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.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Yeah, I think their ask is too rich for my blood, I'll pass. Would've done $30 for the PDF rulebook only, and $100 for both German and Martian stl sets. Anything more than that and I just can't justify the expense for a game I probably won't ever actually play - and even if I did play it it probably would not be frequent enough for that level of expenditure to be worthwhile.

With you there, far too much, especially for 3d printed minis. Not unless those stretch goals are really something.

Yeah, i flagged the campaign to revisit later, hopefully they pick up some steam and the stretch goals maybe change the value curve on this, but the other locals who went in on the original with me have already noped out over the price (on top of the various other issues they had like the lack of Americans/Brits, etc.), so not much incentive to even really pledge at all as if I can't get those guys to play it theres nobody else locally who will touch it.

 Robert Facepalmer wrote:
Ex-Petersen Games isn't exactly filling me with confidence.

Running Kickstarters, yes. What about fulfilling them?

What's the story behind Petersen games? Haven't heard of them.

They most notably are the designers and publishers of the excellent Cthulhu Wars "luxury board game". They were doing pretty well for themselves but were doing the whole "lets launch another kickstarter to fund our previous kickstarter" thing which came back to bite them when COVID hit and everything came to a standstill and they were unable to get product manufactured or shipped nor get product restocks or do much of anything. Things eventually started moving again and they were able to get production on one of those campaigns finished but they ran out of money to finance delivery of the stuff, so they were basically asking backers to spend pretty exorbitant sums of money to collectively unfuck the logistics situation, one pallet at a time.

Eventually another company (Catalyst Game Labs, publishers of Battletech) swept in and bought them out, they are now a design house under the Catalyst brand basically. They design stuff, Catalyst handles the financing, production, and logistics. Its a much better arrangement.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Things eventually started moving again and they were able to get production on one of those campaigns finished but they ran out of money to finance delivery of the stuff, so they were basically asking backers to spend pretty exorbitant sums of money to collectively unfuck the logistics situation, one pallet at a time.

Doxxing the backers was an amusing side to ransoming the pledges, though I think that was after everyone get fired/let go so it isn't quite fair to put that on anyone without a Petersen surname. Partnering with Catalyst is certainly a choice. Did Palladium not answer the phone?

Whats wrong with Catalyst? They successfully delivered the Clan Invasion kickstarter and have grown in size several times over within the past few years without any obvious indication of the growing pains that have consumed so many other companies within the industry.

Battletech is now probably the second largest tabletop wargame IP after 40k.

Backed the original and lost out around $300 undelivered bits.

Was keen for this but multiple red flags for me as a U.K. backer.

Glaringly , the copy on the campaign and some of the Abby Normal posts reads like it’s written by someone for whom English isn’t a first language. That’s a big problem for a rulebook and that no one else seems to have checked the posts or the campaign page.

Lack of distribution outside the US - that means expensive shipping for international backers .

The discounts are rubbish considering the average online retailer is offering 10-20% off with no real risk of the buyer getting nothing.

Lack of a starter box. Abby Normal has stated it was a loss leader for the original creators and that may well be the case , however it offered a way to get into the game that didn’t costa $300 and shipping.

Delivery time. The owner of the company has repeatedly said the long wait for this campaign to start was due to them preparing it. Yet backers are now being told 2024 November is the estimate (so that’ll be April 2025) . To me this reads as them not wanting to have ordered anything until they get the KS money (the rulebook is apparently not finished yet…..) and hence a lack of cash flow.

If this finds it will not be by much as there’s very little momentum beyond the Facebook groups IMO and I honestly will be surprised if it’s fulfilled.

A physical KS not ordering anything until after getting KS money is kind of the cornerstone of why KS was started in the first place. Generating enough orders for mass production/to pay for production assets and such is one of the reasons KS grew up in the first place.

Yes many places now just use it as a pre-order service, but there's still a vast number of projects that need that KS money in one lump sum to generate enough volume to get that first step into production and bulk ordering.

This might blow some peoples minds, but the funding goals on most tabletop game industry kickstarter campaigns is actually lower than what the company running the kickstarter actually needs to finance production of the game - usually by a considerable margin. The industry recommendation is to set your goal for between 1/3rd and 1/2 of your actual need so that the campaign hits the goal quicker and hopefully uses that momentum in order to reach the actual total you need.

I am automatically wary of any kickstarter campaign that only barely manages to eek out above its funding goal as a result.

chaos0xomega wrote:
This might blow some peoples minds, but the funding goals on most tabletop game industry kickstarter campaigns is actually lower than what the company running the kickstarter actually needs to finance production of the game - usually by a considerable margin. The industry recommendation is to set your goal for between 1/3rd and 1/2 of your actual need so that the campaign hits the goal quicker and hopefully uses that momentum in order to reach the actual total you need.

I am automatically wary of any kickstarter campaign that only barely manages to eek out above its funding goal as a result.

This is also very true! I've seen more than a few KS cancel because they limped just to their funding goal.

