As it says Spartan games have ceased trading with immediate effect
I saw this news a short while ago and was very surprised by it. I've never had much interest in the products but Dystopian Wars was hugely popular around 5 years ago and they had a Halo license as well at one point, so they were a fair sized outfit. I see that they've cancelled their Kickstarter as well.
Did they lose the Halo licence?....I remember it being expensive for 15mm
Quote from: Fenton on 25 August 2017, 05:11:53 PM
Did they lose the Halo licence?....I remember it being expensive for 15mm
I've no idea I'm afraid, there's been so many companies picking up large IP licenses these past few years that I've lost track of them all!
Very sad news it's always sad when a company closes I never had any of their products or rules or anything but many people will be scrambling to finish off collections
Take care
Andy
"In addition to challenging trading issues, one of the directors has suffered from a long period of poor health which became significantly more serious earlier this year and although now back in the business, requires ongoing treatment. That has inevitably taken a toll on the amount of time available to the business so, along with other challenges, has significantly contributed to this difficult decision."
Sad News but nothing compared To someone in ill health. Hope he gets well soon!
I'm guessing that the Halo licence would have been expensive but the Halo game itself didn't seem to set the gaming world alight.
Spartan always seemed to be focusing on "the next game" rather than finishing what they had started and whilst I really loved their miniatures, their rules were over-complex in my opinion.
Great shame though. A lot of people have lost money due to unfulfilled Spartan kickstarter orders too. I've only lost 50 quid for a pre-ordered item bought direct from Spartan which I assume will not now be produced.
I see Tor Gaming have also shut their doors today.
Ye gods, and with Steel Fist now up for sale it seems that the wargaming world is going through yet another dramatic change.
I think Steel Fist is doing OK, the fella running it just doesn't enjoy the admin and packing part of the business and was only doing it as a side line.
Tor are shutting as well. Judging by his statement it's not a crash, just not worth flogging a dying horse when he could stop with honour, as it were.
As I understand Spartan they massively overextended on Halo, spread themselves way to thin trying to recover and just couldn't keep afloat.
There's a few gone under in the States as well - the gaming table people went owing a lot of people a lot cash for tables according to the court papers and claims :/
Quote from: toxicpixie on 25 August 2017, 11:24:32 PM
Tor are shutting as well. Judging by his statement it's not a crash, just not worth flogging a dying horse when he could stop with honour, as it were.
As I understand Spartan they massively overextended on Halo, spread themselves way to thin trying to recover and just couldn't keep afloat.
There's a few gone under in the States as well - the gaming table people went owing a lot of people a lot cash for tables according to the court papers and claims :/
Who? Geek chic?
Yep.
https://www.tabletopgaming.co.uk/board-games/news/geek-chic-one-of-the-first-big-custom-gaming-table-makers-has-gone
Judging by their prices, their deposit/payment whilst making pricing structure, speed of building and the number of people waiting there was a lot of money tied up in "on the way tables" when they went under :/
Steel Fist Miniatures is in a healthy position, as I am aware.
As clibinarium said, the chap has a full-time profession and Steel Fist is merely an avenue for him to relax and sculpt. The success of it all has really meant that he's had to make the decision that he has, probably.
As to Tor Miniatures. I have some of their Ridend 'feudal-medieval goblins' and they're great little sculpts. Never got around to painting or playing with them, though, so BNIB. When I ordered them the parcel got lost in the post, then the replacement order was missing items, then when I did receive everything there was extra stuff included and I was bothered in case the chap had made an error - he hadn't, it was a 'sorry about this' gesture but without any message to explain. It went on for so long and with all the mix-ups, and me being concerned he might think I was trying to con him, I just forgot about the game and found something else. Just checked to see if the few Ridend items I'm missing are available to buy from him, as I might just yet make a Lion Rampant army for them, but it looks like all the items on the official webstore are 'out of stock'. Pity that, as they're fun little miniatures.
Yeah, I really like the aesthetic of the Tor stuff but I've way too much else to fail to do to have ever got any!
