is a shame too, because I like the look of the miniatures we've seen so far - which I guess are 'resin masters'?
The game/rules can always be polished/fixed later, but dud PVC figures will sink this one double quick.
Hopefully SG is just taking the weekend off (odd though that may be during the opening week of a KS) and will answer all questions and concerns on Monday.
I certainly hope so, as I want this one to succeed (which, technically, it already has!), and deliver high quality miniatures that match the samples shown to date.
Alpharius wrote: Good point on the scale here - it is...odd, and perhaps not as clear as it should be.
That one reference/comparison pic was a little on the small side too...
From the FAQ:
On scale:
At Scale games we have chosen to scale O (O gauge), where 7 mm correspond to 1 foot.
In this way a model of 1.80 m (6.8 ft) in reality, will measure 40 mm in total.
When we say that a human is 35 mm in FF we refer up to the eyes, not total, since is commonly used as a standar among brands selling kits of 54 or 75 mm.
Material:
Inicially, we want to produce in injected plastic but some items (vehicles for example) can be casted in PU resin.
In fact, the material is not closed and it will depend on the campaign result.
I think they should just tell us what the material is NOW, because they're 'fully funded'.
And they should tell us what level of funding will be necessary to get them all in 'hard plastic' - as I'd guess that's the goal we're marching towards?
Another thing that is pretty funny is the mentions that Dakka Dakka gets, and how people 'hate' and/or 'loathe' "Dakka".
As if "Dakka" is some sort of Hive Mind, or that there's some sort of majority or consensus here!
Ironically enough, the Kickstarter comments sections are the more likely place for that type of unwelcoming thing...
Pretty much my reaction when I first read their statement regarding the scale.
Spoiler:
True, I would like the miniatures to be in line with my existing range of miniature, but if the game were to be excellent, I could throw that all aside. But reading the beta rules, I don't see that happening right now.
Regardless, It was that statement in the early hours of the kickstarter that I found puzzling and watching on with caution. They seem to highlight the scale with common train modeling lingo, not war gaming lingo. Initially avoiding scale questions and scale comparisons from the start.
And they avoid direct communication regarding materials and which manufacturers they are actively seeking. The only news information I have seen was a second hand source from an obvious over enthusiastic backer.
Beware the door with too many keys.
Automatically Appended Next Post: from the comment section by scale games
"Hi all.
The material will be HIPS (High Impact Polystyrene). We hope you like it."
Why did it take so long?
What is there target goal to achieve this process? From the beginning it was stated it depends on how much funding they get, the game is just a few bucks past funding.
Who have they worked with to determine this?
Just seems like it came out of no where after concern has started in the comments?
Who knows, maybe they were approached by some manufacturer, maybe they approached somebody, maybe they managed to get a better/ solid deal, maybe the campaign goes well enough for them to invest the extra to make them happen, or maybe they evaluated the reaction for the first two suggested materials and decided that HIPS will be better for their future.
Hi all.
The material will be HIPS (High Impact Polystyrene). We hope you like it.
.....There you are in black and white, they cannot go back on it now...or can they?
Automatically Appended Next Post: New update
Materials and Stretch Goals clarification2 comments
Like
1 like
Finally to produce our models we decided to use HIPS (high impact polystyrene) for being an easy to glue and paint plastic. Among its other virtues include impact resistance and resistance to deformation.
As for the Stretch goals are aware that they are far apart and we have planned since start of campaign to launch a number of surprises when achieving other margins of success. (but if you say it in advance... where is the surprise?)
So without more, from Scale Games we wish you a happy Week beginning and do not miss our updates as they come full of content and surprises!
It just seems strange to me that they would say "we have to see about the material depending on the funding" and now they are going straight for "its going to be this exact material". Either they are just trying to kill the fire, or they didn't have it figured out themselves prior to the shitstorm...
The reality of production and going for funding is that you can actually plan for both cases, then choose one once new information comes to light.
In this case, there's a ton of people complaining about restic, and them achieving the funding goal.
And can you really complain any further now that they've given a hard answer?
People wonder why businesses stay quiet on various topics despite people clamoring for a statement. The continued reaching for complaints is one of the many reasons.
Hi all.
The material will be HIPS (High Impact Polystyrene). We hope you like it.
.....There you are in black and white, they cannot go back on it now...or can they?
Automatically Appended Next Post: New update
Materials and Stretch Goals clarification2 comments
Like
1 like
Finally to produce our models we decided to use HIPS (high impact polystyrene) for being an easy to glue and paint plastic. Among its other virtues include impact resistance and resistance to deformation.
As for the Stretch goals are aware that they are far apart and we have planned since start of campaign to launch a number of surprises when achieving other margins of success. (but if you say it in advance... where is the surprise?)
So without more, from Scale Games we wish you a happy Week beginning and do not miss our updates as they come full of content and surprises!
Best regards
Excellent news that they've confirmed this, I really didn't think they'd be able to fund it for all the troop choices. Going to leave my pledge in at assualt eb and boost it in pledge manager so theres no nasty surprises post ks updates.
Vertrucio wrote: Or you could be reaching for conspiracy theories.
The reality of production and going for funding is that you can actually plan for both cases, then choose one once new information comes to light.
In this case, there's a ton of people complaining about restic, and them achieving the funding goal.
And can you really complain any further now that they've given a hard answer?
People wonder why businesses stay quiet on various topics despite people clamoring for a statement. The continued reaching for complaints is one of the many reasons.
