msprange, October 18th, 2008, Forums, Mongoose Publishing wrote:I am afraid the SST line has been cancelled.

msprange, September 7th, 2008, Forums, Mongoose Publishing wrote:I know the answer to this one

Seriously, this is something we have been doing a great deal of work on lately, as the miniatures division will indeed be reinstated next year. Basically, the problems came down to;

1. Quality Control. Ironically, packing errors were hugely reduced earlier this year with the introduction of a number of new procedures in the forge - good job too, considering the CTA sales that were looming. To illustrate, sales of CTA models increased by a few thousand times - the incidence of mispacks did not increase at all, and miscasts jumped up by only a tiny amount. The new procedures worked.

The weak point that remained was still the miscasts, and this comes down to less about quality control than the quality of the moulds themselves.

2. Miniature Design. This comes down to how both sculptors and mould-makers are guided. Our error here was to treat them more like writers, who within certain parameters, can be left to do their own thing - after all, if you have a good writer, you do not want to stifle his talent with your own pre-conceptions. Sclupting has to be monitored to much, much greater degree, something that was made abundantly apparent during a meeting I had with a certain someone last week. In a nutshell, Mongoose understood miniatures games, but there was no one who understood the miniatures themselves. You could almost say that the miniatures that did 'make the grade' were almost accidents on our part (from a certain point of view, at least).

Of all our issues with miniatures, this was the most critical.

3. Pre-paints. This is really a separate category, and the issues here have already been well documented. They have little bearing on traditional miniatures production.

At the same time, we also have to look at what we got right;

1. We had very, very few complaints about our rules systems, across all our games. The games systems themselves we have a good handle on.

2. We also have to acknowledge that we know how to 'pick them'. The _concept_ of our games (if not always the execution, where miniatures were concerned) has a tendency to get people excited.

Those, at least, are the broad strokes. We have been looking at the whole system of miniatures production, and how it can be done correctly - next year, after a 12 month break, we will begin again. There will be new systems and equipment in place and, importantly, there will be people on board who understand miniatures themselves, rather than just the games. We already have candidates on which games and which miniatures will lead the way (no, no hints just yet, I am afraid ), now we are just getting all our ducks in line.

Grot 6 wrote:

As a side note, if you want in on a deal on some ( LOTS) of this stuff. I have enough that could easily go to a good home. 500 Bucks and you get enough bugs to eat a planet, and enough troopers to deal with them.

Alpharius wrote:

Grot 6 wrote:

As a side note, if you want in on a deal on some ( LOTS) of this stuff. I have enough that could easily go to a good home. 500 Bucks and you get enough bugs to eat a planet, and enough troopers to deal with them.

Good luck with that!

It sounds a lot like what a certain French manufacturer did to its fanbase too...

...and left many in a similar position as you're in now!

Nurglitch wrote:Apparently they have that in the third movie. At least that's what I've heard. I'm trying to track down a copy.

In the game, at least, it should be easy enough to simulate Heinlein's power armour and armament.

Nurglitch wrote:I think a Space Marine/Tyranids modification would be truer to the original novel.