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Hra Mormo posted:All GW threads are hug box echo chambers. Whoa friend, thoughts like that eventually lead to 'gas GW' and then there would be no mini games left.
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May 12, 2017 15:16
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| # ? May 15, 2024 13:42 |
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That sounds like something Yoda would say and Yoda was a massive prick. Gas Yoda.
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May 12, 2017 15:17
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Hugs not drugs.
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May 12, 2017 15:46
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I'm spending more time than expected sitting at home while a hole in my ceiling is being plugged so i might as well make an effort post. I dedicate it to all the people who just can’t cope with the death thread(s). Wherever there is a death thread you’ll find me. In case anyone missed it the first time around: I'm a Talon, a volunteer promoter, and i get paid in product for demo events and the like. I have talked to some of the team at the Spiel in Essen and i'm on friendly terms with the German distributor but other than that i have no special insight into the inner workings of the company. If you were to ask me if Hawk is a Good Company i'd say i like them and enjoy their games. Hawk Wargames is a small company and it shows. Dave Lewis, the owner and founder did almost everything himself in the early days: sculpting, painting the studio minis, photographing them, writing the rules and actually running the business. Great to get started but he has admitted himself that he sometimes has trouble delegating stuff and wants to do everything himself. As the company grew that sometimes manifested itself outwards as he couldn't complete all the task he set for himself. This has gotten better with more specialists being brought on and in general they have more professional appearances and communication nowadays. Dropfleet Kickstarter: In October 2015 Hawk Wargames launched a kickstarter for a new space combat game in collaboration with Andy Chambers. The purpose was to finance injection molds to get the starter fleets out in plastic for release, something that had taken a good bit longer with Dropzone Commander, their 10mm ground combat game. The kickstarter blew up beyond all expectations, the original 40K£ being funded in minutes and the end result being 629K£. Production went well enough with reasonable delays, mostly due to unspecified print items. The logistics of actually packaging and shipping all the pledges was beyond anything the company had ever handled before. Even with additional people hired for this it took much longer than they had anticipated. They had originally promised to ship all kickstarter pledges before retail release but they had also had arrangements with their distributors and retailers and were pretty much locked in on a release at Spiel 2016. On one hand i can see why people were pissed, on the other hand i'd much see retail release before getting my stuff than having the game falter due to a botched launch. As of today i'm still waiting on my station kit and some other kickstarter goodies as well as replacements for some damaged parts. Personally i'm not upset about it because i can play the game perfectly fine with what i have but it isn't exactly impressive either. Throughout, i think communication was mostly adequate but the thing that was really grinding was that every two weeks it'd be "We're deeply sorry folks, we need another two weeks". This is exaggerated of course but i do think one or two larger delay announcements would have gone over much better than countless smaller ones. Communication: To this day we sometimes get products that show up at retailers with zero announcement and people not knowing what exactly is in the blister until someone posts it on facebook. A lot of info only comes from people talking to team members at cons and you have to be pretty dedicated to stay up to date. They’ve been slowly getting better but there’s still a long way to go. Infantry: This here are the original metal basic human soldier guys (mine)  They’re a bit flat and lumpy but as soon as your face is more than 20cm away from them they’re perfectly servicable. Then we have the infantry from the plastic starters (not mine)  They look like cheap toy soldiers even from a distance. From what i know they were outsourced to the molding company and after many revisions that all looked like poo poo they basically told Hawk “Take these or gently caress you” so that’s what we got. These are special forces guys from the second wave of infantry (mine)  Already looking much better, not nearly as squashed and pretty nice looking for the scale. Newer Infantry are digitally sculpted and even better but the guys above are at a decent quality for 10mm imo. Command Cards: Nafire posted:The traditional mechanism to fixing balance has been releasing randomised card draw mechanics, which are sort of compulsory but lots of people refuse to play with. Yes, they bring another random element to the game (the other being dice rolls obviously) but personally i find they add a lot to both games and outside of starter box games i’ve never met anyone who doesn’t use them or doesn’t like them tbh. Rules: Hawks rules are an odd mix of fresh ideas and old fashioned approaches. There’s a ton of things i’d change if i could but flawed as they are i still enjoy their games. Their technical writing leaves a lot to be desired and some things slip through testing and proofreading that really should be caught. They’ve started to run things by talons prior to release for proofreading and comments so i’m hopeful that this aspect is going to get better. I wish they had done this before releasing the Dropfleet book but things were super hectic for them and better late than never. Edit: I have some nerd pride that one of my suggestions for the Dropfleet command cards made it to print. It’s also worth noting that they don’t have free rules available and allegedly Dave was originally baffled at the suggestion of giving something they are selling away for free  Rumor is that something is in the pipe on that front.
