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.

Mongoose has decided, after discussions with the Holistic Designs (the IP owner), to discontinue the game & miniature line





all products are 50% off until sold out

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/miniatures/noble-armada.html?limit=30

so those who need to complete fleets get shopping now

(info originally from Figure Painter Magazine)

Oh noes! Not the most beloved space game since Space Fleet!

Wait.

No, not that. The opposite.

A Call to Arms what? I never ever heard of this.

Does this mean they might bring back the Babylon 5 miniature game?

Mongoose dropping a game? Stop the presses!

It's Mongoose, they discontinue everything.

Wish they would bring Starship Troopers back, really wanted some of those Bugs and Marauders

But OT, does anyone else feel irritated or a bit annoyed that Mongoose don't really support/keep dropping games?

I find it annoying tbh..

I'm more annoyed that they keep licensing games, thus requiring them to drop them once the contracts are up. You can't keep publishing what you don't own outright.

-John

 happygolucky wrote:
Wish they would bring Starship Troopers back, really wanted some of those Bugs and Marauders

But OT, does anyone else feel irritated or a bit annoyed that Mongoose don't really support/keep dropping games?

I find it annoying tbh..

If they don't pick up steam and aren't profitable, why should they keep making them? I find it even more annoying to NEVER have a game from a world you like. I can't stand Palladium but I love Robotech so pledged in that KS.

What they should do is continue to support a game that doesn't sell by keeping it in print and continuing new releases. Just like Mordheim, Necromunda, Man O War, Epic 40k, Blood Bowl, Battlefleet Gothic

 judgedoug wrote:
What they should do is continue to support a game that doesn't sell by keeping it in print and continuing new releases. Just like Mordheim, Necromunda, Man O War, Epic 40k, Blood Bowl, Battlefleet Gothic

You're comparing apples (wholly owned IP) to oranges (licensed IPs). When "continuing support" means paying the owner a hefty yearly fee on a game that doesn't apparently sell well enough, that doesn't make any business sense. I'd rather have a company that takes the risks in the first place and then decides it isn't financially viable long term rather than one that never bothered to do anything in the first place. Does it suck more than keeping the game in print perpetually despite the loss? Sure... but that's no more acceptable than asking gamers to keep paying additionally for minis they already own.

So how long is the list of miniature ranges they grounded?
Starship Trooper
Babylon 5 (starships)
Babylon 5 (28mm)
Battlefield Evolution
Noble Armada

And wasn't there a Warmaster sized range recently? Anything else missing?

 warboss wrote:
If they don't pick up steam and aren't profitable, why should they keep making them?

That's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, though. People who believe it's a dead game walking are going to be less inclined to invest in it.

 warboss wrote:

 happygolucky wrote:
Wish they would bring Starship Troopers back, really wanted some of those Bugs and Marauders

But OT, does anyone else feel irritated or a bit annoyed that Mongoose don't really support/keep dropping games?

I find it annoying tbh..

If they don't pick up steam and aren't profitable, why should they keep making them? I find it even more annoying to NEVER have a game from a world you like. I can't stand Palladium but I love Robotech so pledged in that KS.

Why should they even bother making the game if they are not going to advertise it? I never even heard of Mongoose games until I had stumbled across them when I was curious if there was a Judge Dredd miniatures game..

That's my problem they hype themselves up too much about a game then just drop it because they don't adverstise, I would have loved to play that Starship Troopers miniatures game they sold but alas what people sell those kits for on Ebay is too high, but it had me wondering why had they bothered with even starting the game up only to drop it a few years later? that's what annoys me tbh..

 happygolucky wrote:


That's my problem they hype themselves up too much about a game then just drop it because they don't adverstise, I would have loved to play that Starship Troopers miniatures game they sold but alas what people sell those kits for on Ebay is too high, but it had me wondering why had they bothered with even starting the game up only to drop it a few years later? that's what annoys me tbh..

My guess is that they started up the game and invested the tens of thousands of dollars into plastics mold making and other development costs on the expectation of sales. When those didn't materialize to the extent they needed and another contract was coming up locking them into even more lump sum payments due regardless of sales, they did the smart thing for their business. I'm sure they found the lack of demand after all that time/money/effort even more annoying than you find lack of supply years after the game folded.

In fairness to Mongoose, they did state that Warner Bros basically raised the price of the license for Babylon 5 beyond the point of owning it... Which I find sad as the series finished more than 16 years ago and they've done nothing else with it since.

 Kroothawk wrote:
So how long is the list of miniature ranges they grounded?
Starship Trooper
Babylon 5 (starships)
Babylon 5 (28mm)
Battlefield Evolution
Noble Armada

And wasn't there a Warmaster sized range recently? Anything else missing?

There was Mighty Armies which was 15mm fantasy DBA and also the Star Trek ACTA game. Star Trek was especially funny as they went through all that trouble of resculpting the entire line, only to realize "huh, mass resin casting is actually really hard". If only there was some sort of resource they could have turned to in order to find that out before they started, some way to search, online, something that they could GO & OGLE before jumping all-in with a new venture in a medium they weren't used to using. But it's not like they have a history of jumping into completely new and unfamiliar manufacturing processes that they don't have any expreience with. It's not like they tried to make 28mm plastic multi-piece models or prepainted plastics or anything that crazy and they certainly didn't promise you the moon and then make excuse after excuse after excuse while they continued to fail and fall behind, only to suddenly reverse course completely and suddenly drop an entire line. No history of that for any of those games on that list at all. *sigh*

It's sad, because I thought SST and especially B5 were fantastic games, and I really liked how active and involved Matt Sprange was with the community, but both were simply managed badly. Sprange is actually a little TOO active on the forums as he has a BAD tendency to talk about his dreams for the games as though they were actual plans for the games, which of course fail to come to pass and piss off people that were expecting them. B5 remains my favorite space game, and I still have it in my closet ready to play, but I'll never buy another MGP game again. Just been burned too many times. I am shocked by this news of discontinuing Noble Armada in the same was I am shocked that spilling hot coffee in your lap burns.

 warboss wrote:

 happygolucky wrote:


That's my problem they hype themselves up too much about a game then just drop it because they don't adverstise, I would have loved to play that Starship Troopers miniatures game they sold but alas what people sell those kits for on Ebay is too high, but it had me wondering why had they bothered with even starting the game up only to drop it a few years later? that's what annoys me tbh..

My guess is that they started up the game and invested the tens of thousands of dollars into plastics mold making and other development costs on the expectation of sales. When those didn't materialize to the extent they needed and another contract was coming up locking them into even more lump sum payments due regardless of sales, they did the smart thing for their business. I'm sure they found the lack of demand after all that time/money/effort even more annoying than you find lack of supply years after the game folded.

I can see your point, but alas like others have said they can't go on hyping on and on about games they are willing to create and then suddenly drop them, simply because they cannot manage how to keep a miniatures line properly..

Well here hoping for the future that another (preferably Mantic) take up the SST line and start making minis for them

 happygolucky wrote:
I can see your point, but alas like others have said they can't go on hyping on and on about games they are willing to create and then suddenly drop them, simply because they cannot manage how to keep a miniatures line properly..

Well here hoping for the future that another (preferably Mantic) take up the SST line and start making minis for them

No worries, on that last part we agree. I tried the SST game and it wasn't to my personal liking (both mechanically and visually except for a few vehicles that didn't fully get released like the dropship) but I did feel bad for the group of 3-4 players at my old store who did go in heavily and enjoyed playing it. The games were fun to watch in bystander mode (the casual 5 minute stand by the table trick) as the players all painted their sizable collections well instead of the 50% bare plastic horde I faced time and time again playing 40k in the same place. I don't know the legalities of their contract but if mantic did pick it up, they'd likely have to redesign everything and not just use the same sprues/molds/designs depending on the contract Mongoose had with the SST owners.

To get back a bit on track with the thread, I don't have any idea what the ACTA:NA game was. When last I looked into ACTA, it was still a bigger scale B5 ship game (as opposed to the smaller fleet action I was used to with AOG).

 Kroothawk wrote:
So how long is the list of miniature ranges they grounded?
Starship Trooper
Babylon 5 (starships)
Babylon 5 (28mm)
Battlefield Evolution
Noble Armada

And wasn't there a Warmaster sized range recently? Anything else missing?

Not a wargame (although they did have a small selection of minis released for it), but one of the worst examples of something they've cancelled is the Lone Wolf gamebook hardbacks.

They took $500 preorders for the whole set from lots of people in advance about 5 years ago, delivered about half of them (extremely late) and then cancelled the whole thing, with those preorders still in limbo. Everyone who dropped $500 on the preorder has pretty much just given up on ever seeing the other half of the set being delivered and have consoled themselves with the fact that the books they did receive sell for quite a bit on ebay.

And people think Kickstarter is bad.

.. I wouldn't be surprised if Judge Dredd gets trashed in a year or three. It's just how they roll.

On one hand I love the Fading Suns universe, and it's sad to see its first and only foray into wargaming go.

On the other, I was never too impressed by Noble Armada. The generic faux-trek blandness of most of their ship designs killed it for me.

