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I was also wondering about the metal casting. Seems like it'd be better to sell metals while waiting for the troll cast stuff to build up.

But then I know absolutely nothing about this business so maybe I'm completely off base.

 Da Boss wrote:
I was also wondering about the metal casting. Seems like it'd be better to sell metals while waiting for the troll cast stuff to build up.

But then I know absolutely nothing about this business so maybe I'm completely off base.

If I am not mistaken, I believe that Tre said that he barely made any profit from selling his latest release in metal (that being the HelsVakt before the re-tooling KS), and that most of the profit was eaten up by how expensive it was to have his items cast in metal. I also believe that he probably abandoned metal, and not selling it while waiting for the trollcast, because he would need the entire re-stock to sell out for him to actually make profit. This made it a gamble. Too big metal re-stock that wouldn't sell out and he'd actually lose money. Too small re-stock he'd make a minor profit but it would also require more work to get more re-stocks more often. I believe he said someplace that it wasn't economical viable anymore for him, at his current size of operations, to keep with metal.

Yeah it's no longer viable for the vast majority of mini shops to stock metal. It's one of the reasons everyone is moving over either plastic or one of the alternatives (Mantic Restic, Reaper Bones, GW Finecast, traditional plastic, Trollforged etc).

Even the big guys really can't afford metal anymore. It's becoming more of a parts material like certain weapons etc, and even then those are dissapearing rapidly also.

New update:

Project Update #45: Update # 45 Fullfillment update and NEXT Red Box Games kickstarter campaign news

Posted by tre manor

Hey Everybody. I am really sorry for the long delay in my latest update and for the continued delay in fullfillment. I wanted to post a generla update lettign everyone knwo what the exact current status is on the KS fulfillment.

I have in hand and approved castings of:

Hordesmen

Varp

Gynnade

Morgrimn Waiting and Warp

Svetlana

Olga

Keeper

Whistelock

RObert

Aenglish footmen

Undead

Dire Wolves

COnradt Waiting

I now await the delivery of:

Guarthagust

Ulbrecht

Yrsa

Fenris ( needed an adjustment for the sake of efficient casting )

Conradt Warp

Horsemen

Horses

I must approve the castings of Yrsa and Conradt Warp and the horse. The production moulds are made and Ed is confident with them but I need to actually see the results of these production moulds before approving Ed and Brian to go ahead with casting 100's of copies.

Every delay in the fulfillment thus far has been strictly for the sake of your final satisfaction. I did not want to settle for anything less than the most perfect model I could deliver so when we had castings with visible shrinkage I asked that those molds be remade. That took a while and then casting the 100's of required minis took even longer.

The horses have been a real trick unto themselves. Neither Ed nor I have ever made horse models and this turned out to be a bit more difficult than either of us expected. I am especially particular about the Yrsa figure as it is by far the most complicated and delicate figure I have ever released and it is the replacement figure for the most popular figure I have ever produced. It MUST be perfect.

In the end I was too optimistic in my expectations of delivery, AND I was remiss in never pushing the expected delivery date backward as the work load expected by that date grew exponentially. It is a mistake I will not repeat. I am ready and waiting for the delivery of these last items to begin shipping the rest of the KS rewards but until those figures are in hand and approved I can do little more than wait.

I do expect to have the last of the expected casting within the next week or two. Ed has informed me that the test samples of Yrsa, COnradt, and Horse #1 were shipped to me on friday last which means I SHOULD receive them for approval tomorrow. At which time I will inspect the castings and call Ed with the yay or nay. Upon my approval Ed will finish the last three horse molds and Brian ( if he is back in from being Ill.... get well Brian! ) will begin casting the rest of the Yrsa, and Conradt Models.

There are still 100's of copies of each mini left to be cast BUT I will be taking shipments of these figures in batches as they are cast to allow to me to begin filling orders as quickly as possible.

I have submitted for approval from Kickstarter the next Retool campaign page. which will include all of the rest of the Aenglish models and the goblins as well. IF these items all fund then I will move on to the Dvergr from there. If the campaign finished without funding the dvergr then that range will be a separate kickstarter for later this year after the 2nd kickstarter campaign is fulfilled.

