Lock 'n Load Publishing Production Plans

Thrawn · December 01, 2014, 02:58:25 PM

Hello Everyone

I want to give an update on where we stand on our product production and our plans going forward. I know this has been a long time coming. I also want to address a few rumors and other items that have come up.

The first one has to do with my health. It has been posted that I am sick with cancer and maybe near death. This is not true. I had to have surgery to remove two tumors, and thank God that all my reports back on them have been good. I also had my stomach reduced and my recovery has gone a lot slower then I had expected. The good news is that my health has improved and my weight is down over 95 pounds. If the trend continues my diabetes will be completely gone. I want to thank everyone that asked about my health and how I was doing. I had not really planned on making this public but I guess the word got out and so I wanted to address this directly.

Now onto the products. There have been some long delays due to my health and production problems. We have moved a lot of our production to our office here in Colorado and we can produce a lot of the items here. The main problem has been the counters. We have tried three different die-cut presses and none of them can cut all the way through the thicker chip board we are using for the counter sheets.

We have also redesigned all the LnL counter sheets for all products so that each counter now has space in-between the counters on all four sides. This should ensure that each counter is near perfect and does not have any bleed over from another counter. We have also rounded the edges of each counter as well. This will, of course, mean that each game will have more counter sheets, but we feel that the end result will be better.

We are currently printing new games and a large amount of out of stock games. This includes Heroes of the Pacific, Tank on Tank West Front and East Front and The Untold Stories. I will have more titles and times shortly.

Going forward we will be using a new Pledge system that will work directly with our new store; and we will not charge any customers until the product is available for final printing. This will also be for pre-orders. Each product will have a progress bar showing what stage it is at in the product/shipping process so customers can see for themselves where we are at any time.

We plan on launching a new Website this week, and this should make ordering or checking on any new orders very easy for our customers. There will be many new features on the Web site including the ability to check any pledges, pre-orders or placed orders. This will not, however, allow you to check orders placed on the old sites. Our support and resource files will also be available on our forums. We WILL be posting on Consimworld, Board Game Geek and a few other sites. One of the problems not yet addressed will be the need to make two logins, one for the store site and one for the forums. We are working to address this, but itwill not be available when we open the new site.

For the games that have been pre-ordered on I Want This Game, we are working out new schedule for when these products should be available. Games that we feel cannot be produced in an acceptable timeframe going forward may be cancelled. We will be e-mailing those customers this week with an updated status and available options going forward. These updates will include the games of Band of Heroes Normandy, A Ring of Hills, and a few others.

Mark Walker is no longer with LnL Publishing and we wish him the best going forward.

Going forward we are changing our procedures to provide better updates in a more timely manner. Going forward, each game series or product will have a production leader. Each designer will be an active member working and giving information about the products they are working on. Each designer will answer rules questions, system updates and help tell everyone where we are at. They will not be the only ones working on the games but it will make sure everything is moving along.

Lock n Load Series
Jeff Lewis has taken charge of the Lock 'n Load system and will be leading the series going forward. Jeff Lewis and Ralph Ferrari are working to complete Mare Nostrum. They have been posting rules ideas, system changes, graphic previews on our forums and will also be updating on the forums we already listed above. We are working on having Mare Nostrum available in the first quarter of 2015. The current discussion on Mare Nostrum can be found at http://forums.lnlpublishing.com/threads/more-mare-nostrum.932/

Nations at War Series
Sean Druelinger, who is the designer of Stalin's Triumph will now be lead designer of the Nations at War system, following the same idea as for the Lock 'n Load systems listed above. We are planning on having Stalin's Triumph available first quarter of 2015. The current discussion of Stalin's Triumph can be found at http://forums.lnlpublishing.com/threads/stalins-triumph.34/

World at War Series
We do not have an announcement on this yet but do hope to have it in the next few days.

As many of you know I led Matrix Games for over 10 years and I have a deep love for digital games. We will be taking our board games and making digital editions of many of these designs as well as some new designs. This does not mean we are cutting back or dropping our board games. I have made a large investment in our printing equipment to insure we keep our board games going now and in the future. So to be super clear: We are doing both!

Line of Fire 15, World at War Compendiums Vol.1 and Vol.2 will be shipping from our offices in the next 15 to 18 days. Heroes of the Pacific will be shipping some time in late January of 2015. As I have stated above, the biggest delay has been the counters, but it is not the only reason. We feel the counters are finally what we want and feel happy with shipping them to our customers. We will also be making available this week our final edition of the Heroes of the Pacific manual as a download.

Any production issues, delays no matter when they happened are my problems and I will do my best to address each and everyone of them. I am very excited about LnL going forward with both our new board and digital games. I would like to thank you for your patience and will we have some more updates this week.

Thank you,
David Heath

RooksBailey · December 01, 2014, 04:21:29 PM

I haven't tried any LnL games yet but I think my first is going to be Nuklear Winter '68. That sounds great!

bbmike · December 01, 2014, 04:32:07 PM

Glad to hear you are doing well and hope you keep getting better. O0

BanzaiCat · December 01, 2014, 06:46:44 PM

Definitely glad you're doing better and are getting healthier, David. Hang in there and keep up the excellent work - the board gaming world needs you and LnL! :)

Thrawn · December 02, 2014, 02:21:16 AM

Thank you for the well wishes but now onto a bit of more good news.

