General updates for the project, Stretch goals should be announced soon, answers to peoples questions are posted below about Instructions and Backers able to purchase more before general release in 2014. Also updates to the Kickstarter page has included more information about when they will be available, This summer for Backers, General Release in 2014 starting with Origins, Historicon, and Gen Con and the on IWM webstore in Fall 2014.
Also I have created a image gallery for the
Kickstarter, right now it all the images from the Kickstarter page, plus three more painted pictures.
i'm thinking about helping out but.....and this sounds bad... will these come with a card to let you know were the parts go? one of them looks to have 12 parts and some of them are dange small. That is what is stopping me from jumping in already
Yes, There will be instructions on how to assemble the miniatures.
I think if they would set up so backers could buy them from Iron Wind over the next year this thing would be funded in a day. Right now I have the money but haven't made up my mind
All of the Backers of the Kickstarter will be able to purchase more of the miniatures that are produced from the kickstarter before 2014.
I agree and understand that. But as near as I can tell this Kickstarter needs more money money per mini that it $2777 a mini. But the problem is when you go look at the cost under the Fan funded LAMs these are costing a whole lot more to make than those. Something doesn't add up when you compare the two. It feels like they are trying to raise money for more than just these minis. Which is fine but they don't state what it is. The fan funded has existed for so long we all have a good ideal how much it cost for them to do a mini. The cost for these is way above what we have been shown by IWM that the cost is. Were is the extra money going? Tell us and we would be more likely to jump in. Explain why Waneta cost with free cad drawings cost so much more than the other LAMs that have been fan funded?
Please check out,
The Road to the Spectral LAM article on IWM website for more details on why the cost to produce the LAM's from the CAD is expense. It goes into details of what all has to be done to the CAD file so that a proper miniature master can be made. The first test, Waneta Ground mode, got $2000 for all of the CAD adjustments and printing on a high quality 3D Printer. The extra money beyond the 18,000 for the 9 Master copies goes into producing the master, production molds. Both of which take time to be completed and then some of the money goes into the other cost of getting the miniatures manufactured and packaged. Others have already commented about why there is a pricing difference on the Fan Funded items, to go along with it, there are the hidden costs that the Fan Fundraisers do not pay for. Such as the master and production mold making and all of the other costs that go into getting a miniature produced for sale. All the Fan Fundraisers pay for is the sculpting of the miniature by one of the several sculptors who have been doing battletech miniatures since the Ral Partha days.
Hope to see more of these in future. No interest in WOB LAMs at all, however.
So would we, but the selection of what we can do with the CAD is limited by what art is done that we can get CAD for. Right now its the LAM's that Stephen Huda has done and maybe some of his other work for Battletech.
$2000 each sounds about right. However they are wanting closer to $3000 each. Just seems high since they got the CAD's for free. Also why were the fan funded LAMs less? I think that is the part that confuses me the most
Part of this I have answered above, but will just touch on the CAD part. The CAD files from Stephen Huda were given to IWM for Free, but we can not just take them to any 3D printer and print off a master. This was done originally almost a year ago and it was a complete disaster. The miniature had the 3D printer lines all through out it and when cleaned up it lost all of the details. The link I provided above for "The Road to the Spectral LAM's goes into all of the details of what needs to be done to make a miniature from the CAD files.
I will admit, the one thing that is causing me reservations about contributing at ANY LEVEL to this
is the lack of any information on the funded since may of '11 3085 LAMs. I am, frankly, not sure if
contributing will even see LAMs done as anything more then a small production run for the backers,
then abandoned. Just as, since they will be able to make them for the Backers, why would it have to
wait until next year for them to be able to make them for general production? I mean, if you have the
molds, what is so hard about spinning them up?
I touched on some of the delays of the MkI LAM's in this
post. What gives you the idea that only a small production run will be made for just the Backers of the project, this has not been said at all. What has been said is that Backers will get theirs by June or July of 2013, then starting in summer of 2014 they will be available at the Origins, Historicon, and Gen Con. In the Fall of 2014 they will go up on IWM website. As I just said above, the backers of the project will be able to order more of the LAM's before next year. I just found this out today when I heard from Marc. The delay in general release is part of the perks of Backing the project.
There's also the possibility that they don't want to commit to promising large amounts of these miniatures until they're sure they can produce a consistent number of acceptable quality.
The issues some had with the various map and mech scale dropships as well as their own problems with keeping them in stock seems to be a good example of that.
The delay for general release until 2014 has nothing to do with making sure IWM can produce hem consistently. Once the production molds are done, they will be able to produce them just like any other miniature. Like I have said already, the delay is a bonus to those that Back the project. I just found out today that anyone that backs the project will be able to buy more before the general release date. So even if you just Pledge $10 dollars to the project, it will still allow you to buy the miniatures later on.
The issues with the Map Scale dropships was due to the fact that they were manufactured by another company for IWM. That company became very unreliable for quality product. It took some time to find another vendor that could produce them again and hopefully they can keep up with the demand.