2 hours ago, loki_tbc said:

@Caimheul1313 Sure, but shouldn't the idea be to keep as much of the player base as you can? Last time I checked, avoidable customer turnover is awful for a business.

Here you have at least 2 people who are upset enough to tell FFG (via their forums) why they are disinclined to continue purchasing product and you have some folks here who are happy to watch an already middling community dwindle further on the hope that maybe new SW IP Entertainment means more people will start playing.

Also, if these folks do start playing, wouldn't you rather they start with easy to assemble models rather than these?

Not that I expect responses other than 'bye' from the douchebags who dwell on the internet, but FFG likes money so I would hope they would be interested in knowing the reasons why I am taking your advice and voting with my wallet.

Cheers.

To be clear, I wasn't saying you have to leave, or that your complaints aren't valid. They're just as valid as mine about the rate of releases for the CW factions.

You seem pretty set on leaving, I'm just saying everyone is welcome to spend money on the product they like, and if you don't like the current trend of Legion product, then they'll hear you better by not buying product than a forum that FFG staff don't seemingly read or participate in. We don't get official answers on rules questions except by using the FFG tool that sends an email to the developer.

Of note, GW's current business models actively doesn't care about retention, since they make more money off of new players (rule books, model kits, tools, paints, etc) than they do by people using the same models that they've had since the 1980s.

Honestly, the droids were always going to be the hardest to assemble, between the spindly limbs and layered bodies. If FFG tried to made them out of the soft plastic, then there would also be severe warpage issues, like the soft plastic lightsabers, and you would have to use super glue. Super glue and small parts often result in the small parts bonding to your fingers instead of the connection point. If you want to play Legion, and want an easier to build army, then any of the non-droid armies would be better. Even in hard plastic I'd imagine the other armies will have beefier parts and probably have a clearer delineation between the sprue and the pieces.

Better instructions definitely would help... General "Vitruvian Man" Grievous is gonna be a mess to assemble.

A few B1 pointers/things I figured out:

I've found an assembly line approach works best.

- All but one backpack is the same, the one heavy upgrade uses it. Cut out and prepare all the same backpacks so they are ready to go.

- The heads, are also all the same, so cut those out and prepare them. I've found that if I hold the back piece between my thumbnail and my index finger, then you can dab some glue and attach the “beak”. Then repeat till all the heads are done. Like the backpacks before, put all the completed heads in a container that way, when you assemble the B1’s proper, they are assembled.

- Next I take the bodies and legs that go together and build those, and put them aside for later.

- The second to last step is this; assemble the arms. I do this by attaching the left arm to the gun. This can be tricky, but the payoff is for the last step.

- Finally, I get to out the B1’s together. I choose from my preassembles parts a body and a backpack (unless I'm building a commander or e-5c trooper), then I glue the backpack on. Next I choose from the preassembled arms, after attaching them, I put the head on oriented to the blaster.

All this is leading me to have a large variety of different b1 troopers, of varied poses, I'm even going to have an entire squad (including the unit leader running).

This does require patience, but I've found it helps me get faster results in the long run. I did assemble one squad properly, and it took a while. But after building The Robotech tactics miniatures, these battle droids are a snap! (Those miniatures were a near Sisyphean challenge). You can skip the assembling of the arms, if you are apprehensive, but with care it seems to work for me.

Edit: I started with a single B1 expansion, assembling properly, then am assembling my two cores with the above method.

4 hours ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

What no one seems to mention is we seem to be getting an extra battledroid per unit? With enough, you can easily get another squad built. Or parts for scenery, or.. a MR. Bones Miniature?!

First off thanks for the helpful tips. From what's been said on this post it sounds like I'll be referencing these when I get my core.

But to what you said above, there is supposed to be 9. There's 6 b1's in a barebones squad, an extra b1 (for if you want to use one in the personnel upgrade slot), and then two heavy weapons options (one of which can be added to the squad). With storms for example, barebones squad is 4, we have one personnel upgrade and one heavy upgrade, we get 7 minis (one regular storm and 2 heavy options). So unless you're getting 10 b1's in a box, there's no extras. We get 7 minis for a "rank" 4 expansion, and 9 for a "rank" 6.

