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Yikes! It takes 10 pieces to make a Warhammer 40K Space Marine and it takes 5 pieces to make a Battletech Warhammer (Robotech Tomahawk). So why on earth would anyone require 23 pieces to assemble a single miniature in 1/285 ish scale for this game!! That is just torture. I have literally heard people say they are selling their copy of the game because they don't want to put the miniatures together. Which is a shame because we have waited decades to get this game!

I am 50-50 on this issue, yes there are a few parts that could have been simplified (VT Batteloid cockpit, and half of the Recon Battlepod) However the number of parts give you a better modelling experience for customizing poses. My 40K Eldar Warp Spiders are a one pice cast, however I have a squad of 10 identical clones. I dont have that with my RRT minis. I dont like that we had to discover on our own the spru layout and how to group arms and legs. There should have been better directions. As for the people selling their copys, I guess some people wanted more of an 'X-Wing' play out of the box game rather than a hobby level game.

I don't mind the pieces because I can have different poses, but please no more tiny bits that could be moulded together aka; the cockpit on the battroid. I tried building the glaug and the antenna broke when I clipped it of the sprue tree. And please could we have more space between the parts and the sprue. There so close it's difficult to cut of the sprue.

I got the Regults down assembly line efficiency by the time I was done with them. I could finish three of them in about 45 minutes (including the time taken for the glue to sufficiently set).

The glaug was far more problematic, though. The antenna snapped despite the most delicate efforts to remove, and the arms just didn't want to stay on long enough for the glue to set. I have only tackled two battleoids, and they were a pain in the rump. Specifically, coordinating the positions of the 4 arm pieces (5 if you include the gun) while waiting for the glue to set was very frustrating. But I picked up better glue since then. So I hope the next set will be easier.

I have to say that the difficulty of assembly gives the game a bit of split personality. The rules are very accessible making it a fantastic casual game for a very wide audience (e.g. fans of the cartoon who may not have been hobbyists). But the complexity of assembly shoves the game abruptly into the realm of hard core miniature hobbyists. From a personal standpoint, I am a long time roleplayer who was already beginning to get more into the miniature building hobby, so it was well timed and welcome skill building for me. But, for the most part, I think the complexity of the models is raising the bar far higher than what the level of rules complexity would warrant (if that makes sense).

But time will tell if this proves to be a barrier, I suppose. Other than some parts that are (frankly) too small to survive their removal from the sprues, the models are very well done and the detail is absolutely stunning!

Finally started doing mine. The medium missiles are a pain the butt! And yes, they should do some of the smaller pieces together.

I expected 5-10 parts. Several things don't make sense like the split forearms, the little cockpit part, torsos that range in 3-5 parts, don't forget the single bent leg with 3 others straight as a board, oh and my favorite what the hell moment-- 3 parts for the VF-1s heads in fighter and guardian modes. There'd be more poses with ball and socket joints not a higher part count for the figure.

I have to agree this game does have that split personality that was brought up. I can see playing it over beer and pretzels but the models scream go away inexperienced guy.

please no more tiny bits that could be molded together
i had a two team that sat look and turn down not due to cost by the way it design
even after i told keep it simple level 1 paint and take their time which is two month wait
they said this is high level assembling even when i was willing to pay both turn them down!!!!! and they been doing this back in the day 1989(till now) and still going

I love the minis. They paint up so well.

Doc, they may paint up well, but if new and veteran hobby people are saying no to the game after seeing the sprues the game will be in trouble. To be honest the part break down Is ridiculous. Add bad directions and multiple points that the sprue connects to each part you risk tearing up the models before you actually assemble them which why so many people are reporting super high build times or just not buying the game.

I think one of the things they may not have realized is just how significant a number of new people to mini gaming would be buying into this. Many expected "some" assembly but more on order of Battletech in the 5-8 piece range not what we got which ended up 15-23 depending on the mini with many of those pieces very oddly chosen to be separate pieces (I'm looking right at you tiny pyramid like piece for the Battloid nosecone....)

Agreed. It's even crazier when the metal promo models assemble easier and much nicer. :shrug:

The nosecone makes sense to me (to position varying degrees of torso twists). It's the tiny separate piece for the canopy that makes no sense to me. Did we honestly need that to be separate? It's going to be present in all battleoids and there's no real way you can position it differently. So, I dunno.



I think one needs to be careful tossing out statements like "this is why a bunch of people are not buying it or selling it off and why the game will fail." This means little without actual numbers to back up the statement because it ignores the fact that there may also be a lot of people saying that they love the game for the very same qualities. It's a Chicken Little response that can create a self fulfilling prophecy causing people to avoid buying it because they think people are not buying it.

That time piece was the one I meant Gob.

gob, I never said it was going to fail. please point out where it's actually stated in there I think it'll fail.

I believe the game is going to have a rough go at things. look at the competition out there. sadly using gw as the number one competitor, you decide to get the starter set for 40k or even fantasy and in a few hours you can start running through scenarios and claim to have 2 legal armies started. it took me most my free time for almost 2 months, plus way more models than what comes in the basic set for rrt. the starter for any game needs to grab the new person's interest and keep it through reading the rules to building the models, not have the person go sweet rule book then dear god why did I get this while building the models.

I think that the gist of the comments is the same why so many tiny pieces that could simply have been moulded on.

I saw the sprue layout - yes I am in the UK so still weeks away from getting hands on actual models - and what struck me immediately, is the the design is almost identical to the Bandai Nichimo models, Problem is this part count was for models twice the size (1/144th) but often for those four times bigger (1/72th). It is almost as if sometime took those moulds/sprues and reduced them with a pentagraph.

Result appears to be what look like fiddly models that lack real poseability - straight legs or bent at right angles, no ball joints etc

I have been wargaming and building minis for longer than I care to admit, but these do look like a challenge. What a new kid on the block makes of them I do not know, but it will require patience and determination to see the job through, even before considering painting

And please give open hand options.

Don't get defensive, Rosco. Perhaps that's not what you meant. But you must admit that, when you say "the game will be in trouble," it is reasonable to interpret that your ultimate prediction is failure.

Open handed options would be good. More leg options for sure...and make those a solid piece! There is no reason the legs and arms need to be 2 pieces.

Yes more leg options.

Well finally got my hands on the models and it was going so well.

Pods and Glaug were a breeze (once I figured where the Glaug main body fitted). Destroids fiddly but manageable.

Then I came to the Valks and got cocky after the fighter mode. Then, aaaaargh its the arms I tell you, the so and so arms.
Who thought up these two part upper arm fitting to the lower one. Even with the instructions it is so so frustrating - and I consider myself a veteran modeller. Why oh why could we not had a basic selection of paired one piece arms?

That said the models I have made so far are nice - maybe not mouthwatering but nice - and will look good after a basic paint job to get them onto the table. The much ta;ked about seam issue is not really noticeable, possibly might show more when primed.

Overall, these are not GW class, but certainly efficient models - but hopefully wave 2 will show lessons learnt

I actually like these better than some of the GW models.. if you turn a GW model over you don't see any detail or you get a big wash of smooth plastic.. on these you get the detail. I can't tell you how many times I've had to compromise the quality of painting because detail blended into other details and the paint job looked off. This happened on rank and file troops mostly. Here with these models, the details are crisp and aren't lost. As for parts counts, a unit of marines or troops can be upwards to 8 or 9 pieces per model get 10-12 of those your dealing with 80-108 pieces. a unit of 4 destroids = 4x23=92.. valkyries are a different story because they have the 3 modes.. but when they art put together they look really good! and realistic on the table.. GW models at times felt really abstract

Having to find a use for the '90 degree leg' on every other Battloid isn't currying any favour with me, that's for sure.

As someone who is still something of a minis amateur, my interest in modifying said leg isn't exactly high either.

Yeah the bent leg is a bit of a weird one.

I'm a bit more experienced so I have used it to model a Battloid kneeling but i've only assembled 2 out of however many Battloids I get ina showdown so I think after a while i'll run out of creative options

- End of Line -

WRRD each to their own, but even by your math, 4 destroids 92 pieces, 10 marines just over a 100 - still comes out at a lot of parts. Really was there a need for the absolutely tiny canopy piece for the battleloid?

Agree once you get them assembled they look fine, but one quibble what happened to the slightly bent leg on the Valk box illustration?

As for the 90 degree leg, a little wedge cut out at front of the joint, means you can gently bend this to a lesser angle - a dab of putty will tidy this up. There was a nice blog on converting the stances - apologies I cannot remember the author, I will add later - which should give plenty of variety for some of my later models.

Okay this topic I feel so strongly about that I made a forum account to submit my two cents. Here are a few statistics that I can personally confirm. Of the two stores here I know of 6 two player starter boxes that were sold. One of them was purchased by the owner of my local store, and upon un-boxing it, he returned it. This is man who has been in the miniature gaming industry for the better part of 30 years, and he returned it just based on the complexity of the models. Now, the owner of the OTHER store had kick started it, and upon un-boxing it, paid someone else to build it, again based on the complexity of the models. Of the six boxes all of which sold within two weeks of being purchased (except for the owner who returned his to the shelf, which I then got at a discount), only ONE person has completed all of his models from the box. I'll let someone else figure out the math, but I'm guessing that's about a 15% completion rate.

I know this is a tiny sample size, however this is the fate of RRT in my region. No league will be starting, only two games have been played at my local store and as of now I can confirm that three of the six boxes have been shelved until their owners can actually set aside time to build their models. Adding to that is a gigantic interest in robotech in my region. At least a dozen (This is all estimated, as I did not keep track of everyone who asked me about rrt, but it was quite a few) people showed interest in the game. ALL (And I mean ALL) of them then turned away when I showed them the complexity of the destroid tomahawk model, and its sprue. In fact the game has become something of a joke as my peers see me assembling my models in the store all the time and making no real progress.

I hate to come off as so negative, as I LOVED robotech as a child, but this is the sad truth of RRT at my local game store. I appeal to you palladium: Simplify the construction of your models so that the casual table top gamer can enjoy your game.

Unfortunatly after the last update it seems like were in for another round of many tiny parts to play a table top version of the RPG.

Agreeingly + and –. Showed the stuff to some wargameing friends of mine that also felt intimidated but all agreed that the spread of modelling tools and range of basic modelling experience gained by Bolt-Action and Games Workshop it should not be that difficult for average table top wargamer.

For me it was a surprise (pleasant) that they actually went for these details. Some experience of molding procedure tells me that many parts are decisions made to ease up the production process and not intended to bother gamers. Hence no shortcuts. Figures are cooler in 3-dimesions variable poses, especially Robotech/Macross world with their trademarked mechas.
If they would have done flat Battle tech rubber mechs it would have been a disaster. I think the Robotech mini models is truly pioneering. I have seen some companies though selling their games with pre-assembled figures.

For me its no big deal. Spending an 1.5 hour to paint a warhammer figure (nicely) its no problem putting 35 minutes with a mecha with superglue. As putting together and paint (basic) a Warhammer Fantasy regiment out of the box (some 20figs) before playing requires a few weeks anyway with a fulltime job so I don’t feel intimidated by taking a weekend putting together a dozen of mechs.

As for construction I would say its fair if there is going to some tutorials to catch up with the basic modelling skill and the needed patience that computers totally have killed.

I can only give these 3 advices:

1) Don not cut out fragile pieces directly by its connection points. Cut the sprue intersections around it that are connected to the part of the sprue where the piece is. See it as the letter T.
The horizontal top line is the sprue and the diagonal is the piece. Cutting them where they meet can create stress on the piece being “stretched” by the sprue structure and it will break.

First isolate the piece by cutting the left and right ends of the horizontal line on the T before going for the actual piece. Once entire T section is separated from the sprue (that usually in reality usually looks like an H by now with the piece in the middle) the piece can be cut off normally. IF the piece is super delicate keep it pressed between you thumb and index finger to avoid an unwanted energy transfer from the snap of the pliers.

2) Check that the pieces fit ***BEFORE*** gluing. Sometimes additional knife cutting is required for a good close fit. Sometimes fit is poor due to the plastic hardness and mold that will require some external pressure with fingers or tools after glue is applied to keep good contact. The plastic has some degree of flexibility being “force glued” together and you will feel what force is needed to keep them aligned.

3) Use GEL Super Glue. It doesn't float around sticking half of the workbench or kitchen table together. Its also somewhat harder to accidentally over-squeeze the tube soaking your model and fingers with glue. Only push very gently on the tube and use minimal amount to just cover the surface. It will be rock in 1 minute once contact is made. Squeeze the pieces together tightly and Ill bet you have a Veritech in no time.

/ Paul

I'm a modeler first and a gamer second. I've had a great time putting these together, and the finished products look amazing. I have zero complaints about the build time when it's essentially a high quality, 1/285 scale model of a classy robot.

That being said, these would be my suggestions for improvement:
- Numbered sprues. The instructions are better these days, but without the number molded onto the sprue it's more fiddly looking it up.
- One-piece forearms and legs, one piece battleloid chest plate.
- Some detail is missing on pieces, like the circle with a line through it. I understand some had to be sacrificed, but when it showed up on other pieces, it doesn't make sense.
- Ball sockets!

Background: I'm a long time Warhammer, BT and 40K player with a fair bit of experience putting together/modding models, to the point that when my home was robbed a few years back, the insurance claim for the Citadel minis alone was well north of $10,000.

Once you understand the wonky assembly, especially the legs, the models go together fairly easy, and frankly I've never experienced a mini material that takes paint as well as this plastic does. However, as much as I love mecha, there are some serious issues with the VT and Destroid sprues that make the minis horrible time sinks. Everybody is describing them as 1/285 scale models, but honestly, coming from a scale modeler background, modelers wouldn't tolerate the quality of these sprues. Some minor finishing work is necessary for any plastic model kit, but it shouldn't take literally hours to fill and sand seam lines on a model that took you less than 30 minutes to glue (not counting drying time). And honestly, there really isn't an excuse for this. Modern plastic kits by other wargaming companies have such tight tolerances that even though they are designed to be glued together, you can literally snap fit them together and they will stay together. These sprues are also well planned and that combined with the tighter tolerances means minimal prominent seams and the seams themselves are so small that they are often filled just by gluing the pieces together. We need that and I don't understand why we can't have it when there are good, experienced freelance 3D modelers/sprue designers, that specializes in wargame minis, that work at rates that make them economically viable.

That's the critical flaw that I feel absolutely needs fixed to give the game longevity and it is my hope that the game is successful enough that the PTB will consider second editions of the wave 1 models done by a better designer.

After that is a simple list of "would be nice" items:

Ball and Socket joints
Numbered Sprues
Better sprue planning to minimize breakage of thin pieces.
Separate missile rack covers for the Tomahawk so you can decide whether each model will have a hatch open or closed rather than being forced to have both.
Detailed torso gun bay for the Spartan with separate cover.
Easy Ambidexterity for the mounting of the Gun Pod on Spartans and VT's. This should be an assembly decision, not a mod/conversion.
A clear acrylic sprue for cockpits, viewports and lights.
Missile racks where at least some of missiles not molded on so that we can model partially empty racks or model launching missiles without having to do serious conversion work.

-MaxGrav

nearing the end of the UEDF assembly nowand echo some of the "would be nice " ideas above.

A couple of other things regarding Guardians and Battloids

The fitting pegs/lugs are nrearly all oversized and need cutting down, someone needs to preassemble test models and have some QC.

Two leg poses straight or 90 degree bent is not enough variation - ball and socket would help, but....

One plea, it is helpful that PB have put better assembly instructions here, but i the 18 months of production I would have thought these would have been in the boxed sets

Yeah. Going through my Macross library I also noticed the lack of these small [Vector thrusters??] missing on some places making me wondering what type of detail priority they had. Especially the Spartan/Gladiator whose shoulder backs also are a little improvised. Macross/Studio Nue (?) blue prints shows some orange/red colored "lights" sunken into the rear chassi, and not on the outside as on the game piece.

I respect outsiders telling me to get a life as we are talking about details smaller then the head of a fly and I agree fully on the pickyness. Its just observations however. Game piece is fantastic.

Just modding one of my spartan/gladiators to have the chest gun pack open. I will post some pics around here later. It looks cool but one also realises when studying the pictures that incorporating one into an "open version", its so tiny that it would almost disappear if they molded it into a figure so I understand why they have not done it. They could have made shoulder missiles more prominent though. Its not a Battle Tech rack. They should be fat, mellow, filling the rack completely as sunflower seeds ready to drop.

But in the end one has to face facts. These are gaming pieces made as revolutionary junior models, although in scale they are NOT meant to be real high quality scale models. And as for gaming pieces they are by far the coolest thing I have seen and I'm super satisfied. Love em. Hope they don't take short cuts in later productions.

/P

Well, I am just putting the last pair of arms on the last guardian and it's done.

It was not easy but the final models are pretty nice - I would not say brilliant but nice. I have made some simple changes, like bending legs to get more variety etc but nothing drastic. Even had a chance to paint up a few test pieces and even with my middlling skills, a neat paint job and some lining (gundam real touch pens are great for this) and they are good table top models.

Yes there there is plenty of food for thought regarding improvements for Wave 2 - Super Valk could be a good example of possible simplifying arms and adding leg variety - , but as it will be their second bite at the cherry, hopefully we will get "better" toys to play with

I notice that people not just backers keep saying the same thing, that the models are nice an all just not "mouth watering" as promised.

I can't offer any "numbers" as to the success or failure of the game, though I suspect the longer the delay for wave 2 the less likely it is to succeed.

What I can offer is personal experience in my area. This game is dead.

I've tried to drum up interest and any headway I make reaches a screeching halt as soon as people see the sprues.

Die hard Warhammer, battletech, malleus, people who enjoy the miniature building part of games and even the "Wing" series of gamers, who don't, all look at the sprues and have the same reaction.

Too many pieces, horrible split layout, far too much prep, cleanup and work required when they all ready have other games & mini's to work on.

I'm one of the people who expected 4-5 piece (at most) miniatures, something similar to the "deluxe" minis from the new battletech starter (madcat & battlemaster) which can be assembled in under a minute, actually have mouthwatering details and prove that what I expected to get from Palladium could in fact have been done.

This isn't to say that Robotech Tactics is a bad game, just pointing out that its a very difficult game to get people into as the minus's far outweigh the plus's when it comes to convincing people to invest in a system with the modelling issues Robotech tactics has, the uncertainty of wave 2 (will it ever happen? if so when?) when much of the target audience, hard core miniature model builders, are already invested in games with better models, larger playerbase's, better tournament support and less time and effort to go from purchase to gaming table.

Looking at some of the more successful games out there, having expansions become available to open up build options (and keep people buying/enthusiastic about checking in) seems pretty important.

Not releasing anything new for over an entire year won't do the game any favours. Especially with some people postulating possible balance issues and some of the responses to that being "well it should get better with wave two". If Wave 2 doesn't materialize until 2016, that's something of a problem.

Which isn't to say they should rush it.

But there are other forces at play and it'll be interesting seeing how it all shakes out.

Guess we'll find out this weekend if they finally have something to say about their progress.

Its not just the delay, its the complete lack of information.

