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This is looking bad for Mongoose. An institutional "cover-up" like this when Spange's initial response was to the effect "these'll go on sale over my dead body" indicates to me that they are desperate.

On the other hand if you were *really* bothered about value for money you'd probably be staying away from the evil that is prepainted plastic altogether.  I suspect those that like playing and hate painting will still buy them.  Judging by the hea pf attrociously painted crud lying around on the Wargames Emporium "bring and buy" table, I suspect there are legions of people out there who really hate painting and are prepared to play with a grey horde.  These goggle-eyed pieces of crud will probably still appeal to them even if they are not so well painted as they had previously been advertised.

I suspect old farts like me will play the game with generic 25mm figs and 1/48 scale tanks if we want to join the fun, just like we would have done anyhow.

One thing's for certain though - this ain't going to be a "revolution in gaming", just a small blip in the history of the hobby.

I'm thinking the rules will still be good, and other companies make modern military metal figurines so i'll probably give it a go. Just not with their prepainted mind you.

One bad painting contractor does not ruin the whole idea.

Posted By FlatlanderBoss2.0 on 01/05/2007 6:18 AM
One bad painting contractor does not ruin the whole idea.

Maybe not, but it sure seems to have done one hell of a kick in the nuts.....

How much more cost/effort is it to switch to someone else?

Posted By malfred on 01/05/2007 9:03 AM
How much more cost/effort is it to switch to someone else?

That would be more in retrospect. It seems Mongoose accepted delivery of several hundred thousand dollars worth of merchandise, and now needs to find a way to recoup the cost.

I don't have inside information, but all the evidence I've seen would seem to support that hypothesis, and it fits with my previous experience working for companies importing from China/India.

Posted By Osbad on 01/04/2007 2:36 AM

And also, anyone remember those reprint stickers on the PP rulebooks a while back? There seems to be an ignoble trend when a "whoopsie" is dropped to press ahead regardless and not offer the customer any compensation by way of discounts for substandard new product. I can see why the companies don't want their product to appear tainted by being offered at a discount, but frankly you can't polish a turd, and if something so good was worth £20, then something not so good has got to be worth less than £20...

I don't think that's fair to say about the rulebook mistake.  They delt with that amazingly well- the sticker is more then any other of their contemporaries have done (as far as I know, at least).

Yeah, it's too bad about the sticker. Good thing that was the worst thing
going for Superiority.

It seems to me Mongoose is slowly losing the Darwinian struggle for survival. If so, good riddance.

Posted By Agamemnon2 on 01/06/2007 5:52 PM
It seems to me Mongoose is slowly losing the Darwinian struggle for survival. If so, good riddance.

The part of me who loves art agrees with you... but the ruleswritting... it's so damn good!

Posted By Drake_Marcus on 01/06/2007 9:23 PM

Posted By Agamemnon2 on 01/06/2007 5:52 PM
It seems to me Mongoose is slowly losing the Darwinian struggle for survival. If so, good riddance.

The part of me who loves art agrees with you... but the ruleswritting... it's so damn good!

Maybe in that situation GW could pick up some of their cast-off rules staff. I wonder what a 40K rulebook written by Andy Chambers would look like...

Posted By Asmodai on 01/07/2007 12:15 AM

Maybe in that situation GW could pick up some of their cast-off rules staff. I wonder what a 40K rulebook written by Andy Chambers would look like...

Oh, SNAP!