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I agree with this
There are a lot of 28mm Sci Fi rules out there and some don't have (good) models.

Good to hear from you again,

It's good you've caught the pricing issue on some of the kits, many larger companies have been caught out the same way on much more expensive things

(eg British Leyland with the original Mini, a car that was selling at a loss for at least the first 14 years of it's production and only made it to 'break even' from spare part sales)

An upgrade kit with non er, Germanic heads could make Eisenkern sprues into an entirely new army. The Valkir knight heads could be used to represent heavy troops on the other team. Or maybe you can sell the WGF Russians as the opponent team?

Great to hear from you again Mark!

My gut reaction is while it's somewhat unavoidable, I don't like civil war as a major part of a permanently-threatened faction's background. An empire with human and alien threats that also fights among itself just seems like it wouldn't last for particularly long and it reminds me of the Eldar's "our people are dying and each life is a precious resource...let's arm our civilians and send them into combat!" sort of illogical fluff. Obviously though, Eisenkern on Eisenkern is just going to be a thing that happens like Space Marines fighting Space Marines most of the time in 40k. There does seem to be a line between tacitly acknowledging the reality of physical collections of models and what the focus of the storyline is though.

Taking the civil war angle as a given, one route to explore with a living ruleset (which seems highly advisable from a cost standpoint) would be a roll-out similar to Games Workshop with the Necrons. As an example, to start you have some combat between households because Baron von Tides stated that one D would be sufficient for Count Hwang who took none to kindly to this suggestion. A honor squabble breaks out and, as this random planet has been quite peaceful for decades, the armies are glad to have a real fight in their series of isolated skirmishes and go along with their orders despite how idiotic they are (they are of Prussian descent, after all). In the midst of this, a Shadokesh force is planning to invade the world and probing defenses. They send down a small scouting party to raid and attack settlements and the nobles are too busy being...well, nobles to notice that they're failing in their duty. As time goes on more and more Shadokesh units arrive (read: get made for the range) and added in until finally the story moves on and whoever sits above these nobles realizes what they're failing to do and cracks them on the skulls. Then the game moves from the "beta" of just the scope of this one planet and broadens out to the Eisenkern-Shadokesh War in Iron-Core proper.

There, now that the easy job of coming up with the fluff is done I'm sure it will be simple to do the rest!

I recall I started a thread suggesting that you team up with one or more other manufacturers to work on/commission the rules together and supply the other faction(s) several years ago. Victoria from Vic Minis was actually keen. Nothing came of it because (almost) everyone wanted to have their own special snowflake rules where they owned the game and supplied all of the factions in a GW-style ecosystem.

So instead, you're still all making counts-as models.

 NoseGoblin wrote:
I think a quick way to have a game and faction ready may be to release rules that cover an Eisenkern civil war.

The Eisenkern are formed into households which can and do have disputes. It’s not very glitzy but it would provide for a fast and efficient way for my customers to actually play with the kits they own.

OK, that works, and will be generally balanced at a macro level as Black vs White. You'll still have to decide on mechanics and feel, and you'll have to work on armor / weapons / options balance, but it would make for a good starting point.

Hey Azazel, let's keep this constructive, it's not often you have a game creator (or major model producer, at least!) coming to Dakka and openly asking for input on a fork in the road as big as this!

I could consider a civil war ruleset, but man, I totally forgot about Victoria Lamb... between her, Anvil Industries, and Dreamforge, there is some really neat potential for a larger universe and basic ruleset (perhaps the ruleset by some outside source, with each of the companies just supplying models for it, thus benefiting all and without anyone having the onus of doing models And rules). A man can dream, right

But that aside, I really think big kits is where you have an advantage over the many other options out there, so something focusing on the titans, ideally with a foe for them to face, would be a great game, imo.

If you wanted to go the civil war route I think you would need to have some customizable "heads" for the Leviathans - you can only have "knight" crusader versus "skull" mortis for so long before it looks like there's no variety. You had some amazing renders of different types of heads in the past (5 variants if I remember right!) and while I know some were intended to have a slightly different chassis / stick out from the body, adapting them to fit on the sprues you have made (perhaps as a resin add-on) would be awesome and lend a lot more legitimacy and modeling potential for different factions using the same Leviathan chassis.

