Backlogs and Bugbears

It's been a while, fellow Miercenaries - sadly I haven't had a great deal of time to get things done these past few weeks as January means boring business things. But I am just about sorted with that, so I'm here to give you the run-down on everything that's been happening in Mierceland these past couple of months as well as a general philosophical ramble on the state of the industry.

Before I do that, let's have a look at some cool stuff!

Art Attack

That lovely man Stefan Kopinski has been working on a new piece of artwork for the next book I publish, which will either be the Savage Hordes lore book or Darklands Lite (which will most probably become Darklands 3rd). He's not finished it yet, but by God it's going to be amazing. It's not finished yet of course, but have a look at the work in progress for the Attack at Amwythig:

If you're from that area in deepest darkest Shropshire, that there is Haughmond Hill. Because why not?

100 Warlords

We're currently running a kickstarter project called 100 Warlords - check it out! It's designed to bring you ten all-new strictly limited edition miniatures of the kings, queens and lords of Darklands (some of which have never been produced before), and we're almost at our goal of £5,000 - at which point you get the very rare Sáthach too!

Rafael Callegari and Cleyton Amorim have been making a few of them already - have a look at these guys!

Conall Cóel

Constantine the Great

It's only a fun little project but I do ask all of you to give it a go so that we can get some more underpants and socks for 2025. Give generously!

Backlogs

As many of you are aware - mainly because I keep banging on about it - we have a rather large Grey Wulf resin backlog at the moment (the whyfore for which later), and it's about six months long if I'm brutally honest with you. Well, we've just about finished the Byzantii hosts from last year, and now we're onto the mallax, so that should give you the length of time it's taking.

It's not quite as simple as that, though - we still have to accommodate new orders, otherwise Mierce would grind to a standstill. If you make an order for an existing miniature in Grey Wulf resin (or cast resin), the backlog is only a couple of weeks and usually less, because the six month backlog is for miniatures produced for our older kickstarter projects; this does of course delay the kickstarter backlog further, but that's why we haven't really been doing deals on large amounts of Grey Wulf miniatures (large as in numbers or in size) these past few months barring a few exceptions.

The Christmas knights are in production, and should be sorted this month; the ratty War Tower should begin production shortly.

A short missive on cast resin: if it's a traditional miniature, there's no real delay except just to remould/make it. It's just Grey Wulf resin that has the big backlog.

Whyfore for Which

So why are we in this bloody mess? Well, we've always had a kickstarter backlog, as many of you know; and largely, you've all been incredibly patient while we deal with it. A problem of our own making, of course, but it is easing as we finish off the last remaining miniatures from previous projects. I do expect we'll be able to complete all the sculpts, if not the actual production, this year.

To produce the kickstarter sculpts more quickly, last year I combined the digital monthly battle hosts with producing new miniatures for the kickstarter backlog, after we'd used up all our existing miniatures, and initially that wasn't too much of an issue; but it became one very quickly, especially as I tried to keep battle hosts - well, battle hosts, and not just a jumble of stuff. This meant I was creating miniatures that weren't necessary for the kickstarter backlog, just to keep the digital subscription side of things happy. Selling these physically via battle hosts was something I thought we could keep up with - but we couldn't.

Unfortunately I didn't really catch on to this until I was deep into a lot of sculpts already being commissioned, right up to the Atalantes, for which I can only apologise. I should have seen it sooner, but I didn't.

So I must say thank you all very much for your patience and understanding - it is greatly appreciated! - but please bear with us a while longer, as it will still take a few months to get the Grey Wulf backlog down. We always get there in the end, and you will own some beautiful miniatures! Er, one day.

This leads me directly on to the digital side of things, and the pressure it created each month to keep a very small number of subscribers happy.

Bugbears

To go backwards a little, let's talk about ‘the industry’. Now look, I don't know that much about it - I don't really keep my ear to the ground about other miniature companies, nor do I look at what they put out either; perhaps I should, but I've always felt that looking at what other people do is a bit of a wild goose chase. I know what I like, and if I'm being influenced by what other companies do, either in terms of business practices or the miniatures they put out, I'm not really doing what I want to do for Mierce or Darklands: and sadly, that's exactly what I did a couple of years back with the digital side of things.

I say sadly: I didn't think that at the time. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and I'm sure selling products digitally is very good for a few companies out there: but almost all of them don't have a backlog of physical miniatures to make, or even manufacture themselves, as we have and do. As I've said, that particular bugbear is all mine, and I probably wouldn't be writing this if we'd hooked 1,000 loyal subscribers each month. But we didn't. So I am.

(No, we're never making bugbears).

Suffice to say that selling digital files on a monthly subscription basis has caused us major issues: fulfilling a battle host each month for less than £10 has almost broken me personally, and it's not a great return either so it hasn't been very good financially. I'm not really one for laments or regrets, and it's not just one thing that has made me change my mind on it, but by crikey I wish we'd never done it!

Don't get me wrong, it has given me insights - not the least of which is a look into the minds of all you printerers out there - and it's given me a lot of Blender skills that I wouldn't have had without doing it. But those insights and skills are in my view poor recompense for the dip in physical sales, the sped-up cost of sculpts, the pressure on our very small team each month (and especially on me) for very little return and my greatest friend leaving for pastures new.

Sigh. I suppose this overlong melancholic ramble has a point, and the point (at least for me) is this: sometimes it really is better the devil you know.