"Miniatures Kickstarters Taking Face Dives News" Topic

I've been hearing some talk that certain people are incapable of meeting their kickstarters and its a few people. Does anyone have any real news about this or a link to a forum or somewhere we can monitor this.

That's one ambiguous question!?

Well I would rather hear something concrete than start point fingers. I have a handful of my own late people but I think there may be quite a few and I just wonder if anyone has made this newsworthy which it certainly is. People stand to lose a lot of money and the creators reps will be destroyed in some cases.

I've never lost a dime in the kickstarters I've supported. Have they all been on time? Hardly, but the majority have come in on time or ahead of schedule. If you do your research, it's hard to get burned!

You're describing nearly every single Kickstarter campaign between end of fund raising and pre delivery.

I have 4 kickstarer that have yet to meet there obligation 2 from the same guy. Delivery date was to be: 3/2014 4 2013 6 2014 and 11/2014. Kickstater was contacted but of no help.

Well it would help if you told us which ones you are thinking about. You can look at the comment sections of the following ones and get a pretty good idea they aren't going to get done:

Defiance Games Hard Suit
Drake I
Drake II
Tome of Horrors I
Tome of Horrors II
Ice Age Mammals

Not sure about any others but I am sure there are others….

I think you need to 'name names' if you're going to get accurate information here.

Thanks for that info LeadLair76- I knew about the DF Hardsuit, but I hadn't seen the others had flaked out as well. I'll add them to my 'don't back these guys' list.

-Will

Yeah, I think you could get the info you were after if you had said, "does anyone' know anything about X kickstarter?" That wouldn't have "pointed any fingers, but may have resulted in the info you are after.

I am on my 4th kickstarter, and parcels were posted within 2 weeks of them finishing, would hate all kickstarts to be tarred with the same brush.
In fact the slowest thing about mine is I send by ship for outside EU and that can take up to 52 days.
I have just pledged for the first time on an item and I have every confidence, fingers crossed

ADW Games who ran the scam Ice Age Mammals KS also ran second scam, Miniature Sea Monsters; and started but cancelled a third, Band of Gnomes.

Based on the ever mounting evidence these were outright deliberate frauds by an established con artist, Dina Andrews Walker. The intended marks weren't particularly the backers, that was small change, the KS projects apparently were intended to lure in bigger financial backers.

The first week in October when Ice Age failed to meet it's September deadline and the evidence of scam was already piling high, my credit card company gave me a full provisional refund and filed a dispute with KS on my behalf. KS has until 26 November to refute the refute.

Wow miniMo! I hadn't heard of this one.

I'd love to read more about this, it sounds like an interesting story. Do you have a link to a summation post somewhere?

Fergal, just google ADW Kickstarter, and read back.

It's a train wreck.

Xin

Oh man, those ADW kickstarters ARE a disaster. Looks like a straight-up scam to me.

-Will

The big one was the "The UpFront" kickstarter for the reprint. That was a bad one.

I followed the ADW Ice Age mammals kickstarter for a while. Was a complete train wreck.

You can tell exactly when the sculptor quit for non-payment as the new sculpts are all in-progress blobs.

I was aware of their Band of Gnomes Kickstarter because Andrea of Ganesha Games (whom I respect) was on tap to write the rules. He saw the writing on the wall and severed that connection quickly which ADW has the never to call a "breach of contract" (see Ice age KS update 121).

A look just at Andrea's comments on kickstarter, most of which relate to ADW reveals alot about how these folks do business.
link

LOWLIFE
DWARF GLADIATORS
DEMONS & DEVILS(one piece Tiamat dragon)

Others I have forgotten. I was vague because I was fishing to see if there was a comprehensive list already out there. I see a lot on here I am sorry to see.

I find that non miniature materials such as games, cards etc seem to face dive as well and maybe more easily. Either that or mini fans fight harder.

Anyway one of the culprints above did come thru on 99% of his first KS and it was awesome. But I guess he ran out of money, now its getting weird.

I have heard Redbox was in trouble as well.

Right now, I'm only trusting the big companies with a few KS under their belts. My Golden award goes to Dwarven Forge who produced an awesome product, delivered it on time and with a smile.

Tome of Horrors I
Tome of Horrors II

Have taken a really ugly turn
link

Ditto on Dwarven Forge, also had good luck on Dark Sword's George RR Martin series.

