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Maybe a fan movement to use the FSA 2.0 rules with other products? I'm wondering how well it would work with Dropfleet ships...

Well headed to Miniatures Mart and picked up a Firestorm space station and Dystopian Legions pack with the guy in the steampunk wheelchair. That should hold me.

In hope someone picks up the FSA models and IP and runs with it.

 RiTides wrote:
Maybe a fan movement to use the FSA 2.0 rules with other products? I'm wondering how well it would work with Dropfleet ships...

IMO the rules aren't strong enough to ever make that a thing.

Spartans strength was in decently priced high quality resin models. Rules were nice but they clearly needed more work to make them exceptional.

Any company picking up the company assets is going to do it for either the machines or the renderings/castings/moulds. Ergo the physical product side of things. The story/fluff and rules is all really open to being re-written without much if any real loss.

I love the shipdesigns and the rules of Firestorm Armada, but didn´t start my planned Relthozafleet because lacking of players though.
Its just sad, that Spartan overdid it with too many projects at the same time and their horrible organisation of their projects.....

Spartan have posted an update on the Dystopian Wars Kickstarter, it offer a glimmer of hope for backers

To all backers of this project, we sincerely regret the recent announcement of the closure of our company and those impacted including people waiting for products from this project. We hope you understand that our priority yesterday was our staff and then getting a formal statement out to the market. That was shared, via email, with everyone on this project.
As explained in the statement, there are policies in place with payment providers around the world for goods that are not received. Please explore these as appropriate to your payment method and location.
Monday is a public holiday in the UK but on Tuesday we will review the status of the project and, if we are able, continue to ship products to backers. We have stock manufactured; we have softback and hardback rulebooks but are yet to receive personalised rulebooks. For those that have speculated that the demise of our printer may have been untrue, please search online for information about Wheatons Exeter in the UK to see that they did, indeed, close in June.
Those familiar with rules governing the operation of companies will realise that what happens next is now out of our hands and will be managed by others. On a practical point, we may have limited access to shipping services and we only have a very small skeleton staff now. However, you have our commitment as directors that we will do all we can to ship products but we are now directed by others.
Enquiries to the email address given on the announcement (spartangames@mail.com) will be handled as they come in but please bear with us and we manage many things in the coming days.

I'm sure if the can spend a day or two shipping these to the outstanding backers it will stop any bad blood, and also keep the community alive and make DW a better proposition for anyone looking to take it on.

liked spartans dystopian war models hell i own a few fleets

I just wish spartan focused on maybe 2 games but they just couldn't and that's probably where the company just collapsed under its weight.

The models where high detail beautiful things (wish forge world resin was as good) but the rules where not great.

This is a shame that spartan games just couldn't survive but the writing was on the wall amazed they last as long as they did. I had many good nights gaming with dystopian wars so i wish them all the best

I've edited that post into the opening post for this thread - that really does make it sound like an investor/bank pulled the plug on Spartan suddenly or another similar shock event - ergo that they didn't start the Firestorm KS let alone the last week thinking they'd be closing this Friday.

It's a very generous move by them to be trying to still ship items to KS backers; esp since chances are those postage costs are coming out of personal pockets (unless shipping labels were already pre-paid).

I'm sad because the dystopian war stuff was so pretty but the lack of support meant that it disappeared and I was tempted by planet fall but after dystopian wars held off. I second hopefully someone moving forward with those two propertis or at least those concepts with the same sculptors

they're going to be dependant on the official receiver (the government appointed bod who will be winding up the company)

as any assets which will include unshipped pledges will belong first and foremost to the secured creditors (probably whoever loaned them the cash)

although it may be there are enough other assets in the business to pay the outstanding debts, fingers crossed this is the case

I've always wondered when I see new game and/or miniature kickstarters almost every day, if they've been "watering down the well" for the established companies. How much, if any, impact do you think all these various kickstarters had on the downfall of these miniature companies folding?

Wait, are you asking if Spartan Games' Kickstarters have watered down the well for companies like GW? *confused*

 Malika2 wrote:
Wait, are you asking if Spartan Games' Kickstarters have watered down the well for companies like GW? *confused*

NO, ALL kickstarters. There's about 378 miniature kickstarters, 956 game kickstarters. 299 terrain kickstarters, etc... People are spending money here & there nowadays. Maybe too much competition for the traditional game/miniature company to compete with? Too much overhead? The garage kit fad is back (by way of "kickstarters")?

Well, everybody is running Kickstarters nowadays in order to finance their projects. Nothing wrong there, back in the day these peeps would have had to get a bank loan to make their designs come to life. The problem I feel is that perhaps the market is a bit saturated. How many games can one play? How many models/armies/etc can one collect?

And the thing is that each and every of those games/settings/etc is trying to be their own independent thing, whilst in reality most of them are either too small or uninspiring to really become their own thing. Firestorm did have some interesting stuff for a while, their miniatures were pretty sweet, but I'm still wondering what it is aesthetically or backgroundwise that really sets them apart. What is it that makes the Firestorm universe so awesome?

In 40k/WFB it took a while to develop, but there was always this aesthetic/background aspect to it which was totally mindblowing, which is why GW became the biggest. One might of course ask, will this last forever, will there one day be another company who'll create a setting which will kick 40k off its top position? Or will the small guys only survive as scavengers? Making bits and proxies for other people's 40k related projects? Sadly enough the demise of Spartan Games has given that camp some ammunition to proclaim that the only way to survive in this market is to rip off GW's designs/ideas/etc since original stuff simply doesn't sell. :(

 Malika2 wrote:
Well, everybody is running Kickstarters nowadays in order to finance their projects. Nothing wrong there, back in the day these peeps would have had to get a bank loan to make their designs come to life. The problem I feel is that perhaps the market is a bit saturated. How many games can one play? How many models/armies/etc can one collect?

And the thing is that each and every of those games/settings/etc is trying to be their own independent thing, whilst in reality most of them are either too small or uninspiring to really become their own thing. Firestorm did have some interesting stuff for a while, their miniatures were pretty sweet, but I'm still wondering what it is aesthetically or backgroundwise that really sets them apart. What is it that makes the Firestorm universe so awesome?

In 40k/WFB it took a while to develop, but there was always this aesthetic/background aspect to it which was totally mindblowing, which is why GW became the biggest. One might of course ask, will this last forever, will there one day be another company who'll create a setting which will kick 40k off its top position? Or will the small guys only survive as scavengers? Making bits and proxies for other people's 40k related projects? Sadly enough the demise of Spartan Games has given that camp some ammunition to proclaim that the only way to survive in this market is to rip off GW's designs/ideas/etc since original stuff simply doesn't sell. :(

Some really good points here

I have substantial disposable income and so had been backing kickstarters in qutie a big way but recently I haev been looking again and saying - where am I going to store all this stuff and thats with several spare rooms never mind playing it. Consequently I have not plegded to a number even they they looked cool. Plus quite often I get pretty much everything in the KS and so don't need the stuff at retail.

I was hugely impressed with the idea of Uncharted Seas as apart from Man O War which I also have - there was nothing like it - in fact we all played it quite a bit at the club and then the next new thing came along and it faded. It seemed to fade for Spartan as well - although the constant revison of rules did not help.

There do seem to be so very many games out there trying to get our antention and thats not the hard bit - its holding it.

I mostly agree, Mallka2.

Re: GW's position and its unassailability, I think it'll probably end up being around the same as Marvel/DC in comics: there'll essentially be a monopoly (well duopoly for the comics analogy) for their major genre- in GW's case, large scale 30-ish mm combat- where others learn there's no reason to compete there as comics companies have basically abandoned the traditional SH genre, and there'll be relatively diverse second and third tiers of companies.



edit: yes, I'm also at the point of collection overload. I used to go all-in on games; now, I'm far more likely to get 2-3 modest forces so there's some decent variety with my friends when we feel like the system. Similarly, there are some really awesome looking games that I don't pick up just because I have enough to play already.

So Spartan are going full Tony Reidy on this? As if trying to run a kickstarter to cover past debts wasn't enough, they are basically saying "if we owe you anything, have your bank deal with it".

Feth them with a barge pole.

Black gang. I get you could be upset. However if they shut down it's not really up to them to send out more product. Look at banks that close, circuit city the list goes on. Sometimes people get screwed. It's the risks anyone and everyone takes when ordering anything. It may not be right, it prob makes people crazy. But it's the way it is. All and all. It sucks.

