Nassau Infantry set 8147 selling fast

It not just the Nassau infantry that's running out the British peninsular seem to be out of stock at a few retailers & the Austrian grenzers & Landwehr have disappeared a from a few dealers lists as well.
I too bought everything I wanted as soon as I noticed the restocks were out so glad I did now.
The hat sets seem to be at bargain prices compared to the competition buy buy buy now don't miss out

Folks, that appears to be the name of the game now. Gone are the days when our toy soldiers were produced by big corporations who had the entire chain of production under their complete control and could churn out tens to hundreds of thousands of our little guys for our pleasure. Most of our newer toy soldiers (and even the older ones still in production) are made by small - what we in the USA call - "Mom and Pop" companies who often have to hire or "farm out" much of the work to others. For instance, many of our US makers, such as HaT, have their figures made in China in a complex process that has been discussed here many times before.


My point here is this: restocks are becoming more and more scarce. When was the last re-issue of Airfix or Italeri figures? For some companies there will NEVER be restocks because of the molding process they use. I just read an inquiry on another forum about restocks. The answer from the company was that once a production run was sold it could be assumed to be gone - out of production. This company does not do restocks because their molds are "one and done."


It's just their business model and it works for them. I've learned that if I want their sets I'd better get them NOW or never. One of my favorite 1/32 producers, Ron Barzso, is going out of business. He's retiring. A bunch of us have been talking about his old playsets; it was the highlight of my Christmas that about every year he'd release his yearly playset at the Chicago Toy Soldier Show. My wife learned to get one quickly and have it under the tree so I could relive my childhood every year.


I say you had to move fast because I learned to my regret he limited his production to 500 copies of each set and even the extra figures and accessory sets went out of production due to his molding process - which allowed him to do most of his product close to home. His farewell set will be limited to 100. Fifty were already pre-sold... As we say, "if you snooze, you lose."

I think HaT does pretty good on restocks when you think about it.


So while I can understand your frustration I wish someone would give our friends at HaT the benefit of the doubt on restocks - at least some patience. After all, with over three hundred sets in their catalog and more on the way it is remarkable in this day and age that they are able to do as much as they are able to do keep their figures in stock. At the same time, the issue on availability of this or that particular set may not be HaT's fault at all - maybe your RETAILER underestimated the demand for Pommeranian Piccolo Players and sold out. In which case he or she might have more on order. Maybe you can check somewhere else on line?


But remember this, HaT may seem slow in getting those Pommeranian Piccolo Players to you, and it may be a couple years before you see them again (but I suspect as the ball gains momentum wait-time might not be so long in the future) but odds are pretty good that unless something catastrophic happens they will show up again - something we cannot say about figures whose molds wore out or whose company has moved on to other endeavors.

I realise that most companies only sell a set for a limited time, but I found that out after searching for certain boxes. After coming from Games Workshops products where the some models are still sold 20 years after they were first produced, took me by surprise. After all, if you have a popular set why would it go out of production?

Then I realised that, in HaTs case at least, they have hundreds of box sets spanning many different time periods. Keeping them in production just isn't feasible, especially for scales that, while not dead, aren't popular with the majority of the wargaming crowd and many gamers just don't seem to want to play historical games as much anymore (probably because there is more scope for imagination in the fantasy and sci-fi games).



However, what I think HaT are doing with the Marching, Action and Command sets is the right way to go as it means that they can streamline and reduce the amount of box sets they sell, meaning that restocking them can be quicker. Secondly by doing this they can add in new bits that allows the box to work for several different things (I had an example in another thread about creating one box with a fairly generic Napoleonic infantry body and pack the box with enough bits to make several different regiments for the Confederation of the Rhine troops)

They can even go one further and streamline any Dark Age box sets they have. I would imagine that a Viking and Saxon or French or any army in Western Europe werent very different from each other (and i could be wrong) so a generic body would do them fine, with a few bits added into the box that are distinctive to these particular peoples.

The only thing I would want in these types of box sets, that if they design a set with different heads I would hope they add a hollow in the torso for the head to go into.
I like the new French Early to Mid War Napoleonic set, but I hate that I have to cut the head off the body just to put a Shako head on, considering that plastic glue doesn't seem to work on any HaT set. I can only use epoxy glue, green stuff or superglue and none of these are ideal.far too messy at times.

I bought a small number, I figured Hat have the moulds and everything in place and ready to go now to pump out as many of these as they like and the faster they sell the more likely they'll get the presses rolling again.

Blast from the past.

Swedish Infantry:

But it seems that at least Italeri figures are readily available everywhere? They are also still sold from their own site, and as I just started with this hobby again, there is where I get the "normal stuff" like french infantry and so on, while the really cool stuff like Brunswick infantry I get from HAT. When it comes to HaT that I guess you are referrig to, I have heard that they feel their sets are so niche, that restocks would not be economically viable. And from the time it takes most of their sets to sell out, I think that is a reasonable assement.