Swabby wrote: I just want to say that I am enjoying this game so much that it has inspired me to put an entire 40k army and a warmachine army before my RRT stuff in my hobby queue.
Obviously this is because I want to be in the zone when I actually start painting these mouthwatering minis.
Swabby wrote: I just want to say that I am enjoying this game so much that it has inspired me to put an entire 40k army and a warmachine army before my RRT stuff in my hobby queue.
Obviously this is because I want to be in the zone when I actually start painting these mouthwatering minis.
It could be further stated that the game is such a jewel collector's item that the fans cannot bring themselves to open the box!
In all seriousness, this site I found through "Warboss"'s blog is really good:
http://rpgandtactics.blogspot.com.au/ It gives the motivation to crack open the box and make some stuff.
Yes, it is not a confused message if we bash PB and make the miniatures awesome despite the challenges? Right?
Yeah, it's a good site. I still love Robotech, just not how Palladium treated it and us over almost two years. The only thing I wonder about (that blog) is why a guy in California is using the aussie google blog platform. Yay! My blog was useful!
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, good luck to any dakkites that may be attending adepticon tomorrow and participating in the tourney. Take pics and let us know if there is any sunshine flying out from the back of the palladium booth!
my issue with the recent 3d images they showed us, is they are not new, could have sworn the showed us the actual 3d sculpts of these drawings at GC last year.
Congrats to those in far flung parts of Narnia (apparently since it took 4-6 months additional to get there) who finally have their stuff or at least tangible proof that they will soon.
So apparently the Adepticon Robotech tourney that didn't sell out had only half the folks who did sign up actually turn up. A friend of mine who played seemed like he had a fun time and it sounds like everyone who played got some sort of a prize/thank you for playing. I haven't seen much youtube video in my nightly adepticon searches but in the beast of war live dealer room walk through before the doors opened you can see a few seconds of the palladium booth (completely separate and away from Ninja Division/Soda Pop).
From what my friend said, Palladium mentioned they're shooting for November for Wave 2. Whether that means US backers in November and ROW in STFU 2016 I don't know so take the statement with the usual pinchful of salt. I personally was surprised that they weren't shooting for Gencon but maybe this time they're padding the dates more realistically instead of hoping to hit every green light on the road for 20 miles in rush hour.
paulson games wrote: Looked like there was a pretty small turn out at Adepticon, my guess is that everyone is probably still assembling stuff.
Did you go this year? Just curious if you were recounting first hand or commenting on the second hand accounts above. It's always good to get some of the former in the thread.
I went, the game didn't seem to have a very big draw. Firestorm Armada, Saga, even Bloodbowl had much bigger turn outs and I don't typically see anyone playing those locally so I'm curious what that projects for Robotech's future.
Robotech had 8-9 people, they had 28 people for BB, and over 30 for Saga. Didn't get an exact count on FA but they had a lot of tables and they were all completely full. Battletech had 3 tables and looked like a ghost town (like normal). Robotech looked like it did a bit better than the battletech turn out but that's a really low bar to reach past. I've been at Adeption for the last five years and I'd don't think I've ever seen more than 4-5 people at the battletech tables at a given time. Most of the people around their table are usually other demo agents, they seem to have a better showing at gencon.
It's only been a few months since stuff started arriving so it very well could be that people are still building and painting their stuff, or they were playing more mainstream stuff like 40k. I paint at the speed of a snail, doing an army is a year+ project for me. With the game just released in Nov if I were interested in playing I wouldn't be able to until next year or longer based on how quickly I tackle stuff. It's one of the main reasons I don't actually game at Adepticon beyond skirmish scale stuff as I never have a complete painted army. The most I can typically manage is a warband or kill team sized event. I've been wanting to play my Tau army for 5 years running and not even close to having it finished as their re-release about doubled the amount of models I needed to paint, sigh.
Thanks for the clarification. While I seriously doubt anyone would call me a palladium fanboy, I don't think enough time has passed to make much of the lack of players at this adepticon. Gencon IMO will be the first indicator if the game has any legs and if we don't see folks playing or running games outside of just the megaversal ambassadors then that might be troubling. IIRC NA shipping finished sometime in November and, as you said, that may not be enough time for the average hobbyist to finish a 300pt force with the multiple holidays inbetween.
Out of curiosity (and a bit off topic), did your interest in the tau spur you to make the alternate add on bits or did the add on bits spur your interest in making your own tau army? I've very recently started redoing some tau starting with a tiny 200pt kill team plus an HQ myself after years of not really doing much with 40k other than finishing what I already owned and couldn't sell. I started with some primarchs and then moved onto some crisis suits.
I started collecting Tau when they were first released 12-13 years ago. Cooled on 40k for a while and most my Tau and Grey Knights ended up getting lost in transit somewhere between Iraq & Germany while my brother was borrowing it during his army stint. Started rebuilding my collection about 8 years ago, and began making my own bits and minis 5-6 years ago. I've been converting and sculpting stuff since I started gaming but selling stuff didn't happen until then.
Been playing 40k on and off since 91-92 when I was hooked with spacehulk, had both orks and marines back during rogue trader days. (Started playing battletech back around 85-86 so that predates my 40k days by a good shot)
paulson games wrote: Battletech had 3 tables and looked like a ghost town (like normal). Robotech looked like it did a bit better than the battletech turn out but that's a really low bar to reach past. I've been at Adeption for the last five years and I'd don't think I've ever seen more than 4-5 people at the battletech tables at a given time.
Sad to hear.
My friends are disappointed I am spending the time building Robotech than build up my forces for some Batter-tech alpha-strike game of insane proportions (800 models per side last count?), some 7 regiments (108 models per regiment).
I would be lucky to field 1.
Hell, at my peak I could only do a regiment. But then again, that's when they were all metal, and most of them had had at least one arm superglued between my thumb and forefinger while I was waiting for something to dry.
Disd looklike low numbers at Adepticon but the fact that 90% of the armies on show were Zents and the other Destroid based one does seem to tell a tale? It does appear assembly and the need to get to a three colour minimum has played its part.
I was surprised - well a little at least - that PB were not actively pushing the game, with at least one or two videos of what was going on and more demoing. I thought they might have fought for a little limelight?
The rumour of a November date for Wave 2 (just in time for Black Friday again?) is a real coffin nail and one I would have thought PB would be working hard to offset, given their grandiose -all be it pie in the sky - plans.
Did they still do the demo games they had planned or was it just the tournament? If they're going through the effort of going to a con, I'd hope they'd have some sort of fun but quick scenario running largely round the clock to showcase the game in the minis hall. The palladium employee in charge of the rules who gave players a choice of whether they wanted him to be a donkeycave during the demos at gencon went to the con as well IIRC from the weekly update but I don't know if he was trying to pWN n00bs again to discourage them from buying or just selling stuff at the booth.
The rumour of a November date for Wave 2 (just in time for Black Friday again?) is a real coffin nail and one I would have thought PB would be working hard to offset, given their grandiose -all be it pie in the sky - plans.
Would it be better for all involved (them as a company and us as consumers) if they got it out sooner, perhaps by gencon? Sure.. but I don't see it as a nail in the coffin personally. Honestly, if they publicly come out with that date and god forbid for the first time in the history of this project actually hit a deadline, I'd see that as a positive thing. Again, my friend just asked about wave 2 (I made sure to remind him to do so) and that is what they told him. I don't know if that is a "play it safe" date with lots of padding or a "please god.. please god... oh my god, please!" date like last year's gencon deadline is anyone's guess. At this point, I'm mentally flagging wave 2 in time for Black Friday/Xmas. If it comes early, I'll celebrate. If it comes later, I won't be surprised given the history of the folks behind this game.
As I've said before, I think Gencon 2015 will be the first real indication of if the game has any long term viability but it certainly is NOT the only deciding factor in my opinion. YMMV.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
paulson games wrote: I started collecting Tau when they were first released 12-13 years ago. Cooled on 40k for a while and most my Tau and Grey Knights ended up getting lost in transit somewhere between Iraq & Germany while my brother was borrowing it during his army stint. Started rebuilding my collection about 8 years ago, and began making my own bits and minis 5-6 years ago. I've been converting and sculpting stuff since I started gaming but selling stuff didn't happen until then.
Been playing 40k on and off since 91-92 when I was hooked with spacehulk, had both orks and marines back during rogue trader days. (Started playing battletech back around 85-86 so that predates my 40k days by a good shot)
Ah, ok, thanks. Nice stuff in any case and if I expand my little farsight force (so far only 4 models planned in total for it!), I'll likely be placing an order for some variant bits. It's the first time I'm worked on tau in years myself as well.
My friends are disappointed I am spending the time building Robotech than build up my forces for some Batter-tech alpha-strike game of insane proportions (800 models per side last count?), some 7 regiments (108 models per regiment).
I would be lucky to field 1.
Is there something either in Robotech Tactics or Alpha Strike that would preclude using the models you've built in both?
warboss wrote: Is there something either in Robotech Tactics or Alpha Strike that would preclude using the models you've built in both?
Only gluing the models on the big round bases.
The extra veritech robot could be an old style Wasp (bit big though).
I do have some extra Destroids I will use for Battletech but the push is to get a little more than 3 colours on the Robotech stuff, get decals on and clear-coat.
At least with all the practice I got in, re-doing some Battletech models in Steiner colours will be really easy.
I stopped by the Palldium booth at Adepticon and picked up a box of the veritechs just because I wanted to paint them. They were also nice enough to give me the sprue that was supposed to come in my full swag bag.
I hope this game takes off, but I didn't see them demonstrating the game except for one side table at their booth that most people passing by probably didn't see. They should have had at least a couple of standing tables set up like they did for warmachine.
As for Palladium delaying releases from a kickstarter - seems about par for the course. Relic knights, from what I understand, was a lot worse.
Side note - Also didn't get the Relic Knight figures that were supposed to come in the full swag bag. Adepticon really dropped the ball on their swag bags this year.
I'd have to go looking, but I'm pretty sure Relic Knights started delivery about 1 year late, and while there were fulfillment issues and some figures that held up shipments, in general they at least seemed to get everything out within a year and change or so.
We'll be lucky if this delivers in full 2 years late, and if Wave 2 is anything like Wave 1, Australian/NZ/ROW/European backers could be closer to 2.5+ years late to receive their packages.
So, apologies if this seems pedantic, but no, Relic Knights wasn't "a lot worse". Palladium has been blazing a trail in terms of slow delivery. Even Ogre got out the door faster and that used to be a running gag in KS circles.
Funny how one terrible embarrassment only needs a few years to become the new normal? People get actively snotty and even hostile for expecting anything remotely resembling on time delivery, as those a 3-12+ month delay is an expectation, rather than something creators take for granted.
Relic Knights was delivered by CMoN all at once, but almost exactly 1 year late (June 2014 vs "May 2013" estimated). I believe a large portion of the delay was related to CMoN launching Wrath of Kings as a competing product and ultimately parting ways with Soda Pop Minis.
Robotech wave 1 was delivered by Palladium a full year late (Nov 2014 vs "Dec 2013" estimate). Palladium still has wave 2 to go...
As far as embarassing lateness, I still point to Steve Jackson Games' Ogre DE Kickstarter. They promised "Nov 2012", delivered wave 1 a full year late in Nov 2013, and they are still have several open items from the Kickstarter unfulfilled and undelivered.
By the end of 2015, Palladium may well be able to close this out, but there is minimal chance to say the same of Ogre.
I was surprised - well a little at least - that PB were not actively pushing the game, with at least one or two videos of what was going on and more demoing. I thought they might have fought for a little limelight?
I'm not from what I've seen of Palladium, the only thing they promote is Kevin's ego, they have no clue about promotions or such for their games.
The rumour of a November date for Wave 2 (just in time for Black Friday again?) is a real coffin nail and one I would have thought PB would be working hard to offset, given their grandiose -all be it pie in the sky - plans.
my figuring is the only way we'll see any of wave 2 this year is if they split it up again, but considering they have yet to send out games to the RoW outside of the UK or Australia shipments is troubling at best.
Interview with Ninja Division and Palladium (separately). ND just mentions robotech in the last 15 seconds so no point in listening to them for this at least. Palladium starts about 15 minutes. in and the Siembiedassiah confirms Nov/Dec as the hopeful moving target date for wave 2. I'm still listening but my mouth is watering and my flatus could cause 2nd degree sunburns to those standing behind me.
So on Monday I got that first click and send shipping notice, but I got a tracking email from AusPost today indicating it was only the label, and the package wasn't actually processed until today with an expected delivery of Tuesday next week, which means road freight.
NTRabbit wrote: So on Monday I got that first click and send shipping notice, but I got a tracking email from AusPost today indicating it was only the label, and the package wasn't actually processed until today with an expected delivery of Tuesday next week, which means road freight.
This was so totally worth backing knowing that I'll get mine one day before some dude I don't know!
The story so far is vague. "Sony has announced that the studio has sewn up the rights". Until this explicitly adds "and has come to agreement with both parties claiming the IP rights", it's going to be a long way from done. Because if they've only come to an agreement with one (I heard Agrama mentioned in one article, so that's HG), then the Japanese claimaint (who a lot of armchair lawyers claim have the stronger case) is going to hold out for a huge sum, if this is expected to be the kind of blockbuster it's being billed as. And that also doesn't factor in if either side (or both!) wants to exercise some creative control.
This comes up every couple of years. I remember seeing the excitement when it was spearheaded by Tobey MacGuire's production company. And that fell into a black hole of obscurity. And even if it DOES get finalised in that aspect, there's no guarantee it'll eventuate, or even be that speedy. Heck, Rifts has been optioned from Palladium for 13 years, and RoW people are likely to see RRT Wave 2 before that gets movement. Hiyoooo!
So you won't be around for anybody to axe you any questions then? Funnily enough it's drinks time here too
I also managed to bend my prints by dropping the retail box as it slipped out of my fingers and back into the postal box, after my prints survived months at sea unscathed. Hopefully a stack of heavy books will come to my rescue!
There are lots of tiny little parts on these sprues, they're rivaling some 1/35 armour from Dragon and AFV Club I have here in complexity
NEW! Robotech® Dice Bag – Gold imprint on a black bag
The Robotech® Dice Bag was a hit at AdeptiCon, and now it’s available in the Palladium store for everyone. Gold colored print on a faux velvet, black, draw-string bag – 7½ x 8 inch bag with flat, round bottom. $8.00 and only available from Palladium Books. Just a little fun something we worked on behind the scenes. Much more to be revealed for Robotech® soon. See a full description of this item elsewhere in this Update.
Seriously. They lead with the fething dice bag.
UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™
Gotta keep this one brief, but we have all kinds of things boiling that we’ll be talking about soon.
Robotech® RPG Tactics™ has shipped to our Kickstarter backers in Europe and has been shipping to Australian backers, with the rest of the world to follow.
Beasts of War – Unboxing of Robotech® RPG Tactics™ with Carmen Bellaire. This unboxing video was made with Carmen Bellaire, co-author of the rules for Robotech® RPG Tactics™. It is my understanding that 2-3 additional videos will be posted in the weeks ahead. Catch ‘em all and enjoy.
Forge the Narrative Podcast. While at AdeptiCon, Jeff Burke and I did a podcast with Paul Murphy. He also interviewed the guys at Ninja Division and a host of other people. They can be heard at:
Palladium has exciting plans in development for expanding the Robotech® RPG Tactics™ game line and gaming experience. In between hammering out various details, I have been working on the announcement with all the juicy info. Our plans for Robotech® RPG Tactics™ will be coming soon. Meanwhile, keep having fun building and painting Robotech® RPG Tactics™ game pieces, playing the game, and spreading the word about how much fun this game is to play. The FREE Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Color Guide Resource is available on DriveThruRPG.com along with an ever increasing number of comprehensive building instructions, with more coming in the weeks ahead as we ratchet up the excitement for RRT.