We played Dystopian wars at club, it was a fun game, but too many counters for my liking
They seemed to fall into the GW mode of each subsequent army/fleet gradually got more and more powerful so it became unbalanced.
Shame though
It'll be interesting to see if any of these companies continue under new ownership or simply disappear. I'd imagine that Spartan is too big for the majority of people to buy, so you'd need one of the other major players to step in and buy them up. Tor have got a nice little range so there should be several suitors looking at those you'd think. Steel Fist have got some fantastic sculpts but the asking price I've heard on the grapevine is crazy, unless he's got some solid sales numbers to back it up.
MMS are also shutting down, owner is retiring. He would sell, but is asking far too higher price for it. Be interesting to know how much Skytrex charged for the stuff they sold off.
IanS
PS - Shaun from S&S valued his range at over £1,000,000, but I suspect that was very tongue in cheek.
Quote from: ianrs54 on 26 August 2017, 01:13:53 PM
MMS are also shutting down, owner is retiring. He would sell, but is asking far too higher price for it. Be interesting to know how much Skytrex charged for the stuff they sold off.
IanS
PS - Shaun from S&S valued his range at over £1,000,000, but I suspect that was very tongue in cheek.
MMS were lovely kits, very detailed. I think the wargames market has gone away from fiddley detailed kits to fast build ones such as those by Armourfast and Plastic Soldier company. The moulding process now produce muc more detailed kits without all the fiddley bits to put together. that's not to dtreacty from the quality of MMS kits just that most wargamers do not want detailed kits with fragile parts - they want gaming pieces
Skytrex was priced at £200,000 with a turnover of just under £300,000. They held an absolute ton of stock as well, must have been over 12 months worth just sitting there.
They ended up breaking the ranges down and trying to sell them separately instead, but even then only a few sold. We looked at the 1/144th WWI planes ourselves, which were priced at £17,000 I think, but they had no sales info for the range and they were old moulds that needed replacing. With 58 planes in the range, we could have had new models made and moulded for about half that price so it just wasn't viable.
Orcs - if you have ever tried to assemble a Battlefront Flak 36 - the single 37 - you'll know your assertion is only partially correct, still cant see how the shield fits.
Thanks Leon, was interested for personal reasons.
IanS
Quote from: AndyT on 25 August 2017, 08:40:54 PM
Spartan always seemed to be focusing on "the next game" rather than finishing what they had started . . .
To be fair, that sounds like quite a few companies over the years. And yes, Mongoose, I am looking at you . . .
Cheers, Martyn
--
A friend of mine ran his own successful military modelling range for many years, before being fore closed on by the bank in the mid-90's despite being solvent; they simply called in their loan. Years later he re-started part time, along side his day job. After a couple of years he shut it down, as he was simply tired of gettng home at night and then having to sort out and pack orders. Even doing that he was earning less than the minmum wage, more like pin money in fact. I think it is very hard, if not impossible, to go from the part time cottage level operation to one that will pay a living wage on a full time basis. Looking at the market, there appear to be (well to me at least) lots of niche operations with a limited range and appeal to the wider wargaming community. Frankly I doubt their long term durability, but I wish them well.
Quote from: ianrs54 on 26 August 2017, 02:45:21 PM
Orcs - if you have ever tried to assemble a Battlefront Flak 36 - the single 37 - you'll know your assertion is only partially correct, still cant see how the shield fits.
Thanks Leon, was interested for personal reasons.
IanS
No I have never played WW2 at 28mm, as I have loads of kit in 20mm. So I do not intend to start
Battlefront is 15mm....
