The Glorious Works Logo Challenge

Entries for this are now closed. Thank you to everybody that entered. I will post the results in the next couple of days!

The Glorious Consumer - Maelstrom Games

The aim of The Glorious Consumer is to review the different retailers that we as wargamers regularly interact with and to help inform people when making a decision as to where they want to buy their shiny new toys from! First up is Maelstrom Games. I placed 4 orders of varying sizes for different products over a two week period. I'll outline the orders below and the dates on which they were dispatched and then go into greater detail afterwards.

Order #1 Placed 20/07/2010
Vampire Lord (in stock)
Dispatched 20/07/2010

Order #2 Placed 27/07/2010
Citadel Water Effects (in stock)
Grave Guard Regiment (out of stock)
Vampire Counts Army Book (out of stock)

Order split in 2. Order #2
Citadel Water Effects
Vampire Counts Army Book
Dispatched 08/08/2010

Order #2.1
Grave Guard Regiment
Dispatched 11/08/2010

Order #3 Placed 30/07/2010
Bleached Bone (in stock)
Camo Green (in stock)
Detail Brush (out of stock)
Fine Detail Brush (out of stock)
Graveyard Earth (out of stock)
Hawk Turquoise (out of stock)
Macharius Solar Orange (in stock)
Rotting Flesh (out of stock)
Scorched Brown (out of stock)
Small Drybrush (out of stock)
Standard Brush (out of stock)
Basecoat Brush (out of stock) Dispatched 04/08/2010

Order #4 Placed 01/08/2010
Citadel Wood (out of stock at supplier)
Vampire Counts Battalion (out of stock)
Warhammer Battle Magic (out of stock at supplier)
Woodland Scenics Long Grass (out of stock)

Order split in 2. Order #4
Citadel Wood
Vampire Counts Battalion
Woodland Scenics Long Grass
Dispatched 13/08/2010

Order #4.1
Warhammer Battle Magic
Still not dispatched

Now, at a glance it's clear that some of those orders have been dealt with incredibly quick, some an average amount of time and one is still outstanding which is a little bit worrying. I've not taken into account postage times etc. just the time it took from the order until the dispatch of the order, it wouldn't be fair to judge Maelstrom on the effectiveness of the postal service! The orders that were in stock were dispatched very quickly and clearly where stock issues have arisen the orders have been split so that I get as much of my order as soon as possible. This all seems very good with me. I think it's worth taking into account that I've ordered mostly Games Workshop products and I'd heard that they'd started limiting the Independent Traders to one order per week. I'm not sure how accurate this is, as I'm not in the know there but it would certainly explain the way the dates fall for orders and dispatch. Stock seemingly gets ordered Thursday/Friday and arrives Monday/Tuesday ready for dispatch. The final outstanding order is a bit worrying but in their defence Maelstrom Games have the product listed as out of stock at the supplier so it's hard to really find any fault with them. Considering the logistics of the orders I'm quite impressed with the times taken to dispatch them otherwise. All the orders have been well packed in appropriate containers and I've not had any issue with short orders or damaged products. If something is in stock on their website then Maelstrom really are a great deal as the discount and the quick dispatch times make them my current favourite online retailer. For the items that aren't in stock, unless they're needed urgently, then they're still the best choice as the discount makes it more than worth the couple of days wait. If I needed something straight away though that wasn't in stock at Maelstrom and it was over £10 in value I'd still be tempted to order direct from Games Workshop just to be sure I'd get the item in the shortest possible lead time and with the free postage currently on offer.

Maelstrom Games receives a 9/10 from me!
If you have any experiences with Maelstrom you'd like to share or have any questions just leave a comment. Hope this helps anybody that has considered ordering from them but wanted a little more information!

P.S. I can't believe I forgot to mention the awesome Moneyback deal they have! You get 1% of your order in store credit to use on your future orders. It might not sound like a lot but it quickly adds up and can be really handy for knocking a few extra pennies off an order to make it affordable or for those of us that are married, extra money off always sells the idea better to the Mrs!

The Glorious Works Logo Challenge

I'm extending the deadline on this until the 10th September. Could do with a few more entries to make it a real contest but regardless of whether there are any more entries I will close the competition midnight (GMT) 10th September. Details can be found here.

The Gorewing - Finished Land Raider & Khorne Hounds (Pic Heavy!)

Lots of pictures in this post so apologies for the loading time! Click the pictures to see them in full size.
I've finished the Land Raider Crusader and the Khorne Hounds for The Gorewing so I thought I'd post some pics. The first picture is of the painted army so far. Clearly still a lot to do!

575pts in this picture!

My Land Raider's permanent gaming state

Thoughts and opinions welcome as ever! Start the real painting tomorrow!

The Glories of Others - Ozrax's Bloodwings

This is going to be a semi-regular feature here on The Glorious Works to showcase other people's work that catches my attention. It'll either be things I've spotted or pictures etc that are submitted. It might be fluff or images or rules etc. the only definite is that it'll be something I found interesting!

These are Ozrax's Khorne Raptors or Bloodwings. They came up as a topic of conversation on Twitter and I thought these were cool conversions so wanted to share them on here. You can follow Ozrax on twitter @Ozrax

If you have anything you'd like to see on The Glories of Others here on The Glorious Works then please email me with a link or send pictures to elazartheglorified at sky dot com replacing the words with the appropriate symbols and with the subject The Glories of Others. Please include any details you'd like me to share, how you'd like to be credited and an address for your blog/twitter/etc and I can put a link in if I decide to post your submission!

Black Knight Mock-up

I posted a picture of this on Twitter last night but here it is again with a couple of other pics just to show roughly what I'm planning on doing for my regiment of Black Knights. I've used Grave Guard body, head & shield; Dark Elf legs & lance; a Bretonnian horse; and there will be a Skeleton Warrior's arm to hold the lance.

Obviously the finished minis will involve far less bluetac (e.g. none) so things will fit together better and I'll be swapping the lance onto a skeletal arm I just couldn't be bothered to do all the cutting and sticking when I'm not putting them together quite yet! Plus there will be some green stuff and I need to work out the bases... the list goes on...
Anyway, what does everybody think?

WIP Khorne Wolf (After Some More W)

Gotten further along with these now. Mostly just the teeth, claws, eyes and random spikey bits to do!

WIP Khorne Wolf

I'm doing something, honest. I'm pleased with the scheme I've gone for on the Khorne Wolves (the counts as Fenrisian Wolves that go around with the Lone Wolves) but it's added to my painting work load no end! Anyway, here's a quick WIP pic for the sake of a quick WIP pic!

All Your Bases Are Belong To The Gorewing!

Not especially exciting but the bases for the rest of The Gorewing

Hoping to get the counts as Fenrisian Wolves painted tonight and start the Terminators properly tomorrow. Fingers crossed I can manage to get enough time as the tournament is getting scarily close!

The Glorious Consumer

The First installment Is Slightly Delayed But Here's Part 2 Of The Unexpected Introduction!

So following last Wednesday's The Glorious Consumer I have since emailed Games Workshop to try and get a response on this matter. My first email was sent 5th August about midday and I outlined my disappointment with the product I was sent and how I felt it failed to live up to what it is portrayed to be by the website. I also described my disappointment about how unhelpful their customer service representative had been on the phone. I received an email in response informing me how Games Workshop try to respond to their emails within 48 hours where possible but that it might take slightly longer at particularly busy times. 96 hours later (not including the Sunday) I emailed them again, making sure my original email was part of the message asking for a response as it had reached 96 hours and still nobody had gotten back to me. Now we're at over 120 hours since my initial email and I'm still waiting for ANY response from Games Workshop let alone a helpful one!
That's Games Workshop having managed to hook themselves 2 of these Glorious Consumer rants, the third will only be a conclusion. Either they've given me my money back or they've actually been helpful and reversed the bad trend of this ordering experience so far!

