A Merry Christmas and all that

Christmas, eh?  To use a very apt phrase, ‘Like it or loathe it - you can’t ignore it.’   So yes, THAT time of the year is nearly upon us, and one of the consequences of this is that we will be closing the workshop for a few days, while drinking, eating and revelling to excess is indulged in.   Baccus HQ will therefore be lying dormant from close of business today (20/12/24) until Thursday 2nd January.

We’ve been casting, packing and posting orders as quickly as we can, with extra hours being put in by all members of the team.   As a result, we have processed orders up to #30718.   For those of you with a mathematical bent, we have processed over 200 orders this week, and to be honest, that is an underestimate as we have managed to get a fair number completed after the nominal figure.   As ever, some of you with orders after this number will get an expected surprise, and some prior to this will have to wait a little longer.  Many apologies to those who will have to wait until the New Year for us to send their orders off.  We really have worked as quickly as we can, but full completion of every order proved to be beyond us this time around.

As ever, I will soon be presenting the Baccus end of year bucketful of gibberish as I attempt to outline the plans for 2025.   This usually has a level of accuracy which makes alchemy and astrology look credible, but if you fancy a laugh, I will be posting this around the turn of the year.

One behalf of all of us at Team Baccus, can I wish You and Yours all the very best for the Festive Season, and I hope that Santa brings you just what you always wanted.

Great news for all of our EU customers!

I am delighted, and more than a little relieved, to be able to announce that Baccus is once more able to accept orders from EU countries.

We have secured the services of an EU point of contact for GPRS purposes, which meant that I have been able to give our Tech Chap the order to, 'turn the EU back on again!'.

Here is a lovely pre-Xmas present for all concerned.

Many thanks to all who reached out to us over the past few days offering support.  It was really appreciated.

A Good News Post. Prizes galore, GPSR progress and a new Facebook page.

Hello all, and welcome to the weekly update from you friendly local neighbourhood maker of little men.   There are some positive items this week, so keep reading to be better informed.   First in the queue is this week’s magic order number which stands at #30517.  We are making a concerted effort to shift as many orders as we can over the next few days ahead of the festive break.

Which brings us to the first of this week’s announcements.   In the spirit of the season, Lindy has decided to give more things away.   I really do need to have strong words with her about needless seasonal generosity.   Words like, ‘Bah!’ and ‘Humbug!’, will definitely be deployed.   Anyway, today twelve envelopes, one for each day of the Christmas have been sent out to twelve of our customers who have bought something from us over the last twelve months.  Each contains a, (thankfully), small gift from Baccus.   To the winners, congratulations, and to everyone else commiserations, but thank you one and all for your order.

A belated Baccus Golden Ticket winner and other bits of news.

It’s Friday, so that means it’s time for me to report on yet another busy week at the Fortress of Darkness that is Baccus HQ.  This week, the casters and admin team have worked their little socks off and we have processed order #30436. 

Today, we are profiling yet another Baccus Golden Ticket winner.  The lucky individual is Charles Sapp from the USA.   This announcement is a little late due to a combination of Charles’s reply to us coming in a few weeks after his elevation to Golden Ticket Royalty and me finding the right place to fit it in.   However, better late than never, and here, in his own words, is the Baccus Golden Ticket winner for August 2024.

Important notice all our EU customers

 It is with massive regret that I have to report that Baccus will not be accepting any orders from EU residents with immediate effect.    I hope that this will be a temporary state of affairs, so please bear with me as I try to remedy this.

The reason is the imminent implementation of the EU GPRS rules, designed to ensure the safety of products imported into the EU.  Despite my best efforts I have been unable to navigate a way through the requirements ahead of the 12th December deadline.  The safest thing to do is therefore to cease trading in the EU until this can be resolved.

My apologies to all of our loyal EU customers who have stayed with us during the Brexit debacle and the initial vagaries of the VAT IOSS scheme.   I had thought that we had weathered the worst of the problems, but alas, I was dead wrong.

We are expediting any orders still in our system destined for the EU in order to get them safely en-route ahead of the 12th.   With a fair wind, these will get through to their destinations with no trouble.

I apologise to all of you with part-finished projects or who are looking ahead to some of our planned releases.   We will be working hard to try and resume EU sales as soon as we can.

On a personal note, I am livid about all of this, which, quite frankly, was completely avoidable, but this is not the place for me to let loose such opinions.   I will be doing so shortly on my personal Facebook page, and I would ask anyone who wishes to comment to engage with me there.

For the record, in prior to 2021, sales to the EU accounted for 25% of total sales and was a steadily growing market, with annual sales increasing year on year.   They never recovered from that period, and 2025 will see such sales reduced to zero.

Argh!

A mutiny quelled.

Right.  The grown-up is back in charge, and after the madness that Lindy wrought upon the good ship Baccus over the last few days, a firm and steady hand is back at the wheel.  The crew have been soundly chastised and as at last Friday we had reached order number #30379.

We are now gearing up for the Xmas season, with an extra caster joining the team.  We’ll be shifting metal at an unprecedented rate to clear as much as we can as quickly as we can. 

When the cat is away...the mouse looks after the customers!

Landknechts and Desert Foxes advancing of Farnborough!

By the time that most of you will be reading this, we’ll be well on our way down South for the Warfare show in Farnborough, so there will be no magic number this week.  Normal service will resume next Friday.

As the last standing two-day show in the country, we’d class Warfare as a ‘major’ event in our Calendar and we always like to have some tasty new releases available.  This time round is no exception.   Firstly, ahead of the official online release next week, we will have some of our quite wonderful Landsknecht pikemen. 

No new releases, but something nice to look at.

Once again, we have reached the weekend which means a regular Baccus update, and this week is no exception.   As usual we start with the Magic order number, which this week stands at #30245.   The usual disclaimer applies that, due to arcane reasons beyond which even the wisest of men would be foolish to investigate, there may be a couple of orders prior to this number that did not make the cut this week, and perversely, a couple after this may, even now, be heading to their ultimate destination.

A Golden Ticket winner and a new range released

Hi Everyone,

Back to what some might call ‘normal’ for this week’s Baccus update, as we have the usual updates, another Golden Ticket winner, and the release of a new range of figures.   Yes, folks, it’s all happening at Baccus HQ!

As is traditional, we will start with this week’s magic order number, which stands at #30164.   We are now well on track to get order turnaround back to a more acceptable level, and if all goes well, this will happen ahead of our previous projection.   Rumours that has been achieved by chaining the casters to their machines and only feeding them if they hit their production quotas are greatly exaggerated…well, perhaps not ‘greatly’…