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.

I can understand that people are upset with Defiance. I certainly would be if I was waiting more than six months. Further, things do look kind of dire, as they did not respond to my requests to purchase miniatures.

These things being said, the current situation supports GWs contention not to provide info about new releases, and we all know how much we hate that policy.

If I placed an order, I would cancel it. Then there is no reason to be upset. We can all wait calmly for their releases.

Their foray into resin does not seem to have been a good one. I agree with shasolenzabi, that they should stick to what works.

And yet... they seem to be unaware of their bad press, or are trying to shrug it off as momentary.

They are discussing openly if they should go the KS way on their facebook page. Responses have been overwhelmingly one sided, I believe.

Which side?


Man, that would be one hilarious KS.

Most people seemed to favor them to do the kickstarter. I was actually surprised by this, but several did mention cleaning up the remaining back orders before moving forward. They also seem to have other "projects" wrapped up, maybe they are trying to get ahead of the curve, but in doing so, have shot themselves in the foot.

Meh I think I rather take my chances with Mierce at this point than Defiance

I do not doubt that they would get backers if they were to start a KS, however I do not think we would see support at any sort of large scale, not with how they failed so many times to deliver product. Clean up the back orders and stay on top of the orders coming in (can't imagine there are that many) and release a set on time and then I would say do a KS to support those "under wraps" sets. I still won't back them until I see the plastic after they do the runs, no more renders or fuzzy pictures that hide the real quality (marine knees I'm looking at you).

I think people want this company to succeed which is why there is still such a high degree of fan boys and why the company hasn't tanked yet, but to KS right now would be the wrong thing to do.

If they have stuff ready to go, why KS, though? If it is to essentially drum up a pre-order, we KNOW how bad they are with those.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
If they have stuff ready to go, why KS, though? If it is to essentially drum up a pre-order, we KNOW how bad they are with those.

"Hey guys pre order now! Release date is May 20idunnowhatyearisit?2013?okwe'llsaythat!13!"

I think that their concepts and prices are the reason people want them to succeed. I know I do. I want my battle eggs with shotguns. I know many think that the concepts differ from the production models, but that is actually quite common, in my experience. I believe we got something that was close to the concept, and after recieving my Gunny with the freebies I got, I have to say that the quality isn't nearly as bad as some people have been stating. All of my minis were clean with a bit of flash, no mold errors and the detail is what I expect at this price point. I honestly feel that the Germans are no worse than GW Cadians with the level of detail. They are a bit smaller than GW, but not enough so that you couldn't use them as guard replacements at a fraction of the price.

What I want are the womderful worms. I got a sample in the bugs boxes I received and I could go through loads of the worms...

I cant fault there Marines , they are superb , but its just all the false starts I have had with them..

lol

For the record, the reason they went with Troll Forge plastic is because Hard Plastic (high impact polystyrene) is very expensive -- something on the order of $20,000 per mold. Those Wargames Factory romans they released, with 4 different sprues? $80,000 or more to produce. The reason the Marine sprue was so small is because that's what they could afford (to my knowledge, no one at Defiance Games was aware of Kickstarter at the time, and Kickstarter hadn't really taken off in the minis industry until the money for the Marines had already been spent). The Troll Forge option is much cheaper and for better potential quality (aside from the experimental nature). As it is, for a small company they'd have to make a minimum of $20K is sales to finance a new sprue, plus more sales to cover paying people, taxes, rent, etc, etc, etc. It's a lot of money for a small business.


I actually think a better choice would have been to release the main set for a force in Hard Plastic and use Troll Cast for add-ons like special weapons, command options, heroes, and other bits and bobs that probably won't sell in huge numbers.

 shasolenzabi wrote:
I still say that once the issues with the marine sprues were worked, as evidenced by my marine order being fulfilled in a fairly timely manner. Once they had that down, they should have gone and stayed with it, as it had proven effective.

Sadly, for those waiting for bugs and german troops saw, instead a jump to other materials/tech that had more teething issues which has delayed the production/output past the projection till 2013 if that.

had they simply stayed with the plastics, bugs and possibly germans orders would have been filled by no later than say, October 2012.

I haven't been following them very closely... are there unfulfilled orders (any / a lot?) that they've taken money for?

 Xeno wrote:
For the record, the reason they went with Troll Forge plastic is because Hard Plastic (high impact polystyrene) is very expensive -- .

And yet even that method was too "expensive" for them was it not? (going to troll forge directly anyways, who's successful KS will likely blow their swamp worms out of the water)

Found a quote from TMP that seems to sum up those people against the KS (which may also be applicable to somewhat similar KS like Mierce depending on your position)

I don't like to hate on companies, but based on the history of Defiance Games this Kickstarter would be a definite no-go for me. A Kickstarter should be used to help put together a project that's feasible but a little more than the company can handle at the moment. It should not be used as as an attempt to pull the company's rear end out of the fire.

