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I'm not a big fan of open, un-protected exosuits myself. At least have an armored glass canopy or something. But I suppose they expect us to add that ourselves.

 Melissia wrote:
I'm not a big fan of open, un-protected exosuits myself. At least have an armored glass canopy or something. But I suppose they expect us to add that ourselves.

I'll go one farther, actually: not only is the "pilot" (who I presume is some sort of undead creature) totally exposed, the thing is missing its superstructure.

Seriously, it just seems to stop at the waist. What is supporting the enormous armatures, the pilot?

As dumb as the Jailbird mech is, at least it looks like it could function, even if at a severe vulnerability to the pilot. This thing looks like it's just waiting for the pilot to be split like a wishbone...

Uch.

 Buzzsaw wrote:
the thing is missing its superstructure.

Seriously, it just seems to stop at the waist. What is supporting the enormous armatures, the pilot?

Maybe i am seeing a different picture, but there are mecha-parts on both sides as well as behind the pilot.

As for the increased vulnerability we already accept melee combat and giant mecha in a lot of these scifi settings although that would make no sense in a future RL combat situation. I am okay with adding a mostly open mecha to the inconsistencies as long as it's a cool alien power-loader homage. And not to forget those two huge randall-grav-shield projectors on the mechs shoulders. Those'll keep the undead pilot safe and sound

Had to bow out of my LT pledge. It's there if anyone wants it.

 Minx wrote:

 Buzzsaw wrote:
the thing is missing its superstructure.

Seriously, it just seems to stop at the waist. What is supporting the enormous armatures, the pilot?

Maybe i am seeing a different picture, but there are mecha-parts on both sides as well as behind the pilot.

As for the increased vulnerability we already accept melee combat and giant mecha in a lot of these scifi settings although that would make no sense in a future RL combat situation. I am okay with adding a mostly open mecha to the inconsistencies as long as it's a cool alien power-loader homage. And not to forget those two huge randall-grav-shield projectors on the mechs shoulders. Those'll keep the undead pilot safe and sound

This is one of those "the physics and engineering make no sense yes I know it has an undead pilot" moments, where I recognize simultaneously that the thing is absurd on its face but can't get past the obvious engineering flaws. Does it have side structures? Yes. Does its design make any sense with internally consistent logic? No.

Just look at how thick and built up every part of that thing is: legs, hips, arms, weapons. It's immense everywhere... except where the forces generated by those huge arms and by bipedal movement would be greatest. It's a sham since the parts of it that are actually... well, there, are very well designed and interesting. If it had a solid, armored torso it would be aces.

As is, I'll repeat: uch.

"Internally consistent logic" being the key, even in SF settings.

No amount of Hand Wavium can 'fix' certain issues!

Minx: There are good and bad ways to do exoskeleton, this is one of the bad ones

 Buzzsaw wrote:
Does it have side structures? Yes. Does its design make any sense with internally consistent logic? No.

Just look at how thick and built up every part of that thing is: legs, hips, arms, weapons. It's immense everywhere... except...

There's no really glaring problem with the structure. The arms are attached individually to both side structures which in turn sit on hinges on the waist and are connected to each other by some sort of artificial muscle behind the pilot (plus more cables and rods in a diagonal cross in the back of the mecha). It does look believable and mobile enough to me.

I tentatively agree on your second point though, everything is really built up except the middle. I can see where that would be too much of a style change or break for some of us.
Regardless, i would still like to see a looted version of this mecha with a jailbird pilot.

 Grot 6 wrote:
Had to bow out of my LT pledge. It's there if anyone wants it.

Curious as to your reasoning. I'm thinking about dumping my pledge myself, but I need a push

 Melissia wrote:
Minx: There are good and bad ways to do exoskeleton, this is one of the bad ones

I am not sure if there are good ways to built a large humanoid exoskeleton. It makes no sense to construct a huge but fragile target. Walking and keeping your balance necessitates fully articulate legs (and perhaps arms) with lots of fiddly bits that won't survive a fire fight. In addition the maintenance in the field will be a nightmare.

But perhaps you were talking about the visual aesthetics? In that case we just have to agree to disagree since i wouldn't classify the iron empire mecha as bad although it's not my favorite.

 cincydooley wrote:

 Grot 6 wrote:
Had to bow out of my LT pledge. It's there if anyone wants it.

Curious as to your reasoning. I'm thinking about dumping my pledge myself, but I need a push

Simple economics. I have a roof to pay for this month. My cash flow just got crushed for a few months.

 Minx wrote:
I am not sure if there are good ways to built a large humanoid exoskeleton. It makes no sense to construct a huge but fragile target..

