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Just a quick heads up for anyone thinking of ordering direct from Spartan that you would be wise not to unless your willing to wait a very long time. They have had an order of mine for two weeks and haven't even started processing it (very small, a box set and a marker set). After inquiring they have told me that they have such a backlog of orders that they have no idea when they will be able to ship any orders. Not even a soon.

That's sad to hear. I just bumped the HFB thread with an update that I found and your post just suggests that Spartan isn't capable apparently of fully developing, producing, releasing, and supporting more than one game at a time. It's too bad that they seem to be having similar issues with Halo Ground War (I assume you ordered that one?) that they did with Fleet Battles a year earlier without learning/improving much from the issues they had.

No i actually ordered a hochmeister and some mine markers for dystopian wars. So pretty simple stock items. I still haven't received my order or even an estimated shipping date (will be four weeks tommorrow). What is even more worrying is they are planning on launching a Kickstarter for a new game in the dystopian universe. How they will manage to fulfil a Kickstarter when they can't manage just their own direct orders I'll never know.

UNCLEBADTOUCH wrote:
a new game

Yet another one? Really?

 Absolutionis wrote:

UNCLEBADTOUCH wrote:
a new game

Yet another one? Really?

This is Spartan being talked about here, more fool he (or she) that buys their product expecting a different result....

overtyrant wrote:

 Absolutionis wrote:

UNCLEBADTOUCH wrote:
a new game

Yet another one? Really?

This is Spartan being talked about here, more fool he (or she) that buys their product expecting a different result....

Precisely.

I was so pissed years ago when we bought into Uncharted Seas, painted everything and prepared to recruit a small scene of players --- only to have Spartan decide it was too much trouble to let
stores carry the product line. Of course, the game died quickly worldwide.

Since then they've released several more systems with next to no support, which thankfully we had learned our lessons and did not invest in.
I hear similar frustrations from many other people. I"m sure their KS will falter if they have the audacity to do another one.

That is indeed sad news, but nothing new.

Uncharted Seas is one of the main games I play, still lots of fun, even if I will likely never get the Ralgard fleet I always wanted.

Support? There's plenty of support! You can buy a new rulebook every 6 months!

Spartan frustrates the gak out of me. I want to like their stuff; they make some pretty darn good models, and I really like the Victorian SciFi Dystopian stuff a lot, but they're so bad at this being a functional business thing. Dystopian Legions is still barely a game, and then they release Firestorm Planetfall. DL sees no progress, Planetfall is barely a game, and they announce the Halo license. Now they've got, like, four partial games and they announce a Kickstarter for another!?


And THEN they can't fill orders.

Jesus Christ

I went in on HFB knowing their rep full well but I figured they'd change their modus operandi with an expensive licensed game with lots of name recognition, right? Nope.. same gak, different game. The delayed first real new releases for HFB that were advertised at gencon weren't even out before they switched the public focus over to announcing and previewing Ground Wars roughly 6 months after Fleet Battles hit the shelves. Fast forward almost a year later and we've got news of a revised ruleset and stats to replace what came in the still new starter and no releases for the last half of this year.

The hyperbole in this thread is getting ridiculous.

I bought into dystopian wars a few years ago and while the releases have all but stopped, there certainly isn't a new rulebook every 6 months, or every year, or every two years..

While its fairly accurate that Dystopian Legions is still barely a game, that is completely false about Planetfall. All the main races have fully fleshed out helix choices and they've done that in very short time. Just over a year I believe. So maybe check their online catalog before spouting exaggerations about these games.

Regardless, inability to fulfill orders from their webstore is bad and getting product out to retailers has been a persistent problem. That's definitely an aspect of their business they should work harder to improve.

Honestly, I think obtaining the Halo license was a mistake, mostly because the scale clashes with their other games. It also seems obvious it does impede releases for their other systems.

Most of their models are top-tier and I hope they can get it together and figure out a better strategy to support their games more efficiently.

Dystopian Wars is on its 4th edition, is it 8 years old? No? Then it's less than 2 years between editions.

Mchaagen wrote:
The hyperbole in this thread is getting ridiculous.

Reap, sow, and all that yadda yadda.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned that the kickstarter was cancelled after people told them off for it and they put out a survey the following day to ask people what they would like spartan to do.

I just checked their online store....anyone else just getting error messages from any link leading there?

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Dystopian Wars is on its 4th edition, is it 8 years old? No? Then it's less than 2 years between editions.

Claiming the most recent fast-play rules are a new edition is the equivalent of claiming Kill Team is a new edition of WH40k.


Yes, getting a 'website not found' message when attempting to load their store page.