We are thrilled to announced that Matt Lohse will be joining the LnL team as the lead designer for the World At War series. Matt's latest design was featured in Line of Fire issue #14 titled Baltic Fury.

I know you can expect good gaming fun from him in the future.

David

weateallthepies · December 02, 2014, 04:43:55 AM

Are there any plans to make pledging easier for people in the UK/Europe?

I'd really like to support more wargames at a preorder point but currently it's mostly very expensive due to shipping and import from the US. There are a couple of companies which seem to have worked out ways of resolving it. I can preorder DVG games through a UK supplier, and Legion Wargames allows me to preorder and they ship a bulk load to someone in the UK who ships out at a better rate without the customs lottery.

I do wish the main importer for the UK (Esdevium) would work with wargame suppliers to create some sort of UK preorder system.

Thrawn · December 02, 2014, 02:42:56 PM

Hello Weateallthepies

We are making every effort to do that. I have personally looked into arranging a deal with a UK/EURO dealer that would work with us. Our new pledge and pre-order system will only take an order and not charge until it is ready to ship. On the shipping price we have done a lot to provide better shipping rates. Darren White is our warehouse and shipping manager and if you want to know directly what the rates can be please open a support ticket at http://support.lnlpublishing.com and I am sure he will get you a quick answer.

Can you also tell me who you like buying from and maybe some contact information.

David

bob48 · December 02, 2014, 02:55:06 PM

Quote from: Thrawn on December 02, 2014, 02:21:16 AM
Thank you for the well wishes but now onto a bit of more good news.

We are thrilled to announced that Matt Lohse will be joining the LnL team as the lead designer for the World At War series. Matt's latest design was featured in Line of Fire issue #14 titled Baltic Fury.

I know you can expect good gaming fun from him in the future.

David

That's interesting. Can you indicate if or not Matt will still be involved in the NaW series games. I do have a reason for asking this question.

bayonetbrant · December 02, 2014, 03:22:21 PM

Quote from: bob48 on December 02, 2014, 02:55:06 PMThat's interesting. Can you indicate if or not Matt will still be involved in the NaW series games. I do have a reason for asking this question.

Quote from: Thrawn on December 01, 2014, 02:58:25 PM
Nations at War Series
Sean Druelinger, who is the designer of Stalin's Triumph will now be lead designer of the Nations at War system, following the same idea as for the Lock 'n Load systems listed above. We are planning on having Stalin's Triumph available first quarter of 2015. The current discussion of Stalin's Triumph can be found at http://forums.lnlpublishing.com/threads/stalins-triumph.34/

maybe "involved" but clearly not "in charge"

Thrawn · December 02, 2014, 06:58:43 PM

We as a team are working together on all the projects. But in order not to run the company as a council we have giving each one a project to lead. We want to get all of our juices working together but make sure we all have a main focus.

weateallthepies · December 03, 2014, 08:44:23 AM

Quote from: Thrawn on December 02, 2014, 02:42:56 PM
Hello Weateallthepies

We are making every effort to do that. I have personally looked into arranging a deal with a UK/EURO dealer that would work with us. Our new pledge and pre-order system will only take an order and not charge until it is ready to ship. On the shipping price we have done a lot to provide better shipping rates. Darren White is our warehouse and shipping manager and if you want to know directly what the rates can be please open a support ticket at http://support.lnlpublishing.com and I am sure he will get you a quick answer.

Can you also tell me who you like buying from and maybe some contact information.

David

Thanks for the reply, I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for preorders.

The two stores I use most (as do many UK shoppers) are:

http://www.boardgameguru.co.uk/
http://gameslore.com/

I don't have any contact details but I think they both provide them on the website.

DVG games are available to preorder through http://www.boardgameextras.co.uk/ so they might be owrth checking out.

All very helpful when I've had to contact or have spoken to them so there might be some way of working something out.

Thrawn · December 03, 2014, 01:37:48 PM

Thanks I will look into them and see what is possible.

TacticalWargames · December 03, 2014, 05:51:04 PM

Great news David Heath is back in the saddle of a wargame company.

Can't wait to see LnL go from strength to strength.

Ed the THW Guy · December 03, 2014, 08:15:42 PM

Here's a re-post from another thread. Makes more sense here.

I wanted to wait until David posted his announcement before speaking up.

Yes, there are many games coming from THW and I'm looking forward to it. Having a chance to spend time with David and the new LnL folks convinced me to give it a go. Knowing that I have final approval on my games was the deciding factor. So if there's a production hiccup, like David said, it's on him. But any game design hiccups, totally on me. After producing over 50 games, I'm pretty comfortable with supporting them.

For those of you that don't know Two Hour Wargames, we cover a variety of periods and topics. It was pointed out to me that Two Hour Wargames does a lot more than traditional wargames, so we've decided to release all LnL/THW collaborations under THW Game Design.

All of the games for LnL will be either totally new games or games that will be updated. Heroes of the Colosseum is much more than Red Sand Blue Sky and Charioteer re-packaged. Just like the upcoming ATZ - Outbreak, the games are streamlined using current/new mechanics and not just a rehash of current offerings.

In any case, glad to get this started and if you have questions or requests for games let me know. All of the games are on the table.

FYI - All the THW/LnL games will work perfectly well with minis or counters.

weateallthepies · December 04, 2014, 05:51:09 AM

Thanks for the info. Apologies I didn't mean to imply that the games were just repackages, badly worded on my part. Just that the rules will definitely be coming from you rather than a rehash like the previous ATZ boardgame.