"Wargames Factory made in China?" Topic

Hello all

I attended the wargames show in Derby (UK) this weekend and thought I would check out the new WF ancient Germans to see if the quality was as improved in the 'flesh' as it appears on the website.

On close inspection of the packaging I noticed the text "product of New England, contents manufactured in China" also no mention of being made of recycled plastic. Both differing from the older products. I have tried looking around online for any clarification but so far have found no additional information.

I was under the impression the product was made in the USA, if anyone could clarify this for me it would be greatly appreciated. I only wish I had had the foresight to buy them so that I could post a photo, so if anyone has packaging they can photograph and post it would help a great deal to sort out my confusion!

Thanks in advance.

Pretty sure one of the big things with WF is that the figures are manufactured in the USA and packaged by a local company that provides employment for the handicapped.

Does it matter?

Hi varglives – welcome to TMP!

We talked a little bit about our process recently on our website – you can check it out here:
link

You'll probably all remember that our first releases met with a lot of delays in 2008. We started down a path of doing the mold design and tooling in the US with a goal to bring everything in-house. We even had a partnership set up to do it – but, when we went down the path to do the all-digital process for injection mold tooling, we didn't realize we were the first company in the world to really do it this way and that there was no one here that we could find who could handle the level of complexity and detail of 28mm figures.

So we literally scoured the planet to find someone we could work with to develop this process – and over the course of a year of R&D we've perfected it with our partners in China.

So now our workflow looks like this:

1. Figure design and digital sculpting – USA
2. Mold design and tooling – China
3. Package design and printing – USA
4. Package assembly and packing – USA – this part we do with Triangle, Inc. which is a wonderful non-profit whose employees are all people with disabilities. You can check out their website here (we actually are located in the Triangle building): triangle-inc.org

I'd love to bring the tooling in-house at some point, but for now we've developed an incredible partnership that is delivering some excellent work. It was a long, hard road for both of us to figure out this process – but with the Germans and the Vikings you can really see how far we've come!

Thanks again everyone,

Tony

Tony Reidy
Wargames Factory
wargamesfactory.com

Forgot one point – ironically, our partners in China are Canadian owned! Go Maple Leafs!

Agree with Cerdic. Privateer, Wizkids, Games Workshop, and a bunch of others all do manufacturing in China. Everything is made in China these days. Who cares?

I've seen the Ancient Germans so they must be doing something right!

Good on WF for attempting to bring manufacturing to the US again, but especially good on them for the support of Triangle. That's really well done on their part.

Cheers,
Bill

Is it really practical to have your weapons made in a country with which we have a potentially adversarial relationship?
The Chinese could suddenly withhold our gladii, assegais and Martini Henrys!
Please consider the strategic implications of this.

That's why we've made them so small.

;-)

Actually the bigger threat is that the figures start popping up on e-Bay at incredible discounts. Pro-sports apparel manufacturers are learning all about this particular pitfall of Chinese production right now. I know at least three people locally selling authentic top-of-the line NFL and NHL jerseys for @$50 US complete with hologrammed tags. All come from the factory in China. It seems they just run off a couple of hundred more than ordered and ebay them.

One wouldn't think the toy soldier market would be big enough to be worth it, but if I had a stake in WF I know I would be keeping my eye on e-Bay.

thanks guys, Like Percy said I just thought that it was a big thing that they were made in the USA, and @ Cedric, I don't care either really I just remember the pictures on the WF news of the staff stood next to the tooling machine I assumed from….

"Wargames Factory will be co-located at 420 Pearl Street in Malden, MA within the Triangle facility. All of our equipment and employees will work from this location (besides a few remote people we work with from around the world)" From WF news Inside Wargames Factory!
05-Mar-2008

….that the tooling machines were there? So from that link I assume the new plastic isn't recycled? It's no real worry for me, just a little misleading maybe? I'm well aware how many other manufacturers work with China afterall.

On a different note well done on the newest figures they are a real improvement on the older sets and bravo for the work with Triangle.

What I'm worried about is far down the road if we start making figures for the Korean war…

Chinese – So sorry, we seem to have misplaced the mold for the UN troops. On the bright side we've produced 3,000,000 sprues of Chinese and Koreans…

A Twiningham – This is definitely a concern for anyone manufacturing overseas – in our case the relationship is not a vendor-customer one, but a partnership – so I'm not worried about that sort of thing in the slightest.

