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Well as I a said quite a long time ago on this issue, the apple doesnt fall far from the tree

winnertakesall wrote:

Unfortunately that was the fault of the guys producing the sprues, not Defiance Games themselves, as well as the new techniques for moulding allowing them to create better sprues and detail.

After all, wouldn't you rather have much better quality, and more for your money? At least Defiance Games are providing regular news on the goings on.

It's always someone else's fault. These guys always have good ideas, grand plans and then it all falls apart... meanwhile, they're sitting on people's money who have yet to actually get any benefit except more excuses and a few pictures of machinery parts. I don't doubt that they'll eventually (note that word) release a product; it's just that my initial plans to buy from them have been reconsidered since we obviously can't trust their word.

I could not agree more. After the colossal embarrassment that Wargames Factory's turned into, I don't think it's prudent to trust any of these johnnie-come-latelys with their big promises

You call them "excuses", I call them "updates".

Unlike WGF, Defiance is actually keeping people updated on what's going on. WGF just kept people in the dark.

Absolutionis wrote:You call them "excuses", I call them "updates".

Unlike WGF, Defiance is actually keeping people updated on what's going on. WGF just kept people in the dark.

Hmmm you must have been to a different WGF. They have updated us with tons of info. Just not the info we like (more delays, scrapping the 6mm, etc)

meh, after starting my own meager minis company, I can sympathize.. lots of BS comes up so you just gotta stick to your guns and work through it. I wish em the best of luck, definitely looking forward to zee germans.

Agamemnon2 wrote:I could not agree more. After the colossal embarrassment that Wargames Factory's turned into, I don't think it's prudent to trust any of these johnnie-come-latelys with their big promises

I don't really think it's fair to call Wargames Factory a "colossal embarrassment." The current crew has been releasing updates regularly and, after a couple of initial stumbles, has put out two quality sets, and the Germans look like they'll be good as well. Plus, the PR people seem very polite and their customer service, in the limited experience I have with it, has gotten pretty good.

So the Marine mold is almost done, and by "almost done" I mean "here are the pictures":



Meanwhile, the Bugs are also almost done, and by almost done I mean "Samples are in house and are being test assembled." They are using a different type of plastic than standard High Impact Polystyrene which might or might not react the same to standard HIPS glue, so the tests are to see if that or Superglue needs to be used.



What this means is that, yes, you're going to get your toys

Awesome!

Can't wait for pics of the german plastics... Or a studio-painted Bug!

Some shots of the first couple of sample Bugs with the old USMC 3D print for scale.







And before you guys start harping, plastic Marines will be forthcoming, like "end of the week" forthcoming.

hmm.. I like the bugs a bit more now that I see em put together, I was expecting them all to be like hive tyrant sized for some reason.

They still need to paint some

True, though these were literally just cast yesterday. No one has had time to do more than snap a couple of pictures.

So what's the deal with these guys? Are they some guys that left Wargames factory or something?I know they were having trouble internally with some sort of management shakeup or whatnot, but I didn't keep up with it. I keep noticing that people bring that up and that kind of bothers me, but I'll let the models speak for themselves when they come out.

However, looking at the actual sprues and recent pictures, it looks like you're getting great detail for the price. $29.95 for 24 models (and roughly $5 shipping, so for 35 bucks you're getting 24 models... can't really beat that). They also appear to be highly poseable (unlike the WF greatcoat troopers, which were kind of a let down) as well as have tons of different weapons and head choices. If they follow through on their promise of additional weapon sprues for $5 a pop, they could have a really awesome product line in the making.

I'll probably buy a set of the marines just because they look cool (no idea what I'll use them for, but I'm sure I'll think of something ), but I'll be hanging on to most of my money until they release zee germans. If they can get even REMOTELY close to how cool those concept pictures look, those guys are going to look positively awesome.

Here is the incident, in brief:

Wargames Factory is founding 2008-2009 by Tony Reidy and Tim Barry. They bring on John Morse as business manager, Howard Whitehouse as rules-writer and forum moderator, and Lonnia Mullins as publicist and liason to retailers. The goal is to produce plastic miniatures using 3D sculpting, rather than the traditional (and expensive and time intensive) 3-Up method; the ideal is that they will be able to produce quality miniatures are a reasonable price; normal plastic, multi-pose miniatures require expensive ($20K) metal molds and a long time to produce. As with most other companies producing plastic toys, they have their manufacturing done in China.

After releasing several sets at a slow-pace -- due to problems on both ends -- Tony Reidy decides to sell the Chinese Manufacturer, Wai Kee Hui, a 41% share of the company in exchange for the capital necessary to increase the pace of releases. To this point, the company had been rlying on one release the fund the next, with the other sets providing a small income. Since plastic molds last a long time, once you've paid for the mold and material through sales (say, 1,000 boxes at $20 each) the mold is paid off and anything left is pure profit. So Tony wants to increase the rate of release so they can garner more first sales and more steady sales.

