Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Future Wars => Topic started by: mcfonz on June 21, 2016, 11:37:28 PM
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Hi good folk of LAF!! I have backed this kickstarter myself already and then came here and found that I could find no mention of it already - and I know you guys like mechs, post apoc sci fi and evil looking guys in suits so thought I should share it! :D
(https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/012/740/251/311dc9a73423321a1b4449dcb39142c2_original.jpg?w=680&fit=max&v=1465916198&auto=format&q=92&s=e135732d1092cc6efc127c5a992be1b1)
(https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/012/743/459/5d6f43fb56586e240a5f99ce3183dd1e_original.jpg?w=680&fit=max&v=1465933296&auto=format&q=92&s=dd9034288a0ba8da99dff2157a2c36e6)
They even have their own comic to support the setting!
(https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/012/743/142/3f1f7c3668286b55b24f6a24084326a6_original.jpg?w=680&fit=max&v=1465931445&auto=format&q=92&s=353b4f48ed80c9b8e29b7e5ddeec17f3)
(https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/012/749/664/dc2abe6288ac711072635e588d90fa85_original.jpg?w=680&fit=max&v=1465982237&auto=format&q=92&s=f03126d7e32732547ee40a096259f3fe)
And the all important linky dink: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1752543891/armoured-syndicate/description
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Oh neat
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Can't really muster enthusiasm for yet another game nor yet for the human minis in the line.
However the machines aren't without merit. I especially like the hard angular aspect of the Dromeda ones. Not sure if I like them enough to invest in their big mech thing (assuming it even comes available) but I did pledge at the "3 for £17" level for a Pinstripe and two Talon drones (and was promptly robbed when they lowered the prices of "human sized" minis to £7 the very next day :P).
The big droid with pistols reminds me of AT-43 Cog machines, incidentally.
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The game looked a bit interesting to me, but once I found out they use Prodos for casting that interest disappeared completely.
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Purely by utter coincidence, yes, honestly! I found out overnight that the chap behind this project lives relatively locally - as I do with some of my articles on new releases on Random Platypus, I often let the manufacturer know - especially if they are a newish company.
He got in touch and as he was passing by as I finished off shift met up with me this morning.
He's a nice chap. I know people are bitter and angry with Prodos, but I think you also have to look past that a bit. Prodos has two parts to it - the part that produces and makes games to sell under the Prodos banner and the casting part of it. There are a lot of companies you probably don't realise use Prodos to cast their miniatures, and they are all entirely trustworthy.
The result of meeting the chap this morning (and I'll remember his name in a moment! ;D) is that I have been charged with reviewing some models for him and then offering them out as prizes. I hope to stick up another post on here later today with a little product review and the ways in which you can win a couple of sculpts.
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He's a nice chap. I know people are bitter and angry with Prodos, but I think you also have to look past that a bit. Prodos has two parts to it - the part that produces and makes games to sell under the Prodos banner and the casting part of it. There are a lot of companies you probably don't realise use Prodos to cast their miniatures, and they are all entirely trustworthy
Well, yeah, the problem I think would be that some folks just don't want to knowingly give Prodos any money at all any more -- even indirectly. While I don't feel particularly warm and fuzzy towards them, I'm not quite so stringent since they have not shafted me personally yet (and it's all about me! me! me!). Plus there is the fact that when/if they ever produce any minis for AS, those will most likely be of good to excellent quality.
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I know people are bitter and angry with Prodos, but I think you also have to look past that a bit. Prodos has two parts to it - the part that produces and makes games to sell under the Prodos banner and the casting part of it. There are a lot of companies you probably don't realise use Prodos to cast their miniatures, and they are all entirely trustworthy.
I don't doubt this guy's integrity at all. But I cannot 'look past' a company that STILL owes me product and has lied to me and other backers repeatedly. I refuse to buy anything from anyone that uses Prodos, which is why I asked this guy who did his casting. Supporting a company with a lack of integrity is something I just do not do, even indirectly by supporting another company that uses their services. If more people did this, companies (like Prodos) could not get away with the crap they do. In my opinion, everyone benefits when bad actions are not rewarded but instead are punished.
As I told the guy from Megaton who I communicated with, I wish him and his company the best, but I can't support anything that supports Jarek and crew.
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Yep...for me Prodos association (in any respect) is a no-go.
