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Last night I headed into my FLGS with a bunch of AT-43 Red Blok Army Box infantry minis and the paints and supplies I would need to continue working on my repaints, all stored inside the army box the minis came in.

As I was walking in the door, two kids stopped me to say how cool the box looked. So I opened it up and showed them what I had in there. One of them asked "So, do these things come in a bunch of tiny pieces?" and I went into how they were pre-paints, how you play it all out of the box. One of them said that they had just started playing Heroscape because they didn't want to spend a ton of money to play minis games or have to build and paint stuff.

(So, an aside - suck on that, anyone who's ever given me gak for comparing AT-43 to Heroscape. )

I told them they could get Army Boxes for $52 or so online, pointed them at Miniature Market and The War Store, and they left.


As I was walking out that evening, I noticed a Heroscape box in the front store window. I've seen World of Warcraft PPP minis sold there as well. Clearly the audience for this sort of thing exists at my FLGS. I had once asked the store manager whether he had ever heard of AT-43 - he hadn't - and I said that I should show him one of the Army Boxes sometime.

Yet, I am as reticent to seriously speak to him about carrying AT-43 as I am to really encourage those two kids who stopped me at the front door last night to pick up the game, and for the same reason: because the list of units you cannot purchase for AT-43 is getting longer by the day. :(

AT-43 units that are either in extremely short supply or effectively gone from American stores (that which my countrymen are going to purchase from) at the three most popular online AT-43 retailers, MM, TWS, and FRP games. Note that this is an aggregate list, so for instance MM is sold out of Steel TacArms, TWS has them but they are back up to $22.99 which means Neal has blown through his firesale stock and is back to "regular" stock which we know is usually limited due to how often Rackham Entertainment re-stocks, and FRP games is out and re-stock notices for AT-43 are almost always inaccurate...so Steel TacArms made it onto this list.

If I put an asterisk next to it, it's an almost universally-popular unit choice among AT-43 players. I have also omitted Krasnye Soldaty from this list because the Red Blok Army Box fills this hole, and no new Red Blok player should be without the Box.

UNA:

Death Dealer TacArms
Defender Snake
Defender Snake Cobra and Colonel Stark*
Defender Snake Cobra M8
Fire Toads (all versions)*
Star Troopers Unit Box (original camo)
Star Troopers Attachment Box (original camo)
Steel Troopers *
Steel Trooper Attachment Boxes*
Steel TacArms*
Wing Troopers
Wing Trooper Attachment Boxes

Therians:

Atis Astarte*
Bane Goliaths*
Grim Golems*

Red Blok:

Dragonov Kommando Attachment Box*
Nakovalny
Nakovalny Sierp*

Karmans:

Easy Trike*



Units from this list which are on the 2010 release schedule:

None



To try and be fair, the UNA Army Box is slated for a 2010 release...but still no word on what's in it. Best guesses are over on the AT-43 forums:

- 9 Star Troopers (+ Captain H. Newton, 1 Volcano MG)
- 9 Steel Troopers ((Master Sergeant, 2 Missile Launcher)
- 6 Steel Troopers (1 Laser Gun w/ Triple Lens Helmets)
- 1 Fire Toad (+ Sergeant A. Borz in Bad Dog)
- Fire Crawler
(2000 AP)

OR

- 8 Star Troopers (1 Volcano MG)
- 3 Steel TacArms
- 6 Steel Troopers (+ Sergeant A. Borz, 1 Laser Gun)
- 1 Fire Toad (+ Captain H. Newton in Number One)
- Fire Crawler (Lieutenant)
(2000 AP)


This doesn't really solve UNA problems, however. Fire Toads often show up 6 at a time in 3000 AP lists. Steel Troopers are a mainstay of UNA armies such that most UNA players could use between 6-8 specialists. Fire Crawlers are abundant online. The UNA Army Box is going to serve new players who don't want to build past 2000 AP or existing, veteran players like me who already have most everything but just have a few holes in the collection that they want to fill - and we are more likely to purchase individual minis through Miniature Market than get multiple Army Boxes to get everything we need...



So where is the balance between new releases (Oni, Cogs, Karman Army Box, UNA Army Box) and re-stocking that long list of items that are gone or almost gone?

I can't honestly recommend AT-43 to my store in terms of carrying it. That's my rep on the line - I don't want to get someone into Red Blok through the Army Boxes only to then have them purchase the Army Book, do some online research, realize that Nakovalny Sierps are an absolute must-have mainstay for lists and they cannot purchase them anywhere. My search-fu is excellent and I had a hell of a time finding American stores online that carried Sierps. I wound up purchasing the very last Sierp from really out-of-the-way stores on the second or third page of Google searches.

I don't want to have someone start AT-43, decide they really like the UNA, and tell them they have to wait until this Summer to start the army and even then are likely to be missing very large swathes of units from their army list.

I don't want to have someone start playing Therians and then find out that they can't get three of THE most popular unit choices in the whole Therian Army Book, and instead tell them "You'll probably get all of this in the Therian Army Box which we think is coming out in 2011, but we don't know."



The obvious counter-argument is "Red Blok is mostly in-stock, Karmans are great, and Cogs and Oni are filling out throughout 2010." All very true. I don't think this is a make-or-break situation at all. I understand that releasing new armies and units are what drive miniatures games. They make the game look alive and relevant...

...but here I am, a fan of the game, who can't in good conscience try to sell stores or players on AT-43 due to stock issues like these.

I'm using AT-43 as the most obvious example I'm familiar with, but this is really a question we could open up to ANY miniatures games: where is the balance between new releases and re-stocks?

To Rackham Entertainment:

I am a fan of your AT-43 game. In fact, I have set aside a budget to purchase your products. However, I cannot find many of your products for sale. The longer I have to wait to buy your products, which I know have been manufactured and sold previously but for reasons unknown to me have become unavailable, the more likely I am going to reallocate that money that I've budgeted to buy something else. I am not asking for you to quickly put out products for new armies or as expansions for existing armies. I am asking for you to replace your existing stock.

Thank you.

That answer was full of epic win, both for bluntness but especially for juxtaposition of post length.

This is what stops me getting into this game more than anything else.
Is there anyone in Rackham who can be contacted about this?

Perhaps, but they only listen to fanbois.

To partly defend Rackham they are not in control of their company, the Chinese are, never forget that.