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 warboss wrote:
Not to worry, guys. Ninja Division has learned from their previous kickstarters and has done the majority of the work for their current one prior to the campaign so they expect a quick turn around and promise to keep in regular communication throughout... I'll leave it to forar to add the necessary visual queue.

You can't see it, but I'm miming gagging/choking motions, there's some truly exaggerated eye rolling, and the coup de gras are a couple of highly inappropriate gestures where I'm apparently shaking a roll of quarters in slow motion in front of my groin.

I can only imagine the email exchanges going on behind the scenes right now.

"WE ARE NEVER SENDING THEM ANOTHER UPDATE AGAIN!"

"ONE MODEL! ONE FRAKING MODEL AND THEY'VE LOST THEIR MINDS!"

"Note to staff: please see the trauma counselor at your earliest convenience. In the meantime, do not look directly at the comments, for your own good."

The only faintly amusing thing about the last update was the apology for showing everyone what we think is probably are most complex and possibly worst design.

Did noone think that the community already bemoaning split heads wanted more of the same? Talk about pouring oil onto the fire....

Okay you have the other Destroid prototypes, sp bite the bullet and show us - it cannot get any worse on the comments front .....can it.

Change tack, send out a new up to date version of the rules - nio need for the eye candy - at least stop us dwelling on what the plastic will looklike

Actually PB loves the spartan. This is from the PB FB update regarding it.

We were very happy with the Destroid prototypes that arrived late last week. With but a few small tweaks, they are done! The Spartan with missile bays open, the Tomahawk and Phalanx were among my favorites.

@Cypher: So the guys at Palladium that "love" every product that Kevin walks around with on payday soliciting opinions love the destroids too? Color me shocked... /sarcasm.

@Forar: While gagging on bile is an appropriate response (and oddly ironic given the previous "mouth watering" description), I was actually referring to jazz hands.

In the end, what I'm seeing is monopose cheap looking minis. I really hope that impression improves over the coming 6 months when we hopefully finally get them.

I still think it's going to be like RK. As far as delivery is concerned. I hope you guys don't continue to give your $macross to ND/soda pop/cipher studios. I know I won't. But that's just me and my personal opinion. :-)

All they have to do is get all *ALL* of the stuff they promised by Dec 2013 actually in my hands and I'll wash my hands of them. :(

Oh, I'm definitely staying way the hell away from anything PB/ND/SPM based these days.

Though I'm trying to keep my KS'ing restricted in general for now while I've got 3 massive campaigns (in terms of contributions) outstanding (Wyrd, Palladium, Flying Frog), and I suppose Dwarven Forge will be the 4th, but it's gotta end somewhere.

But this? It's becoming a running gag. I always held a measure of concern, but lately, I just kind of want to be done with it, even knowing that we'll be lucky to see wave one this year, let alone wave two.

Hell, look at their timeline on THAT. Wave 2 in October? You mean 2 months after Gencon? A time when presumably they're not going to be doing anything at all beyond attending and recovering and maybe shipping things out (MAYBE) if they actually have 5k+ packages worth of stuff in the warehouse.

Sure. SUUUUUURE you'll get the remaining dozen+ figures designed, approved, punched out and shipped over the ocean.

Edit 2: longer overdue and a remaining cluster-feth, at least Relic Knights is (apparently) giving people refunds.

As a business PB must be doing bad. One backer even came up with his own version of a RT song.

Hey, I wrote a song about this! Shame on you if you don't know the tune:
Seam lines Gapping
The feeling's smashing
My time and glue belong to you
And I'm here now, huffing
All heads are splitting
My dream has finally come true
Stage fright, go away
This is PB's update day
This is their time to be a star!
And the thrill that I feel
It's really unreal
I can't believe those gaps are that far!
This is their time to be a star!

Funny stuff to be sure but PB isn't helping matters with bad looking moulds who then tries to sell us that this is the only way. Kevin's self denial with his approval of the spartan only makes things worse.

 Forar wrote:


You can't see it, but I'm miming gagging/choking motions, there's some truly exaggerated eye rolling, and the coup de gras are(...)

Pet peeve, but...

"Coup de grâce", a finishing strike. Basically the strike that delivers grace.
"Coup de gras", a fat strike, as in "hitting someone with a piece of fat".

I stand by my statement.

Look around your local gaming store and know it to be true!

... I'll try to remember that, but no promises.

A "Coup de gras" might be something that happens fairly often at the miniature wargaming table though!

To be totally fair to PB, how should they know what good looking miniatures look like? They don't even know what good looking publishing looks like! They don't know about miniatures.

Sadly, neither do ND apparently.


On another note. If I send one of the base boxes back full of excrement, is that illegal? Or could I convince a judge that it is the appropriate response to what was delivered?

Hilarious, but yes, far as I'm aware USPS considers fecal matter to be a biohazard, and it is illegal to mail it. There may be some fringe cases, but I imagine medical testing facilities probably use couriers and properly secured (and like quadruple layers of protection) containers to keep potential issues to a minimum.

It is definitely frustrating how Palladium seems to want to have it both ways.

We brought on ND to provide experts, experience and expertise!

But we're new to minis So very new! This is hard!

But we're sticklers for perfection, will produce mouth watering minis (seriously, whose mouth waters over a little plastic robot?)!

But did I mention this is hard? We've been told this is the way it has to be!

But we have final say. So final. Final final final final.

Hard!

Final!

Jazz Hands!

At one point I was really excited about this. I loved the show as a kid and this was my first Kickstarter. Now I just want it to be over and soon.

 Cypher-xv wrote:
My two cents about Ninja Division / Soda Pop Miniatures and what is going on:
I will start off by saying yes, I am friends with John Candice and Deke Stella of Soda Pop Miniatures and am I play tester for their games.

Sweet, so this certainly won't be rose colored or candy coated at all

I am writing this to clear up some of the confusion with them. Ninja Division is a new company that combines Soda Pop Miniatures and Cipher Studios. Ninja Division was created at the same time as this kickstarter and yes, they were in charge of producing sculpts, rules and tokens. One reason why Ninja Division was created is because Sodapop Miniature was part of a LLC with Cool Mini or Not, because of the bad rep. with Cool Mini they have broken away and created Ninja Division.

Bad rep with CMoN? Thats interesting. All the CMoN KS projects that have been internally controlled have been either on time or early.....

Trust me, it has been a break up from hell for them.Why? Because, being part of a LLC Cool Mini has certain rights over their merchandise (as manufactures and rights to the molds) so, Ninja Division was created so they could create and manufacture without Cool Mini and become their own independent designers / manufactures.

Could that possibly be because, as publisher, CMoN paid for all the production, including but not limited to: tooling, mould making, packaging, etc.... I wonder if Ninja Pop has actually paid all of that in full (secretwhisperNOsecretwhisper)

Now for the main question:
Why are they now running another kickstarter (Forgotten King) when this one isn't finished?

Well this one is easy: they literally have no money to produce it otherwise.

This same question was asked when this kickstarter was created because, Relic Knights (Soda Pop Miniatures and Cool Mini or Not) was already a year late at this point. Don't feel bad about Soda Pop / Ninja Division starting their Forgotten King kickstarter though, imagine how the Relic Knights people must feel. For those unfamiliar with that project it is just 3 months from being 2 years old and over a year and half of being late on shipping. Best part, it is still going on. There is still no estimated shipping date for it, they are just saying that they hope to have it out by July 2014 right in time for its release at Gencon.

So dont feel bad because Relic Knights is ridiculously late? Well that doesn't make any sense.

For more of those who are talking about Forgotten King. Being a play tester for it I can vouch that the rules are complete and good along with the sculpts.

While I agree that, as a fellow playtester, the rules are good, the 2nd part is nonsense. All the sculpts for the core game are rendered; not all of the additional digital sculpts are, however. None of them have been tooled.

Again, because this will be Soda Pop aka Ninja Divisions first solo project without the aid of Cool Mini, Harmony Gold or Palladium this is why they need the kickstarter to get all the expenses of mass production out of the way. Forgotten King is pretty much a kickstart to start a new company that is getting over a really bad legal heavy divorce.

Well that's just not true. The "divorce," as it were, could have been MUCH worse for Ninja Pop. They're fortunate the other parties invovled don't want to be a cause for any potential future failures, throw them under the bus for Relic Knights, or try to aggresively recoup the dolla dolla bills they're owed. Yeah, it could have been MUUUUUUCH worse.

I am in no way trying to condone their actions or their choices on sculpts here. Just wanted to break up the confusion with SPM / Ninja Division and their products and their projects.

You know what would have cleared the water more? If this joker could get some real information and throw a few cogent thoughts together.

In regards to the actual thread: I just don't get the renders. I don't get why you break up a small model that much. There's got to a be a point in your design process where a level of pragmatism kicks in and they decide, "No, we don't need to see Max's cock bulge in his pants through the cockpit."

Bob the Accountant wrote:
At one point I was really excited about this. I loved the show as a kid and this was my first Kickstarter. Now I just want it to be over and soon.

Same here... It was my first kickstarter I became a part of last year and I begged my wife to let me blow the money for a Battle Cry+ as a father's day gift. Dreams of playing stompy robots with my son. Now after seeing the part break down of the renders and having been spoiled by 40k Minis of the last few years (SM, IKS, newer TAU), I am starting to think about trying to sell it on EBAY when/if it ever shows up in my hands. I just wish there was away for you to get your money back from a Kickstarter. I would and I would then go spend that money on at least two more Imperial Knights. I'll get my Stompy Robots some how!

