Informal Petition: Please sign if you agree....

[Undecided]

Okay so Christmas has come and gone, and sadly I now have FOUR BOXES being sent back to Mongoose due to misscasts. Thankfully I already sent the first two out last week and these two I recieved will be going out tomorrow...so the Ohio casting facility shouldn't be TOO freaked out when they recieve a set of fleet boxes arriving all from the same address.

Anywho, I decided to start a petition for those few who have gotten so fed up with Mongoose's casting quality that they REFUSE TO PURCHASE ANY NEW MODELS UNTIL THIS ISSUE IS RESOLVED!

I'm not ranting or raving, B5: ACTA is by far one of the best fleet based games I've played to date, it's fast and easy to play. I spend less time figuring out what the rule is for situation A and more time focusing on strategy.

However, B5 is something more than a set of rules....it's a miniatures game, and in order for it to survive it needs good quality mini's to survive. And I'm not talking sculpting here, but just the simple process of casting. Seriously it's almost like some big cosmic joke now, I opened my boxes yesterday and I just chuckled to myself thinking ("Why am I not suprised?").

I bought a Narn Fleet box a week ago to get into the game....that had to go back. I bought a Centauri fleet box to tide me over while I waited for my replacements...the only thing salvageable were the centurions....and today I opened up my gifts from my fiancee and found the same exact problems in my EA boxes. THIS ISN"T A FLUKE OR A MISTAKE, as I was told in my email, this is A COMMON PRACTICE.

That being said, I will continue to play B5 with the paper counters, it's fun. Will I give Mongoose another red cent HELL NO! Not until this problem is addressed.

New Fleets are nice, but FIX YOUR CURRENT ONES!

So the point of this thread is to generate a multi-page condensed thread of signatures. So we can at least inform the powers that be of our displeasure with their current model quality and until they address it they won't be recieving your money for a clearly inferior product.

Thanks for your time

I've also added a poll to generate a consensus on Mongoose's model quality.

 

[Calistan]

I have to agree, the newer models are fine, but the older models have a significant amount of flash. What sort of quality control is there for the model production?

 

[angelus2000]

part of the problem i think they have is that dont use regular pewter. its a lot harder than other pewter ive seen in the past. and harder metal means higher temps to mould, which wears out the moulds faster. I'm not a metallurgist by any means but the stuff in the ACA mins is HARD. just tap it with something and you can hear a ringing sound that ive nver heard from any other pewter thing before.

What I'm thinking may be the problem is that mongoose may be having ALL the moulds redone for V2. Not having any clue about mouldmaking myself but if thier doing resculpts and recasts of the moulds that a LOT of frigging moulds to redo. and when theirs maybe only like 10 15 guys at most working on some 100+ moulds, its going to take some serious manhours.

 

[Jhary]

The problem is that Mongoose don´t have any Quality control for the Minitures. I don´t care from where the problems are coming and why a Mould wears out. I pay money and want what the pictures show and not a piece of metal that is only partly the form of an Ship.

 

[JayRaider]

I agree, the casting can be very poor. Also the holes for the stands never fit!! This drives me nuts!!!!!!!!!!!!
For Gods sake, pay somebody to drill the pieces will you!!!!!!! :evil:

 

[Admiral Phlop]

I used to go to Ral Partha, which was cast here in Cincinnati; to buy some of their product. If they didn't have any in stock they would get out the mould and cast you what you were wanting and how many. If the mould put out a bad casting they would throw it into the remelt pile and recast. They also had to remanufacture the moulds periodically due to the heat of the metal eventually ruining the moulds. If MGP has a contract company doing their casting maybe, they need to look for someone else? So far between my Dremel and hand files I have not been able to get the models in pretty good shape. Still love the game.

 

[HollowpointCatharsis]

I actually got the Crusade Era Fleet for Xmas and found it wasn't very good. All of the 1 piece ships turned out fine. The others not so much. My Marathon has a hole in the engines. I plan to make it look like it took a hit there so I don't have to send it back in, but it shouldn't be that way out of the box. Also, many of the longer thinner pieces are bent or broken off. The Nemesis boresight weapons are really thrashed. I did fix them, but that also is not the point. The money that is put out for these should warrant a piece of cut foam rubber to protect your investment. That's what this is. You pay for something that you want to use over and over again. If we didn't want to use them, we could just use the paper counters. Foam rubber is 10 cents on the outside. Not a big cost, considering that people refuse to buy whole sets because of poor quality.

 

[Raxonika]

I support the original point. The lack of QA also extends to missing out parts of the ships.

For Christmas I got the Minbari Fleet box and the Narn Reinforcements.
There was a whole ship missing from the Minbari box and bits missing from the Narn set.

How difficult is it to have a check list and tick things off to ensure they are in there ?

Is anyone from Mongoose montoring these forums ? They don't seem to be responding much.

 

[Naranik]

Does anyone know if they purchased the originals sculpts from AOG or just the molds. Without original castes there might not be anything that they can do about it without taking a big $ hit. I personally use the smaller scale because to tell you the truth the early large scale from AOG was pretty bad to start with. I have an Omega that was one of the first runs and I tell you that miniature was less than stellar. I would love to see them redone in either plastic or the smaller scale myself I think the smaller ships fit the board better when you get to point blank range.