It was very sad to read about this. I first started collecting some of their models back when they started out after only a few months and loved Uncharted Seas. I stuck with them through all their upheavals and dalliances with other games to see Uncharted Seas get relaunched and collected again only for their support to die away once more killing the game in my area. Although I've picked up a few bits of the others ranges here and there and always liked their models they just never could cut out that impulse to bounce onto the latest new game. But it will be sad to see them go as their models were always very nice and they did have a slightly more active participation in the community which was good. So sad news.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
So Spartan are going full Tony Reidy on this? As if trying to run a kickstarter to cover past debts wasn't enough, they are basically saying "if we owe you anything, have your bank deal with it".

Feth them with a barge pole.

Actually by the way their community activity and KS were its highly likely that whilst they had debts as a time bomb over them; they didn't expect to close this past week. They are not a huge company, so if they were going to die off they'd have easily had whistle blowers long before.

They've also issued a statement in their KS for Dystopian Wars that they are going to try and continue to ship as much as they've got made up right now out to backers. With the companies assets frozen this means that either the shipping is pre-paid already or they are paying for that out of their personal pockets (the fact that the KS items are already sold and paid for might be the only reason that they've not been seized and held like the rest of the company assets)

At this point in time the companies money is frozen. It's not that they don't want to issue refunds its likely that they can't. So yes it easier to simply have your bank issue a chargeback; you get your money from your card/paypal and the bank/paypal becomes a single entity owed money along with all the others. To be paid off when the companies assets are sold off.

I just downloaded the rules for Firestorm, Planetfall and Uncharted Seas while they're still available.

less competition for GW is a bad thing :(

 Formosa wrote:
less competition for GW is a bad thing :(

I don't think Spartan games was ever much competition for GW. The games aren't even in the same scale for most of them.

GW's resurgence has definitely had an impact from my experience. 40k's model count is just so large that when people return to it, even if they have the money, they simply do not have the hobby time to entertain games with 8ish figures. Kind of a shame really; I've quite enjoyed the shift towards a wide variety small skirmish overall.

For those of you bemoaning the lack of models coming, spare a thought for those that have lost jobs seemingly overnight...

Sining wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
less competition for GW is a bad thing :(

I don't think Spartan games was ever much competition for GW. The games aren't even in the same scale for most of them.

It's obviously a collective and generalised competition for GW rather than any one individual company or game (aside from FFG/X-Wing/etc). Like, WarPath and GoA and MEdge are positioned via genre, scale and design as direct alternatives to 40k, but they're not really Competition. Between a resurgent GW and the current state of Kickstarter, it's not surprising to see smaller games and suppliers hurting. I know Andy from Heresy has written about it, and I believe Tre Manor from Red Box Games has said similar things.

Everyone is talking about GW but I think Magic also has something to blame alongside highstreet rental prices. Miniature games are expensive to stock in terms of the amount of space they take up; and the profits from them are slower and less than those of magic and some other lines.

Couple that to the fact that, barring a few, most game stores tend to be on the smaller size, and I think the other thing hurting games is that the highstreet retail shop is something that appearse to be the enemy of most governments/councils today (or at the very least in the UK). That is to say that they are under insane pressures to keep the doors open; as a result al ot of niche lines that once would have shared shelf space now either don't have the space or the profit margins are just not big enough and the rate of sale not high enough for the owner to want to stock them.

Online takes up the slack, but online customers are nearly always only a fraction of real customers or the full potential market. Plus physical goods, like models, nearly always look and sell better in the physical world; esp for enticing in new customers.

So I think this is the other issue for smaller companies; I know Spartan did a huge repackaging at one point to get their games into fewer boxes and away from blisters so that more retailers might stock them. At the extreme end their Planetfall game had in-game detachments sold in boxes; gone were the ideas of buying blisters of units.

I don't think we can ignore the market pressure of space - then again it seems that Spartans problem was not so much getting this space but in getting stock out to the retailers. That said in general terms I think the space and local store issues are a huge problem for miniature games.

Let's not pretend it was something external that has no connection to Spartan's ADHD approach to game publishing and support.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Let's not pretend it was something external that has no connection to Spartan's ADHD approach to game publishing and support.

No one is saying that Spartan was fully blameless in their own demise. However, that doesn't mean the issues that the tabletop wargaming market suffers from have zero influence in the current state of affairs.