Some (SOME) Kickstarters will issue refunds. Due to Amazon and KS skimming some cash off the top for their services (for larger campaigns I believe this is generally around 8-10%), if they do, it's often minus that fee, rather than a full 100% refund, though if someone is that unhappy with a project, 90%'ish is certainly better than nothing.

This, sadly, just isn't one of them.

Larger or Small, the fee is always around 9-10%.

If we had the option I'd take my money and run. With a baby due in July I'd rather spend the money on things he'll need (not like I'll have the time to assemble and paint now lol). Mentally I've moved my excitement on to other games I already have on hand.

Well we'll just have to wait 3 months for those backer boxes to start arriving, at which point we'll all have to admit we were wrong and eat heaping helpings of crow.

;-)

Spoiler Alert: MASSIVE SARCASM DETECTED.

Will this be before or after world peace is declared and we all start $***ing gold bricks?

Preferably before.

I can only imagine that crapping a gold brick, even a small one, would be highly unpleasant.

I think the pleasure to pain ration would be both high and sought after. Some people would literally be tearing themselves a new to crap out bigger gold bricks...

Which is the opposite of this KS. I'll be receiving someone elses in the mail...and probably not by GenCon, though PB will sell some stuff there.

Bob the Accountant wrote:
If we had the option I'd take my money and run. With a baby due in July I'd rather spend the money on things he'll need (not like I'll have the time to assemble and paint now lol). Mentally I've moved my excitement on to other games I already have on hand.

I was discussing with a friend yesterday, that assuming the average backer of the KS was 10 when the TV show came out (the prime time for nostalgia to embed itself), that puts the average backer at ~38yrs old in December. June is six months, or half a year, beyond. Actuarial tables says that approx 0.2% of 38 year olds don't make 39. Applying half that (0.1%) to the 5000 backers, means that purely from a statistical standpoint, 5 backers won't see what they backed. And it's not like gamers are known for their robust physique and physical health.

Thankfully, you've gone the other way, and are bringing new life (literally) to the numbers.

 Salacious Greed wrote:
I think the pleasure to pain ration would be both high and sought after. Some people would literally be tearing themselves a new to crap out bigger gold bricks...

Which is the opposite of this KS. I'll be receiving someone elses in the mail...and probably not by GenCon, though PB will sell some stuff there.

I don't doubt that Palladium will spring for air shipping a pile of boxes for them to sell at the convention if it helps get them product in time as the only option but the window for us lowly backers getting the stuff made, packaged, and slow boated over from china in addition to packaged and shipped here in the US for delivery by the same convention is closing soon. Palladium, even with the 3 or 4 people that may come help from ND, is in no condition to ship 5,000 packages AND prepare for the biggest convention they go to (which normally sucks up over 3 weeks of their time WITHOUT the kickstarter looming). My guess is that if they have to choose between one or the other that they'll prep for the convention instead.

Also, any wagers as to whether we'll see another convention exclusive mini that pledgers won't have direct access to for a second year in a row? Classy companies sell them on their website during the con for those unable to attend but we're talking about Palladium... so.. yeah...

Finally, anyone know of any news on Robotech from the GAMA trade show? Both ND and PB are listed as having booths there but I haven't seen much coverage of the event and nothing on Robotech so far. Last year we got our first peek at the Robotech minis IIRC from the show. Here is the only site that I found that seems to be updating their coverage in real time...

https://www.facebook.com/dicetower

I wonder if these will come In 36 pieces?





Now that's 6mm done right.

 warboss wrote:


Finally, anyone know of any news on Robotech from the GAMA trade show? Both ND and PB are listed as having booths there but I haven't seen much coverage of the event and nothing on Robotech so far. Last year we got our first peek at the Robotech minis IIRC from the show. Here is the only site that I found that seems to be updating their coverage in real time...

https://www.facebook.com/dicetower

Its not open to the public, so coverage will be sparse.

Last year they were pretty happy to share tales and pictures from their displays and doing some demos, so hopefully ND/PB/someone will have something to say on the matter.

ND/SPM is there to pimp their undelivered RK. Since the best they could do last week was update that we're too stupid to recognize great model making in their Spartan design, I don't think we'll get anything out of them this week either. I don't know what PB is there to pimp, as the last book they released was promised last year or the one before. So no, I don't see them showing RRT off, as they can't legitimately look someone in the face and give them a date they could buy a single game piece. And they don't want to lie to a future customer. They know they can lie to all of us, as even they're pretty sure we're never going to buy anything from either company ever again...

 Salacious Greed wrote:
And they don't want to lie to a future customer.

Citation needed You're acting like they are trying to maintain some sort of moral high ground, they certainly didn't have many problems adjusting truth to fit their needs before and during the KS launch so I see no reason they'd suddenly start being upfront with people now.