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Today the great Catachan 2 regiment suffered a tragedy. Over 100 models were slain by the evil xenos species known as "children". My 4 year old cousins destroyed and or lost over 3 fourths of my army. Each model had a missing head, legs, torso, gun, or base. Paint jobs were ruined, cracked, chewed on and more. All my metal meltagun conversions went missing, along with Straken, Marbo, Harker, and a valkyrie wing. I don't mean to complain but this really sucks. Any ideas on rebuilding an army for cheap?

That's one brutal incident. My condolences.

As for your question, I've found the swap shop here to be pretty good if you take a bit to look through all the offers. Bartertown is also a good site for used miniatures. I'd highly recommend spending some time digging through both of these places; I bought most of Mordian Iron Guard at a fraction of what I'd pay with GW using both of these places.

Then there's Ebay, which is mostly just good for bits and specific parts.

Finally, check out some of the big online retailers, though their names escape me now. I'm sure someone will come along with their names.

eBay...Craigslist...Insurance Claim

You might really want to consider calling up your homeowner's insurance agent. Some policies provide for coverage for this sort of thing...others do not.

Barring that, pick up ugly armies on the cheap from eBay and Craigslist. You can normally get IG junk at less than a dollar a pop off from eBay without too much looking. Craigslist and local stores can offer better deals, but are generally more work to find them.

if you let me know which wing and willing to pay shipping i have a valkyrie wing for you. a couple years ago i lost 2 valks in a table tipping incident and kept the left overs to use as terrain. yours if you want it.

I do not recommend insurance claim. No insurance adjuster is going to entertain 'kids broke my toys' especially with deductibles, they won't pay for most of it... and your premiums will go way up.

All I can suggest is set up a rehab clinic:

*Identify which models are saveable with minor repair and touch up.
*Take the incomplete or really damaged models and dump them in a bucket of simple green to strip them down. Then combine parts until you get them complete.
*Then hit ebay/craigslist and just buy parts and used models. You can get some amazing deals if you are willing to do the rehab work and if you are stripping some models anyways

Thanks everyone. It helps a lot. I'm probably going to try and pic. I will probably pick up some new stuff off of ebay. I might not even do catachans anymore. This might be an excuse to start mordians or spend some more time on my tyranids

 Color Sgt. Kell wrote:
Thanks everyone. It helps a lot. I'm probably going to try and pic. I will probably pick up some new stuff off of ebay. I might not even do catachans anymore. This might be an excuse to start mordians or spend some more time on my tyranids

Look into the 3rd party bitz. You may be able to get a lot of new heads and parts!

Imperial Guard people have no end to cool bitz.

Dont mean to complain? Man you're a SAINT. Id still be unable to type from rage.

Hope you can salvage a viable force. Keep them away from evil little fingers next time!

Thanks lol. Yeah I was pretty mad when it happened lol. My case was closed too so apparently I need to buy a lock or something. I finally found straken. You can't keep ol iron hand down I guess!

Poor plasma gun pete must have failed his gets hot roll and blown his head off lol

Their parents should reimburse you for all of the damage. That's the cheapest way: if my crotch fruit was to destroy someone else's property, I'd feel obligated.

How did this happen? Were they intentionally destroying them?

Yep they did it on purpose. The dad is a close friend of mine. When I was young I destroyed his gundam collection so we just figured it was revenge lol. They're financially tight right now so they couldn't pay me back even if they wanted to. I'm fine with it since I've already made some plans for new additions to the army. I'm already back on track to a full army

I feel your pain. Thankfully I have not had an incident since the great comet of the anti-sotek when one of my twin cousins pushed the other onto my display board of lizardmen and killed my stegadon. Thankfully they were hurt more than the rest of the army... go dinos!

Sometimes, in this hobby, we have to make sacrifices.

I'd start with your cousins.


After the first one, the rest should get the picture.

And next time, lock your door. The front one, and do NOT let the hellspawn into your dwelling. They are like vampires that have to be invited in (an open door is their invitation).


... not entirely sarcasm.

 chromedog wrote:
Sometimes, in this hobby, we have to make sacrifices.

I'd start with your cousins.


After the first one, the rest should get the picture.

And next time, lock your door. The front one, and do NOT let the hellspawn into your dwelling. They are like vampires that have to be invited in (an open door is their invitation).


... not entirely sarcasm.

true

I'm not sure what the going rate of a 4 year old is, but you should be able to generate enough cash from the sale to replace most of what was lost. At the very least you should figure out the damages, and have the kid work it off once they are old enough to shovel driveways/mow lawns/etc...

Humor aside, Go with what other's have said. Repair what you can, salvage the rest. Leftover bits can be used for terrain or basing projects. If you know people in the area who play IG, you could beg/swap spares from their bits boxes. Re-paint with battle damage. Those minis who lived through the '13 massacre can be fielded as vet squads.

nkelsch wrote:
I do not recommend insurance claim. No insurance adjuster is going to entertain 'kids broke my toys' especially with deductibles, they won't pay for most of it... and your premiums will go way up.

All I can suggest is set up a rehab clinic:

*Identify which models are saveable with minor repair and touch up.
*Take the incomplete or really damaged models and dump them in a bucket of simple green to strip them down. Then combine parts until you get them complete.
*Then hit ebay/craigslist and just buy parts and used models. You can get some amazing deals if you are willing to do the rehab work and if you are stripping some models anyways

To the OP:

Building on that, those Plano-style plastic trays with the moveable dividers are great for getting your models and bits organized before you start reassembly.

And if you're doing any stripping of your current or replacement models, get yourself some L.A.'s Totally Awesome cleaner. They sell it at Dollar Tree. Strips plastic much better than Simple Green, and almost as well as some of the more toxic stuff.

Ok I salvaged enough to make two infantry platoons and a company command squad. All the special weapons were lost however so no vets squads anymore. I got some simple green and stripped a bunch of ththe others so I should be able to build a few more squads

Children should be kept in play pens until they're 15 for this very reason.

Oh and by the way, plasma gun pete found his head! Lol

See what bits are missing and what needs to be rebuilt and trade for bits. Much cheaper than trading/buying whole armies.

 kronk wrote:
Children should be kept in play pens until they're 15 for this very reason.

I know right lol

 Color Sgt. Kell wrote:
Yep they did it on purpose. The dad is a close friend of mine. When I was young I destroyed his gundam collection so we just figured it was revenge lol. They're financially tight right now so they couldn't pay me back even if they wanted to. I'm fine with it since I've already made some plans for new additions to the army. I'm already back on track to a full army

Wow, that level of thought out maliciousness for a 4 year old is 'odd'. 4 year olds don't normally 'break stuff' for the sake of breaking stuff or thought out revenge. Temper tantrum maybe but that is odd.

Glad to hear at least some of your guys survived.

I have a friend who is a die-hard simpsons collector and has a ton of MISB stuff. He had a holiday party and invited coworkers, one of which brought their kid. The Kid saw 'toys' and assume it was ok to open and play with them. The kid must have damaged thousands of dollars of MISB simpson stuff. The kids just didn't know better, and the parents are donkey-caves and were like 'what is the big deal?'

I lock up my stuff when kids are in my house. Too many people have learned the hard way :(

Yeah I told them before almost every day for the past 3 years not to touch my models when they came over, and they never did. So the parents would get mad at me for complaining telling the kids not to touch my models. So after a while I stopped yelling at them when they would try to touch my models because then everyone would always think I was being annoying for no reason. So then one day I left the room for 20 minutes and when I come in I find the case open and broken models all over. Because apparently they were "making them fly" and "having a war". So I made the kids search with me all day fo are the missing parts. And that's basically the whole story

This looks like a perfect opportunity to quit!

 Bat Manuel wrote:
This looks like a perfect opportunity to quit!

 Bat Manuel wrote:
This looks like a perfect opportunity to quit!

. Are you kidding? This hobby is too addictive lol

 Color Sgt. Kell wrote:
Yeah I told them before almost every day for the past 3 years not to touch my models when they came over, and they never did. So the parents would get mad at me for complaining telling the kids not to touch my models. So after a while I stopped yelling at them when they would try to touch my models because then everyone would always think I was being annoying for no reason. So then one day I left the room for 20 minutes and when I come in I find the case open and broken models all over. Because apparently they were "making them fly" and "having a war". So I made the kids search with me all day fo are the missing parts. And that's basically the whole story

Damn dude, that is crazy. Those parents are screwed if the kids lack that level of self control :(

Apparently 'put away in boxes' wasn't enough to protect them which is rough! You can't do much more than that except get locking cases.

I had my dog consume a wing of Ynnead's prize War Walkers, 6 in total. I feel your pain.

 sphynx wrote:
I had my dog consume a wing of Ynnead's prize War Walkers, 6 in total. I feel your pain.

Ouch