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Steamforged has done fairly well with marketing their Kickstarters as a means of retail distribution. My FLGS got burned hard by their distribution woes, but have been very happy with the way RE2 and Godtear worked out. I feel like PP is trying to use Kickstarter here in a simlar manner; less as a way to get product to players, but as a way to get players to get their store to back the game to help get it on shelves.

 NH Gunsmith wrote:
Dakka makes me laugh, just a little bit ago Corvus Belli finished up their Defiance Kickstarter to fund a whole bunch of new models... and the overall opinions and positivity were great.

PP launches a Kickstarter for models that have already been completed... and people are saying that PP using Kickstarter is unprofessional for a "large" company (of a few dozen people), it is their last gasp of air, the company is dead.

Never change Dakka.

Was it the same people? Or do you simply think Dakka a six-person hivemind?

 LunarSol wrote:
Steamforged has done fairly well with marketing their Kickstarters as a means of retail distribution. My FLGS got burned hard by their distribution woes, but have been very happy with the way RE2 and Godtear worked out. I feel like PP is trying to use Kickstarter here in a simlar manner; less as a way to get product to players, but as a way to get players to get their store to back the game to help get it on shelves.

How does Kickstarter help stores? Most fulfill orders directly to the backers, skipping stores and the distribution model altogether. That doesn't help stores, it actively hurts them.

Personally I've never had a problem with PP's resins/metals beyond what I'd expect from resin/metal from anyone else. Plastics are nice, but not everyone has GW's plastic technology and resources; trading with factories in china can come with huge issues - I've seen more than one major KS have huge problems with production delays or quality control issues etc... Even GW has been bitten once or twice such as the terrain pack for AoS that was missing a whole sprue from every single pack to the point GW just had to change the contents.


Plus like the GW incident, many of those issues don't always get detected until the product is arriving in customers hands.



In-house has huge benefits and resin/metal isn't that hard to work with. A few moments to wash it; cleaning is pretty easy and you're good to go.



I'm really hopeful PP can pull this off.

Also lets not forget, Dakka "TENDS" to have a bit of a negative slant at the best of times. Heck if you read half the 40K/AoS threads you'd get the impression everyone hates them too.

 Thanatos73 wrote:
I think their biggest mistake is not bringing over the old factions or at least races. Why make it the same universe at all if you’re not bringing over Cygnar, Khador, Cryx, etc. Seeing the Protectorate advance knowing that another goddess saved everyone and existing in her universe would be interesting.

I wanna Warpwolf in a spacehelmet.

I see your Warpwolf and raise you Farrow in SPAAAAAAACE

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
I see your Warpwolf and raise you Farrow in SPAAAAAAACE

Already been done.

 .Mikes. wrote:

 Thanatos73 wrote:
I think their biggest mistake is not bringing over the old factions or at least races. Why make it the same universe at all if you’re not bringing over Cygnar, Khador, Cryx, etc. Seeing the Protectorate advance knowing that another goddess saved everyone and existing in her universe would be interesting.

I wanna Warpwolf in a spacehelmet.

Only if its as awesome as the original metal pure warpwolf sculpt - in space armour!

Voss wrote:

How does Kickstarter help stores? Most fulfill orders directly to the backers, skipping stores and the distribution model altogether. That doesn't help stores, it actively hurts them.

Steamforged has a "retailer" pledge level available to backers who confirm they run a FLGS. You get something like 6 sets of the kickstarter at wholesale prices to sell in your shop.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Twelvecarpileup wrote:

Lots of people are fans of Warmachine, but MK3 was a pretty big flop. What are they doing different this time?

One of the big oddities is just that MK3 really isn't any different from MK2. There's some changes, almost entirely positive, but the core game and mechanics is an errata level change outside of the new rule that lets you actually run warjacks. MK3's failings seem to be almost entirely a mix of player burnout and a lack of new players to replace them over anything wrong with the game itself. What's different here? Well, at least the new player barrier is unlikely to be quite as high maybe? I'd wager at the very least we're going to see a much more box set driven game, but hard to say at the moment.

I take it you didn't play any of the armies that got completely and utterly borked by MK3, like Skorne. MK3 came with a large number of issues that affected several armies severely that they had to address both quickly, and over a long period of time. To say it was entirely positive is surprising to see.

The new Infinity models are looking great.

It's not reminiscent of Infinity, but more of absolutely generic sci-fi, really. The models are not bad by any stretch of the imagination, but they are pretty bland boilerplate scifi. They could be part of the artwork on nearly any scifi novel out there.

 LunarSol wrote:

Voss wrote:

How does Kickstarter help stores? Most fulfill orders directly to the backers, skipping stores and the distribution model altogether. That doesn't help stores, it actively hurts them.

Steamforged has a "retailer" pledge level available to backers who confirm they run a FLGS. You get something like 6 sets of the kickstarter at wholesale prices to sell in your shop.

Interesting (and kudos to Steamforged). But I doubt it applies here. PP has a shaky relationship with retailers (too many SKUs didn't help from the beginning), and turning GW on them and dictating discount maximums didn't help either. Neither did skipping traditional distributors and selling directly from their website, and offering sales that stores couldn't (and weren't allowed to) match.

Unless they also pull back on the retailer policies they've currently got in place, I doubt they're going to make the Kickstarter for Warcaster40K retailer friendly.

Voss wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

Voss wrote:

How does Kickstarter help stores? Most fulfill orders directly to the backers, skipping stores and the distribution model altogether. That doesn't help stores, it actively hurts them.

Steamforged has a "retailer" pledge level available to backers who confirm they run a FLGS. You get something like 6 sets of the kickstarter at wholesale prices to sell in your shop.

Interesting (and kudos to Steamforged). But I doubt it applies here. PP has a shaky relationship with retailers (too many SKUs didn't help from the beginning), and turning GW on them and dictating discount maximums didn't help either. Neither did skipping traditional distributors and selling directly from their website, and offering sales that stores couldn't (and weren't allowed to) match.

Unless they also pull back on the retailer policies they've currently got in place, I doubt they're going to make the Kickstarter for Warcaster40K retailer friendly.

Actually, they specifically stated in a press release that retailers can pledge at the retailer level and get stock to put up in their stores. Now, without the KS being released yet, we can't know what kind of retailer price they're getting, but I suspect PP is doing the same thing as Steamforged.

Whether or not anyone will take them up on it remains to be seen.

I've seen Wayland games pick up retail options for a few KS over the years. I think PP has a big bonus of a LOT of other KS companies in that PP has been around for a good number of years and is pretty stable all told. They've already got the offices, company site, equipment, skills etc... Plus they've got several regular revenue streams coming in as well. So this makes them a very safe Kickstarter bet.

If they offer a good enough deal through the KS then I can see retailers who are aware of it being more likely to get engaged with it. Perhaps they'll offer better than normal rates through the KS for the retailer to entice them on board.

 Overread wrote:
I think PP has a big bonus of a LOT of other KS companies in that PP has been around for a good number of years and is pretty stable all told. They've already got the offices, company site, equipment, skills etc...

True, but they did semi-recently move offices out of their Bellevue location and into Woodinville, and apparently with that they also lost over half their staff. According to some Glassdoor reviews (which I'm not going to link since it's really kind of off-topic), they're now around 30 people, which is down significantly from their peak of about 100.

More on topic, though, nothing about this game so far "grabs" me. Models are "meh" to me, premise/setting is not interesting or even very plausible to me, and very unsure about the gameplay. I used to be very much into Warmachine (some may recognize my avatar...), but I dropped near the end of Mk II because I felt the rules bloat was getting unbearable, and it's not much better from what I've seen of Mk III. Given that history, I worry about the actual design of this game, and given how most of their other side-games have gone (Heap, Bodgers, Zombie thing, etc.), I don't know if this has the staying power. MonPoc might, but only if they don't bloat it into something that becomes unplayable.

If this is out and successful and shows stability, great, I may look at it again in a year or so if it's still around.

I hope PP reps actually read this thread. Any time you add more hoops for customers to jump through, you make it less likely that retailers will carry your product. In the old days PP miniatures came with cards with stats. Then they got rid of those (1st hoop). So I would have to bust out the faction book to tell a customer what a model did, until they got rid of those (2nd hoop). Now I have to tell customers that if they want to play this game they have to go online and get the app (3rd hoop). You must then have your I-phone available to play. Believe it or not in this day and age there are still people who don't have I-phones/computers, or who don't have access, or who just prefer books. In addition, PP got rid of two revenue streams that were making retailers money (cards and books). Many of the arguments made on this thread come from consumers who buy online and want deep discounts, but one of the reasons retailers stopped carrying PP products was online discounters doing deep discounts. FLGS cannot compete with that, so they went elsewhere. The limit on discounting came too late. Finally, GW sculpts are just superior and hard plastic is a better medium than metal and resin. PP are making 80's miniatures in 2020! That is why they are dying. In addition, as far as game play, most skirmish games have gone to alternate activation. They should have done that a long time ago and I think it might be too little too late for this game. Also, Warmahordes games are time consuming and frustrating for new players. Since there is no randomness in movement, turns are micro measured, which leads to arguments and takes way too much time. Simply adding a random factor to movement would make it hard to micromanage and cut down on that aspect of the game. Also, as revenue began to shrink, PP started selling direct and directing people towards their own site and away from the few FLGS that still carried their product. If I were going to save PP, I would switch to hard plastic models and a cad design program. Then redo Warmachine and Hordes taking into account the points I made above, and then I would reduce skew bloat by making multikits that could wipe out 4-5 skews with one box. But PP probably can't do this because they seem to be on their last legs and I doubt they can keep afloat much longer unless Warcaster is a hit.