No, none of that. They are literally barely funded. Any less money than this and they get nothing. So apparently they can somehow afford HIPS with the bare minimum funding goal. If that's the case why the wishy washy answers up until now?
If 90k was enough money to afford HIPS then that should have (and imo 'would' have) been in the initial announcement and they wouldn't have repeated 47 times that the material would depend on the funding.
There's no new cheaper way to do this that has come to light in the last few days. I shall be 'very' interested in what happens if this kickstarter doesn't hugely overfund.
Again, you're reading what you want into it, with no real facts, just self-righteous anger and speculation.
Yes, they're literally barely funded, which means they can afford at least some HIPS molds and either expect more people to jump in from the announcement, or plan to operate at a loss and use the kickstarter funds to offset the costs now, in exchange for popularity and future sales.
Also, they're funded before even half the time limit on their kickstarter is done. In the history of kickstarters, once a project is funded, more pledges tend to follow unless they screw things up.
And again, they've hit their funding goal despite all these protests.
Likewise, they may also have gotten some additional loans that were dependent on their kickstarter funding to prove interest and other financial backing. That's actually pretty common, and many businesses keep such financial matters private.
So a business says it's materials are dependent on funding, then it gets the funding within an ample time limit that allows for additional funding, and responds to backers and complainers, and yet the complaining and accusations continue?
I'm not even interested in buying the game here, and agree the company and kickstarter has serious problems (such as rules). But I just want to counterpoint all this weird and self-righteous complaining that is almost as much misinformation as what this kickstarter has put out.
Vertrucio wrote: Again, you're reading what you want into it, with no real facts, just self-righteous anger and speculation.
Yes, they're literally barely funded, which means they can afford at least some HIPS molds and either expect more people to jump in from the announcement, or plan to operate at a loss and use the kickstarter funds to offset the costs now, in exchange for popularity and future sales.
Also, they're funded before even half the time limit on their kickstarter is done. In the history of kickstarters, once a project is funded, more pledges tend to follow unless they screw things up.
And again, they've hit their funding goal despite all these protests.
Likewise, they may also have gotten some additional loans that were dependent on their kickstarter funding to prove interest and other financial backing. That's actually pretty common, and many businesses keep such financial matters private.
So a business says it's materials are dependent on funding, then it gets the funding within an ample time limit that allows for additional funding, and responds to backers and complainers, and yet the complaining and accusations continue?
I'm not even interested in buying the game here, and agree the company and kickstarter has serious problems (such as rules). But I just want to counterpoint all this weird and self-righteous complaining that is almost as much misinformation as what this kickstarter has put out.
Absolutely none of that has anything to do with what I said. Loans depending on funding would still be known in advance so have been taken into account. 'some HIPS models' is not what they've said. You haven't actually counterpointed anything?
They have quite clearly changed their statement on material. There certainly may be some brand new behind the scenes reason for it, in fact that is the 'only' reasonable explanation as many of us in the business know the costs of what they are now saying they will provide and 90k isn't enough. Again, you'd think that this would be somethign you'd mention under these circumstances.
(And for the record a) loans depending on ks funding aren't actually that common and b) they aren't actually funded until the end of the ks anyway)
Just to re-point out, and this strengthens Arty's point re: affordability of HIPS, Scale will not receive anything like £90k (they are at about £92k right now). That is the headline figure.
KS fees will take about 7%
This leaves the headline figure at £85.5k. Then (and this is a big chunk of change) they will have to pay VAT to the UK tax authorities as this is being run via a UK company (if they ran it from Spain it would be worse, so I'm not cherry picking).
VAT is 20% (it's included in UK prices, so if you sell something for £10 before VAT, you charge the customer £12 and the £2 goes to the government). VAT has to be charged on any sales going to customers inside the EU (it's slightly more complicated than that but can we accept that as a resonable summation?). VAT doesn't have to be charged on any sales going outside the EU (USA, Japan, Africa etc).
If we assume that half the funding comes from the EU (I'm plucking a number at random here), then VAT would have to be paid on half the £85.5k (I'm not certain whether the KS charges would have reclaimable VAT, so I'm going for the best case for Scale number). That would be £7k roughly.
So out of the £92k headline figure, Scale would only end up with £78.5k. Roughly 15% of the headline figure will disappear in KS fees and taxes. If they get more than half their funding from the EU, that number gets worse (less than half and it gets better).
I don't believe they could do this tooling based on the numbers as they stand. They could have cash coming in from elsewhere, they could be banking on a large increase in backers, they could have found an ultra cheap method of tooling or they could have got the maths wrong. I don't know which of these it is, or if there's another option. But even if I liked the product (which I don't particularly), I'd be wary of putting my money behind it at this point.
Thanks to amazon payment fees the Kickstarter percentage is more like 8-10% (5% for KS itself and then a varying amount to amazon payments).
As they have unlocked a huge number of minis, let's do a quick calculation...
38 miniatures in the box set, which looks to be 24 unique ones?
The free 90k mini. 14 unique Sayx. 14 Unique Harvesters.
Then there's boosters, all currently available as far as I can tell. 5 Ares Light Infantry, 5 Ares Hyperion, 5 Riff Berserkers, 3 Riff Hulks, 5 Sayx Nightstalkers, 1 Sayx Vulcan, 1 Warping drone, 1 Behemoth (I assume these last 3 are just packs of identical minis by the artwork).
So at least 79 unique minis all of which are between 40mm and 50mm (some might easily be larger than 50mm). So will need considerable space on a sprue. The bases also look like they plan on being a sprue.
The scenery is just folded cardboard but they do have to produce a lot of it. The gaming mats will be more expensive to produce.
