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Like a lot of others here, I received my SW shortly after Dreadball delivered. Having spent a ton of time dealing with that horrible Restic, then seeing the same thing in the SW box and having tiles that could have been used to hold soup, I promptly put it all in the back of my closet and forgot about it. Wave 2 arrived, it got inventoried, thrown in the box, and back into the closet. The only time I ever really thought about the game was here and on KS, when talking about KS cautionary tales.

So today I was going to list my copy on Ebay for dirt cheap just to get it out of the house. Now after all this time, the tiles are sitting flat and looking at the sculpts, they're pretty good. The quality is not too far off the Warmachine battle box I picked up a few months ago. I've come to terms with restic and cleaning it up (knowing it's a gaming material rather than a show material), So now after all this time, with the rules updates and my rose colored glasses firmly set; can someone tell me what makes this game not worth holding onto and giving a go? I remember a lot of complaints about the rules, but were these complaints resolved in the 2.0 rules and how much of the complaining was because expectations were so high and hadn't really been tempered?

As I recall, primarily:

-Scale changes between Wave 1 and Wave 2
-Too much assembly for the Board Game crowd
-Poor restic (as you mentioned)
Broken rules that were never really resolved (new versions exist, but nothing solid that solved all issues).

That being said, I've assembled mine and they sit in a box under my copy of Zombicide and Boss Monster. Will I get around to playing it? Probably some day. I've heard the newer rules were even much better, if not perfect. It just seems like a lot of hassle tracking it down/printing it/actually finding someone who would play it.

 gunslingerpro wrote:
As I recall, primarily:

-Scale changes between Wave 1 and Wave 2

Pretty fair criticism here. There was apparently a significant amount of shrinkage in wave 2 that they didn't account for with the sculpts. I don't think they're HORRIBLE, but you can certainly tell the difference.

-Too much assembly for the Board Game crowd

Also a fair assessment; the board game crowd is a fickle and temperamental bunch, and it seems assembling minis is not on their short list of "things they like to do."
I didn't think assembly was that bad, but some were complicated.

-Poor restic (as you mentioned)

I still have trouble agreeing with this one. The models still, IMO, look cleaner and are better designed than pretty much anything else sci fi that exists in the material. I realize that's like saying you're good at checkers, but the material is plenty paintable. I painted this dude in like, an hour, and while it's not going to win any awards, you can see that there's plenty of detail to be had:

Broken rules that were never really resolved (new versions exist, but nothing solid that solved all issues).
.

I think the revision HELPED, but the biggest problem seems to be that the primary designer had no design history, and that made the game incredibly hard to follow.

DMed games with someone that knows the system work really, really well. But beyond that, I can understand why people have frustration with the rules.

That's the thing. The sculpts are quite good given the material and the scale change doesn't bother me all that much (being a board game). I guess maybe I'll spend some time with the 2.0 version of the rules and figure out if it's actually a game worth holding onto or not.

The main reason? To me, it comes down to a Kickstarter campaign that got carried away, with too many backers that didn't know what they were getting.

Studio McVey were previously in the business of selling small-run "boutique" miniatures - they weren't doing the sculpting, and I don't know if they were even doing the manufacturing. It was a big leap into a mass-produced boardgame.

It also seemed like a lot of people were expecting to get the quality of the limited-run resin models in mass-produced plastic, which is an unrealistic aim.

Now, after the dust has settled, there's a boardgame with decent components and a rulebook that needs some work. Compared to others in the same genre, the models are on a par with Imperial Assault or Project Pandora: Grim Cargo (from Mantic), as are the card components. Inferior in both respects to Space Hulk (and arguably to 2nd edition Space Hulk, too). Having to assemble the minis is a downside for a boardgame, but IIRC the ones in the core game are at least push-fit.

Really, my main complaint is the design of the board pieces - the artwork is too dark, and I'd prefer it if the game squares were part of the art (like in Space Hulk, Space Crusade or Descent) rather than an overlaid grid, but that's pretty trivial.

I was part of the problem myself - I wasn't backing this to get a good game - I was only in it for the minis.

 cincydooley wrote:

-Too much assembly for the Board Game crowd

Also a fair assessment; the board game crowd is a fickle and temperamental bunch, and it seems assembling minis is not on their short list of "things they like to do."
I didn't think assembly was that bad, but some were complicated.

