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Unboxing: Robotech RPG Tactics UEDF Spartan/Phalanx Destroids
June 2, 2015 by dignity
We've previously shown some of the Zentraedi forces you can add to your Robotech RPG Tactics game and now we have some UEDF Destroids to unbox for you.The big Phalanx artillery unit and the Spartan defense mech are next up!
Once again Justin is joined by Carmen who worked on the game to discuss these units and the game in general, including his tactics on using Zentraedi Battlepods to go all Riverdance on UEDF units.
How would you utilise these mechs?
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“Light & easy”? “Comparable detail to Dropzone”?
You two must be talking about another set of minis all together, these things have been a colossal pain in the arse to assemble.
I think I’d have rather seen you guys do one of these unboxings of RRPGT without Carmen around, and having tried to put a few together. See how easy you find them to build then….
The “comparable to dropzone” is probably a reference to Dropzone Cityscape commonly being used as terrain for RRPGT
Sorry if I’m sounding negative but I built a pair of Veritechs (all three modes), two Tomahawks (Warhammers) and the two Phalanx (Longbows). I put the rest of the sprues back in the box after that. Just couldn’t bring myself to even try as it took waaay too much time to build and the parts are far, far too fiddly
I for one have finished building all the models in the two player box set and I think I should get a shirt that says I assembled Robotech RPG Tactics and lived to tell about it. I consider myself a veteran of model building and this was nightmarish as it was extremely finicky as well as small.
I agree with you @dawfydd that at some points felt like giving up. I get the feeling that many of the KS backers demanded so much detail that they chose this route instead of easy or pre assembled models. Its a shame as I think outside of the backers and hard core followers of Robotech, this choice of model layout will deter more so than draw in players.
Think is the renders they made such a song & dance of in the KS campaign to sell the damn thing to us would have been perfect. Whoever made the decision to chop the final minis up the way they did deserves a seat in the Special Hell.
And I still can’t help but laugh at how PB’s blatant mis-representation of this project extends to the back of the damn box the core game comes in: The images they use of the Veritechs in their various modes are great, but there is no way in hell you can make the majority of those poses without extensive cutting & greenstuff work.
If I get my Super VF’s, Rick & Roy exclusives and the rest of the Zentradi stuff I’ll be happy, but I’m personally writing the whole thing off. I’ve rebased one Tomahawk on a hex base to join my Battletech mercenary company as the Warhammer I’ve been trying years to find, but everything else is in a box in my wardrobe. If I want simple, out of the box gaming I’ve got Zombicide, and the Star Wars trinity – Armada, X-Wing & Imperial Assault. If I want to kill time assembling & painting gorgeous minis I’ve got three Infinity factions on the go, a box of Arena Rex to assemble, some Darklands Mierciens crying out for work and the last of my Raging Heroes TGITG rewards has arrived to refresh my Imperial Guard command structure. And at least I went into all those knowing ahead of time I’d have to put the work in. Robotech RPG Tactics was supposed to be a fairly simple to play, quick to assemble game. PB have fluffed the latter making the former feel like a waste of time (and don’t get me started on the lack of army lists in the “core” rulebook. Grrrrrrr)
A word of advice. Don’t ever try anything really difficult.
I love Robotech and I really like the look of these once built; however I personally have found the UEDF faction kits almost impossibly fiddly – quite a barrier I would say to getting into the game.
That said the Zentraedi kits are much nicer to put together.
All in all it is a real shame because the game mechanics look really good and seem to give a good representation of the action from the original series.
If people wish to know how I feel about the lying, shysters at Palladium books and the abortion that is Robotech Tactics. Then I refer you to my comments on the other Robotech topics.
The sprues look nightmarish. Excuses are futile.
Yet I would have loved to love it. Maybe in another life, when I will be a cat.
They are nightmarish, when you have to dedicate 3 days to assemble them. The bombs on the wings are what almost did me in. This is one case that I would pay for someone else to do the model assembly.
Given that this is probably paid promotion it’s hilarious how little even the Palladium guy can do to sell the sprues.
“it has all like the little inset uhm pattern uhm …” *desperately looks for details* … *mumbles something about legs* “basically the same kind of detail level the the Dropzone stuff has”
Justin: “What are these ammo feeds?” – “No, those are the arms.”
Clearly the detail is so amazing you can’t even recognise arms.
