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I first heard of Games workshop in 1994 and instantly fell in love with the idea of model war gaming. Unfortunately being 12 it was hard to afford models and get to the local store within a matter of 12 months something better had come along. Shooting forward to 2010 I found my old models in the loft and my passion was reborn. In the last year I have spent untold amounts of money on a 2000 point Space Ork army, at 4000 point Dark Elf army and my ongoing Dwarf army. Not once in the last year have I had a problem with prices at GW, the people at store are great and the models look gorgeous.
Last month I moved to a new home and if I wanted new models they need to be delivered as my nearest store is hard to get too regularly. I have placed 2 orders totalling over £50 each and with both deliveries I have had to either send something back or been disappointed at the product in the box.
MY first issue was a Dark Rider (last model needed to complete the Dark Elf Army) came with a empire horses head in the blister pack. This was returned on advice from Games Workshops customer service line (which is excellent btw).
Second Issue was the Witch Elf pictured below with a large crack straight through the torso. This problem I will repair myself as I am still waiting for the replacement Dark Rider.
Now on to my complaint, Games Workshop is great IMO but how can they suddenly become so lax on their quality control. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE games workshop, either fire your QC team or whip them repeatedly to stop this pointless waste of customer time and effort fixing avoidable mishaps.

Yeah, I would say metal parts not being fully filled-in and having 'rounding' is somewhat common. Metal Stress fractures like that are less common but I can remember multiple models that had such a flaw. Usually you could fill the hole with 'glue' and twist/smoosh the model in the appropriate direction and it would seal off.

GW is overly responsive about replacing flawed pieces, often mailing you new product without evidence or needing to return the old. I suspect this is because they know there is quite a few QC issues. Many companies are very stingy about returns and often require you to mail something back before they will entertain an exchange. GW has always replaced stuff quickly with no expense to me in my experience. They could force me through a bunch of BS but they never have.

I agree their replace and refund policy is excellent and a big part of why im willing to pay the big money, but that said a simple QC check would have saved me time and GW money. I guess that replacing items frequently is cheaper for GW then a good QC process.

My other reason for this post is to see if anyone else seems to get less the acceptable items sent mail order compared to the exceptional standard of stock in store. (I am hinting that the stores get the good stock, mail order gets the chaff)

Pob82 wrote:
My other reason for this post is to see if anyone else seems to get less the acceptable items sent mail order compared to the exceptional standard of stock in store. (I am hinting that the stores get the good stock, mail order gets the chaff)

Possibly. I think store owners QC themselves and then bulk return defective products so it may seem like stores have less issues. I don't know if it is reality or not.

This might be part of the reason GW is moving away from metal.

nkelsch wrote:

Pob82 wrote:
My other reason for this post is to see if anyone else seems to get less the acceptable items sent mail order compared to the exceptional standard of stock in store. (I am hinting that the stores get the good stock, mail order gets the chaff)

Possibly. I think store owners QC themselves and then bulk return defective products so it may seem like stores have less issues. I don't know if it is reality or not.

That is from observation quite true. I have been in a few GW stores while they have been stock checking (pre One man stores) And they have tended to collect damaged stock and either return it or added it to the stores bits box.