Hello,

what about forging some Gladiators miniatures? They would work fine to create the Spartacus and Servile revolts armies in roman times. They could be used as proxies for some sort of badass mercenary or general's body guards. Also, they would be just nice.

A small unit of just 48 would be more than enough, but with as many variations as possible.

I love the ancient era, and I know there is already plenty of it, but it would be nice to see something new also fort that period.

Thanks

Lovely idea, but the return on sales versus the cost of sculpting would be tiny.   In your own words:

A small unit of just 48 would be more than enough, but with as many variations as possible.

Each variation is a single sculpt and a committed gamer would want a half-sized pack...

This is one where I would definitely need 60 packs committed before going ahead!  Sorry to sound so negative, but it's not an option I would look at it the normal run of things.

Have you ever considered a sort of Go-fund-me marketing strategy?

You could dedicate, let's say, a quota or your yearly new project's production capacity, to projects selected and funded in advance by the customer's base. 

You open a poll, people vote what they would like being produced, then you pick the best 3 ideas. People than will crowd fund the projects. The collected money will cover the costs for those projects, and people will feel to be in control. 

As far as I know, these money then are converted in a sort of credit when people place the regular orders. 

I think you should talk with some other company that uses this strategy, and ask them what are the possible financial risks. 

You're right that these are not the ideal times to think about new strange product lines, but these are good times to think about new business strategies.

Thanks,

Luca

Hi Luca,

There is already a mechanism for crowd funding and you are on it.  The Baccstarter system just requires you to get enough people to commit to buying enough packs of a desired subject and we'll go ahead with it.   I set the bar a bit higher with your proposition because it requires a lot of very expensive sculpting to be done.

On a purely business front, what I need to look at with anything like this is the 'opportunity loss'.  In other words, is it a good use of precious sculpting and tooling time?   I'm all for listening to my customers, but we work to a schedule planned years in advance and it's any deviation from that will result in other projects or releases being delayed.

The crowdfunding/kickstarter model is one that some companies have embraced with open arms, often with very mixed results.  It's not one that we've needed to follow as both sales and customer base expansion have grown organically, and until the recent issues, very strongly and steadily.

So please do agitate for all your worth and get others to join your vision of a 6mm gladiator range.  Get enough of them and it can become a reality! 

The first Servile war took place on Sicily, the second Servile war on Sicily and in the Roman province of Achaea (Southern Greece) Sorry LukicPz35t there were no gladiators in these two wars. just slaves.The Third Servile War or Spartacus' revolt had somewhere between 70 to 100,000 men. Mostly runaway slaves, shepherds and herdsmen.There were also though Legionary veterans in the ranks. Gladiators would be few in number.

After their military successes Roman equipment, shields armour and weapons etc would be looted by these slaves. To have specific Gladiator figures I do not think, is necessary. They would simply use what they had looted instead of their own. A  Retiarius with trident and net or a Dimachaerius with no armour with just two daggers and little else, not much good on a battlefield  So the existing Roman range could be used to depict these gladiators and ex soldiers. Perhaps use the Marian legionaries with gladius if you want Gladiators and ex Legionaries.  As for the vast majority of the army perhaps use the Spanish range. Balearic slingers. The Scutarii have some differently shaped shields to mix it up a little or use Imitation legionaries from the Macedonian range.

Now talking about a new range Peter. What about Myceneans and Trojans? (lol) 

Nigel