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I don't mind waiting I've plenty more stuff than I can actually paint

these will be excellent when they eventually arrive

The update:

Update #59

Mar 16 2014
The Ides of March
11 comments
13 likes

The ides is upon us again.

It’s been quite a year. On the first anniversary of the inauguration of Arena Rex, we have a couple of nice treats to share. First, we just got in the masters of the latest models for Arena Rex. All of them have been approved for production except for Ur-Kek, who had some casting issues on his left leg, but should be approved soon. You can see them all in our newest 360 video here:




And a few still images for those who prefer their minis in stasis.



Latest production masters.

Stephane's Parcel


Next, Sereqet and Mounted Zahra are finished, and you can see them both together at last and (very) separate below. The second photo shows the packing for their journey to Austin, and then on to the casting house from here.


The completed and parted out Zahra and Sereqet, assembled with stick tac.


Stephane's package.

Caho-Ta + Leo

Lastly, more progress from MIKH. Leo and Caho-Ta both have their volumes settled and rough details begun. The final touches on Nero came out great, including the trademark scarring from Yasmine’s original artwork.










By the horns

Thanks for sticking with us, and we’ll share more soon!

-RRG

And I'm going to agree with both Cincy and Piston on this one - I find myself strangely unenthusiastic due to the delays and 'no end in sight' nature here, and yet, I'm happy to wait because the models do look fantastic...

"MIKH" seems to be the boat anchor on this one but in the end the creators are the ones responsible, and really do seem to be in no rush.

I can see this one running to the end of the summer if not year end as well that said we paid for premium resin miniatures so I'd rather they didn't rush them because the vast majority have been quality sculpts. I might have my SWM ruined temple boards to build an arena by then too!

I'm waiting to see Sereqet and Mounted Zahra and Bjarrhvit as a final resin casts it's difficult to pick out all the details in the "green" and the mix of materials doesn't help. I really wanted Bjarrhvit but hadn't got spare funds to add her so I hope she turns out well and I'll get her later.

I can see the lion and horse being a problem to attach to a base and keep them there, the dynamic poses are great but sometimes aren't the most practical. It does seem to be mostly MIKH work that's left but they did give him the lion's share of the work.

RiTides wrote:"MIKH" seems to be the boat anchor on this one but in the end the creators are the ones responsible, and really do seem to be in no rush.

A bad miniature produced will be a bad miniature forever.

In such a niche market bad first impressions will last forever.

Sedition Wars will/should be a warning to the overall quality of a miniature, in both sculpt and material. I've seen more people on here, facebook and BGG that have tried to pawn off their sedition wars kickstarter and say they will never buy from SM again.

I'm sure there are other example of poor quality miniature kickstarters I'm just not aware of them and do hope it doesn't seem like I am picking on them.

When all said and done, when this product is delivered the last thing people will think about is the delays. People will be in awe when they see these in person. Without a doubt RRG should have planned differently, but water under the bridge, when/if they do another KS I hope they adjust the mistakes they have made that resulted in the delays.

RiTides wrote:"MIKH" seems to be the boat anchor on this one but in the end the creators are the ones responsible, and really do seem to be in no rush.

DaveC wrote:I can see this one running to the end of the summer if not year end as well that said we paid for premium resin miniatures so I'd rather they didn't rush them because the vast majority have been quality sculpts. I might have my SWM ruined temple boards to build an arena by then too!

I'm waiting to see Sereqet and Mounted Zahra and Bjarrhvit as a final resin casts it's difficult to pick out all the details in the "green" and the mix of materials doesn't help. I really wanted Bjarrhvit but hadn't got spare funds to add her so I hope she turns out well and I'll get her later.

I can see the lion and horse being a problem to attach to a base and keep them there, the dynamic poses are great but sometimes aren't the most practical. It does seem to be mostly MIKH work that's left but they did give him the lion's share of the work.

There is 8 miniatures left (as of last month) that need to be sculpted.

I'm guessing 3 to 4 months to be finished 1 to 2 months for casting?

July or August delivery date?

 Piston Honda wrote:


I'm sure there are other example of poor quality miniature kickstarters I'm just not aware of them and do hope it doesn't seem like I am picking on them.

Mantic has that niche covered. Somehow people keep buying from them.

 cincydooley wrote:

 Piston Honda wrote:


I'm sure there are other example of poor quality miniature kickstarters I'm just not aware of them and do hope it doesn't seem like I am picking on them.

Mantic has that niche covered. Somehow people keep buying from them.

Wal-mart mentality.

It's crap but it's cheap.

Their Undead is fantastic, Orcs are ok-ish. But the rest is total crap. The Human-angel army that was released recently was jaw dropping terrible. They looked like Dollar store quality Bag-o-army men.

July is totally impossible, given the sculpting rate.