Oh, it's because we're a full quarter into the year and they have nothing else to say.
AdeptiCon Mini-Report
AdeptiCon was a very valuable experience for Palladium Books. Everyone we spoke to was friendly and helpful. We sold some product and shared information, but most importantly, we watched, learned and got a lot of valuable feedback and input from wargamers from around the globe. The event was worth it just for the networking and chance to speak to so many people. I love this hobby, because you can get such honest and thoughtful feedback from gamers. Excellent. It really helped us to fine-tune some of the plans we’ve been making for the Robotech® RPG Tactics™ game line, both immediate and long-term.
Of course, Robotech® RPG Tactics™ was the Number One point of interest. We sold a number of main box sets and expansion packs, as well as Robotech® Battle Foam Bags/carrying cases. The new Robotech® dice bag with the classic logo made its debut at AdeptiCon and it went over well. In fact, it was the item we sold the most, because it was new. I was surprised by how many gamers there knew Palladium Books from our role-playing games. In fact, we sold a surprising number of RPG titles (surprising to me, at any rate); mostly Rifts®, Heroes Unlimited, Robotech® and Dead Reign®, pretty much in that order. Despite the advance hype, a number of people were surprised I was there in person and happy to chat and get some autographs.
The Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Tournament orchestrated by Kyle Toth and his crew was one of the events most highly anticipated by us at Palladium. It seemed to go over well and we had more than a few excited participants stop by our booth afterward. The event may have had more gamers if it was scheduled for Friday. That guess is based on the number of gamers we spoke to who told us they wanted to play in it except it conflicted with the big Warhammer 40,000 tournament they were participating in on Saturday. It’s difficult to say if the turnout would have been much different on Friday. Food for thought for next year. Kyle and company did a nice job. We were surprised and amused to hear that all but one player brought Zentraedi as their faction. The most common reason for this that we heard from the players was they brought Zentraedi because they thought EVERYONE would be bringing UEDF. Funny. Many of the painted game pieces looked awesome, and the terrain provided as playing fields varied. Our personal favorite terrain was the asteroid created by Kyle, Chris and I believe, a third person. I gushed about it so much that Kyle kindly offered to sell it to Palladium. You can see it at the Palladium Open House and at Gen Con Indy. Our heartfelt thanks to Kyle and his team for all their time and hard work. You guys are awesome.
Jeff ran demos at our booth all four days, and we fielded questions and received helpful suggestions about rules, running tournament events, as well as impromptu opinions on a number of subjects we asked the gamers there. The response to Robotech® RPG Tactics™ continues to be overwhelmingly favorable and gamers are excited about what the future holds for this expanding game line. We will be clarifying and defining our plans for it very soon.
It was a genuine pleasure meeting all of you, and an unexpected pleasure to reconnect with some old acquaintances. Your input and suggestions were very welcomed and appreciated. Special thanks to Kyle, Chris, Bill, Paul, Doug, Daniel, Sam and so many others for your support and interest in making Robotech® RPG Tactics something special and lasting for years to come. Together, we can make Robotech® RPG Tactics better and more expansive, and enjoy endless adventure.
I do recall quite clearly people touting how quickly the RRT event filled up.
A shame most of the people who got tickets (apparently 9/20 showed up, if I'm recalling the event numbers correctly?) neglected to actually attend.
NEW! Robotech® Dice Bag – Available now
People have enjoyed the Rifts® dice bag for years, so we thought we’d do one for Robotech®. The Robotech® Dice Bag debuted at AdeptiCon and went over very well. Now it is available in the Palladium store for everyone. This is just one tiny thing we’ve been working on behind the scenes for Robotech®. More to come.
The classic Robotech® logo.
Golden yellow color, silk-screen imprint.
Black, faux velvet, draw-string bag.
7½ x 8 inch bag with flat, round bottom. Can hold a lot of dice.
Suitable for any Robotech® gamer with a pile of dice.
$8.00 retail – Cat. No. 2565 – Available now, only from Palladium Books.
I'm sure the fact that you have to build 3 models for each playable one in game for veritechs (which is admittedly out of palladium's control) and that each of those much smaller models each have a higher parts count due to poorly thought out splits everywhere (which was in their control despite them shrugging off the responsibility) didn't have anything to do with the lack of veritechs. It was because all 9 folks just thought everyone *else* would bring veritechs. Riiiight...
As of this posting they have 1 left in stock. So, sale will end, presumably with zero in stock. Let's all see what their stock level looks like in two or three weeks. Will it be 20+ like most items?
Can't be too many, it's still only averaging 3.8, which isn't terrible, but not exactly the rating one would expect from an overwhelmingly positive fan base as this one allegedly has (mean spirited curmudgeons like me notwithstanding), but not a terrible one all the same.
CSI's hot list seems to be a pile of Star Wars (Armada and the metric crapload of expansions Imperial Assault has that I didn't know existed), Magic, and a couple random odds and ends.
I do recall quite clearly people touting how quickly the RRT event filled up.
A shame most of the people who got tickets (apparently 9/20 showed up, if I'm recalling the event numbers correctly?) neglected to actually attend.
that was Lolafett on the KickStarter forums who said that, in fact it was here:
And yet, wait, they only have 1 available space left at Adepticon with over a month to go? I have several people that want to play. It is just a matter of coordinating schedules.
Feb 4 2015 on Robotech® RPG Tactics™
(a lot of the post deleted cause it was long winded, only the pertinent part was posted)
Lolafett, long winded? Surely not, are you sure you have the right guy?
To be fair though, it's hard to tell you've cut out all the parts where he picks apart others posts.
Joyboozer wrote: Lolafett, long winded? Surely not, are you sure you have the right guy?
To be fair though, it's hard to tell you've cut out all the parts where he picks apart others posts.
actually the rest of the post was about the changing of the rules from ND's original rules, and how PB said this and they don't lie everybody else does and so forth, blah, blah, blah.
For those that have built Zentraedi models, can someone post a pic with the various pods next to a ruler to gauge their heights? Basically a line of the tallest normal pod, recon, arty, and glaug next to a standing ruler (kind of like the pic below) as that would help me alot. I finally started looking at my carrying case with custom foam that I bought long ago for robotech among other things and I'm not sure if the slots are big enough. I fully admit that this is laziness as I don't have the motivation to build them all myself just to find out that they're too big. If you throw some RDF stuff in their as well, that would be much appreciated.
JohnHwangDD wrote: On the plus side, RRT is outselling #15 Star Wars Armada, so that's kind of nice.
Funny you should say that.
Look again.
Armada is now number 13. RRT core is down to 18.
Well that shifted quickly.
Also relevant to the conversation is the fact that FRP is asking for $80 for the Armada core set versus CSI, MM and others (including Amazon sellers with Prime shipping) at $69. Walmart has it at $60, but shipping in a month (if they honor that price). Outside of people with major loyalty to FRP as an online retail outlet or orders that include things that can't be found elsewhere, it's hard to see where Armada would be a particularly big seller for them in general due to the price point. When it's almost 15% cheaper from your competitors for the same product, the volume of sales is going to be lower than those competitors on that product.
What that says about RTT I'll leave for the peanut gallery.
No way, anyone saying FRP games is anything but the most important thing to consider (because they're the web store arm of the largest distributor in the US of course - if you don't know who that is it's your own fault look it up newb) is just wrong and lol worthy.
Saying you need more context is just another way of saying the sky is falling.
Some dude's painting manual being number one seems strange though. How many of those things are they selling?
That's the house painter for Infinity, it originally had a limited print run of about 5000 that he funded from his own pocket, which sold out about 20 seconds after they went on sale and crashed the Infinity website. I think this might be the second print run he relented on.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
warboss wrote: For those that have built Zentraedi models, can someone post a pic with the various pods next to a ruler to gauge their heights? Basically a line of the tallest normal pod, recon, arty, and glaug next to a standing ruler (kind of like the pic below) as that would help me alot. I finally started looking at my carrying case with custom foam that I bought long ago for robotech among other things and I'm not sure if the slots are big enough. I fully admit that this is laziness as I don't have the motivation to build them all myself just to find out that they're too big. If you throw some RDF stuff in their as well, that would be much appreciated.
This is exactly why I'm working on my shelf of robits and other wonderful mechanical men, a comparison between and across ranges... I just haven't had a chance to do anything from Robotech yet
warboss wrote: For those that have built Zentraedi models, can someone post a pic with the various pods next to a ruler to gauge their heights? Basically a line of the tallest normal pod, recon, arty, and glaug next to a standing ruler (kind of like the pic below) as that would help me alot. I finally started looking at my carrying case with custom foam that I bought long ago for robotech among other things and I'm not sure if the slots are big enough. I fully admit that this is laziness as I don't have the motivation to build them all myself just to find out that they're too big. If you throw some RDF stuff in their as well, that would be much appreciated.
I was going to joke about the phoenix hawk, when I zoomed in on the picture and realized it really was a phoenix hawk! Is that a kit you own Warboss? Does it fit the RRT game?
I've got a model kit that came with a "Leopard" dropship and a crusader/armored VT that FASA repurposed for their game. I've lost the dropship, but still have crusader around somewhere...
I was going to joke about the phoenix hawk, when I zoomed in on the picture and realized it really was a phoenix hawk! Is that a kit you own Warboss? Does it fit the RRT game?
I've got a model kit that came with a "Leopard" dropship and a crusader/armored VT that FASA repurposed for their game. I've lost the dropship, but still have crusader around somewhere...
Yeah, I've still got them and am actually selling them in my swap shop thread here (three almost new boxes and another dozen or so mechs built/rebuilt that I picked up used) . They're a bit too big for matching the RRPGT stuff though for a quick look but it's hard to tell exactly without building a model which I haven't done. I got them initially to try and get a heads up to recruit players for RRPGT but that was before palladium started screwing things up.
Forar wrote: A shame most of the people who got tickets (apparently 9/20 showed up, if I'm recalling the event numbers correctly?) neglected to actually attend.
If I lived near the event I would actually pay to attend and glue the models together so badly that they looked like crap on base, misaligning legs just glue missiles everywhere etc.
I would do it for the laughs. Imagine if everyone did it and palladium couldnt show a single pic of the games from the event because everything just looked crap.
Forar wrote: A shame most of the people who got tickets (apparently 9/20 showed up, if I'm recalling the event numbers correctly?) neglected to actually attend.
If I lived near the event I would actually pay to attend and glue the models together so badly that they looked like crap on base, misaligning legs just glue missiles everywhere etc.
I would do it for the laughs. Imagine if everyone did it and palladium couldnt show a single pic of the games from the event because everything just looked crap.
I wouldnt stop laughing for weeks
I'd point out that no one did that and Palladium still hasn't shown a single pic of the games from the event for over a week... Marketing, Siembieda style!
The only pics I've seen have been from attendees and put on Mike's page. I think someone might have shared a few links on the PBForums as well.
Whenever I'm at a convention, I make a point of selling our product as best I can, but I also have mastered getting people's attention/permission and snapping rapid shots. An ongoing photo essay entitled "the view from the cakes cove booth", as it were.
Which is to say I love chatting with people and showcasing the incredible work they put into their costumes.
I can only imagine if the booth business adopted a new product line that raked in more money than we'd seen in years, I sure as hell would snap pictures of it in action.
I don't think anyone reasonable is expecting a 6 hour video slickly edited with footage from every game, but c'mon, did nobody at the booth think "hey, I should wander over and see how the games are going, get some pictures, show some interest/enthusiasm"?
Forar wrote: Whenever I'm at a convention, I make a point of selling our product as best I can, but I also have mastered getting people's attention/permission and snapping rapid shots. An ongoing photo essay entitled "the view from the cakes cove both", as it were.
Dare I say it... it sounds mouth watering... literally!
I don't think anyone reasonable is expecting a 6 hour video slickly edited with footage from every game, but c'mon, did nobody at the booth think "hey, I should wander over and see how the games are going, get some pictures, show some interest/enthusiasm"?
Because the same people who for many weeks a year ago thought we didn't want pics of their 3d printed that they touted as arrived and assembled and that still think we don't want/deserve updates of the wave 2 visuals attended the con? Because if they show actual pics of stuff that it won't jive with their claims made in text updates? At this point, I can't just throw it all in the laziness and stupid piles though. I suspect there is a fair amount of fear in that they'll post what they somehow thing is 98% done final mouthwatering info that will garner a collective "WTF???!?!" response for obvious reasons.
Forar wrote: Whenever I'm at a convention, I make a point of selling our product as best I can, but I also have mastered getting people's attention/permission and snapping rapid shots. An ongoing photo essay entitled "the view from the cakes cove both", as it were.
Dare I say it... it sounds mouth watering... literally!
Spoiler:
They just want to love you!
And yeah, snapped over 250 pictures at the convention last weekend. Lots of awesome costumes, and the next big local Con in September will be even better.
warboss wrote: Because the same people who for many weeks a year ago thought we didn't want pics of their 3d printed that they touted as arrived and assembled and that still think we don't want/deserve updates of the wave 2 visuals attended the con? Because if they show actual pics of stuff that it won't jive with their claims made in text updates? At this point, I can't just throw it all in the laziness and stupid piles though. I suspect there is a fair amount of fear in that they'll post what they somehow thing is 98% done final mouthwatering info that will garner a collective "WTF???!?!" response for obvious reasons.
There's a marked difference though. You can show pictures/video from the convention, and distance yourself from it at the same time if the quality isn't there, as it's not your product. Of course, having pictures/video of your product that you're proud to show off helps with that. It's been almost a year (Update 137, April 11th 2014) since PB thought the idea of gameplay videos and high quality pictures were a good idea, and a year later? Squadoosh.
As for the other issue, about showing 3D prototypes, and the like, and getting a "WTF???!?!", well, they should get some big boy pants, and fething own it. Either it's to the standard they think is acceptable (which given the remarks they think most of the last Update were), or they admit that it's still a work in progress like the Jotun, and use it as a means to get feedback (criticism, even if offensive, can still be constructive). This whole apparent "We're not gonna post because people are mean to us!" attitude does them no favors. It's one thing to ignore people you know will never see your way (either because they're donkey-caves, or because you've burnt your bridges with them), but to essentially punish everyone else for the actions of a few (because it's only a few, they keep telling us that)? They need to grow up, and get over themselves.
But as "the response to Robotech® RPG Tactics™ continues to be overwhelmingly favorable", which at least publicly, is easily shown to not be the case, they seem happy to sit in their delusional bubble. At this point, you've pretty much got to accept this is the norm. People keep saying "Oh, they've learnt from their mistakes!". Yeah, two years of following this campaign, and some research into the previous couple of years. No, they haven't. There's simply no need for them to.
Swabby wrote: I think the situation is worse than a denial bubble. I think they deny it publically but know how bad it is between themselves.
Actually, from a business perspective, and for the future of the game, that's better. It's worse in that it'd be deceitful. But given the many public statements, and quite a few heresay private ones, I'm not convinced. I put it to some PBWK's a year or so ago, something along the lines of "PB are being either deceitful, ignorant, or apathetic, which is it?". Cause even at this late stage, I'm still not sure. It's basically a variation on Poe's law. Without a tacit admission by PB that they either know and don't care, don't know, or don't care, trying to discern the truth is quite difficult.
And yeah, snapped over 250 pictures at the convention last weekend. Lots of awesome costumes, and the next big local Con in September will be even better.
Yum! Were there any robotech themed candies or confections as well?
warboss wrote: Yum! Were there any robotech themed candies or confections as well?
Yup! As often mentioned, 3 of us that help at the shop/booth are giant Robotech fans, and it has enough of a following that the woman who makes it all includes some Robotech images on cookies. If nobody else buys them I often snag a Rick or RDF one for myself.
Though with her setup, she can print anything she likes onto cookies, cakes or other snacks.
It's a pretty fun place to hang out.
Giving one of my Starcraft 2 pro player heroes a couple of Zerg cookies at the convention they held a tournament at was pretty awesome.