Mchaagen wrote:


Claiming the most recent fast-play rules are a new edition is the equivalent of claiming Kill Team is a new edition of WH40k.

it's had at least 3 separate rulebooks and a reprinting of version one with enough errata added to cause different rule interpretations. So by my count thats v1.0, v1.1, v1.5, and v2.0

 wana10 wrote:

Mchaagen wrote:


Claiming the most recent fast-play rules are a new edition is the equivalent of claiming Kill Team is a new edition of WH40k.

it's had at least 3 separate rulebooks and a reprinting of version one with enough errata added to cause different rule interpretations. So by my count thats v1.0, v1.1, v1.5, and v2.0

Errata makes a new edition? So as an example; by 'my count' we on 20th edition 40k now.

Regardless, I would not be opposed to a game-set that had a living rulebook which could be downloaded whenever an update was created to improve the rules. Its what I figured they were working towards, at least with firestorm.

Mchaagen wrote:

Errata makes a new edition? So as an example; by 'my count' we on 20th edition 40k now.

Regardless, I would not be opposed to a game-set that had a living rulebook which could be downloaded whenever an update was created to improve the rules. Its what I figured they were working towards, at least with firestorm.

Honestly I don't have a dog in this hunt, when Spartan announced the latest Kickstarter I just shook my head with an exasperated smile. But from what I remember the errata wasn't announced (or knowing Spartan even published), and our play group only realized it existed when we were debating a rule and found one of our "v1" rulebooks had extra paragraphs here and there compared to some of the other "v1" rulebooks that changed how things should be played.

I've never known GW to stealth release a rulebook with different rules from the prior without an announcement. The closest I think they've come was the 3.5 assault update.

Well looks like after five weeks Hawk wargames will manage to ship all 4K plus backer rewards before I get this as I've already had one of my two commodore pledges without hearing anything at all from Spartan.

I've had good experiences with Hawk Wargames' customer service in the past, they're alright by me

Looks like the Kickstarter is due to drop in November, I can only assume they are desperate for money and this is why they cannot fulfil any direct orders.

I won't touch any game made by Spartan ever again. That's after buying into and enjoying for a time, Uncharted, Firestorm 1 (peice of gak game, very uncomplete / basic), Dystopian Wars (took two sub-editions to become playable) and Firestorm 2 (A good game, left out to die. No match for Dropfleet either.)

Basically, those all used the same ruleset too. Effectively the same game with small tweaks, with only Firestorm 2 starting to buckle out of that.

Then guess what happens? Spartan decides to COMPETE WITH THEMSELVES. That's insane. They released a space fleet combat game, and a ground company-level game. Now they release the same things, but incompatible, with a dying game license?

This is on top of their attempts to break into 15mm and 30mm scale games for over 5 years.

It's enough, they're too incompetent to trust in supporting any product in the future and clearly not able to learn. Especially as they're now releasing a re-scaled Firestorm Armada for larger fleets? To further compete with themselves in three simultaneous areas?

That's all too much. I'll stick with Hawk.

I enjoyed Dystopian Wars back when it was fresh, but count me among those who has no faith in Spartan's ability to actually stick with a game. They are constantly moving to the next shiny, be it a new game or new edition and then support evaporates pretty quickly as they jump to the next. My flgs stopped carrying them entirely years ago for that very reason.

With all these games they're developing,releasing models for and then abandoning, how do they manage to stay afloat? Wouldn't all these models and rules they release cost money they can't get back since they give up so quickly?

 Mymearan wrote:
With all these games they're developing,releasing models for and then abandoning, how do they manage to stay afloat? Wouldn't all these models and rules they release cost money they can't get back since they give up so quickly?

In my experience, when people keep falling for their crap, they fall hard. I myself am guilty of buying hundreds of dollars of Planetfall before realizing we were right back in the Spartan cycle. A few of my friends did as well.

It tells me there is a thirst for some of these underserved categories of games, because its so easy to get roped in by admittedly nice models, and rules that, at a glance, look solid.

I bought roughly $250 MSRP of Halo Fleet Battles with full knowledge of their long standing pump and dump game development strategy thanks to seeing dakka threads on the company for years. I just naively didn't think they'd do it to a big licensed game like Halo.

They do in all honestly make really nice models just to have.

Anybody have any experience with their Scenics? I really like their 28mm modular sci-fi outpost. It seems ot be "sold out" on their website though. I can probably get it from a 3rd party, but I was wondering what people thought of it, in terms of quality and such.

They make great models though. So I don't begrudge anyone for purchasing them. But they do make the promise of a supported game that they do not keep.

They really should consider contracting or license out their other games, just to mix up the rules and keep the game supported.