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Ok, so trying to be fair and reasonable I have let the chap know about your guys responses to my rather innocent initial post, whilst he is waiting for his account on here to be verified he's asked me to post this:
Like the majority of the small games/miniatures design companies in the UK at present, we use Prodos for some of our casting, nearly everyone does because there aren't really any viable alternatives. We have been using them for a couple of years, since before the problems with their own campaigns. because they produce really nice quality resin figures at a really good price. We are a customer of theirs the same as the backers of their campaigns are customers, I don't think it's fair trying to destroy the tens of small businesses in the UK trying to bring cool new miniatures to market in order to make a point and 'stick it to the man'. By not backing a small indie company's Kickstarter because they have to buy resin from a larger company is not hurting Prodos, it is stopping a guy in a small office in the UK from paying his rent and feeding his family. If you have an issue with Prodos... don't support them or their campaigns any more. Please don't take it out on the little guys.
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I understand his point, but the reality is supporting his KS does support Prodos. Maybe if enough of Prodos' business customers tell Jarek and crew 'Your actions are hurting us, we're finding an alternative' then Prodos would not be able to get away with the lack of integrity they've displayed.
I'm not trying to 'destroy his business', but I am also not going to support Prodos. If I was trying to destroy his business I would do crap like pledge for his KS and then litter the KS comments. I find it bizarre that by not buying something from him I am attempting to 'destroy his business'. I've not talked bad about him or the game, I admitted it looked interesting, I like the concepts. I'm not seeking out places to trash the project in any way. I do think it is fair to say, 'Hey, I am not going to support Prodos, even indirectly,' as a consumer of products in this hobby I honestly don't see that as mean spirited or even bad. There are folks who refuse to buy Games Workshop products, or support any business with Tony Reidy involved.
The game does look interesting. If he had a pledge for just rules (hard copy) I may even support that. The last Prodos/Archon KS projsect, LOAD, pulled in over 200k with a LOT of folks actively trashing Prodos (heck, they started out very literally plagiarizing another rule set). That project did as well as it did based in very large part on the fact Prodos DOES produce very nice figures.
I never would have made a second post to this topic, but when I read the"you also have to look past that a bit" part it prompted me to. Again, they still owe me stuff. Anyone who has paid for product, not received it and been lied to should not 'have to look past' a damned thing. I submit 'looking past' that just encourages continuance of bad behavior.
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I have to agree with Captain Jake. It's a personal opinion to not support Prodos in any way, a message I hope many companies will start to receive from the masses. Nice figures be damned, zero respect left for the company (and I didn't even pledge the AvP nonsense!). I don't need a guilt trip about feeding someone's kids when they chose to pursue this line of work and make their decisions for themselves.
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Elbows and Cpt.Jake - I don't think anyone is disagreeing about Prodos.
But there is an issue for the industry clients as well as clients who directly buy Prodos products. In that you bought into something before knowing about the way they did business.
I'm pretty sure that if Armoured Syndicate could just drop and move casters with no implications they may well have done.
Also, in regards to if enough of those industry clients stopped using them maybe they would change. It's my experience in various situations that this isn't the case. If everyone stopped using Prodos/Archon they would cease to trade. The reality is that for them to change the way they deal with the public, companies would need to continue to use them so that they have the ability to apply pressure.
It's a bit like a share holder selling up their shares and then telling a business how they should be run. You no longer hold any influence so the likelihood of them listening as such are zilch.
Also, my look past it comment has been taken out of context somewhat. When you are looking at a project like this, how much of the money going into it is going to Prodos? I don't know for sure but I suspect it's probably quite insignificant compared to the money that is going to support the company itself. Advising and pressuring people not to buy into it therefore is hurting Armoured Syndicate far more than it is Prodos.
Again, I don't know all of the exact in's and outs. Perhaps when the chaps account gets verified he'll be able to share more himself.
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Hi all
I finally managed to get an account on here to reply directly.
Yes, as has been said.... if there was an alternative to Prodos, we'd certainly look at it (given the problems this association seems to have caused) however at present there isn't one.
We looked at various UK casters but their prices were 300% higher than Prodos, yep, 3X. At the time we started working with Prodos they hadn't launched their own Kickstarters and all we knew was that they made really great quality resin figures for a really great price.
Yes, I guess it's your choice to boycott any UK companies who have to use them in order to indirectly send a message to Prodos.... but as it happens, the message has already got back to them as the link to this thread has already been sent back to them along with a strongly worded e-mail asking them to sort their s*it out....
If you have a genuine and useful suggestion as to what myself and the other 20+ UK companies reliant on them for figure production should do to NOT support Prodos but stay in business, I am all ears :-) We went through quotes and samples from 4 or 5 casting companies before anyone came anywhere close to Prodos on price or quality.
All I ask is.... people see this from our point of view, that's all.... at present our choice is... stop manufacturing resin miniatures, or get them made by Prodos.... that's not much choice to have really.
