Post
by Sir William » Wed Jan 25, 2012 12:45 pm
Ginger,
I hope my comments have not been misinterpreted. I have not had a "bad experience" with WF, in fact, the overall experience has been good.
My disappointment is with the fact that WF seem to have left a lot of "orphaned" ranges out there and don't seem to have a high priority for picking them back up. As examples: only two sets for the Zulu Wars (and those didn't even include any command figures); only four sets for the Dark Ages (and much of the tooling for the weapons/heads/shields sprue used the same digital files), to date only two sets for the WSS with little displayed interest in expanding on the Infantry or adding Artillery; their recent Persians (which show great promise) but may not make it past the basic Infantry and Cavalry.
Right now there seems to be a heavy bias towards Sci-Fi, Zombies and 40K type of sets, although to be fair, their recent Samurai appear to be gathering some steam and they have announced additional sets already. Part of the argument that I get when talking with management at WF is that "sales of the existing WSS don't justify expansion", which may well be true according to their business model. However, a bit like the chicken and the egg analogy, we all know that if you don't offer a complete range (at least all of the basics) then gamers won't continue to buy (assuming that they make a serious start to begin with).
As opposed to Warlord, the Perry's and Victrix (just to name three), who are all building on their existing ranges while still adding new product, WF seem to want to "compartmentalize" their ranges. Introduce a little, see if the shops and gamers snap it up, then decide to either develop the range or move on. I don't fault them for this business model, especially in this economy, but I can't personally support it any longer. I liken what they have produced to a modern version of the old Spencer-Smith 18th century range of plastics (now metal from Peter Johnston). Ronald Spencer-Smith produced and sold thousands, if not tens of thousands, of basic rank & file figures, and the gamers who were serious about building armies bought their specialty figures from Stadden or Suren or Minifigs "S" range or Holger Ericksson or whatever. This is not necessarily a "bad" approach, but today's gamers are very spoiled by the available choices out there and tend to stick with what they like, once they find it.
WF have also used the cost of tooling (which is very high for injected plastics) and their production lead time from China as reasons why they can't be more "adventurous" in their developments. I would remind them that all of the UK manufacturers of plastics are using Renedra and this has also created severe bottlenecks in production. And yet they continue to roll out new product. Another missed opportunity (my opinion only) is that they have shown no interest in making their figures compatible with the major metal ranges, nor have they shown any interest in supplementing their product with locally-produced metals. This latter option has worked very well for Warlord, the Perry's and Immortal, and seems to be helping Conquest Games. Part of WF's argument in this matter is that they sculpt digitally rather than with actual sculpts. However, the technology exists to render 3D models of the digital renders that could be cast in pattern molds that are then used for creating master molds. Since the mold costs are so much cheaper for this technology, they could add Artillery, specialty Command figures, even corrected weapons or additional lower torso's/legs that could then be cast out of either metal or polymer resins.
At any rate, I wish them all good fortune. I think they had a good model to start with, and a good idea with the Liberty & Union League, and only time will tell if they capitalize on what they have started. As for me, I have other old projects to finish and a new one to start that I'm really excited about, and simply don't care to "wait and see" anymore.
Regards;
Bill