begins to think about terrain for Team Yankee.
When I launched Black Hat Miniatures back in November 2004, Ian Marsh of Fighting 15s was kind enough to offer to sell the Martian Empires range of just 11 packs through his online shop. This enabled Black Hat to gain a retail presence without much investment in time and effort on my behalf.
Eighteen months on from that initial launch, the Martian Empires range now contains over 50 packs (and is still expanding), and we have our second range of Napoleon in Egypt figures out and growing.
It was always the intention that Black Hat would sell directly eventually, and now that the ranges are large enough to stand on their own, that is what I am going to do.
From April 24th (after the Salute convention), Black Hat Miniatures ranges will be available directly from the Black Hat website with options for payment by cheque or credit card through PayPal.
Our ranges will still be available in North America through Scale Creep Miniatures, and that arrangement will not change.
All orders up to Salute (including pre-orders for collection at Salute) should be made through Fighting 15s.
From April 24th, Fighting 15s will no longer sell Black Hat Miniatures, but Ian and I will continue to attend shows together and run a joint operation with the Fighting 15s stand. We will also still be working on Oozlum Games, our joint publishing arm, which will be producing the Martian Empires set of rules as a full-colour rulebook later this year.
Ian has provided an exemplary service over the last 18 months, as I'm sure that anyone who has ordered from Fighting 15s will agree. Black Hat Miniatures is still a part-time business for me, so I won't be able to quite match Ian's superhuman speed of response, but hope to offer good customer service and fast delivery times.
There are a lot of plans for both of Black Hat's two ranges over the next year, with new releases and some changes once the Martian Empires rulebook is released.