Old Glory “simply the best” NOT!

[mikedemana]

Those look good! In the end, a good painter with can make up for casting shortfalls with quality brushwork - well done!

Mike Demana

[pikeman]

Why didn’t you send them back for a refund if they are this poor?

Or does the USA not have distance selling regulations?

I bought a dremel tool and extensively carved them. If I didn’t have the tool, I don’t think I could have done the work with a blade and files. I used those for the fine work.
The time and inconvenience outweighed the effort to cut them up. And yes, the US does have regulations about goods and quality. Getting the problems fixed is another matter! It’s not the first time I have had bad figures from a US supplier. These were crushed figures, horses were actually broken. Fortunately I had extras that worked okay.

[Baron von Wreckedoften]

As a first time buyer of the 28’s, I expected them to be better. They are bigger, should have been easier to sculpt than the 15’s. Nope. Not at all! First, the horses are poorly done. They are just ugly, and some were malformed, badly cast, that were clearly rejects. Evidently they don’t care. Second, the horses and riders are mismatched. I expect they cheaped-out and used horses from another range. I have spent almost an hour with my dremel tool modifying both horses and riders to fit. They still don’t match up properly. I also dislike the lack of light lances.
Bottom line, theses aren’t a good product and confirm that there wont be any more OG products on my workbench.

Had exactly the same problem with their 28mm AWI cavalry - bought a bag of 17th Light Dragoons and over a period of about a week, tried EVERY single rider on EVERY single horse and, guess what?  Not one of them fitted properly.  Or at all, really.  Have never bought them since.

As for Russ Dunaway's PR skills, I made the mistake of mentioning (yes, on that "other place") that three of the batch of four new Blue Moon 15mm horse poses he was praising to the heavens as "the best you'll ever see in this scale" were actually physically impossible.  One had a foreleg straight out horizontally in front, another had a foreleg curled around so that it resembled a snail's shell; the only one of the four that looked even vaguely horse-like appeared to be in a crouched pose with all four feet firmly planted and looked like Bull's Eye (Woody's horse from "Toy Story").  Incidentally, I can't see those two "impossible" poses in their inventory any more! 

Russ pointed out that the sculptor had spent many years working on a horse ranch.  One can only assume the poor chap was the cook.....

[anevilgiraffe]

never bought OG, never wanted to, the images alone suggest they are far from the best.

[carlos marighela]

never bought OG, never wanted to, the images alone suggest they are far from the best.

To be fair, they have been a boon to recreational anglers as well as folk who like to reload their own shotgun shells.

[FifteensAway]

Weighing in, I cannot speak to the quality of the OG 25s - or even the Blue Moon 28s, though some of the photos do seem to show odd sculpts.  And do you lump the Blue Moon in with OG or are they a better option?  But I own a lot of Blue Moon 15s.  Sure, some sculpts are better than others but overall they are serviceable and, in some cases, they are actually quite good - the 15 mm Sherlock Holmes is exceptional. 

The big draw above and beyond price (which is as good as it gets - you can still get 15 mm figures around 40 US cents each with the army card versus 1 dollar US for a goodly portion of most other manufacturers, a few still at the 80 US cents level - cost is more when adding in shipping for others generally (30%), OG within US not so much unless a tiny order) is sheer variety of periods, without Blue Moon 15s there are still many of their periods no one else offers or offer minimal variety and that variety is another 'strength' of their offerings if you like varied poses.  Having said that, they do make odd choices - their 15 mm French Foreign Legion Mule Company makes no historical sense, it is but a pack train with no allowance for mounted soldiers which was the whole point of the mule companies.

Based on information gleaned over the years, someone must like their figures because they sell them in vast quantities.  No idea in the end but I would not be surprised to find out OG/Blue Moon et al in the aggregate sell as many - or more - historical figures than the aggregate of all other historical figure makers combined, at least in metal.  And that excludes the figures they produce for other companies ranges.  They are, like them or not, a behemoth in the metals market.