Be gentile first post

 

[Obsidian]

Does anyone know if they purchased the originals sculpts from AOG or just the molds. Without original castes there might not be anything that they can do about it without taking a big $ hit.

Ya know, you might just have hit on a really good point there. If all they have is the molds then there isn't really anything that they can do about them breaking down. They also might not be all that interested in replacing them either. Even if they do have the original sculpts. In Matt's State of the Mongoose letter you see the following right at the start.

Pre-painted. Expert-level pre-painted miniatures. That will be the new wave of 2007, much to the chagrin of Old Guard modellers!

While this currently addresses the Battlefield:evolution and Starship Troopers:evolution series of games, one could extend this to mean they are looking to do the same for the B5 line of minis as well. They just haven't announced it yet. If this is the case, then letting this go on for a while makes sense. Why make any sort of investment in a product line that you are already in the works to replace?

Frankly, I'm all for this. I was hesitiant to buy the minis in the first place since they are a little pricey and I don't have much time to work on the models to get them ready for play. I did buy a Centauri fleet box which was for the most part ok, but I still haven't mounted my Vorchans. Holes/stands don't match up and are a general pain to work with.

 

[Poi]

Why make any sort of investment in a product line that you are already in the works to replace?

This raises another prospect. They're spending so much on making B:E a success, there's no time/money left for ACTA. Of course we also have second edition to look forwards too, so they could be holding back for that.

Not a lot of point if they've lost us all by then though.

 

[Obsidian]

This raises another prospect. They're spending so much on making B:E a success, there's no time/money left for ACTA. Of course we also have second edition to look forwards too, so they could be holding back for that.

Not a lot of point if they've lost us all by then though.

Honestly though, do you think they are going to lose all of us by then? I mean I've been playing primarily with the paper counters since the games release. I'm one of those people that loves the game, but doesn't like all the filing, gluing and painting needed to get the things ready for play. Funny part is it isn't even a cost barrier for me. I've been looking real hard at the ships on EBay and really wouldn't mind paying almost double for the things if I could just put it down on the board and use it.

If mongoose were to do this I would put in a lot more money into the game than I currently do. As it stands, I pretty much just purchase the rulebooks and that's it.

 

[Hans Olo]

Ok look at the pictures of my Minbary (arrived today) I think I don`t have to say anything else!

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l286/onki-fatz/IMG_0011.jpg
http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l286/onki-fatz/IMG_0008.jpg
http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l286/onki-fatz/IMG_0007.jpg

the last picture shows the Tinasy wich has the best quality.
The rest of the box is allright.

 

[Court Jester]

Ya know, you might just have hit on a really good point there. If all they have is the molds then there isn't really anything that they can do about them breaking down.

You can take a cast mini, say the Omega for example, and get a talented sculptor/modeler to fix up that casting. File down the rough areas, re-fill missing detail and generally touch up the problem areas. Then you can create a mold on this new "master".

Although if they are planning a move to pre-paints this would, as you said, be a waste of moeny and time.

Lets just hope something happens...

 

[Court Jester]

Ok look at the pictures of my Minbary (arrived today) I think I don`t have to say anything else!

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l286/onki-fatz/IMG_0011.jpg
http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l286/onki-fatz/IMG_0008.jpg
http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l286/onki-fatz/IMG_0007.jpg

the last picture shows the Tinasy wich has the best quality.
The rest of the box is allright.

:shock:

That is shocking.

 

[Triggy]

To be fair, if they're the worst of the box, that's only two miniatures with "bits" missing...it is a lot of filing/trimming work though :x

 

[H]

I bought myself some FOW mini's for Christmas, they are of course model on actual real life vehicles and soldiers, and are 15mm, yet they are of a great quality, some minor trimming for sure, but I ordered them, they arrived within 2 days, and are a joy to behold and put together. I cannot say the same about my ACTA minis

 

[Reaverman]

I think Mongoose really need to have an official customer services department, it seems a lot of the problems could be controlled and future problems avoided if they did.

 

[combatdroid113]

thankfully they replace and restore those things that are too far gone or gone altogether. The parts service keeps me coming back. Though it would be nice without all the flash. Perhaps they need to look at some of their exsisting games and then go to the new ones.

 

[fluffy05]

To be fair to Mongoose the one time I had a problem with a model I ordered not turning up here in Australia they were fantastic. They were extremely helpful answered my e-mails very quickly and really impressed me with the way they handled it.

I do agree alot of the castings on the models are not up to gaming standards. I also agree it seems to be an issue with older models.

The reason I say alot of older models are not up to standards :- I collect alot of models from different gaming company's. From Games Workshop (Fantasy, W40K etc), Privateer Press (Warmachine & Hordes) and Flames of War to name a few.

I have experienced more problems with B5 minature casting. I don't mind cleaning up a bit of flash etc but it does annoy me when I have to break out the green stuff and spend time fixing poorly cast minatures.

I would like to see more effort go into prevention and quality control or fixing the master molds.

B5 ACTA is one of the best minature games I have played to date. I would hate to see it fold due to poor quality models being continually produced.

Please fix the problems Mongoose. You have a great game and great models (When cast properly) :wink: