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Gosoul wrote:
they should have nipped this in the butt

Yikes.

One slight positive, from all of this. I heard that they owed a lot of money to one of the main (the main?) distributor in the UK. The amount owed, if not paid, would have almost certainly finished off that distributor, which in turn would have had serious ramifications for lots of other retailers in the UK (and perhaps the EU) who relied on that supplier. (Obviously now, in light of them re-opening in the same place, they had to pay their suppliers if they hoped to continue the business under a different name).

It's absolutely terrible that this has happened - as I've said before, inexcusable, and the new retailer deserves no patronage from the wargaming community if the company's failure was (as has been rumoured) entirely down to their own mismanagement rather than external, unavoidable factors.

However, the damage could have been even worse and I guess the wargaming industry in the UK is a little bit fortunate in that regard. And, as I have said, the new EOTS or whatever the hell they call themselves deserve nothing but scorn at best, and really outright belligerence.

Altruizine wrote:

I would buy from them tomorrow if they had the same prices and free shipping to North America (well, assuming I needed anything at the moment, which I do not).
Wargaming is not really the arena to make an ethical stand as a consumer. If it was, we would all have boycotted GW products several years ago.

When there are numerous other companies that offer the same prices and shipping to the US, this attitude makes no sense at all.
Here's a couple. they're not a secret.

Firestorm Games
The Troll Trader
Triple Helix Wargmes

Wayland games also offers free shipping from time to time.

Contacted my card company about filing a chargeback against Maelstrom. It's not a credit card, it's a prepaid visa that you fill up with money whenever you want, but I hope it works.

brettz123 wrote:

Altruizine wrote:

 Jayce_The_Ace wrote:
This is posted over on Warseer:

Maelstrom has shut down. A new company called Maunsfield Gaming is picking up the pieces and will be online in a week or two. They will also run what was EOTS.

I've heard that Maelstrom got into financial difficulties, but was managing with a repayment plan. The debt was sold on, and the purchaser called in the debt, a lot of money. MG couldn't pay this money... what will happen next, who knows. There's more to the story than this too I'm lead to believe, but as the BBC would say, I can't prove it......[

*shrug* might be true, might not, but I think any 'new' company that emerges from this is really going to struggle to attract customers, or garner any goodwill among the wargaming community.

I would buy from them tomorrow if they had the same prices and free shipping to North America (well, assuming I needed anything at the moment, which I do not).

Wargaming is not really the arena to make an ethical stand as a consumer. If it was, we would all have boycotted GW products several years ago.

So you would seriously buy from people who have a track record of ripping off large numbers of customers? Interesting to say the least.

I'd speculate that most (if not all) of the people who were ripped off could have come away scot-free if they had only been better informed about their refund options (and the associated time limits) via Paypal or credit card. In light of that, I'm confident that I would be able to avoid any permanent loss dealing with any new company (so long as they are taking the same forms of payment).

So, yeah, I'd order from a hypothetical offshoot of Maelstrom (once they had been established for a while, and it was known that they weren't simply an outright criminal scam or whatever). I would probably refrain from making any huge orders, or any very far-in-advance preorders, but overall I'd feel comfortable buying from them.

Mierce Miniatures are great, btw, so I will probably actually have to buy from a Maelstrom-connected company at some point in the future (if they release any more minis that I can use in my armies, that is).

 scipio.au wrote:

Altruizine wrote:

I would buy from them tomorrow if they had the same prices and free shipping to North America (well, assuming I needed anything at the moment, which I do not).
Wargaming is not really the arena to make an ethical stand as a consumer. If it was, we would all have boycotted GW products several years ago.

When there are numerous other companies that offer the same prices and shipping to the US, this attitude makes no sense at all.
Here's a couple. they're not a secret.

Firestorm Games
The Troll Trader
Triple Helix Wargmes

Wayland games also offers free shipping from time to time.

I haven't heard of any of those companies, but I would definitely default to one of them over a Maelstrom offshoot if everything else was equal. It's the FREE shipping that's important to me, though, not just willingness to ship outside of the UK. I don't like paying postage because it usually kills the discount.