Bistromatic fucked around with this message at 16:16 on May 12, 2017 |
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May 12, 2017 15:47
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Bistromatic posted:Dropfleet stuff I think the main frustration was due to the retail release and Hawk having basically no idea how long anything was going to take and giving bad information over and over again. They basically started saying in the middle of the sumer 2016 that they were just waiting on a few items and would be shipping soon. As the months drifted by they kept saying this but it became clear either they were not telling us the truth or that there were serious issues with some things. They then completely failed on the estimation of how long stuff would take to ship (not really that surprising) but it also seemed that they perhaps didn't prepare as well as they could have for it as they stated they literally had most of the models in their warehouse for months. Anyway eventually they started shipping extremely slowly and it took several months to ship. So the game ended up released to retail months before many kickstarter backers actually got anything. I myself waited about a month before getting my order. Additionally while the kickstarter originally was supposed to be one wave of items, it ended up getting split into two as Hawk struggled to get some things done (again not really that surprising as they got way more money than they were expecting). As is we have not really heard from them in a couple months and have had basically no word officially on whats going on with wave two, which includes all the map packs for the game as apparently they are having some printing issues? Our only updates are from people talking to them at trade shows these days. Some people on the kickstarter are also reporting that they still have not gotten their stuff... All in all the actual fulfillment was a clusterfuck and the technical writing is bad and has some typos (Traffic James!) But the game seems fairly fun and the models are pretty solid. I like it but it was kinda a frustrating experience that took a little wind out of my sails to do anything with my pledge, as all my excitement to start was lost while waiting for so long repeatedly being told it would be shipping very soon.
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May 12, 2017 16:05
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Hawk has some really cool stuff, both rules and models-wise, but there's a typo on every goddamn page of their rule books. It's nuts.
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May 12, 2017 16:10
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Pash posted:Dropfleet kickstarter
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May 12, 2017 16:13
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I kind of wonder if some of these companies shouldn't have a cap on their Kickstarter goals. Like once it hits a certain value it's locked in as "funded", people are charged, and it's treated as if the timer ran out. I know Mantic has attempted to control Kickstarters by limiting everyone to only pledging for a core box with whatever stretch goals are unlocked, but every other Kickstarter lets people add on tons of extras and pick and choose the composition of their order and when you're dealing with product valued in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and you're a ten man team it's going to be a disaster. Seems like they should hire a manager ahead of time who can evaluate their team and processes and say, "This is what we can reasonably handle on the timeline we're projecting," and kill the Kickstarter when it gets to that threshold.
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May 12, 2017 16:19
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Atlas Hugged posted:I kind of wonder if some of these companies shouldn't have a cap on their Kickstarter goals. Like once it hits a certain value it's locked in as "funded", people are charged, and it's treated as if the timer ran out. What like, "That's it, no more pledges"? Because that'd suck if you were just a little too late to a popular kickstarter.
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May 12, 2017 16:53
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We have a word for "too late for a popular kickstarter:" It's called "retail." And it's what more of these companies should be doing.
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May 12, 2017 16:55
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Given that miniatures have a high upfront cost to launch a line and very minimal costs to continue production, kickstarter is like the ideal place to fund something. I think the issue is less the kickstarter business model and more that most nerds make horrible product managers that can't deliver at scale.
