"Open Letter from Tony Reidy of Wargames Factory" Topic

It really needs more explanation of the background to make sense. Very difficult to follow what's actually happened there.

Just the facts please.

Blimey.

WOW…………………WOW!!!!!!

I for one hope to get a factual account someday.

Holy crap! So I guess those orcs & amazons might not be coming out.

What's going on?

Tony;
Most of your letter is very profesional, however, you should not have involved vulgarity or sunk to the depths of negative name bashing in the first part of the letter. I understand that you are deeply upset, however, the Asian people do not approve of this in-public display as they feel shamed and dishonoured. I spoke with Howard the other day, and although he did not provide any details, I greatly feel bad for you and your vision as well as the many people you employ who might not have the opportunity to work. I know that my son who is starting his own army of WF Romans and Numidians is very distraught over this situation as are many who have supported your venture. Your vision and caring is greatly appreciated by many in the gaming community, and I beleive many hope that this situation can be resolved quickly, efficiently and in a professional manner. Hopefully the financial backer in Asia can see fit to reinstate you and your vision to turn things around at WF and that he has the insight and intuition to set things right.

Good luck!!

Having been in the gaming business over 30 years.
I has Heard of Tony…I trust him.
I have known Howard since the early 1980s…so I trust him.
never heard of a Lonnie… so I would not trust him.

It seems that the Chinese have shifted from operating from a position of faith and honor to one more capitalist in nature. Always look at the bottom in reafrds to now and not long term. I am surprised and dismayed by that.

If product is requested and you do not provide it, then sales are not going to happen. So in essence the Chinese manager is causing the poor bottom line and not the USA sales side.

Very poor actions on the part of the Chinese businessman. A total loss of FACE. Mr Chinese boss your bow should be very low in an apology.

Interesting.

The first of the plastics go under. Who's next?

Saturday night at the laundromat?

I see the site forums over there are bubbling too.

This is all very confusing, but I've always felt that Tony comes across as a very affable guy, and he has been very badly treated. I know all publicity is supposedly good publicity, but this does stink more than a little. It would be a shame for Wargames Factory to go under like this.

People airing their dirty laundry in public again?

Wow… Drama! Send a gunboat!

Can we nominate these guys for the HMGS Board of Directors?

Most of your letter is very profesional

Hardly.

Interesting.

If he is so passionate about the company, why did he sell off almost all of his interest in it?

Anyone who knows what they're doing in business knows that if you really care about something, you do not withdraw the weight of your influence from it; once withdrawn, you never get it back.

Not knowing more of the story, this is bizarre. And foolish.

On another level – I was, just last week, admiring a quote I happened to hear on, of all things, an episode of "Lost":

"Good command decisions are often undermined by poor emotional responses."

Sure looks as though that applies here.

I am rooting for the company. But when the brains/heart/soul of the company makes a conscious decision to go from a 40% to 4% ownership, you know there is a LOT wrong with the company, about which we have no clue.

Oh, and I also agree with the posters who say this letter is *NOT* professional; it is not professional at all.

I am shaking my head as I re-read it; partly because, as we have all seen so many times in the past, both in the gaming industry and outside it, once things devolve to this kind of finger-pointing and recriminations (even if justified), the ship is already sunk.

Finance – cash is king. That is why people dilute

Don't know enough about this to really know what's going on – and I wonder why TMP is deemed to be the best way of raising this business issue.

OK Marc, you may be right to some extent, but when you sell out, you lose the right to complain like this.

20thmaine – I was just thinking that same thing. What was he hoping to accomplish with an open letter like this?

Shame someone? Blame someone? Make excuses?

This is not the forum for that.

Sad, all the way around.

oh my god. wow.

Good luck Tony!

I am with Tony. HE IS Wargames Factory to the community.
No Tony Reidy, no business for WF.
Get him back in charge and be wise and have patience.
And get rid of this Lonnie character.
If not, WF will sink faster than Titanic.

Cheers

S.P.

Surprising? Mmmm, not so much.

More than likely the reduction in ownership was to afford tooling of new molds…there is a rather large list of mini kits that were planned. As for the professionalism of the letter ..I'd say those were on mark for somebody who cares about the customers, the hobby, and is currently seeing their dream crushed.

Senseless on so many levels. An open letter is not the way to solve a business issue and this one simply reads as a whiney attack on a former colleague. Very unprofessional. Secondly if Tony does have the right to buy back the company then what is the point of the rant? Just buy back control and run it as he wants. Unless of course previous broken promises have left him with no credit with his sole supplier? Logistical and stock issues are always going to be a part of the price paid in exchange for dirt-cheap Chinese manufacturing. Whose decision was that Tony?

