Sedition Wars Kickstaters shipping soon!

[Major_Gilbear]

At a guess... Hurley's drones have their own cards with large blue symbols that correspond to different types.  They're represented by tokens until we get the models in the next shipment.

Also, there's a token like a green sun - Override?

The plain Vanguard tokens - wound trackers?

Yeah, that lines up with what I figured out earlier today. The plain Vanguard tokens I thought were used for tracking the Tactical Points or whatever they're called (the points that the Vanguard player generates every turn and can save up /spend on various Tactics / special orders).

[tnjrp]

Quality complaints are starting to mount, here's one unpleasant-sounding example:
http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=293193

Even officially, the plastic is susceptible to warping in "extreme" cold etc.

But then again, it wasn't too expensive

My parcel was last logged leaving Denmark on Friday. At the rate it's moving (a country a day), it'll be hard pressed to get here by the ETA, which is to say tomorrow.

[Commander Vyper]

My only comments so far is that kara's nose is a little flattened,  I'd rather have cut the minis from the sprue myself, the drone's gun barrel needs heating and twisting and a simple construction sheet for the multi piece minis would have been helpful.

 As I say only a really superficial look so far, will try to find some time for a more detailed check soon.

[Momotaro]

Hmm, I kind of agree with a lot of the TMP criticisms, but I don't think any of them are that serious.

Sprues?  Yes please.  There are so many small, fiddly pieces that need washing and keeping track of individually, it's a real pain.  Many of the bits are tiny, and would easily slip down a plughole (so keep 'em away from plugholes...).

My Grendlr needed reshaping in hot water as per the instruction video, and the Cthonians' legs were noticeably bent.  In the end I assembled the figure, dipped only the legs in hot water, and straightened them so they made a good join with the base - just 30 seconds' work.  The rest of the Strain went together pretty well, with only minor filling needed afterwards.   The Quasimodo does need careful positioning to make sure its centre of gravity is actually over the base, but that's pretty obvious looking at the figure.

The Vanguard troops.  Some pretty nasty mould lines on very fine detail, and the plastic-resin they use makes removing them cleanly a real pain in the backside.  I had exactly the same complaint about Mantic's restic, and I really wish they had gone with injection styrene.

The fit of the shoulders on the male troopers and bare-headed females is very poor, and they all needed filling afterwards.  The helmeted female troopers were, weirdly, just fine.  I also only got one of the bare-head variants (but the correct number of figures, so no worries), and had to drop a line to CoolMiniOrNot's support e-mail to get a missing Reaver cannon sent out.  Got a very prompt reply.

It's support@coolminiornot.com if you have any problems.

Glue-wise, I started using only superglue gel.  After much swearing, I switched to "painting" them with the pen from Loctite's All-Plastic superglue.  That made assembly much less hassle.  The tiny wrists on the Akosha's sniper rifle were the only one that had me close to pounding the mini flat with a hammer.

The rest of the stuff is great - the rulebook is good, the tiles look fantastic (whinge - it's quite hard to see blocking walls on the tiles, and we could do with a description of which door type is which).  Some of the stat cards have the back printed upside-down, which isn't really a problem unless you put them into multi-card holders.

The game itself looks good.  I'm impressed with the range of options for even the basic troopers, and play looks, on a first read-through, to have some depth.

I spent the weekend assembling the figures, and to be honest there's nothing there that should daunt a mini modeller - you've seen every problem a hundred times before.  But there's a lot of work there, and it can get frustrating.  I feel for boardgamers who just want pretty models to put straight on the board.

The minis are ready for priming now, and they look pretty damn awesome assembled.  Only a few more grey hairs to add to my collection...

[obsidian3d]

Not sure if I mentioned here after my last post, but I did indeed get a tracking confirmation a few days ago. I'm looking forward to it arriving, reported problems or no. Other than Dreadball I haven't been working on anything sci-fi or futuristic in quite a while, so it'll be a nice change from horrific scenery markers and pulpy heroes & villains.

[zizi666]

Well, all parts have been sorted and afterwards soaked/brushed in the sink.
The Grendlrs are a pain in the arse. The first one seems ok after the hot water treatment (sorta), the second needed another dip and now I'm under the impression it got deformed too much. the underside doesn't line up anymore (hopefuly it won't show that much once assembled).
There are also rather large gaps between the mouth and torso 
There is flash, which shouldn't pose a problem, but on some places it's perpendicular to detail (e.g. muscle tissue)

For now I'm still rather content with my purchase, but I so hope the gnosis armor and thi suit won't suffer from the same problem.