As for the feature proper, I'm still awaiting a couple of deliveries, once I have them I'll get to work on the first real review!

So Very Nearly Finished Land Raider

I was infuriatingly close to finishing the Land Raider and the paintbrush I need for all the detail that's left to paint has died. To be fair I generally run my brushes into the ground and this wasn't unexpected, I'm waiting for a delivery with my new paintbrushes in it, it was just typical that I have to do the shading on the weapons and paint the 'trophies' and that's pretty much everything except for a little bit of tidying up. I suppose it leaves time for some feedback before I finish it so that I can fix anything that I've not spotted! So here's a few unfinished pics:

As you can see, a good few messy unfinished bits but it's an hour of work at the very most, frustrating! If the brushes don't turn up today then I'll start prepping the rest of the minis so that I can make a start on blocking in the colours on them in the mean time as it's very much a case of stand still now and I won't get these finished in time!

The Glorious Consumer

A Feature For Next Week Brought Forward Due To A Case Of Customer Service FAIL!

I've decided to discuss the various retailers that we use for our Warhammer purchases in a series of posts on The Glorious Works. I've currently got four separate orders with Maelstrom Games placed and I'm waiting to see how they do with each of these before posting a review up here. In the mean time I want to have a bit of a moan about something...

Image property of Games Workshop

Now I normally hold Games Workshop's customer service in very high regard. It's something I take very seriously when I make decisions about where to shop and one thing that I've always thought reflected very well on Games Workshop as a company was the great customer service skills of the majority of their staff, especially when dealing with the team in Nottingham after making purchases online etc. However, my recent order has completely sullied this view and left me feeling very disappointed.

To their credit, they processed and dispatched the order quite quickly and the majority of what I've received I'm happy with. Amidst my order were two of the Bretonnian Horses Bitz packs. Now these were a bone of contention with me to begin with. The Bretonnian Horses aren't the prettiest and £8 for 5 of the ugly bleeders felt a little steep. Doing the rounds of the various bits websites and ebay sellers I found that most had none or if they did sold 5 or 6 of the exact same horse in groups which would lead to very little variety and mean I'd have to buy more horses than I needed to get a vaguely interesting looking unit. This would however, have saved me anywhere between £2 and £4 depending on where I placed the order. But I decided to bite the bullet and pay that little bit extra as the product picture on the GW website shows the four different heads available and 1 of the 2 bodies. Nowhere on that product page does it mention that the bitz pack contents can vary. It certainly doesn't say anywhere that if you order two of them for the extortionate sum of £16 that they'll send you 10 of the same horse! I have 10 of the horse on the front right of the picture below. A little disappointed with this aspect of the order I quite happily phoned GW customer service as in the past they've always been quite helpful when there's been any sort of issue with my orders, so I expected to get this quickly rectified!

Image Property of Games Workshop

I was met with a very bored and uninterested customer service representative who explained in slightly more words that basically it was my problem. If I want I can send them back and they'll send out another pack but chances are it'll be just the same! Now I'd maybe be a little more accepting of this answer (although not the disinterested way in which it was given) if the product description warned me that I might get cloned horses but it doesn't and the picture implies that I'll at least get plenty of variety out of the heads if nothing else.

Image Property of Games Workshop

So now I have three choices: I can send back one of the packs and ask for an exchange and pray that they put in some different heads in the next one; I can suffer and make do with what I've paid a lot of money for so that I can convert a unit that ultimately I'm not going to be as happy with as I could have been; or, I can send them back asking for my money back as the product doesn't meet my requirements or match up to what is seemingly promised and save myself some money ordering from the various bits websites like I should have in the first place!
The third option seems the best choice right now and will certainly be followed up with avoiding purchasing direct from GW as much as possible in the future!

Anyway, rant over, the review for Maelstrom Games will be posted once I have received all of my orders. May their customer service be better than Games Workshops should I end up calling them to find out about my orders...

I'd love to hear your views on this post and future ones regarding other retailers!