One last, totally out of left field idea - make a pitch to Respawn Studios (makers of Titanfall), for a tabletop version of their game... you've already shown you can do it, and dang that would be cool . But I think the resin Leviathan head idea is both shorter term and more practical!

I still can't really believe that no tabletop Titanfall game ever materialised. Seems like it'd be an excellent fit with the Titans, squads of troopers, robotic infantry, and powerful acrobatic Pilots. Not to mention both factions in the game using the same hardware with only minor cosmetic differences, meaning one range of Titan models could easily serve both factions. I'd play the hell out of that.

 NoseGoblin wrote:
I think a quick way to have a game and faction ready may be to release rules that cover an Eisenkern civil war.

The Eisenkern are formed into households which can and do have disputes. It’s not very glitzy but it would provide for a fast and efficient way for my customers to actually play with the kits they own.

Hmmm... I can see that as also being a way to introduce the Shadokesh - have updates that bring the timeline along, introducing new models as they reach production.

Hold back on the Shadokesh until you have enough models...

Then have them attack their divided foe.

Because nothing is as much fun as having aliens drop into a war that is already ongoing. (Just ask Harry Turtledove.)

The Auld Grump

 RiTides wrote:
Hey Azazel, let's keep this constructive, it's not often you have a game creator (or major model producer, at least!) coming to Dakka and openly asking for input on a fork in the road as big as this!

It is constructive because it's still doable. It's certainly more doable than starting up a game with the shadowkesh and it'd even support the StuG. And I'm allowed to be a little bitter, because one company (Vic) was actually interested and they (and others) could have done something great by hiring Chambers or Alessio or (well, not Rick anymore!) - and instead have done very little in these last couple of years. You know as well as I do that it's easier to get more people on board when you've already got a couple on board. I can't see Raging Heroes being interested in something like that given their company personality, but there's still a fair few others out there. Your mate with Trollforged for one. Though even that path is a lot harder now because of GoA and MEdge and Anvil's game (though Anvil might be small enough to be persuaded to join in.)

 Azazelx wrote:

 RiTides wrote:
Hey Azazel, let's keep this constructive, it's not often you have a game creator (or major model producer, at least!) coming to Dakka and openly asking for input on a fork in the road as big as this!

It is constructive because it's still doable. It's certainly more doable than starting up a game with the shadowkesh and it'd even support the StuG. And I'm allowed to be a little bitter, because one company (Vic) was actually interested and they (and others) could have done something great by hiring Chambers or Alessio or (well, not Rick anymore!) - and instead have done very little in these last couple of years. You know as well as I do that it's easier to get more people on board when you've already got a couple on board. I can't see Raging Heroes being interested in something like that given their company personality, but there's still a fair few others out there. Your mate with Trollforged for one. Though even that path is a lot harder now because of GoA and MEdge and Anvil's game (though Anvil might be small enough to be persuaded to join in.)

How would that have worked? Would they all have a unified game setting or would they all have merged into one company? Either way, all involved have very different ideas of what they want to do and very different aesthetics that wouldn't have worked well together.

Dreamforge and Anvil both have distinct settings in mind with a fair bit of fluff. I'm not sure they would really want to lose that by collaborating with other games/settings.

Any rules available? you could post a document with only rules and let us play test, i am sure i can find some people to help me here in Japan. And an update yeah! (i am a fan of the bolt action activation and original warzone rules, makes the game more tactical)

 Azazelx wrote:
I recall I started a thread suggesting that you team up with one or more other manufacturers to work on/commission the rules together and supply the other faction(s) several years ago. Victoria from Vic Minis was actually keen. Nothing came of it because (almost) everyone wanted to have their own special snowflake rules where they owned the game and supplied all of the factions in a GW-style ecosystem.

So instead, you're still all making counts-as models.

Correct but not exactly. I did approach several, Vic was not one of them. No real headway was made and as I did not (at that time) have 100% control of my products any such agreement was not 100% mine to make.

It’s always a simple uncomplicated call when you’re not actually having to deal with the full picture. I have and am still shopping the line around for a partner that has the resources to do more with the IP, it makes little sense for two, three or more companies to pool very limited resources and split a range and game where one line may be too heavily leveraged to support a non performing line. A smart partnering would be a game design team with a miniatures team.

I am not nor have I ever been apposed to exploring opportunities or even chasing them, I have and I will continue to do so but it must make sense for all involved.

