What's new
  • Welcome to the Heroscapers 2.0 site! We've still got some dust to clear and adjustments to make, including launching a new front page, but we hope you enjoy the improvements to the site. Please post your feedback and any issues you encounter in this thread.

Consolidated List of Problems With The Renegade AOA Roll Out

chas

chas

Well-known member
Site Supporter
PROBLEMS WITH RENEGADE'S AOA ROLL OUT

This is a summary of problems that have come to light with the production of Waves 1 and 2, and the approach to the first Gen Con tournament program as well as the intended larger organized play framework.

A. Physical and Distribution Product Problems

1. The paint jobs on figures are expensive and mediocre.

2. The painted figures so far are only available directly from Renegade.

3. Many of the new figures are not available in figure and card only sets, but only come with the new versions of old terrain which veteran Scapers usually do not want. The terrain component drives the price up to obtain the figures included only in sets such as the new AOA Master Set and the Battle For the Wellspring Battle Box. While the Promo figures will supposedly be made available separately for sale, nothing has been said about these figures being made available in a similar way.

4. The Laur Jungle pieces, both trees and bushes, are misaligned and don't fit on a Battlefield above the base level, due apparantly to an exaggerated thickness of their base walls.

5. The Wellspring Water tiles are just clear pieces resenbling the old Ice tiles; they lack the rainbow sparkle of their original illustration.

6. The Wall pieces are incorrectly molded, and do not stack. The main medium and large wall sections are issued in inadequate quantity in the new Master Set. An anticipated separate Wall set with a greater quantity has not yet appeared.

B. Organizational Problems

1. The Organized Play Program has inadequate backup software. Renegade has ignored the fan communities' doctrine and available software, and produced an inferior product.

2. The last minute pricing changes to previously issued game cards just before GenCon 2024 is inconsistant with the superior fan made Delta Pricing System.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Comments On Renegade's Roll Out

Since I am not on Social Media, where much of the discussion on the Renegade Roll Out of Age of Annihilation is taking place, I have summarized the problems here for the site, based on previous comments here, Youtube videos, and etc.

Renegade has certainly done some things right. Here are some of them:

1. They have made their new Game Cards, Figure Design, and the Rules and Scenario Books available to us online prior to the product's availability, so we can proxy play AOA with or without their own physical product.

2. The initial cards and figures have been produced with few changes from our (The War Council's) original designs for Hasbro, and credit has been given to these designers in their Rules Book.

3. The basic terrain hex tiles seem to have been produced properly, and are compatible with our old terrain. There are new terrain configurations being produced as well. Terrain only sets had been requested as far back as the original game's production, to no avail.

4. Renegade will appear at GenCon 2024 to run their first tournament events, answer questions to a limited audience, and are preparing a series of nation wide game play events.

5. They have held online Preview Events for their upcoming Heroscape production.

***

Our own local group, The New York City Gang of Four, is now looking at Renegade, who has done a good job with their versions of previous Hasbro game titles, as just one source of future Heroscape products and ideas, rather than the be all and end all of future Scape development. How long they will remain in HeroScape remains to be seen. Have they bit off more than they can chew, or are these just initial teething problems with a complicated game system?

Feel free to add your own items here to either the good or the bad list, or discuss the AOA Rollout as it continues into Wave 3 and beyond. I will continue to update the Original Post as things shake out.

For their own corporate and legal reasons, they have kept somewhat distant from our fan community, and have almost no direct presence here on this site. This will most likely continue. Perhaps Craig Van Ness will keep a back channel open with them. Possibly they will respond to the petition now being sent to them from some of us. Maybe they will be attracted by the our new site design coming up and begin a productive presence here.

We'll be watching from the sidelines, and still Scaping away, as we have been here in NYC for 17 years together, and individually since the game first came out. I remember looking at the initial glass shelf display in my FLGS and thinking "Looks like a kid's game. Nice terrain; maybe it would be useful for other things." Then a pal got me the Rise of the Valkyrie Master Set and all the initial Expansion Sets that were out for Christmas, and I started down a long fun road of fantasy skirmishing madness rolling dice...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
My FLGS is selling painted versions (at a 20% discount), so they're not exclusive to Renegade. Hasbro Pulse has them for sale also.