Vehicle will likely be in resin, but there's 2 of those currently involved 2 (maybe 4).
Rulebooks, dice, cards, the game box.
They are also selling their paint sets and a dvd.
So never mind that they won't get the 90k, there's a fair chunk of that 90k that''s not even 'for' the production process of the minis.
79 unique large scale minis in HIPS is going to cost a fortune. Sprues will need to be unique to individual codes at least so that's a minimum of 20 sprues 'easy', probably more, and due to the size of the minsi they won't be half size sprues or anything. So either they do have outside funding to a considerable degree or they are hoping this overfunds considerably. If it's the latter then just straight up promising HIPS is dodgy, so I hope for their sakes that it's the former.
Well, if this is going to be HIPs, so we've got to got on that!
It is looking more like they had a certain percentage of the necessary funds up front, maybe, and went to KS for that 'interest free loan' thing, maybe?
Either way, I'm glad we have some clarity here now, and that HIPs is the majority material here (still not sure if the characters will be in HIPs or...something else).
The daily performance charts on this one are....odd though:
Middle of kickstarters are regularly like this, especialy on larger ones.
There's the initial snowball and then there's a tiny spike whenever a stretch goal is crept past and then there's a spiek at the end as people decide last minute to jump on.
Ignore the rubbish about weekends on the comments, utterly irrelevant, if anything weekends are the best time for sales.
I suspect this will follow the same pattern and spike at the end. It's not like the rules are going to inspire a new bunch of backers, they barely exist. We've all had the scale and now material discussions to death so that's probably done too. Their stretch goals are medicore and widely spaced (hence the sudden reveal that they had secret stretch goals all along, honest guv'nor).
Their biggest worry is that a number of their backers a) defect to other big kickstarters, b) actually care about the rules and run screaming because of how pathetic they are or c) have read threads like this one and are now iffy enough to wait until real product exists.
They aren't even out of the 'defunded' woods yet either. If 6 of the 58 commander/shop pledges decide to leave they drop under 90k again (Note, I don't think this will happen but they aren't exactly thundering throught he finish line).
The problem with KS is that the company isn't really under any obligations to fulfill what it promises during the campaign. So they can say HIPS all day, but you just have to trust them at their word, which thus far has not been very trustworthy.
But, but it's so full of shiny that things can't possibly be flawed!
The blind faith that some people throw at KS is pretty amazing. Defiance had all sorts of people tumbling like lemmings over their cliff, all with a smile on their face because they allowed shiny syndrome to overcome their common sense and ignored that there were issues with the KS. Not saying that FF is deliberately trying to pull a Defiance, but a lot of experienced KS users have pointed out that there are some legit concerns coming from the numbers and statements that Scale has made.
I saw enough issues that I decided to pull my pledge, outside of providing some nice pictures I just don't feel that the KS has established enough trust and I won't back a project I don't trust.
cincydooley wrote: I'm confused. Who is shieldwolf miniatures and what do they have to do with this game? I thought this was Scale?
Shieldwolf miniatures are a seperate company and have recently launched a plastic orc warband box so know a fair bit about funding and producing plastic sprues. They were giving their own opinion on this ks.
personally I pretty much feel theres no way this ks will be plastic sprues but will definitely be pvc or some derivative. They would simply need a lot more cash.
Thanks for the clarification.
Nice to hear that they plan on using HIPS. I don't think it's unreasonable that they could fit each of the 4 starter armies in 1 frame a piece.
Its still pretty confusing regarding the material. As has been pointed out im not sure how they can fund all those kits at the current level. And their reply to Alpharius regarding other figures being 'at first' in plastic seems a bit odd.
I must admitt if I hadn't been sitting on an eb I'd have dropped out or down by now. I'm currently wondering whether I want to take a risk with them or not.
Edit - Didn't realise there were so many higher pledges taken, thats a lot of faith for a new ks.
cincydooley wrote: I'm confused. Who is shieldwolf miniatures and what do they have to do with this game? I thought this was Scale?
Shieldwolf miniatures are a seperate company and have recently launched a plastic orc warband box so know a fair bit about funding and producing plastic sprues. They were giving their own opinion on this ks.
personally I pretty much feel theres no way this ks will be plastic sprues but will definitely be pvc or some derivative. They would simply need a lot more cash.
Thanks for the clarification.
Nice to hear that they plan on using HIPS. I don't think it's unreasonable that they could fit each of the 4 starter armies in 1 frame a piece.
What do you mean by 'starter army'? If you loko at say the Ares starter you get 15 Area troopers, one would think that's 3 each of the same set of 5 unique. Those guys are 45mm tall and definitely won't be single piece at 'all' if going the HIPS route. Throw in the other 4 figures and that would be 19 figures.
You think you can fit 19 multipart 40 oddmm figures on one plastic sprue? There's not a chance in hell. They'll be lucky to fit just the 5 basic Ares troopers on one sprue imo, and it'll be a full size sprue. Then 'maybe' the other 4 on one sprue. And if they go that route they can't sell the other 4 as individual minis, only as the set of4 (unless they waste more sprue space putting in separators to allow it to be cut up.)
The Riff will need 3 separate sprues and again that's ony if they include all the characters on one sprue and a sprue for every separate booster and starter etc. as they're already included in people's pledges.
Yes. I think they could fit the Ares starter on one imperial knight sized sprue, broken in half, as GW tends to do to package them without the box taking up too much space.
cincydooley wrote: Yes. I think they could fit the Ares starter on one imperial knight sized sprue, broken in half, as GW tends to do to package them without the box taking up too much space.
