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I've been informed by Steve Lucinski of Miniature Market that all unsold Confrontation, AT-43, Arcane Legions & Golem Arcana items will be purged from their warehouse after 9 AM Thursday, St. Louis time. The company will attempt to donate it to charity, as "destroying product is always a last resort."

AT-43 became defunct back in 2010 with the collapse of Rackham. I know Confrontation made a comeback after the collapse, but I don't know if any of the MM items are from the new owners or all pre-2011.
Golem Arcana is the youngest of these games (August 2014) and the most dead, due to dependence on an Android & iOS app that publisher Harebrained Schemes ceased to support.
Arcane Legions is a 1/72 historical fantasy wargame, along the lines of Kings of War with the historical supplement. It had a weird business model where infantry and cavalry were sold unpainted on the sprue like 1/72 historical figures, while most of the fantasy units (minus the occasional mummies or bear cavalry) were sold as pre-painted like fantasy gamers are used to. Almost all the molds were created for the initial 2009 release, with publisher Wells Expeditions declaring it defunct shortly after the 2011 holidays.

Well, most companies can't be GW. What can we learn from this, besides the obvious boneheaded lesson of Golem Arcana?

Evidentially, it’s a tough market.

GW got lucky by getting in on the ground floor. That allowed them to set the benchmark - and they’ve also moved that benchmark.

Consider when PP first got started. Metal was the standard. Elements of the community were unsure on GW’s increasing shift to plastic (though some preached nebulous terms such as ‘character’ and ‘filigree’). And PP provided the first credible alternative to GW’s fare.

But since those days, both have moved away from metal, for a variety of reasons. That’s dragged consumer expectation along with it, and increased the start up costs for would-be competitors.

It’s a far larger investment than faced 15 or so years ago (I think Warmachine was 2001/2002?), so it’s harder to make that first profit.

Add in GW returning to different scaled games, and that’s another hurdle. It’s not enough to do a Mecha Game, popular as that genre is. It’ll have to offer something different or better than Adeptus Titanicus and/or Battletech.

Even GW, big fish as they are, are only ever a few duff releases away from financial trouble.

The majority of the left-off AT-43 stuff is Karmans.

They're also super easy to find on eBay.

Seems that one faction was the beginning of the end for that game.

The only one of those ranges I don't already own a ton of is Golem Arcana. I just never saw any at prices low enough to justify the purchase of those minis.

Have they purged their stock of Ex-illis as well? Now there was a game that did its level best to kill itself from the first release onwards.

It’s a shame the company botched Arcane Legions like they did. That one was overall pretty good and had some solid potential. I still have all my stuff for it.

 AduroT wrote:
It’s a shame the company botched Arcane Legions like they did. That one was overall pretty good and had some solid potential. I still have all my stuff for it.

Agreed. The rules had great potential, an elegance of design that eludes most GW imitators, and the launch benefitted from probably the industry's first attempt at a semi-professional video tutorial.

Bought a couple boxes of Ex Illis priests. Converted them all for 40K.

Part of the problem I've see with GW-imitators is that they're all trying to produce a better Warhammer. Stuff like Infinity did its own thing and took off.

Are they going to lower the arcane legions stuff to $2.50. I'd buy all the infantry then, as I use the shields

It’s not just “GW imitators” - look at all the gaming that’s come and gone over the years - Mechwarrior, Mageknight, WotCs Star Wars, D&D minis, ...Robotech. That’s just a few of the ones I know of.

As an aside, I’ve been buying the Karmans (and Confrontation werewolves) for years now off their site, and grabbed a bunch of Arcane Legions on the latest sale. It’s a sad thing to see these games go, but nothing lasts forever. And just because the publishing has gone defunct doesn’t mean the game is unplayable - I intend to enjoy my Karen’s for years to come.

In business, survival is the exception and not the rule.

It is easy to forget this in a world of GW.

 Stormonu wrote:
And just because the publishing has gone defunct doesn’t mean the game is unplayable

Not nitpicking, just curious. Can Golem Arcana be played at all or do you need the app that is no longer supported?

 BrookM wrote:
Have they purged their stock of Ex-illis as well? Now there was a game that did its level best to kill itself from the first release onwards.

Are you referring to the Pope depicted in that game? I know that artwork/character ruffled a lot of feathers.

I think every major miniature game has four major facets.

1) The miniatures.
2) The fluff.
3) The game.
4) The cost.

You need two of these, at the very least, and preferably three. Four...never seen it. Mythical status. Most games I see have one or one and a half...if that. Even with those elements achieved you have to take off, and keep up steam somehow. I'd say 98% of games which do "survive" are barely limping along. They may be played by fan bases for years or decades to come, but a thriving community is what you need to support a business (even one with as small as 4-5 employees sometimes). A lot of the older miniature companies exist because it's something 2-3 people do on their spare time or weekends and they're casting in metal in small batches. Oddly their lack of sales helps them continue along since they're not being overwhelmed with work.

