Fighting 15s is now closed for Christmas. I hope to be up and running on 28th December providing that my wife lets me escape to the shed to fulfil some orders. Nowadays her wishes take priority over everything.

Thank you to all my customers over the past year who have shown sympathy and understanding while my wife has been seriously ill. Your good wishes and support have been most appreciated. I hope, in due course, to be fully back up to speed in all areas of the business.

For those of you for which it is possible, I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year. For those of you, like me, who have been in adverse circumstances, you have my heartfelt wishes that 2010 turns out to be so much better.

Ian
Fighting 15s

Lasalle is back in stock again. Fighting 15s has already sold out of this new set of Napoleonic wargames rules twice over.

December has been an exceptionally busy month for sales – more so than usual for the time of year. Please note that Fighting 15s cannot guarantee that orders placed or processed this week or later will reach UK customers in time for Christmas.

Depletion of a few codes means that orders may have to be dispatched in two parts, with the second part to follow in the new year after Fighting 15s receives fresh stocks.

As always, Ian is unable to answer queries about availability of codes because availability may suddenly change because of the large number of orders being processed.

Paid-for orders placed in the online shop continue to receive priority over any orders received by phone, email or post and for which payment has yet to be taken or arranged. So if you’ve submitted a special request by email, or phoned through an order and left payment details, your order takes second place to orders for which payment has been taken automatically in the online shopping cart.

Eureka Miniatures’ latest release, The Modern Prometheus, inspired by Dr Frankenstein and the Monster, is now available in the Fighting 15s online shop. A limited number of complete sets are in stock at Fighting 15s; the individual items are not available separately.

This resin and metal kit is provided unassembled and unpainted, and costs GBP15.75, including VAT.

Fighting 15s now has fresh supplies of Eureka’s amazing 28mm toad-mounted frog cavalry, and the range is therefore now back in stock.

Fighting 15s will be open for business over the festive season, apart from at weekends and on bank holidays. That said, family commitments may mean that no one is available to take your call or process orders on other days, and therefore there may be a slight delay in processing orders.

Few orders usually come in from 21 December to 26 December, because the postal system cannot guarantee to get orders to customers in that time, and therefore Fighting 15s winds down from 21 December onwards in order to focus on the festivities.

Fighting 15s wishes its customers all the best for the festive season and the new year.

Following the success of the Christmas Lights promotion of a few years ago, Fighting 15s is again running a special promotion on 15mm French Napoleonic light troops from AB Figures. This time it’s the turn of the light cavalry.

For a limited time, customers have the opportunity to buy Fighting 15s’ special Christmas Lights offer of two 24-man regiments of French light cavalry for just GBP45.00, saving GBP5.40 on the price of the figures if bought using our standard four-figure packs. There are several permutations of chasseurs a cheval, hussars and line lancers for this small brigade of cavalry, plus options to add elite companies to the hussars and chasseurs. Regiments each comprise 20 troopers, two officers and two trumpeters.

The figures provide enough cavalry for a small brigade in 1:20 ratio games such as General de Brigade, and the hussars and chasseurs combination provides enough light cavalry for a Light Cavalry brigade in Lasalle (though you will need to add a horse battery to provide the full option).

Figures in the Fighting 15s Christmas Lights deal are cast to order in the UK using licensed moulds produced by Eureka Miniatures. Because the figures are cast to order, there may be a delay in processing and dispatching each order.

The 2009 Christmas Lights deal is available now in the Fighting 15s shop.

Lasalle, Sam Mustafa’s latest set of Napoleonic wargames rules, is now in stock in the Fighting 15s shop. This 136-page hardback book is GBP29.50.

Eureka Miniatures has announced specific unit packs for Lasalle, the latest set of Napoleonic wargames rules from Sam Mustafa. Customers should note that we will not be offering these specific packs.

Fighting 15s already offers bargain packs for generic 1:20 ratio infantry battalions that suit General de Brigade and Lasalle, among other rules, and 12-man cavalry units suitable for Lasalle and many other rules. These units are listed under the Bargain Packs and Unit Packs headings for each nation in the 15mm AB Napoleonic range and the 18mm Eureka Miniatures Napoleonic range. They have been popular with customers since Fighting 15s introduced them in 2006, both for online sales and at wargames shows, and in fact account for the bulk of our show sales of AB Figures.

Fighting 15s will in due course be stocking the Lasalle rules, obtained through official UK distributor Black Hat Miniatures.

Fighting 15s is at Warfare in Reading on 21 and 22 November. Advance orders can still be placed today and tomorrow (Thursday). Friday is too late.

As many customers I hope are aware, my wife Janet has been seriously ill over the past 13 months, having undergone six months of chemotherapy to treat leukaemia, and then requiring the rest of the time to recuperate. During that time I have found it a struggle to look after the family, run the home, and manage Fighting 15s without ruining my reputation for customer service or letting down the companies that I represent. I have worked some pretty crazy hours to keep on top.

Janet has now been able to resume work part-time, and does not have to see her consultant for another three months. Her bone marrow is still not entirely normal, but test results show she is none the less healthier than some perfectly well people, and so apart from the occasional visit to hospital and the need to take life a bit more carefully, we are as back to normal as we’ll ever be.

Fighting 15s is beginning to get back to the point it had reached 13 months ago: i.e. on top of orders, back doing wargames shows, and looking at expanding its line-up of manufacturers. Emails are dealt with when possible, sometimes even promptly. Unfortunately, it has been necessary to drop the traditional mail-order lists and switch to being an almost entirely internet-based business: doing so has ensured the orders system remains organised and fully recoverable in the event of human error. As Fighting 15s can keep going on internet-based orders and sales at shows, a return to using traditional paper-based mail order lists is not on the cards: too few orders arrive by post to warrant the time and effort spent on maintaining the lists.

Thank you to all my customers who have stuck with me and understood my problems during this horrendous time. Your support and patience is most appreciated. I have undoubtedly offended some customers during this time, or seemed distant, offhand, irrational, or inconsistent to others. Extreme stress makes a person do strange things, and I can only apologise: you have been dealing with someone who at times has had the reasoning powers and memory of Pooh Bear, which must be most frustrating.

Ian
Fighting 15s

The local post office in Freshwater is shut for refurbishment until Thursday 19 November, which will affect when I am able to get to the post office to send out orders to customers.

Fortunately, the post office in Totland Bay has been revived after a period of closure, and is now based in The Broadway Inn – a pub run by the former postmaster. The hours are somewhat quaint for a post office, from 11am till 3pm, but conveniently correspond to the pub’s lunchtime opening hours (look, it’s a pub in a quiet part of West Wight, and it doesn’t keep town hours).

In the interests of customer service I will therefore be using The Broadway Inn while my usual post office is shut. I will, of course, not be driving there, and my return after taking customers’ parcels may be delayed.

I am delighted to report that the first trial drop at the pub has worked wonders.