Oh god, the colossal whining that I witnessed was ridiculous. Which is pity because I've enjoyed playing the game and the models are nice (though the material is still hellish to prepare). Also, someone was nice enough on Boardgame Geek to put this brilliant creation together:

https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/91269/universal-head-sedition-wars-bfa-rules-summary-ref

Much more concise and friendly rules. I will say that, after the kickstarter finished, the presentation and delivery soured a lot of people. This is all a moot point as DaveC posted some rumours and it appears that Avatar of Sorrows looks to have been canned and it's all getting rebooted:

Unfortunately the game doesn't sell well in it's current format even at discounted prices. CMoN are still sitting on stock of 3123 at $45 and they can be got cheaper elsewhere (Amazon $32). At some point they'll just have to take a hit on that as they'll never sell through them all.

It's more of a tabletop game played on a board and it's probably more complex than a board game needs to be. The assembly of the miniatures is also off putting for board gamers who are the target audience many people never even get beyond assembly. Some don't like the PVC material of the miniatures and shrinkage was an issue particularly with wave 2. PVC miniature manufacturing has developed quite a bit since BfA was made and Remy (SMV resident sculptor) now sculpts to allow for this. The issues with the KS and the rules rewrites haven't helped and are still a cause for confusion people often don't even know what version of the rules they have as there are 2 printings and no way to tell which is which. Battle for Alabaster and it's ruleset won't be developed further, no more resources are going into it, it's not going to get reprinted again to bring everything up to date as it won't sell enough to justify it.

The game needs a relaunch with simplified more board game friendly rules and 1 piece/preassembled miniatures - you need to be able to open the box and play - many will never take the next step and paint their miniatures anyway. Look at Blood Rage for example and The Others will follow that format. I've been told that those involved are still keen on a reboot there's a lot of resources already gone into it. If you like SW BfA as is great enjoy the game I know I still do but don't be expecting more of the same.

You know what that means? It means that SMcV and CMON need to take advantage of the situation and turn it into a tabletop wargame. Forget the tiles. Add in transport ships, vehicles, scouts, and other things, and it would be even more appealing.

That was actually the plan up to about a year and a half ago I'm not sure how far it got but the idea was dropped. It's getting rebooted as a board game.

There has actually been plenty of work done over the last few years that's been shelved. Arms of Sorrow exists as rules as well I've had them since 2013 they were written by Black Ball games and well their rewrite of the BfA rules didn't go over so well. It was a direct follow up to BfA using those core rules and adding some extra stuff to them as it was set on a ship it had things like hull breaches. They are very unlikely to see the light of day now. The Arms of Sorrow name may not even be used due to its association as BfAs follow up if it is used it will be in name only.

I think the big problems were

1. the rules did not work well enough and when they realised that the revision did not seek to fix the issues with the original but went in a different direction (and then also needed fixing although that's now been done)

2. Unrealistic expectations of the quality of the minis, people were expecting Studio McVey resins (I think they talked up the quality too much during the KS too). That said I liked most of what I got, but I was very much in a minority

some of the wave 2 sculpts shrinking so much they were not really usable in scale also didn't help, but the game was dead in the water by the time wave 2 arrived

3. Assembly, this really killed it for the board gamers (and a fair few others who I saw posting long rants about normal plastic glue not working)

4. Delays, this was an early KS project, and most of the backers (including me) had yet to realise how long a big campaign would get delayed.. The solo rules were what I really missed as by the time all the revising was done and they released them I'd pretty much given up hopes of playing

At the end of the day I still don't regret backing, the decent minis are worth what I paid

(although I could now get them cheaper via discounters dumping the stock, but you don't know that at the time, and if you always wait for things to fail you'll only ever get access to failures)

Yes, please check out "The esoteric order of Gamers" for rules summaries for just about any moderately-complex game!

http://www.orderofgamers.com/games/

It's quite astonishing how well entire rules systems are fitted (in a concise and logical format) onto a few sheets of paper.

Keep it just for the minis, they're really quite good. I missed the KS but got a cheap copy on EBay a while back, so I can't comment on expectations or anything, and I haven't tried the rules. But with the caveat that I have absolutely no problem working with Restic, I thought the models themselves were fantastic aesthetically and had plenty of detail to work with.