I had intended to have ALL commitments from this first campaign fulfilled before running a second campaign but the realities of development did not allow for this. The difference in this second campaign is that all planned models are already sculpted and mastered ( with the exception of the Goblin footmen ) so the actual production overhead is cut in half. Ed already has the masters and they are ready for the production of production molds. All that is needed is for me to be able to finance the slot in Ed's work schedule to have those molds made and have castings run.

The expected delivery date for the second kickstarter products is set for August of 2013. This is the nearest date that Ed and I both fell confident in to deliver all planned products, however I will be creating a module in my regular webstore in which you will be able to pay for " batch shipment " of any figures involved in this campaign. Figures will be produced in the order in which they are funded and will be available for shipment in specifically timed batches. When ever a batch is ready to ship I will post an update letting all of the backers know. At which point they will be able to " purchase " the shipping cost for that batch and have it shipped to them then rather than having to wait until the final pieces are produced and in hand.

Again, My deepest apology for the delays thus far and my most sincere appreciation for your patience with me in this.

Cheers,

Tre'

Due to the delay, Tre's shipping incomplete orders now, and eating the extra shipping expense for the split orders. So everyone should have some troll cast in hand before the second kickstarter ends.

Hey guys,

OK good news and bad news...... bad news first. I misunderstood Ed on what I was to be approving. I only received Yrsa for approval. She looks PERFECT so she is approved and Brian has been properly chained to the casting machine and thoroughly flogged for good measure. This means that we are still waiting to approve Conradt Warp, the riders and horses. MORE bad news is that the horse molds had to remade anyways as the tails kept breaking off in demolding......

Now Good news!! We are shipping what we have on hand now and will complete shipping at our own expense when the rest of the stock is delivered. I want to be certain that you guys are happy with your RBG Kickstarter experience and you have all waited patiently for long enough. and MORE GOOD NEWS!! The Horse molds are being remade now and should be ready by the beginning of next week.

So be looking for a package from RBG in your mailboxes over the nest 3 weeks!!

Cheers Y'all and thanks for your patience with me thus far!

Tre and Company.

p.s........ RBG Kickstarter # 2 Launches VERY soon!!

This is good news for us, not so good news for Tre. I'm looking forward to getting the stuff in hand though! This also means it's highly likely the goods will show up before the close of KS2.

Therefore I will likely get a placeholder pledge in then revisit the amount once the KS1 goodies arrive.

I think this is a really good idea for Tre to do, I just hope it isn't costing him too much. Between all the recasting, new molds etc that have had to be made I can't imagine there is much left (if anything) out of the original drive.

The good will generated though will probably pay for itself, and it does show how confident he is that we'll like what we see from KS1.

 Surloch wrote:
The good will generated though will probably pay for itself, and it does show how confident he is that we'll like what we see from KS1.

I agree! I'd actually been wondering why he hadn't gone for this / thought of suggesting it to him. I'm sure it's expensive, but it will be worth it in the end for his business, I think.

Looking forward to seeing some pics of folks' KS1 stuff

Hopefully it means he will put the KS1 stuff that has shipped up on his store and start selling to non-KS folks who want to see what trollcast looks like as well.

Kickstarter really seems to be taking their time authorizing this new campaign... Didn't Tre say he submitted it on the 19th? If so 5+ days for Kickstarter to simply give an 'OK' to a campaign is just ridiculous.

Tre definitely won some big points from me by making the decision to send out the models he currently has produced, but i agree that it is going to be absolutely brutal on his remaining funds. (I remember reading that the original minimum postage estimate for the KS was at least $7500.)

Yeah, I've been checking his forums, and he submitted it on the weekend... everyone's tired of waiting so hopefully it gets approved soon.

Someone said that KS's approval policy was longer now, but this is all I could find?

Kickstarter wrote:Once your project is submitted to us for a guidelines review, it will take us a day or two to get back to you (longer over the weekends). Submitting a project the day you hope to launch is not a good idea.

A whole business week for approval just seems like too long...

