Companies Going the Extra Mile - 2015

I have purchased a lot of stuff this year, a lot more than I expected, from a number of different game and miniature companies. Some through online purchases some through Kickstarters and as much as I could from local brick and mortar stores. I haven't received bad service from anybody, in fact I would even say that levels of service have been increasing. When you know that your customers can literally buy from almost anyone you have to find a way to make your business stand out. For me a number of companies have really stood out in 2015. I'm listing these in alphabetical order, just to try and be fair.

1) Fife and Drum (US)
Once again I had to stick my toe into another period, this time AWI. I had been attracted to the Fife and Drum miniatures for some time but I didn't pull the trigger until "Der Alte Fritz" mentioned that he was running a special for some Minden Miniatures that would be a good fit for the AWI. In my order I mentioned that I was curious about his line in general for the AWI and he promptly sent me samples to check out, and not just a couple of samples, but 1/2 a dozen or so plus a couple mounted generals. Now that's really stepping up to the plate in my book. And while I haven't really haven't done much with the AWI stuff this year you can be sure that a couple of orders for minis will be going to Fife and Drum.

2) Hasslefree Miniatures (UK)
I may have a bias here, but if you have ever meet any of the folks from Hasslefree in person you would be biased too. Kevin and Sally White are just terrific people and Arty keeps that website and the orders flowing out the door. If there ever is a problem you will be told about it, they don't keep their customers in the dark and you might think they use a Tardis for their shipping.

3) Reaper Miniatures (US)
This is another instance where I'm probably a bit biased (I have some pretty good friends that work for Reaper) but if you have ever dealt with Reaper Miniatures then you will quickly find out that these are seriously good people. Their customer service is just phenomenal, if you receive a bad mini or a bad paint or something is mispacked (a rare thing) then it will be taken care of, in many cases that same day. Orders go out of their warehouse at lightning speed. I made on order last Sunday during the height of their 12 days of Christmas promotion and had it in my hands on Wednesday. Its a shame they don't do historicals!

4) Too Fat Lardies (UK)
I know from their forums that Rich, personally, hasn't had a particularly good year. Yet the two couple of times that I emailed him because I forgot to download something he has been on top of it and re-activated the download for me, usually within an hour or so of my request. I already liked Chain of Command better than Bolt Action but when you do this kind of thing you really help create loyalty from your customers.

5) Total Escape Games (US, brick and mortar store)
The Colorado Miniature Painting Alliance (CMPA) has had a tough time finding a new home since Attactix closed down. I think we have finally found a permanent home at Total Escape Games. They have welcomed us into the store to sling paint around once a month and worked with me to find a set of consistent dates (third Saturday of the month now) that was going to work for both the CMPA and the store. They really came though for us and the group makes an extra effort to always buy something there.

6) Warlord Games (UK)
If you are a regular reader of my blog then you know that I have just started working on an armor conversion for the Kampfgruppe Von Luck pint sized campaign from Too Fat Lardies. I'm actually doing a couple of conversions using their armor kits. The first one required obtaining a German 15cm howitzer gun barrel. I sent an email to Warlord asking if I could purchase just the barrel and recoil mechanism Harry responded saying that he would just throw it in with my next order. When that didn't happen he was going to personally put it in the next order. Well the next order came when they were swamped with orders from their Tanksgiving sale. When the order team said there was no way to find my order Harry grabbed a box and sent it off himself. Now this is truly going the extra mile. It really adds incentive to getting the conversion done too and I'll be bundling all of that material up to send to Harry.

While I received a lot of stuff over the the year from a lot of companies these five really stand out for me. Keep the minis flowing guys!

Warlord Games - Red Devils, British Paras a closer look

Needless to say I did have to dig through the Warlord Games Army Box set for the British "Red Devils" that I purchased. This is designed as a 1000 point box for Bolt Action although I'll be using them for Chain of Command from Too Fat Lardies. I was able to talk the store into giving me a discount on the box which allowed me to pick up three more packs of miniatures; the extra Vickers MMG team, the piat and light mortar teams and the 3# mortar team.

For some reason I thought the box set of miniatures were plastic but they are actually metal. That was a pleasant surprise as I have decided that I do prefer metal minis. While the plastics are more versatile in assembly and certainly cheaper the way some of the details have to be handled are less than desirable. So bring on the metal!

