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Some more Shaltari renders on Beasts of War. Having trouble linking images on my tablet

I'm tempted... but I do wish I could just get all UCM at the 'high rank' pledge level!

 Vermis wrote:
words

Someone buy this man a drink

I just asked that question so that is good to know. So if you go in that heavy you wind up with 1 extra cruiser per fleet and 8 frigates if I read it right?

@vermin

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for more of a discount than I will get at retail for a 6 month no interest loan. Call me crazy. That said it gets a little better if this hits 500k if I spend 170 up front. It gets solid at that point even if I wind up with stuff I probably won't use

I think vermis' post is excellent on this matter.

I think Vermis is treating all kickstarter threads as if they are the same when they are not. I am pledging here in a legitimate campaign for a solid product from a reliable company, so of course I am going to post differently than I did in the latest Mantic clown show.

My only real concern is their focus on retailers. 90% of the time, my local FLGSs cannot even special order the DZC minis I want. So, I guess I'll just stick to the KS rewards and whatever ends up listed for a reasonable price on Amazon...

Well said and fair points Bob!

Clearly opinions will differ, and that is obviously OK too.

Bob - I think it'd be better not to needlessly jab other companies just to talk about this one!

You're right of course that every company / campaign is different, and I think it is definitely in some ways admirable that Hawk is "sticking to their guns" here. Plastic injection molding takes a long time, and this makes it much more likely that they'll be able to deliver on-time and with an excellent product, as they have consistently in the past (not through KS).

It does mean that I'll invest less here than I eventually will on a full fleet just because they're not offering everything, but I will get the basics now and trick out the fleet with the battleships / command etc when they add them closer to the actual game launch

 Vermis wrote:

zedmeister wrote:Hahahaha, oh dear. Though, the honesty is refreshing:

I found this pretty tempting to begin with, but I think the honesty tipped me over the edge.

Souleater wrote:I don't want Hawk to over extend this and run into difficulties.

warboss wrote:I think it's a good compromise to keep the smaller run likely resin stuff off the kickstarter and stores/online store only.

Yup. All this freakish 'culture' that's sprung up around wargames kickstarters, promising more than you can realistically supply; expecting more than they can realistically supply; sellers and punters alike treating Kickstarter like a webshop; getting all huffy when they offer you a discount rather than a throat-cutting haemorrhage; pledging early to help them fund their goal but revoking that because it turns out you actually didn't give a gak about helping them fund their goal, and they dared to not throw tons of free crap at you; raging when they mysteriously have trouble fulfilling their mad workload, or when they cut corners... it's all so much bs.

What's that, Mister Hawk and co? You want a bit of up-front capital to help get some plastic moulds made? Surely. I'll contribute an amount that would be enough to get a two-fleet starter at retail or a bit below it. What's that now? You got enough money overall thanks to me and like-minded souls, and I actually get a two-fleet starter at retail or a bit below it? Very nice. I'm quite satisfied. Especially if it's basically an intro-game set 'cos that what I plan to do with it. (To coin a phrase, I'd like to help Hawk so that I can help myself)

Oh, no, no. You need to get 200 dollars worth of stuff for your 100 dollar pledge, or else it's a fleecing scheme to get your money, see?

You are supposed to be pledging a preorder to a company to help them get something made, with a little bit of fun kickback in return for that 'loaand I just did that with a game called Shadowstar Corsairs, and I am happy with it.

I don't think anyone thinks their getting fleeced if the don't get a 100% return on their money. But by all means use hyperbole

I think most people consider the costs of paying for something 6 months out without delay at more than they can buy retail from reputable vendors. If you can't at least make it worthwhile against that that's fine, there are other places for money. But don't act like people who think that way are wrong. Do we all really think the company couldn't get a loan for these molds without our help?

 Hulksmash wrote:

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for more of a discount than I will get at retail for a 6 month no interest loan.

The KS levels are a discount on the RRP (exactly how much of a discount hasn't been disclosed yet) there is free shipping (for the UK at least) and 'free' stuff has already been unlocked. The way things are going there will probably be quite a lot of free stuff. Its looking like this KS will be pretty good value.