I had no issues assembling them at all. I thought the fit and quality of the components was fantastic.

On 10/20/2019 at 1:29 PM, loki_tbc said:

This is 30 years of modeling experience

What kind of modeling experience? Im new to miniatures myself but have been building models for a little while now and dont understand the trouble with the sprues

Intentional customer turnover is part of GW’s model. So it can work to make money. But contrary to simplistic presentations of how capitalism works, not everything that makes more money is better. For those of us who are turned over, GW may as well be out of business for all the benefits we reap from its continued growth.

I really like the low pressure that came with the inexpensive soft plastic core stuff personally.

18 hours ago, loki_tbc said:

@Caimheul1313 Sure, but shouldn't the idea be to keep as much of the player base as you can? Last time I checked, avoidable customer turnover is awful for a business.

Here you have at least 2 people who are upset enough to tell FFG (via their forums) why they are disinclined to continue purchasing product and you have some folks here who are happy to watch an already middling community dwindle further on the hope that maybe new SW IP Entertainment means more people will start playing.

Also, if these folks do start playing, wouldn't you rather they start with easy to assemble models rather than these?

Not that I expect responses other than 'bye' from the douchebags who dwell on the internet, but FFG likes money so I would hope they would be interested in knowing the reasons why I am taking your advice and voting with my wallet.

Cheers.

Two people have complained, more have stated they have no problems with the change, others have said they are glad of the change. It balances out. If you're having a hard time with the B1s, try playing a different faction, or get someone else to assemble your minis for you. There are options available besides seeming to expect FFG to bend over backwards for you. There have been assembly videos and unboxing videos online for some time now, and I feel like you should have been aware of the challenge B1s would be well before now.

If your problems with the B1s are so bad, or if you are so offended by someone on the internet not rushing to your aid that you feel compelled to leave the game.... Well, bye, I guess? Not really sure what you'd expect, honestly. Whether or not you play doesn't really impact us, and as far as FFG is concern, you already bought in. They made their money.

So, after assembling and painting all 54 Battle Droids for 6 units, some thoughts:

-

The sprues in general are very well layed out. Parts for a particular pose are all clustered together and have the same letter. Once you realize this, you can blaze through assembly by just clipping all the parts out and putting all the parts associated with a particular pose together. I actually wish more companies would do this.

-

the leg connection points are geometric and single sided, so you can easily crank those out and the backpacks have a much more positive connection than I thought they would (slide it along the back and you can definitely tell when it's"in")

-

The head being 2 pieces looked annoying on paper, but I found myself quickly not caring. It has a positive connection that's pretty easy to line up and when you glue it to the neck, it reinforces the connection because that connection point is directly under it I.e. It's actually a pretty stable way to do it.

-

The arms are a weird 3-handed operation with the Droid commander being a 4-handed one because of the added binocular piece. I never found a good way to do the arms, just less bad ones.

-

the extra blasters that 2 of the models have in their backs really don't have good connection points. It's not obvious or positive, so you'll probably just kind of guess.

-

Overall, good for a first attempt, if they found a better way to do the arms, I'd be pretty bully on these. As it stands, I don't love or hate them.

19 hours ago, loki_tbc said:

@Caimheul1313 Sure, but shouldn't the idea be to keep as much of the player base as you can? Last time I checked, avoidable customer turnover is awful for a business.

Here you have at least 2 people who are upset enough to tell FFG (via their forums) why they are disinclined to continue purchasing product and you have some folks here who are happy to watch an already middling community dwindle further on the hope that maybe new SW IP Entertainment means more people will start playing.

Also, if these folks do start playing, wouldn't you rather they start with easy to assemble models rather than these?

Not that I expect responses other than 'bye' from the douchebags who dwell on the internet, but FFG likes money so I would hope they would be interested in knowing the reasons why I am taking your advice and voting with my wallet.

