Danny76 wrote:
EU orders to come, and have vat/import tax or whatever to be paid by each backer (as I assume known before by them?)

No, Reaper has been completely silent on the topic from the very start of the campaign until today, albeit some superbacker simps have been actively spreading falsehoods about an EU shipping hub and such throughout.

I comfort myself with the thought that UPS will probably just dump my package into the Channel along with any GW merch shipping that day and it'll never reach Slovenian customs.

Reaper (not just some fanboys) had said that they will arrange an hub in EU and now that the conteners are arriving: two lines dissimulated in a post and surprise, it's finally UK for all!
VAT is not the problem: it was normal to paid it.
The problem are all tho others duties ans red tapes resulting from that the hub is in UK. It will increase the bill a lot (and the waiting time).

First Reaper KS for me and, because of this , it will certainly be the last.

You can't really blame Reaper for this - setting up a new hub for shipping is a huge thing even wtihout a huge order volume to push through it. During a global pandemic with a global shipping mess at the same time its no shock that there are going to be a few issues.

I'm sure the next one they do they will have a proper EU hub setup and ready to go or can shift shipping and other aspects around to make it work better. It's just really bad timing for Reaper (and many other firms)

 Overread wrote:
You can't really blame Reaper for this - setting up a new hub for shipping is a huge thing even wtihout a huge order volume to push through it. During a global pandemic with a global shipping mess at the same time its no shock that there are going to be a few issues.

I'm sure the next one they do they will have a proper EU hub setup and ready to go or can shift shipping and other aspects around to make it work better. It's just really bad timing for Reaper (and many other firms)

I can blame them for playing dumb for 2 years no problem. But I can blame myself too, I saw clear as day even during the campaign that their whole plan is "do nothing, hope it works out" but the greed for cheap minis got the better of me.

I live in the UK. I’ve ordered several things from EU countries this year and not had customs hold them up of charge me for them. Not sure how things are going the other way around.

 Tamereth wrote:
I live in the UK. I’ve ordered several things from EU countries this year and not had customs hold them up of charge me for them. Not sure how things are going the other way around.

Best we can tell UPS just dumps any UK to EU shipments in the Channel

 Tamereth wrote:
I live in the UK. I’ve ordered several things from EU countries this year and not had customs hold them up of charge me for them. Not sure how things are going the other way around.

According to one of the Spanish retailers I buy from, things like GW's pre-orders from 2021 all got stuck in customs except for the Kill Team set. Some seemed to be still stuck when Kill Team was shipping so I guess things are getting stuck in customs.
Keep in mind that customs are based on a "random" selection as not all packages can be checked, so not all will be charged as not all are handled.Typically larger shipments are more likely to be stuck, so things like the retailers will obviously get lots of stuff stuck in customs, but individuals might escape it.
I have ordered very few things from outside the EU and all got stuck, that is why I no longer order from outside the EU and prefer retailers to do it for me.

Your order of "Reduced Scale Models and accessories" from RHQ ZombieCo Ltd. is on its way to you.

UK shipments are happening

 Overread wrote:

Your order of "Reduced Scale Models and accessories" from RHQ ZombieCo Ltd. is on its way to you.

UK shipments are happening

I been patient for two years, but now anticipation is building.

Over $1000 of whaleness on its way soon. Must feed the piles of shame, dice for the dice gods, sprues for the sprue throne and all that.

Look what just arrived

Are you going to ink wash that?

41lbs of bones coming my way on Monday…

 Nostromodamus wrote:
41lbs of bones coming my way on Monday…

You could be a mortician, goth, or just someone who uses bones to decorate..

That is a small child... maybe even literally..

 Orlanth wrote:
Are you going to ink wash that?

For those interested in trying this, I highly recommend going out and getting a pot of Tamiya's X19 smoke. It's a dark shade (gray/ light black) that goes on bones with uncanny easy (use in a well ventilated room...). Most of my white undead Bones get a layer of this slapped right on them before anything else. I have a few others that go on translucent, and work amazingly well for clear Bones. It's glossy, so if that's not your jam, be sure to dull it down with whatever matt varnish floats your boat.




