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The GW starters are also priced fairly reasonably; the new Bolt Action Armored Fury starter set for Tank War has about $200 worth of stuff for $120 or so. Most starter sets are loss leaders / break even points, to get people playing. Robotech appears to be no different.

I agree that having starters be a better value for starting players is generally a good thing. Sometimes (like in 40k) the figs themselves are different sculpts but for smaller companies they're frequently the same. I don't expect the individual boxes of stuff that is in the starters to be a big seller once all the products are delivered but it is nice that you can buy it separately. The wave 2 SKUs will add alot of variety to the product line when they get here sometime in late 2015/early 2016 in all likelihood.

 judgedoug wrote:
The GW starters are also priced fairly reasonably; the new Bolt Action Armored Fury starter set for Tank War has about $200 worth of stuff for $120 or so. Most starter sets are loss leaders / break even points, to get people playing. Robotech appears to be no different.

$128 for the Armored Fury starter, according to Warlord's webstore.

However, if I want to buy three more M4 Shermans from Warlord, it'll only cost me $87. If I want to buy two more Panthers from Warlord, it'll cost me $64. i.e. if I'm only interested in one side, and not both, it's still more economical for me to buy the individual tanks.

That's not the case with the Robotech starter. Replacing the UEDF contents of the Robotech starter will set you back $107 (and you'll still be short one VF). Replacing the Zentraedi contents of the starter will set you back $111. Buying a brand new starter will only cost you $100.

That's what I find unusual here.

What's the maths on the Island of Blood or Dark Vengeance?

Given GW's ridiculous prices, those might be similar to the Robotech starter. I'll only cover one of them, though...


Let's see...

Dark Vengeance is $130

A space marine tactical squad runs for $50 (I don't see a Dark Angels specific squad on their web page).
A Death Wing terminator squad will set you back $70
And a trio of Raven Wing bikes will hit your wallet for another $50

Even if you're not interested in duplicate heroes (i.e. the Company Master and Librarian), this is still a pretty good deal. The Dark Angels troops alone will cost you $170, which is $40 more than the starter.


On the Chaos side, you're looking at -

Twenty Chaos Cultists for $48 (that's waaaay too inexpensive for GW )
Six Chosen - there's no 40K entry for Chosen on the website, and I can't figure out what figures they use; they look like Chaos Marines with slightly more "stuff" attached); based on the Chaos Marine price, I'm going with $36
Aspiring Champion - $24 (my wallet just started screaming...)
Hellbrute - $65
Chaos Lord - I don't see the exact one show in the pictures, but there's another generic one for $24 (the screams just got louder)

So...

Chaos Cultists, Chosen, and Hellbrute will set you back $149 if purchased separately.



Now not everyone's going to want six bikes or ten terminators. But they are an option. And if you want them, then purchasing another starter is a pretty good deal.

The value of the WHFB and 40k starter stuff is (judging by the secondary market trade values people assign) less valuable than a fully poseable kit. Robotech doesn't have that issue as the individual and starter kits are one and the same.

Also, Eumerin, I'm not sure where you're getting your prices but at least one is off. Your flag has the US but the Deathwing squad is $60 USD. You may need to check your prices and flag on the GW website to get the correct values.

I'm pulling the prices off of the GW site. So far as I can tell, I'm on the US site and the prices are in US dollars. And $70 is what's listed for the Deathwing Terminator Squad.

Generic terminators are only $60.

I'm not sure why we're seeing different prices. Maybe they just bumped it up?

Check your country flag. If your'e in the US (like your flag here indicates), you're checking some other country's prices. The tab is in the upper right corner. I just rechecked the Deathwing box and it definitely is $60 USD just like I saw last weekend at my FLGS.

Oops...

That was the Canadian site. No clue how I ended up there. It looks like those prices should have been roughly 16% - 20% less across the board.
Note that the price drop includes the starter set, so the basic ratios are still roughly the same.

I'll let forar comment on the (in)justice of higher canadian prices when they don't match the exchange rate. Using the deathwing box as an example, it has 5 distinct models that can be assembled each in at least one of three ways and enough extraneous bits to probably kit out probably another 5 terminators with extra bits/weapons/flair/etc. The starter set ones can only be assembled in one pose each and have no extra bits; they're nice but they're definitely not as valuable. I can't say I've been following the secondary market prices of the current starter sprues but back in 5th edition the AOBR monopose starter stuff sold generally for about 1/3 the price of the multipose kits on average (sometimes a bit more, sometimes less). Using GW stuff as a comparison is probably a bad idea for that reason.

