"New Mech skirmish game, Mechadrome" Topic

Amazing stuff!

RebelMike
Rebelminis.com

So I'm setting a tentative date for the KS launch to be March 20th. I'm going to have a kind of far off delivery date though, just to be safe. I'm thinking around October or November. I'd rather have a distant date send hope to stuff sooner, then guess a date too soon and have people upset if it's late. We'll see how it goes, I should be getting the light mech sample minis later this week and I'd like to get a few of them painted up before the campaign. I also need to get the medium mech sculpt finished, at least the body and a couple of weapon arms so I can do 3D renders to show off how the squads will look.

I'm also going to just offer the rewards as generic models, not teams. So you'll be able to pick a "Terran Support Squad" or "Martian Artillery Squad" and each one will be 1 medium and 2 light mechs with whatever weapon sprues they need for the squad type. Then, separately, as an add-on item I'll have team upgrade packs that will come with shoulder armor emblem bits for each team, a couple of custom objective markers like banners with the emblem on it, and all 14 pilot cards. And the team upgrade pack will be included if you want to get a full team box set after the heavy mechs get unlocked. I think having the cards and emblem bits separate will be easier for people that want to make up their own teams, and also keep the main sets cheaper and the delivery time sooner since I won't have to wait for cards and stuff to be printed first, I can start sending most rewards out as soon as the models are made.

Speaking of heavy mechs, I got this new rough sketch for the terran heavy .. should have the finished version in another day or 2 :)

I also got the art done for a couple of Free Agent mechs, these will be like solo characters that can join any team an they will get their own unique mechs. These first 2 have a more anime theme.. So here is Lilly Hammer and Omega Centauri

Here's the finished terran medium body. Weapons and other bits will be done in a couple of days

The body is actually in 2 pieces, might be hard to tell. There's the top torso area, and there will be a legs & hips in a couple of different positions.

Now I have a favor to ask :) I'm more seriously considering doing limited "KS exclusive" 28mm versions of the light and medium mechs, in resin. So many people are asking for them. So, since I don't have a space marine army anymore, can anyone give me the measurements for a dreadnought model and a centurion? Just average #'s, don't need to include banner poles and stuff.

I was thinking I would just get them printed at 2x bigger. The light mech is 28mm tall now, so he would be roughly 60mm tall. The medium will be around 40mm, so then that would be 80mm tall. I wanted to make sure they would be good and similarly sized proxies for centurions and dreadnoughts.

Problem is, I have no idea what they would cost. My best guess is maybe $20 USD for the light and $30 USD for the medium? But I've never had resin models made before, so I have to get them printed and cast first before I'll know what the costs will be. So I might not be able to add them to the campaign till a couple weeks in. I was thinking I would pick 1 body position for each, and get every weapon option printed too.. so all the extra arms will add to the price a bit, but I'd rather just do them all rather than selecting a few and then having a bunch of people tell me "you should have done this one or that one instead". Anyway, I'd probably just offer them for the campaign and maybe have them available as a direct-only thing or at cons, not for retail. I'll have to see how the timing works, maybe I can postpone the launch by a week.. but i really need to get it started since the bills are adding up :)

Been chatting with a bunch of folks today and based on their feedback I'm going to be making some minor changes… This mostly will be for final retail products. Rather then sell a bunch of different squad box sets for each team, I'm going to base the box sets on the races and then make team upgrade packs. There won't be multiple squad sets, instead there will just be 1 Mech Squad and 1 Heavy Mech box set per race. Each set will come with all weapons and equipment and no pilot cards. This is mostly to reduce the number of retail boxes I need to print, since those costs add up real quick. Then there will be team upgrade packs that include all 14 pilot cards along with armor emblem pieces and other things. And I'll also still offer the full team box sets that will include the upgrade packs for free. I thought it would be good to keep the upgrade packs separate like that, since a lot of people I'm sure will want to make up their own teams from scratch. And this will also make it so that no matter what you'll have everything you need to build your mechs however you want right out of the box (or ziplock bag for Kickstarters :) ). This should also help with the KS delivery time too, since we won't have to wait for cards to be printed first if all you want is regular models.

Next up, I'm having a 28mm version of the Terran Light Mech printed now.. well, I guess it will be more like 30mm since he's taking the original 15mm model and just printing it 2X bigger. This will be done in resin and will include all weapon options. I'm going to call it a "showcase" model, since it's something you can't use in the game. If there's an interest, I'll print the Medium Mech 2x bigger too. This kind of got me wondering if I should plan to update the rules to accommodate both scales, so you can play with 15mm games for battles with more mechs, or 30mm battles on bigger tables with bigger models. Essentially all you have to do is double the movement and gun ranges. I decided to hold off on that for now though, I'd want to wait until those larger mechs are made so I can really test the game and make sure it's fun. So that might become an expansion kind of thing later (Mechadrome Extreme? :) ). I still want 15mm to be the primary version of the game though, because I really want the game to be all about having lots of mechs running around beating each other into scrap. Anyway, I'm hoping to have the 30mm 3D print in hand next week so I can show it off in the campaign, but it will probably have to be an early stretch goal to unlock it.

Last but not least, I just got the new finished art for the Terran heavy :) Next up I'll be getting a new Martian medium mech done, the pointy top martian medium I have now will become the light and the beetle head body light martian will be going away. And then I'll be getting a couple more Free Agents done, Johnny Danger and the evil bionic mech DED 902. I'm hoping to have the Medium mech sculpt finished around the end of the week or early next week. Here's the new heavy :)

I have to say that I am really impressed with your work. Keep it up!

Got another updated medium render. He's pretty much done now, just have to finish doing the enlarged versions of all of the other weapons. This guy has 2 missile pods, a Railgun and a Crusherfist :)

Lots of things coming together now for the campaign. I'm still hoping to launch it on the 20th. I'm going to build the page over the weekend and hopefully KS will approve it in time, if not I'll launch it as soon as they do. I expect to have my metal master minis delivered on Friday, so I'll have a few painted examples when the campaign launches plus pics of the 3D print for the 30mm terran light mech. I'll also have 3-4 different plastic terrain kits from Proxie Models for add-on items and we're chatting about making other plastic stuff too :)

In other news, I'm going to be publishing the game myself, but working with Game Salute for warehousing and retail distribution later on, and KS shipping using their new ShipNaked service. So I'll build everything, and they'll ship it wherever it needs to go. That means shipping will be much cheaper all over the world since they ship lots of stuff and get volume discounts. Here's a chart of what the shipping charges will be like. I think the average sweet spot pledge of 4 squads and a rulebook will be around 2-3 pounds but I'm not totally sure just yet… I'll weigh everything when I get the masters on friday :)

What I'm going to do is when the campaign funds, everyone who pledges $100 USD or more gets $5 USD bonus credit that you can use for shipping charges or for add-ons. Then there will be stretch goals mixed in to add another $5 USD here and there, so the more funding we get the more bonus credit you get to use on whatever you want. So, you'll still be charged shipping, you can just apply your credit toward that, or toward extras and just pay for shipping later in the pledge manager. The bonus credit will be treated like store credit in the pledge manager.

Just got the samples for the light mech .. here are all the parts :)

You can click here for the gallery pic to zoom in.

Top row from left to right we have Missile pods, chainguns (2 styles), plasma guns, railguns, blasters, booster jets. Next row is Booster Jets, Jackhammers, Siege Drills, Crusherfists & Buzzsaws. Then all 4 bodies and the shoulder armor plates. They have the plates reversed on the sprue though with the right pad on the left and the left pad on the right.

I was surprised that there are pretty much no mold lines and just a few little bits to file off. Gonna clean these 4 up and start painting!

I'm planning to launch the Kickstarter this week, probably Wedneday or Thursday, as long as the KS folks approve the project in time. Here is a preview page for the project if you want to check it out :)

kickstarter.com/projects/gangfightgames/1206348501?token=09a8ec54

I'll probably start a whole new post for the campaign when I launch it to keep it more organized, and keep this one for WIP stuff.

I just got some new screenshots of the medium. He's just about done and I should have the final 3D files today or tomorrow, then it's off to the printer with him.

This pic has 2 new weapons, the wrecking ball melee weapon.. and it's also a ranged weapon, since the chain is retractable and you can launch the ball at your enemies' faces if they get close enough. And also the blaster turrets up top, blasters will be turrets for the medium and heavy, but like pistols for the light mechs

Kickstarter campaign will be launching on Wednesday night! Or thursday morning for some of you… :)

My thoughts

The pledges show only one way to get rules.

Need pdf rules

One of the pics show 3 mechs but angle makes it look like one large multi arm leg thing

Add a few add your name to fluff goals

Make sure you have coated out any stretch goals you have in mind

Good luck

Coated should be coated

The KS page was approved, so I'll be doing the final updates tonight and tomorrow.

I have a link to the rules on there. It's kind of buried in a paragraph so I can make it an image that stands out more. The basic rules will always be available for free, but the printed rulebook will have more content like background and stories and art. But, i suppose I could include a version of the full rulebook in PDF for anyone that orders a printed on or something like that.

I'm also going to add the shipping info to the main page at the bottom and also when it launches I'm I'm going to make an update right off the bat with a list of all planned stretch goals that I have so far. There's basically something new every $5 USD-10k all the way up over 100 .. I want to be prepared ahead of time just in case, rather than run out of ideas and have to scramble to throw something together if it's doing really well.

when do you think these will be available outside of the kickstarter???

It will take a while to get everything produced and packaged, and I'll have to send the Kickstarter orders out first before I do a retail release. But that said, I'm hoping for around November if not sooner.