Compare RRT to Star Wars Armada.

They also had release issues and there first set of expansions was delayed and the starter box isn't a great game experience due to the limited options available BUT unlike Palladium they had previews, pics of the models, cards and enough information to plan army builds around those missing units while people wait for the release.

People could pick up a starter, SEE the upcoming product, have a rough ship time & cost for those products and as of today actually order those products and get tracking numbers on the packages.

With RRT we have.............umm..............nothing?

No previews, no price list, no delivery dates, not even a rough 2015 Q4, 2016 Q1, early 2017...

Nada, zilch, zip, nothing.

Please white knights, do not reference some half baked post from 6 months ago. show me something that compares to https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/n ... estroyers/ for the wave 2 RRT.

That's what Palladium NEEDS to do to make our investment in this game anything other then a futile waste of money.

If they want us to go out and build up this game like they've asked us they have GOT to give something more then "Soon" to work with and offer potential fans and customers.

To be fair, FFG is a company pulling in literally tens (plural) of millions of dollars per year.

I can say with certainty that PB is pulling in tens of thousands. Perhaps hundreds of thousands. Millions is probably a stretch, Kickstarter aside as an exception to the rule.

Not that I expect anyone to cough up their books for our perusal, just saying it's not an apples to apples comparison. I imagine FFG's break room's standard occupancy is probably higher than the number of people on site at PB HQ.

When you have that much money and that many people, you can afford to get fancy and snazzy with the press releases.

Double Post

I can tell you from personal experience, as I used to work there, FFG's marketing team has more people than Palladium has total in full time employees. In fact, about twice as many...and they are only dedicated to marketing. Just a note for comparison.

Good point, Fantasy Flight are like GW of old. Tempt you in with some lovely plastic crack, and the keep feeding that addiction for a few years with little must have add ons (you need the new stuff to go meta...) before doing a reboot so you have to start all over again.

That said I will keep my powder dry till the end of the weekend, staff or no staff we must be told what is going on

FFG is also working on what, dozens of game lines at a time?

Palladium, judging from there progress is working on what, none?

Factor the number of projects vs. the number of people and palladium might well have more people to devote to RRT then FFG does to any single game line.

If palladium wants RRT to succeed and generate future long term growth and revenue they need to follow the example of successful companies, like FFG, and if that means hire people, then hire people and stop trying to run a million dollar game project on the cheap.

I offered to paint my cousin's set up as I do a ton of hobbyist Army Painter for GW products as well as FFG and just Bones minis. I normally thoroughly enjoy painting miniatures but these have been a complete nightmare. I have put together full scale models with tons of fiddly bits but mercy half the time you cannot tell the piece from the sprue itself. On some of the minis the mold lines were almost absent, forcing creative painting to give the effect of the lines or grooves matching. I wanted so bad to support this product but to be frank when I read the kickstarter reports I had my doubts at the process. It felt more like they were trying to do model airplanes and snap-tite models and not Wargaming miniatures. I have to admit when painted up the models do seem decent about scale, and I can appreciate how hard it was to try to pull off the detail they did. But overall, I just do not think I will buy them in their current state. No reason with most of the models they cannot get them down to 5-10 pieces max.

Thanks for your opinion/constructive criticism. Unfortunately, largely the same information was given to palladium many months before the first wave came out before any molds were made and was initially loudly ignored and retorted as impossible to do otherwise and then partly adopted for destroids. If you think the destroids are difficult to assemble compared with other models of the same size now, they were even worse. Supposedly now Palladium is taking the community's opinions about the complexity of the models under advisement but since we've seen no actual verifiable progress in almost exactly a year on wave 2 (no wave 2 prototype models or difference exploded parts layouts) I can't say for certain. Since March, palladium has repeatedly stated that they're working on reducing that parts count but have chosen NOT to actually post any proof of that work or progress on that front but rather only vague statements (and only after months of silence). I hope for all our sakes that they come out with easier to assemble models soon for wave 2.