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 Myrthe wrote:

 Empchild wrote:
They've had these minis for a while now and I would hope they would've updated a lot but I guess not. Sadldy not my thing if they can't take the time to upgrade their lines.

I completely agree !! Mongoose seems to make the least amount of effort on so many of their projects / products ... like resurecting 20-year-old outdated models.

And Mongoose doesn't have the best track record for supporting, or even following-thorough, on their games. Anyone remember Starship Troopers? Or the promised Starship Trooper pre-paints? Or Battlefield Evolution ? Or Babylon 5?

Remember folks, Kickstarter gives no guarantees about delivery of a final product. Consider your pledge a gamble that MIGHT pay off and pledge to companies you trust with money you can lose.

Ill agree as well on all points.

Bablyon 5 the dropped the liscing on as sales.sucked for it. To bad as they did it justice. I spoke with one of the former owners a while back about it.

As far as that $300 pledge goes for the ten currently available boxed sets, plus some to be determined stretch goals, those boxed sets are all pretty much US $315 plus shipping if you ordered them from the US Mongoose Publishing website. So that's going to be a strange choice to make until well into the stretch goals.

A quick scan of the PDF shows that this 2012 Judge Dredd Miniatures game is a D10 game, in contrast to the Gangs of Mega-City One using D6's, both use a simple two-action activation system; and JDM looks like it's a bit of a refinement of the GofMCO rules overall. If nothing else, anyone reading this thread should download the 90 page PDF that they're making available for free, because it's a decent straight forward skirmish game. That's 90 pages for the rules, background, a bunch of model options, scenarios, and a simple campagn system. Worth taking a read through, and considering even if you don't like the miniatures.

Note: Get the rules PDF from the Mongoose store http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/miniatures/judge-dredd.html rather than Drive Thru RPG. If you get it through Drive Thru, you waste a bit of extra time and get a watermarked PDF for your troubles.

Disclaimer: I'm prepared to pretend that any and all Judge Dredd movies have never and will never exist. The monthly magazine and the weekly 2000AD's are good enough for me.

Yeah, but...at least the new movie looks a little better than the old one. Right? It has Karl Urban!

They could have at least given the Judges the goofy pauldrons, though. Dredd looks kinda weird without them.

Mongoose has a longstanding track record of making fun games with great rules that they very excitedly tout as their new big thing that will be huge and awesome and have great support and expansions for but then they fail to ever actually balance, drop prematurely, or just plain bungle so badly that it's practically a comedy club tour. Between 3+ editions of B5 in as many years, mishandling releases for the starship troopers line that was so promising (and initially very popular), the prepainted debacle (anyone else remember the promises that the figs would be better than what 95% of people could do themselves, but instead turned out to actually be worse than most 5 year olds could do?). And then the horrible scale issues with their near future game, mediocre sculpts and just simply bad choices of model size for virtually ALL of their starships. Of course B5 didn't sell well, I don't know anybody that bought thier ships despite over a dozen players at my shop and a number of really good campaigns (I repeat, their games were fun). Everybody just ordered the Fleet Action scale ships from Agents of Gaming (who made both scales, mongoose chose, since the ships were bigger and they could charge more for them). The fleet Action were much cheaper for more ships and the game actually played much better with the smaller scale. MUCH better. Same for their resculpted Star Trek line, they're too big for the game and they're too big to use for Federation Commander, virtually everyone either uses the Starline ships or the smaller, unnoficial shapeways 3D printed ones.

Their dredd game always looked kind of interesting, but mongoose has burned me too many times already to get another dime out of me. Call me back when another publisher has the property.

TLR - I suggest you skip it, they don't support their games well.

 Sidstyler wrote:
Yeah, but...at least the new movie looks a little better than the old one. Right? It has Karl Urban!

They could have at least given the Judges the goofy pauldrons, though. Dredd looks kinda weird without them.

The trailer might as well be about John McLane or Ben Richards. It's terribly generic and bland, without any of the stuff that made the comics fun, from what I can see. Also, the combination of the ill-fitting helmet and Karl Urban's expression makes Dredd look like Dana Carvey's cranky old man character. Get him some prune juice, and the movie's over in 10 minutes. And yes, the pauldrons are dearly missed.

If Mongoose ups their game for the kickstarter and really improves on the sculpts, then I might pick up some figures in retail. Unless, of course, they go with the movie's look.

Good morning, Gentleman.

