Tekken 6 PC

Minimum System Requirements

Operation System: Windows XP SP 3/Vista/7/8

CPU: Pentium 4

Processor: 2.6GHz or AMD Athlon 2600+

RAM Memory: 1 GB

Graphics Card: 256 MB with Pixel Shader 3.0+ (Required)

Hard Drive Space: 14 GB

Sound Card: Windows Direct X 9.0 Compatible

DirectX: Version 9.0

Recommended System Requirements

Operation System: Windows XP SP 3/Vista/7/8

CPU: Pentium 4

Processor: Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz 

RAM Memory: 2 GB

Graphics Card: 512 MB with Pixel Shader 3.0 (Required)

Hard Drive Space: 14 GB

Sound Card: Windows Direct X 1.0 Compatible

DirectX: Version 10.0

Download PPSSPP Emulator For PC Here

Download The Game ISO File Here

How To Download And Play Tekken 6 On PC (With Proof) [Voice Tutorial]

Tariffs And The Sixty Dollar Board Game

With 25% Chinese tariffs taking effect this month, I'm already seeing solicitations for board games with significantly higher prices. The $60+ board game is likely to be the norm, up from an average of $45-50. I wrote on my Facebook author page I thought my board game sales were likely to drop by 40%. That's a really high number and it's complete speculation, but let's take a look at what we know.

We know very little. If we try to read the tea leaves of market forecasts, they're concerned with publicly traded companies, most of whom can absorb some or all of a 25% tariff. Best Buy sources enough Chinese products with high margins, they may not even raise prices, just take the hit. For us small retailers, sellers of speciality goods without enough margin to absorb tariffs and no cushion to absorb higher costs, they just predict doom and gloom. A 25% tariff is a necessary 25% price increase.

One example of how price increases directly affect sales from comes from the auto industry. When vehicles rise in price, for every dollar of price increase, demand drops by .87%. With a 25% increase in price, we should expect a 22% decrease in sales using the auto industry numbers. That's our baseline though, a starting point. Buying a vehicle is different than a board game.

If you don't like Chevy dealer A, Chevy dealer B isn't going to have a significantly different price. That's because vehicles are sold through a closed dealer network and gross margin on board games is about 45% compared to 8-10% on vehicles. There's no wiggle room to sell you a Chevy Colorado for 25% off, even if dealer B wanted to. And there's no online clearinghouse for a third party to devalue a new Colorado. If you don't want to spend $60 for a board game at my store, there will always be someone selling that game for 20-30% off online, even in the age of MAP price protection. There is someone selling that same game with an MSRP of $45, right now for $30-35, which is probably half the regional sales of that game. It's more complicated than that though.

As the price of an item increases over psychological thresholds, the pressure to buy it online increases dramatically. Most store owners will tell you once a game hits a certain price plateau, sales drop off considerably as customers seek better value. It's why many of us sell so many little card games and so few $100 board games. The impulse purchase, in which calculations don't play much of a role, is probably around $30-40 nowadays. At $40-50, there's some thinking and we lose a lot of sales to discounters, and at over $50, there's a lot of thought into how to acquire that item most efficiently.  We are certainly earning that business in some fashion. And that's where board games will go, breaking that price ceiling (the one I artificially created for this example).

If you think this will be business as usual, we're going from a strong economy to where, "Markets are pricing in rate cuts in September and December." Markets are already signaling they expect pain in the second half of the year with interest rate increases up a quarter percent. My store sales for 2019 are up a staggering 20%, due to a number of factors. I'm predicting I end the year up 4% due to tariffs. It's a complicated bit of bistro math, but I'm expecting a lot of pain. I know I'll be doing a lot of dancing, I just don't know the tune.

WOODEN BAR SET

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Battle Of The Blogs: Aurora Vs. Skarre3

After a two week hiatus in table top gaming, I was able to get out last Tuesday night and put some CoC on the table again. 