On the other hand, care to buy a brand new Rulex?

Plastic is still recycled – no worries on that score. And the recycling program continues to keep those used sprues out of landfills!

Including all the sprues we get from Games Workshop, Victrix, Warlord, Perry, and the various model kits. It's always interesting to open up a box that's sent in to see what's in there!

Speaking of Old Soldiers- we owe an announcement on winners from August and September – which we'll get out this week!

Thanks all,
Tony

Tony Reidy
Wargames Factory
wargamesfactory.com

"Agree with Cerdic. Privateer, Wizkids, Games Workshop, and a bunch of others all do manufacturing in China. Everything is made in China these days. Who cares?"

Perhaps the question about being made in China was a concern about the (relatively poor) labour and environmental standards common in Chinese manufacturing?

Dear Bob,

My job is purchasing / procurement. I work with factories all round the world. I am also responsible for implementation of Fair Wear Foundation code of contact in our suppliers.

I suspect a high tech moulding factory would have no issues with social compliance. Bigger companies in China tend to be very good in all aspects of social compliance. The exception in China is too much overtime in peak months. This is a cultural issue as many workers are migrants and want to do the overtime.

Mick

Hi Bob – I lived and taught English in China for a year so I have a sense of what it's like there. I also visited this summer.

The folks that are working on our stuff are all engineers (with the exception of the guy who runs the molding machine – which is basically a babysitting job). There's very little hands-on work with our tooling – i.e. much, much less than say at GW's facility in the UK – because of what we've achieved with the all-digital process. It's mostly programming done by extremely well-paid (in China) engineers.

Fair enough. I was just trying to surface the intent of the question as it didn't seem clear. Glad to know your partners do right by their employees!

Bob in Edmonton, I am on your side.

Russian Bear: Glad you are on my side… whatever side that is!

Pretty worrying for industry in the USA if it is true that no domestic manufacturer "could handle the level of complexity and detail of 28mm figures."

It's not just the level of complexity and detail – although you have to take into account just how tiny and detailed those parts are – it's that we developed a completely new way to do the tooling with an all-digital process that goes from digital sculpture to CAD mold design to computer-aided toolpath engineering whereas (from what we can determine) everyone else has cobbled together some use of the digital side but then coupled it with old-fashioned (albeit tried-and-true) hands-on tooling.

We were lucky to forge a partnership with a company that was willing to work with us to push the boundaries on what could be done.

But have no doubt that even using the pantography method – these types of parts are extremely sophisticated to mold. To balance a tool so that the plastic flows into all sections evenly, to account for the crazy geometries of organic parts, this is not easy stuff for the injection molding world.

Even though they're "just" toy soldiers.

It's pretty standard for tools to be designed and built in China, even leaving the advanced sculpting stuff out. That's often the most expensive part of the injection molding process, and there's a significant savings in having the molds made overseas. Many U.S. injection molders will have the finished tools shipped to molding facilities here in America for the actual manufacturing.

I lived and taught English in China for a year so I have a sense of what it's like there.

Cool! So did I. May I ask which city you were in and which year it was?

From WF news

"All of our development and manufacturing is done here in the United States. We use 100% recycled plastics…"

"We are outsourcing the first few sets of figures, but a little later this spring we'll be bringing this machine in house so that we have more control over the process."

I think the concept is admirable but I don't know if I buy it? It is my understanding that "type 6" plastics- high impact polystyrene type resins can only be recycled through the following means, breaking the scrap material into beads through a granulator and then mixing the material with new beads before molding? Also why drop the notice about recycled plastic from the packaging unless the the new plastic you saud you were using is just that, NEW plastic? I cant imagine if they really are 100% recycled that the carbon footprint is even remotely balanced compared to the emissions from shipping half way around the world.

Also it was never publicised that you moved or when you moved production to China, were the figures EVER made in the USA?

It's not that I have a problem with using new plastic or manufacturing abroad, I mean you can save a LOT of money that way. I just think companies should be straight with their patrons and not make claims they cannot live up to, considering the amound of early publicity concerning this "American" made product.

which reminds me I assume the injection molding is done in China? Or did you as suggested by jeffrsonk have the finished tools shipped to molding facilities in America for the actual manufacturing? that part seems to be missing from the summary of your workflow above. The packaging said if I recall correctly "manufactured in China".
Straight answers please.

