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 Miguelsan wrote:
You wouldn't be wrong that this time around stuff is not cheap, but when you surf the official GWJP store, and find that 10 walls for AoS are 5000Y, or that a (great looking) statue for the same system reaches 9000Y and it's just one piece of terrain that doesn't even block LoS (also quite probably we will get hit with a huge price incerased due to UK inflation reaching 5% while Japanese prices more or less didn't move) then I'll take the waiting time.

I wish this KS, as Grumpy said above, would stick to one style, develop it further rather than the pasta stuck to the wall approach.

M.

Yeah, GW prices in AU aren't much better. I have a friend in the UK who is able to buy for me and send it out, and I got a lot from Conquest/Mortal Realms Magazines. but GW is just one of many terrain options out there these days.

Would like to pledge more for this KS, but there is no way to add a second pledge without doing a new KS ID. I suppose I could just add money and hope they allow additional pledges in the pledge manager...

T

they will (they've done it on every ramparts and dungeons and lasers project before),

but note that you have to pay postage per pledge so multiples of the lower pledges may not be as cost effective as you might imagine

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
they will (they've done it on every ramparts and dungeons and lasers project before),

but note that you have to pay postage per pledge so multiples of the lower pledges may not be as cost effective as you might imagine

Good point...

Redoing my calcs to include US shipping using €59 for the Lite pledge that does not include the vertical bundle and €90 for the cost of buying the vertical bundle components individually. There are still savings but they are lower. Not sure why the savings on 2 Starters vs Expanded are so weak. One really NEEDS those vertical bundles to make purchasing them worthwhile.Think I will stick with one starter plus a lot of add on floors.

Lite: €59 + €90 (Vertical Bundle add on) + €24 = €173
vs
Starter: €99 + €24 = €123: Saves 50€ over Lite Pledge plus 1 x Vertical Bundle add on.

Expanded: €149 + €90 (Vertical Bundle add on) + €28 = €267
vs
2 x Starter: €198 + €48 = €246: Saves €21 over Expanded Pledge plus 1 x Vertical Bundle add ons.

Mass Battle: €199 + €90 x 2 (Vertical Bundle add on)+ €32 = €421
Vs
3 x Starter: €297 + €72 = €369: Saves €52 over Mass Battle Pledge plus 2 x Vertical Bundle add ons.

48h update just went out and the new big thing is this random gak



Seriously, just make one whole sprue of something coherent ffs

The angle of the knees just doesn't work for me, and the face is pretty bad too.

Should've just unlocked the walker, I'd have added in enough for like 3-4 of those.

Well they've got to do a clear sprue as some of the other stretch stuff is clear so they may as well fill it

not that i don't want the walker much more

Pass on whatever that is.

Unlocked and upcoming Stretch Goals - the statue made it back in. The SG are even more all over the place than normal - I guess they planned out to nearly €1 million and there's going to be a lot of left overs and incomplete theme sets.



Coming up to €250k with 50 hours to go. The Forcefield 3 is @€256k and the Gun shop sign @€262k.

They need to either commit to the Walker as an add on or admit defeat on it as €800k isn't happening(€400k probably isn't happening)

hmm, need to keep an eye on this and remember to downgrade my pledge to minis only before it ends unless it improves,

at least the previous mixed SG boxes had stuff that added to Kazumi which made the rest of them fun extras,

now it means i've got to spend 50 euros on extra terrain i don't really need to get it

Yeah, it's really a lot of random.. stuff. And none of it is compelling as sculpts, let alone prices. The vertical bundles are the things that interest me the most out of the whole lot (including the core pledges - I've got buckets of unbuilt GW and even Archon terrain at this point, and the verticals would have been a nice thing to cross over, but not at those prices/the way they've been put together. It's very much "well, those would have been nice to have" rather than "I really want those".
Sadly.

€263,599 38 hours to go

More toxic waste upcoming

gak i need those for Punkapocalyptic

I am really struggling to understand Archon’s thinking on this campaign. These stretchgoals look like they are ignoring the backer comments. I know they have access to feedback I do not but these “human sized” statues instead of minis feels like they are trying to give us minis anyway.

Make the tires people have been asking for so hey can get more use out of the car rather than a gun store sign. Ugh.