I would add to the list that once everything shown in the Haslab has been released the cost will be way higher than what they initially wanted, even for the unpainted versions and no terrain packs.
 
To add to the summary:
Product issues:
The terrain sets released are not suitable for mapmaking. The package released to stores has no walls or trees and also is so far off from RotV terrain that it will be difficult or impossible to produce quality maps from it, at least at first.

Organizational Issues:
Renegade promotional articles, images, statements, and documents are riddled with technical and grammatical errors. For most they are inconsequential, like the GTM article. For some, they have massive consequences, like the battle box contents not being properly communicated.

Due to that mistake, some GenCon maps are no longer technically creatable with the sets as sold. Salvageable, but combined with the jungle tree issue there could be issues building the GenCon maps.

The Organized Play system is convoluted and does not align with community standards. This was evident in their updated FAQ and tournament guidelines.

Communication with the community and stores is poor.
-stores are unsure when they will get product, when or if they are expected to hold events, when they will get promo and prize support, and what the "competitive" network will look like
-the community is still attempting to steer Renegade in the right direction, but all problems are modified after it's "too late" and the damage has been done. All of the aforementioned mistakes are quickly caught by the community-something that could be avoided easily if they'd just consulted literally anyone about it.

Similarly, the PR by Renegade has been atrocious. Typically I wouldn't mark this down as a mistake but community relations is an important part of the game's success, and between their two big blunders (the trees and the rules) they made a lot of folks upset and rightfully so. All of this could have been avoided by running this past the existing community, but they refuse to do so. So, they retain all the vitriol deserved by these decisions. It doesn't help that most employees are inactive in official channels and, behind the scenes, do not consult members unless they are desperate. They are also allergic to well-deserved criticism and heavily moderate their Discord, which has led to a further separation of Renegade from the community. The only people left in their official Discord are newer or casual players, older players who still feel it necessary to call them out on their most egregious behaviors, or, if I may be vulgar, a small contingent of Renegade simps who would jump into molten lava if Lee Houff told them to. To me, this qualifies as a mistake as I believe the general hardcore Heroscape community has fully washed their hands of Renegade. While they may have success with casual players at first, it won't be long before they lose those too once the jungle trees don't fit or people show up to events missing one "official" card.
 
chas said:
PROBLEMS WITH RENEGADE'S AOA ROLL OUT

A. Physical and Distribution Product Problems

1. The paint jobs on figures are expensive and mediocre.

...

4. The Laur Jungle pieces, both trees and bushes, are misaligned and don't fit on a Battlefield above the base level, due apparantly to an exaggerated thickness of their base walls.

...

5. The Wellspring Water tiles are just clear pieces resenbling the old Ice tiles; they lack the rainbow sparkle of their original illustration.

...

6. The Wall pieces are incorrectly molded, and do not stack. The main medium and large wall sections are issued in inadequate quantity in the new Master Set. An anticipated separate Wall set with a greater quantity has not yet appeared.
Click to expand...

Do you have any links/references/documentation for these issues? Dropping the ball on offering structuring and organized play is one thing, but putting out a product (I've pre-ordered all of it, with the idea that I'm willing to see their teething period out) that is poorly made is another level of issue...
 
They also just sent out an email congratulating themselves in the past tense for their tournaments and presence at GenCon, which hasn't happened yet.

GromBloodboy said:
Do you have any links/references/documentation for these issues? Dropping the ball on offering structuring and organized play is one thing, but putting out a product (I've pre-ordered all of it, with the idea that I'm willing to see their teething period out) that is poorly made is another level of issue...
Click to expand...

All of that is well documented in the unboxing videos on youtube. The jungle parts don't stack on other tiles well, and it looks like they cast the figures in the base color and painted over it, so the figures are not 100% painted, which isn't really a "premium" paint job. And the Wellspring tiles just look like cheaper ice tiles.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKFB7k-oVGQ&t=1630s[/ame]
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUhmoFwvHRE[/ame]
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-zSAJoTSyA[/ame]
 
Yes, thanks especially to Sir Heroscape--I've seen his videos recently as linked above, and I've summarized them for the other four guys in our local group. So far in my play group (see signature thread) all we've ordered from Waves 1 and 2 are the new Valkyrie set--sthree of us ordered them-, but one of us was thinking about the AOA Master Set, so I wanted to warn the four of them as to what I've seen there. The videos are both unboxing and review programs, and are very long and specific about the problems. They answer GromBloodboy's questions above about sources for the production problems.

