Defiance games. Plastic (resin) SCI FI manufacturer: chinese

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**Mathieu Raymond**

I don't think anyone mentioned this so far, we went straight to the missile pods, but there was a post about the regular weapons on the hardsuits.

http://www.defiancegames.com/index.php/news/item/uamc-hardsuit-weapon-options

Still no word on when these would hit the streets, though.

**Eilif**

Ooh, those weapons look really nice!

Got a bit of a giggle reading all the comments below the post from folks looking for "realism" in their hardsuits and arguing about whether or not it's a good idea to have weapons in the arms. As though they are in the arms for any reason other than they look cool and fit the subject material the concepts were drawn from!

**Mathieu Raymond**

Yes, this is a futuristic sci-fi setting, so please keep it as boring as real life as possible!

I kinda like my stuff to make a bit of sense, but still, rule of cool shouldn't always be pushed aside.

They just posted a few pictures on FB... nothing new.

**BobtheInquisitor**

The only way to measure the quality of science fiction is by how ~~erect~~ hard it is. That's why nobody liked the Jedi until Lucas came up with that highly-plausible midichlorians explanation.

On another note, the bugs really want me to convert them into Babylon 5 Shadows (and their allies). Time is on their side.

**Mathieu Raymond**

true, the bugs do look like them. If only they came out with a Starfury-style flyer...

**AlexHolker**

Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Yes, this is a futuristic sci-fi setting, so please keep it as boring as real life as possible!

I kinda like my stuff to make a bit of sense, but still, rule of cool shouldn't always be pushed aside.

You can't cite the Rule of Cool as a defense: if it doesn't go without saying, it wasn't cool enough.

And verisimilitude doesn't mean things have to be boring. Human stories in a world that makes sense at least at first glance are less boring than in one where things operate purely on the whim of the author, because it allows you to see beyond what is written into the world beyond.

Even the What The!? tables fall foul of this. This is a setting where shooting artillery at a building is a death sentence, so why the hell are they in such shoddy condition that every turn they have a 1-in-500 chance of triggering a "Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies"? Is the game less interesting if it doesn't arbitrarily kill half your squad for a stupid reason?

**Mathieu Raymond**

Are those really the odds? I never stopped to do the math.

Hands are such finnicky things, though. From what we can see today, and for what they would need to do on hardsuits, I'm assuming they would be an important weight and space investment.

Although if you do mount the weapons on the shoulders, you could free the arms for manipulation and balance while walking or running.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Although, that is neither here nor there, for the moment. Hardsuits have not been announced yet.

**AlexHolker**

Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Hands are such finnicky things, though. From what we can see today, and for what they would need to do on hardsuits, I'm assuming they would be an important weight and space investment.

Yes, they would be. If you're not going to play to the strengths of power armour, you have no business making them. The modifications DFG made to the UAMC hardsuit design mean it has all the downsides of power armour without any of the benefits.

**Mathieu Raymond**

Right... didn't they have hands in the renders we saw? Those were fine looking suits, did they offer any reasons for why they changed their minds? Or is this just more options they plan to give us?

I just wish they had a bit more time to have a presence on forums other than theirs, honestly.

**Mathieu Raymond**

There has been griping on the forums about missed deadlines and late pre-orders, mostly the bugs.

According to Tony, you get 300 pieces per box, all the while they were finding a Best Way to do things in their new factory, so that was bound to slow things down, and most pre-orders have also received extra Germans of Swamp Worms. Not ideal, but short of going back in time, that is about all they can do and have done it.

They are also not promising anything more for this year concretely, looking into 2013 as their big year. I think this is infinitely wise on their part, giving themselves a buffer in that way.

**Mathieu Raymond**

A new update repeating the same stuff as before has appeared on the Defiance website:

Sorry for the lack of updates - it's been all hands on deck in the new plastic "factory" here in Boston to get the Germans rolling out as fast as possible.

We've been shipping steadily albeit slowly but will be able to move everything out much faster now that we've solved some problems on this end with production.

As many of you know, Ed Fortae officially joined the company back in August after working with us for several months in figuring out a new plastic process that lets us put figures that have all the undercuts and "life" of metal miniatures into hard plastic. This was a new process that Ed was still perfecting and took a while for all of us to get to a point where we could produce reliably and consistently.

Our first set for this new plastic process - Hudson's Bugs - was in many ways both a great choice and a poor one. The Bug box consists of 30 Bugs each made with 10 parts - 4 legs, 2 body parts, 2 arms, a head, and a 30mm round base. There are LOADS of parts in the box and they take a LONG time to produce. It was great to start with these as it was the perfect test of the system and helped Ed iron out a lot of issues and go from experiment to full-on production. It was bad though because they're just a tough set to produce in quantity - a lot of man-hours go into them. For example we can get about 6 German boxes for every Bug box!

