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Well the nearest hobby shop is in Italy, Greece maybe, and the airport is closed anyway.

Point being, shipping is cheaper than the flights that no longer exist

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Well the nearest hobby shop is in Italy, Greece maybe, and the airport is closed anyway.

Point being, shipping is cheaper than the flights that no longer exist

Haha, well, fair point. Miniature Market might be cheaper to ship within the US (because they have flat-rate), but their packaging isn't anything special from what I can recall, but I've never bought only paint and then the forwarding part, well, I don't know the cost on that. Usually Miniature Market stuff I get is in a fairly large flat-rate box, the paints are usually loose and the box just has some of those air-bag, packing things, but I usually have ordered things bigger than paints in the same order.

My go-to at this point, other than MM is ChaosOrc. They have stuff that’s long OOP and shortly OOP like Bloodbound easy to build and original SCs and such. The long OOP WHFB metals aren’t cheap, but the AoS stuff is discounted and shipping is a flat $6!

For what little it may be worth, I recently ordered a triarch stalker from castle perilous which does mail order stuff and it came to me with no problems, the staff was nice.

https://castleperilousgamesbooks.com

I was mildly surprised they had a stalker, those are kinda hard to find it seems

As to the war store's demise:

discountgamesinc.com is pretty great.

Anyone, anyone AT ALL, got a decent stock of Vallejo?

Seems like anyone who has any is charging premium prices and is out of stock on half the colors.

I believe Vallejo repurposed some/all/most of their machines to produce handwashing soap instead of paint. So chances are production is suffering a shortfall at their end. That's before you factor in any potential shutdown/slowdown of international mail which might be restricting supplies in some/all regions.

Miniature Market is good for big purchases, but their shipping is outrageous otherwise.

Game Kastle tried to scam me so I don't have a high opinion of them.

What did Game Kastle do to try to scam you?

 Overread wrote:
I believe Vallejo repurposed some/all/most of their machines to produce handwashing soap instead of paint. So chances are production is suffering a shortfall at their end. That's before you factor in any potential shutdown/slowdown of international mail which might be restricting supplies in some/all regions.

Y'know I think I do remember seeing that somewhere. Well that's certainly worth giving up paints for.

I placed a large order with Reaper, their paints seems just as good.

Anyone used Chaos Orc Superstore?

https://www.chaosorc.com/index.php

They seem to have a good mix of current stuff, a discount and used/OOP stuff.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Anyone used Chaos Orc Superstore?

https://www.chaosorc.com/index.php

They seem to have a good mix of current stuff, a discount and used/OOP stuff.

i've used them on and off for years without issue, and they are a good source for oop stuff

Yeah, bought some Heroquest stuff off them. Good pricing, good communication and quick to ship.

I used Chaos Orc a fair amount. They also tend to be one of the few to regularly stock guys like Artel W, Wargame Exclusive, Shieldwolf, and the smaller boutique companies.

Chaos Orc shipped the same day and has free shipping over $100 so looking good so far.

I've used them a bit recently to fill out some Epic 40K armies - they have a surprising amount of OOP stuff in stock, and they ship out orders quickly.

I've used Chaos Orc via eBay and will be checking out their main store. Game Kastle hasn't scammed me but their prices are pretty suspect on a number of things so I've given them a wide berth. Noble Knight Games is super scammy and I will never purchase something from them.

Miniature Market is pretty okay, and probably close to a new Warstore.

Warstore hurt the historical community because Neal was more into historicals than other shops, and it was the shop for WW2 style stuff. Sourcing that separately, scattered all over the internet is frustrating now that he's gone.

 Elbows wrote:
Noble Knight Games is super scammy and I will never purchase something from them.

Care to elaborate? I've never had an issue with them.

Not Elbows and may be recalling incorrectly, but IIRC they tended on ebay to price their stuff the lowest--and then add shipping in the small print so it cost the same or more as the places with free shipping. Likewise, I think I saw them marking Crocodile games stuff as "OOP", despite the fact it was (and is!) still for sale on croc's site. This was probaby 5 years ago, I don't entirely recall if I'm remembering the details correctly, and they may have improved, but I've also got an ennnh opinion of Noble Knight, and am disappointed they've got my email and such through Warstore.

Never had any problems with Miniaturemarket and they also have the benefit of a much wider selection than just GDW Stuff like Boardgames generally ( historical etc ) and RPG's .

 Arschbombe wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Noble Knight Games is super scammy and I will never purchase something from them.

Care to elaborate? I've never had an issue with them.

It's a personal decision. They routinely import stuff from abroad and falsely advertise a very high MSRP...then pretend it's discounted 30-40% to....a price still higher than the manufacturer has on their kits. While there is no law against this, as international MSRP is not really a thing, it's a really scummy business practice and thus I will never buy a single thing from them. It's not present on their US based products because of the market.

This has changed a bit lately, but still...once a company tries that kind of thing, I'm out.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
What did Game Kastle do to try to scam you?

Sorry for the late reply, they showed PHR Valkyries in stock, and as it's my most wanted thing to buy right now, I bought it from them. Several days went by and no shipping. Emailed them and they said it was a mistake that it showed in stock but they were going to get a shipment in, in a week, if I waited they'd complete the order. I waited, no update, I emailed them, no response until two days later saying it was never in stock but 'back ordered' and they'd complete the order when they got it in. I emailed them the next week to see if they had got any in to ship, and they said no, I asked for a refund, and it took me launching a dispute with PayPal, to get them to send an email asking if I was sure I wanted a refund, I said yes then, and begrudgingly they refunded my money.

It's all the more frustrating right now cause no store I can buy from has them. I found one UK seller but he wouldn't ship overseas. So I've been SOL despite having the money ready to go at a moments notice. All because of this BS.

What are people's opinions on Frontline Games? I was going to order from them as I need a couple things from Warlord that I can't find anywhere else, and don't want to order directly from Warlord in the UK for just a couple of things.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Chaos Orc shipped the same day and has free shipping over $100 so looking good so far.

And they send a wrong item Granted a $60 item over a $20 one but still.

Now have to arrange an international return

 KingmanHighborn wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
What did Game Kastle do to try to scam you?

Sorry for the late reply, they showed PHR Valkyries in stock, and as it's my most wanted thing to buy right now, I bought it from them. Several days went by and no shipping. Emailed them and they said it was a mistake that it showed in stock but they were going to get a shipment in, in a week, if I waited they'd complete the order. I waited, no update, I emailed them, no response until two days later saying it was never in stock but 'back ordered' and they'd complete the order when they got it in. I emailed them the next week to see if they had got any in to ship, and they said no, I asked for a refund, and it took me launching a dispute with PayPal, to get them to send an email asking if I was sure I wanted a refund, I said yes then, and begrudgingly they refunded my money.

It's all the more frustrating right now cause no store I can buy from has them. I found one UK seller but he wouldn't ship overseas. So I've been SOL despite having the money ready to go at a moments notice. All because of this BS.

It’s funny because the same thing happened to me, sort of. I ordered Battle for Earth and a Dropfleet ship from them in October of 2019 because their site said they had it in stock. All through November and December I was emailing them about it, and they said their restock was on the way...but I never went the refund route. Just waited. They arrived in March, during the pandemic’s early days.
I probably should have asked for a refund.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Have you asked the Facebook trade group if anyone has any Valkyries?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or maybe Mad Doc Grotsnik could use his Loot Group connection time buy from the UK seller and ship it to you?

I know TTC has had some supply issues, but it sounds like Game Kastle has some issues of their own. The lack of ability to secure stock for many months (esp if the parent company clearly has stock) suggests either there's an issue getting it overseas to the USA market; or Came Kastle has cash-flow issues and can't actually afford to order with your order; so they use your order to pay for an earlier one. Which means you end up waiting longer because they need someone else to place an order to pay for yours.

I think the issue was getting stock overseas. Sometime last year, the sole American importer of DZC stock went out of business (the owner died), at least according to discussion on the tg site. And the usual big American distributors won’t touch the property. I suspect that was the reason for the delay.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Not to completely absolve Game Kastle.

I just got used to Kickstarter delivery time tables. (Still waiting on Golden Age Starships.)

Gamekastle has always had inventory issues and it was a pretty well known then when their online store was FRPgames (the physical were gamekastle). Back when I hung out on the Reaper forum you pretty much knew that if you didn't get your stuff shipped in a week or so best to ask for a refund (which they were always good with). So pretty much like the Warstore in that regard. There were a lot of people that would get hit hard by inventory stuff back when FRP did some amazing sales around the holidays (like, no one came close to their prices). It would take a lot of emails to ever get anything sorted but people that called usually had things done in 5 min and refunds or replacements sent.

FRPgames is my go-to for paint as they get fresh stock in all the time but they have a similar inventory issue where they'll sell something they don't have in stock as they usually get restocks every 2 weeks and if you buy in the wrong time you can wait a while. They are really helpful if you call them and usually will split orders for no extra shipping if this happens. Really annoyed me the first time where it was over a week without my paint shipping and just decided to call instead of email for whatever reason. The employee explained how they sell paints and worked to get things resolved. I have used email since then and have had good results with them too. Think I've been buying paint for 6+ years exclusively from them now.

Guess what I'm getting at is sometimes the issues aren't malicious just poor inventory systems and ticket management software as those things are very expensive and it's easy to get lost in all the various requests coming in as I'm sure all these online stores have way more orders and emails about the orders the people to cover them as margins are so low. They all have phone numbers and some, like MM, have online chat. That's always better then email.

For sure don't shop at a place you if didn't like the experience but I think it's a bit over reacting to say places are trying to scam when stuff like this happens.

 Monkeysloth wrote:
Guess what I'm getting at is sometimes the issues aren't malicious just poor inventory systems and ticket management software as those things are very expensive and it's easy to get lost in all the various requests coming in as I'm sure all these online stores have way more orders and emails about the orders the people to cover them as margins are so low. They all have phone numbers and some, like MM, have online chat. That's always better then email.

GameKastle did this to me on some AK Interactive basing stuff. Honestly, it wasn't much money and I wasn't really in a hurry. They did email me about weekly or so to let me know that the order was still open, but the item was not yet in stock. Not that they told me, but I realize they only likely batch order the AK stuff from Germany (or wherever it comes from) so it didn't shock me that it took weeks for it to come in.

 H wrote:

 Monkeysloth wrote:
Guess what I'm getting at is sometimes the issues aren't malicious just poor inventory systems and ticket management software as those things are very expensive and it's easy to get lost in all the various requests coming in as I'm sure all these online stores have way more orders and emails about the orders the people to cover them as margins are so low. They all have phone numbers and some, like MM, have online chat. That's always better then email.

GameKastle did this to me on some AK Interactive basing stuff. Honestly, it wasn't much money and I wasn't really in a hurry. They did email me about weekly or so to let me know that the order was still open, but the item was not yet in stock. Not that they told me, but I realize they only likely batch order the AK stuff from Germany (or wherever it comes from) so it didn't shock me that it took weeks for it to come in.

This seams to be pretty common with overseas stuff as michtoy, which so many molders in the larger scale modeling hobby recommend, is the same way. Says it's in stock but that could mean they have an order placed. If they haven't placed an order, but can, I believe they say it can take 1-2 weeks but usually takes 3-4.