I think a unique thing lately has been small companies doing big multi-million dollar Kickstarters and then failing hard immediately following because they simply went too big. They create a massive line of miniatures they can't continue to produce/support/cast molds for, etc. Seen it with several major games. I blame the "unlock" sensation for a lot of this. Your KS won't really work well unless you have unlocks every $5-20K.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
And just because the publishing has gone defunct doesn’t mean the game is unplayable

Not nitpicking, just curious. Can Golem Arcana be played at all or do you need the app that is no longer supported?

That concern was actually the reason I didn’t pick any of those models up, actually. However, I imagine *someone* has the stats printed off somewhere*, and/or there is an emulator around that can run the app - or just an old phone that’lll do the job. The effort though, would be a deterrent to most.

* Thinking about it, I think the stats may be available in BattleScribe?

Didn't the app do everything? Like instead of dice didn't the app calculate results off an RNG? Was the combat engine something that was dice based or did they rely so heavily on the app that there's not a good way to run it outside of code?

Dunno, about to try downloading and see...

 BrookM wrote:
Have they purged their stock of Ex-illis as well? Now there was a game that did its level best to kill itself from the first release onwards.

Yeah, I remember when one of their shills came here to share a "leaked" image of the big get in my belly demon figure by copy lasting the same post/pic on a dozen websites and forums on the same night and then played dumb that he was anything other than a fan with a super secret leaked pic. Then there was their own promotional material that literally said their potential customers are elitist nerds because we learn the rules from books; fear not, though, because they had an app to do it for you! Because being clueless in the real mechanics of your game can only be improved by bundling it with early smart phone and 2g network tech.

The final straw for me was finding out that their miniatures came with DRM (a one time use code for one account in their app) so you couldn't sell them to other players to use in the game as they couldn't add the figures to their roster because the code was already used...and couldn't use them without the app because they didn't put out the rules. Then there was the attitude the employees/owner had when the concerns were brought up here. I've had never actively despised a wargaming company until that point.

So, just like the death of Vor and VOID around the time of 40k 3E exploding? Or the death of all of the failed CCGs in the wake of Magic becoming a thing?

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 BrookM wrote:
Have they purged their stock of Ex-illis as well? Now there was a game that did its level best to kill itself from the first release onwards.

Are you referring to the Pope depicted in that game? I know that artwork/character ruffled a lot of feathers.

Out of curiosity, what Pope art?

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
So, just like the death of Vor and VOID around the time of 40k 3E exploding? Or the death of all of the failed CCGs in the wake of Magic becoming a thing?

Confrontations death was also partly due to them shifting from being a hobby miniatures game to a prepainted pre assembled game. I think there was also some other stuff going on that basically caused them to implode and die off. Other games being strong at the time I don't think helped, but I think they built their own coffin somewhat with their own choices - other games being stronger just sped up the process.

Rather like how Spartan Games managed to kill themselves despite having strong model lines and a good fanbase and even securing a major 3rd party IP

 Elbows wrote:
I think every major miniature game has four major facets.

1) The miniatures.
2) The fluff.
3) The game.
4) The cost.

You can probably add at least 1 more point, ease of access including distribution and availability, which is where most KS games fail after the initial run and it is keeping a lot of smaller games from taking off. Maelstrom's Edge, as a semi random example.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
I think every major miniature game has four major facets.

1) The miniatures.
2) The fluff.
3) The game.
4) The cost.

You can probably add at least 1 more point, ease of access including distribution and availability, which is where most KS games fail after the initial run and it is keeping a lot of smaller games from taking off. Maelstrom's Edge, as a semi random example.

I would add local availability/distribution and also local player scene and promotion.

Just look at how Warmachine has dropped in many areas at the same time as PP dropped their Pressganger system. Even just the casual association and promotion and encouragement of one person in a local club can turn a game from absent to strongly supported. Even if there is no local store the energy and time put in by that person can make a game popular enough that people seek it out online to get the models (and honestly today that is very easy as most people are quite open to online purchases - this isn't the early days when you only bought online with a credit card and even then worried about if it would ever appear).

Cost and models mean nothing if the game has no active playerbase pushing it locally. I'd wager MTG has a big edge on that now with how they've got their own promotion schemes; Games Workshop also gets it and promotes their own ina very direct way with their own stores.



I agree tht a lot of KS games push themeselves hard in marketing for the KS and then once they are finished they often lack support schemes and marketing budget and energy to keep the game pushed into the lime light; coupled to the fact that their most avid core market is also tapped out somewhat on the KS (either funding and/or the fact that they've already got a backlog of models from one big order) .

