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Eumerin wrote:

 Salacious Greed wrote:
They've made this miniatures not too detailed, but overly fidgety to put together. Multiple very small scale pieces doesn't make me excited to see this game.

From the sound of things, they've made the models consist of more parts than the old 1/144 Robotech kits (four non-transformable kits - one of each VF mode, and one armored VF kit). And those things had swing wings on the fighter. I doubt that this release will be nearly as nice (even accounting for the scale difference).


On another note, imo plastic makes a certain amount of sense from a public standpoint. I've got a friend who I don't think has ever played a wargame, but I think he bought into the Kickstarter. Because Robotech. And I suspect that there are quite a few like him. I suspect that plastic might go over better with those sorts of people (many young boys build at least one or two plastic models, which means that they've worked with it in the past), though the massive number of tiny fiddly bits is going to cause problems.

Better tell your friend he's going to stay disappointed. According to WRRD it looks like there won't be any changes to the parts we'er getting. So we'er stuck with what we have. I'm still debating about posting this sad bit of news on the RRT ks.

That should be interesting. Kind of quashes some of the "omg just take as long as you need to make it the BEST EVAR!" talk if the response is "Whelp, some people think it's gak but, y'know, deadlines..."

Don't get me wrong, I've been admittedly critical of how long they've delayed, and it would be hypocritical to shift this stance without properly changing gears, so it's worth noting that my frustration with the delays was the unending talk about how awesome and professional and amazing the figures would be. We just recently began to discover that the bloody VT heads would be in two pieces, etc, so yeah, going to be a little exasperation over that simmering for a while.

Don't want to step on any toes, but I'm totally glad these are going to be in plastic. If Paulson could have done these in plastic, that would have been great. But this requires far too many models for resin, and metals are yesteryear for large tabletop games.

But I really wish PB had gone with someone with some experience. Apparently ND thinks we're all modellers, and want to spend multiple hours putting together 60pts of miniatures. Apparently they aren't modellers or converters, as others have pointed out the inflexability of their show designs. Craptastic is probably a good DakkaDakka safe word to label their model breakdowns. I cringe to see the Supers and Armoreds, as they seem to be royaling up the UEDF. Sadly, my 5 sets seem to be becoming a poor decision on my part. No wonder they don't want to share the they get from ND with us...

Yeah I'm starting to have buyers remorse. But we'll see how the rest turn out. Remember having legitimate concerns makes you a troll.

It seems that with each update that shows the actual realities of these miniatures, the more inclined I am to increase what portion of my 3 boxes ends up on ebay.

I mean, they've already gotten their money, but if this does become a problem for the wider base, their retailers are going to be pissed dealing with potentially thousands of people flooding the secondary market trying to unload large portions of their pledge in the same way.

The worst case scenario (aside from an utter collapse) would be this remaining a very small scale game and collector's niche. It's a wargame, they obviously (through the points totals we have) want people eventually owning thousands of points per faction in order to have diversity in the forces they can field (heavy FPA one game, battle pod swarm the next, flights of Super VFs the next, etc), but if it ends up being something that people play small scale and/or collect small packs of for dioramas and hobby modeling, they're not going to rake in nearly the kind of cash they clearly want.

From what I'm seeing it looks like PB will blame ND and ND will blame the Chinese. Now the circle is complete. Is it me or is anyone else getting the impression PB is being as cheap as possible?

So, with all the talk of fiddly pieces, will these models be made of a plastic that works with plastic glue (or styrene glue/Humbrol Precision/whatever)?

No glue will work, these can only be assembled usin Kevin's lumpy stool, it sticks, fills gaps and can be sanded when dry, makes everything seem perfect!

Joyboozer wrote:No glue will work, these can only be assembled usin Kevin's lumpy stool, it sticks, fills gaps and can be sanded when dry, makes everything seem perfect!

Good luck finding a sample. Apparently the stuff is limired edition as people keep saying he's full of it.

I bet ninja johns buddies at GW must be laughing their heads off.

Whomever designed these has never had to build an army (skirmish or otherwise) of figs. Very disappointed. A veritech should have been like 6-7 parts. Fighter mode: top, bottom, wings (on hinge to be posable) and then maybe the upright tail sections and missile pods. Done. Guardian mode should be top, bottoms, arms on ball sockets, legs on ball sockets, any other detail bits. Done. Not should be front, back, arms on ball sockets, legs on ball sockets, gun pod, and head(s). Done. And these are like the MOST parts per model.

Building an army is gonna SUCK.

I think the person who made this design is buddies with some bigwig at ND. I don't think this person has played any tabletop game ever. How in the $%#& could such a piss poor model with limited poses be shown to us and be told the paint will cover up the imperfections.

I think this is all a plot. PB is going to cultivate all that slime from their business practices and sell it as PB liquid green stuff for all your mold line gap woes.

And another thing, Forar, your worst case scenario that you posted above is actually what I was thinking the best case scenario was going to be for this game from the beginning.

The IP crap alone, and HG letting it rot on the vine for so many years has pretty much ensured that it is going to face an uphill battle for table time at the FLGS across the board IMHO.

 Cypher-xv wrote:
I think the person who made this design is buddies with some bigwig at ND. I don't think this person has played any tabletop game ever. How in the $%#& could such a piss poor model with limited poses be shown to us and be told the paint will cover up the imperfections.

ND only get paid for their work, the actual cost of production is paid by Palladium. The original sculpts were rejected based on production costs and were redesigned under instructions from Palladium to be able to be done much cheaper.

The way the mini has been parted out (split into bits) is unlikely to have been done by the sculptors at Ninja Division

that job is typically done by the tooling company (who are the ones with the experience in steel mould design)

now sensible project creators like Adam at Kingdom Death and Mark at Dreamforge then spend a load of time and effort looking over this initial parting out and suggesting/demanding changes

(it looks to me like the tooling company has experience in making larger scale kits where more parts to give a better appearance is desired)

there's still time for this to happen but with ND, Palladium, Harmony Gold and the tooling company all in the mix I'm not hopefull

Joyboozer wrote:

 Cypher-xv wrote:
I think the person who made this design is buddies with some bigwig at ND. I don't think this person has played any tabletop game ever. How in the $%#& could such a piss poor model with limited poses be shown to us and be told the paint will cover up the imperfections.

ND only get paid for their work, the actual cost of production is paid by Palladium. The original sculpts were rejected based on production costs and were redesigned under instructions from Palladium to be able to be done much cheaper.

Any source for this??

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
The way the mini has been parted out (split into bits) is unlikely to have been done by the sculptors at Ninja Division

that job is typically done by the tooling company (who are the ones with the experience in steel mould design)

now sensible project creators like Adam at Kingdom Death and Mark at Dreamforge then spend a load of time and effort looking over this initial parting out and suggesting/demanding changes

(it looks to me like the tooling company has experience in making larger scale kits where more parts to give a better appearance is desired)

there's still time for this to happen but with ND, Palladium, Harmony Gold and the tooling company all in the mix I'm not hopefull

I don't know Orlando. I would agree with you, except I believe that ND had these printed, not China. So I think these non-sensical designs are right from ND, who don't seem able to locate a TableTop, nor envision a game there upon.

I guess PB wanted to go so cheap that they had ND hire people who have seen neither miniatures nor toys. Poseability? Huh, it's a model, it goes together one way. Moveable wings? Uh, wings on planes don't move. Ball joints? WTF are you talking about?? I make little pictures on CAD. ain't round in CAD! I can make the heads two pieces though. Interchangeable? Nope, but more pieces is better right?!?

And, no refunds. I just hope the word gets out, that stores order less, and don't get stuck with PB/NDs failings.

Sining wrote:

Joyboozer wrote:

 Cypher-xv wrote:
I think the person who made this design is buddies with some bigwig at ND. I don't think this person has played any tabletop game ever. How in the $%#& could such a piss poor model with limited poses be shown to us and be told the paint will cover up the imperfections.

ND only get paid for their work, the actual cost of production is paid by Palladium. The original sculpts were rejected based on production costs and were redesigned under instructions from Palladium to be able to be done much cheaper.

Any source for this??

Palladium are the publisher, that's how it works, they contract out the workload to ND for the sculpting and to whoever the use for production.
They said themselves they had to get ND to rework the designs as it didn't suit their chosen production method.

There's folks who now want to sell their pledges. The way these minis are getting made I don't blame them. One guy is offering his stuff at a discount. This is bad for PB. It's like the suck just keeps on coming with them.