Just about to start advertising on this site, and I got pointed to this thread - in a way, I am grateful for it as it gives me a chance to talk to you chaps directly. I'll start with the tough one...

There seem to be a few people who have formed the impression that we do not hold on to games for long. This is not completely accurate, and I would like a chance to explain.

Someone mentioned that we did not support Babylon 5 sufficiently - I have to say, I find that rather incredible. We had Babylon 5 for two licence periods (that means we renewed the licence once) over six years. In that time, we released something like 40 different books, over 200 different miniatures, 13 different fleets, brought Claudia Christian down for Open Days, ran multiple tournaments and campaigns, and provided free material via Signs & Portents. I humbly submit there was not too much more we could have done. As the sixth year came to a close, sales had begun to tail off (remember, this was some time after the shows had actually aired) and we knew we would not be able to match Warner Brothers' minimum requirements for royalties (which are paid as a high five figure advance). We therefore let everyone know the line was coming to an end and discounted every product (even those already discounted, like the fleet sets) to ensure everyone had a chance to complete their collections.

Yes, we would have loved to see years 9 and 12 for Babylon 5, but it was never going to happen - you chaps stopped buying it, and it is easy to see why. You had all the Omegas, Hyperions and White Stars you needed and, sure, we could have released another League fleet, but so few of you would have been interested in them. At the end of the day, we produced everything and more that we set out to do for B5, supported it while it was out, and ran it for as long as we could.

With Starship Troopers, a legal row (that we were ordered to remain silent about at the time) erupted between Sony and the Heinlein Estate (something about money not getting paid, never found out all the details), which killed all further development of the game. We looked at bringing the game back in a couple of formats, but it was very clear that neither would get lightning to hit twice - and the costs were eye-wateringly large. They were huge for Starship Troopers. Never mind the licensing costs, which were the highest we have ever paid (six figures), all those plastics were... pricey, to say the least.

Ultimately, the only reason we have ever dropped a game is because it started to lose money. To put another way, if we had continued with said games, the company would have gone bust within a few months. I hate to be crass about this, but Mongoose is a business and the plain fact is it cannot survive if its products drain it dry. There is no other company here that would not do the same. They would have to, or close the doors.

On the other hand, we also have some long-running games as well. Victory at Sea is still going, and is now getting a new miniatures line (will start popping up in a month or so). The Judge Dredd licence we have had for ten years now, and the current game is a continuation of Gangs of MC-1 (with a better focus on everyone's favourite, the judges). With Traveller, we agreed a ten year licence, and have started to make plans with Mr Miller to continue beyond that. Maybe it is a case of the light that burns twice as bright burns half as long - I certainly regret nothing with B5 (great - and complete - range of books and miniatures, lots of fun events, got to take Miss Christian out on the twon in Swindon, which she must have loved...), but it was always going to have a finite lifespan. With very few exceptions, all licensed products do.

Someone here mentioned he thought we were undercapitalised, and that is not competely unfair. We are a small company (a lot smaller than many people seem to think), and have no large financial backing, reserves or resources. We cannot just throw money at a problem to solve it (which would have worked with, say Star Fleet or Noble Armada in the past year). We do a lot with a little and, as someone else mentioned here, we have never taken money and run - we either deliver (yes, not always when we first said) or we refund.

And, on that note, if anyone here has any Babylon 5 or Starship Troopers material and they are really not happy with them, contact us. I will _happily_ swap them out for anything in our current product line. We guarantee all our products.

As mentioned on TMP, the current 'management structure' (which is me, Muggins), has only been in place for a little over two years now. While I was one of the founders of Mongoose and have pretty much always been the Internet Face of the company, it is only now that I have been able to run the company without differing to someone else. And in the past two years, we have dropped _no_ games.

That is about it, really. If something starts losing money, something has to be done - there is no other alternative. At the same time, we learn from what has gone before; we have a very good and long-standing relationship with the guys at 2000AD (and Rebellion as a whole), so do not have to bear the same strain as with licence agreements with, say, Warner Brothers (and, incidentally, we just made a revised agreement with 2000AD to now cover all their properties). Lines like Victory at Sea are all ours. And if we do another 'big' licence, we will approach it differently, with no expectation or presumption that they will continue forever - and we will make that clear from the start as well.

Finally, just want to pick up a few things some of you said;

EmpChild/Myrthe: These models are not 20 years old - I thnk you are thinking of the GW range, many moons ago. The oldest are around 9 years old (which is not exactly ancient), if I recall correctly, and we have spent the past couple of years updating and adding to the range. The Lawmaster is a good example of that.