The Bugs were creating a HUGE bottleneck and holding up all the other releases so we decided that they would have to be sidelined for general distribution for the time being and we would just focus on getting the pre-orders out and then catch up on them for distribution release later.

At the same time that all this was going on, we bought new plastic equipment and moved into our new production/warehouse space here in Boston. We had to get the whole team up to speed on the process - and in doing so we ended up changing some things along the way including how Ed was doing molds so that the process could go faster.

Every time we thought we had a handle on things - something would creep up to knock us back. Well - knock on wood - we've finally got it all figured out and we've been producing steadily and consistently for the last few weeks and building up and shipping German sets.

One of our packing stations. The parts come from the molding room and are checked, sorted, and bagged before being boxed.

All of this, of course, has had a cumulative effect so we're just WAY behind on everything in our plan. Like they say - no plan survives contact with the enemy! Despite all these setbacks and disappointments along the way, we're feeling really good about the process and the end product. It's an awesome feeling to see a beautifully detailed piece come fresh from the mold.

So as we get the rest of the Germans out to consumers, retailers, and distributors over the next couple weeks, we're also continually moving ahead with additional projects for both our ALIEN WAR range and some co-branded sets that will leverage the new plastic process. These sets will be kept under wraps until their boxed and ready to go…but there are some fun and unexpected things coming down the pike!

Again, we're so sorry for all the delays and false starts on our end. We kept thinking we had things sorted only to stumble into some other delay as we moved forward. We are working as fast as possible to get the Germans all shipped off to everyone - and making sure there are some extras in there to try to make up for the delays on our end.

We hope all this is behind us now and we can get on with the very important work of making toy soldiers!!!

Oh - and something coming for the Germans in 2013…

So, at this point, how does everyone feel about this? Anyone still care?

**Myrthe**

Mathieu Raymond wrote:

So, at this point, how does everyone feel about this? Anyone still care?

No, I no longer care. The only thing this company seems to do consistantly is make excuses.

A friend pre-ordered the bugs (against my warning) and, when he complained to them about the endless delays, they simply cancelled his order without him knowing about it. He only found out when he called again after pre-orders were FINALLY going out !!

Pathetic customer service like that coupled with a lack of serious production scream "amateur" and my money will be happily spent with a reliable company. The way they run their "new" business makes me have my doubts about all the blame and accusations they leveled at their original Chinese factory partner when they were "Wargames Factory". It seems they are STILL having production issues and can't get models into customer hands in a timely manner. Thanks but no thanks.

**OrlandotheTechnicoloured**

Well if they get the Hard Suits to a shop near me i'm still interested.

But at the moment I have no interest in ordering direct (of god forbid, pre-ordering),

and I'm not sure how distributors will take them abandoning the bugs to move on to yet another new toy, as I'm sure they ordered stuff (even if they didn't pay upfront like ordinary customers)

**AlexHolker**

So... six and a half months after they posted the roadmap, they've given up on the first fortnight's item. At this rate, I'll have an XX Marine kit out before these guys.

**Mathieu Raymond**

In hindsight, they were being pretty optimistic about that roadmap, weren't they? Even though the Marines were horribly late in production, and the bugs were hitting those bumps in the road... I'd have seen that as a trend, and not an anomaly, had I been in their place.

As you just said, Orlando: When I see them available through the Warstore, I'll buy. Even though shipping is prohibitive, it is a form of insurance policy. I will not pre-order anything.

**Fenriswulf**

I'd still like some of the Germans, just for the guns and ability to mix and match on various miniatures I have.

The walker looks really good, and would be a great stand in Sentinel. However, I don't think I would be pre-ordering at all.

**Eilif**

Mathieu Raymond wrote:
A new update repeating the same stuff as before has appeared on the Defiance website:

Spoiler:

So, at this point, how does everyone feel about this? Anyone still care?

Walker looks cool, but until we see some hardsuits, I can't summon up the interest to care. In fact, it's getting harder and harder to want to follow these medium-small businesses when they can't seem to keep a production schedule. And, I have exactly zero willingness to pre-order anything.

I realize that pre-orders and production schedule reveals help create interest, but I think I'd rather go back to the old school way when companies like GZG or Old Crow would just suddenly pop up with a new product, and we would all get excited, and people would buy it. The most forward news we'd get would be something like "Something coming for ______ faction in the spring!" and then it would come in the spring.

Rant over.

I'm still looking forward to the hardsuits though as I actually have a use for them. Are these going to be plastic or plasti-troll-resi-tic-ity?

**Mathieu Raymond**

I'd put my money on the latter, and not the hard plastic similar to GW.