Close to 30 pieces for a 1/285 mech, simply because they’ve gone with the asinine idea to split legs/feet/torsos in half, ensuring “wonderful” seams on the finished models. Thanks, but no thanks.
I only hope that their upcoming cooperation with GHQ does not hurt that company.
We don’t do paid unboxings 🙂
If a company is a partner you will see their ads on the site, Palladium are not a partner.
These were filmed when the opportunity arose just after a bootcamp, Cameron had stuff to show, so we took the opportunity to film 🙂
Who’s Cameron? Was his stuff any good?
I think that most people would assume you don’t get paid for unboxings. It was Justin’s enthusiasm overload and the fact that you all were unaware that there was a controversy that pushed everyone over the edge. After that the hyperbole and internet zeal boiled over. No need to worry @warzan we still love you guys and the site! 🙂
ouch… i think this suffered from being done on the DZC bootcamp weekend. I tend agree that i prefer that unboxings are done without a company rep present. Although i think that in this case Carmen only had a hand in the rules not the design of the mini’s.
Yeah a little misstep of an unboxing. Its fine to have the rep say things that aren’t accurate as to ease of assembly but Justin shouldn’t have enforced the idea that the assembly would be easy for beginners. Any beginners who believe this would be in for a world of pain that might deter them from better choices for beginners. Say that these are for more advanced assemblers and let the detail speak for itself.
BoW isnt known for their critical stance towards their buisness partners products.
I think there is a fine line they are walking and sometimes I am annoyed by the way they deal with this rather hot topic. But sometimes it just tastes too much like Sell-a-Vision.
Palladium are not a business partner.
At the time of recording (Justin and me to be fair were not aware of any ‘hot topic’ surrounding these release)
I did try and raise awareness http://www.beastsofwar.com/groups/news-rumors/forum/topic/robotech-tactics/
Would be a better video if you had some of the boxes models already done, so you can see what all that glued up fingers and hours of hard work can do…. Myself I have painted 12 models out of nearly 100 and just got enough painted to play a short game…
I should have my terminator box set painted up in no time… 12 models..lets say I started about 3 months ago…. its draining… i have terminator done in a week…
Shame PB has destroyed this game…Rules are great… but it never sell……
Is it polite to let the guys know you’re cancelling your backstage? Or just stop the payments? I used to love this site, but this article is the last straw for me, there is no integrity or dignity here.
I know it’s not their place to criticise, but this is just shit.
You know what might be nice? An actual critical unboxing of the core set and the expansions, highlighting the positives and the negatives as the game has both, but you’d never tell it from this series of videos.
And for the record Carmen seems like a nice guy. Wouldn’t trust a word he or any of the folks from PB say though…..
I am a kickstarter backer for Robotech. The sprues are a nightmare for someone with little or no modelling background. I myself didn’t have too much problem assembling the Destroids (my favourite mechs) but it was time consuming and a little fiddly. I will sell the rest of my pledge as I literally don’t have time nor any inclination to put it all together. he rules to this game are OK, fairly simplistic and lean towards mass combat, and as Carmen pointed out if a player chooses to be an ‘ass’ and use certain game mechanics to their full cheesy potential, very unbalanced.
Overall this is not a bad product, just not the product Palladium claims it to be.
I think it’s unfair to criticise BoW for this video. It is not a review and it is not presented as such. It is an unboxing video. Yes, it is fairly uncritical, but in my humble opinion that is fine. BoW usually present themselves more as a promotional endeavour, facilitating communication between the players and the miniature companies. They’ve never portrayed themselves as hard-hitting overly skeptical journalists. Personally, I think that’s perfectly fine. There’s already plenty miniatures commentary of the hard-hitting skeptical variety out there (pretty much on every miniatures forum ever).
Their approach has downsides (like having to shill for people like PB), but it’s got plenty of upsides as well (like having frequent google hangouts with industry people). As long as their bias is clear, I don’t really worry about it.
I come to BoW for their enthusiams and their high production value videos.
Frankly, I think it speaks volumes of the ineptitude of Palladium Books and the shoddy quality of their work that, even under these favourable video conditions, their sprues come across as rather horrible.
I’m a little in both camps, BoW does a great job an fanning enthusiasm for a hobby that really needs it. But on the other hand, everything seems to get a “must have” rating lately.