I keep hoping Archon will come up with a save the day addition that will help me convince Mrs. GG to back this but so far it is failing. The whole marketing approach seems off. I am tired of the constant “private, private” fluff as well, using that rank is close to insulting. Better to have just said soldier…. But even that would get old. Why have military themed fluff anyway? Just ugh.

The thing is, I find this infuriatingly frustrating because I want to like the product and see Archon succeed but this just seems like a really poor execution of what had so much potential.

 Grumpy Gnome wrote:
I am really struggling to understand Archon’s thinking on this campaign. These stretchgoals look like they are ignoring the backer comments. I know they have access to feedback I do not but these “human sized” statues instead of minis feels like they are trying to give us minis anyway.

Make the tires people have been asking for so hey can get more use out of the car rather than a gun store sign. Ugh.

I keep hoping Archon will come up with a save the day addition that will help me convince Mrs. GG to back this but so far it is failing. The whole marketing approach seems off. I am tired of the constant “private, private” fluff as well, using that rank is close to insulting. Better to have just said soldier…. But even that would get old. Why have military themed fluff anyway? Just ugh.

The thing is, I find this infuriatingly frustrating because I want to like the product and see Archon succeed but this just seems like a really poor execution of what had so much potential.

Must be because we are in Space Stalingrad, or similar warzone, and our life expentacy is not going to be long.

But I agree that the planning of the campaign seems to be all over the place. Things that would have picked my interest: More Starcide snakemen/vampires, add ons for Cathedral or Kazumi, different Wolverine weapon options that could be used for IG tanks, city/factory debris (not the alien looking one) usable with Cathedral/Factory...

Sadly, as one of you said before, instead of expanding on a prior idea Archon went for extra sg not featured previously.

M.

I'm a sucker for terrain and have gone all-in on most of their previous Rampart and Dungeons and Lasers campaigns. I'm really considering dropping my pledge for this one.

It's a shame to see this one suffer for the all the hype leading up to it. As said before me, the pricing for the singular and uninspired setting along with the few and random stretch goals are making this a miss for me. Too bad.

It's not actually doing badly at all compared to the previous ramparts

its at 2061 backers pledging $309,734 with a day to go compared to 2,976 backers pledged $323,445 (D&L 2)

Dungeons and Lasers has always drawn substantially more backers and cash

not that i don't think they were hoping for more (the walker was clearly aimed at a D&L scale runaway campaign)

I wonder if the speculation in the comments might be right in that they've tooled (or perhaps only modeled & laid out) some of the stretch goal sprues meaning they've got little or no flexibility in what they offer until they reach a 'new' sprue

I do hope the walker does get offered even if we do have to pay for it though, i'll be sad if it doesn't

The $300k also got us the ultra mega SG tank back then, now it's 3x as much for the same sort of deal.

With the "one per backer" model out the window (OR IS IT? MANTIC STYLE LAST DAY PANIC SOON) the higher pledges at least look sensible for the first time in Archon history as they finally include double SG, so a 150€ pledge gets me Vertical/Defenders for 30€ compared to 2x 60€ pledge, probably even less than 30€ as I'm likely to save on shipping.

Imagine if instead of all these half-baked too small monopose no options Krieg pinups they opened up with a Leman Russ proxy, for probably the same investment in tooling.

Walker is in as a €20 add on - good update



The Visitor is a tentacle pit - that could be useful for a few things (Sarlacc anyone?)



Just having a look at Rampart 2 - $323k yielded 42 SGs (actual SG not pieces!) including the Wolverine tank (which is what tipped me over to backing) Rampart 3 has 28 SG up to roughly the same amount (€286k = $324k) - 14 SG less for the same funding.

The next SG is garbage (no literally ) €300k SG - 6 building supports

Someone broke the glass but left the axe? Huh.


I might pledge for this just to order the add one.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Someone broke the glass but left the axe? Huh.

A good metaphor for the last update.

I wonder how many people are waiting this out because if they want it later they can just make a late pledge, I'm certainly doing it.