Anyone else thinking that today is the only day for the next 6 months at least that we can reasonably expect an announcement that wave 2 is in production and that the issues of unnecessarily high parts count and seams everywhere have been fixed?
warboss wrote: Yum! Were there any robotech themed candies or confections as well?
Yup! As often mentioned, 3 of us that help at the shop/booth are giant Robotech fans, and it has enough of a following that the woman who makes it all includes some Robotech images on cookies. If nobody else buys them I often snag a Rick or RDF one for myself.
Even if not hungry, I'd buy an RDF and Zentraedi emblem shaped and decorated cookies. Who am I kidding... I'm always hungry!
warboss wrote: Anyone else thinking that today is the only day for the next 6 months at least that we can reasonably expect an announcement that wave 2 is in production and that the issues of unnecessarily high parts count and seams everywhere have been fixed?
"Instead, we've decided to do all of Wave 2 out of stainless steel. Yes, even the Monster. Yes, that probably means you'll have to solder the minis instead of gluing them, but c'mon! Mouth watering!!!!"
warboss wrote: Anyone else thinking that today is the only day for the next 6 months at least that we can reasonably expect an announcement that wave 2 is in production and that the issues of unnecessarily high parts count and seams everywhere have been fixed?
"Instead, we've decided to do all of Wave 2 out of stainless steel. Yes, even the Monster. Yes, that probably means you'll have to solder the minis instead of gluing them, but c'mon! Mouth watering!!!!"
You're actually not far from the truth!
Palladium Shames wrote: Hey, hey, Robotech fans! We at Palladium Shames have decided to continue our industry leading work in the field of game miniatures and decided to partner together with Metal Earth models to provide incredible conventional vehicle miniatures to accompany our mouth watering plastics line. Here today is the first sneak peak of the 1/285 scale Jeep miniature steel acid etched sprue that is just for the engine of the model!
Just look at all that detail that we fit on a model only 1cm long! We can't wait to see how satisfied you all are when you assemble all 214 pieces in the only static pose possible. Also, we have great and exciting news about the progress of wave 2 miniatures... the dice bag is done! Isn't that great? It's available for immediate purchase. We don't want to jump the gun but we're hoping the factory in China gets back to us this week as well about the Robotech themed pencils we've been working all month to bring you that we know all our valued Kickstarter contributors are anxiously awaiting news on.
warboss wrote: Even if not hungry, I'd buy an RDF and Zentraedi emblem shaped and decorated cookies. Who am I kidding... I'm always hungry!
Yeah, but to get the true Palladium Robotech experience, the packet won't contain cookies. It'll contain a promise that in 7, no 8, no 10, no 15 months, they'll send you your cookies. Then when the package arrives, it'll be a bar of butter, some flour, baking powder, an egg, and some poorly written instructions. There'll also be a note saying the icing won't be ready for another 12 months or so. Maybe.
And yes, I'm aware I omitted the sugar from the recipe. To truly be a PBRRT cookie, it's gotta be bland.
Palladium Shames wrote: Hey, hey, Robotech fans! We at Palladium Shames have decided to continue our industry leading work in the field of game miniatures and decided to partner together with Metal Earth models to provide incredible conventional vehicle miniatures to accompany our mouth watering plastics line. Here today is the first sneak peak of the 1/285 scale Jeep miniature steel acid etched sprue that is just for the engine of the model!
Ha!
Took me a minute to figure out that was R2-D2, quite a challenge by the look of it.
Let us hope Mike's contact with GHQ does not make 20+ part vehicles for Palladium just because...
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Morgan Vening wrote: And yes, I'm aware I omitted the sugar from the recipe. To truly be a PBRRT cookie, it's gotta be bland.
Do not forget that a baking contest will be held for the best cookies and they will need their customers to submit what they made on their behalf.
There would be a choice of peanut butter cookies and chocolate chip and everyone will only show up with peanut butter because you would have to make the chocolate otherwise.
Incorrect... the actual recipe will be omitted from your package and replaced with an older type written version that includes no longer used ingredients. After several months of campaigning by Chef Mike Morpheus, the correct one will be available for download free on drivethrubakedgoods.com long after the ingredients sent have spoiled. Palladium will then put the cookies for sale under the table in the back of the booth to make prominent room for the dice bags when they join Forar at his next convention. Hungry fans from outside of North America originally who buy the cookies at the con will have to wait 4-6 months after the event to get their (now stale) cookies.
Or bitter...like the cookies Ranka made for Alto's birthday in Macross Frontier....nevermind, you couldn't have seen that, I forgot it doesn't exist over here, thanks to HG.....
Yes, the kickstarter comments are winding down other than the usual suspects.
Wave1 is trickling it's way out to the further flung markets.
After the brief view of 3D models for Wave2 PB has gone dark again.
The latest convention games all were Zentradi most likely due to ease of assembly.
I see more active talk of builds for Battletech than for the actual game.
Is this the end?
I think Adepticon already sealed Robotech's fate. Gencon will just be reinforcing it - I'd be rather surprised if there are any RRT events at all, obviously PB won't be directly involved, as it would take time from sitting at their sales booth, twiddling their thumbs.
So the first 6 months of release shouldn't be the most full on part? Do we have to place RRT in the same category as wine?
I realise this isn't what your saying, but come on, where's the excitement?
Another week, another meaningless PBWU. No KS Update, cause *reasons*, apparently.
Anyways, besides hawking the dicebag, there's really only two nuggets of "information".
So much going on. We continue to hammer out a number of projects and plans we think our Kickstarter backers and all Robotech® supporters will be excited about. We don’t have everything worked out yet, so we are hesitant to discuss them yet, but very soon.
I think he means "anything". Because as usual, these are the same "It's gonna blow your mind, we promise!" hyperbole he's been posting as news for at least the last two years now. Maybe, just maybe, one day he'll deliver.
Robotech® RPG Tactics™ has shipped to our Kickstarter backers in Europe and continues to ship to Australian backers, with the rest of the world to follow.
Well, RoW fans, there you have it. Your stuff should ship "soon".
But wait a minute, didn't he say something on the March 17th PBWU?
The other container arrived at port in Australia last week and we anticipate packages starting to get mailed out to our Kickstarter backers and the rest of the world by the end of this week and next.
So, we went from a firm date of "by the 27th of March" (end of the next week following the 17th), to the utterly meaningless "soon". So, buck up, kiddos, you'll get it sent whenever the hell PB feel like it, as you're obviously not a priority. Aren't you excited?
rigeld2 wrote:...
6 months is enough time to build a huge army of both factions if the interest is there.
And no, I'd hold every game to that standard.
I still haven't finished my Battlecry. I have a wife, a dog, and I am a manager. Between the 50+ hour work weeks, paying attention to my wife and pet, medical needs, and real world stuff in general, I get between 0 and 6 models done a week with an average of 3 because I did the Zentraedi first, and the UEDF stuff looks to be an average of 2 so far.
Then to top it off, the tournaments require painting. I just finished painting my Tau Empire army last year. I started it when Tau was first released. When was that 1998 I think? My Dark Edlar are almost all painted, I think I still have 1 squad to paint, and I've had them since before the Tau. My Eldar are about 10% started on painting. ie they are primed and many have a base coat down.
I like modeling, but hate painting, and like playing the games. If the tournament didn't have a painting requirement I would have played. Not looking good for GenCon either if they still require painting. I understand that it looks better, but some times people have more real world things to deal with than time will allow.
I spent 2-3 weeks putting the minis together, primed the UEDF and have painted 4 Valk battloids, most of 2 tomahawks and 2 defenders and had said 'eff it, I'll work on it when I feel like flagellating myself. The poor Zent force I have doesn't even stand a chance.
I haven't even played a game yet.
Meanwhile, in January, I bought 4 armies for Warmarchine/Hordes, painted 2 (Cryx & Legion of Everblight), have primed the others with intentions to paint some this weekend, have played 2 tabletop games and downloaded and played the Warmachine computer game.
Likewise, I've picked up a few hundred dollars worth of X-Wing and Star Trek Attack Wing. I've played numerous battles with them and have even made my own terrain (planets) for them - and even ordered some clone wars era ships off shapeways.
Then there's my 5E D&D game that's underway...
As you can tell, PB's kept me extremely interested and engaged in this RRT game.
I think the difficulty is just more noticeable because of the lack of enthusiasm, it's not like Im thinking I can't wait to get a game so assembling these will just fly by, it's more, eh, I could start these I guess, or just play something better.
They have a lot of pieces with a lot of connection points, so at least in my experience, it's a matter of cutting dozens of connections off, then trimming all those connection points, then assembling all the stupid halves (found more on the RDF stuff) and letting them set, then assembling from there.
I'm sure some master modelers probably have it down to a fine science in an assembly line style arrangement, but as someone just building 2-3 figures at a time, it's enough effort to be kind of a pain in the ass.
If people think the game is of unparalleled quality, it might be worth fighting through. If people aren't all that in love with the game, it just becomes yet another barrier to entry.
The models being time consuming and the game not exactly flooring me, I'd much rather spend my free time painting Shadows of Brimstone figures or tweaking Netrunner decks. If one of my friends found a burning passion for it, sure, I'd put in some time rounding out my forces. As it stands, the three of us have had our figures for at least 4 months and have collectively built 25 of them, and as far as I'm aware 0 games have been played.
Individually, no, they're not hard. Maybe 15 minutes to cut one out, do some basic cleaning and put together.
But multiply that by 12-15 just to be able to play an undersized starter game (1/2 of one of two forces needed to play), and it becomes a nightmare. Like I said, for the base box + bonus bag for a Battlecry, it took me somewhere around 2-3 weeks to get them all put together, working 4-6 hours a night. And that doesn't include painting them. By the time I was done assembling, I was sick of the whole process. Didn't want to paint them, much less play.
In comparison, I had my Warmachine/Hordes stuff, for 5 armies, together in two nights, with enough stuff together to do a test game the 1st night. I'm a slow painter, and I had my first two opposing forces painted up within a week.
<EDIT> The 5th army is a skorne battlebox, which I just finished putting together a hour or so ago.
More like they're really annoying to build, TBH. I've assembled about 10 destroids/VFs for Battletech, and... well, I still have a pile to go and no motivation to continue.
OTOH, I just assembled a whole eisenkern stormtroopers box yesterday, and the assembly process was much more enjoyable.
Just finished painting my Defender box and the legs where especially annoying. Somehow I managed to glue them the wrong way on the Defenders. No way I'm gluing them right now that the minis are painted.
Miguelsan wrote: Just finished painting my Defender box and the legs where especially annoying. Somehow I managed to glue them the wrong way on the Defenders. No way I'm gluing them right now that the minis are painted.
M.
That's a common mistake apparently. One of the very first pics of assembled minis from someone who had his first contact pledge shipped first did the same thing.
As posted above by folks who actually assembled them, they're just noticeably harder than minis of the same size and harder than they should be. If space marine models had split every limb into two pieces each and the head into three pieces, they'd still have a parts count lower than RDF minis. If you've already had your enthusiasm dulled by the Palladium's douche moves (which is admittedly subjective) and the two year delay in fulfilling the kickstarter completely (which is objective), that added effort compared with pretty much everything comparable in your pile of hobby shame puts it alot lower. Is it impossible or do you need advanced hobby skills not possessed by all but the hardest hardcore modellers? No... but I'd say they're the most unnecessarily complicated set of gaming sprues I've seen in 20 years in the hobby. If you don't mind clipping carefully (because you can easily break them and not the sprue), trimming, and gluing three separate tiny pieces to make a space marine sized head for a model, it shouldn't bother you.
I have as yet to play a game myself. Not from a lack of wanting to, but from the lack of time to do it. I have gotten maybe 5 games of 40K since it released, and my armies are built for that. The lack of local gamers are a hindrance to gaming in general, the 45+ minute drive to the nearest shop is another. My wife has absolutely no interest in gaming, beyond simple puzzle games, and the occasional Facebook game.
I have at least been gaming for a long time, and can tell if I will like a game by reading it's rules. I would place this game above both Warhammer games, and below the Attack Wing games in how easy it is to learn, and how it would play in general. Roughly the same as Warmahordes, though with slightly larger armies at the moment. The quality of the rules in general is not bad, not the greatest, but they are better than both Warhammer games, but not as good as the Warmahordes games. So if you like Warhammer games, or Warmahordes games, then the rules are not the problem you are looking for. Had PB released the Female Powered Armor and the other Valkyrie types, especially the Super, at this time, the armies would look a lot more similar to Warmahordes in overall numbers. The splitting of the game into 2 waves really does hurt the overall game balance. The game really needed to have more items go out in wave 1 than what did ship. Here is where PB really dropped the ball with this, and every time they try to fix it they kick it away from themselves.
As posted above by folks who actually assembled them, they're just noticeably harder than minis of the same size and harder than they should be. If space marine models had split every limb into two pieces each and the head into three pieces, they'd still have a parts count lower than RDF minis. If you've already had your enthusiasm dulled by the Palladium's douche moves (which is admittedly subjective) and the two year delay in fulfilling the kickstarter completely (which is objective), that added effort compared with pretty much everything comparable in your pile of hobby shame puts it alot lower. Is it impossible or do you need advanced hobby skills not possessed by all but the hardest hardcore modellers? No... but I'd say they're the most unnecessarily complicated set of gaming sprues I've seen in 20 years in the hobby. If you don't mind clipping carefully (because you can easily break them and not the sprue), trimming, and gluing three separate tiny pieces to make a space marine sized head for a model, it shouldn't bother you.
In my experience some badly placed air vents made it real frustating.
I assembled a Forge World Spartan a few weeks back. Assembly was annoying due to the constant hot water heating of resin. I just ordered a starter set for this game. I am only doing the UEDF side, the Zentraedi stuff is going to someone else. I guess I will need to a space out my buying IOT take my time and carefully assemble this stuff.
From what folks have posted, the plastic parts fit together well and you don't likely have to heat gun the bits. I guess that is a benefit of the limited poses they have despite the parts count.
From the very few models I've build, the tooling seems excellent - almost no warping, and the seams (although awkward) are far less gappy than they could have been, so long as you cleanup and dry fit everything first.
However, the part layout and sprue design make that far, far hard than should be the case- you can get good models built, needing little more than a bit of surfacing putty to hide seams, but it will take patience and time. This took about an hour and a half to assemble (using the box instructions which really aren't very good):
Makes me sigh, as I'd love to do these on commission, but I now know they'd be prohibitively expensive - around 15-20 hours of work for a squadron of 4 (12 pieces), just in assembly. Ugh.
Sining wrote: One and a half hours to assemble? That's pretty insane
That is with very careful clean-up.
I spent around 20 minutes and compared to winter, it will show.
Nice edge highlighting on his, getting sharp lines on the wings is harder than I thought.
Notice no missiles on his, this adds much more work trying to make it look right.
Tempting to put the missile type on the stand for esthetics.
Winter sure makes commission work tempting.
Wonder what rates are for painting touch-up (revamp??) hehe.
Never mind the tiny decals.
Sining wrote: One and a half hours to assemble? That's pretty insane
That is with very careful clean-up.
I spent around 20 minutes and compared to winter, it will show.
Nice edge highlighting on his, getting sharp lines on the wings is harder than I thought.
Notice no missiles on his, this adds much more work trying to make it look right.
Tempting to put the missile type on the stand for esthetics.
Winter sure makes commission work tempting.
Wonder what rates are for painting touch-up (revamp??) hehe.
Never mind the tiny decals.
Yeah, that's with very careful cleanup and includes the surfacing putty time; the missiles are actually pretty easy (my fighter mode valks will all carry missiles) and don't add a lot of time. My hour and a half does not include the paintwork - just up to getting the basing material on ready for priming.
The majority of issues are present on the gerwalk / guardian mode (which is why it was the first one I did, just so I know what's what) - the arms and legs and fuselage top/bottom seam.
