RANT MODE ON For me there's no more annoying or frustrating thing than trying
to assembly these poorly casted Full thrust minis. Horrible flash, mismatched
or non existent holes, virtually no QA. It really makes wanting to put some
ships together a dreadful thing. OTOH I assembled some Ft minis that I got
from nic@Eureka, and they really are a joy. THEY GO TOGETHER LIKE THEY'RE
SUPPOSED TOO, they're clean, smooth, and the holes actualyy fit for the mounts
without any modification. RANT MODE OFF
nic@eureka? What is this, or more specifically, where is this?
> RANT MODE ON
In a message dated 99-02-15 17:16:00 EST, you write:
<< RANT MODE ON For me there's no more annoying or frustrating thing than
trying to assembly these poorly casted Full thrust minis. Horrible flash,
mismatched or non existent holes, virtually no QA. It really makes wanting to
put some ships together a dreadful thing. OTOH I assembled some Ft minis that
I got from nic@Eureka, and they really are a joy. THEY GO TOGETHER LIKE
THEY'RE SUPPOSED TOO, they're clean, smooth, and the holes actualyy fit for
the mounts without any modification. RANT MODE OFF >> My Di'Tok looked like it
had gone though a sun, it was warped, I guess that is an effect of the new FTL
drive that there working on?:)
-Stephen
G'day Chris,
> nic@eureka? What is this, or more specifically, where is this?
That would be Nic Robson of Eureka Minatures in Australia. One of the best
guys to get your figs off (shameless plug from ecstatic customer). He can be
found at
Nic Robson (Eureka Minatures) 10 Woorayl St Carnegie
Vic 3163
Australia
email: nicr@pop.netspace.net.au
and his website (still in its infancy) is
http://www.eurekamin.com.au/
Just in case you're interested at all;)
Cheers
Beth
I have to shamelessly agree. Of all the people and companies that I've had to
deal with in all the different games I play in, Nic wins for service hands
down. He is truly the best of the best. Of course us Aussies don't generally
get to deal with Jon to compare.
Jason S
> At 09:25 AM 2/16/99 +1000, you wrote:
> That would be Nic Robson of Eureka Minatures in
Or visit his website at:
http://www.eurekamin.com.au
Just remember that he only does the Australasian distribution. GZG does Europe
& GeoHex does the Americas.
'Neath Southern Skies
http://users.mcmedia.com.au/~denian/
*****
They seek him here, they seek him there; Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven or is he in hell? That damned elusive, Pimpernel.
- 'The Scarlet Pimpernel', Baroness Emma Orkzy
[quoted original message omitted]
Doh. Well, I guess I suspected all along that landspeeder minis would not
always serve as pig boats... I have a few additions to my fleet as well.
The Kra'Vak never sleep....
As for mini-assembly, try doing the B5 Wars Omegas. Lawdy, they took
a lot of grinding and sanding. There were halves that were so warped that
sanding wouldn't even bring them together! I had to fill them as well or lose
a lot of detail. I really should have "talked to" that guy at Historicon who
said he did the casting on them. At least they make up for the substandard
mechanics of their minis with way above average prices.... I have =GOT= to
start my own game store, if only to get what =I= consider reasonable prices
for gaming material...
-=Kr'rt
> RANT MODE ON
> Beth Fulton wrote:
Note: When Geohex came out with the dismounted OUDF Gravbike troops, I wanted
some Grav Bikes as well, and ordered them from Eureka. Nic was prompt and
responsive, the minis were wonderful, and there were a few samples thrown in
to round out the package, one of whom has me hooked (as soon as I can afford
it) on the idea of painting up Indonesian Commonwealth troops as policemen.
> Chris Lowrey wrote:
http://www.eurekamin.com.au
Eureka - manufacturers of GZG figs here in Oz.
> From: devans@uneb.edu
> I have been unwavering of my praise of KR for taking the license,
We have JUST taken over production of the lines here at Geo-Hex, but
have yet to produce any figures (waiting for metal to arrive!!). Since the
inception of the license all of the FT ships have been made under contract by
a third party molder. Unlike the Stargrunt figures and the DSM line, the molds
were NOT made by Brian Hitsman of Majestic, but by the third party molder. We
relied on their stated expertise in doing microscale minis, and to be quite
frank they did a more than adequate job in the beginning and helped us get the
line out to stores and hobbyists quickly. But QC concerns became a major point
after awhile, and were never ironed out (one reason we switched to using a
professional mold maker for later lines).
Now that we have the lines in-house, we hope to address those
concerns and make some changes to packaging and quantity per pack. It has been
decided to remold and rework each item as the molds require replacing. To that
end we are going to inspect all production masters in inventory as soon as
possible. I suspect that many of the problems stem from poor production
masters and not from poor molding. We will not remake another mold from
masters we feel are inadequate. Having said that I must state that the
overwhelming majority of the pieces cast properly and give a very nice model
in my
opinion - and I've personally made them all!!