Most everything else is equal. Google them and have a look for yourself. The main difference is a limitation on large/bulky items and/or 2kg/item shipping, as it's a Royal Mail thing.
Being that you're in the US, you also have an excellent free shipping option from Miniature Market, who also offers nice discounts and great customer service.

Also, check out the "Retailers Giving the Cake" thread for recommendations.


If there's been one positive thing for me out of this whole debacle, it's that I've found some other damned good retailers.

 Pacific wrote:
Obviously now, in light of them re-opening in the same place, they had to pay their suppliers if they hoped to continue the business under a different name

Interestingly it seems to not have worked. It looks like suppliers are refusing to deal with EotS. They have no GW, very very limited FoW and PP. It looks very much like they can't get any stock. I suspect that even if they have paid there suppliers they have been cut off, not even put on CWO, or they have no cash to buy and stock.

For the time being perhaps, but if they have paid their bills then of course those suppliers will return to them in time. Unfortunately Maelstrom being one of the major retailers in the UK, and the sales they represent, will be more important than any issues over what they have done being right or wrong.

Like you say though it could be a cash flow problem or they are just getting accounts sorted out again.

Depends... If they have caused as much of a problem to the suppliers as the customers then they may not be given credit for a long time. Yes, in theory they will eventualy, but how long will they last with no stock or on CWO.

My information is that they will not be supplied now or in the future. If suppliers have been burned they won't line up for a second kicking. As for Maelstrom being one of the major retailers, well they are not now.

There are plenty of other retailers to take up the slack so suppliers have no reason to deal with MailStorm or any of its sons of dubious parentage.

As for paying suppliers, Graham at Simple Miniatures, who supplied Spartan, PP and other stuff to MG said in a post on the Wyrd Miniatures site (which is linked on here somewhere) that MG's debt to Simple had been sold on to debt collectors, presumably because he had no confidence he would ever get anything so settled for a much smaller sum in certainty and wrote off the rest.

So now we wait...for it to happen again. MG's business model was flawed.

Turnover is indeed vanity.

For a cashback in Belgium you need a signed document of the store -_- fething slowed country I live in.

Lost about 150£ , when I ordered everything was in stock, it was even before the SALES darn it :(

 Pacific wrote:
One slight positive, from all of this. I heard that they owed a lot of money to one of the main (the main?) distributor in the UK. The amount owed, if not paid, would have almost certainly finished off that distributor, which in turn would have had serious ramifications for lots of other retailers in the UK (and perhaps the EU) who relied on that supplier. (Obviously now, in light of them re-opening in the same place, they had to pay their suppliers if they hoped to continue the business under a different name).

It's absolutely terrible that this has happened - as I've said before, inexcusable, and the new retailer deserves no patronage from the wargaming community if the company's failure was (as has been rumoured) entirely down to their own mismanagement rather than external, unavoidable factors.

However, the damage could have been even worse and I guess the wargaming industry in the UK is a little bit fortunate in that regard. And, as I have said, the new EOTS or whatever the hell they call themselves deserve nothing but scorn at best, and really outright belligerence.

From what I've heard and from what i can see the distributor Simple Miniatures is doing fine, they are always busy running round packing orders whenever I've been into their little shop (I go in once a month ...or twice ....or more for my Infinity / Malifaux "fix") From what' Graham has said recently their OK as there are lots of new shops opening up (woo-hoo!!! ) in the UK and more European stores are starting stocking Malifaux so they are nice & busy. I couldn't get much out of him really (apart from MG had finally taken the biscuit and wasn't paying!) was that Simple miniatures didn't have any debts as he was cautious in building his business and was still ordering the same sort of quantities from Manufacturers so wasn't concerned from himself, although they were clearly hacked off at how MG had behaved and what they would lose. The selling off of the debt was the last and only option left to them which was mentioned earlier in the thread somewhere.

