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.

They never left!

Ouch.

Seems like that "omg I can get unseen Battletech models!" advantage may be about to dry up.

Wonder how many pieces that Warhammer will be in? 20? 18? 15, dare we dream!?



There's no way it's less than that. We have it on good authority it can't be done.

That render is a fake. I don't see gaps on every surface facing the virtual camera.

And my guess is 7-9 pieces... you know... if it were real.

It's likely 5 parts, 2, arms, missile launcher, search light, 1pc body. Which of course means it'll lose all the detail and look like a slab of poo since only a 20+ part plastic model can deliver precision. (at least according to PB)

 warboss wrote:
That render is a fake. I don't see gaps on every surface facing the virtual camera.

And my guess is 7-9 pieces... you know... if it were real.

It will depend. If they do them in plastic, and mean for them to complement their current Lance packs, they'll make them single piece, base included. If they do them in metal, though... well, let's just say I got somewhat disappointed in the current metal 'mechs.

As reference:

@Albertorius: I'm really not a fan of the battletech minis. If they can make something that actually looks like forar's mouthwatering render, I might change my mind. The ones you posted look like they should come out of a gumball machine for $0.50. Heck, the macross stamp I have on my painting desk is about that quality and I got it for free in the mid 80's.

 warboss wrote:
@Albertorius: I'm really not a fan of the battletech minis. If they can make something that actually looks like forar's mouthwatering render, I might change my mind. The ones you posted look like they should come out of a gumball machine for $0.50. Heck, the macross stamp I have on my painting desk is about that quality and I got it for free in the mid 80's.

That's one part due to the designs, and another due to them being single piece minis, meant to "plug and play", so to speak. I expect them to do the same for the new minis. As to the wuality of the minis, they're actually pretty nice, all in all. Hard plastic, not much flash... and you can buy and play, right off the bat. If you like I could take some pics of the actual minis from the latest starter compared with Robotech/HG minis.

All in all, though, they're doing a product that's meant to be quite different in goals.

No, I'm good but thanks. I'm not a fan of the CBT rules and the alpha strike stuff swings the pendulum too far to the other side IMO. That combined with the minis' looks means that I'm incredibly unlikely to be a good customer for that iconic mech game.

 warboss wrote:

 n815e wrote:

Of all the things to go on about, picking on them saying that they are conducting normal and responsible business practice TWO YEARS AFTER THE FACT is... COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED.

I corrected that for you.

If you are reaching for anything to complain about, to the point where you are going to complain about them doing the things that they should to get us the rest of our stuff, then that's something you should reflect on.

 n815e wrote:
Manufacturing brokers act as the representatives of manufacturers and as the intermediary between the customer and the factory.
They are particularly useful with overseas business transactions.
If they didn't have someone that spoke Chinese, understood the needs of the factories, the laws involved, etc. then you would be griping about that.

Of all the things to go on about, picking on them saying that they are conducting normal and responsible business practice is... odd.

Nope. I just now have a pretty good idea who will be blamed next.

Thank God for middlemen and disposable interns!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 n815e wrote:

If you are reaching for anything to complain about, to the point where you are going to complain about them doing the things that they should to get us the rest of our stuff, then that's something you should reflect on.

And, really, the part you're missing, is that this laudable thing they're doing, the thing that is, newsworthy, the thing that is essentially the only "forward progress" (term used generously) of note for Wave Two, is what they should be doing on an extremely regular basis.

So decide, is this phone call, one that is worthy of being the only real Wave Two update mention, a big deal (but you said it's supposed to be something they do regularly!) or is it not a big deal (why don't we hear about it weekly?).

That render is nice, but if they're only doing it via Bones / "restic" PVC, I'm not particularly interested.

 n815e wrote:
Manufacturing brokers act as the representatives of manufacturers and as the intermediary between the customer and the factory.
They are particularly useful with overseas business transactions.
If they didn't have someone that spoke Chinese, understood the needs of the factories, the laws involved, etc. then you would be griping about that.

Of all the things to go on about, picking on them saying that they are conducting normal and responsible business practice is... odd.

It's really not as normal as it sounds. I've done plenty of business in China over the past 10 years without a broker. I know other clients who do the same. I suspect this broker is more like Panda Manufacturing, ie. a middleman who just sources factories and places orders with them without doing much else.

