Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So glad I went for the Maelstrom rises, oh my god that hunter looks amazing. The scarecrows also looks pretty intriguing.

 legoburner wrote:

After the kickstarter - the KS is quite a timesink for us all, so the formatting and cleanup of the beta rules will not be done until then. It will be fairly soon after the KS though and we'll send out a link for the beta rules to backers who want to beta test, which will likely be a question on the post-KS backer survey.

If there is anyway to get something out before the end of the kickstater, even a rough quickstart mission, I would do it. This can be a great way to drive pledges and is an easy way for existing pledgers to convince others.

 AlexHolker wrote:

The rules for the game use facing arcs. Doesn't that mean they do need bases?

See yakface's post here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/1620/644194.page#7810972

Is it Christmas? oh wait, that'll be December!

The new additions to the box are great! before i was thinking i was going to get an alright deal, now i know it is fantastic!

The hunters look great, and the scarecrows look great too, can I ask as to why they're blacked out on the KS?

The idea of adding hunters to the forum's banner is a great one, as frankly IMHO the Karist troopers currently there leave you a bit underwhelmed and not really interested.

Great work with upping the value, and really excited about the pose-ability of the Hunters, I've been looking for mechs that can be posed firing sideways, swiveling at the waist for a while now, and these sound like they'll do the job brilliantly!

Edit: Also, on the KS page, it makes no mention anywhere of a base for the kaddar nova. Will it be included, and you've just missed it, or will we need a separate base?

Great work SAS!

I think they are blacked out to provide mystery. so people will get more interested and research it!

 Vanguard-13 wrote:
I think they are blacked out to provide mystery. so people will get more interested and research it!

Yeah, as we haven't shown these models before, we wanted to give each of the Hunter, Scarecrow and Angel their full attention, with updates looking at the rules, fluff and model for each one. This week we'll be concentrating on the Hunter, with the others to follow. Everyone will definitely be getting them in the $90 pledge no matter what, but we felt this would be a more fun way of revealing them!

The Kaddar Nova has its own standard infantry base (with our special arc indication slots).

Are there any more details on the Shadow Walker or Bot Handler sprues? Am I correct in thinking they're still in production but nearly finished? I'd love to see what those models are looking like, especially the handler.

 darrkespur wrote:

 Vanguard-13 wrote:
I think they are blacked out to provide mystery. so people will get more interested and research it!

Yeah, as we haven't shown these models before, we wanted to give each of the Hunter, Scarecrow and Angel their full attention, with updates looking at the rules, fluff and model for each one. This week we'll be concentrating on the Hunter, with the others to follow. Everyone will definitely be getting them in the $90 pledge no matter what, but we felt this would be a more fun way of revealing them!

The Kaddar Nova has its own standard infantry base (with our special arc indication slots).

Thanks for clearing that up, i was slightly worried that we'd be one base short when we get to december.

And that makes sense on the scarecrows, nice marketing strategy

Tibbsy wrote:
Are there any more details on the Shadow Walker or Bot Handler sprues? Am I correct in thinking they're still in production but nearly finished? I'd love to see what those models are looking like, especially the handler.

They, along with the kaddar nova, are still in production and are almost finished, but the last aspect of completion is the cutting of the metal tool, so the models cant be shown until that point, which will almost certainly be shortly after the kickstarter. They are still undergoing a few sculpting and posing tweaks so we wont be showing and renders either as they will misrepresent the final model.

Apologies for the oversight on the kaddar nova base counting. In all likelihood, we'll throw in a few extra bases anyway.

 legoburner wrote:

BobtheInquisitor wrote:Is there any way to estimate what the retail prices will be if the campaign hits $50k? How about $100k?

I ask because I'd love to see this do well at retail, but I am worried about how the pricing will play out. If a hunter costs the same as a crisis suit, or a resin kit from another company, then it won't be a very attractive purchase. But if they are sold using the strength of plastic sprues' economy of scale, say in Mantic-like bundles with bigger savings per unit, they'll be very tempting.