I never said they should sculpt badly of course, but maybe shouldn't have put all their eggs in one basket with the workload they've given to MIKH.

 Piston Honda wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

 Piston Honda wrote:


I'm sure there are other example of poor quality miniature kickstarters I'm just not aware of them and do hope it doesn't seem like I am picking on them.

Mantic has that niche covered. Somehow people keep buying from them.

Wal-mart mentality.

It's crap but it's cheap.

Their Undead is fantastic, Orcs are ok-ish. But the rest is total crap. The Human-angel army that was released recently was jaw dropping terrible. They looked like Dollar store quality Bag-o-army men.

I gave it a shot with the Deadzone Rebs. I was really, really disappointed.

It blows my mind that they seem to not take any gak, while McVey produced better (but still not great) minis for Sedition Wars and they've just been raked all over the coals.

 Piston Honda wrote:

There is 8 miniatures left (as of last month) that need to be sculpted.

I'm guessing 3 to 4 months to be finished 1 to 2 months for casting?

July or August delivery date?

Depends which casting house they are going with. Discussing it with one painter helping out a couple KS's, he mentions most in the US are still backed up for months. We may be seeing a fall delivery for this one :(

 cincydooley wrote:
I got the update, thought, hmm, and then immediately had trouble caring because I have no idea when we're actually going to get our stuff.

The regret meter is presently pretty high with this one.

QFT. Well, actually, I don't regret it, but it felt like it completely lost any momentum and have trouble caring now. I was really eager and playtested a handful of games, but then communications got really sparse and I'm not invested in the game any more. I'm looking forward to playing, but expect at this point that I'll be using the beta rules and proxying minis I don't own (i.e. more than 2 starter groups) because of how little they've tried to keep things going (unless there's been a recent push, that is- I eventually gave up on their forum...)

 spiralingcadaver wrote:
QFT. Well, actually, I don't regret it, but it felt like it completely lost any momentum and have trouble caring now. I was really eager and playtested a handful of games, but then communications got really sparse and I'm not invested in the game any more. I'm looking forward to playing, but expect at this point that I'll be using the beta rules and proxying minis I don't own (i.e. more than 2 starter groups) because of how little they've tried to keep things going (unless there's been a recent push, that is- I eventually gave up on their forum...)

You know what. This is how I feel about it.

I'll be super excited when it ships, but right now, with the lack of anything even remotely concrete, my give a damn is sorta busted.

Odd that they don't update more... that should be a no-brainer to do to help keep momentum / enthusiasm for the game.

 RiTides wrote:
Odd that they don't update more... that should be a no-brainer to do to help keep momentum / enthusiasm for the game.

They are just three dudes with day jobs trying to wrangle sculptors, proof casts, and troubleshoot delivery of an entire game line, but I agree - they needed to start posting more frequently about four months back to keep pushing the momentum they had established. If you were visiting their forums back in August/September, there was actually a decent amount of posting and discussion, but that has long since dwindled to a totally insignificant post per week or so. I know RRG have mentioned unexpected job changes, weddings, and births all happening within the timeframe of this project, but that shouldn't keep them from posting SOMETHING every week - rules interpretations, comments on forum posts, sculpting tidbits, questions for backers to give feedback on... SOMETHING to keep people interested.

I was sooooo excited about this project from the minute I hopped on the KS bandwagon, but like cincy and spiraling posted above, that excitement has essentially waned from "frothing boil" to "tepid simmer" because of the delay and lack of info. I'm sure I'll perk way up again when those gorgeous minis arrive, but it's all a little sad IMO.

 RiTides wrote:
Odd that they don't update more... that should be a no-brainer to do to help keep momentum / enthusiasm for the game.

I find the best updates are when there is significance and substance to them. Rather than getting pounded with the "things are coming a long nicely we will have photos in a week or 2" update.

The one area they need to improve on is forum communication with the rules. Once a week take time to address issues, where things are head, proposes to rules changes.

However they do it, clearly they should be communicating more... totally agree with Gomez's post above.

More minis approved for final casting

Weird that wasn't sent out as an 'official' KS Update.

Last 'Official' KS Update was almost a month ago.

I've honestly forgotten what I selected for this one...

Update #60

Wherein we talk a lot, and get a little horse.


Greetings backers, our campaign ended almost a year ago on April 21, the birthday of Rome. Today we are happy to share some more progress and talk a little bit about our plans for fulfillment.

Caho-Ta at 99%

Here is a nearly complete Caho-Ta. The mane and tail really add to the motion of the model, and the sculpt will be baked this weekend. We can't wait to see Hroka sitting tall in the saddle!





Leo progress

Leo is still rough, but is starting to really come together as well. You can see below some more early work, and MIKH's clear attention to detail in really capturing the feel of the original art. Leo will be finished next, with Septimus and Hroka to follow.