 Xeno wrote:
For the record, the reason they went with Troll Forge plastic is because Hard Plastic (high impact polystyrene) is very expensive -- something on the order of $20,000 per mold. Those Wargames Factory romans they released, with 4 different sprues? $80,000 or more to produce. The reason the Marine sprue was so small is because that's what they could afford (to my knowledge, no one at Defiance Games was aware of Kickstarter at the time, and Kickstarter hadn't really taken off in the minis industry until the money for the Marines had already been spent). The Troll Forge option is much cheaper and for better potential quality (aside from the experimental nature). As it is, for a small company they'd have to make a minimum of $20K is sales to finance a new sprue, plus more sales to cover paying people, taxes, rent, etc, etc, etc. It's a lot of money for a small business.


I actually think a better choice would have been to release the main set for a force in Hard Plastic and use Troll Cast for add-ons like special weapons, command options, heroes, and other bits and bobs that probably won't sell in huge numbers.

It wasn't Tony's first exposure to this business. If he couldn't come up with an executable business plan and the needed capital that is on him. Yet from the start, all we heard was optimistic release schedules and promises of 'A New Release Every Month!' or something similar. If he knew he couldn't capitalize enough to do that he should have promised goals he had a chance of meeting. None of the expenses or processes should have been a major surprise to him when he started Defiance.

 Synthetik wrote:
What I want are the womderful worms. I got a sample in the bugs boxes I received and I could go through loads of the worms...

I cant fault there Marines , they are superb , but its just all the false starts I have had with them..

Ed from Trollforged is sculpting a whole new (and better) lot of worm for his KS (due to fillfill April) and after that they should be available to buy

that may be quicker than waiting for Defiance to get product in stores

 RiTides wrote:

 shasolenzabi wrote:
I still say that once the issues with the marine sprues were worked, as evidenced by my marine order being fulfilled in a fairly timely manner. Once they had that down, they should have gone and stayed with it, as it had proven effective.

Sadly, for those waiting for bugs and german troops saw, instead a jump to other materials/tech that had more teething issues which has delayed the production/output past the projection till 2013 if that.

had they simply stayed with the plastics, bugs and possibly germans orders would have been filled by no later than say, October 2012.

I haven't been following them very closely... are there unfulfilled orders (any / a lot?) that they've taken money for?

I'd like to say I knew for sure, but the Facebook page iust the only place you can see any complaints to count, they seem to have abandoned the defiance games website for the most part, it is being taken over by google ads whilst stating that comms chatter has been put under maintenance, which again does not look so good when a company does that. I know they have to concentrate on their business recovering, but they still have the website running for orders I would presume, and then they are fielding posts on facebook, overly optimistic as ever whilst folks are stating for them to get orders fulfilled before they head to KS. Also, while the hard-plastic and molds may be a issue, they at least had gotten those to work, so selling a ton of plastic marines may have helped first rather than switch horses mid race as they did.

Defiance has shown some great ideas, yet they have slipped behind the pack in the industry and that is painful to watch. Meanwhile WGF and their work alongside DFG is pushing ahead of the curve.

 kenshin620 wrote:

 Xeno wrote:
For the record, the reason they went with Troll Forge plastic is because Hard Plastic (high impact polystyrene) is very expensive -- .

And yet even that method was too "expensive" for them was it not? (going to troll forge directly anyways, who's successful KS will likely blow their swamp worms out of the water)

I'm just explaining Defiance's logic for the move. That doesn't necessarily mean it was a good idea or not.

Personally, I think it was a good idea but I agree with the general consensus that they should have spent the extra time making sure the stuff worked and worked well before releasing.

For the record, the first person on that Facebook thread saying "no"? That was me

Any update on the german Mech yet?

 Sikil wrote:
Any update on the german Mech yet?

Likely another idea delayed as they still have bugs and Panzergrenadiers to finish order fulfillment on before they can move ahead.

New trick, make hard plastics, bag them in ziplocks like Mantic, and use the left over sprues in the factory to make more minis, wash/rinse/repeat. that would cut down on the plastic costs a bit if they had gone that route. put said sprues in grinder machine, make them into chips, and melt down again to liquid state for moulds. Cant do the same with 2 part resin sadly.

Defiance needs to stop flailing about at all the shiny possibilities that are putting them in the hole and go for something that works to dig them out, get them on track, and then try new ideas as I have said before. Looking at my Marines, I was hopeful, looking at how slow bugs and PZG's have been, sorry, but the stuff did not work, go back to what does., get your reputation back on line as well as your productivity. I'd love to discuss the matter over beers with Tony face to face if I was not in both the state I live in and the state that my body is in.LOL.

the prices they were charging, even in hard plastics would have allowed volume sales to kick butt and gain them a solid rep as well as solid income.

 shasolenzabi wrote:

 Sikil wrote:
Any update on the german Mech yet?

Likely another idea delayed as they still have bugs and Panzergrenadiers to finish order fulfillment on before they can move ahead.

New trick, make hard plastics, bag them in ziplocks like Mantic, and use the left over sprues in the factory to make more minis, wash/rinse/repeat. that would cut down on the plastic costs a bit if they had gone that route. put said sprues in grinder machine, make them into chips, and melt down again to liquid state for moulds. Cant do the same with 2 part resin sadly.