Also, who's going to Gencon?

 warboss wrote:
No, I'm good but thanks. I'm not a fan of the CBT rules and the alpha strike stuff swings the pendulum too far to the other side IMO. That combined with the minis' looks means that I'm incredibly unlikely to be a good customer for that iconic mech game.

The Battletech ruleset is certainly not for everyone, that's for sure.

I rebounded off it quite heavily back in the day myself, when I discovered HG.

Yeah, look at what the folks at Cthulhu Wars have to say about Panda...

 Albertorius wrote:

If you like I could take some pics of the actual minis from the latest starter compared with Robotech/HG minis.

If you don't mind, I'll take a bite on that - I've been considering grabbing the BT boxed set, but reluctant because I haven't seen the minis.

I have a couple of the old 3rd edition plastic minis for BT with the unseens in them. They were quite decent quality and that was back somewhere in the 90's, I think. I really like the look of the plastic ones shown above, and the new render for the BT Warhammer/Tomahawk looks awesome to my eyes. I'd much rather give Catalyst my money for one-piece ready to play minis than PB for their 200-piece meh quality junk.

Battletech was fun to play back in the early 90's, but seeing one ugly design after another I couldn't stay into it for long. Most of the designs I do like are clan and a few innersphere mechs. The rules were too much for me personally. Games seemed to take a long time from what little I could remember. From what I've seen many of the designs look like there half a$$ed and not much work put into them. I've always preferred the Japanese BT designs. If I had those available back then I might have stayed with BT till this day. I have to admit I do like their latest design and it does seem like PB is going to lose more money when the new unseen redesign minis come out, which will probably be before wave two does. Not to mention it won't be 12 plus pieces to put together. I'm sure the BT people have been watching this fiasco of a project for some time and figured they can do it better while taking money away from PB.

 n815e wrote:
Manufacturing brokers act as the representatives of manufacturers and as the intermediary between the customer and the factory.
They are particularly useful with overseas business transactions.
If they didn't have someone that spoke Chinese, understood the needs of the factories, the laws involved, etc. then you would be griping about that.

Of all the things to go on about, picking on them saying that they are conducting normal and responsible business practice is... odd.

As it goes n815e you just described a factory rep, not a broker, but a rep and the two shall never be confused, the fact PB confused them tells me they are lying.

the problem n815e is if PB is just now dealing with a broker, we are a good year plus away from any product being shipped, this should have been handled a long time ago, problem is PB's whole statement sounds like they were blowing smoke up our rears, cause a Broker introduces both parties with compatible matches, while a Company Rep, handles things like PB was mentioning, there is a very, very large difference there.

A broker does not hold PB's hands, nor does it translate for them, or pass along info on a regular basis, Brokers get paid big bucks which is why you have them find your match and then move on. the factory rep handles the countries laws and translation and the day to day operations with overseas accounts.

As it goes I think ND arranged all the wave one stuff for PB, PB burned those bridges and now have to do it themselves and they have no clue how to.

 Stormonu wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:

If you like I could take some pics of the actual minis from the latest starter compared with Robotech/HG minis.

If you don't mind, I'll take a bite on that - I've been considering grabbing the BT boxed set, but reluctant because I haven't seen the minis.

I have a couple of the old 3rd edition plastic minis for BT with the unseens in them. They were quite decent quality and that was back somewhere in the 90's, I think. I really like the look of the plastic ones shown above, and the new render for the BT Warhammer/Tomahawk looks awesome to my eyes. I'd much rather give Catalyst my money for one-piece ready to play minis than PB for their 200-piece meh quality junk.

Sure. Let's see:

A Hunchback and an Archer

One piece, hard plastic (dunno what kind), the details are sharper in the Archer but the amount of detail might be even bigger in the Hunchback. I have not cleaned the Hunchback at all.

Next, Assassin vs. Warhammer

Same deal, the Assasin is one piece and it's completely untouched.

Next, Mad Cat vs. Archer

This is a bit different: the Mad Cat is one of the two "special" minis in the starter, in the sense that they are multipart, and come in a sprue. This one is 6 pieces total, plus base.
The Cat is glued together, but untouched any other way.

