Support your distributors

1) Jon's (St. cubed John of Needham) a good guy and very much sets the open
tone for this community. He's also fast on delivery and finds ways to convince
me that a 2.50 Canadian to British Pound conversion makes sense (wonders never
cease). He has some moulds no one else does.

2) Nic at Eureka is also a great guy. Fast service, good exchange right now
for Yanks and not bad for Canucks. And he has some moulds like the Cockroach
Grav Tank (on the website) and the Cockroach APC (mysteriously absent from the
website) which are very cool (although a little construction intensive
sometimes depending on how careful the pour was). Always a pleasure to deal
with.

3) KR is (and I can attest to this) a very nice fellow too. And he even likes
passable beer, which I consider a minor miracle in an American. <Why does
Canada export Blue Light to the USA? For them, it's a strong beer with
some taste. For us, its a water-substitute.
*grin*>. His turn around times are good, and MOST IMPORTANTLY he goes out of
his way to provide excellent support for GZG ECC (and I
suspect WCC). I can't understate the _VALUE_
of this contribution to the hobby. Jon does this in England, but having KR do
it for us here in North America is very important. ECC continues to grow
(thanks to the tireless efforts of Jon
Davis, Mark Kochte, Jerry Han and a few others -
 including the infamous Weyland-Yutani
Negotiatior Mr.Calivari) and KR's support of this event is a pretty key
cornerstone. Additionally, Geohex is pretty great stuff.... I've finally broke
down and bought a 100 pc set, and other than the "how the heck do I transport
3 chests full of styrofoam in a Mustang?" question, I'm very pleased with it.
I can make my own terrain, but the interlocking
build-your-own system is very handy (just don't
take it out of your home too often!). I enjoy saying Hi to KR at ECC and going
out for beer with him and he helped me out prior to the big Grey Day scenario
a few years back by giving a "quicker than fast" AFV painting lesson (between
my arrival on Friday and the Saturday start time!) which meant all the models
on the table were painted! All in all, if the Canadian Dollar wasn't working
on being a 2:1 trade for a US UberDollar, I'd be sending him a pile more
business! When things calm down and the exchange rate (I hope) resumes
something like sanity (say 0.75 US), I'll be ordering some
more Geo-hex! Ordering from Jon and Nic is
handy for getting some stuff KR doesn't have moulds for or tailoring your
order a bit more (KR has blisters that aren't always as convenient), but it is
a good idea to spread the money around as KR is a key part of the North
American GZG movement!

4) I'd also like to add a brief plug for David D at DLD Productions. He and
Lisa have combined to deliver some very very cool resin kits which demonstrate
the complexity you can develop in a resin and the quality of casting and
pre-delivery finish work that can be provided to
a customer. I rank his casting as above the quality of anyone but Armorcast
(whom I think of as the big kahuna of resin casting, but the DLD kits seem as
well cast to be frank!). His kits require some more construction, but the
detail level is quite amazing. They should appeal to the superdetailers (those
who like to add
touches to something to have it look just right -
like extra weapons, kits, cam nets, etc) and therefore want an excellent basic
kit. Also, the DLD kits do (with the exception of the recce track which I
think should have armoured crew compartments) have a fairly plausible look to
them and seem very well thought out from a design perspective (perhaps drawing
more carefully from real world sources). And David's FT stuff is pretty cool
too, though I have to find some money to order the space station and satellite
stuff yet!

5) Lastly, I'd like to put in another brief plug for Ainsty and Brigade.
They've also both been very good to mail order from and Tony at Brigade is
just a damn nice guy too. (Hint: What separates us from the Games Orcshop
crew? Partly the game mechanics, but largely the community and the core of the
community is the kind of folks who produce and sell the models we use!).

End of semi-commercial plugging. Just
remember, any and all of these distributors of GZG or closely relatable
products are worth doing business with, but it is usually a good idea to
support the guys in your back yard as they end up being the ones supporting
conventions and other such things!

Thomas B.
PS - Speaking of conventions, Ottawa hosts
Cangames on the Victoria Day weekend and I'm thinking of running a GZG game
there and it also hosts Autumn Assault on the second or third weekend in
November, and I'll likely put on a GZG game there. Anyone in the area would be
welcome at either and if you need some info, I can try to get it for you if
you drop me a line.