It's just an oversized suit of power armor. the biggest reason to use it is that it can carry bigger weapons than a normal human could, and is capable of carrying a bigger power supply/storage in the case of energy weapons.

Sure, a drone is arguably a better choice since it doesn't endanger the operator, but it's possible to cut a drone off from its operator due to it relying upon a radio signal or cable.

Hrmm...not digging on that mech.

I'll withhold judgment in case Raging Heroes can give me a really cool explanation to go along with it, but I doubt I'll be getting one.

Of course, I'm incredibly biased (since I don't like any mecha). This is at least something different than the normal walker schlock, which is a step in the right direction. I think I might be in agreement with the dissenting opinions on this one, though, that it is an ambitious misstep.

I actually like it. I hadn't planned on getting any mecha, and I probably still won't (already over spending). But I do like it. The legs look amazing, though I would change the feet.... needs more toes. And I'd like another big gun on the left arm. Also not sure about the pilots bandages and headgear. Other than these small things (though I do think the feet definitely need redone), I'm quite impressed with it.

Yeah, feeling the same way at the moment, though have $30 left to allocate so might pick one up for hellbrute counts as, as it doesn't really fit with the cultist/traitor guard I plan to use the rest of the figures for.

 cincydooley wrote:

 Grot 6 wrote:
Had to bow out of my LT pledge. It's there if anyone wants it.

Curious as to your reasoning. I'm thinking about dumping my pledge myself, but I need a push

I'll probably be dropping my EB Commander pledge soon for the following reasons:

1) Many of the things I was looking forward to haven't turned out to my liking - the bikes and the mechs especially.
2) Gaming budget - it doesn't make much sense to pre-order a year (give or take) in advance as there's really nothing 'exclusive' that appeals.
3) Scale Issues - still not convinced it will work for what I want them for, so better to wait and find out rather than get Dystopian'd!

Plus other reasons too...

Is it normal for a Kickstarter to have a flurry of dropouts in the last couple of days? I could see how it would be, but I could also see the reverse being true. I'm sure it will get a flurry of additional backers showing up, I'm just curious about those leaving, since it seems like I've seen quite a few people announce their intent to withdraw their pledge.

Not a judgment or anything (I'm still going to receive all the minis that I wanted at this point, so there's no worries on that front) I'm just curious. I've never done a Kickstarter before, and I'd like to do one again in the future, but I'm curious as to how they usually work.

There are probably cases of kickstarters where people overpledge just to unlock the stretch bonuses, and then reduce/remove their pledges once they see what's available at the end.

But in the case of RH, where they pretty much gave up on unlocking everything through stretch bonuses, I think it just comes from the way they've been managing this trainwreck of a kickstarter.

In addition to not providing the information we want concerning aesthetics of the actual models, the lack of renders also shows a lack of confidence in their own product in RH's regard, especially after the issue with the Kurgan heavy troops.
Not to mention the great confusion to be had concerning casting materials, items included in specific boxes, and other similar issues.

Well.. some people talk about dropping their pledges since the beginng of eternity..
true, some will eventually drop out... but USUALLY the last ~2 days of most campagns go crazy.. sometimes doubling or trippling the total amount of pledges/money.

RoninXiC wrote:
Well.. some people talk about dropping their pledges since the beginng of eternity..
true, some will eventually drop out... but USUALLY the last ~2 days of most campagns go crazy.. sometimes doubling or trippling the total amount of pledges/money.

And that could still happen here too, though it is unlikely given the current state of this campaign, and what's 'left to do' and all that.

There's usually some sort of incentive for a massive wave of additional backers and right now, I'm not seeing it.

Of course, there's still time!

 Jimsolo wrote:
Is it normal for a Kickstarter to have a flurry of dropouts in the last couple of days? I could see how it would be, but I could also see the reverse being true. I'm sure it will get a flurry of additional backers showing up, I'm just curious about those leaving, since it seems like I've seen quite a few people announce their intent to withdraw their pledge.

Not a judgment or anything (I'm still going to receive all the minis that I wanted at this point, so there's no worries on that front) I'm just curious. I've never done a Kickstarter before, and I'd like to do one again in the future, but I'm curious as to how they usually work.

It makes perfect sense, especially in an environment where there are a lot of Early Bird Specials: consider that the majority of the money pledged was contributed before even the thumbnail images were shown.

As any campaign continues, people that pledged early in anticipation of later satisfaction face three possible outcomes;
1) Satisfied, and maintain their pledge,
2) More then satisfied, and increase their pledge,
3) Unsatisfied, they reduce or cancel their pledges.