Hi Skeptic – I lived in Qufu in Shandong Province in '94-95 and taught at Qufu U. It was a great year and I loved it. Traveled to Beijing, Jinan, Qingdao, up to Inner Mongolia, and then down to Hainan.

Where were you?

Straight answers please.

Oh, get off the Hamilton Burger/Perrry Mason "May I remind you sir, that you are under oath!" schtick.
He has been as honest as he could. He had plans, and had to change them. Get off your high and mighty high horse.

Hi varglives – you're quoting a post on our website from March of 2008 -here's the link:
link

That was before we realized the path we were on wasn't going to work and had to find a new solution which thankfully we did.

Re: recycled plastic – we use HIPS (high impact polystyrene) which is the same stuff used by GW, Renedra, etc. There are different "generations" and over time it begins to break down. So you have to make sure you don't regrind too often – or make sure you have a good ratio of 1st generation regrind to later – or exclusively 1st generation. But even 1st generation is still 100% recycled. Heck, if you throw in 25% 2nd generation we could say it was (not sure of the math) 125% recycled? ;-)

You seem very passionate about our figures – and I wanted to thank you for noticing the huge improvements we've made over the last year! If you'd like to have a more in-depth conversation about recycling, Green business, etc. shoot me an email at tony AT wargamesfactory.com whenever you like!

Nicely handled.

And interesting info on your production challenges too btw. Thanks.

I must admit that I have shruged my soldiers at what does it matter.

Does the owners know the division of their operations and what is obtained or made where?

Do you think all American and UK manufacturers of metal castings get some or even all of their raw material. It is not in the USA or UK.

So why should their be a beef. By the way I am not a sock puppet and have most of my store stock in metal and not plastic.

While it would have been nice to keep the process in New England, it's all about comparative advantage.
Kudos to Tony for the brass to tackle every comment head on.

….but, when we went down the path to do the all-digital process for injection mold tooling, we didn't realize we were the first company in the world to really do it this way

I could care less where the miniatures are made. I like the WF stuff and hope they continue kicking out as much as they can. Everything today seems to be made somewhere else. If you have an objection to China, stop using 70% of the stuff in your house, car, you name it.

But the process is not new. SolidWorks, AutoDesk Inventor, etc. have had computer aided design and testing and simulation for mold construction and final product simulation for a long time now. I don't know of a company that utilizes injection molding tech that doesn't do this. Or at least, my company has done this for at least four years and we're certainly not on the cutting edge. In fact, we're about five to ten years behind when it comes to what I would think of as "cutting edge." Not harping on WF, just saying it's not a new process.

Tony- You are not market leaders in Digital mould design.
Games Workshop have been scuplting digitaly for over 6 years now. All of their tooling is also cut with via CAD and has been for a simular amount of time.
They have 7-8 sculptors working full time using the same program as you, all with a decade or more experience.
Also, Renedra cut the tools by hand and the figures that they work with are all made by hand. No one 'cobbles' things together as you suggest.

Your not the first company in the world to do this… Please dont make claims that cant be backed up.

Well neither of my questions are really answered so I will assume they were always manufactured in China even before it said so on the packaging and it's just strange that the the recycled message is no longer on the pack.

I don't feel I am being "high and mighty" it's just that I asked a simple question and never recieved a "straight answer". It all just sounds a little smoke and mirrors to me.

Hi Thracian – I don't think I claimed to be a market leader in anything – just that we're (as far as we know) the first to do this this way. GW uses FreeForm for some sculpting and Delcam for some mold cutting – and that was why we standardized on it. Our mistake was in thinking that GW was completely digital. They're not. They use a combination of digital mold design and the old fashioned type. In some cases, they are using pantography still.

In developing our business plan, I thought the way we planned to do tooling was "old hat" but we found out it wasn't in the slightest.

To Augustus' comment about digital mold design – we've taken it (with our partners) to a very different place because of the complexity involved in the parts. It was a bit of a nightmare actually.

No, GW are digital for mold cutting. 3 ups are scanned into a digital format which are cut into steel using cad.
Figures designed using freeform are all cut by machine.
If you visit the UK, attend a Gamesday, or better the Studio open day… I think you will find it quite and eye opener.

Well neither of my questions are really answered

Which questions were these? From my reading of the post Tony has done a great job of addressing your questions.

