News

September 1, 2023

This little News section is meant to bring you up to date on what's going on at MInden. It's been many months since we last updated the site. It wasn't throuogh lack of wanting to keep up, it was more a matter of meeting real life deadlines and responsibilities. This meant a delay in new products. Work has continued apace, and notably, Weltkrieg 1914, promised for a long time, has seen the light of day. Along with this WW1 solitaire game, we have three other new releases: QAR: Quick Armor Rules, North Africa, Der Tag, 1916 2nd ed., and Gunfight at O.K. Corral, Advanced Ed. You can read about each of these releases at the Current Releases page, and place your orders there.

There are four other game titles in the pipeline, and nearing completion. I won't list specifics or make projections; I'd rather wait until things are DONE and ready to ship before making announcements.

I can mention a change in policy we have adopted. We won't be producing physical game components moving forward. Many gamers now days have been accustomed to scanning and printing their own components, and through time, there was a dwindling demand for physical maps and counters. If you were among the number who liked Minden's components (made available for purchase separately), my apologies. The fact was that as numbers go down, prices would have to go up. When I was assessing the printing and postage costs for the new series of releases, a couple things were clear to me. One, it was hard to justify the cost (for us, as well as for you) for producing physical components. Two, with the new advanced printing available now through Amazon, our business model has shifted. Book prices could actually come down if we were not saddled with producing separate components. Since many apparently are comfortable with scanning and printing--or printing from a PDF--I figured it made sense to join the bandwagon and focus on book format, and PDF format, and provide a price break for anyone who ordered a game book and a PDF of the game at the same time.

I want to thank those who have emailed and asked about how things were going, and had general questions. Always happy to hear from you. To answer a couple of the most asked queries, no, we haven't stepped away from Combat Leader games, and no, we haven't stepped away from Panzerschreck, either. You can look forward to both of these in, I hope, the not too distant future. But I will refrain from making predictions. As I say in my reply emails, we'll let you know when something new is available here at the Minden website.

The pandemic was a nasty time (in more ways than one) and my sense is that it has nudged the wargaming community in new directions. Namely, more openness for historical solitiaire games, and a shift toward the PDF format. I know that our PDF sales exploded beginning in the spring of 2020, and it hasn't let up. Same with Amazon. So much so, that much of my design time was spent the last year or two with "converting" many of our ziplock, booklet games, into book format, compatible with Amazon. Once something is listed there, it is available to gamers around the globe, and I don't need to worry about keeping all sorts of game parts in stock.

I'll close here for now. I wanted to provide you all with some background information about what's been going on with Minden. And I hope that you will find some of the new releases appealing, and that you can have increased joy in our hobby as we motor on towards autumn.

Gary