Dear FFG,

I live in Sweden, a country where miniature and table top gaming is and has been huge for many years. I would love to buy the Premium Edition version of any and all Dust Tactics figures you produce but can't: Your game in the Premium edition is not available within the EU. Are you aware of this? We are one of the worlds largest markets when it comes to tabletop games. How come you ignore the potential over here? Where exactly are your Premium Edition resellers within EU?! Would you mind informing me so I can throw my money on you?

Ordering from you guys or directly from Dust Studios means the minis will be shipped from US and/or China. In both cases the Euro customer will have to pay very high customs fees. Last time I ordered I had to cough up > 60 USD, just in customs. That is plenty of money lost right there. Those money could have been spent on buying minis instead, in which case both you, me and Dust Studio would become happier.

The problem with the customs becomes even bigger when you consider the fact that you are releasing new miniatures frequently, resulting in players having to get even more packages. It becomes more punishing to order Dust Tactics Premium from you guys due to that, compared with, say, a game that would only have 1-2 expansions in total.

The Premium Edition is an amazing product and the first of it's kind of that quality when it comes to the paint jobs. While the pricing is too steep for it to appeal to the masses (which the game isn't supposed to do anyway), I'd still argue that it is very strange that you decided to not pay more attention to the Euro players and offer them shipping from a country that is a member of the European Union.

As I am sure your/Dust Studios figures show, there are plenty of people that are prepared to hand out the extra cash for the pre-painted Premium version. For many the customs will however be a major turn off as it adds a huge extra cost - a cost that easily becomes on par with what it would cost them to buy a whole new tabletop game in their LGS.

Furthermore, Dust Tactics is pretty unknown in Europe, not to mention the Premium Edition of it. Where is your EU marketing? Is it even planned? Why do no stores in Sweden carry it? Clearly there is a problem here when you have the worlds greatest lookign pre-painted but it's not available anywhere in the above average European country seen to economy, customer buying power and tabletop culture.

When discussing this with some Swedish stores they replied that FFG doesn't give them good enough prices on the Premium Edition , that they are impossible to come by , and that the LGS would have to sell it 20 - 30% more expensive than can be seen on your own site if I were to order via them.

Summarized:

You have a great product, yet it is not available in all of Europe. At least not from within the EU that save people hundreds of "dollars". This all makes all the people I have shown the game to very reluctant to start playing it. (And no, none of us can paint nor are we interested in learning. We want the Premium.)

Someone has touched this subject ion BGG, i think but i'll throw my penny also here;)

1. I think that FFG has little interest in your post, as they are interested mostly in selling the game to retailers shops, bookstores etc. I guess due to the customs price not many private callers are ordering directly from them. Also are FFG guys writing on forums?

2.As such i would try to find a guy who lives from ordering and selling board games, maybe he knows how to get the games to Sweden without the taxes. Also we need to consider that such a high cost product like the premium edtitions won't be lying around in most game stores, it's too expensive for a normal buyer who just came for some nice game.

3.There are ppl interested in DT, living here, in Europe. But i have a feeling that we aren't the main client group for FFG. I haven't seen any advertaising tournament's, single games or even a frakking DT poster here in Poland.

4.The mythical FFG magazine has to be somewhere in frakkin'g germany! ( We will find you Blutkreuz!) So why can't we order directly from that place? Prices of normal set's here do not exceed those in US. So why pay even more than more for premium? That's a good question to dear FFG.

5.Scavenging trough the shops in Poland i found a premium core set so it's not impossible:D

Aren't the Premium Dust items all from Dust-Models.com? Not a FFG thing at all, right?

Algesan said:

Yes. All Premium sets come from Dust Models. You can order them from FFG, but if you want them in the EU, you need to order from http://www.dustgame.com

I think FFG cares, but they're having to juggle lots of companies, and are learning as they go. They aren't making the DUST miniatures. They're simply marketing them for the game through multiple vendors around the world, with the model company in China, led by Paolo Parente for design work in Italy.

Organized play has been haphazard even in the US, though I understand they now have a staff member who is supposed to be working directly on that issue, so we should see significant improvements.

I've heard there are a lot of organizational issues being worked out to make the product more available everywhere, but FFG is also taking what someone else was setting up poorly and trying to make it work better for everyone.

I don't have interest in the premium painted models, but can understand how a lot of people would. I like to paint my stuff, but not everyone has the desire or time to do so. That makes the premium painted models very worthwhile, and I think FFG knows that.

Hopefully, they will keep getting things working smoother until there is a good supply for everyone.

Perhaps you could talk to the Dust Games folks? Maybe Paolo can bring some to Europe the next time he visits Italy.