Legacy should take a page from Games Workshop's playbook

[extropymine]

As I have been thinking about the pending Phoenix edition of Confrontation, I've started to particularly focus on a statement made during GAMA: that Legacy intends to do new miniatures, but everyone will need to be patient. Obviously, new sculpts take time, and with so many armies in Confrontation it could take a long, long time for a particular army to see new models. That could lead to frustration and players might not "stick with it" which would damage the chances of the game's re-release being a success.

So I have two suggestions, and both of them are about cards.

First, take a page from GW's playbook. When a new 40k Codex comes out, you can bet that there will be profiles inside without a corresponding miniature. The most recent version of the Tyranids Codex is a great example. It came out over two years ago and last month, they *just* released a Tervigon kit. For two years, people proxied and converted and substituted, but Tervigons were seeing play.

So my first suggestion is that Legacy release, sooner rather than later, card packs with new profiles. Don't do army-specific ones, that would limit sales. I would do alignment-specific ones: one pack of 15 cards for Light, one for Destiny, one for Darkness. That would mean each army of that alignment would get 3 profile cards in the pack. Alternatively, I suppose you could do packs where each of the 15 armies got a single card. Once the card packs are out, try to commit to releasing the associated miniatures in an upcoming wave.

The reason to do this is pretty straightforward: you're letting every player know that you haven't forgotten about their chosen army. Even if it takes a year to see a new model, having new profile cards allows players to convert or proxy while they play NOW, and what you really want is people playing as much as possible. Don't give players a reason to keep their army in storage while they wait for the new sculpts. Give us something to occupy us while we wait, and build the game while you're at it.

My second suggestion also has to do with cards. In the GAMA interview with David Preti that's been posted around, he says that the cards may be modified to improve game dynamics. Unless you're talking about something purely cosmetic, this might be a terrible idea. If you change the cards in a way that makes the old cards useless, you're inviting real trouble. The only way to soften that particular blow would be to re-issue a new profile card for every old model, but even that might be a bitter pill to swallow, depending on how much it's going to cost to re-purchase our armies' cards.

Thanks for reading.

 

[klepto]

I don't understand what 15 cards will do for the sheer number of models in a single army range. i think printing new cards for every model and selling them in a deck format (or offering them in a .pdf) early on is essential to a successful launch.

Every faction.
At lauch.
no question.

The old guard demands it. After all, who's going to be the ones organizing groups and showing off what pretty models are coming? We're a fickle bunch, we've been burned by Rackham several times, and we'll walk out the door the moment we feel like it's being screwed up.

Personally I'm cautiously optimistic. I've got a complete collection of Orcs, Dirz, and picking up more Mid-Nor dwarves. I'm looking forward to playing with them again.

There's a lot of folks who own models and would like to play at the launch of the rulebook. Waiting years for an older model to be re-released simply won't do. Profiles can be tweeked and re-released as PDF until the model officially gets (re)released.

I'm also hoping they get the release schedule balanced out fairly. Wave 1 should have starter forces for all factions. Grunts and a low-point incarnate. Wave 2 could have warrior mages - for all factions. Wave 3 could have ranged troops - for all factions. Wave 4 could introduce a new incarnate - for all factions. I think you see where I'm going with this. I don't care if it takes 3 months to release everyone's mage character. No releasing a ton of new toys for one faction and leaving others behind. The pressure will be immense to do based on the quantity of sculpts they are sitting on, but i can't stress enough that this urge must be supressed. Work on the generic choices first and then on the clan/sub-factions later.

1. Quality rules (with good translations).
2. release the entire existing range as card decks or PDF.
3. Starter boxes for the newbs.
4. keep all factions on a balanced release schedule.

 

[extropymine]

What I was suggesting was releasing three 15-card packs (light, destiny, darkness) of entirely NEW profiles. Each alignment has 5 armies in it, so a 15-card destiny pack would have 3 new cards for each destiny army: daikinee cavalry on giant beetles, goblins on unicycles, whatever. The profile cards would be released with the understanding that miniatures will follow, but maybe not for months-- but at least every army would have 3 entirely new troops to play around with (using conversions or proxies) while everyone waits.

I still think Legacy shouldn't change the cards, but if they do, I agree: having "army decks" with the new versions of the old cards would be necessary for all previously released models.

While I think it'd be nice for Legacy to have all the core troop boxes available at startup, I'm also not sure how necessary and/or profitable it would be, at least not at first. Those regiment-style boxes are really quite plentiful on eBay, and many go for less than retail. I think Legacy could make more money producing some of the harder-to-get models, and I think their experiment with the resins bears this out: Drac Mac and the Fiannas and the Acheron set did not sell like the Molochs or the Cadwallon Militia. Legacy could produce a goblin warrior regiment, which would sell slowly at $35, or they could put out the goblin pirates box, which people seem perfectly happy paying $100 for on eBay, so i would imagine it'd sell briskly at $50. So while I would like the core available, I also understand that Legacy needs to make bank, and that means producing things like the Colony of Ephorath, the Howling Pack, and Dream Warriors. Legacy could also make some money producing the mail-order-only figures, since many of them go for a small fortune. However, I would recommend against them re-making the CORD exclusives, because that would probably make people complain about feeling slighted.

Finally, let's remember that a few armies (Ophidians and Daikinee spring to mind) were just "starting up" when Rackham folded. While there are nearly 70 profiles in the Griffin army, and almost 50 profiles in the Devourer army, the Daikinee army only has 20 profiles and the Ophidians has only 15 profiles. At some point, Legacy will want to develop those armies to become fully playable.

 

[Amusingdead]

I don't understand what 15 cards will do for the sheer number of models in a single army range. i think printing new cards for every model and selling them in a deck format (or offering them in a .pdf) early on is essential to a successful launch.

Every faction.
At lauch.
no question.

The old guard demands it. After all, who's going to be the ones organizing groups and showing off what pretty models are coming? We're a fickle bunch, we've been burned by Rackham several times, and we'll walk out the door the moment we feel like it's being screwed up.

Personally I'm cautiously optimistic. I've got a complete collection of Orcs, Dirz, and picking up more Mid-Nor dwarves. I'm looking forward to playing with them again.

There's a lot of folks who own models and would like to play at the launch of the rulebook. Waiting years for an older model to be re-released simply won't do. Profiles can be tweeked and re-released as PDF until the model officially gets (re)released.

I'm also hoping they get the release schedule balanced out fairly. Wave 1 should have starter forces for all factions. Grunts and a low-point incarnate. Wave 2 could have warrior mages - for all factions. Wave 3 could have ranged troops - for all factions. Wave 4 could introduce a new incarnate - for all factions. I think you see where I'm going with this. I don't care if it takes 3 months to release everyone's mage character. No releasing a ton of new toys for one faction and leaving others behind. The pressure will be immense to do based on the quantity of sculpts they are sitting on, but i can't stress enough that this urge must be supressed. Work on the generic choices first and then on the clan/sub-factions later.

1. Quality rules (with good translations).
2. release the entire existing range as card decks or PDF.
3. Starter boxes for the newbs.
4. keep all factions on a balanced release schedule.

Myself being part of teh oldguard i 100% agree, amen brotha Preach on

(cautios optimism, is a difficult thing, when you have as much of a fondness for the game and the line even though we have been burned by RE...its even more difficult to not let it run to full blown excitement.)

but as you said, all your points are spot on, esspecially teh parts about teh starter game, otherwise retailers are not likely to pick the game up if there isnt something hard to go with it, i personally know i can get it moving at my local shop if there is enough of a starter base to warrant them carrying it and me pushing everyone to play it .

Fingers crossed and prayers said release goes well.