Pacific: The Fatties are still about, and we added new torsos, heads and arms so every one of them can look different! We are planning to come back to them, adding females and possible 'Flab Fighters,' gladiatorial Fatties!

Mr Gutsy: The Planet Mongoose page is just a preview - there will be more bits and pieces (and more pledge levels) on the final page this Thursday morning. As you mentioned Shane is currently missing, but he does that now and again. Every confidence he will surface at some point, and we have some new sculpters on board in the meantime. We'll be posting pics of the new Brit-Cit Judges (among others) this week, so you can see what they have been up to.

Pacific: With regards to SST being what 40k v4 could have been... not exactly. Not exactly at all.

If anyone wants to talk further about anything raised here, I am more than happy to do so. I love talking about games about as much as actually playing or designing them, and I am always happy to dive in.

Your actions spoke louder then the rhetoric.

Thanks for stopping by though. Takes brass to show up and try to sell the party line out of your element.


"With Starship Troopers, a legal row (that we were ordered to remain silent about at the time) erupted between Sony and the Heinlein Estate (something about money not getting paid, never found out all the details), which killed all further development of the game. We looked at bringing the game back in a couple of formats, but it was very clear that neither would get lightning to hit twice - and the costs were eye-wateringly large. They were huge for Starship Troopers. Never mind the licensing costs, which were the highest we have ever paid (six figures), all those plastics were... pricey, to say the least."


See. thats the thing though. It had nothing to do with this. It had EVERYTHING to do with the lip service, double talk and outright spin that went out of control when you opened up the mouth and let the foot fall in with not only the horrible sculpts that continued to not only crank out with everyone and thier brother telling you they were garbage, but with the coninued insult of playing the fanbase for suckers. The same fanbase that within the space of six to eight months had this game as an award winner and a strong following. The issues were well in play even before the licensing issues.

To say nothing about the insanity of the "fourth", the substadard treatement of the release of the crud that the skinnies turned into, and the bold faced claim of "Prepainted plastics being better then 80% of painters out there..." discussion line of tripe that we already knew was gak from the get go.

The ongoing discussion was pretty much squelched and removed without being seriously dealt with. You peed all over the fan base, and drew the much deserved attention when you did not deal with the issues and told everyone in there that they didn't know what they were talking about. Then to add insult to injury, you shut down the conversation. That is P1zz poor service in my book, as well as the rest of the rabid fans from the beginning.

Had it been all about the licensing, it would have been understood. Instead, the decision to take the easy road and try to gak the gakkers was taken and you ended up with a public relations nightmare of epic proportions on your hands. All the while everything was falling apart, there was no interaction or relent to the point that, "Yes, we messed up. You guys didn't want that, so maybe we might have to rethink the decision making on this issue."
Instead, you basicly came out and told everyone a bunch of lies and double talk that ended up deep sixing the game. Then had the brass to tell people they didn't know what they were talking about.

As to the rest of those issues- Mongoose hasn't been up to snuff. Period.

Gangs of Mega City 1. No support, shelved, and ignored. THEN comes out yet again, as a Judge Dredd Miniatures game. Same MO. Crap sculpts, no support, ignored.

We won't even touch the $50.00 micromachines. of "Battlefield Evolution", and what gak that turned into.


Less talk. more action, because you gained the reputation the old fasioned way- You earned it.

Hi there,

 Grot 6 wrote:


See. thats the thing though. It had nothing to do with this. It had EVERYTHING to do with the lip service, double talk and outright spin that went out of control when you opened up the mouth and let the foot fall in with not only the horrible sculpts that continued to not only crank out with everyone and thier brother telling you they were garbage, but with the coninued insult of playing the fanbase for suckers. The same fanbase that within the space of six to eight months had this game as an award winner and a strong following. The issues were well in play even before the licensing issues.

That is where the issues started for SST - I am _not_ saying there were not other problems beginning to creep in. They always do and, usually, they get fixed. But the death knell was the ceasing of all production and, importantly, development.

 Grot 6 wrote:

The ongoing discussion was pretty much squelched and removed without being seriously dealt with. You peed all over the fan base, and drew the much deserved attention when you did not deal with the issues and told everyone in there that they didn't know what they were talking about. Then to add insult to injury, you shut down the conversation. That is P1zz poor service in my book, as well as the rest of the rabid fans from the beginning.

