Customer Service at its finest!

o/

Just wanted to give some shout-outs to two of the smaller companies that I like to buy from. As anyone can tell here of late, my gaming attention is no longer held solely by GW and its laughably high prices (in the remote chance you want to argue that point, first go to their 'one-click collections' for SMs, just look a the prices, and yeah...shut up!). As such, lots of little side projects is where its at for me, so much so that I really don't have a 'main project' anymore. For example this week's hobby time was split up amongst my Grymn, Battletech, Bombshell minis (see below), WHFB,  40k and Federation Commander.

Anyways, onto the shout-outs.

First up, some ways back I bought a pair of resin/metal vehicles from ZombieSmith for use in Bolt Action. One however, the Crusader light tank which I intend to use as a Sherman Firefly had tracks that were badly mismolded and I emailed them about it. Expecting a response in a day or so, I instead had an apology inside a half hour! Chatting back and forth with Josh @ Zombiesmith, he said they'd get right on it. Cool, life was good. So I shelved the tank as the Quar have already taken over WWII Europe given my lack of opponents (i.e.: Rob gave up on it, and Screech still doesn't have his Germans built).

Here it is prior to any conversion additions (which includes the firefly barrel at its right).

A fair bit of time went by with no tracks in sight and kinda annoyed I was about to email the Zombie when I instead was emailed by him with the following:

New tread mold is done and yours are cast. I will get them out tomorrow or Friday!

JQ

Hardly a lick of flash on them!

Holy Crap! They remade the molds before making me new tracks! How often does that happen? Reminds me of Screech's horridly cast Medusa, and his refusal to send it back as he knew the replacement would if anything be even worse.  As such the new tracks arrived yesterday and as you can see they look just fine which will move that kit up in priority in my ever-changing model queue.

Another of my favorite little mini companies is Bombshell Miniatures, creators of my Grymn's little HlPr Bots (3rd pic down). When I made my initial order, i was tempted to order a little monkey holding a flintlock pistol that they make. Not having anything to go with it though, I decided not to. However with the Dwarven cannon gifted to me by Necron Bob, that's no longer a concern. The Dwarf Cannon looks like a naval gun to me, so its only fitting that the Gun-Captain has a little monkey as his first mate!

Will need to re-prime this guy, but he doesn't have enough paint on him to threaten a loss of detail.

I also 'ordered' a free PDF preview of Counterblast, their forthcoming miniature skirmish game in which they'll be having a kickstarter for next spring (and I already want that spaceship they're working on for it!).  In appreciation of that, there was not only a hand written thank you on my invoice, but another FREE HlPr Bot thrown is as well, nice! The Grymn now have three of these little guys, and as you can see below, the newest one is already based like the others.

Aww, cute little robot...

Of course Bombshell always includes a freebee sticker or two (much like Hasslefree always sends free candy in their shipments). This time however in addition to the free bot and sticker, I also got a promotional Counterblast bookmark (convenient as I bought the Best of Hammer and Bolter Volume Two yesterday), and a promo card f one of their 'babes' and the aforementioned monkey. Sure this is all advertising-type of stuff, but still nice to receive. I mean how often does GW send you free a ANYTHING when placing an order? 

Exactly.

Free Stickers would no doubt have the stockholders marching on Nottingham, burning torches and pitchforks in hand...

Okay, so maybe its marketing at its finest?

Along with the gun-monkey, I also ordered what they call a 'Squidman' for no other reason than the mini amuses me. More like an Octo-Alien in my book, I'm not sure just what I'll use it for, if anything. That said, I painted it up last night just for shits and giggles.

I don't speak Octopus, but I believe that gun translates into: 'Hey you! Get the hell outta my ocean!'

Anyways, once you're tired of crying about GW's prices, and the abysmal Cen-turd-ians (a name coined by Neverness), give some of these other mini companies a look. Cause there's all sorts of other cool stuff out there than just what's in the 'mainstream' of mini-gaming. 

Main stream of mini-gaming...heh, now there's an odd concept to ponder.