Evil Empire has Evil Customer Service - Surprised?

[DirkDiggler69]

IT's not that bad until someone knocks a building over on it. Then the difference between metal, plastic, and failcast become obvious.

 

I've worked with lots of resin, filling pin holes, and fixing offsets its pretty normal. It's the fact that these are not display models they are designed to be handled often, and are now being made out of a very very fragile material.

 

With metal the worst case scenario would be a joint popping loose. I would have paid the current finecast prices to keep the metal models.

 

Now if it were anything like the new Reaper Bones I would be all over it.

[Argentee]

 

Sorry, the failcast set off my rant-o-meter.

 

No apologies needed! For someone just getting into Miniatures (using Heroclix to block out fights for Mutants and Masterminds doesn't count, And I've not played D&D since college...) this is all valuable information!

[Heisler]

Failcast is a reference to GW's Finecast resin that they have shifted to . They replaced all of their metal miniatures with resin, indicated that this reduced their production costs and promptly did their yearly upward price adjustment.

 

 

 

Sorry, the failcast set off my rant-o-meter.

 

I think it pegged just about everyone's rant-o-meter. My son has a box of harlequins in both metal and in finecast. There really is no comparison, the metal is just so much better. Because of the stances these were already somewhat fragile in metal, in finecast they just about break when you look at them.

[buglips*the*goblin]

Anybody remember Ral Partha's unfortunate experiment with resin?

 

I was instructed to paint the Monsters box set for the store, and I'm awfully glad I didn't pay the 40-whatever bucks it went for. Only the green slime and white dragon were even remotely salvagable - as in they were only "pretty bad" as opposed to "oh, how horrid".

 

None of the other miniatures were usable. It was grotesque.

[Heisler]

I do remember those, although the Battletech resins weren't bad.

[Atramagus]

I'm so late to this party. Gotta suit up.

 

You should read it! The latest novel in the Discworld series, Snuff, even has goblins!

 

You're trying to tempt a goblin with a book titled Snuff, mentioning that it has goblins... I like your style!

 

Yes, Pratchett is well worth reading, as are most of the other series mentioned here. I enjoyed the Hitchhiker's Guide as well, but couldn't finish the last book in the series. Don't know why, probably just too much overload at that point (was reading them all one after the other), but it just didn't strike me like the others. As to the Game of Throne series... I quit that when I got one book, then had to wait 6 years for the next to come out.

 

 

Jim Butcher. Kim Harrison. All I'm gonna say.

 

Jim Butcher: Yes - Kim Harrison: Not so much. The series seemed to fizzle out around the 3rd or 4th book... but meh.

 

Okay, enough thread-jacking, sorry.

 

And yeah... as to the OP - Doesn't surprise me at all. I haven't had bad experiences with them myself, but I also haven't purchased anything from them in 9 years - those friends that have, have mentioned some very bad incidents.

[TheAuldGrump]

I can be added to both the 'Good EE Customer Service!' and 'Bad EE Customer Service' categories. I had excellent service from them back in the days when they still carried their old archived minis - while they screwed up all three orders a little they replaced the parts where they messed up and let me keep the wrong figures that they had sent.

 

Later I had terrible service from them in regards to a Land Raider that was badly formed - one entire frame was unusable because of insufficient fill or pressure. He kept suggesting that I 'heat the frame in hot water and bend it back into shape' with me telling hime, over and over, that no, the parts were incomplete, not just warped - and that even if it was just warped they should replace the parts. And, eventually, they did.

 

Then a friend that owned a game store got a shipment of Failcast... oh, dear gods, above and below.... And the GW rep was downright abusive about it. My guess is that he had already fielded fifty or sixty calls that day, all complaining about the horrible, bad, awful QA they had done on Findcash. The most common was insufficient fills - hands, weapons, bits of banner, all missing or partially missing. And Paul put the call on the speaker phone so that everyone in the shop could hear it.

 

The store is gone now, but I don't think that they dealt with GW again after that little conversation, just got their replacement models and never ordered from them again.

 

The Auld Grump

[Tranquil Ape]

Dammit... I want a reaper hat and shirt now and already locked in all my pledge stuff....

[Gailbraithe]

Ahh...ehhh...oh, what the hell.

 

::casts Resist Energy (Fire) on self::

 

People who complain about GW's prices are, as a general rule, being completely myopic. Yeah, you heard me. I'm calling you all out.

 

Yes, if you compared the cost of single miniatures between GW and, well, frankly, anyone, it does appear that GW is ripping you off. GW miniatures are about twice as expensive as anything else you could play. I personally think comparing GW and Reaper is comparing apples and oranges -- Bones may be plastic like most GW miniatures, but they're not anywhere near as easy to use for doing conversion work as GW plastics. Reaper makes RPG miniatures, GW makes wargames. Big difference. A much better comparison would be GW to Mantic, which is about the same quality, pretty much the same range of models, and about half the price (or less). So on the surface, GW seems like an Evil Empire, out to rob us all blind.

 

But that's BS, because when you buy GW models you are buying something else entirely. Something not listed on the box anywhere, something which makes the value so much clearer. You're buying the Games Workshop stores. Because those stores barely make money, and the GW prices reflect the necessary subsidization of those stores.

 

I could build two Warlord armies in metal for the price of one plastic Warhammer Fantasy army. But Reaper doesn't have a store in Seattle where I am always going to be able to find a game. Games Workshop does. I have lost count of the number of times I have packed up one of my armies into a box, drove down to the store and immediately found another player ready to play. And when there wasn't another player to play? The store manager (often the only employee of that location) will call people. He has a network of customers he has developed relationships with, he knows when they're likely to be free, and he'll find me someone to play with. That is a form of customer service that Reaper, Mantic, Wyrd, etc. cannot hope to match.

 

That's why I still play, even though I haven't liked a single one of the rules revisions since the 1st edition of 40k, even though they keep failing to support the games I love most (Mordheim? Adeptus Titanticus? Space Marine? Space Hulk?). That's why I still play despite it being like a decade since they updated my favorite army (SISTERS OF BATTLE!!!!). Because for all the things they get wrong (and its a lot of things!), GW produces games that I can actually find people to play and I can actually play with.

 

And that is awesome.

 

So stop whining.

[Girot]

LMAO!! Aaaand outta left field comes Gailbraithe with a counter attack!

[Baphomet69]

I guess we were told! Turns out we have no reason to complain. After all, we should be happy we're subsidizing GW so that Gailbraithe has a place to play...

 

lol

[Qwyksilver]

That only partially addresses their price point. Not the behavior of their employees, which is the issue.

[The Inner Geek]

I guess we were told! Turns out we have no reason to complain. After all, we should be happy we're subsidizing GW so that Gailbraithe has a place to play...

 

lol

 

That's kind of what I thought once I realized he wasn't being ironic.

[MikeD]

Is anybody here playing with the latest Citadel paints and, if so, they any good?

I used to use Citadel paints when I first switched to acrylic from enamels back in the day (this was the old paint that is now sold as Coat D'Arms). I stopped using them when they switched to the "Bolter Shell" paint pots (the hard plastic lids did not seal properly, so the paints had the shelf life of unrefrigerated lettus). I switched over completly to Vallejo with a few Reaper Paints mixed in (love the dropper bottles). Around a year ago I started hearing about these great new specialty paints Citadel added to their line, like Foundation Mechrite Red and Griffon Sepia Wash. I gave thegm a try and thought these were the bee's knees and started incorporating them into my own painting techique. Now, however, they redid their paint line again and dropped all these popular specialty paints, and instroduced a new "system" which is no where near as good. So, I drop them again and am back with Vallejo/Reaper as my primary paints, this time for good.

[ThornDJL7]

My friend has suckered me into playing warhammer fantasy. I'm under the impression that I can substitute minis from other companies to customize my armies and IMO cheapen the cost. I can find no rule in there books saying otherwise and people on warhammer forums say I'm ok as long as "what you see is what you get".