The second change will be to go to plastic base stands for the smaller models
in the lines, both to reduce costs and to allow the extra model in the packs.
This way we hope to put two of every cruiser in a pack and perhaps four scouts
and frigates. The new base is a flat
hexagon slotta base with a unique "T-Bar" post that is much stronger
than the flight stands currently on the market. We will for the near future
keep the heavy pewter flight stand for the larger ships, although we plan to
replace it eventually.
You should see the new models in new packaging in stores and through mail
order beginning in March. Since QC remains an issue we welcome your feedback
so we can fine tune the line to produce the best ships we can.
Thanks,
> On Mon, 15 Feb 1999, Los wrote:
> RANT MODE ON
i haven't had too bad a time - my Petrograd went together perfectly.
however, i must say that i still haven't figured out how to get the stem of
the command section of by nac BB to stick into the hole in the engineering
section; i think more trimmage is called for...
Tom
***
i haven't had too bad a time - my Petrograd went together perfectly.
however, i must say that i still haven't figured out how to get the stem of
the command section of by nac BB to stick into the hole in the engineering
section; i think more trimmage is called for...
Tom
***
Thanks, Tom, but the question has been a comparison between the Triune (
;->= )
and the quality of casts produced by each member. If you happen to run across
ones either from Eureka or GeoHex, you could give us yet another such
comparison...
I have been unwavering of my praise of KR for taking the license, suppling GZG
to the US, his excellent support, here and for cons, of GZG products, and am
still quite taken with his own delightful gaming mats, but must admit having
had a concern as to the quality of cast myself.
I haven't had quite the complaints about flash; I HAVE wondered if the
assembly problems I've had are in the design or the production of the ships,
beyond the difficulty of working with hands supplied with five thumbs apiece,
of course.
BTW, in these colonies, the NAC ships I've seen vary greatly as to ease of
boom
insertion. Some have perfect fit, some have mis-matched tips, and some
of the body holes are almost none existant. On the other hand, most things I
have are rather old, and I think KR at one point mentioned working hard on the
QC topic.
No doubt, I've loved my little ships, but it's been a stormy relationship. The
main reason I'm still running heavy cruisers down: One piece
construction. ;->=
The_Beast
Will this also speed up the ability to get the minitures? I live in
Boise,
Id. and have 2 choice of local stores to go to and order FT minis. I
have placed orders at both of them. 1 store claims that they can't get the
minis
through their distributors. Store number 2 (at this point I'm trying
to
avoid using names) claims that they order directly from Geo-Hex but that
the Minis are out of stock all the time. I'm not trying to collect anything
that I think would be to rare (Its an NSL fleet), but with the last 2 orders
its taken over 3 months to get the minis. Aggravating to say the least.
Another local gamer is having the same problem but then we don't have a lot of
other options.
Michael Johnson Micron Internet Services
www.webpak.net/~mrjohn/mine
[quoted original message omitted]
> On Tue, 16 Feb 1999, Geo-Hex wrote:
[snip]
> The second change will be to go to plastic base stands for the smaller
> models in the lines, both to reduce costs and to allow the extra
This is one change that I personally don't welcome - the 12-point flight
bases that you folks produce is one of the best flight stands around for Full
Thrust. Plastic stands may be cheaper to produce, but I end up tossing them
out and buying extra pewter stands anyway, or painstakingly kitbashing an
equivalent. Also, plastic stands don't provide any counterweight to the
top-heavy nature of the ship model - if you don't glue heavy fender
washers on a plastic stand, the model falls over with the least little bump.
If you do switch to plastic bases, *please* don't completely discontinue the
current pewter base - I'd like to be able to buy them as replacements to
the plastic ones.:)
> On Tue, Feb 16, 1999 at 02:47:28PM -0500, -MWS- wrote:
> > a pack and perhaps four scouts and frigates.
If it's only for the lighter ships, and there are more ships in each pack, I'm
100% behind this change. It always annoyed me to
see scouts with more metal in the stands than in the ships -- that's
why the only light ships I have are Traveller and Reviresco.
> mrjohn wrote:
> through their distributors. Store number 2 (at this point I'm trying
I'll add a "me too" to this. I want to order a bunch of Kra'Vak SG stuff but
I'm leery about waiting a month or more to get in the goods...
> Thomas Anderson wrote:
Either trimmage or drilling. I recently assembled a flotilla of NAC
Battleships for the GZG-ECC game convention and I had to both drill
the hulls and trim the booms for assembly. Some worked out better than others.
> This is one change that I personally don't welcome - the 12-point
I'd like to second this motion. Agents of Gaming changed over to the
"T"
type slotta base stands for all their B5W ships in the middle of last year.
