I guess that’s not the most positive blog headline, but hey ho, no-one ever said running a small business would be easy!

Life is full of ups and downs, I personally believe that you turn the negatives into positives and move on. So, that’s the theme of this blog;

Delays

We were making fantastic progress with the latest four figures (TW32039/40/41 and 42) when we were informed that one of the figures (the Major, figure 39) has a slight broken collar (on his trench coat). Unfortunately when we checked the master we realised it had broken somewhere either in transit or while moulded. While its a fairly simple thing to fix, it takes time.

Therefore, I’ve taken the decision to delay the release while we get the master back to Nino to repair, then back to us to create new moulds and cast. We’ve got everything else cast (we’ve got the bodies with a broken collar which we’ll scrap) so the delay should be as little as 2 weeks. So, release of these figures will now be mid to end of February.

I think anyone who knows me will understand that I would never knowingly release anything with a fault, but I’m happy that we’ll be able to get this organised quickly and released!

Bugs

It would seem that there is an error running on the membership software, so members trying to renew are unable to. We’re looking at this during the week. Unfortunately, my web guy has been ill so we’re catching-up a little, so please bear with me.

Battle plans

Yesterday evening I was running around with the usual family activity (made even busier by the fact that my wife is incapacitated due to someone shutting a door on her foot) and pondering on where I want to take Tommy’s War and how I plan to get there. I had a little count and the range consists of 69 figures (plus cavalry and the associated products), and want to get that to over 100.

The next release is going to be another cavalry figure (Australian Light Horse), so I’ll be returning to the individual figures and pushing that on. Benoit is making good progress on TW32VC02 (Captain Noel Chavasse, VC and bar) and I’m delighted with how that’s going, so I’m working on getting more figures into the range. I’ve got plenty of plans, I’d love to get a French and Italian figure or two in, and US releases are definitely on the cards in a couple of years.

But as well as new releases there is a lot to work on in the meantime. I’m delighted to confirm that I’ve resolved the issue around TW32C02 (the metal rod that is cast into the leg) so we’ll recast that for later in the year. Indeed, by September I hope to have the full catalogue available in suitable numbers so that by the time I get to Euro Miniature Expo you’ll see the whole range available.

When you consider that Tommy’s War is getting a lot larger than I ever imagined (thanks to the support of our wonderful customers) it becomes a rather different beast to tame! But, we’re getting there!

This week I booked the ferry and hotel for Scale Model Challenge in Veldhoven, I had a fantastic time there last year so looking forward to repeating the trip. I’ll be there for three nights and I’m really looking forward to meeting up with friends, old and new!

So, bumps in the road, but he trajectory remains up, and lets keep moving to that 100 figure target!