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 scarletsquig wrote:

I guess the main thing keeping me away from this is the tales of the first boxed set being a nightmare/ almost impossible to assemble and clean.

This is nothing to be concerned about. The models were quite easy to put together and warpage simply needed a hot water bath.

The "nightmare" people were having was only due to them never having assembled minis before at all.

There are plenty of things to be concerned about with this campaign. The quality of the miniatures probably isn't one of them.

No, Starfire was a huge pain to assemble. The rest of the box was a breeze.

 Cyporiean wrote:
No, Starfire was a huge pain to assemble. The rest of the box was a breeze.

When you're right, you're right. I actually had to get mine replaced because even with the hot water treatment I couldn't get him assembled correctly.

Nearing the $125k stretch goal now.

I'd say it'll be interesting to see what the next goal will be, but I think we're going to have to wait a little bit as the Ninja Pop crew is at GAMA in Vegas and probably isn't up yet.

I thought this new box set had 'pre-assembled' miniatures?

And that was mostly going to be the way forward for Soda Pop with SDE?

Also - does Soda Pop now also fully 'own' Relic Knights, or is that game in some sort of limbo now?

Soda Pop has heavily implied that hey bought their publishing license back from CMON and will begin supporting it on their own after the kickstarter has shipped.

The only thing I can say about the material is it is a softer plastic, almost rubber. It is easy to clean with a knife, but doesn't take sanding well.

Everything I have ever gotten which was pre-assembed was fine. If you are in it for the models, they are nice models which need minimal cleanup. If you are a boardgamer, the colored plastic means you don't have to do a thing and can just play.

I am more worried about timeline, and the history of the involved parties.

 Alpharius wrote:
I thought this new box set had 'pre-assembled' miniatures?

And that was mostly going to be the way forward for Soda Pop with SDE?

It does, and it is, much to the chagrin of those of us that would prefer to clean and assemble our own models This is done for the lazy, super complainy boardgaming types that cant' be bothered to assemble on their own.

Also - does Soda Pop now also fully 'own' Relic Knights, or is that game in some sort of limbo now?

While I think there is still an outstanding balance between the two, this is the case.

 scarletsquig wrote:
I guess the main thing keeping me away from this is the tales of the first boxed set being a nightmare/ almost impossible to assemble and clean.

I would say the SDE models were no harder to assemble than anything Mantic has produced. In fact, the parts design is fairly similar in terms of what goes where and it only goes in one way. If you assembled DeadZone and DreadBall, SDE's starter box would be no different (and probably easier since they were bagged with just one type of model per bag). Cleaning is a bit of a question mark as obviously it depends on the particular casting quality in a given box. The stuff I've gotten has had very minimal lines overall though. More annoying is a few places where the break from the sprue is apparent, but a lot (70%+ in my made-up estimation) of that is the discoloration of the break (i.e. - the "white spot") which would likely be obscured by paint anyway.

Where I'm leery of backing this just yet is that it's not that huge of a discount for a product being paid for 9 months (or likely more, given their rep) in advance, especially with shipping costs (which become free from many online retailers at the price points being discussed). I understand this won't be a bonanza of plastic, but I do expect SOMETHING for the opportunity costs I'm incurring which seem to be coming in the form of "loot" goals. Might wait until the end to have a clearer picture instead of getting roped into the "in for a penny, in for a pound" kind of logic that comes from already putting down $100.

IIRC, the BIGGEST headache with the assembly of the original SDE box was the LACK of instructions on how to assemble them.

Yes, they had pegs that were designed to fit in specific holes, but at least in my box, parts for the various models were in different baggies and I had to take guesses until I was pointed to an online assembly guide..

regular board gamers had a much harder time trying to assemble without miniature experience.

-P

I had no problems with the original box other than Starfire.

It really was no worse than a bag of random Mantic figures, or trying to figure out where all the tiny bits go on a Mierce figure that has absolutely no directions whatsoever.

As I attempt to work my way through the piles of unfinished minis laying around the house, I get closer and closer to succumbing to painting up my SDE stuff.

I'm wondering if we'll pass the 150k mark before they even get up to update it.

Soda Pop and Ninja Division are at GAMA all week so updates and comments from them might be a bit slow that and I believe it's currently 7:16 AM PST right now.