We are always willing to talk - the only time we have _ever_ deleted a thread on our forums is when someone loses control and starts directly insulting, me, my staff, or other forum users. There are plenty of other places people can do that, but it is not tolerated on our forums. That _is_ about the only rule we have there. Yes, other posts went as well, and I apologise for that. But some people were just plain rude.

At the end of the day, as I hope this post helps to demonstrate, we are always willing to talk about things.

 Grot 6 wrote:

Had it been all about the licensing, it would have been understood. Instead, the decision to take the easy road and try to gak the gakkers was taken and you ended up with a public relations nightmare of epic proportions on your hands. All the while everything was falling apart, there was no interaction or relent to the point that, "Yes, we messed up. You guys didn't want that, so maybe we might have to rethink the decision making on this issue."
Instead, you basicly came out and told everyone a bunch of lies and double talk that ended up deep sixing the game. Then had the brass to tell people they didn't know what they were talking about.

If you are referring to SST, we were literally (well, legally) gagged. We had to close things down (at the time, we were told it would only be temporary), and we could not say why. Told not even to hint at it. So no, people did not know what was going on until we left the agreement and could talk openly. I still don't think we have ever related the whole story. However, I have never knowingly lied about Mongoose or any of its games to you guys.

 Grot 6 wrote:

Gangs of Mega City 1. No support, shelved, and ignored. THEN comes out yet again, as a Judge Dredd Miniatures game. Same MO. Crap sculpts, no support, ignored.

Well, GoMC1 did have support, in the form of several new gangs and a supplement. The JD miniatures game has a very different approach to Gangs (and I am guessing you have not read it), and it has clearly been supported - you only have to drop by our forums to see how we have been involving players in its development. As for crap sculpts... no. Just plain no. You may not like them, which is fine, but the models we have put out over the past two years are not bad by any means. I would humbly submit that some presumptions have been made about this game that are not completely on the ball.

Putting this another way - just what would you expect to see from us that we have not already done for Dredd?

 Grot 6 wrote:

We won't even touch the $50.00 micromachines. of "Battlefield Evolution", and what gak that turned into.

Well, okay, but I would be happy to discuss that as well. But none of them ever had a $50 price tag.

MongooseMatt wrote:
Hi there,

 Grot 6 wrote:


See. thats the thing though. It had nothing to do with this. It had EVERYTHING to do with the lip service, double talk and outright spin that went out of control when you opened up the mouth and let the foot fall in with not only the horrible sculpts that continued to not only crank out with everyone and thier brother telling you they were garbage, but with the coninued insult of playing the fanbase for suckers. The same fanbase that within the space of six to eight months had this game as an award winner and a strong following. The issues were well in play even before the licensing issues.

That is where the issues started for SST - I am _not_ saying there were not other problems beginning to creep in. They always do and, usually, they get fixed. But the death knell was the ceasing of all production and, importantly, development.

 Grot 6 wrote:

The ongoing discussion was pretty much squelched and removed without being seriously dealt with. You peed all over the fan base, and drew the much deserved attention when you did not deal with the issues and told everyone in there that they didn't know what they were talking about. Then to add insult to injury, you shut down the conversation. That is P1zz poor service in my book, as well as the rest of the rabid fans from the beginning.

We are always willing to talk - the only time we have _ever_ deleted a thread on our forums is when someone loses control and starts directly insulting, me, my staff, or other forum users. There are plenty of other places people can do that, but it is not tolerated on our forums. That _is_ about the only rule we have there. Yes, other posts went as well, and I apologise for that. But some people were just plain rude.

At the end of the day, as I hope this post helps to demonstrate, we are always willing to talk about things.

 Grot 6 wrote:

Had it been all about the licensing, it would have been understood. Instead, the decision to take the easy road and try to gak the gakkers was taken and you ended up with a public relations nightmare of epic proportions on your hands. All the while everything was falling apart, there was no interaction or relent to the point that, "Yes, we messed up. You guys didn't want that, so maybe we might have to rethink the decision making on this issue."
Instead, you basicly came out and told everyone a bunch of lies and double talk that ended up deep sixing the game. Then had the brass to tell people they didn't know what they were talking about.

If you are referring to SST, we were literally (well, legally) gagged. We had to close things down (at the time, we were told it would only be temporary), and we could not say why. Told not even to hint at it. So no, people did not know what was going on until we left the agreement and could talk openly. I still don't think we have ever related the whole story. However, I have never knowingly lied about Mongoose or any of its games to you guys.