**Kroothawk**

First thing Ed Fortae did when getting the job at Defiance Games? Start a kickstarter for his own products and also cast for Tre Manor's kickstarter

**CURNOW**

If your after hardsuits in the same style then these mite be able to perchase within the next century!

http://www.antenocitisworkshop.com/news/2012/08/i-spy-with-my-little-eye-something-beginning-with-awesome/

**OrlandotheTechnicoloured**

Kroothawk wrote:
First thing Ed Fortae did when getting the job at Defiance Games? Start a kickstarter for his own products and also cast for Tre Manor's kickstarter

Ed sums up his feelings on Frothers (NSFW, lots of bad language on this forum) http://frothersunite.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=36589&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=3270

**Alpharius**

That's some real competition there, as Antenocitis Workshop makes some really nice product.

**Eilif**

OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Kroothawk wrote:
First thing Ed Fortae did when getting the job at Defiance Games? Start a kickstarter for his own products and also cast for Tre Manor's kickstarter

Ed sums up his feelings on Frothers (NSFW, lots of bad language on this forum) http://frothersunite.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=36589&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=3270

Great link. Some other notable miniature makers weigh in on that thread. What they and Ed say doesn't look good for Defiance though...

Alpharius wrote:That's some real competition there, as Antenocitis Workshop makes some really nice product.

It's a nice product, but it was the budget nature of the Defiance game product that drew me in to get additional some hardsuits for my Ventauran army. If Defiance can't get their act together I'll just use the 3 Tau Stealth suits I picked up a while back and call it a day. The Tau suits are nice models, I just liked the Mak. look of the DG suit renders a bit better.

At this point I'm very glad I kept them and didn't sell them in anticipation of the DG suits release.

I keep hoping, but...

**Mathieu Raymond**

But Antenociti does not seem to be any closer to selling them either. And besides, AW's models are a bit to baroque for me, with the elongated arms and extra curlicues everywhere. I was really hoping Defiance would make reliable, plentiful products. I have even sold my old IG hoping to replace it with UAMC marines, females and hard suits... I just don't know where that plan will go now.

**Alpharius**

Mathieu Raymond wrote:
But Antenociti does not seem to be any closer to selling them either. And besides, AW's models are a bit to baroque for me, with the elongated arms and extra curlicues everywhere. I was really hoping Defiance would make reliable, plentiful products. I have even sold my old IG hoping to replace it with UAMC marines, females and hard suits... I just don't know where that plan will go now.

...over to Dreamforge?

**Kroothawk**

Eilif wrote:
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Kroothawk wrote:
First thing Ed Fortae did when getting the job at Defiance Games? Start a kickstarter for his own products and also cast for Tre Manor's kickstarter

Ed sums up his feelings on Frothers (NSFW, lots of bad language on this forum) http://frothersunite.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=36589&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=3270

Great link. Some other notable miniature makers weigh in on that thread. What they and Ed say doesn't look good for Defiance though...

Nice read. Looks like the owners of Defiance Games are about to drive the next company against the wall (after Wargames Foundry).

**OrlandotheTechnicoloured**

It's the gamer/model makers curse, brought into the manufacturing company.

New shinies are ALWAYS better than old shinies (even if you've not finished assembling/painting them)

I mean I quite like the bugs, most folk who actually saw them quite liked the bugs,

they were reasonably unique (well not many companies were activly selling comparable stuff). If they'd dedicated the manpower & energy that went into the germans, and other 'cool new concepts' to fixing the problems with the bugs, and actually getting them out to retail they'd be in a much stronger position

**Mathieu Raymond**

Yes, probably. When I saw them discussing the Chinese forces and the Papal forces (I kid you not) I felt a little unhinged, like they were looking miles away instead of at the problem right in their face.

Alpharius: Well before Dreamforge offered a female option, I was locked into waiting for the female UAMC marines... but now I just don't know. The Black Widows would mingle well with my Stormtroopers, I just didn't pledge for enough of those, though... so I guess I'll need to buy a box or two retail.

**Kroothawk**

Mathieu Raymond wrote:
When I saw them discussing the Chinese forces and the Papal forces (I kid you not) I felt a little unhinged, like they were looking miles away instead of at the problem right in their face.

Let me guess: The evil Chinese forces were stealing military secrets from the heroes in preparation for an invasion and the Paypal forces were secretly financing it?

BTW Defiance Games should really work together with the Ex Illis guys. They seem to have a similar view on life.

**Mathieu Raymond**

No, the Chinese forces were actually a sort of quantity over quality group, as opposed to the Germans, with UAMC being middle of the pack (how un-jingoistic of them).

Papal forces (I see what you did there) were more of an elite edge force, like today's Swiss Guard. If you can call the bouffant pants and feathers elite.