AOBR was 10-15 for a squad of marines. A great way to build a full battle co.

Now in Storm Claw you got the real deal multipose. (Space Wolfs/Orks) and it was only 125 IIRC.

All the goodies in the Box set is what got me to do Showdown vs. BC++++extras. What I want are VTs It costs alot to get an extra 9.

Still the expansion kits are good because maybe you don't want to spend 100. Maybe you don't need 5 more vertiechs (6 battleoids) and you just need two. Then you've got a nice squadron with a support and a leader.

They won't be huge sellers but they will look nice on the shelf. In Xwing everyone bought 2 or 3 starter sets. because you needed 3 Xwings and at least 4 TIEs . They were smart and put exclusive characters in the singles for the X-wing and TIE. They should have put the malcontent stuff exclusive in the the veritech expansion.

I want lots of VTs, hence why I went SD plus BC.

Can someone please tell me how army organization for veritech squadrons work? Reason being, I'm trying to plan out how to build my squadrons but I don't know in what numbers and combinations of types can be used at once.

 warboss wrote:
I'll let forar comment on the (in)justice of higher canadian prices when they don't match the exchange rate.

It's always been an issue with GW. Not that long ago, when the AU was actually above parity, there was a Marine army box set that was $180US, or $300AU. It was plainly ridiculous.

As to the original poster's question, the main reason for the disparity was the change in pricing. Initially, the boxed set was going to be <$100, and the expansion boxes for Wave 1 be about $25 (initial pricing was retail was ~+$5 over KS prices). Then they jacked the prices up on the expansions by about 30% but realized that going over $100 on the box set would be a mistake. So, that explains the primary difference. At $25 per expansion, it's $150 value (+ the extra Valk + stuff), which isn't as obviously a big an issue.

From the initial Press Release
$90 retail price (tentative). The price of the final box set is not yet determined, but we want to hold it at the $80-$90 range.
Expansion kits will fall into the $25-$30 range for most.

Yeah, it's basically a bulk discount. I don't generally find it quite so extreme (example; the X-Wing core can generally be found online and in shops I visit for about the cost of the 3 ships inside, if not a little less, plus the templates, tokens, dice, booklet, etc).

It's been pointed out by many in the past that to buff up ones available forces, a pair of Cores is a pretty damned fine way to start, and assuming a shop with free online shipping can be found, it can probably be done for around $140 US, for 70 models (if I'm not mistaken).

So, yeah. Other expansions will hold appeal for adding to things that people flat out don't have (Spartan/Phalanx Destroid pack and the Support Artillery Pod pack), but the other 4 wave one expansions? It'll be a weird place where if you plan to get 2-3 of them, why not just get a core box instead? Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if a secondary market evolved wherein people simply bought a core and sold off the figures they didn't want. Why spend $50 on two Pod packs when you can spend $70 to get them and then sell the remaining bits off for more than $20?

I could see the value of VT, Tomahawk/Defender, Battlepod and Command Pod packs plummeting if that became common enough. Why spend $25 for them (or hell, full MSRP on their site) when it's possible to sell them for $15 apiece and still come out ahead by breaking up a core box? Those are kinda thin margins, but hell, toss in a couple of bucks each for the dice sets, the book, the cards, and I could see it working out for some people.

Perhaps an extreme example, but the math has always shown the cores to be a fairly impressive deal. The bump in expansion MSRP without a matching one for the core box (I think it jumped $10) just exacerbated that.

So, can I roll into my FLGS and get this yet?

 Easy E wrote:
So, can I roll into my FLGS and get this yet?

lawl.

Oh, wait, in case you're serious; no.

US distribution should complete this week (give or take), and they have enough material on hand to ship to almost all of the backers, so then it just becomes a question of when they wrap up International shipping (maybe by the end of the month?) and how long it takes them to get stuff out to retail through their distributors.

Maybe it'll start showing on shelves in December. Maybe even November if they decide to send out a pile of boxes while completing backer distribution, but for now we really don't know.

