Why are the best Mechs Archived ?

[Col Toda]

The best general purpose mech The Dragonfire .
The best C3 Master Command Mech Naganata .
The best Artillary Mech The O Bakamono .

I had to buy 3/4 or more of my minis out of Archive.
Is everyone like Me ? Is Iron Wind in touch with what
the customer wants ? Or is it just me?

[GunjiNoKanrei]

It is just you ;)

IWM only archives what doesn't sell. If a SKU sells less then 6 a year it is being archived (unless saved by fan vote).

[Stormcrow]

Minis are archived due to poor sales, primarily, and a lack of storage space at IWM, secondarily.

[Weirdo]

Because archiving is not based on a unit's stats at all, it's only based on sales. Remember that Iron Winds is a miniatures company only, and does not care about stats or playability. If a unit's stats are awesome but nobody buys the mini, then the mini goes into archive because it isn't worth their time and resources to keep it in regular production. It doesn't matter one bit if the unit is extremely popular in games.

If the mini itself isn't popular, it gets archived. Simple as that.

[DarkSpade]

Considering that IWM has data on what people buy and what they don't, I'm guessing they're fully aware of what people want.

[Wotan]

And all of these minis are still in production by RPE. And there should be several online stores out there who have them available.

[Psycho]

Why are you asking the same question that you asked - and received answers to -  a few months ago? http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,28600.msg657206.html#msg657206

[455_PWR]

Your not the only one that feels that way.... I had to spend almost $20 a mini to finally get myself a Salamander and Supernova (two of the coolest looking mechs imho).  Many of my favorite mechs (including the Naga) are still in the archive (why did I wait so long to come back to this game).  Right now I'm trying to comb ebay to find the minis I want at a cheaper price.

I like the resculpts, but the origional mech sculpts remind me of the mechs I used in the Mechwarrior 2 and Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries games while I was a younger lad. 

But I can't complain, Games Workshop charges around $20 or more for their worthless finecrap minis that I've had huge issues with, and I've never had any major isues with IWM's minis that I couldn't fix myself

[Akalabeth]

The best general purpose mech The Dragonfire .
The best C3 Master Command Mech Naganata .
The best Artillary Mech The O Bakamono .

I had to buy 3/4 or more of my minis out of Archive.
Is everyone like Me ? Is Iron Wind in touch with what
the customer wants ? Or is it just me?

Look at what's available. You'll see two themes:

1. The core mechs (3025/3050/2750)
2. The current mechs

That's generally what you can rely upon from my observation, if you want something more obscure from any other TRO that is tied to a historical era it's going to eventually go into archives I would guess. That's why a lot of 3058 mechs are in archives, despite being awesome.

[cavingjan]

Suggest minis you want for the archive return polls.

[speck]

Suggest minis you want for the archive return polls.

That is a good thing to do. I use suggestions for the poll

[TigerShark]

The best general purpose mech The Dragonfire .
The best C3 Master Command Mech Naganata .
The best Artillary Mech The O Bakamono .

I had to buy 3/4 or more of my minis out of Archive.
Is everyone like Me ? Is Iron Wind in touch with what
the customer wants ? Or is it just me?

Are all of the so-called "best" units Kuritan in theme, or is it just you? ;-)

[Daishi411]

my advice would be to go through ral partha UK, they're fast and efficient in my experience and have never messed up an order. For the most part it's cheaper to go through them (and their exchange rate) than it is to go through the archive, especially for older sculpts.

[Col Toda]

Thanks for replying  yes I have asked this before but I got the replies I was looking for this time.
As for the Kuritain theme for best I admit bias .  The Cappellans have great designed mechs
but the overhead of stealth armor is way to costly for me . I use Combat Vees for all light
mech roles so I do not have no idea of the best of these . With pulse lasers an targeting
computers they do not seem to be any good choices combat vees carry enough armor to
live getting hit more .

[Ice_Trey]

Hey Toda.

Just keep in mind, that IWM isn't the only source for Battletech miniatures. There are other retailers out there, Brick and Mortar or otherwise, that often have a half-decent selection of Battletech miniatures. Much of the time, you can find 'mechs that have long since been archived available for standard prices, maybe even pre-pewter-pricejump prices.

Even beyond what's new or not, the other part of the problem is that existing players tend to jump on getting new designs when they come out, but once they have them (one or many), they really don't need to go back, so the trickle of purchases that they get from there on out makes it tough to keep them available.

That, and what keeps the Star League/Succession War designs around so much is the portion of "3025 only, forever" mentality players - who usually refuse to spend any more money beyond what they did 20 years ago, but when they do break down and buy minis, they're mechs available in TRO 3039.

[Akalabeth]

Can Ral Partha europe even ship to NA?
I noticed while browsing their site, that it said something to the effect of "have license for commonwealth countries except for Canada" (for battletech). Maybe someone else has some previous experience with them?

[Weirdo]

Can Ral Partha europe even ship to NA?

Yes. I've ordered hex bases from them. This was some time ago though, so I can't promise things haven't changed since then.

[GRUD]

Can Ral Partha europe even ship to NA?
I noticed while browsing their site, that it said something to the effect of "have license for commonwealth countries except for Canada" (for battletech). Maybe someone else has some previous experience with them?

I ordered 6 Unseen Hellhounds from them around the end of April/first of May (2013), and got them here in SE Missouri just fine.   O0  That was the only Unseen mini I found on their site, and I've NO idea why they're still selling it, but I didn't take the time to ask any silly questions.   :D

[Men Shen]

Here's an idea, try to hit a convention Iron Wind Metal's is attending. I bought 2 of the three you just mentioned at Cold Wars this past March. I guess this only works if a con comes near you though.