"A Call To Arms Star Fleet" Topic

What ADB has said was that the price for the line was too low from the start, especially after the switch to metal, and that they are losing money selling the minis to the distributors/stores. One option to not raising prices would have been to restrict sales to mail order only, which would have honked off the distributors/stores and basically killed the game. :(

I don't like such a large price increase myself, but I'm already heavily invested in the game. So ships in a Fleet box have gone from about $6.66 USD each to $9.38 USD each. Ships in a Squadron box were $6 USD each at product launch, and went up to $8 USD each. I can live with $8 USD each.

It's possible to keep the price down somewhat by buying multiple Squadron boxes, if you can stomach having too many larger ships (DN/BCH). Heck, I bought 6 boxes of Federation reinforcements just to get my DW/NCL supply up to 6 each, and am trying to sell/trade off some of the excess DN/BCH.

But the price increase on Fleet boxes will mean that I have to carefully consider which Empires I will be buying fleets for in the future. I simply cannot justify getting fleets for every Empire; this was the case before, but the price increase has solidified that opinion.

Two words:

Zocchi and Lou

Arrange them any way you like…

John T

Well those work if all you want to use are the old DN, CA, DD,SC and Tug. I think those were all that were available, right?

I don't think these are in the Zocci line, are they?

Billclo

That's not an old 'flatbed' CVA, is it? Or is that one of the BCs (lowered the nacelles to clear firing arcs)?

Lion, it's a Fed BCH. There is a similar looking smaller Strike Cruiser as well.

"Still not sure why they went with the weird scale…".

That one is easy!

Make them totally incompatible with any other miniatures sold, so you have to buy new ones from them. Marketing 101…..

A shame about all of the quality control, and production issues, though they should have seen this coming.

Having to get contract suppliers help with production is going to make QC even more difficult.

It appears that the QC has improved.

Turned out there was no need to get contract suppliers.

QC improved only because they switched to metal on most of the parts, and what little is left in resin are the bits they were getting decent casts out of all along. That's most of the reason for the huge price increase, after all.

Ironic that they were unwilling to go to direct sales to keep the cost down. The distributors they're trying to keep happy have already hit rock bottom on the happiness meter after the supply issues in the initial release, and both Mongoose and ADB would see more money from direct sales even at the old prices. OTOH, ACTA SFU is new enough that it might actually continue to grow its fan base even with the price hike, so keeping it in the distribution net gets them on more store shelves for exposure. SFB/FedCom are in a completely different boat, but ADB apparently still isn't willing to make the jump to the direct-only niche, so keeping the distribs sweet is important to them as well.

Meanwhile, crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter continue to make inroads in the relevance of traditional distribution and sales models. Mongoose has dabbled in it already – where's ADB's project(s)? Might be an eye-opener for Steve if he gave it a shot.

All of those ships in the photos in 'Mongoose' scale were – unless I'm very much mistaken – available in the smaller 'original' scale (not in plastic from Zocchi but in metal).

I have metal Fed Light cruisers that are 25 years old…

The bigger scale is just a marketing excercise, I believe, and – so far – hasn't done itself any favors via poor quality control. The miniatures look nice enough but are over detaailed and too cartoonish, IMHO (the over scribed detail on the Fed dishes remind me of the Trek miniatures range GW brought out [sub licenced from FASA, if I remember rightly] in the mid eighties: very 'cartoon time' compared to the FASA originals). So not really my cup of tea, irrespective of size compatability, quality control and (future speculative) Mongoose support.

Maybe GW are big enough to survice the 'Finecast' fiasco. Dunno what's going to happen here, though. Given Mongoose's track record* I suspect the range will be dropped at some point when it becomes uneconomical.

Hence I'll be sticking with my smaller scale miniatures that I've been collecting since around 1980.

Fool that I am…

John T

*having been burned by the Babylon 5 aproach to supporting a range of miniatures

Yes, all of those ships I showed pics of are available in the old Starline 2400 scale. 2 things: I don't care for the lack of detail on the 2400s, and being as I didn't have ANY starship minis for the Star Trek universe, the larger scale/compatibility with other scales was not an issue.

I like the additional detail, personally. Though I will agree that the dish lines are overdone; I don't do anything with them as far as emphasizing them. You could fill them in with something; even Green Putty, and carry on. :)

ADB is working on some stuff for Kickstarter; they are considering a game called "Tribbles Vs Klingons" that looks pretty fun.