 Hulksmash wrote:
I don't think anyone thinks their getting fleeced if the don't get a 100% return on their money. But by all means use hyperbole

I think most people consider the costs of paying for something 6 months out without delay at more than they can buy retail from reputable vendors. If you can't at least make it worthwhile against that that's fine, there are other places for money. But don't act like people who think that way are wrong. Do we all really think the company couldn't get a loan for these molds without our help?

Hyperbole maybe, but theres already griping about a project by a reputable maker of a great game, with a great pedigree, which is already funded, about whether the stretch goals are good enough. And I'm not the only one thinking like my earlier post.

I do expect more of a discount then I can get at my local webstore, so that's a significant discount on MSRP. Why do I expect this? I'm giving money 6+ months in advance to a publisher to make a product that they'll eventually sell for a profit, to me they are selling it with way more profit then when they sell it to a retailer through a distributor. When selling through a distributor Hawk get's about 40% of the MSRP, with KS they keep about 90% of the KS MSRP. So I don't expect a 60% discount, but meeting halfway is not unreasonable (35% discount). With the current stretch goals we're not there yet, when we hit 500k, we're more then there. Depending on where we exactly wind up, I'll keep backing or not.I do want them to do well, but this is not a oneway street nor a charity or a donation.

The reason I back KS projects is to either:
a). Fund a project that would otherwise not be made, which is not the case with Dropfleet Commander.
b). Get more bang for my buck. Like many here, I have less money then all the stuff I would like to buy. Buying more with less is an easy fix.

About the MSRP, when they price the KS prices the same as their equivalent Dropzone Commander products, I can only assume that these are the MSRP prices when they don't give the MSRP prices.

It's not just about free stuff, it's also about 'professionalism' of a KS page, this feels as if this is their very first product and they haven't researched how to run a KS. You launch on a Friday and then everyone is poorly available during the weekend?* We unlocked faction dice in the first few hours, but they aren't available as an add-on (no pictures either), the same goes for the acrylics.

Don't get me wrong, the models look amazing and would love to see the part collection for each sprue.

* I'm also 'self-employed' if I do a major change just before or in the weekend and it creates more support calls then expected, I'm also working the rest of the weekend. Sometimes, when no one else is available, you do 12+ hour work days. This is especially true for the days just after a new product launch...

No KS project has to give any kind of discount.

That's not the idea of Kickstarter.

The idea is to get enough people interested in spending some money in advance to fund a project.

That's all what it is about.

Don't like the shatarai frigates the more I look at them the less I like them. Since my mate will take ucm it has left me with nothing so far damn them lol.

Seems phr is my last hope for a whole good looking fleet if they suck the game is a none starter for me

RoninXiC wrote:
No KS project has to give any kind of discount.

And we don't have to back a project. Fanboys/Lemmings will back anything in their fanvision. The rest of us look at their wallet and think "Why back now and run a (small) risk and buy it cheaper on release?". I fully expect that this project will do well enough for that not being an issue. But folks have been 'spoiled' by campaigns from companies like CMoN and while they've been very late on some projects, they've been right on time with others (and still an insane amount of free stuff). Is it fair to hold up every KS to the insanity that succesfull CMoN KS bring? No! Is it understandable that some people do? Absolutely!

RoninXiC wrote:
That's not the idea of Kickstarter.

The idea behind KS is to make money. They do that by disclosing an easy to use crowdfunding platform that anyone can use. Whether it's a product that's going to be made anyway or a project that wouldn't see the light of day without crowdfunding. It doesn't matter what it's used for, as long as KS get's it's cut and folks follow the rules.

Certain idealists want to portray it as a certain ideological endeavor, but folks still make money on every side but ours. It's not strange to ask with a commercial endeavor " What's in it for me?". And Hawk is running a business, nothing more, nothing less. Standing on a morality high horse is an exercise in futility...

I think everything will fall into place when the alternate cruisers etc become unlocked for the other factions.

Then, if Hawk do a sort of, "2 starter sets for each faction + alternate cruiser" bolt-on pack for say, £70, then that ends up being a saving, but not undercutting the retailers, because it's not a direct saving...

Without knowing what RRP is, its hard to say its worth backing this KS. Im currently sitting on an admiral pledge, it is not at all worth what Im paying for it, even withr forthcoming stretch goals Im reasonably certain I will be effectively overpaying for what I get (somewhat mitigated by the fact I intend on selling the scourge and shaltari components). Looking at the Lieutenant level (the lowest one), assuming the starter and book is priced identically to the Dropzone equivalnetz, it would actuqlly vost me more to get it from the KS than to purchase it at full RRP at a local store (factoring in the shipping cost).

chaos0xomega wrote:
Without knowing what RRP is, its hard to say its worth backing this KS. Im currently sitting on an admiral pledge, it is not at all worth what Im paying for it, even withr forthcoming stretch goals Im reasonably certain I will be effectively overpaying for what I get (somewhat mitigated by the fact I intend on selling the scourge and shaltari components). Looking at the Lieutenant level (the lowest one), assuming the starter and book is priced identically to the Dropzone equivalnetz, it would actuqlly vost me more to get it from the KS than to purchase it at full RRP at a local store (factoring in the shipping cost).

Yeah, I think the admiral pledge has you currently paying 45 extra pounds just for beta, maybe 15 pounds, once all the current goals are unlocked. And aot of that let's be honest isn't worth the value they are attaching to it in the bolt on and that assumes one of each pin and dice set.

Either way captain is going to be fairly decent if they get to 500k pounds. Then the case can be made its financially sensible to throw in. Currently it's just not there. But we're day 3. I hope to see some movement on more stuff.

Well, assuming it is one of everything, so five pins, five sets of dice and six sets of tokens. With the £195k bolt on, it's £22.50 for the beta access. That's also costing the sprues at £8.75 each (£35 / 4).

Dropping it down to just one pin, dice set, token set, it's currently £132.50 for the beta access.

Note that neither of those account for the UCMF Atlantis that's also included in the pledge level.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Without knowing what RRP is, its hard to say its worth backing this KS.

The higher the RRP will be, the less this game is worth. Hawk Wargames has made the deliberate choice to not let you buy your entire fleet here, so the more expensive your other ships are (and if the battleships are not HIPS, they're going to be very expensive), the harder it is to fill in the gaps in your fleet.

I wouldn't think the battleships would be more than some of the dropships like for the resistance.

Don't forget that people happily paid more than 30 dollars for BFG battleships more than a decade ago.

Cergorach wrote:
I do expect more of a discount then I can get at my local webstore, so that's a significant discount on MSRP. Why do I expect this? I'm giving money 6+ months in advance to a publisher to make a product that they'll eventually sell for a profit, to me they are selling it with way more profit then when they sell it to a retailer through a distributor. When selling through a distributor Hawk get's about 40% of the MSRP, with KS they keep about 90% of the KS MSRP. So I don't expect a 60% discount, but meeting halfway is not unreasonable (35% discount). With the current stretch goals we're not there yet, when we hit 500k, we're more then there. Depending on where we exactly wind up, I'll keep backing or not.I do want them to do well, but this is not a oneway street nor a charity or a donation.

The reason I back KS projects is to either:
a). Fund a project that would otherwise not be made, which is not the case with Dropfleet Commander.
b). Get more bang for my buck. Like many here, I have less money then all the stuff I would like to buy. Buying more with less is an easy fix.

About the MSRP, when they price the KS prices the same as their equivalent Dropzone Commander products, I can only assume that these are the MSRP prices when they don't give the MSRP prices.

It's not just about free stuff, it's also about 'professionalism' of a KS page, this feels as if this is their very first product and they haven't researched how to run a KS. You launch on a Friday and then everyone is poorly available during the weekend?* We unlocked faction dice in the first few hours, but they aren't available as an add-on (no pictures either), the same goes for the acrylics.

Don't get me wrong, the models look amazing and would love to see the part collection for each sprue.

* I'm also 'self-employed' if I do a major change just before or in the weekend and it creates more support calls then expected, I'm also working the rest of the weekend. Sometimes, when no one else is available, you do 12+ hour work days. This is especially true for the days just after a new product launch...

So you've never seen any of the "Okay, this is all we're planning on doing. Thanks for backing, see everyone in 30 days" terrain production Kickstarter projects?
Or the small "Yeah, we saw what happened to Palladium" or "Yeah, we've seen Mantic run their business, we don't want to go there" miniature production Kickstarters?