Cheers.

I truly hope that the difficulty that you have with the assembly isn't enough to push you out of the game. My first suggestion is to look into tools like a small clip/vice that will hold parts so that your hands are free to glue and attach other pieces. secondly, you could have a meetup with some of the other people assembling kits and you can work together to figure out how stuff goes together. Maybe you can manage legs while somebody else glues heads together. If you still have trouble with the assembly, perhaps you could have your models entirely assembled by somebody else? Pay them, or offer some service that you enjoy doing? I personally found assembling my droids boring but relaxing. I really wouldn't mind helping others assemble their kits. I would hate to see players lose out on the hours of enjoyment the game provides because of difficulties putting the models together. I am sure that instructions and assembly will get better as time goes on.

As for FFG's choice to go entirely to this new hard plastic, they have decided that the extra work required to build the models is worth it for the increase in detail, quality, and customization options. I have to agree. Once the droids are together they look great. If they were a soft plastic they would be chunkier, and would still bend and droop.

Best wishes, and may the force be your guide!

On 10/20/2019 at 4:36 AM, Atromix said:

Really? I've had no issues with assembling my CIS units, the sprues didn't seem much different from most GW stuff, and I've arguably seen worse stuff from GW. I was able to build all my B1's and Droidekas in an evening without too much struggle.

You should get to buying some more B1s and Droidekas and get to selling them to anyone who wants ready made stuff!

1 hour ago, MasterShake2 said:

So, after assembling and painting all 54 Battle Droids for 6 units, some thoughts:

-

The sprues in general are very well layed out. Parts for a particular pose are all clustered together and have the same letter. Once you realize this, you can blaze through assembly by just clipping all the parts out and putting all the parts associated with a particular pose together. I actually wish more companies would do this.

-

the leg connection points are geometric and single sided, so you can easily crank those out and the backpacks have a much more positive connection than I thought they would (slide it along the back and you can definitely tell when it's"in")

-

The head being 2 pieces looked annoying on paper, but I found myself quickly not caring. It has a positive connection that's pretty easy to line up and when you glue it to the neck, it reinforces the connection because that connection point is directly under it I.e. It's actually a pretty stable way to do it.

-

The arms are a weird 3-handed operation with the Droid commander being a 4-handed one because of the added binocular piece. I never found a good way to do the arms, just less bad ones.

-

the extra blasters that 2 of the models have in their backs really don't have good connection points. It's not obvious or positive, so you'll probably just kind of guess.

-

Overall, good for a first attempt, if they found a better way to do the arms, I'd be pretty bully on these. As it stands, I don't love or hate them.

It sounds like having an efficient way to sort the pieces by letter is important.

I’m still waiting for my core set to arrive. How many letters are there? I’d like to set up some plastic egg cartons to sort all the pieces.

2 minutes ago, smickletz said:

It sounds like having an efficient way to sort the pieces by letter is important.

I’m still waiting for my core set to arrive. How many letters are there? I’d like to set up some plastic egg cartons to sort all the pieces.

For B1 Battle droids there are 6+ personnel + 2 weapons, so 9. Letters A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I? each letter should appear twice in each core set, once for each squad. Droideka's are labelled A/C for the two standing droids and the rolling ones are identical so they are both labelled as B. Then Grievous.

Not sure if this will help anyone, but I had the most success splitting the sprues into similar sets and constructing from there. It let me not only keep better track of the various droid poses, but also let me do a number of the same pieces in a row so I could fumble on the first one and then have a good method sorted out for the other 4-8.

