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Joyboozer wrote:
So, back to my question about the cards, do we write on them and wipe it off?

Seems like that is the idea but I would not do it unless I had the cards laminated first. The cards feel a bit flimsy to me so I think they should be laminated for durability as well as to write on.

If that's the case I wonder if they'll have PDFs of the cards, be easier to reprint on thicker card, laminate and guillotine them myself than to laminate individual cards.

Joyboozer wrote:
If that's the case I wonder if they'll have PDFs of the cards, be easier to reprint on thicker card, laminate and guillotine them myself than to laminate individual cards.

If they're anything like the flimsy Privateer Press cards (again, mine are still unopened, so I do not know the tactile feel yet), then I seriously hope they sell a pack separately AND have a digital army list creator.

Are more boxes shipping yet? Mine is still listed as "Ready to ship!"- but it's said that since I made sure my address was correct back in August...

Joyboozer wrote:
If that's the case I wonder if they'll have PDFs of the cards, be easier to reprint on thicker card, laminate and guillotine them myself than to laminate individual cards.

Yeah, I would really like a PDF and will probably end up making something myself. I just don't think the cards will hold up in play.

 judgedoug wrote:
have a digital army list creator.

I really doubt PB will do this (have they ever done anything like it?) and it seems like they would C&D a third-party effort.

 Tamwulf wrote:
Are more boxes shipping yet? Mine is still listed as "Ready to ship!"- but it's said that since I made sure my address was correct back in August...

You will get an email with a tracking link when yours ships, or at least that is what has happened so far.

Damn. I'd hoped we wouldn't have to fire up the laminator again for these, especially since they seem to come in a wacky variety of sizes, which means needing to obtain more pouches. Not the end of the world, but those packs aren't cheap. Oh well, I had a sneaking suspicion that'd be the case.

@Tamwulf: as it stands, they seem to be shipping Battle Cry boxes out to US backers. If you ordered a Showdown or larger tier it seems you'll be waiting. I've yet to see a SD or higher backer comment on getting shipping notification yet, but even if you just have a BC, there are ~3,000 of those to go out, and they estimated being done the first thousand this week.

There were other comments from Wayne that lead me to believe they estimate being able to do roughly 2,000 BC's per container, meaning BC's might take up containers 2 and 3 on their own, and Showdowns could eat up container 4 and anything left over from the previous ones (~2,600 BC equivalent there).

Which could put Recklesses and higher out to C5+.

They've said that box size isn't necessarily the limiting factor, but so far they don't seem to be in a rush to get to the larger boxes. They also don't seem to be shipping out international boxes either, which could shuffle some US SD+'s higher up the priority list.

Hopefully this week's update will enlighten us as to the particulars.

Remember when we hit that stretch goal to have the cards laminated?

 Manchu wrote:

Joyboozer wrote:
If that's the case I wonder if they'll have PDFs of the cards, be easier to reprint on thicker card, laminate and guillotine them myself than to laminate individual cards.

Yeah, I would really like a PDF and will probably end up making something myself. I just don't think the cards will hold up in play.

 judgedoug wrote:
have a digital army list creator.

I really doubt PB will do this (have they ever done anything like it?) and it seems like they would C&D a third-party effort.

 Tamwulf wrote:
Are more boxes shipping yet? Mine is still listed as "Ready to ship!"- but it's said that since I made sure my address was correct back in August...

You will get an email with a tracking link when yours ships, or at least that is what has happened so far.

The idea was to have cards you could dry erase on. I don't like the way the cards are formatted and long ago made my own using the official stats. They are in Powerpoint so that you can play and modify as you see fit. I can also make changes if people think of a better way to organize them. Here are a few examples and the link. I've even started on Conventional units stuff but my battlesystems terrain has set me back a bit timewise.

Stat Cards
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B0VSNzmthd1vc3JHWk5uM0JxUW8&usp=sharing

Table
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B0VSNzmthd1vT19Yem9zNHhsaEk&usp=sharing


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I've heard that the lamination appears thin or cheap by some. Since I don't plan on using them it was never a concern of mine more of a curiosity.

 Swabby wrote:
Remember when we hit that stretch goal to have the cards laminated?

