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Feeling a little down right now cause I've just taken my riptide, which I assembled 2 days ago, out of his Tupperware box to cut a fancy space for him in my carry case only to find his arm bent slightly so he won't sit in the stance I painstaking spent ages assembling him into

To make me feel slightly worse, I took my hammerhead out of his box yesterday to find the bit which the side vents pivot on had snapped meaning I had to glue it

And finally I opened my carry case a few days ago to find my models just thrown in (not even in slots never mind the right ones, for some reason unknown to me) and one of my wolf guard terminators had gone missing and still hasn't been found

So rubbish week for me in hobby terms.

I was wondering if anyone else has had any disasters like this such as their prize model or one they'd sent hours assembling perfectly had gotten damaged or lost?

Lets hear your stories! Their probably better than my bent riptide arm and missing terminator.

Okay: Let me share my tale...

My Car got broken into one night while it was raining heavily, I was storing my Dark Angel's army in the trunk at the time in an aluminum case, and one of the GW figure cases.

They had taken my minitures put them on the middle of the road when they realized it wasn't of value (to them) stole the little bit of change out of my cup holder and a cheap toolkit.

The aluminum case got ran over and destroyed. and when I got up the next morning my Dark Angels were gone. I went and filed a police report anyway, figuring the replacement cost was 1200 usd... Only to to find out a police officer had found them and picked them up. When I got them from evidence, there wasn't a single Bit missing.

I made sure to send that Police Officer a thank you note.

It sucks and can turn a lot off of the hobby. The main thing is to get over it and move on.
I have a few tales of woe.

Fantasy- HUGE undead army spent over a decade building. Rented an apartment with a buddy of mine nd had it on display on a shelf (roommate had a diferent shelf and we shared the 3rd) He decided he wanted my shelf as well and used his arm to "sweep" my entire army into a box breaking just about every models and ruining paint jobs.

40k- Commissioned an entuire army painting from a guy at a local shop. His stuff was pretty good and assumed he would do at least as well with my army. Wrong. He decided to use an entirely different color scheme, the paint job was bad in general, many pieces came up missing and had to practically get the law involved to even get back what I did get.

In both cases, I was so disgusted, I gave the armies away and started from scratch all over again with different armies.

Wife and I had a disagreement while in my garage.

In a stupid outburst she grabbed a riptide that was on my workbench and smashed it. The paint job just needed a few finishing touches.

After I got over the initial shock, I calmly asked her when she would like to tell our 6 year old what she had done to his model. One he had received as his 6th birthday present. One he had assembled and painted himself.

I doubt we'll see a repeat of this performance.

Gee thanks for reminding me of my ex picking up an open trunk of models and slamming it onto the floor. Knew i should put all the traysand padding back in and closed it before we started arguing)
Bet she felt about 6 inches tall when you told her that.

So....having not played Warhammer 40k in years, I've been doing a ton of repairs all day - things broke, moved, got stepped on, more moving trucks, moving, shaken, etc.

This poor truck was in pieces, and I finished repairing it this afternoon:


I've been working on my tankbustas all night. Heads broken off, bases broken off, weapons broken.....everything broke. I actually remember dropping the foam tray with my tank bustas on it while packing up for a moving, then I tripped over it immediately after dropping it (I was tripping as I dropped it), which then causes me to step on it. Those spiky bits were Fantasy maces that I converted into missiles, and I stepped on at least one, which causes me to go into immediate rage and kick the whole thing while screaming in pain/fury/rage. Well, 4 years later, we're gonna try fixing them up.




*edit* Doh! Those are the tankbustas in the top right, mostly out of the picture.

I'd been working on the Doomsday Ark (I had converted it a bit, not liking the way that a super-massive and valuable gun was underslung and vulnerable to blasts etc. and/or crushing if the thing dropped out of the sky). I therefore changed it so the gun was carried in the middle, like the troops would have been, protected.

This led to issues with actually putting it on a base, I needed to drill another hole to attach the stand, but decided to move to another model for a while, to give myself a break. Therefore I had to balance it on the table.

Having forgotten about it, I subsequently knocked the table and the damn thing toppled off and smashed onto the floor. Many of the spines snapped off, but at least the gun was protected as I had intended . I need to re-attach the spines some-time, and fix the paintjob.

Wow... Seems like I've been lucky so far

My biggest mistake so far was when I was glueing a metal eagle and accidentally glued the duct tape meant to hold it together to the model...

My worst was leaving two land raiders on the dash of my car for two hours on a summer morning. Ouch.

I once superglued me and my mum who was helping me to a metal Tyranid gargoyle.

I learned the hard way to take my valkries/vendettas off the bases and use the base to show where they are when near a table edge. Nothing like an opponent knocking it onto the floor to break apart in a tournament to teach ya that lesson.

Eh, not nearly as bad as some of these.
I'll share anyway; I use the BA Sanguinary Guard for my Honour Guard because the SM kit is stupid (and includes Papa Smurf. I also need two boxes for a 10-man squad).
So, I'm not the greatest painter, but I was really really happy with the paint job I gave my Chapter Champion with a Thunder Hammer. (I gave this model the wings from the SG set, painted them and they look nice IMO).
I played a few games with them, and in the middle of one of the games, this 11 year old came over and picked him up (he was slain anyway, and I didn't really mind too much), then I froze for a good minute or so. In what felt like Emperor-knows-how-long, this kid started "playing toy soldiers with it", by which I mean he picked the Champion up by his legs (bearing in mind, this guy had one of the pairs of legs that is stood on it's tippy-toes nearly, meaning little contact with the base), and started smacking it against the table. Not violently, but how you expect to see a kid playing with toys, if that makes sense?
Next thing I know, the wing came off (Tiniest contact point on there, I do believe, but not a big deal, normally). He apologised, and I was just... I don't even remember how I felt.
This happened around 5+ months ago, but to this day I still can't get his wing to glue back on (I've used super and plastic glue. I have cleared both the body and wing of all glue.)
It was, at the time, one of my best paint jobs. I was incredibly proud of that model.


It wasn't one of my more expensive models. Hell, they're not that "expensive" in terms of some of the other bits I have (Dreadnoughts upward), but it still irritated me.

Thanks guys! Its good to hear your stories and I'll remember your tips.

The riptide's arm has had a spare thunder hammer head wedged under its arm pit for the last day so its bent back into place now.

Still no sign of my Terminator though, he must have turned traitor.

Like Ond Angel said, its not the financial investment that makes it annoying or irritating but the time and care you put into them.