Speaking of boat:


For those not following other Reaper threads here's the other models in the pic for comparison...
Clockwise, starting at 3o'clock we have the Sophie's Revenge (or her stern, anyway - this freakin thing is BIG!)
At around 6 o'clock we have the wee sloop that was part of the Brinewind extras from the same kickstarter. It's a nice small ship that should be able to hold a reasonable crew, maybe 4-8 minis.
At around 7 o'clock is the small Reaper row boat, which was available on their website. It can comfortably hold one mini, or two with a lil squeeze.
8 o'clock we have the Games Workshop Arkanaut Ironclad from the Age of Sigmar Kharadron Overlords
10 o'clock and 11 o'clock are two ships from Blood and Plunder, the Bark and Tartana, respectively
Finally, at noon, we have the Reaper Bones Stygian Barge

 pancakeonions wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
Are you going to ink wash that?

For those interested in trying this, I highly recommend going out and getting a pot of Tamiya's X19 smoke. It's a dark shade (gray/ light black) that goes on bones with uncanny easy (use in a well ventilated room...). Most of my white undead Bones get a layer of this slapped right on them before anything else. I have a few others that go on translucent, and work amazingly well for clear Bones. It's glossy, so if that's not your jam, be sure to dull it down with whatever matt varnish floats your boat.

Can you continue to blog this and give tips, including any opaque layers, varnishing etc. I have not done this before and am worried that I might have only one shot to get this right. Maybe I should sac a less valuable mini as a testbed, but the question then is what. The only extraneous mini is Disapproving Hand, and I am not going to sac that.

 pancakeonions wrote:

Speaking of boat:

Always a good time to talk about boat.

I have ordered 10 extra cannon - are they needed?

Are they needed!?! Pffft! Rookie mistake. You should have gotten 100 extra cannon.

As for blogging, here you go:

I open my pot of delicious smelling Tamiya X19 Smoke. I inhale deeply and wonder if I'm killing any braincells. I stop inhaling so much.

I dip a generous amount of the paint onto a fairly big (e.g., regiment painter Army Painter brush or so) older brush. Not a disaster brush, it can still hold a tip, but not something I'd want to use for precision work. I just kinda slop the X19 all over the "cloud" on the hand spell effects, making sure it goes into all the nooks and crannies. The paint begins to thicken/dry fairly quickly, so while I'm not stressing too much, I'm not working too slowly. I make sure I put on a good amount, but not so much that it drips and pools. You don't want that.

And voila. I love my spell effects so much!

Tamiya is easy to use, but I don't dilute it - just use it straight out of the pot. It says it's acrylic (it does smell funny, thought) and it cleans up with soap and water no problems.

Enjoy!

The_Real_Chris wrote:
I have ordered 10 extra cannon - are they needed?

Ten more cannon will upgrade one Sophie to have full two decks of heavy cannon, enough to clearly demark her as a 5th rate heavy frigate.

If you are a bargain addict you might have bought an extra Sophie, which will need another ten cannon.

If you are making any more ships you may need extra cannon for them, twenty will do a 6th rate, ten a gun-brig.

If you want to make a fortress to overlook your port you might need any number of cannon.

100 cannon is a bit excessive, but not unbelievably so for a big project plus spares, and cannon normally cost $6-$10 each, more for bigger piece.

I will be needing ten more cannon, and greeding an additional ten to thirty because I can, and the opportunity is now.

Got mine a couple days ago. I have a few wobbly swords to fix. The big mammoth's feet just barely hold on by friction but will still fall off if you pick it up.

Wait.



Upper left.

Is that Bigby's Rude Middle Finger?

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Wait.



Upper left.

Is that Bigby's Rude Middle Finger?

It needs to be painted up like an explosion.

 pancakeonions wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
Are you going to ink wash that?

For those interested in trying this, I highly recommend going out and getting a pot of Tamiya's X19 smoke. It's a dark shade (gray/ light black) that goes on bones with uncanny easy (use in a well ventilated room...). Most of my white undead Bones get a layer of this slapped right on them before anything else. I have a few others that go on translucent, and work amazingly well for clear Bones. It's glossy, so if that's not your jam, be sure to dull it down with whatever matt varnish floats your boat.