They were very small bases, and were also very weak. In their infinite wisdom,
AoG was packaging these horribly weak stands on all of their
minis -
and as most of you know, many of the B5W minis are very large and heavy (we
call them "maxis" around here). This caused a great many of the ships to break
off the top of the stand. For this reason, I ordered and use Full Thrust
pewter bases for the ships that came with those stands.
On bases
GZG 'ship' their capitals in the UK with the old GW style plastic flying bases
and these are woefully inadequate for the big stuff.
I have one imported ship with a US style base and these are what you need for
the big ships. Looks like I will have to order from the US or make my own to
get something appropriate. AFAIK the US bases aren't in the UK catalogue. I
think they should be available at least as extras (as including them would
push up the prices).
I've also been experimenting with the new GW 60mm flying stands, better but
not perfect as the post is flimsy.
Another base that is useful but hard to get is the old GW space fleet base,
this is an ideal base and has a strong post and a large footprint.
Tim, wise and just, sez:
***
I have one imported ship with a US style base and these are what you need for
the big ships.
***
D'oh! And I saw a lovely pile of these in a cut out bin; all the ships I've
gotten so far have had plenty of bases, and never thought I'd hear folks
looking for same. Also, the rear quarter fire arc marking suggested, er,
revisionism for FTII. However, I might even have 'greased' a trade with UK
with 'em.
;->=
Be warned, some of the bases have same problems of fit, but they are sturdy,
heavy, and have a nice dozen notch face for ease of turn measuring.
***
Another base that is useful but hard to get is the old GW space fleet base,
this is an ideal base and has a strong post and a large footprint.
***
Truly, only thing with a base wide enough to try and take on the largest
AoG's, I still have had problem with breakage, especially where ship meets the
post. And it IS octagonal.
The_Beast
> From: "mrjohn" <mrjohn@micron.net>
> Will this also speed up the ability to get the minitures? I live in
I have no control over the distributors, but I keep them apprised of all new
releases, attend their open house shows and try to get them to stock a
reasonable amount, but it hasn't been easy.
Store number 2 (at this point I'm trying to
> avoid using names) claims that they order directly from Geo-Hex but
We have had out of stock situations over the past year and that is a MAJOR
reason we are now going to mold our own. However, I can't remember having
specific problems with the NSL (they and the FSE are some of our hottest
sellers so temporary out of stocks are to be expected). All I can say at this
point is that we are working hard to correct this situation, that we have only
had these problems in the last year, and that they will be eliminated.
KR, Geo-Hex
Aggravating to say the least.
> Another local gamer is having the same problem but then we don't have
> Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 14:47:28 -0500 (EST)
> On Tue, 16 Feb 1999, Geo-Hex wrote:
> > a pack and perhaps four scouts and frigates. The new base is a flat
> > hexagon slotta base with a unique "T-Bar" post that is much stronger
> > than the flight stands currently on the market. We will for the
I think you will be pleasantly surprised by these stands, I know I was. I was
the one who wouldn't buy plastic stands and held up the release of the initial
models until a suitable pewter base could be produced. I intend to keep a
pewter stand under all models that are single pack (x08 and above in each
range) and to keep producing pewter stands as an option. I guess I should have
stated that outright in my initial email. These new stands have a stronger
post, come in black and have a flat hexagon base.
> If you do switch to plastic bases, *please* don't completely
> Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 14:16:06 -0800
> mrjohn wrote:
I recently (last week) went out of stock on the Kra'Vak 25mm figures, but
until then no distributor and few stores would order the figures. Like most of
what I released last year, I sold it by mail order retail or got stores to try
them out when they called to order something else.
KR
> From: "Chris Lowrey" <clowrey@primary.net>
> >This is one change that I personally don't welcome - the 12-point
Once again - we are only going to use these on the "small" ships!!
KR
> On bases
We have actually just made a new all-metal hex base/post, slightly
larger than the plastic one, for the big ships (not sure at the moment whether
to include it instead of the plastic one (which would mean a price increase)
or to just supply it as an optional extra). It's not listed in the catalogue
yet, but will be announced in an update very soon. A possible alternative is a
metal post only, for use with the existing
plastic hex base - doesn't increase footprint, but does solve the
fragility problem vs. all plastic stands (and adds only a very small extra
metal content to the packs).
> This is one change that I personally don't welcome - the 12-point
I'd like to second this motion. Agents of Gaming changed over to the
"T"
type slotta base stands for all their B5W ships in the middle of last year.
They were very small bases, and were also very weak. In their infinite wisdom,
AoG was packaging these horribly weak stands on all of their
minis -
and as most of you know, many of the B5W minis are very large and heavy (we
call them "maxis" around here). This caused a great many of the ships to break
off the top of the stand. For this reason, I ordered and use Full Thrust
pewter bases for the ships that came with those stands.
