Pendraken Plans for 2023!

[Leon]

2022 was a big year and we managed to get a lot of stuff done, but a new year needs some new year plans! 

We'll start with our plans for new 10mm ranges/releases first...

Russo-Japanese range
These have been commissioned by one of our customers and will be an expansive replacement of our current ranges.  Most of the sculpts have been master moulded (photos of these can be found here: https://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,22041.0.html) and there's been an additional batch of sculpts done that I need to take photos of.

Production moulds should have been started over our Christmas break but my Covid hit put paid to that and I've not been able to get going on them yet.  I should be able to start next week and we can look at a release in early/mid February I think.

Sci-Fi Expansion!
This is going to be a large range expansion spanning several years so there's a lot to look forward to here.    The vehicles for these are all digital designs while the infantry will be traditional sculpts by Techno.  We've currently got the vehicle designer working on some support weapons to go with Techno's crewmen, so that things like mortars and gun platforms all follow the same design style as the armour.

We're looking at around 20 different races/factions currently and I'm aiming to have 6 ready for the initial launch.  Timewise, if we estimate a month per race/faction for sculpting, we should be able to have the first release ready for June/July.

More Fantasy
These have been backburner'ed a few times now but we've got new Fantasy ranges for the Ratmen, Amazons and Fomorians in the works.  A lot of the sculpts are done already so we should be able to get at least the first two released this year, maybe all three if things go smoothly.

TB Line
This is a job that I've put off for a long time now, just due to the amount of work involved!  Usually I can prep 3-6 moulds in a decent session, but with the clean-up required on these figures I'm lucky to get 1 mould done in the same timeframe.  There's only 8 moulds to be made I think, but that's potentially 8 days of work just to get this small range into production.  I'll get it sorted but I might wait until summer when things quieten down on the shows front.

The TB Line Ancients ranges need a bit of tweaking rather than cleaning so we'll send those to Techno for that.  We'll only need one of each pose doing so they should be a much quicker task than these Middle Ages ranges.

Korean War Supplement
The Korean War supplement is in progress and will be released at this year's Salute show in April.  We'll have more news on this soon and there'll be a nice display game out for the launch too, so make sure to pop along if you'll be attending Salute.

New Army Builder Software
This is one of our longer-term projects that's almost ready to be unleashed!  The core database is done and working correctly, so we just need to do some design work to the front end and then it can be put out to some willing volunteers to try and break it.  Once we've got the feedback and made any tweaks we can finally get it out there for everyone to play with!

Dungeon World
The Dungeon plans have been delayed for far too long as they've required work on several fronts and we've just not managed to align the Pendraken planets properly.  We're currently making new production moulds for all of the monsters and furniture to make casting them a lot more efficient, and we've also had new modules made which we'll get put into resin moulds.  These new ones will match the dimensions of the old as well, so there won't be any problems with mixing and matching the two types. 

The rules need a bit of formatting work and then we'll get them put into a pdf through Wargame Vault.  We'll probably do a physical print run as well to put into the new Dungeon Sets.  I think 2nd half of the year is realistic for this one.

Red Vectors
The MDF releases stalled last year due to a lack of design time to sprue them up and do test assemblies but we should have a lot more time this year to work through them.  We've also had a weird bug with some of the files becoming corrupted, so we'll be recovering those next week.

There's all manner of stuff in the pipeline so I'll see if we can work up a rough list at some point.  I want to make a lot of them in multiple scales too, like we've done with some of the existing designs.

Misc
There's an assortment of other releases that should be appearing at some point, including:
- Indo-China French expansion
- Revamped Panzer Is and IIs
- Cold War British additions
- Korean War artillery and additions
- Revamped WWII artillery crews
- New AWI flag sheets


Moving on to other areas:

Crossover Miniatures
We've reached an agreement with Rusti to license his 28mm Superhero ranges and manufacture them here at Pendraken HQ.  This is another project that was hit by my Covid but we should have our initial stock levels sorted in February and we can get them added to the website asap.

Gaming Aids
We can't give too much info on this yet but we've just about reached an agreement with a big supplier of gaming aids to stock all of their products here in the UK.  Once the deal has been finalised we'll let everyone know what's going on.

Website Photos
This has been an ongoing task ever since I took over the running of things, but this year will finally see it complete!  There are only 192 products missing images now so less than 5% of our 10mm ranges.  I'm determined to get this done and hopefully by the summer we'll have a picture for everything on the site!

Events
With the shop and games room now open and available, we're wanting to run a lot more events up here in the north-east.  This might be demo games for particular rulesets, modelling sessions, 'try wargaming' days, etc.  For a lot of these we'll be looking for people to work with (painters, rules writers, etc) so if you think there might be something that we can work together on, get in touch and we'll have a chat.

Painting Competition
The Painting Competition will be back as usual in February so get those entries prepped and photo'd ready for that!


And I think that's about it!  I'm sure I'll have forgotten something but hopefully the above is enough to keep everyone busy for the next 12 months!

[paulr]

   

I suspect that's more than enough to keep the whole team busy for at least 12 months

[fsn]

Wow! The SciFi sounds like a massive project. Any teasers?

Also, elsewhere you said that there would be some C19 releases. Did you mean the Russo-Japanese range of 1904-05? Technically the C20. 

Which Ancients do TB line cover? Am I going to have to buy a 3rd Hoplite army?

[fred.]

Lots of stuff! 

With the TB Line moulds - as they seem to be one of these 'tomorrow' jobs, rather than doing them as a big batch which just sounds tedious, would aiming to do 1 a month maybe be an approach that works?

[steve_holmes_11]

Lots of stuff! 

With the TB Line moulds - as they seem to be one of these 'tomorrow' jobs, rather than doing them as a big batch which just sounds tedious, would aiming to do 1 a month maybe be an approach that works?

That's certainly how I'd do a minority project (if I were painting units at home).


I think one of Leon's big things is completeness.
Presenting the whole new batch to customers at one go.
It makes a lot of sense in a business context.

One of Pendraken's great strengths is "having all the 10mm things in one place".
And dribbling them out can really annoy the customer who got in early, then saw another "Ohh they'd be a nice unit".
It also misses the completist buyer "I'd love some 10mm Russo-Japanese, but they don't have artillery", who never looks back after the release date of the new shiny artillery.

[Leon]

Wow! The SciFi sounds like a massive project. Any teasers?

Not just yet but the first batch of sculpts should be done soon so we'll put up some preview pics along with an image of the vehicles.

Also, elsewhere you said that there would be some C19 releases. Did you mean the Russo-Japanese range of 1904-05? Technically the C20. 

I'm hoping to have some 19th century stuff but it's not certain yet.  We need to update the Crimean and 1864 ranges, plus we could do with some extra ACW/Plains War codes, but I'm waiting for the sculptor to confirm which of the options he'd like to do first.

Which Ancients do TB line cover? Am I going to have to buy a 3rd Hoplite army?

From my lists here there's Republican Romans, Carthaginians, Iberians, Italics  , Gauls and a single code for Numidians and Epirotes.

With the TB Line moulds - as they seem to be one of these 'tomorrow' jobs, rather than doing them as a big batch which just sounds tedious, would aiming to do 1 a month maybe be an approach that works?

Potentially!  It's something I just need to stop kicking down the road and get done.

[Techno 3]

Well....I've finished the first faction !    (apart from picking them off the corks).

[fsn]

I'm hoping to have some 19th century stuff but it's not certain yet.  We need to update the Crimean and 1864 ranges, plus we could do with some extra ACW/Plains War codes, but I'm waiting for the sculptor to confirm which of the options he'd like to do first.

Think I'm safe ... unless you do Apaches. Then I'm done for.

From my lists here there's Republican Romans, Carthaginians, Iberians, Italics  , Gauls and a single code for Numidians and Epirotes.

Ooohh ... tempting.

Well....I've finished the first faction !    (apart from picking them off the corks).

I have a photo from Phil. ...

[paulr]

Well....I've finished the first faction !    (apart from picking them off the corks).

   

[Nick the Lemming]

I'm hoping to have some 19th century stuff but it's not certain yet.  We need to update the Crimean and 1864 ranges

Any chance of any 1848 Hungarian War of Independence sculpts too?

[mollinary]

I'm hoping to have some 19th century stuff but it's not certain yet.  We need to update the Crimean and 1864 ranges, plus we could do with some extra ACW/Plains War codes, but I'm waiting for the sculptor to confirm which of the options he'd like to do first.

Hi Leon, If you do get to upgrade the 1864 range, could you add the Austrian muzzleloading rifled 8pdr to the range? It performed extremely well in 1864, and also in 1866. I will need 26 of them to replace their little brothers, the 4pdrs, currently masquerading for them by having bigger crews!

[sultanbev]

"I'm hoping to have some 19th century stuff but it's not certain yet."
1860s Paraguayans in their unique hats please - only three codes needed - regular infantry, militia with rifles, pikes and machetes, and lancers 

[fsn]

Sorry Leon.

[flamingpig0]

If we are  haveing  a relaunch of 10mm Amazon on camels can we have them on Bactrians rather than Dromedaries

[Gwydion]

Bactrians!
Madness. Completely unhistorical - definitely dromedaries