Is WG using recycled plastics? Yes

Are the minis a 100% US process? No

What questions did Tony miss?

Thracian – yes, that's what threw me off too. I thought they were doing it ALL this way. The entire tool and not just some cavities. That's where we've taken it to a new place. Also, when the Vikings come out you can take a look at the moldlines and the match between mold halves. For those who know about this stuff – and I won't claim to be an expert in any sense – its' a quite different process and result now.

It took a lot of work to get it to this point as our first efforts weren't there, but we're really happy with what we can achieve now and are going to keep pushing it forward.

Does it really matter where or how the figures are made so long as they are a reasonable price and quality. I've not noticed anybody commenting on the origin of other manufacturers figures before.

Mongoose's Battlefield Evolution figures gave a non-naval meaning to the term Chinese Junk.

@ Captain Apathy, well I was refering to 2 other questions.

@Fifty4
1. When was production moved to China?
2. Were they ever made in in the US?

Maybe also…

3. Why do the new packs not state made from recycled packaging?

And you never said weather they were even currently cast in China let alone when. The workflow explaination skips from:
2. Mold design and tooling – China
to
3. Package design and printing – USA.
with no mention of the actual casting.

I'm just sure it was ALWAYS previously stated made in the USA? Tell me if I'm wrong or at least answer the questions Tony.

I just wanted to make a simple query it's like speaking to a polititian.

varglives, I have a question for you too. What's the point behind harping on Made in China vs. Made in the USA especially given that you're in the UK? Are you an expat?

You seem to be really, really, really concerned about WF's business practices?

I wouldn't have been "harping on" for more than 5mins if the simple question I asked had ever been directly answered, every post throws up questions I had never thought of before.

Other than having a few family members in the US and having visited a couple of times I have no connection to your country.

I'm not really bothered before about WF's business practices but reading posts with vauge explainations and little real info gets quite frustrating! They just beg further questions. I just don't buy the cleverly spun lines.

Ironicaly what started as me trying to casually trying to sort out a little confusion has ended up making me more confused than ever!

<bangs head on table>

Fifty4, I for one appreciate your answers and openness.

varglives, I hope you eventually achieve satisfaction.

This topic has been both informative and entertaining. Can't ask for more than that.

Well I think someone isn't listening anymore so I may or may not…….

Glad to be of service.

Methinks varglives protestes too much.

Who in their right mind would spend so much time "harping" on this if they didn't have a dog in the race.

Take a look at varglives posts. He's had 22 posts since he joined last month – and the majority are on this thread.

Sounds like a super troll sock puppet to me.

Hi Skeptic – I lived in Qufu in Shandong Province in '94-95 and taught at Qufu U. It was a great year and I loved it. Traveled to Beijing, Jinan, Qingdao, up to Inner Mongolia, and then down to Hainan.

Where were you?

Hi, I was in Chongqing and taught at CQU, in '93-'94. I travelled to Chengdu, Yibin, Xian, Lanzhou, Urumqi, Guangzhou, Yueyang, and Beijing

Not a sock puppet, not intentionaly trolling, sorry to cause any offence.

Dear Varglives:

Howard from Wargames Factory here. I had been relying on Tony's policy of giving accurate-sounding, detailed information to fend off your questioning, but, alas, your relentless demands have defeated us.

Your cunning technique of interrogation, in which you ask the same questions over and over, ignoring all answers has finally broken down our defences.

You remember that James Bond film where the North Korean villain is disguised as a smooth Nordic type? That's not the half of it. "Tony Reidy" is a Chinese android, set in place by the Red Army to lure more and more American dollars (often in amounts of $9.99 USD on sale items) to fund nefarious schemes to undermine the decadent west.

All the figures were designed by fanatical, sword-wielding assassins on their evenings and weekends off. All production is done by political prisoners (mostly Tibetan monks and tiny girl-children) using their melted down teeth and fingernails as the so-called 'hard plastic'.

The Triangle Facility is merely a front, and all the handicapped workers are actors hired to impersonate disabled Americans. The plastic sprues sent in to Wargames Factory are burned outside day-care facilities to increase the carcinogen level of the environment.

I had been keeping this back, but your methods of relentless repetition and clever use of the old 'but I'm confused' ploy has broken down the subterfuge.

Just don't ask where we buried Jimmy Hoffa.