And the only reason I was unhappy about this being posted was due to Jack having asked me in confidence via the Kickstarter itself who did our casting and then publicly announced that it was Prodos on here for the sake of putting people off supporting the project.... which I found a little upsetting. I wasn't hiding it, I wasn't even aware they had such a problem with their delivery until now.... it's just not nice when someone specifically asks for private commercial information in confidence, tells you that means they won't back your project (which I was fine with) but then posts that information publicly when seeing a public thread about the same project.
Anyway, anybody wants more info, has suggestions of other manufacturers or wants to chat, feel free to message me on here or drop me a message through our website: http://www.megaton-games.com
Cheers all
Ben
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Ben, thanks for chiming in.
Personally, I simply won't risk money on anything related to Prodos - regardless of what portion of a product they're involved in. However, I'm quite sure I'm a member of a very small vocal minority. I believe the AvP debacle only had maybe 2500 backers or some such. I wouldn't worry too much about it impacting sales other than a handful of folks. I do think Prodos needs to get some vocal responses to their practices from backers and partners. The perfect result here is that Prodos turns a corner and everything becomes reliable and produced on time - shipped to people etc. As it stands now, I personally won't trust anything to them.
Now we can let that issue die off and people can discuss the actual Kickstarter! lol
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I really like the minis. I'm putting together a little review that I hope to share with you all in the next couple of days so you can perhaps get a better feel for them.
This was Ben's suggestions after seeing my posts here and elsewhere and has provided me with mini's to review and then offer as prizes for very simple to enter comps.
Keep your eyes peeled! ;)
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Apologies for the double post - my little review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XmLGHFJp8U
Competitions to follow shortly to be able to win the miniatures.
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Just to add my two penneth worth:
The whole casting issue has gotten way out of hand. It seems to me that, due to some very uncharitable and possibly dirty tricks, this cool little project might actually fail, and a small business owner might struggle to kickstart his company. That sucks big time.
Here's a list of companies I've found (not exhaustive) that use/have used Prodos to cast their minis. Some of these companies are pretty successful, so it seems fishy to me that someone would single out Armoured Syndicate in an effort to see them fail.
The list:
Ninja Division, Mantic Games, Warlords Gates of Antares, TitanForge, MicroArt Studio, White Dragon Miniatures, Riverhorse, Steamforged Games, Freebooter Minatures, Infamy Miniatures, Age of Tyrants, Rycerze pustkowi, Shadowrun, Demigods Evolution, Norsgard, Miniature 13, Perditions Mouth, Wargamer, Hysterical Games, Awaken Realms, Troll Trader, Armoured Syndicate, Fregged Empire, Collision, hint The Game, Modiphious, Dungeon Saga, Apollo.
It's a tricky situation for sure, especially if you've been personally burned by Prodos, but a total boycott of Prodos' services is pretty tricky given how competitive their casting services seem to be, and how many people use them. They're becoming like the wargames equivalent of Nestle...
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For those that like the miniatures - I am running a little competition that will enable four winners picked out of a hat to win one of the four miniatures I was given to review. Here's the comp video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrO27Gv1N7w
The order in which they are pulled out of the hat will mean the order of choice so first place can pick one of the four, 2nd picks one of the remaining three and so on.
The draw will be made after the end of the kick-starter.
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I think re: Prodos it's easy to throw the baby out with the bath water - they might be a bunch of pricks that I would never order from directly but I've bought stuff from several companies that use them without issue. Also lets not forget that when they have delivered they have demonstrated an ability to produce amazing castings.
All that said you won't find me ordering anything directly from Prodos!
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Prodos seem to be on the ball with their business side dealing with companies like Bens, but some how dont have much of a clue with their own campaigns :/
Theres a good chance some of the people who dont want to support Prodos anyway whatever, are actually buying their stuff they have produced for others without knowing they were involved, just look at the list above to who they have helped one way or another.
Maybe launching as close as it did to the debarcle that was Load and being associated to Prodos, has had its negative effect on what is a fine campaign with some great minis and scenery, which should be doing great, its the curse of Prodos :(
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Anyway just under 4 days left of the campaign.
The RO-RO Rabbit and the brass etched sheet have been unlocked.
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Just thought I'd pop in again and say thanks for the folks who have stood up for us and the other small businesses who seem to have been tarred with the Prodos brush.
Just to confirm, we are looking at other casting options for the models for this campaign AND future campaigns, I would only ask that people give us and all the other small UK producers time to find alternative options and not flatly refuse to buy anyone's products until then :-)
We are now in the last few days of the campaign and, although things have been slow the last week we are starting to see the usual end-of-campaign spike, so are hopeful we'll bust another couple of stretch goals before we end.
Here's the campaign link again: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1752543891/armoured-syndicate (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1752543891/armoured-syndicate)
Just to add, having been annoyed (as a mini collector/painter myself) by campaigns that make you buy a whole faction to get the one model you might want, we are allowing people to pledge at just £1 and then buy ANY of the models or scenery from the campaign by themselves so people can get JUST what they want if they want to dabble with a few models for now.
To do this all you have to do is pledge for the £1 'Freelance' reward option then just add on the correct amount to your pledge total for the items you want (which are all listed with individual prices on the campaign page).
Thanks all
Will post one more update in a couple of days once we hit the final hours of the campaign.
Ben
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A rare turn of events -- the first one of its kind for me actually. The project was funded but cancelled after the fact. So no fulfillment of pledges but instead all those who participated have been promised a full refund. This was already announced as "backers only" but this latest one on the subject is public (possibly accidentally but still):
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1752543891/armoured-syndicate/posts/1632455
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As much as that might suck for backers it's far better than realizing something is amiss two years from now. Maybe math was done and they realized they'd misjudged or didn't have the right set-up for a successful production run, etc.
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Well that's a new one on me. Still, better realize the project is non-viable right away than spend all the funding only to try and fail, or delay things for years and years and years. Still waiting on Trollforged's Alien Host stuff, and I have been since 2012.
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I've seen a couple fold right before the end of the campaign but this is the first I've seen do it after successfully funding. I hope he can issue the refunds without paying the kickstarter fee or he'll end up in a deep, deep hole.
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There is apparently a clause in the agreement that allows you to refund without paying the fee if you do it before you receive any money from Kickstarter. Some kind of "I don't want the money after all" paragraph. Haven't tried to check if this is in fact so.
ETA -- anyway, just received a message from KS that confirms I've "received a refund for your pledge to the Armoured Syndicate project".
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That's cool. It ups the chance he'll be able to give it another shot.
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To be honest, I find it a little refreshing, rather than trying to push on and struggle or to deliver a product but with less support as they had intended or at a compromise in quality, they have decided to be straight up and explain everything and refund the backers and promise to do better when they relaunch at a later date.
They have my respect for that. I'll probably back again then as I really like the corporation faction.
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Hi all
Well, a few months later.... and, as promised, we have re-launched.
We took advice from backers, potential backers, friends and experts/colleagues in the industry and fixed a numner of issues with the project.
The game and the miniature range was much more suited to being a miniatures board game than a skirmish game... so that is the direction we have taken it.... we have now got a fully developed board game which has undergone play testing and is now a MUCH more complete and finished product than the 'tbc' skirmish rules we were offering last time.
We have also refined the story, had 5 new miniatures sculpted (which are all very cool) and doubled the funding target.
Finally, following comments on this forum as well as elsewhere, we will now be getting all our miniatures manufactured and cast by a UK company.
The game went live about 48hrs ago and funded in 2hrs... we are now 6 stretch-goals in and climbing.... if folks are interested in seeing the new campaign it's here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackphoenix/armoured-syndicate-the-board-game/
All the best!
Ben
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Congrats on getting funded (again), even if not yet by a huge margin 8)
It is kinda common knowledge that miniature boardgames do generally much better than just miniature games.
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Have to confess I was disappointed by the change in direction and won't be backing this time around...
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Yeah, it was a risk to change to a board game but we believe it's the right direction for the story and for the small but high-quality miniatures range we want to create...
Lots of cool miniatures coming in the stretch goals and we've only just started to unlock them :-)
Ben
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I agree that Miniature based Boardgames seems to be where the market is currently, whatever the genre they are popular on Kickstarter and invariably do well.
Difficult balance though between quality miniatures and quality gameplay/components without pricing the game out of reach of casual buyers.
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It is indeed a tough balance Rob....
By keeping the number of miniatures lower in the core box (10) we've kept the base price for the game down to around the £50 mark which isn't bad at all for a miniatures game (especially with resin miniatures that normally cost £7 - £8 each)... but people's view is always going to be a little skewed by the games from the big companies that give you 120 low-detail plastic figures for a $100 pledge :-)
Ben
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The KS is rolling along quite nicely, a few SGs unlocked etc, im really liking the Dead Crows faction
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Not to put down the game itself, but is there (or will there) be a way to get the miniatures without the game?
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I think all of them can be bought separately as add-ons by adding a £2 overhead. No "miniatures only" pledge tho as opposed to "game only" pledge. I'm in for a couple of Dromeda droids myself, the same as I was the first time around.
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It's a reasonable assumption, but I didn't see anything about stand alone figures available on the front page or the updates. I'm just interested in those bigger mechs like the jackhammer.
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Seems a pretty obvious "get them as add-ons" procedure to me:
£2 or more
Investor
Gain access to the pledge manager and all add-on items available throughout the campaign
Furthermore, the images for some minis say "buy them separately". Of course this has been lacking in a lot of miniature board game KS projects of late so it's not a default.