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Just out of question, whilst I understand the unclear announcement on material change or lack thereof, I'm wondering when metal became such and antethema to wargamers? I mean, single pose characters are what metal is good at, right? (granted the Chovar is not one, but my question stands).

Yonan wrote:

 Riquende wrote:
I just don't think they'd be able to say during the Kickstarter which material is most likely.

They didn't even say that they were thinking of it - that's all they need to do, during the kickstarter and not buried in the comments. "We'll make the following minis in plastic, unless there's low demand in which case they'll be cast in high quality metal" is fine. I won't buy them if they do say that (until they've confirmed if they'll be plastic - I really don't like metal) but I have no problem with minis being metal if that's how they choose to make them.

The metal casts I have from them are so-so quality. The Enforcer Captain in Peacekeeper armor that I got with the Enforcer bundle has some major issues that I had to do quite a bit of work to fix. And from looking at pictures around the net, it is not just my copy.

Plus, there is this:

scarletsquig wrote:^ The flipside of that debate is that there was a $15k stretch goal during the DZ campaign to fund the sculpting and tooling of... a single metal dwarf, that wasn't a freebie.

That being the primary reason that I am annoyed at metal Mercs in Deadzone, and really annoyed by the volume of metal figures I got in my second Dreadball shipment.

~Eric

 Barzam wrote:
Yeah, they never said the Helfather was going to be metal. If they had, I probably wouldn't have bought him. So now there's the possibility that any of the other paid add-ons could be metal as well.

Get onto them ASAP so they can remove it from your order imo. Much better to refund it now than when you have to pay return shipping. Hopefully it'll help send a statement to stop pulling these shenanigans.

 sukura636 wrote:
Just out of question, whilst I understand the unclear announcement on material change or lack thereof, I'm wondering when metal became such and antethema to wargamers? I mean, single pose characters are what metal is good at, right? (granted the Chovar is not one, but my question stands).

I've never liked metal minis, they turned me off tabletop gaming for a long time. Once plastic became high quality and widespread I decided to get into it since I really like working with plastic, and to a lesser extent resin. The weight is annoying for storage and transport, it's bad for large/tall minis (mates zoanthropes... my god...), imo they're more easily damaged (than plastic at least, not so much resin), and they're much harder to convert and modify than multi part plastic. Specifically for characters, the resin comparison is more apt though, but the same ease of conversion and lack of weight applies. Also there's the poor metal moulds Mantic seems to use sometimes.

 sukura636 wrote:
Just out of question, whilst I understand the unclear announcement on material change or lack thereof, I'm wondering when metal became such and antethema to wargamers? I mean, single pose characters are what metal is good at, right? (granted the Chovar is not one, but my question stands).

Doesn't bother me at all with the helfather, but that Chovar is going to be an absolute pita to put together and keep together. I was thinking of adding one in the second survey, but will scratch that idea now I know its going to be metal.

Top heavy model + 8 individually cast large heavy tentacle pieces with small ball and socket attachment points = no fun. Anyone who has ever tried to assemble a metal GW tomb scorpion* or similar knows the pain of having to glue in lots of little individual appendages on a large metal model. What will be needed is 8 pins, one for each tentacle, and epoxy resin. A good 45 minutes or so of assembly time, minimum. Superglue alone might hold it temporarily, but it *will* break later.

I don't mind metal (especially for 1-piece models, it's totally fine), but on the other hand I do feel like the decision to make something either restic or metal should have a bit more thought put into it than "accountant says yes/no" especially when fans of the company have put down $15k cash to fund the production of a single miniature.

I recently backed a Kickstarter that produced around 30 different metal minis for $15k of funding.

Deciding to make minis metal based on the results of a single KS survey doesn't sound so great, either. Who knows what the retail sales will be? Who knows what the second survey sales will be? Who knows how many lost sales you will end up with simply because the product is metal (higher retail price, more difficult to assemble) than restic?

Dreadball already made that mistake when loads of people ordered season 3 boosters in the final survey and mantic couldn't cast enough metals to keep up, and then had to deal with people not actually wanting metal after it had already shipped. So it turns out they would have been better off doing restic for those anyway.

Why risk repeating the same mistake with deadzone?

*And yes, I have assembled two of those, damn things would just fall apart in the middle of a battle without me even touching them!

Why indeed.

