Archive for the ‘Gladiator Miniatures’ Category
Fighting 15s opens soon
Filed under: Fighting 15s, Gladiator Miniatures, Martian Empires |
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Work is well under way on our new web shop, and Fighting 15s should be open for business again in July at www.fighting15s.com – we’ll set up pointers from our existing URLs once we are ready, so it should be no trouble finding us.
We’ve been with our existing web shop provider, EKM, for more than 15 years. EKM served us very well in the early years, has been easy to setup and use, but stopped being reasonably priced a few years ago. The costs were bearable while we were the agent for AB Figures and Eureka Miniatures, but are not sustainable as just Gladiator Miniatures and Fighting 15s. EKM justified a massive hike in prices as a transformation to being “the best” ecommerce provider, but sadly it continues to fall short, with parts of the software clearly not working as intended. Squashed product images has been the latest quirk that was not been solved for months. My constant disagreements with members of EKM staff after it ditched its customer forum in favour of a community Facebook page tell me I should leave. 🙂
Fighting 15s is jumping ship to Andy at Tradestands, which provides webshops for a number of businesses in the wargames community and has come highly recommended by three people we know who use his services. Our products are now uploaded to the new shop, including 375 new images for all the flag sheets that did not have them.
We will shortly begin work on inking and photographing figures to replace the existing pictures, or to simply provide pictures for items that currently do not have pictures. This will take a long time and will be nowhere near completed by the time we reopen. Obviously we have been at work on adding pictures of painted figures to the site, but photographing figures and editing pictures to a commercially acceptable standard is slow work. It also depends on having a reservoir of cast figures to ink and photograph, which we have now built up after 21 months of running Gladiator Miniatures.
We’ve been working hard to get a cleaner website design with a number of more modern features, particularly when it comes to working on mobile devices. We are able to integrate all three of our payment gateways – PayPal, Stripe and Square – in the new shop, providing a choice of secure third-party payment systems. Apple and Google Pay should also work via the Stripe gateway.
We are still getting to grips with the software behind the new shop, although a lot of the Woocommerce setup is familiar because it’s just like using the WordPress blogs we use for news. The system feels much more modern.
Customer details are not being transferred, so regular customers will have to set up new accounts and passwords. Although this is an inconvenience, it will also purge the shop of a lot of out-of-date or irrelevant information.
Our new website is at www.fighting15s.com and just to repeat we will reopen in July – hopefully at the start of the month!
Ian
Fighting 15s
Temporary closure at Fighting 15s
Filed under: 15mm, AB Figures, Eureka Miniatures, Gladiator Miniatures, Martian Empires |
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Fighting 15s is shut from 1 June 2020 for one month. We will be cleaning up the shop after the removal of AB Figures and Eureka Miniatures products, and working on much-needed new pictures, plus a redesign of the online shop.
All remaining AB and Eureka miniatures will either be reincarnated as new figures (melted down, if you want it brutally), or, if viable, disposed of through a specialist in secondhand figures.
We have new products of our own to develop and launch, and it is time to focus on what lies ahead, not on our past.
Au revoir to the EU
The UK officially leaves the EU on 31 January 2020, but will the world end on 1 February? No. There is no change in the trading relationship between the UK and the EU until the end of the transition period, currently set at 31 December 2020.
During the transition period, VAT will continue to be charged at UK rates on orders from EU customers and mercifully there will be no faffing about with customs documentation until near the end of this period. Again, Fighting 15s expects to have to close for a few days around the end of the year to make the necessary tax adjustments in the shop. But it’ll be the Christmas holidays anyway, not some stupid date near the end of the tax year during peak sales season.
Looking ahead, at some point Fighting 15s envisages that all value declarations for tax on exports will be managed electronically by the sender, as it is for items sent by courier to places such as the USA. This may put an end to the excessive handling fee charged by various countries’ postal services which, as Fighting 15s has argued before, is the most damaging aspect to trade with the EU post-Brexit from the point of view of a small business because this charge will put customers off from ordering. No one wants to pay VAT plus a 10 euro handling fee on just 16 euros worth of figures. Fighting 15s will, therefore, investigate other delivery options for EU customers once the picture of what is happening becomes clearer.
Fighting 15s may, in the due course of time, consider engaging an EU agent.
Ian
Fighting 15s and Gladiator Miniatures
Christmas hours for Fighting 15s and Gladiator Miniatures
Filed under: Fighting 15s, Gladiator Miniatures | Tags: Christmas, Fighting 15s, Gladiator Miniatures, Holidays
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Last year, Fighting 15s shut completely for two weeks over Christmas and the new year. Although it turned out to be a lovely break from everything toy soldiers, the reality of the return to work was a nightmarish backlog of orders that took months and months to beat into submission.
So, this year, Fighting 15s and Gladiator Miniatures will remain largely open over Christmas. We’ll be shut on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day, and will be off to see family one random day during the holiday season, but otherwise, we’ll be at work processing orders, casting figures, making moulds, updating the website and in general keeping on top of everything. Orders may be a bit slow going out, but they will go out. The online shop, of course, remains open every day.
We will also be at work planning new releases from Gladiator Miniatures over the coming year. Stay tuned!
Last posting date for Christmas has gone: we cannot now get your order to you in time for the big day. Many thanks to everyone for their custom over the past year.