[manatic]

I think people should just ship stuff like that back en masse, instead of just accepting that they're receiving a quality-wise subpar product, i.e. not what they paid for.

[Major_Gilbear]

Hmm, it seems I got luckier than some on the figures!  

In my set, the figures were all somewhat greasy and will need a lot of scrubbing before I think they'll take and hold paint properly. No biggie, but it's extra work to be aware of.

Mouldlines seemed fine generally (nothing too bad anyway), and I got mostly lucky on how well the parts were clipped from the sprue - again, nothing too bad there that I've spotted so far. Details seemed to be very good for plastic figures, although these are just not on the same scale of quality and components-ingenuity as the GW big-boxes like IoB, SH or DV (but then, what is?). That said, there are remarkably few undercut issues for these figures (considering they are plastic), and they are all in relatively few components too, which is excellent! They compare favourably with the metals too, and I'll try and get some comparison pix up if people are interested?

I also seem to have been lucky with the fit of the parts and warping. None of my figures were noticeably warped, and all the parts seemed to have a good tight fit (although a few parts will need cleaning up to get the best fit).

I also got the Opticamo and GitD sets. The Gitd set was fine, although the comments on fitting and sprue marks are much more important here as you can't putty the models in the usual manner. The Opticamo was disappointing - they were all pretty much frosted in appearance rather than clear. I might be able to polish them, but I feel that they could have been made in a more "clear" plastic (or factory-polished perhaps if it is a mould and not material issue). Same comments regarding the fit of the parts and cleaning up mould lines applies as per the GitD models. They are cool figures, and I'm sure I'll make them work, but I do feel a little buyer's regret with these as it is very obvious indeed that they are going to be a lot of work.

The boards all seemed fine to me and were well printed. The card is thick and rigid, but looking at the edges I can see why some people's may have split apart. I plan on sealing the edges of my boards with glue/paint and some varnish. I did this years ago with Warhammer Quest and it really prolonged the life of the components. I don't think they are worse than most board games though.

The tokens... I have mixed feelings about; specifically, I feel that some of the designs are a bit too abstract and are therefore not very clear. I got an extra boards set, and therefore got two lots of tokens; one set was fine, the other set was quite badly off-centre. I also feel that the tokens should have been labelled on the sheets (so that you know what they are) as there was lots of space to do so. Also the die-cutting on the tokens could have been better, as I had to trim every token with an Xacto knife after punching them out.

The dice were all fine, although stronger colours would have been preferred for visibility reasons given the white text. The pale colours are fine if you play on a black surface though, as then the white pips/logos stand out well.

The cards... No idea why they were a different size (reminds me of the QA issues that Fantasy Flight had with a number of their games' cards). Shouldn't be a big issue though as they are (1) not meant to be shuffled AFAIK, and (b) supposed to go into protector sleeves so that they can be marked with a pen.

The rulebooks was very nice. No token almanac was a shame, and should have either been added the the start or added in "chunks" to each relevant section. The rules mostly did the latter, but a number of tokens are left unidentified and it's up to you to work out which are which. I also think that a stronger/more durable cover would have been beneficial. I'll comment on the rules later when I have read them properly and played a game or two.

An assembly guide would have been helpful, and could have even been included on one of the box's side panels instead of the repeating text. Minor nitpick, but a few parts took me a good few minutes to figure out.

Finally, the bases. I love that they included a variety of sculpted bases with clip-on parts. However, some of the bases I received were very softly cast detail-wise and look a bit blobby. Also, a number of the bases (and the coloured clip-on parts) don't clip together properly with each other. I am also concerned that they are going to be hard to weight, and that some of the bigger Strain models don't fit on their intended bases.

So in conclusion then:

1) The game is a board game with miniatures rather than board game models, and that means the models in it should be treated as such. I suspect that many people who are more boardgamers than tabletop gamers are going to struggle a bit with this.

2) The teeny-tiny parts should have been left on small sprue frames so that they can be cleaned and assembled safely and easily.

3) The tokens need labelling and better QA.

4) The bases need better QA

5) The boards and rulebook are fine, although the rulebook cover could be a bit more durable.