EDIT: There's a rules error on my part of this game where I thought Aurora had Reposition 3 all the time, like Clockwork Angels. This is false, so my movement on Turn 3 was illegal. After talking with Kevin there is a possible way I could have achieved the same thing without having to have cheated (Apparition up to get LOS, cast the spray spell, then move away), but the mistake was still mine. I've apologized to Kevin and I want readers to know the error was made!

I ended up having a 'Blog Off' with Kevin who runs the Shoulda Boosted blog.  We're coordinating our posts, so you can go read this battle report from the other side of the table here! Kevin had only brought his competitive pair for the next Scrum and a few big tournaments coming up, and I was dead set on playing some jank.  I've really been wanting to try Clockwork Legions and Aurora out.  My goal is to play each caster in Convergence at least once and the only two I have left are Aurora and Iron Mother.   As a pair for Aurora I wanted to stay in a Champions restriction and had a Lucant double TEP list as my second list.  Kevin was running Skarre3 and Denny2.  After some discussion about how I'm just trying to learn my lists and Kevin is trying to practice, Kevin was kind enough to offer to play Skarre3 so that I could play Aurora. 

Lists:

[Skarre 3] Skarre, Admiral of the Black Fleet [+27] - Slaughter Fleet Raiders

 - Kraken [36]

 - Satyxis Blood Priestess [0(4)]

Axiara Wraithblade [0(6)]

General Gerlak Slaughterborn [0(6)]

Ragman [4]

Black Ogrun Ironmongers [6]

Blighted Trollkin Marauders (max) [15]

Bloodgorgers (max) [15]

 - Jussika Bloodtongue [5]

Bloodgorgers (max) [15]

Scharde Dirge Seers [6]

Aurora

-Corollary

-Prime Axiom

Obstructors

Obstructors

Obstructors

Optifex Directive

Clockwork Angels

Clockwork Angels

Clockwork Angels

Enigma Foundry

Enigma Foundry

Enigma Foundry

Enigma Foundry

So my initial thought on running Aurora in CL was that she offers speed and not much else. Given the recursion package I figured I'd need my heavies to do some hard hitting and decided that I really wanted a Prime Axiom in a Clockwork Legion list.  First, it hits hard and can drag in heavies, but more importantly it's a Scenario Cheat Piece.

What's a Scenario Cheat Piece? It makes a solo, for free, every turn. This lets me contest every turn the Prime Axiom is alive or score a flag regardless of whether or not my opponent kills my scoring solos.  The goal of the list is to focus on scenario, possibly swing to an attrition play if my opponent can't deal with my model count + recursion and still finish the colossal at the end.

Matchup Analysis

So my plan for a Lucant DI + Aurora CL pair gets put in a bad spot by Kevin's pair.  Denny2 makes me unable to play CL at all, and so Kevin can pick whichever list he feels is stronger into my pairing. This seems like it'd be true for any CoC pairing that includes an Obstructor-based CL list which I think is probably the most efficient CL build.

Talking it through with Kevin, he was nice enough to play Skarre so I can give Aurora her test game, and we started the game thinking it was roughly even. We were playing the Mirage scenario, so it was exceptionally live.

Deployment (After Advanced Move)

Not much to discuss here. Kevin had a unit of Bloodgorgers on either flank, with the Marauders dead center. Kraken was set to go around the building towards my right flank opposite of my axiom. I had won the roll to go first. 

My deployment was all the Obstructors up front and everything else behind.

My Turn 1

The plan was to take as much table space as possible, so Aurora casts Aerogenesis and Arcane Might and everything flies forward as fast as possible while trying to space well enough to avoid AOE's mulching everything up too hard.  I remembered to spawn my servitor with the Axiom as well, which is hard to remember every turn. 

Kevin's Turn 1 

Kevin knows he can't avoid getting punched in the face first melee wise, so he simply advances up the field to take as much space as possible while also using spacing and base size from preventing me from getting too much. 

Skarre shoots through a decent amount of my center Obstructor unit and the Kraken takes a pot shot at my right most Enigma Foundry and does about 6 damage. That hurt, but it wasn't so much that I couldn't replenish all of the losses. 