Can Mantic PLEASE hire someone with at least some basic fundamental project management, quality assurance and customer service experience to sort stuff like this out BEFORE and not AFTER people have paid for stuff?

It really isn't that difficult to do, and it really should happen more than once.

Just a heads up, I (and a few others on the Mantic forum) have had notices from UPS that packages from Mantic are due to be delivered tomorrow.

Unfortunately I'm at work tomorrow and gaming in the evening, so I won't be able to trawl through it all until the weekend.

I got my shipping notice! Will be looking forward to going through it tomorrow. Riquende you can take my place in the Dreadball league tomorrow lol!

Aww, and here I was hoping to lord my Open-Day-pickup KS package over everyone on here. :p

I'm guessing those that got confirmation paid for courier shipping as they were supposed to go out first?

I opted not to go for courier as it's to difficult to time the delivery at least with regular post if I miss it it goes to the local sorting office which is 10 minutes away and I can collect it on my way home.

 sukura636 wrote:
Just out of question, whilst I understand the unclear announcement on material change or lack thereof, I'm wondering when metal became such and antethema to wargamers? I mean, single pose characters are what metal is good at, right? (granted the Chovar is not one, but my question stands).

It's a fair question. Metal is what I used to work with two decades ago, so when Mantic said early on that they might have to make the Warpath Enforcer captain in plastic if people ordered a lot of them, I went out and ordered a metal version.

When I got it, I discovered the exact same casting quality issues Taarnak detailed above. Then I got a box of plastic Veer-myn and found the casting and detail far superior. That's changed my mind quite a bit, so at this point I'm not buying Mantic metal figures until it's widely reported that the quality of their casting in metal has greatly improved. I'm generally pro-Mantic and still consider myself a fan, so I'm quite open to being convinced. If there are a lot of posts on Dakka that the metal Helfather is great, of course I'm going to buy one.

Why indeed.

Can Mantic PLEASE hire someone with at least some basic fundamental project management, quality assurance and customer service experience to sort stuff like this out BEFORE and not AFTER people have paid for stuff?

It really isn't that difficult to do, and it really should happen more than once.

Dakka just messed me up, we'll try again. I'm gonna be sarcy.

If Mantic didn't have multiple people who possessed the skills that you listed, then we would be looking at an utter train wreck of a KS which is never delivered, updated or even attempted. That they are able to shift 35 tonnes of new models out to backers in one month is an achievement by any standard. You're over-exaggerating - this is a 90% success rate, not 0%.

Had shipping notification for mine as well - I didn't pay for courier shipping, but must have gotten it automatically as I pledged for double strike-team.

My thinking was that I wanted an extra mat ($20), an extra pair of battlezones and accessories ($50), a couple of extra starters ($70)...and that was the extra $140 right there, also netting me the compendium with a few add-ons.

The downside? Shipping notice lists the package as being 9.5KG. They weren't kidding about the big boxes...

Stew mentions on FB that 39KG is the biggest one they've made. Strike team is about 4KG.

 sukura636 wrote:
Stew mentions on FB that 39KG is the biggest one they've made.

Someone buying a small Chovar army there then.

 Riquende wrote:

 sukura636 wrote:
Stew mentions on FB that 39KG is the biggest one they've made.

Someone buying a small Chovar army there then.

I'd imagine its a lot of scenery. It seems to be quit popular (and is awesome). The box is huge and quite weighty, even when empty, so that too.

Or someone loves tentacles, as you say.

I have shipping notification! Let joy be unconfined!

If my mate ends up getting his deadzone models before me... I'm going to be a sad panda.

Loving the Chovar, but Boomer is just plain fugly.

Looking forward to my strike team delivery in the next 2 weeks or so, I will review the quality and then maybe go mental with the second survey.

 sukura636 wrote:

Why indeed.

Can Mantic PLEASE hire someone with at least some basic fundamental project management, quality assurance and customer service experience to sort stuff like this out BEFORE and not AFTER people have paid for stuff?

It really isn't that difficult to do, and it really should happen more than once.

Dakka just messed me up, we'll try again. I'm gonna be sarcy.

If Mantic didn't have multiple people who possessed the skills that you listed, then we would be looking at an utter train wreck of a KS which is never delivered, updated or even attempted. That they are able to shift 35 tonnes of new models out to backers in one month is an achievement by any standard. You're over-exaggerating - this is a 90% success rate, not 0%.

