TGG2 Update #69 – The Comments Update

We are sometimes accused of posting only nice testimonies about TGG2 in our updates. So we've decided to directly address that in this Update.

Sometimes, things can be a bit rowdy on Social Media and Update Comments. Especially at a time when backers become increasingly impatient to receive their Rewards, which is very understandable.

Getting yourself heard

The funny thing is that when TGG2 backers are happy, they want to make sure that we know about it, and so they write to us personally. This is much appreciated! But not a lot people see those messages aside from the team, which is why we re-post some in our Updates.

When TGG2 backers are not happy, most contact us directly. But some don't and feel that they'll only get results if they go out in the open, comment in public, go to social media.

If you think about it, given the world we live in, it makes a lot of sense. In many situations (with governments, big corporations, etc.), it's hard to get your voice heard.

But you don't need to go through that to deal with us. If you need something, we are here to help.
If you are happy, do tell the world :)
If you are not, write to us and let us help you.

So, what is the solution?

Social medias are definitely not the best place for problem solving. One of the many reasons being that questions often call for detailed answers which promptly create a wall of text, as you'll see below... Nobody likes that :(

But if you write to us, we will listen and answer. We will do our best to give you satisfaction.

Of course, we may not always agree, and in some very rare cases, a situation may be hard to solve. But we always strive for a win-win because in the end, we truly believe that it is because of our backers' support that Raging Heroes can exist and grow.

Happy Backers / Unhappy Backers

Some people rightly say that the nice testimonies are not matched by the negative comments posted on our updates. Some others say that we are just plain liars.

But are those “negative” comments truly a reflection of the general feeling of our backers? The truth it that the negative and sometime dismissive comments we get on the social media feeds do not reflect what we experience every day interacting with backers via email, private message, chat or face to face.

We receive hundreds of messages every month and answer each of them individually. When there are problems to solve, it is a positive experience in the vast majority of cases. When backers interact with us directly, they tend to realize that we are here to help and that we all want the same thing to happen: to get the best possible minis as quickly as possible.

And from what we see every day, people tend to like their TGG2 minis and be happy about the campaign, even though we all hate the aggravating delays..

Answering each comment

Overall, the questions or opinions expressed in the “negative” comments raise issues that we address in each new update. But today, instead of giving general answers, let's get specific and let's answer each of the comments we got after the last Update.

Sorry for the big wall of text below. To keep it shorter, we have not re-copied the comments themselves, but you can easily read them here and here. The answers are self-explanatory.

To summarise what's below:

• When you are not happy with something, (miscast, something missing in your shipment, anything else), for an effective resolution, send us an email and let's work out together how we can solve your issue. In most cases, there is a simple solution. It's nearly impossible to track all your questions and make sure you get a proper answer on social medias and so you run the risk of feeling ignored and waiting longer than necessary for a solution. Just send us an email at RagingHeroesTeam@gmail.com and we'll do everything to help.
  
  
• The foundry has sent us enough stock so that, as planned in the last Update, all the orders that don't include Monsters & Machines, the Mounted Knights and the Centaurs are getting shipped in the next 10-15 days.
  
  
• The Mounted Knights and Centaurs had some mould issues, which is why the shipment of those is delayed. This is currently being resolved. We will get the prototype casts in the next few days.
  
  
• The foundry is starting to work on the Monster & Machines next week. Then, they'll do the metal heroines. We will be better able to provide a timetable about when to expect the metal minis as soon as the Monsters and Machines moulds are ready.

Read on for all the details.

Communications and Delays

@Greg Osborn:
First, I see that you purchased a shipping wave on the 24th , your shipment went out on the 27th , and only the Centaurs are missing from your Rewards. There is more info on the Centaurs in another reply below.

I'm quite bemused that you find our communications lacking, as we respond to every single email query we get, and we publish extremely lengthy and detailed updates filled with images and info pretty much every 4 to 6 weeks, as it was planned and said at the beginning of the campaign.

The funny thing about people saying that there is a lack of communication is that other people tell us that our Updates are too long. Some have even said that they don't read them and only look at the pictures...

About the delays, we understand your frustration and share it. We know that what drives your comments, even when they get angry, is that you care about your hobby, that this is something important for you, and that you can't wait to get the minis that you selected one by one with great care. We totally relate to that.

What some people seem to forget sometimes is that the first people penalised by the delays are us, because Raging Heroes is our livelihood. Each week of delays cost us more money, which we cannot invest in new exciting projects. This means that, more than anyone, we have a very serious incentive to get things completed as quickly as possible.

Even if you may not believe that we do care about our backers, by definition, this serious incentive makes us your best advocate to get your Rewards shipped.

