Festivus: the airing of grievances

  Welcome, newcomers. The tradition of Festivus begins with the airing of grievances. I got a lot of problems with you people! And now you're gonna hear about it! -- Frank Constanza

Two things have been stewing in my head for a bit, though one is a little more recent than the other. Let's start with the recent one. Alert: this is a long post, but you should be used to that from me by now.

Grievance #1: Quality of Service

I am not sure if this is a Covid thing or just something I can blame on post-Covid shifting in our human psyche, but I have found that the quality of service among various game-related companies has gotten bad. I am not going to name names, but I have had several issues where I placed an order, paid for the goods, and never got the product. These are not the heavy hitters like Games Workshop or Reaper Miniatures, these are the little guys. In one case, I placed an order in early September and waited, and waited... I did get a prompt email response that my order had been received and my PayPal account was billed. Finally, at the beginning of November, I emailed to check the status of my order...nothing. I did again in about the first week of December....again nothing. So, I called my credit card company and sicked them on the issue. It was funny because when the customer service rep asked me what kind of company it was I hesitantly said it makes wargame miniatures. I'm sorry, I know nowadays it's cool to be a nerd, but I come from an earlier time where at least in the USA, wargaming was looked down upon. I carry that baggage still today. She was very positive and said her brother is a gamer and plays D&D. She asked if I wanted my money back or to resolve the situation where the order is expedited and I get the minis. I chose the later.  A week later, I got an email from the company saying I was going to get a refund on my credit card. That was it. No apologies for nonexistent service. Nothing. 

In another case, I placed an order with a company that 3D prints their miniatures. Again, I got a confirmation that my order was received and I paid for the miniatures. I realize that 3D printing can take time. A Shapeways order would sometimes take up to five months, but they always sent update emails on the progress of their printing. After four months, I contacted this company on the status of the order. The person completely forgot my order. Yes, take my money, please. 

You are probably saying, "gee Chris, you are throwing out the baby with the bathwater. These are only two companies." Yes, that is true, but I noticed a deterioration of service from a number of companies I regularly order from. Companies that had excellent service in the past seem to be slipping. Orders seem to be very slow (I find myself sending more emails lately to enquire on the status of an order than in the past); they screw up the order multiple times and send me the wrong things; I get a pack of figures that are supposed to have multiple poses and get all of the same pose; or I email a company and never get a response. 

I am not an expert on business or business economics, but it seems that small, niche companies live or die by customer satisfaction. They need repeat customers. I get they are small maybe even one man operations, but at least keep your customers in the loop. And when your company does screw up, offer a small token to make up for the screw up. Will I order from these companies again? No way for the first case study and not likely for the second. The owner did say he will print the order but I won't get them until the new year.

Grievance #2: Historical Revision regarding Rules

This one has been really been bugging me for several years now. I blame it on the rise of Games Workshop and all the big box companies that adopted their business model such as Warlord Games. This may seem silly but it is as if table top wargaming with miniatures never existed prior to the 1980s or whenever Games Workshop went full corporate. Its almost Orwellian. 

I am not necessarily talking about where I went into an official, stand alone Games Workshop store and they stare at me blankly after I answer their question of if I have ever played Warhammer 40K, and I reply no, but I have played lots of other rulesets. Then, they condescendingly proceed to explain it all to me as if I had never picked up a miniature and some dice before. Yes, this happened to me several times. 

Its not so much that, but the ardent followers of these various games. I have had conversations with many younger gamers and have watched many YouTube videos on wargame rules. They seem to think nothing existed prior to the rise of these big companies, particularly with regards to rules. These YouTube experts go on and on about rule mechanics not bothering to do a little research of the past. The state that the latest edition of game X introduced this new mechanic innovative mechanic. Bullsh*t!! That "new" mechanic has been around for years and I can cite the rules where they are found. A number of times I have or wanted to say something along the lines of, "you do realize that rule mechanic X is not an invention of [insert big name company here]. It can be found in rules A, B, and C that were published in the 70s and early 80s." They give you a puzzled look. 

