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I'm sure this issue has been discussed on DakkaDakka before, but Dream Pod 9 continues to startle me.

My gaming group has started to get into Heavy Gear Blitz. We're all enjoying the game, but the cost of the models continues to astound me, especially considering the quality of the casts. It seems that Heavy Gear Blitz models are priced way above similar products from other manufacturers. Single gear models run around 11-15 dollars each, with little in the way of extra bits. The detail is so-so, and the casting is frankly sub-par. Customer service even leaves much to be desired. And yet customers are apparently willing to pay those prices.

I originally picked up the Black Talon starter box. Nearly every model was miscast, and some very badly. DP9 claimed to have a "no questions asked" return policy, and it replaced the miscast pieces...with miscast pieces. I explained that the replacements were similarly miscast, and the response was essentially that the models were difficult to cast properly. There weren't any new replacements, just an explanation as to why the products were apparently consistently miscast and sold to customers in spite of that fact...at prices far in excess of higher quality products from competitors.

The whole thing frankly bamboozles me. In the end, it isn't really a problem for me personally. Between the models, their miscast replacements, the shameless reproduction of a few bits with Instant Mold and green stuff, and my own scratch builds, I have everything I need to play the game. I simply refuse to buy Heavy Gear Blitz products.

In spite of all of this, there seems to be many people that love Heavy Gear products and are willing to buy hordes of them without batting an eye. I do not entirely understand why. If you play Heavy Gear Blitz, or have purchased the products, what are your thoughts about it? If you are a consistent DP9 customer, what keeps bringing you back to buy the products? How do you feel about the prices?

If this were GW instead of DP9 you'd have 25 responses by now.

But seriously I used to play Heavy Gear when they were in the larger scale and the casting was all very decent. It's too bad with the price hikes that the casting is so bad. I love the HG universe and the feel the game gets from the artwork. I did kind of like the smaller scale too because it was in line with model trains HO scale.....but if their quality stays this low for the price, I'd be hard pressed to pick up stuff, even if I wanted to.

MightyGodzilla wrote:If this were GW instead of DP9 you'd have 25 responses by now.

On a GW centric forum. Oh gee-wiz, what a surprise.

Why not ask this on a Heavy Gear forum?

weeble1000 wrote:
My gaming group has started to get into Heavy Gear Blitz. We're all enjoying the game, but the cost of the models continues to astound me, especially considering the quality of the casts. It seems that Heavy Gear Blitz models are priced way above similar products from other manufacturers. Single gear models run around 11-15 dollars each, with little in the way of extra bits. The detail is so-so, and the casting is frankly sub-par. Customer service even leaves much to be desired. And yet customers are apparently willing to pay those prices.

Did you ask your gaming group why they play HGB? No one complained about the price until you come along? What models are you preferring to? All players who I came across feel that the price is on par with other company since each pack contain many bits as options. It is like putting a lego together. Casting is not sub-par to some of the GW grunts at all. Indeed, GW casting is worse.

weeble1000 wrote:
I originally picked up the Black Talon starter box. Nearly every model was miscast, and some very badly. DP9 claimed to have a "no questions asked" return policy, and it replaced the miscast pieces...with miscast pieces. I explained that the replacements were similarly miscast, and the response was essentially that the models were difficult to cast properly. There weren't any new replacements, just an explanation as to why the products were apparently consistently miscast and sold to customers in spite of that fact...at prices far in excess of higher quality products from competitors.

Post a picture or I have to call you a LIAR. I also have the Black Talon starter box. There is no miscast inside. The Black Naga is cast in resin and in my 20 years of gaming I have never seen a miscast resin figure. Poor quality yes, but not miscast.

One of the gear has a missing part. I emailed them and I got a response promptly. They never in the forum or website claimed that models are difficult to cast. Instead, the purpose of making multiple parts is for casting to be easy and consistent.

Unless you can post the photos and the actual email correspondence, I shall continue to regard your post as a faked made up story.

Going straight to 'LIAR' may be a bit extreme, but I haven't heard of any customer service issues like that. Who were you talking with, weeble?

That is strange I (knocks on wood) have never had a miscast mini from DP9 for Heavy Gear.

There prices are what they are, but are close to premium wargaming standards.

Most standard gears rock in at between 9.40 and 10.40ish USD a model and if you order from someplace like the Warstore that goes down by 20%.