The smoke looks great. I've had a lot of luck using Tamiya's plastic cement (regular and extra thin) on the few Reaper Bones models I've gotten that were multi-piece. Only problem is the off-gassing smell never seems to go away, even left them next to an open window for a couple weeks.

Why not just super glue?

The Red Hobbit wrote:

 pancakeonions wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
Are you going to ink wash that?

For those interested in trying this, I highly recommend going out and getting a pot of Tamiya's X19 smoke. It's a dark shade (gray/ light black) that goes on bones with uncanny easy (use in a well ventilated room...). Most of my white undead Bones get a layer of this slapped right on them before anything else. I have a few others that go on translucent, and work amazingly well for clear Bones. It's glossy, so if that's not your jam, be sure to dull it down with whatever matt varnish floats your boat.

The smoke looks great. I've had a lot of luck using Tamiya's plastic cement (regular and extra thin) on the few Reaper Bones models I've gotten that were multi-piece. Only problem is the off-gassing smell never seems to go away, even left them next to an open window for a couple weeks.

That's because the plastic cement isn't meant for bones plastic. It's working to a degree but since the formulation of Bones is different enough it will may never stop chemically reacting. Plastic is a very broad concept and even, say for example, PVC plastics have so many different chemical formulas that you should only use the cement or wield on what it was intended for.

SlaveToDorkness wrote:Why not just super glue?

This is the glue that's recommended for all bones by the manufacture.

I use Superglue but when I was batch assembling a few of my older kickstarters I tried out the Tamiya thin cement on a few of the models and it worked wonderfully.

Unfortunately as Monkeysloth mentions it continues to chemically react so it keeps off gassing.

You get the same issue with enamel aerosol varnishes and old bones minis too. They'd never fully dry and stay tacky even with many layers of paint over the mini. Have had no issue with bones black and spray varnish though you really need to shake the can to fully mix it or it can day a few days to dry. Shake the can for 2-3 min and it dries really quick.

I read that you use super glue for Bonesium.

https://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/48668-bones-preparation-glues-putties-mould-lines-etc/

This may be outdated by formula changes.

UK backer here, after finally collecting my package (delivered a week ago to a relative, as I was uncertain what my address would be at fulfillment time) I have at least peered into every bag and I am pretty happy with my $150 worth, as always with Kickstarter spending the money feels so long ago it is hard to mentally connect it to goods received, but there is definitely value for money. Some thoughts:

Greek Odyssey expansion is the highlight for me, packed full of beautiful, characterful and useful minis, hard to believe it was only $50! The cyclops is absolutely brilliant, best mini of all for me - I suspect ‘sheep hand’ will prove irresistible. First thing I thought when I saw the bronze golem was finding a suitable head and making a gladiator planet World War Hulk

Dark Depths expansion I have a bit of buyers remorse for - it comes in a bigger box than the Greek and if anything is even better value for money, but it is just so.. fishy. Beyond the giant and maybe the merrow I’m just not sure what I’ll use. Completely my fault, not sure what I was thinking there! In hindsight maybe should have plumped for Brinewind instead

Charnel Pit - great, unusual figures and a super useful terrain set. Makes me want to check what other terrain add ons are left in the reopened pledge manager.

Trebuchet and ballista - fine, looking a bit warped but fixable. Hard to get excited about but serviceable.

Arakoth (giant spider) - looks fiddly to assemble but will look super imposing on the table, his abdomen is about the size of a tangerine (the fathom tyrant is a similar size) and the base is about 6” across at the widest point. A real bargain for $10

The one small disappointment for me was the Living Dead core set extra which I bought (having skipped the core) solely for the zombie giant. The giant is a nice sculpt but smaller and skinnier than I expected, the wheel on his chest is from a wheelbarrow rather than a cart and the vultures are almost chicken sized. So still a giant, but more of an Oldhammer giant than the scale I’ve come to expect from bones. Some of the other undead are nice (but I still have unpainted undead characters from Bones 1 ) the dire wolves look a bit cartoony -similar to modern GW - so will paint up well. Maybe my expectations were too high - for me this was a cool giant and some chaff, which is ultimately what I got.