Last, two painted/semi painted ones: Battlemaster vs. Stinger:

I didn't really clean the BMaster, but the painting is semi decent. It is the other special mini of the starter, and this one came in 5 pieces, plus base (now that I think of it, they might go this way for the re-re-seens, I guess).
The Stinger, OTOH, has a lot of filling in cleaning up work done... and even then I see it was not enough to cover everything >_>

I posted awhile back on here the Battletech mini's of
Archer
Crusader
Warhammer
Maruader
Rifleman

To their Robotech version

As for Battletech play. I have to say one is more involve in "paperwork" of the unit.
I never use hex base map to play on to.

Thanks Albertorius, that was very informative. (The Hunchback needs to stop dieting and the Assassin has some tiny, tiny feet)

Have to agree on the paperwork aspect of BT - the level of detail and random hit locations always stuck in my craw, I've picked up the Alpha Strike rules and I'm hoping one day I'll get a chance to try them out.

 Stormonu wrote:

Have to agree on the paperwork aspect of BT - the level of detail and random hit locations always stuck in my craw, I've picked up the Alpha Strike rules and I'm hoping one day I'll get a chance to try them out.

I can second the stuff on the new plastic BT minis. They are very nice and good to go out of box. The drawback is mono-pose, a bit strange to see 3 Awesomes of the same lance in the same pose. If you want to spend time to customize things up, it's not too bad either.

Unlike RRT minis.

In terms of details, the BT minis are about on part with the RRT minis, which is more a slap to the RRT minis than anything since the BT original line art already hides lots of details -- the mechs aren't superdetailed by any means and the minis followed. RRT minis could have had more details, but instead chose the worse of several worlds.

(Having said all that, RRT minis still have some advantages, but I'm just sick and tired of the sugar coating PB is giving us.)

BT rules are fairly involved but the new Alpha Strike rules go fairly quickly. As in mech goes boom quickly, so it's more a company-level fight than anything. It's pretty nice rules.

My only problem with Alpha Strike is that the miniatures are not in the same scale. I have a stinger that is the taller than the Goliath, and Phoenix Hawk. The Scorpion is larger/has more volume than the Goliath. A game using LOS for attack mechanics needs to have more consistent scaling in it's units.

 megatrons2nd wrote:
My only problem with Alpha Strike is that the miniatures are not in the same scale. I have a stinger that is the taller than the Goliath, and Phoenix Hawk. The Scorpion is larger/has more volume than the Goliath. A game using LOS for attack mechanics needs to have more consistent scaling in it's units.

I use hexes, so I really haven't had any problems in that regard.

They could bear being a bit more coherent with their scaling, though. It's not really that difficult...

 Albertorius wrote:

 megatrons2nd wrote:
My only problem with Alpha Strike is that the miniatures are not in the same scale. I have a stinger that is the taller than the Goliath, and Phoenix Hawk. The Scorpion is larger/has more volume than the Goliath. A game using LOS for attack mechanics needs to have more consistent scaling in it's units.

I use hexes, so I really haven't had any problems in that regard.

They could bear being a bit more coherent with their scaling, though. It's not really that difficult...

I prefer hexes myself, and play that way whenever I can, but the local area prefers the real terrain method, because it "looks better".

Well I'm out, if anyone wants my wave 1 stuff (battlecry pledge) it's up here

http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/121713735629?

 megatrons2nd wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:

 megatrons2nd wrote:
My only problem with Alpha Strike is that the miniatures are not in the same scale. I have a stinger that is the taller than the Goliath, and Phoenix Hawk. The Scorpion is larger/has more volume than the Goliath. A game using LOS for attack mechanics needs to have more consistent scaling in it's units.

I use hexes, so I really haven't had any problems in that regard.

They could bear being a bit more coherent with their scaling, though. It's not really that difficult...

I prefer hexes myself, and play that way whenever I can, but the local area prefers the real terrain method, because it "looks better".

The last time we played we used Heroscape terrain, a nice mix of both methods


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Well I'm out, if anyone wants my wave 1 stuff (battlecry pledge) it's up here

http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/121713735629?

Sadly, I am a hoarder, so I'll be along until PB goes belly up or we actually do get Wave 2. There are times I wish I had the sense to cut and run, and this project would certainly be the one.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Well I'm out, if anyone wants my wave 1 stuff (battlecry pledge) it's up here
http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/121713735629?

May I ask what lead to the decision?
There are many I am sure, I am curious and you seem like the level headed sort.
I know if wave 2 will not happen I will sell the bunch in a heartbeat.
Minus what I can recover for Battletech of course.

Let's see...

I'm moving overseas again and it's time to downsize.

The box has sat unopened and unloved for a year now.

I've painted all of half a mini this year, granted I was in school and have the twins but things aren't likely to get better.

But finally the contempt and lack of communication from Palladium did me in. I also have a pile of unopened kits from Dreamforge but y'know, I like them. I like their communication and style, sooner or later I will get around to building their kits and will buy more.

Maybe a year (or two, or three) from now when I hold Super VTs in my hand I might feel differently but right now, I just want to forget I ever gave Palladium and Harmony Gold my money.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Stormonu wrote:


Sadly, I am a hoarder, so I'll be along until PB goes belly up or we actually do get Wave 2. There are times I wish I had the sense to cut and run, and this project would certainly be the one.

I too was a hoarder, then came a wife, 2 kids and moving every 1-3 years. It's fixing that right up.

Asterios wrote:


As it goes n815e you just described a factory rep, not a broker, but a rep and the two shall never be confused, the fact PB confused them tells me they are lying.

Rick, I know you make it up as you go along, but manufacturing brokers are reps. Brokers represent a set of clients.

the problem n815e is if PB is just now dealing with a broker, we are a good year plus away from any product being shipped, this should have been handled a long time ago

That wasn't the criticism leveled.



Automatically Appended Next Post:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 n815e wrote:

If you are reaching for anything to complain about, to the point where you are going to complain about them doing the things that they should to get us the rest of our stuff, then that's something you should reflect on.

And, really, the part you're missing, is that this laudable thing they're doing, the thing that is, newsworthy, the thing that is essentially the only "forward progress" (term used generously) of note for Wave Two, is what they should be doing on an extremely regular basis.

So decide, is this phone call, one that is worthy of being the only real Wave Two update mention, a big deal (but you said it's supposed to be something they do regularly!) or is it not a big deal (why don't we hear about it weekly?).

I didn't claim it was "laudable". Amazingly enough, not everything needs to be super awesomesauce or really terrible (if you see the world like that, then you are a lot like Kevin Siembieda). There is the day to day work that should be getting done.

You have been on this broker thing since they first brought it up.
You first rewrote their words so that you could claim they said that they have no broker or manufacturer, as though it wasn't clear as day what they actually wrote.

You have become so accustomed to complaining about them that you will literally criticize them for doing what they are supposed to so we can get our stuff. And when they post something that shouldn't be controversial, you rewrite it into something to give yourself a reason to complain.

The griping has become a parody of itself.

 n815e wrote:

Asterios wrote:


As it goes n815e you just described a factory rep, not a broker, but a rep and the two shall never be confused, the fact PB confused them tells me they are lying.

Rick, I know you make it up as you go along, but manufacturing brokers are reps. Brokers represent a set of clients.

for starters a manufacturing broker is the guy who pairs up a company with a factory, in this situation company "A" (PB) tells the broker what they are looking for, then the Broker finds company "B" that can meet these requirements, once the match is made, then the company "B" sets up PB company "A" with a rep to deal with them thru, they have to go thru all of this since they don't have someone there themselves to find a factory to do the job for them, which is why they have the broker to do that for them, I know this cause a friend of mine who deals with making plastic mini items thru China complained about all the levels he had to go thru which this was one of them, now PB may have mixed up the names but doubt it.

furthermore if they are still dealing with a broker, they do not have a factory in place yet. and most likely they are trying to find a factory they do not have to preset a manufacturing date to and "Reserve" tooling and stamping time with which will cost PB whether they meet that time or not.

 n815e wrote:

Asterios wrote:
the problem n815e is if PB is just now dealing with a broker, we are a good year plus away from any product being shipped, this should have been handled a long time ago

That wasn't the criticism leveled.

huh?