Starfinder Masterclass Miniatures Partnership

[Singularity]

Thank you for keeping us in the loop.

[Land Phil]

I am a little disappointed that we're getting plastic instead of resin, but that's only because AR has such amazing quality resin miniatures. This is fantastic news!

[Yoshua]

Thank you for doing everything you can Paizo. It is appreciated.

Archon has a shady history too. Hope you guys know what you are doing, but complimenting them for completing kickstarters is going to be a kick to the groin for anyone who backed Prodos/Archon AvP and never got delivered.

[Fumarole]

Well now, this is an interesting development.

[chris manning]

fantastic news

[Mischief Mondragon]

This is good news. Any word on when the first batch will be completed?

[sanwah68]

I am hopeful...I may pop onto the KS page and ask some questions about shipping

[ograx]

This is good news!

[Steve Geddes]

sanwah68 wrote:

I am hopeful...I may pop onto the KS page and ask some questions about shipping

Yeah, I’ve got some questions too. I might wait for the hubbub to die down, I think.

[Ghost725]

I'm still in the show me camp before i get on this hype train...and if I have read this correct I have to wait 6 months before I get my first wave if minis...so that means if I'm lucky January 2020..and all of 2020 before I get all my mins which have been paid for years ago...i have words but non are child safe or pc for this board.

[CorallineAlgae]

Glad to hear this. I'd never pay a dime for Starfinder minis from Ninja Division. I'll pick up a few from Archon, even though they're sketchy too. If WizKids ever comes out with unpainted Starfinder minis I'll buy a tidy pile.

[sanwah68]

If Archon are smart, their first new mini should be an Izilguun...there will be many SFS players looking for a figure

[Vic Wertz]

Mischief Mondragon wrote:

This is good news. Any word on when the first batch will be completed?

Archon has a timeline, but they couldn't start attaching actual dates to it until we completed the license agreement. It shouldn't take too long to lock down that info, though. When they do, it will likely first appear as a backer update on the Kickstarter page.

[Z3RO#3206]

Thank you Paizo team for your efforts in sorting out this situation.

[Anorak]

Is this a separate thing from https://wizkids.com/2019/04/24/wizkids-announces-enhanced-licensing-partner ship-with-paizo/

[Hayato Ken]

Yes! That's some real good news!
I'm still hyped about Starfinder and finaly have the time to go more into it^^

The only better news would have been metall instead of resin, but the plastic will hopefully do :P

[Marc Waschle]

I am jadedly optimistic that I may finally get my minis, even if it takes another year to get them! Late is better than never, especially after paying so much money for them.

Thank you to Vic, Eric and everyone at Paizo for working to make this right! Thank you to Sara and the other people in customer service for fielding all the questions and shouldering all the misdirected anger that you have had to deal with even though matters were not your fault and out of your control.

[Adenai]

Ok now what about some of the extras like the large Dragon miniature with the shoulder canon?

[Vic Wertz]

Anorak wrote:

Is this a separate thing from https://wizkids.com/2019/04/24/wizkids-announces-enhanced-licensing-partner ship-with-paizo/

Yes. Archon Studios' Starfinder Masterclass Miniatures line is unpainted plastic. WizKids' Starfinder Battles line is prepainted plastic.

[Glenn Elliott]

Anorak wrote:

Is this a separate thing from https://wizkids.com/2019/04/24/wizkids-announces-enhanced-licensing-partner ship-with-paizo/

Yes. Separate deals with different companies.

[Steve Geddes]

Jinx.

[Glenn Elliott]

And he sits like 30 feet away... you'd think I'd have been able to hear him typing his reply or something. :-)

[Robert Gooding]

Why would you close the discussion thread for this third party product? Has paizo decided we’re not allowed to talk about it anymore?

[Themetricsystem]

Robert Gooding wrote:

Why would you close the discussion thread for this third party product? Has paizo decided we’re not allowed to talk about it anymore?

I'm not sure I follow your question exactly but I'll try to help. I'm pretty sure it's because this IS the new thread that relates to discussing that Kickstarter fulfillment since it sounds like ND turned over the rights/responsibility of actually getting these made to Archon.

[Sara Marie]

Robert Gooding wrote:

Why would you close the discussion thread for this third party product? Has paizo decided we’re not allowed to talk about it anymore?

Not at all! That thread was super long and unwieldy and a lot of the conversation was about how nothing seemed to be happening. Now that there has been an update and all signs point to a resolution, I wanted to close the thread so that the last post would point to where folks can go for details on what the Starfinder Masterclass Kickstarter resolution entails.

We occasionally get folks who arrive at our forums via a search engine and don't see that a particular thread or post is months or years old before they start reading or replying to things. With it being closed, they can't reply to older comments, and that last post with details on where to find out more information won't get lost amongst a host of new discussion.

[eddv]

Pardon me for asking this, but its not exactly clear from the press release here:

Are these Archon Minis going to see a retail/general release or are they specifically just fulfilling the promised kickstarter rewards?

[Lisa Stevens]

eddv wrote:

Pardon me for asking this, but its not exactly clear from the press release here:

Are these Archon Minis going to see a retail/general release or are they specifically just fulfilling the promised kickstarter rewards?

They will be selling them through their own website and I believe we will also be selling them on paizo.com.

-Lisa

[Terminalmancer]

Any movement on this front is good news! I don't know how optimistic I'm feeling about Archon, but I'll be very interested to see how the miniatures turn out. Thanks for lining something up, Paizo folks.

[SITZKRIEG!]

For those rejoicing at ND's departure and Archon/Prodos' arrival, please investigate Archon/Prodos' treatment of their Alien vs Predator kickstarter backers. I'd link the kickstarter campaign but they voluntarily took down their own kickstarter page (along with thousands of negative comments) with a copyright claim because they couldn't change what they posted earlier. They then said that backers should join a facebook group for official updates and communication; if you joined but complained publicly about not having your pledge despite seeing the same products for months/years on your local store shelves, you were booted from the group and blocked.

After 5 years, only 20% of backers had their full pledges and about as many didn't have any part of their pledge despite the same exact products sitting on store shelves for years by their own count in an update in 2018. Many of the backers who did get all or part only had it because they sweetened the pot for Prodos/Archon by saving them money on shipping by picking up the pledge at conventions Prodos/Archon were attending or by placing additional orders on their direct webstore.

You may be wondering why I keep using the two company names together like that. It's because convientenly after the failure to fulfill AVP put a big stain on their reputation, Prodos transferred their assets to Archon (a new company created in another EU country founded conveniently by the father of the head of Prodos); obviously the debt/liability from their other ventures didn't follow them to the new company. They then ran their next (one or two?) kickstarters under yet a third company in the US with no mention of either Prodos/Archon until gamers at Boardgamegeek sleuthed out the truth. The AVP license recently ran out and, despite multiple attempts at communciation, some backers still reported that they never got any of their rewards.

Have they been doing better since the AVP fiasco with regards to fulfilling their kickstarter rewards? Yes, they have. When things go well for them and everything is under their control, they do seem to live up to their obligations. But the only record we have of them with regards to a financial failure is the AVP campaign and they were perfectly willing to give backers the short end of the stick permanently while the rest of their business went on as normal. Given that Starfinder backers are a similar type of albatross hanging around their corporate neck just like AVP backers, I wouldn't get your hopes up too high.

I sincerely hope they do better this time... I'm simply not counting on it. I have the luxury of fortunately missing out on the kickstarter so have no money at stake either way. My only interest in it at this point is simply to get around a half dozen figs from backers on the secondary market.

[technarken]

Assuming they go at full tilt that means this will only take 18 months to fulfill for me. Yay. Can I just cash out for 200 paizobucks or something?

P.s. as someone on the KS helpfully pointed out, we got charged for shipping for something that never shipped. Will we be getting that back?

[Stormforge]

So based on the timeline, it sounds like those of us who went all in will be waiting years for total fulfillment. The bonus minis are a nice deal but am I missing something? Also, the update said Archon would be fulfilling EU backers only. Does this mean those of us in the U.S. will be still dealing with ND?

[ChiramMFM]

This deal includes people who pleged from gameontabletop¿?

[scootpunker]

Nice to see the ray of hope! I went "all in" after the KS had closed, so I can't comment on anything or share any news on that backer page. (like that I actually DID receive a few minis from ND until they shut it all down) - so my main question is who do I interact with now that ND is out and Archon is in? Obvs not you guys, since the fulfillment is coming from Archon. - just want to gently communicate with the right people. Thanks for working out this deal. I hope it works, your customers are loyal and all of my interactions with Paizo have been positive. I was starting to worry, but I see you've been working hard behind the scenes to rectify this mess and stand behind your product, even when things go way wrong. Cheers!

[Yoshua]

ChiramMFM wrote:

This deal includes people who pleged from gameontabletop¿?

GameonTabletop is the only real list they have for orders, so I would say anyone who completed the pledge manager and gave ND money in the pledgemanager will be covered under this. Not an official response, but that is where all the orders were made and kept.

[CoachK1]

LOL so Ninja Division is still handling the shipping? 25 pages, 1200+ messages and Paizo has learned ZERO from the debacle.. Ninja Division should have been cut out of any new deal completely if you expect us to believe any of this as good news.

[Ted LG]

Thank you, Paizo, for continuing to work on this. It's been disappointing to not have minis that match a game with such a diversity of character races, not to mention the starships.
Crossing fingers that things go much better with this partnership!

[Jim Butler]

ChiramMFM wrote:

This deal includes people who pleged from gameontabletop¿?

Yes. Game On Tabletop was the late pledge manager for the campaign and will be fulfilled along with the Kickstarter.

-Jim

[Bravetoaster]

To Vic, Glenn, Sara, Lisa, Jim, and anyone else at Paizo who helped get us to this point: I'd like to thank you for continuing to work toward a positive resolution to this problem for the last year. I'm sure it can be frustrating on your end to not be able to share ongoing efforts with upset fans, needing to work behind the scenes for a variety of reasons. I've felt burned on Starfinder in general because (although you'd continued to be in contact with us about it) there was a feeling of no one actually doing anything about the problem. You've definitely restored some of my faith in the game. Im looking forward to getting back into it soon. I appreciate everything you have done and will continue to do to get this project completed!

[CorallineAlgae]

CoachK1 wrote:

LOL so Ninja Division is still handling the shipping? 25 pages, 1200+ messages and Paizo has learned ZERO from the debacle.. Ninja Division should have been cut out of any new deal completely if you expect us to believe any of this as good news.

Ninja Division collected the money from backers for shipping. Since they obviously can't afford to pay the casters for these minis, the least they could do is take care of shipping. Come on, they have to take responsibility for something.

To be honest, I'm glad the owners of this doomed company are getting demoted to box packers. Maybe they'll fail at it, maybe they won't. Either way, let em sweat.

[Realo Foxtrot]

I had been looking into this before and posted a message that was saying that Archon wouldn't be the people who made the US minis https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2umu4&page=23?Miniatures-Kickstarter-Ninja -Division#1108

Seems to be continuing in that fashion now

[Rysky the Dark Solarion]

Aside from Archron being in Poland what evidence do you have that the they aren't making the minis?

[scootpunker]

Jim Butler wrote:

ChiramMFM wrote:

This deal includes people who pleged from gameontabletop¿?

Yes. Game On Tabletop was the late pledge manager for the campaign and will be fulfilled along with the Kickstarter.

-Jim

Jim, I went to my GOTT login and the Starfinder project is marked "closed". Is there someone at GOTT we should be contacting to make sure those of us who got there late haven't been forgotten?

[Dragnmoon]

Realo Foxtrot wrote:

I had been looking into this before and posted a message that was saying that Archon wouldn't be the people who made the US minis https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2umu4&page=23?Miniatures-Kickstarter-Ninja -Division#1108

Seems to be continuing in that fashion now

This in Ninja's Answer to my Question on that on Kickstarter.

-Me

What does this mean?

"Archon Studio will be fulfilling backers in Europe, and Ninja Division will be shipping to the rest of the world"

Does it mean Archon will still be making the Minis but Ninja will be delivering them to everyone outside of Europe?

- Ninja Division PublishingCreator

yes, precisely.

Archon will share more details as we progress, but early purchase of any new miniatures will be fulfilled by them before the wave shipments start.

[Sabirwolf]

I've gotten AvP minis from Archon from their clearance sales, and I just want to say that I don't regret buying any of the minis I got from them. The sculps were looked great, felt sturdy, etc.

I'm really excited to see that Archon is taking over (thought I'm a bit confused, since I thought Archon was already the ones actually doing the minis - Ninja Division being prone to outsourcing rather than actual producing)

[CorallineAlgae]

I don't know anything about it, but my hope is that whoever is paying Archeon to manufacture & ship these figures is doing it this way to completely cut Ninja Division out of the money loop. Paying Archeon directly to manufacture & ship sounds like the way to go. Leave Ninja Division to fund the last scrap of responsibility the new agreement left for them.

I'm also hoping Ninja Division's logo will be reduced to a tiny blip on the back of the packs. If Archon's & Paizo's logos are the only ones on the front of the packaging, they would be a lot more palatable to buy at retail.

I'm not trying to be hateful here. It just pains me to see Ninja Division tarnishing Paizo's reputation. Awful companies hurt the industry and the gaming community, and I kinda like this community.

[no good scallywag]

All the more reason to keep buying Paizo products- this company may have made a goof talking up Ninja Division, but they are making good on finishing the kickstarter, and that's all they can do. As backers, we do share some responsibility for risk.

A well-deserved hat tip to Paizo.

[Blake's Tiger]

I had an address change that appeared to have gone unacknowledged during Ninja Division's radio silence (I changed my address in the order management website, but the shipments still went to my old address, and then I e-mailed their CS mail but never heard back).

Which company do I contact now about my shipping address?

[gbonehead]

Fascinating.

I wonder if this means we will have a Starfinder minis subscription at some poing.

[Fumarole]

gbonehead wrote:

Fascinating.

I wonder if this means we will have a Starfinder minis subscription at some poing.

We probably will - Starfinder Battles was announced in April, but it wasn't definite about there being a subscription.

[Vic Wertz]

Blake's Tiger wrote:

I had an address change that appeared to have gone unacknowledged during Ninja Division's radio silence (I changed my address in the order management website, but the shipments still went to my old address, and then I e-mailed their CS mail but never heard back).

Which company do I contact now about my shipping address?

If you backed via Kickstarter, contact them through the Kickstarter project page. If you backed via Game On, contact them through the Game On project page.