"A Call to Arms: Noble Armada officially discontinued" Topic

forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?f=103&t=64546

Can anyone really say they are surprised by this?

The Mongoose touch.

To be fair Noble Armada has always been a niche group and Mongoose has had it in production with several entire fleets supported for years. I don't blame them.

I gave up after the CTA/SF fiasco.

Same here. I'll never give Mongoose another dime of my money due to the way they screwed up ACTA:SF, and some other issues with them.

Not happy.

Damon.

But if nobody is buying . . .

Why, what was up with ACTA:SF?

Long list of problems with ACTA:SF, including:

Game was rushed for Christmas, was full of rules holes and other problems, didn't even make Xmas availability. Rules were cleaned up a little, not enough IMHO.

Resin miniature fiasco, enough said there.

Sporatic updates, followed by total neglect of the game. Typical Mongoose pattern, apparently.

Then ACTA:SF gets taken over by ADB, which could be a good thing; it may be the only thing that saves the game. But there is a lot of bad publicity and bad feelings out there about the game and Mongoose so it's going to be an uphill battle to re-re-launch the game.

Ya, totally not a surprise – I am surprised it lasted as long as it did. It didn't get much attention at all after ACTA:SF came out.

I seriously thing Mongoose should stay away from producing minis and just focus on doing rules/books themselves – exactly what they are doing for Judge Dread.

@billclo

I agree with most of what you say. I think though that the SF "rules" issues were more a result of partnership with ADB. Its almost the same system as NA – no major problems there – but with the partnership lots of stuff came up.

Anyway, I've got like 4 fleet boxes awaiting the relaunch. Until then – FA2!

-Tim

Mongoose have what is known as the "reverse Midas touch" since everything they touch turns to poo.

Also not surprised, but as others mention it can't have been a big seller so it's also understandable. I still can't quite figure out why *they* haven't figured out they really shouldn't be in the miniatures business.

-Will

See this is the perfect example of how moronic they are. They should put the rules as PDF and upload the stats and stuff to say shapeways and still keep the line alive for those that want to use it. Why do companies shoot themselves in the foot like this? Oh wait it is Mongoose.

I just wish I had picked up some B5 fleets for their version of ACTA. I'll still pick up the fleets from ADB cause the ships do look good.

There's LOTS of B5 minis out there; it shouldn't be too hard to locate someone selling off ships.

With this (and B5) it seems the decision ultimately lies with the IP-holder. I'd modify ACTA to be a generic ruleset or come up with my own game universe.

Didn't FASA announce a new edition? Would that not mean they would take back the rights to it?

x2 on the reverse Midas touch ability!

That's AWESOME!!!!!

I've never seen a company jazz up SO much stuff, SO many people off, and stay in business. Maybe they're part of Wall Street or Congress!

You know, I was just thinking to myself, 'I bet someone on TMP is putting a spin on the NA news.'

Lo and behold…

Some of you have got this completely surrounded already – Only Warlock, Dan 055, and Spudeus, you have all hit the nail on the head.

For everyone else…

Licences end, that is the nature of the beast, and it will _always_ happen. You think GW are going to have LotR/Hobbit forever? That FFG will have Star Wars forever?

When you take a licence, it is for a specific period, at the end of which a decision has to be made (by both parties) whether to continue into another period. Babylon 5 stretched across two periods, but by then you chaps had already bought everything you wanted – there was no way it could continue with a third.

Licences end. That is the way things work.

We produced a lot of fleets and a lot of ships for Noble Armada. More, I feel, than some other companies might have done. We gave it a good swing of the bat but, in the end, it did not stick.

So what would you expect us to do? What would you expect Holistic (the owners of Noble Armada to do)?

It is a shame, as I think Noble Armada is the best version of A Call to Arms thus far…

Tim: You make two points worth picking up here – first, we no longer produce our own miniatures, and have not done since Summer last year. We understand that we make good games (we rarely have complaints about our rule books) and that we can _design_ decent enough miniatures. We now focus on those two things and leave the actual production to others.

With regards to ACTA:SF, you are very close to the mark. Right from the start, the game had two masters (us and ADB), and that just did not work. It took forever to get anything done and, at one point, development of the entire line had stalled.

We were left with a decision to either can the line (silly thing to do), or let ADB do all the game development and production, while we focussed on the miniatures design. in the end, we handed the game over to ADB so that it would continue.

Back to the topic in hand though at the end of the day, Noble Armada was not doing what we or Holistic wanted it to do, so of course it will disappear.

That is just common sense.

We are harsh, Matt, and that tells you that we cared about the licenses Mongoose carried.

I don't think anyone believes that Mongoose is taking a line that is making money for the company and deliberately dumping it just to customers off – we just wished they were more long-lived.

Pedrobear: That is what I keep telling myself – if people did not care about the games we do, they would not be so… impassioned :)

We do, of course, want every game we produce to succeed but some will always have more legs than others, especially as we are (as a company) willing to take a leap of faith on occasion.

