Dakka's Game - Maelstrom's Edge - First teaser from the Broken faction - pg 91

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**cincydooley**

Accolade wrote:
Snrub wrote:
Only a 20k goal? That seems... low. I realise all the sprues and what nots have been paid for and such but I was expecting a 50k goal or something at least.

We're almost half way there already!

Hopefully they just blow this out of the water then.

Come on, $1 million!

Well, you were close?

**BobtheInquisitor**

insaniak wrote:
BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I'm glad there was such a large uptick at the end. Not what I'd expected before the project went live, but a darn sight better than I feared a week ago. Hopefully this positive end note will carry on to the retail release..

I quite firmly believe that it will do much better at retail, just because of the nature of this sort of game and its potential audience. Being able to hold models in hand and actually play demo games will convert far more people than just seeing stuff on the computer.

It's going to be a long few months...

I hope you're right. My expectation 41 days ago was that HIPS + tournament/campaign support + fiction and art + Dakka * Kickstarter would skyrocket this up into the stratosphere. Now I'm ...cautiously optimistic.

The few months shouldn't feel long with all the fiction, play testing and game organizing SAS is sure to fill them with.

**Jehan-reznor**

insaniak wrote:
BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I'm glad there was such a large uptick at the end. Not what I'd expected before the project went live, but a darn sight better than I feared a week ago. Hopefully this positive end note will carry on to the retail release..

I quite firmly believe that it will do much better at retail, just because of the nature of this sort of game and its potential audience. Being able to hold models in hand and actually play demo games will convert far more people than just seeing stuff on the computer.

It's going to be a long few months...

Any information on international retailers, for example Japan?

**Accolade**

cincydooley wrote:
Accolade wrote:
Snrub wrote:
Only a 20k goal? That seems... low. I realise all the sprues and what nots have been paid for and such but I was expecting a 50k goal or something at least.

We're almost half way there already!

Hopefully they just blow this out of the water then.

Come on, $1 million!

Well, you were close?

Ah, cinci, always a beacon of positivity. Searched all the way through this thread so you could snark at my positive comment from the beginning eh? That's kind of sad.

**RiTides**

I'll be honest, I was hoping for a million too

but in the end 800 backers and $70K says to me the project was a success by all reasonable measures.

More than that, though, I think it will be a huge hit at retail - everything has been geared towards that, and while I'm very happy a Kickstarter was done so that I could get a sense for what is coming, this game is destined for success or failure at retail. This is distinct from a lot of campaigns that are heavy on exclusives and not really focused on a retail presence.

That's not to say those games can't or won't do well at retail (Zombicide I think does well everywhere all the time!) but just that this game is set up well for selling at retail, and I am very hopeful it will be an even bigger success there! I want some opponents for my drone army

**BobtheInquisitor**

When the Medge forum unlocks, I want to start a thread about unit box packaging. Want to find out about pricing, quantity, design, flavor text, all of that stuff.

**Forgemaster Argos**

Backed it yesterday. Saw your terrain sprue and had to pledge. First ever Kickstart, and I believe it money well spent.

Thanks for bringing something new and exciting to the table top and even though I'm not into the universe as much as 40k, the style is excellent.

Well done to the Maelstrom Edge team.

FM Argos

**cincydooley**

Accolade wrote:
cincydooley wrote:
Accolade wrote:
Snrub wrote:
Only a 20k goal? That seems... low. I realise all the sprues and what nots have been paid for and such but I was expecting a 50k goal or something at least.

We're almost half way there already!

Hopefully they just blow this out of the water then.

Come on, $1 million!

Well, you were close?

Ah, cinci, always a beacon of positivity. Searched all the way through this thread so you could snark at my positive comment from the beginning eh? That's kind of sad.

Didn't have to search. I had it saved.

It could have done much, much better than it did. It didn't for a multitude of reasons (which Buzzsaw will explain far more completely than I will here).

Your $1MM projection was funny to me, so you're absolutely right I wanted to it, because it's indicative of a lot of the blind, frenzied faith that hindered the project more than it helped.

**Kilkrazy**

I think any "faith" at this stage is misplaced until the product actually ships.

