"I spoke to the owner of the LGS in my area and he said that FF was developing an Eastern Front expansion called "Fury of the Bear" (I think) ,and it was slated to come out in December. Anyways he said that FF pulled the plug and canned all future products for Tide of Iron thus ending any future support for the game. He said FF is focusing more on its Games Workshop properties and Tide of Iron was not bringing in the cash they expected. Needless to say if this is indeed true this is pretty crappy news."

Is there any further news or scuttle-butt regarding the above post from another thread?

Is TOI being discontinued or not?

Does anyone have any insight on this?

As someone just getting into ToI I certainly hope not.

Not true.

cP
FFG

The Spaniard said:

Excellent! Any news on upcoming releases?

Stay tuned.

cP

Wow..great day for TOI IMHO.

I'm really kinda shocked, but after having followed the TOI boards here on the FFG site for several months now, I was afraid that maybe that "eerie silence" was not a good sign.

When I ran across the post I have in the opening thread, I was really depressed.

I posted this thread to see if there was any kind of news, official, semi official, or what have you. I thought with as little being posted for TOI here, or on BGG, that I would try a thread like this there too. I really didn't think there would be any replies to either, seeing as how few responses there have been in either forum over the last few months.

Boy, I sure am glad that I did post though, because one of the FFG game designers (I think that's who he is- not sure though) responded over on the BGG site that TOI was definately not dead!!!!!!!!!!

Then I got a PM from...well, here it is:

Quote from "Flightmaster" at BGG
"This is absolutely NOT true. That is a fact.

Stay tuned for more iron.

cP
FFG"
End Quote

No, no, that's not the right one. That was the response in the thread.

Wait a tick, I'll go back and copy the PM. Be right back.

Quote from "jeremyffg' at BGG

"This is categorically untrue. If there was any validity to this, you would have seen it on our site.

Jeremy Stomberg
FFG"

End Quote

He sounds kinda ticked off (Sorry dude. No, really), but in the end, I'd have to say that it was worth it, just to have heard the good news!!!

I PM'd this guy back to ask why there has been no "news" like this over here on these boards?

Actually, who cares now?!? As long as TOI lives on!!!!!!

whew.... thanks FFG !

I knew that letter to Santa would prove good!!

Stalingrad...Here i come! nothin' but 6's..nothin' but 6's...nothin but 6's.....

Wonderful news indeed. Thank you for being able to draw a response, Kaufschtick.

Sorry,

I made the post about speaking to the owner of my local game store. I didn't mean to create such a S**t storm I was just sharing what I heard. This is certainly good news.

7times7is49 said:

Yeah, this winds up being kinda like a tall, cool glass of water for someone who's just stumbled in from a desert!

I was seriously considering what to do with my TOI stuff if this was the end of the line, and what WWII game system I was going to go with in it's place. I had it narrowed down to Conflict of Heros or Close Combat.

CoH has had a bit of wishy-washiness with the rules, which they call "cleaning up", but which looks like is going to result in the customers winding up buying their own replacement counters for the original game, Awakening the Bear. The game system is remarkably close to that of TOI in many ways, and the game company also has the same high standards of quality as TOI. But the rules not being firmly developed from the start, and an extremely slow release of additional expansions has me put off on that one. TOI, up to now, has had superior support from FFG as well, which it looks like now is going to continue despite the recent lapse.

Close Combat has no tanks, and although the game has good quality components, they just aren't the same high quality as TOI.

So I was begining to start the process of coming to grips with the apparent demise of TOI, and what other "runner up" system I was going to pursue in it's place.

I'm certainly thrilled to have "poked a stick" here into the issue, and found good news! Tide Of Iron is my game of choice for this catagory.

Art Vandelay said:

Don't worry, your post wound up giving us some information that we've all been badly wanting to hear.

Over on BGG, one of the FFG guys sent me a couple PMs, and he seemed kinda ticked off at me for posting the thread I posted.

On one hand, I thought, nobody was saying it was a fact. It was clearly posted as a comment that someone made at a FLAGS. Take it for what its worth, it was just scuttle-butt.

On the other hand, I also thought that if you're a game company, and it's been a good long while since you've released any information regarding the future of said game...well, can you really be suprised that scuttle-butt breaks out ? If you don't want that, then all you have to do is throw your CUSTOMERS a bone every now and then.

