Not again!

Those of you who have been reading my mutterings from the time before laser cutting took over may remember my long time project to create opposing Grenadier Fantasy Warriors Dwarf and Orc/Goblin armies.

One of the models that has alluded me for some time are the Chronicle Miniatures Orc and Goblin Chariots. Although not technically Grenadier figures they were sculpted by the same sculptor who did the FW line - Nick Lund. I have three of the Grenadier Orc Warchief Chariots but want the other variants too!

BN1

There was One on ebay recently from New Zealand... and for the 6th time in the last 3-4 years I managed to be the SECOND highest bidder. Despite sniping the auction I was outbid by another sniper! I'm not complaining about this practice, its a sensible way of bidding - it's just frustrating that I continue the hunt yet again.

I did turn down a chariot a few months ago that had the driver figure missing and i reasoned i was unlikely to be able to find a spare driver from the set - I'm beginning to regret that.

So in the vain hope that any of you guys out there have any of the Chronicle chariots and are prepared to sell or swap then please let me know. It might be worth reminding you that I have a 'Wanted Page' which I try to keep up to date with my current obsessions. 

B.

Ho, and indeed, Hum!

These are the days I dislike.

Well, not so much dislike as ... well I'm not sure.

Since I decided to give this "making and selling things" idea a go about 3 months ago, it's taken up quite a bit of time. Well a LOT of time if truth be told and my wife is asked. Even for what seems like a simple product as I have, each kit still needs designing, prototyping, cutting, instructions writing, display models making, painting and photographing, web site managing, packing and shipping and then there is the ongoing pimping around any and every forum on the interwebbery that will let me log in (and some of them don't).

Not that I'm particularly complaining you understand. Just pointing out that it's not just, "Oh look a new shape of yoghurt pot - lets make a Palace!" and bingo, another product rolls off the production line to fill the coffers at Brandlin Towers.

There are some quiet times.

And this is one of them.

I have three kits out for prototype cutting and am waiting on a restock order too. So until the prototypes return and I have to assemble, paint, photograph and pimp them, fix any snags and order a new batch, I really don't have much to do.

And then it struck me. I should be painting up some figures or reading a new rule set or at the very least reorganising my storage system. But still, I am sat here, writing this to you because I actually can't turn my attention or interest to anything else.

I have Dwarf and Orc armies to paint, a Rogue Trooper project and an ABC warriors one, my beloved Grymn and their drop ship, many old crow vehicles not to mention two Rackham armies all needing paint.

Yet I know that by Friday morning a whole pile of plastic sheet is going to land on my doorstep care of the good old royal mail and I'll be gluing and painting like a trooper to cries from my nearest and dearest of  "you're always up there playing with your toy soldiers."  So perhaps I had better sign off here and go make the dinner.

Kind of like a pre-emptive apology.

Customer Service - How not to do it by MINIATURE HEROES

I've just had my wife in tears through frustration because she'd been trying to buy my surprise Christmas present for the past week and has finally given up.

She's not a gamer and does little more than ooh if I ask her what she thinks of this figure or that paint job. However, because she is a wonderful woman, she'd sneakily gone out of her way to find out what figures I needed to complete one of my armies and had discovered a UK distributor offering a 20% Christmas discount.

I still don't know precisely what she'd tried to buy, as she’s upset enough that her plans have fallen through, and the point was she had wanted it to be a surprise!

That’s always the best sort of present isn’t it? Unwrapping something and immediately knowing that the giver has spent their time to get something YOU want even though they know nothing about the subject matter.

Who has got her this frustrated and upset by the way they treat their customers?

Miniature-Heroes.co.uk

That's who.

About 10 days ago my wife ordered on-line and received a confirmation email for the transaction, only then to get a refund notice with NO reason given.

Absolutely NO COMMENT... no apology, no explanation, no offer to fix the problem.

NOTHING.

TWICE.

This has happened with both paypal and credit card orders. The website said they had stock and the check out process worked fine.

Despite contacting them directly via their web form on THREE occasions, NO reply has been forthcoming. There is no direct email address listed on their website. (Which I believe is a legal requirement in the UK by the way) and I've only just found their phone number buried at the bottom of their terms of use pages accessed from a tiny link.

Having looked on the website since she says that they now have no stock showing! So I'm guessing that their stock control is poor to non-existent and not reflected accurately on their website and that despite offering a sale they actually had very little stock at these prices.

I can only assume that this company had no intent of honouring orders placed during their sale at their sale prices once their very limited stock had been exhausted. Particularly galling as their Christmas sale was advertised on sites such as TMP.

All I can suggest is AVOID Miniature Heroes at http://www.miniature-heroes.co.uk/

Thanks to them my wife is upset that it looks like I wont have her surprise present to open on Christmas day, and she had been so pleased with herself, and they dont care enough to actually respond to her messages.

Is this rant a reasonable and balanced response to a company has had a problem with an order? After all it’s not as though we lost any money, refunds were given and we are not out of pocket?

Maybe it isn't.

But I would argue that there is no other recourse available to us from a company that doesn’t fulfil orders made with to it in good faith, provides no explanation for cancelled orders, does not respond to queries sent to them via the web form it promotes for communications!

Clearly communicating with its customers is not important to this company. So I have taken the step of communicating publicly here – I don’t think there is anything else left open to me. Besides if their customer service is this bad I'd rather conduct this conversation in a more public forum where other potential customers of theirs can see how the company responds.

So, TIM FITCH of MINIATURE HEROES. If you want to try and rectify this situation you can try filling the order you were sent in good faith, or responding to my wife’s messages or at the very least if you give a damn about customer satisfaction at all, leave comments here.

I’ll happily repost here any positive steps you want to take to rectify the situation.

EDIT: 22/12/2009 2149 GMT - Following the comments to this post I have changed the setting on my blog to not allow anonymous posters. Not for any clandestine reasons - just I'd rather know who I is posting and who I am responding to.

My New Hobby

At first it was a bit of a shock. I didn't actually know I had a new hobby until the realisation hit me. I've always thought of myself as a War Gamer that doesn't game as I very rarely get to push figures round on a war gaming table. Then when I came to terms with the lack of dice rolling I started to think of myself as a Modeler and Painter - all be it one that rarely picks up glue or a paint brush.

So I had kind of compromised on the idea that I was an Army Collector. I dont think of myself as a figure collector as I do only collect things I can put in armies (although i also have this nasty habit of also buying things to build new armies around) and I like drawing up the force lists (don't say codices codexes?) for all the mythical, never-to-be-played-out battles that they will fight.

I had also thought I might just be a Figure Buyer. Which has some truth, but is entirely Ebay's fault.

But then over the last couple of days I have been sorting through some of the collection and organising storage etc. And it hit me.

I am actually A FIGURE ORGANISER

There is something deeply satisfying about being able to fit your collection into just the right number of movement trays or an even number of boxes, or having just the right storage system to keep the dwarfs away from the orcs. Not that I have achieved any of these states of Nirvana yet, but I can feel the need to do so growing.

I've also been asked a couple of times about what I am working on now, and despite the poll a couple of months ago I haven't touched the Grymn Drop ship project in months. (oh come on you KNEW I was going to ignore the results... you MUST have known!)

But I do have a nice newly cleared painting area with ranks upon ranks of newly based and organised troops to work through... so i have no excuse for not painting now (or at least no excuse my hopelessly lethargic and inventively procrastinatory brain can yet come up with).

A few pictures:

The first 2 are of my shelving unit in full view 2 feet from my chair right next to the computer keyboard and my painting desk. So its impossible for me NOT to see what I need to paint and draw inspiration and enthusiasm from all their excited little faces.


The left side of this holds about 900 figures. These are the Old Grenadier Fantasy Warriors Dwarfs and Orc/Goblin armies I've posted about before.

Is it wrong to have 2 armies with 60+ movement trays/units?

The right hand side of the shelving contains on the lower shelf, more orcs and goblins, above that my VOR growler collection, and above that various RPG figures along with dice, Rogue Trooper forces and ABC warrior team. Oh, and my embryonic Hasslefree Sci-fi human contingent. The top has ogres and bat + bear riders.

Ah, but I hear all of you people that know me from the FOD (and believe me I use the term 'people' in its most lax taxonomicological* sense), where are all the grym he keeps going on about?

They're here... right on the windowsill in front of my desk - again where i cannot now ignore them. They're all based and in squad movement trays thanks to Fenris Games.

So there you go - thats plenty to keep me going right? and lots to paint. No excuses now.

Except... well there's this shoe box of confrontation figures and blisters sat on the desk and no room for them. And I can't get the Old Crow vehicles out that go with the grymn as there's no room, and my lizardman collection is still boxed and so are my dragons.

Hmmm.... I think I should go and make some more shelves for this cupboard, then I can be properly organised. THEN I'll be rady to paint something...

Right?



PS I am reliably informed that the word should be 'taxonomical' but I like 'taxonomicological' better.

Out of the mouths of babes...

I've ranted a few times here and on forums I frequent such as the FoD about the silliness of futuristic walking robots - don't worry I'm not going to go over the long list of compelling and cogently argued technical and economic reasons why such things will not come to pass...

Anyway it was my son's 9th Birthday the other week and he got some cash to buy what he wanted. Now, being a sensible sort of child he decided he'd like lego. In my (not so) humble opinion the best toy ever invented. No argument.

So we go get our shots and venture into the local Toys R Us. (Don't get me started on TRU and the way their banal lowest common denominator product selection policies have bankrupted every other toy shop in town without actually stocking anything like as good a range as the shops they replaced.) Now TRU doesn't have the best range of lego to look at, but its either there or Argos, and call me old fashioned but I'd like to look at what I'm buying before parting with cash, and do not gain any kind of thrill at seeing my product hurled down a small conveyor at the back of the warehouse where marking something "fragile" seems to mean "Only thrown underarm!"

So, we're stood in front of a rack of lego and my son decides he likes the look of the Power Miners range. Well, he's only 9, so i decided it was a little churlish of me to point out that pointed mole drills are useless means of mining in anything other than soft earth, or that the so called "rock monsters" seem to be the innocent party defending their home against the invading and clearly imperialistic power miners who are intent on pillaging the rock monster's domain for crystals.

"Ok," I say, "so what do you want?" knowing that he had enough money for a large set and perhaps a small one too. Well off he goes and adds up the prices and such like and comes back with a Rock Crusher kit - nice and big and suitably WOW to a 9 year old i think. Good choice!

Except in his other hand he had another small model which he presented to me with a huge grin on his face.

"I can afford this too Daddy!"

"Oh." I replied somewhat crestfallen. "Why that one?"

"Well Daddy, Its a walker robot and they are sooooooooooo cool!"

Sigh.