6) The Opticamo and GitD figures are fun and cool, but need serious quality improvement (especially as they are Limited Edition).

____________________________________________________________________

I will also comment briefly on the painting DVD that the McVeys are due to produce for the game. Namely, there are a lot of non-miniature gamers who are asking for the DVD to cover techniques like washing and drybrushing and so on. However, I would be *massively* disappointed if the DVD doesn't cover a fully detailed and in-depth paint-along for each miniature type in the game to a studio display level. Why? Because tutorials for basic techniques are widely described in detail all over the web are are easy painting methods to try without much prior painting experience. And so therefore, what is valuable here is not the same basic stuff rehashed again, but rather the opportunity to paint along (and learn how to paint well) with the McVeys. I think that it would be a totally wasted opportunity for the McVeys to produce a DVD on washes and drybrushing rather than a paint-along master class.

____________________________________________________________________

Rounding out my wall-o-text, I thought I'd reply to this:

I think people should just ship stuff like that back en masse, instead of just accepting that they're receiving a quality-wise subpar product, i.e. not what they paid for.

Whilst I do agree with the sentiment somewhat, I have to say that this is a KS project and not a commercial product purchase... And that changes the perspective a bit.

The subtle difference here is that without backers, there'd be no product, and that sending the product back won't resolve any of the issues. Furthermore, whilst quality control has obviously slipped in some areas, the overall product is still good value and well-produced generally. If this was a regular boardgame that folks had purchased, I doubt that many of these "issues" would be discussed in this way. However, the KS element has led many (myself included) to emotionally invest in the product much more than would otherwise be the case, and has led to some very critical assessments as a result. I don't see this level of comment or scrutiny being levelled at games like Horus Heresy or Twilight Imperium for example, and games like Agricola have some pretty fucking awful meeples too (why can't they supply some better-looking ones? There are lots out there that you can buy separately, and it is already an expensive game to buy).

[Dr.Falkenhayn]

and I'll try and get some comparison pix up if people are interested?

Yes please,i didn't backed this (cos it's just another Sci-fi Game  ) but i would like to see some Scale Pix,esp.the Strain Guys

[manatic]

Whilst I do agree with the sentiment somewhat, I have to say that this is a KS project and not a commercial product purchase... And that changes the perspective a bit.

The subtle difference here is that without backers, there'd be no product, and that sending the product back won't resolve any of the issues. Furthermore, whilst quality control has obviously slipped in some areas, the overall product is still good value and well-produced generally. If this was a regular boardgame that folks had purchased, I doubt that many of these "issues" would be discussed in this way. However, the KS element has led many (myself included) to emotionally invest in the product much more than would otherwise be the case, and has led to some very critical assessments as a result. I don't see this level of comment or scrutiny being levelled at games like Horus Heresy or Twilight Imperium for example, and games like Agricola have some pretty fucking awful meeples too (why can't they supply some better-looking ones? There are lots out there that you can buy separately, and it is already an expensive game to buy).

Some good points there, although I disagree about the Kickstarter/commercial product thing: it's an existing company that's producing the stuff, and they got a whopping million (or something to that effect) from the backers to do it. So, we're not exactly talking about a wobbly start-up company here. I don't know about the income levels of people here, but if I were splashing hundreds of dollars on minis in one go, I'd definitely be expecting top notch stuff. If anything, the emotional investment should warrant an even better quality product than usual - otherwise the Kickstarter starts to look awfully lot like simply a glorified pre-order system instead of actually reaching out to the customers.

Another point is that while Sedition Wars is indeed a boardgame, it has definitely been marketed with the miniatures and aimed at the miniatures crowd. They're not just gaming tokens, like those in Horus Heresy, Twilight Imperium or Agricola. I can accept mould lines in my chess pieces, but I'm not out to paint those

I'm thinking that this might be or become something of a problem with these large Kickstarters. A lot of people will be jumping in, a lot of money will change hands and the backers will be eager to receive their product. This will doubtlessly push the manufacturer to hurry with shipping, taking time away from quality control etc. It seems Reaper isn't falling into this trap, as they not only have their infrastructure for the Bones minis in place, but are taking their time to deliver a quality product.

[Major_Gilbear]

Some good points there, although I disagree about the Kickstarter/commercial product thing: it's an existing company that's producing the stuff, and they got a whopping million (or something to that effect) from the backers to do it.