To be fair, they appear glossy, which would actually mean they were sent through a lamination finishing unit on a press. I would guess something like an HP Indigo digital press printed these and automatically cut them, as I didn't notice any signs of die-cutting. (I have a fair amount of experience around digital printing/presses/finishers, and both dry and wet digital photographic print processes)

Didn't we also get a lot of stuff now that we weren't getting previously?

Looking at the Robotech Kickstarter, it made 1.442 million dollars.

The Phalanx upgrade kit was "free to Battlecry" at 1.5 million dollars.

My Phalanx sprue includes the upgrade kit.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hmm my Battlecry also included two sheets each of RDF and Zentraedi decals. Looking over the KS page it was supposed to only include one sheet each.

Cheers Mike, I will probably use your templates!

Posted on the FB page just now.

Andrew Carter


For those interested, here’s a quick write up of the Spartan.

Last night I put together the first mini, and tackled the notorious Spartan. To give a bit of background, I’ve been building and painting minis for a long time, so this is all through the eyes of a vet. Also, I used simple Krazy Glue, and it worked just fine. This is kinda in depth, but I’ll post a final verdict at the end if you wanna skip ahead. I assembled only one of them, closed missile doors and running/walking pose.

The good news is it’s not as bad as we feared. The bad news is it’s not necessarily good either. To start off, the details are sharper than we’d been seeing in pictures; I believe it’s that the brown plastic doesn’t photograph well. That’s not to say they’re sharp, just better than we feared. Many of the pieces are crammed pretty tight on the sprue, with connection to the sprue in very tight places right next to a tiny piece of detail that will make it very hard to file the remnant down (you can see this just below the missile launchers in the pics; I'll need a needle file to fix those); so be VERY careful when clipping them. This is doubly true with some of the arms and hands.

The 2 waists are very differently designed, one meant to pose the legs moving, one more static. The good news is the connections for the 2 halves of each waist are different; you won’t be able to pair them wrong, (IE back half a running waist, front half of a standing) so that’s a plus.

Couple of good things: The torso area looks good, goes together easy. The shoulder joints can rotate, and fit quite nicely. The waist also plugs right in. The single piece gun arm and also the gun pod work very well together. The legs fit very tight together, and this helps to minimize the seam issue.

Some bad things: The hip joints are complete gak. It took me three tries each to finally get them right. The left arm is in 3 pieces, shoulder to elbow, forearm and hand. The connections between elbow and forearm and forearm and hand are flat plastic, no connector. It glues well enough, but it’s still kind of a structural weak point. They could have combined some pieces into one here. The seams are minimized, but still present. For some reason, they put deep tread on the feet. Good for authenticity, bad for gluing a model to a base; this will make for a somewhat tenuous connection to the base, especially for the running legs. Finally, a lot of the pieces are extremely fiddly to work with.

Once it’s together, the mini doesn’t look all that bad. I wasn’t exactly salivating, but it was ok. All in all, some very strange choices were made alongside some good ones and while the process often had me scratching my head wondering why things were done, the end result isn’t all that bad.

Final verdict: C+. A decent mini, but takes more work than it should to get there.

 Manchu wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:
have a digital army list creator.

I really doubt PB will do this (have they ever done anything like it?) and it seems like they would C&D a third-party effort.

Depending on my own personal laziness, and also depending on if I like the game, I may whip up a quick Windows army list app that'll render an html document with the appropriate info so you can print it from your browser. Like EasyArmy, with a listing of units and all special rules.

@Mike: Nice write up, makes me feel better about assembling them as/when.

@Doug: That would be awesome.

 Mike1975 wrote:
PTo give a bit of background, I’ve been building and painting minis for a long time, so this is all through the eyes of a vet. Also, I used simple Krazy Glue, and it worked just fine.

It boggles my mind that an experienced miniatures builder would use krazy glue - or anything other than actual plastic glue - on a plastic model.

That being said, looks like a challenge! I'm still itching to get home tonight and assemble 'em.

Hello all! I'm the one who did the write up a couple posts above, thanks to Mike for reposting!

Also, I forgot to mention it, the reason I used Krazy Glue in this instance was for the benefit of a lot of the others on the Kickstarter who are worried about what glue to use. I wanted to provide them a choice they could find pretty easily and cheaply. That said, plastic glue would indeed work much better.