It only remains to say Merry Christmas, God Jul, Joyeux Noël, Frohe Weihnachten, Feliz Navidad, Buon Natale, Feliz Natal, Wesołych Świąt, Счастливого рождества! and Vrolijk Kerstfeest to our customers in the UK and beyond.
E Day arrives
Filed under: AB Figures, Eureka Miniatures, Fighting 15s, Gladiator Miniatures |
Leave a comment I thought it would never happen, but Fighting 15s is no longer the EU agent for Eureka Miniatures and AB Figures. My agency ends today (4 September, or “E Day”) and Fighting 15s embarks on a new journey as a manufacturer in its own right.
It’s hard to believe that 15 years ago I emailed Nic Robson of Eureka Miniatures when I saw his new 18mm British Napoleonics on a forum, and asked whether he had a UK agent. When he replied that he didn’t, I asked if he wanted one. The result was that in fairly short order boxes of 18mm British Napoleonics and 28mm Seven Years War bears appeared under my desk and I began the work of introducing Eureka Miniatures to the UK and Europe. It seems hard to believe anyone could get so lucky today, now that internet use is so commonplace.
I’d like to thank Nic for putting up with me. I’m quite difficult to deal with when I know what I want, and I can say what I want pretty bluntly, for which I blame 20 years of journalism and being paid to be right about everything. It has been a blast dealing with him, Tony Barton of AB Figures, and the various members of Eureka’s staff in my time: Tony Ramsden, Jack Garley and John Chadderton.
I’ve said that I’m basically taking semi-retirement to focus more on the house and garden. But rest assured, I have plenty to do: Gladiator Miniatures (the former Black Hat 15mm) needs reorganising to be fit for the next 10 years, with new moulds, new horses for some ranges, and better photographs of what are some quite marvellous figures (and new versions of the less marvellous ones). Martian Empires needs completing. Those Oddzial Osmy 15mm Napoleonics I’ve owned for years may eventually appear now that I have time to rework and remould them. Plus I aim to start expanding the 40mm offerings for the former Flashing Blade and D’Arlo ranges. As to the question, where to start? rest assured, the answer is new photographs for Gladiator Miniatures!
Oh, and I may find time to take a paintbrush to some figures for the first time in years.
Ian
Fighting 15s and Gladiator Miniatures
Fighting 15s acquires Gladiator Miniatures from Black Hat
Filed under: 15mm, Fighting 15s, Gladiator Miniatures, Martian Empires |
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Fighting 15s is taking over the 15mm and 18mm ranges from Black Hat Miniatures, and ownership officially transfers this weekend at Colours.
All the 15mm ranges will be sold as Gladiator Miniatures – as they were before Black Hat produced them. The 18mm Martian Empires range will be sold under the Martian Empires name in the Fighting 15s shop.
All the codes have been uploaded to the Fighting 15s shop and will go live within the next week. I have been working hard to make descriptions consistent, and remove quirks of spelling. There will still be errors that I will kick myself over each time they become apparent…
Until the moulds and stock arrive, the pictures will be the same as used by Gladiator and Black Hat – some of these go back to 2002 and the era of modems and tiny image files, and are not satisfactory for today’s website. Some codes were never photographed. I will be updating and adding photos as soon as possible, but there are more than 800 codes to ink, photograph and edit, so please bear with me.
I have all the masters and production masters, and I should take delivery of the moulds within the next week.
Looking ahead, I aim to use Fighting 15s’ shows rep, Stuart Armstrong at Colonel Bill’s, to offer army packs of the Gladiator Miniatures ranges at UK wargames shows, but this will take some months to organise. Stuart already takes some AB, Eureka and Fighting 15s figures to shows.
Mark Severin at Scale Creep Miniatures will continue to carry the figures in the USA so there should be no disruption in service to US customers. Olympian will continue to carry them in Australia.
In future, all Gladiator Miniatures will be cast in lead-free pewter. This affects the costs of figures, originally priced for a much cheaper lead-tin mix, and because adding VAT will also affect the price to customers in the EU I have taken the opportunity to reorganise the contents of many of the packs to reduce the impact on the overall price.
Standard packs of Gladiator Miniatures 15mm infantry and cavalry therefore now contain 8 infantry or 4 cavalry to fit in with the rest of Fighting 15s’ ranges – and most of the rest of the wargaming hobby. A standard pack is now £3.40 inc tax. Chariot packs and elephant packs are £3.60 inc VAT. Command packs typically contain 5 foot or 3 mounted, and cost £2.55 inc VAT – the number in a command pack varies from range to range and descriptions of command as being “1 set” will be changed as soon as possible. Standard Martian Empires packs will be £3.60 inc VAT and continue to include 8 infantry or 4 cavalry.
Note that Mike at Black Hat Miniatures will continue to produce and distribute Coat d’arms paints, as well as focus on his 54mm toy soldier business, Imperial Miniatures. Fighting 15s will continue to represent AB Figures and Eureka Miniatures in the EU.
Ian
Fighting 15s and Gladiator Miniatures
Links
Fighting 15s: www.fighting15sshop.co.uk
Gladiator Minatures: www.gladiatorminiatures.co.uk
Black Hat Miniatures: www.blackhat.co.uk
One day, all the pictures will look more like this
oozlumgames.com 
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