 My Turn 2

Not seeing a better time to feat, I go all in with Aurora first this turn. I had the idea to use her Bladed Gale SP8 spell to try and clear some of the Marauders out who were bunched up nicely, but tough checks and deceleration only netted me two casualties.  Auora then repostioned back behind the building.

I burned a TON of clock here, and I spent an excess of attacks and resources just to kill Jussika.  It was my first time playing with this much infantry especially while trying to use the feat to reposition in awkward spots while similarly preventing his Bloodgorgers from chewing through all my stuff. 

My center Obstructors did some work, but at the same time the recursion guys simply jammed in to prevent the Marauders from getting shots off.  I was actually pretty pleased with spacing here, preventing a lot of meaningful attacks and sacrificing about 3 models to go behind the left 'gorgers to keep Gerlak from getting up into the forward part of my unit.  I did a significant amount of work on the right unit of 'gorgers, and in hindsight now I probably should have just focused on killing more of the left unit rather than killing Jussika, though vengence really will screw my list over pretty hard.

I spawned my servitor again and kept it on the center flag nestled behind the building and moved the first servitor spawned to my friendly flag and Aurora kept in the zone. Scenario play was going to be my main win condition here and I needed to be in place to start forcing it. 

Kevin's Turn 2

So the first thing you'll notice in this picture is exactly how few of my models are left. While I was quite good with my positioning here to prevent the blighted trolls from berserking through all my troops, the relatively low CMD of my units required my buffered back lines to be pretty well bunched up.  This let Skarre absolutely decimate my troops from guns alone. I believe by the time Skarre was done shooting, I had filled up all my Enigma Foundries on the left flank and then the units started activating.  What's worse is that Kevin killed the entire center unit of Obstructors, meaning I couldn't return any of them to play.  I need to remember to space properly with hiding/protecting a unit member all the way in my back lines to keep a unit going.

Kevin had feated this turn and reinforced the Marauder unit, with them contesting the center flag through the building. 

Poor spacing on my part on my right flank with the Angels allowed one Bloodgorger to chomp his way through to getting within 4" of my flag to prevent me from scoring. This ended up being a huge deal as we'll see later. Kevin still didn't have enough to get through my entire right unit, and so I prevented his scoring on his own turn. He did get a model onto his flag, but couldn't contest my zone so this turn ends with the score 1-1.

My Turn 3

The attrition, it is going badly. As such I try to make as hard a play on scenario as I can. 

Aurora doesn't cast Aerogenesis this turn (I don't need any distance), and uses Bladed Gale to start clearing out Marauders from contesting the center, she shoots her gun and repositions back behind the building again, keeping some focus on her for Arcane might. (See the edit at the top of the page, Aurora does NOT have Reposition 3 like the Clockwork Angels, this was a mistake on my part!).

I replenish as best I can on the red unit of Obstructors and they go in clearing out more contesting trolls and doing what work I can. Unfortunately I didn't really learn my lesson about spacing till after the game, so the same problem I had earlier with the blue unit is coming up on this turn. It's going to go poorly. 

On the right flank I send some of my Obstructors charging into the objective and I do minimal damage. I do clear out the contesting Bloodgorger and get in the zone.  The Axiom moves too close to the objective and starts pumping shots into it.  I nearly fail to kill it completely after multiple double 1 to hit and damage rolls (including on the tow cables!) after leaving it on one box.  That said, on my final shot on unboosted damage kills it before my spawned elimination servitor had to be relied on to kill it. 

All in all, I contest all of Kevin's pieces and score 4 points on my turn (my zone, two flags, and objective kill), ending the turn 5-1!

Kevin's Turn 3

Can you say swift kick to the dick? Cause that's what happened here. 


Kevin wipes out all of my Obstructor units and through a combination of flank with a reinforced Marauder, death field from Ragman, and Draconic Blessing, the Kraken takes advantage of my poor placement of the Axiom for its shots into the objective to one round the Axiom. It was...bad times.  