Any "investor backed" business is bound to get bounced upon sooner or later – its just the distribution of power vs. knowledge that makes this so.

41% is ultimately not better then 0%, when the decisions are made by the majority share, so I can fully imagine a situation where it makes sense to reduce the shares (eg. to get fresh money…)

This letter gives a small insight into what was behind the smoke of WF, with orders not getting out and mails not getting responded. It MIGHT just come out good, but seriously the air seems pretty polluted if not poisoned. This business will not run on trust between the participants again. For me the companies face was Tony, and if it changes I want their stuff in stock with my retailer before I send any more money in their direction.

For those of us who still need some fillers for their armies, its time to plunder the stock retailers have – so there is still the chance left that this is all but a major marketing action….

I am saddened that Wf is gone, as they produced an excellent product. I will not comment on this letter as i do not know the details, though from what i read, there is a lot we do are not privy too.

Perhaps this is a lesson for those contemplating their own miniature business. Other than that i cannot care what dirty laundry he decides to air.

Instead, you've shut us out of decision making – you've cut us off from the funds and given us zero ability to service the customer since October.

If you've had zero ability to ship orders since October, then why is the web-store still open?

The wargames community completely supports a company like ours. But they will not support a company that doesn't respond to their emails and causes ongoing delays.

Ongoing delays aside, I thought the lack of email responses was due to server issues. I am still waiting for my 12/11 order and was told it should be shipped by the end of last week. Not trying to be difficult, but having an UK store send me neither the product nor a refund, I'm finding this situation irksome ATM.

I agree with adster and respectfully (and, I hope, politely!) disagree with Cadian 7th.

If the customer is the real audience for this latter, there is only one appropriate message… something along the lines of,

"We are extremely sorry if you, the customer, have had any problems with us, and I am doing everything I can on every level to make things right!"

Everything else is details which professionals know not to handle in front of the customer, nor to involve the customer in petty agendas.

It's not as though we (the nominal customers) get to have a direct say in how the "brains" behind the operation unravel the fiascos of their own making. We vote with our wallets, and we do not in any way do that based on the type of nuclear exchange in this open letter.

Each time I re-read, I notice something new to worry about. If Tony knew in his gut Lonnie was the wrong guy for the job, and made the fatal decision anyway, why should the company be put back in the hands of the guy who admits he made these awful decisions?

(No slam on Tony, of whom I know nothing as a person; he is welcome to come over for steaks, beer, gaming, and biztalk if he likes. I am merely commenting from my perspective as a business guy.)

Keelhauled – you say "I will not comment on this letter as i do not know the details…"

Posting an open letter like this automatically gives everyone the right to think and say anything they wish about it. Period.

Tony,

If theres not much to lose then start something else, your fans will follow.

For those of you reading, I do not know Tony that well but the conversation we have shared has been enlightening and positive. He's even willing to help out when asked and has followed through.

Mike

There is a reason why I like Old Glory.

A week ago, I'd have started this with "Howard from WF here."

A week ago I was fielding many, many queries from customers who wanted to know where their orders were. The fact of the matter was that the orders were all packed and ready to go. Tony was able to scrape together some cash to ship the goods, but then the whole account was frozen by the representative of the Chinese partner.

I got a call saying that I didn't have a job anymore. Since I hadn't been paid in a month, this wasn't great news.

The whole story hasn't come out, and – per Tony's request – I have made no public announcements to this time. But the story is that, yes, we've been betrayed by someone we trusted to run our sales operation. Lonnie Mullins has sabotaged Wargames Factory by bad-mouthing Tony and the rest of us to Wai Kee and his representative, George Sivy. Tony hired Lonnie (an ex-GW salesman) when he got laid off from selling plastic cups, but apparently decided to go behind Tony's back to ally with the Chinese (and pass on ‘venting' emails where Tony complained about delays and unreliability in getting stock in).

It's fair to say that the Chinese partner's history of sending stock on time and in the correct amounts has been very poor indeed. The Shock Troops release this summer was supposed to arrive in June, but came in – if I recall correctly – August. Likewise the WSS figures expected in early November arrived in mid December.

We'd put this down to bad luck or perhaps incompetence rather than actual malice. At this point, I can't say which for certain.

Based on this open letter, it's evident that Tony is extremely angry today. I'm not sure what new incident has caused this. As I said, we'd been deliberately keeping a very low profile on this matter.

I guess that's not true anymore. So I will say that I feel betrayed and angry, not merely for myself and the efforts I have put in, but for Tony, for Tim Barry and John Morse. In particular, Tony has struggled long and hard to get Wargames Factory started and to overcome a raft of problems, many of which are directly due to our Chinese partner.