Shows you how much Orcs cares about that, there :D
Battlefront name recognition zero, Orcs one :D
I always thought Spartan Games made a mistake in going for their own scale for their games. I understood the logic, but when part of your line-up was targeted at people who used to play other games (Battlefleet Gothic and ManoWar), making your figures at a scale that is different than the scale used in those games seemed to me like restricting it potential clientele. Same goes for DW. Why not try to get all the people playing Aeronef by making your game scale-compatible? Dystopian Legions made no sense scale wise. To put it simply in trying to create a "locked" clientele, I think Spartan missed a lot of potential costumers (leaving out my pet peeve that the scales they chose severely limited how much their games could be enjoyed by people with space issues). Don't get me wrong. Their figures were works of arts, and I appreciate their championing of resin. The worlds they created had potential. But I feel they were hobbled from the start.
I mean at a very basic why did Spartan Games fail when Aeronef is still around?
Quote from: toxicpixie on 28 August 2017, 08:52:02 AM
Shows you how much Orcs cares about that, there :D
Battlefront name recognition zero, Orcs one :D
Whoops got confused with Bolt Action stuff :-[
Quote from: KTravlos on 28 August 2017, 09:11:33 AM
Their figures were works of arts, and I appreciate their championing of resin. The worlds they created had potential. But I feel they were hobbled from the start.
As an inveterate converter of minis I loathe resin figures with a passion!
I mean at a very basic why did Spartan Games fail when Aeronef is still around?
Because Brigade are two blokes on a shed who eat cake... for them it's a part time effort, and they only expand when they can see a range (they only have five ranges and they're pretty comprehensive on their coverage of those too), plus Aeronef is a fairly cheap buy in, £30 gets you a fleet and the PDF of the rules (Imperial Skies is more expensive, but it has higher production values), you only need about ten to a dozen figures per side.
Tbh I prefer Brigades approach to the aesthetics of Victorian sci-fi, the cleaner more historical lines look better to my eye than the pseudo-GW High Spikey approach Spartan mostly took.
Were MMS the ones that came in a black box with a little picture stuck to the front? I have quite a few of those, some still unbuilt...
Quote from: Wulf on 28 August 2017, 12:47:11 PM
Were MMS the ones that came in a black box with a little picture stuck to the front? I have quite a few of those, some still unbuilt...
No, MMS came in a poly bag with a card header with a line drawing of the subject on the header and a small instruction sheet.
I think Skytrex sold some of their product in that format.
Regards,
Martin
I was a very early adopter of Spartan's "Uncharted Seas" fantasy naval game, I bought it as a dad and lad game and my son and I played it lots. It is now a very popular club game and we like the models and the rules. I personally liked the large scale ships.
A big mistake for me with SG was to cease support for this their first game, as this was a simple limited interest game to me I would add a few ships per year to my fleets so I was a loyal but not fanatical customer and would have continued to be this if the ships had still been available, even if they were only "special order" items. Once Spartan dropped all sales and even support for it it told me that my earlier custom was not valued, my enthusiasm for their product too was wasted. It told me not to risk starting another of their games as it may not be viable for me. Very sad as I liked their game a lot. It certainly put me off buying into their space combat game.I don't suppose I was the only person who felt like this. Sorry to see them go nevertheless.
Least with US you could scratch build, I've done several Dwarf cruisers.
Quote from: ianrs54 on 29 August 2017, 07:41:56 AM
Least with US you could scratch build, I've done several Dwarf cruisers.
How does one cruise a dwarf? I know Nicole Kidman was taller than her husband....
Trust the feline to lower the tone !!!!!
Quote from: Smoking gun on 28 August 2017, 03:50:45 PM
No, MMS came in a poly bag with a card header with a line drawing of the subject on the header and a small instruction sheet.
I think Skytrex sold some of their product in that format.
Ah, yes, thanks. I do have some MMS, but they're all built. I know I have their Matilda for a start...
Quote from: ianrs54 on 29 August 2017, 09:38:53 AM
Trust the feline to lower the tone !!!!!
Someone's let him out of confinement.
(sigh)
To drag to thread towards the direction of its topic :D
As others have aid looks like Spartan overstepped themselves on the HALO front.
As for their other gamers I've got a lot of Dystopian Wars land forces (the fleet actions never really clicked) but as others have said the rules were overly complex and went through various iterations without getting any clearer. They did have some very nice mechanics though, their exploding D6 was very nice and could nicely reproduce a lucky hit.