Dark Sword is a very class act.

Let's not forget that Defiance Games were a bunch of crooks before they ran a kickstarter. All of their preorders were a massive gamble.

Leigh

Redbox had a lot of problems with his first kickstarter, but has been doing pretty good. Wish I had the extra cash for his latest.

Torn Armor is another KS thats a year late that crashed but found supporters and will supposedly be shipping soon. As they all are…

Torn Armour ran into problems with assistance from Defiance Games…

I think you need to quantify whether being delayed equates to taking a "face dive". Many projects are delayed but can still be counted successful, and they are not an incident peculiar to kickstarters. Try pre-ordering something from Avatars of War and seeing how punctual they are.

Leigh

Right, delays I don't count as failed; lots of stuff can and does happen in the course of trying to get something produced and shipped, particularly in the catastrophic success situations. Sad to see so many cases of non-delivery though. I guess I've either been lucky or chosen well.

-Will

@Fergal, I don't know of a quick synopsis of the ADW mess. If you have a very large bowl of popcorn, you can scroll back through the comments and updates on the KS page. Things really start getting majourly* surrealistic in August, and hit full boil by September, and it's the gift that just keeps on giving….

* Dina/Lars/Susan/nom-de-plume-du-jour all use this bizarre spelling.

Leigh,
Definitely agreed. Not only were Defiance not reliable, they churned out crap product after crap product. I remember making a list of what they'd done post the plastic marines which weren't bad. Only one of the products that they manufactured -all of which were some kind of resin- wasn't seriously flawed and nearly all were late.

Worms-good, but not exactly useful in most sci-fi gaming
Germans. Wrong size, poorly cast, bizarre skinny waist
Bugs. Fragile, usually arrived broken and to weak for the gaming table.
Chinese-Poorly cast in every example.
Sci-Fi Hummer- Poorly done and immediately pulled from production.

And yet they got 600+ pledgers to give them $45 USDk for resin multipart battle suits when they had proved that they couldn't produce a quality resin product more intricate than a large on-piece worm!

Baffling.

All that said, I've been very fairly happy with the KS's I've pledged for.
-Bones came nearly on time and was a great bargain.
-Salvage crew is on it's way to me now less than two weeks after closing!
-Nuc Ren and The Department came in on time.
-I have no doubt that RAFM's airship pirates will come through next year.

The only disappointment so far is "Ghosts of Heife" and the creator is making progress.

KS is a risk, but you can usually mitigate some of that risk by doing your homework and keeping your eyes open.

My Favorite, with no sarcasm at all is Impudent Mortal's KS projects. Everyone on time and as expected. I would back him 100% of the time.

I got caught by both Defiance Games.. and "Dial Dice". There is one thing to fail but just to give up and stop all communication, you just want to reach out and slap them upside the head..

Sorry to hear that Moe.
In your defense, though the evidence was there, the whole story of Defiance games was only available a few places on the web when the KS closed. It started getting major press shortly afterwards.

I hadn't heard of Dial Dice. A nice ideal, but not a nice result. Ouch!

Apparently the creator of
Demons and devils
Tome of Horrors I
Tome of Horrors II
is declaring chapter 7 bankruptcy.
This comes from a back on TOH and I can't verify it.

A few are scams.

For me I only back people I think will deliver.

I backed Bones II because it looked like it was going to deliver, and while its delayed, I know I will get my stuff.

I will back other big ones that are from trust worthy people. Wish I got in on the secret weapons tile one.

But the small ones, I just cant trust them.

I think for some its as innocent as them making plans that they cant possibly deliver on in the end, even though it seemed feasible at first. Being a good sculptor and designer does not always make you even midlely decent at running a company. Others are just scammers though.

People are filing legal action against the creator of Tome of Horrors i & II. He is also apparently working with a lawyer on chapter 7. He was also the creator of the Demons and devils KS which was half fulfilled.

I see a lot of stuff on this. I dont know exactly how much is true but it looks to be a real legal mess compared to most we've seen. Soon people have been bailed out by other companies, apparently this guy is toxic, no one will go near it…so far.

Das Sheep, I agree, I am in an Xfiles state now as far as KS, trust no one.

That's too bad, I think you will miss out on some cool stuff. You should probably operate under the old adage, 'if it's too good to be true, it probably is.' That, and never back someone who hasn't fulfilled their
last Kickstarter…