Sticking this up separately in case people haven’t seen it, plus it might be easier to collate any feed back from it.
FAQ/Errata up. Companion to be updated by 5th March. Digital rulebook will also be amended.
5 Likes
Comments on the document from @Sam_Urai
“I was surprised too [*needing a Mantic account to download the free FAQ]. Luckily I had one.
Several questions not answered.
So a Despoiler from FoA is really Infantry, despite being delivered with a 50mm base and not really fitting on a 40mm base?
No sentence lost to the different deployments and things like ‘center line’…
And suddenly Individuals are no longer (well, they were only for like 3 months) able to carry loot counters.
And if all rules for infantry count for heavy infantry too, why even mentioning it in the Basilea Command? People keep asking if some rules mention heavy infantry and some not. One clear statement and not mentioning heavy infantry in Command Orders or special rules would speak a clear language - there’s no difference and therefore you don’t need to talk about.
Even if there are plans for Heavy Infantery in Basilea the mentioning of heavy infantry is just confusing and not necessary.”
2 Likes
Anyone interested in 40 Riverguard minis?
Did they update the companion at the same time? Nope.
It would certainly have been helpful to link the faq in the Companion, even if they haven’t got round to updating it yet
2 Likes
Sorry to be “that guy”, but I feel the whole FAQ/Errata has been handled poorly. The sky isn’t falling, it’s not the end of the world, and in a month or so’s time this will have all blown over but it is frustrating. Since writing the bulk of this post I think most of the bad stuff is simply communication. It’s also just, like, my opinion man…
The bad stuff:
We have got a (quite poorly formatted) pdf that answers some (but not all - e.g. scenario set up for different table allignments) of the questions posed and it has taken a 5 and a bit weeks. The news article says about the issues raised in the YouTube video, but there have been a whole swathe of issues outwith that video highlighted through the forms and on this forum, many of them weeks ago. Will any of these be addressed between now and the next book?
Meanwhile, the companion hasn’t been updated at all. Assuming the companion is run off a database (and surely it is), it should be set up with a “shop keeper” access, so that there is no coding required to update it. As such, updating the stats at least should be the work of half an hour or so.
We were told that the conversation with Alessio was happening in the weekend after the youtube video, but then there was complete silence. We wind up with a document that, frankly, could have been written that weekend. If it needed to be checked by others, fine, that’s another week. If it was going to take a month, or 5 weeks, or 2 months, let people know and the frustration will be quelled. You don’t need to be ultra exact, but saying “early Feb”, then nothing, then releasing something at the end of Feb is not great. Even now, on the main site, the FAQ is in a news article titled “Kings of War News: Salamanders POD Releases Plus FAQ & Errata” and you need a mantic account log in to see it. Make the FAQ and Errata easy for people to find. Post on here (and other socials) that it is out. Be proud of your FAQ and errata, highlight how it shows you listen and adjust things, make it a selling point.
Now, for me, as someone who doesn’t play as often as they’d like and isn’t competitive, it’s not a huge issue in and of itself. However, the optics of it and the impact for those who play more regularly are poor.
The good stuff:
The rules fixes and errata, whilst not everyone will 100% agree, are generally done well and the responses make sense to me and are consistent.
We have a date for the companion update (5th March) - great! We have a good idea about when stuff will be done and anyone playing games before then knows to use the errata alongside.
”A heads-up about the next updates – there may be a minor update alongside the Fracture expansion book (scheduled to release in early summer), which will address any units or rules that are proving problematic. But please expect a more comprehensive, “Clash of Kings”-style update across all armies with the Arrogance expansion book, which is scheduled to release towards the end of the year. At that point, the new edition will have been out for a year – giving us and the play-testing group enough data to see what needs adjusting.” - this is great. A clear communication about how things will be updated. Why is it at the bottom of a news article predominantly about Salamanders?
Conclusion
I still really love mantic’s games and the people at Mantic come across as great people with their hearts in the right place, trying to do their best with probably quite limited time and budgets. But (we knew a but was coming), this is your flagship game having a brand new edition. I feel this was (and is being) handled poorly, mainly due to a lack of clear communication. I feel this needs to be stated as feedback and hope people see that it comes from a place of love for this game and the community, but I won’t dwell on it. I am just frustrated that what could have been an amazing release of 4th edition has had so many little issues (of which this is one) that go against what I usually evangelise to others about Mantic doing well.
Sorry for the quite negative post, and finishing with a little more on the plus side, we have many of the questions answered and I think the 4th edition rules in general are great!
7 Likes
To add: when I complained about the state of 4th, especially the state of the stripped down armies in the back of the queue, I was reassured that there would be updates every 6 months, that they would take these things into a account. Now we are told that this won’t be happening for a year.
If this pattern holds then in a year, we’ll get a small print message in a blog post about Arrogance that its only a year and a half at most until the real updates in the planned books, so really, no need to change anything now.
Please prove me wrong, Mantic.
2 Likes
@screamingaddabs to a large extent I agree with a number of the criticisms about how this was handled - which is a shame as mantic started off being very proactive, explicitly seeking questions, doing the live feed q&a and correcting a number of Companion errors - they then just seemed to fall silent 
2 Likes