There are sci-fi rulesets by the dozen out there, anywhere from 5-70 models a side from paid and published books to indie PDFs, so I'm sure you can find some use for them that's better than taking a loss selling them on.

Bioptic wrote:
Yes, please check out "The esoteric order of Gamers" for rules summaries for just about any moderately-complex game!

http://www.orderofgamers.com/games/

It's quite astonishing how well entire rules systems are fitted (in a concise and logical format) onto a few sheets of paper.

Yeah, they're great. I usually read the rules for a game, try to play it, then go and download theirs to clear up any confusion.

Went and read through the rules last night and it actually seems pretty good. There are enough new mechanics to pique my interest. Although, I think SMV did themselves a huge disservice by changing pretty much all commonly accepted gaming nomenclature (eg, Line of Sight (Vector), Exploding Sixes (Open-Ended), Critical Damage (Staging Damage) ).

I can see how this game set itself up for a perfect storm of failure, but I pulled SW back out of the sell pile and put it back on the shelf.

As someone who was involved very actively in the community, the game had a lot of hurdles

-overly high expectations (possibly overselling, but one could argue that's what most advertising does) of models, combined with PVC being a new industry medium (less experience on the parts of both producers and consumers), and board gamers being cranky about miniatures
-rules personalities- from the perspective of eventually a fan; then, umm, one of the errata/tester crew; then beta tester for expansion material; then jr. designer, I don't want to say anything unpolitic or overly specific, but the two printed sets of rules suffered heavily IMHO from some egos/lack of playtesting, and by the time the designer who I thought had a strong vision and rapport with testers was in charge and good material was coming out, the game was already suffering from the initial release enough that the strong rules never got any attention
-undirected scenario emphasis: the grunts are all, point for point, the best things in most scenarios. It encourages spamming, which, unfortunately, isn't well supported by the detail level of the system. It tends to have about 3x the number of guys the scenarios and system are designed to handle.


But that's all done, and no turning back now. I'm hoping that SMV gets enough good press from their newer projects that people are open to an eventual reboot that incorporates most of the latest generation of rules, but am not holding my breath. But that's also not a thing/yet.




So, for anyone (like the OP) who's ready to get past the initial bad blood and have some fun with a narrative skirmish game in the moment, some suggestions...

-Read the errata. There looks like there's a lot, but most of it's just clarifications to remove assumptions/opportunities to power game. Be sure to include the scenario errata/load out document.
-Speaking of which, play with load-outs. If you're going to make your own lists, use model counts there as a guide. Neither of you will be playing optimal lists, but it becomes about survival rather than a well-positioned meat grinder.
-Play narrative/campaign scenarios. The freeform ones suffer from all the problems of no load-outs, and were never fixed so there's some easily breakable stuff there.

-A little more biased since I was heavily involved with it it, but single player is one of those "complex on paper, simple in practice" rules sets- if it's looking too dense, try to set it up and go through it rather than understanding it as hypotheticals. Unlike many AI's, its is very intelligent, which is dense, but I think rewarding for people who are tired of "the AI orcs run straight in to my trap! Huzzah, I out-thought something programmed to move in a straight line!"

I hope that helps?

 cincydooley wrote:
Pretty fair criticism here. There was apparently a significant amount of shrinkage in wave 2 that they didn't account for with the sculpts. I don't think they're HORRIBLE, but you can certainly tell the difference.

The scale change wasn't entirely down to shrinkage. McVey stated publicly that it was a deliberate design change when they found that they found out that the sculptor who did wave 1 wasn't available to do wave 2. Rather than try to get someone else to try to match the original figures, they chose to just move the game to a different scale going forwards.


The shrinkage just made the situation worse.

Triple9 wrote:
So now after all this time, with the rules updates and my rose colored glasses firmly set; can someone tell me what makes this game not worth holding onto and giving a go?

I bought SW, along with the updated rulebook, and SW is a fundamentally flawed game, all the way to its core.

Tiles & Counters
- most backers familar with McVey are TTWG, not boardgamers, so they have little familiarity with paper product and tile warp / off-center die issues.

Models
- traditional boardgamers don't like assembling things at all.
- the models themselves look OK when assembled; however, the material chosen is unforgiving to work with. Parts arrived warped and models did not assemble cleanly.
- the models are very samey, lots and lots of monopose people and monsters - for the sheer number of models, it doesn't look good when everybody is in the same pose.

