Arrival of Tannhauser: Operation Novgorod factory rejects

Today I received a package from Hong Kong earlier than expected. These are figures for use in the Tannhauser line of games currently published by Fantasy Flight Games (FFG). They originally only distributed the game to North America, but bought the intellectual property from it's French creator, Take On You.

Tannhauser is a game that takes place in an alternate reality in which World War I never ends, the Reich (Germans) is ruled by a resurrected Templar, the Union (US and Great Britain) use tech from an alien crash site in New Mexico, and the Matriarchy rules Russia. It's pulp fiction, it's a bit with magic and sci-fi, I love it.

The game uses a 'pathfinding system' for moving around the game board and for line-of-sight purposes, and players bring a squad of characters which each have a chart with basic information (combat value, speed, etc.) and token representing different abilities or equipment the characters can us for the game.

Now, these recently popped up on eBay and I bought a set, as I would like the figures to play with for the game but cannot shell out the ~$45 (including shipping) to get the actual expansion (cards, tokens, maps, etc.)

These look pretty good, no?

The Voivodes (the little egg thingies) are the only ones that seem bent or warped, but that's how a good many of them look. Just the way the soft plastic is molded.

Now, let me take a moment to explain how factory rejects work. Many people who collect toys or miniatures know how easy it is to find stuff on eBay that's a prototype or what appear to be normal models for a whole lot cheaper than they could find the toy over here.

Law works a little different in China as compared to here. If we put a toy in the trash here, the company that threw it away still owns it until it's out of their posession. However, in China, toys thrown in the trash by companies are 'fair game'. The employees can pick through it, smuggle it out, and sell it with little to no recourse for the companies that threw them away.

I hope you found that informative. Next, I will explain what happened to Tannhauser...