BDJV wrote:That is strange I (knocks on wood) have never had a miscast mini from DP9 for Heavy Gear.

I've had a couple. It happens, unfortunately. They've been fixed... This was both before and during my current position as DP9's web guy, though, so I admit being biased. The Naga was moved to resin based on issues from myself, at least one other Dakka poster, and several others, I believe. If you got a Naga with a miscast main hull, please let the guys know.

If you really want to throw your money away on DP9 products I suggest you buy into Heavy Gear Arena. After a month or 2 of trying to decipher the awful ruleset I finally just dropped interest all together.

I also agree that their casting is mediocre at best. The areas I had issues with were the arms. You just can't get rid of the mold lines no matter how much you file. The knee joints are also really fragile on some of the different models.

Overall I think DP9 is an ok company. They are heading in the right direction, but they're just not there yet.

The internet is an interesting place. It is unreasonable to post copies of personal e-mail correspondence, and little would it demonstrate other than that I can write two ends of an e-mail chain. I'm sorry if my post offended you. Although it is apparently worth nothing, I summarized the facts more or less accurately.

From a similar perspective though, your statements about a perfect box of Black Talon models are equally unsupported. Let us assume we are both being candid and put it down to luck of the draw.

I only purchased a single product, which is hardly representative. Even so, I have read about similar issues with DP9 products, and others in my gaming group have had issues similar to mine, most particularly with the feet of gear models, but not limited to that location, or that type of model. There have been casting issues with hover tanks, walkers, etc.

Some of the miscasts were correctable, but a premium price connotes a premium product. Were the models half as expensive, I would not be concerned about the odd misaligned model. And no, misalignment is not a mold line. A misaligned cast is a miscast.

@Balance, I was communicating with John. I don't think any significant fault lies with John, however. He was friendly and helpful, especially considering that I was being a difficult customer. When I reported the problem initially, I received incredibly prompt replacements, which was fantastic. Even so, the replacements had similar miscasts, not as many and not all of the replacements were miscast, but many were. When I communicated about the miscast replacements, I received polite excuses and nothing more:

"I'm sorry you feel that way about our replacements. Our models are extremely detailled for their size and hold a great deal of undercuts (details that recede into and out of a mold). As such they are extremely difficult to cast and only someone of extreme skills can have the "feel" to do it right. Even that is sometimes not enough and we are continuously working on improving our mold making techniques to be able to better cast such complexe parts."

That statement was not followed up with a pledge to replace the problem pieces once again, and as such led me to believe that the casting quality was simply something that DP9 found acceptable. I do not find it acceptable in a product at such a high price point. There is no point in paying for details when they are missing/marred from poor quality casting.

I gave John a rather brusque, yet honest response and did not expect to hear from DP9 customer service again, although my final e-mail did not signal an end to the conversation as such. I figured John would assume that it was simply impossible to please me and that he would stop trying to do so, which I can't really blame him for. I do, however, blame DP9. The company never adequately resolved the issue and has left me unsatisfied as a customer.

I do not think that the standards I expect DP9 to meet are unreasonable. They are the same standards I receive from many competitors, hence they are what I have come to expect. A ~28mm tall model that costs $13.50 better darn well be cast properly. I have received a higher quality product from other companies, large and small, for far less.

Out of interest, what kind of scale is Heavy Gear? Hadn't really noticed the game before, but just had a look at the website and I love the look of the minis (if they are not miscast hopefully!)

I believe the scale is 12mm, which puts your average gear at the height of a Space Marine.

Pacific wrote:Out of interest, what kind of scale is Heavy Gear? Hadn't really noticed the game before, but just had a look at the website and I love the look of the minis (if they are not miscast hopefully!)

The scale is 1/144, or approx. 10-12mm. 1 inch = 12 feet. That's a little smaller than Flames of War (15mm), but bigger than Epic scale 40K (6mm).

The Gears are pretty big. A pilot operates them from a cockpit inside the torso, to give you an idea about scale.

I am a big fan of heavy gear. I love the look of the models, and like the game. This being said, DP9's price per miniature is somewhat high. However, you do not need many models to play, and thus the game is much less expensive than 40k.

The response you received from DP9 is totally unacceptable. Hopefully, they will reconsider their position and rectify the situation. Niche businesses can hardly afford to alienate customers.

