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 Azazelx wrote:
For me, now, WGF means the product will be of good/high quality, and that a KS will be quite delayed. So for me, a good product for retail.

Retail for me is when the KS has a higher chance of failure (defiance? CMoN? whatever it was related to the Maelstrom guy/s?) or the savings aren't there (AvP, RH to an extent hence the lower pledge). I do see what you're saying and definitely understand why. I just find that, even taking into account the interest from investing the money, you can still save a boatload via judicious KS which is important to me ; p I always keep a substantial cash buffer so I can easily take advantage of such deals, I find it works out cheaper in the long run.

I guess you could also make the argument for ending up having no use for the product if it takes too long. DFG is the only highly delayed minis KS for me though, and nothing has eclipsed them in the meantime imo but yeah, that is a risk.

Of course, KS savings can be substantial, but then as Buzzsaw likes to say - money today is worth more than the same amount of money tomorrow. It's one thing if it's a relatively small amount of money. $1-200 or so, I'm not quite as worried. But:

We wanted to let you know that we successfully completed a payment to DreamForge-Games for $690.00 on Sep 16, 2012. This payment is related to the payment authorization listed below:

Shipping Option: Ship when ready Grand Total: $856.00
You chose to have your items shipped as they are ready. They will be shipped a stage at a time.

Pledged Already: $690.00
Additional Pledge: $166.00
Outstanding: $0.00

This is way too much money to sensibly risk repeating these kinds of delays on again for DFG or WGF. Sure, my savings are substantial, but let's be honest, I would never have bought most of what I'm getting at retail anyway. I'm like that, many of us are like that. We're like the apocryphal woman who spends $1000 on a shoe sale and then justifies it to her husband by telling him that she "saved" $1000. Most of us are that woman, only with toy soldiers instead of shoes.


Meanwhile, this took 2 days to arrive:

Your Order Contains...

Cart Items SKU Qty Item Price Item Total
Eisenkern Stormtroopers Accessory Set
WGF-DFG-IA001 1 $22.99 AUD $22.99 AUD
Eisenkern Stormtroopers Squad
WGF-DFG-IN001 2 $44.99 AUD $89.98 AUD
Eisenkern Stormtroopers Support Weapons
WGF-DFG-IN003 2 $35.99 AUD $71.98 AUD
Mercenaries Alazais
HD-5009 1 $8.99 AUD $8.99 AUD
Saracens Efrit Warriors
HD-6025 1 $15.99 AUD $15.99 AUD
Saracens Fâtina
HD-6012 1 $8.99 AUD $8.99 AUD
Saracens Layla Bint Suraya Bint Javaira
HD-6017 1 $24.99 AUD $24.99 AUD
Saracens Pillar of Faith
HD-6007 1 $8.99 AUD $8.99 AUD
Saracens Salâh ad-Dîn
HD-6013 1 $16.99 AUD $16.99 AUD
Saracens Tarik ibn Malik ibn Rushd & Hunting Eagle
HD-6010 1 $12.99 AUD $12.99 AUD
Westerners Grenadiers
HD-7011 1 $9.99 AUD $9.99 AUD
Westerners Sister Eloise
HD-7010 1 $8.99 AUD $8.99 AUD
Westerners Swashbuckler
HD-7004 1 $8.99 AUD $8.99 AUD
Subtotal: $310.85 AUD
Shipping: $14.99 AUD
Grand Total: $325.84 AUD
Tax Included in Total: $29.62 AUD

Of course, I don't expect a KS to deliver in 2 days, but 20 months on, with no end realistically in sight or confirmed - and "very late" being the ...signature style of WGF - I think paying a "premium" (ie, discounted retail) is the way to go from now on. For me, anyway. That's how I got my Eisenkern, as you can see.

$1 today is worth $1 tomorrow of course, but using your invoice, at $45 per 20 man ST's and $23 per accessory box, that's $68 for what was $30 in the KS. Even investing your money for a year or two won't come close to that discount. I can see why you would go that way, but I heavily weight price and quality over time. To the extent that, if I had known beforehand it would have taken this long I still would have done it rather than pay discounted retail.

Are delays common with WGF projects? I thought it was only DFG that suffered heavily from delays. My WWX was on time, the only delay with it iirc was US customs chucking a sad.

Actually, if we act outraged enough will it convince them to cough up that discount coupon for everyone and Chinese shipping for us Aussies? : p

Who knows? It'd certainly be nice to see as a gesture after this many delays.

