Warlord Games/Bolt action quality?

[.:Gunslinger:.]

Hi guys,

I recently bought the FallschirmjÄger and Screaming eagle box set from warlord games. The boxes arrived and the US paras are in horrible condition: broken weapon on more than half of them, and whats even worse: miscast faces that are 'fubar'. Also it seems that the metal it self is incredibly soft, everything bends so easily. The germans were ok but some of the same problems still occured (faces completely miscast).

Now my question: is that a common thing or maybe due to the fact that the boxes may be older already? I'm a bit afraid of getting new ones as I fear it won't change much...


I've read different things on the web, but most reviews seem to be older, so I'd like to know if anyone bought these minis recently and had comparable issues.

Also I'm not a noob to the hobby and have painted various minis from various manufacturers, so I know that the odd bit of flash and big mouldlines can occur, but I never had problems of similar extent (well...exept with GW finecast but thats a different story altogether).

Thanks and kind regards,

Marc

[Rob_bresnen]

I bought the Japanese and had similar experiences (although no broken weapons). Detailing was spoilt by bad castings, especially on the faces. I had some English Civil War figures with mist cast faces too. I generally consider Warlord to be quite poor casting, which is a great shame as their range in amazing and their sculpts a good. Their plastic range is very good, but the WW2 weapons tend to be a bit spindly (realistically scaled) which means they break very easily- especially the bren gun. I ended up replacing the plastic bren with a metal one form TAG.
Their tanks and vehicles are lovely, especially the plastic ones.

Overall, I would always use another manufacture where possible, but I still find that I end up going back to Warlord because their range is so extensive that they make stuff that no one else make.

[lou passejaire]

Their tanks and vehicles are lovely, especially the plastic ones.

i'm not so sure ... i had some bad cast resin kits from warlord ...

i can't speak of plastic ones .

[westwaller]

The key thing here is do YOU think that it is acceptable? If you are not happy with your goods, you definitely need to get on to warlord games and try to get a replacement box of the Paras. See if they can do anything about your fallshirmjagers as well.

Sadly, it does seem to be a common occurrence with the warlord metals. It has been flagged up quite a few times on the internet and I am not sure if they have done anything about it. They may have- you may have got an older box?

I do find that you get problems with other manufacturers stuff from time to time but nothing as extreme as the warlord problems.

I hope you get it sorted satisfactorily. Remember that Offensive, Artizan, Crusader, and Foundry all sell Fallshirmjager and or US Airborne miniatures 

[Cubs]

The weapons breakage is common with Warlord because they ship their mins in blister packs so the models rattle about inside. The miscast faces I haven't heard of before, but if you're not happy, contact them and ask for replacements.

If they don't respond within 24hrs, or don't give you the result you think is reasonable, keep bugging them, go on the Warlord forum to complain publicly and contact John Stallard.

I'm not saying you will have to go through all that (your experience might be problem free), but I did and I eventually got a very satisfactory result from it.

[.:Gunslinger:.]

Thanks for the answers so far, this is quite helpful!

The problem is that I see it a lot like Rob_bresnen: the minis themselves are so nice (design wise) that I really would love to paint them...I have some artizan winter stuff for the battle of the Bulge, they are nice, but I like the Paul Hicks sculpts a lot more. Now I think I'll go on with Artizan, they sometimes also have issues with not so nicely cast faces but this hasn't happened to me often...

[styx]

Sounds you got perhaps an older box or bad batch, it has happened to me a few times on a few items....nature of the beast.

They are top notch to replace any issues, go to their website and contact them. They will replace out the figs that are damaged. I always send some shots of the model/part in issue and offer to give them info from the box to quality check.

[Jim Jess]

Hi, I've never had an issue with Warlord Games and there stuff comes along way to get to me.
I have emailed them a couple of times asking questions about contents of packs before I've purchased and they are very helpful. Let them know your issues see what they say.

[.:Gunslinger:.]

Thank you for the answers! Unfortunately I have bought the boxes through an online retailer so I don't think I can contact warlord games...
The guy promised me though to see if the other boxes are better. Lets see!

[Johnno]

I have the Fallschirmjager and screaming eagles (red devlils too...see a theme? LOL)
Have only broken one gun barrel (so far) but some of the faces...ugh,. But I got most at conventions (read reduced prices) so I can't really complain too much.
I think their resin vehicles are bad. However, they did promptly send replacements.
I think overall they are decent but their quality control should be better for a company their size....

[Nysse]

I haven't really had any major issues with quality on Warlord minis. In one larger box I had rifle barrel snapped and on a howitzer blister I had one model that was slightly miscast with one hand not being filled properly with metal. Both were easy fixes so I didn't bother contacting them. Resin vehicles have had some air bubbles, but they have all been on the underside so haven't mattered at all. My clubmates have also generally praised the quality of Warlord metals.

I'm not the biggest fan of some of their older plastics. Detail is sometimes on the soft side and poses going a bit too much to the heroic side.

The only larger problem I've had with them dealt with packaging and not miniature quality. On one order I received two blisters with all identical minis when there is plenty of variety in the actual castings at least on the website pictures. And in the same order there were a few blisters missing minis and one blister without any of the shields or weapons. So somebody who was casting and packaging them had apparently had a busy Sunday night or an early start to the weekend and wasn't very attentive at the job Still these were quickly remedied by sending me replacements so all in all a good experience even if I had to wait a bit longer to get the minis.

[Kommando_J]

I've personally had mixed experiences, my main take away is never buy newly released minis straight away as the first batch generally has quite few miscasts before things get settled, it's a pain when it comes to special edition miniatures but you take the gamble.

The weapons are even on the good sets prone to breakages as they are quite svelte compared to other manufacturers, I recently bought an older box and found that apart from one breakage due to the barrel being bent(thank you loose packaging on metal miniatures!?) everything else was fine if needing some straightening.

As for service itself, as others have said and i'll echo this they are very friendly when it comes to customer service in my own experience offering to do replacements/custom orders(one thing i've noticed is that apart from special edition miniatures that come with books they are fine to sell anything else as they don't have a huge inventory and cast up most stuff for individual orders anyway).

I have to say this has got me worried as i'm currently waiting for a warlord order(will report back when it comes) and it's mostly metal miniatures.

Also as cubs has pointed out they don't bother with padding(at least not in their box sets) which does lead to some breakages/bending when you have about 10 or so metal miniatures rattling around a small plastic box.

[Kommando_J]

Got my order in today(muahaha...) so far all good some easily removed flash in one blister but apart from that cheers all round!

[AzSteven]

They do seem to have some packaging problems, which I think are mostly related to those clamshell packs they use.  However, they seem to be very helpful about addressing problems. 

I am currently working up an Early War British force for Bolt Action, and have been buying Bolt Action figures from a number of online sources - a consistent problem with the Early War Brits has been the sprues of separate heads are often missing.  I think its because the weight of a section pack makes it easier for the pack to pop open during shipping.  SO I have had to ask them to send heads, and they have done so without a hitch.  In fact, I just got three section packs from The Warstore, and ended up having one sprue out of the six that should have been there.  So I will be making another request for heads.

[Kommando_J]

Agreed, even GW knows to put a little sponge in with the miniatures and not force all the miniatures into one box but use compartments, it's more expensive but does protect the mini better.