Going into this particular campaign there are a number of unknowns, which have been whittled down over time (to some extent);
-What would blanks look like, such as,
--The Mechs,
--The Bikes,
--The Heavy Troopers,
--The Lulus, etc...

-What would the renders look like? The commonly bandied about figure is that 80% of items would be rendered by the end of the campaign.

-What would the early test casts look like? So far a single mono-pose hero has been shown and one multi-pose trooper (the former to great acclaim, the second to much controversy).

-What would the final load-out of added value be?

So, as we begin to round the final bend, how have these items panned out?

I cannot speak for anyone but for myself and have found things to be a distinctly mixed bag: the Mechs and Bikes, which I was open to at the beginning, have been profoundly disappointing to me. The Heavy troopers aren't too shabby, but considering their rather parsimonious discount there seems little reason to hold great enthusiasm for them.

Renders? They really need to release more of them. Same for more views of troopers.

The freebies are... again, a mixed bag. So far the Freedom Fighters are unabashed successes (IMO), the pets are... an odd choice, and the tank commanders suffer from a) there being no tanks in the campaign, and b) being one from each faction. It's also difficult to not feel rather let down when one compares the value added in this campaign to... pretty much any other large scale campaigns. For Americans there is also the issue of being unused to paying shipping, however reasonable that shipping may be.

To such evaluations other intangibles are added: the consistently overwhelmed air by RH may give one caution, along with their reputation for running late and so on and so forth.

The last 48 hour pledge burst is fueled by a number of different factors (value, exclusivity, so on): does this campaign possess such factors in sufficient amounts? Time will tell.

some highlights from update #46:

So we decided to create a special pledge called the CONNOISSEUR BOX level, dedicated to the most demanding collectors among you.
This pledge will include the following:

• All 38 Heroines in high quality casts made from hand-poured resin, each with a numbered certificate of authenticity.

• A very special 54mm scale edition of the Necro-Priestess Nephahrya in a high quality cast made from hand-poured resin with a numbered certificate of authenticity.

• A signed and numbered full-colour, printed version of the Toughest Girls of the Galaxy digital artbook. As its digital counterpart, it will be a lavishly designed coffee table book with all the TGG concept art, many unreleased sketches, stories and background, …

• A 5-hour webinar with the Raging Heroes team (in English and in 2 parts) in which you'll discover how we conceive, develop, and sculpt Raging Heroes miniatures.

We will open this pledge level in several hours: at 5PM in France, 4PM in the Uk, 11 AM on the East Coast, etc. See a countdown here.

EDIT: This upcoming pledge will ONLY be available in very limited quantities.

Iron Empire Mecha officially unlocked:

Whoa, how much is the CONNOISSEUR BOX level going to cost?

The mention of resin has got me interested in this all over again.

Perhaps we will see the 54mm priestess and the physical art book as separate add-ons. Has there been any word on that, heralds?

Not a fan of any of the 'mechs so far. Guess I'll be sticking with infantry for this one.

I hate to disagree with some people in the thread , but the Iron Empire mech is 7 truckloads of awesome on two legs. I literally looked at it, opened my mouth and let out a half stunned "ahhhhhhhh" that went for about a minute whilst my brain tried to absorb how much I liked the art.

I love the piped in pilot look, coupled with the mummy wrappings and the faceplate/headware. I'm not normally a fan of necro/undead stuff but i really like this!

If the thing is undead ,what does it matter if the pilot is unprotected, it's already dead. The whole reality thing amuses me. We have people willing to buy into inter galaxy space travel, plasma weapons , undead wizards , gods in space, saviours of humanity , fungas aliens and yet somehow reality gets introduced with mechs . HA!

I'll be honest, I'm considering the possibility of dropping my pledge, and I'm an Early Bird General.
Why? Economics. Do I really need to drop ~$1000 on a new IG army, when I already dropped $1500 last year for a massive Dreamforge IG force? I mean, just how many Imperial Guard armies do I need? So, yeah, I'm thinking of dropping it a good bit to just have a bunch of the characters, and a single platoon.

Personally, I'm satisfied with I've seen so far. I would like to see more renders, but that has not been an overriding concern for me.

I really like the Iron Empire mecha, and so does the other half, so we'll probably be adding a couple to our pledge.

I can see why people would have reason to back out of their pledges at this stage, but fortunately for me this kickstarter suits my situation.

So, since I'm too busy to do any more mathmatical acrobatics with the various pledge levels, could someone tell me if it would be worth my time to switch from Lieutenant to Captain or Major? Or just stay at Lieutenant and up my pledge amount? Oh, and let's not worry about the EB stuff.

Don't you just add up the cost of the models you want, then decide to pledge that amount?

I'm not getting the complication here at all.