Lets face it though. Most of the stuff that BoW shows these days is product made by their sponsors. So as infuriating as it can be at times it’s understandable that they won’t bite the hand that feeds them..
I should point out that I still love BoW. But as i’ve said in the past – there’s no way they can be impartial while taking money from sponsors.
Palladium are not a sponsor.
I’m actually somewhat relieved we filmed this at a bootcamp with some witnesses so there should be no ambiguity over how/why these were filmed 😉
Sorry Warren. I didn’t mean to imply that PB were a sponsor. I was just commenting on something adamofearth was saying about how BoW seems to have an “everything is awesome” these days.
Sorry for causing any confusion.
I maybe talking out of my arse, but my impression was Carmen rocked up to the DZC bootcamp with a load of stuff. And they filmed some impromptu unboxings.
and having spoken to @warzan my view is whilst they do get money for advertising. BoW are more than happy to promote any aspect of the hobby.
I get that as well from the BoW team, That they do sincerely desire to promote good will in the gaming community. I think people are rather shaffed by this video that says things that contradicts what people have experienced. I for one found it hard to assemble not easy like they said in the video.
Yup, your spot on @commodorerob 🙂
It was a case of having an expert (The Guy who was involved in writing the game) and products at hand, so Justin jumped in to film some content so we could show it off.
A couple of folks on here are a little to quick to start pressing the ‘integrity button’ for my liking. (Who actually has the agenda here??) 😉
Sadly Warren it looks like Carmen has taken advantage of the fact that you chaps are A) keen to promote the positives aspects of hobby wherever possible and B) the fact you were guys were unaware of the general displeasure amongst those who have copies of RRPGT already to get some quick publicity.
Can’t say I’m surprised it appears to have backfired on Palladium again.
I would be genuinely interested though to see what the BOW team made of the rules and the minis on their own merits….
We bring experts onto the shows when we can to ensure we can 1) keep accuracy of descriptions high 2) give viewers direct access to the creators where possible.
@dignity is a big fan of mecha/anime so I personally can well understand his excitement for stuff of that ilk.
And yes we were not aware of ‘drama’ surrounding these particular releases, although I’m happy to be PM’d about it.
As regards difficulty of assembly, I did see the sprues and I can’t say I saw any issue with them, I will dig them out and assemble a few though and maybe that will be a topic for the weekender 🙂
TBH I thought my Bolt Action Soviets were more likely to be a challenge than these 😉
I would be most intriqued to hear how you got on with a few of these Warren. Just bear in mind that (for example) for a basic squadron of 4 Veritechs you need to build 12 models, three modes for each one….
And I’ve got to get to work but I’ll see if I can PM you later the basics of how the post-Kickstarter on this has gone awry….
Will do thanks 🙂
Warren. If you do have a go at constructing them then make sure it’s not the Zentradi as those are considered to be reasonably ok with regards to everything else. It’s the Veritechs and the Destroids that are retarded.
Will be interesting to see what you make of them.
Duly noted 🙂
They’re not as bad as some of these guys are making them out to be. There are some fiddly bits, but they look great once assembled.
The companies behind this game (Palladium, Harmony Gold) have a long checkered past and this seemed to color some people’s opinion of Robotech Tactics long before it was released.
Keep in mind Justin said these would be easy to assemble for beginners. I have no doubt you’ll be fine assembling them.
Maybe the assumption is that beginners don’t come here to see what to get but when I was getting back into the hobby that is what I did.
Just keep that in your head while assembling and imagine a younger you glueing himself to himself :p
Equally beginner imperial guard players a few years ago were assembling the old style leman russ :S (remember every separate drive wheel?)
I haven’t asked him yet, but I reckon he’s maybe defaulted to ‘they are hard plastic so therefore beginner friendly’ (rather than resin or metal) (and personally I think they can be equally beginner friendly – but on the whole I think you get the point)
I will know better tomorrow once I’ve spent a bit of time with them, but this is a wargame not a board game so I also don’t want us lowering the definition of beginner friendly too much here.
If instructions are good and the bits fit – that will be the main test I’m looking for 🙂 to begin with at least.
And I have the luxury of not bringing any previous angst or baggage with me 😉
Well, the instructions consist of pictures of the sprues with coloured boxes on telling you what’s what. They aren’t included in the box ( or the sprue packs if I recall, but that might have changed ) and are only availiable as a download.