 RiTides wrote:

Edit: Okay, another quick thought that hit me with Necros' post - a stripped down game that really just focuses on your Leviathans!

And, I just got a mental image of how to make such a game.

Anyway, I can see where the choice can be difficult. Keep making models that currently can only be used as "counts-as", or trying to make a full game. The advantage of the former allows new kits to be released over time. A game requires having enough models upfront to support it. Certainly, I think the idea of creating a game now with "Eisenkern civil war" rules is a good idea to get things moving (and lets you know if the basic system is solid before having to balance it around multiple factions right away).

 Barzam wrote:

How would that have worked? Would they all have a unified game setting or would they all have merged into one company? Either way, all involved have very different ideas of what they want to do and very different aesthetics that wouldn't have worked well together.

Dreamforge and Anvil both have distinct settings in mind with a fair bit of fluff. I'm not sure they would really want to lose that by collaborating with other games/settings.

Work together to come up with a (somewhat) unified game setting. They could each have a nation or continent or planet or some systems or Stargates to the contested resource planet or... whatever - work it out amongst themselves. As for aesthetics - Tyranids and Tau and Space Marines have very different aesthetics, but they seem to work ok together. Note that Anvil wasn't part of my initial discussion, but despite lovely models, do many people play his new game? I'm not sure how much would be lost by allowing them to Stargate through to fight Eisenkern or Arcadians.

Would they lose some of their unique background? Probably. War-ravaged planets might have to become war-ravaged nations instead or something - but at the "cost" of potentially selling many more models in a collaborative game that could actually exist. As it happens, they're all keeping their fluff intact which - let's be honest - everyone ignores because it's meaningless since nobody has an actual game - so they're effectively all just proxy Imperial Guard (and Dreadknights/Imperial Knights). Hooray!

Note - I'm not going to keep harping on about this and wasn't even going to post again about it, as my enthusiasm and care factor beyond theoretical discussion about it died a couple of years ago - but I thought I'd answer your questions.

 Azazelx wrote:

 Barzam wrote:

How would that have worked? Would they all have a unified game setting or would they all have merged into one company? Either way, all involved have very different ideas of what they want to do and very different aesthetics that wouldn't have worked well together.

Dreamforge and Anvil both have distinct settings in mind with a fair bit of fluff. I'm not sure they would really want to lose that by collaborating with other games/settings.

Work together to come up with a (somewhat) unified game setting. They could each have a nation or continent or planet or some systems or Stargates to the contested resource planet or... whatever - work it out amongst themselves. As for aesthetics - Tyranids and Tau and Space Marines have very different aesthetics, but they seem to work ok together. Note that Anvil wasn't part of my initial discussion, but despite lovely models, do many people play his new game? I'm not sure how much would be lost by allowing them to Stargate through to fight Eisenkern or Arcadians.

Would they lose some of their unique background? Probably. War-ravaged planets might have to become war-ravaged nations instead or something - but at the "cost" of potentially selling many more models in a collaborative game that could actually exist. As it happens, they're all keeping their fluff intact which - let's be honest - everyone ignores because it's meaningless since nobody has an actual game - so they're effectively all just proxy Imperial Guard (and Dreadknights/Imperial Knights). Hooray!

Note - I'm not going to keep harping on about this and wasn't even going to post again about it, as my enthusiasm and care factor beyond theoretical discussion about it died a couple of years ago - but I thought I'd answer your questions.

I was honestly just curious how it would've worked. Thanks for the reply.

The thought of 3 or 4 companies coming together for a joint game gives me the willies - I just can't see it happening, because I can't figure out who puts in the effort to write the rules and balance the forces. Each company will want their minis to be the "best", so it'll be the worst case of Codex creep we've ever seen.

At best, it's a minis company and a rules company teaming up.

 NoseGoblin wrote:

Correct but not exactly. I did approach several, Vic was not one of them. No real headway was made and as I did not (at that time) have 100% control of my products any such agreement was not 100% mine to make.

It’s always a simple uncomplicated call when you’re not actually having to deal with the full picture. I have and am still shopping the line around for a partner that has the resources to do more with the IP, it makes little sense for two, three or more companies to pool very limited resources and split a range and game where one line may be too heavily leveraged to support a non performing line. A smart partnering would be a game design team with a miniatures team.