That said, I don't think people were "blind" considering all the models shown off have been production samples rather than shiny artist's impressions or 3D renders. There are also two printed novels and a sampler rulebook, plus examples of the possible things modellers can do with the figures and terrain sprues.

Not many Kickstarters offer that amount of visible product straight off.

The main component that needs to be finished is the rules that were always intended to be widely beta play tested by project backers once the project funded.

**Stormwall**

I don't really worry or think it will be an issue of failing to deliver. Delays? Maaaybe. So I disagree, I do have faith in SAS.

However to counter the delay worries, as you said most of the work is done. Also, if a forum like Dakkadakka snubbed the backers or pulled a kickstarter scam it'd be a disaster.

I don't think that will be happening.

**edlowe**

I think this is the moat solid ks I've backed in terms of stuff being completed. I'm still really sore about the Sentinel games ks which showed buckets of finished goods but seems to have died a death, with the owner going off to run for mayor of his town. I'm pretty certain we'll see medge before the end of the year.

**malfred**

Wait wait what? The KS owner of sentinel mayoral campaign huh?

Geez, I really should pay attention to Kickstarter.

Maybe yak will run for presid...waaaaait.

**Accolade**

cincydooley wrote:
Accolade wrote:
cincydooley wrote:
Accolade wrote:
Snrub wrote:
Only a 20k goal? That seems... low. I realise all the sprues and what nots have been paid for and such but I was expecting a 50k goal or something at least.

We're almost half way there already!

Hopefully they just blow this out of the water then.

Come on, $1 million!

Well, you were close?

Ah, cinci, always a beacon of positivity. Searched all the way through this thread so you could snark at my positive comment from the beginning eh? That's kind of sad.

Didn't have to search. I had it saved.

It could have done much, much better than it did. It didn't for a multitude of reasons (which Buzzsaw will explain far more completely than I will here).

Your $1MM projection was funny to me, so you're absolutely right I wanted to it, because it's indicative of a lot of the blind, frenzied faith that hindered the project more than it helped.

Projection?? You took my offhand comment of "I hope this KS makes all the money!" as a projection? Hoo-boy, I think you are getting way, way more out of that than I honestly ever intended. As other posters said about their own feelings, I would sure have liked this project to have been a raging success that captured the attention of masses of wargamers. Did I think that was going to be the case? Maybe, maybe not, but I certainly *wanted* them to do well. Did they do as well as I expected? Maybe a little less so, but then maybe my hopes were a little exaggerated. I don't know a lot about success rates of mid-skirmish size games like this on KS, so I'm not sure. What I'm still fairly confident in (because we saw it during this campaign) is that SAS will be taking in all of the information provided during this run and putting it to good use. I don't think there is much you can show me that wound prove otherwise.

Since you have been apparently saving comments so you could strike back at the zealots, I would be interested to see what sorts of comments I made that derailed this project, as you so see it. I guess I'll make sure to not make comments about hoping other KS are wildly successful, less I induce the ire of more hardened KS veterans.

**Spiral Arm Studios**

The Maelstrom's Edge Kickstarter has finally finished, and we're delighted to have had 813 backers, and to have raised $70,105 towards the project. Although we put a lot of initial investment in to get the project to this point, the money from the Kickstarter is huge as it allows us to begin making purchase orders for the content of the box set, knowing that we'll have amazing backers waiting for what we've created. The campaign has also let us add lots of additional content to the box, and we're really pleased with what everyone will receive.

The last few days of funding were really exciting for us, and we're absolutely thrilled to have unlocked several key stretch goals and rewards towards the end of the Kickstarter. These include:

For reaching $45,000, every $90 pledge includes a free terrain sprue, which contains a number of different building components that you can combine with plasticard, card, foamcore or found objects to create unique buildings that share a distinctive Maelstrom's Edge style. We're delighted with the positive feedback we've had for the terrain sprue, and are really excited to see what people build with it!

As well as the main game, we've devised a space-based card game set in the Maelstrom's Edge universe, where players use their fleets to compete for resources and planets under threat from the Maelstrom. This is a complete standalone card game, and every deck included with the $90 pledge is enough for 2 players to play a game, perfect for between battles of the miniatures game!

We announced the names of some of the amazing writers who have agreed to write short stories set in the Maelstrom's Edge universe in the future, including Alastair Reynolds, Aliette de Bodard, Karin Lowachee, Jaine Fenn, Liz Williams, Rob Ziegler and Jeff Carlson, as well as more stories by our lead writers Stephen Gaskell and Tomas L. Martin. We have lots of plans for more fiction in our setting, and will be releasing new stories regularly through our website over the coming months.

For reaching $55,000, we are going to be recording 4 more audiobooks set in the Maelstrom's Edge universe, on top of 'Transit' by Stephen Gaskell, which was made available during the Kickstarter. The audiobooks will be free to all backers, and we will be sending you a link that lets you download them from the Maelstrom's Edge website as and when they are ready. Writing and recording an audiobook takes a little time so we won't be sending these immediately but you'll be the first to know when they are available!

As a reward for all of our faithful Kickstarter backers, we had a poll to see which additional model you'd like in the box set. You voted for a second Large Angel for the Karists, which we have added to what you get in the box! This additional Angel model is exclusive to our Kickstarter backers and won't be included in the retail version of the box set.

For reaching $60,000, we are able to manufacture custom bases for the larger models in the set, which have the distinctive notches on either side, to indicate where the front and rear arcs of the models are which is important to the game. In addition, it allows more posing and conversion opportunities for models mounted on bases. These new bases will be added for the 4 Spider drones, the 2 Hunter Mechs and the 2 Large Angels, in whichever pledge they were purchased. This was a really big goal for us, so we're really pleased it got unlocked!

Literally in the final moments of the Kickstarter, we reached $70,000! This amazing achievement unlocked a free digital copy of the first novel in the Maelstrom's Edge universe, Maelstrom's Edge: Faith, cowritten by the team's lead writers, Tomas L. Martin and Stephen Gaskell. This book is already finished and we will be sending a link to all our backers as soon as we get the digital distribution logistics pinned down to give you a code to download it in the format of your choosing (mobi/epub/pdf), or gift the code to a friend if you've already bought it on Amazon Kindle. Maelstrom's Edge: Faith is part one of the Battle for Zycanthus, and the second book, Maelstrom's Edge: Sacrifice, which concludes the story, is also available on Amazon Kindle for those who enjoy reading the first book! We are keen that everyone who wants to read the books can do so, so please let us know if there are other ebook formats or stores that you would like us to make the books available on.

We are giving away some free copies of the paperback versions of the novels and right now we're collecting the names and will be in contact next week to announce the people who'll be getting copies sent in the post!

If you are a backer and your credit card company has blocked the transaction to Kickstarter (or Stripe), then don't worry, your pledge will still be held and you'll get a chance to pay again before packing and shipping begins. We'll also have the capacity to add extra terrain sprues or big boxes to your pledge at that time as well!

Making the universe, game and models for Maelstrom's Edge has been a massive undertaking by our small team and we are incredibly grateful for the support we've received from all our Kickstarter backers, and friends in the wargames community. We'd like to send a special thank you to many awesome people and companies including but not limited to Kingdom Death, Dreamforge Games, Frontline Gaming, Mantic Games, Tabletop Fix, Cool Mini Or Not, Bell of Lost Souls, Beasts of War, the D6 Generation podcast, 3++, Tabletop Gaming News, theminiaturespage, Lead Adventure, Wee Gamers, 3rd Dimension Gear, and especially all the commentors on Kickstarter and Dakka for your support, questions and feedback. We've strived really hard to make Maelstrom's Edge as good as we possibly could, and are proud of what we've made.

We've had some great input from the wargames community over the last few months, and we are listening carefully to all the requests and feedback we've had so far. When we came to launch the Kickstarter, we wanted to try and get as much of the design work completed as possible, so that our backers wouldn't have to wait too long to receive the boxed game. HIPS plastic production is a incredibly time-consuming process, and if we were to start making changes to the sprue design at this point, it would delay the launch by months or even years! We've tried to address every piece of feedback we've had as much as we can, but rest assured that even when it's not possible for us to change something locked in for this initial release, we are listening for the future, and every step of the way from here we will continue to improve on the beginnings that you have helped launch.

