PBI Russian force on eBay (ends 20/1/19)

[madaxeman]

With my 4 Bisley 15 drawer filing cabinet figure storage solution rapidly approaching "full" status, rather than test the floorboards (and my domestic harmony) with a 5th cabinet it's become time to have a bit of a new year clearout.

The end result is that onto eBay rumbles a 15mm WW2 Russian PBI army (well, probably more like a company with armour support) as well as some excess 15mm German armour.





The Russian figures - and there are nearly 200 of them - are mostly original Battlefront metal Russians - well fed little chaps with those cute big round heads. Originally collected and based for Peter Pig's PBI ruleset so there's also a host of casualty markers included as well as lots of AT and other support - even some bomb dogs !



The accompanying armoured support is eclectic and numerous - T34's, KV1's as well as some more exotic bits of machinery as well. The tanks are mostly (but not all) Rocco plastic ones in 1/87th scale. That makes them a smidge larger than normal 1/100th 15mm vehicles, which I feel fits better with the slightly oversized 15mm infantry that Battlefront make. They are also better proportioned than many of Battlefront's supposedly 15mm-scale AFV's, which seem to be stretched vertically to scale with their infantry too.

And then, in a separate listing, some extra bits of German armour. Two Forged in Battle Tiger 1's, and a couple of (I think) Skytrex metal PzIV's both is late war cammo schemes



Both lots are on eBay now (see link below) and will end next Sunday evening (20th) around 7pm. A %age of all sale fees go to SSAFA, the armed forces charity.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/the_lithuanian/m.html

[Stewart 46A]

Look great

[martin goddard]

They seem far too cheap Tim!!

[Colonel Kilgore]

They seem far too cheap Tim!!

But then again they're not PP figures 

[madaxeman]

They seem far too cheap Tim!!

At the moment I tend to agree... I think the technical term is "priced for sale" 

Seriously though, it will be interesting to see where they end up - a lot of my competition-going mates who used to play FOW have all been scathing about the new v4 and have largely stopped playing, however local shops still seem to be carrying lots of their (sub par compared to PP of course...) product, so its hard to see if this edition has just shed the competition gamers or has hit the wider WW2 market as well.  Any thoughts from Piggy Towers? 

I of course have never deviated from the one true religion of PBI for my 15mm WW2 gaming, and do still have British, Germans, Americans and Belgians for PBI, so I'm hardly missing out by freeing up storage space by letting these guys go.   

[martin goddard]

I feel re-assured Tim!

[madaxeman]

Up to £51 now... starting to creep towards "almost-acceptable-price" territory (if I squint...)

[martin goddard]

Good news.  I had not appreciated how it worked close up. I see that you have to wait till the end. Otherwise £6 would be very cheap.... Net there will be this new stuff called elastictrickery everywhere.


Do tell us the final price unless it is a secret Tim.

[madaxeman]

£87.

Less than the cost of lead, but about the same more than the cost of plastic figures I think - but for something I've not used in maybe a decade (https://www.madaxeman.com/reports/PBI_2009.php) I'm not too upset. .

[Colonel Kilgore]

Sorry that it didn't make more, but an interesting proof point with respect to Sean's post today on making money in this industry:

https://rulesforcommonman.uk/smf/index.php?topic=1640.msg13720;topicseen#msg13720

That was a lovely table and great game report on your blog though, Madaxeman: I'm sure you have an article of two for The 15 Mill in you with material like that!

[madaxeman]

Interesting stuff indeed - however I'm not sure I;d extrapolate the state of teh industry from one ebay auction... 

The price is probably more a reflection of my painting skills, a slightly unusual mix of vehicles in the bundle, the relatively unique PBI basing standard and (most importantly) what is almost certainly an over-saturated 15mm WW2 2nd hand market right now, with a flood of "I don't like FOW v4" stuff coming onto the market all at once and depressing prices as a result.

(10 years ago I funded a holiday in the states by speed-painting 15mm WW2 stuff and selling it on eBay, as the demand was huge at the time)

[martin goddard]

Thanks for letting us know.
That money is still useful Tim.
I will watch out for more.

[Leman (Andy)]

Now that's something I really don't get about some gamers, be it FOW, Warhammer or whatever. A new version of the rules comes out that they don't like so they ditch their armies. Why don't they just continue to play the old version, if it is perceived to be better, and let the new version simply wither on the vine. This is partly what happened to Blitz Krieg Commander III, which was met by massive disappointment and people just went back to BKC II

[SimonC]

It depends on where / what you play. For casual club games there isn't a problem, but for a lot it's the competition scene. So there are 2 factors - no support for the game by the publisher and being able to 'get a game'

[madaxeman]

Indeed. I've never played it myself, but FoW did have a very intense competition scene, to the point at which (as an  outsider) I could imagine Battlefront thinking that they had "lost control" of the development of the game to a core of highly active competition players who were driving a lot of what went on. 

BFs answer appeared to be to crash the bus (I guess copying GW with their Sigmar reboot of the fantasy game) to shed all of the old players and redesign the game away from competitions - the timing seemed to coincide with a natural point in time when the competition circuit kinda ran out of steam with (re) playing the same armies and opponents under v3 of the rules, so they couldn't really go back but also didn't want go forward as the game design had evolved in a way they didn't like, possibly with the specific intention of not taking them forward with it..... !