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Post by Blargaliscious on Dec 6, 2017 19:13:40 GMT
This might not be "News" so much as a discovery that I thought warranted special mention. I'm just hoping that I'm not the only one who never heard about the news / press release / communication from the "Elite Marketing Team" at Privateer Press. On the Privateer Press online store they have for sale pre-configured 25 point Company of Iron bundle sets. Each set comes with a 25 point force, the rule books, and the cards. What I found interesting was that several of the sets were featured in the Insiders that came out before the release of the game, yet those Insiders never explicitly said that these example forces were going to be offered for sale online with the rules that you would need. They are all more expensive than the CoI box set, so they are not quite the deal that you get with the boxed set, but if you are looking to get into CoI without having to put Stormblades or Farrow onto Bartertown then these might be for you. Another thing: this section of the online store also has the rules and the cards available for $15. store.privateerpress.com/games/company-of-iron
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Post by macdaddy on Dec 6, 2017 19:53:21 GMT
Don't feel like running the math but those seem rather expensive...especially considering they are a bunch of boxes with min units in them...
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Post by elricaltovilla on Dec 6, 2017 22:04:58 GMT
Yeah, unfortunately the only one I want is sold out and has been for a while.
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Post by Blargaliscious on Dec 7, 2017 4:13:33 GMT
Don't feel like running the math but those seem rather expensive...especially considering they are a bunch of boxes with min units in them... I noticed that of all the forces that had min units, those that do have min units are made out of plastic. When I got my CoI boxed set both the Stormblades and the Farrow came in a single bag. I assume (someone please correct me if I am wrong) that the Farrow and the Stormblades, when bought normally by themselves, would be bagged in the same way. If so, then it is a pretty easy thing for PP to just grab the bags of troops and put them in the CoI box instead of their normal packaging. Now the question I have is: who bags the troops? PP or the Chinese company that does the molding? If the Chinese molding company bags all of the plastic troops and then sends the bagged troops to PP then PP would effectively be forced to sell full squads in the CoI bundles because it would be terribly cost ineffective to break down bags - the labor costs, chance for mis-packs, and disposal of the discarded troopers would be bad. But, if PP gets the plastic troopers in bulk and then bags them at their place then it would be easy to adjust the packaging setup to make min squad packs. Knowing what I do know about manufacturing, I would assume that the Chinese bag the troops up for PP -or- PP has a third party receive the troops in bulk and bag them for PP. (PP saves money on labor and doesn't have to sink money into bagging equipment.) Now, I did the math on the Khador force. Assuming that the rules and cards are free (like the blurb says in the online store) the $98.96 is the same as buying all of the miniatures normally, including getting a full Winter Guard squad with 3xWA instead of a min unit. I'm going to make a leap of faith here and say that even though there are min units in some of these forces, you'll end up buying max units. Has anyone bought one of these so that this can be confirmed?
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Post by elricaltovilla on Dec 7, 2017 21:18:38 GMT
It would be nice if PP was more explicit about what you're getting when you buy some of these bundles.
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Post by Blargaliscious on Dec 7, 2017 21:27:50 GMT
It would be nice if PP was more explicit about what you're getting when you buy some of these bundles. Please note my reference to the "Elite Marketing Team" in the first post. My apologies if my sarcasm was not more clear.
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Haight
Junior Strategist
Posts: 396
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Post by Haight on Dec 7, 2017 21:38:56 GMT
I really want to like Company of Iron but i have two main problems with it.
1) Warcasters are bad ass. There are no warcasters in CoI. I might be able to get around that if...
2) I had more faith that they will support it. Lot's of their side games / formats get micro support or temporary support and then die for long periods of time. Unbound took until NQ1 or NQ2 to get updated for MK3 fully (though in full disclosure they released relatively regular, if not entirely comprehensive, errata and clarifications for it). MonPoc - burst of support, died an ignominious death. Bodger's games were really cool but they leveled off support for those too. I am not trying to be a dick when i say i have literally never seen, nor heard of, a human being play Level 7. Grind took years to reboot. I did not buy into high command, i think (big i think?) they are still supporting that? Dafuq ever happened with the Voltron license?
It's just hard to throw money at something past what you've already invested that will be blip on the radar. So if i can do something with CoI based on what i already own, cool, but based on their track record of supporting ancillary and spin off games, it'd be on a "minimal or no investment" basis only. Which is a shame because i enjoyed some of the quite a lot, but I don't typically play unsupported or dead games. It's hard to get people to play them and keep playing them.
I know its intended to be a side game, but I require more than the fact that a product is available to actually spend money on it in terms of my gaming dollars.