KS itself has also changed. Used to be you could limp there and be fine; but these days you want to hit your "funded" goal typically within the first 24-48 hours otherwise chances of funding tank really hard. So that further encourages creators to find ways to get that initial goal lower so that they can then hope for the snowball effect to take over ot hit the amount they actually want.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/abbynormal/return-of-the-tripods

Currently US$33k out of a goal of $56k.

I wonder if the return of Epic is taking some of the wind from their sails.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/abbynormal/return-of-the-tripods

Currently US$33k out of a goal of $56k.

I wonder if the return of Epic is taking some of the wind from their sails.

Oh I wager so. And Many people are wanting just some info on rules, a little battle report video, anything.

My "no" is the long delivery time and the fact that they haven't spoken to their capacity / facility for 3D printing a heck of a lot of models. This is speculation,
but I fear they have only a few printers now, and are going to use money from the KS to buy as many as possible. But if it barely funds...?

Delivery window honestly feels ok for a start up looking to go into physical production who don't have any physical production setup right now. If anything 1 year is under-estimating what many end up taking to get into full production when it comes to miniatures. Granted that's often with involving factories in china which can slow the process and even have huge pitfalls (factory decides it costs more and will hold moulds to ransom until they get paid so you can't even pull out and go to a different factory).



Right now I feel like it might limp to its target goal over the next month. Which as noted earlier isn't a good position to be in.
What I hope happens is they review and pull down and reflect and come back stronger with feedback taken on board. Who knows perhaps a month or two of Epic being in the market gets people energised for that format of game and frustrated enough with GW rules* that they want to try something different.




* Yeah it could be the golden goose of perfect rules, but realistically even if they are some will want something different.

Seems pricey for what it is. £50 for the rulebook is a very tough sell

Always was sad I didn't get any of the original models. They hit a perfect niche at the time.

Seeing as I'd be using these to most likely make a display, the value isn't really there anymore, IMO.

Hey folks!

I'm the lead sculptor for Return of the Tripods (AQMF 2nd Edition). I designed and 3D sculpted all of the Martian faction (minus a few of the drones and the Lobototons), plus most of the German armor (Oberschliesen Tank, A7V troop carrier, and the big K-Wagen). Also a large and still growing pile of other stuff that's on deck for future reveals.
Figured I should finally drop by this thread and say hi, plus field some questions about the game and our plans for it going forward. We're seriously pumped to bring another Martian Invasion down on all your heads!

US$ 56,080
pledged of US$ 56,000 goal

Now funded with 13 days to go.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/abbynormal/return-of-the-tripods

Last 48 hours, my dudes! We've still got some stretch goals that we can hit!

If only they’d relent and offer the full rules pdf instead of only a quick start pdf ( obviously for a charge ) - the shipping cost to England of the book will be close to the value of the book itself ! If I’m playing a game I want the full rulebook ….. but not at a cost to me which would place it above a GW limited edition codex/ battletome ….

 TwilightSparkles wrote:
If only they’d relent and offer the full rules pdf instead of only a quick start pdf ( obviously for a charge ) - the shipping cost to England of the book will be close to the value of the book itself ! If I’m playing a game I want the full rulebook ….. but not at a cost to me which would place it above a GW limited edition codex/ battletome ….

The PDF rulebook will be available for purchase when our digital retail shop goes up, after the Kickstarter closes. While the rules and general drafting is finished, we have five Overlord backers who pledged for custom content that we need to develop and incorporate into the main rulebook, plus final layout. It'll be a few months before the PDF rulebook is locked and ready for distribution.

thanks for that update, useful to know for those of us where shipping may be an issue

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
thanks for that update, useful to know for those of us where shipping may be an issue

David Pearce, the co-founder of Abby Normal and head dude in charge of Return of the Tripods, is in Perth, Australia - so he is KEENLY aware of the hurdles for UK / EUR and AUS gamers with shipping and imports. Abby Normal is covering import fees and duties on everything going into Europe as part of our support for the fans, since we couldn't get a local distributor lined up to our satisfaction.

One of the main reasons we set up the game as 3D printable for 2nd Edition was precisely so that players anywhere could buy STLs and PDFs and not have to sell blood plasma or something just to be able to enjoy the game. This hobby is expensive enough already, borders and bureaucrats shouldn't make it worse.

Plus, we've basically guaranteed that the game will never go completely out of print again. Once the STLs are out in the wild - somebody, somewhere, will always have a way to make models for the game. The issues with manufacturing, distribution, molds, and physical production in general came way too close to killing AQMF the first time. We're making sure there won't be a second time.

I was just thinking about the original Kickstarter and saw that this was being released. Shame I missed it, but I'll keep an eye out for it when it goes to retail.

 Accolade wrote:
I was just thinking about the original Kickstarter and saw that this was being released. Shame I missed it, but I'll keep an eye out for it when it goes to retail.

EDIT: We are 110% setting up Backerkit to do late pledges.

Heya!!
Late pledges are OPEN on Backerkit!

https://return-of-the-tripods-www-kickstarter-com.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders