BattleTech 'Mercenaries' Kickstarter - EU WRAPS UP, WAVE 4 NEWS (UPDATE #130)

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**Ghaz**

Just received the following message from Catalyst Games via Kickstarter:

Catalyst Games wrote:All potentially affected backers have/will be sent an additional Salvage Box to offset this issue for any backers with one vehicle. So there should be no problem here, if it hasn't made it to you yet, it will likely be soon!

Happy Gaming!

**deleted20250424**

I had 2 extra in my order to offset.

Oddly, I only was supposed to get 11 boxes, and got 13 total so however you want to split it... I ended up with 2 single vehicle boxes with 1 Galleon in each.

So I either got 2 extra for some reason, or they knew I had a box with 1 Galleon and got lucky getting a second Galleon.

**Flinty**

Total rumourmongering here, but this gem just showed up on the Kickstarter comments allegedly from a CGL discord mod

"Why would backers need this information?
Simply put, why are you entitled to this information?
Your stuff is coming. Your stuff will be there before it hits retail. That is all the information that you need.
How many kickstarters have just vanished in smoke because the company behind them discontinued the project?
This one is still getting active updates, even if it is 'No news' on a weekly basis. You don't need to know the processes inner workings in order to know that you are getting your stuff"

Good to see such a deep understanding of human drives in their customer facing cohort.

**Prometheum5**

Flinty wrote:
Total rumourmongering here, but this gem just showed up on the Kickstarter comments allegedly from a CGL discord mod

"Why would backers need this information?
Simply put, why are you entitled to this information?
Your stuff is coming. Your stuff will be there before it hits retail. That is all the information that you need.
How many kickstarters have just vanished in smoke because the company behind them discontinued the project?
This one is still getting active updates, even if it is 'No news' on a weekly basis. You don't need to know the processes inner workings in order to know that you are getting your stuff"

Good to see such a deep understanding of human drives in their customer facing cohort.

I went and double-checked the Discord. I didn't see the original post but did see where the mod was made to apologize. The discussion over there seems to be a total mess.

**cole1114**

Flinty wrote:
Total rumourmongering here, but this gem just showed up on the Kickstarter comments allegedly from a CGL discord mod

"Why would backers need this information?
Simply put, why are you entitled to this information?
Your stuff is coming. Your stuff will be there before it hits retail. That is all the information that you need.
How many kickstarters have just vanished in smoke because the company behind them discontinued the project?
This one is still getting active updates, even if it is 'No news' on a weekly basis. You don't need to know the processes inner workings in order to know that you are getting your stuff"

Good to see such a deep understanding of human drives in their customer facing cohort.

This was in response to a guy with a long, bad history. He finally ended up getting banned as well.

**beast_gts**

Project Update #99 wrote:Hey there backers!

Fresh off of the weekly meeting with QML, here’s some information we can share.

Shortages
We know you’ve been waiting for information on shortages, so here we go! About 20 SKU shortages were found across the hubs and QML. After assessing what CGL, QML and the hubs could all ship amongst each other, we also had to work with our various manufacturing partners to produce merchandise to backfill shortages. Those items should be finished production within 2-3 weeks, then ship directly to both QML and the worldwide hubs.

Several of the short items are in the majority of international orders, which is the reason shipping isn’t able to begin until everything gets to the hubs. We also want to be sure that shipping from a hub can begin at the same time for all of that region’s backers in order to reduce customer confusion and stress. (Note that each hub will fulfill when their own stock arrives, not when stock arrives at ALL hubs, so some regions may begin before others.)

One of the items that is causing a hold-up for NA shipments is the plain House Arano Challenge Coin (Please note: This is different than the enamel House Arano Challenge Coin). If your pledge contains this coin, you can choose to message QML to see if that is the only item holding your order. If so, you can choose to have it removed from your order permanently and you will receive a CGL store credit of $10. Contact QML through their customer service link below if this applies to you. This is the only item available for cancellation at this time.

https://www.qmlogistics.com/contactUs.html

Waves
Wave 1 (shipping was paid on or before May 17th, 2024) has stalled while awaiting restocks.
Wave 2 (shipping was paid after May 17th, 2024 but before August 12th 2024) has not yet begun but will begin soon once restocks arrive.
Wave 3 (shipping has not been charged) will be communicated at a later date.
Retail backers who have paid shipping prior to August 12th, will be fulfilled at the end of Wave 2, and will not be held for Wave 3.
We will be sending Address Verifications on Thursday for Wave 2 backers that are not short any items in their order. Fulfilment is expected to start for Wave 2 sometime next week. This should not cause any additional inventory issues for those Wave 1 backers that are waiting for stock to arrive at QML.

Damages or Lost Shipments
Contact QML at the following link if you have damaged items, or if you believe a package/shipment has gone missing. This applies to all backers, regardless of country.

https://www.qmlogistics.com/contactUs.html

Late Backer Support
If you are a backer who backed via BackerKit rather than Kickstarter, and require support regarding your pledge, you can reach out to us using the following steps:

1.) Log in to your Backerkit Account

2.) Navigate to https://battletech-mercenaries.backerkit.com/faq#contact-us

3.)Select the appropriate subject

4.) If the pre-filled answer does not answer your question, use the "Still have questions?" button to send a support request to Catalyst. (Check your spam folder)

Street Dates
We are still committed to waiting to release any KS Backer exclusive rewards until after the Kickstarter has fulfilled globally AND all Company Store-level retailer backers have had 30 days to sell before we release items through our own retail avenues.

There are a few items where we committed to pushing production sooner, and those will be released over the next several months.

Here’s a summary of where we are for now on releases through the rest of the year:

Not bound to Kickstarter fulfillment:
Force Manual: Davion – September release
Universe: Standard Edition – September release
Mercs Paint Set (Army Painter) – September release
Hot Spots: Hinterlands – November release
IlKhan’s Eyes Only – December release
Drop Ships – 2025 release

Kickstarter Release First
Some of these were slated for an October release but have since been moved to November, and release dates may be further adjusted pending Kickstarter fulfillment.

Planned for November 11/27/2024

Mercs Box Set (Standard Edition)
Inner Sphere Recon Lance ForcePack
Battlefield Support: Recon & Hunter Lances ForcePack
Battlefield Support: Assault & Cavalry Lances ForcePack
Clan Cavalry Star ForcePack
Salvage Box: Battlefield Support (Point of Purchase)
Salvage Box: Mercenaries (Point of Purchase)
MapPack: Savannah
Planned for December 12/11/2024

Battlefield Support: Battle & Fire Lances ForcePack
BattleTech Encounters
BattleTech: Inner Sphere Security Lance ForcePack
Salvage Box: Visigoth (Point of Purchase)
Statistics
These are the approximate total order counts from Wave 1 and Wave 2 (see: Waves, above)
Aus/NZ: 1000 orders
EU: 3000 orders
UK: 1700 orders
Asia: 400 orders
US/Can/Rest of World: 20,575
Orders completed for US/CAN/RoW: 14,500 (currently waiting on restocks)

Wave 3 orders expected: Approximately 400 orders worldwide
A personal note…
We’d like to thank our backers for your support and patience. This is the largest Kickstarter that either Catalyst or QML have ever undertaken and you helped us to get there. Those who haven’t received their items yet – we know you are excited to have them delivered, and we are excited to get them to you!

Before we launch a Kickstarter, we are required to put in an expected fulfillment date to the Kickstarter page. We went for June 2024, but were hopeful for earlier. We also expected a maximum of $4 million for this Kickstarter. Including the pledge manager, we almost TRIPLED that! Still, we pulled through with our manufacturing partners to start delivering in June.

There are also over 25,000 orders worldwide, and over 400 individual items involved! This is a logistical mountain, and anyone who has experience with fulfillment knows there are always unexpected roadblocks along the way. The CGL team and our partners have all been racing to mitigate these as much as possible, while still ensuring orders will be accurate when they get out the door. Again, we are so grateful for the kind words of support from so many of you as we keep pushing through our last hurdles.

Once those shortages arrive, everything will be full steam ahead on delivering your rewards! We can see the light at the end of the tunnel! Keep posting your paint jobs, unboxings, and excitement for playing with your new mechs, and we’ll all be joining you soon!

**Flinty**

Given that they knew to a high level of precision exactly what was required, it does surprise me that there are so many shortages. There must be a huge number of rejected or lost consignments.

**beast_gts**

It is surprising, and a little bit worrying. If the 20 SKUs are from the same supplier and all small items it could be as simple as a lost container, but it could also be that QML are sloppy checking thinks into their warehouses and they're sat somewhere waiting to be found...

Do we know how many SKUs there are in total for the KS? It would be interesting to know what % 20 is.