Our final pricing will likely be between those two offerings. They'll certainly be cheaper than crisis suits as we dont have the overhead of an entire chain of stores to support, but it is too early for us to be able to give even a broad outline of prices yet - we have to get the KS out and in people's hands before we start on retail!

Surely you have a spreadsheet and a strategy of some sort about the MSRP of the boxed set though. I just am scared that this change to the core set wasn't made with a long-term strategy in mind, as nothing seems to make sense for how exactly to price it now.

Pricing it above $150 puts you with only really the Return of the Overseers Firestorm Armada set as a comparison. Even then, Spartan started the game off with lower priced starter sets and has only worked up to this price level after the game had established some traction.

Pricing it between $125-$150 MSRP has a few comparisons on the market right now, but nothing stands out as being exactly similar. Spartan has core sets in this range for a few of their games, but those are tough sells to a FLGS to stock even with a strong business history like Spartan has. Privateer has their new All-in-One faction sets, but you can buy-in to the faction at a much lower cost so these products don't have to be designed as the only buy-in point for potential customers but rather can cater to specific customer types. Dropzone Commander also has a line of "Premium" starters at this price point, but they are priced this high because they come with a custom KR case and, like Warmachine, they aren't the only price entry point into the game so they can be targetted towards a different customer type than a cheaper set might. It is very much worth pointing out that all these products are not common at every FLGS, as the price point and box size is normally such that a store owner wants to buy just enough to sell quickly through an initial allotment (Barring of course a shop with a heavy presence of one of these games being played, a place with a well established Firestorm Armada community is fine stocking multiple core set products knowing that the customer throughput to that game will eventually result in sales).

The price point between $100-$125 is another strange place, with really only Spartan's Armoured Clash faction starters occupying this space that I am aware of. (Technically, the latest Infinity core set checks in at just over $100 MSRP, but again it is a well established game system that has potentially lower buy-in points). So really, at the >$100 price point the only currently existing options are either Spartan products or premiumly priced products for games that have another, lower entry point to the game (and keep in mind that by buy-in point that means everything a person would be expected to have to start playing, so if MEdge wants to claim that it will have lower priced faction starters as an entry point then they need to have some sort of rulebook, full or otherwise, and the crazy number of counters to boot available due to the suppression token mechanic).

Then we come to the $99.99 price point, which seems to be the most common for these types of big box starter sets (and what I originally expected MEdge to be sitting at). Even at this price point, it can be rough to sell a store on stocking something like Robotech or Deadzone due to the huge footprint the box has and how hard it can be to move multiple units. Still, $99 seems to be the target for many systems for multiple economic and psychological reasons. The biggest problem with a $99 core set for MEdge though would be how much of a kick in the pants it would be to Kickstarter backers. After shipping, most people are going to be paying right around the same price as retail for what essentially amounts to the same product. While MEdge may be lower risk than some other Kickstarters for delivering on time, people still are paying in advance for a product that will be likely the same price at their FLGS. That doesn't even get into what many here will end up doing, which is buying from Miniature Market or the like with an easy 20% discount (or more, as Deal of the Day bargains from many online retailers are incredibly competitive these days). So while the Core Set might be a sweet deal for what it is, that doesn't mean that this Kickstarter would end up being a sweet deal for people pledging compared to what they could end up with later. If that is SAS's intention, that is certainly defendable (Level 99 games doesn't discount much for their Kickstarters and instead goes with the idea that the reason to back is to make the core better for everyone), but the important thing is that backers need to fully understand if they are backing a Kickstarter like that when they might be expecting a "Lowest price, ever" one instead.


Again, I'm not saying that the Core Set isn't a good value in a vacuum (its quite insane now actually, as large models and tons of thick cardboard are not something everyone can just throw on top of all the other sprues being provided). I do however have concerns that either this Kickstarter or the retail release will suffer unless a plan exists for how specifically this game is intended to be marketed (aka, who is the target and what is the price). A lot of this goes back to Buzzsaw's points in the Dakka Discussions thread on MEdge, where SAS seems to have everything nailed but the business-y parts of being a miniatures company.