Pre-painteds had a real rocky start anyway. Anyone remember Battlefield Evolution? It's a miracle (and a happy one!) that Mongoose Publishing still exists at all.

Looking around now it seems only Fantasy Flight really managed to get pre-painteds to take off on a large scale.

 General Helstrom wrote:
Pre-painteds had a real rocky start anyway. Anyone remember Battlefield Evolution? It's a miracle (and a happy one!) that Mongoose Publishing still exists at all.

Looking around now it seems only Fantasy Flight really managed to get pre-painteds to take off on a large scale.

Honestly I think that the issue with something like Confrontation was that they took a product that was marketed toward a certain market segment and changed the core product so that it no longer appealed to that market segment, but only appealed to a smaller subset of it.

So not only did they have to rebuild a new market, but they also had to likely weather a lot of negative press from former fans who felt abandoned

DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 BrookM wrote:
Have they purged their stock of Ex-illis as well? Now there was a game that did its level best to kill itself from the first release onwards.

Are you referring to the Pope depicted in that game? I know that artwork/character ruffled a lot of feathers.

I can't even remember the pope kerfuffle! Rather their whole attitude and business model, as perfectly summed up with the following quote:

warboss wrote:Yeah, I remember when one of their shills came here to share a "leaked" image of the big get in my belly demon figure by copy lasting the same post/pic on a dozen websites and forums on the same night and then played dumb that he was anything other than a fan with a super secret leaked pic. Then there was their own promotional material that literally said their potential customers are elitist nerds because we learn the rules from books; fear not, though, because they had an app to do it for you! Because being clueless in the real mechanics of your game can only be improved by bundling it with early smart phone and 2g network tech.

The final straw for me was finding out that their miniatures came with DRM (a one time use code for one account in their app) so you couldn't sell them to other players to use in the game as they couldn't add the figures to their roster because the code was already used...and couldn't use them without the app because they didn't put out the rules. Then there was the attitude the employees/owner had when the concerns were brought up here. I've had never actively despised a wargaming company until that point.

I do remember quite well that we were told that we would be too stupid to play the game without the app, I mean, you could do it, but it would take forever to calculate all those variables and whatnot! Which then raised the excellent question: why bring minis and a special game board along when you could just run it through the app? Because that's what it really boiled down to: you move your models from one grid to another and the app did everything else. Just remove casualties and move what remains to the next grid, wahey..

The miniature DRM didn't help either for sure.

Well, in about 8 years we’ll get to see this thread resurface when MM decides to purge the RRT stock that hasn’t moved since they bought it off Unka Kev.

 Stormonu wrote:
Well, in about 8 years we’ll get to see this thread resurface when MM decides to purge the RRT stock that hasn’t moved since they bought it off Unka Kev.

I understand nothing of that.

 General Helstrom wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
Well, in about 8 years we’ll get to see this thread resurface when MM decides to purge the RRT stock that hasn’t moved since they bought it off Unka Kev.

I understand nothing of that.

Miniature Market is often called out for their habit of buying failed store's inventories on pennies on the dollar and then using it to support their discount structure. They probably aren't the best store to follow for the success/failure of miniature games due to this. That being said there's little doubt that RobotTech Tactics is doomed and we'll eventually see them in another dump sale.

 BrookM wrote:
I do remember quite well that we were told that we would be too stupid to play the game without the app, I mean, you could do it, but it would take forever to calculate all those variables and whatnot! Which then raised the excellent question: why bring minis and a special game board along when you could just run it through the app? Because that's what it really boiled down to: you move your models from one grid to another and the app did everything else. Just remove casualties and move what remains to the next grid, wahey..

The miniature DRM didn't help either for sure.

So, they tried to make a board game where the resolution mechanics were too complex to be resolved by players during gameplay and so necessitated a computer.

Why didn't they make a video game?

Reminds me of an anecdote I heard about the Aliens RPG that came out at the beginning of the 90s. The combat was hyped as being really gritty and realistic, allowing you to recreate the awesome moments from the film.

To demonstrate this the creators decided to show them recreating the "Eat this!" moment from the film, where Hicks sticks his shotgun in the aliens mouth and blows its head away. It took ages, referencing multiple tables (you had to resolve each bullet individually, a bad idea when you're designing for a game where you have fully automatic weapons like the smartgun or pulse rifle, with potential for hitting separate body parts, causing different wounds which vary in lethality and other effects. Each bullet would require a minimum of 5 tables to resolve.) and ended up not even resulting in the desired outcome.

If your system is too complex to be resolved by the players at the table then it doesn't belong in a tabletop game.