I also find baffling the stretch goals chosen and that from their Empire of Men kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/geeksaw/empire-of-men-28mm-sci-fi-miniatures-collection/description
they chose to turn into plastic the guard proxies, for which there are other options, instead of the not-eldar for which I can only remember Artel selling proxies. And as others have said, the addons to their not-chimera chassis would have been probably a better option that most of the infantry.

I known that they must have spent a considerable amount of time planning this campaign but I can't make heads or tails of it.

 lord_blackfang wrote:


With the "one per backer" model out the window (OR IS IT? MANTIC STYLE LAST DAY PANIC SOON) the higher pledges at least look sensible for the first time in Archon history as they finally include double SG, so a 150€ pledge gets me Vertical/Defenders for 30€ compared to 2x 60€ pledge, probably even less than 30€ as I'm likely to save on shipping.

Interesting. The best direction to go REALLY depends on what you want. If you are Lord Blackfang and want two core sets and one Vertical/Defenders set, Expanded is the way to go.

If one wants multiple Vertical sets, buying multiple starter sets is cheaper, even with the additional per-pledge shipping.

If one wants multiple Defenders sets, you are probably better off going with multiple Miniatures/Defenders pledges.

T

 Matthew Flamen wrote:
I wonder how many people are waiting this out because if they want it later they can just make a late pledge, I'm certainly doing it.

I also find baffling the stretch goals chosen and that from their Empire of Men kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/geeksaw/empire-of-men-28mm-sci-fi-miniatures-collection/description
they chose to turn into plastic the guard proxies, for which there are other options, instead of the not-eldar for which I can only remember Artel selling proxies. And as others have said, the addons to their not-chimera chassis would have been probably a better option that most of the infantry.

I known that they must have spent a considerable amount of time planning this campaign but I can't make heads or tails of it.

They'll have sales data so maybe the not-eldar didn't prove as popular, it's not for nothing that human factions are so common with GW (and other SF games),.... I have to admit not eldar are the one alien race i'm not terribly interested in proxies for as i like the GW ones

just like it's worth a scale model company sticking out yet another version of a panther or tiger rather than something more interesting


Automatically Appended Next Post:

timd wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:


With the "one per backer" model out the window (OR IS IT? MANTIC STYLE LAST DAY PANIC SOON) the higher pledges at least look sensible for the first time in Archon history as they finally include double SG, so a 150€ pledge gets me Vertical/Defenders for 30€ compared to 2x 60€ pledge, probably even less than 30€ as I'm likely to save on shipping.

Interesting. The best direction to go REALLY depends on what you want. If you are Lord Blackfang and want two core sets and one Vertical/Defenders set, Expanded is the way to go.

If one wants multiple Vertical sets, buying multiple starter sets is cheaper, even with the additional per-pledge shipping.

If one wants multiple Defenders sets, you are probably better off going with multiple Miniatures/Defenders pledges.

and it's going to be even more complicated for those in the UK as paying under £135 will mean archon collects the VAT which is cheaper and simpler, over £135 means the courier collects it (and charges you for the privilage £8 if it's RM, more if it's somebody else and an insane fortune it it's FEDEX), meaning it's more expensive so paying 2 lots of shipping could make sense

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Someone broke the glass but left the axe? Huh.

A good metaphor for the last update.

Quite a good metaphor indeed.

I pledged. Mostly for the stretch goal sirens and surveillance cameras

I really want this for the city walls, the stretch goals are completely naf on this one.

Debating whether to get another one of the walkers - I already have a resin one from my GSC (counts-as cult Sentinel or maybe a cult Leman), not sure I need another...

Last couple of hours.

Final stretch goals are the more interesting ones. Turrets, ruined walls.

We ended up only pledging for a Euro so we can make a decision on whether to spend for a city set or not during the pledge manager. We really are not completely sold on the product yet.

This is the feedback survey comment we sent Archon….

We like Archon Studio products but Rampart 3 has felt like a missed opportunity.

This is why we only pledged 1 Euro so far. We are still undecided on how much to spend.

The original concept was sound but execution has been haphazard and has felt a bit like it was on autopilot compared to Dungeons and Lasers. There just does not seem to be the same passion or interest from Archon. The products, while individually somewhat interesting, did not feel part of a coherent plan from the start. Artistically they were decent but they were not amazing. Instead it felt like it has been items of passing interest to the artists rather than a complete vision.