Ah, my bad -- props to you then Terwallace.

 judgedoug wrote:
Didn't we also get a lot of stuff now that we weren't getting previously?

Looking at the Robotech Kickstarter, it made 1.442 million dollars.

The Phalanx upgrade kit was "free to Battlecry" at 1.5 million dollars.

My Phalanx sprue includes the upgrade kit.

This was discussed a looooong time ago in the comments. Yes, they added the "experimental upgrades" to the Phalanx, MPA and FPA 'for free'.

In reality, it was likely more of a business choice that making 2 sets of molds for the figures (one with the 'bits', one without) wasn't cost effective, nor was having someone 'prune' sprues of pieces they weren't supposed to get, so they decided to just include them for everyone.

Yes, it's more than we unlocked by their list, but let's not mistake a business decision with pure generosity. Kudos, sure, but it wasn't just out of the goodness of their hearts either.

judgedoug wrote:I use Plastruct Plastic Weld - comes in a glass container with a brush-on applicator - best glue I've ever used. Dries in a few seconds and bonds ABS, polystyrene, and many other plastics. Only about $5 from Hobbytown or from various online places. Took seconds to melt/glue the Regult, and you have a few minutes after that if you change your mind about a position, before the plastic really starts melting together (as I did last night when I had to reposition my Regult's legs about 15 degrees forward)

Cool. Thanks!

Manchu wrote:I used:



Worked great for me.

I have a similar one from Revell:



But I've heard that the regular plastic glue had some problems with ABS?

 judgedoug wrote:


I have zero broken or bent parts after my sprue inspection. I have no doubt that others might not be so lucky, but the fact is that the ABS plastic being used is very strong, stronger than Warlord and GW's polystyrene. They are an order of magnitude stronger than the last few 1/35 and 1/72 model kits I've assembled from a variety of manufacturers. The strength _might_, in the long term, prove to be more brittle than the softer polystyrene, but I personally would rather have a clean break that can be pinned versus bent polystyrene (of which I have too many bent plastic rifles, spears, swords, pikes from GW and Warlord models especially pike & shotte dudes... and bent polystyrene will never ever become straight again)

No, the ABS should not be 'brittle'.

ABS=

A Acrylonitrile
B Butadiene
S Styrene

Now the exact properties depend on the blend of those 3 ingredients when they polymerise it, but the Butadiene is a rubber. Styrene is what they polymerise to make Polystyrene. Butadiene is used to give impact resistance to the plastic (Make it less brittle) and allow a certain 'snap' which will return parts to their original shape if not bent too much. If you go past this point, however, the Styrene behaviour will come to the fore and you will be left with the same bent spear syndrome that your GW models suffer from.

The easiest way to enhance their resistance to becoming brittle, PS and ABS alike, is to prevent them being affected by UV light, which we generally do by .......... painting them.

 judgedoug wrote:
It boggles my mind that an experienced miniatures builder would use krazy glue - or anything other than actual plastic glue - on a plastic model.

I never use plastic glue on models.

 Albertorius wrote:
But I've heard that the regular plastic glue had some problems with ABS?

I had no trouble at all gluing those regults together last night.

 pretre wrote:
I never use plastic glue on models.

It really makes assembling plastic models easier IME. As someone who has never liked assembling models, using plastic glue made a big difference for me.

 Manchu wrote:
I had no trouble at all gluing those regults together last night.

Good to know . But what I've heard (over at TMP IIRC) is that regular plastic cement tends to "eat" ABS, making it brittle on the long run. Not sure how much of that's really accurate, though, but Avatars of War's guys adviced to use ABS-specific cement for their minis.

 Jihadin wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:
Random response to a data point - the sedition wars box I got from the KS was shrink wrapped, as was the post KS box I bought.

Was the shrink wrap done by hand or machine?

I'm guessing machine, but I've slept, gotten my wife pregnant, packed and moved, sold a house, drank, and slept since then.

 Albertorius wrote:
But what I've heard (over at TMP IIRC) is that regular plastic cement tends to "eat" ABS, making it brittle on the long run.

I have been using the stuff for years and have not had a problem.

I have used "proper" model glue for years and still have models 30 years old that are holding up well.

Crazy glue is a good bond but the idea of "melting" plastic together seems like a much more solid way to go. Like welding steel as opposed to gluing it... just seems right.