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Post by elricaltovilla on Dec 7, 2017 21:47:57 GMT
It would be nice if PP was more explicit about what you're getting when you buy some of these bundles. Please note my reference to the "Elite Marketing Team" in the first post. My apologies if my sarcasm was not more clear. No I got the sarcasm, I was just thinking about what could be done to improve the issue and maybe help PP make better decisions in the future. They could always hire me. I'm pretty cheap.
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Post by Blargaliscious on Dec 7, 2017 23:54:37 GMT
I really want to like Company of Iron but i have two main problems with it. 1) Warcasters are bad ass. There are no warcasters in CoI. I might be able to get around that if... 2) I had more faith that they will support it. Lot's of their side games / formats get micro support or temporary support and then die for long periods of time. Unbound took until NQ1 or NQ2 to get updated for MK3 fully (though in full disclosure they released relatively regular, if not entirely comprehensive, errata and clarifications for it). MonPoc - burst of support, died an ignominious death. Bodger's games were really cool but they leveled off support for those too. I am not trying to be a dick when i say i have literally never seen, nor heard of, a human being play Level 7. Grind took years to reboot. I did not buy into high command, i think (big i think?) they are still supporting that? Dafuq ever happened with the Voltron license? It's just hard to throw money at something past what you've already invested that will be blip on the radar. So if i can do something with CoI based on what i already own, cool, but based on their track record of supporting ancillary and spin off games, it'd be on a "minimal or no investment" basis only. Which is a shame because i enjoyed some of the quite a lot, but I don't typically play unsupported or dead games. It's hard to get people to play them and keep playing them. I know its intended to be a side game, but I require more than the fact that a product is available to actually spend money on it in terms of my gaming dollars. Realistically this game has the lowest cost investment of any of their games, assuming that you are a typical Warmachine / Hordes player. Do you have 20 or 25 points of small or medium-based units and solos from the same faction that would work well together? If you are a regular poster on these forums you should already have this. Can you afford a $15 (plus shipping) set of rulebooks and cards from the Privateer Press Online Store? This is the cost of a solo, maybe an expensive warcaster if you live outside of the USA. If not, can you at least find someone who already has the special card set and download the rules from privateerpress.com/organized-play/game-rules-errata? Can you create a 30" by 30" gaming area and fill it with an appropriate amount of terrain? This should be easy if you already play Warmachine. This is all you need to start playing Company of Iron. For your typical Warmachine / Hordes player the initial investment falls in the "Who Cares?" category. Further support: realistically all of the physical needs of the game have already been met with the initial release. Even if they release no more special solos beyond the Farrow and Storm Knight solos in the boxed set they already have enough units and solos in the existing range to easily satisfy the game's needs. Considering that the new Legion and Protectorate solos, Craelix and Elias Gade, were featured in the No Quarter Prime #2 CoI section, I think there is reasonable reason to believe that we will see more CoI-friendly miniatures come out. As more Warmachine / Hordes units and solos are released they are effectively supporting CoI as well. Intellectual support: No Quarter Prime #1 and #2 have had sections devoted to the game with scenarios, while #2 has additional game rules (dismounted dragoons) in it. For a company that is run by a bunch of RPG writers / book writers / other creative types I think we will see continued support for a while, if not indefinitely. As long as Warmachine / Hordes releases new stuff Privateer Press will need to support CoI. OK, so almost all of their other side games have come and gone. I think the differences between CoI and the other side games are pretty obvious, and the investment need is negligible. I think your concerns about CoI are... overstated.
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Haight
Junior Strategist
Posts: 396
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Post by Haight on Dec 8, 2017 0:27:23 GMT
Fair. Let's see what support it has in 12-15 months. Their track record on this front is not good.
MonPoc had a ton of support (if a little late in some instances) for a year or so. I stand by my concerns that their track record of supporting spin off and ancillary games, in a word, sucks.
If you have a large collection the buy in is cheap. No doubt. But i won't be buying additional stuff for CoI that wouldn't work in WM/H or isn't something that could be used in my faction army because their track record of supporting their side game blows.
I think your simplification of the reasons i'm hesitant to support the game are ... overstated, and lack some historical perspective. Your economic counterpoints i'll warrant, but if someone asked me to spend 15-50 bucks on something that it's highly likely with historical precedent will be dead in 12-15 months, I probably wouldn't.
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Post by elshinare on Dec 9, 2017 8:24:53 GMT
doesn't CoI allow the use of small to medium based warbeast/jacks?
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Post by elricaltovilla on Dec 10, 2017 19:10:08 GMT
doesn't CoI allow the use of small to medium based warbeast/jacks? Yes it does. A couple of the bundles offer beasts or jacks as part of their list.
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