Bombad wrote:

(big snip)
...how much of a kick in the pants it would be to Kickstarter backers. After shipping, most people are going to be paying right around the same price as retail for what essentially amounts to the same product. While MEdge may be lower risk than some other Kickstarters for delivering on time, people still are paying in advance for a product that will be likely the same price at their FLGS. That doesn't even get into what many here will end up doing, which is buying from Miniature Market or the like with an easy 20% discount (or more, as Deal of the Day bargains from many online retailers are incredibly competitive these days). So while the Core Set might be a sweet deal for what it is, that doesn't mean that this Kickstarter would end up being a sweet deal for people pledging compared to what they could end up with later. If that is SAS's intention, that is certainly defendable (Level 99 games doesn't discount much for their Kickstarters and instead goes with the idea that the reason to back is to make the core better for everyone), but the important thing is that backers need to fully understand if they are backing a Kickstarter like that when they might be expecting a "Lowest price, ever" one instead.

Again, I'm not saying that the Core Set isn't a good value in a vacuum (its quite insane now actually, as large models and tons of thick cardboard are not something everyone can just throw on top of all the other sprues being provided). I do however have concerns that either this Kickstarter or the retail release will suffer unless a plan exists for how specifically this game is intended to be marketed (aka, who is the target and what is the price). A lot of this goes back to Buzzsaw's points in the Dakka Discussions thread on MEdge, where SAS seems to have everything nailed but the business-y parts of being a miniatures company.

You said it yourself, the deal is pretty incredible right now. We of course have a plan with lots of price options for retail, but it also has a lot of variables, not least that we have costs and revenue across three currencies and an election in the UK tomorrow and a slowing economy in China, so we dont want to state one price and then have currencies and VAT (tax) go completely off their current alignment over the next 6 months and have to back track on our price, be it better or worse.

Kickstarter backers can absolutely rest assured that they will be getting a fantastic deal, especially once the additional value adds like the stretch goal freebies and the VIP freebies are priced in (VIP will probably end up being worth $60 of content on its own, without using any of the discounts or early access it enables). If you back us on kickstarter, you get the models and game before anyone else, and will get a better deal, almost certainly better than the stock retail price when all parts are added up. Before we go to retail we'll be selling direct for a while as well as we finalise our retail logistics, so there will be no discounted selling for a bit of time.

We have well and truly learned from our many friends who have run major kickstarters what to keep an eye on with costs and our production costs are (for the most part) fixed, and thanks to being plastic, the bulk of those costs are already covered, so you dont have to worry about us putting ourselves in a bad financial position as a result of our generous pricing.

I would love to go to the $90 pledge, but it won't let me log on. Anyone else have this problem?

We've heard no reports of problems with kickstarter today - have you tried clearing the cookies and cache on your web browser? Good luck and thanks for the desire to pledge!

 Spiral Arm Studios wrote:
We've heard no reports of problems with kickstarter today - have you tried clearing the cookies and cache on your web browser? Good luck and thanks for the desire to pledge!

Ok. that might be the issue

 Anpu42 wrote:
I would love to go to the $90 pledge, but it won't let me log on. Anyone else have this problem?

It failed for me a couple times but I've been logged in since.

I'm just liking the fact that with all the stuff in that box so far, it actually feels like I'd have enough to play an actual game and possibly even have some choices about what I actually field.

It seems you will have exactly the required amounts for true full sized games, not just 'starter' level stuff. That isn't counting the possibilities of what may be added via more sprues later either... not bad!

highlord tamburlaine wrote:I'm just liking the fact that with all the stuff in that box so far, it actually feels like I'd have enough to play an actual game and possibly even have some choices about what I actually field.

MajorTom11 wrote:It seems you will have exactly the required amounts for true full sized games, not just 'starter' level stuff. That isn't counting the possibilities of what may be added via more sprues later either... not bad!

Just to make sure it is absolutely clear and nobody comes away with the wrong idea: What comes in the box currently is a 100% playable game. We've done quite a bit of testing playing just with the contents of the box set to make sure that is the case.

However, similar to what you have with say, the Star Wars Armada starter set from FFG, if/when we declare a 'recommend points value' for games, it would be above what you're able to field with just one box set alone (a single force from the box set will probably represent about 2/3 of a 'recommended' game size).

So while a single boxed set game is fun and challenging, and there are certainly a few options to choose from when building your models from just that set, you will find yourself gravitating towards certain kinds of different force configurations that are only possible by adding additional models to your force. For example, an Epirian player might really want to have an additional unit of Firefly Drones (as they 'mark' enemy units making it easier for the rest of your units to hit them) or another Journeyman Bot Handler (so as to be able to enable Bot Protocols on more of your bot units). On the Karist side, you might find yourself wanting an extra Kaddar Nova (to provide an extra shield and a wider area of your force that is more resistant to the effects of suppression) or more Shadow Walkers (because they're able to snatch objectives by rifting across the table), and so on.

Well I fixed my issue and got my $90 pledge going.

Quick Question: The Hunters, how close are they to size of Crissis Suits?

 Anpu42 wrote:
Well I fixed my issue and got my $90 pledge going.

Quick Question: The Hunters, how close are they to size of Crissis Suits?

They said the hunters are about the same size as Crisis Suits. But I wouldn't mind seeing a comparison.

Ooh, I'd love to make some crisis-hunters, adding a jetpack, and switching out the arm-gun shouldn't be to much of a hassle, judging from the pictures.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Ooh, I'd love to make some crisis-hunters, adding a jetpack, and switching out the arm-gun shouldn't be to much of a hassle, judging from the pictures.

I was looking at a game called "MechaDrome" ((I dislike the look of the mechs.... but...)) I found some interesting looking arms.

These would make awesome railguns on the Hunters or Broadsides, Depending on scale

And these would make really cool plasma rifles for Crisis suits as well.

There is always fun to have when you kitbash.

How tall are crisis suits? The Epirian Hunters are about 48mm tall, with the legs being about 29mm long with a flat foot. The torso is also about 29mm from top to tail.

The Hunter alone probably would have funded the game beyond what it is at now, based on previous desire for stompy mechs.

 legoburner wrote:

Bombad wrote:

(big snip)
...how much of a kick in the pants it would be to Kickstarter backers. After shipping, most people are going to be paying right around the same price as retail for what essentially amounts to the same product. While MEdge may be lower risk than some other Kickstarters for delivering on time, people still are paying in advance for a product that will be likely the same price at their FLGS. That doesn't even get into what many here will end up doing, which is buying from Miniature Market or the like with an easy 20% discount (or more, as Deal of the Day bargains from many online retailers are incredibly competitive these days). So while the Core Set might be a sweet deal for what it is, that doesn't mean that this Kickstarter would end up being a sweet deal for people pledging compared to what they could end up with later. If that is SAS's intention, that is certainly defendable (Level 99 games doesn't discount much for their Kickstarters and instead goes with the idea that the reason to back is to make the core better for everyone), but the important thing is that backers need to fully understand if they are backing a Kickstarter like that when they might be expecting a "Lowest price, ever" one instead.

Again, I'm not saying that the Core Set isn't a good value in a vacuum (its quite insane now actually, as large models and tons of thick cardboard are not something everyone can just throw on top of all the other sprues being provided). I do however have concerns that either this Kickstarter or the retail release will suffer unless a plan exists for how specifically this game is intended to be marketed (aka, who is the target and what is the price). A lot of this goes back to Buzzsaw's points in the Dakka Discussions thread on MEdge, where SAS seems to have everything nailed but the business-y parts of being a miniatures company.

You said it yourself, the deal is pretty incredible right now. We of course have a plan with lots of price options for retail, but it also has a lot of variables, not least that we have costs and revenue across three currencies and an election in the UK tomorrow and a slowing economy in China, so we dont want to state one price and then have currencies and VAT (tax) go completely off their current alignment over the next 6 months and have to back track on our price, be it better or worse.

Kickstarter backers can absolutely rest assured that they will be getting a fantastic deal, especially once the additional value adds like the stretch goal freebies and the VIP freebies are priced in (VIP will probably end up being worth $60 of content on its own, without using any of the discounts or early access it enables). If you back us on kickstarter, you get the models and game before anyone else, and will get a better deal, almost certainly better than the stock retail price when all parts are added up. Before we go to retail we'll be selling direct for a while as well as we finalise our retail logistics, so there will be no discounted selling for a bit of time.

We have well and truly learned from our many friends who have run major kickstarters what to keep an eye on with costs and our production costs are (for the most part) fixed, and thanks to being plastic, the bulk of those costs are already covered, so you dont have to worry about us putting ourselves in a bad financial position as a result of our generous pricing.

Not exactly, I implied that the Core Set is a good value in a vacuum, which is subtely different than this Kickstarter being a good deal.

If someone phoned me up and said for 90+shipping I'd get:
23 Sci-Fi Dudes
4 Flying Drones
4 Spider Drones
4 Unique Flying Aliens
2 Gundam-quality Robots
1 Giant Insectoid
All Hard Plastic with then counters, templates, cards, bases, and rules written by a source likely to be trustworthy, I'd be inclined to say that yeah it sounded alright.

The issue then becomes that the "Deal" here is 90 + shipping on Kickstarter, so there is always some level of risk, and that eventually this game has to exist in both game stores and online retailers or else it will never have a big enough community to have the tournament-level rules matter.


So first, the Kickstarter risk issue. I get that this is one of the more polished entries on the platform in awhile, but you have to remember that Spiral Arms Studios didn't exist in the customer's eye even just a month ago. This is still technically a very unknown company to many people, so without a track record to go upon that means that you inevitably suffer the sins of your predecessors. Sure, your pictures of production models look good and are probably actually production models, but there have been Kickstarters before where the term "Production Model" was used and the final results did not match these images. It comes back to trust, and again as what looks on the outside to be a company appearing out of thin air that creates a big hurdle to get over for potential customers.

There are a few ways to get over the "trust" issue:

A) Physical Inspection - An interesting data point on your kicktraq: http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/medge/maelstroms-edge-a-next-gen-sci-fi-miniatures-warga/#chart-daily We kind of expect the first two days to be the biggest, but the third biggest day wasn't after you announced big additions to the Core Set but rather it was the day after Salute when people came back from actually touching the models. I'm not sure that even with the crazy long funding timeline you have a way to get people to actually see models in person (and conventions don't scale well for spreading this method anyway) but having people actually be able to touch product is often key to creating impressions in their mind.

B) Information Overload aka "Flash" - If you have production models assembled, that means you've had sprues in hand. Your slow information IV drip isn't working, while some people are waiting with baited breath to see what the Hunter sprues look like, others are just walking away because it isn't there in the first place. If your models and production technology is top-notch, get some video of someone handling the sprue and assembling some of these models - even if it is an hour long and not everyone watches it the people who do will cascade the information about the quality to others. You've stated these models are designed for painting, so get a video of someone describing why that is. People often look down about the actual marketing of stuff and want to let quality stand on its own, but on Kickstarter you have to strut your stuff - just watch Ronnie Renton talk about Battlezones in the Deadzone kickstarter for 10 minutes and tell me you don't want to grab your clippers and airbrush as fast as possible, because he translates his enthusiam for his product over to the customer.

C) Value - Often, new companies to Kickstarter try to side-step the issue by having a "value" perspective that is so insane that people feel like the risk/reward of jumping in now is justifiable.

I'm not sure you can do much about A at this point, and we'll get to C in just a minute, but if you keep holding back your marketing backers will keep holding back their dollars.


Now, "Value". When a product comes to Kickstarter, there are a few common perception of what exactly a pledger is expecting to get in terms of "value".

A) "This product will never exist without me pledging." This ties the backer emotionally into the campaign, which normally has to be a hard shift from common retail conventions in one form or another. Since you've privately funded all the sprues already and Cinceydooley is giving you the surprised squirrel gif, I think this one is already off the table.

