Sad News from Olley's Armies

[Darkoath]

Well it has started... with rising costs of metal, fuel etc., miniatures companies are
starting to have a hard time of it...

Reaper just announced price increases... other companies have announced they are releasing
pre-painted or plastic figures instead of metal miniatures...

And now Olley's Armies have announced they will be shutting down business!

Here is the official annoucement from their website:

It was with much regret that on the 20 May we made the following announcement on Frothers UK and a similar annoucement on The Miniatures Page
" Hi Frothers, It is with much regret, infact I am gutted, that I have to inform you all, that we have decided to close down Olleys Armies. We came to this decission after much consideration and number crunching. As you know we have been in business for over 4 years and to this day still have tons of enthusiasm for making new models but, unfortunately we have failed to get a large enough customer base to sustain the business and give us any expectation of a reasonable profit. We have found running Olleys Armies a very demanding but rewarding experience and although we have both been prepared to work hard without initial returns we have reached a point where we can no longer justify the expense and time. I wish I was in a position where the returns didn't dictate the future, but in our case they have too, so its bite the bullet time.
We would like to take this opprotunity to thank our many loyal and enthusiastic customers who have kept us going over the last 4 years and the fact is, if we had not had such support many of the models would never have been made.
Our exsisting store will be open for as long as it takes to clear most of the stock, so for a short while it will be business as usual, but without new models or restocks. For the future, I can't be sure at this stage whether we would be selling the business moulds and all, but if we do it would be done on a closed bid basis.
Finally, I intend to keep a small website open so that we can continue to display all the images of painted miniatures submitted to our our exsisting gallery and maybe even add more as time goes on. The cherry minus the cake, so to speak.
Best regards Bob"
 
 
Close Down Update 
 
First of all thanks to everyone who has emailed, pm'd me or placed an order, we have been quite overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of correspondence, that its going to be impossible to deal with everything quickly, please bear with us as we work our way through the inbox.
Also the volume of orders we have recieved is HUGE, and we were completely unprepared for this response. We don't want to dissapoint anyone who has placed an order so we have decided to run the moulds up to the point of fulfilling all the requests for miniatures. The cut off point for restock orders will be the 30 May, beyond this date we will only be selling what remains in stock. As a result of the large amount of orders our despatch time will not be as quick as usual, so please accept our appologies for any delay. Also anyone who has requested figures, but hasn't the financies to place an order at this stage just email us and we will place the minis in reserve for you, if you can't eventually go through with the order no worries.
For the future I have no plans to give up sculpting as a freelance sculptor, also it is still too early to have any fixed plans with regard to what will happen to Olleys Armies ranges of miniatures. However, I have recieved various offers from different companies and individuals, who are either interested in buying or licensing the right to produce our ranges. Although nothing is fixed at this stage there is a possibility that the range of miniatures will go in two different directions. The scrunts, dwarf world, texan scrunts and scrunt pirates could be reproduced under license and its possible that the funds from such a deal could eventually allow us to return the range to our website. If this does happen I would be able to extend the scrunt and dwarf world ranges again, as to continue them in this dark moment is my strongest wish . As for the other ranges I think it very likely that these may be sold off either as a whole or as individual subjects. Please bear in mind that none of these plans or hopes are fixed at this stage, also I can't give any time frame for the above events or possibilities. I will keep you updated through this website and on the Frothers Unite forum.
Finally, at the risk of repeating ourselves, we cannot thank our customers enough for all the support and encouragement they have given us over the years.
My final sentiments are This battle has been lost but the war is by no means over,and I'm damned if I'll let those Psychics destroy the Scrunts and God forbid they ever enter Dwarf World. 

Now more than ever we are going to need to support our favorite miniatures companies...

I fear this trend is only going to get worse...
 
 
 

[Commander Vyper]

Yup very sad, we frother's have much lamented over this news..... if you've always wanted to get any of Bob's figures but always put it off...now's the time.

The commander.

[Glitzer]

Sad to hear, I thought about getting some new space dwarfs because of them, now there's only hasslefree left (and all of us know: Hasslefree grymm are cool, but completry different)

[twrchtrwyth]

I guess with the world economy on a downturn we'll see more of this,  .

[Commander Vyper]

Sad to hear, I thought about getting some new space dwarfs because of them, now there's only hasslefree left (and all of us know: Hasslefree grymm are cool, but completry different)

Scrunts are still available from Bob's shop or from other retailers with stock matey; plus another guy also has a more GW inspired range of Bob Olley squats that he did for him, including exo-armour, beserkers and zz top squats:






Cheers

The Commander

[Lowtardog]

It is a real shame, but the good news is Bob Olley could restart when he feels like it, so all is not lost. . I picked up the Nemesis Goblins I had hummed and Harred over, looking forward to getting them

[Darkoath]

I ordered the dwarf world miniaures... I had been looking at those for a while... inspired by Alex's beautiful painting of these figures!

[Col.Stone]

Dwarf pirates for me..