The company releases sets as a steady pace: Ancient Romans, Celt and German infantry and cavalry, Celtic Chariots, Numidians, Vikings, Anglo-saxons, two Zulu War sets (British and Zulus) and zombies. Their Shock Trooper release, which comes from the Liberty and Union League (where people can request sets that can be voted on; enough votes means the set goes into production) has finally gone into production with massive preorders. However, it is hit by delay-after-delay. Compounded by the product being put on the wrong boat and shipping through the Panama Canal to Boston instead of to California to be loaded onto a train; this adds a month to the process. Then the shipment gets hung up in customs. Along with this is restocks for the company's other products. Finally, after a very long delay, enough Shock Troopers and other stuff are air-mailed to meet some of the preorders. Priority is given to distributors such as the War Store, which causes many complaints amongst individual preorders. Eventually, the shipment is cleared through customs and product starts shipping.

However, this isn't the end of the problems. Tony Reidy et al continue with their plan to accelerate the release schedule with the following sets -- Skeletons, Orcs, Amazons, Persian Infantry, Greek Infantry, and War of Spanish Succession Infantry (another L&UL set). All are rendered and sent off to tooling, and preorders begin for most. However, this release is yet another cluster- -- the wrong product, and in not enough quantity, is placed on the boat and they are unable to meet the preorders. Around this time, Lonnie Mullins forwards an internal company e-mail to Wai Kee Hui, in which Tony accuses Mr. Hui of conspiring against WF and calls him several nasty things. Wai Kee immediately sacks Tony Reidy along with the entire staff save Lonnie Mullins, leaving Wargames Factory without even a sculptor.

In the process, a lot of records (orders and customer communications) go missing -- according to Mr. Reidy, this is due to a problem with their server not processing and sending e-mails directly, which is so bad that the only effective way to contact the staff is to e-mail them directly. At this point, Mr. Hui, through George Sivy, his US rep, and Lonnie Mullins, bring in additional staff to help them sort through the orders and get things shipped out (which eventually involves a new facility in Utah). In the process, they establish a cut-off date stating they will not honor orders made before Mr. Reidy's removal, and also stating they will not pay WF's original shipper and at least one painter who did work for the company. They also place the blame squarely on the departing team.

Slowly, WF manages to piece itself back together: product gets back in stock, orders are filled, and stuff starts shipping. They release the already-done Skeletons, Amazons, Orcs, Persians, and WSS, along with Greek Warriors which were mostly sculpted by Tim Barry and completed by the company's newly hired sculptor. They follow this up with WSS Cavalry, Shock Trooper heavy weapons, Samurai, and Ashigaru, and are currently set to release a series of WWII sets. So they seem to have gotten their act together. I've even ordered from them and gotten the product quickly and efficiently.

Meanwhile, Tony et al decided to have another go at it and started Defiance Games, with the first releases being Marines and Bugs. However, this has been a very long process with many delays which you can read about in more detail in this thread. However, it should be coming to an end soon: molds are done for the Marines and Bugs, tests of the Bugs have been made, and test plastic for the Marines should be in this week (the "tests" being running plastic through the mold to make sure there are no flaws).


As to what the deal is, Tony Reidy especially has engendered a lot of bad will. Apparently, he got into some nasty arguments with people on Frothers during WF's early days and, shortly before being removed as director of WF, was banned from The Miniatures Page for sock-puppeting. I'm not entirely sure what the deal with that is, but Tony posted another the name "Fifty-Four" and another poster, "The Rifleman" who always posted positively in WF threads. These were found to be using the same IP, a computer located in the WF shipping facility in Massachusets. While it's likely that "The Rifleman" was John Morse or Tim Barry (both of whom would have used that computer) the blame fell on Tony and he was banned. He is currently unbanned. Additionally, the long delays in product releases mean that Tony has been accused of, for instance, taking pre-orders on product that didn't exist to fund that product, or just outright stealing the money.

Technically, some of this is true: when the Marines were put up for pre-order, the mold had not been cut yet. They'd been given a guarantee from the mold maker that the mold would be complete before Christmas and took him at his word. Obviously, this did not come to pass. This has a vocal group of people convinced that the product is vaporware and that the money has been stolen. Even posting actual pictures of the mold has done nothing to change this.

Honestly, it's all very ugly and most of us involved in the project (I am a playtester for the Alien War ruleset) wish it'd all stop so the company can make its toys in peace.

I like those alien bugs quite a lot actually.