This is why we do a 40 hours-workweek between Monday and Wednesday, then keep going until Friday night and, in many cases all the way throughout the week-end. This is not an excuse that we offer you, this is the reality of the amount of work that is required to produce such a project.

I must say again that TGG2 is a Kickstarter Project. By definition, from the very terms of the Kickstarter website, a Kickstarter project should not be a pre-order campaign. What it means is that the backers act as the supporters of a project that they wish to see come to reality.
The nature of a project is that it is something that is in development, and not a finished product.

We understand that this is something that people can lose sight of as, more and more, Kickstarter projects, especially games, now come as ready-to-go-to-market.

This is for this exact reason that we wrote in our Risks and Challenges section that this was definitely a project, and that many things could happen on the way, some good (like bonus releases after the campaign, like getting the Avatar of Shah and the Spider Mother and some of the other big miniatures at a price that make them a once-in-a-lifetime deal as, during the project, we chose to make those miniatures bigger and absorb the extra cost ourselves, ...), some bad (like mould release issues for some of you, like extra delays, ...).

So yes, the sea can be rough, just like we announced at the beginning of the campaign. But we move forward and work through the problems as they come, one by one. Of course, it can be very frustrating, and from the outside, it can feel just like someone said in the comments section: “Well, it can't be that hard to cast my 12 or 20 miniatures...”. But when you put all of those 12 and 25 minis together, it amounts to over 450 different miniatures designed and sculpted, and over 300,000 individual casts. The good news is that we are now nearing over 2/3rd of the TGG2 Rewards shipped. And the rest is on the way.

Miscasts

@xarin:
It looks like you've been extremely unlucky, and I am very sorry about this. Despite our best efforts, miscasts can manage to slip through the quality control process. And sometimes, even more rarely, a person ends up with several miscasts at a time. As always, the most effective way to resolve this is to contact us by email at RagingHeroesTeam@gmail.com, which allows us to have an email conversation together, exchanges photos, and better track and resolve the issue.

However, regarding the quality of the resin, I am puzzled because since the very first day of this project, the composition of the resin has never changed, and so the second batch you received is made of the exact same resin as the first batch.

That being said, one of the known issue we occasionally have with our new casting process is that the details can appear a bit blurred or softened. From our tests, we've concluded that it's mostly an optical illusion, because of the way the light penetrates the resin. As soon as the resin is primed, the details pop out again. Strange, but true. To be honest, when the Foundry told us this, we did not believe them. But we did the tests and to our surprise, this proved to be correct.

Lastly, about one miniature being smaller than advertised, again, please contact me and be more specific. Right now, I am unable to help you with this :( I have looked at your Rewards Selection and I would imagine that you are talking about the Centaur Heroine. We had to switch the Centaurs to 50 mm bases instead of the 40mm bases originally planned because the models were larger than expected. On the size chart, the Centaur Heroine is less than 5cm tall. The actual miniature ended up being about 7 cm tall when posed as on the renders.

I would be surprised that anything ended up being smaller than planned, because most of the big monsters on the size chart have pretty much all ended being bigger than we had expected.

Order Problems

If it happened that you did not receive your freebies, or that there is confusion with the shipment of your parcel, please don't post this in the Comments Section or on Facebook, but instead, write us directly for a quick and efficient resolution. We cannot efficiently monitor and follow through properly such requests on social media, and so you run the risk of feeling ignored and waiting longer than necessary for a solution :(

@Anne laure:
In your case, after some research, we discovered that you forgot to add the Freebies to your Rewards Selection, and since there are 2 persons living at your address who supported the Kickstarter, we did not catch that because the other person already got his set of freebies.

I'll contact you vie email to fix this and get you your freebies :)

@Steve Remington:
No worries, we have already allocated all the TGG2 Rewards to our backers first, and so your box of Freebies is on hold just for you.

@CorallineAlgae:
I am unable to locate your Account with only this name, and your email address does not match any that we have on records, so please email us directly so that we can help you. There is more info on the metal miniatures below.

@Bill Redford:
I have sent you an email, and we got this resolved to your satisfaction already :)
There is more info further down regarding the Centaurs and the Knight Riders.

@John Connelly:
I see that you received part of your Rewards this summer. The Mounted Knights and the War Pulpit are the only things preventing the shipment of the rest of them. I understand your unhappiness, yet I'm not sure that you have read all the info that we share in our numerous Updates. As noted on the Campaign front page, when items become available, you can always decide how many shipments you get, how often, and how much you spend on shipping. As we've said many time, contact us directly and we'll find a solution that match your needs.

