Product Suggestion - Reinforcement Boxes

[Ben2]

Basically the squadron boxes are a good starting point but not many people will want multiple dreadnoughts in a fleet. Reinforcement boxes fill the gaps to create a more balanced fleet.

Essentially they drop the battlecruiser and dreadnought from a squadron box and add three more small ships.

So a Klingon box would look like this

D7, D6, 2x F5, 2 x E4

A Federation

CA, CL, 2 x DD/DW, 2 x FF

And the Romulans would have 2

Firehawk, Sparrowhawk, 2 x Skyhawk, 2 x Seahawk

King Eagle, War Eagle, 2 x Battlehawk, 2 x Snipe

This means the Romulan players can pick up one of three, or indeed all of three, fleet boxes to fill in the gaps and theme their fleets.

For price point you can place it around the same as squadron boxes, and if people feel it isn't cost effective enough, add a Fed POL, Klingon E4 or G2, or extra seahawk or snipe to the respective boxes to give more small ships.

Combined with a standard squadron box, you get a DN, BC, 2 x CA, 2x CL, 5 x DD/FF (or equivalent), which gives you a fairly balanced force.

 

[andypalmer]

They won't work for two reasons.

1. Additional SKUs for retailers, so would be mail order only, which means they're nothing more than discounted minis. (the benefit of squadron boxes is product marketing)

2. They are so good, they would kill squadron box sales

 

[AxisFan67]

They won't work for two reasons.

1. Additional SKUs for retailers, so would be mail order only, which means they're nothing more than discounted minis. (the benefit of squadron boxes is product marketing)

2. They are so good, they would kill squadron box sales

Good points and good to see you posting on the Mongoose forums Andy.

 

[AxisFan67]

Combined with a standard squadron box, you get a DN, BC, 2 x CA, 2x CL, 5 x DD/FF (or equivalent), which gives you a fairly balanced force.[/quote]


I do think it would be great to buy this combo and get a good force mix such as this. They would have to see how it affected sales though.

 

[Ben2]

The thing is if they want to minimise blister sales because they've all got to be mail ordered and are a pain to pick and pack, why not have use squadron box boxes with a different picture on the front to give people the little stuff they need.

At the moment a squadron box is a great deal because you get £45 of minis for £25. The problem is you aren't going to want three dreadnoughts, but are going to want three destroyers, or frigates etc.

The CA+CL+2DD+2FF combo would be £40 of minis (less of a good deal) in one box that's exactly the same size as the fleet box and which goes together perfectly with the squadron box.

People are going to want the small stuff and this substitutes one SKU and one exactly the same sized box for blisters the customer may have to mail order directly.

It will obviously cannabalise blister sales, but if the high cost per blister is simply a representation of how much of a pain blisters are, then surely replacing blister sales with a box they can pick up from the LGS is better and will make it more convenient for everyone involved.

 

[billclo]

My wish would be for something like a battlegroup box. Say 3 D5 + 3 F5. Or 3 D5 + 3 F5W.

For the Feds, 3 NCL + 3 FF, or 3 NCL + 3 DW. Fed DD would also be nice, but I understand due to licensing with Franz Joseph certain designs (DD) can only be sold as a boxed set. I don't need 3 boxed sets of FJ designs to get 3 DD.

Otherwise, I have the unpalatable choice of buying as the Klingons 2 fleet boxes to get 4 D5 (2 per box) or buy them at $14.95 each. For the Feds it's even worse as they only get one NCL per fleet pack.

The F-CL tends to not stick around in mid-late war games as they've been killed off or are converted to specialty ships like escorts or drone ships (at least in F&E this is what I've noticed). So unless it's an early war battle, one tends to not see many F-CL around. If a second NCL could be swapped in place of the CL it would at least put the Feds at parity with the Klingons, war-cruiser wise per fleet box.

 

[Rambler]

Fed DD would also be nice, but I understand due to licensing with Franz Joseph certain designs (DD) can only be sold as a boxed set. I don't need 3 boxed sets of FJ designs to get 3 DD.

Luckily when Squadron Box 91 makes the migration ove you will get a Destroyer and a Scout in the same box so in reality you will be getting 2 DDs in one box =p

I am not in a big hurry to see this because Mongoose has atleast what 2 more full fleets to get out yet (Kzinti and Gorns). But, when the time comes I would rather see a Cruiser Box (Heavy Cruiser, New Heavy Cruiser, and War Cruiser). Then a Box containg Gun Lines / Screening Units / Battlegroup whatever you call smaller units in CTAs. These would be DWs, FF, Pol, or older Light Cruisers. In SFB you can combine 6 smaller ships into a Battlegroup for the Command Slots of only 5 Units.

 

[Captain Jonah]

A few other points.

I don't know how mongoose work the warehouse slaves but if they have the boxes of ships from a single race on a rack together an order picker takes a box, adds 2 old CLs, 2 DDs, 2FFs and and old CA. Shuts the box and puts it on the bench, once he has done 10, 20, 50 of them he then seals them all and puts a pre printed label Federation Reinforcements Early War etc etc and they are done.
If mongoose do the blisters in house and unless they have something that does them automaticly they are a lot slower to do. Hence more expensive in slave power.

Enviromentaly using mail order non bleached brown cardboard boxes makes a good seeling point rather than using plastic blisters which are packed at great time and expense, posted awkwardly and as soon as they arrive opened and dropped in a bin. Massive waste of plastic and effort. For display yes they look good but thats in a shop. Mail order players don't want blister packs, they want the ships inside.

Boxes. By using the same size box for everything you can place larger orders for the boxes and perhaps get volume driven discounts. By not placing orders for anywhere near as many blisters you drop costs for plastic and time. 5 or 6 ships in a box in both time and materials should be cheaper than 5 or 6 individual blisters.

Not sure about the size of boxes but are they big enough to hold the painted ships if we put in a bit of extra foam. If they are then the squadrons go in the boxes and in a back pack making for yet more Mongoose bonus points.

In terms of costs. If you get £45 of ships for £25 in the squadron box but don't want a second DN or more of the other ships you don't buy any more squadron box sets. My understanding is that the squadron boxes must match the ships in the FC sets but that mongoose can do other new sets. If a reinforcement box gives you £40 of ships for £25 or £45 of ships for £30 mongoose are still making a few £ per deal to pay the rent etc. The reinforcement boxes make more money than the squadron boxes and will probably sell better since people will only ever buy one per race they play. Few battles will ever be big enough for 2 DNs unless you are refighting the attack on the Romulan home system.

It comes down to how much effort goes into mail order blisters compared to how much they make against how much effort goes into a reinforcement box and how much it makes. Mongoose need to make money, as buyers we want good deals to get as much as we can with our limited funds. The middle ground is where we meet.

In the end if the middle ground is that the boxes are a better money spinner for Mongoose and also a good deal for us everyone is happy.