I have no words to describe Mr. Mullins that are fit for publication.

tony,
I agree with RelliK. Cut your losses, get out from under what's left of the company, start a new one, hire the good guys away, and destroy WF in the marketplace.

A sad state of affairs. Best of luck to Tony and the former team.

Edit- Didn't see Howard's post. Howard, hope to see you at Cold Wars.

It does not look like the relation to the supplier can be mended anyway – Tony should really look hard if he wants to take full ownership of a company without a (reliant) supplier.

Without supplying background information all I gather from this is a rant. If you want to say something give all of us the details behind it and then proceed to make your point.

Hi. This is John Morse. I was Business Manager at WF until last week.

To those who feel that Tony was not professional in publishing this letter, let me say I understand your feeling. Clearly, it is a passionate letter. However, I'll ask you to consider a couple of things.

1. In my view, Tony has every reason to feel betrayed by Lonnie Mullins. I agree with Tony.

2. Lonnie has insulted Tony by assailing his competence in emails sent to retailers and distributors over the last week. Lonnie has accused Tony of 'acting on whims' and never listening to anybody. That is not true and Lonnie should know it. In my view, Lonnie has been incredibly unprofessional, on top of having betrayed his benefactor and boss in the first place.

3. Before publishing this letter, Tony did try to deal with Lonnie's behavior quietly and behind the scenes.

Wargames Factory was Tony's creation and his passion. If he comes off as angry in his letter I will ask everyone to consider that he has every reason to be. I stand by him, and I stand by his assessment of Lonnie Mullins.

For those who think Tony must have made bad business decisions in order to be in this position, let me say that there is more to this story but I will refrain, at least for now, from commenting further.

Tony Reidy is one of the smartest, hardest working and most creative business people I have ever met. He is also one of the nicest people I've ever met. I'm 50 years old. I've worked in business and government, from start ups to the Fortune 500. I've been very lucky to have had such opportunities and I've worked with some very smart, creative and good people. Ethical and effective people. Tony is the best of them.

There is a reason why I like Old Glory.

40% discount for OGA members? Huge stock range? Generally speedy shipping? Patriotic name? :)

I'm not even sure what is going on and all I can say is…"wow"…

This seems to me that publicly doing a letter like this is a bad idea all around. Though I am not sure of the full issues nor do I want to be I think it is in some poor taste to post something like this to the wargamming community. Just my two cents but seems rather unprofessional.

I guess that explains why none of my local stores has new WF product, and I had to go online to get more zombies. I support Tony's original vision of a customer-driven company, and hope that issues can be resolved.

Tony is normally the model of cool, so I think something's happened that I don't know about.

He's also been to a family funeral today, so possibly emotions are high.

To echo John Morse, he really is a terrific person to work with and for. In an industry where there is a surprising amount of unethical behaviour (usually over tiny amounts of money) Tony stands as one of the upright citizens.

ah… it was getting slow lately. We are back in 2011 full speed.

The rules of business made in China are better learned than said.

I still think I like the letter from the lawyer better, but this is close.

@ littleboyfrank and Mexican Jack Squint

Thanks for taking the time to explain things a little more on here. Sorry to hear how this has all turned out for you.

Why are we having to be subjected to this letter in the first place… it has nothing to do with us? This sounds like an internal problem within WF. Why air dirty laundry in public like this? What are you hoping to gain by doing so?

To Tony's friends and fellow workers, thank you for the additional information, context, and insight.

The question remains, however: What did Tony hope to accomplish with this open letter? Is anything better now, than it was before the post? Defending a friend is admirable. This behavior may be understandable, but calling it "professional" is just silly. In addition, it raises more unpleasant questions about the company than it answers. For example:

1. Who made the decision to make the business so reliant on a Chinese partner? (And then there's the follow-up question: Have you never seen what kinds of results similar businesses have gotten when they rely so heavily on a Chinese partner?)

2. If someone knew in his gut that putting Lonnie into his position was a mistake, and did it anyway, against his own better judgment, then who is to blame? Lonnie, for behaving exactly as expected? Or someone else, for enabling him to destroy the company?

In addition, when you post an open letter like this, you give EVERYONE the right to say ANYTHING they want on the subject. So, defending or excusing anyone involved is not only irrelevant, it's also a losing stance.

And finally, I think the best possible course of action at this point (keeping in mind my recurring theme of "what do you want to accomplish?") would be for Tony to ask Bill to remove this entire thread. I am sure we would all give such a request our blessing.