The IK sprue is around 300x200mm? And you think the could fit 19 40-50mm multipart minis on it?
You'd be hard pressed to do what I figure they'll have to and make a half sprue of the 5 basic ares troopers (as they'll need multiples for each starter set). Then the other half sprue would be 4 individuals that you couldn't split and sell separately 'and' if they paid for a full sprue they'd have a huge build up of that half of the sprue as you need 3 of the troopers for each game box leaving 2 to go in the spares pile.
The Riff box would need 3 half sprues easy. And again, all the boosters would need their own half sprues and if you go the half sprue route you constantly build up spares for any pairs that don't sell equally to each other. While plastic isn't exactly expensive you don't really want hundreds and hundreds of sprues building up of one half of a pair.
All of this really does make me think that they've got money from somewhere else funding a lot of this, and the Kickstarter campaign is a "bonus", and interest free loan, a, dare I say it?, kick start to the project.
Some one or thing may have said, "Raise £90K and I'll back you on this project with £(X) matching funds" or something similar.
Otherwise, it is hard to see how they'll be able to afford all these molds.
I have to say this is boarding on a witch hunt now, the scale (sorted), the materials (sorted) and now it's the rules and the estimated production costs...
The point is, this is a KS, there is always risks when ever you buy into them. I have been badly burnt twice with SW and Drake but as an adult I look at a new KS and make a decision. People like Artimus have raised valid points but it is now just flogging a dead horse.....let people back it, if it goes wrong after reading all the comments well it's their money to lose, and there's nothing worse than the nerd rage that usually follows poorly executed KSer's!
I know a lot of you have said you are not going to buy into this KS, but you have all clearly made your point (repeatedly), move on to a KS you can support positively, or even a different KS you can kick in the proverbial nuts.
Denilsta wrote: I have to say this is boarding on a witch hunt now, the scale (sorted), the materials (sorted) and now it's the rules and the estimated production costs...
The point is, this is a KS, there is always risks when ever you buy into them. I have been badly burnt twice with SW and Drake but as an adult I look at a new KS and make a decision. People like Artimus have raised valid points but it is now just flogging a dead horse.....let people back it, if it goes wrong after reading all the comments well it's their money to lose, and there's nothing worse than the nerd rage that usually follows poorly executed KSer's!
I know a lot of you have said you are not going to buy into this KS, but you have all clearly made your point (repeatedly), move on to a KS you can support positively, or even a different KS you can kick in the proverbial nuts.
You do realize much of it has been "I want to back but need more info," right?
There's no "nerd rage" here. Simply well reasoned concerns based on previous KS experience.
At the risk of sounding lazy (read the main page & FAQ but I can't bring myself to read through KS comments any more...) are, or will there be, options to purchase the characters as they get unlocked? Fenn has been unlocked, for instance, but I see no way to buy him as an add-on so it would seem as though you can only get them by pledging at certain levels?
Denilsta wrote: I have to say this is boarding on a witch hunt now, the scale (sorted), the materials (sorted) and now it's the rules and the estimated production costs...
The point is, this is a KS, there is always risks when ever you buy into them. I have been badly burnt twice with SW and Drake but as an adult I look at a new KS and make a decision. People like Artimus have raised valid points but it is now just flogging a dead horse.....let people back it, if it goes wrong after reading all the comments well it's their money to lose, and there's nothing worse than the nerd rage that usually follows poorly executed KSer's!
I know a lot of you have said you are not going to buy into this KS, but you have all clearly made your point (repeatedly), move on to a KS you can support positively, or even a different KS you can kick in the proverbial nuts.
You do realize much of it has been "I want to back but need more info," right?
There's no "nerd rage" here. Simply well reasoned concerns based on previous KS experience.
Your comments, however, are less than helpful.
But repetition of the same points are helpful? It's true what you said about people asking for more info and it has been given, either look backwards a few pages on here or scroll down the comments section. This is going beyond helpful advice now and as you say it is now less then helpful but certain people just want to drag this on. Plus if you are going to pick two words out of my entire post at least put it in context I used it in...look at the fall out on Mr McVey Defience, Mantic and CMoN to name a few for poorly executed KS upon completion, as I clearly stated.
Alpharius, I honestly think that's all wishful thinking.
This company had no idea what material they were using, so they certainly haven't lined up WGF, who have a huge queue and (as noted) aren't taking on new customers.
They may be hoping to use another company that doesn't normally do wargaming miniatures. Hawk Wargames did this (I think even in the UK?), but they have more experience and simpler geometry on their small scale vehicles, that meant it wasn't as complicated of a mold as a normal miniature requires.
The creators here can say all day long that they're doing characters in HIPS, but I only know of one company that does that- Games Workshop, and only just recently.
Chances are much better that they're somewhat confused about materials or costs, or how difficult and expensive it is to make a model without undercuts that can have an injection mold made for use with high impact polystyrene.
I personally think folks have pushed them into saying "Yes, it's HIPS!" when they cannot realistically do this. Speculating that they have outside funding is just that... speculation, and given the amount of planning they had on how to produce these miniatures in plastic (not much at all) I highly doubt they have that funding.
In short, I really doubt these will be made in HIPS, and even if the units are I think there's basically no chance the characters will be, regardless of what they say. Trying to rationalize and explain how this could work out when it really just can't is a fool's errand, imo.