Mago + Lupa 360s

Mago and Lupa have also moved into full production casting, and you can see the masters below. 1080P!!!




Production + Timeline

Today we are happy to announce that we can give everyone a little more insight into our timeline for Arena Rex's fulfillment. Recently, we have signed a contract with a new vendor to produce our bases and activation tokens in high-quality plastic. We expect to begin shipping when the bases and tokens arrive.

The finish and the color of these parts will match the resin miniatures very closely, and that was a key part of the agreement. Below you can see renders of the bases that have been redesigned slightly on the underside to accommodate the injection molding process.


Renders of our final production base (30mm) and token

Between the massive support for Arena Rex and the rising popularity of both resin miniatures and tabletop gaming, our vendors have been working very hard to expand their capacity from the moment the campaign ended and we were able to give them an estimate for production. In anticipation of our very large order, the casting house we are partnered with ordered new machinery and hired new staff to further increase their production capacity. This equipment took months to produce and upon delivery, did not function. This meant it would be another several months until production capacity was increased. Thankfully we are now through those several months and production is humming along.

Originally our plan was to produce our bases in tokens in resin. Unfortunately, our designs proved difficult to manufacture at scale. We spent months troubleshooting and redesigning the bases, gates, and casting processes. It became apparent that we wouldn't be able to get the quantity of consistent, quality parts we needed and still use resin for our bases and tokens. The move to plastic bases and tokens takes a lot of strain off of the resin casters in terms of both the volume of miniature casting that still remains to be done and the technical challenges of producing our bases and tokens.

It was important to us that our miniatures and their bases represented a complete product. We set out to produce excellent miniatures; we feel the base is part of that experience. Our minis had to be able to stand on their own, even in an unpainted state. The Doric feel of the Arena Rex bases was meant to evoke the statuary and architecture of the era and complement the miniatures, something we didn't want to lose by shipping with the common bases available in bulk.

The fact that we have now secured a supplier for the necessary 40,000 plastic bases and tokens is a huge win for Arena Rex both in terms of our fulfillment timeline and the quality of the product for our backers. We hope you're as excited about this new direction for the bases and tokens as we are.

For those of you who want more details on the timing, here is the breakdown:
• The first casts from the tooling will arrive in just under 4 weeks for approval .
•The final casts will arrive within two months of tooling approval.
• This lines up well with the resin casting timeline now that the bases and tokens have been accounted for.
•The bases and tokens will be opaque Pantone Cool Gray 5c, all surfaces will be lightly textured: Mold-Tech MT-11020

Any miniatures that have not finished production by the time their order is otherwise ready to ship will be handled individually, and we'll work with you to find the best solution in those cases. We will talk more about this as the remaining sculpts are completed and miniatures are produced.

Until next time,

-RRG

So..... What are we thinking? A 2015 delivery now?

I strongly suspect that most of the stuff that has been approved for casting will already have been cast so it's mainly a cast of the last few stragglers and the new plastic bases

I'd guess August/September

but with lots of backers offered split shipping as a bunch of the MIKH sculpts won't be done

(where backers probably have to pay for the second shipment)

Yeah it sounds like 3 months minimum probably 4 until the tokens and bases are done that puts it in the August/September range. They'll ship everything that's ready then and work with you to solve any that are outstandng.

I'm waiting on Septimus on foot so that's me waiting until the end then! I'm actually glad they went with plastic tokens and bases and took the effort to colour match them. Those bases are probably going to need to be weighted for some minis but the recess makes this easy and it also makes pinning easier as well.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
I strongly suspect that most of the stuff that has been approved for casting will already have been cast so it's mainly a cast of the last few stragglers and the new plastic bases

I'd guess August/September

but with lots of backers offered split shipping as a bunch of the MIKH sculpts won't be done

(where backers probably have to pay for the second shipment)

I think August has no chance, personally... I'm guessing Nov/Dec. Not for full completion, but shipping the non-MIKH stuff.

The clear indication that there will be an option for split shipping at our cost was interesting.

Hopefully they'll be able to tell us just how long it will be for everything to be ready, as at this point, since I've largely forgotten about this one, I think I'll wait.

Unless split shipping is quite reasonable...

It blows my mind a bit that the split shipping is at our cost for something that's going to be so late.

Maybe well be able to play this at adepticon 2015 alph. Hah.

I wouldn't even count on that!

Not "absurdly" late... yet. It does feel like it'll get there, though.

I think it's a decent option for impatient gamers, and I understand that shipping twice could add a huge amount to their costs, but I think a much better compromise would have been to cover half of additional shipping costs for people who want 2 waves...

just up on facebook so I'd guess an official update will show up in a week or two

You know I wasn't mad about the concept but I like the final mini

Wonder if it would fit onto a 50x50mm base for my Tomb Kings?