I had one hope going through the turn, the way I had placed my Obstructors to jam Kevin up, it was taking all of his activation's to clear them out and they were preventing anything from really getting to my flag. This hope died when Kevin took his kill shot off the Axiom, he shot at the servitor I had on my friendly flag - he missed, but the deviation stayed on the servitor and he rolled the 7 to kill it with blast damage.  Kevin also runs Axiara into my zone to prevent my scoring it and puts Gerlak on his flag, scoring two points to my nothing, bringing the score to 5-3.

As it turns out, killing the servitor was the key damage roll, since if that servitor had lived I would have scored a point on Kevin's turn, meaning I would only need to score 2 points on my turn to win which would have been easily doable on my flag and then clearing out Axiara with Aurora and the last two angels I had alive.  Hindsight says I should have moved my Enigma Foundry to sit on the flag and that could have won me the game.

But since he did kill the servitor and there was no way I was scoring 3 points on my next turn, and there was zero way I was going to run this game to turn 7, I conceded here.

Conclusions

Man what a fun game and it was a trove to learn from on how to play this kind of list as well as what I like and don't like about Clockwork Legions and Aurora specifically.

Kevin was great to play against as always and he was very kind to kick my ass with a list I could at least play into.

That said, man there are so many things to draw from this game.

Clockwork Angels are Terrible

The original version of this list had points moved around so that I was running a unit of Reciprocators rather than the Angels. I swapped them out so that I could have Angels to use as Flank Triggers for Aurora.  This was a bad idea.  The Angels are pretty terrible on their own: MAT6 PS12 on the charge just isn't very impressive.  Similarly their guns just aren't that good to warrant their use.  They did very little for me this game and I'm not sure what they'd bring to other matchups. More bodies, specifically Reciprocators would have been way stronger in this match. What's worse is that the Angels don't have parry natively so they can't fly into position to allow Aurora to try and feat + assassinate an enemy caster (not that she was killing Skarre3 by any means).  They can get parry from her feat, but that requires Aurora to go before the angels can get in position to trigger flank, and so the entire thing just doesn't work.  It really is a shame since I happen to like the models a lot, and so does my daughter.

Play Better Noob

I've always wanted to play a recursion list and it was one of the things that had intrigued me about playing CoC, but man is there a learning curve to playing this kind of list. There must always be a grunt hiding in the back so as to be promoted and keep the unit alive to be replenished. That's a big deal and it will take a lot of playtime to get myself into playing that correctly.   I want to experiment with a medium based focused CL list, especially with Aurora and Lucant, but truthfully an Obstructor based list is really where Clockwork Legions is at its most efficient and so I need to get better with placement.

The Axiom is Limiting

So my theory about the Axiom contesting and making scenario cheat pieces is valid, but it didn't pay off in this list. It also didn't help that I had zero good drag targets in the matchup and so the real value in the Axiom got kinda wasted here.  That said, fitting the Axiom into a MK3 Clockwork Legions list really limits the amount of stuff you can take in a list where you want to maximize the amount of units you're bringing. It's also really a waste with Aurora who grants Apparition to her battlegroup.  Double Cipher or Cipher/Conservator may be the better vector load out (besides the mandatory Corollary).  It's definitely going to take some testing to see how I want to go forward with CL builds, as it is, I'm not sure which way I want to go with them yet.

The Clockwork Legion is an Enigma

As I said how to build a Clockwork Legion list is puzzling to me. In terms of Convergence the only two casters who can play CL and give the units Pathfinder are Aurora with flight and Axis where he gives it on the charge. In every other case terrain is going to be a major issue.  I can see trying CL with Lucant and going for attrition, but it's going to be a MUCH slower list. Aurora is possibly our worst caster but she does bring a ton of speed. I think in other matches this list could do very well, but it was going to be uphill into Kevin's Skarre3 list.  Another lesson is that while Obstructors are cheap, they are really not that strong damage output wise. They really need something to buff them up, and while Aurora brings speed, she doesn't do anything much for accuracy and damage, not consistently. Lucant is the most consistent in this area turn after turn, but again he lacks pathfinder for them.