I pick up my pile from a friends. Glad to hear the Greek set is nice (reminds me how much I loved Clash of the Titans).
Sad to hear the Undead Giant is disappointing, I split the undead add-on just for it. We shall see though. Might make it more playable for DnD though...

I got $300 of stuff so hoping to be Christmas-giddy about unboxing.

The undead giant is 'free'. Expect a lot of junk in core sets. The box is worth the price paid even if only some of the mins are wanted. I have found that with every Core set and most Expansion boxes so far.

I didn't pick up Greek Odyssey and am regreting it now. But I do have my Bones 5.5 account active so I will see what it costs.

I was struck by the weird scales I saw. Overall, I'm *really* happy with everything, but it seemed like there was a general scale creep to larger figures. The "28mm heroic" is starting to feel more like "35mm heroic". It's not quite as bad as GW, but the basic human figures seem pretty big to me (I haven't looked at the undead giant yet!)

Anyone else noticed this, or do I need to go back and take a better look?

I think Bones human figures have always been on the tall side. I have an apothecary from Bones 2 that I use in Frostgrave (as you can take one as a specialist), and he's easily a head taller than the official Frostgrave minis.

Maybe so... But then the Frostgrave minis have always been height-challenged!

They’re all over the place in scale. Some Bones minis are small and have more realistic proportions. Some are beefy and heroic in proportions. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it.

Rubbish! Hysteria! Libel! Piffle! Poppycock!

Reaper are very diligently consistent to their 28+1d4mm miniature scale.

I'd say most of mine are close to 1/4 triangle taller than GW humans.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
They’re all over the place in scale. Some Bones minis are small and have more realistic proportions. Some are beefy and heroic in proportions. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it.

The scale creep over the past few years I think has caused them issues as they don't know really who to cater too. So instead they're just trying to cater to everyone from the 25-32mm crowd (when before it was more 25-28mm only) which would be fine if they actually bothered to label the scales. I think they figure a lot of people will buy in person at stores and get the right scale by looking before buying, which I don't know how true is anymore as no place near me carries reaper anymore minis as they've been completely replaced by wizkids DND stuff (though their paint has become really popular here). It make it even worse for people that buy into the large bones pledges as you don't really have any context on scale until you get them years later.

I'm pretty sure I have a squad or Orcs from Bones III who are significantly taller than my 1980s Hill Giant was.

My Bones was notified as arriving yesterday, then it was picked up yesterday and I was notified it was arriving Monday. So today (Saturday) I was unprepared on my computer when a postie came through the front garden with two large boxes.

I thought it might be a medical delivery at first, but then I wasnt expecting any, or anything else over small parcel size. Then the penny dropped.

Still pretty much bouncing off the walls with a massive grin on my face. This stuff is good.

Just building the green dragon now, with a D&L dragon next to me for size comparison. I expected them to be the same size. No they are not, the Bones chromatic dragons are significantly bigger.

I am used to the smaller dragons of yesteryear and don't follow the need for the dragon rescaling WizKids are doing. The Bones dragons are easy big enough for ancient dragon, or gargantuan in 3.5/pathfinder. They are on 75mm/3" bases, which is normally 'huge'. Archon dragons are on 50m/2" bases which are nominally 'large'. I was going to rebase the Archon dragons to a scale larger but now I see no point, I cant rebase the Reaper ones.
Thankfully things work out ok as they are if I place a mini on the intersections of squares so it takes up a size category larger than the base strictly dictates, but is small enough to squeeze down if needed for terrain placement.

Incidentally, does anyone know how EU shipping is going? It's all a bit unclear to me right now. And does anyone know if the different waves still mean anything?

The waves mean nothing in general - its purely how Reaper sorts things out at the back end as far as I recall. Once its at the warehouse its out when its out really.

 Dolnikan wrote:
Incidentally, does anyone know how EU shipping is going? It's all a bit unclear to me right now. And does anyone know if the different waves still mean anything?