The engineering / tooling on the sprue is pretty good from what I've found - parts do line up properly and aren't malformed, but its easy to damage them by clipping too close, and some of the injection points are in awkward places.
However, it is the part breakdown (ie the model design) that lets things down.
Battroid mode similarly has issues with the legs and arms. Top tip - build the upper torso and arms and legs separately - don't glue the torso onto the legs until after painting (it's simple to pin).
Fighter mode, the leg halves have reasonably simple seams, as does the upper/lower fuselage.
The vernier thrusters on arms/leg rears are awkward as the seam runs right through the middle (meaning you have to clean up an edge inside a rectangle less around 1mm wide). It would have been better to run the seam at the side of those.
Just waiting for the Canada Post person to deliver. Does anyone have any idea when the Monster is released? I would love to build a Daedalus attack board.
Forar wrote: Wave Two currently has a non-public (as in not official, only shared with people who talked to them at Adepticon) target of November 2015.
Comparing against last year's time line, I'm not optimistic.
They also said november in the podcast linked earlier from adepticon so it is officially on the record direct from the horse's a.. I mean mouth albeit in a tentative TBA WIP *subject to change* we hope sort of way.
When dealing with Palladium products, draw a line on a sheet of paper. At one end, write down "Now" and at the other write down "The Heat-Death of the Universe".
The time is PROBABLY between those two points, and that's about as accurate as anyone is likely to get until the things are madeships are on the watercontainer is at portcontainer is through customscontainer is in the warehouseshipments are loadedshipments are on the boat the box is at your door.
The sad thing is, that's about the experience for the RoW backers of this campaign with delays of some variety (not all of them directly attributable to PB) at each of those steps.
8) have green stuff for the leg gaps. Paint won't cover it up, it will actually make it more apparent
9) use the assembly instructions on drivethrurpg.com, not the crappy instructions that come in the box
10) The valk battloid canopies are easy to miss - double-check the sprue layout from above to find them
11) don't glue the gunpod into the fighter mode until after you've painted the fighter; in fact, it's better to glue it to the "swoosh" and just set the fighter on it.
12) the antenna on the front of the recon pod doesn't fit, no matter what you try.
A friend pointed me towards these, and I have nothing but good things to say about them.
Quality magnets, well protected for travel, a reasonable price especially considering where they shipped from. More expensive than a set of Litko pegs, but I'm a fan overall.
Though I did get 16 of them (2 sets) back when I planned on having 13-15 VTs.
Only having 9 makes them... not quite as necessary in those numbers. Oh well, I suppose I'll have extras for Rick/Roy and whatever Super VT's I end up keeping.
I've got them all constructed from wave one and have started the dubious task of painting. I don't see myself getting fancy with the bases. Partly because of the possible space battlefield idea but more because I just don't want to spend more resources and time on a game that will likely only get played once or twice a year.
Well, I glued on the "swoosh" and figure a matt black is what they get.
You know, for that straight out of the box experience...
The gun pod is no big deal to do but not gluing down other than on the stand is the way to go since the "handle" will hold the model (good practice!).
The clear acrylic may be the way to go due to the varying environments: I saw some fighter stands with blue sky and clouds, it may look odd in space.
Don't use orange tube testors, get liquid model cement! It'll save you absolutely TONS of gap-filling and it's super easy. Testors liquid cement is OKish, but I really recommend Plastruct's Bondene or Plastic Weld (both are similar, but stay away from their non-toxic Weldene, it's crap). It comes in a 2 ounce bottle with a brush in the cap for about $4. You brush some of the cement onto contact area of both parts you're assembling, wait a couple seconds for the solvent to liquefy the plastic, then smush the parts together. Larger parts like 40k vehicles you can hold the parts together and drip glue into the seam. You'll get a very fine bead of plastic that smushes out of the joint, DON'T CLEAN IT OFF JUST YET! That small bead of liquified plastic is why the liquid glue works so marvelously.
While the parts grab each other right away, you have a few minutes to reposition parts till the solvent evaporates away, welding the plastic into a single piece. It will be slightly soft but firm for a couple hours, and once it's fully cure you can go back and scrape/file that bead of glue/plastic off the joint just like you would a mold line, leaving a perfect join underneath that usually requires zero gap-filling. First learned about it for building Gundam kits some years ago, but it's been a modelling trick for decades
Nice short youtube video showing what I mean by Dr Faust, who does a lot of awesome modeling videos including a few about Robotech. He's using Tenax 7R which is virtually the exact same glue as Plastic Weld (both are Methyl Ethyl Ketone based, which also works just fine as a glue if you pick it up)
Kalamadea wrote: Don't use orange tube testors, get liquid model cement!
I've been using Testors orange for over 30 years. It's great for styrene, and the gel makes it easy to control where it goes. I find liquid cement has a tendency to craze surfaces.
Dang, I'm glad I got out when I did (prior to mainstream US shipping). I only ate my shipping costs in selling my pledges.
A friend has been trying to sell his pledge for two weeks now on several popular Australian trade sites. He started at 15% off of his Kickstarter price, and has since dropped it down to 20%. Note, this isn't off retail, and isn't just for the Wave 1 stuff. His entire pledge on the KS was $580US, he's now trying to offload it, still in shrinkwrap, for $460US (with Wave 2 to follow). He's also offering to sell the product on hand (ie, BC Wave 1 and two Destroid expansions) for $160US, which when you consider the "Australia Tax", is a damned good deal. And getting no interest.
So... glad to see RRT going gangbusters down under. Obviously, it's a singular data point, but given there doesn't appear to be a glut of sales on those sites that could be diverting interest, it's concerning. I'm just glad it's a lack of interest sale on his part, and not a needing the money sale.
Obvious partial counterpoint, Good Games appear out of stock of the Core Box, but we don't know how many they had to sell, or how quickly they sold out. Didn't want to allege that it's not selling anywhere.
Morgan Vening wrote: A friend has been trying to sell his pledge for two weeks now on several popular Australian trade sites. He started at 15% off of his Kickstarter price, and has since dropped it down to 20%. Note, this isn't off retail, and isn't just for the Wave 1 stuff. His entire pledge on the KS was $580US, he's now trying to offload it, still in shrinkwrap, for $460US (with Wave 2 to follow).
He dropped nearly $600 USD, sight unseen? Yikes.
I generally won't spend much more than $125 USD shipped, simply to limit risk. More and more, this looks like the right approach. You come in right around the pledging "sweet spot", and you don't have as much risk if the game tanks.
Yeah, I'm immensely glad I pulled out of the KS and picked up things when they hit retail. It's cheaper since online shops keep having blowout sales, and I wasn't stuck biting my nails waiting an extra year for it, I feel for the guys that bought into it heavy and have little to show for it, or that hated the end product.
As for orange tube glue, it has it's uses, but seamlessly filling gaps in parts is not one of them. Liquid cement can craze the surface, but I've never founf it to be anything a quick scraping of the knife/file couldn't clean right off unless I was immensely careless with the stuff, I have ruined a few models knocking the bottles over throughout the years, stupid tall thin bottles.
Morgan Vening wrote: A friend has been trying to sell his pledge for two weeks now on several popular Australian trade sites. He started at 15% off of his Kickstarter price, and has since dropped it down to 20%. Note, this isn't off retail, and isn't just for the Wave 1 stuff. His entire pledge on the KS was $580US, he's now trying to offload it, still in shrinkwrap, for $460US (with Wave 2 to follow).
He dropped nearly $600 USD, sight unseen? Yikes.
Heh. I was in for almost triple that. Thankfully someone bought it all.
JohnHwangDD wrote: I generally won't spend much more than $125 USD shipped, simply to limit risk. More and more, this looks like the right approach. You come in right around the pledging "sweet spot", and you don't have as much risk if the game tanks.
I'm a lot more skeptical now, but at the time, the definitely had me on board. I didn't do as much research as I should have (having known PB had been in the industry several decades, not knowing their actual reputation), and at least during their campaign, it was a slick, well run project. The day after they collected the money, that's when the wheels started to come off. Given the limited local gaming, a good half of that pledge was going to go towards recruitment. I had five and a half BC's set aside for "If you're interested, you can have one at cost", to get a group going at a reasonable price to start.
Because while the BC was looking to be decent value, even during the campaign I knew trying to recruit people at full retail was going to be difficult. Even good and easy to assemble models at that price was pushing the upper limit (given what's necessary to field an army), and along with the expected currency drop (AU-US pricing was always going to shift), and the other hindrances (import costs), it was looking at being a hard sell. The additional ~20% price increase (from $30US to $36US) would not have helped. And with a game that doesn't have an established name (ie, anything beyond 40K/WHFB), it takes a fair amount of work, or a DAZZLING product (and RRT ain't that) to get the critical mass of people playing that will make the expenditure of several hundred dollars by new players not seem so burdensome. If you know you have a decent number of opponents already committed, it's pricy (as are almost all miniature wargames), but you can get a return on investment. If you're one of a dozen people interested, but are unsure if you'll be able to find an opponent, the ROI seems a bit bleaker.
But with all the scheduling screwups, general incompetences, bald faced lies, overall crappy handling of everything, and the straw that broke the camel's back, the parts breakdown, I was done. And as I've said, am thankful I got out when I was able to. Because if I had ~80lb worth of this (with more to come), and unable to shift it even at a significant loss, I'd be completely losing my mind. Now? I just sit back for the most part and watch for the LOL's.
As for limiting risk, I'm also a lot more hesitant to spend THAT big again, but I'll still usually go in for the all-in-one pledge, just because the shipping costs tend to be a factor there. At least two campaigns since, it was buy the base box for X, and pay X shipping, or buy two of the base box (or the base box + everything deal) for less than 2X, and still pay X shipping. I love where I live. The one thing that I hate, beyond every animal and most plants being lethal, is importing stuff. It's been a hassle for as long as I can remember.
The absolute forecaster of success of RRT, that you'd have to be someone who just wants RRT to die if you question the absoluteness of validity, frpgames' Top 20 list doesn't have RRT listed anymore.
FRP!!! Why hast thou forsaken us!?! Truly, if being in the top 20 is a sign of amazing things from the retail end of one of the largest distributors in the world, not being on there is a problem!? Woe, the end is nigh!!!
:-P
I can agree with Morgan, this campaign (and the bullgak that went on with Wyrd's RPG) has definitely shifted how I use Kickstarter. Not that I was ever a big spender in the first place, but I definitely regret participating as strongly as I did.
Though here's a thought experiment; if everyone had that same view, and contributed no more than $125 (or less than half the average contribution for the campaign), PB would've pulled in less than half as much money (say, 600-700k or so), meaning we would've missed a ton of stretch goals, meaning we probably wouldn't have even gotten that much. And even funnier; the reduced work load might have even helped the project. Though the time it took wave one to get to retail, it wouldn't have helped avoid the shenanigans altogether.
My other BIG contributions have been to all 3 Dwarven Forge campaigns, which I don't regret in the least, and Shadows of Brimstone, also no regrets. So I guess thus far I'm batting 4/6 for projects that got over $100. Not bad. Though the awesome that is DF is probably inflating that figure beyond the average. Because apparently they're the only creator on KS that can estimate a time frame accurately.
Forar wrote: FRP!!! Why hast thou forsaken us!?! Truly, if being in the top 20 is a sign of amazing things from the retail end of one of the largest distributors in the world, not being on there is a problem!? Woe, the end is nigh!!!
:-P
I can agree with Morgan, this campaign (and the bullgak that went on with Wyrd's RPG) has definitely shifted how I use Kickstarter. Not that I was ever a big spender in the first place, but I definitely regret participating as strongly as I did.
Though here's a thought experiment; if everyone had that same view, and contributed no more than $125 (or less than half the average contribution for the campaign), PB would've pulled in less than half as much money (say, 600-700k or so), meaning we would've missed a ton of stretch goals, meaning we probably wouldn't have even gotten that much. And even funnier; the reduced work load might have even helped the project. Though the time it took wave one to get to retail, it wouldn't have helped avoid the shenanigans altogether.
My other BIG contributions have been to all 3 Dwarven Forge campaigns, which I don't regret in the least, and Shadows of Brimstone, also no regrets. So I guess thus far I'm batting 4/6 for projects that got over $100. Not bad. Though the awesome that is DF is probably inflating that figure beyond the average. Because apparently they're the only creator on KS that can estimate a time frame accurately.
$700k or so would have gotten us the gnerls, male and female zent power armors, zent heavy infantry, MACIIs, and the super veritechs in plastic plus the resin special characters which would have roughly made the second wave roughly the same in terms of individual sculpts (but obviously less in terms of total figure count). Because of that extra funding, we've armored veritechs, lancers, ghots, light infantry, experimental and command bits, vf-4s, VEFs, and a bunch of tokens with freebies of all of them except the infantry and vf-4. I could have lived without that post 700k stuff personally if it meant that the kickstarter fulfilled on time but we both know that was apparently now never going to be the case. They couldn't even get the plastic stuff unlocked in the first 400k out in time to be less than a year late and that is being generous by not including the resin special characters unlocked there. I don't think the level of funding would have mattered as palladium screwed up their $30k crowdfunded pair of RPG books with a 1-2 year delay as well... and that is their niche specialty (RPG books although I'd understand if you defaulted to "screwing up" instead) that they've been doing for 30+ years. Whether they unlocked 10 minis with 80k or 100 sculpts with 1.4 million, at this point I don't think it ever would have ended well/on time.
This was the first KS that I actually had the balls to click pledge on and it definitely made me hesitant again since. Previously, my fingers hovered over the sedition wars campaign and Kings of War but I ultimately chickenout out on both and I'm really glad that I did. After Robotech, I came close to pledging for AVP which has turned into another palladium-esque screwup and I pledged the $1 minimum for Heavy Gear (which admittedly is still too early to tell how it will end up but considering they just dropped the "file incompatibility" surprise last update I'm not optimistic). I had some moderate interest in a few others that completed since with varying degrees of success/failure but the ones on average that I've been most interested in have ended up with tons of issues.
Automatically Appended Next Post: We also have no clue at the moment how palladium will handle the resin specials at this point. Will they stay resin and they'll have to pay ND to make several thousand of each? Will they just bite the bullet and make a special character plastic accessory sprue for each main faction instead (so rick/roy on one and khyron/miriya on another)? If they go plastic, will they go back on their word and just do add on bits or a complete model for each? I suspect they're really regretting the special character resin figure stretch goals at this point.
I find it odd the Spartan/Phalanx keeps being sold out, though the Battletech guys would probably like them.
I am being a fool and getting more of the stuff (Thanks Forar!), but I figure I will have a complete game of everything for both sides so I can host as I wish.
If I get much more, I should stop being insane and put magnets in a few of these.
Had not made much headway painting, life interferes.
The M.E.K. solvent based "glues" seem to be the way to go for these models, I agree the Testors tubes or Tamiya do not work quite as nice on this plastic.
Playing a game tonight, will see how it goes, maybe will post something.
@Warboss: Rick/Roy/Khyron/Miriya are supposed to be the same plastic as everything else. Their recent limited edition figures (Max, Miriya) have been in pewter/resin, but RRKM aren't supposed to be.
Off the top of my head, the only resin stuff from the actual campaign is the SDF-1 model, the bases, and the two objective packs. With a caveat that they did say that with the changes necessary for the VEF-1/1D pack, there might need to be pewter and/or resin pieces made and included.
Eddie Farrer on May 4, 2013 Will the character models be in plastic or are they going to be in white metal?
Creator Palladium Books on May 4, 2013 Always plastic unless we note otherwise. --Plastic Ninja
Rick and Roy are in plastic. If anything is in something other than plastic we will note that when we announce it. -ND
Apr 21 2013 on Robotech® RPG Tactics™
The Rick Hunter SE Veritech is plastic and includes all three modes.