Now, in this FFG guys defense, I kinda got the impression that he was completely shocked to have read my opening post over on BGG (same as this thread). If I'm right about that, then that is a good sign that this game is indeed alive and kicking. He seemed a little oblivious to the fact that customers like myself have invested in this game system with THE HOPE that it fully developes into a game that encompasses all the major theaters. There is always the risk that that won't happen. When you have your last product as a release of items that most people following the game already have (the map expansion), and then a lengthy period of inactivity, well, scuttle-butt is going to happen.

I think that FFG would be wise to take a look at this as an opportunity to re-evaluate their policy regarding keeping THEIR CUSTOMERS informed as to the current status of their games.

I work in retail myself, and there is this axiom to remenber in this business:

IGNORE YOUR CUSTOMERS LONG ENOUGH, AND THEY'LL GO AWAY.

kaufschtick said:

well, i second that. back in 2006 or so, we got an info letter from the ffg staff regarding releases for the (then) uprcoming year (then 2006). that was cool, since you did knew at the very beginning of the year that games like descent and runebound will get expansions (if i remember correctly "well of darkness" and the character packs for runebound). hopefully they come back to this public relations strategy in the future. greetz from germany!

IGNORE YOUR CUSTOMERS LONG ENOUGH, AND THEY'LL GO AWAY.

of course the reverse is also true. Keep your customers long enough and you will lose them anyway.... ;-)

What I don't understand is, why on earth did it take this long for FFG to speak up about this? Don't get me wrong, it's great news and I am glad it came out, but why did it take a post actually saying "TOI is dead", for FFG to come through and actually give us a solid answer, when people have been asking "Is TOI dead?" for months now!?

I mean, I'm pretty sure I know "why", the need to stop a rampant rumor before it gets too out of control, but jeez, you could have just said something earlier and the rumor would never have started. Or better yet, give us a "Sate of the game" like you're doing with Tannhauser!

You guys are askin' the wrong questions.

When does the furry of the bear go on sale eh?

Put me down for a copy.

gdotbat said:

That's what I was thinking on this whole deal. Why not just toss us a bone from time to time?

Don't worry though, if we don't hear something in a month or so, I'll post a thread asking if TOI has been recalled.

kaufschtick said:

Many have. Many of us have found other games that are equally as fun. Others have found companies that throw their fans a bone now and again. But many are going to line up for the next thing (we're only EXPECTING it to be the Eastern Front expansion....watch it be another map expansion! )

I'm taking a wait and see attitude. If and when they release something else, I'll take a look. Had they released it last year, it would have been a must buy. But I've moved on, tried some other engines and now ToI isn't a "must buy" but rather a "meh, if it's the right price". It's fun, but the imbalance issues are more evident the further I get from ToI.

FFG, when you're actually ready to say something substantive, I'll listen. Until then, you're just yanking my chain.

The one thing I find strange is pretty much everyother game they have there are stories in the news section about upcomming releases. I think that is good because it continues to wet your customers appetites and gets them excited about the system, and it also spreads by word of mouth. On the other hand with TOI the only product released in 2009 was a "map pack" in february. So we've gone almost a year and the only thing we get is a message board post saying "the game is not dead, keep looking out for future products". That is pretty weak if you ask me, you are pretty much alienating your fan base with a vague statement about the state of the game. It would be nice to see something more concrete like the next release will be out in 2010 or 2011. I'm not suprised more fans have not moved on to other systems.

Good Karma , ...Dudes. Good Karma.

If you wish it...It will come. Of course i said the same thing of A&A minis, PATIENTLY waiting on their early war set and then they had a one-eyed drunken monkey with a crayon paint all of the pieces. BAH!!!!!!

SgtWaka said:

Yeah, I do not understand the negativity. These guys must not have ever dealt with a CMG before. For a Board game I am very impressed with the amount of material that is out there already. Especially the means for submitting used based scenarios.

The fact that someone actually made a response compared to some other companies I have dealt with is pretty impressive.

I agree, FFG is still the best game company out there. I also agree that TOI in not complete without a Russian army. How can you have ASL light, without the Russians?

I know I cried about the stuggs, I wont cry anymore, I promise lol just bring on the Russians!

If you dont at least break even, just let me know and I'll buy an extra set or two

Billy Payne