These are the same folks that if you criticize some aspect of a rule, they get all ballistic. I remember recently stating a game was over that there was a mechanism to resolve a hit didn't make sense and that another rule set did it better. My opponent didn't seem to realize that there were actually other rules of this genre out there and that this was how its done and that is that. I even dared to suggest it could be modified...nope, can't happen! I guess when you plunk down $100+ for a set of rules (hence, Big Box), they are perfect whether you really believe that or not. When I was in college the first time around (a whole separate story), one of my gaming buddy's (math and history double major) absolute joy was to dissect a rules and try to come up with a better mechanic that made more sense to him. Then, we'd play test it to see if his tinkering held up. Even back in high school, my high school buddies and I found the infantry rules for Angriff! the WWII rules awful and came up with our own that we thought were better. Were they better? I don't know but at least we didn't have this blind loyalty to the rules. 

I'm not saying that Games Workshop rules or any other big box company rules bad. I really like Warmaster and Lord of the Rings Big Battles rules. I think X-Wing Miniatures game by Fantasy Flight Games has a really neat mechanic. I just feel that there have been rules going back far earlier than when I hooked a ride, and this should be acknowledged or at least superficially "studied" before making bold, expert pronouncements and pontifications. 

Somewhat related, is sad to see that so many folks, particularly younger ones, are so hooked on the big box games that they won't even think about playing games using non-big box rules. Last spring, I attended a small local convention. The miniature wargames section consisted almost all Warhammer 40K except for one guy who put on a zombie vs alien vs rednecks invasion game using some rule set I can't remember the name of. NOBODY signed up for his game, except for me. It ended up that his older son and wife played to make up for the two other factions in the game. It wasn't the greatest game, but it was fun and entertaining and there were no arguing over rules minutiae.  

I guess I am old.

Battle with a Beast

 

A Hornblower shield maiden confronts an Andrewsarchus from Khurasan Miniatures. Boulder scenic made from dried up Play-Doh.

More Barbarians to Rage With

 A new line of fantasy barbarians came out from Mace Face Miniatures. It is their Hornblower shield maidens. I am not sure why they are called hornblower. You do get a lot of horn blowers in the command pack. 

This is a sample from the mixed weapons, archers, and command packs

I suppose that shield maidens is a good description. They have a nordic vibe to them as they are dress for cold weather. They appear to be ever so slightly smaller than Copplestone's barbarians. They are very well sculpted with a lot of detail. I have no idea who sculpted them, but they do resemble the style of the Copplestone barbarians. My only issue with them is they have a lot of flash or the little bits and squiggles of metal attached to them. I spent a hour or so last night cleaning up some of the figures. 

Other news

Ion of Archduke Piccolo put out some neat, easy to use rules for WWII naval battles. Ion's rules and the ships that he made triggered a major sense of nostalgia. Back in my high school days, my best friend Mark and I would have these epic naval battles using slightly modified rules from Avalon Hill's Midway game. Mark even built fleets of very simple but effective ship models out of mostly balsa wood and cardboard. Using the various paper ships that I have made, I might have me a battle using these rules. I may even get back into the ship building business. 

Finally

A picture of an imperial knight from Ral Partha Europe (DemonWorld)

Updates

Time has passed since the last post. 

First, no International Naval Wargaming Day game happened. Wow, be surprise coming from me. There was actually a good reason why, but over a month has passed and with it the reason. I'm sure it was a good reason though. 

Second, I have been mostly painting of 15mm fantasy/medieval for Dragon/Lion Rampant gaming. Robert over at Shogun Miniatures has been very busy with my orders. A great guy to do business with and his prices are pretty reasonable. If you need custom-made metal bases, suggest you check him out. On the other hand, I had some big issues with another vendor of 15mm fantasy figures who shall remain nameless. I know that with the exception of some huge corporate entities like Games Workshop, most businesses we deal with are "mom & pop" affairs. Still, I should not have to sick the credit card company on them after three months and repeated ignored emails. I liked there minis but they are "dead to me" as they say in organized crime movies.

I've also done some work building structures for 3mm-1/600 gaming. For some reason, I cannot seem to get the scale right. The buildings always seem to fit better with 1/300 miniatures. 

Much of what has been occupying my time is all my son's extracurricular activities. We won't go there, but my wife is not very involved in much of my son's activities except for tennis. Even there, I am the one who does most of the driving to and from lessons. Between tennis, Boy Scouts (sorry now known as just Scouts), and church youth group activities, I don't have a lot of time for my self except late at night. Even then, I am grading exams or papers, or going over the next day's lectures. Man, I miss the days long ago when I worked 9 to 5 at some relatively mindless job and then had the rest of ,my day free!