Apr 20 2013 on #10: from the project Robotech® RPG Tactics™
While it is possible they'll try to change something like that up (the number of LE figures they'll need is likely in the 6-7,000+ range), even with the items not going to retail, they are "KS/Convention exclusives", meaning they can bring a couple hundred with them to each Gencon/Adepticon to sell off. Whether or not that is enough to get ahead of the mold costs, I don't know, but that's what we were told.
@Talizvar: welcome! Glad the box got safely to you, those cuts in the Battloid sprue were a great idea. Definitely made shipping them a lot easier.
Have fun with the games, and yeah, feel free to let us know how they go. Good to hear you've got some reasonably local opposition.
Thanks for the correction. I guess I was remembering it wrong and/or confused from the con specials as I could have sworn they were resin as well. Oh well, I guess that makes it easier for them in a way.
Morgan Vening wrote: A friend has been trying to sell his pledge for two weeks now on several popular Australian trade sites. He started at 15% off of his Kickstarter price, and has since dropped it down to 20%. Note, this isn't off retail, and isn't just for the Wave 1 stuff. His entire pledge on the KS was $580US, he's now trying to offload it, still in shrinkwrap, for $460US (with Wave 2 to follow).
He dropped nearly $600 USD, sight unseen? Yikes.
Heh. I was in for almost triple that. Thankfully someone bought it all.
JohnHwangDD wrote: I generally won't spend much more than $125 USD shipped, simply to limit risk. More and more, this looks like the right approach. You come in right around the pledging "sweet spot", and you don't have as much risk if the game tanks.
I'm a lot more skeptical now, but at the time, the definitely had me on board
As for limiting risk, I'm also a lot more hesitant to spend THAT big again, but I'll still usually go in for the all-in-one pledge, just because the shipping costs tend to be a factor there.
$1,500 USD just like that? Whoa. That's like 3-5x of my annual gaming budget. I feel so much better about my spending habits.
True, the international shipping is a killer, esp where you are. I have the luxury of simply ignoring any non-US project, which works out to maybe 1/4, so not a big deal. I'm not sure what I'd do if I were in your shoes.
Welp, another week, another banal PBWU. And another week where they appear like they'll miss updating Backers.
UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™
We are so pleased that our Kickstarter backers across the European Union and Australia have all shipped (and should be in everyone’s hands). Shipping the last hundred or so to the rest of the world has begun and will continue over the next few weeks.
Woot! Only 190 days (27 weeks) since shipping began. Granted, that includes the 79 days where they shipped nothing to backers. And it boggles the mind that even though yes, there's a difference between shipping domestically, and shipping internationally, a time increase of over 20 times is literally ludicrous and inexcusable. (no, that's not a typo, 1000 domestic in a week, 100 international in what appears to be no less than two weeks)
Meanwhile, work continues on the engineering aspect of Wave Two items, and we just requested a quote for a handful of new items.
Heavy on suggestion, light on detail. Not surprised.
All 12 comprehensive instruction sheets for building Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Wave One game pieces have been posted on DriveThruRPG.com and are available for FREE along with the color guide and other odds and ends. Much more will be coming your way.
Yay! Lookit that! They finally got around to doing stuff that should have been in the box to begin with! They should be proud they've fixed a mistake that should have been realized before shipping began, especially given any argument that they were rushed for time would so obviously be crap (having had from when the first container arrived in late August, to the first non-FC shipping at the end of October. Printing out usable instructions and putting them in the box as they shipped shouldn't be a hard ask.
As I noted last week, Palladium has exciting plans in development for expanding the Robotech® RPG Tactics™ game line and gaming experience for years to come. We have wanted to write and post a rather expansive update to all our Robotech® supporters for a number of weeks now. We plan to do so next week.
Or, instead of yet more promises, you just tell people what's happening? The only way you'll get anyone back on board (and admittedly there's a lot you just never will), is to "maintain consistent communication throughout the process" (Campaign Front Page Risks and Challenges). Silence, blather, silence, weak promises, silence, silence, one decent post, silence, repeat, is not going to get anyone swayable back. And regaining credibility with those that haven't forever forsaken you, will be important for the future.
*snip links to unboxing and Kevin's interview*
TLDR - We started shipping to the people we've been ignoring for 2+ months, we've got big plans for the future but we're not telling, and we finally fixed stuff that shouldn't have been in error in the first place. Also, here's a video and a podcast of us spruiking our product.
"We just requested a quote for a handful of new items".
Hey, hey guys, here's an idea, how about you clean off your plate before you add more to it?
But I'm sure their 'plan to finally tell us what's going on next week' will come into fruition. Totally. :-D
Edit: Merijeek and Morgan have both pointed out that it could be something dumb like Malcontent dice. Considering how hard they're riding that stupid dice bag, it could be talking up something insignificant like that.
I don't even know anymore. I really enjoyed keeping tabs on the insanity of Dwarven Forge's 3rd campaign for a month, and then I looked back into RRT and... nothing had happened in that time.
Maybe they're designing other types of bags, we have one for dice, now we need one for drool and another for storing the small parts that snap off. None for our hopes and dreams though, those belong in the toilet.
Talizvar wrote: I find it odd the Spartan/Phalanx keeps being sold out, though the Battletech guys would probably like them.
I am being a fool and getting more of the stuff (Thanks Forar!), but I figure I will have a complete game of everything for both sides so I can host as I wish.
If I get much more, I should stop being insane and put magnets in a few of these.
Had not made much headway painting, life interferes.
The M.E.K. solvent based "glues" seem to be the way to go for these models, I agree the Testors tubes or Tamiya do not work quite as nice on this plastic.
Playing a game tonight, will see how it goes, maybe will post something.
I would if shops didn't want my firstborn to send the boxes to Japan. Even better make 4 Spartans/Armored Valks repackaging to a box and I'll buy double.
Stormonu wrote: Hmmm...so Rick isn't the only one who believes Kevin's mention is for some totally new items.
I just took "new" as "oops, we should have had these sprues laid out a year ago and we finally got them off to the factory"
Guess we'll know soon ... hopefully before hell freezes over.
The problem now is, after several weeks of "news for the future is coming, just you wait!", it's likely either going to be rage inducing (announcement of new models, when they've still got two dozen plus on their plate), or it's gonna be apathetic (dicebags and/or dice). As usual, instead of Kevin just announcing it, and letting the product speak for itself, he's gone the route of style before substance.
Really, the only thing that'd thread that needle at all, would be an announcement of partnership with GHQ for official conventional vehicles. Hopefully, they factor in overall balance into Convetional Units, because there's a long history in alternate activation games, of using incredibly cheap, ablative units to boost activation count and distort the activation system. But announcing CU's and then doing very little stress-testing, would be a very Palladi-esque thing to do.
Morgan Vening wrote: Hopefully, they factor in overall balance into Convetional Units, because there's a long history in alternate activation games, of using incredibly cheap, ablative units to boost activation count and distort the activation system. But announcing CU's and then doing very little stress-testing, would be a very Palladi-esque thing to do.
Maybe those units will get life is cheap, or something similar. Besides, even being able to manipulate activations, it is better than you do your entire turn, and then what ever I have left gets to do something.
Also, there is a possibility that conventional units are only available as upgrades to real units. Destroids with tank support, Valkyries with fighter support, and so on. Make a new support option for conventional units, like 2 CU squads take up a single support slot.
Sining wrote: I think overall, this is one of the few KSs that has soured me on KS in general. Too little accountability
I'm going to disagree with you on that one. I didn't go as Kickstarter berserk as some people did, but I still went way too far on a number of projects. Let's see how they've worked out?
Evil Baby Orphanage (card game): On time, or at least close enough.
Through The Breach (RPG, minis): Absurdly late, producer actually stopped working on this project in the middle to do other stuff, then finally, reluctantly came back and finished ridiculously late, and by the end nobody gave a gak apart from getting it over with.
MYTH (minis-heavy board game): Legendary as a general screwup, even if they at least kept trying to turn it around and have been general successful or so I understand it. I sold off my stuff as soon as I got it and got a look at the mess of the rules.
Robotech® RPG Tactics™ (note, actual cut and paste of their stupid marks): Duh
All Quiet on the Martian Front (minis, tabletop game): Actually did fairly well for a while, then hit snags with plastic, devolved into THREE waves, communications went to basically non-existent
Cthulhu Wars (minis-heavy board game): Probably the highest quality product I've gotten, but of course the original base game was like a year late, expansions will hopefully arrive by this Gen Con. The only one I've dealt with where the timeline went to hell, and the people running it took all the blame as the issue was their lack of experience.
Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition (RPG): By the time this one is finished (way late, no evidence of actual serious progress, we're getting a lot of BS similar to Simbieda's "finalizing the color guide" for ten straight updates) I'm expecting it to be almost as legendary a screwup as this Robotech. Almost certainly going to deliver to retail before backers, which is what they've now done on their previous (extremely late) KS Horror on the Orient Express.
Shadows of Brimstone (minis-heavy board game): Good game, generally nice pieces, ridiculously late, trying to gouge people extra on shipping, top-level backers are eventually going to find out it wasn't nearly the deal they were led to believe. And backers are going to not only get their stuff after retail, they're going to get it WAY after retail. (No, Forar, not arguing this one with you)
RARRRR!!! (card game): May have actually shipped early
Nova Cry: Redux (card game): Too early to tell, just closed, already going to be late based on the one update since close.
OGRE DE: Legendarily late, but with a fantastic product. Of course, its lateness was only legendary because the likes of FFP, Wyrd, AD, Chaosium, and Palladium Books hadn't yet gotten into the game to show how to really make a project late.
So, honestly, I'd say this KS had really wrecked Kickstarter for me, but they were only the first and most visible major fuckup.
Unfortunately, their idiocy is turning out to be the standard, not the exception on Kickstarter with what are supposed to be established gaming companies.
Morgan Vening wrote: Hopefully, they factor in overall balance into Convetional Units, because there's a long history in alternate activation games, of using incredibly cheap, ablative units to boost activation count and distort the activation system. But announcing CU's and then doing very little stress-testing, would be a very Palladi-esque thing to do.
Maybe those units will get life is cheap, or something similar. Besides, even being able to manipulate activations, it is better than you do your entire turn, and then what ever I have left gets to do something.
Also, there is a possibility that conventional units are only available as upgrades to real units. Destroids with tank support, Valkyries with fighter support, and so on. Make a new support option for conventional units, like 2 CU squads take up a single support slot.
Actually the thought that I had, and GHQ was asked originally to contact me by members of the FB group. Was to add multiple conventional units onto a single base, give them one single CP per base, and keep them weak enough that they are only annoyances except some of the nastier units. In the end I think Mechs should rule. Not Like Battletech where tanks can compete but where tanks and LAV's are limited and do not have the power to do anything but add some flavor. Now some missile vehicles could be nasty IF they get the drop on you though. Most people like the balance that I've struck. PB has said nothing of it and it's all still a WIP. I have no idea in the end if they will use any of it at all.
Ah, thanks. There used to be a huge robotech fan named Stan who was the only person for years running Robotech at gencon (and sometimes the only palladium gm there) so I figured I'd ask.
Merijeek wrote: Shadows of Brimstone (minis-heavy board game): Good game, generally nice pieces, ridiculously late, trying to gouge people extra on shipping, top-level backers are eventually going to find out it wasn't nearly the deal they were led to believe. And backers are going to not only get their stuff after retail, they're going to get it WAY after retail. (No, Forar, not arguing this one with you).
Why would I argue that? There will absolutely be stuff at retail before backers get it.
But unlike this clusterfeth, they never promised (and doubled down repeatedly on that promise) that.
Am I happy about it? Excited? Giddy? No, but I'm not in need of a fainting couch either. Unlike PB and their less than overwhelming 3 dozen ish figures, SoB legit has like 100+ figures and what will probably approach 1000 cards all told, plus dozens of character classes, mechanics, etc. oh, and it's fun to play and doesn't take a week to assemble unless done with painstaking care.
Also, yes, wave two will take quite a while, but unlike PB, they delivered wave one vaguely on time, which I think counts for something.
Or the deal? Meh, I still think backers will pay considerably less than retail, but until more than the core boxes are out the exact numbers will remain to be seen.
Actually, I wasn't referring to stores getting Wave Two long before backers (though I think some people haven't quite managed to comprehend exactly how large that gap is going to be) so much as the whole SoBMC deal becoming a less and less valuable deal the third time.
At $150'ish for both core boxes (give or take shipping, taxes, whatever), I'd be shocked if the rest of wave two was less than $350, which is the break even point even for the highest MC tier.
Everything beyond that is 'the deal'. Now, whether or not MC backers save $100 or $1000 or somewhere in between will depend on a ton of factors we don't have. I mean, we can speculate and estimate based on the limited info we have now, but I haven't lost the faith yet.
I mean, let's be real, this is a company that charges $10 for 15 cards. You don't think this whole product line is going to be $$$? :-P
Now, in comparison, yeah a "Battle Cry" was a considerable savings over retail from what we've seen. Not when comparing single expansions to the cheapest rates CSI and MM will put out, but all told it was solid. Credit where credit is due. But similarly, not quite the same deal some people (myself included) were estimating. I'd have to run the numbers again, but barring some horrific 'pennies on the dollar' crash and burn sale, maybe instead of 20-30% retail we paid 50% for RRT?
But at what cost, Meri?
At what cost?
*cue dramatic music*
Edit: I do think, in hindsight, that perhaps instead of getting swept up in the giant piles of money and backer enthusiasm, it might have been a better idea to not expand so dramatically, as the SoB folks did. And PB did. How good the deal will end up being and what other costs are associated (how long it'll take to deliver) remain to be seen. On that I can totally agree.
Edit 2: while on the subject, I do recognize that there are subjective shades of grey present, and there will be some who find themselves on the annoyed/outraged/this-is-unacceptable side of the spectrum. My primary frustration with such discussions are where, without nuance or context, people like Lola (the whitest of knights on the KS comments) hold up both projects in comparison and find that one delivered a few months late on wave one and the other delivered a year late on wave one and somehow this is a poignant 'sick burn'. As though the extent of the delays, and the quality of the resulting product, and the manner in which is was delivered is without importance. And yet here we are, over half a year since wave one began delivery for RRT, and there are still backers without their boxes.
I know you and I generally see eye to eye, Meri, so kindly understand I'm not trying to argue the matter. Merely finding it to be a jumping off point for a variety of directions of thought I've found myself on regarding the notion of Kickstarter and crowdfunding in general. Just as there should be backer understanding for delays in production processes, there must also be accountability for creators to manage expectations and meet those they set themselves. By that contrast, I feel FFP have set a high bar and even if they don't clear it (and there are entirely valid critiques to level at the campaign), that some (not you) who would lump all projects together and paint them with the same tainted brush while giving a pass under the misguided 'omg all KS's are late' are ignoring key points and going well past understanding into 'being a permissive doormat' territory.
Who knows. Maybe SoB will push wave two back to early 2017 or something, and I'll find my patience and support waning there as well. But for now, this is simply how I feel the campaigns differ dramatically, even if the 30,000 foot overhead view is "big campaigns for miniatures and materials that are late in one fashion or another and probably have a year or two ahead of them to get everything else out". If uncharitable, there isn't much difference. If one peers into the particulars, I believe the differences come into stark relief.
I could do with more accountability in KS myself. In general, I find myself being more turned off from most KS and only going with established names like CMON or Mantic or people I know who have gotten KSes out. Part of this is because creators can just not give a damn about anything once they get their money and most backers can't do stuff about it; especially international ones. Secondly, white knight backers are really annoying most people. Everytime someone is asking why something is delayed or why there's no update, there's always one guy who goes 'hey, this is KS, the creator is not obliged to do anything!'
Sining wrote: I could do with more accountability in KS myself.
In general, I find myself being more turned off from most KS and only going with established names like CMON or Mantic or people I know who have gotten KSes out.