And boy did we fight tooth and nail to get those out of them. Apparantly having instructions to put together miniatures with this many pieces that aren’t interchangable but are easily mistaken for one another, is unnecesary.
I honestly hope you find them to be ok and have no problems with them, because then at least somebody would have had a positive experience with them. lol
One thing that should be mentioned – you noted Warren how years ago new Imperial Guard players would have to build Leman Russ & Chimeras with the old track system (happy days), but for the most part they were centrepiece models. Can’t speak for anyone else but I never needed more than 3 or four tanks of various stripes at most. And at least they were quite sizeable.
I could accept the Destroids being a tad more complex but it’s the fact that the most iconic element of Robotech, those fabulous Valkyries, are so damn complicated to build when you have to build three minis for every one that you want to field.
Consider – the basic Veritech Squadron is four fighters. Straight off the bat that’s twelve models. Most of the upgrades are for two additional fighters so that’s another six. If you want to make a pure Veritech force (as many of us were hoping to do) your build becomes quite the slog.
However, BoW are only presenting the product as it appears at retail. It’s an unboxing of a product now on the shelves, it’s not a critical analysis of Palladium’s performance during the kickstarter.
How many pushes would it take per the first two videos to make you consider not posting the third?
I have a lot of respect for all you guys and what you do for the hobby so I won’t push for an argument, but FFS.
Why exactly would it not be published?
You have unrestricted access to comments to point out inaccuracies and or state your opinion on the products that were shown.
Is it a case that we don’t publish something because it might annoy you or someone else?
What about those who don’t share your opinion, or those that value the dialogue that take place around these videos?
Our job is not always a popularity contest 😉
My apologies, you’re quite correct. Everything is awesome.
If and when things are not awesome you have a public and permanent way of stating your opinion on that…
Think about what that means…
Your voice counts for more here than perhaps you appreciate.
I don’t take any issue with people’s opinions on products or their opinions on any of our opinions for that matter.
I take some issue with Snides and barbs about the integrity of how/why we put content out, but the products are fair game… Always have been.
And tomorrow I get to put some of these together myself 😉
An apology is down voted, stay classy BoW.
If that was your idea of an apology you really need to up your social skills. I moderate other forums and I generally take the approach that if something can be interpreted more than one way and one of them is not offensive, assume that’s what the author intended. I am struggling to interpret your apology as anything other than sarcasm.
Looks as if some of those would pop up on eBay shortly 😉
I’ld love to give them a go myself now…they did not look particularly challenging to me.
But I do admit to building Bolt Action Soviets as a way of relaxation 🙂
Each to their own this is why living in a democracy is great but everyone should respect each others opinions 🙂
Not intending to throw any more fuel on the fire, but an update to update us about the upcoming update: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rrpgt/robotech-rpg-tacticstm/posts/1254051
Whilst the RRPGT section of their weekly newsletter describes it as being 19 pages, hence the delay. One extreme to the next with these guys….
@warzan, My brother and I watched Robotech growing up, and I jumped on the Kickstarter to get two copies of the game, one for each of us. There has been several missteps in the production of the game, and I admit that my enthusiasm has subsided after receiving my copy. I am willing to build the miniatures that I have, but I won’t be buying any more, without some heavy retooling. The figure renders look good, but the choices made by the engineer that cut the renders into cheap two part press molds did no favors for the figures.
The Zentradi models were not bad for a conpay’s initial attempt at miniatures, but the UDF forces were rushed, which resulted in a beginner unfriendly experience. A core box for a new minis game should be able to go from sealed box to intro game in three to four hours for a beginner. This isn’t possible with these minis, and I think that is what will put many people off of Robotech.
The game itself is a light wargame that does have a Robotech feel, complete from missile volleys to close combat anime action. I’m afraid the game is stillborn, based on the sales I’ve seen, or not seen as the case may be.
I am enthused to see these unboxing videos showing up on BoW. These are not critiques or reviews, but an opportunity for BoW to have a designer available to talk about a game produced in the States. I’m glad they took advantage of the offer when it was presented. I would like to see BoW talk about the game after having had the time to examine it, read some rules and try to put three valks together in all three modes. I’d be interested to hear their thoughts.
The game does not seem to be getting much coverage, except from a few fans. I am waiting for tomorrow’s backstage Robotech conversation. I am interested to see if BoW has been able to absorb the game, and if they have some feedback.