> From: "mrjohn" <mrjohn@micron.net>
Not knowing the store, how they ordered the minis, or what was ordered, its
hard for me to say. But I can tell you that we would not have let something
slide like that. We review backorders on a weekly basis (when you make or
carry a couple thousand different items you ALWAYS have backorders) and try to
ship partial shipments to folks when we know we're not going to get an item
back in stock for a while. Why don't you email me direct and let's take this
discussion private.
KR
> I would be willing to agree with the temporary stock outages and the
All the
> while getting the excuse that it was all Geo-Hex's fault. Now I'm
> On bases
I'be been making my own bases. Various size metal washers and nails. I paint
them flat black and add little yellow tick marks every 30 degrees, and red
tick marks at the 45 degree points. It is cheap, simple, and only adds a
little extra time. On the really big ships, such as the galactic super
dreadnought 6" monster of Starfleet Wars, I add a couple of stiff wires from
the edges of the ship going down to the base to help prevent the ship from
breaking off the stand.
Enjoy,
> On Wed, 17 Feb 1999, Tom Granvold wrote:
> > On bases
Hiya Tom! I've kitbashed/scratchbuilt a few bases as well, and instead
of simply painting on the tickmarks I've been glueing on small pieces of
styrene strips to make the tickmarks stand out. Gives it that 'molded in'
look.
:)
If you take a look on my gallery page, the corvette and the three destroyers
are mounted on normal GW flying bases with the styrene strips added. The
battlecruiser and battleship have scratchbuilt bases made of washers, roofing
nails, and styrene strips added. The time I spend glueing and trimming the
styrene strips is made up when I paint the bases, as all I have to do is top
paint the strips to get accurate ticks...
> On 2/16/99 1:47 PM -MWS- wrote:
> If you do switch to plastic bases, *please* don't completely
Add another voice to this cause. I too will purchase separate packs of bases
if they are no longer included as part of the regular miniatures sets. In
fact... I'd prefer it this way as I mount my ships so they can be detached for
more convenient transport, removing the chance of
ship-to-nib-to-stand damage.
I would be willing to agree with the temporary stock outages and the fact that
as someone pointed out that a lot of game stores don't want to stock it.
However the situation was that late september my wife ordered the Minis. At
that time she also prepaid and while it was a truly epic order I'm sure that
over a $100 dollars of minis is fairly large for this store. I received the
final package of figures in the middle of December. All the
while getting the excuse that it was all Geo-Hex's fault. Now I'm not
one that expects to be able to place an order on monday and pick up the
figures on the following Friday. But I would think that they should be
available
within 30 days. Basically what I would like to know preferably from
Geo-Hex and KR is whether or not this is the true case? Am I right in
keeping loyalties to the local store or should I start ordering Directly
from Geo-Hex? Using the prices that are posted on the website an $80
dollar order would allow me to break even when compared to the local taxes vs
shipping costs. I would happily move this off of the list but I don't really
have a direct email address for KR.
Mike Johnson
[quoted original message omitted]
In a message dated 99-02-16 23:38:34 EST, you write:
<<
I'd like to second this motion. Agents of Gaming changed over to the
"T"
type slotta base stands for all their B5W ships in the middle of last year.
They were very small bases, and were also very weak. In their infinite wisdom,
AoG was packaging these horribly weak stands on all of their
minis -
and as most of you know, many of the B5W minis are very large and heavy (we
call them "maxis" around here). This caused a great many of the ships to break
off the top of the stand. For this reason, I ordered and use Full Thrust
pewter bases for the ships that came with those stands.
Chris >> I agree, please keep the 12 point flight bases. I use them for all of
my "flying models" regardless of make.
Perry
Hi folks -
Two pieces of advice regarding stands:
First, I always sand off the thinner top part of the post (the part that goes
into the model) and replace it with a necklace barrel clasp. After super
gluing it to the post, I super glue the other end to the model. After the
super glue is dry, I put epoxy where the clasp meets metal (of the model and
of the post). In this way, the glue gives you a quick (but brittle) bond,
which holds everything in place long enough for the epoxy to set. The result
is very strong and also allows the model to be removed from the base for
storage. Oh, remove the little hoops from each end of
the clasp, of course, but also use super glue gel - the standard stuff
runs down the edges and glues the clasp together!
Second, for my scratchbuilt fleet I used 1 1/4" flat washers and 3/8"
piece of metal tubing (the same diameter as the hole in the washer). Glue the
tubing to the base and put a piece of epoxy putty in the top of the tubing and
push the bottom of the necklace clasp into the putty. I made a
a template to put the 12-hour marks on the base. Works pretty well,
looks nice, and like the first, it allows the model to be separated from the
base for storage.
Just a few suggestions...