I really do want to experiment with the theme however, since the amount of recursion that can be brought to bear is really something I think people might not be able to deal with in a number of matchups.  I just wish that we had more casters that could support it more directly.

Making Monsters Different - An Example Of Invisibility

Different invisibility/blinking mechanic that I've used, instead of just a modifier to hit roll

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons presents a great many monsters who can have some really cool effects, but at the end, a lot of those effects get folded into simple "reduce to-hit by x" and it's done. Players know that the creature will be harder to hit, but that's it...

What if we made took this idea of an invisible/shadowy monster that's hard to hit, but rewards players who use tactics to overcome it's special ability?

In simple, what I'm proposing is doing away with the straight -4 penalty for hitting invisible/shadowy figures. Creatures get two ACs - one when they're "invisible" and the second when their location has been pinpointed. Let's take a shadow as our example - they'll have AC2 when invisible, AC7 when PCs know where it's at.

At first, invisibility is just that, it can't be seen. In the case of the shadow, depending on light, I might rule, depending on what players are doing, that they catch glimpses of "something wrong" in the direction they're looking, if they're looking at the shadow. Or they catch glimpses of movement, but nothing is there.

So the PCs would be groping around and striking out. As the DM, I'm keeping track of where the creature is at. I will let the PCs roll to hit, but for those that aren't within melee range of the creature, they "miss" and will do so automatically, but I don't tell them any different. Just that they missed.

For PCs that are within melee range, they are rolling to hit against the harder AC, so in this case vs. AC2 for the shadow. They hit!

Now the PCs have an idea of where this thing is. As long as the PCs are within melee range of the creature, it can be pinpointed and it's AC drops down to 7. So life is good, right? Well, not necessarily.

Let's say all the PCs miss in combat - I'm going to rule that they've no longer pinpointed the creature and now its AC is back up to AC2! It's managed to avoid being hit and seen, so it has a chance to slip away again! At this point, since they've not pinpointed it, it could even flee without penalty, though the PCs could hit vs. AC2.

So why would I do this? To me, an approach like this makes fighting an invisible creature more interactive, more mysterious and potentially more exciting. Rather than a boring -4 to hit, this allows the PCs to use circling and trapping tactics. If the PCs did circle the creature while it was pinpointed, then I would not allow it to slip away. It might go back to the AC2, but it's surrounded - nowhere to run!

This also requires a bit more interactivity with the players. They can just attack the darkness, but I as DM know where this thing is. If they're within melee range, I describe an effect (shifting shadows, distortions in the light) that lefts them know they're close. Attacking blindly? Not seeing the effect.

Once they hit, then they see blood/wounds/effects which allows them and others to hit better. The creature is obviously trying to get back to being hidden! So... if everyone misses that round, they're not able to see it as well, and next round it may slip away!

These are the kinds of small things I like to add to make the game more interesting. The players don't need to know the mechanics in shifts in AC (unless they ask), but they do see the effects. I find doing things like this makes monsters... mysterious. Unpredictable.

I've also earned the players' trust that I'm fair and always give them a path to success while also giving them an obstacle to overcome. Tactics helps with this type of monster (one person hits, rest form a kill box. Now it's trapped....)

Also, I'm using Descending AC, but you can modify Ascending AC in similar fashion, going from hard to hit, to easy to hit, once the creature is pinpointed.

What do you think? Do you use certain effects and different takes on mechanics to achieve an effect that makes the monsters more interesting?

THE STATE OF DFG AS A BUSINESS

Let's start this by having a rather upfront look at the miniatures industry, the customer base and expectations.

My rather unique perspective:

I have the benefit of looking at this not only from my personal company (A crumb gathering niche within a niche) but also for watching WGF, who I think most would agree had a solid seat at the mid-tier table, with a rather large product offering spanning quite a few interests.

