Update from Traders Galaxy

Update from Traders Galaxy

I would like to give a big thanks to the moderators and a couple of others for taking the wheel of this group. Apart from a few sporadic posts and my painting challenge next month, I will try to take a half step back from this group to work on the business stuff a bit more. Primarily rulesy stuff.

So where is Bot War at?

At the end of April 2019 Bot War stumbled after 85% of its range was deleted. As I have said many times, this needed to happen.

However since April the entire range has either been completed or commenced development. This is a staggering achievement. In a year I released about 100 miniatures, then I almost released 100 between April and now. Bot War seems quite strong at its first birthday hitting over 500 members in this group and a fair bit of interest both in Aus and abroad. Not bad for a non Kickstarter game. A massive milestone that needs a mention is the awesome Starter Set. I am quite happy with how that turned out and I really think the set is good quality (i know i am biased)

Number one goal

I have certainly been listening to your feedback and with many of you doing multiple games my number one goal is to help you all get painted Bot War models to the table. The game is good but even better when played with painted forces. So I have slowly started pre assembling and recasting all sets. This is harder to do but revisiting some of these also helps me update some quality. This way the entry barrier in time and skill is lowered for new players. About 25% of the sets are pre assembled now.

Even though I am technically a one man operation, I am totally committed to bringing you the best quality models I can. Model quality is continually being refined. In some cases models have been delayed because of quality and others set to out of stock because of quality control. I make no secret of this because we are all adults here and sometimes mistakes happen. However my commitment is for continual model quality improvement.

The painting challenge next month is another way I am encouraging my valued customers to get models to the table. As we all know, painted models in their second outing roll better dice. A hurrah to all those who are taking on the first Bot War painting challenge.

Bot War retailers

So far Discover Games in Georgia USA is stocking Bot War. It seems highly likely a UK stockist will be happening soon as talks have gone well. Once this is finalised I will certainly let everyone know who that is. I am still looking for a Canadian, European and an Australian stockist. I am in the process of setting up a trade section on my website only accessed by approved retail stores. This way their restocking orders are correctly set up and its much easier for stores to reorder for their customers. I am committed to supporting my valued retail stockists and thank them for helping to grow Bot War.

The future

At present development has slowed significantly. With the ranges getting to a good place I felt i could take my foot off the gas a bit more and concentrate on deepening rather than widening the offer. This means that moving into next year more resources will go into the Bot War story and character development aspects of the game. More stories, more background, more character bios.

That's not to say there will be no minis. There will always be minis. Some of you may have seen the Beastlord concept pictures. These 7 behemoths will be out next year. I am still trying to get the Overlords released before Christmas and this force might be Bot Wars first all resin faction. There are also some more stories around Overlords coming too as the faction so far is perhaps the most mysterious. Obviously i have also been talking about titans for 6 months now. Seems like forever but their release is now just around the corner. Finally the Red Star Nations are currently being sculpted. Work is very slow but its still happening.

The Bot War city terrain is also nearing completion. The battlemat is currently in production. I am perhaps most excited for the terrain. Pending sales, I will continually seek to invest in Bot War.

Next year the early factions will receive some minor updates, like the Atlanticans vehicle update coming soon, but overall these factions will stabilise and artworks completed for their cards. Once this happens the faction cards will be printed to match the Starter Set cards. I cant stress enough that Bot War is entirely sales driven so without new players and customers none of these things can happen.

Overall its been a lot of exhausting work but massive progress has been made in year one. I do hope the silent majority in this group at least give the game a go and give the current models a look. After all, a community is what you put into it and I have found that even the smallest comment or interaction can make the world of difference to an online community.

Cheers

Ant

Traders Galaxy