Alpharius wrote:


I hope the miniature matched the 3D renders!

ts been a couple weeks since our last update so we thought we'd make this one a little different from our last few, that were all focused on new models, with a galaxy-sized production update!

Suffice it to say your extraordinary support has allowed us to expand the scope of Relic Knights far beyond what we had originally planned and we have been working a fever pace to bring the whole thing to life.

Relic Knights' six factions, plus Prismatic "mercs" now muster 70 units in the book alone. Add in the Darkspace variant characters and SDE units and we have over 80 units that will be battling for the fate of the galaxy (and your dungeons). Bringing the art and sculpts for a project of this scale to life has been unprecedented for Soda Pop and we have had over two dozen artists and sculptors slaving away to get everything produced. All said and done they have created over 100 models, unique artworks, and new character bios for you to savor.

Even more, we're happy to say that all of the models have been delivered to our manufacturers. Now that the Chinese New Year has passed they have begun tooling and mold-making. We have been told that since there are so many models to be done this process will take roughly six weeks. Each model will go through mastering, cleaning, adjustments for casting, and ultimately approval before they're ready for mass production. We're sure you are every bit as excited as we are to see Relic Knights hit your game table so we will be providing you with status updates, as we receive them ourselves, on every step of the manufacturing process.

While, together, we all watch the gears of manufacturing churn, Soda Pop is still be hard at work preparing for launch as we design retail packaging, sell sheets, and other vital info to get Relic Knights into your hands and the hands of your friendly game store. Most important of all is the rulebook. This massive beast of a manuscript is currently in layout and it seems that we keep finding great things to add to it. It is shaping up to be a monster tome well in excess of 200 pages of rules, units, fiction, and art.

We've also made big changes to the unit cards, as you can see in the images below we've brought the armor attribute to the front of the card, giving this often used stat the ease of reference it deserves. During the public beta we received tons of excellent feedback from you, the community, and we listened. One of the most often requested changes was the creation of keywords for most of the abilities so that we can streamline the cards and standardize their wording. Another often requested feature was some modification for color-blind players, it's hard to see on the low-res versions, but we have added a little positional key on each of the colored esper cost icons allowing you to recognize the type of esper based on the location of the key.

Last up, the manga featuring our favorite princess, Princess Malya is speeding along and looking fabulous.

Below we've included a small sample of page layouts, new cards, and comic book line-art. The Darkspace Calamity is growing, we hope you're ready!

Join the Soda Pop Crew this Saturday, April 6th from 3:00 - 4:00, Pacific Daylight Time for a Relic Knights, Reddit AMA. John, Chris, and Deke will all be online to answer your Relic Knight questions. See you there!

New firm ship date - November
Update #79 · Apr 4, 2013 · 83 comments

With spring's arrival, we know many of you are on pins and needles, and we are glad to say we have received a production timeline from our manufacturers. Unfortunately, it misses our May target date. The current production schedule we have been provided with has Relic Knights shipping from China in August. Which means our warehouse will receive product around November to ship to you.

As we mentioned in our previous production update, the success of the Kickstarter allowed us to expand and improve the Relic Knights range far beyond our expectations. It has allowed the entire range to move plastic and now comprises over 100 unique, multi-part models. This means the scope of the project became significantly larger than any single launch we have done before.

For comparison, the boxed set Super Dungeon Explore only has 20 unique sculpts. If you add every single Super Dungeon Explore expansion to the number, the total rises to 54. Needless to say, Relic Knights was able to explode!

As Relic Knights expanded the scope of the project also expanded and the time ballooned right alongside. Our initial quote for creating the molds for all the models was 1.5 months. That time quote has now increased to 3.5 months. Consequently the time of production down the entire line increases; ultimately arriving at the new November date.

We understand that this is disappointing for all of you, just as it is for us. In the meantime, we are working on a few things to fill the time delay and thank you for your patience. First, we will be releasing a pdf of the rules, including cards for all the units from the Kickstarter. This will allow you to read the rules, build some awesome themed terrain, and play proxy games. Those of you with existing Relic Knights collections will be able to start playing immediately.

Second, Soda Pop is creating a Relic Knights artbook, which will be available as a pdf download to all backers. The artbook will include concept art, illustrations, and behind the scenes information from Soda Pop’s design team on the processes that went into creating Relic Knights.

Finally, Soda Pop is holding a Relic Knights, Reddit AMA this Saturday, April 6 from 3:00 – 4:00p.m. Pacific Time. John, Chris, and Deke will all be available to answer any questions you have about the Relic Knights Kickstarter, game, miniatures, events, and universe. We’re looking forward to the opportunity to chat with you.

Once again, we're sorry for the delay, and we are going to make Relic Knights the best it can possibly be!

- Deke, Soda Pop Miniatures

 cincydooley wrote:
I think it was a combination of an under estimate on tooling time for the models coupled with the time they lost due to the Chinese New Year. They had to set their shipping goal before the KS started, and based on their commentary it seems like they genuinely didnt expect to be producing as many models as they did. 100 new sculpts is nothing to slouch at. It's a bit frustrating, I guess, but I'm hardly concerned. I project manage, and this gak happens. It's a fact of business. Honestly, I appreciate the really articulate and honest response they provided more than anything.

As to be expected, the nerd rage on the KS forum is impressive.

 TheSecretSquig wrote:
The 6 month delay (although I suspect this will turn to 8 months) I can deal with. What I can’t deal with is if SPM do the same as they did with Tentacle Bento. That project received a 4 month delay for the people who backed the project, but they had it on sale at conventions BEFORE they sent it out to people who’d backed the project more than 6 months earlier.

If SPM sell this game or any of the KIckstarter components to anyone BEFORE they’ve completed all their backers pledges, it will switch me off SPM period.