 Grot 6 wrote:

Gangs of Mega City 1. No support, shelved, and ignored. THEN comes out yet again, as a Judge Dredd Miniatures game. Same MO. Crap sculpts, no support, ignored.

Well, GoMC1 did have support, in the form of several new gangs and a supplement. The JD miniatures game has a very different approach to Gangs (and I am guessing you have not read it), and it has clearly been supported - you only have to drop by our forums to see how we have been involving players in its development. As for crap sculpts... no. Just plain no. You may not like them, which is fine, but the models we have put out over the past two years are not bad by any means. I would humbly submit that some presumptions have been made about this game that are not completely on the ball.

Putting this another way - just what would you expect to see from us that we have not already done for Dredd?

 Grot 6 wrote:

We won't even touch the $50.00 micromachines. of "Battlefield Evolution", and what gak that turned into.

Well, okay, but I would be happy to discuss that as well. But none of them ever had a $50 price tag.

Look, guy- You trying to be funny here? NOW you want to come here and call me a liar?


YOU ALREADY HAVE THE REPUTATION. Playing tiddly winks with me isn't going to get it back.


And since you want to be cute with me-

They were well OVER $50.00.

A tank was around 30 bucks. a squad of a few guys was well around the same price. I know, I was there when it first came out. I didn't make the prices up. Want to play with me over that, as well?

Along with that- That Battlefield Evolution stuff was the same or of worse quality then a micro machine. I would be generous to even compare them to Plastic Green Army Men. You can't even give them away now. Even when they first came out, they were a joke.

Your responses are ... interesting, but not really required.

You can play cut and paste all day long. Your company already has the reputation, playing with me isn't going to change it. You did it to yourselves and you have a reputation for crappy service and substandard support for the games you bring to the public.

Just try looking at the issues and get off the soapbox with the spin control the next time you decide you want to be in the miniatures gaming business.

I'm lost to you as a customer. I'm never going to look at ANYTHING you come out with in the same light as I would other companies...

Mongoose to me equates to false hopes, big talk, and no action. Self advertising that your the poor victim here is preposterous, and not a little condisending.

Your damage has been done, and this.... whatever your trying to do here isn't going to change that. Food for thought, though? Take what your doing a little more seriously. You might even gain that reputation back if you try.


You won't by living in denial.

Grot.. $30 =/= $50, infact $30 < $50...

I may invoke a ScarletSquig style re-threading when the Kickstarter launches on Thursday.

Yes I think that might be a good idea Cyporiean.

Thanks for taking the time to come and post here MongooseMatt, some interesting comments right there!

Always enjoyed Starship Troopers, so am looking forward to whatever comes out of the Dredd Kickstarter.

Firstly, I have to say (as a wholly disinterested party) that I'm impressed that Matt should bother to state his case to us - something few if any other figures from the games world would do - and that he should do so in the face of quite so much hostility.

Secondly - and more importantly - this whole saga begins to look rather more like a lesson in the perils of licensed games. Can anybody actually think of a wargame, RPG or CCG licensed from a prominent franchise that has lasted for a significant time and is still ongoing? The successive launches and collapses of those based on Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Doctor Who and both the DC and Marvel universes - many of which indeed bankrupted their publishers - strongly suggests to me that, even comparatively cheap, niche franchises like Babylon 5 or Starship Troopers are doomed to be economically unfeasible, at least once the blaze of free publicity which accompanies a Hollywood film or whatever dissipates, as profits simply won't cover costs over an extended period.

I don't often lavish praise on Games Workshop's business decisions, but theirs seems to have been the correct analysis: licensed products might be a good way to launch a games company, but it's no coincidence that the defining "big guns" of the gaming industry in the last thirty years (TSR, Wizards, White Wolf, GW - though I realise only the latter still exist as an independent entity) all achieved what they did principally on the strength of properties of their own design, while the likes of West End, Last Unicorn and Decipher exist now only in the filing cabinets of their liquidators.

 Cyporiean wrote:
Grot.. $30 =/= $50, infact $30 < $50...

I may invoke a ScarletSquig style re-threading when the Kickstarter launches on Thursday.

Agreed - PM once the new is ready, and the old should be closed!

I hope this turns out to be something good, as I'd love to get a good ol' fashioned Block War started!

+1 to the re-threading when it comes out.

I am interested in the release mainly to have some cool Dredd figs but so far.

the main part I am confused with is how a poster with but 7 posts to his name can manipulate the quote function better than an old hand? Bonus point for quote splitting.

