Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I was at GenCon and the booth was pretty busy. Unfortunately I didn't get a very good idea about which figures on display were actually Kickstarter plastics ('The big guy in the case' was the guidance I received, and there's a lot of big guys in the cases!). It was my first time seeing any Relic Knights figures in person-the humans are pretty small but they look great. I'm hoping the KS releases have the same detail. I'm pretty happy to have pledged for all the Cerci models.

I also played a demo game of Relic Knights for a bit and it seems fun.

All in all though, the CMON booth seemed to want to churn through the attendees- I didn't get the feeling that anyone actually wanted to talk to anyone

Thats new, quite a few things I've not seen before even as renders.

I was just looking at the Relic Knights KS on Sunday, so it's gone up since then.

Does anyone else get the feeling that in inordinate amount of blame gets placed on the Chinese manufacturers when things run late?

It is probably almost impossible to accurately determine how much stuff gets made in China. Billions of dollars worth of product. I would presume that most of these Chinese manufacturers actually know what they're doing and that delays caused by the client (yes, it happens) don't get mentioned.

It seems like every year, every Kickstarter acts like 'Chinese New Year' is f'ing up their plans, that China does things weird, that they changed something without asking, etc. They toss out these excuses even if they've used China to make things before as if they're finally figuring out how Chinese manufacturing works.

I can totally understand a delay because the Kickstarter got too big, it was too successful, and there were simply too many models. I know that translation problems can occur, and errors are made by Chinese workers. I've also seen errors from American designers, that the public doesn't find out about because it gets fixed. Sometimes inferior products get greenlighted anyway. Don't even get me started on the Deadzone acrylic tokens....

Surely not every American company that deals with China has these problems??? Maybe these upstart companies need to be more realistic about their R&D timeframes. I suspect some of the big companies that aren't using KS are spending years going from design to product. The 'Now, Soon, Back NOW' mentality is biting way too many Kickstarters and their backers in the azz.

I'm pleased that Soda Pop is trying to get the product as high a quality as possible. I'd rather Relic Knights be 'close to perfect' than 'fast', but I don't feel like we are getting the full story.

I guess that's news. It seems like they cranked those two factions out fast- I wonder why mid April?

I can't see myself supporting a KS by either Soda Pop or CMON in the foreseeable future. If the RK quality is knock-out-the-park, then maybe.

Can someone explain the difference between Soda Pop and Ninja Division?

Thanks for the explanation, it seems a bit overly convoluted to me. Perhaps it's so each branch can blame each other when something goes wrong

That's the one I've been waiting for. Looks alright, I'd like to see a real close up shot though.

Looks like some tough painting ahead.

I just knew this would happen. Years of waiting for soft detail.

Figures that Cerci would be the hardest hit by detail loss. I swear everything I pick is the proverbial red-headed stepchild.

What 40K army have I played since 2nd ed? Sisters of Battle.
City of Heroes MMORPG class? Dark Defender.
Relic Knights? Cerci.

The list goes on and on...

It's not a big surprise to hear Cerci orders are getting shorted considering the shift in box contents from what was originally outlined in the KS. With the CMON/SP split there was bound to be a packing problem.

It's also likely CMON hasn't realized that they needed almost double the number of Belles and Pacers and haven't made enough to fulfill the KS. It would be great if Soda Pop and CMON made an annoucement about what is appearing to be a consistent packing issue.

Bioptic wrote:
I didn't think that the box contents had shifted (since the campaign ended, anyway). The KS Cerci starter is completely different to the retail starter, however! Not a single overlapping model. So it's possible that these were assembled by a different team/process

Right, I meant that the retail boxes don't align with the original KS offerings in an easy to pack way. Bound to be problems.

Everything Cerci related, plus the Black Diamond starter that came with the Savior pledge. I think I may have popped for a set of boost tokens in addition to the one in the pledge, its hard to say at this point because the pledge manager appears to list things like the lithograph which was included with savior as I recall, but doesn't list other things included.

If I end up with two sets of tokens I'm going to have so much scatter terrain I'll be able to do a 4x6 cargo hold. I have Hirst Arts, Antenociti, Deadzone, Ainsty, plus Maki when it arrives... pretty ridiculous.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Hurrah

glad they've taken steps to fix things before everything went out the door

and (this is the really surprising bit) told us about it too

Indeed, that's a huge plus for CMON in my book.

UNCLEBADTOUCH wrote:
I think the only reason the response was so quick and in the backers favour was due to some backers starting to camp the xenoshyft comment section. They managed a speedy Saturday u-turn and then tried to flood the comments if the front page of xenoshyft with some PR announcements. They still haven't announced why the parcels with furthest to travel where packed last.

It wasn't a mistake, they thought they could get away with it and then panicked when they thought it might hurt their live kickstarter.

'Squeeky wheel gets the grease.' I suspect you're correct and CMON didn't like the squeeky wheels in Xenoshyft

 Sinful Hero wrote:

Oh, and each box of Hell's Belles was missing a torso

Same here, I wonder if that is going to be a trend.