The lack of doors made the city theme feel odd, especially with floors but no real roofs. Yes, the floors can work as roofs but feel jury rigged. They are better than the previous Rampart platforms but only marginally.

Clear plastic to add glass to the window frames would have been nice.

Not making good roofs and floors for Kazumi was frustrating for us as that is my favorite Rampart theme.

Your display photos made the city ruins look too repetitive, more repetitive than I think they will be in practice. You did not do enough actual builds in demo photos. We found ourselves having to try to decide based mostly off the one render of the three level city theme build showing the vertical bundle pieces. The way the city theme looks in that render is is kind of a bunker, kind of a city building but not really either.

You should have explained the price increase better. People have grown used to your excellent pricing from previous campaigns. We grasp Covid has changed everything but we think folks need to hear it from the folks at Archon in a more personal way. Rampart 3 has not
felt at all as personal as D&L 2 and 3. A 40 year price jump for the minis or vertical bundle feels pricey. More should have been done to explain value for money in that jump.

Whilst I do not want a Mammoth Walker personally it was a good idea to make it an add on.

There were too much overtly Games Workshop Warhammer 40k references. You should try to be more subtle. The trick is to create pieces that can work in 40k but also work elsewhere. Thank you for at least not putting skulls everywhere. Admittedly I was hoping for more Fallout themed stuff so perhaps my issue is in part not being a 40k player.

You should try to design a system to make Rampart more compatible with Dungeons and Lasers. Some sort of transition system.

Please find a way to give folks tires for the stretchgoal car. It should earn you some good will back that was lost by the price increase and underwhelming stretchgoal total. The ability to make the car a wreck or operational is the kind of multipurposing Rampart needs in order to capture more interest in retail. It is the same kind of thing where some folks want damaged walls, some want undamaged walls… sell folks a mix.

More vehicle wrecks of different designs would have been nice.

More quirky signs would have been nice.

Less statues.

Definitely less “human sized” statues. Customers can make those from regular minis. And yes, I know I am sort of contradicting myself on making multipurpose terrain when I say make less human sized statues that customers can instead paint as character miniatures. The issue is you marketed Rampart 3 as a terrain not miniatures KS but then added miniatures… but only a limited selection. A selection marketed as an alternative to the vertical bundle rather than in addition. I know customers can get both but the subconscious message sent by the split option pledge is “get one or the other”. More options is normally a good thing but you need to communicate that the right way otherwise it comes across as misleading or duplicitous.

I appreciate not being call Private, thanks for the promotion to Corporal. You should have just said “soldier” in your “in character” communications. I stopped being a Private over 30 years ago.

To be clear we want Archon Studio to be successful. We like a lot of Archon products but we see so much potential for more

I'd agree about the scatterbrained theming of this campaign.

I appreciate that they let you choose from existing core sets but really this should have mostly revolved around the new additions to their range (the City Ruins).

I also wish that they'd just give us a "Citadel Skulls" style full sprue of just wall ornaments since most buildings are likely to have a lot of open holes unless you are magnetizing every surface. They even showed some City Ruins with breaker boxes and sulphur lamps that you can only get in the Cobalt Foundry set.

Rather than make people buy a whole core set or stretch goal pack for just a few accents, a whole kit of retinal scanners, wall reliquaries, key swipes, electrical boxes, candle dishes, ECT would go a long way.

I also wish that instead of more legally distinct "not Guardsmen" they would give us Sci-fi civilians or support roles that wouldn't typically get full wargame units. Like downed pilots...

A lot of good feedback Grumpy Gnome. Totally agree that the new design does not look like anything. It is not a bunker and not a building. The over-distressing and detailing also makes it hard to actually make bigger buildings that will not look super silly with the same holes everywhere.

Also agreed with Jack Flask, civilians would have been a lot more exciting. Semi-cheescake kriegers with massively oversized weapons does absolutely nothing for me.

Hole fillers would be nice, but a lot of their previous hole-fillers are just too big or over-designed IMO. They often jut unrealistically out from the building, and you can't really repeat them too much, or it just becomes extremely cluttered with these big jutting things that don't make sense in that many duplicates.

I would love some very minimal hole-fillers, which would also take minimal space on the sprues.