 Grot 6 wrote:

Your responses are ... interesting, but not really required.

When you level a post like yours, you gotta give them a right of reply.

And this is far from just "Mongoose trying to convince you" as if it really just was about you, the problem could have been avoided by you just skipping the thread.
Instead you made some comments which would concern a person who doesn't know much about Mongoose as a company (read: me) and might steer clear just on the passion you bring to the table.
Having heard some reasonable and well crafted responses I am a lot less concerned about it.
When you got all indignant it kinda makes me feel like your concerns have some specific root and it is more of a personal and passionate thing than something that I should share.

I am not saying I am going to be backing the kickstarter, still gotta see if it interests me, but I am only mildly hesitant rather than watching for the sky to fall as you seem to be.

 Alpharius wrote:


Agreed - PM once the new is ready, and the old should be closed!

Will do, thanks Alph.

For full disclosure, while I do not have anything to do with the Dreadd line, I do work with Mongoose on several projects.

 Cyporiean wrote:
Grot.. $30 =/= $50, infact $30 < $50...

I may invoke a ScarletSquig style re-threading when the Kickstarter launches on Thursday.

$30+ $30+30+30= ? again? 30 goes for just one 1 thing Cyporiean. 1 tank or squad... not that it matters to me anymore. You just want to be funny and make jokes at my expense.

How many do you have, by the way?

What was that for, anyway? You want to get in here and be like that to me?How did I come to that, by the way? How exacly does me getting the shaft from MONGOOSE, have anything to do with you?

I've been burned more than I care to discuss by these people. You think I'm the bad guy here? Yeah, because I am gyped over 2 grand worth of a game that was at that time a good one, as well as other games?


I commended him for showing himself here and trying to .... whatever he came here to do, but the whole hearted fact to me is that I am still hot over the treatment that I recieived from this company.


If that makes me a bad guy, then I guess its good to be bad.


Oh, and for you Vain.

Yes, it was over 2000 bucks worth of a game that in a space of a few months was worth less then zero. There are a few more out there that are worse off then me, but in my world, when you were hot for a game, then it goes out in the way that it did, it brings back some baggage.

That was just for the Starship Troopers. We won't get into the Gangs of Mega City 1...

I've always been somewhat of a Mongoose Publishing fan. I have all the Conan RPG books as well as the B5 d20 RPG books that were published. They were lovely, filled with incredible source detail and minimal crunch, especially for a d20 system.

B5 ACTA was fantastic, and I can appreciate that the license could no longer be maintained.

Somewhere though, around the time of the release of Traveller, standards significantly dropped. I was no longer able to get replacements for defective books. The books themselves were shoddily bound and editied, filled with reprinted nonsense that made no sense, worst offender in my eyes being B5 Traveller. I struggled to take advantage of deals or pre-orders, and after the debacle with the ACTA Starfleet miniatures my remaining faith in the company plummeted.

I have some of the Judges that I picked up... sometime presumably, can't honestly remember when. They nicely capture the art style of the 2000 A.D. comic, so maybe they're worth a shot. However if Mongoose struggle to handle pre-order distribution in the same vein as ACTA Starfleet, the idea of trusting my money to them with a Kickstarter is less than appealing.

On an unrelated note, the new Dredd film is quite excellent and definetely captures the spirit of the comics. It has more of a realistic feel, for lack of better term, more akin to Nolan's recent take on Batman. YMMV on the last point, but at the least rent it when it's cheap.

You complained about "$50 Micromachines", which Matthew stated they never had a product that retailed for $50, which you then stated they were $30 SRP.

Your complaint doesn't make sense.

Battlefield Evolution never interested me, so I don't have any of it. I do have some Starship Troopers, Babylon 5, and Star Fleet miniatures though.

 Pacific wrote:
Yes I think that might be a good idea Cyporiean.

Thanks for taking the time to come and post here MongooseMatt, some interesting comments right there!

Always enjoyed Starship Troopers, so am looking forward to whatever comes out of the Dredd Kickstarter.

Indeed.. thanks for the reply in thread, Matt. I don't agree with everything you wrote (frankly I think half the dredd line looks like it was sculpted as part of a high school art class assignment quality wise and doesn't live up to previous B5 and SST work) but I appreciate you coming here and addressing some issues raised in a rather Krogan/Ork fashion. Running a game line/store/etc as a business in the black seems to vary significantly from what we customers think should pie in the sky happen.

It isn't that big a deal.

