When, Where, How?!?!
Phew! What a move! Over the last couple months we've:
- Completely reinvented and streamlined our operations to move plastic production to the USA from China
- Set up the new plastic facility here in the US
- Moved every mold from China to the US
- Sourced new suppliers for everything from box printing to product cartons to SKU labels to the little round clear stickers that seal up the ends of the boxes!
It took way longer than we hoped (as these things always seem to do) but the last hurdles have been...er...hurdled and product is staring to move out of our plastic facility.
We're operating with 3 shifts now as we have a LOT to produce over the next weeks and months and ongoing. So 24 hours a day of new plastic goodness is coming off the presses!
These changes and improvements have delayed some of our new releases but now that the kinks are worked out those will start to arrive in the three global warehouses (USA, UK, and Australia) over the coming weeks with the USA being first just because of proximity to the factory.
The moving of the molds meant that in the meantime we've also started to run out of a lot of the older sets. WW1 French, Grognards, British Riflemen, Partisans, Dark Age Irish, and others are low or out depending on the warehouse. We try to keep those up to date for you on the Release Schedule page.
Right now all the plastic for the Italians, Panzer Lehr, and the Death Fields Weapon Upgrade Sprue are finished. The packaging is mostly done for the Sprue:
The Italians and Panzer Lehr are being boxed up now and they'll be divided into three shipments for each of the warehouses and go out the door as soon as there are enough for each. The boxes were the main delay with some false starts with our new printers and even a covid-related delay but everything is sorted and rolling along now.
Conquistador and Aztec boxes are also in house and plastic is running for those so they won't be too far behind. We're then going to switch gears and do a lot of restocks to top up the warehouses. Goths, Boxers, and the Horses sets will be right after this. And then the Space Brits (Bulldogs) will be finished tooling.
We've also improved our polystyrene formula to give the plastic more sturdiness when it comes to things like spears and other long, thin parts. We know that some plastics out there are very brittle resulting in snapped bayonets and spears. Our plastic has always been better in that regard and we believe the new formula will be superior. We're excited for you to have it in hand!
Thanks for your patience as we've reinvented the whole shebang but this new US-based operation will allow us to move much, much faster and release even better sets (and of course many more of them!)
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