Warlord will absorb Judge Dredd, it's already heading in that direction.
So yeah there's that list plus ACTA Star Fleet. They sold off Mighty Armies.
There was also War Without End - the planned Babylon 5 ground combat game but they killed that when it was still in playtesting

MGS wrote:In fairness to Mongoose, they did state that Warner Bros basically raised the price of the license for Babylon 5 beyond the point of owning it... Which I find sad as the series finished more than 16 years ago and they've done nothing else with it since.

Ah is that why that happened? Just been watching the show again now (they've been running the entire series, from series 1 episode 1, nightly on UK TV), absolutely bloody brilliant. Would have loved to use one of them shadow ships in a game!

 scarletsquig wrote:

.. I wouldn't be surprised if Judge Dredd gets trashed in a year or three. It's just how they roll.

I would have agreed with you going on track record, although wonder if it will be different now that Warlord have it?

Never heard of it, Babylon ships were awesome and i like the star ship troopers mini's too :(

They also lost RuneQuest 2-ish years ago.

 scarletsquig wrote:


.. I wouldn't be surprised if Judge Dredd gets trashed in a year or three. It's just how they roll.

Mongoose & Rebellion have a special relationship, so I doubt they'll ever truly lose Dredd.

 scarletsquig wrote:

 Kroothawk wrote:
So how long is the list of miniature ranges they grounded?
Starship Trooper
Babylon 5 (starships)
Babylon 5 (28mm)
Battlefield Evolution
Noble Armada

And wasn't there a Warmaster sized range recently? Anything else missing?

Not a wargame (although they did have a small selection of minis released for it), but one of the worst examples of something they've cancelled is the Lone Wolf gamebook hardbacks.

They took $500 preorders for the whole set from lots of people in advance about 5 years ago, delivered about half of them (extremely late) and then cancelled the whole thing, with those preorders still in limbo. Everyone who dropped $500 on the preorder has pretty much just given up on ever seeing the other half of the set being delivered and have consoled themselves with the fact that the books they did receive sell for quite a bit on ebay.

And people think Kickstarter is bad.

.. I wouldn't be surprised if Judge Dredd gets trashed in a year or three. It's just how they roll.

Ugh! Thanks for the info, though.

 Pacific wrote:

 scarletsquig wrote:

.. I wouldn't be surprised if Judge Dredd gets trashed in a year or three. It's just how they roll.

I would have agreed with you going on track record, although wonder if it will be different now that Warlord have it?

Actually, Judge Dredd has been licensed by Mongoose for about thirteen years now with near continual releases. Just because someone's not paying attention to it doesn't mean it's not there. Additonally, the new JD miniatures game has been doing so well (probably helped that it was in open playtest for over a year to work out the kinks, like Mantic's Kings of War) that it outgrew Mongoose's handful-of-people size, which is why Warlord is now distributing it so it gets the market penetration it deserves (as it's quite a good system).

Starship Troopers did quite well. For a several year period I was Mongoose Infantry and oversaw central Virginia including market penetration into several game stores, leagues, and tournaments. Then Sony decided to start pre-production on the amazingly awful Starship Troopers 3 film and decided to quadruple the cost of the license to the tune of a half million pounds. SST TMG wasn't canceled because of "why the feth not, it's Tuesday afternoon, let's cancel a game system", it was canceled because Mongoose had already invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into hard plastic kits in the span of the initial license's 24 month contract (Mobile Infantry, M8 Marauder, M9 Marauder, Warrior Bugs, Hopper Bugs, Tanker Bugs, Plasma Bugs, Rippler Bugs, and Skinnies Soldiers, with four more kits - Skyhook, Viking, Slingshot, TAC Fighter - in pre-production, and one kit - the Light Mobile Infantry - having had a Mantic Man-At-Arms style screw-up which they chose to then not release in plastic and instead released in metal at the same announced MSRP so no one would get upset at 24.95 for 20 metal figures), plus massive distribution and manufacturing. It was the most successful thing Mongoose had ever done and was very popular, having won multiple awards (and is still currently my favorite ruleset ever written). What would you do? They could not afford the new contract's license and the system was still relatively in it's infancy, and they were already in debt from the huge amount of capital that had been invested into the product line.

Mongoose may be guilty of lots of things (that Lone Wolf nonsense is total nonsense), and I quite literally despised them as a company for years after the demise of Starship Troopers TMG, but nowadays I simply cannot fault them for something so massively out of their hands.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 warboss wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:
What they should do is continue to support a game that doesn't sell by keeping it in print and continuing new releases. Just like Mordheim, Necromunda, Man O War, Epic 40k, Blood Bowl, Battlefleet Gothic

You're comparing apples (wholly owned IP) to oranges (licensed IPs).

Actually I was comparing a game system that no one really bought (Noble Armada) with much-loved and lauded game systems from GW - that also no one really bought, as evidenced by both companies dropping support and product for those systems.