Battlefront responded on the Kickstarter page saying they had approached Dust Studio requesting mediation of the contract. According to Battlefront, Dust Studios has refused the offer. Honestly, I’m not sure what there is to mediate since Battlefront signed a contract and should be under legal obligation to make good.
Also, many backers who have received orders from the first wave are claiming Battlefront shipped the wrong items as well as many models which were to be included are missing.
Currently Dust Studio is continuing to post new images and write ups for Operation Babylon models so it’s probably safe to say the line will make its way into gamers’ hands. What might be up in the air is how Dust products are distributed in the future. Since the Chinese New Year begins in a couple of days, and most things come to a screeching halt for two weeks in China, we probably won’t hear much about how all this will pan out until late in the month, early March, or possibly much later.
Sorry to say what looked like a perfect match between Dust Studio and Battlefront, after Parente moved the line from Fantasy Flight Games, might not turn out to be the best for both companies nor the gaming public in general.
I ran across this post, filled with speculation, that I found pretty interesting: http://theback40k.blogspot.com/2015/02/whats-up-at-battlefront.html?m=1 All I can say is here at TGG, we’re 100% behind Parente and Dust Studios and hope they’re able to iron out the differences with Battlefront and/or sever their relationship without irreparably damaging DS.
Thanks for the article Jeff and yes things are a mess. Paolo sure appreciates your support and yes nearly everything is finished waiting for Battlefront to uphold its end of the deal so shipment can start. If any of your readers are involved with the Kickstarter they should send a copy of their invoice from the Battlefront Kick Starter to [email protected] or a screen shot of their pledge manager page if they never received one. Battlefront appears to be withholding order information because Paolo does not have this info and has no access to it currently.