I've also seen some of Ryguy's videos over the last few months as well (he also posted here and elsewhere on the site). At first I didn't want to believe what he was saying, but since he was a dissatisfied playtester for Renegade behind the scenes, I had to pay attention. He's tried to be fair while being both negative and positive.
 
Ryguy and Hogg,

Are you saying there are problems with their new basic terrain hexes? What are the problems making them "unsuitable for mapmaking" besides not including everything and the jungle hex misalignment? And thanks for linking SH's videos. I'm very low tech and old school myself, and not on any social media. Some members here have kept us up to date on what is being said there, but I hadn't seen it all collected in the same place.
 
What are y'all petitioning them about? First I've heard of that one.
 
I'm not involved with the (proposed?) petition myself. I've seen it discussed only in general on other threads here.
 
Thank you for putting all of these in one place. I know Ryguy has already put it in his videos, but the lore (that they could have done no work on and just used what AH already put together) has been really inconsistent and does not make much sense. Some of the scenarios are interesting, while others just create questions. All of these mistakes are basically own goals, and could have been resolved by simply trying a little harder, working with the community, and having someone who has done this before looking over it. Very disappointing.
 
Here's my shortlist of mistakes:

-Playtesting fiasco
-Jungle pieces do not fit on top of hexes
-24-hexes were remade and look inconsistent with other hex pieces
-Several types of errors in building instructions in almost every map we've seen from the rulebooks
-Bad graphic design (particularly the card layouts, the art is fine.)
-Lame glyph art
-Expensive and subpar painted minis
-No clips/connections for wound markers on multi-life squads
-Bases can warp in heat due do the soft plastic they use
-Rulings and errata overturned for no reason
-4th grade level fanfic serving as "lore"
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I'm all for a consolidated list of problems, but half of those in the first post are just complaints. 1-3 are just your dislike of the painting/distribution, 5 is poor design but still on the level of disliking a paint job, and 6 is just incorrect (albeit still frustrating). Renegade never promoted the stacking of the walls, and even AH hadn't really figured that out yet. That's not exactly "modeled incorrectly".

As for the terrain set issue ryguy brought up, Renegade is offering a terrain pack for stores that plan on hosting tournament that doesn't correlate well to the contents of the Master Set or Battle Box, which makes it so fan-made maps of those sets can't be easily converted. This is something that should be pointed out, and highlights their repeated pattern of not knowing how the community operates, but is no where near as much of an issue as the Laur Jungle pieces not fitting correctly.
 
chas said:
Are you saying there are problems with their new basic terrain hexes? What are the problems making them "unsuitable for mapmaking" besides not including everything and the jungle hex misalignment? And thanks for linking SH's videos. I'm very low tech and old school myself, and not on any social media. Some members here have kept us up to date on what is being said there, but I hadn't seen it all collected in the same place.
Click to expand...

As a mapmaker I've had a very difficult time creating maps big/stable enough for competitive play. The assortment of terrain is the biggest issue for me, it's like trying to build with 80% of the RotV terrain but also there's a ridiculous amount of 2-hexers. I would've just preferred they had come up with a completely new assortment of pieces, because this set is a classic case of "you can copy my homework but don't make it obvious."
 
Hogg said:
...it looks like they cast the figures in the base color and painted over it, so the figures are not 100% painted, which isn't really a "premium" paint job.
Click to expand...

To be fair, classic Heroscape was the same. The vipers were cast in green plastic with just details and a wash added. I suppose the argument could still be made for being advertised as premium, but I don't mind.

ryguy266 said:
The terrain sets released are not suitable for mapmaking. The package released to stores has no walls or trees and also is so far off from RotV terrain that it will be difficult or impossible to produce quality maps from it, at least at first.
Click to expand...

I can see the terrain sets existing for two reasons:

  1. Adding to a master set for even larger, crazier maps (which is excellent) and
  2. Selling the terrain separately for use in other games (which is also excellent).

For those reasons, I can understand not needing to add line-of-sight blockers. They could have packaged the trees with the terrain pack, but having them separate provides flexible buying options.