Monsters & Machines

@Mirko, @Kévin Guillotin, @Harlad Bussing:
Thank you for your kind words and great support! It's much appreciated.

It's very hard for me to give you a firm date as to when we'll be able to ship them, because it all depends on how quickly the foundry works on those. The Foundry will be beginning work on the Monsters and Machines next week, but these are large, complex pieces, so it's impossible for me to give you an estimate. I can tell you that the plan is for the Avatar of Shaah to be the first one they work on.

I wish I could be more specific. But until the moulds are done and validated, timing is hard to assess. I will know more once the moulds done. We will continue to share the foundry's progress via our Updates, but don't hesitate to be in touch at any time, for any reason.

Cleaning the Miniatures

@Chris:
Hi Chris, I'm really sorry that you have this problem. If you read our previous updates, we've already addressed this situation. It appears that we had a few batches that were harder to clean than others, and despite a thorough investigation with the resin and the release agent suppliers, nobody has ever been able to discover what caused this. However, in most cases, this problem has been solved by thoroughly following our cleaning and priming guidelines that you can find explained in details in this video along with other tips on how to prepare your TGG minis.

In the event that you would be one of the few unlucky ones who received a really hard to clean batch, please contact me by email so that we can resolve this. Just so you know, we are now using a new release agent that will not cause this type of problem anymore.

@Eric:
I don't understand how you can say that we are not accepting responsibility. We have addressed the mould release issue in several Updates, we've been personally in contact with backers affected with this issue, we have made many inquiries and tests, and we've ended up changing the release agent to make sure that, even if there were just a few batches affected, nobody will again have problems painting their minis ever.

We made detailed posts and videos to explain the best way to clean the miniatures (see links above and below). Changing the release agent completely upset the workflow of the foundry and forced them to redo a lot of their moulds to make sure that you, the backers, would get the best possible miniatures. And we absorbed all these costs and are dealing with the delays.

Preparing the Mantis

@Superschrubber:
I am sorry that you had problems with the Mantis. For the people reading this, please know that we have already addressed this situation directly with @Superschrubber via email. It is true that the Mantis are a delicate set of miniatures that can be hard to work with if not approached the right way. To take care of that situation, we created a specific video for the Mantis that will help you get the best results when unspruing and preparing the Mantis and other Raging Heroes minis.

That being said, the Foundry and us keep revising and reworking the moulds all the time to minimise such difficulties and give you the best possible casts.

About the painted minis shown earlier

@Kévin Guillotin:
Yes indeed, we work with professional painters. The colour schemes are always a tough thing to come up with to get the colours to balance out nicely on the miniatures, even if it sometimes look deceptively simple :) We are also very happy with the non-metallic gold, especially since it will be a recurring theme with this army.

Metal Miniatures

@Todd M Ferrullo, @CorallineAlgae:
As we said in Update #67, the metal versions of the Heroines will be made after everything else is done. I am very sorry that this keeps you waiting. Making the metal miniatures is a completely different workflow, so this means that the Foundry cannot manage both processes simultaneously. As soon as the Monsters&Machines are in the casting phase, we will be able to give you more details about the planning for the metal casts.

We totally agree that it does not take very long to spin about 20 miniatures, be they resin or metal. But the fact is that for the TGG2 project, we are manufacturing and shipping over 300,000 individual casts. As you can imagine, this is no small endeavour. Nevertheless, just so you know, we are investigating alternate options to see if we can speed up the metal production.

In the event that you do not wish to wait any longer, you can always contact us by email at RagingHeroesTeam@gmail.com and switch your metal heroines to resin. Or, if you want to receive anything else that is in stock in your Rewards Selection, you can purchase an additional shipment and pick, for example, the option Whatever you have in stock now : Between 1 and 10 days from purchasing this option, we will ship everything that we have in stock from your Rewards Selection. The rest will ship when all remaining items will become available. Don't forget to sign in to access this page.

I am taking this opportunity to let you know that as we go, we will progressively stop making any metal miniatures, and it is very likely that the TGG2 won't even be available in metal for the general public, for various technical and economics reasons, but mostly because the demand the metal versions of our minis is constantly dropping.

Mounted Knights and Centaurs

@Bill Redford:
Your order should have shipped earlier but you are still waiting because it includes Mounted Knights and Centaurs. Both units have caused us issues during the mould-making process, and we had to reprint several parts for the Foundry so that the moulds could be reworked with a new approach to fix that. We should be receiving prototypes for those in several days, and, once approved, they will then begin casting and become part of the available stock.

Dark Elves Video and Stories

OK, this was not part of the comments, but we promised you an Update featuring this. It will be in our next Update coming very very soon.