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Wow these are perfect for the Sci-fi skirmish game I am currently creating, thanks Spartan games

Also does this mean there will be a sci-fi skirmish game your going to make for this terrain?

 sourclams wrote:
I don't think I've ever tried to like a game as much as I tried for Dystopian Wars. Their abysmal ruleset and poor development turned my entire FLGS off to them. I'd like to see some clarification whether this stuff is meant for 28mm or their larger TT figs scale, because no way will I actually try to play their stuff in their games.

The Warstore listing states that the terrain set is "perfect for any 28 to 32mm science fiction, modern or post-apocalyptic gaming board."
http://www.thewarstore.com/product87066.html
Considering the previous fiasco with them listing their 32mm Dystopian Legions line as 28mm, the scale may change. For all we know, we may get something silly like 35mm or something incompatible with anything.

Regardless, terrain itself is timeless and can be easily adapted to multiple game sets. The price seems fine with a retailer discount, and depending on the scale with Infinity miniatures, it's a thing to look at for me at least.

 happygolucky wrote:
Also does this mean there will be a sci-fi skirmish game your going to make for this terrain?

There is still a completely new game Firestorm Invasion in the works. Firestorm Legions will have to wait.

This is very similar to several of the existing sci-fi MDF terrain sets out there.

Accessories look pretty good from what I can see, but the rest is pretty meh, as far as I am concerned. And pricy...

~Eric

I wonder if those smaller space ships have interiors.

Well hello forgeworld space port

Funny, it does remind me a tad of the old Anphelion Project buildings they used to do, but a wee bit more affordable, but not by much.

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
So, yet more MDF stuff? It all looks a bit samey to me.

I must concur. I have a very hard time picking out one of these laser-cut kits from the other; they all seem to have the exact same industrial flame & smoke factory aesthetic to them, all ladders and railways and hexagonally shaped pods and bunkers. The only unique one I've ever seen was the kickstarter one where the guy made gothic ruins that were somewhat unique.

That being said, is that bottom image a carrier or dreadnought or something? That's kinda cool, although it looks awfully papercrafty.

Well, I was certainly interested in the accessories at first, until I realized that this is Spartan Games resin we're talking about. Thoroughly dissatisfied with their casting in the past, so I'm going to have to pass on these, even if they do look very nice.

If you look at the stuff over on The Warstore, they have a measurement of 53mm tall on the corridor connector pieces.

May be a tad tall for something other than their line.

Very interesting. The HDF does sound better... but I wonder how it is packed and assembled. The mdf stuff I have took FOREVER to make (well... some of it... the rest is still waiting! )

Too expensive for laser cut fancy cardboard.

JWhex wrote:
Too expensive for laser cut fancy cardboard.

really, this seems fairly cheap compared to a lot of the other stuff on the market. There is a LOT of detail here

 Guildsman wrote:
Well, I was certainly interested in the accessories at first, until I realized that this is Spartan Games resin we're talking about. Thoroughly dissatisfied with their casting in the past, so I'm going to have to pass on these, even if they do look very nice.

I've been living under a rock. Would you mind elaborating? I haven't heard a lot about Spartan Games apart from their record on Dystopian Wars.

The vomited raindow of a terrain monster there reminds me of necromunda. Now if only that was still supported....

Spartan Games up's the Game Spartan places another solid amount of Game out there in an already busy market

Fixed that for ya. This terrain is good, and I always welcome more MDF and resin kits on the market, especially ones that are well designed and can work with multiple systems, but these are HARDLY upping any game whatsoever. The resin accessories are similar to anything long available from Antenocities (though different enough to be a good alternative) and the MDF has been available from dozens of different manufacturers.

None of this is a bad thing, more stuff on the market is more stuff, and these look to be some quality kits. Only thing I'n not too keen on is enclosed roofs/corridors with tapered sides. They look great, but they can be hell to game with

More pics. Spartan posted a picture on their site to show how strong the Terrain is, and a couple with models for scals. Not sure what line the models come from?

Yeah because that's what everyone does before putting the scenery away is to stand on them! WTF??? Seems really nice but to expensive for my taste.