Agreed that accountability should be there, but the problem is that there isn't a mechanism to do this. Escrowed accounts tied to milestones would be the obvious approach, or some kind of clawback provision for teeth beyond the first 60 days
I agree that CMoN and Mantic are "safe" - love them or hate them, they do deliver. I really ought to back less, but KS continues to have consumed the bulk of my hobby spend for the past 3 years, and has only slowed down a little bit this year. OTOH, I have done pretty well in selling off "extras" to fund the beast, so that's pretty good.
I would make it so that KS should be the ones to initiate legal proceedings against clearly fraudulant cases. As well as institute some kind of refund that would be made to backers if the project was more than one year over it's estimated date of delivery and backers wanted a refund. I mean, just as some ideas.
Somewhere along the way, someone will get smart and provide "KS insurance". If all goes well, the insurer keeps your money. If things go south - demands for refunds, the project is grossly delayed or the like, the insurer has a central place from which they can attempt to recoup losses, making the consequences for failing a Kickstarter far more serious than it currently is.
Some measure of sliding scale of delivery could be sensible. It need not be a firm year, but perhaps at 2-300% of delivery target. Something that scales where small/short projects don't get carte blanc to waffle for an extra 12 months, but longer projects that need 1-2 years aren't harshly penalized for reasonable situations beyond their control.
Basically it'd be nice if there was some system that emphasized making a reasonable estimate, padding it, and then doubling the gak out of it for good measure. Not this "I think we might do it in a year so let's say 9 months and hope for the best" but "it might take a year so let's say two, just to be safe".
There's a bit too much carrot in terms of incentive to over promise on delivery and timeline, and frankly even as a supporter of the system, it's be nice if there was a little more 'stick' involved.
Like, even a binding obligation to provide refunds where requested after said reasonable time frame.
The problem is that ks is kind of a schmuck in this regard. They want to get their commission but they don't want any responsibilities to do with that commission. But they're not above touting how much they help struggling artists and how many things they made come true while ignoring all the failures
Automatically Appended Next Post: And there is no incentive for them to change either cause they're still the biggest crowd fund website on the net. And unless they get sued for aiding fraud, there's no reason for them to change
They keep touting how much money goes through the system and projects keep breaking the 7-8 figure mark, eventually either it'll get legislative attention for one reason or another.
Crowdfunding being without even basic consumer protection isn't a feature, it's a bug.
Despite how loudly some backers might protest it.
Might take a year, might take 5, might take the next Pebble raking in another 50 million and then blowing up spectacularly, but I won't be surprised if it happens eventually.
Are there a lot of projects that break the 7-8 figure mark though? Other than Pebble and the Cat thing by Oatmeal, I can't really remember the last big KS that hit 7 figures. And those only really hit that much cause they had brand name going for them.
What is the next frustration inducing element of this KS is that the more interesting models are in Wave 2 which PB will give no hints on progress.
Worse, I had gone and bought extra with the backer kit that all come from that wave.
I am crossing my fingers on the Zent. infantry looking good (got enough for the light and heavy)... hoping for no "heroic" proportions.
I am looking forward to the "Super" and "Armored" versions of the Valks.
It just occurred to me now: when the armored version "blow" their upgrade off they will not have any of the "standard" missile armament... which if being WYSIWYG I would have to model some without the missiles on the wings <sigh>.
Can we stop harassing the Mike guy? He has available a few "cheat sheets" that were helpful for keeping my first game moving along. His "fan fiction/add-on" stuff will be a godsend when I house-rule the heck out of this game (mainly "roll with impact" and missiles) most rules in this are quite good as I found by actual game play (yay!). I definitely have a few suggestions we tried that made the game better and more "true" to the show. Some conventional military stuff would be good for flavor during the "Malcontent" time of Robotech. Could you imagine the pain the Zent. guys would be in some third world country?
Yep, REALLY hate their cards for game use, I will be hacking out my own so all the information is on one sheet per squad... very clunky playing with all those cards. Tempting to just put a die on the pods for MD tracking since they are only 5 pts. I like putting the missile pods attached to the scout squad for better to hit.
I suspect Robotech having a rule-base we play seriously like 40k, X-wing or Warmachine is not looking likely.
I think it will get "corrected" by the fan-base and they can supply the models and we will happily ignore the rest.
I fully plan to host at a game convention in my area next year and say with a "modified" ruleset.
Yep, REALLY hate their cards for game use, I will be hacking out my own so all the information is on one sheet per squad... very clunky playing with all those cards.
FWIW, when someone (mike?) posted that laminator 70% off on amazon last year, I picked it up specifically for robotech. I took the cards that I thought I was likely to use for a squad and copy/printed them in color from my printer (both front and back on the same printer paper sheet) which I then laminated. It seems to work theoretically (at least from the perspective of someone yet to *actually* play so YMMV). It's the only thing I've actually done so far with Robotech.
Talizvar wrote: I am looking forward to the "Super" and "Armored" versions of the Valks.
It just occurred to me now: when the armored version "blow" their upgrade off they will not have any of the "standard" missile armament... which if being WYSIWYG I would have to model some without the missiles on the wings <sigh>.
The Armored start out like a Destroid, then convert to a basic Valk when their armor is no good, so yeah, you'd be looking at some Gerwalks / Fighters without missiles - good thing the basic pledge gives you so many Valks...
Things are not looking good for this game. I was browsing at my LGS, and I found Robotech RPG Tactics taking the space formerly occupied by Mercs (not much space at all). Considering that Mercs has basically al but died, and this took its place on the shelf, I'm not very optimistic of it catching on.
Alpharius wrote: Are there tanks and infantry in the game at all 'officially'?
During the KS they said they didn't have the rights to include tanks, APCs, fighters etc. Only 'mecha'.
Which is why they can't have unmasked characters either.
Who the @#$% negociated that deal...
The really painful question: is it Palladium Books that fluffed the terms or Harmony Gold that has garbage terms in their copyright?
We may never know.
Sining wrote: I could do with more accountability in KS myself. In general, I find myself being more turned off from most KS and only going with established names like CMON or Mantic or people I know who have gotten KSes out.
* Use a credit card.
* Know the business history of the creator *and* any parties associated with the project (eg. licensors).
* Nothing wrong with buying only from established names. That's how retail works.
* Avoid backing a company's first KS, tempting as it may be.
* Spend less money on riskier projects.
I dunno about insurance, but eBay does it. But who will pay these insurance fees? If backers won't, will it mean higher KS fees for creators?
We already have consumer protection laws, yet the best protection is a credit card dispute. Any legislation protecting the consumer after funds have been collected will take a long time to get refunds from a party which may have no funds.
I dunno about insurance, but eBay does it. But who will pay these insurance fees? If backers won't, will it mean higher KS fees for creators?
I suspect that would be the only viable method. You force creators to take mandatory KS insurance by charging a higher rate and paying for it with that. If they fail to deliver, each dollar pledged is theoretically covered. Obviously pledge manager added funds wouldn't be.
* Know the business history of the creator *and* any parties associated with the project (eg. licensors).
* Nothing wrong with buying only from established names. That's how retail works.
* Avoid backing a company's first KS, tempting as it may be.
* Spend less money on riskier projects.
The first one is a bit dubious - after the first X months, a year, you move out of chargeback protection, right? That said, I only back with my AmEx card, as they have the best service in the industry.
The next 3 are solid, from a Go/No-Go standpoint. Do some homework to decide if this is a *company* that should get your first dollar at all, to say nothing of $100, $100s or $1,000s. I'd add "Avoid backing any company out of country." - if TSHTF, going international makes it that much worse.
I strongly recommend to cap spending at the $100-$125 level for "risky" projects. You don't tie up as much cash, and if they deliver, you get the biggest bang for your buck. If it's good, you can always get the rest on discount when it eventually goes retail. The only real question is exclusives, whether paying base retail + shipping is worth the exclusives you'd get.
Kickstarters are probably like loaning money to a friend:
1) Never loan so much that you will hate them if they do not pay it back (Do they have many products you like?).
2) Never loan out more than you are willing (can survive without) to lose (comfort levels may vary).
3) It is easier / safer to loan-out if it appears they are not in dire need of the money (has many assets, just short on liquidity).
4) Is there more than one friend/partner involved? If so, give it a pass, expediential likelihood of failure if any person exits the commitment.
5) Do they have a plan that makes sense to pay you back or are they saying whatever it takes to get the money?
6) Are you willing to see that product (friend) not see the light of day again if you do not help out? Will it bother you if you had not tried?
There are absolutely good reasons to keep ones contributions reasonable. I'm sure it's no coincidence that many 'big' campaigns have a 'sweet spot' in the $100-150 range that most people inclined towards such things would likely see as the 'high but not unreasonable' point.
But at the same time, many of those people also benefit from the rare folks willing to throw thousands or more at a campaign. So it feels disingenuous/selfish/counterproductive to proclaim those folks with the disposable income/drive/willingness to contribute larger sums. Victim blaming comes to mind, as a concept if not a direct 1:1 correlation. Some mix of "oh thanks for all your money that helped us cross stretch goals, but you should have known they'd take extra years so no complaining, PS thanks again", even if it's not intended in that fashion (nor would I think that of anyone here).
I also think it's a false dichotomy; one is entirely capable of committing to a higher degree of backing and be critical of the campaign. I've never been a fan of the people who proclaim their backing amount as entitling them to a greater say or special treatment, but clucking at them for their greater amounts 'to a KS, poor fools...' as some obnoxious commenter types can do is a baffling piece of mental gymnastics.
Sining wrote: I could do with more accountability in KS myself. In general, I find myself being more turned off from most KS and only going with established names like CMON or Mantic or people I know who have gotten KSes out.
* Use a credit card.
* Know the business history of the creator *and* any parties associated with the project (eg. licensors).
* Nothing wrong with buying only from established names. That's how retail works.
* Avoid backing a company's first KS, tempting as it may be.
* Spend less money on riskier projects.
I dunno about insurance, but eBay does it. But who will pay these insurance fees? If backers won't, will it mean higher KS fees for creators?
We already have consumer protection laws, yet the best protection is a credit card dispute. Any legislation protecting the consumer after funds have been collected will take a long time to get refunds from a party which may have no funds.
Credit card companies over here are absolute ----. They only cover you for 30 days and they're really not very helpful when it comes to disputing charges. I've had one of my disputes pulled just because I missed a phone call while I was overseas and the bank said "Oh, we tried to call you but there was no response so we cancelled the dispute". I actually prefer paypal over CC for buying online.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, I don't think the amount a person backs should be the issue. People shouldn't just be expected to take a KS loss or default and if KS keeps acting like they're expected, that's just going to drive people from KS eventually
Alpharius wrote: Are there tanks and infantry in the game at all 'officially'?
During the KS they said they didn't have the rights to include tanks, APCs, fighters etc. Only 'mecha'.
Which is why they can't have unmasked characters either.
Who the @#$% negociated that deal...
The really painful question: is it Palladium Books that fluffed the terms or Harmony Gold that has garbage terms in their copyright?
We may never know.
We may never know, that stuff is usually buried in contracts and NDAs.
MY UNDERSTANDING goes something like this:
After years of lawsuits, HG has the rights to translate and show Macross in English markets but not to create derived works (which is why Rick Hunter et al have been absent from recent sequels). Same for Southern Cross. Which is why this came could only include things shown in the original cartoon and nothing shown in the movie nor anything they invented.
HG does have the right to create derived works from Mospeada/New Generation.
Palladium has the rights to create games (maybe just RPGs) based on HG's cartoons and 'playing pieces' for the games. One reason this game had to be 'Robotech RPG Tactics' is other companies have the rights to make models and toys. these are technically playing pieces for a game.
The old Robotech RPG had rules for all the normal vehicles glimpsed in the cartoon, APCs, gunships etc.
But for some reason RRT design team said they cannot include them. They said it several times to shoot down requests for the Cats Eye Recon, and other mundane vehicles.
They later changed the concept art for some of the characters not to show faces, only fully armored figures, for the same reason.
How they ended up with such a @#$%ed up deal is beyond me. Maybe they were just blowing smoke and they didn't want to. But that's what I hear.
So, all I can say is "dice bag".
I bet being able to produce apparel and trinkets is the first thing that goes in a contract with them.
I think all this "work" they are doing is toward their open house: they are not too bad for me to get to but charging more for admission than Comicon makes me laugh.
I suspect we will not hear any more empty threats of progress until the boys are given a day off after the openhouse being tired and all.
Warning, a bit of a rant here: What do they mean that there may not be enough room for a table for the game??!! A new product bringing in the most revenue they had EVER seen and it is basically being stuffed in a back corner??
<edit, edit> Not RPG = "out of comfort zone" = the uncomfortable offspring of the company.
Spoiler:
They really confuse me.
<edit> Kickstarter page has devolved into discussions of Star Wars and Disney and licensing... I am sure it ties in there somewhere... Disney = Harmony Gold? Nah...
I wonder how they differentiate "fan-boy" from "griefer" in these events... I may attend if not for giving them money... but it may be worth it for the difficult questions posed to the rainbows and unicorns glee club.
Can applying a wedgie force a definite answer to Wave 2 status without receiving undue force by police after?
Warning, a bit of a rant here: What do they mean that there may not be enough room for a table for the game??!! A new product bringing in the most revenue they had EVER seen and it is basically being stuffed in a back corner???
You're an optimist! According to your link, that is the best case scenario. You may be playing on the back of a pickup truck (weather permitting). Apparently at Palladium, fans spending $1.4+ million on a project means that you're mentioned after clothing/tabletop accessories and that you may be allowed to play your two year delayed game in the parking lot at the premium exclusive event for the company. They have to make sure they've got enough room after all for those mega RPG sessions with over a dozen players minimum that Kevin runs where he doesn't bother using his own rules. Priorities!!!!
Talizvar wrote: Warning, a bit of a rant here: What do they mean that there may not be enough room for a table for the game??!! A new product bringing in the most revenue they had EVER seen and it is basically being stuffed in a back corner??
I wonder how they differentiate "fan-boy" from "griefer" in these events... I may attend if not for giving them money... but it may be worth it for the difficult questions posed to the rainbows and unicorns glee club.
PB has always been a RPG company, so them returning to form isn't a surprise.
JohnHwangDD wrote: PB has always been a RPG company, so them returning to form isn't a surprise.
Would I be out of line to say that face to face RPG's are about 1/20th what they were back in the day?
The degree of focus on one element of hobby for a business is certainly enforcing the "get your miniatures and run" attitude.
I can barely make myself commit to the official rules as things stand.
I just want to know what's up with Wave 2.
I would sincerely like to apply a wedgie to key people in your name.
I could reply on their behalf:
"We have so many cool things on the go that you will soon see when various details are wrapped up for Wave 2.
We are slaving away to ensure the mouth watering goodness is kept and are checking things are up to our standard.
We have had to wear many hats to ensure everything gets done with room for some surprises you will be pleased with but we cannot tell...
We have newly released the <drum roll> command counter bag!!!! It does look similar to the dice bag but it is red!
I am sure the many Robotech role players will be pleased.
We are looking forward to further exciting pod vs. pod combat!
For fun on Saturday at the open house Timmy from Texas has agreed to host a game of Robotech RPG Tactics on his monster truck!
It IS a taller than normal truck and I am sure it will be a blast!
It can be found at the far end of the parking lot as space allows.
Kevin has found he has an allergy to the adhesive fumes from the models so we request those who were assembling these models in the last month to not approach him.
He DOES appreciate your great work and looks forward to seeing them in the forums!
We hope you are as stoked as we are of all the RPG goodness so go on out there and buy some!"
Palladium can feel free to contact me to prepare their weekly reports.
I think *Palladium* RPGs and other second-tier RPGs are <1/20 of what they were during the RPG heyday. D&D / Pathfinder seems to be doing OK though. Too bad neither of those keep the lights on at Palladium...
If you're handing out well-deserved wedgies, nut slaps and noogies on my behalf, then I approve this message.
Talizvar wrote: Kickstarter page has devolved into discussions of Star Wars and Disney and licensing... I am sure it ties in there somewhere... Disney = Harmony Gold? Nah...
There's some minor tie in potential for discussions about working with larger partner/owner corporations, but at the end of the day I think it's just that there's more to talk about with other random stuff with those nerds than RRT. After another fun bout of Lola and Rick (and others, myself included) having it out again, the realization that there's nothing good to talk about for RRT settled so we found better/other things to discuss.
The PB forums remain a ghost town, as do the BGG forums for the game. Honestly, the only one with any real chatter that I've seen is here (mostly mockery) and Mike's FB group (mostly supportive). There's one fan forum that might have some participation, but after the first one died an ignoble death, I can't be bothered to even check it out.
Swabby wrote: Mikes facebook group has dropped off in activity in a big way as well.
Still waiting for even a peep about wave 2 and really I just want to know when I will get the rest of what is owed to me.
I suspect a few or all of these.
1. Painting Lag draggin on people. I personally sent almost all my Zen to a painter in trade for some minis since I don't have time. Work, Family and a Master's...harder than I thought.
2. A lot of people are still trying to assemble.
3. I know that we are working on some fixes in the background that not everyone is aware of like to Blast. Those being relayed once fix may help.
4. Star Wars Armada just came out so personally I've put some attention on there.
5. I have less time as it is these last few weeks to do much at all, let alone RRT.
6. More lag as people are working on assembling.
7. Being a new game people seem to still be wanting to find people to play with locally. I have only one, and another willing, but like I mentioned, no Zen minis at present.
So yeah, right now there is a bit of a lag. We shall see as time progresses if this changes or not. Plus who knows what this grand announcement will be. Could be anything from Wave 2 finally all approved and in Chinese hands (not likely) to a new dice bag or some Malcontent dice (which would not surprise me) , to some new material (advanced rules or scenarios) that I've heard about, to what someone had for lunch. I have no idea.
Talizvar wrote: Kickstarter page has devolved into discussions of Star Wars and Disney and licensing... I am sure it ties in there somewhere... Disney = Harmony Gold? Nah...
There's some minor tie in potential for discussions about working with larger partner/owner corporations, but at the end of the day I think it's just that there's more to talk about with other random stuff with those nerds than RRT.
Well, that and people still give a damn about Star Wars?
It'll be a whimper. I think most folks stopped caring when wave 1 went out for the most part and even when they did care about Palladium's actions 3/4 of folks voted to support their shenanigans.
Joyboozer wrote: Jeez, imagine the outcry if after all the build up the big news is just something trivial like more dice bags.
Why? While KevCo are still in the nature of overpromoting the hell out of everything as "best thing ever", after the last two years of results, I doubt there are more than a handful of people that expect it'll be anything even close to the hype. While I share an affinity with people who felt they got bamboozled/bait-and-switched during the campaign, due to a less than complete knowledge of Palladium's reputation at that time, I think anyone outraged because they expected more than a dice bag, just hasn't been paying attention.
That's not to say people shouldn't be upest BY the dice bags, IF that's what it is. Because it'd just be another case of PB prioritizing mostly meaningless crap over stuff that the backer paid for almost two years ago (18 months if they didn't go big until the Pledge Manager). But not because they expected "more" from Palladium.
At this stage, I can't think of anything that would make sense to be anything BUT a mild disappointment at this stage. Because only Wave 2 wouldn't, and it'd not make any sense that they're much further along than they've shown, because well, they should have shown it. But as someone reminded me again today, "Then again, this is Palladium". Them screwing up the handling of even good news wouldn't shock me.
Obviously PB haven't been able to update anything recently due to the fact that everything RRT related is just so mouth-watering, that they keep getting their computers wet and blowing them.
This also accounts for the need to get wave 1 to retailers BEFORE all backers - replacing computers that regularly is expensive!
Well, at this point I don't have much faith in when the next Update will hit, but their last Newsletter was on the 10th, so maybe this will be when they actually, really, truly, maybe, kinda, sorta hint at the big news for RRT/Wave 2.
I mean, I'm definitely cynical enough about things that that's very much sarcasm, but as I've said since I poked fun at their ongoing struggles with quality communication, it's also a challenge: do better.
Forar wrote: Well, at this point I don't have much faith in when the next Update will hit, but their last Newsletter was on the 10th, so maybe this will be when they actually, really, truly, maybe, kinda, sorta hint at the big news for RRT/Wave 2.
If they don't put one out a KS Update this weekend, you can probably write off the following weekend as well (PenguiCon, April 24th), and given form, the week after, May 1st (their ability to get back into regular mode after a convention is fairly apparent). Don't know how much prep-work they have for the Open House (May 15th, two weeks on from that), but if it's more than the week of, that'll put the next 'significant' KS Update at May 22nd-ish, assuming there's not a Con-Crud wasted week following the OH. But what's 12 weeks, amongst friends?
I mean, I'm definitely cynical enough about things that that's very much sarcasm, but as I've said since I poked fun at their ongoing struggles with quality communication, it's also a challenge: do better.
But they will. They promised a backer at Adepticon. Number of KS Updates since Adepticon? Zero.
It's sad that if they actually do an acceptable bare minimum, they'll be praised (in some circles) for it. The bar has been set so low, that a barely passing grade will be seen as a monumental achievement. And I think they need to realize, it's not enough to do one fantastic Update. They need to have some consistency. And in two years of following this, they haven't showed they even know how to start.
The last PBWU includes the line "We have wanted to write and post a rather expansive update to all our Robotech® supporters for a number of weeks now. We plan to do so next week.". Seriously, it's like they set themselves up to fail. Even if they do manage to do so in the next day or two, it's still a failure because it should have been up 'a number of weeks' ago. Their consistent ability to mismanage deadlines, and tell us how awesome things are going to be, rather than show us, is almost like they're trolling us, at this point. Maybe, at some point, they'll let the rest of the people in on the joke.
I know I laugh at them a lot. Probably not for the reasons they want, though.
On a side note, update on the friend trying to sell his pledge at cost. Three weeks, only one interested party, who only wants to split off a single Destroid Box. So that's going well.
I tend to go easy on anyone where I figure I would have trouble doing their job, PB deserves any "constructive criticism" it gets.
To set yourself up for an update in a week and only have to write a few paragraphs usually is setting the bar rather low.
This is a company that depends on publishing works of text and pictures as product.
Do we really need to lock horns with a white knight that missing an update is rather stupid if not pitiful?
When they do finally have something interesting to announce, their target audience would have moved-on and would not care.
They have moved on as a company of re-releases and trinkets, I had hoped they would see a new avenue of revenue for their company and it appears it is not of interest.
I want my Wave 2 models and I am 98% ( ) sure I will not be looking back.
I have a suspicion I will be playing more Battletech than this game despite my best efforts.
Bah, much negativity again.
I have my models keeping me a bit busy, getting some games in but only by providing all the models to play.
There really is not much else to say, how many more rounds of conventions can they go to calling the game "new" until they actually have to produce something new?
I finished layout of the color guide for the rulebook... only to then have it pointed out by Ninja Chris that we could improve it by listing hex color codes for each paint scheme.
Which was a point of contention when it was announced, because paint and colour on computers don't line up nicely at all. It was in fact questioned on that very update comment section as to how one would convert from Hex to various paint brands.
And I'm pretty sure we had a big laugh about it here as well.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Dollars to donuts, those are Japanese standard Tamiya paint codes. The same ones which have been used for decades.
Can't be. The paint guides took center stage for MONTHS as "putting in the final touches on" guest stars.
Sure, though Tamiya paint codes have been standardized for decades, and all Macross kits have reference for which colors to use. It's not hard for Palladium to simply look them up, given that they appeared to have scaled down existing kits for inspiration.
Sure, though Tamiya paint codes have been standardized for decades, and all Macross kits have reference for which colors to use. It's not hard for Palladium to simply look them up, given that they appeared to have scaled down existing kits for inspiration.
Apparently, it was too hard for Palladium to do that though, as those codes, as stated by Forar, are HEX CODES which your computer uses to set your monitor to display the correct colour. Naff all use to us unless you can translate that into a Tamiya/Humbrol/GW/Vallejo colour (And good luck with that, BTW, I bet none of those just happen to do "Inexperienced Valyrie Brown"!)
It would have been simple for PB to just say to whoever painted the models used in the rulebooks and promo materials "Jot down which paints you used so we can pass that on to the customers", but presumably they are too afraid of getting a C&D from the paint manufacturers! <Sheesh!>
Apparently, it was too hard for Palladium to do that though, as those codes, as stated by Forar, are HEX CODES which your computer uses to set your monitor to display the correct colour. Naff all use to us unless you can translate that into a Tamiya/Humbrol/GW/Vallejo colour (And good luck with that, BTW, I bet none of those just happen to do "Inexperienced Valyrie Brown"!)
It would have been simple for PB to just say to whoever painted the models used in the rulebooks and promo materials "Jot down which paints you used so we can pass that on to the customers", but presumably they are too afraid of getting a C&D from the paint manufacturers! <Sheesh!>
I agree that it's stupid, though I think they didn't use actual names more because they didn't want to give free advertising to someone and nobody wanted to pay PB. Similar to how you can always tell in TV shows who paid for their product to be there by whether or not the logos are showing.
However, to say that the hex codes are useless isn't entirely true; people have pretty much figured out the approximate hex codes of various paints. For example, courtesy of B&C:
For information far beyond what you'd ever care about or in case the lines don't have an exact match: http://encycolorpedia.com/
Again, it's dumb to have yet another step rather than just reaching some agreement with your painters and some paint company to standardize on a line, but isn't short-sighted moves that don't help their customers kind of the motif for the entire campaign?
It boggles the mind how stupidly it's been done. Pretty much any paint manufacturer would *love* to have their paints as the reference for the models. It's like a 5 minute conversation with CDA, Reaper, whomever.
We have so much underway for this product line. And not just the engineering aspect of Wave Two items, we just requested a quote for a handful of new items. I have been wanting to write and post a couple of comprehensive Updates about this game line, but we have all been overwhelmed with work on several fronts from conventions and the Open House, to new product releases, plus some of the details are not yet known. Will try to get something out to our supporters soon.
That's it, pretty much. Other than them spruiking their existing products, on the RRT front, that's pretty much it in it's entirety. The "plans" they talked about in last week's PBWU? Yeah, not so much with the eventuating. Kick the can down the road for another week, and hope people don't notice, ie, business as usual.
They've been so overwhelmed. Boohoo. If they took all the time they spent on apologizing for being busy, and for promising it'll come soon, they could have a frikkin' update done. Am morbidly curious to see if they post a similarly useless message on the KS. Cause it's been almost 5 weeks since they posted anything at all, and 7 weeks since it was anything useful. And with PenguiCon this weekend, I doubt there'll be anything until the following weekend at earliest. Though as I posited previously, I wouldn't be surprised to see an Update before the back end of May.
They only posted something on the KS because there was A LOT of "Wave 2 won't happen".
This company is so single-minded it can only do one thing at a time (because it has to be filtered through Kevin for approval).
Right now, it's gets EU & AU out. Next step will be getting out ROW. Then back to Wave 2 renders. Then sending renders to factory for sprue layout. Wait for Chinese New Year to pass. Then producing sprue. Then fixing the issues with sprues. Then paying for incorrect sprues. Then having new sprue produced. Then saying F* it, go dig the old sprues out of the garbage bin. Then paying for revised sprues. Then waiting for sprues to be boxed in cheap cardboard. Wait - that's the wrong cardboard. Repackage in corrected cardboard boxes. Schedule a ship to pick up boxes. Wait - we forgot to order boxes. Put product in boxes. Arrange for trucks to transport to ship. Wait, the shippers want money? Pay to transport to ship. Pay for ship, or else they'll leave the stock on the pier and we'll miss Gencon. Wait for ship to cross sea. Realize it's going to land in LA. Route the other containers to NY through Panama. Pay a truck company to pick the LA shipment - oh, and while you're at it, get the stuff that's sitting in NY. Wonder why they haven't heard from the truck in 6 weeks - oh, truck was abandoned and no one noticed it was gone. Send another truck to get the first. Wait - gotta sell more Rifts to pay for that! Get the truck, realize its only 1/2 the shipment - the rest is still in China.
Alpharius wrote: I'll admit that they're inexorably intertwined, but they've got to get there to get there - get it?
Actually I was thinking more along the lines of 'without another Kickstarter they're probably hosed anyway'. But, hey, maybe someone will buy a whole lot of dice bags.
Forar wrote: Oh look, another week passes and still nothing more to say than "omg you guys OMG YOU DON'T EVEN!"
*eye roll*
*mildly obscene gesture*
*jazz hands*
That just seemed so tired.
Like all your strong feelings have been drained away leaving the knowledge that you used to feel something.
If the definition of insanity is to do the same thing and expect a different result, what translates to the audience watching the insanity?
You are left with not caring an iota for that person because they cannot be bothered to help themselves never mind recognize the damage they are doing.
Soon it will be a long silence interspersed with flogging non-core product to keep the lights on because, you-know, doing actual work is hard.
Forar wrote: Oh look, another week passes and still nothing more to say than "omg you guys OMG YOU DON'T EVEN!"
*eye roll*
*mildly obscene gesture*
*jazz hands*
They apparently have something in that category, TBH:
Something new and exciting. In an effort to truly expand Rifts® across the Megaverse®, in cooperation with Palladium Books, another role-playing game company is currently adapting the Rifts® Earth setting to that company’s RPG system of rules, as well as producing adventure sourcebooks. This is only the second time in Palladium’s history that an outside company will create new game material under a different set of rules. Rumor Squashing: No, Palladium is NOT going to stop publishing Rifts®, nor change to a completely different set of rules. Far from it. In fact, Palladium expects to release six new Rifts® titles in 2015 and 98% of all Rifts® titles are in stock and available for purchase right now! The idea is that by offering Rifts® via another game company’s set of popular rules it creates a parallel dimension of gaming enjoyment. An expanding Megaverse®, if you will. This is a bit of an experiment, but we are excited to see how it all unfolds.
That is... really, really unexpected. As in "OMG YOU DONT EVEN" territory... and I'm not sure it says anything good about the company's status, seeing as they adamantly refused to release anything like that during the d20 boom.
Like all your strong feelings have been drained away leaving the knowledge that you used to feel something.
Eh. Meh. I've made my peace with most of their bull at this point, and picking low hanging fruit for so long leaves me with the sense I risk repeating myself almost as much as they do.
Plus I suspect there'll be plenty of shenanigans to come, when we find out the Super VT's are like 50 pieces each or something.
Gotta save the 'both barrels' moments for when they're worthy, and PB's holding pattern ain't it just yet.
100% = Done
- Being off the premises on a slow boat to a location near you!
- 3d Models sent incompatible with the manufacturer but they gott'er dun!
- As long as they are not touching it, it is DONE! 150 gazillion%!!
<100% = Not done, sounding like a whole lot got done! - Being a barely formed idea.
- A napkin scratching based on a barely formed idea.
- Sent off for approval by Harmony Gold, any day now, yep, getting to it...
98% of the time is just spin to let it be known that the end result will be well in advance of the heat death of the universe.
To get fully in touch of my back-bitey (back-bitter?) ways, I could make the "Kevin interpretation guide" coming to a KS near you!
I think I figured out this 98% number. Kevin must believe that coming up with the idea (and they obviously all come from him) is actually 98% of the work. The remaining 2% is the simple task of handing the idea off to another employee to turn it into a tangible product.
SW is not really my favorite system ever, but... holy gak, is thousand of miles better than the current one! also, much easier to "translate" to other systems, if the mood strikes you.
SW is not really my favorite system ever, but... holy gak, is thousand of miles better than the current one! also, much easier to "translate" to other systems, if the mood strikes you.