Hopefully they get released sooner or later

meh-and-a-half I could care less about interweb drama. If they make cool models that I just have to have, I'll give them my money. Same goes for just about company. Yeah, I'm a hoarder of army mens :(

Between the Germans and the bugs I am very excited about this company. I could care less about the WGF past. So far Tony has been forthcoming with info regarding the delays. The product looks great and the concepts for the Hardsuits have me very excited. I am looking forward to the future with Defiance now that I have left GW firmly behind me.

@xenos, thank you very much for the info, clears up a lot of questions I had!

I actually just joined their forums, so you may see me on there, as I'm really interested in the game. The guys that run the company seem to be pretty cool, and now that they're starting to get things under control I think the delays are going to smooth out a bit.

I'm tempted to order a set of their marines, but what I really want are the panzergrenadiers. Anyone have a rough idea of when the germans are coming out?

The German's were originally set up for HIPS and a sprue the way the Marines are. However, with the turnaround speed of the Bugs and the overall level of satisfaction Tony and the crew have had with it, they're going back in and adapting it to the Hard Plastic. Apparently the Hard Plastic flows better and thinner, so the level of detail can be finer, so they can go back in and fix a few things they weren't happy with, some compromises for the HIPS. I know the helmets are being revisited in particular, but I'm not in the know about what else is being redone. Also, the HIPS limits the parts that can be on the sprue and apparently it is quite expensive to get a mold made. With the new system they're using, it is far cheaper to make a mold, so they are creating some new parts that had to be left off the sprue before. How's everyone feel about kneeling legs? I can't give an exact timeline, considering I don't know exactly how long it took to make the molds for the bugs and all that, but the heavy lifting has already been done and all that's left is adapting it to the new material. Someone who's more on the inside of the business may be able to give a better estimate, but hopefully this will put your mind at ease.

Necros wrote:meh-and-a-half I could care less about interweb drama. If they make cool models that I just have to have, I'll give them my money. Same goes for just about company. Yeah, I'm a hoarder of army mens :(

A-friggin-men!

....Except the bit about tracking the IP back to the shipping pc. The only way that could be done is if the shipping PC had a static IP from the ISP, (aka no firewall, etc.) which no company on earth would do if they valued their corporate data. That part of the story is BS I'm afraid. But a great story nonetheless.

dsteingass wrote:....Except the bit about tracking the IP back to the shipping pc. The only way that could be done is if the shipping PC had a static IP from the ISP, (aka no firewall, etc.) which no company on earth would do if they valued their corporate data. That part of the story is BS I'm afraid. But a great story nonetheless.

That's just how I read it from TMP, where I was following the drama. I could be misremembering; I have a memory like a steel trap trying to hold water, after all.

I love the bugs, but I'd say they're more suited to 15mm gaming than 28mm. Which is a good thing, it makes them the first 15mm sci-fi plastic kit, ha ha.

lord_blackfang wrote:I love the bugs, but I'd say they're more suited to 15mm gaming than 28mm. Which is a good thing, it makes them the first 15mm sci-fi plastic kit, ha ha.

These are drones, they aren't supposed to be the big nasty bugs, these ones are chitinous hordes that drown men in numbers. Although I am sure those big ol' nasty bugs will follow soon!

Hey Xeno, thanks for the information...

Im in love with those bugs, and i see a very nasty horde of them waliking over my board... And serious, scrudge the mans past, his job right now is great, and that is what matters.

Xeno wrote:Some shots of the first couple of sample Bugs with the old USMC 3D print for scale.

One random thing I just noticed, but why do the drones look like theyre dancing? The one on the left especially. he looks like he's saying "WE'RE FINALLY GETTIN RELEASED!!!! YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!"

That said, they do look awesome and I can't wait to see what they look like painted up. I'm about to order a set of the marines tonight and hopefully they'll be shipped out soon.

Honestly, the one on the right looks like he's trying to Bro-Hug the Marine.

I want to get one, greenstuff a ball cap on it, attach a mini beer can to a claw, and call 'im Bro Bug.

I look foreword to the Germans when their done, if they look as good as that concept art, we're in for a treat.

MrMoustaffa wrote:
One random thing I just noticed, but why do the drones look like theyre dancing?

Actually they're an a chav "Back off, I know kung-fu" pose.

lord_blackfang wrote:

MrMoustaffa wrote:
One random thing I just noticed, but why do the drones look like theyre dancing?

Actually they're an a chav "Back off, I know kung-fu" pose.

What the heck is a chav anyways? I keep hearing brits talk about it, but in the southern US where I live I've never heard that term used. It's something like a white guy who poses as a rapper correct?

We call those speed bumps where I live, due to the fact that they're usually not more than punching bags

I actually made a demotivational poster using that pic that used something along the lines of "come at me bro", but I won't post it because it's rather silly haha