[KICKSTARTER] Armoured Syndicate

[mcfonz]

Apologies for the double post - my little review:

Competitions to follow shortly to be able to win the miniatures.

[psyberwyche]

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...

[mcfonz]

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:

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.

[Love_the_Lash]

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!

[Original Timmy]

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

[Original Timmy]

Anyway just under 4 days left of the campaign.

The RO-RO Rabbit and the brass etched sheet have been unlocked.

[rocketandroll]

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

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

[tnjrp]

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

[Elbows]

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.

[Hobby Services]

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.

[rwwin]

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.

[tnjrp]

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".
 

[rwwin]

That's cool.  It ups the chance he'll be able to give it another shot.

[mcfonz]

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.

[rocketandroll]

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