As well as the "full sized" Starline miniatures, I also have in my collection a reasonably large number of the minis which were released some years ago under the "Star Fleet Elite" title.
Just wondering if anyone can tell me what the story was about these? Was this another example of Task Force Games releasing product without consultation with ADB?
They were a quite convenient size for the map boards because they averaged about 1" long. On the other hand, a larger game board and the larger Starline miniatures always looked much cooler and more impressive, which is why I collected both scales. And unfortunately the Star Fleet Elite range Federation heavy cruiser was pretty inaccurate, though most of the other pieces were fine.
Can anyone (possibly SVC?) please spare time to tell me where the Elite range originally came from and why it got withdrawn?
Star Fleet Elite Miniatures
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Steve Cole
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TFG did the elites. They asked me, and I had no problem with them (other than the brand name "elite" which I thought was not a good fit, but "star fleet petite" sounded kind of silly).
TFG had them done in England. (Don't ask me why, but the Olsen boys were British and considered anything made in Britain to be incredibly cool).
When TFG sold their SFU rights back to me in Jan 99, the Elites were a problem. Unlike Starline (which I owned all rights to), the deal TFG made for the elites left the molds owned by the British company. I offered them a deal, and they offered me one. The two deals were light years apart. Basically, their deal was they would make them and I could sell them, but ALL of the profit had to go to the UK company. I saw no point in being allowed to sell a product that would compete with other sales but would produce no revenue, and would be a hassle to deal with due to import duties and customs forms. I offered to split the different evenly, each of us getting half of the profit, but they said (basically) that if they could not have all of the profit, they were not going to make them. (The idea of me buying them at X price and raising the price a little so I'd make something was not acceptable to them. They insisted on making ALL of the profit and insisted that ADB make NO profit on them. No idea why they thought that this was something I was going to accept.) So I told them "here's the deal, take it or we can talk later" and their repsonse was "we just destroyed the molds and masters so you can go to hell." Ok, whatever.
In theory, I could pay for sculpting and molds to make Elites again, but given the long list of things I need to do, this one just isn't a very high priority.
TFG had them done in England. (Don't ask me why, but the Olsen boys were British and considered anything made in Britain to be incredibly cool).
When TFG sold their SFU rights back to me in Jan 99, the Elites were a problem. Unlike Starline (which I owned all rights to), the deal TFG made for the elites left the molds owned by the British company. I offered them a deal, and they offered me one. The two deals were light years apart. Basically, their deal was they would make them and I could sell them, but ALL of the profit had to go to the UK company. I saw no point in being allowed to sell a product that would compete with other sales but would produce no revenue, and would be a hassle to deal with due to import duties and customs forms. I offered to split the different evenly, each of us getting half of the profit, but they said (basically) that if they could not have all of the profit, they were not going to make them. (The idea of me buying them at X price and raising the price a little so I'd make something was not acceptable to them. They insisted on making ALL of the profit and insisted that ADB make NO profit on them. No idea why they thought that this was something I was going to accept.) So I told them "here's the deal, take it or we can talk later" and their repsonse was "we just destroyed the molds and masters so you can go to hell." Ok, whatever.
In theory, I could pay for sculpting and molds to make Elites again, but given the long list of things I need to do, this one just isn't a very high priority.
The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander
Thank you for the detailed reply. As usual, all sorts of rumours circulated and were all removed from the real story!
It's a shame - they had a good product there. Pity that it went with a bad attitude. They don't seem to have been people who grasped the idea of win/win business deals! Actually I know of the company and some of their other product lines, so I'm kind of not totally surprised in a way.
I probably have the largest fleet of these in the world! Didn't stop me buying Starline miniatures as well, and I'm sure there would be some level of demand for the Elite scale - plus other threads here about cheap minis and/or home-mades back this up. However, lots of us (myself included) have a sizeable investment in the Starline scale plus a wishlist for product devlopment to continue in that scale. Given all the things we already want and look forward to from ADB and that it would involve starting Star Fleet Elite from the beginning again, it sadly doesn't look very viable or worthy of priority.
Unfortunate that such a poor attitude and this "destroy the masters and molds" thing wiped out a good product line.
Thank you for setting out the situation.
It's a shame - they had a good product there. Pity that it went with a bad attitude. They don't seem to have been people who grasped the idea of win/win business deals! Actually I know of the company and some of their other product lines, so I'm kind of not totally surprised in a way.
I probably have the largest fleet of these in the world! Didn't stop me buying Starline miniatures as well, and I'm sure there would be some level of demand for the Elite scale - plus other threads here about cheap minis and/or home-mades back this up. However, lots of us (myself included) have a sizeable investment in the Starline scale plus a wishlist for product devlopment to continue in that scale. Given all the things we already want and look forward to from ADB and that it would involve starting Star Fleet Elite from the beginning again, it sadly doesn't look very viable or worthy of priority.
Unfortunate that such a poor attitude and this "destroy the masters and molds" thing wiped out a good product line.
Thank you for setting out the situation.