See discussion here:

Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Company-Conventions-Stores-Ideas: About the Company: TRIBBLES vs KLINGONS:

Other Kickstarter-related discussions:

Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Company-Conventions-Stores-Ideas: About the Company: ADB on Kickstarter

Some of us have been prodding Steve into putting out some additional Fleet-Boxes. Possibly one that has the "mass production" ie, CW,DW,NCA, some frigates, and no big ships. I suggested a make your own fleet box for a slightly higher price per mini than what you get in a Fleet Box, but cheaper than paying $15 USD a pop for a ship (which I do reluctantly to get a few ships I need, but won't do for a large number).

One issue has been that if Mongoose/ADB does such mail-order only boxes, is that the distributors/retailers will get really ticked off and one can expect to hear the howls of anger on the Moon. If the retailers/distributors stop selling the game, I would expect ACTA:SF to be marginalized at the least.

with them raising their prices, i won't buy that line, i will pick up some of lou's ships. i will be using adb mega hex ship counters.

No one likes price increases, but in the box sets I still feel the prices are not too bad. As far as using cardboard counters, that's a personal choice but to me half the enjoyment of playing *miniatures* games is collecting, painting and using *miniatures* ;-)

Ironic that they were unwilling to go to direct sales to keep the cost down.

While moaning about prices, don't forget that these expensive fleet boxes can be had at 20% off from some on-line retailers.

Zocchi and Lou

Fine, if you want to limit yourself to a small fraction of the ships in the game. In addition, now that I have some of them in my hands, I have come to like the larger Mongoose sculpts better than either the Zocchi or ADB offerings, although that is totally personal preference.

I used to have a large collection of the original ADB Starline 2400 miniatures which were lost during a cross country move. I had been thinking about rebuilding that collection earlier this year, but after comparing a box of the recent ADB castings with the Mongoose minis I recieved a couple weeks ago, I've committed to the newer sculpts without a second thought.

John Treadaway,

Two words about Lou:

Kcaj Ssa

Arrange the letters anyway you would like.

John Treadaway,

Two words about Lou:

Kcaj Ssa

Arrange the letters anyway you would like.

I have never met the man. I was just talking about his rather nice (IMHO) toy space ships…

John T

Hey all,
Just ordered some of the 2500 line mini's from Mongoose. I was wondering though what are people using for decals? I've seen the Mongoose sheet and I'm not to terribly thrilled. I did find Tenneshington Decals rather nice, but the price is a little steep as they are asking $35 USD for a sheet to go with the fleet set and shipping is $15. USD
Has anyone used the Starfighter Decals sheet, that was designed for the 2400 series, on the bigger 2500 mini's and how has that worked? Thanks for any help.

Triple Trouble:

A Romulan Sparrowhawk (L), Firehawk Heavy Cruiser (C), and FastHawk (R).

I puttied in the moulded windows and used left over windows from the decals I had from Scoutdad. (http://www.tenneshington.com/ )

Hull is Reaper Misty Grey, engines are Reaper Sky Blue, Rainy Grey, with Citadel Shiny gold for the plasma launchers.

I'm working on having some red insignia made, but that'll take awhile.

New Starline 2500 miniatures. I did up some Gorn ships in a non-traditional paintjob – I was getting tired of various shades of grey. :)

Gorn HDD and 2 BDD

Gorn CM

Gorn BC

I'll be running several ACTA:SF games at Cold Wars in March, and also at Origins this year if anyone wants to give the game a try.

News update:

As part of a joint venture with Warlord Games, production of ACTA:SF miniatures (as well as other product lines) has been stopped at their Ohio facility, which apparently will be closed down and sent to an un-named new production facility.

Info at:

link

Where is the ACtA:SF side of things mentioned? That link only refers to the change as it will affect the Judge Dredd line.

Billclo – where do you get your bases? Those are very nice.

I would have sworn I saw mention of ACTA:SF there. Okay, here's a statement from Matt at a Kickstarter page:

link

Harbaugh87, The bases are custom made stickers that I had a local graphics artist produce for me. I initially intended to sell the excess (large minimum order) to defray my costs, but it kind of grew from there. I do sell them, and you can contact me at "billclodude at comcast dot net" Thanks.

Thanks for the clarification and the fresh link. We'll have to see if this change will bode well for the Starline 2500s going forward.

Production of miniatures has been discontinued at the old miniature maker, and moved over to Bruce Graw.

Also, it appears that the fleet boxes may be discontinued for the time being, as Steve Cole said that they put alot of strain on the production system. There MAY be a change of focus to smaller 3-6 ship boxes/packs.

See discussion here:

link

I forgot to mention a couple of things:

After action report of my ACTA:SF games at Origins:

forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?f=103&t=56231

And some pics of my most recent Kzinti ships. I decided to try my hand at a more traditional red paint job instead of continuing my exotic purple and gold paint scheme.

Kzinti Heavy Battlecruiser: