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Swan-of-War wrote:If you ever find that your army's been stolen, keep an eye on Craigslist. Posts from people who "don't know anything about this game" is a good indicator.

Years back I bought a "Bretonnian cavalry" army from a punk kid for $150. It was dark out and at a park-n-ride. When I got the whole thing to the game store and started counting it out, it was about $1000+ and professionaly painted by a painting service. The card was still in the bag from the service. I called them up letting them know I think I just bought a hot army and they'd been contacted by the original owner too!

Anyway, I met up with him and sold him his army back. Got my $150 - he'd had a bunch of camera equipment stolen too and so filed an insurance claim. I'm sure they reinbursed him for the retail value of the army so he came out ahead by buying it back for only $150.

Another friend of mine had his Warmachine army stolen. An ad on Craigslist popped up for "Warmachine army and the map you play on." The map was actually a Blood Bowl pitch that he had stored in his army bag as well.

He contacted the thief and arranged to meet - showed up with a police officer who arrested him. Guy had a bag of crack on him too - go figure.

Last point - don't store your figures in gun cases. Too easily mistaken for valuable guns while in your car and likely to get nicked.

I do know the police in California are not amused when you store your models in gun case either. Go figure

Nor are the servers at restraunts when you saddle up to the bar with a rifle case in hand.

Well, people in general are not amused when you store your models in GW cases, so choose your battles.

Only by my cats never by a human player.

I don't tend to play in the "FLGS" that US/UK posters talk about, as they don't really exist in that sense in Oz. All my games are either at my place/friends places or at a club night held in a pub.

At any given moment amongst the guys I play with semi often, we've usually got various of each others flying bases/templates/dice/models in our respectives houses as a result of generally playing adultbeveragehammer most of the time.

People stealing things does really irritate me though, I just can't imagine taking something that wasn't mine. Even as a kid/teenager didn't steal stuff off mates/shoplift or anything.

At the minute I'm using a battlefoam custom cut bag, so it does make it easy to see when stuff is missing as it all has its own slot in the bag, but fortunately its not been an issue so far for me.

It's strange I stole something when I was very small, candy bar I think. My dad made me take it back in and appoligize to the store owner for taking it. Other than that I can't think of anything else. The consept just doesn't even occur to me. I even go out of my way to return other people's belongings.

I remember when I was younger and I pushed carts for Sam's Club they had me training a new kid and we found a purse out in the parking lot so I grabbed it and showed the new guy were to take it. About an hour later we get a call from the manager to come in,the purses owner had showed up. So we're standing there while this elderly lady counts her money out of her purse. Our eyes were poping. Who walks around with 6k in their purse. I don't feel right with 100 in cash on me sheesh.

Last month I went into a hobby shop I hardly venture into to meet up with a friend who was going to sell me some space marines with melt guns. Getting them cheap as I can't afford much otherwise I gave them a good looking at and payed. Left them on the edge of a table for about 20minutes and when I left I simply threw them in a shoebox and went along my way. When I got home the meltas were gone. Even some of the marines hands were chopped off.

Why?

I think the melts bits are expensive on the bits sites or so I've heard. That could be why. Sorry to hear about that

DeathRex wrote:Last month I went into a hobby shop I hardly venture into to meet up with a friend who was going to sell me some space marines with melt guns. Getting them cheap as I can't afford much otherwise I gave them a good looking at and payed. Left them on the edge of a table for about 20minutes and when I left I simply threw them in a shoebox and went along my way. When I got home the meltas were gone. Even some of the marines hands were chopped off.

Why?

The cheapest way to get meltas is 5 for $8 off GW's site, and most people don't know about that. Plastic ones can go on bits sites for up to 4 to 5$ a piece. Add in that they're highly desired by most competitive players who will need a lot of them, and it wouldn't surprise me that people would steal them. However, I have no idea how it would be practical to try and remove the models from the guns in the store. That's just begging to get you caught. Wouldn't it be easier to just take the whole model if you're stealing it and then "fix" it when you got home? I guess the guy was as stupid as he was greedy.

I'm just getting back into 40K because of theft.

Went to a tournet at the beginning of 4th, came in 2nd, won the painting award, figured I was having a good night.
Locked my case in my truck, and went to dinner with some other gamers from the tourney, when we get back, one of my locks is dangling from the truck and my case is missing.

Fairly obvious that it was a gamer, as several tousand dollars worth of stereo equipment wasn't touched.

LGS owner said he'd keep an eye out, and lots of people had pics of the army, but alas, nothing ever found.

Just got back in about 6 months ago, and haven't played outside of my house yet.

Wow that stinks man, sorry to hear that. Glad you jumped back in the saddle though.

I dont think I've ever had something stolen, I don't go to shops to play and my models aren't good enough to be stolen from displays.

I remember being at a model show a good few years ago where there was a fuss after a model or two were stolen from the competition room. They were top quality pieces, sorts of things that win prizes at Euro Militaire, he'll it might have been at Euro, I don't remember. You can imagine the owner wasn't too happy.

A lot of the hard plastic cases look like gun cases. I've read stories on here of people having their cars broken into and finding their minis in nearby dumpsters or stair wells. The crooks had probably thought they were getting an expensive gun or something.

Keep your stuff out of sight, boys and girls!

Lock that gak up!

Played Magic at the school... So many thiefs, i started to place the deck at the middle of the table. Was to young to realize i could just say "I will not play with that guy around"...

Never happened with miniatures, but i keep this feeling that im beying robbed everytime i buy a new miniature (specially the GW ones lol)

Several years back I had my car stolen while attending a miniatures convention in Pennsylvania called Historicon.

I had a few armies of quality painted miniatures in 15, 20 and 28mm numbering nearly 4k figures stored in the trunk of a 1998 BMW M3. The car was a write off, but the loss of those figures and the hours and hours spent painting those miniatures nearly killed me.

I gave up gaming for few years after that it hurt so bad.

I store my miniatures in cardboard boxes, with custom cut foam trays inside. Cheap junk camoflauge FTW!!

 adamsouza wrote:
I store my miniatures in cardboard boxes, with custom cut foam trays inside. Cheap junk camoflauge FTW!!

So do I.

I buy them from KR.

Yeah I worry about my cases being mistaken for gun cases. So I make sure they are in a closet, or when in my car, in my trunk.

I've never had any models stolen. The bunker I go to is really good. I once left my entire Chaos army in the case up there unlocked.

I called the next day when I realised it, and they said "Yeah we found it, and put it in the back. Everything was in tact books and all.

There was a big problem with theft at a LGS I played at many years ago. There was a very large population of school age kids that frequented the store. Young kids with little supervision + little money = lots of sticky fingers. My group would never leave at the same time. There was typically 4 of us, and we would go for food, bathroom breaks, etc 2 at a time.

I will say that the LGS gaming Ive done was far less enjoyable that in-home gaming. There is nothing better than gaming at home.

 Mad4Minis wrote:
There was a big problem with theft at a LGS I played at many years ago. There was a very large population of school age kids that frequented the store. Young kids with little supervision + little money = lots of sticky fingers. My group would never leave at the same time. There was typically 4 of us, and we would go for food, bathroom breaks, etc 2 at a time.

Wow, you've got a gaming group that has 4 women in it?! Thats awesome. We can barely find 1 or 2 here total.

I had a tac squad of painted Salamanders Jacked at a convention about 3 years ago. I was sort of irritated, but it was hard for me to be thyat upset as it took almost two years for me to notice.

 cincydooley wrote:

 Mad4Minis wrote:
There was a big problem with theft at a LGS I played at many years ago. There was a very large population of school age kids that frequented the store. Young kids with little supervision + little money = lots of sticky fingers. My group would never leave at the same time. There was typically 4 of us, and we would go for food, bathroom breaks, etc 2 at a time.

Wow, you've got a gaming group that has 4 women in it?! Thats awesome. We can barely find 1 or 2 here total.

I had a tac squad of painted Salamanders Jacked at a convention about 3 years ago. I was sort of irritated, but it was hard for me to be thyat upset as it took almost two years for me to notice.

Am I missing something but I don't see where there an indication of 4 women in the group...

Anyways, I store my stuff in krumy old cardboard boxes don't think anyone has figured out what they store yet hehe so probably won't happen to me anytime soon hopefully...

I do like that the LGS lets us store our stuff in the back or somewhere safe while we're not around...

Going to the toilet in pairs is generally comsidered a female thing.

Well played cincydooley, well played.

One time I came home from a week long holiday to find we'd been broken into, and a bag with a newly purchased Cygnar army had gone missing from our living room. Not sure if this counts as "model theft" as such, as they'd obviously just grabbed the inconspicuous looking hold-all on the way out.

Fair play to PP though, on telling our shop owner what had happened, our local press ganger sorted me out replacement stuff for everything that had been stolen. Above and beyond the duties of customer service.

That was VERY nice of them!

Some people are jerks and are either too lazy to buy it/paint it themselves or they see it as a quick buck on ebay. I haven't had any of my 40k stuff stolen but I dealt with it with my Star Wars Miniatures and Heroclix game pieces. That always urked me to the extreme. I get it, these things are expensive to buy and people will pay high prices for it.
My son had a schoolmate take some models from him and he caught him. Sufficient to say I went to this kids house and talked to his parents, I never accused the kid openly of stealing but instead of him having taken them by mistake. Sufficient to say we got them back and we never saw this kid at the FLGS again and my son didn't hang out with him again.

 WaaaaghLord wrote:
One time I came home from a week long holiday to find we'd been broken into, and a bag with a newly purchased Cygnar army had gone missing from our living room. Not sure if this counts as "model theft" as such, as they'd obviously just grabbed the inconspicuous looking hold-all on the way out.

Fair play to PP though, on telling our shop owner what had happened, our local press ganger sorted me out replacement stuff for everything that had been stolen. Above and beyond the duties of customer service.

Wow, more stories like this and I may actually start playing PP games

dpal666 wrote:
I'm just getting back into 40K because of theft.

Went to a tournet at the beginning of 4th, came in 2nd, won the painting award, figured I was having a good night.
Locked my case in my truck, and went to dinner with some other gamers from the tourney, when we get back, one of my locks is dangling from the truck and my case is missing.

Fairly obvious that it was a gamer, as several tousand dollars worth of stereo equipment wasn't touched.

LGS owner said he'd keep an eye out, and lots of people had pics of the army, but alas, nothing ever found.

Just got back in about 6 months ago, and haven't played outside of my house yet.

MF'ers !!!!!!!!!!!!! You need to post up a picture of that Army so we can keep an Eye on it world wide, if it won the Painting Award no doubt it's distinctive and no one will want to re-paint it.

Maybe Dakka could have a Crime Watch wall, of distinctive Armies for us all to keep on the lookout for? I'm guessing you are far from the only one who has had this.

the problem is that GW's pricing makes more thieves. Hence, why I've decided to start using CHS parts, and never play at a GW, and explicitly state from the get go that half my army uses parts from CHS. It's a lie, onyl about 15 models have CHS parts on them, so it's not that noticeable, but between all the conversions I've done on all of the models, it looks like a legitimate statment. The second thing I do, is proceed to paint the model in a complex fashion, using terribad colors: My loyalists are all yellow-grey qartered, with brass detailing. The real kicker, the entire army has one single cohesive theme, of knights-come-spacemarines. There's no getting away with theft on that one, because a comparison of the model gives it away immediately. And while I could have picked a better color scheme and painted them better, I'm glad of the terrible work I did painting them, because in the end, they're decently painted, but in hideous colors that makes it unattractive

Same with my Iron warriors. Every line marine has a chain-bayonet, and most of them are holding their weapons one-handed, and upright. Every heavy weapon is customised and converted... essentially, none of the miniatures could be stolen, as they choesively give off the identical appearance.

My imperial guard aren't even legit IG. The only trouble there comes with the commissars, so they're the only ones I have to keep an eye out for. I advertise from the get-go that they are not by any means GW legal, and it kills interest in my army right away.

My thousand sons are my precious, they are not going anywhere unless i know and trust the people there, because I paid through the nose for those models, even if at less than retail and second hand. too much effort and planning went into those...

apart from ustilising an oppresively obvious theme throughout the entire army, I don't see how else to make your army theft free.

Either the most brilliant parody ever or the symptoms of a deranged mind.

 mwnciboo wrote:

dpal666 wrote:
I'm just getting back into 40K because of theft.

Went to a tournet at the beginning of 4th, came in 2nd, won the painting award, figured I was having a good night.
Locked my case in my truck, and went to dinner with some other gamers from the tourney, when we get back, one of my locks is dangling from the truck and my case is missing.

Fairly obvious that it was a gamer, as several tousand dollars worth of stereo equipment wasn't touched.

LGS owner said he'd keep an eye out, and lots of people had pics of the army, but alas, nothing ever found.

Just got back in about 6 months ago, and haven't played outside of my house yet.

MF'ers !!!!!!!!!!!!! You need to post up a picture of that Army so we can keep an Eye on it world wide, if it won the Painting Award no doubt it's distinctive and no one will want to re-paint it.

Maybe Dakka could have a Crime Watch wall, of distinctive Armies for us all to keep on the lookout for? I'm guessing you are far from the only one who has had this.

+1 I could actually see that working, people just have to remember to call Law Enforcement and not take the law into their own hands