My point is that while I got a few boxes of Eisenkern (my $856 contained no Eisenkern or APC, as I understandably ran out of money getting Leviathans, weapons, Widows and, um, Not-Terminators.) there's no way I would have bought that much at retail anyway - so I ended up spending a lot more on the KS than I ever would have at retail. I'm also saying that the delays are simply too much for me to go down that path again.

As for WGF, there's Secret Weapon Tablescapes (7 months late and counting - at least 2 more) Kingdom Death - that had a much longer lead time (6mo and counting) and of course, DFG, which is at least a year late on Wave 3 by now, and no end in sight. Maybe Christmas, hopefully? Might be more, I'm not 100% sure, but you get the idea.

I weigh price over time to what I feel is a reasonable degree, but eventually I start to lose interest. I get pissed off, etc. Or something else comes out that's better, or does the same job just as well, or cheaper, etc. For example, I'm very likely to be recovering US$451 from MERCs in the next week, because I'm over their delays, half-information and also the fact that their game isn't actually a game, and more of a framework. Think I'll have trouble putting that $450 to good use immediately?

@yonan, sorry, I didn't mean to get the thread negative just to get a deal on miniatures.

Me starting this rant was more to try and wake mark up and get an update. Unfortunately it seams he's either not following this thread anymore, or he is expecting the delay to grow again and is bidding his time before dropping that on us. I'm a little frustrated by the silence still, especially as he's posted in other kickstarter threads here on dakkadakka since his silence started. I just figure we as supporters deserved(were entitled too) better communications.

But has he posted about his KS on other threads?

Much as I am also frustrated that the only recent update has been from Dwarfist showing us what goodies are in the APC kit, and starting to give us an idea of size and how well it paints up, I am hoping that Mark's silence can be taken as "No news as I am spending all my time ensuring that everything is going as fast as possible and you will all get shipping notices within the timeframe I said you would".

Mind you, I am also in on the Robotech RRT KS by Palladium Books, and despite them promising delivery last Christmas - due to them being 98% done before the KS started - I don't expect any of my pledge this side of New Year. I'm more annoyed with their delays than I am with Marks, because they have been trying to blow smoke up my butt about it all from day 1.

Really hope Mark doesn't end up in the same camp and comes up with an official update soon.

I imagine that, much like Adam at KD:M, Mark is waiting for a pivotal bit of news from WGF. However, the length of time both have been waiting before posting an update leads me to believe that the news will not be particularly good. If nothing else though, shots of dwartist's awesome work with the APC kit would be good to send out to the backers since not every DFG backer may be watching.

In terms of backing future KS's from WGF; I'm ambivalent. Much like Azazelx, I don't like putting out tons of money and then having to twiddle my thumbs for a large amount of time. After putting some large amounts of money out there (I'm over 4 figures in this one; it was #1 on my backer history until I went terrain crazy on DZ), I've actually stepped away from most KS unless there was just something fantastic on offer. That said, I would probably back this one again, because I love the look of Star Wars stormtroopers and spent much of my youth reading about WW2 and the Wehrmacht in particular. The Eisenkern design melds those two motifs quite well IMO so they would qualify as "fantastic" in my book. Future releases? I'll probably back in a limited fashion because I do want to see the company succeed, but it won't be the huge cash drop of this one.

I do hope WGF figures out why they're seeing these sorts of delays (as we're past the idea of it being "Mark has some really complex designs" stage) and remedies the problem. Some of it is undoubtedly the clients having very complicated projects, but enough of those projects are behind schedule to say there's something awry at the factory as well.

@conrad, no he wasn't posting about his kickstarter, he was in other kickstarter forums here on dakkadakka. So it's not a lack of logging in, or too busy with other work, it's just not getting the info to us.

Much more likely there just is no info to get to anybody yet,

he's never really been one for regular 'I have no news' posts

Yeah, he's even said he doesn't like / won't post anything until he has solid info. So while I'd like him to post, that's another way of saying I'd like there to be progress with the project basically. So Mark not posting really is just there being no news to tell us.

So, back to criticising people for thinking differently to me. FFS Aza! ; p I thought Tablescapes was proceeding well, my bad if it's not. That was the only other project I knew of that bumped DFG down the list other than WWX.