Joyboozer wrote:
No glue will work, these can only be assembled usin Kevin's lumpy stool, it sticks, fills gaps and can be sanded when dry, makes everything seem perfect!

I do love the humor, but I'm also on the edge of a panic attack selling spree here. Knowing whether these models will bond using plastic glue/styrene solvent/Humbrol Precision/GW plastic water makes the difference between staying in and selling everything off tout suite.

Just setting up my tarp now for assembly: could you imagine what dropping a single piece would be like?
So tiny there would be no finding it.
I find putting models together the easiest but painting these little guys will take some interesting planning.
Glad I got an airbrush, I think these models will get painful to keep the paint layer thin and not lose detail.

Man the defenders are delusional! One guy over on FB said PB has no say in the design of the models. All PB does is marketing, which in of itself isn't very good either.

 Cypher-xv wrote:
Man the defenders are delusional! One guy over on FB said PB has no say in the design of the models. All PB does is marketing, which in of itself isn't very good either.

To be fair, it's not like their fans are used to Palladium doing much of anything, so it's probably a likely assumption.

Joyboozer wrote:

 Cypher-xv wrote:
Man the defenders are delusional! One guy over on FB said PB has no say in the design of the models. All PB does is marketing, which in of itself isn't very good either.

To be fair, it's not like their fans are used to Palladium doing much of anything, so it's probably a likely assumption.

PB fandom is sad.

We might complain about GW prices but I don't think it's anywhere near the sad state of PB fandom.

 Cypher-xv wrote:
Man the defenders are delusional! One guy over on FB said PB has no say in the design of the models. All PB does is marketing, which in of itself isn't very good either.

No they only do IP squatting

Oh boy, there are some fans/backers who believe that it's not a big deal, assembly will be a snap (literally, one PB fan thinks these things just snap together for the most part), are they ever in for a rude awakening.

Others are all "Oh, I have a friend who builds models and doesn't think these are a big deal, I don't hear any model experts who are complaining" and I just want to link them to this thread and go get a bowl of popcorn.

While I'm aware that Dakka represents a wide and diverse array of player and modeler skill levels, I presume most users are beyond the average, and there's plenty of discontent to go around.

But hey, a Showdown should only have around 4,000-7,000 parts, how bad could that be for 200 models!? :-D

 Forar wrote:
Oh boy, there are some fans/backers who believe that it's not a big deal, assembly will be a snap (literally, one PB fan thinks these things just snap together for the most part), are they ever in for a rude awakening.

Others are all "Oh, I have a friend who builds models and doesn't think these are a big deal, I don't hear any model experts who are complaining" and I just want to link them to this thread and go get a bowl of popcorn.

While I'm aware that Dakka represents a wide and diverse array of player and modeler skill levels, I presume most users are beyond the average, and there's plenty of discontent to go around.

But hey, a Showdown should only have around 4,000-7,000 parts, how bad could that be for 200 models!? :-D

Ugh, I opened the DreamForge Leviathan Crusader box, and was like, "yowza, this will intricate to put together, but what a functionally awesome model."

I look at these Robotech models, that are going to be half as tall again as a Terminator, on the same base or smaller, and think "I wonder WTF these guys are thinking. Have they ever put such small, fidly models together?"

As to the idiot fanboys that said their modeler friends don't think it's a big deal, what game models do they with? These like look a to put together. Mike's printed paper UEDF forces look way more attractive as an option now...

So who's up for junking the official models and playing the game with Unseen/Reseen now?

 Forar wrote:
Oh boy, there are some fans/backers who believe that it's not a big deal, assembly will be a snap (literally, one PB fan thinks these things just snap together for the most part), are they ever in for a rude awakening.

Others are all "Oh, I have a friend who builds models and doesn't think these are a big deal, I don't hear any model experts who are complaining" and I just want to link them to this thread and go get a bowl of popcorn.

While I'm aware that Dakka represents a wide and diverse array of player and modeler skill levels, I presume most users are beyond the average, and there's plenty of discontent to go around.

But hey, a Showdown should only have around 4,000-7,000 parts, how bad could that be for 200 models!? :-D

Yeah, that math right there should be enough to give most reasonable people pause.

All they just not doing the math?

So...

These are going to be HIPS, right? We'll get a sprue of crap and not a baggie of PVC parts... right?