I was using super glue (cuz I'm crazy) but I was also using a toothpick for delicate application and it solved a lot of the "gluing my fingers together" issues and increased accuracy. In order, I'd do the following:
1. Manually remove all but the gun arms and torsos, using the tried and true friction method
2. Cut out the top and bottom of the torso, taking care with the fragile neck
3. Cut out the bottom sprue frame on the gun arms (carefully, as the gun is also fragile) and then frictioning out the whole piece
4. I'd sort the pieces into piles for each droids and lay it out roughly in order (head pieces by head, torso by torso, arms by arms, etc)
5. Glue the head together, then glue the arm pieces together
6. Remove the sprues from the torso (again taking care with the neck) and gluing the backpack (or antenna) to the torso.
7. Glue the legs to the torso and then glue the legs to base
8. Glue the head on each
9. Dab glue on the contact points for the arms and then fit the glued arm/gun combo. Since I'm using super glue, the arms were quite resilient to bending and provided nice friction until the glue set
10. Glue any remaining bits (extra guns usually)

I could do a sprue in about 10-15 minutes with this method and again, since I was doing the same thing over and over again, I got faster with each sprue. While I had already assembled one set of b1s from the core previously, the other two only took me about 2 hours all said and done.

Droidekas are a whole separate thing, but once you're in there assembling, it starting to make logical sense and there weren't any crazy fragile contact points like you get on some models.

Feel free to PM with additional questions!

It's weird. I had a discussion with one of my friends at the game store while assembling the droids about how I felt about the sprues. What I ended up concluding is that people who have model building or other miniature assembly experience weren't really going to have a ton of problems, as they did an okay job, but that people new to it were going to be easily overwhelmed due to, what I can only assume, is lack of experience on the manufacturer's part.

Some of the sub assemblies don't make much sense to me. Like, why was the B1 droid head broken into 2 segments? Or the real kicker, for me, was the battle rifles all had a terrble connection point on top of the barrel that caused a crack in the plastic almost every time it was clipped from the sprue... So yeah, sprue placement, lack of a clear assembly chart, and other small details aren't deal breakers by any means but they seem like rookie mistakes and I think they make it more difficult for folks who haven't been assembling model kits since childhood.

Did anyone ever figure out where the antenna is supposed to go on the unit leader? I was winging it and managed to make mine look okay, but I still have no Earthly clue.

11 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

It's weird. I had a discussion with one of my friends at the game store while assembling the droids about how I felt about the sprues. What I ended up concluding is that people who have model building or other miniature assembly experience weren't really going to have a ton of problems, as they did an okay job, but that people new to it were going to be easily overwhelmed due to, what I can only assume, is lack of experience on the manufacturer's part.

Some of the sub assemblies don't make much sense to me. Like, why was the B1 droid head broken into 2 segments? Or the real kicker, for me, was the battle rifles all had a terrble connection point on top of the barrel that caused a crack in the plastic almost every time it was clipped from the sprue... So yeah, sprue placement, lack of a clear assembly chart, and other small details aren't deal breakers by any means but they seem like rookie mistakes and I think they make it more difficult for folks who haven't been assembling model kits since childhood.

Did anyone ever figure out where the antenna is supposed to go on the unit leader? I was winging it and managed to make mine look okay, but I still have no Earthly clue.

Agree that the gun was made in the worst possible way. I know the canon version has that weak center joint, but FFG no one is going to care if you beef it up so it doesn't break.

And I stuck the antennas on the left shoulder blade area - it seems to be molded to fit the rounded shoulder. Or at least the super glue I used made it fit

Just now, Simonsays3 said:

And I stuck the antennas on the left shoulder blade area - it seems to be molded to fit the rounded shoulder. Or at least the super glue I used made it fit

Same.

Though it conflicts with the "painted" version FFG shows in the book, as it appears the gun is hung over their right shoulder.

All in all, I think they did well. I hope they improve the clarity of the assembly instructions as they learn.

I am excited about the sprues, though I’ve been building GW kits for 20 years. I understand the frustration of first time hobbyists.

It is worth the effort to get the right tools and get the hang of the process. You definitely want sprue clippers (real sprue clippers with one side totally flush, not wire cutters from Home Depot), and plastic glue.

Once you get the hang of where all the various bits go it isn’t too bad. I’ve found the guns/arms to be the most difficult, but if you glue the left arm at the wrist to the gun first, then put a dab of glue on each shoulder joint and fit it on, it should work out fine.