It is a lot of money, but that figure raised does include items like shipping which had to be included in the pledges. Also, the main benefit was to set the range of models and the boardgame production up rather than make profit directly. Also, KS snips 5% of the final pledge amount for self too... It all adds up.

So, we're not exactly talking about a wobbly start-up company here. I don't know about the income levels of people here, but if I were splashing hundreds of dollars on minis in one go, I'd definitely be expecting top notch stuff. If anything, the emotional investment should warrant an even better quality product than usual

Actually, just because they are an existing company with a well-known face and expensive models, it doesn't mean that they are rolling in money or have huge production facilities. In fact, I suspect that their production capabilities are negligible, and that's what the KS was intended to help fund. In other words, the boardgame was really intended to launch a line of miniatures, and the KS was to launch the boardgame.

Kickstarter starts to look awfully lot like simply a glorified pre-order system instead of actually reaching out to the customers.

Well, it kinda is!

Another point is that while Sedition Wars is indeed a boardgame, it has definitely been marketed with the miniatures and aimed at the miniatures crowd. They're not just gaming tokens, like those in Horus Heresy, Twilight Imperium or Agricola. I can accept mould lines in my chess pieces, but I'm not out to paint those

Very true. As I mentioned above, the boardgame is really intended to launch a line of miniatures, not the other way around. Also, given Mike McVey's pedigree and the circles he's known in, appealing to wargamers is a fairly obvious move.

I'm thinking that this might be or become something of a problem with these large Kickstarters. A lot of people will be jumping in, a lot of money will change hands and the backers will be eager to receive their product. This will doubtlessly push the manufacturer to hurry with shipping, taking time away from quality control etc.

I agree that rushing is an issue. I also think it highlights how much work projects like this can involve and the time it takes from plans to production. Now imagine if games like BfA had to be funded out of profits accumulated from sales of other items - it'd take years to get something like this off the ground!

It seems Reaper isn't falling into this trap, as they not only have their infrastructure for the Bones minis in place, but are taking their time to deliver a quality product.

Reaper have a *huge* advantage over the likes of Studio McVey - namely that the models are pretty much all sculpted (they are mostly re-moulds of their metal figs lines) and that production facilities which they already have set up (as "Reaper Bones" is not new) are ready to go. Their KS is literally just paying the cost of the staff and moulds! They don't have any printing, out-of-house sculpting, rules-proofing, or other similar issues that SMcV have to launch. The Reaper KS was solely about expanding what they already had set up, and not about setting up or coordinating anything new.

[tnjrp]

So, the ETA was correct after all as it looks like UPS has tried to deliver my parcel.

However, "surprisingly" I wasn't at home to receive it during office hours. And as the e-mail I received to that effect didn't contain the InfoNotice number, now I have to handle the delivery change from home over a slow connection instead of a fast one from the office. Assuming they left the InfoNotice number there and decided not to bother with such -- they might expect I'll sit around all day tomorrow waiting for a box full of toy soldiers. As if.

Ah well, UPS is meant for delivering goods from company to company so this is hardly a surprise

[Momotaro]

Details seemed to be very good for plastic figures, although these are just not on the same scale of quality and components-ingenuity as the GW big-boxes like IoB, SH or DV (but then, what is?).

i think that may be one of the problems - GW has really raised the bar in terms of plastic quality.  Just comparing the terminator figures from Black Reach to those in Dark Vengeance shows how far they've come in even a few years.

As for the Sedition Wars figures, I love 'em, right down to the detail on the bases.  I softened my initial post above, because although assembly was a bit of a pain, there were no showstoppers.  There's honestly nothing that I'd ship back asking for a replacement.

I'm not a fan of plastic-resin - I've also encountered many of the problems I discussed above on Mantic's figures.  I can see the advantage to smaller companies, but I'm really at the point where I'd think twice about buying more in the material.

[Ajsalium]

They compare favourably with the metals too, and I'll try and get some comparison pix up if people are interested?

Another request. Some people have commented on the shrinkage minis have apparently suffered, and I'd like to see if it's as bad as they say. I requested a thi suit from a backer, but if the plastic model gets noticeably smaller it would be useless for me.

[Mike D. Mc Brice]

I'd also like to see a comparison picture.