So, I would personally not suspend disbelief, and if you are pledging, put in a small enough pledge that it won't hurt you if it turns out not to be in the material you're hoping, and which they kind of had their arm twisted into committing to. That, or be satisfied with PVC or the like. But I see no reasonable explanation for how they can do all that they are saying in high impact polystyrene, and I don't think we should pretend that it is likely they can or will... regardless of the promises they have been forced into by backers ramping up their expectations.
Unfortunately, it's much more likely that they do not have any supplier yet lined up (imo) given that they just now committed to the material. Would love to be wrong, of course...
paulson games wrote: Maybe they are planning on using Panda like Ninja Division has been for their Robotech Plastics, which of course has gone swimmingly well.
gak that's Panda doing the RBT figs? This explains a lot.
Wow, they have really shortened those stretch goals!
I'm with RiTides, I doubt they have outside funding, there would be zero reason not to mention it, it's a huge confidence booster and they are clearly doing everything they can to get people on board. My guess owuld also be that there was so much hoopla that they decided to just say it and be damned *grin*
Has anyone actually asked directly 'Are 'all' miniatures going to be HIPS? And by HIPS you definitely mean GW- style plastic sprues?'.
Kingdom Death are doing characters in HIPS, but it took them a 'much' bigger kickstarter and a long time to start doing that. You pretty much have to be guaranteed x sales of a single figure and there's only a handful of companies who can do that.
As for the Witch Hunt comments, I keep talking about it bcause I'm actually interested I rarely follow kickstarters to this extent and I actually started doing so because I was very much interested in the product and would have signed on for the shop pledge 'minimum'. possibly multipl shop pledges, if it had been 35mm figures in HIPS. I backed out at the scale thing but it took so much work from numerous people to actually get a straight answer about that that I was now hooked into following the malarkey
(Plus it really is interesting to watch a controversial kickstarter unfold and see the dynamics and watch the comments. I mean the latest one is calling the rules 'refreshing', which is possibly clinically insane *grin*)
Alpharius wrote: It does, but that's what they've said they'll be doing!
Though Cyp's comments about WGF not taking new customers is a bit troubling.
Maybe WGF has changed this stance recently, and is taking new customers?
There are more companies in china than just WGF that can do polysytrene casting...
Right, of course, but someone said they were actually talking to WGF, so...
Sure, maybe they got shut out and are now using...someone else.
The person who said that was the biggest comments cheerleader. And he said that he got that answer in an email. For the record I have also talked to Wargames Factory. This does not in any way mean they are currently making minis for me nor that they ever will
There's other options out there. I was looking into a company called Protolabs recently for plastic stuff. They're good for lower amounts of stuff, and had cheaper mold prices, but you have to do all of the CAD files yourself and they have to be all finished and ready to go with no undercuts or anything. It's all automated.
So I decided to stick with Zbrush and resin models
I really like what I see, and I'm a huge fan of Scale 75 models even if I fail to do them justice. I want Scale Games to succeed, and honestly, I could throw £500 at this easily... I just have doubts at this stage. Perhaps one for the card with chargeback.
Alpharius wrote: All of this really does make me think that they've got money from somewhere else funding a lot of this, and the Kickstarter campaign is a "bonus", and interest free loan, a, dare I say it?, kick start to the project.
Some one or thing may have said, "Raise £90K and I'll back you on this project with £(X) matching funds" or something similar.
Otherwise, it is hard to see how they'll be able to afford all these molds.
Unless Wargames Factory offers really good deals?
At the potential 'cost' of project delays?
If they were taking new customers (They are not, thanks, cyp) WGF seem to be a company that is high in demand. They could charge top dollar and beyond.
Panda Plastic is one of the big names in boardgames for Chinese manufacturing (they do injection moulding but I can't find the bit I know I've seen where they detail this more, I'll carry on looking)
RiTides wrote: Alpharius, I honestly think that's all wishful thinking.
This company had no idea what material they were using, so they certainly haven't lined up WGF, who have a huge queue and (as noted) aren't taking on new customers.
They may be hoping to use another company that doesn't normally do wargaming miniatures. Hawk Wargames did this (I think even in the UK?), but they have more experience and simpler geometry on their small scale vehicles, that meant it wasn't as complicated of a mold as a normal miniature requires.
The creators here can say all day long that they're doing characters in HIPS, but I only know of one company that does that- Games Workshop, and only just recently.
Chances are much better that they're somewhat confused about materials or costs, or how difficult and expensive it is to make a model without undercuts that can have an injection mold made for use with high impact polystyrene.
I personally think folks have pushed them into saying "Yes, it's HIPS!" when they cannot realistically do this. Speculating that they have outside funding is just that... speculation, and given the amount of planning they had on how to produce these miniatures in plastic (not much at all) I highly doubt they have that funding.
In short, I really doubt these will be made in HIPS, and even if the units are I think there's basically no chance the characters will be, regardless of what they say. Trying to rationalize and explain how this could work out when it really just can't is a fool's errand, imo.
So, I would personally not suspend disbelief, and if you are pledging, put in a small enough pledge that it won't hurt you if it turns out not to be in the material you're hoping, and which they kind of had their arm twisted into committing to. That, or be satisfied with PVC or the like. But I see no reasonable explanation for how they can do all that they are saying in high impact polystyrene, and I don't think we should pretend that it is likely they can or will... regardless of the promises they have been forced into by backers ramping up their expectations.
Strongly agree with this.
Announcing that everything will be in HIPS and then further lowering the stretch goals, which should all be positives, are just red flags to me. I'm not seeing realistic expectations being established by Scale here given the information we have been shown.
Panda does make tons of board games, and is making the ships for a game called Xia that I backed... but they've had to do many, many revisions to get it right with the creator, and there isn't a lot of detail needed to begin with.