Hard plastic?  Not for me.  Resin figures (3D), have a few but would trade every single one of them in an instant for the same thing in metal.  But 3D buildings and terrain scatter have transformed such options greatly for the better - but there is clearly a durability/fragility issue in that realm.

In the end, most figures once painted look just fine on the table.  And once on the table neither the sculpt nor the paint job matter as much as how are the figures performing (as long as you can tell what the figure is supposed to represent, based on sculpt and paint job).

Seems, however, a lot of electric ink being spilled over what, in the end, are but toys.  Don't like them, don't buy them.  But lots of companies sculpts are no better and often worse than OG yet I don't see such animus directed at them.  Does make one wonder as to the why.   

[carlos marighela]

Well it might be that....

1) The sculpts are shit and about 10-15 % of the poses in a pack are so bizarre they are either unuseable or require major surgery. Clearly the Exorcist was a more influential film than we often think.

2) The owner acts like a c*** in public.

I agree there are a number of other manufacturers who provide shoddy goods or shoddy service. For example Irregular's sculpts are often so bad thet could effectively be marketed as universal soldiers but the owner is, by all accounts, a decent human being. BTD are notorious as grifters with a well deserved buyer beware reputation. I very much doubt I'd want to break bread with them but they do produce some nice figures (they're a bit hit and miss across ranges) if you wanted to chance your arm and enter the lottery of an order with them.

In a day and age when we are blessed with any number of superb ranges of toy soldiers, there seems little reason to buy shite or deal with dickheads. If asked why you don't buy from X or Y it's fair to give an honest answer.

[TWD]

I suspect the reason they get grief is because (unlike other manufacturers of poor figures) people often pop up in threads to say 'Old Glory make xxx range and they're cheap!" often accompanied by a caveat that the range in question is "one of their better ones".

[fred]

I think price matters, a lot, to a lot of wargamers.

Then there are those that buy just GW who have a very different idea of what is expensive or not.

[Phillius]

The pictures of their sculpts naked on the website are definitely not appealing. And when you open them in the flesh, they are a bit of hmmmm. However, even a barely competent painter like myself can get good results with them.

Their price is good, and if you join the Old Glory Club, the price is great. A good option for a group of gamers.

From the position of the table top general, they can look really good.

[Von Trinkenessen]

I've not had a problem with their Italian wars range.

[Inkpaduta]

Depends on the range. There are some OG lines that are very good.
I always liked the price but as I moved into more skirmish gaming I didn't
need a bag of 30 musketeer figures. But early on much of my figurelines
were Old Glory.

[Rossco2]

Over the years I have ended up with plenty of Old Glory 28s in my collection because the packs were cheap. They are fine as unit filler when seen on the tabletop.

One of the issues I have had with the OG 28s is the blobs for hands in some ranges, but I could guess where the fingers lined up and paint them on.

I don't regret buying the OG 28s that I have. Nowadays I look elsewhere for figures and don't mind spending more money for better quality.

[Codsticker]

Depends on the range. There are some OG lines that are very good.

I agree with that. I have some OG late 16thC landsknecht pike men and they are really quite nice. Their medieval Muslim range is not to shabby (used to be Revenge miniatures). I also have quite a few OG ECW which I bought 2nd hand as part of job lot and would not have considered buying them otherwise.

I think OG does well because the brand has been around for a long time, has a substantial following as a result, and the minis are really quite cheap if you buy large amounts: a lot of gamers don't care if the horses' hocks are on backwards and the facial features look like they have been carved with a hammer if the price is low enough.

[Dolnikan]

I've never bought anything from Old Glory but have considered doing so. The main issue I have is that it's really hard to find pictures of what they're selling that aren't the blurry naked ones they have on the website. For many manufacturers, Google is pretty helpful but with OG it doesn't really do anything useful.

I however also have to confess that I'm not someone who cares a lot about how good the faces and the like are in terms of fine details. My painting is atrocious enough that no one will notice if the underlying sculpt isn't perfect anyways. That, and for my historical I like proper big armies and units, which also means that the individuals won't be that visible.