Finally the fabled Robotech kickstarter has arrived, well wave 1 has at least.  I have a number of friends back in Melbourne wondering if they will ever see anything in return for the mountains of coin they shelled out.    Unfortunately I think retailers in Australia will get retail product before the kick-starter backers will.

Some might think I am being overly critical, others not critical enough.  Simply put I don’t believe that the designers and sculptors for this kickstarter and many others designed for Manufacture, they had no idea what was going to happen when the fantastic sculpts  were sent to molders.  Worse is that everybody thinks it is easy to make stuff in plastic.   It really is not, while not a Plastics engineer or a design engineer or even a tool maker, I have worked with them all, I have the utmost respect for a tool makers skills, but the best possible product at the consumer end does require all these people to work together.  This project has been slow to get off the ground, no different to every other Kickstarter that went and raised staggering amounts of money.

I really was not very happy about waiting and really slow pick and packing.  But as of when I got notification that my package had shipped I sort of got more excited.  I am really looking forward to this.  So here is in short a box opening so all can see some of the goodies.

The Main Box

This is a big box,  I am really pushing the limit of the photo light box I have with these.

There are five battle pod frames. And one Commander frame

I am looking forward to putting these together, and seeing how the quality is overall.

Instructions Included

Counters, Markers, Cards and more

The Rule book

So what you get in the main box is:

• 112 page, full color, softcover rule book. Includes an index and a comprehensive color guide for all Macross mecha in the series.
• 24 Battle Dice, 12 UEDF and 12 Zentraedi.
• 53 color game cards (unit cards, etc.).
• 4x VF-1A Valkyries (in Fighter, Guardian, and Battloid modes).
• 1x VF-1J “Officer” in all three modes.
• 4x Destroids: 2 Tomahawks and 2 Defenders.
• 12x Regult Zentraedi Battlepods.
• 1x Glaug Officer’s Battlepod.
• 1x Quel-Regult Recon Battlepod.
• 1x Quel-Gulnau Recovery Pod.

It is a nice box set, I have waited for this for a long time and it has taken what seems for ever, but it is here now and I really like the look of the box, the extra’s that I got and Battle Foam Bag I also got.

Battle Foam Bag

Over all the quality of the foam is what we have come to expect from Battle Foam, it is a well produced, product, which is good, because I was going to have no where to store all the stuff I also got with this.

Bonus

I have not take this out of the bag yet, there are lots more to come, I hope it is in the next 3 months how I expect that will not be the case.

As for the Retailers getting product before Aus and NZ kickstarter backers, I think this is pretty low, the first priority should be to the people that invested in you to make the product, their share is effectively product if you are making a profit from that they invested, then maybe you should be find a way to thank them for that investment.  I am sure it will be all over the internet by now that some retailers are getting it before backers, and there will be outrage, but Palladium Books has proven they really don’t care.  Look at how they handled Gencon, if you don’t vote it is a Yes for us to take it to Gencon and sell it before you our kickstarter backers get product.  Unfortunately this is the world we live in, the only way we can change that is to not back people like this.

But it gets better for Aussies.   From an update published by PB,  they are going to pick and pack all the Australian orders, put them on Pallets and get them sent via ship.  From the timing getting from Port to PB’s warehouse, and then the time a ship takes to cross the Pacific Ocean, I am not sure that any Aussies will see anything in the next 3 months, I think they have a right to be a little annoyed at this.  PB have also said this is make duties and fee’s as low as possibe because they also said, “That said, the recipient will, of course, be responsible for any and all fees, taxes and duties their government may charge. ”

Overall while I love that I got my stuff, I am not impressed with handling and prodcution of this Kickstarter.  I would like to have seen more stuff just bagged like you see about I would be fine with  that, but not this time. I would have liked to see it shipped in a more timely manner, and most of all I think crowdfunding needs to understand they are drawing from a global community and need to treat everybody like they are right next door, it is not good enough.

I have not commented on the over all quality of the casts as I have not started that yet, there are some bad reports, but again I think it will be the same thing as I have mentioned before, not designed for Manufacture and they have not sourced the expertise in that area to make this as smooth as possible.

I will have to review the models as soon as I get to them.