The last thing I want to mention is my current state of being. I live in northeastern Tennessee right on the border with southwest Virginia. Its is about an hour drive from the North Carolina border. Other than a day's power outage and a few days of no cell or internet service, my town survived Hurricane Helene intact. No so in other towns nearby, especially those that are nestled in mountain valleys. So far, 227 people are dead and a number are still missing. A lot of stories of people I know suffered from this. My wife, son, and I have done volunteer work to help out, but it is still devastating on the psyche. And to add to this, like everything else now in the USA, its become politicized. It is hard to focus on hobby things when events like this hit close to home. 

Shalom.

International Naval Wargaming Day

 So, this Tuesday, August 6th, is International Naval Wargaming Day. As you all know, I spend a lot of time talking about having game, but rarely actually having one. This year, I will. Part of my motivation is that for the foreseeable future, I have a 6' x 4' table! Bottom line is that my wife got two 6' x 4' folding tables. These things have become pretty darn expensive over the past 5 or 6 years and I can't get myself to buy one. Its not clear if this is a permanent acquisition, but she said that I can use it. I just need to move it into the garage. Not the best place to game in terms of both climate control and lighting, but it will have to do. 

The question is what to game? The thing is, that I will have to have the game either Saturday or Sunday. Monday both the boy and I start school and Tuesday evening he has Boy Scouts Honor Court. This is where everyone in his troop gets the various merit badges they've earned since the last one. I'm pretty sure he will get at least three badges. Because of this, I have to set up something somewhat quick and dirty. Its unlikely I will have time past the weekend. 

Here are my possible choices:

1. Pre-dreadnought game using cardboard top view ship counters. I was planning on building some scratch built ships made out of popsicle sticks and such, but I have been too deep into painting fantasy figures to switch gears. The rules I will use is Gridded Naval Wargames by Bob Cordery. I really like these rules despite have to be on a grid (sorry, not a huge fan). I've played a few games before with them and they capture the flavor of the period. I will employ my 6' x 4' hex games mat. 

2. Modern game. Again, I will use cardboard ship counters. I already made a bunch of them for my modern ImagiNation universe. For the rules, I will probably use Bulldogs Away!

3. WWII. I have amassed a whole bunch of  Figurehead 1/6000 ships. Some of them have been painted and based. It will be very a-historic, maybe the German navy battles it out with the Japanese navy. Who knows? I might either use Find, Fix, and Strike naval rules by David Manley or Nimitz by Sam A. Mustafa. I also have the latest edition of Victory at Sea, but that might take longer to set up than I have time for. 

15mm Watch Tower

 I've been working on this thing off and on for probably three years...mostly off. I took the advice of a crafter on YouTube to build it out of cardboard. I won't be doing that again. While very inexpensive, it was very time consuming and boring. I used a dollar store Christmas gift box as the base as it were. The battlement was made by gluing the lid to the main part of the box and then cutting out chunks to make the merlons and the crenels. The part that took forever was cutting out and gluing the stones to the sides of the walls. I used pulp paper egg cartons. They have a nice bumpy texture. I ran out of egg cartons and used regular cardboard for the outside and inside of the battlement wall. I should have made the floor of the battlement out of stone, but for some reason, I made it to look like wood planks. I used strips of card board. 

I sealed it all with a mixture of Mod Podge and black craft paint and then kept dry brushing it with lighter and lighter grays. For the wood, I painted it with a honey brown craft paint and then used made a wash of Future floor wax and burnt umber paint. 

I think it turned out OK. The stones are not to scale, but I don't really care. It isn't meant for diorama purposes. 

Recently, I bought a sheet of pink insulation foam. I plan to use that for my next terrain project. 

Shapeways Out of Business

 This is probably old news to a number of you, but Shapeways is officially out of business. It filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last week, which means there is no restructuring. I don't know the details of what happened to cause this. I have to wonder what the vendors are going to now do, especially those in the table top gaming business is going to do. In this day and age, they can probably set up their own machines to print out figures. 

I am glad I managed to get some of the models that I did. Many of these vendors had a niche market for aircraft, AFVs, and ships that are not found elsewhere. There are a whole bunch of companies that make F-16s or MIG-21s, but nobody I know of in the "mainstream" makes a Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucano in 1/600 scale. 

This news brought back a memory I had several years ago. I struck up a conversation of sorts with one of the vendors who made aircraft. He was seriously considering parting ways with Shapeways due to some policies that had with the vendors. I can't remember what the issues were, but he was pretty unhappy. 

Well, despite your ridiculously high shipping prices and shipping times measured in geologic time periods, I will miss you as a company that offered unique miniatures to the hobby.