I am excited this is where FFG is going. It’s a huge step up in quality and customization. The poor model quality and mono-pose nature of the original core set nearly turned me off from the game, but I’m glad I stuck around for this.

Additionally, what they lack in ease of assembly they more than make up for in painting ease.

The models are a great blend of sharp edges, flat surfaces, and crevices, and B1s are mostly all one color (if you want them to be), so they easily lend themselves to quick painting techniques like contrast paints, washes, dry brushing and air brushing. I think it’s possible they are faster to paint than they are to assemble, which you definitely can’t say for the clones.

Just now, Orkimedes said:

Additionally, what they lack in ease of assembly they more than make up for in painting ease.

The models are a great blend of sharp edges, flat surfaces, and crevices, and B1s are mostly all one color (if you want them to be), so they easily lend themselves to quick painting techniques like contrast paints, washes, dry brushing and air brushing. I think it’s possible they are faster to paint than they are to assemble, which you definitely can’t say for the clones.

Can confirm :/

12 hours ago, Dcalov said:

First off thanks for the helpful tips. From what's been said on this post it sounds like I'll be referencing these when I get my core.

But to what you said above, there is supposed to be 9. There's 6 b1's in a barebones squad, an extra b1 (for if you want to use one in the personnel upgrade slot), and then two heavy weapons options (one of which can be added to the squad). With storms for example, barebones squad is 4, we have one personnel upgrade and one heavy upgrade, we get 7 minis (one regular storm and 2 heavy options). So unless you're getting 10 b1's in a box, there's no extras. We get 7 minis for a "rank" 4 expansion, and 9 for a "rank" 6.

I totally miscounted. Whoops.

Don't really care as long as my Scum and Mercenary faction looks great.😎

Well there were people who had issues getting the AT-ST put together and then there were people who were taking it apart and putting magnets all over it and then reassembling it. There is a huge range of skill level with the player base. So some finding these challenging and other thinking it trivial is expected. The real issue here is some people are here just for the game and don't have interest in the "hobby" aspect and therefore no experience doing these tricky assemblies. There is nothing wrong with that. If someone isn't into modeling building and painting that's fine. There is a reason a game like X-wing has fully assembled and painted models. People do sell fully assembled and painted legion minis so even those with no interest in that part of this game can still by pass it, all be it at an expense.

I am not sure having a challenging model to give the hobbyist something fun to do isn't intentional. FFG seems to be moving in that direction with the sprue models now. Not sure they will go full war hammer on us but I would expect this trend to continue.

B1s are skeletons; skeletons are fiddly minis to assemble. There is no way to make skeletons not fiddly to assemble. I say this as someone who has assembled a number of Tomb Kings miniatures.

The gun arms make it worse. If you want to play CIS you either deal with that reality or you wait for B2s to come out.

On 10/20/2019 at 9:13 AM, loki_tbc said:

I think you are failing to consider that dexterity levels vary and I can only speak for myself, but the frustration is that Legion and FFG established the easy to build precedent with IA and Legion Rebel/Imperial and this set is a real departure from that.

Edit: Holy god... I hadn't even tried the B1 heads yet! You have got to be kidding me...

Imperial Assault is technically a board game. It has a skirmish component, but it's marketed as a board game, and most board games come with fully (or mostly) assembled pieces with no paint.

The Rebels and Imperials followed the trend of the Runewars game, with the soft plastic. That said, even in that game, people wanted hard plastic due to the numerous benefits when it comes to detail and rigidity of thin parts (i.e. droid limbs and lightsabers).

I get where you're coming from, though. I hope you'll stick around and keep playing. If you play a non-CIS faction, all you'll really notice is a better material and the need to snip pieces off sprues (FFG minis are all done on sprues and clipped off before packaging, so they can still do pieces like the current Rebels, Imperials and clones in the future). The level of detail, though, should go up considerably, and hopefully with better faces for Han, Leia and the rest in the future.