@DrLarsen:
Was there something radically different in the whole production process between the Amerika set and the Germany #3 set that explains the big quality gap, though? It does seem a little mystifying to me…
I have a theory. A couple of years ago, the main focus was on the new piece sets, particularly on the new 3-d modeling of the prototype sculpts for each set. A lot of time and effort went into designing and perfecting each sculpt and I think they took a lot of pride in each and every piece. Thus HBG demanded near perfection and would not present them to us, the customers, until they were absolutely right.
If you will remember, there were a couple of sets that came out very good, just in an odd color shade. First was the Axis Minor set that was supposed to be in Italian Brown. The first time they came out in too dark a shade of brown. Second was the Russian set that was supposed to be in the same OOB color of Maroon, a dark brown with a reddish tint. They came out more of a plain dark brown.
When each of these “mistakes” came out, Coach apologized to us profusely and sold these pieces at a very reduced cost so as to not take a total loss on the cost of them. He immediately demanded that the factory tweak the colors to get the right shade and then filled our pre-orders and had those sets ready for sale on the site.
At this time, they did produce some games but these mainly consisted of special rule sets with some specific parts and sometimes new map/boards using mainly existing OOB and HBG pieces to play.
Then the Kickstarter campaign for Amerika was successful and HBG was able to start serious work on their first totally boxed game with all the parts necessary to play it. In other words, you could have absolutely no gaming pieces or accessories, buy this game and still play it.
Amerika became HBG’s baby, taking most of the focus of their efforts. There was a huge amount of work to go into this, designing the box, all the cardboard art of the inner boxes, the game board, the playing and reference cards, all of the new playing sculpts for the game (24 different totally new sculpts), all of the new Expansion sculpts (20 different totally new sculpts) and all of the neat little bonus items earned through the Kickstarter Level goals (special dice, dice bags, 1st player marker, mouse pads, tee shirts, etc.)
Now, all of these items would take a lot of effort even if they were sub-par, slapped together games with average piece quality (Xeno games comes to mind). However, this would not do for HBG. They worked hard to make sure every piece was the highest quality. This was especially true of the plastic gaming pieces. They are some of the highest quality I have seen in any retail board game.
Since Amerika was such a huge undertaking, most other projects simply had to be put on hold or at least move at a slower pace. Even with this, they still managed to make the fabulous US Expansion set in parallel to working on Amerika, as well as a number of smaller projects like special markers and such.
With the great success of Amerika, Coach and his team want to turn out more new games. Several projects are in the works now, from a number of special battle games like Kursk and Midway to the Global War series.
Unfortunately, the piece sets that we have all grown to love have now seemed to have taken a back seat to new game designing. While the US Expansion set came out nicely, I fear that the Germany 3 set suffered from the new direction that HBG seems to be taking. It just seems to me that if the Germany 3 set came out a couple of years ago, Coach would not have accepted the somewhat lesser quality, particularly with the Bismarck, and would have demanded the factory correct the problem. Unfortunately, I get the feeling that selling and designing the pieces is no longer a priority and have been superseded by new game design, 3d units and acrylic markers.
I would note that the only problems were with the ship pieces, and those are the hardest to make good at these tiny scales. The infantry, vehicle and plane pieces all still look great to me.
HBG has already announced that future pieces will no longer be available in full sets but in quantities of five units. Personally, I am not sure how I feel about this. I kind of got used to the sets and think I will miss them. On the other hand, it will be easier to get the right amount of certain units that you really want. For example, with the Germany 3 set I would not have gotten any of the bi-plane fighter because I don’t use them in my games.
I still do not understand how HBG will be accepting pre-orders for new piece sets if there will be no full sets available anymore. Perhaps future gaming pieces will not need pre-sales?
Anyway, that is my theory for what it’s worth. New game design has taken over from piece sales.