Nice! Wonder how MegaDamage will work in SW.
Unfortunately, I'm sure production of this will be under Kevin's control and require his approval, so we might see it in 2018 and he'll likely drop it the moment some fan converts the first Worldbook from Rifts to SW. If it doesn't collapse after a "creative difference" between Shane & Kevin. :(
Pinnacle released a mock cover, using art from Palladium’s 2005 Rifts Ultimate Edition with permission.
Really, who forces that sort of statement on someone who does a mock cover?!? This does not bode well to me.
Maybe they can get Kevin Long in to do the art. It just wouldn't be Rifts(R)(TM)(C) if it doesn't have a bunch of people who all look identical if not for their hair and armor.
Realistically, I could see it being done similar to the existing Necessary Evil campaign for Savage Worlds which was superheros (actually villains) saving the world. Getting 'Heavy Armor' was very easy for superhero types. Heavy Armor was essentially 'vehicle armor' like a tank or similar would have, and was essentially unbeatable to conventional man-portable weapons.
This was about a decade ago, so they have (hopefully) revised the cocnept in newer releases, as it was a little odd then (essentially it meant that every PC took the basic Heavy Armor superpower as it was a no-brainer) and made things a bit less interesting, but it works no worse than Palladium's MegaDamage, especially since it's coupled with better damage rules than large pools of ablative hit points.
While there are so many things that just scream out, the one thing that I can see being the most problematic, is the scheduling.
Start time, 7:30AM signup, 8:00AM start. Expected finish time, 10PM.
That's 10.5 hours of active play across a single 14.5 hour session. It's going to be less a battle of skill, and more a battle of will. Even after 8-9 hours of tournament play, concentration starts to wane. By hour 14, I wouldn't rule out edging into hallucinations or mental breaks.
And that's assuming nothing goes wrong. I can't recall attending a tourney that didn't end at least a half hour late, sometimes as long as 2 hours. And that's for the 8-10 hour range. For what seems to be a first time outing (not sure who handled Adepticon), if this finishes before midnight, without them dropping a round or two of games, I'd be very surprised.
To me, it just seems like their inexperience is showing. 14+ hours of RPGing just isn't the same as 14+ hours of tournament wargaming. Honestly hoping it works out, but definitely wouldn't wager on it.
The funniest part is that they're insisting on painted miniatures, but they almost certainly won't bother actually taking any pictures.
You don't think that the funniest thing is that you're both praised (and benefit in scoring) for customizing figures, but you're also potentially penalized (and disqualified) for doing the same thing, because of the way LOS is handled.
Gets even funnier when you read the section on Convoy Vehicles.
But to me, the part I just throw up my hands and go "WTF?", is the exclusionary nature with regards Army Building. I can't think of another game system that says "Make sure you bring alternate models to your core army build, because in some games, we're going to say they're illegal to field". Some games allow a pool of models, but that applies no matter what you take. In this, certain models (Destroids), are looking to be actively banned in some games, because of fluff reasons.
Note, it's unlikely any Z models will have that restriction, so it's likely to make RDF players scarcer as unless they field entirely Valkyries, they're required to assemble and paint additional models. Heck, the only RDF army fielded at Adepticon (entirely Destroid) would require a complete alternate list of Valkyries (the only other option) to participate.
Also, there's the promo issue. Malcontents are permitted to field a Female Power Armor as part of one of their squads, but only if they own the Miriya Promo figure. That's just poorly done, IMO.
Must bring 3 objective markers and 2 convoy ones... rules of appearance to follow...
Hey! they allow you to make your own "cheat sheet" to consolidate your card information... but you need to have them on-hand.
Ohh! Rules for painting "champion" with the three colour rule.
Base does not have to be painted! To allow for unfinished / continued painting (??!!) nice of them I suppose.
Judged on 9 different categories... Ah, I see: 9 for the judges and 3 for the rest of us.
Talking of modeling for advantage vs. esthetics, I may be impressed.
Flight stands may be replaced! Not too fussy about using their own.. well done?
Brought up MANY times of having available model for "jettison" rule models (a fear I realized recently)... unless using magnets (now that would be a challenge!).
No replacement minis from another manufacturer! Other than objective or convoy models. No surprise there...
Built-in upgrades do not need to be modeled... so WYSIWYG missiles they gave some leniency I guess.
250 points... pretty big.
Gah! May be a "space battle" so you may need replacements for your destroids... really not making it any easier for the UEDF to show up.
Some problem with convoy models and modeling for advantage, not to make them too small.... I have a properly scaled bus, it is 1/2" in height if I am lucky.
Defining base to base attacks with a bridge (or stuff on it) as well as differing elevations... they are thorough!
Template hits cover for ALL elevations: Don't stack up in a ruin on multiple floors!
Seems OK as far as tournament rules go but really makes a Zent. force all the more appealing.
Some clear thought did go into it.
I vehemently disagree. I'll agree that a lot of WORK went into it (it's 18 pages long, 15 if they did the barest of formatting edits), but given so many questionable choices throughout (much more than Meri and I have listed here), I can't say a lot of thought went into it. Could it have been worse? Sure. But it's still several steps below "mediocre". Yes, it's their first, and I'm not sure what position the author holds, or how much overview was given by KevCo, but there is a metric buttload of improvements and rethinks that should be done.
Morgan Vening wrote: I vehemently disagree. I'll agree that a lot of WORK went into it (it's 18 pages long, 15 if they did the barest of formatting edits), but given so many questionable choices throughout (much more than Meri and I have listed here), I can't say a lot of thought went into it. Could it have been worse? Sure. But it's still several steps below "mediocre". Yes, it's their first, and I'm not sure what position the author holds, or how much overview was given by KevCo, but there is a metric buttload of improvements and rethinks that should be done.
Oh, I too would disagree, I can imagine the smoke coming from the guy's ears having to write all this stuff.
The careful "clarification" and various details trying to meet the various wants of different parties.
These are tournament rules, not a rulebook FAQ or re-write.
I think if a single bit of it hinted as being a "correction" it would have been expunged.
I DO agree it could have been much better, but I could see the reasoning for most of what was written and it was not for the benefit of the players.
<edit> I also had ummm... low expectations?
What they decided to cover went into a depth that is surprising for a company that is more excited with dice bags than Wave 2.
I could not quite make it sarcasm because as I stated earlier, I could appreciate the catering to management tap-dance the writer performed.
Talizvar wrote: I think if a single bit of it hinted as being a "correction" it would have been expunged.
I DO agree it could have been much better, but I could see the reasoning for most of what was written and it was not for the benefit of the players.
<edit> I also had ummm... low expectations?
What they decided to cover went into a depth that is surprising for a company that is more excited with dice bags than Wave 2.
I could not quite make it sarcasm because as I stated earlier, I could appreciate the catering to management tap-dance the writer performed.
Ahh, now I get it. You were seeing it from a position of low expectations, whereas I was seeing it from a position of comparison to it's peers. While I believe we still disagree, there's a lot less of a gap between our thinkings. It's definitely not far off I would expect from them, but nowadays, that's a very low bar (I stub my toe on it occasionally). The problem only becomes truly apparent when in comparison to the baseline.
Morgan Vening wrote: While I believe we still disagree, there's a lot less of a gap between our thinkings. It's definitely not far off I would expect from them, but nowadays, that's a very low bar (I stub my toe on it occasionally). The problem only becomes truly apparent when in comparison to the baseline.
I am curious what you would use as a baseline?
I had invested a fair bit in 40k so my judgment would be suspect, anything else springing to mind is Battletech.
Am I reading "Tournament Champion" correctly? The person with the lowest paint & battle score (of 8) wins this? So the crappiest player and painter?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, by the enclosed rules is it impossible for a Veritech in fighter (or guardian) mode to avoid being in HtH with a Spartan if bases are touching?
I tried reading through it but gave up a few pages in. I just don't have enough of a motivation to do it and frankly I don't know the game rules well enough to form an educated opinion in any case. I will say that at least someone in the MA program (the author on the front page) demonstrated some progress on some front since the Adepticon tourney was announced months ago. That is more demonstrable proof of effort than we've gotten from the actual company for anything related to the KS in the same time period as they've apparently been working their typical 14 hour days 6 days a week for months to bring us.. a dice bag!
Morgan Vening wrote: While I believe we still disagree, there's a lot less of a gap between our thinkings. It's definitely not far off I would expect from them, but nowadays, that's a very low bar (I stub my toe on it occasionally). The problem only becomes truly apparent when in comparison to the baseline.
I am curious what you would use as a baseline?
I had invested a fair bit in 40k so my judgment would be suspect, anything else springing to mind is Battletech.
I'm no expert by a long shot. But I guess I was more taken aback by how many seemingly arbitrary things they've done. The fact that it's 15 pages is part of that. For most tourney packs I've seen, 4-5 pages is the upper limit, with a similar 2-3 page appendix of scoresheets/example.
Can't recall a set of tourney rules for another system requiring bringing alternate models because in certain games, more than 2/3 of otherwise eligible formations are disqualified. Heck, if things are unchanged from the KS PDF, there are 7 legal Core Squadrons, made up of combinations of 5 different models. Only one (consisting entirely of Valks) is legal. Some games do have selection pools, Malifaux being one that I'm fairly familiar with, but this isn't that.
The Malcontent promo thing isn't unique, but it's very rarely been considered a good thing by the general playerbase to permit people who got limited release product (Miriya), to potentially gain advantage as a result.
The permitting of non-official cards, and templates. While I understand not wanting to be a hardass about it, given their stance on proxies on miniatures (and hence the inability to field Malcontent FPA) it just seems inconsistent that you'd allow fan-made cards and templates. Is it just an admission that their own cards aren't up to snuff? Because short of the "missing" cards (to which they should provide legitimate cards to anyone who's using them in the tourney), I can't think of another reason for an official tourney to do it. As for the template, is there really going to be anyone who has purchased an entire fieldable army, that hasn't got at least one?
The whole LOS thing has always been a point of contention, but to compound that with the modelling rules, convoy vehicles and objective markers, by going "Knock yourselves out! Make it great! You'll be judged on your artistry!", and then turn around and say "But if you push it too far, you'll be disqualified!". While I'm sure they're just covering their butts, the lack of real definition or examples (beyond prone), with such a high downside (disqualification and unless you've got a replacement, essential ejection), just seems an issue.
They did some things wrong, they did some things right, they went into way more detail on things that weren't necessary, while being overly vague or confusing in others, it just seems like it was overly written. Much like most of my posts.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Stormonu wrote: Am I reading "Tournament Champion" correctly? The person with the lowest paint & battle score (of 8) wins this? So the crappiest player and painter?
Nope. It's a Palladism. Something that's not that complicated, written in a way to be much more complicated than it should be.
So, this is the process.
1) Each player will get a score for painting (1-10 per eligible voter, converted to an average), and a score for Victory Points (0-2 per game, end result 0-12).
2) Then, each player is ranked from 1 to 20 (one being best, twenty being worst) in each category.
3) Then, you drop the bottom 12 from each category.
4) Then, you remove anyone who isn't in both lists.
5) Then, you add the positions (not scores) from each category for anyone who ranked in both lists.
5a) If noone qualifies for both list, best VP wins (and gets both 1st Battle and Tourney Champion prizes it'd seem)
Step 5 This is where the "low" value matters. A person who finished first in both categories will have "2 points". A person who finished in 4th place in painting, 7th place in VP will have "11 points". A person who finished in 5th place in painting, 5th place in VP will have "10 points". So, between the players, the person with the lowest "2 points" is the winner, the person with "10" came second, and the person with "11" came third.
Basically, the problem is resetting the rankings. Instead of ranking everyone from 1-20, with one being the best, if they ranked them 1-20, twenty being the best, Step 5 no longer needs to use the "low", and the potential for confusion is removed.
While it's not an uncommon occurance, the chances of the seven prizes going to seven people seems unlikely. Heck, the chance of the Tourney Champion going to someone who didn't at least place in one category is pretty damned slim. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it is something to consider. I know other tournaments typically have an exclusionary rule (the Tourney Winner is removed from the rankings for finding positions on the other separate awards.
I would say that not many games tackle differing environments:
I think the "Lancer" is a space only unit so I can only see the games getting more "interesting" than less whenever we see Wave2.
One thing I either missed or was not addressed is for the "space" scenario: what modes are valid for the Valks?
Just being in jet mode zipping around with the weird rules for those would be a ton of strafing runs.
Never-mind how the pods move: leap move only in space?
Battletech and it's derivative Alpha-strike addresses water combat and aerospace fighters.
Don't even talk about how a critical can flood sections of a mech and cause all manner of nastiness.
Not many games have model swap-outs due to changing:
Unless we get into some werewolf skirmish game or something or cannons deployed from the limber carriage.
The bolt-on hardware is rather unique, I cannot think of anything equivalent.
Well, getting limited product for advantage is nothing new, MTG springs to mind or any company that toys with "pay to win".
For the use of alternative cards I think it was a concession on their part: prove you have the actual product if asked (stowed somewhere) but allow for copies to prevent damage / theft / loss. That is what I interpreted, cup half full for once.
For the various model "guides" it is just a mess. "Don't be all modeling for advantage but we must allow for artistry unless we don't like it." Yep, clear as mud.
Overly written... yeah, but it sure is light years better than a Kevin update for facts and would not be allowed to be confused for an FAQ for the rules.
The whole thing will be stuffed in a corner anyway by the sounds of things and still makes fielding UEDF a royal pain when they should be rewarded for all the hard work.
I'm not sure MTG is a very good comparison, as it has a level of collectibility/randomness that usually isn't found in (non-pre-built/pre-painted) miniatures games.
Maybe Heroclix or Monsterpocalypse might be better examples? (admittedly; pre-built, pre-painted, but here we are)
And even then, the random element is well known in advance. Plus, there are orders of magnitude more figures available in most of those cases. There are, what, maybe a couple hundred Miriya figures 'in the wild'? I never got into either, but much like Magic, my friends that were generally just bought singles, and barring particularly 'limited edition' Hyper Ultra Tournament Edition style pieces, it rarely broke the bank to hear them tell it.
Plus, "pay to win" is generally seen as a disdainful practice, so embracing it is worthy of a little eye rolling anyway. Having LE figures for pure aesthetics is one thing. People who attended a convention or were willing to pay Ebay rates to get to field another figure type seems a bit crass.
What's the worst that can happen? The last time we got months of useless platitudes in a row, didn't we get exactly the mouthwatering minis we were promised exactly when they said we'd get the complete KS rewards?
It is nice to see that the dice bag literally gets more press coverage in the release than the 2/3 of the rewards in the $1.4 million KS. The painting guide that they already spent months "updating" us on last year gets as much mention as all of wave 2. Also, the paper "miniatures" get craploads more coverage than any other minis and no one freaking cares about them but they're made by one of the biggest fanfriends on their forums who wants to be an employee so bad it hurts so they get a mention everytime (like the painting guide did).
Finally, I suspect one of the big news items is the inevitable Robotech mousepad since that is the new item for the other games. I'm sure they'll advertise the hell out of that just like the stupid dice bag.
megatrons2nd wrote: There is already a Robotech mousepad or two out. Surely a third vendor of it isn't really note worthy?!?
Whether something is truely noteworthy or not isn't relevant to Palladium. See the press release coverage over the past month for the dice bag compared with Wave 2.
There promoting the heck out of it so at the end of the year Kevin can say they released more than three or four books. That, and I figure since there in way over their head, and they even don't know where there at, concerning wave two.
NEW! Robotech® Dice Bag – Available now
Shadows of Brimstone (minis-heavy board game): Good game, generally nice pieces, ridiculously late, trying to gouge people extra on shipping, top-level backers are eventually going to find out it wasn't nearly the deal they were led to believe. And backers are going to not only get their stuff after retail, they're going to get it WAY after retail. (No, Forar, not arguing this one with you). 