Scale was always a bit odd, DW looks to be about 2mm, based on the size of doors etc. while their Dystopian Legions is about 32mm having said that I've mixed quite a lot of DL figures into my Steam Punk games without them looking out of place and a few DW vehicles (especially the Chinese) make great weird monsters.
Tor Gaming's Relics will continue.
https://torgaming.co.uk/2017/09/04/relics-is-saved/ (https://torgaming.co.uk/2017/09/04/relics-is-saved/)
""Tor Gaming are very excited to announce Relics is saved!
Since our announcement that Tor Gaming is closing we have been inundated with interested parties wanting to take on the mantle of 'Keeper of Relicia'! We were a little overwhelmed by the response and want to thank everyone who took the time to message us.
I am so pleased to announce the Relics gaming system has been acquired by TTCombat. The well-known producer of that awesome mdf terrain range is adding Relics to their growing stable of gaming systems, which include RUMBLESLAM and Carnevale. Coupled with their access to a large, well established distribution network, we believe TTCombat are perfectly placed to take Relics to where it deserves to be.
In the short term, we will be transferring the production of the Relics range to TTCombat's in-house production base down in sunny Cornwall, UK. They will then get on with familiarising themselves with the range, and in the very near future their design team will get to work expanding the world and pushing the game systems development forward.
We are over the moon with this change of ownership and have every confidence TTCombat are the best team to take on the care and future development of Relics.
During this period there will be some down time on the availability of the Relics range but you can all rest assured that the range of miniatures you all love will be back in the near future with the amazing backing of TTCombat.""
Ain't seen any further news on Spartan, nor Steel Fist, however (not that I've really looked)
Good news on Tor then!
I did check on Steel Fist's Facebook for updates on that company, and Oliver (the sculptor/owner) has stated that interest has been good and he's set a cut-off point of the (12th iirc) of this month for all purchase offers to be made.
Just received This email:
'Wayland Games Ltd (Buyer) purchased certain assets of Rebel Publishing Ltd (trading as Spartan Games) on Friday 22nd September 2017 and we note that you are currently listed on Rebel Publishing Limited's (Seller) customer database for the purpose of receiving details of products and/or services from the Seller.'
Just seen it my self. Looks like Dystopian Wars, the space game and Uncharted Seas
They gave 2 Space games, firestorm armada and halo Space battles.
I doubt if anything to do with Spartan Games Halo will be seen again
Quote from: Fenton on 26 September 2017, 05:45:13 PM
I doubt if anything to do with Spartan Games Halo will be seen again
I guessed so too. license cost will be too big i suppose!
E-mail yesterday, some (don't know how much) has been bought....
Wayland Games Ltd (Buyer) purchased certain assets of Rebel Publishing Ltd (trading as Spartan Games) on Friday 22nd September 2017 and we note that you are currently listed on Rebel Publishing Limited's (Seller) customer database for the purpose of receiving details of products and/or services from the Seller.
Your personal data has been transferred to the Buyer for the continued provision of the details of such products and/or services to you. The Buyer will process your personal data fairly and lawfully in accordance with the principles of the Data Protection Act 1998 for the sole purpose of continuing to provide such details to you.
Please do not hesitate to contact our Customer Support team on support@warcradle.com if you have any queries or if you wish to have your personal data removed from the database.
Please note that should you require removal of your personal data, we will be unable to continue to provide details of products and/or services to you.
IanS
I got one of those as well.
Looks like Wayland Games is going to concentrate on the key Spartan game systems and Halo has been left well alone. Interesting that the acquisition also includes all the customer data, that would be pretty valuable in it's own right.
I'll be interested to see if Wayland de-duplicate the data against their customer list or if I'll get two sets of marketing from them now.
Quote from: DanJ on 28 September 2017, 10:28:24 AM
I'll be interested to see if Wayland de-duplicate the data against their customer list or if I'll get two sets of marketing from them now.
Same here!