The icing on the cake is that Cyporiean wants in on it, because she has monitary interest in Mongoose not doing her game in the same way. I can sympathise, and see how it might be disturbing for her that someone has issue with same company. That she wanted to get it on over symantics didn't help.


On thinking over this after a few minutes. Matt I apologise, but I'm still .... have strong negative opinions.... at the company. Don't take it personal, I'm sure you are a great guy and all that. BUT that game particularly Starship Troopers , and what happened, because of it didn't set well with me. The way in which it was handled sucked, to put it plainly.

If you want happy thoughts based on how I feel I was treated, it isn't happening. I did enjoy the new Dredd movie, and hope that we see a better showing for the Dredd guys and your game because of it.

Yeah, its not personal, but its something that ticks me off more then a little bit.

Good point there - let's stay on topic in here, and perhaps more importantly, let's stay civil and polite.

Thanks!

Hmm I guess I should avoid posting "Kickstarter coming next week" type of topics from now on? They seem to not go too well

 kenshin620 wrote:
Hmm I guess I should avoid posting "Kickstarter coming next week" type of topics from now on? They seem to not go too well

You just have bad luck it seems

 kenshin620 wrote:
Hmm I guess I should avoid posting "Kickstarter coming next week" type of topics from now on? They seem to not go too well

No mate please keep doing them, I probably wouldn't have been aware of this one if you hadn't and I'm sure I'm not along with that!

You are just the messenger, you shouldn't be shot

 Grot 6 wrote:


Look, guy- You trying to be funny here? NOW you want to come here and call me a liar?

Wow.

Umm, no, if you are referring to the $50 thing, just pointing out that you may have been mistaken, as they were $24.95 for a tank and $29.95 for a squad.

 Grot 6 wrote:

Along with that- That Battlefield Evolution stuff was the same or of worse quality then a micro machine. I would be generous to even compare them to Plastic Green Army Men. You can't even give them away now.

Well... we can - with a lower price, BF Evo is having something of a renaissance today. To explain to anyone interested, what we learned from BF Evo was that when it came to pre-painted models, you wanted low price, variation in the models, and good paint jobs. As it turns out, you can really only do two of those. We now do the sets for $10 a piece, and they fly out - that is the price point people seem to be happy with. Trouble is, we cannto produce new ones for that price...

As for quality, they improved greatly as subsequent waves came along. Ever see the Warrior IFV? That was a sweet model. Don't know about it being better than anyone could paint, but it was better than I could paint!

 Grot 6 wrote:
you have a reputation for crappy service

Taking a bit of a risk here (!), but I am not sure that is true. I think our service is pretty much one of the things we are lauded for. No doubt others here will confirm or deny that

 Grot 6 wrote:
Self advertising that your the poor victim here is preposterous,

I am sorry, I did not make myself clear on my first post. I am not saying we were victimised in any way. I am saying that if we had continued said lines, we would have gone bust.

 English Assassin wrote:
something few if any other figures from the games world would do - and that he should do so in the face of quite so much hostility.

I am going to get a few emails about this thread later - some of the other 'figures' do ask me why I do this, why I open myself up to potential grief.

First, I love talking about games and the games business. Really don't have an axe to grind there, just love chatting about the cool things we all do in this hobby. Second, misguided it may be, I acknowledge, but I genuinely feel that communication is everything and that if we keep plugging away, someday we can grab everyone. Even Grot 6

 English Assassin wrote:

Secondly - and more importantly - this whole saga begins to look rather more like a lesson in the perils of licensed games. Can anybody actually think of a wargame, RPG or CCG licensed from a prominent franchise that has lasted for a significant time and is still ongoing? The successive launches and collapses of those based on Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Doctor Who and both the DC and Marvel universes - many of which indeed bankrupted their publishers - strongly suggests to me that, even comparatively cheap, niche franchises like Babylon 5 or Starship Troopers are doomed to be economically unfeasible, at least once the blaze of free publicity which accompanies a Hollywood film or whatever dissipates, as profits simply won't cover costs over an extended period.

This is a very good point, and one we have spent a long, long time looking at.

On the whole, I think they are worthwhile - but you have to take the right approach and, importantly, manage expectations. If we do something like this again, we will make sure everything you _absolutely_ need to play the game comes out in the first wave of releases, and we will let people know the game is not likely to be around forever. Take B5, for example - we ran it as if it was always going to be there, and we were fortunate that we managed to do just about everything (aside from a few minor League fleets) that anyone could ever want. Right now, people still play the game and run tournaments, because it was complete. The same argument could be made about SST, if your primary interest was in MI and bugs (and that might have been a mistake, making the game about more than just those two sides - we were trying to make it another 40k, and that was probably a leap too far).

The key, I think, is to set things up so anyone can get everything they absolutely need early on, and then run the line with an intended termination point - if you get a renewal, great, take things from there, but don't count on it happening.

In any case, I do believe all of that is better than the rip-off miniatures (the not-B5, the not-Star Trek, etc models) that float around. They really don't do anyone any good, especially those of us who do choose to play by the rules (I say rules - it is called the law).

 Vain wrote:

the main part I am confused with is how a poster with but 7 posts to his name can manipulate the quote function better than an old hand? Bonus point for quote splitting.

Well, I am doing a lot of cut and pasting on multiple tabs to do it, so if there is an easier way, I am all ears

 Grot 6 wrote:

Yes, it was over 2000 bucks worth of a game that in a space of a few months was worth less then zero.

Well, it was not worth less than zero, I can assure you. We will also skip right past the bit where a game is still functional for years after sale. How about this...

We guarantee all our products. You spent $2k on a game? You are welcome to swap it all out with us for anything from our current ranges. You don't have to do it immediatly if there isnothing that grabs your interest at the moment - come back to us whenever you fancy, and we will honour this. Any time. Just drop me a line at msprange@mongoosepublishing.com, and we will sort you out. And yes, that goes for anyone.

Zond wrote:

Somewhere though, around the time of the release of Traveller, standards significantly dropped. I was no longer able to get replacements for defective books. The books themselves were shoddily bound and editied, filled with reprinted nonsense that made no sense, worst offender in my eyes being B5 Traveller. I struggled to take advantage of deals or pre-orders, and after the debacle with the ACTA Starfleet miniatures my remaining faith in the company plummeted.

We went through a 6 month period where the binding on books was not good. We replaced every bad book we heard about, and in the end switched to printing in the US, which ended that issue overnight. That was five years ago.

B5 Traveller, you are absolutely not wrong about, and that is a book I regret. You see, we completely misjudged the audience of that book - we figured (from looking at the sales figures of the B5 RPG books) the only people interested int hat book would be those playing the B5 RPG who wanted to come over to Traveller, so we produced that book as basically a conversion, thinking people already had all the pretty full colour hardbacks for the background material. Never guessed there would be a whole bunch of _Traveller_ people who wanted to get into B5. That book was certainly a misfire, my apologies.

Zond wrote:

I have some of the Judges that I picked up... sometime presumably, can't honestly remember when. They nicely capture the art style of the 2000 A.D. comic, so maybe they're worth a shot. However if Mongoose struggle to handle pre-order distribution in the same vein as ACTA Starfleet, the idea of trusting my money to them with a Kickstarter is less than appealing.

I may be able to help here - much of what we are offering on the Kickstarter is already in production. Further more, because of the timescale Kickstarter runs on (one month), we will be watching the pledges carefully and ensuring production matches the rate of interest. We will get a whole bunch of goodies out of the door almost immediatly, and already be well on our way with the brand new items.

Whilst certainly nice to recieve an apology for the B5 Traveller game, there were numerous issues with many, myself included, struggling to recieve, or exchange the defective resins for the intital release of ACTA Starfleet. I wasn't even able to pre-order the "you want everything!" bundle, which ultimately, and sadly, turned out to be a blessing in disguise. As this was your last major release, will you be making any changes the manner in which you distribute models or in the way you handle defective casts?

@matt i didn't say twenty years i said outdated and old and in the hobby community ten years is outdated. Also you didnt discount B5 when you closed it at all. You guys just said "hey we have one month left not renewing. If you want it get it" . I get where many people are coming from on the screwed over bit but my response was your stuff is outdated and if your going to kickstarter then sculpt new models. You even admitted that they were old style so thank you for that. In the end to quote my old platoon daddy " one awe frak will ruin a thousand ata boyz".

Either way... great move there by MongooseMatt to come in and take some flames.

I'm impressed!


Need more genuine discussions like this on these.. allegedly... discussion boards!!

Good luck to your project.

I'm mean, nasty, and cruel. But I have to give him some credit for at least the attempt, and looking over this I am still ed, but I might have been a little over the top in response, when Matt is at least is trying to be civil about the issue.

Doesn't do much good to keep mad about spilt milk, I guess.


Edited to try to be positive, irregardless of my personal feelings.


Not trying to pee in the punchbowl.