Rules
- rules are simply terribad
- unlimited exploding d6s with damage kickers are a gakky "gimmick" mechanic
- heavy bookkeeping for status effects, wound counts etc.
- reliance on samey, non-obvious counters for tracking and such
- NO effort to incorporate backer / player feedback to improve the rules

Scenarios
- stupid scenarios that are grossly unbalanced and far too unclear
- NO progression from intro to complex scenarios
- NO effort to incorporate backer / player feedback to improve scenarios
- poor balance made worse in 2.0 rules and cards


The complex mechanics and high detail for what should be a trivial game show this to be amateur hour at its worst, and the scenarios are pure gak. McVey released a clearly sub-par product that he obviously did not assemble and playtest himself. Given weeks and months of good feedback on the forums and such, there was no call to clean it up, but rather to emphasize the worst aspects of the game.

As such, the game itself is something I (and many others) consider unplayable, which is why it goes for deep clearance on the Internet, largely worthless.

But damn, those plastic bases are fantastic!

The best think I could do with my Sedition wars figures is to use them to play a game that can use any figures. They are really awesome hard sci-fi designs. Same thing for the Strain.

I was thinking of featuring them heavily as NPC's in an RPG setting called Last Parsec, by Savage Worlds. It's kinda like Rogue Trader, in where most parties would have a ship, and in Last Parsec ist's usually crewed by a faction that functions as the galactic peacekeepers. So great as Navy troops during boarding actions, away missions.

The Strain could be a really great horror-based area NPC, where a sector of space has been infected by a Nano-Virus.

Best thing I could do for mine was donate them to science.



Had a lot more fun with the other pile of minis I had.

Including attaching them to balloons, torch, microwave, grave digger running them over, liquid nitrogen, drill press, attaching them to bottle rockets

Been meaning to make the compilation video. But Laziness is king.

Overpromising and underdelivering, bad rules, warped tiles, then the scale-change & shrunk down second wave.

Despite what various apologists write, I don't think most people who were disappointed in the figures were expecting figures on a par with boutique resins, but were expecting better.

I know I was expecting what had always been miniature model plastic until around that point - HIPS sprues, and ones of a good quality. Because Mike McVey, who I'd admired for so long as a painter in my own formative years wouldn't lie to me, would he?

I certainly wasn't expecting the warped, horrible to work with restic that was delivered.

Who would I have expected HIPS? I dunno...

Important: figures are supplied unassembled and unpainted. Made in plastic.

Might have had something to do with it.

Most of the wave 1 figures aren't terribad, even if they're awfu to cean and assemble - but the box ain't worth what we paid for it by a long shot. The Wave 2 figures are awful. The scenery pack was actually quite decent.

 Azazelx wrote:
The scenery pack was actually quite decent.

OH come on.

The scenery pack is fantastic and you know it

It gets a lot of use for us with Infinity.

Another thing along with the scale differences is that a lot of Wave 2 were pretty expensive add on purchases or billed as KS Exclusives that showed really nice concept art from McVey and crew, who as already stated had previously been responsible for bringing some damned fine figures to market.

When you considered we paid a premium for figures that didn't fit in and in some cases were just crap due to the restic, even if (maybe especially if) you bought in for the figures you would be pretty disappointed. I know I got some of the 'terminator' type armored suits and for what I paid genuinely was disappointed by what I got. They were WAY too expensive for what was delivered.

And some of us did buy it for The Game. And frankly, even with the Super Secret Playtest version finally released, it was very VERY underwhelming. When you need to download a rule summary/sheet from BGG for the game I spent a gak ton on to be considered 'playable', there is something wrong. Add in the 'final' rules came way too late and were released without a lot of notification, the cards needed for playing were out of date (though I guess again I could just go to BGG and download better version...) and the whole project was a let down.

I like most of the Wave 1 figures, and the bases are fantastic. But the game is a dead game, and it was dead on arrival. Trying to resuscitate it seems a waste of effort at this point. If anything McVey should work with another company and add 'Sedition Wars' fluff to an existing Sci-Fi skirmish rule set and release figures/scenario packs for that. Even then, McVey getting any more of my $$$ is not a likely thing to happen.