That's cute.

Mantic still needs to get a LOT better at all the things I listed.

And this many Kickstarters in? The same 'missteps' shouldn't be happening.

 Alpharius wrote:

 sukura636 wrote:

Why indeed.

Can Mantic PLEASE hire someone with at least some basic fundamental project management, quality assurance and customer service experience to sort stuff like this out BEFORE and not AFTER people have paid for stuff?

It really isn't that difficult to do, and it really should happen more than once.

Dakka just messed me up, we'll try again. I'm gonna be sarcy.

If Mantic didn't have multiple people who possessed the skills that you listed, then we would be looking at an utter train wreck of a KS which is never delivered, updated or even attempted. That they are able to shift 35 tonnes of new models out to backers in one month is an achievement by any standard. You're over-exaggerating - this is a 90% success rate, not 0%.

That's cute.

Mantic still needs to get a LOT better at all the things I listed.

And this many Kickstarters in? The same 'missteps' shouldn't be happening.

I'd argue it's higher than 90%. Two metal models out of how many hundreds produced? And then giving backers a whole pile of free Enforcers? That's pretty darn near 100% in my book.

Wait, it's still November and they're shipping? I thought the KS was set for December... in Kickstarter-land, doesn't "December 2013" actually mean "August 2014"?

Our club one is a mere 4.9kg.

one of the guys at the club has an order weighing just over 19kg. Really looking to this.

Gah how do you all know how much your packages weigh!? I'll probably get it shipped weeks from now =\

Grats for those getting shipped out soon, just jealous.

I shudder to think about mine...

Though I suppose if they're sending out the courier stuffs I'll (hopefully) hear in the next few days!

Usually takes about 9 days for Mantic stuff to get to me and next Friday is my birthday, so hoping mine went out today .

As long as I get my goods before New Years, I'm cool. I'll just stick with my Helfather since I do like his design and I've alrady paid for him. I'm just bummed that he's metal.

It doesn't make all that much sense to do metal figures here either since this was supposed to be a boardgame.

Triple9 wrote:
Usually takes about 9 days for Mantic stuff to get to me and next Friday is my birthday, so hoping mine went out today .

Brofist - my birthday is next Thursday!

I've probably got you by more than a few years too though...

Hoping for an extra Birthday Gift to arrive from Mantic then!

 Alpharius wrote:

 sukura636 wrote:

Why indeed.

Can Mantic PLEASE hire someone with at least some basic fundamental project management, quality assurance and customer service experience to sort stuff like this out BEFORE and not AFTER people have paid for stuff?

It really isn't that difficult to do, and it really should happen more than once.

Dakka just messed me up, we'll try again. I'm gonna be sarcy.

If Mantic didn't have multiple people who possessed the skills that you listed, then we would be looking at an utter train wreck of a KS which is never delivered, updated or even attempted. That they are able to shift 35 tonnes of new models out to backers in one month is an achievement by any standard. You're over-exaggerating - this is a 90% success rate, not 0%.

That's cute.

Mantic still needs to get a LOT better at all the things I listed.

And this many Kickstarters in? The same 'missteps' shouldn't be happening.

I take it you have not backed any CMON stuff then. This is so much better than their attempts yet everyone spouts them as a success story.

That'd be an incorrect assumption.

Not sure how one company messing up means it is OK for another one to mess up though.

And yes, minor mistakes (mostly), etc, etc, etc.

But again, this many Kickstarters in, they probably should have figured out how to fix the problems them seem to keep having.

7.9kg, sounds like that is fairly lowball compared to some others above!

The funny thing is that letting folks folks grab "everything" during the second survey screwed up demand. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy that stand-alone single add-on only models with no bundle deal aren't gonna sell well until people see them. I wonder if anyone at Mantic even has an MBA (not that it ensures you know what you are doing, just means you are good in the classroom and found/had money for school). But some of their business choices boggle the mind as to what their long-term business plan is.

As said though, if you are asking for $10k to unlock the Chovar, that should have paid for the tooling right there. The reason why KS projects start to have goal spread further and further apart is to equate for all the material costs, shipping costs, and labor costs attiributed to the amount of items they are having to move at that point. Seeing that mantics goals tend to do the opposite, they have shown they "play the kickstarter game" versus having "straight-forward" goals.