Well KS used to let you have multiple projects on the go,

then they changed it so you could only have one 'live' project at once

I wonder if they're moving towards making creators fulfill their projects before approving another ?

Although most of use are happy to wait and back KS2 as well, the updates show that KS1 isn't done yet. Maybe kickstarter are waiting on that?

(as otherwise I agree it seems to be taking a bit too long)

Well if they are waiting for that then they need to communicate that in the TOS. I doubt that is the case though. This isjust good old fashioned bottleneck. I imagine they get a TON of submissions now.

Tre, I hope people appreciate the efforts you're making to put right the delay. It confirms my impression that you are a decent bloke as well as an awesome sculptor

I will be backing KS2 with a significant order, I expect.

Thanks Boos.

Yep, Da Boss. You just got a nickname.

And that's how it starts.

 tre manor wrote:
Well if they are waiting for that then they need to communicate that in the TOS. I doubt that is the case though. This isjust good old fashioned bottleneck. I imagine they get a TON of submissions now.

Actually, that's the excuse they gave us while waiting two weeks to approve Endless.

He posted this on the RBG forums this evening:

tre manor wrote: Ks approved the campaign!! I am just going over it one last time before posting it up. I want to be ABSOLUTELY sure everything is in place and is correct.

F5.... F5.............

I think the new Kickstarter deserves a new thread and this one can be moved to Misc Games (like most old kickstarter threads have been) once it's up.

The new kickstarter is up:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1103158358/red-box-games-miniatures

I think there should be a new thread for the new one.

Aye, new Kickstarter thread is up, so I've moved this one to Misc games as par the the new policy. Good luck with your new Kickstarter Tre.

Any update on shipping?

This is the last I heard, which was over 2 weeks ago now.

10 Feb
Project Update #48: Update #48 Fulfillment update and KS2 update / notification
Posted by tre manor

Hey Everybody,

Well final fulfillment is still awaiting the delivery of the final pieces ( COnradt Warp, the Riders, and the Gynnade Krigare War Staff ) BUT we have shipped more than 300 packages thus far that were completable with what we have on hand now.

There should be another batch of packages going out next week as I begin to receive the awaited items. Unfortunately this means that the packages won't arrive to all international destinations in time to beat the ending of the current Goblins kickstarter but we are doign all that we can to make this happen as quickly and efficiently as possible.

I did want to alert everyone that I have added the dire wolves as a paid add-on to the Goblins campaign for those who were unable to get them in the first Kickstarter campaign. So if you wanted to snag a few ranks of the Dire Wolves head on over to the Goblins Kickstarter and add them to your pledge!

Cheers Y'all!

tre'

My apologies - I found this in the other KS thread:

 tre manor wrote:
Everythign is fine at Ed's Shop. It was just a LOT of work. Teh helsvakt are literally probably the most difficult thing he will ever undertake. Those little spikes have been a nightmare fro us both and I will NOT be doing anything like that again!

Ed has just a really big work load on him btu they have apparenyl come trhough ont he HelsVakt. Ed informed me this mornign that they have cast 100's of the horses and that I will have a package en route friday. So it shoudl be that by this time next week I will be shippign orders out again.

So Tre' may start shipping again at the end of this week. Not sure if that's the final KS1 package from Ed or not, though?

Anyone looking for some of the original metal casts?

I have Multipack A, Multipack C, Old Mama Rotbelly and another loose fig (Gnasher?) up for sale on Bartertown.

http://www.bartertown.com/trading/viewforum.php?f=16

At this point I am nearly 100% convinced that the delays are Trollforged related:

Update 40 Nov 20th, "Other than that all sculpting is done and now it is just a matter of the moulds being finished and corrected as needed. "

Trollforged has had the finished sculpts for over three months? I think we know where the problem is here.

Hey everybody!

Well I did receive the last of the four expected boxes today and I have gone through the QC with all items received. I am still awaiting delivery of the corrected Blutulf model btu I do now have Ulbrecht and Guarthagust in hand and that means that MANY orders can be shipped. I also have 3 of the 4 horses.