B) "I will get things in this Kickstarter that I can never get again afterwards." Common called "Kickstarter Exclusives", this creates a very real urgency to the backer that if they don't pledge money between now and the end of the funding time that they will end up with a negative experience and feel bad about not backing. Many psychology studies have shown that people are often more afraid of having a bad experience then they are happy to have a good one, ironically a Kickstarter Exclusive can often play more into peoples fears than it can their desires. Kickstarters with momentum also get more momentum from exclusives as people will often jump in just to have exclusives to sell off later (more common for CMON and board game kickstarters than Mantic and wargame kickstarters). The down side is that it can be expensive to create models for just a campaign and it creates a perception from future customers that backers were more valuable than future customers. I think for a game that wants to be in it for the long term like SAS seems to be doing, avoiding these KS Exclusives is a sound strategy.

C) "This will never be cheaper than it is right now." Coming back to the sense of urgency, if people see a deal that they know retail will never match then they now have a ticking clock in which they can either take the deal or feel like they will regret it later. Mantic especially capitalizes upon this for their campaigns, as people have a general idea of what Mantic products cost at retail and thus can calculate what type of discount they are getting (which is commonly in the 60-70% off retail range). This is the reason I have kept harping on giving us some idea of what your MSRP expectations are, as without some number range to estimate with I am left trusting a company that didn't exist to me a month ago that this will be the best price ever (and once again, I've heard that song before from other Kickstarters and been burned, so you once more will unfairly suffer the sins of the Kickstarter platform). Unfortunately, you are in kind of a rough place with what the pledge deal looks like right now because since everything shown is "in the box", that means that it isn't like a MERCS or CMON kickstarter where I'm getting piles of extra figures outside of the normal core experience that can factor in to the value I assign to the pledge deal. That makes my personal value equation very much a "What is the cost of the Core Box" question, as I assign next to no value to the VIP status (again, this is a Tabletop Games Kickstarter, unless the $60 "value" of VIP means you are sending me $60 in figures, then I mentally assign a zero to my perceived value on it unless you can make a once-in-a-lifetime case for why that isn't true). The Core Box value question is a rough one to me personally, as I see the potential MSRP ranges as all losers for one reason or another. If the MSRP on the Core Box is very high and this really is 60% off retail then no one is ever going to buy the game at retail and I'll never have opponents to worry about. If the MSRP is closer to the $100 sweet spot that most tabletop games aim for then this Kickstarter price is a bust because I can eventually just buy from the Warstore or some other online site and get it cheaper (not to mention you have folks like judgedoug and many others who know that if this is even a moderate success at retail then it will be a Daily Deal or a part of a Black Friday sale somewhere down the line).


When you all announced that Dakka was making a game, we had a seven person group at our shop ready to buy-in. No matter the quality of the product, that group is now just two of us watching as the rest didn't see the reason to back the Kickstarter. I wouldn't take the time to write all this stuff if I didn't care about the end product being something good, but I also am sitting in a place where at the end of the day, if the Kickstarter ended today I wouldn't pledge and would wait to see what happens at retail.

On point B I'd say that one of the positives from this method is that people are less likely to get bored and pull out (a real risk for a long KS like this one)

It may mean slower uptake, but that is countered by far less risk of a few bored and/or discontent and/or trolling backers being able to knock the whole thing into reverse during a slow period of the campaign

I can definitely say that the slow release of information is extremely tedious. I check this thread occasionally, but really am not planning on jumping in until all the info has been released.

I would also love to see a video showing the sprues and how the models go together. Size comparisons are also a great idea. Put the Hunter next to a Crisis Suit and a Lego Man.

I'll definitely be buying in, but I want to see what all the options are before committing my money. I don't want to pledge $90 and then find that I should have pledged more or less based on what future add-ons are released.

Meh.. the contractors are feeling more and more like some 28mm dudes with some 10mm mecha stuff.. I don't care at all for the skinny bots. The bulky ones aren't bad but I'm not going in on "not bad", I've got enough of that from Mantic.

New 'Game Overview' video has been added to the main KS page.

Thanks for the update inspector.