It was heavily implied that Kingdom Death: Monster also bumped DFG back in the line.

well from my understanding KD:M had all the funds to pay for the molds. That being the case I don't blame WGF for bumping them up the ladder as the money in hand allows for their continued growth where the dreamforge stuff was mostly being done on credit. Sure it will sell and eventually pay itself off and make money, but to get the KD:M up and running means more positive cash flow quicker. WWX I have no info on, I looked at the kickstarter but it had the monopose gang members and being done by romeo were 2 things that put me off.

Does anyone know if RRT's plastics are actually handled by WGF? *gulp*

Although, with the number they bandied about, I wouldn't be surprised if they actually contracted work through RH.

I would say no; the sprues shown in the latest RRT update lack the distinctive WGF stacking sockets and the part splits are quite daft for miniatures which WGF would have more experience with to say "this is a dumb idea" (thanks in no small part to Mark).

And Theo, I don't fault WGF for pursuing KD:M; that's a major coup there and an excellent showcase project in addition to being able to pay cash. It's just that I don't know that they would have had the ability to land KD without the work they did for DFG. Again, I'm not trying to say that WGF is evil or bad or lazy; I just think that they've become the weak link the KS fulfillment chain for the projects they've involved with. Whether that's fair or not, as Mark has said that the creators and their demands play a role in that as well, I think that's the perception that's entering into the marketplace and that's not good for WGF in the long-term.

Azazelx is likely not alone in the "won't back a KS that's produced by WGF" stance, and that will make those creators less likely to seek them out as a producer. Everyone loses in this equation since WGF DOES do excellent work, and losing out on that quality will likely hurt the projects in question. That is why I feel it's imperative for WGF to figure out some way to overcome whatever the roadblocks are between where they are on projects and where the finish line is to wrap things up.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Does anyone know if RRT's plastics are actually handled by WGF? *gulp*

I'm quite sure RRT is not affiliated with WGF in any way.

Also, I'm not sure that Dreamforge was the first outside game company to approach WGF for manufacturing. I'm speculating that the Catalyst Leviathans game miniatures were in development before the Dreamforge/WGF partnership. I may be wrong on that though.

Yeah, I'm done with WGF KS from now on... but I have no problem buying their retail stuff in the future

At this point we need Mark to chime in with some sort of update of status or something to let the masses know.

WGF might be slow, but you will get quality. They've become the "other Renedra" as far as production capacity (overbooked) and quality (high) goes.

As soon as Mantic complete the blood-out-of-a-stone process of getting good quality out of their own "some other cheap China company" manufacturer, you can expect them to be jumped on by half a dozen different companies all wanting 50 tools at once too. Good plastic tooling seems to be a rare asset, with it being very expensive to sort out if you're not using China, and very hard to find a good quality solution if you are using China. WGF ticks quality and value rather well, so have taken in as much cash-upfront orders as they can and given priority to them over the stuff where they undercharged and the client is very particular (DFG KS)

I don't think there's any serious concern with this, just that no comprimises on any aspect of quality are being tolerated. Which is the right way to run a KS, regardless of how late it ends up.

I think dreamforge is starting to knock up against the lack of recent updates + long delays = grumpy backers wall

 scarletsquig wrote:
WGF might be slow, but you will get quality. They've become the "other Renedra" as far as production capacity (overbooked) and quality (high) goes.

As soon as Mantic complete the blood-out-of-a-stone process of getting good quality out of their own "some other cheap China company" manufacturer, you can expect them to be jumped on by half a dozen different companies all wanting 50 tools at once too. Good plastic tooling seems to be a rare asset, with it being very expensive to sort out if you're not using China, and very hard to find a good quality solution if you are using China. WGF ticks quality and value rather well, so have taken in as much cash-upfront orders as they can and given priority to them over the stuff where they undercharged and the client is very particular (DFG KS)

I don't think there's any serious concern with this, just that no comprimises on any aspect of quality are being tolerated. Which is the right way to run a KS, regardless of how late it ends up.

I agree with everything you said here. My only caveat is in regard to the last sentence, in that I'm personally not willing to pay for it upfront anymore. I'd rather be part of the retail customer support on the other end than pay slightly less, except 2 years upfront. It's ok though, Yonan will cover where I would have been.

Has dakka officially turned on Mark?

 HisDivineShadow wrote:
Has dakka officially turned on Mark?

Naw. It's the inevitable phase of a Kickstarter called, "Eternal holding pattern"; it seems like nothing's happening and the project founder is incommunicato so the peasants naturally reach for their pitchforks.

Honestly though, this thing is like what? Nearly 2 years past due? Delays are one thing..... I backed at just the Leviathan level and got everything I paid for but I feel for you sorry lot who are waiting for things that haven't even got sculpts yet or digital renders...

 agnosto wrote:

 HisDivineShadow wrote:
Has dakka officially turned on Mark?

Naw. It's the inevitable phase of a Kickstarter called, "Eternal holding pattern"; it seems like nothing's happening and the project founder is incommunicato so the peasants naturally reach for their pitchforks.

Honestly though, this thing is like what? Nearly 2 years past due? Delays are one thing..... I backed at just the Leviathan level and got everything I paid for but I feel for you sorry lot who are waiting for things that haven't even got sculpts yet or digital renders...

It is "only" one year behind schedule at this point; Wave 3 was slated for May of 2013 so the math there is pretty easy, even for me.

And yes, there isn't a "turning" on Mark. It's just the people wanting information and not really finding any so there's a natural dissatisfaction. In Mark's defense, coming and saying "Yeah, I don't know anything either" isn't really going to help, so he's better off waiting until he has something of note rather than a palladium-style non-update update. On the flip side, he doesn't want to get into the months (plural) without saying anything either.

I'm hopeful matters won't get to that point though.

I haven't turned on Mark, I still love the designs, and the execution. My problem has been he has gotten really quiet lately. I think the biggest reason people have been understanding so far in this loooooong ordeal has been because he has communicated great to the backers. Lately that has stopped, and the "still expecting q2" comments followed right up with haven't begun tooling xyz yet leaves me with questions. It's been a couple days now and still no response to quiet "the peasents with pitchforks".

The fact that he sent a prototype to a painter and he's been showing the progress here without mark so much as saying "good job" or letting everyone know how close they are also baffles me.

During the campaign I wanted to back more stuff, but I'm glad I only ordered phase 1 and 2. I felt he wasn't going to meet the deadline dates back then, but this amount of time is getting absurd.

 agnosto wrote:
Honestly though, this thing is like what? Nearly 2 years past due? Delays are one thing..... I backed at just the Leviathan level and got everything I paid for but I feel for you sorry lot who are waiting for things that haven't even got sculpts yet or digital renders...

We still haven't even seen concept art for the Black Widows.

 Krinsath wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

 HisDivineShadow wrote:
Has dakka officially turned on Mark?

Naw. It's the inevitable phase of a Kickstarter called, "Eternal holding pattern"; it seems like nothing's happening and the project founder is incommunicato so the peasants naturally reach for their pitchforks.

Honestly though, this thing is like what? Nearly 2 years past due? Delays are one thing..... I backed at just the Leviathan level and got everything I paid for but I feel for you sorry lot who are waiting for things that haven't even got sculpts yet or digital renders...

It is "only" one year behind schedule at this point; Wave 3 was slated for May of 2013 so the math there is pretty easy, even for me.

And yes, there isn't a "turning" on Mark. It's just the people wanting information and not really finding any so there's a natural dissatisfaction. In Mark's defense, coming and saying "Yeah, I don't know anything either" isn't really going to help, so he's better off waiting until he has something of note rather than a palladium-style non-update update. On the flip side, he doesn't want to get into the months (plural) without saying anything either.

I'm hopeful matters won't get to that point though.

I would actually disagree; touching base and saying "sorry, X,Y, and Z are in holding patterns, we're going on A and B is in planning" (or words to that effect) would have a good effect I think. If for no other reason then it would dispel the notion that something bad happened to him. Seriously, I haven't seen anything recent that would be inconsistent with the police finding him following a reports of a "terrible odor" coming from his apartment.

Don't get me wrong, Mark is up there in my "post-campaign hall of fame" for his good communications ( along with Adam Poots). But Mark hasn't (to my knowledge) uttered a peep for about a week now. (Poots, by way of contrast, made some substantive communications earlier today.)

There is a virtue to keeping up communications; after all, it's not like there is nothing to talk about besides the particulars of this kickstarter.

I do agree that some communication at this point would be good to alleviate some of the tension. Even though I went in big on this one (one Leviathan, but LOTS of the rest of the models, including 15 APCs), I'm not too fussed about it. I've backed enough Kickstarters before and after this one to simply accept that the stuff "will get here when it gets here." To me, the KS discount more than compensates for the time.

Anyway, regarding WGF's delays, it just looks like they've got too many projects all coming together at the same time. Bit of a logjam, basically.

