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Id Verification though should be pretty quick - passport/driving licence and you're done - perhaps throw in birth certificate as well? Also there were several months before it became a requirement for things to move forward which suggests issues/problems much more so than just ID Verification.

I still don’t want to ascribe anything to it at this stage. Spesh as it’s still a new thing, and every limited company will be somewhere along the line of getting verified.

But I will add my usual caveat that at this stage? Anyone giving money to these guys seriously need their bumps felt..

Are they still sending some products out? I Assume they are. If so they could be doing so much better getting issues sorted and providing information about what exactly is happening.

 Apple fox wrote:
Are they still sending some products out? I Assume they are. If so they could be doing so much better getting issues sorted and providing information about what exactly is happening.

Sending product out from a dissolved company that by all accounts wasnt sending out product before they were dissolved?
Riiight.....

Same applies to information.

They might have been a decent company once upon a time.
But those days are gone & they arent a company anymore.

That’s why I asked, it’s dragging along so long do they have money to even restart a business at this point if they haven’t been selling anything?
It seems like it would take so much work they are unable to do to get back to stability that Im just surprised it’s still in existence and not completely over.

Yeah agree 100%, changing the company name means nothing, especially if it's the same folk. At this point even if I had a model for sale in my hand I wouldn't buy it.

Short of Crooked Dice or some other reputable company buying the molds and inventory (if any) I can't see this line ever being available again.

A sad end to all those sculpts.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Short of Crooked Dice or some other reputable company buying the molds and inventory (if any) I can't see this line ever being available again.

Crooked Dice got Colonel Zanzibar (the Not-Cobra Commander), so here's hoping they can get the rest!

Honestly feels like the best approach - I can't see Hassle recovering.

They've most likely burned any and all paid money for models a long while back. So they have a huge backlog to produce with no income to pay for its production directly now.

And they'd have to serve those customers; if they liquidate the debt and start fresh with a new firm and don't deliver then their reputation is utterly gone. It would take years to recover and; lets face it; with the changes in the world, their market will be drastically smaller now.


A totally separate firm with an income already supporting itself can at least start afresh; potentially get the outstanding orders done or at least sell the models without the baggage of owed product over them.

 Overread wrote:
...if they liquidate the debt and start fresh with a new firm and don't deliver then their reputation is utterly gone.

It kinda sounds like it's already utterly gone. The name 'Hasslefree' appears to be radioactive already.

 Overread wrote:
potentially get the outstanding orders done or at least sell the models without the baggage of owed product over them.

Anyone expecting any new company same as old company to get the outstanding orders done is rocking some serious Pollyanna level optimism.

They’ve likely no legal liability to do so.

It is possible. Companies can sell liabilities as well as assets. Typically noted in corporate takeovers/buy outs, as a way to lower the asking price to reflect the level of debt.

But to the best of my (incomplete, imperfect) knowledge? There’s nothing to prevent the Directors of Company A setting up Company B, with themselves as Directors, and selling Company A’s assets to Company B, and cobblers to the liabilities.

From what I’ve read about Hasslefree in this thread? I’m going with the latter. It’s a basic Phoenixing.

As the previous company No Longer Exists? It can’t pay or provide anything to anyone. Unless the Directors offered a guarantee for business borrowing.

 warboss wrote:

 Overread wrote:
potentially get the outstanding orders done or at least sell the models without the baggage of owed product over them.

Anyone expecting any new company same as old company to get the outstanding orders done is rocking some serious Pollyanna level optimism.

Indeed, but at the same time if the new firm doesn't make good on what the old firm does and its the same firm with a "new legal name" and such with the same directors and so forth. Then they go into the market with a negative-fanbase. That is to say most of their biggest previous customers will be against them. In a market where word-of-mouth and such is quite a major marketing tool for very small firms; that's a big blow to any potential growth no matter how good the sculpting is.

You can still survive - Mierce is still going despite the tricks they pulled with their old warstore (under another firm name). However one can also argue that they'd be WAY stronger now if they didn't have that historical baggage.


Honestly I'm not expecting anything - I'm not even expecting Hassle to form a functional new firm. I don't think the cash and time is there for their team to achieve it. At best I'd expect a potential sale of the moulds and designs at some stage to an outside 3rd party. However even that might not happen for a very long time.

I think heavily invested grognards (of which I consider myself one!) will but the casual normies will remain blissfully ignorant as they are wont to do. To bring up two other companies, most folks posting here won't know the corporate shenanigans years earlier of Prodos/Archon or New Wave/Cmon either and if told won't care as long as the company is still in current customers' good graces.

They'll just see the cool Hasslefree sculpts under a different company and be glad they can get their grubby little mitts on them as they vaguely remember Hasslefree going under... Unless the groganrds tell them (and we're back to the above who cares scenario). Heck, I am a regular poster here and I can't tell you the Hasslefree owner/employee names without first looking them up in the thread first.

I like the new avatar Warboss.



Obviously here on the Internet we think of all things in terms of the Internet but there are a lot of small manufacturers who make at least a side-hustle level of income by just doing cons and making sales there.

So I suppose the New and Improved, Still Under Old Management HF Minis might be able to stagger on that way.

I know I won't be doing business with them.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

But to the best of my (incomplete, imperfect) knowledge? There’s nothing to prevent the Directors of Company A setting up Company B, with themselves as Directors, and selling Company A’s assets to Company B, and cobblers to the liabilities.

There is, actually. If company A is liquidated, its creditors can set aside transactions aimed at defeating the company's creditors (such as a pretend sale of assets to Company B), and the directors can be liable personally if they traded while company A was insolvent. In some jurisdictions there can also be criminal liability.

 KidCthulhu wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Short of Crooked Dice or some other reputable company buying the molds and inventory (if any) I can't see this line ever being available again.

Crooked Dice got Colonel Zanzibar (the Not-Cobra Commander), so here's hoping they can get the rest!

To be fair, they got that one (and a bunch of others) when East Riding Miniatures went out of business. They were all commissioned from Kev White and others by Sylvain Boudeele for his Golgo Island series.

Interesting. I was not aware of East Riding Miniatures; I bought my Cobra Commander from Hasslefree's site.

 Snord wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

But to the best of my (incomplete, imperfect) knowledge? There’s nothing to prevent the Directors of Company A setting up Company B, with themselves as Directors, and selling Company A’s assets to Company B, and cobblers to the liabilities.

There is, actually. If company A is liquidated, its creditors can set aside transactions aimed at defeating the company's creditors (such as a pretend sale of assets to Company B), and the directors can be liable personally if they traded while company A was insolvent. In some jurisdictions there can also be criminal liability.

Genuine “thank you” for the added clarification. Always happy to learn more.

But…. Depends who the creditors are, and if/when they knew Company A was being wound up.

In this specific scenario? It’s entirely possible Hasslefree kept their Business Cost Creditors (electric, unit rent, water, tax man etc) all sweet, then chose the strategy of Not Filing to force Dissolution.

Do it that way? And whilst retail customers that have paid for goods absolutely are creditors? How many are going to know to check in the first place, let alone now to lodge a creditor claim.

I do hope the miniatures are somehow made available again somehow, they were great. Several I'd considered ordering a few times but decided to wait to see if all the issues with actually receiving orders were sorted out, which clearly didn't quite happen.

I may sound spiteful here?

But from what I’ve read about Hasslefree? I kinda hope nobody wants to buy their moulds, instead viewing them as tainted goods, paid for by what kind of amounts to fraud (taking good faith payments with no intention of fulfilling)

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I may sound spiteful here?

But from what I’ve read about Hasslefree? I kinda hope nobody wants to buy their moulds, instead viewing them as tainted goods, paid for by what kind of amounts to fraud (taking good faith payments with no intention of fulfilling)

I don't really get the impression this was some sort of purposeful malicious thing rather than incompetence and/or just inability to properly operate the business, really.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I like the new avatar Warboss.

Thanks! I laughed when I saw a dnd cartoon dungeonmaster version of the Simpsons old man shouts at cloud meme and had to save it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I may sound spiteful here?

But from what I’ve read about Hasslefree? I kinda hope nobody wants to buy their moulds, instead viewing them as tainted goods, paid for by what kind of amounts to fraud (taking good faith payments with no intention of fulfilling)

That's a silly thing to say, really. The current owner is a massive idiot who did a great job of running things into the ground and then sticking his own head down there as well ignoring everybody thinking feth know what? That everything would be alright the longer things would be ignored? That people would forget and move on if enough smiley emotes were used? No feth that, I want these to remain in rotation, but not under the the now tainted to hell and back Hasslefree label and certainly not under Artemis fething Black.

If nothing else, someone please pick up the sculpts done by Andrew Rae, those were some of my favourites and for some reason, the ones they had a lot of trouble properly casting.

They have some great miniature that would be sad to lose.
I have a small collection that every miniature was great, so there was clearly talent somewhere in there.
It’s probably why it has dragged on, for what seems like half a decade since it first started going bad. (I honestly have lost track of the timeline.)
People do want some of those miniatures and would pay for them.

As far back as 2016 there's been gak hitting the fan in terms of getting it all sorted. We met Kev at Salute that year and both myself and the hostess of the place I was staying at then were massive HF fans, wondering where those new releases were that were previewed aeons ago already.

Kev was super chill and modest as we gushed over his stuff haha, still a fething shame his legacy is ruined like this.

 BrookM wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I may sound spiteful here?

But from what I’ve read about Hasslefree? I kinda hope nobody wants to buy their moulds, instead viewing them as tainted goods, paid for by what kind of amounts to fraud (taking good faith payments with no intention of fulfilling)

That's a silly thing to say, really. The current owner is a massive idiot who did a great job of running things into the ground and then sticking his own head down there as well ignoring everybody thinking feth know what? That everything would be alright the longer things would be ignored? That people would forget and move on if enough smiley emotes were used? No feth that, I want these to remain in rotation, but not under the the now tainted to hell and back Hasslefree label and certainly not under Artemis fething Black.

If nothing else, someone please pick up the sculpts done by Andrew Rae, those were some of my favourites and for some reason, the ones they had a lot of trouble properly casting.

Agreed. Hasslefree used to be a great little company until Artemis/Dameon detroyed them.

It would be a great shame if all of the sculpts produced by Kev & others were lost, I hope some other company picks up the molds.

 Undead_Love-Machine wrote:

 BrookM wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I may sound spiteful here?

But from what I’ve read about Hasslefree? I kinda hope nobody wants to buy their moulds, instead viewing them as tainted goods, paid for by what kind of amounts to fraud (taking good faith payments with no intention of fulfilling)

That's a silly thing to say, really. The current owner is a massive idiot who did a great job of running things into the ground and then sticking his own head down there as well ignoring everybody thinking feth know what? That everything would be alright the longer things would be ignored? That people would forget and move on if enough smiley emotes were used? No feth that, I want these to remain in rotation, but not under the the now tainted to hell and back Hasslefree label and certainly not under Artemis fething Black.

If nothing else, someone please pick up the sculpts done by Andrew Rae, those were some of my favourites and for some reason, the ones they had a lot of trouble properly casting.

Agreed. Hasslefree used to be a great little company until Artemis/Dameon detroyed them.

It would be a great shame if all of the sculpts produced by Kev & others were lost, I hope some other company picks up the molds.

Indeed. The moment Kev left it was question of time for the moulds and masters deteriorate and theres no good sculptor to fix them or create new figs to keep the hype etc. It's a bit doomed to be honest. Doesn't help the management was poor and that speed up the downfall.
Let's not forget it was one of the best and most prolific miniatures ranges at the time.

I kinda hope nobody wants to buy their moulds, instead viewing them as tainted goods, paid for by what kind of amounts to fraud (taking good faith payments with no intention of fulfilling)

I think its more a case of who has the capital to buy something like Hasslefree - I see a few people have mentioned Crooked Dice and... I don't see it to be honest.

I dont think anyone in the UK is big enough - maybe Warlord... but its not there sort of thing.

I can see Heresy since it has Kev's minis. Other than that, they're either parodies or nude, and I don't even think Steamforged would use the remaining ones for their monthly mini thing.