Morgan Vening wrote:
As to the original poster's question, the main reason for the disparity was the change in pricing. Initially, the boxed set was going to be <$100, and the expansion boxes for Wave 1 be about $25 (initial pricing was retail was ~+$5 over KS prices). Then they jacked the prices up on the expansions by about 30% but realized that going over $100 on the box set would be a mistake. So, that explains the primary difference. At $25 per expansion, it's $150 value (+ the extra Valk + stuff), which isn't as obviously a big an issue.

That makes sense. And the half-cost at $150 (i.e. what you'd be looking at if you only wanted to bulk up one side) is $75, which is significantly less than the starter.

At any rate, if the game catches on, then they're going to be selling a *lot* of starters. I'm guessing that Palladium is going to make a strong push to get people to buy into the other expansions. If the margins are as bad as the price change suggests, then they're going to need the money.

Prepping

Laminating

 Spartan-Kun wrote:
I want lots of VTs, hence why I went SD plus BC.

Can someone please tell me how army organization for veritech squadrons work? Reason being, I'm trying to plan out how to build my squadrons but I don't know in what numbers and combinations of types can be used at once.

The cartoon had squads at 3 veritechs, 1 leader and 2 wingmen, the game has 1 squadron at 4 veritechs.


and Mike how does one get a set of those nice laminated cards of yours?

Asterios wrote:
The cartoon had squads at 3 veritechs, 1 leader and 2 wingmen, the game has 1 squadron at 4 veritechs.

Did we ever see any flight-sized units other than Vermillion? Just curious.

Real-world organization is four aircraft per flight, but fictional militaries often use three aircraft because a symmetrical 'V' formation looks cooler than the lop-sided 'V' formation that you get with four aircraft.

So I've made an interesting discovery. Could just be my printer settings. When I print 2 sheets per page from the Power Point file it shrinks them just a bit. About 3/8's of an inch each way. Not too bad but would look crappy in a 4 x 6 pouch. IF you print from the PDF file they print out exactly 4 x 6. Always do a test print before you print a bunch of them. Set your setting to 2 per page and landscape orientation.

PDF files have been uploaded to the google drive
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0VSNzmthd1vSlYtU04xVTlYdWc&authuser=0

Anyone who creates documents for print in powerpoint should be shot! Do it in Indesign and put a bleed on it!
Also Mike, your laminator looks very nice.

Eumerin wrote:

Asterios wrote:
The cartoon had squads at 3 veritechs, 1 leader and 2 wingmen, the game has 1 squadron at 4 veritechs.

Did we ever see any flight-sized units other than Vermillion? Just curious.

Real-world organization is four aircraft per flight, but fictional militaries often use three aircraft because a symmetrical 'V' formation looks cooler than the lop-sided 'V' formation that you get with four aircraft.

actually flights in real world vary greatly from 2-5 planes per flight on average. but it all really depended on the reason for the flight, or the operation it was to undertake.

Thailand cannot import robotech at all. "FArung's" R really dicey

I got my stuff. Still don't believe Wave 1 has really shipped, clearly I was sent a package of very well made forgeries to silence my doubts and stop spreading my malcontent ramblings...

I'd offer my opinions, but I actually haven't really had a chance to look at it... the box art and sprues look pretty though.

Eumerin wrote:

Asterios wrote:
The cartoon had squads at 3 veritechs, 1 leader and 2 wingmen, the game has 1 squadron at 4 veritechs.

Did we ever see any flight-sized units other than Vermillion? Just curious.

Real-world organization is four aircraft per flight, but fictional militaries often use three aircraft because a symmetrical 'V' formation looks cooler than the lop-sided 'V' formation that you get with four aircraft.

But is so much less useful tactically speaking.

How have you dealt with all the extra mouth moisture receiving your package produced?

Joyboozer wrote:
How have you dealt with all the extra mouth moisture receiving your package produced?

me i'm not too enthused and my stuff is sitting in a closet.

Joyboozer wrote:
How have you dealt with all the extra mouth moisture receiving your package produced?

As a glass half full kinda guy at least Lord Kevin doesn't use that phrase anymore. I suspect though that he still uses it around the PB faithful.

Maybe this whole experience taught him that only Goblins, Wolfen and some of the other RPG races are prone to drueling and that humans.....not so much unless it's a 4-star meal or a really hot Human or Elven chick.