I am not nor have I ever been apposed to exploring opportunities or even chasing them, I have and I will continue to do so but them must make sense for all involved.

I started a discussion here proposing it, and Victoria Lamb responded enthusiastically. I'd dig up the thread, but time and effort. You'll have to take my word for it.

Here's the thing. Your IP (and every other small producer's) isn't actually very exciting. Your kits are great, but the background you've written - while it might be your baby - isn't especially valuable, unique or important. You're still thinking with an old-school GW closed eco-system mentality. In my theoretical, you and whoever else would simply pool some money to hire someone with a name and some experience (Andy Chambers, Alessio, etc) to write up a basic ruleset that allowed people to use your and whoever-else's models in a game with a shared (in some way) universe. Release it for free as a PDF, set up a web hub, and start building an online community in a grassroots manner. Continue dealing with your own distribution, sales, etc so you would only be splitting a website and payment for an initial rules writer, rather than a range or a need to "support a non-performing line". if you're lucky enough for it to take off, then amazing! There are no guarantees of course, but I'd imagine that a partnership with other small manufacturers who have their own ranges and followings will be a hell of a lot easier then trying to do it on your own while being overly protective of your background/IP. People with more resources are generally going to be like Warlord or Mantic or... I can't even think of anyone else in that mid-large miniatures space who would have the resources to do something with a smaller/incomplete line, and they both have their own lines at this point. They'd probably buy your model tools off you, but I'm sure that's far from your actual objective.

Edit - again just one post in response to Mark. I'm not here to argue and I wish him the best in his endeavours. If you figure out a way to minimise international shipping or manage distribution to the UK down the road, I'll gladly purchase more of your kits.

I might be a minority on Dakka, but I almost never bother with miniatures for miniature's sake. There's a lot of stuff I find artistically beautiful or technically brilliant, but if there's not a game and deep universe behind it, I'm just not interested. However, the more GW feths up its own house, the more room there is for a good, simple 28mm scale tabletop game in the market. I get the sense more and more people are waiting for the day when their GW minis can find a counts-as home in another setting.

If the guys from MEdge could team up with you, I think it would be a win-win. Now, it would certainly mean compromises, but in the end, i'd rather see a home for the Eisenkern and Shadowkesh in a good setting and ruleset than to just limp down this road of slow releases and fading interest.

I have spent some time Victoria when she was up with visiting Justin from Secret Weapon, on her way around doing the convention circuit, If I recall we briefly looked at but both dismissed it due to scale differences. The same could be said for a few others I have talked to. I also speak with one of the founders of (MEdge) from time to time just catching up and sharing stories but they have a very specific goal/look for their product that precluded any easy integration.

A joint line would be possible but IMO you need to start it from scratch with a preconceived scale/proportions if they are to play well together. I personally do not have an issue as long as they are close but that is just me....

As to paying a game designer to craft a universal system, I think that's workable, even if you do not join the universe, just having a good system that is more open source (more or less) may have appeal to the market.



(Edit) just threw the question of a more open game system that can support multiple indi mini makers, to a game designer I know to see if they feel it has traction.

Well, like I said it's my dream . Trollforged came up above, and their aliens are generic enough to fit any system you choose / came up with!

I also know Necros of Gangfight Games has already begun work on a set of rules intended for general use, might be worth asking him about it! His prior ruleset seemed to do well, and he specifically set out to make a general one now (was starting with fantasy but maybe would do scifi first instead - thread is here).

Regarding MEdge, I think they do have a "closed" universe, but other than that and Gates of Antares, I feel like most other producers would only gain from something like this taking off. If you could come up with a clear plan, you don't even have to take the risk- put it to Kickstarter with your names behind it!

It seems like the best way to go about it would be an initial book for the rules and factions, then if things went well, yearly expansions like Warmachine / Hordes do for their lines, with everything getting something (sometimes unreleased but coming out soon / that year). This way, your freelance rules writer can balance things once a year only.

So yeah, you'd have to investigate if it was feasible, and get a quorum of indies onboard... But I'd Kickstart the heck out of such a rulebook

Rather than one unified rule set, why not a series of Marvel comics anyone-can-cameo rulesets? This is what Mantic did with KoW. If you write a rule set that has a wink wink entry for Victoria's minis and Anvil's minis and Medge's minis (stormtroopers vs droids) in exchange for them including an obvious Eisenkern analog in their rules, then consumers can buy into a rule set they like, an army they like, and have plenty of variety in their opponents, fluff, whatever.

I think the issue for consumers is, there's not critical mass for any of these games. Trollforged talks about one, Anvil, Dreamforge... dang those lines (plus Victoria Miniatures) could look good facing off!

Cheers for even considering it Mark appreciate that even though I know it's a long shot and would take a lot of folks being willing, along with a good central rules writer to have a chance of happening. But again, I'd totally Kickstart such a project

Well, maybe they can sort of franchise one. Find a good rule set that they all can share, but then Dreamforge gets to publish the Dreamforge version, with fluff and special rules that Mark wants, and others can publish their own versions. If there are any free rulesets out there that have wide appeal, they can pay the owner to use the rule set for their own games.

There will never be critical mass for any of these games until they can come to the table with multiple affordable armies. Even then, it's unlikely.

I used my Dreamforge Assault Troopers in a game of Tomorrow's War, and everything went perfectly. So I'd say that's a good omen.

Seriously though, whatever game system is created, the transition between gigantic robots and wee infantry has to be addressed from the get go and not be a game on top of a game with only rare instances of infantry being able to bring down a leviathan.

Core rules and then manufacturer based army books could be pretty awesome. Maybe not everyone would publish their book, some would just produce pdfs.
Some manufacturers would partner up for integrated campaigns etc.
Dreamforge Eisenkern smashing into Puppets War troopers while Anvil Industries Republic troopers dig in to a nearby cityscape sounds incredibly cool.
Doesn't mean it has any value for the potential partners of course which is the main issue.

The 15mm world tends to revolve around open rule systems.
For example, I like Gruntz15mm which I think technically is a GZG thing but it's created with the intent of being usable openly by anyone.
Doing a 28mm system like this that allows for maximum flexibility would be risky but with so many companies like yours, vic, Puppetswar, Antenociti, etc etc.. that have things that are largely GW proxies but also able to be their own thing.. to me a way to unify all of you indy guys and gals would be a system like this.
I don't know what level of granularity a system like that would have but if I could use it to easily whip up a scenario for my Crooked Dice Ghostbusters, then turn around and use it for Eisenkern vs Blightwheel Britannia dudes.. well, that would be something I would find interesting.

Before anyone jumps on any specifics of the difficulties of that type of endeavor or points out previously failed attempts.. I'm not saying it's easy. I know it's possible though. I'm not sure it's what Mark is looking at but it'd be cool as hell.

Perhaps, then the easiest thing is to pick a 15mm ruleset and double the ranges & movement?

 RiTides wrote:
I also know Necros of Gangfight Games has already begun work on a set of rules intended for general use, might be worth asking him about it! His prior ruleset seemed to do well, and he specifically set out to make a general one now (was starting with fantasy but maybe would do scifi first instead - thread is here).

Yep I'm changing my game rules around into an open ended system now where players can use any minis they want and play in any setting they want. I'm still going to make my own minis but these days there's so many great minis out there, it seems silly to tell people they're only allowed to use 1 brand I'm also trying to build it in such a way that mini producers could easily make their own gameworlds based on the ruleset if they want, kinda like how there's lots of folks making RPGs with the Pathfinder rules.

But anyway, my rules are really geared toward small skirmish games where each character has unique abilities, like 5-10 models per side. Never really planned on squad or army based games. I guess they could be adapted for squads but never really tested it .

Either way though I still think building a solid game with lots of fluff is the next best step. You can start with the civil war idea and take it from there to include the Shadokesh and other races later on. Maybe sculpt some metal or resin leader characters and some helmet/shoulder pad upgrade packs for different factions. Have the rules be all online at first to keep your costs down and build up a following with social media and stuff.

Ah, probably not the best fit then, since it's aimed at skirmish rather than army level (and I know you were thinking to start with fantasy anyway). I'm still interested when it's ready, though, Necros

But for Dreamforge, there are so many companies out there with factions counting as GW. Could they work as their own system? Getting 4 or 5 indies to present their models for such a system, with a good rules writer, would have a lot of appeal on here for sure. If the appeal is wide enough it could at least fund a rulebook, and maybe a special edition sculpt from each company to kick things off?

Just tossing out ideas, looking forward to your next steps whatever direction they lead in!