I was a backer and play board and miniature games for years so was prepared to do some assembly and nurse the odd mis-shaped counter.

After being swayed by in being Mike McVey (my long term GW hero) I was happy to go all in having seen the Sedition Wars models already in production.

What I got was some awful material to stick tiny, tiny pieces together (I have Forge World stuff, I can be patient but this was painful) with a scale that fluctuated wildly (that persons helmeted head is smaller than that guys bare head??). The board warped almost visibly from the box (I was told when I was talking to the support guys that they had missed the humidification process in China). The rules were barely functional and just not fun when compared to Space Hulk.

This was combined with long delays in receiving everything, changes in scale made deliberately mid-wave and just all in all a cheap underwhelming game that had some amazingly sculpted miniatures.

It's my biggest Kickstarter regret...

 Azazelx wrote:
I know I was expecting what had always been miniature model plastic until around that point - HIPS sprues, and ones of a good quality. Because Mike McVey, who I'd admired for so long as a painter in my own formative years wouldn't lie to me, would he?

I certainly wasn't expecting the warped, horrible to work with restic that was delivered.

Who would I have expected HIPS? I dunno...

Important: figures are supplied unassembled and unpainted. Made in plastic.

Might have had something to do with it.

A communications failure, then. The models in the box are comparable with just about every other similar boardgame out there (primarily FFG); I was expecting minis on a par with Doom, and that's what I got (in wave 1). Of course, if you're not a boardgamer, you wouldn't expect that.

How much assembly did your copy of Doom require? Mine didn't need any. To compare the Sedition Wars set with that is pretty silly. To board gamers it sure as hell makes a difference.

 Azazelx wrote:
Who would I have expected HIPS? I dunno...

Important: figures are supplied unassembled and unpainted. Made in plastic.

Might have had something to do with it.

This is a part of the problem with the unofficial language that is used to describe gaming models. Because technically, that statement is correct. 'Restic' is plastic. So is the resin used by Forgeworld, PVC, and whatever the stuff is that PP uses.

Gamers, for some reason, have latched onto the idea that 'plastic' means 'polystyrene'. Ultimately, if the description doesn't actually say that, there should be no reason to expect it.



Having said that, the pre-production shots that were shown led people to expect a certain level of quality that just wasn't present in the final figures. For me, the actual material used isn't really important... I'll work with whatever material companies choose to use. But if you're going to promote your miniatures with high-quality renders or greens, for Bob's sake make sure your chosen material is going to be up to the task of producing those figures.

And it shouldn't even need to be mentioned that changing scale in the middle of a project is a crazy idea.

Let's just call it "the good stuff" for HIPs.

I think the confusion around material is one the areas that we need to grant a littl leeway in this particular instance. Sedition wars was one of the very first KS like this, and came really before the proliferation of material knowledge.

 CptJake wrote:
How much assembly did your copy of Doom require? Mine didn't need any. To compare the Sedition Wars set with that is pretty silly. To board gamers it sure as hell makes a difference.

Well, I had to assemble the Cyberdemons. However, I was talking about the quality of the sculpts and casts, which was the complaint of those who were apparently expecting the same quality as the resin models - painters and wargamers, not boardgamers.

I think a lot of backers came in because of the Mike McVey name - they'd followed him from GW to WotC to Privateer Press, so their previous exposure to boardgames, if any, would probably have been Hero quest, Space Hulk, etc - games with much higher-than-average quality of miniatures because they came from a miniatures company.

games with much higher-than-average quality of miniatures because they came from a miniatures company.

Studio McVey *was* a miniatures company!

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

games with much higher-than-average quality of miniatures because they came from a miniatures company.

Studio McVey *was* a miniatures company!

True, but he broke that nasty paradigm of providing "games with much higher-than-average quality of miniatures because they came from a miniatures company."

What an innovator!

I think it was that people thought the minis would be McCoy quality but in high quality plastic. The wait was the next thing, as this was one of the first large kickstarters, and folks became tired of waiting and lost interest (like what is happening to kingdom death and shadows of brimstone). Then there was the scale issue with wave 2.

None of these issues broke the game for me and i kbow many that enjoy the game. I do have to say that the plastic sucks to work with but the minis are still really good. Overall I'm happy with my purchase and glad I snapped up three extra promo sets back when they were readily available.

What other game has Riddick!!!!