I think Panda is great for normal board game components, but they're not suited to making high quality wargaming miniatures, imo.
Someone hand me my pop corn and a bladder buster cola.. this topic is fun to watch. But let me give you something to regurgitate on in the spirit of conversation and all.
Like I said on the KS Page, some people just like to be negative, they get enjoyment from being sad and pathetic, and they must have company, you know being miserable and all. They will cast doubt, make wild unfounded claims, question every decision, and pray for failure so they can gloat and say I told you so, and act smug as if they knew it all along. If you don't believe in the product or company then go support one you do, why bother gaking on someone else's parade? Oh that's right looking for company... sorry my bad. I guess we have to live with the trolls and banshees screaming all night long about how this or that is the suck.
I happen to be the guy who has spoken to them in email, I am the guy who set them up with Wargames Factory, they had another supplier before hand but wanted to see what other options were out there, so I hooked them up with someone I chat with on Linkedin at Wargames Factory. If they say they are using HIPS to cast their miniatures then I am going to believe them until they give me reason not to. Scale75 makes outstanding miniatures, Scale Games is part of that company so where will this extra funding come from.. most likely the parent company. Is Wargames Factory their supplier, don't know, don't care, I am sure that Scale Games will deliver with whom ever the use to cast their miniatures.
So I guess I will get off my and go back to my chair now and watch as I get attacked, ripped at, called names and all that great stuff I have come to expect from game forums now.. so have at it.
I'm not sure how you've managed to mistake people looking for answers and clarity before pledging money for people who love to be sad, miserable and pathetic?
Statements like many of yours above are wildly inaccurate and aren't exactly covering you in glory.
By all means, be 100% into anything you want, but maybe calm down a bit before going off half-cocked on people looking for more information.
I think there's a definite value to being skeptical about Kickstarters, particularly ones where people can be spending a fair chunk of money, but I also think that beyond a certain point it just all ends up being a matter of underlying trust anyway.
The key is spending slightly less than the amount of faith you have in the product/company, otherwise disappointment will inevitably result! These things do get delayed, suffer problems and differ from the original intentions - but sometimes great things result, and I haven't yet backed anything that I've truly regretted. Of course, Relic Knights is shipping soon...
For the record, I'm happy with the models shown so far, happy with the level of communication (although I wish they had someone with slightly better English), very happy with the new stretches, and am willing to roll the dice on the rules and eventual material - the project is interesting, and something that I want to see more of.
I also think that waiting for retail is a wise move if you want a sure thing, but that the £65 level is a fairly minimal risk, particularly when some of those stretch goals start coming in.
MiniaturesInColor wrote: Someone hand me my pop corn and a bladder buster cola.. this topic is fun to watch. But let me give you something to regurgitate on in the spirit of conversation and all.
Like I said on the KS Page, some people just like to be negative, they get enjoyment from being sad and pathetic, and they must have company, you know being miserable and all. They will cast doubt, make wild unfounded claims, question every decision, and pray for failure so they can gloat and say I told you so, and act smug as if they knew it all along. If you don't believe in the product or company then go support one you do, why bother gaking on someone else's parade? Oh that's right looking for company... sorry my bad. I guess we have to live with the trolls and banshees screaming all night long about how this or that is the suck.
I happen to be the guy who has spoken to them in email, I am the guy who set them up with Wargames Factory, they had another supplier before hand but wanted to see what other options were out there, so I hooked them up with someone I chat with on Linkedin at Wargames Factory. If they say they are using HIPS to cast their miniatures then I am going to believe them until they give me reason not to. Scale75 makes outstanding miniatures, Scale Games is part of that company so where will this extra funding come from.. most likely the parent company. Is Wargames Factory their supplier, don't know, don't care, I am sure that Scale Games will deliver with whom ever the use to cast their miniatures.
So I guess I will get off my and go back to my chair now and watch as I get attacked, ripped at, called names and all that great stuff I have come to expect from game forums now.. so have at it.
I think everyone posting here is interested in the project and would love to see them succeed and deliver on everything, some of us are just having a hard time seeing how they can manage that given the circumstances.
I've heard only good things about Scale75, but they have no experience with multiple aspects of this project and we have all seen exciting KS projects make promises in all good faith that they aren't able to deliver on.
Two years ago, who wouldn't have been excited about McVey studios producing plastic miniatures for a game? Companies have to expect a lot more scrutiny and questions as we become more educated consumers. The level of transparency that some people would need in order to have confidence to pledge may be unrealistic, but this isn't a mean-spirited discussion.
MiniaturesInColor wrote: Someone hand me my pop corn and a bladder buster cola.. this topic is fun to watch. But let me give you something to regurgitate on in the spirit of conversation and all.
Like I said on the KS Page, some people just like to be negative, they get enjoyment from being sad and pathetic, and they must have company, you know being miserable and all. They will cast doubt, make wild unfounded claims, question every decision, and pray for failure so they can gloat and say I told you so, and act smug as if they knew it all along. If you don't believe in the product or company then go support one you do, why bother gaking on someone else's parade? Oh that's right looking for company... sorry my bad. I guess we have to live with the trolls and banshees screaming all night long about how this or that is the suck.
I happen to be the guy who has spoken to them in email, I am the guy who set them up with Wargames Factory, they had another supplier before hand but wanted to see what other options were out there, so I hooked them up with someone I chat with on Linkedin at Wargames Factory. If they say they are using HIPS to cast their miniatures then I am going to believe them until they give me reason not to. Scale75 makes outstanding miniatures, Scale Games is part of that company so where will this extra funding come from.. most likely the parent company. Is Wargames Factory their supplier, don't know, don't care, I am sure that Scale Games will deliver with whom ever the use to cast their miniatures.
So I guess I will get off my and go back to my chair now and watch as I get attacked, ripped at, called names and all that great stuff I have come to expect from game forums now.. so have at it.
I think everyone posting here is interested in the project and would love to see them succeed and deliver on everything, some of us are just having a hard time seeing how they can manage that given the circumstances.
I've heard only good things about Scale75, but they have no experience with multiple aspects of this project and we have all seen exciting KS projects make promises in all good faith that they aren't able to deliver on.
Two years ago, who wouldn't have been excited about McVey studios producing plastic miniatures for a game? Companies have to expect a lot more scrutiny and questions as we become more educated consumers. The level of transparency that some people would need in order to have confidence to pledge may be unrealistic, but this isn't a mean-spirited discussion.
For those coming from the KS comments page for Fallen Frontiers:
+1 plastictrees!
It was a bit ironic that one of the more negative posts in this thread was from someone...complaining about what he perceived as negative posts.
watch as I get attacked, ripped at, called names and all that great stuff I have come to expect from game forums now.. so have at it.
The only name calling I see going on is coming from you mate.
Scale and material concerns are very justified. If you haven't closely backed a lot of kickstarters you may not have been impacted by them or even be aware of them. Companies can have great miniatures, but if you find that they're out of scale for your purposes when you receive them, you're out of pocket with a product you can't use. If you find the material is problematic, you're saddled with 3x the cleaning time, soft details or other problems. If you find the material was changed without consultation, you're left with a material you dislike working with in your collection. Dismissing peoples concerns because you don't share them shows a distinct lack of empathy.
Getting clear information out of a company is essential when they're asking for money up front for a product to be made and delivered at some stage in the future. It's good for us, and it's good for them as certainty breeds confidence.
So I guess I will get off my and go back to my chair now and watch as I get attacked, ripped at, called names and all that great stuff I have come to expect from game forums now.. so have at it.
You say this assuming people wil degrade and cast aspersions upon you.
But you start off by saying this...
Like I said on the KS Page, some people just like to be negative, they get enjoyment from being sad and pathetic, and they must have company, you know being miserable and all. They will cast doubt, make wild unfounded claims, question every decision, and pray for failure so they can gloat and say I told you so, and act smug as if they knew it all along. If you don't believe in the product or company then go support one you do, why bother gaking on someone else's parade? Oh that's right looking for company... sorry my bad. I guess we have to live with the trolls and banshees screaming all night long about how this or that is the suck.
Alpharius wrote: I'm less concerned about rules than miniature materials.
Rules can be tweaked, revised, playtested and then sent out as PDFs.
There's a whole lot of HIPs models being promised here, for what many experts say doesn't seem to be sufficient funds.
BUt who knows who else Scale Games as in on this, or what other funds they have access to.
They've said HIPs, so HIPs it is!
Ha! I would say that models can be remade (though of course not the ones you purchase, but in general 2nd batch can be made from better materials once the initial game makes enough $$s).
I remember Mark from Dreamforge Games went into the costs for HIPS a while back and yeah, it doesn't cover the costs so far. IIRC it was in regards to a successful kickstarter that tried to shift blame to the manufacturer when things went south, but Mark was confident it was just that the KS didn't budget enough funds to cover all the costs. Seeing things like that go down make us backers antsy when things aren't 100% above board, clear, and with evidence of a well thought out business plan covering all stages of production from the beginning. This company being uncertain of the material going into the KS means they didn't have a plan. That's a big warning sign.
There is a reason I follow KSs on dakka rather than KS. There is more information here. You will get drama everywhere, but you don't get spawncamped by misguided supporters here... i thought we all wanted the same thing anyway - for this to be as good as it can.
If the Ares troopers really end up being in styrene, I will probably get a set as a basis for some "tru-scale" power armour troopers for skirmish gaming with whatever rules I feel like. With styrene, I'll be able to manage weapon swaps, shave down boob plates and remove the hip wings very, very easily.
Once the backers start receiving theirs and they turn out to be good actually made out of styrene, I'll get them.
Alp, I had no idea you were a kickstarter Super Villain!
For shame!
I've got the "Insidious Mastermind" trait.
According to Forge World!
basement.dweller wrote: There is a reason I follow KSs on dakka rather than KS. There is more information here. You will get drama everywhere, but you don't get spawncamped by misguided supporters here... i thought we all wanted the same thing anyway - for this to be as good as it can.
"spawncamped by misguided supporters" is a funny way of describing that particular phenomenon!
All kidding aside, they've said HIPs, so this one should start to gain a lot of momentum as more stretch goals are hit and freebies are unlocked.
Alp, I had no idea you were a kickstarter Super Villain!
For shame!
I've got the "Insidious Mastermind" trait.
According to Forge World!
basement.dweller wrote: There is a reason I follow KSs on dakka rather than KS. There is more information here. You will get drama everywhere, but you don't get spawncamped by misguided supporters here... i thought we all wanted the same thing anyway - for this to be as good as it can.
"spawncamped by misguided supporters" is a funny way of describing that particular phenomenon!
All kidding aside, they've said HIPs, so this one should start to gain a lot of momentum as more stretch goals are hit and freebies are unlocked.
So now that is somewhat diffused, why don't you guys join i. the conversation over there. The more ideas, the better, right?
zreef wrote: Ha! I would say that models can be remade (though of course not the ones you purchase,....
Which is kind of the point, when we're talking about buying models.
Now that is a matter of perspective! I am backing a company I want to succeed and in return getting some models. For me its more important that the company succeeds than the models I receive. I do, however, have limited financial capabilities to take such risks, so I am picky with what companies I want to back. I treat kickstarter basically as an investment. That investment can pay off in two ways: 1) I get a good game and 2) I get good miniatures. It may not pay off in both regards. Just my personal thoughts on the matter.
Alpharius wrote: It should free up some room for actual discussion, though to be honest, KS Comments Pages are not really the best place for that.
The format is horrible, and the lack of moderation leads to some fairly impressive messes too.
This is why I exclusively discuss Kickstarters here. The moderators (/hug) take the majority of the edge off whilst still allowing for frank discussion. Can get heated ofc, but it's a tough line to draw between too much and not enough moderation. Dakka mods toe it pretty well.
edit: Just read the sheriffs discussion on the KS comments. Clear and concise, polite as always. I shouldn't have strayed from Dakka, I need to go to r/aww or the dakka gallery for some eye bleach.
MiniaturesInColor wrote: Someone hand me my pop corn and a bladder buster cola.. this topic is fun to watch. But let me give you something to regurgitate on in the spirit of conversation and all.
Like I said on the KS Page, some people just like to be negative, they get enjoyment from being sad and pathetic, and they must have company, you know being miserable and all. They will cast doubt, make wild unfounded claims, question every decision, and pray for failure so they can gloat and say I told you so, and act smug as if they knew it all along. If you don't believe in the product or company then go support one you do, why bother gaking on someone else's parade? Oh that's right looking for company... sorry my bad. I guess we have to live with the trolls and banshees screaming all night long about how this or that is the suck.
I happen to be the guy who has spoken to them in email, I am the guy who set them up with Wargames Factory, they had another supplier before hand but wanted to see what other options were out there, so I hooked them up with someone I chat with on Linkedin at Wargames Factory. If they say they are using HIPS to cast their miniatures then I am going to believe them until they give me reason not to. Scale75 makes outstanding miniatures, Scale Games is part of that company so where will this extra funding come from.. most likely the parent company. Is Wargames Factory their supplier, don't know, don't care, I am sure that Scale Games will deliver with whom ever the use to cast their miniatures.
So I guess I will get off my and go back to my chair now and watch as I get attacked, ripped at, called names and all that great stuff I have come to expect from game forums now.. so have at it.
So just to clarify. You don't know anything about anything to do with this Kickstarter other than you gave someone at Scale75 the email of Wargames Factory. It doesn't exactly increase confidence if you're suggesting that a company wanting to create plastic wargaming miniatures wasn't already aware of one of the major plastics manufacturers in our industry until a random net denizen hooked them up
Also Scale75 is not some huge multi million pound parent company of Scale Games. Scale Games is just a shell UK-based company that allows Scale75 to use Kickstarter UK. It has no presence in the world other than a po box in London. Scale75 are running this Kickstarter and selling paints and some large scale minis doesn't give you enough bankroll to cover something like this.
It is a shame too, because I like the look of the miniatures we've seen so far - which I guess are 'resin masters'?
The minis on show are 3d prints. That's why they look 'fuzzy' when you see close ups, even after being painted.
They'll have been printed direct from the digital files in one piece.
(You can clean them up and use them to make masters, resin or otherwise, but it takes some work and as we've only seen one mini in duplicate my guess is all those on show are 3d prints. The unpainted Sihlas Fenn definitely is. It could also explain why the two human guys look different quality, you can use different 3d printers to get better resolution prints)
Does anyone know what the bolt action plastics are made out of? The hanomag seems like it might be PVC, but it is easier to work with than the PP PVC. The infantry sprues seem like HIPS, but I am not sure as all my bolt action infantry is metal
zreef wrote: Does anyone know what the bolt action plastics are made out of? The hanomag seems like it might be PVC, but it is easier to work with than the PP PVC. The infantry sprues seem like HIPS, but I am not sure as all my bolt action infantry is metal
I'm not 100% familiar with all of BA's models, but the infantry is Polysytrene (Rendra produced) and the tanks I've seen are all polyurethane ('Resin').
BA has a new line of "plastic" troop carriers, the hanomag 251 C was the first. Its softer than their infantry sprues (going on recollection here, so I maybe off), but it is harder than PPs plastic.
zreef wrote:Does anyone know what the bolt action plastics are made out of? The hanomag seems like it might be PVC, but it is easier to work with than the PP PVC. The infantry sprues seem like HIPS, but I am not sure as all my bolt action infantry is metal
It's a type of styrene found more often in scale model manufacturing (they are partnering with Italeri after all) than in miniature wargaming. They also have resin kits.
Even if they sort out the material, I'm more concerned about the rules at this point... the beta sheet is poorly written and seems thrown together in an afternoon. They also seem to be pretty poor when it comes to communicating in English. Who is writing the rules? Are they planning to have them translated by a professional?
paulson games wrote: Maybe they are planning on using Panda like Ninja Division has been for their Robotech Plastics, which of course has gone swimmingly well.
I haven't been following Robotech. Are you being sarcastic Jon? PGM is a popular Chinese manufacturing liaison, so I am curious.
...
itself
![[Disk]](/dakkaforum/templates/default/images/icon_disk.gif){kind=icon}
and go back to my chair now and watch as I get attacked, ripped at, called names and all that great stuff I have come to expect from game forums now.. so have at it.