I think we got the point after 50kg. Putting an 80kg gaming company suit on top is just... I'd ratehr have more pictures of your stuff. Up close so I can see the sharpness of the details, please.

I don't think anyone is really doubting the durability of this terrain. The big concern with terrain is whether it will chip when you drop sharp miniatures on it (not a problem with MDF/HDF). The big concern with Spartan Games is whether they will continue to support a product line a week after it's released (not a problem when their terrain fits with other companys' games.)

Between this and Mantic's terrain offerings I'm feeling spoiled and greedy.

Hey guys, can someone site me some evidence of the practices that have birthed the animosity in this thread?

Not that I don't believe it I just like to deal in hard facts and I'd like to know in case I decide to make a purchase.

Thanks!

Guy at the flgs ordered some of this. I'll try and get some pictures of it all Unassembled and Unpainted when it shows up. Will be the first mdf/hdf type terrain product well have here though so I won't be able to compare it to anything.

As for Spartan itself, I've not had a problem with their resin casting in quite awhile. The old Uncharted stuff had issues, but it was always more design flaws that led to stuff chipping IMHO. And I definitely wouldn't complain about the cost of their resin figs. Super cheap compared to other games. Do with their rule systems were better though and that they were better at listing the actual size scale of their products.

 AduroT wrote:
Guy at the flgs ordered some of this. I'll try and get some pictures of it all Unassembled and Unpainted when it shows up. Will be the first mdf/hdf type terrain product well have here though so I won't be able to compare it to anything.

Please do - I'm looking forward to this from you!

Try to get some figures from various companies in the shots too, if can...

Thanks!

I personally only bought once from Spartan's cornucopia. My Sorellian ships were fine, a few little bubbles on the mould line, nothing dramatic. Ironbovin just finished painting Dystopian Legions figs for our FLGS, and he was thouroughly unimpressed with the softness of the details. Even if it was a bit hyperbolic, I tend to believe him.

But that dropship... with some Paulson guns on it, and gubbins of my own... that's going to be sweet.

Yeh that'd be great thanks Aduro. I definitely need to see some kind of review since there seems to be a slightly cloudy history.

 Casey's Law wrote:
Hey guys, can someone site me some evidence of the practices that have birthed the animosity in this thread?

Not that I don't believe it I just like to deal in hard facts and I'd like to know in case I decide to make a purchase.

Thanks!

Well for me, personally, it is a few things (not all of them have to do with the manufacturing side, but do speak to a lack of QC across the company):



[WARNING - KIND OF RANTY!]

- They can't write clear rules to save their lives. Their first foray in to gaming (Uncharted Seas) could be forgiven (it was missing the rules discussing how one actually goes about destroying ships). But FSA was also a mess and Dystopian Wars was such a mess that they have revamped the core book 3+ times in the space of a couple of years (and it is still loaded with glaring errors and a byzantine layout).

- They are really spotty on online/FAQ/Errata support. They put it out, but often it is just as poorly edited as the rules (the update PDF for people using one of the old Dystopian Wars books actually has several rule changes that lead to substantially different games such as swapping out hard target numbers for modifiers and the like).

- Despite the above issues, they seem hell bent on shoving as many spin-off games as possible in to their line. For years (even as they were putting out Firestorm) people have been commenting on this. But Spartan always told people that all the games had different dev teams and no one games time was being eaten by another. But on the face of it, the delays and dead space products like Uncharted Seas and Firestorm Armada have dealt with in the face of Dystopian Wars (and now Dystopian Legions) is kind of making that look like a load of . Uncharted Seas was basically dead a long stretch of time (over a year I recall) before it got a digital resculpt of all of its fleets, then saw nothing for another 18 months. Now, because apparently the community didn't eat up a game that has basically been dead on its feet with barely any releases in years, they are kicking it to direct only (and will likely no longer support it actively at that). Meanwhile Firestorm's first supplement was delayed by months while they shoved Dystopian Legions through the pipe. Now they have a spin-off studio called Studio Sparta which I can only assume is an attempt to make people not notice that they are now trying to support another game with a split scale (any 15mm stuff actually come out for that yet?). It kind of smacks of poor focus and shoddy management.

