Selling "Battle Groups" to match the rules

[Nick B]

Leon,

I'm not sure if your "give us some thoughts" invitation extended to marketing but I'd thought I'd give my 2p worth anyway!

One of your aims will obviously be to sell more models - this will have to be to new players in the main as the majority of existing BKC players will either have an army or two in 10mm or not play in 10mm and would I suggest be unlikely to move scales.

So how to attract new players?

IMO one thing that made buying for games such as Bolt Action, FOW and Battle Group easy is that they have a "preferred" operational scale be that Platoon for BA or Company for the others. They also provide orbats to organise and select forces. At present BKC does not do that - there are min/max but nothing for a newcomer to set their stall against.

I would suggest therefore that, whilst the game can be up or down scaled, you might be best to decide what scale of engagements are the games sweet spot. This would enable you to produce orbats and more importantly sell Battle Group packs which give the newbie a core force which complies with the "ideal" base game size. They can then build those out as they wish. You could even then sell a starter pack with both sides a couple of buildings and the rules.


Personally I think there is a dearth of rules in the reinforced Battalion per side arena (loads of Company and Platoon  rules).

Anyway, un-necessary rambling over. I shall find another Grandmother to teach egg sucking to..........

[Leon]

This is something we'll certainly be doing but we're going to have to decide exactly how to approach it.  Currently we've got 28 BKC armies listed on the website, which was too many.  We've got armoured, infantry, artillery support, antitank support, etc, etc, etc.  I'd rather put out a single 'core' army for each army list to start with, containing a complete army of X points. 

Then we can look at 'bolt-on' packages for further down the line if necessary, allowing people to make their army bigger with an 'Armoured Expansion' pack or whatever we call them.

This side of things also ties into the army lists themselves though, and how many to keep in the main ruleset.  If someone comes up to us, buys the ruleset and then asks for a British army, then no problem at all.  But if they ask for a Belgian army, then it's going to be 'Sorry, we don't do one of those'.  'OK then, I'll take a Hungarian?'  'Hmm, we don't do one of those either...'  'Slovak, Chinese, Dutch???'  'Nope, 'fraid not!'  I think there's over a dozen of the current armies that we wouldn't be able to put an army against, so we need to work out the best way of approaching that.

And before it all kicks up again, that doesn't mean we're just throwing away those armies!  We just need to have think about things, it's not great to sell someone a set of branded rules and then struggle to be able to supply over a quarter of the armies contained in it.  We've done that with Warband but we knew that the armies were all in progress and that they'd all be available within 12-18 months of the rules launch.

And of course anyone wanting to buy Slovaks, Belgians, Hungarians and Chinese is clearly a loon...

[paulr]

Just add a note that Pendraken is the cleanest cheese miniatures shop in the district 

[Ithoriel]

Would it be enough to put the Pendraken code for the things you do make at time of printing in the lists somewhere with a note that if it has a code you made it as the presses rolled but if it doesn't they might like to check http://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk to see if you've added it to the catalogue since - or is that just too much of a hostage to fortune?

[kustenjaeger]

Greetings

I am not sure how much use the smaller lists get as  (a) relatively few manufacturers have complete ranges for them in any scale (b) there is a relatively low level of interest (which is why (a)).

One idea would be for having the main lists be major nations and retaining limited lists for the minor nations. 

Where you can build a lot of a nation's army using alternate figures, vehicles etc you could have a page setting out how you could do this using Pendraken figures - so Hungarians use some late WWI and WW2 German figure codes plus some foreign guns/AFV/softskins for most of it?

Then have army packs that are going to sell I.e. One for every main nation in each main theatre, so aim for: German early war; late war, possibly Africa; British early war, late war, possibly Africa; Soviet mid war; US late war; probably Italian; possibly French.  For a starter pack I would say that a balanced armour-infantry force with AT guns makes sense. 

So, for a smallish example with assets to cover most of the rules:
  German late war about 1900-2000 points before off board artillery/air etc and without anything too unusual or too uniquely late war - in this case assuming one stand is a platoon providing a reinforced grenadier battalion with the option of some hanomags as well as a company of tanks and a company of assault guns.  Either have the starter list in the book or on a webpage on the site with point values and notes on dates.
    1 CO - high command figures plus vehicle
    1 infantry HQ - officer and RTO
    1 FAO - officer and RTO
    9 infantry - say 36 figures mixed
    1 engineer - 4 figs
    2 MG - 2 MG34/42 on tripod
    1 8cm mortar
    1 7.5cm IG or 12cm mortar with truck
    1 PAK 40 and half track tow
    3 Sdkfz 251/1
    3 Pzkw IVG or H
    3 StuG IIIG
    1 Marder III (could be JgPz IV but this would rule out using for 1943)
    1 armoured car - could be a wide range but better to stick with those around in 1943
    1 Sdkfz 10/4 2cm Flak

You could also do bases with the packs.

I think there is a risk of putting codes in the book which may change, be superseded etc.

Regards

Edward

[fred.]

I like the look of that battle group - I'd perhaps add another HQ, and use 5 infantry per stand.

But in general it looks like a decent mix - and one that as an army pack would be good, as getting just a few of some of the figures can mean getting packs which you end up using very few of the figures (e.g. mortars). It also looks like the kind of mix that if I got two packs to make a bigger force, I wouldn't end up with a load of stuff I wouldn't need.

The same format/unit mix would work for most nations without too much extra work.

[fred.]

Where you can build a lot of a nation's army using alternate figures, vehicles etc you could have a page setting out how you could do this using Pendraken figures - so Hungarians use some late WWI and WW2 German figure codes plus some foreign guns/AFV/softskins for most of it?

This is also a very good idea.

Its much more accessible to have a webstore page that aggregates stuff that works for a force together, rather than having to know to go looking for stuff in a mix of different ranges.

[Leon]

Would it be enough to put the Pendraken code for the things you do make at time of printing in the lists somewhere with a note that if it has a code you made it as the presses rolled but if it doesn't they might like to check http://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk to see if you've added it to the catalogue since - or is that just too much of a hostage to fortune?

It would be possible but I don't think it would be the best option, in case of code changes, new releases, etc.  The compromise would be to ensure that every description in the army lists matches the description in our ranges exactly, and we could have a look at how else we can highlight them on the website for ease of finding.

Where you can build a lot of a nation's army using alternate figures, vehicles etc you could have a page setting out how you could do this using Pendraken figures - so Hungarians use some late WWI and WW2 German figure codes plus some foreign guns/AFV/softskins for most of it?

That's something we'd really like to do but it requires some changes to the website.  I'd asked Matt a while back about giving us a textbox at the top of each range page, where we could put some info about that conflict/period, links to more info, other ranges that customers can look at, etc.  I'll mention it to him next time we speak and see what we can do.

[Orcs]

And of course anyone wanting to buy  Belgians, is clearly a loon...

Guilty as charged !

But if I wasn't I would not be a member of this forum in the first place.

[Orcs]

Personally I don't think that not producing all the armies is an issue.

Produce a starter army for each of the armies you do produce. in much the way suggested  by Kustenjager

Possibly add expansion packs - Probably Early or late war for some protaganists. But single type for others

Infantry
Armour
Artillery

[Sean67]

 The idea of the alternative figures already works well on both this and the CWC forum
Where members and newbies ask these type of questions all the time.
Maybe you just need a help area on the forums (if you're keeping the BKC/CWC/FWC forum, personally I hope you do it's a great source of information) to run alongside this one.
As you said I dont think it'll be a good idea to print the codes in the book codes change and get re mastered.
My Tuppence worth
Regards
Sean

[Leon]

Guilty as charged !

But if I wasn't I would not be a member of this forum in the first place.

Maybe you just need a help area on the forums (if you're keeping the BKC/CWC/FWC forum, personally I hope you do it's a great source of information) to run alongside this one.

We'll be expanding the sections here on the Pendraken forum as we launch each revised set of rules.  The current BKC site will be kept visible but not 'live', so it'll be used as a resource rather than an active forum for queries, etc.

[paulr]

We'll be expanding the sections here on the Pendraken forum as we launch each revised set of rules.  The current BKC site will be kept visible but not 'live', so it'll be used as a resource rather than an active forum for queries, etc.

Better one active well supported forum than several diluted ones