I was wave 10 US,EU (not UK) and mine shipped middle of last week. From what I've seen the waves for the EU seems to have gone out the window as it's shipping from the UK and they said they had only done 25% so far. I only had a small order $70ish worth, customs bill came through yesterday with a listed value of €23 I wasn't going to argue with that- paid just over €9 including the processing fee.

I was surprised at how SMALL a couple of my figs were, actually. Still, humans and humaniods come in different sizes, so no problem there.

 Dolnikan wrote:
Incidentally, does anyone know how EU shipping is going? It's all a bit unclear to me right now. And does anyone know if the different waves still mean anything?

I received my shipping notification last week. Tracking number says it's still in the UK. We'll see.

Yeah the scale thing is a shame but as mentioned I guess catering to many of those ranges.
Humans are different heights Kestral yeah, but unfortunately 25, 28, 32mm figures look different scale, not different heights, and that’s ignoring when you get heroics scale minis too.

> Anyone else noticed this, or do I need to go back and take a better look?

Just to add more info, but here's an entire Reaper thread about scale (:
https://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/92626-what-scale-are-reaper-minis-they-are-not-28mm-are-they/

> The waves mean nothing in general - its purely how Reaper sorts things out at the back end as far as I recall. Once its at the warehouse its out when its out really.

Yep -- IIRC, During Bones II, everything was shipped in two weeks, or at least USA-only.

BTW, Here's Reaper's twitch. I thought they were always streaming their warehouse packing, but am not sure : https://www.twitch.tv/reaperminiatures

 ced1106 wrote:
> Anyone else noticed this, or do I need to go back and take a better look?

Just to add more info, but here's an entire Reaper thread about scale (:
https://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/92626-what-scale-are-reaper-minis-they-are-not-28mm-are-they/

That whole thread just shows off the nonsense that is the mm "scale" system our hobby uses. I don't know why we still stick with it when no one can even agree with what it is and even companies like Reaper aren't consistent in their lines. I even like all the callout to Heroic scale which I remember Bryan (back when he worked for reaper) calling out that Reaper doesn't do Heroic scale figures as there's no such thing as Heroic Scale.

If we just used 1:48 (US O Scale) ,which some companies are leaning towards nowadays, or whatever real scale people like these types of discussions wouldn't happen anymore. If you're buying 1:72 scale military models you don't have people getting into arguments over what part of the body you measure to determine if the scale is correct.

While variation is fine, It doesn't bother me to have things a mm or two different, it's really comically bad sometimes.

 Monkeysloth wrote:

 ced1106 wrote:
> Anyone else noticed this, or do I need to go back and take a better look?

Just to add more info, but here's an entire Reaper thread about scale (:
https://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/92626-what-scale-are-reaper-minis-they-are-not-28mm-are-they/

That whole thread just shows off the nonsense that is the mm "scale" system our hobby uses. I don't know why we still stick with it when no one can even agree with what it is and even companies like Reaper aren't consistent in their lines. I even like all the callout to Heroic scale which I remember Bryan (back when he worked for reaper) calling out that Reaper doesn't do Heroic scale figures as there's no such thing as Heroic Scale.

If we just used 1:48 (US O Scale) ,which some companies are leaning towards nowadays, or whatever real scale people like these types of discussions wouldn't happen anymore. If you're buying 1:72 scale military models you don't have people getting into arguments over what part of the body you measure to determine if the scale is correct.

While variation is fine, It doesn't bother me to have things a mm or two different, it's really comically bad sometimes.

Scales are pretty hilarious really. The thing is, things are so chaotic right now in terms of scale that I think that standardisation won't happen. Especially because even the largest manufacturers don't keep a constant scale.

I've also run into it when building vehicles for a game I'm designing. Finding ones that fit the standard scale is just a disaster because what fits in terms of height is far too narrow to ever fit any of our figures. But once you have the right width of seats and the like, the vehicles are downright enormous.

My package arrived today. It was "DAP - Delivered at place" and marked as VAT-free exception. I only had to pay 1,45 € for the customs office.
Pretty cool, as I was prepared to pay 19% VAT + whatever the shipping partner would charge for handling.