We are at about 95% of our goal in raising the money to finish the printing for Total War – we’ll probably reach 100% by end of week.
US Post Office mailing prices went up on 27Jan13 and the Fire Sale List has been updated to reflect the new prices. In most cases in the USA this had little effect (changing a few things by up $1 or down $1), although a number of items got a lot more expensive to ship to Alaska or Hawaii. The main impact of postal increase was to massively increase shipping costs to many locations overseas. The priority mail international flat rate envelopes and boxes went up a lot. In a number of cases we have managed to find work arounds to reduce this impact (for example, folded maps now ship in padded envelopes, no-folds maps ship in a smaller less heavy tube, and a number of the smaller games have been repackaged so that they can go by less expensive first class mail international). And, in some cases, mostly to western Europe (excluding Great Britain), the cost to ship regular priority mail packages actually went down a bit.
The updated fire sale list has items that are running out marked with #s remaining. In particular, there are only 8 copies of Balkan Front and 33 copies of Wavell’s War left – and we can make no more because that exhausted the countersheets in both games. We’ve also reduced the cost for First to Fight by $5 as we’ve found a way to reduce the color map costs for this game.
For the current and final version of the Fire Sale see the HMSFireSaleFinal link under the HMS News – July 18, 20
Glad you’re going to make the cost recovery. You guys have had a lot of bad luck, and we appreciate you for hanging in there.
Yes! Picked up my second package today. The counters looked great as I said before. And now I recived Wavell’s War, For Whom the Bell Tolls, War of Resistance, europamags 83-87 and 81, 15 counterstorage boxes and 5 tweesers.
Boxes look great and are large but not too large. And a lot more sturdier than the ones a fan hade made and sold years ago. The tweesers really work btw.
Now begins the preparation for the for Total War game by punching and clipping the corners on all counters. Yes, I admit it, I am a cornerclipper :).
Arthur?
I got two questions:
Have you considered making the funding based on “shares”/”kickstarter” in the future to speed up the founding?
Also, I scanned the countersheets for Total War and would love to share them on Boardgamegeek.com but not without your permision. May I please be allowed to post scans of the countersheets on BBG?
IRT to Bobby Bryant: Thanks for hanging in there with US!
IRT to Fred:
RE Kickstarter: Kickstarter funding generally works only if you meet the following set
of criteria:
1) have a proven track record of delivering what you say you will on time.
2) An established support base of fans/customers.
3) A project that is of some interest to those outside of your base.
4) Additional benefits provided to the early investors that later buyers will not get.
#2 we definitely have. #3 maybe. #4 we could do in some way. But until we get Total War out, the magazine on a regular schedule, etc. #1 isn’t there. And without that, Kickstarter is a waste of everyone’s time.
Kickstarter is also a much more expensive way to raise money than other avenues available to us because of the 15% cut that Kickstarter takes. Also, almost all successful kickstarter campaigns offer additional benefits to the investors in the project and that drives the cost up even higher.
RE Posting Scans of the Total War Countersheets: Permission is not granted at this time. Our secured investors have veto control over everything to do with Total War until they are repaid and they will not OK this.
Only 3 copies of Balkan Front left.
I found 25 more blank countersheets in the bottom of a box of other marker sheets, so these are again available for sale at $1 a sheet + the normal countersheet shipping per the parts page of the fire sale.