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Mongooose is overhauling SST completely and redesigning most of the minis (especially Skinnies), and they will come pre-painted (pretty well according to the pics), but you can paint over them if you want.  Plus they will keep making the current line.

Announcement and pictures here.

& they're doing a new future modern war game:

"In January next year, we will be releasing a new miniatures game called Battlefield Evolution. Set 5-10 years from the present time, you will be able to command real-world units of soldiers and vehicles in pitched battle, using the very latest in weapons technology. There will be four armies from the very start, and the game will use a modified version of the existing Starship Troopers rules. We have been playtesting these rules for some time now, and they are very slick in function – the term bullet-proof has been used to describe them.

What will make Battlefield Evolution different from other miniatures games that are on sale now is that the models will not simply be pre-painted. They will be pre-painted to a level better than 90% of gamers can produce themselves – and that is no idle boast, as you can see from these pictures...

(in a later post)

As for Battlefield Evolution, we will be kicking off with the US Marine Corps, the European Federation Task Force, the Middle Eastern Alliance and the Chinese PLA. That said, our playtesters have already been asking for the IDF, African Warlords, US Army and many more, so the whole world might be fighting in a very short space of time! "

Interesting stuff, thanks for the link, guess this means no way cool landing boats for a while huh?

There have also been some things that we have not been too happy with. The Skinnies, for example, have an incoherent overall feel, which is not what we intended for that army, and there are individual models that were simply not good enough for the modern market.

Hehehe....

So do all the new pre-painted minis out there mean that I can feel good about gaming bringing jobs to poor Chinese factory workers, or do I need to feel guilty that some poor Chinese factory worker will be getting paid ten cents an hour to paint my minis?

Regardless, I'll buy them. Then I can use them to play SST (which I don't currently) and build a guard army out of them?

As for Battlefield Evolution, I never thought I'd want to play a modern combat wargame, too much sci-fi in my blood, but the more I think about tanks vs. infantry with the SST reaction rules the more I think it could just be awesome. Plus they were talking in one of thier Signs and Portents mags about Stalingrad SST. If the models are cool enough...

I think the light infantry SST guys look darn good. I have to admit that I've become too old to paint another horde of imperial guard, and I look forward to instant gratification.

Yeah, the dropships are delayed...again...

Drat, I was really looking forward to the Slingshot finally being released, that thing has Bad Arse written all over it. Anyhow, sounds like Mongoose is doing the smart thing too and stepping back and making changes where something's not working unlike a certain other company...

I think I just pooed myself...

I am happy to see prepainted coming of age.

I'm scared about seeing prepainted minis come of age. I hope they won't slowly kill the hobby aspect of our hobby.

It should grow the hobby. There's a poll over at tabletop gaming news about prepainted, and only about 1 in 3 people think it's a good idea. Prepainted caters to that one in three, and should open up wargaminig to those who would otherwise see the painting as a barrier, rather than part of the experience.

It could also end up being a fad. Rackham and now Mongoose are trying it, if they do well other companies will give it a shot too.

Mongoose should offer their new game unpainted as well. They are hobby friendly enough to have a bits ordering service, I would be quite surprised if at the end of the day you couldn't buy unpainted as well.

I agree with pnweerar. Pre-painted has always been available at a price, but lots of gamers always preferred to paint their own figures even if they could afford professional painting or not. It makes it your army to build and paint it yourself.

News on the drop ships, no drop ships till the prepainted stuff comes out but they will be among the first releases.

You will not be helping out that many chinese workers, the figures will be machine painted, not hand painted.

Posted By lasgunpacker on 09/05/2006 12:18 PM
You will not be helping out that many chinese workers, the figures will be machine painted, not hand painted.

Building a specialized machine to paint the minis from start to finish is simply too expensive. Painting will be done in an assembly line fashion and will be a combination of pad printing, masking and spraying, dipping, and the occasional brush stroke for certain minis. While the painting operation will certainly be very mechanical in nature, there will be a human operator at each station.

Another thing to remember: the majority of factories in China are not slave camps or sweat-shops. They are simply factories full of efficient, if bored, men and women making a few yuan to send back to their families in the east. They work in factories because it beats farming.

MongooseMatt aserted that the miniatures were machine painted, not hand painted.  What exactly that means remains to be seen. 

Anyone who has bought any of the prepainted 'clix, or WotC miniatures knows that "assembly line" painting can produce some real cruddy miniatures, and MongooseMatt was trying to stem off that line of complaining early by mentioning the machine painting.

It'll be like the Matrix. (Isn't everything?)

You wake up to discover that your embryonic body has been plugged into
the hand that lives its days out painting the same single brush stroke over
and over again.

Then they release the third movie and everyone hates you.

Posted By lasgunpacker on 09/05/2006 1:03 PM

MongooseMatt aserted that the miniatures were machine painted, not hand painted.  What exactly that means remains to be seen. 

Anyone who has bought any of the prepainted 'clix, or WotC miniatures knows that "assembly line" painting can produce some real cruddy miniatures, and MongooseMatt was trying to stem off that line of complaining early by mentioning the machine painting.

My personal assembly line miniatures can garner crappy results.

I've heard that most Japanese collectable miniatures ('gashapon') are made in prototyping machines. They're million-dollar machines, but its not like one is made for every figure, but rather they are rented out to make some figures.



quality can be pretty high. Here's a nice Front Mission figure that stands about 2"-3" tall

Battlefield Evolution

Well, the concept of the game sounds moderatly interesting, but as soon as they said "pre-painted miniatures" I stopped reading.  I'm sure some people like the idea and it may even get people involved who would not otherwise do so.  However, modeling and painting are too big a part of the hobby for me so I have no interest in any game involving pre-painted miniautures. :thumbs down:

Starship Troopers Evolution

I was really impressed with the initial releases from SST and almost bought into the game.  However, as time passed and new models were released I became less and less happy with the "look", culminating in the Skinnies, which ranged from okay to absolutly awful.  If they are going to be re-doing the whole skinnie line, I might have taken another look, but again the idea of pre-painted minis just turns me off, which is a shame as I might otherwise have given SST a second look.  :(  

Since I was never a buyer or player of SST, I suppose my opinion isn't too relevant anyway, but this just makes me feel better about my decision not to buy into the game in the firszt play.  If they had not gone with the pre-painted rount they might have sucked me back in, so hopefully this will pull in enough new players to make up for any loss of reactionary, old-fashioned gamers like me.   

Actually they'll still produce the current miniatures for as long as people want them, and as a special order you can get the new miniatures unpainted... or at least that's what's been said.

So really it's a win win situation with the exception of posability of future models. Not too much of a comprimise, althought I'm not too sure they won't be alienating some of their customer base. They'll probably pick up more customers then they lose. Especially if they manage to start getting a timely release schedule going.