Monster Scenery: Ice Wilds

[lexomatic]

I guess shipping has restarted post Gen Con. Still no word for Canada. I expect to get my Zombicide first seeing as Ice Wilds is behind the Metropolis in the queue - even though I think it happened first- and international is being fulfilled in-house,  while USA is being done by Flying Cloud.

[ksbsnowowl]

Got mine today. Not especially happy. Seems like I got a bunch of QC rejects. Almost every leafy bit has only one paint step, unlike what was shown on the campaign page, and unlike the previous product of theirs that I own. 
 

They also left a few items out of my order, and sent wrong items in place of some others. 
 

New vs. old:

 

 

Spotty, one-step paint job. 
 

[lexomatic]

New announcmment

USA has apparently all been sent out. Some items (ancient ruins missing floor) were missing so that's going out separately

"Fulfillment Status: (CANADA) All of the orders for Canada have been consolidated and are being sent in bulk next week, according to Nord, then to be shipped once arrive. Expect to start seeing local tracking in the next week or so. Missing floor stretch goal for the ancient ruins has already been corrected for all non-USA backers and will be included when you get your order."

Looks like I was wrong about timing. So maybe 2 weeks earliest?

Edited August 19, 2022 by lexomatic

[Adrift]

That blows, frankly. Maybe the one-step was in anticipation of adding a ‘snow’ layer? @ksbsnowowl

 

I’ve got some of their non-winter stuff and they just reuse the same molds over and over.  I’ve not had a problem with the ‘quality’ of what I’ve purchased at retail or via this KS. Though I will be waiting exclusively for retail moving forward. 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Adrift

[ksbsnowowl]

8 hours ago, Adrift said:

That blows, frankly. Maybe the one-step was in anticipation of adding a ‘snow’ layer? @ksbsnowowl

 

But the green pines shown on the KS page definitely have a lighter green highlight layer. These are entirely missing that. 
 

From the campaign page:

 

With the first KS foliage, the first paint layer is an overbrush, covering ~80-90% of the plastic. The sole paint layer on the pines I received are maybe 40% coverage?

[ced1106]

Yuck. Sorry to hear that. With KS, I don't pledge for painting levels because of the problems you encountered. I've also given up on high-end bling components after receiving some metal coins that didn't have any weathering effect added to them. (Going to buy some Rub and Buff and see if that helps.)

 

EDIT: Dwarven Forge thread. Painted pledgers received unpainted models. That's going to cost money to replace. Also, poor communication (silence) from creators.

https://forum.dwarvenforge.com/viewtopic.php?t=11703&sid=cf98d88bb7d363e1faac23775a0b51e9&start=260

Edited August 22, 2022 by ced1106

[ksbsnowowl]

So I emailed Monster Fight Club on Monday, explaining the issues I had with my delivery, and attaching images showing the issues (many were pictures I’ve added to this thread already). The only other picture of note that I took was of the blighted pines I’d received; it was by far the worst-painted item I’d received.
 

 

A few hours later I received a call from John Kovaleski, the president of MFC. We chatted for nearly 25 minutes. He was fairly apologetic, and said I was not the only one to send similar photos, though my blighted pines picture was the worst example he had seen. He said my photos and those of others had already been forwarded to the factory, telling them it was unacceptable. It seems the factory is already working on another run for retail (all the KS overage has already been sold/spoken for), and MFC definitely doesn’t want a repeat of this situation. 

It seems that the hard lockdowns in China caused the factory to get behind schedule. With the difficulty of getting containers for shipping, it seems that once the container slot was available, they slapped the crudest, quickest paint jobs on the remainder to get them out the door and on a boat. These reports of badly-painted pieces were a surprise to John at first. When they checked the first few boxes of goods to come off the truck, they all looked great. 

Anyway, MFC is taking care of me. They are going above and beyond, and I’m pleased with what the end result will be. It’ll be a month or two for them to repaint stuff. 
 

My conversation with John was good, and covered a few other aspects that I won’t go into here, but I truly believe he is just as unhappy with the factory in China as I was at receiving what I’d received. This is the first time I’ve had any sort of issue with any of the MFC products I’ve ordered, and they are definitely exceeding my expectations in resolving it. 

Here are a couple pics of nearly all my trees set up on the MFC mat I ordered last month. 
 

 

[lexomatic]

I got a label created notice for shipping in Canada today. I imagine 1-2 weeks, but who knows...

[ced1106]

11 hours ago, ksbsnowowl said:

It seems that the hard lockdowns in China caused the factory to get behind schedule. With the difficulty of getting containers for shipping, it seems that once the container slot was available, they slapped the crudest, quickest paint jobs on the remainder to get them out the door and on a boat. These reports of badly-painted pieces were a surprise to John at first. When they checked the first few boxes of goods to come off the truck, they all looked great. 

 

The first few always look great. 😕 Galladoria Games, last I heard, does theirs semi-in-house. That is, they hire someone local and work closely with them. Didn't keep them from catching some peeling paint on resin, but they fixed the problem before everything was sent out. More KS annoyance that we gotta ask the creator where the hand-painting is done, then assume anything overseas will be unsatisfactory. The table *does* look good for game night. Dwarven Forge is, I figure, the next level up, but is $$$. I cheated with Mantic's foliage-free trees and glorious stumps. 😛

 

[Talae]

4 hours ago, ced1106 said:

Dwarven Forge is, I figure, the next level up, but is $$$.

My wallet agrees, as this is what I own most of.

[Grumpy Gnome]

Disappointing to hear about the painting problems but good to hear MFC taking the problem so seriously and trying to address it personally. The retail MFC stuff Mrs. GG and I have has all been pretty good so we expected more of the same. Now we anxiously wait to see what we get. Being in Germany we still do not know when ours will arrive.

[lexomatic]

So shipping label created 26th

Left NJ 31st

Could get to Toronto today/ tomorrow but...maybe Friday earliest likely, next week for very likely

I got unpainted so don't need to worry anoit lost people's issues

[lexomatic]

The mobile website has more tracking info than the regular website.... which just lists stuff as in transit.

I'm not sure how it's shipping but 415pm it was in transit in NJ and 1015pm it says in transit Toronto (that seems really fast for driving, but I dunno). Not sure when it'll be received, processed, and then sent out locally for delivery. I imagine early next week?

 

My confusion was I guess based on 2 things: not registering 24 hour clock, and wrapping my brain around a date in the future ( this morning)  as in transit. Anyway stuff cleared customs this morning. Is probably going to some sort facility and may get delivered to post for last mile. With Labour Day, I expect delivery sometime after Tuesday.  But this so close/ so far part is THE worst

Edited September 2, 2022 by lexomatic

[lexomatic]

Got my delivery about earliest likely.

Only took a quick glance and things look okay.

1) my unpainted sets look like the "painted" problem sets above

2) way more than I expected. Excited to have multiple heights of trees.

3) so much packaging and bubble wrap. This stuff wasn't getting damaged at all.

[ksbsnowowl]

My repainted Ice Wilds foliage showed up yesterday. They did touch up just about everything I sent back. Instead of touching up the one set of deciduous foliage I’d sent, they plucked out a set of three from a retail package and sent those to me instead (I can tell from a photo of what I’d sent that they are not the same); honestly the replacement ones are painted about the same as the ones I’d sent in. That’s disappointing, but they do all have all the expected paint steps, just not applied as well as I was expecting based on my previous purchases.

Everything else is better-painted than it was when I sent it out. Maybe not always quite to the level of older product I own, but definitely better than it was, and overall to an acceptable standard. In a few instances, the coverage still isn’t that great, as they basically applied a 20% drybrush highlight over 25% overbrush coverage; I would have expected them to increase the lacking overbrush before doing the second layer drybrush on top, but oh well. 

Compare this to the before photo higher up this page:

 

 

Repainted Ice Wilds product on left; old product on right:



Repainted autumn bushes vs. autumn tree canopy. 



Touched up evergreen pines:



I’m definitely still a fan of MFC, and will be purchasing from them again in the future.