Regrinding plastic sprue is a common practice in the industry. It is done by most all of the larger firms. The problem with this idea applied to DG is that they didn't do there production in house. They couldn't even if they wanted. The cost is to high. A plastic injection machine is about 100K new for a simple one. Add to that the cost of a regrinder (about 15K for a small one) and it is just to much for a small firm to deal with. You will also need to have an injection molding engineer on staff to set the machine for each mold.

I am sure that any sprue left at the factory after making the marines was reused by the factory. Defiance doesn't see any benefit from that though. It is already factored into their costs. So they spent at least 10 grand getting the molds done for the marines already, plus the cost of getting a minimum order of marines (usually a 100,000 sprues, sometimes less). I think Defiance made a good financial choice going with the resin. The costs are not even 10% of plastic to get started and the only added expense is additional labor cost.

The real mistake that Defiance made was not fully learning the resin manufacturing process before tet made time estimates. The learning curve is high and it has bite them hard. I think they are getting everything under control now, though. I believe we should see improvements from them going forward. And I will finally get my battle eggs!

As for learning curves being high, wouldn't it have been nice if Tony had had previous experience with a company that produced similar products so he could have gone through that curve before?

Oh wait....

CptJake wrote:
As for learning curves being high, wouldn't it have been nice if Tony had had previous experience with a company that produced similar products so he could have gone through that curve before?

Oh wait....

Probably mentioned this before but the biggest difference is that they dont have overseas shipping and chinese people to blame

Which should technically make things faster since its all state side.....

I'm in for the Mierce kickstarter, but I would not touch this with a bargepole. Mierce have gone some way to making good with some elements of the MG thing and this is a potential fresh start. Defiance on the other hand fill me with utter horror - a kickstarter from them will not end well.

I doubt we would see a kickstarter from defiance for sometime now. Given the current state of their reputation due to this debacle, they have a considerable amount of repair work to do before they could have even a slightly successful Kickstarter.

With the issue of Tonys experience and knowing how to do this...I got nothing. My best guess would be that they went with a plastics company that had no experience with minis. According to the messages from the plastic company, that was the case. They accepted complete fault on the delays of the marines. Once Tony got them, we had all orders filled, worldwide, in about 2 weeks. I know I got mine about 4 days after they started shipping them.

Maybe with this stuff not being produced in house, it is an area Tony doesn't have experience with? Maybe the underwear gnomes bribed the bridge trolls to get the gremlins to sabotage the equipment so that Tonys rep would be damaged, because Tony found out that the gnomes stole the socks that go missing in dryers to make a nuclear bomb out of pocket lint to sell to Iran so they could afford to pay off the Kebbler elves to support the well known gnomish cookie addiction? Who knows. It could happen.

Shepherd23 wrote:


Maybe with this stuff not being produced in house, it is an area Tony doesn't have experience with? Maybe the underwear gnomes bribed the bridge trolls to get the gremlins to sabotage the equipment so that Tonys rep would be damaged, because Tony found out that the gnomes stole the socks that go missing in dryers to make a nuclear bomb out of pocket lint to sell to Iran so they could afford to pay off the Kebbler elves to support the well known gnomish cookie addiction? Who knows. It could happen.

Cookies?

I knew it!

Shepherd23 wrote:

 shasolenzabi wrote:

 Sikil wrote:
Any update on the german Mech yet?

Likely another idea delayed as they still have bugs and Panzergrenadiers to finish order fulfillment on before they can move ahead.

New trick, make hard plastics, bag them in ziplocks like Mantic, and use the left over sprues in the factory to make more minis, wash/rinse/repeat. that would cut down on the plastic costs a bit if they had gone that route. put said sprues in grinder machine, make them into chips, and melt down again to liquid state for moulds. Cant do the same with 2 part resin sadly.

Regrinding plastic sprue is a common practice in the industry. It is done by most all of the larger firms. The problem with this idea applied to DG is that they didn't do there production in house. They couldn't even if they wanted. The cost is to high. A plastic injection machine is about 100K new for a simple one. Add to that the cost of a regrinder (about 15K for a small one) and it is just to much for a small firm to deal with. You will also need to have an injection molding engineer on staff to set the machine for each mold.

I am sure that any sprue left at the factory after making the marines was reused by the factory. Defiance doesn't see any benefit from that though. It is already factored into their costs. So they spent at least 10 grand getting the molds done for the marines already, plus the cost of getting a minimum order of marines (usually a 100,000 sprues, sometimes less). I think Defiance made a good financial choice going with the resin. The costs are not even 10% of plastic to get started and the only added expense is additional labor cost.

The real mistake that Defiance made was not fully learning the resin manufacturing process before tet made time estimates. The learning curve is high and it has bite them hard. I think they are getting everything under control now, though. I believe we should see improvements from them going forward. And I will finally get my battle eggs!

Here's to seeing those battle eggs!

Let's just not hold our collective breath until that happens, ok?

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Let's just not hold our collective breath until that happens, ok?

Too late.

You have the correct skin tone, now you just need the hat: