August Newsletter - US Tariff Update and Big Battlescale News!

[Leon]

Welcome to the latest Pendraken newsletter!

Summer is almost behind us already and the second half of the show season is on the way, but we've got some big news first!




US Tariff Update!

Further to our previous announcement, we now have more information for our US customers about the impending changes to De Minimis and imports to the US.  After talking with Royal Mail this week, they've confirmed that Option 3 from our original announcement is going to be implemented, meaning that:

- US customers will be charged a 10% tariff in our website Checkout, calculated on the total cost of both goods and shipping.
- Orders will be sent through Royal Mail using a Delivered Duties Paid (DDP) service, which will have all of the relevant customs data applied to it.
- US Customs will charge Royal Mail for the import tariffs, who will then in turn invoice us at Pendraken.
- Pendraken will be charged a 50p per package admin fee by Royal Mail, which we will absorb for the timebeing.

Royal Mail will be removing their current US shipping option on Tuesday 26th August, to give themselves a few days to get all US packages over to the States before the new tariff deadline.  They will then introduce their new DDP service on either Thursday 28th or Friday 29th.  We have turned off US shipping temporarily and will activate our new 'tariff' shipping option later this evening (Sunday).  All orders received after that point will be sent using the new DDP shipping service and will be fully compliant with the new tariff regulations.

One important thing to note, tariffs are usually only paid on goods so the code on our website is built to calculate on goods only.  But as the new US tariffs are including shipping as well, our website company will need to update the code so that it includes the total value of the order when calculating the tariff charge.  They have estimated around 10 days to do this, so in the short-term we will be charging 13% of your goods total, which should cover the shipping tariff portion and ensure that we're not out of pocket on any packages.  As soon as the website company have updated their code, we'll reset it to the 10% and the calculation will be fully accurate.




Pendraken acquires Battlescale 10mm!

We are excited to announce that we've purchased the rights to the 10mm Battlescale range of buildings and scenic items, sculpted by Steve Clay. With his recent acquisition of the Leven Miniatures 6mm ranges, Steve is going to be focussing on the 6mm market going forward, so the opportunity arose for us to purchase his 10mm range.

The purchase includes all of the 10mm items in the current Battlescale ranges, except for the walls, hedges and bridges, will be retained by Steve to go with his 6mm buildings. All of the masters and moulds will be heading up to Pendraken HQ next month, ready for us to start production in our new resin room later this year. Steve has kindly agreed to send us a big batch of stock to keep us going until we're up and running with things at our end.

These buildings will all be integrated into our own 10mm scenery ranges and assigned new codes. We'll make sure to add a note to them all to show what the previous Battlescale product code was though, so there's no confusion when buying.




Impending WWII Releases!

We're almost finished with our big revamp of the WWII artillery, with all of the production moulds now complete.  We just need to get everything photo'd for the website and then we'll have these released for you.  The revamp includes new crew figures, new Italian guns, plus a wider selection of guns from our other ranges added to the WWII section.




Army Builder and Updated Cold War Lists!

After last month's update, we're happy to confirm that all of the updated 2025 Cold War army lists are now available for you to download.  This has been a huge amount of work with 1000's of units to be checked, so with the best will in the world there will likely be a mistake that's crept through here and there.  We'll be creating a new thread on the Forum for lists feedback, but until then you can head over and download them all here.

Next up we've got at least six new lists, mainly covering smaller European armies for NATO, which should be available in early September.  And all of the new lists will be added to the Army Builder software very soon too.




Shows Coming Soon!

With the summer break almost over, we'll be back in the van and heading out on the road again very soon.  Our next two events are Colours in Newbury on Sat 6th Sept, followed by Border Reiver in Gateshead on Sun 14th Sept.  Note that the Gateshead show has moved to a Sunday this year, so don't turn up to an empty hall on the Saturday!

As always, we'll need your pre-orders sending through at least 7 days in advance for any events.


And that's everything for now, we'll be back next month with some new releases and a few previews of new ranges coming soon!


Important Dates

Sat 6th Sept - Colours (Newbury Racecourse, Newbury) - https://nrwc.org.uk/
Sun 14th Sept - Border Reiver (Gateshead Stadium, Gateshead) - https://sites.google.com/site/borderreiverwargamessociety/border-reiver-home
Sun 12th Oct - Other Partizan (Newark Showground, Newark) - https://www.partizan.org.uk/
Sun 26th Oct - Fiasco (New Dock Hall, Leeds) - https://leedswargamesclub.com/