Sometimes a business just wants to have a small success instead of a two million dollar failure.

 AlexHolker wrote:

The higher the RRP will be, the less this game is worth. Hawk Wargames has made the deliberate choice to not let you buy your entire fleet here, so the more expensive your other ships are (and if the battleships are not HIPS, they're going to be very expensive), the harder it is to fill in the gaps in your fleet.

The DZC starter box contains around a third of a tournament standard force (and all of it is useful), I would guestimate that DFC will be around the same level.

 RiTides wrote:

You're right of course that every company / campaign is different

No, I think you'll find people are massive, whiny, entitled babies in every campaign. Take a look at the comments for the wildly successful Scythe campaign, done by a guy who has done so many wildly successful campaigns he's literally written the book on how to crowdfund. His crime was having a theory about stretch goals, so he decided to arrange them a little differently this time around to see if the results backed his theory. The funding naturally went to about 500% or some such in an hour, and then the backers had a massive bitch fest in the comments for days because he wasn't putting the goals up like normal, they way they demanded. Whine, whine, whine, entitled little gaks.

I meant from the company side . I do get the point, but I think backers will be understanding here.

I general, I love what Kickstarter has done for things like this - it has really opened up the possibilities! Being able to launch this way will benefit everybody in the long term, getting everything in the starters made in plastic from the start (rather than how it was phased in gradually for DzC). I'd certainly love to get my battleships now, but I respect their decision and look forward to getting them later when available!

I'd personally love it if we could go back to discussing Dropfleet on its own, and have the more general KS culture discussion in Dakka Discussions or the like. There's so much to love here!

I'd take a guess that a standard fleet would be something like:

2 starter sets
Resin Battleship
Large Resin Troop Carrier
Resin Fleet Carrier
2 more cruisers.

 Compel wrote:
I'd take a guess that a standard fleet would be something like:

2 starter sets
Resin Battleship
Large Resin Troop Carrier
Resin Fleet Carrier
2 more cruisers.

Fleet carriers (even though Hawk keep using the names for the frigate and cruiser sized carriers interchangeably ) are almost certainly the cruiser sized ones that can be made from the plastic sprue.

Going by my DZC army I suspect that the average fleet will eventually be something like:
2x starters (in plastic)
Resin Battleship or Battlecruiser
Resin Command ship
Resin Corvettes (unless they are made from the Frigate sprue)
1x cruiser box for motherships and the like


Personally I think i will just take a pile of Cruisers and Frigates, possibly a command ship as well depending on how the command rules work.

Does anyone know what the bulges on the Lima class Frigate are? Some sort of sensor suite?

Very interesting so far, but I'm not sure about where I want to be on this. Like Alph I really like the UCM stuff, but I'm not sure on any of the other fleets which means the value proposition is a bit sketchier on the bigger pledge levels. Still, loads of time to figure all that out so I think I'll watch from the sidelines for a bit.

Worst case I'll probably be a retail buyer.

Well, it's still quite early in the campaign at the moment. I'm sure that things will improve as we go along.

That being said, there are a few things that could have been done better, imho.

1) Updates: They could do with a little more content, specifically with regards to unlocked goals and the goals to come. Just a means to spread the information to the existing backers in an easier format. Images to go along with these would be nice as well.

2) Bolt ons: More details about these would be nice. The dice / pins / tokens need clarifying, both in regards to the fact that it's £X per choice and there's Y choices available and also how they relate to Admiral level backers.

3) Clarity: Reading the short form of the Admiral pledge suggests that you get two starters, one of each starter fleet and all addons that are available by the end. Translating into 4x UCM/Scourge starter fleets and 2xShaltari/PHR. However, they've contradicted that in the comments section, saying that it's just 3x/1x the fleets.

4) KS presence: Yes, it's the weekend and people like to have time off. However, running a KS is a big deal, especially for first timers. I'd have thought they'd have made sure they had the key people available to make decisions and communicate with backers. Given how quickly this funded on Friday, they should have maybe taken that as a sign to have a couple of extra people available over the weekend.

Just a few things, many of which I'm sure will improve as we go into the working week and they have more staff in the office.