One thing I like to remind myself, and I do think others who are talking about "waiting until retail" should consider, is that, sometimes, the "retail" may not happen at all without the support for the Kickstarter. Mark's project pulled in about $200K, and it was through our support that we're getting as many models as we are. Without that support from us, the backers, all we might have had were the Leviathans, and no plastic Eisenkern. Sure, a dollar yesterday may be worth less(or more?) than a dollar today, but without that dollar yesterday, there may be no product today.

I'm not disputing that a quick peep of "I'm alive" as a comment or post at various forums wouldn't go amiss, but I'm referring mainly to formal KS updates. If you send those out with no information, it can easily stir up a hornet's nest worse than the grumbling as you remind people who have stopped paying attention (which is probably the majority if other social trends hold true) how little progress you've made in your attempt to placate those who are staring at the comments every day. You can mitigate that by just communicating regularly and often, sure, but it's mainly because your backers start to view it as spam and stop paying close attention. I am also amused that KS advises project creators against doing that.

Mark has certainly been oddly quiet both on Dakka and KS for nearly a month now, so it'd certainly be nice to hear from him I agree. I'm just not going to start reaching for the pitchfork for a little while yet...

 HisDivineShadow wrote:
Has dakka officially turned on Mark?

Nah, it's not turning on him, not Pitchforks (for me, anyway). I still like Mark, and DGF/WGF's quality. It's more an expression of frustration/exasperation because of this and other WGF project's seemingly interminable delays, the fact that this one is getting to 2 years late (ok, wave 3 is "only" one year late, but the project has been late from Wave 1, so late on top of late on top of late doesn't make "only" one year any easier - since the project has been running late for 20 months now, we're clearly not going to have it in Q2 at this point, and given the way things have gone, it looks like Christmas or even after CNY 2015 - and frankly, I'm getting a bit over it.

Sure, my dates are speculative, but they're at least as good as anything else we've ever been given.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Theophony wrote:
I haven't turned on Mark, I still love the designs, and the execution. My problem has been he has gotten really quiet lately. I think the biggest reason people have been understanding so far in this loooooong ordeal has been because he has communicated great to the backers. Lately that has stopped, and the "still expecting q2" comments followed right up with haven't begun tooling xyz yet leaves me with questions.

You're 100% correct there. Ongoing communication is the only reason this thread hasn't ended up like the Raging Heroes or Palladium ones. Take those comms away, and there will slowly be a turning.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

One thing I like to remind myself, and I do think others who are talking about "waiting until retail" should consider, is that, sometimes, the "retail" may not happen at all without the support for the Kickstarter. Mark's project pulled in about $200K, and it was through our support that we're getting as many models as we are. Without that support from us, the backers, all we might have had were the Leviathans, and no plastic Eisenkern. Sure, a dollar yesterday may be worth less than a dollar today, but without that dollar yesterday, there may be no product today.

Heh. I was waiting for someone to pull that one out. Unfortunately, I no longer care. It's a shame, but it's the truth.

Basically my trust and patience has been exhausted. Fool me once and so forth. Now it's my goodwill that's slowly expiring...

 Azazelx wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

One thing I like to remind myself, and I do think others who are talking about "waiting until retail" should consider, is that, sometimes, the "retail" may not happen at all without the support for the Kickstarter. Mark's project pulled in about $200K, and it was through our support that we're getting as many models as we are. Without that support from us, the backers, all we might have had were the Leviathans, and no plastic Eisenkern. Sure, a dollar yesterday may be worth less than a dollar today, but without that dollar yesterday, there may be no product today.

Heh. I was waiting for someone to pull that one out. Unfortunately, I no longer care. It's a shame, but it's the truth.

Basically my trust and patience has been exhausted. Fool me once and so forth. Now it's my goodwill that's slowly expiring...

Then, honestly, I would suggest that Kickstarter just isn't the thing for you anymore, regardless of who is producing the product. There are nearly always delays, foreseen and unforeseen, that occur with even the best planned projects, and that's part of the whole "Kickstarter Experience™"

I've backed quite a few nongaming projects as well (so my experience is not limited to or spoiled by just the gaming ones), and manufacturing and design delays are par for the course. It's all about weighing the risk/time/cost/reward aspects, and it's something we all do with every purchase we make. No ill will or hard feelings to you that this experience has soured you on future projects.

I just continue to warm myself with the comforting knowledge that 15 APCs will be coming to me.