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May 12, 2017 17:05
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tallkidwithglasses posted:Given that miniatures have a high upfront cost to launch a line and very minimal costs to continue production, kickstarter is like the ideal place to fund something. I think the issue is less the kickstarter business model and more that most nerds make horrible product managers that can't deliver at scale. Yeah I was kind of thinking that if they are at the point where they're hiring a manager then they wouldn't run into most of the problems they do.
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May 12, 2017 17:12
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Ilor posted:We have a word for "too late for a popular kickstarter:" It's called "retail." And it's what more of these companies should be doing. Sure! Though sometimes you get a Gloomhaven or Feast for Odin(which wasn't kickstarted) where it's really hard to find retail, or the price has been jacked up on ebay or whatever.
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May 12, 2017 17:34
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Other thread didn't have any possums in it. I'm happy it got locked.
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May 12, 2017 17:37
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New thread imperative: Post pictures of your dogs.
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May 12, 2017 17:43
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May 12, 2017 17:45
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Mantic's KS addiction is killing their retail presence. My store stocked a poo poo ton of Mantic and it doesn't sell because everyone who wants Mantic stuff is buying it via KS and everyone else is just bringing proxies.
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May 12, 2017 17:47
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My Fat Yuan Yuan's came yesterday and I was really sad I couldn't post the cool rear end packaging they came in cuz I thought the Death Thread died but it lives again!    
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May 12, 2017 17:48
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Good doggo. Bad Animes.
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May 12, 2017 17:50
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My dog is kinda weird looking, and also he's really dumb.
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May 12, 2017 17:53
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Mantic just sent out an email that basically said they're now splitting wave 2 of the Warpath Kickstarter into two waves. They tried really hard not to call it wave 3, but that's what it is. Looks like I won't be seeing my tank until fall.
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May 12, 2017 17:58
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I don't have any pets. Prior experience has taught me that animals become violent and cannibalistic in my presence. I wish Mantic would stop using KS, I hope GW's new rules are a stepping stone in the right direction because I still love the Tau for some dumb reason, and I don't have any desire to play any minis games with more than a few models. I guess that's my contribution to the resurrection of the glorious Death Thread, the thread about death.
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May 12, 2017 17:59
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fnordcircle posted:Mantic's KS addiction is killing their retail presence. My store stocked a poo poo ton of Mantic and it doesn't sell because everyone who wants Mantic stuff is buying it via KS and everyone else is just bringing proxies. It's a tough catch-22, though, right? Two years ago, Mantic was a very small company still. Most of the product they've come out with since then couldn't have happened without kickstarter giving them the up-front funds needed to create major new lines of minis. They could have been like Osprey, producing Kings of War II and other rulebooks with no model support, but then they'd still be the size of Osprey, have a similarly tiny market share, and most importantly, would have missed out on the huge opportunity presented by the killing of Warhammer Fantasy 8th. But now they need stores, because the games can't sustain themselves without being regularly played, and in-store gaming spaces sure seem to be essential to that. At least in the US, where gaming clubs are much less common than they are in the UK. But why would a retailer stock their stuff, if the most dedicated core players of those games already got all their stuff at a steep discount? I think Mantic does need to dial back on the kickstarters now, they're probably big enough to be able to self-fund new product lines from the profits on existing sales. But I can understand why they'd still go back to that well, especially given that it continues to provide big chunks of funding.
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May 12, 2017 17:59
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grassy gnoll posted:My dog is kinda weird looking, and also he's really dumb. Yo dude thats a cat
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May 12, 2017 18:01
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Geisladisk posted:Yo dude thats a cat If he's not a dog then why the gently caress am I cleaning his litter box every day?
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May 12, 2017 18:15
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grassy gnoll posted:My dog is kinda weird looking, and also he's really dumb. I think your dog has autism?
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May 12, 2017 18:17
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holy poo poo I read the other death thread and it was terrible but not because of the OP
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May 12, 2017 18:31
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I like credit cards and paper.
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May 12, 2017 18:35
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Moola posted:holy poo poo I read the other death thread and it was terrible They are all terrible threads. Surely you know this by now.
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May 12, 2017 18:44
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berzerkmonkey posted:I like credit cards and paper. > Scritch Doggo on hed
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May 12, 2017 18:44
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Moola posted:holy poo poo I read the other death thread and it was terrible don't lie to yourself it's not healthy gw good death thread bad, skulls worst
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May 12, 2017 18:45
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ijyt posted:don't lie to yourself it's not healthy ok now we got a problem bitch
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May 12, 2017 18:50
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I will fucky ou up you stupid loving rabbit bastard!!
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May 12, 2017 18:51
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Ok so the scrappers game is actually very easy but the guy who wrote it is verbose and tries to write in a technical manner but ends up making GBS threads the bed and having a series one one-sentence paragraphs. The game suffers from the same thing all sci-fi games do: 50 different weapons profiles. The range differences don't really matter since you're assumed to be playing with sufficient terrain. So that really leaves rare of fire and damage done, most of which range from 3-5. There's also a category of weapon called "burst" and it represents area of effect weapons. so a difference between burst guns (e.g. machine gun), burst grenades (same mechanics, but now they can be duds), and burst bazookas. And flamethrowers are so short-ranged they might as well also be lumped into grenades. So you have different weapons profiles for really similar weapons instead of just having a standard grenade profile and giving it 2 different effective ranges. But no there's a huge difference between a machine gun and a laser cannon.  E: forgot to add that the single highest d10 roll is taken from the rate of fire. Would be interesting to have a system with, say, 2dX being taken as the attack result with the best two dice from a rate of fire pool. Chill la Chill fucked around with this message at 19:03 on May 12, 2017 |
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May 12, 2017 18:59
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Realtalk anything to keep this thread on pictures of animals because that's about the least horrible the posting in here ever gets. I had a dog a couple years back. Mostly good dog, dangerously smart. I could deal with the dog figuring out how to work light switches and poo poo, but the fact that she was into doggy adulthood at the time and still needed a minimum of ten miles of walking a day just to keep relatively calm was killing me. We rehomed her with some folks who have a giant fenced-in farm type of thing. She's a lot fatter and slower now. Apparently she is Canadian, according to her chip, so I'm really wondering how the gently caress a high-standard husky from I think somewhere in Alberta got to the American southeast.
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May 12, 2017 19:01
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Chill la Chill posted:Ok so the scrappers game is actually very easy but the guy who wrote it is verbose and tries to write in a technical manner but ends up making GBS threads the bed and having a series one one-sentence paragraphs. The game suffers from the same thing all sci-fi games do: 50 different weapons profiles. The range differences don't really matter since you're assumed to be playing with sufficient terrain. So that really leaves rare of fire and damage done, most of which range from 3-5. There's also a category of weapon called "burst" and it represents area of effect weapons. so a difference between burst guns (e.g. machine gun), burst grenades (same mechanics, but now they can be duds), and burst bazookas. And flamethrowers are so short-ranged they might as well also be lumped into grenades. So you have different weapons profiles for really similar weapons instead of just having a standard grenade profile and giving it 2 different effective ranges. But no there's a huge difference between a machine gun and a laser cannon. That's not great, but it seems to be a pretty common failing to want to include a thousand different weapons that aren't really that different, doesn't surprise me that a campaign-style game falls into the trap as well. How is the gameplay overall? I wasn't super excited that it's a 1d10 format, I would really rather people use a 2dX format so that you actually have some sort of distribution to work with and things aren't so swingy. Is the experience system any good?
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May 12, 2017 19:10
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here is dog I walk/sit his name is Louis he makes funny faces
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May 12, 2017 19:23
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Moola posted:here is dog I walk/sit He seems quite alarmed at having his picture taken
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May 12, 2017 19:25
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The Deleter posted:He seems quite alarmed at having his picture taken yeah he always is 
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May 12, 2017 19:29
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Has he manifested a stand yet?
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May 12, 2017 19:32
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