QuoteI think you are probably right insofar as there is what appears to be a scattered focus.  There is little point in having a mass of, shall I say relatively obscure ranges, dare I say Indo-China, Russo-Japanese, First Schleswig War, even Crimea, and that kind of thing, if they don't attract sufficient sales to keep a business going. 
If such polls are to be believed, as far as 28mm is concerned anyway, WW2 is still the most popular, closely followed by Sci-fi, Fantasy, and 40K in that order.  Hot on their heels are Napoleonics, then Ancients to 500AD.  This hardly ever seems to change. 
WW2 seems, to me, to cover a vast arena and at a guess I suspect that it really means Europe 1944-45.  I'm not sure if Sci-fi, Fantasy and 40K translate into 10mm.  Ancients are outside my comfort zone but I'm fairly confident that this is at least an equally broad and varied a wargaming period as WW2.  I've been wargaming Napoleonics for almost 60 years and I can say, with absolute confidence, that they cover a multitude of sins. 
<SNIP>
Selection and maintenance of the object is a key principle in business as well as war, but the objective has to be one that is achievable and makes sense in the first place, and which drives and informs the plan.
Written in the spirit of constructive criticism by somebody who might be well shy of the actual mark. 

WW2 still seems to be a main focus of wargaming. I'd say NWE 44-45, the Western Desert and the Russian Front primarily.


Though I think there's a shift from WARgaming, where historical accuracy is important to WarGAMING where the game's the thing, to misquote Hamlet! The rise and rise of Weird War 2 (and more recently Weird War 1) is evidence of that I think.

I'd say, despite my obsession with the weird and wonderful niches of history, that Pendraken have the historical side of that well covered. Whether Leon would be well advised to get into producing E-100s, Panther IIs and zombie Volkssturm I leave up to him

Ancients seems to me to have shifted from WRG dominated fights happily pitting Samurai against Sumerians to somewhat more historical pairings but having splintered over a myriad of rule systems and including armies a twenty something year-old me had never heard of! That despite winning the school history prize and studying Ancient History and Archaeology at university.

Pendraken cover the core Iron Age/ Classical armies with several others being possible with creative use of miniatures from other ranges, including some not normally thought of as Ancients. The Bronze Age armies and, with the honourable exception of the Mongols, those armies of the period outwith the Graeco-Roman world are sadly lacking.

I'd still say Pendraken cover the Ancients essentials pretty well.

As to Napoleonics, my personal experience has been that most people know about, and therefore want figures for, the Peninsular War, the Waterloo campaign and Napoleon in Russia.

Pendraken's coverage of the latter could do with a revamp (IMHO) but they do cover it and the other two are covered in lavish detail (again IMHO).

Again based solely on what I see in person or see online, spending on Sci-fi and Fantasy dwarfs* spending on historical miniatures by orders of magnitude. There seems to be an increasing number of rule sets which are designed to let people play with whatever figures they have so I would expect the new sci-fi ranges from Pendraken to do well.

Finally, on deadlines, I've always liked the Douglas Adams approach

"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by."

― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt




*see what I did there?

QuoteI'd still say Pendraken cover the Ancients essentials pretty well.

Far be it for me to disagree, but I'd like to see some earlier ancients - maybe something more in the chariot line?

Thge Great Wargaming Survey 2022 would agree with the analysis though; WWII, Naps and Ancients. The SF and fantasy contingent is strong. 

QuoteFar be it for me to disagree, but

I also think "ancients" has big gaps and have previously bemoaned the lack of an "enemies" range for the superb Late Romans.  On the other hand it is a HUGE period and it IS easier to proxy figures than it is with Nap uniforms or where folks want an exact replica of every AFV ever used. (eg I plan to use ACR7 as dark age welsh light cavalry) . So if anything is done in ancients/medievals , perhaps it should be a range of generic types but more poses. (and separate shields??)  E.g. The Dark Age arab range has potential but I'm not going to buy 300 spearmen in one pose. 

It looks like Leon has a full 2024 program anyway and he knows much better than I about what will be profitable. Perhaps a way forward is more non-kickstarters or commissioned ranges which at least take away some of the development risks. 

Quote from: DecemDave on 04 January 2024, 05:18:54 PMIt looks like Leon has a full 2024 program anyway and he knows much better than I about what will be profitable. Perhaps a way forward is more non-kickstarters or commissioned ranges which at least take away some of the development risks. 

Interesting. 

Which non-kickstarters do you think could be offered? I'll start with the Battle of Kadesh 1274. Perhaps the Macedonians and Indians. Bannockburn 1314. Norway 1940 (I'd love a Neubaufahrzeug of two to go against a T35 and Char 2C) After that, I'm starting to struggle.

Quote

Interesting that they've split the GW games out from the sci-fi and fantasy categories, otherwise they'd be 1 and 2 in the list by a long way.

It's almost like the organisers want to have something 'serious' as the most popular.

Lies, damn lies and statistics, eh?

All very interesting but sometimes the release of a new range can be the driver to success, especially in this scale where competition is limited. I'd be more willing to try a new period in 10mm than any other scale. If it hadn't been for the expansion of the AWI range with more to come I'd be looking at the Crimean War at the very least

QuoteI appreciate, in fact suggested, that Pendraken aim a bit lower, but realise that like a shark, Pendraken has to keep moving or it will die*. Obviously this imparts a certain pressure to constantly expand and grow.

My question is how long can this go on?

QuoteI think you are probably right insofar as there is what appears to be a scattered focus.

Leon knows his business best, but I haven't detected a coherent strategy, to be brutally frank, except to try and please all the people all the time.  Pendraken is excellent at doing that but it is a scatter-gun approach, I'd say, and may not be a very good business plan.

QuoteIt looks like Leon has a full 2024 program anyway and he knows much better than I about what will be profitable. Perhaps a way forward is more non-kickstarters or commissioned ranges which at least take away some of the development risks. 

I completely get the scattered focus and it's understandable how it would appear that way.  It's not a planned business strategy, more a long-term symptom that we've been battling for a while with so much needing to be done.  Sometimes it feels like the Pendraken train is running at full pelt and we're just trying to hang on!

I think it's mainly as there are so many different reasons that instigate each of the projects:

Old Ranges
These are old style sculpts that need to be replaced as they don't match up with our current standards.  So the new Ancients, the 1860's Italians, revamped WWII vehicles, etc.  We've managed to do almost all of the pre-20th C. ones now but they have taken sculpting time away from new ranges.

Random Opportunities
When something happens that we hadn't planned for and we have to seize the opportunity, so things like buying the Commander rules, the TB Line ranges becoming available, or the Castle Arts Japanese buildings.  We could have let the opportunity pass by but they were sensible additions to our ranges.  The trouble is that they require more time and investment to maximise your return, again taking you away from other things.

Customer Requests
We're all familiar with the Requests lists, which were originally started to give us a clear indication of what people wanted over a decade ago.  We've tried to keep ticking things off there but it's not been as quick a process as I'd hoped.


And then you've got more general things like market trends, sculptor availability, budget, etc.  Or ranges like the Russo-Japanese where a generous customer wants to commission everything and the resulting sculpts need to be fitted into the mould queue somewhere.

Some projects fit into multiple categories, where the acquisition and subsequent launch of Cold War Commander 2 meant that we needed to expand the available figure ranges and triggered more customer requests along with a bit of a surge in modern gaming.

So while there is an underlying plan in my head, it's often hard to keep those ducks in a row for a prolonged period of time.  I'm hoping this year will be better due to us having some big jobs like the website photos done, and hopefully some extra staff coming in to delegate some tasks to!

QuoteThge Great Wargaming Survey 2022 would agree with the analysis though; WWII, Naps and Ancients. The SF and fantasy contingent is strong.

Our sales would definitely agree with that survey, WWII has always been the biggest seller and then it's Naps and ACW these days.  The Fantasy always ticks over nicely too.

The Sci-Fi revamp is the one area that could completely change our business in the long-term.  If that wargames survey had included GW/40K then every other bar would have diminished to virtually nothing compared to the overwhelming volume of the GW machine.  With both GW and Mantic launching smaller-scale Sci-Fi this year (8mm/12mm respectively) we could be positioned very well to pick up some of their market.  And considering that Pendraken is less than 0.1% of GW's turnover, if we can carve off just a sliver of their customers it could be massive for us.

Quote from: Leon on 04 January 2024, 11:13:38 PMThe Sci-Fi revamp is the one area that could completely change our business in the long-term.  If that wargames survey had included GW/40K then every other bar would have diminished to virtually nothing compared to the overwhelming volume of the GW machine. 

It did. 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 7th places were taken by Sf or fantasy. Warhammer came in at 4th place.

I would suggest that the Great Wargamnes Survey being mainly readers of a mostly historical wargmes magazine, will tend to downplay the signiicance of 40K. If you look at YouTube and search for "wargame" most of what turns up is Warhammer.

QuoteAll very interesting but sometimes the release of a new range can be the driver to success, especially in this scale where competition is limited. I'd be more willing to try a new period in 10mm than any other scale. If it hadn't been for the expansion of the AWI range with more to come I'd be looking at the Crimean War at the very least

Funny, isn't it? This is observation not criticism, but some ranges are really extensive, reflecting the enthusism of the commissioner, but maybe not the sales potential. There are 43 lines in the League of Ausburg , which I had great glee suggesting additions such as "Grenadier wondering if he locked the front door", "Hussar hoping that dangerous itch is just too much starch in his underpants", "pikeman opining that his recruiting sergeant may have had several fathers", "Matchlockmen gathered to contemplate the articles in the latest issue of a gentleman's periodical."

We are seeing it now, with a spurt of AWI releases. All very nice sculpts &c, but C18 is the 13th most popular period in the survey. You'd also need to consider that WSS, 7YW &c, &c are also in that category.  Having said that, you have to cut bait to catch fish, and the pretty new sculpts (and they are glorious) are likely to attract new customers.

I'll cite the Russo-Japanese War. It's always been an odd period for me, something between the ACW and WWI. I got slightly more interested (in the naval side) by Drachinifel's story of the 2nd Pacific squadron. Then Milday curled a manicured finger and *boom* there is the Russo-Japanese range, and I'm going to buy in. 

Pendraken is less a Roman road, planned and going in nice straight lines from point A to point B, and more a sheeps' path, meandering where it will, taking the path chosen by the flock. The all-wise Dark Shepherd can try and influence his flock with new ranges, rule sets, OOBs, paint guides etc, but ultimately they will go where they will, and the shepherd just has to try and stay ahead of them.

Or get a sheep dog. Sheep dogs are cool.       


Bottom line. I find Pendraken to be frustrating when new goodies are trailed then seem to take a long time to appear (Ancient Indians, Amazons, Japanese Castles) but in the grand scheme of things I haven't run out of things to get excited about, and as a company they are listening, friendly, approachable, honourable and open. I nailed my colours to their mast 11 years ago and it's still there.

They keep asking me to take it down, but they don't mean it.     

That's a very cute doggy Nobby

QuoteWhich non-kickstarters do you think could be offered?

For me "biblical" , "Fall of Rome", "Age of Charlemagne/Offa" and the "Reconquista" are big missing areas.  I have no clue if enough people would support any of them (hence why a non kickstarter might work) but they would also provide lots more proxy options and variety to existing ranges.  Plus the campaigns of the Prophet (pbuh) and his successors need way more poses than the current Dark Age Arab range and scattered proxies.
Having recently fallen for the AWI and still not finished my Peninsular Naps, I dont need any of the above in 2024 or even 25, although I suspect there will be items in the TB line that I absolutely must have. 

I'm still pretty new to 10mm so have plenty on my one day list, but I agree the fall of Roam would be a great range to complete particularly if it includes the protagonists that fought over Britain. I've taken to converting existing figures for now

All over Britain, if they were roaming while falling!       

Is the Italian Wars going to be the next Big Thing?...

Quote from: Ben Waterhouse on 05 January 2024, 01:56:24 PMIs the Italian Wars going to be the next Big Thing?...

I love the colors of the italian wars, but did it in 15mm with the Mikes Models/ Essex ranges many years ago. I probably have 1000 figures with another 500 or so to paint, so will not be painting them again.

the biggest problem has been a good set of rules, as they are not "Pike and Shot", despite may rules written for 30YW or ECW, saysing they also include the period of the Italian Wars.

 I recently bought Furioso from Alternative Armies, and while they needed a number of tweaks , and army lists written they seem to play well.