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This will be as brief and accurate as I can make. I have been strongly encouraged to share this experience with the community.

Mid 2020: I purchased about 1800 points of DKoK and looked for a painting service to take on the project. I was recommended Blue Table by a couple acquaintances who were painters themselves but could not take on the project. I looked into BTP and only found good reviews and the video on their website going over the different levels of painting looked good.

November/December 2020: I sent all of the minis to BTP. I paid $3,592.08 (up front, because discounts) for BTP to clean up, build, magnetize, and do a Level 4 paint job on all units. I gave them detailed instructions with pictures for references.

August 11th, 2023: I picked up my minis from the post office. No clean up, fixing of bent parts etc. seems to have been done. Many arms on the infantry have been mismatched or replaced with something from a different game entirely. Some parts are broken.The minis were not shipped in cases like I thought they would be. Much of my instructions were not followed, and the level of detail is nowhere near what was advertised as "Level 4".

That's it. I did not know about BTP's reputation until this year. Between 2020 and 2023 I stayed in regular contact with BTP. The minis were in limbo for quite some time waiting for a painter. Once one was assigned, communication was opened between them and I. But this painter was very difficult to communicate with in that they either took weeks or more to respond, or it took my asking the project manager to look into the status of the minis.

I'm just a guy who has loved 40K since I painted my first Space Marine at a GW store when I was 12 years old. Having a professionally painted DKoK army had been a dream for a long time.

I'm absolutely amazed that Blue Table Painting are still going, they have had such bad reviews over the years.

OP, didn't you do a quick google search before you gave them so much money? When you do a Google search for them the first page gives you all bad hits apart from their own websites & social media pages.

The first suggested search is Blue Table Painting controversy

I wonder why anybody would have recommended them to you?

Thank you for sharing your tale, hopefully less people will use them in future

I am impressed they still going.

And haven’t just changed to a tabletop standard, with a tabletop plus.
Since they are too inconsistent, also that’s a long time for commission painting it feels.
Even for a big lot, a professional place should have been a bit of a faster turn around I feel.

But even if painting not up to standard, no clean up, no care and not original parts without contact is a bigger issue ;(

Not a fan of BTP myself. I had no idea they were still around.
I would recommend anyone looking to have an army painted talking to Stiffness studio. Wes is a really good dude. They're in the US, Alabama and have a game store of some kind now.

BTP has been getting bad reviews from costumers off and on for a very long time now. I think they did that Chaos dwarf army a few years ago and that ended up going off to FLG for saving if I recall.

For $3500 they should caddy the army to all games for at least a six month period.

On the one hand, I feel for the OP here. Having a dream army ruined and wasting the money is not something I would wish on anyone.

OTOH, as has been said in this thread, a cursory Google of BTP would have shown a host of negative reviews, Reddit threads and forum posts just in the top 10 results. For me, the first result after the obvious sponsored link and BTP website was a complaint thread on Reddit. Google's own search suggestion for BTP was "BTP controversy". It's not like their reputation is a big secret, so I'm also left wondering just who these people were that recommended them in the first place?

I was honestly surprised by this thread because I'd assumed BTO would have gone out of business years ago due to the various issues they've had.

@Undead_Love-Machine and Slipspace like I said in my post, when I looked into BTP in 2020, I couldn't find anything that bad. Nothing about the Chaos Dwarves came up. And the people who recommended BTP to me were acquaintances back in WA (where I'm from) who were painters that also played at the LGS.

OP, don't just be mad at them or settle for their "not our fault" nonsense. Contact your credit card company and attempt a chargeback against the scammers, and if that fails take them to small claims court for the cost of the project. You can't replace the time you lost but you have a good chance of getting your money back.

 Undead_Love-Machine wrote:
I'm absolutely amazed that Blue Table Painting are still going, they have had such bad reviews over the years.

This. OP, it's unfortunate that you fell victim to them but BTP is well known to be just short of actual scammers. They technically (usually) send you painted models in the end but their painting quality sucks, they take forever to do anything, and their prices are obscenely high. The only way they stay in business is shiny marketing pictures and a steady supply of new victims who don't do much research before handing over their wallets.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 privateer4hire wrote:
For $3500 they should caddy the army to all games for at least a six month period.

To be fair, $3500 is a bargain price for painting an entire army, we're just biased by painters who either live in low cost of living countries or are willing to work for $1/hour just to have the privilege of playing with their hobby. If commission painters charged a reasonable hourly rate $10k for a 2000 point army would be the bare minimum. The problem with BTP is not that $3500 is an unreasonable price, it's that they're shameless scammers who don't deliver the work they promise.

This thread is useless without pics… but BTP has a vile rep, to be sure.

I associate BTP with Goldfish Blue(seller account on eBay) with their obscene high price for item, in your case, paintjob. You really should have asked around and again before you sink in that much investment. Being a commission painter myself I highly advise those patrons/clients to do test batches to build trust and see if you like the artist's style before you dive in head first into an empty pool.