Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 BrookM wrote:
In this case I'm not really seeing the benefits, not unless you and a group decide to buy bulk or the like. Plus they aren't exactly releasing an awful lot of garage kits like they used to.

The Dust Elite membership is actually quite a good deal if you intend to buy a lot of prepaints.

If you spend over $1,000 in a year (which is *not* hard when some of the models are $100 each), you get 10% off. Plus, you won't have to pay the registration fee the next year.

Battlefront released some more details in the KS Updates

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/duststudio/dust-operation-babylon/posts/1133043

To me, it looks like Battlefront thinks they're at the part of the contract where Dust Studios is on the hook for the rest of the costs, and DS thinks that their still owed something by BF.

Nothing has changed. The 409k they paid to ds includes the debt they owed to dust anyway. But it sounds like they didn't consider just who would pay for all those free stretch goals. Which is really dumb

Sining wrote:
Nothing has changed. The 409k they paid to ds includes the debt they owed to dust anyway. But it sounds like they didn't consider just who would pay for all those free stretch goals. Which is really dumb

But add in the 25% reserved for shipping as stated in the contract, and boom, all the money is gone. They basically admitted that all the KS money is spent. And from the contract it makes it look like Dust Studios is on the hook in the event that happens, since they are responsible for all refunds in the event the project don't ship.

Which would explain why Paolo was trying to get the order amounts from the backers directly I guess. Overall I'd say bf got nowhere near the money they thought they would get with this and are trying to renegotiate

 CaulynDarr wrote:

Sining wrote:
Nothing has changed. The 409k they paid to ds includes the debt they owed to dust anyway. But it sounds like they didn't consider just who would pay for all those free stretch goals. Which is really dumb

But add in the 25% reserved for shipping as stated in the contract, and boom, all the money is gone. They basically admitted that all the KS money is spent. And from the contract it makes it look like Dust Studios is on the hook in the event that happens, since they are responsible for all refunds in the event the project don't ship.

But that assumes that BF provides the information to DS. BF failing to pay and denying DS the ability to fulfill would not hold as an argument.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:


But that assumes that BF provides the information to DS. BF failing to pay and denying DS the ability to fulfill would not hold as an argument.

I was operating under the assumption that BF's latest statement was accurate and that all order information had been provided along with 400K worth of funds. Of course if that update is not truthful, then that assumption is less valid.

Sure, OK, tho I wonder who holds and manages the shipping funds.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sure, OK, tho I wonder who holds and manages the shipping funds.

From the contract, to my armature reading, it looks like BF. It says "shall be reserved" in the context of BF distributing the funds. I take that to mean that they would hold on to that money.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Looking back at the contract and the KS pledge levels, It looks like their goals here where totally unreasonable. I'm seeing what looks like a 60% markup on the rewards. That means that all other costs considered(KS cut, shipping, that 200K of debt), they would have needed to clear nearly a million dollars to break even.

This may all hinge on what "+Bonus figure free" on the amry deals means in the contract. It may be that BF is going on the presumption that that is all the free items on the standard pledge while DS is being more literal in the interpretation.

So DS is shipping on BF's account, against the 25%? That might explain why BF stopped providing order information to DS.

Assuming that the published contract is real, doesn't the point "200k $ of the money is for paying previous debts" contradict the KS terms as all the money has to be invested in the project?

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
So DS is shipping on BF's account, against the 25%? That might explain why BF stopped providing order information to DS.

Except DS isn't the one doing the shipping to backers. It's BF. And reading the contract, it doesn't say BF gives the shipping money to DS but rather that money be set aside for that.

I really think this is more of a case the KS didn't do nearly as well as they expected. But then again, if it didn't, they should have been more careful about all those free stretchgoals they were giving then.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ghrik wrote:
Assuming that the published contract is real, doesn't the point "200k $ of the money is for paying previous debts" contradict the KS terms as all the money has to be invested in the project?

I doubt KS will care. And I assume that most recent KS have some sort of profit margin calculated into them, which already means not all money is invested into the project

I doubt KS will care. And I assume that most recent KS have some sort of profit margin calculated into them, which already means not all money is invested into the project

Surely KS won't care (I had this at 2 other cases), but calculating with profit margin (which is fine, no one makes a project just for fun) is something different than using a huge part of the money to pay non-KS related debts.

I'm in a quite comfortable position as I got everything except the free stuff but it is still annoying. In my gaming area Dust startet quite well with a sigificant decline with the transition from FFG to BF but now I fear that it is basically the end for the system. Most of the FLGS in my area don't sell it anymore. I had a long talk with the owner of my favourite FLGS about that topic as he still sells Dust but he was quite shocked about the situation.

Which has to do with the fact that the KS circumvented their German distributor.

And in the end this killed the translations for that game, even the one already ready for publication.

I know and quite understandable that FLGS react like that. Zombicide got a similar treatment from my favourite FLGS until the German version was released last year.

As I bought the last remains of Dust in an FLGS nearby (@Duncan: Stronghold in LB) he told me that a lot of gamers also did not like the warfare rules and therefore dropped the game. But as I am a painter and a Tactics player I cannot confirm if this is just a local incident. I never tried the Warfare rules.

 Ghrik wrote:
I know and quite understandable that FLGS react like that. Zombicide got a similar treatment from my favourite FLGS until the German version was released last year.

As I bought the last remains of Dust in an FLGS nearby (@Duncan: Stronghold in LB) he told me that a lot of gamers also did not like the warfare rules and therefore dropped the game. But as I am a painter and a Tactics player I cannot confirm if this is just a local incident. I never tried the Warfare rules.

I play warfare and have not heard too much criticism of it, I personally think it is a pretty good rule-set (though it is an I-go-you-go, but with reaction mechanics).

The main person who seems to hate it is Paolo, from what I heard because FFG made some changes to how weapons worked.

This hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet (that I can see, so apologies if I missed it) but it appears that the link to Battlefront's Dust site has been deactivated.

This was one of my bookmarked sites: www.dust-tactics.com

When I tried using it a moment ago, I was taken to my providers page of website suggestions.

Interesting… make that sad… development. Can't say I'm surprised, since many of the recent threads' subjects were about "when will I get my stuff" or "what is happening and who will fix it".

Does anyone have a different link?

Confirmed...not good.

So battlefield ran that site? If so, I guess they're playing public hardball now beyond just keeping quiet and shipping nothing while not giving refunds.

I hope it's coincidental, I'll never support BF again. I don't say that being whiny, but as a conscientious consumer. The site was a great resource.

The forum still works, maybe an oversight?

http://www.dustwarfare.com/forum.aspx

There are a lot of inconsistencies in BFs last update which reads more like a cut and paste of the Beats of War vlog rather than an accurate description of the financial situation.
They skirt around the payment issue by stating "but we gave DS 400K" without mentioning, against the terms, they paid off their existing debt from Achilles etc with the bulk of our money first. Debt that was outstanding according to Paolo for in excess of 120 days.
Robbing Peter to pay Paul.
There's a large discrepancy also between the number of backers from the KS page and the number that they quote with reference to the purchase order data they sent 3 months ago. Maybe explains the massive stock shortages and the fact that some have backers received nothing?
This wave nonsense as well, considering they're shipping increasingly smaller percentages of stock (if at all) must be eating into that reserved shipping allowance without achieving much.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
There are two basic possibilities:

1. BF has the cash, but refuses to honor the contract they signed.

2. BF lacks the cash, so cannot honor the contract, even if they wanted to.

and back to this before it was derailed.
again
Number 2,

Hmm, so it appears that they changed the address?

Check out this post: http://www.dustwarfare.com/tabid/89/g/posts/t/2335/DUST-Tactics-down.aspx

Not intending to derail the thread, but it is rather strange to me that the company that became the distributor for the Dust Tactics game (and the more enjoyable Dust Battlefield game, because TTG versus board game FTW please) changes their domain name to include the name of the game developed by the last partner.