Depending on timing, give John a couple days. He just got back from a show a couple days ago and his email box was full. Generally in the few years I've been doing work for them the guys have been responsive and do listen to customer feedback. As I said, the Naga got moved from metal to resin due to casting issues, and there's been some similar issues for a few models with legs that cast poorly.

Weeble, please PM me your name (and order info if from the online store) and I'll ask John about it.

spaceelf wrote:
The response you received from DP9 is totally unacceptable. Hopefully, they will reconsider their position and rectify the situation. Niche businesses can hardly afford to alienate customers.

The initial response was very good. It was only when I complained about the second round of miscasts that I got that response. I think that particular response would have been fine if it had been followed with an offer to send replacements for the parts that were still miscast, which I had itemized. It seems that one reason to not do so would be that you assume any additional replacements will have similar defects. If that's the case, I have serious concerns about DP9 product quality.

How often do customers need to request more than one set of replacement parts before you decide that it isn't worth it to send out more than one set of replacements? Were it an exceedingly rare event, I would assume a company committed to the quality of its products would not fret about putting a third set of parts in my hands. I mean, if the odds of getting a miscast part are rare, what are the odds I'd get three in a row, right?

On the other hand, if most every product that leaves the door has the same or similar miscast that I had been complaining about, what point would there be to send another one? If that is simply the accepted level of quality, clearly there's no replacement that will make me happy.

But if that is the case, as it appears to be from my experience, I certainly do not want to make another purchase from the company, as how could I be sure that I would get a clean cast? Lord knows I am not willing to buy my own replacement and jack the price up to 26 dollars per model.

Even so, my gaming group has been playing Blitz on a more regular basis, so I am curious to know what other Blitz products people have purchased and how they feel about the price versus the value.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Balance wrote:Depending on timing, give John a couple days.

The last e-mail I sent John was December 19th of last year. It has been 3 months. I just assumed that he was quite finished responding to me, but I will PM you.

Well the game looks cool. I just don't know who I'd play it with as it doesn't seem like something my wife would play. I should really get some friends...

I do hope that you see a good resolution to your problem weeble.

Out of curiosity, are you able to post pics of the miscast pieces?

Aerethan,

No, I can't really post pics because I did the best I could to clean it up, re-sculpt the area, and put the pieces into use. It still doesn't look great, but there's no good way to distinguish between the miscasts and my own fiddling. I used the best pieces to assemble whole models, and on the assumption that I wouldn't be making any more purchases from DP9 I cast a few of the bits I didn't have extras of (DP9 replaced parts, not whole models), cleaned up the miscast bits as best I could, and put them to use to fill out my army. I took some crappy pics of the miscasts with my phone when I originally brought the issue up with DP9, but they didn't come out well. I was traveling at the time and didn't have access to a decent camera. By the time I had gotten back home, DP9 had agreed to replace the parts sight unseen.

I looked high and low for decent models from other ranges to sub in for DP9 gears, but the aesthetic and scale are very particular, which likely helps to keep their prices high. There's also a very tiny second hand market; so small that Ebay auctions for used Heavy Gear models go for almost as much as the standard 20% markdown you can get from most online retailers. You can get some NIB box sets for as low as 30-35% off on Ebay though.

The game is very fun, although a bit dense. I suggest learning it in stages. I like to play, but at this point I'm not buying DP9 products on principle, so I've made do with with the models I have and a few scratch builds. I'd say necessity is the mother of invention, but in this case it is simply stubbornness. I could get all of the models I wanted for like 60 bucks or so. In terms of army cost, the price is high, but reasonable. On a model basis, I don't like what you get for that cost.

Understandable enough. I hope to see you get this resolved in a satisfactory ending.

Pacific wrote:Out of interest, what kind of scale is Heavy Gear? Hadn't really noticed the game before, but just had a look at the website and I love the look of the minis (if they are not miscast hopefully!)

Here is a scale shot with a space marine. The Gear in the pic is one of the older models which has been updated by DP9 to a much nicer version!

I think you should know, wildger, that DP9's own Gear Up publication includes an article in which poor casting quality is described, by one of the Golden Gear winners no less.

In Gear Up issue 5, there is an article written by the person who won the Golden Gear competition for best army, in which he describes the process of creating the army. The army is simply fantastic, by the way.

In any event, in the article the creator says, "Have to say that lenses of all four Black Mambas were poorly casted, but this can be easily fixed, really." (GU 5, pg 17, "S.R.A Strike Cadre Conversion" paragraph, line 17)

So no, I don't think it is fair or accurate to suggest that DP9's products are always perfectly cast without any problems whatsoever. DP9 says that it will happily replace many missing or miscast parts, but at least in my case, miscast parts were replaced with miscast parts.

weeble1000 wrote:I think you should know, wildger, that DP9's own Gear Up publication includes an article in which poor casting quality is described, by one of the Golden Gear winners no less.

In Gear Up issue 5, there is an article written by the person who won the Golden Gear competition for best army, in which he describes the process of creating the army. The army is simply fantastic, by the way.

In any event, in the article the creator says, "Have to say that lenses of all four Black Mambas were poorly casted, but this can be easily fixed, really." (GU 5, pg 17, "S.R.A Strike Cadre Conversion" paragraph, line 17)

So no, I don't think it is fair or accurate to suggest that DP9's products are always perfectly cast without any problems whatsoever. DP9 says that it will happily replace many missing or miscast parts, but at least in my case, miscast parts were replaced with miscast parts.

Every company produces some miscast models. The real question is the rate that such products are produced. It has been my experience that DP9 produces relatively few bad casts.

I suppose the best thing to do would be to encourage people with such casts to post on this thread.

spaceelf wrote:

Every company produces some miscast models. The real question is the rate that such products are produced. It has been my experience that DP9 produces relatively few bad casts.

I suppose the best thing to do would be to encourage people with such casts to post on this thread.

Indeed. The relevant question is the rate at which DP9 products are miscast. My limited experience suggests that the rate may be high, but I may simply have been unlucky.

I have received miscasts, those miscasts have been replaced with miscasts, people I know personally have received miscasts, DP9 customer service has explained that it is difficult to cast the pieces correctly, I've read posts about similar miscasts on DP9's forums, and DP9's own publication has an article that describes every model in a set having the same poorly cast piece.

To me, this suggests that casting problems may be endemic. It could be that customers are more sensitive to DP9 product quality because of the prices. Hence why I started this thread.

Hmmmmm, I wish I knew people who were into this game. The look of that model next to a space marine is fantastic.

I did see people playing it once, and it looked awesome. Couldn't really see the quality of the casts, but that's not my area of expertise... at a glance they looked fine. Not sure if you're a pretty hardcore painter/modeller with high standards, weeble, or if maybe you just got a bad batch. Maybe give it another chance, or email them with your concerns again? As you said, your email might've made it sound like you were just done dealing with it, rather than wanting to come to a resolution.

RiTides wrote:Hmmmmm, I wish I knew people who were into this game. The look of that model next to a space marine is fantastic.

I did see people playing it once, and it looked awesome. Couldn't really see the quality of the casts, but that's not my area of expertise... at a glance they looked fine. Not sure if you're a pretty hardcore painter/modeller with high standards, weeble, or if maybe you just got a bad batch. Maybe give it another chance, or email them with your concerns again? As you said, your email might've made it sound like you were just done dealing with it, rather than wanting to come to a resolution.

Balance very kindly passed along my concerns, but I haven't heard anything from DP9 yet. I'm still playing the game. I'm just not buying any DP9 products, although that admittedly makes it a little constraining as there are no decent substitutes. I just finished converting up one of my Raptor models though. An IG missile launcher served as a nice base for a light pulse laser cannon.

The models are rather nice, but they are not the nicest models I have seen, and they're tough to deal with; difficult to clean and prep, tough to pose, and fiddley to keep together on the strength of glue alone. Most of the time I had to use GS and/or a pin along with glue. Bear in mind that I'm only referring to the Owl, Raptor, and Vulture models, so it is fair to say that I have had very limited experience with DP9's product range.

The models are like the game: It's initially obtuse and confusing, and you feel like you should know what is going on even though you don't really get it. There's a several of surface problems (spelling, grammar, typos, inconvenient mold lines, miscasts) that aren't detrimental issues, but you wish they weren't there. Then you mostly figure it out, except for a few bits, and everything seems fine. Then you realize that you had been doing something entirely screwed up and you have to re-think the process. But when it all finally comes together in the right way it's great.

RiTides wrote:Hmmmmm, I wish I knew people who were into this game. The look of that model next to a space marine is fantastic.

There is a list of players by locale on the DP9 site. I think that there a few in your neck of the woods.

I should add that Canton Games has Heavy Gear stuff, if you want to see it in person.