Which ACTA: NA ships are resin?

[starbreaker]

Our local store finally got blisters of ACTA: NA in this week (after months of delays and distributer foul-ups) and I was more than a little surprised to see that the Kurgan cruiser and heavy carrier were resin rather than metal. I knew the ACTA: SF line was due to include resin, but not Noble Armada, although perhaps I missed an announcement? Are any of the other scheduled NA minis resin, and if so, which? It would be good if Mongoose made it clear which figures were cast in metal and which in resin on the store page to avoid confusion.

 

[Greg Smith]

All of the ships I have seen are metal.

 

[starbreaker]

You're saying you've seen metal versions of the Kurgan heavy carrier and cruiser?

 

[Greg Smith]

No. All dreadnaughts, cruisers and heavy carriers I have seen are metal. That is all of the house fleets including the big Hawkwood carrier.

 

[starbreaker]

Oh, right, gotcha. Yeah, I'd seen all the pre-Kurgan stuff, definitely metal - but you have to wonder if some of it might get retooled for resin. Wonder about the Kurgan dread - it looks to be a hefty brute, but also a complex shape - will it wind up metal like the others or resin?

 

[MongooseMatt]

The Kublai is in deed resin.

Once we get round to it (!), all ships of cruiser size or bigger will be cast in resin. That will be a short while yet.

 

[Ben2]

Will this change the pricing structure for the big ships?

 

[starbreaker]

It better. There were some very uncomplimentary comparisons being made between the size, quality, and cost of the resin Kurgan ships and the Spartan Firestorm Armada lines hanging on the wall ten feet away while I was shopping. Didn't help that all the Kurgans had visibly miscast broadside guns, but even if they'd been perfect, Spartan's selling bigger, equally detailed minis for less than half the cost in some cases, and they've long since fixed their early QC problems. Their rules suck and many of their ships are actually too big to be useful on a normal sized table, but that doesn't make the current ACTA: NA resins look any more economical. Get those prices down a couple of notches, or stick to metal.

 

[katadder]

actually the FA rules are not too bad at all when you play them, and the models are definitely nice.

 

[Da Boss]

Will this change the pricing structure for the big ships?

Didn't with GW!! make them cheaper that is!

 

[starbreaker]

Will this change the pricing structure for the big ships?

Didn't with GW!! make them cheaper that is!

I'd like to think Mongoose is better than GW at not shooting themselves in the foot. Regardless, the plain fact of the matter is that Mongoose has a direct competitor in Spartan, who's in a lot of the same stores they are (at least here in the US) and whose starships are going to be compared to ACTA's over and over again. The price difference between similarly-sized and equally-detailed ships is not a small one, and the FSA stuff comes with stat cards to boot, which is a nice perk. Mongoose needs to get those prices down if they expect to compete, or they need to push the strengths of their rules through an organized play program and store demo packages so that people will pay extra for the minis.

Getting a "booster" program in place now would help out with selling SFU ships in the future as well. If they're expecting to charge $15 for a resin SFU cruiser, there's going to be a lot of sales resistance from the existing SFB crowd, who already groan about $8-10 pricing. Mongoose ships will be bigger and prettier, sure, but these guys have already bought a ton of models, and will still have the cheaper ADB sinkers available if they want more. They might buy a bunch of rulebooks for ACTA SFU, but if they don't follow up by buying new fleets to go with them, where are the profits?

 

[Da Boss]

Can't really argue with any of your points - lets see what happens