The box

Minis from the box, plus laser cut bases. They are made from MDF so I probably won't use them.

Also in the box, three more squads and the 6# ATG and crew

One Jeep is in there somewhere

The set should have come with two of these but there was only one in the box. Since the box was plain white and not shrink wrapped I'm not sure if it was stolen out of the box or just mis-packed.

The reinforcements that I added

Bolt Action WWII American Infantry for Chain of Command

Although they have not appeared in this blog any where I have a good sized WWII US Airborne force. I was working my way up to a platoons worth some time ago. I have become quite interested in Chain of Command from Too Fat Lardies while most of my gaming group is playing Bolt Action, I find it leaves me a little cold. Although, to be fair, anything that requires me to buy additional books just so I can play the game leaves me cold. While I haven't had a chance to play CoC yet, I like how the mechanics of the rules work, I have watched all the video demonstration/explanations that Too Fat Lardies put out. So while I search for my airborne forces (I think I know where they are) I thought working on just a straight US rifle platoon would be fun. I was a Total Escape Games last Saturday for the CMPA's monthly 2nd Saturday workshop. It was nice to be in a store where I could actually buy something that I wanted/needed and be able to support such a nice brick and mortar shop.

They had a good selection of the plastic Bolt Action infantry from Warlord Games so I decided to pick it up. I will need a second box though as I want to build a complete platoon at full strength and maybe a couple of extras to go with it (like a sniper team). My current thought is to have it play double duty and start as the core of troops I would need to build an armored rifle company. Now I know this American Infantry box has been out for a while now and plenty of people have built it but I definitely learned a few things while building these plastic miniatures that might come in handy to others that haven't dived into these kits yet.

I'll let the pictures do most of the talking but this is a good solid core set of miniatures for any American infantry platoon besides an airborne one. The airborne uniforms up through D-Day were substantially different issue. Here we have the standard American uniform that was in place from the invasion  of Tunisia up through the invasion of Normandy. While there aren't any instructions per say there is a sheet detailing the layout of the pieces on the sprues and what they are used for. As long as you pick pairs of arms that are designed to be used together along with the appropriate weapon you won't have any problems during assembly. I love the fact that these are actually scale models 1/56th! I think my Artizan Design Airborne troops will match up quite nicely with them. I do feel that they suffer a bit from huge head. Most of the heads just seem to be a scosch (that's a technical term I learned from my mom) to big. The one that feels like the right size is the one in the woolen cap instead of a helmet (although there is an empty helmet that will fit over it).

A few assembly hints: 
1) I found it easiest to glue the weapon into the right hand (and they are all right handed, no lefties in this box!) before gluing it to the body.
2) Glue the right arm with its weapon in place first and in the position you want it.
3) Add the left arm by positioning on the left shoulder first and then "swinging" it up so the open hand meets the rifle. Depending on the glue you used you should have time to pull this off. This lets you adjust everything before the glue sets solidly. Don't dawdle though!

Other than that things went pretty smoothly. I haven't dressed this group up in all its gear yet, this is just the basic build of adding the head, arms and weapon to the torso (5 different torsos, 4 standing and 1 kneeling). Oh and I used my favorite glue, Plastruct Plastic Weld, for the assembly.

That's a lot of plastic. 5 sprues of infantry and 3 sprues of weapons

It has almost everything! Garands, Springfields, Thompsons, Grease Guns, basically everything your regular infantry platoon might need.

This is the first guy I completed. A little slow on the first one, but things went quicker once I got into the assembly rhythym.

A WWII American Infantry Squad consisted of a section of 8 Riflemen armed with the Garand or the Springfield (mostly Garands though). Here are the first 4

And the second group of 4

The Rifle or maneuver section was supported by the BAR team; one gunner, one assistant gunner and an ammo carrier. They don't give you enough BAR ammo pouches though.

And here is the Squad leader armed with a Thompson SMG

And the group portrait. Didn't have a wide enough piece of matte board with me today! While I mounted everyone on the bases provided these are not the bases I'm going to be using. They will suffice until everyone is painted then I'll put them on the profile bases that I like.