Federation Commander

What it Means for ADB, Inc. and the SFU

THE BIGGEST NEWS IN SFU HISTORY
Saturday we signed a new joint-venture deal with Mongoose, which is one of the largest companies in the Adventure Game industry. They're famous for numerous product lines, including miniatures and roleplaying games. This deal includes three immediate elements, but the future is as open as space and as exciting as a supernova.

Something we have mentioned many times is that retailers only stock the top five or 10 companies (with the proverbial "one shelf" reserved for the other 40 hard-copy publishers, most of which are in less than 10% of stores). Mongoose is in 90% of the retail game stores in the US, Canada, the UK, and many other countries. This contract means that there will now be several first-class products in every retailer with logos on them for the Star Fleet Universe and for ADB, Inc. Each joint venture book will include advertising for all of our Star Fleet Universe products, giving us more exposure to the mass gaming market than we have had since 1982.

That's great news!

WOW!

This is really big... major step for ADB.
All the best in this new venture, guys!

Its great news about the game, I just dont' like the scale change in the upcomming miniatures. I already have lots of SFB mini's and I don't want to change scales. This will suck for the many miniature buyers that have supported ADB over the years. This has a smell of Games Workshop.

Inari7 wrote:This has a smell of Games Workshop.

Please explain.

Things change. I would rather ADB take this path then to pack up and say, "That's all folks. It's been fun."

I have quite a few of the current and older mini's. Speaking for myself, I am looking forward to the new mini's.

Meh... if the pictures I have seen are any kind of indication, the larger minis are more convenient for the level of detail the new line will feature.

Mongoose feels that the larger scale is necessary to bring the level of detail to the ships. Many gamers have asked for more detail -- this is the solution.

I already have lots of SFB mini's and I don't want to change scales.

Then don't. My group isn't.

And as long as our pewter minis sell, we'll continue to provide them. So there's no forcing anyone down any path or re-purchasing minis.

Jean wrote:And as long as our pewter minis sell, we'll continue to provide them. So there's no forcing anyone down any path or re-purchasing minis.

I'm really glad to hear that. Now would you please put down the gun and let my wife go... I promise I'll never tell anyone!

I just got my 2400 mini's from the ABD store and they are amazing! It's hard for me to imagine anything better! There's just something about the metal that is just unbeatable.

From what I've heard, the new miniatures will all be done from CG 3D Masters, which I think can bring nothing but more awesome to the miniatures.

What's the link to the new mini pics?

You mean I may be able to find SFU products in actual mainstream retail outlets not buried in a back alley with hours like 4pm to midnight?

That I might actually find SFU products on a shelf, in a store? (no "oh we don't stick that but can special order")

I do miss way back when actually being able to cruise into my local games store and pluck copies of SSD books of the racks and other core materials.

schoon9953 wrote:From what I've heard, the new miniatures will all be done from CG 3D Masters, which I think can bring nothing but more awesome to the miniatures.

What's the link to the new mini pics?

Here's the link to the images.
I saw additional images at Origins, and had several lengthy conversations with the Mongoose guy who will be designing the 3D models for the new minis. He seems a great guy.

Headed to lunch right now... but more when I return.

1st off: At the minis seminar, we got to see images of both the Federation CA and the Klingon D7.
All I can say is, "I'll be buying some of both!"
With over 1200 minis already, I'll probably use the Starline 2400 miniatures for ACTA - but I will definitely be upgrading my Fed Comm collection to ST2500.

The CA you've seen. The D7 - "WOW" My first thought on seeing it was exatly thesame as Steve's; ventilated rib shotgun. And it looks as deadly as one also.

Rob wasn't able to spend a lot of time at the minis seminar, but I caught him in the Mongoose booth during a couple of slow spells and spoke with him. The plans for Starline 2500 [ST2500] seem to be well thought out. Of course, the first to minis designed in 3D were the iconic two - the Fed CA and the Klingon D7. Next up; he's not sure. He does know that he wants to do one of the non-canon empires. He's leaning towards those low-down, dirty-rotten, methane-breathing, trashcan-looking Hydrans, but I put in a vote for the Lyrans. Only time will tell. He did confirm that by initial release date, there would be exampes for most of the empires.

As one would expect when dealing with 3D modeling, he is creatig a file of unfused pieces. For those not in the know, that simply means that when the Federation CA saucer was created - it was saved as a separate file, as was the standard 15 box warp engines, and most likely the 15 box Klingon engines and the D7 boom, etc.
This means that when it comes time to do a "lollipop" Federation destroyer, the saucer, the neck, and the engine is already created. One need simply combine the three parts (and add a few tweaks) rather than re-create each from scratch. This means that many of the follow on miniatures will go more rapidly, as some ofthe parts will already exist. YAY!

I intended to ask him why the 1:3125 scale was selected but kept forgetting. Oh well.

The current plan is to use resin for most of the minis, but economic forces may require that some be produced in white metal. The process will be similar to the Noble Armada line of minis from mongoose and those are quite detailed and very clean. There should not be a lot of clean-up or repair required to prep the mini for painting.
***I can't stress enough the importance of washing the resin minis with soap and water prior to priming, though***

The really cool thing about Mongoose's plans are the differnent minis for the differnt variants. The D6 miniature will be slightly different than the D7 miniature. The Federation CC miniature is going to have a slightly enlarged bridge section to represent it's increased command capabilities; and so on.

All in all, this looks to be a great year for the SFU miniature enthuiast.