I have worked, not only the creative side designing miniatures, but in my previous life as a buyer/planner, which gives me some ability to understand product reorder points and the financial aspect of just in time ordering, supply chain logistics and the implementation of contracts. Add to this, experience with the manufacturing aspect, working closely with WGF and even producing my own resin releases… I understand soft and hard tool molds, direction of pull and release draft angles. Well at least enough to be dangerous: P The only reason I went over this is to illustrate although I am a fresh new business man, and likely NOT a very good one, I do possess a wide skill base that assists me every day.

The Industry:

The industry, is a niche industry, with most companies either finding their niche within a niche market or attempting to gather the crumbs off the table form some of the larger players in the industry. Volume wise, its not a great industry for those not sitting in the top positions within their niche.

It has been said, you are only as good as your last release and only as memorable as your next tease. I find this to be a true if not slightly jaded view. The 'new shinny' is what drives this market from a sales standpoint. You need to remain in the publics eye as there is always a new 'something' from some other company that will be released just around the corner. 

This is where plastic is king and curse all at the same time. Plastic is a fantastic medium for the end user, light durable, infinitely modifiable and highly desirable. There is no doubt that for a miniature line a plastic release adds desirability and a certain legitimacy that those dealing in lesser materials, metal and resin have a hard time competing with….

But why Mark, why would that be a curse when plastic is King, you ask.

(THE LONG ANSWER)

Most would say the upfront costs, which is the correct answer but only part of the answer, the other part is time to market with plastic. Companies that are in plastic need to be looking about 18 months in advance to have any form of steady release schedule. (Remember the new shiny is what matters) Once again, I know that sounds jaded, but it is not… Your supply chain can back you up and help you drive sales if you have a proven history of delivery.

You need to have the capitol to pay upfront for 6 or so releases to be worked on at any one time. Let's say they are frugal with their kits and two molds for each kit will be required. That would be 12 Molds in the works, 50% down for a total of $60,000 investment tied up for a minimum of 6-12 moths -AND- They need to have available enough capitol to finalize payment on two of those kits, their production run, box/packaging and shipping to their distribution center. So, let's say you plan an average release to have enough stock to get you through a quarter. 3000 is a fairly good number for the first quarter release from a smaller manufacturer without a huge marketing budget to drive sales. i.e. me or WGF. That would be about $55,000 to get two releases to your dock, paying off four molds and the production run for two kits @ 3000ea volume.

Total outlay of capitol required, around $115,000 with another $55,000 needed in another month or two for the next two releases… and this cycle goes on and on as long as you keep the plastic flowing.

Looking at plastic production from a single project or set of molds is only half the answer… Heaven forbid you have a slow release in there that never grabs like it should. If you are not sitting on $100,000 of 'problem solving extra cash', you then do not have the capitol for the next releases and the entire production aspect gets thrown out of whack. Your customers are upset, your supply chain is upset, and the money spent on marketing to tease the next release is pretty much cash in a dumpster fire.

The moral to this story, if you are looking to run a plastic kit line and want to continue doing so, plan 18 months in advance, have 6 kits ready to go to the mold maker from your end at any one time and be sitting on about $250.000 in a cash reserve that is not required for other aspects of your business or its overhead. 

A smarter move would be choosing a format that is kinder on the mold count and margin returned for each kit. KD and Mallifaux are a couple of examples, (Hero models) a single figure sells for nearly as much as a boxed set and requires 1/10 the mold space. Unfortunately, this is not the format that DFG embarked on and I am not sure it is one I would have chosen even knowing what I know now, primarily because the character model scheme is just not that appealing to me…. Let's just say I would need to give it some thought.

So, I think we have established that 'properly' running a plastic miniatures business is expensive….

So you had a flop:

Let's talk about the inevitable soft release. So, you had a flop… bound to happen and you have a release coming shortly behind to help punch back up those numbers. You need to get it out of your head that that slow release will ever pay for its self. The first quarter is the make or break for that kit, flub up the release or have shipping issues and miss the restock or short your initial release, you WILL NOT be getting those sales back, they are gone, your customers and supply chain have moved on to the next release. Sure, they will continue to sell in some small manner, but you missed the boat and the return on investment will likely never come. You can chalk the $15-20K loss up to a learning experience and move on…. Assuming you still have the capitol to do so.

