Well, here goes.

To get straight to the point, this post is intended to convey my extreme dissatisfaction in the MC league kit. I feel this is justified by the fact that I was required to pay for it myself, due to a low level of local interest. I hope my fellow forumites don't write this off as a simple troll, as I feel these concerns are well-founded and reasonable. I'll take this on a quick point-by-point:

1) Let's get this one out of the way -- the patches are cool. Nothing else to say here really, that's as far as the good feedback goes.

2) The maps intended for OP were laminated poorly, which was made obvious by the large bubbling at the edges. The tube shipping package damaged these maps quite a bit at the corners, so laying them flat is not really possible. Also, only A01 was included, even though there is one week in the league that requires map A02.

3) The "champions prize" package is not identified in the OP rules insert. I can only assume they are the 2 promo cards and 1 promo map. This means there are no prizes for second and third place, which is unacceptable for any Organized Play. The rules identify that there will only be one champion, and they receive the "champions prize".

4) The promo map in the "champions prize" package was the same map given out at GenCon. This offers nothing new to GenCon attendees. Also, in order to fit into the tube shipping package, the map was forcibly rolled, which damaged the folds.

5) The two promo cards in the "champions prize" package were very easily obtainable at GenCon, and at every brick-and-mortar store that did MC starter preorders. The cards are Necrotech Upgrade and The Bloody Sword. Even for placing in the GenCon tournament, I received a third promo card that is not in this package. The GenCon 1st place winner received even more promo cards, none of which are found in the league kit. At this point, there is literally nothing we are actually playing for.

6) Plain and simple, the league "story" has absolutely no grounding in MC lore whatsoever. For old school MC fans (which I think is part of the target audience...?) this is exceedingly disappointing.

7) Finally, the "store poster" was printed on unfinished paper, and was also untrimmed. I have a circle of friends in graphic design (one of which did a lot of work for Miller), so even I'm aware that sending an untrimmed piece to a client is an enormous faux pas. I know of people who have been fired for this at professional firms. It took a bit of work on my part to convince the store owner to hang it up at all, because condensation from the windows will probably tear it apart rather quickly. He tells me he'll try to find somewhere else.

Most of you have seen me around for a long while, and that's because I love this game. But I'm not here to tout my "credentials" as a rabid fan. I am here to say that this is not even half of the quality I've come to expect from FFG, and that's enough to turn off a fan of any level, no matter how much they love a game. If just one or two of these issues had arisen, it wouldn't be a big deal at all. But everything together begins to leave a sour taste.

Let me preface this last part by saying I mean no disrespect to any FFG staff, and do not intend to offend anyone. However, the quality of the league kit suggests to me that the people working on this are not necessarily concerned with the future of the game, and seems subtly self-destructive. With that in mind, unless we receive news of a dramatic change to the next 6-week phase of organized play, I will be adopting a "get-out-while-you-can" philosophy, before the inevitable implosion hits my wallet with another $32 league kit fee.

If anybody made it this far, thanks for listening. I'd like to hear if anyone involved in the league has similar thoughts.

Thanks for the feedback! Whoa.. the league kit sounds very half-arsed...

I'm glad I waited. I guess i will also be making my own league set up for running at the LGS.

My group and I got together this past weekend and finally got to get some OP in. This was my first experience with the kit that was sent. Being as we are the only ones playing at my LGS we have been scheduling time when it suits us instead of every week. I thought it was strange that the only map they sent was A01 after I saw one of the scenarios called for A03 (I think thats the one). The laminating on ours was decent at least though. We had no bubbling to deal with. I did not get to see the patches. The scenarios also see rather ridiculous to me. Each week seems to be like a new training exercise, like you would find at the beginning of a video game to learn the controls. It really has nothing to do with the game or its setting at all. I love the achievement system and being able to use credits, but I have no idea how we are supposed to gain enough to purchase bigger and better things if its only 6 weeks long. Maybe I am confused, but does that mean we will be expected to keep the exact same army throughout the year even while new mini's are being released? I am surprised to hear that the prizes are that simple as well. 32$ seems to be quite overpriced for what we got.

Seems the kit is subpar... Still, you shouldn't judge it like a product meant to be bought by players. Doesn't really make the kit better, but I think it's the cause of some of your criticism.

For example, most of us didn't attend to Gencon. So getting a chance to recieve the promo cards and maps given here is not that bad.

I agree that the background for the scenarios is awful, but those are free scenarios. I mean, players can download them for free, so it's not that bad. It would be cool, though, if some MC vet wrote a better BG for those...

Once again, I'm just playing the devils advocate here, and I understand your disapointment, but those campaing rules does have one merit : they exist.

Well, I have motives for my feedback. The best way to improve something is to know what was wrong with it. Many companies don't get detailed feedback like that, but I think it's important for the growth of a product, and I really do want to see MC prosper. Especially the OP.

The store owner was not happy about what we received, but I know he won't say anything because he didn't lose any money. Normally the players wouldn't pay for the kit, but someone has to pay for it, and frustrating a store owner can sometimes be worse. So really, I'm just using that to justify voicing my perspective.

My biggest concern is not the money I spent. It's the attitude that the league kit conveys. Instead of seeing something like "Hell yes, let's give this game some long-term success! Let's get people pumped about some MC! LOCK AND LOAD!" I'm seeing "Eh, whatever." And I'm sure we've all been there -- we've all worked on something we weren't necessarily passionate about, and just wanted it to be over. But that's not entirely fair to all the people here that have given up so much of their time in dedication to this great game.

Oh, and for the GeonCon stuff -- it's definitely cool that everyone else has a shot at these things (as you should), but you're still missing out on over half of the cards. And aside from that, GenCon attendees are also part of the target audience. If they don't have anything new to strive for, then they'd have no reason to participate, and this seems to contradict the goals of any OP.

While it is welcome and very appreciated to hear your experiences with the campaign set. You probably want to also let them know your dissatisfaction directly. I noticed this little comment when first entering the Forums. But thanks again for relaying your review of the products.

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Thanks, and welcome!

Of course, I understand your sentiment, nullstate. I suppose this is yet another consequence of MC former production problems... It would have been better for FFG to rethink their kit (and its pricing). I guess we can expect the map pack to be of much better quality !

I'm still glad you mentioned this at the forum nullstate. It's constructive feedback IMO.

FFG not checking the forums? They have to be.. but I understand that they write a disclaimer so that we can't expect anything from them forum wise. That way no-ones got anything "on them". We'll just have to write them directly instead then.

Map pack.... The map pack is destined to be Tide Of Iron high quality cardboards. If not, I'm going to be extremely disappointed. Being a TOI fan, I feel that MC is TOI (in soul) without the "heavy math". It's much easier to get into the rules in MC and it takes much less time to play (if you're not doing a 30/30/30+++ that is.)

Posting it here also helped me to get some feedback from you guys too, and that is always good. I'm glad to see that not everybody's maps turned out the same way, which tells me it was probably more of a shipping issue than anything.

Erik did end up contacting me about the feedback and offering a replacement for the damaged maps, which I think is very impressive. You don't see service like that much anymore. We're discussing some of the finer details of the league, and this also instills great confidence.

On that note, I think it's only fair that I also mention my thoughts on the league mechanics themselves. The system of achievements and credits seems well thought out, and I look forward to trying out the unit upgrades. I also like the idea of reinforcements for armies that have frequent losses. Here's my only issue: since we only have 3 players in the league right now (possibly 4 next week), I don't know if we'll be able to hit the numbers required to purchase upgrades or earn reinforcements through losses. Since it looks like the league is intended for 6 players, I was thinking of doubling our credit gains, and halving the number of losses required for reinforcements. What do you all think?

Glad to hear you got a good response from FFG... Doesn't solve all the problems of the kit, but show FFG's dedication...

nullstate said:

Props to Erik! Always good to hear stuff like this.

There should be some official rules for a 4 player league IMO.. Though your "house rules" sounds good.

It'll take some time for the game to stablish itself and leave behind all the problems the original format is producing. Be patient.