 DaveC wrote:
Soda Pop and Ninja Division are at GAMA all week so updates and comments from them might be a bit slow that and I believe it's currently 7:16 AM PST right now.

Yeah, they're 3 hours behind EST.

They really should make it a priority to get the rest of the stretches up before heading to the GAMA hall if they want to keep the momentum going.

Next up.

 cincydooley wrote:

 scarletsquig wrote:

I guess the main thing keeping me away from this is the tales of the first boxed set being a nightmare/ almost impossible to assemble and clean.

This is nothing to be concerned about. The models were quite easy to put together and warpage simply needed a hot water bath.

The "nightmare" people were having was only due to them never having assembled minis before at all.

There are plenty of things to be concerned about with this campaign. The quality of the miniatures probably isn't one of them.

I take offense at the notion that SDE 1.0 was a nightmare to assemble because I somehow lack experience cleaning, assembling, etc... I have been doing it for years now, with no issue. The truth is, the first, and ONLY the first, run of SDE was the worst models to assemble that I have ever seen. The pieces warped, points of contact were terribly planned out... It was a mess. Now they knew as much, and it WAS issue enough that all further runs were dramatically improved.

I've since seen the minis, and played the game, and it is great, no issues here... but there's no point in revisionist history.

You can take plenty of offense. They weren't that hard to assemble. At all. Most of them you could stick together without gluing.

Starfire was the only exception.

I really like the 6 pets models, and can swallow that it was a $50k stretch goal because it was 6 figures that really will make the game funner. But if every other $25k stretch goal is going to be a paid add-on, I'm a bit disenchanted already. You've already sculpted it, you're going to sell it later. Don't "reward" me by saying 'see, all that money means you can buy it NOW!!'. Limited in scope in deed: we'll take more of your money, and give you less stuff than other KSs.

I will reserve judgement til the end, but I believe CMON ran a limited scope KS with AQ also. They kept the SGs coming until the last day, which I don't think ramped the money up at all, it was all the fence sitters getting in before the lock at the end that drove the price up beyond the $700k. If SPM just cuts the SGs off and lets the money keep totalling up WAY beyond the last SG, then I think there will be hurt feelings and angst.

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:


Next up.

I'm feeling incredibly teased by the flat base Cola is on that doesn't have slotta room.

If I never have to green stuff another SDE base to match the cobblestone I'll die a happy man.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Salacious Greed wrote:

I will reserve judgement til the end, but I believe CMON ran a limited scope KS with AQ also. They kept the SGs coming until the last day, which I don't think ramped the money up at all, it was all the fence sitters getting in before the lock at the end that drove the price up beyond the $700k. If SPM just cuts the SGs off and lets the money keep totalling up WAY beyond the last SG, then I think there will be hurt feelings and angst.

CMoN has been running "limited scope" KSes since Rivet Wars. Every one they've done since then has had a "final" stretch goal.

Backed! Lookomg forward to seeing what comes of this one, and Im really excited for arcade mode. Might actually get some of my friends back into it.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
I take offense at the notion that SDE 1.0 was a nightmare to assemble because I somehow lack experience cleaning, assembling, etc... I have been doing it for years now, with no issue. The truth is, the first, and ONLY the first, run of SDE was the worst models to assemble that I have ever seen. The pieces warped, points of contact were terribly planned out... It was a mess. Now they knew as much, and it WAS issue enough that all further runs were dramatically improved.

It appears that despite their claims to the contrary in their copy/paste "risks" section of the KS that ND/Soda/Whatever didn't learn from that as the Robotech minis sprues and designs look very poorly planned out. Seems going right across the front of the model multiple times, parts broken up into multiple pieces that don't need to be like space marine sized heads, and piss poor poses whose only variation is the angle you choose on the arm or leg (but not multiple poses). Also, if Relic Knights and Robotech are any indication, the Dec 2014 date is a complete farce.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 cincydooley wrote:

There are plenty of things to be concerned about with this campaign. The quality of the miniatures probably isn't one of them.

The two recent robotech updates speak otherwise.

 Salacious Greed wrote:
I really like the 6 pets models, and can swallow that it was a $50k stretch goal because it was 6 figures that really will make the game funner. But if every other $25k stretch goal is going to be a paid add-on, I'm a bit disenchanted already. You've already sculpted it, you're going to sell it later. Don't "reward" me by saying 'see, all that money means you can buy it NOW!!'. Limited in scope in deed: we'll take more of your money, and give you less stuff than other KSs.

I will reserve judgement til the end, but I believe CMON ran a limited scope KS with AQ also. They kept the SGs coming until the last day, which I don't think ramped the money up at all, it was all the fence sitters getting in before the lock at the end that drove the price up beyond the $700k. If SPM just cuts the SGs off and lets the money keep totalling up WAY beyond the last SG, then I think there will be hurt feelings and angst.

Quite a few kickstarters don't load up on free extras. I'd rather they push out a decent product than go broke trying to soak up pledges. Similar to how Relic Knights went. They offered more than they were prepared to make, possibly through ignorance of the manufacturing process. Hopefully this kickstarter will be much smoother, and it seems to be from the information released so far. They don't need another Relic Knights or Robotech "fiasco", so I'm sure they want this to go off without a hitch. They want to make money, and continue to make money for years to come.

 warboss wrote:

The two recent robotech updates speak otherwise.

Yes, but I think you can't look at them through the same lens.

Both Captain R & the Nether Strider look great. They seem very comfortable with the chibi style of miniature.

The can design the Chibi stuff exactly how they want to, with manufacturing technology in mind

for Robotech they have to follow the existing designs based on the ancient animations

(and with HG involved even if they wanted to simplify things they wouldn't be guaranteed it would fly)

 Sinful Hero wrote:
Quite a few kickstarters don't load up on free extras. I'd rather they push out a decent product than go broke trying to soak up pledges. Similar to how Relic Knights went. They offered more than they were prepared to make, possibly through ignorance of the manufacturing process. Hopefully this kickstarter will be much smoother, and it seems to be from the information released so far. They don't need another Relic Knights or Robotech "fiasco", so I'm sure they want this to go off without a hitch. They want to make money, and continue to make money for years to come.

Sinful,

I agree completely. They want a nice, smooth campaign that they can deliver on time, with no hitches.

However, all the "good" KSs lately have pretty decent SGs and added content for the backers. I don't need a kabillion freebies, but every other SG shouldn't be something to buy. Since the backers are pretty much giving this company all of its future profits for nothing on this game, they can surely throw in some freebies.

I'll take a smoothly run and delivered-on-time KS over one that's late with freebies any day. For $100 I think it's a pretty good deal. I'll consider a few add-ons if they tickle my fancy.

~iPaint

 Salacious Greed wrote:

 Sinful Hero wrote:
Quite a few kickstarters don't load up on free extras. I'd rather they push out a decent product than go broke trying to soak up pledges. Similar to how Relic Knights went. They offered more than they were prepared to make, possibly through ignorance of the manufacturing process. Hopefully this kickstarter will be much smoother, and it seems to be from the information released so far. They don't need another Relic Knights or Robotech "fiasco", so I'm sure they want this to go off without a hitch. They want to make money, and continue to make money for years to come.

Sinful,

I agree completely. They want a nice, smooth campaign that they can deliver on time, with no hitches.

However, all the "good" KSs lately have pretty decent SGs and added content for the backers. I don't need a kabillion freebies, but every other SG shouldn't be something to buy. Since the backers are pretty much giving this company all of its future profits for nothing on this game, they can surely throw in some freebies.

It's only the beginning of the campaign. I'm sure they'll end up tossng in a few things eventually. Of course, they could very well prove me wrong too.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
The can design the Chibi stuff exactly how they want to, with manufacturing technology in mind

for Robotech they have to follow the existing designs based on the ancient animations

(and with HG involved even if they wanted to simplify things they wouldn't be guaranteed it would fly)

Thanks for making me feel old!

So two regular stretches (that are nice looking) right now, and two add ons.

Everything looks solid so far.

So we get another large based hero to play with the huntress soon.



Am I worried we're already into sketch territory instead of renders? Hopefully that's just to whet our appetites.

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:

Am I worried we're already into sketch territory instead of renders? Hopefully that's just to whet our appetites.

I was just thinking the exact same thing......

 Alpharius wrote:

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
The can design the Chibi stuff exactly how they want to, with manufacturing technology in mind

for Robotech they have to follow the existing designs based on the ancient animations

(and with HG involved even if they wanted to simplify things they wouldn't be guaranteed it would fly)

Thanks for making me feel old!

I remember them when they came out too, so you're not alone