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I've resisted posting this, it happened months ago and I've been too heartbroken to even acknowledge it.

Some of you might have seen my videos on youtube. I used to travel for work (remote area field assistant) but I moved into a "cabin in the woods" situation while I recovered from a work injury. About a month after the move, COVID hit and I couldn't get any more work even after the injury cleared up. Got a background in video games, so I bought a 3D printer and started printing my own stuff off-grid. I made some videos, sold some models online, bought more Warhammer, and painted my entire unfinished childhood collection (40K goffs). I also built and painted a plastic gargant - GW official I guess. In all, it was an okay time. Things were fine more or less.

Finally a job came up (fire lookout) and I decided to move closer to the work. I was away from home for about 18 months before I could make the move (I made one video with the "micron" scale stuff while I was away). 6000km round trip (Australia). When the removalist truck arrived at the new digs, I found a number of the boxes crushed or otherwise damaged in awkward ways - and most of my work equipment broken and smashed. The delivery guys were NOT the same guys who transferred the items (from truck to train and back to truck I believe) mid-trip, so we reported all the issues on a stock-standard form - but we didn't actually open the boxes.

Problem really being this was a north-to-south move, so I quarantined all the boxes and bug-bombed them 3 times to prevent roaches. Biosecurity in a move like this is no joke if you don't want your new house to crawl.

About a month later I opened a box properly for the first time - and all the Warhmmer and all my 3D printed models were smashed. The GW stuff was almost all reduced entirely to their parts just sloshing around in the box. The 3D printed stuff as all smashed in awkward unusual ways - I design and print single-piece models mostly, so no glue to come unstuck. I opened more boxes. All the same.

Most of my models are old 2nd and 3rd Ed stuff, heaps and heaps of metal. All smashed.

My understanding is, while the models were reasonably well packed in their boxes using various foams, bubble wrap, tissue, packing paper, etc, the boxes themselves were repeatedly crushed from stacking and bouncing around in the truck/train. So all the models were crunched vertically, like the entire move was being pounded from above with a massive hammer over rand over. One of the boxes (with the plastic gargant in it) even collapsed inward and tore open from the weight above. And after the first big crush, the broken parts presumably got loose in the boxes, awkwardly jamming into the other models and making the situation worse when the next big "crunch" came. Over and over.

Do that over again about a million times of 3000km. Nothing left. All smashed.

I joked with the GF when we were packing that without the Warhammer, the move would take all of 30 minutes to pack. I never lived with any furniture. The entire point of going back in person (instead of hiring someone) was to pack the Warhammer properly, ideally to sell some of it when when it arrived. Selling the Warhammer (particularly the 2nd Ed stuff) was supposed to fund the round-trip for the move (the trip cost about $7,000).

I'm not even angry. Just sad. Most of the stuff I don't even want anyway - but it's heartbreaking to see so much effort and personal history literally crushed, instead of being passed on to someone who might value it more. We joked that it would have been better if the house had just burned down with all the Warhammer in it. Wouldn't have to worry about it then. My guess is there was about $10k worth of stuff in the collection, but obviously that's hard to value with collectors items, time, paint, storage, and the 3D printed stuff which is next to impossible to value.

Some star-players in the collection: my WHFB Empire miniatures (new Perry style) mostly survived - a steam tank and about 30 hand gunners all unharmed. An old Necron monolith survived too.

I still cannot bring myself to open the box with the Gargant in it. The box itself is so badly crushed it basically doesn't exist any more - and you can see the Gargant inside, sort of. But I still think I might be okay. It's a solid kit.

Players who let the team down: the GW Crusade Case sucks immeasurable quantities of balls. This case is basically useless. It has too much negative space inside, so all the miniatures can just bounce free from their foam and get all crushed up regardless. I even found miniatures UNDER the foam, still in the box against the plastic of the base. Don't buy this case, it's a waste of money in more ways than one. I want my money back from this stupid case more than I do from the removalists.

For the record, yes, it struck me that the boxes were labelled with which Warhammer was inside each so that I could unpack at the end, and I wondered if this might tempt a removalist to smash them as badly as possible just for lolz. But other stuff was smashed too, so I don't know. The removalists cost about $6000, I watched them place everything carefully into the truck, then they packed it onto a train - but it looks like it was transferred (probably between trains) in Brisbane, and this is where I imagine everything went wrong. I really don't have the energy to pursue these guys. The move was hard (I also lost my car too, which broke down on the way back and I am still shopping for a new one with the money from selling the house) and the heartbreak of seeing all my miniatures all smashed up is just too full on to comprehend.

I suppose this rant is part of healing.

I kinda count myself as lucky though. I was making videos for Youtube, so I took blog-style videos of most of my collection as I finished them - just in case I wanted to post that kind of thing in the future. So I have a quaint little record of most of what was lost... the GF says I should rebuild everything based on the videos. But like I said, it's pretty painful. And of course my current Imperial Guard army (1000pts) survived because it was in my car in an Ard Case - not in the removalist truck - I'd had it with me the whole time. The Ard Case is legit, and it's a shame they don't sell it anymore.

Thank you for listening to my ted talk.

Yikes that is heartbreaking! I don't think other people realise how much of ourselves we pour into our creations and models.

I hope you can claim on insurance to at least cover some of the financials, and maybe over time rebuilding the models will become something you can face.

That sounds horrid and really crushing for sure!!


Like Kroem I hope you can get some cover back on what was lost.

Rebuilding can be a super hard thing mentally to overcome when you have a huge hobby loss like that; you might honestly find it easier to grow your IG/an new army or a different game or even hobby

Who removes the removalist?

That sounds absolutely terrible. I had a minor version of that with a couple of cases of trollbloods getting broken in transit to Germany. Took me 10 years to fix any of them. But once I did it wasn't as bad as I thought. Your situation sounds much worse, I'm sorry!

Oooof, that sucks. I'm annoyed I knocked over one of my Metal Yetis and his head came flying off. I can't even imagine that kind damage.

And this folks, is why I detest moving, even just across a city. I don't trust moving men AT ALL. One of my friends moved. He packed a "moving pod" himself, the company was just in charge of transport. They came and picked it up, he left the next day. The pod was supposed to be at his new home about the same time he arrived. No such luck. 6 weeks later he finally got to stop sleeping on the floor, living out of a suitcase, and sitting on a folding chair. They tried to bill him extra for extended use of the shipping pod.

I'm so sorry man. I have a ton of crap in storage for when I finally return to the US and I fear what I will find.

Sometimes it's easier to just never see it again. I lost my black with a red stripe Deathwing/Ravenwing in a move...

It's been almost 15 years now. I always wondered where they ended up. I like to think someone who plays ended up with them.

But, to see them destroyed? That's a tougher pill to swallow.