The change in figure bases (not having a sticker and not matching the original size) would certainly be disappointing, but since getting into C3V / other customs, my base coherency requirements have all but evaporated.
 
Myriadite said:
Hogg said:
...it looks like they cast the figures in the base color and painted over it, so the figures are not 100% painted, which isn't really a "premium" paint job.
Click to expand...

To be fair, classic Heroscape was the same. The vipers were cast in green plastic with just details and a wash added. I suppose the argument could still be made for being advertised as premium, but I don't mind.
Click to expand...

Snipers and Vipers was $13 for 6 figures and a glyph. Renegade wants $65 for 4 figures. They need to be a lot nicer than the original ones for that price, with full paint jobs.

IAmBatman said:
Oh, OK.

Is how they rule on these things important to a lot of people?
Click to expand...

Its important to anyone planning on playing in an official event.
 
But people WILL play in the official events, using the new rulings. Those rulings were largely changed without apparent reason or understanding and overturning rulings will only cause confusion.

Renegade is the official source of scape right now, so the imprimatur they convey for rulings is problematic for community cohesion in this area. People will line up on both sides when there is no reason for there to be a "both sides" in this case.

Changing new rulings is probably easier than changing decades old precedent unless the precedent wasn't well-regarded so getting the rulings reverted (or failing that, at least get it explained as to why it's important to change) is probably the best option to resolve the issue.
 
I had previously been excited and planning on participating in the official events. I wanted the promo figures and to be on the national rankings. But I have no interest in playing with the new rules they came up with so at this point I'm not going to be playing in the official stuff.

Plus their new software looks stupid, with army point value having to end in an interval of 50 and the armies being described using MTG deck terms.
 
Based on this information, I wonder if Renegade will release maps and scenarios for in store events that are different than those in the AOA Master Set and Battle For the Wellspring.

I hadn't planned to get much more heavily involved in official events myself, since my local group is still active and combining Classic, Customs, Supers and AOA Proxies in varied and creative ways. And now I'm not rushing to buy what Renegade is selling. But I had figured I'd check out which of the gaming stores around here in NYC would be participating, and possibly visiting or participating in a few of them.
 
Hey, sorry if this isn't the place for this, but does anyone know will the Battle for The Wellspring Battle Box (painted) be opening up for pre-orders again? Will it be available some time after initial release? Did I miss any exclusive figs? -- Sorry for the barrage of questions, ... this is my panic mode after discovering pre-orders are closed.

Any info would be helpful.

Thanx
 
dnutt99 said:
Hey, sorry if this isn't the place for this, but does anyone know will the Battle for The Wellspring Battle Box (painted) be opening up for pre-orders again? Will it be available some time after initial release? Did I miss any exclusive figs? -- Sorry for the barrage of questions, ... this is my panic mode after discovering pre-orders are closed.

Any info would be helpful.
Thanx
Click to expand...

AFAIK its only sold out on Renegade's site. It is currently available for preorder on Pulse and at my FLGS, and I suspect many other places. Often, if a manufacturer sells something directly on their own site, they have an agreement with all other retailers to limit their stock, wait to ship until retailer orders are fulfilled, and limit discounts given.

Pre-orders usually aren't the for whole allotment either and they will have more for up for order when the product actually comes in.
 
Myriadite said:
I can see the terrain sets existing for two reasons:

  1. Adding to a master set for even larger, crazier maps (which is excellent) and
  2. Selling the terrain separately for use in other games (which is also excellent).

For those reasons, I can understand not needing to add line-of-sight blockers. They could have packaged the trees with the terrain pack, but having them separate provides flexible buying options.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I wasn't very clear in my original post. Obviously the battlebox and AoA master set have their own stuff that is meant for casual play. I was talking specifically about the tournament pack targeted at game stores called the Heroscape: Tournament Organizer Terrain Kit. The kit is claims to support 4 maps but would have only 1 wall and 3 bushes (yes, bushes...not trees) for each map. It also has 3 less 24-hex grass tiles per map. For a kit specifically marketed for supporting tournament play, it does a terrible job of that.

The Lands of Valhalla and Waters of Valhalla have their own issues in that the terrain combo is weird and they are useless on their own for mapmaking.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top