Basically for a lot of people they either bought in to Spartan games and then found themselves abandoned with no releases to look forward to for months/years (or indefinitely like the poor Uncharted Seas players). Or they got to be the iterative playtest audience for Dystopian Wars and got to look forward to Spartan reprinting a new (poorly edited) rulebook every year or so (the first reprint was even a stealth reprint shortly after release that contained errata never posted by Spartan!). It didn't help that despite all the reprints they never bothered doing any real balance work on the core factions that needed it in DW. And now it sounds like they are going through a load of new playtesting that sounds like it will result in an all new edition. Oh joy!

Basically, Spartan always seem like their in a rush to get somewhere but they forgot the roadmap.

[OKAY IT IS SAFE, YOU CAN LOOK AGAIN]

All in all, Spartan have done some things that have not made them tons of friends in the long run. That said, the quality of their minis (some QC issues aside) is fairly good (never touched Dystopian Legions though, heard less than great things about them) and this terrain does look half-decent. But I just don't think I can support Spartan anymore. At the very least this terrain is something they can make and then leave to moulder for years as it makes them money from people who don't play DW/DL. So their usual fire and forget (unless it is steam punk) strategy works fine for them here.

And more competition in the HDF/MDF market is always good. Maybe it will finally start pushing prices down once we start to reach critical mass (and maybe competition from all the cheap plastic kits on the horizon will catalyze it a bit).

^this. This is why I won't touch Spartan products, they need to stay committed to a rules system until it is solid before moving on to other products and also need to support there various lines otherwise it will slowly die out IMO.

Thank you Ronin, a little history has certainly shined some light on the situation. I guess as long as the reviews look good on the terrain then there is no problem for those of us just picking up a couple of bits for Infinity or something. I understand that those who have invested in the past and now feel like they've been turned over will want to stay clear.

The reviews will certainly tell how this plays out.

 Ronin_eX wrote:

- They can't write clear rules to save their lives. Their first foray in to gaming (Uncharted Seas) could be forgiven (it was missing the rules discussing how one actually goes about destroying ships). But FSA was also a mess and Dystopian Wars was such a mess that they have revamped the core book 3+ times in the space of a couple of years (and it is still loaded with glaring errors and a byzantine layout).

Dystoipian wars has been updates once bro, not three tiems, its ok to slam a company but at least get your facts straight

 EmilCrane wrote:

 Ronin_eX wrote:

- They can't write clear rules to save their lives. Their first foray in to gaming (Uncharted Seas) could be forgiven (it was missing the rules discussing how one actually goes about destroying ships). But FSA was also a mess and Dystopian Wars was such a mess that they have revamped the core book 3+ times in the space of a couple of years (and it is still loaded with glaring errors and a byzantine layout).

Dystoipian wars has been updates once bro, not three tiems, its ok to slam a company but at least get your facts straight

There was the first printing, the second print run of the core that contained a lot of clarification and fixed typos (never showed up in an online FAQ), there was the June 2011 printing that was announced and updated/fixed a bunch of errors (but did get a FAQ at least) and then the current v1.1. This was actually a big point of contention for a while since a lot of early adopters felt they got a bad deal because the first book was riddled with errors and horribly laid out. It also made getting in to the game with the latest rules really confusing since there were few, if any differences on the covers of the books. To verify you had the latest version you had to delve inside (so buying online was a gamble for a little while).

Not to get all grognardy (as much as you can for a game that is only a couple years old), but I was an early adopter of Dystopian Wars, I got my first starter in the very first batch sent out in Novemeber/December of 2010. I was a long time fan and fairly active in the Spartan community back on the old forums. I remember each and every single revision that went through, I remember the flame wars incited by the the "secret" printing (only secret because Spartan never announced it, but there were definite changes between the book that shipped to people in December and the one people found in game stores in early 2011).

So yeah, my facts are straight. But most of the discussions from back in those days died when the Spartan Games forums suffered unrecoverable death several years back. So I forgive you for not being able to properly research the progression. But in the future, you may want to ask for clarification on someone's claims before assuming they're wrong.