After the first quarter, the product sales will decrease each end every quarter until you hit the products base line. Historicals burn the slowest and lowest but they are steady. Sci-fi is one of the better formats for that initial bump. Fantasy? Not sure…. I do not have any insider information on that. If you have a strong line with distinctive style such as KD, I think you would be fine but that is an uneducated guess on my part.

So, we all are on the same page? Miniatures are expensive, risky, and from an artists stand point a hell of a lot of fun, from a businessman's standpoint, perhaps not the best investment without an eye for the long game and certainly not without a rather large bank account doing nothing but gathering interest.

The customer base:

What a nefarious gathering. Truly, a hive of scum and villainy.

Creative, imaginative, supportive, geeks, nerds, artist, and general loons….. I could not be prouder of all of you!

Seriously though a great community and one that I am proud to be a part of. I think that they key to my success has always been the relationship with my customer base. I can honestly say I miss being a part of that as much or more than I enjoy the creative sculpting aspects.

As was stated in the beginning of this long rambling thread, the shiny new thing drives the business, that is not to say that quality and the feeling of a fair exchange price vs return is not important, because it is. We all need to feel like we received value from our purchase. If any one aspect fails, quality, value, time to market. You as a manufacturer will feel the effects, not just in that sale but in future transactions.

The supply chain is a customer as well. If you are part of the supply chain, you had better be firing up your customer base. The supply chain directly reacts to demand, they my or may not like your product but if it sells, they will bump the next order and if it is flat, they will pull back. For you the customer/end user its about scratching that creative itch with something cool. For the retailers and wholesalers (who are likely geeks like the rest of us) its still about stock movement and fast returns on investment.

Remember your first few months of any release will make or break that release. This all comes back to time to market… Loose that race and you have lost sales, it is an extremely important aspect that every manufacture frets about and that many of us never think about as we wander store shelves or click through retailer's websites.

Expectations:

IT'S A TRAP! (Admiral Akbar, Battle of Endor) 

Also a fun drinking game for this post.

Wipe the sleep from your eyes, this next part is important and although my ramblings may have put you into a stupor, this is meat and potatoes time!

If you have been on this side of the table for any length of time, you will know the manufactures rarely meet deadlines.

This is not just a 'China thing'.

Every vendor I have worked with on the manufacturing end comes in late.

PERIOD, NO EXCEPTIONS.

So how do you manage expectations? How can you guesstimate when something will arrive once the order has been placed? Honest answer, you can't, the delay will range from reasonable, two weeks to mind numbing 1+ years. Best advice is not to even tease a release until it is in your warehouse… let it simmer for a couple of weeks and then release.

The problem for me is that I truly enjoy bringing all of you in on the creative process. I am likely shooting myself in the foot by doing so, but some of the feedback ends in changes or insights that effect the final product. This (for me) is a difficult decision. Do I open the doors and show all while destroying the OOOOOH NEW SHINY! Or pray that the ends justify the means. I still do not have an answer for this problem, I just know that I prefer active participation.

I am not sure how the supply chain felt about that, but I imagine they would prefer an unveiling and big initial hype just before release.

Quality:

Based on your past purchases, we know WGF delivered quality, late, but quality. This in its own way is a trap. I have no doubt that Wai Kee (WGF) knows the value of quality and what that means for retention. He is a brilliant engineer and can be a perfectionist when his attention is fully on a project. Should my next release not rise to the same level, there will be comparisons and expectations will be met or not. I will never knowingly produce crap but not every manufacturer is able to meet that standard to the same level.

Price:

I have always priced with an eye to value for money spent. I tried to keep the kits slightly below some of the 'big boys' so that my customers could view them as a quality alternative that may be slightly more reasonable. This is also a trap. Slaving your price structure to a larger more capable manufacturer means that you may be running at a loss if all things do not go as planned. The pull back from distribution and rising costs to ship outside the US have made it impossible to look at new releases with the same pricing structure, certainly not while staying within distribution.

Kit contents:

When we started this path together, WGF was manufacturing, shipping in full container load to their warehouse and pushing those product up the supply chain that had been in existence for some time. The discount they received by shipping full container loads is substantial, the cost to manufacture, insignificant by comparisons to what a customer needs to pay. Having these large multi sprue kits was not a real concern aside from their volume in the container. When I took over distribution, it became very clear that the kit contents (sheer size) and number of shots per kit would indeed be an issue and A TRAP!  How do you pull back from that or cut a new course once expectations have been set?

Means of production:

As I stated very early in all this, plastic is king, but now that you see the monetary requirements, the delays in time to market, the lost revenue associated with these delays…. Where do you go with all of that? How as a manufacture can you justify any move towards plastic? And if the expectation is that all my releases are to be plastic, well….. IT"S A TRAP!

I will lay out a single example here to help clarify the financial issues with plastic kits. You ready for this? Where ell's will a manufacturer open his books with a real-world example of pricing? (queue cheesy used car salesman commercial music)

One of my best-selling kits, the 20-man Stormtrooper set.

20-man stormtrooper set, cost to manufacture $5.00, not bad, not great but folks in China got to eat too.

Cost to deliver $3.00 (shipping and initial warehousing, would be substantially less if I could fill containers, but the sales volume does not allow for that)

Total cost of kit delivered $8.00

Retail $44.00

Buy at $8.00 sell at $44.00?! Where do I sign up, right? Hang on folks, it's a bumpy ride.

What does it take to run a miniature line and keep the doors open? It's simple really, you need to have a 4-5 X mark-up from the manufacturing costs MINIMUM (kit delivered to warehouse) returning to you on most sales. It may seem crazy high to require 4-5X the cost but when you break it down it becomes clear. Now granted this is simplistic but a good estimate. If you can get it 6X cost delivered is much better, as it allows for some breathing room that may be desperately needed.

1X For cost to re order the kit you just sold

1-1.5X For the associated overhead (Warehousing, utilities Labor) Assuming that you turn the product over every 2-3 months, if it goes longer, it will eat further into the profit margin.

1X Tax…. No way around the tax man.

1X Back into business to fund that next sweet release.

.5-1X Personal profit, a man must eat after all….

$8.00 X 5 =$40.00 all is good! Well, sort of… If I sell direct only, at full MSRP, then I have met my margin. If I sell into distribution, I net $16.00-$17.60 per kit, which works ONLY if your turnover is very fast and you are able to restock with a container load of product.

I tend(ed) to sell 60/40 split 40% direct (at less than retail many times) and 60% into distribution with a 6 to 12-month turnover (sell through last shipment) depending on the SKU.

What does all this mean? It means that there is simply no way to sell into distribution without jacking the kit price so high that it would cripple sales. Retail for a 20-man set would need to be $80-$85 for this kit to make sense from a business perspective. If all of you are confident that and $85 retail is reasonable, and you would snatch them up…. Please say so, but I think I know the answer to that question already.

So, Wholesale is clearly not an option based on the financial realities, but wholesale is consistent. They move product every month like clockwork down to the retailers, they pay the operating expenses by being reliable in a way that my customers cannot be, through no fault of their own. Wholesalers are pushing out to multiple retailers and pushing to a much larger and willing base.

All of the expectations listed above have been on my mind from the first day I took over, reflecting, trying various things, contemplating every month on the direction of the company and how or IF it should move forward. Seriously, I LOVE this stuff, but every month I examine if there is a future or not.

All doom and gloom, right? May as well just call it a day? 

Nope, not yet. There are several paths forward, but they are untested, and the results may or may not net the desired result. I have started the process by removing myself from distribution and reopening a dialog with my customers. I will lay out a few options as I see them and see if any of you have input that might assist in steering the boat. Not to worry, this is not 'on you' DFG will move forward in perhaps some rather unconventional ways that may break some of the 'expectations' but I am more than happy to plot the course and see where it leads.

NEXT UP WHERE TO GO

I will be going over what I have planned so far and possible ways to deal with production and releases.