I think this would have been more exciting if it was just Warmahordes in space.

Human only factions? Meh. Give me space Trollbloods.

I've not been impressed with what I've seen so far. The miniatures feel like some first generation/pre-CAD Infinity miniatures in detail. The setting, another sci-fi game in a bleak dying galaxy, doesn't differentiate itself from most the other similar games out there. There may be be more coming, but this feels like it's a decade or two too late.

I realize I've been really, really hard on PP.

But, I really want this to succeed too. PP used to have the most concise, solid rules and interesting new setting. Hopefully they can recapture that in Warcaster without the baggage of Warmachine.

Success for this means more opportunities for all their other lines. So maybe less random mini crates, and more of their core games.

Simply adding a random factor to movement would make it hard to micromanage and cut down on that aspect of the game

That's one way to kill any hope of a skirmish game succeeding.

I dunno, I'm liking what I've seen so far. The models are much more to my preference than Warmachine. The fluff is fine for a first look. It's certainly no worse than what AoS started with.

And AoS was nearly killed by it's launch....

Cronch wrote:
And AoS was nearly killed by it's launch....

There were multiple reasons for that though - lore writing was only one tiny bit.

The slashing of armies; the fragmenting of others; the dropping of a game that they'd just spent several months marketing heavily (for the first time in a long while too); the dropping of all the game rules and points; replacing said rules with "joke" rules.

I mean there was a huge number of reasons that AoS just utterly flopped which aren't being repeated here. PP isn't abandoning Warmachine/Hordes; they aren't destroying their own lore; this is a full game with rules; they haven't been marketing Warmachine/Hordes like mad and then suddenly dropped them etc...

 Overread wrote:
... they haven't been marketing Warmachine/Hordes like mad and then suddenly dropped them etc...

No, they have just dropped it like a hard case on squishy toes. Warmachine/Hordes aren't taking over any market share, most of the news that get shared suggest opposite - their share is shrinking. This new game doesn't look like an upcoming hit either, it is "more of the same", which doesn't inspire confidence in their design department. And unless they start shouting about it from every horn throwing money and inciting interest - and hiring people to do so - what are the chances it will be anything but their yet another side project? And even if it would become an outstanding success, unless they are prepared to invest big - wouldn't it take all the wind out of the WM/H development to support and expand a new game?

I will be following these news and wishing them luck, but I am afraid that in two years time we wouldn't hear either this name or WM/H. Or even PP themselves. :(

As befitting the ragged and stalwart forces of the Marcher Worlds, the Dusk Wolf is a formidable engine of war. Its dependable and durable chassis supports a versatile weapon system featuring multiple specialty cortex options alongside a lethal array options for armament.

Armed with rapidfire Harbinger Cannons, the Paladin Annihilators provide heavy support to Alliance forces on the battlefield. While charged with Arc, the weapons' advanced smart lock targeting system robs its targets of the defensive benefits of cover.

Accompanying the Alliance's forces on the battlefield, the Paladin Weaver acts as a living focus for the Warcaster's arcane might. The destructive Fury Cyphers channeled through the Weaver unleash all manner of psychokinetic ruin upon those who would face the Paladins in battle.

This is the kind of thing I love to see. I'm very interested in Warcaster. Not sure if someone already posted these, but Privateer Press is doing previews on Twitter.

Well, at least they’ve not got Unfeasibly Teeny Leg Syndrome?

35mm scale kills this for me. I hate scale creep.

 Da Boss wrote:
35mm scale kills this for me. I hate scale creep.

Does it really count as scale creep if it’s a brand new game?

Also don't forget even within scales the whole fantasy/scifi thing can mean that scales vary somewhat between the number on the manifesto and the scale you end up with.

Plus many things, like terrain, are already out of scale even when made for a specific scale and a lot of it is pretty generic anyway.

 ImAGeek wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
35mm scale kills this for me. I hate scale creep.

Does it really count as scale creep if it’s a brand new game?

To me, yes. 28mm has been the standard for skirmish games since I started in the hobby. PP has always been on the bigger side, 30mm and up sometimes, and I always hate that and how they were never able to keep the scale or proportions of their minis consistent because of poor quality control.
Now GW is scaling stuff up, putting stuff on bigger bases and generally biggersizing everything and PP is gonna jump one further. I hate this, and will not buy any miniatures in that scale. I like cross compatibility.