I had the same problem with my Battletech box set where the Testors model glue, Tamiya green and white cap glues did not work (obviously not "styrene" enough). I had to resort to crazy glue. Turns out Tamiya has a "blue cap" ABS glue which I will be looking for (I like their stuff).

Looking back on this KS now that I have some of the product, I feel foolish for not pledging more (at least Showdown).

 Manchu wrote:

Asterios wrote:
I'm curious why you degrade others experiances

I am sick to the back teeth of folks bending over backwards to say something bad about this product. Complaining that the sprues are "just dumped in the box" is meaningless nonsense.

Asterios wrote:
or why your satisfied with product a lot less then promised?

What exactly is "a lot less than promised" about anything that just arrived?

Asterios wrote:
out of curiousity did you get the base game only? I'm thinking yes, since it would have been real easy to send those out looking pretty and such.

(1) That sounds like more bull gak. If the game box is "too big" and the sprues are "just dumped in" then why would it matter if I only got the base set? (2) I pledged for Battle Cry so I got a big shipping box with a "round one" sprue bag and the main box.

Asterios wrote:
Also on side note, the very first person to get the game (Bad_Syntax) actually broke one of the missiles on the sprue when all he did was touch it.

Spreading lies like this is really despicable. In fact, here's what Bad_Syntax himself wrote in his YT comments regarding the broken piece:

I had already "unboxed" it half a dozen times, carried it through gencon, carried it through an airport, and so forth. I'd suspect I did it during one of those events, as nothing else was broken.

Besides, you get 3 full sets of missile types for every unit, 1 broke here and there of those won't matter (kinda like the VF heads).

And i'm sick and tired of People supporting the product at the expense of those who face it were not happy with it, I've already seen the product up close a friend of mine got his and it is now sitting in my closet to be gotten to some time in the far far future, but from what I've seen he had 5 pieces that broke off the sprue the Zentraedi stuff looks simple and clean while the UEDF stuff looks like a Rube Goldberg nightmare. you say your unhappy about people who complain about the product, but don't consider what people who were not happy about the product think of your its awesome sauce outlook either, I've seen reviews of the product and so far from all gathered reviews its not a positive outlook of the game out there on the internet, yes there are some who don't like PB and will be rude about what they say about them, but not all are like that, as to B_S's clip, if you watched the video, he doesn't say it broke off, he says he just broke it as he picked it up, furthermore shall we talk about B_S's views of the so called "Laminated" cards ? thank God Mike did a run up of cards for people to print off and laminate themselves (thanks for that Mike), but what it comes down to is I give the game a flat C for a grade and I haven't even bothered to assemble the models yet and do not look forward to it. (also on a side note none of the pieces in the stuff from my friend were broken, some were broken off the sprue which I do find annoying, even when it happens with GW product)

 Manchu wrote:
It really makes assembling plastic models easier IME. As someone who has never liked assembling models, using plastic glue made a big difference for me.

I use gel super glue which is super easy to use and quick drying. I dislike plastic glue since the results are permanent. Now that I magnetize more though, I suppose I could use plastic glue.

 Manchu wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
But what I've heard (over at TMP IIRC) is that regular plastic cement tends to "eat" ABS, making it brittle on the long run.

I have been using the stuff for years and have not had a problem.

have you used it on ABS? that is the big question, check with people who glue LEGO they will tell you some horror stories about non-ABS glue on ABS plastic.

Asterios wrote:

And i'm sick and tired of People supporting the product at the expense of those who face it were not happy with it, I've already seen the product up close a friend of mine got his and it is now sitting in my closet to be gotten to some time in the far far future, but from what I've seen he had 5 pieces that broke off the sprue the Zentraedi stuff looks simple and clean while the UEDF stuff looks like a Rube Goldberg nightmare.

If you have a Battlecry, I will give you $140 for it plus shipping.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Albertorius wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
I had no trouble at all gluing those regults together last night.

Good to know . But what I've heard (over at TMP IIRC) is that regular plastic cement tends to "eat" ABS, making it brittle on the long run. Not sure how much of that's really accurate, though, but Avatars of War's guys adviced to use ABS-specific cement for their minis.

Hmm, AoW have styrene dwarf berserkers (use plastic glue) but everything else is PVC (use super glue)