Battlefront Miniatures, who distributes the alternate-history World War II miniatures game Dust Tactics and Dust Warfare for Dust Studio Ltd., partnered with Dust to oversee aspects of the company’s Dust: Operation Babylon Kickstarter last summer. According to the contract posted by Dust designer Paolo Parente, those duties included collecting and distributing the funds, organizing the orders, designing the campaign book, packaging product, and shipping to backers. Battlefront also ran a concurrent retailer program during the Kickstarter (see "Retailers Can Sell 'Dust' Kickstarter Offerings").
The Kickstarter raised $469,313 from 1,475 backers ($318.18/backer average), with the product shipment broken up into two waves. The first wave had begun shipping in December. Sometime between that shipment and January, relations between the two companies broke down, with Parente taking to social media on January 30th and airing the dispute, accusing Battlefront of not paying bills or sumitting orders for the second wave of product.
Battlefront responded on the Kickstarter update page, stating that it had sought professional mediation with Dust Studios over the contractual dispute, and that Dust had refused.
ICv2 contacted both companies for comment, but did not receive a response from either party.