There is however a problem with hel rider #2....... There is a consistent flaw on the armour sleeve of the rider torso. It is immediately noticeable...... I am at a loss as to what is the best thing to do. I literally do not have the money left to double ship and I think at this point I have exhausted your patience. I do not know what to do here.

I can hold all order containing this item for reworking and then email you when the corrected item arrives in stock, OR I replace that torso with a different torso........

PLEASE GO TO MY FORUM TO ANSWER. I will have a topic posted there where in you can answer directly and I can then take appraisal and decided the best course of action.

http://red-box-games.com/forum/index.php?topic=183.0

Also from my newsletter if you are not subscribed there is some store front news that may or may not be of interest to you.

hey Guys,

well at long last the retool effort has run it's course and I think it makes better sense to keep my current catalogue in metal and concentrate any future efforts on entirely new product rather than trying to retool everything and wait for a year or more for that to resolve itself.

So.......... I have received restock of several items and the rest is on order as well and is expected within the next 2 weeks or so. So if there are items you have been waiting for they may already be available again in metal. Have a look through the store and see what has appeared once again! Let me be clear.... As of now ALL items visible in the store are available for order and ready to ship.

Cheers,

Tre'
I was really happy for Tre when the first KS did so well. I don't know him at all but it's good to see someone just working away on their own thing and having some success.
The way it's playing out has just become vaguely depressing though. I'm still looking forward to getting my minis, Tre just seems to be down about the whole situation.

 judgedoug wrote:
At this point I am nearly 100% convinced that the delays are Trollforged related:

Update 40 Nov 20th, "Other than that all sculpting is done and now it is just a matter of the moulds being finished and corrected as needed. "

Trollforged has had the finished sculpts for over three months? I think we know where the problem is here.

At risk of RiTides having a meltdown, I'll repeat what I've been saying for months - Tre' should never have put all of his eggs in the one Trollforged basket. At least he seems to have seen the light now, and is sticking for metal and getting actual stock of his models into his webstore again and getting some income again. The second KS should never have gone up with the first in such a state.

I'm going to place an order for some of the metals now, I think. I like the Halfblood range and I think some of the Aenglish will be nice as metal heroes, so I'm going to spring for them.

Some of Tre's posts over on the RBG forums are really depressing, he's been talking about how the Helsvakt campaign was a complete disaster and how he is planning a move back to metal castings...

(From the KS2.2 thread.)

well actually I did not profit $80,000.00....... If I went through the actual numbers it woudl make you puke....it did me. :/

At the end of the day this KS has been a disaster. I have ruined my reputation, increased my work burden decreased the amount fo profit made per part and jumped up in tax brackets in the process. A nice little kicker is that I cannot claim the postage expense of fulfilling the KS as an expense right off on my taxes. So not only am I paying doubel the expected postage costs I am also paying taxes on the cost to boot!

And then the real disaster is that the KS parts might never see retail release. The backers may be the only people ever to get most of this stuff unless I retool back to metal!!

I LOVE the product but this has NOT worked out at all. From the rate of delivery to the price per part, nothing about this has gone according to plan. Now I am not sure that I can get restocks within a reasonable amount of time which was originally part of the reason I wanted switch over to trollcast.

The next KS will be going up as soon as I figure out how to work it out. I am going to run a very brief KS to bring production in house in metal. Which is what I SHOULD have done the first time around. The idea is going to be to fund the production and postage of any parts "gifted " as rewards with a a reasonable profit and to buy the machines and materials necessary for production.

Im really hoping that the move back to metal is one of desperation due to Tre apparently not being able to get restocked right now, rather than a sign of Tre completely stopping his expansion into Trollcast. Because i prefer buying my RBG rank and file models in 16-24 man units, and if he reverts back to his old metal prices for larger human infantry models (For example the old metal armored Helsvakt used to cost $45 for 5 models.) then im afraid that Tre will have completely priced me out of of purchasing anything from him other than a few character models.

a bit more info,

the faulty helsrider mould has already been fixed and casts are on their way to Tre

the faulty ones were either sent in error

or perhaps because Ed thought they were 'almost' OK and since the material can't be recycled Tre should have them (eg to use as freebies/material samples ? I'm speculating here)

My order arrived in the UK, lovely models