So I guess the good news is that we have plenty of stores in the UK who are selling in all the stock MG used to sell - so there's no need to bother with the new EOTS/maunsfeld/whoever games if you don't want to. there's no way Simple will be supplying any of them and I can't see others doing it either.

Steve steveson wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Obviously now, in light of them re-opening in the same place, they had to pay their suppliers if they hoped to continue the business under a different name

Interestingly it seems to not have worked. It looks like suppliers are refusing to deal with EotS. They have no GW, very very limited FoW and PP. It looks very much like they can't get any stock. I suspect that even if they have paid there suppliers they have been cut off, not even put on CWO, or they have no cash to buy and stock.

It's still not out of the question that the deals that transferred assets to Maunsfield and Mierce might be unwound, if it's found that they didn't pay a market rate. That makes dealing with the new companies risky, even without the fact that people might not want to do business with the same management.

For those of you waiting on paypal refunds, i received a full refund of £157 today from paypal, a nice surprise.

WPB wrote:
For those of you waiting on paypal refunds, i received a full refund of £157 today from paypal, a nice surprise.

Good for you
Did you do everything in the x amount of days period?

 devilution wrote:
For a cashback in Belgium you need a signed document of the store -_- fething slowed country I live in.

Lost about 150£ , when I ordered everything was in stock, it was even before the SALES darn it :(

Try to explain to Your bank that in 21st century You NEVER get a SIGNED invoice of anything when buying things on internet. Maximum You might have is an electronic invoice specifying seller, addressee, postal details and the amount charged. The rest goes via i-banking transfers which should be available to Your bank anyways. If they keep insisting, complain to higher ranking bank officials or the Belgian authority, responsible for monitoring the financial and credit institutions - or mention to the bank that You will call those authorities next.

Steve steveson wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Obviously now, in light of them re-opening in the same place, they had to pay their suppliers if they hoped to continue the business under a different name

Interestingly it seems to not have worked. It looks like suppliers are refusing to deal with EotS. They have no GW, very very limited FoW and PP. It looks very much like they can't get any stock. I suspect that even if they have paid there suppliers they have been cut off, not even put on CWO, or they have no cash to buy and stock.

EotS do stock GW actually, a friend of mine bought some from there at the weekend, they even show up on the GW site store finder.

 Rayvon wrote:

Steve steveson wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Obviously now, in light of them re-opening in the same place, they had to pay their suppliers if they hoped to continue the business under a different name

Interestingly it seems to not have worked. It looks like suppliers are refusing to deal with EotS. They have no GW, very very limited FoW and PP. It looks very much like they can't get any stock. I suspect that even if they have paid there suppliers they have been cut off, not even put on CWO, or they have no cash to buy and stock.

EotS do stock GW actually, a friend of mine bought some from there at the weekend, they even show up on the GW site store finder.

He is talking about the online site, not the physical store.

PhantomViper wrote:

 Rayvon wrote:

Steve steveson wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Obviously now, in light of them re-opening in the same place, they had to pay their suppliers if they hoped to continue the business under a different name

Interestingly it seems to not have worked. It looks like suppliers are refusing to deal with EotS. They have no GW, very very limited FoW and PP. It looks very much like they can't get any stock. I suspect that even if they have paid there suppliers they have been cut off, not even put on CWO, or they have no cash to buy and stock.

EotS do stock GW actually, a friend of mine bought some from there at the weekend, they even show up on the GW site store finder.

He is talking about the online site, not the physical store.

From what I gather, EotS is not an online retailer, and gets a better deal from GW direct than it would as an online retailer (which has to use a distributor)*. I'm assuming another site (maunsfield?) will take over the online sales.

*According to Maelstrom staff in August. I wouldn't be surprised if GW aren't stocking them on as liberal credit terms now though.

Herzlos wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

 Rayvon wrote:

Steve steveson wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Obviously now, in light of them re-opening in the same place, they had to pay their suppliers if they hoped to continue the business under a different name

Interestingly it seems to not have worked. It looks like suppliers are refusing to deal with EotS. They have no GW, very very limited FoW and PP. It looks very much like they can't get any stock. I suspect that even if they have paid there suppliers they have been cut off, not even put on CWO, or they have no cash to buy and stock.

EotS do stock GW actually, a friend of mine bought some from there at the weekend, they even show up on the GW site store finder.

He is talking about the online site, not the physical store.

From what I gather, EotS is not an online retailer, and gets a better deal from GW direct than it would as an online retailer (which has to use a distributor)*. I'm assuming another site (maunsfield?) will take over the online sales.

*According to Maelstrom staff in August. I wouldn't be surprised if GW aren't stocking them on as liberal credit terms now though.

There you go: http://www.eye-of-the-storm.co.uk/

For someone that isn't an online retailer, their site sure as Hades looks like one...

PhantomViper wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

 Rayvon wrote:

Steve steveson wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Obviously now, in light of them re-opening in the same place, they had to pay their suppliers if they hoped to continue the business under a different name

Interestingly it seems to not have worked. It looks like suppliers are refusing to deal with EotS. They have no GW, very very limited FoW and PP. It looks very much like they can't get any stock. I suspect that even if they have paid there suppliers they have been cut off, not even put on CWO, or they have no cash to buy and stock.

EotS do stock GW actually, a friend of mine bought some from there at the weekend, they even show up on the GW site store finder.

He is talking about the online site, not the physical store.

From what I gather, EotS is not an online retailer, and gets a better deal from GW direct than it would as an online retailer (which has to use a distributor)*. I'm assuming another site (maunsfield?) will take over the online sales.

*According to Maelstrom staff in August. I wouldn't be surprised if GW aren't stocking them on as liberal credit terms now though.

There you go: http://www.eye-of-the-storm.co.uk/

For someone that isn't an online retailer, their site sure as Hades looks like one...

The site is geared to support EOTS physical store with the convenience of a shopping cart. It isnt an online retailer in the strictest sense

 Mr. Burning wrote:

The site is geared to support EOTS physical store with the convenience of a shopping cart. It isnt an online retailer in the strictest sense

Which was also the way in which the old Maelstrom site operated, so pray tell, what is the difference between this site and the old one?

I really fail to understand how some people seem to continue to defending a company that purposefully deceived and robbed fellow wargamers!

PhantomViper wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:

The site is geared to support EOTS physical store with the convenience of a shopping cart. It isnt an online retailer in the strictest sense

Which was also the way in which the old Maelstrom site operated, so pray tell, what is the difference between this site and the old one?

I really fail to understand how some people seem to continue to defending a company that purposefully deceived and robbed fellow wargamers!

EOTS is not Maelstrom, they are not the same company. Look up the registration on companies house. EOTS are not selling GW product through their online shop, only through the physical store, if at all.

EOTS are not an "on-line retailer" they have a physical presence too. (pedantic ork face)

As for defending Maelstrom and the business superstar/messiah that is Rob Lane, who is doing that exactly?

I am not defending him, i have used them a lot in the past, got my stuff quickly and never had any problems but due to hearing from all these people on Dakka that have been ripped off by them, i will take my custom elsewhere now.

This is who i have been using as of late

Gifts for Geeks

 Mr. Burning wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:

The site is geared to support EOTS physical store with the convenience of a shopping cart. It isnt an online retailer in the strictest sense

Which was also the way in which the old Maelstrom site operated, so pray tell, what is the difference between this site and the old one?

I really fail to understand how some people seem to continue to defending a company that purposefully deceived and robbed fellow wargamers!

EOTS is not Maelstrom, they are not the same company. Look up the registration on companies house. EOTS are not selling GW product through their online shop, only through the physical store, if at all.

EOTS are not an "on-line retailer" they have a physical presence too. (pedantic ork face)

As for defending Maelstrom and the business superstar/messiah that is Rob Lane, who is doing that exactly?

Hmmm, amongst other people, you are actually...

The Maelstrom site also used to have a physical presence as well, until they changed that physical presence's name to... EotS... funny coincidence, isn't it?

EotS has the same manager, the same fiscal address, even the same phone number that Maelstrom used to have, trying to claim that they are not the same is nothing but intellectual dishonesty!

EotS was created so that Rob Lane could default on all the debts that Maelstrom used to have and in the process steal from probably dozens of gamers who have made orders with Maelstrom only to now see the company disappear without a trace, to be replaced by EotS... another funny coincidence...

imrail wrote:

WPB wrote:
For those of you waiting on paypal refunds, i received a full refund of £157 today from paypal, a nice surprise.

Good for you
Did you do everything in the x amount of days period?

Yes, i claimed after about 3 weeks so still within the time limit.

PhantomViper wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:

The site is geared to support EOTS physical store with the convenience of a shopping cart. It isnt an online retailer in the strictest sense

Which was also the way in which the old Maelstrom site operated, so pray tell, what is the difference between this site and the old one?

I really fail to understand how some people seem to continue to defending a company that purposefully deceived and robbed fellow wargamers!

EOTS is not Maelstrom, they are not the same company. Look up the registration on companies house. EOTS are not selling GW product through their online shop, only through the physical store, if at all.

EOTS are not an "on-line retailer" they have a physical presence too. (pedantic ork face)

As for defending Maelstrom and the business superstar/messiah that is Rob Lane, who is doing that exactly?

Hmmm, amongst other people, you are actually...

The Maelstrom site also used to have a physical presence as well, until they changed that physical presence's name to... EotS... funny coincidence, isn't it?

EotS has the same manager, the same fiscal address, even the same phone number that Maelstrom used to have, trying to claim that they are not the same is nothing but intellectual dishonesty!

EotS was created so that Rob Lane could default on all the debts that Maelstrom used to have and in the process steal from probably dozens of gamers who have made orders with Maelstrom only to now see the company disappear without a trace, to be replaced by EotS... another funny coincidence...

I think you should check my previous posts on the subject of Maelstroms shady practices and the delight that is Rob (the next Alan Sugar) Lane. I have posted fact and my assumptions. If that makes me a Maelstrom supporter in your eyes then so be it.

EDIt:

Spelling dishonesty!

 Mr. Burning wrote:

I think you should check my previous posts on the subject of Maelstroms shady practices and the delight that is Rob (the next Alan Sugar) Lane. I have posted fact and my assumptions. If that makes me a Maelstrom supporter in your eyes then so be it.

I said that you seemed to be supporting EotS, and your latest post sound like you are saying that since EotS is a different company than Maelstrom, then they should deserve a clean slate. Unless there was a /sarcasm sign somewhere that I missed...

Not sure how you can discern between the two and more to the point, I'm not sure wargamers should be making a distinction between the two especially when it comes to their hard-earned cash. Once bitten, twice shy and all that....

Barring the name change, the websites are identical.

PhantomViper wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:

I think you should check my previous posts on the subject of Maelstroms shady practices and the delight that is Rob (the next Alan Sugar) Lane. I have posted fact and my assumptions. If that makes me a Maelstrom supporter in your eyes then so be it.

I said that you seemed to be supporting EotS, and your latest post sound like you are saying that since EotS is a different company than Maelstrom, then they should deserve a clean slate. Unless there was a /sarcasm sign somewhere that I missed...

It was the Alan Sugar thing......

I don't intended to spend with any of Rob lanes companies due to the clusterfeth that has seen numerous buyers out of pocket, even before the final final final final final (ad infinitum) sale at Maelstrom.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 filbert wrote:
Not sure how you can discern between the two and more to the point, I'm not sure wargamers should be making a distinction between the two especially when it comes to their hard-earned cash. Once bitten, twice shy and all that....

Barring the name change, the websites are identical.

This in a nutshell.

What has been poor has been the lack of communication about the whole thing, Not that the companies need to notify us hobbyists of any changes they make, they should at least honestly communicate their intentions in the face of criticism.
Mierce and EOTS are off my shopping lists.