We are now going to turn our attention to delivering on what we've promised and getting the box sets into the hands of our backers by our delivery date of December this year, and then to launch in retail in early 2016. Keeping our backers and supporters up to date is really important to us, and we will be putting a tracker on the Maelstrom's Edge website ( http://www.maelstromsedge.com ) to keep people informed of the status of the project and the completion of key milestones. The money we've raised in the Kickstarter also lets us start planning for the future, and we have already started designing additional models for both the Epirian Foundation and Karist Enclave to add to what comes in the box set, as well as three new factions, the advanced technology of the Artarian Remnant Fleet, the rebels and revolutionaries of the Broken and the strange posthuman Kaigus Pact. Whilst these new additions will take time to develop and design, the Kickstarter funds allow us to start working on the future releases earlier than we would have been able to otherwise. In the near future we are focusing on ensuring that our backers get the content they have pledged for as quickly as possible, but we have lots of plans to expand the game of Maelstrom's Edge in the future!

Thank you all once again for your support and feedback and we look forward to getting the box set of Maelstrom's Edge in your hands very soon.

The Spiral Arm Studios team

**Emperors_Champion**

Well done guys!

Now the real pressure begins!

Congrats to everyone!

**djphranq**

All hail the Spiral Arm!

Congratulations!

**Jehan-reznor**

Any news? how is the fulfillment of the kickstarter going, even in the Maelstrom's Edge sub-forum there isn't much happening.

**Grey Templar**

The Beta just got sent out to participants.

**darrkespur**

You can keep track of the fulfillment progress on our website:

http://www.maelstromsedge.com/status

Lots going on behind the scenes, the logistics take some time though!

In the last few weeks, backers have got their free novel, and the beta rules have gone out to all the backers who opted in.

**BobtheInquisitor**

Any word on the paperbacks?

**legoburner**

Paperbacks are queued up and logistics and legals are sorted, but wont be going out for order and shipping until mid-late Aug unless we can free up some time in the next 3 weeks, as they are naturally lowest priority on the pecking order right now but being stored offsite means it takes quite a chunk out of our time to go to the offsite location, add appropriate labels, repackage and send off to shipping agents and every 6 hour chunk is very valuable to stay on track.

**TP^DC Deputy Manager**

BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Any word on the paperbacks?

It's weird, but I was so keen to get the paperbacks, but now I got a free copy thought the Kickstarter and I've got the short stories as PDFs on my iPad, I'm leaning towards just buying the second book as a digital copy for completeness - that'll be the obsessionalism again!

I'll just cope with the the dyslexia stuff I suppose.

Now if they were signed paperbacks that would be a different story

**BobtheInquisitor**

legoburner wrote:
Paperbacks are queued up and logistics and legals are sorted, but wont be going out for order and shipping until mid-late Aug unless we can free up some time in the next 3 weeks, as they are naturally lowest priority on the pecking order right now but being stored offsite means it takes quite a chunk out of our time to go to the offsite location, add appropriate labels, repackage and send off to shipping agents and every 6 hour chunk is very valuable to stay on track.

Cool. Just curious. It's probably better if I read them closer to when the rewards are delivered anyway, to keep me motivated. (And probably spending. Is there a lot of robot or angel action in the duology?)

Automatically Appended Next Post:

TP^DC Deputy Manager wrote:
BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Any word on the paperbacks?

It's weird, but I was so keen to get the paperbacks, but now I got a free copy thought the Kickstarter and I've got the short stories as PDFs on my iPad, I'm leaning towards just buying the second book as a digital copy for completeness - that'll be the obsessionalism again! I'll just cope with the the dyslexia stuff I suppose.

Now if they were signed paperbacks that would be a different story

I think I stored the free novel. But I did that with Bloodstone of Cyrillion, too, and only got around to reading that when I had the physical copy. I can make it through a short story in eform, but not a novel.

I'd request for mine to be signed, but I can imagine the form the doodle might take...

**BobtheInquisitor**

So, there's been a fairly informative update, which I will share. However, I thought the Medge subforum was supposed to be unlocked after the campaign so we could start new threads. Why hasn't it? And why have Legoburner and Yakface not shared this update with Dakka?