Hmm.

I have nothing further to add. Thanks for the link, Hekal Xul.

I'd say you're not opening yourselves to nearly enough possibilities.

Aggressive renegotiation can certainly be coming from Paolo's end too.

In what sense? He wants to get more money from BF than the agreed upon contract?

Absolutely can see that happening. Or a disagreement on their end for what DS is liable for via the contract.

Scott wrote:
Hmm, so it appears that they changed the address?

Check out this post: http://www.dustwarfare.com/tabid/89/g/posts/t/2335/DUST-Tactics-down.aspx

Not intending to derail the thread, but it is rather strange to me that the company that became the distributor for the Dust Tactics game (and the more enjoyable Dust Battlefield game, because TTG versus board game FTW please) changes their domain name to include the name of the game developed by the last partner.

Hmm.

I have nothing further to add. Thanks for the link, Hekal Xul.

They didn't change the address. Dust-tactics.com and Dustwarfare.com have always gone to the same page. Basically when they initially set it up, it was only Dust-tactics.com and Warfare players through a hissy fit about it, so they added the dustwarfare.com domain to appease them. Still odd the page is down though.

http://worldofdust.net appears to still be working. Guess they overlooked it.

Since this appears to be devolving fast, my personal take is that it's time to start asking for refunds. I would urge everyone reading this to request a refund for anything not yet delivered, and to file complaints with your local AG's or Consumer Protection office, in addition to the AG for the state of Maryland.

Battlefront Miniatures North America
500 Principio Parkway West
Suite 100
North East, Maryland 21901
United States of America

Phone: 844-239-1768 (Toll Free)

 Major Malfunction wrote:
http://worldofdust.net appears to still be working. Guess they overlooked it.

Since this appears to be devolving fast, my personal take is that it's time to start asking for refunds. I would urge everyone reading this to request a refund for anything not yet delivered, and to file complaints with your local AG's or Consumer Protection office, in addition to the AG for the state of Maryland.

Battlefront Miniatures North America
500 Principio Parkway West
Suite 100
North East, Maryland 21901
United States of America

Phone: 844-239-1768 (Toll Free)

Update: The US toll free number listed on the Flames of War and Gale Force 9 pages has been disconnected. Money troubles maybe?

Perhaps they anticipated this and are trying to shut down a run on the bank so to speak?


Still having a hard time believing this is malicious on Battlefront's end though. Anyone who knows remotely anything about Flames of War knows Battlefront couldn't get a release right if their life depended on it, why should this be different? I've had models that took 6 MONTHS to get in, models that already had the molds done and had been released for years, and that's considered fairly normal amongst the FoW community. I'm kind of amazed people didn't notice this when they were researching the two companies before backing, I would have thought that the constant delays Battlefront is notorious for would be a huge red flag in it's own right.

I didn't back this kickstarter, but I hope it gets resolved amicably and soon. I may not play Dust, but I do like Flames of War and if Battlefront goes down or even just gets burned a bit it will be a big blow in terms of what minis you can get for the historical 15mm market. They provide a lot of niche nations that most other companies don't bother with, and are starting to get some very nice plastics turned out that can finally compete with PSC's like the Panther and APC kits. Not to mention that sales for companies like PSC, Peter Pig, and Forged in Battle would probably see a decrease in sales as well.

This being said, I was stupid enough to buy from Defiance Games when they first opened up with the UMCA or whatever they were called, so I would take anything I ever say about companies not being evil and just incompetent with a massive grain of salt

There's also.. http://www.dustgame.com/

I wonder if BF decided that this wasn't a relationship they wanted to maintain once the KS didn't explode and decided to end it in a terrible way?
Or DS decided the same thing for different reasons.
I can't imagine the previous relationship continuing once this is all resolved.