 Hashshashin wrote:
I got my package but am missing a couple kits for cerci speed and the helles belles kit is missing one of the three riders...

This appears to be common if not universal. Are you missing an entire rider, or just the top half of the body?

 Sinful Hero wrote:


Oh, and each box of Hell's Belles was missing a torso, and Cordelia Clean was missing her gun barrels so I'll need to call about that.

Same here, missing a torso (the top, girl with the whip).

I have four components in my Cordelia box, I'm either missing parts or they totally switched the look of the gun.

Did we ever see a render of what she's supposed to look like?

 Sinful Hero wrote:
I am too. It would appear that everyone's Hell's Belles and Cordelia Clean are missing the same pieces from the retail boxes. Hopefully they can be fixed soon.

From the Soda Pop forums:

SPM_Deke wrote:

Dais wrote:If I am not mistaken her gun is supposed to be even larger with a cylinder barrel over the support that is already larger than most gun barrels. Take a look at the art.

I don't have one yet to confirm, but from the picture that Cordelia model is complete. The gun on the model differs from that on the art with the modified single barrel design.

Looks like the gun changed to a more sleek rail look.

I'm also worried about replacement parts...
As it would happen the Belles are what i was going to make first to use in 'Burners', a jetbike racing game and I'm shorted a kit and a torso from the kit I received. Two years of waiting, LOL.

 Sinful Hero wrote:

How many royal wreckers did you get with your pledge? One right?

I would also like to voice my displeasure with the Cordelia Clean gun barrel change. It's not nearly as intimidating. I'll have to do some conversion work it seems.

Right, just the one Royal Wrecker and it was an add-on. I know the title of the line item is plural 'Wreckers' but I'm quite sure they only ever intended to do provide one per add-on. I'm really unimpressed with the size of the head on the pilot, my goodness is it small. I'm probably going to switch in a Statuesque Minis head. I have Heroclix that have better detail and that's after being slathered with paint in China.

Regarding the Cordelia barrels, not real sure why they switched out. I just wish they'd shown the new version. Another bait and switch game...

Soda Pop customer service got back to me about the torso, and wrote they'd 'pass the info along' and verified my pledge info. There was no mention that it might be a common error to the majority of packs, although I suggested it in my email.

My real problem is I've spoiled myself with high quality figures (Guild of Harmony, Kingdom Death, Hydra, Hasslefree among others) lately so the Relic Knights stuff is underwhelming.

Those of you still waiting, hopefully its a mixed blessing and CMON will have figured out the packing issues before they send your stuff.

The quality of the figures isn't worth that price IMO. Soda Pop hurt themselves going restic.

I hope the metal riders fit the restic bike. Does anyone here have a metal rider, and if so are they the same number of parts?

EDIT: Did CMON or SP announce somewhere that they were subbing metal riders as a fix? I can't find anything official.

I can't speak for Sedition Wars, but I feel like they clean easier than Deadzone.

 Dentry wrote:
Aye. That we do.

However, I'm starting to consider purchasing alternate heads from Statuesque Miniatures or some other company. My gut's telling me that the scale will be all off if I do, though.

I have a Statuesque head (nornal size, not the 'heroic') on a Cerci Hell's Belle right now, looks fine. I also tried a Valkeeri head from Hydra, that's not a bad fit either.

 spiralingcadaver wrote:
I think the material is slightly translucent, which makes small elements particularly hard to see? I often miss bits of mold lines and only see them once the PVC is primed.

Agree here, priming brings out every little missed mold line.

Man am I disappointed in Malya. I wanted that figure since I saw it a few years ago.

Her face is terrible, just terrible. There was a huge mold line on the goggles- I have no way to know what they're supposed to look like so I carved them down to as close to symmetrical as I could. After seeing the pic zoomed in I'll need to revisit that And check out the Pit Crew!!! This is after priming.



Gallery image is larger.

I'm 'okay' with the Kickstarter prices but there no way I'd pay $40-50 for a figure like that.

I didn't receive a ship notice until the package was in transit for a couple days.

 Alpharius wrote:

GENCON ATTENDEES - ATTEND!

I'm sure I'll be buying some of the crystals while I'm there

A few pages back I showed some pics of the unpainted Pit Crew. They were pretty horrifying with blank faces.

Anyway i put some paint on them and they're not as bad as I feared, so I wanted to give you guys some second impressions. I don't have any metal versions of Relic Knights to compare with, so it may be that the range in general has always had flat anime style faces and its not just the new plastics.



I clearly need to do some touch up on these

They take a LOT of work to clean up for paint though, and the detail is pretty flat on some figures like Marie Claude. I'd rather paint the stripes freehand than try to match lines that sometimes exist.

Mold lines are really hard to see until priming, and in some cases they run along other sculpted lines (on the Belles bikes for example) and that's a real pain.

Final impressions is that I like the figures, at the Kickstarter price