Sometimes it works – hand on my heart, I can say we did a good job with Babylon 5. Starship Troopers was a good game, but we were subject to mighty forces far beyond our control (it was an interesting day, getting a summons to a court in LA!).

With Noble Armada, we suspected at the beginning it would not be a big 'un, but we found the setting interesting and knew we could run with it. And, at the end of the day, where is it written that every new game has to be a blockbuster? We made sure early on that every fleet we brought out was well supported, taking the view that we could deliver a 'complete' game (and I think we did) and if we could add more, it would be a bonus for everyone.

We took the same approach with Dredd, and that looks like it is going to stick, as we are well into the 'fun' stuff now. So sometimes, it works out.

@MongooseMatt – I can think of some complaints I have about your rulebooks. Such as a jeweler's loop (B5 1e Zocalo sourcebook), or the repeated use of GROPOS as both singular and plural. :) Admittedly, less egregious than some of the errors I've seen in gaming books.

As far as Mongoose being bad stewards of their licensed properties, the question is how have they done when compared to other companies?

Licensed games tend not to do well, whether because of logistical issues with the licensor, lower-than-expected sales, the bite said licensor takes from each unit sold etc..

West End Games had a pretty successful run with Star Wars, but how well did Ghostbusters/Ghostbusters International do? Buffy the Vampire Slayer managed four books and a couple supplementary items, Angel one book, Army of Darkness one book (though AoD doesn't really need more than one). Stargate managed five books, Farscape one. Serenity I think managed five, and is being reincarnated as the Firefly rpg, but did Battlestar Galactica make it past one? I think the d20/Tri-Stat A Game of Thrones never made it past one; maybe Green Ronin will have better luck.

Support wise Mongoose appear to be doing equal or better than most (releasing several supplements for both rpg and miniatures lines), including companies whose licenses were "hotter" than most of Mongoose's offerings (I don't recall hearing the masses clamoring for a Slaine rpg – yet it received several supplements). That's a not-insignificant investment of time and money on Mongoose's part.

Which is not to say they haven't made mistakes, and in at least one case (partnering with Warlord), appear willing to take steps to rectify those issues.

I may not like all Mongoose's products (I was disappointed in the Lone Wolf rpg, and at least with the earlier, free, release of the revitalized Judge Dredd minis rules was disappointed to see the removal of the all-werewolf gang), or their business decisions, but comparatively speaking I have a hard time seeing them as bad stewards of their licensed IP.

Hey Matt,

While we have your attention – have you ever considered doing a non-licence version of A Call to Arms? – Say something along the lines of Full Thrust – where players can design their own ships and/or there is also a setting/minis (designed by you but cast by warlord).

I'm actually looking forward to VAS2. I have lots of WWII ships from War at Sea, and will be able to supplement that force with your new stuff which is the same scale. Do you have any plans to also do WWI naval combat with VAS2?

-Tim

Metempsychotic: Thank you for those points, could not have said them better. As for missing gang, give us some time to do some Troggies and another Werewolf or two, and it may well come back :)

Tim White: We have considered a 'generic' ACTA, but I do not think it would work (it certainly would not set the world on fire). The game system will come back in the future (it certainly has fans) with either a brand new background or one you are already familiar with – if the latter, we will make sure you all know it may only be in production for 3-6 years, so there are no expectations beyond that.

As for VaS 2.0, that is currently in the 'done when it is ready' category. Playtesting goes on every week and we have a little stream of miniatures released now and then – but we have a _lot_ more already designed and ready to go. We'll hit the green button when we think everything is where it should be.

That said, there is evey chance VaS: Ironclads may overtake it, at least as a rules release :)

When we have 'done' WWII (so, a few years after release, at least!), we may look at WWI, or we may go Cold War/Modern. Not sure yet. However, VaS does look strong enough to build upon for multiple periods.

I like the ACTA: Noble Armada rules and will keep using them. I also would like a "generic" ACTA ruleset, but can adapt the Noble Armada version to my needs.

Sorry, but Mongoose just isn't a dependable company, they've always had quality issues (as far back as D20). They've always had neat and grand ideas, but always fall short in the execution. Short runs on product lines. Even now they announce the end of the line, fine, give fans a heads up, but make sure that fans can actually buy the minis they are missing! Only two days after this announcement the range is down to barebones, give fans time to order, and the gather the resources to buy a big batch of minis.

Matt please don't compare Mongoose to FFG SW or GW LotR, even horrible GW is ten times better supporting their ranges then Mongoose, not even touching quality… GW has a LotR license for ~15 years, FFG probably five if not longer. Mongoose with Noble Armada 3 years before officially pulling the plug, unofficially, much sooner… FFG is also a company with a (relatively) short life cycle for their properties, but atleast they offer quality and the product line has a feeling of completeness…

Can't really compare SW/LotR with Fading Suns or Noble Armada imho in the licensing department either…

Red Brick did Fading Suns, that ended up a giant mess. Mongoose did Noble Armada and that was a badly supported failure. I can see HDI wanting both their properties to succeed in license so I can understand why the wanted FASA to both of the properties, the question is whether they'll use the same (scale) minis or not…