**Ghaz**

Lorcan Nagle wrote:Episode 27

24th September 2024
Guest: Jordan Weisman, co-founder of FASA, founder of Wizkids, founder of Harebrained Schemes, co-creator of BattleTech, Shadowrun, et al

News:
-Kickstarter update 99 went out shortly before the stream. It was a big one so Rem didn’t read it out but encouraged questions
Upcoming events:
-Randall is in East Europe on his World Tour, Rem thought it was Budapest tonight. He actually went into Ukraine to meet fans there!
-CGL will be at Spiel in Essen.
-Pax Australia. Talon was there last year to check it out and see if it was suitable for CGL and they decided to head over this year.
-Gameholecon in Madison, WI. RPG-heavy, booth is outside the vendor hall. Will have cool stuff like neon lights and “hologram” fans. They’ll be demoing Voltron, Shadowrun and so on. RJ Thomas, Jason Hardy and Rem will be running games, the World of shadows streaming team will do a live play. There will be some BattleTech but not a huge amount.

-Jordan joked about all these universes coming from psychedelic drugs (but he really didn’t do drugs)
-He was severely dyslexic as a kid and as a result spent a lot of time in his own mind, and as a teenager he was introduced to D&D. He was unaware of Tolkien and working his way through LOTR helped him get better at reading.
-He and his friends went to TSR (AKA Gary Gygax’ house at the time) to get the game, and Dave Arneson was manning the register. They bought 7 copies between them and Arneson brought them through an adventure.
-FASA was Jordan’s first company, from there he founded Virtual World and FASA Interactive, from there he went to Microsoft and lead the XBox launch, then left to do Wizkids, then 42 entertainment and then Harebrained Schemes, then an AR project with Wallmart and now he’s doing -Endless Adventures/Sea of Legends, which he described as going back to a company run out of a garage.

Q&A
-What inspirations did Jordan draw from to come up with Shadowrun and BattleTech?
-BattleTech came from being at a hobby trade show, they met up with a guy importing model kits from Japan. Jordan was blown away from them, he bought a few and from there he came up with the BattleDroids/Tech universe and as always stole from history, specifically the fall of Rome, and worked with Boy Peterson and a couple of other on the rules
-For Shadowrun he was reading a lot of cyberpunk/proto-cyberpunk books and was inspired to make an RPG setting. RTG published Cyberpunk and Jordan didn’t want to be second to market with a good cyberpunk RPG, went back to the roots of Cyberpunk and worked to add a contrast to the dehumanising elements of the milieu, which ended up being adding magic. His dad loved Meso-American culture and that’s where the idea of the Sixth World came from.
-Was there any discussion around naming one Mech Mad Cat and one as Mad Dog being a contrast? Jordan doesn’t think so but he doesn’t remember and wishes it was the case.
-Is there any chance of merging BattleTech into a single owner? Probably not. Jordan cringes at some of the decisions about selling off bits of BattleTech even though it felt necessary to do the things he wanted to do at the time.
-What is Jordan’s favourite Mech? Some of them stand out for him, the Atlas when he saw Duane Loose’s art and was blown away. The other he mentioned was the Mad Cat, which came out of necessity for the limited resources of the BattleTech Centre’s pods. Because they only had so many assets, they needed a new justification for why these units would have universal parts, and from there the Clans were born.

-Will the mercs paint set be on the GCL store? Yes, it’s due this month, but they’ve had technical difficulties recently.
Is there any way to get official art prints? They had some one-off high-quality prints at Adepticon, and they’re open to doing more art.
-When will the Second Star league Forcepack be out? November
-When will the downloads page be updated with record sheets for more forcepacks? Rem didn’t know, she’ll chase it up.
-Rem mentioned the MUL devs are still quite ill, but one is on the mend so there’ll hopefully be an update on the new version soon
-What inspires Jordan’s gaming today? His sons, they’ve all followed him into game design and he loves working with them; reading (especially history), looking at how we can make the world a better place in your own small way, like Sea of Legends is light and fun to counteract how heavy the world is
-Does Jordan have any plans to do a new tabletop game soon? He thinks he will in the future.

**OrlandotheTechnicoloured**

Flinty wrote:
Given that they knew to a high level of precision exactly what was required, it does surprise me that there are so many shortages. There must be a huge number of rejected or lost consignments.

My guess is orders had to be placed before the PM locked down and a best guess was made based on orders up to that point (there may also have been numbers would then be corrected but that didn't end up happening either because the PM closed later than initially planned or got forgotten)

**Ghaz**

From the update (emphasis added):

Before we launch a Kickstarter, we are required to put in an expected fulfillment date to the Kickstarter page. We went for June 2024, but were hopeful for earlier. We also expected a maximum of $4 million for this Kickstarter. Including the pledge manager, we almost TRIPLED that! Still, we pulled through with our manufacturing partners to start delivering in June.

Unexpected success can cause its own problems.

**Overread**

Yep more than a few KS have crumbled or strained when they got too much order volume in one go.

Heck isn't Kingdom Death still way behind on things?

**cole1114**

Overread wrote:
Yep more than a few KS have crumbled or strained when they got too much order volume in one go.

Heck isn't Kingdom Death still way behind on things?

They randomly ship stuff out to this day for their 2017 kickstarter!

**No One Important**

Overread wrote:
Yep more than a few KS have crumbled or strained when they got too much order volume in one go.

Heck isn't Kingdom Death still way behind on things?

Kingdom Death has better communication.

**Dysartes**

...better communication than weekly updates? C'mon, now...

**Flinty**

Ghaz wrote:
From the update (emphasis added):

Before we launch a Kickstarter, we are required to put in an expected fulfillment date to the Kickstarter page. We went for June 2024, but were hopeful for earlier. We also expected a maximum of $4 million for this Kickstarter. Including the pledge manager, we almost TRIPLED that! Still, we pulled through with our manufacturing partners to start delivering in June.

Unexpected success can cause its own problems.

That may be true, but then does that mean they were just lying through their teeth in about May time when all the messaging was that they basically had everything that was needed, and were just waiting for some paperwork to go through? I would be having more patience for them now if they had been more transparent then.

**Wasteland**

Flinty wrote:
That may be true, but then does that mean they were just lying through their teeth in about May time when all the messaging was that they basically had everything that was needed, and were just waiting for some paperwork to go through? I would be having more patience for them now if they had been more transparent then.

You know that someone can be wrong without lying, right?

They're coordinating a multimillion dollar project across multiple countries and at least three companies (probably more, counting producers of the various books, maps, merch ,etc). They're not going to have perfect information at all times.

**Flinty**

You’re going for incompetence then. Good call

They got $12m and decided not to spend any of that on staff with relevant skills. Doesn’t make me feel like a treasured customer really.

**cole1114**

Flinty wrote:
You’re going for incompetence then. Good call

They got $12m and decided not to spend any of that on staff with relevant skills. Doesn’t make me feel like a treasured customer really.

Things go wrong on their own sometimes. No amount of money or staff can fix some problems. Calling them incompetent for doing their best with a wildly successful project that went three times over scope and is still delivering at a frankly reasonable rate... well, you can make your own conclusions on if a company would treasure a customer that's insulting them.

**ced1106**

Flinty wrote:
You’re going for incompetence then. Good call

They got $12m and decided not to spend any of that on staff with relevant skills. Doesn’t make me feel like a treasured customer really.

Over their head, which you certainly could call incompetence. IMO, If a project is only known to be feasible up to 4M, it really should stop accepting orders at 4M. Unfortunately, one of KS's problems, IMO, is that there is no maximum funding for a project nor are backers told what this maximum is (not that project creators always know), which, as said, can cause problems for it. Revenue is not profit.

As a property manager, I've seen small companies that take on more work than they realize they should have. The gardener's quality of work declines because he has too many customers. The contractor hurries through his job or sends someone less qualified (that's the staff with relevant skills, right??) to do the work. And you don't always have someone you can hire instead to do a better job.

In the end, it's your money and it's your responsibility to access risk. You need to do it ahead of the project. Not that it's always worth it, nor is it always possible. I already have too many games in the queue, too many miniatures to paint, to make an effort to screen a company.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wasteland wrote:
They're coordinating a multimillion dollar project across multiple countries and at least three companies (probably more, counting producers of the various books, maps, merch ,etc). They're not going to have perfect information at all times.

Also, unfortunately, It's not always possible to find out the scope or parties involved in a KS project. The larger it is, and the less experience a creator has managing such projects, the more of a yellow flag. And some creators will stick with a project, some will walk away.

**Wasteland**

Flinty wrote:
You’re going for incompetence then. Good call

They got $12m and decided not to spend any of that on staff with relevant skills. Doesn’t make me feel like a treasured customer really.

They're doing three times the work they expected to do in the same amount of time. Where's the incompetence? If the project was massively late then maybe you'd have a point, but it's proceeded pretty much according to plan...

In ANY large project, no matter how experienced the participants, there's going to be hiccups, mistakes, miscommunications. That doesn't mean that they're incompetent - competence in project management isn't somehow magically avoiding all problems, it's in how you handle the problems that do come up. In that regard, I'd give them good (but not perfect) marks.

**Albertorius**

Looking from the outside, and comparing it with some other egregious KS (Robotech RPG Tactics comes to mind, here >_&gt

it doesn't really seem all that bad, other than having delays, which... Kickstarter.

That said, it certainly feels serendipitous that all the missing SKUs seem to be from the international orders, right? Right...

**Angronsrosycheeks**

I didn't participate, so I don't have much stake in the KS (except that retail releases are tied to it), but looking from the outside, this appears to be nothing outside of the usual for KS projects in terms of delays. That makes the hostile approach seen in this thread seem a little out of proportion to me.

**Ghaz**

Albertorius wrote:
Looking from the outside, and comparing it with some other egregious KS (Robotech RPG Tactics comes to mind, here >_&gt it doesn't really seem all that bad, other than having delays, which... Kickstarter.

That said, it certainly feels serendipitous that all the missing SKUs seem to be from the international orders, right? Right...

They weren't all from international orders.

**Flinty**

Yeah, so I’m grandstanding a bit, but it’s because I’m grumpy.

I would have more sympathy for them if this was some kind of surprise. It’s the second campaign that was (allegedly) beyond what was expected. So they didn’t take any of the lessons of the Clan Invasion campaign.

They knew that they had blown through their target along with roughly what they needed to deliver in April last year, and got the details by July. Despite this they didn’t bring any additional help in that time as noticeable, and since then have been prioritising swanning about at conventions over delivering.

And so here we are with the project running late and logistics screwed up because apparently they can’t order things properly.

Liya don’t seem to have been the problem in delivering all the plastics, as they appear to know what they are doing and probably took some of the extra fees for an expanded order and droppped it on extra staff so they could company with their contract.

And through it all they have consistently got the messaging wrong. They promised weekly updates, but never really bothered. They were all excited about delivering early, and here we are.

No its not the end of the world, but I’m the whole experience has just soured me to them and it makes me sad and grumpy, so I grump about it and get snarky.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh yeah, and they massively overcharged postage…

**SpacemanJay**

So I made this account as I couldn't find my decidedly much older account, just to reply to this.

Yes, they started shipping to the first people on time for this KS. However, they flat out quit working on another of their KS's entirely, stopping communication for several months, because they chose to prioritize this KS. That KS will ship probably close to 2 years late, as they are only now starting to cut the molds and it is already a year late. Catalyst is not a great company, and clearly their planning ability is subpar. If you can't do multiple things, then don't do multiple things. But the people pointing out how great they are doing are clearly not looking at their entire spectrum of business, just one slice of an overall subpar company that constantly tries to use a magician's subterfuge to keep you looking at the next thing.

**Ghaz**

Clan Invasion Kickstarter took in $2.5 million.

Catalyst expected the Mercenaries Kickstarter to take in $4 million.

The Mercenaries Kickstarter took in $7.5 million.

So, what proof do you have that they didn't plan for taking in double what they did for the Clan Invasion Kickstarter and the problem is that the Mercenaries Kickstarter took in an additional $2.5 million that thy weren't expecting (along with the other problems as well)?

**Flinty**

The Mercs Kickstarter has taken in close to $12m, including the Backerkit phase. The thing is, though, that all of that money and order information was front loaded in the system. They knew what income they had made, and they knew almost exactly what they needed to deliver as a result. I realise this is basic capitalism, but the thing that ticks me off the most is that they didn’t say “you know what, maybe we should pull in a couple of extra bodies just to dedicate to this process to keep it running smoothly”.

But they didn’t, and we just get lame excuses along the lines of “sorry we didn’t bother to keep up to date with stock checking and manifests, erasure we are all really tired from that con we went to”.

I was super excited last April, and even down to last December or so. Now I’m just hoping that the dopamine hit when the stuff arrives will help erase the utter despondancy that this whole thing makes me feel.

**John Prins**

My pledge rewards arrived!

Everything was present and in order. Though I haven't opened the Salvage Boxes yet

The Urbanmech Company is adorable. I'll probably be painting Battletech over Christmas this year.

[Edit]: Well my Salvage boxes had 3 Rifleman IICs, but at least it's a good mech

**Flinty**

Thats a good haul

How are the battle armour sculpts in your box?

[edit] - In fact, not even just the battle armour, how are the mould lines looking?