Update #51

Aug 31 2015

A summary of progress to date with a few nice images...

10 Comments

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Hello once again to all of you! We've been working extremely hard on Maelstrom's Edge, and we are pleased to report that we have been free from illnesses, vacations and any other unplanned diversions, allowing us to give our complete focus to Maelstrom's Edge over the past few months. As such, we are pleased to report that we still remain on target as per our existing project delivery plan which can be found here: http://www.maelstromsedge.com/status

We've had a number of small delays over the past couple of months, but fortunately nothing has pushed us back too far just yet and as such we will have no issue in getting everything out in December as planned. Those of you backing for digital rules only might see a couple of weeks of slippage which might push delivery of the rules PDF to Nov from Oct, but that is simply a measure of how much effort and work is going in to making the rulebook as good as it can be.

The biggest potential hold up is getting the final 3 models completed. The sculpts and parts are done, tested and signed off, and the final tooling (cutting the designs of the digital models into metal moulds to facilitate injection moulding) is underway, but due to the extreme number of variables involved, we cant count on it being done until the production is complete and the models are on the boat and on the way to us. There are many things out of our control, with one of the major consistent issues being large industrial plastic orders coming in from third parties, and due to them having 8-figure budgets, they immediately get priority over our small scale, high detail, high effort models. Thankfully we are at the very end of the model development process for these three, and as such the chance of those variables affecting us drops every single day.

Beyond that, getting the box printed is the next biggest issue. We desperately want to have pictures of all models on the box for obvious reasons, but printing is a very slow process and booking in print time alone can require as much as two months notice. We've committed to the extra expense of getting printing done in Europe so that we can get it into our warehouse without it needing to spend 5 weeks on the ocean, but it is still a very tight timescale with little buffer room for the unexpected.

The rulebook and all cards should not be a problem at all. Progress has been great on them and we will have them in the warehouse well in advance of the final packing and shipping dates.

The card tokens, suppression markers, victory point trackers, card objectives, blast templates and spray templates are all done and best of all are sitting in our warehouse ready for packing. We had some interesting adventures in international shipping to get to this stage, but they look great and the colour is vivid and sharp. We'll aim to get a suppression token assembly tutorial together before you get them so that you can plan on how to make them look as good as can be, though assembly is very straightforward and simply comes down to how perfect you want them to look by using things like black pens to mask the edges of the card. Here's a picture of a 1 metre cubed pile of our cardboard - a lot of suppression tokens!

A lot of cardboard!
A lot of cardboard!
and here's some pictures of the finished, final product - all three sheets (please excuse the camera shadow in the bottom centre!):

The production grade die-cut card sheets (A4 in size), front and rear of sheet 3
The production grade die-cut card sheets (A4 in size), front and rear of sheet 3
The existing plastic models are already starting to flow into our warehouse. We've had multiple injection moulding machines running around the world for weeks, churning out the best versions of our models that have ever been made. Our production teams have blown us away with their talents and we are very proud and pleased to state that the models we've shown you pictures of are not as crisp and sharp as the ones you will be getting. The production run surpasses our prototypes quite notably. Here's some of the recent palettes of plastic that have arrived in our warehouse:

A big pile of plastic (in generic boxes)
A big pile of plastic (in generic boxes)
If you are in at the $1 pledge level, then you'll be pleased to know that the next audiobook - "Crisis Point" by Stephen Gaskell just has a few minor bits of polishing left and will be going out to you all as planned this October. If you've not yet been claiming your audiobooks and other digital rewards, then be sure to check out this update: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/medge/maelstroms-edge-a-next-gen-sci-fi-miniatures-warga/posts/1299968

If you are just backing for terrain, then you'll also be pleased to know that your plastic is done and almost ready to ship and is in fact in one of the palettes photographed above. We have the logistics and packing plans in place now and just need to get the pledge manager out to you for your addresses and then the sprues will be on the way. Here's a nice test one of our friends did which shows just how many pieces of terrain can be built from a single terrain sprue:

Squeezing as much terrain out of one sprue as possible!

Squeezing as much terrain out of one sprue as possible!
The next update we send out will have the pledge manager details in it. We appreciate it has taken us a while to get it out to you, but we are not using an off-the-shelf solution and have developed our own which integrates nicely with our website at maelstromsedge.com. We also wanted to pin down a few details first, the most significant being if we are able to offer standalone models. I'm pleased to report that we will now be able to offer add-ons for individual model sprues though they will just be loose sprues with bases, not in final retail boxes, but as a result they'll be discounted too as a thanks for your early support in getting us to this point. For those of you who wanted to build a whole drone army, or just wanted a force of alien angels to proxy in another game, it will now be possible to get the models on their own! You'll be able to add them to your pledge very soon when the pledge manager goes live.

We spend a lot of time ensuring everything is going to plan, and as such we can see in our projections that there is a chance of around 40% that external or internal variables might affect our rate of production and prevent us getting everything together and shipped before Christmas. While that is still less than a 50/50 chance, we want to keep ourselves motivated and dedicated, so we'll publicly promise now that if we slip past December shipping and into Q1 2016, we will add the second most requested bonus unit - the huge Epirian Hunter Robot - to every single box set at the $90+ pledge level. We'd prefer not to give away one of our most complex and valuable models, so we'll be working extra hard to make sure we ship on time, but if we fail then you'll get a free Christmas present off the back of it!

Once again, please excuse our relative lack of community outreach at this time. We are a small team and we are working flat out to get Maelstrom's Edge to the highest quality while sticking to our timescale goals. We'll be ramping up communication as shipping approaches and are always open to questions and chats about the game, models and rules, so feel free to ask here on Kickstarter in the comments section anytime you want to!

As one more teaser from the Maelstrom's Edge universe, here's an image showing a number of Cybel Gates (the mechanism for travel over large distances at effectively faster-than-light speeds) in close proximity to a large star:

Ships queue before a Cybel Gate

Ships queue before a Cybel Gate
and an example page from our in-development rulebook:

A simple rules preview page
A simple rules preview page
We'll be in touch soon with the pledge manager link! Thank you for your patience and as always we cant wait to start getting the game, the rules and the models into your hands!

There were other pictures, but I my copy function is lazy.

It sounds like everything is on track, but if there is a delay then we each get another Hunter mini.

I'm very happy that the pledge manager will allow us to buy individual sprues! Send in the drones.

**Grey Templar**

hmm, kinda hoping for a delay

**BobtheInquisitor**

Grey Templar wrote:
hmm, kinda hoping for a delay

Yeah, I'm in the same boat. It's the strange case where hoping for the best is the same as expecting the worst.

As long as it's not a palladium-sized delay.

**Grey Templar**

Well yeah, its kinda like hoping your waiter drops your food and the manager takes off 10% of your tab

**legoburner**

Thanks for reposting Bob, all time and effort has been focused on medge development of late so there's been no time for community building and wont be until it is ready to go out the door. I can confirm the printed versions of the novels are also in the warehouse and will be part of the pledge manager as well though

**BobtheInquisitor**

That's great news!

Hope I'm not slowing you down too much.

I mean, like keeping you from something that might delay the project if it isn't finished.

Not that I'm trying to rush you.

Because that might cause you to make some little slip ups, which take time to correct.

Time you don't have,

But time will have you.

Because time is a predator that stalks us all our lives.

And predators like to hunt.

Like Hunters.

Hunter robots,.

Like free hunter robots for all of us if you are delayed.

Which would be a shame,

A shame salved by free Hunter robots.

**RiTides**

We spend a lot of time ensuring everything is going to plan, and as such we can see in our projections that there is a chance of around 40% that external or internal variables might affect our rate of production and prevent us getting everything together and shipped before Christmas. While that is still less than a 50/50 chance, we want to keep ourselves motivated and dedicated, so we'll publicly promise now that if we slip past December shipping and into Q1 2016, we will add the second most requested bonus unit - the huge Epirian Hunter Robot - to every single box set at the $90+ pledge level. We'd prefer not to give away one of our most complex and valuable models, so we'll be working extra hard to make sure we ship on time, but if we fail then you'll get a free Christmas present off the back of it!

Ah, I totally missed that! Was wondering why everyone was cheering for this to be ever-so-slightly delayed now