Bolt Action "classic" range

[fitterpete]

Lately I've been painting a crapton of Warlord Bolt Action figures.Many of my post have not been very, lets say nice, about the quality of casting and or sculpting.
Well I got some of the old Bolt Action classic range today and I gotta say....WTF were Warlord thinking?
These figures are bar none the best figures I have yet to receive from Warlord.Clean cast with no flash in "normal"(read not spasdic hollywood type) poses.When you buy a company with product as good as these are how do you not keep up the quality? Don't even get me started on the old BEF range either.Beautiful figures they are so what do you do with them? Why cut off their heads and replace them with flashy ones with awful mold lines that don't fit the bodies of course..
Now some of the newer ranges are nice(US Airborne,Italian Paras,Polish) but even they weren't near as nice,especially in the casting, as the figures I got today.I even like the chindits that others have not.
The French,FJs,US Marines and Brit airborne however leave a lot to be desired.
I hate to seem like I'm "hating" on the company.The vehicles are nice game pieces at a pretty good price and the ruined hamlet is great! They run a nice forum too and Black Powder is my ruleset of choice for the whole H&M period.
But they need to get some sh...stuff together man!
Rant over.
Pete 

[SBMiniaturesGuy]

What's happening is that Warlord are stretched thin with their acquisitions and have brought production "in house' to save costs, so you have a slip in quality. My USMC figures were nasty flash covered, some miscasts, poor packaging meant rifle barrels were bent -- very frustrating!! I hope they get it together.

[Gothic Line]

 People resist trying new brands or indeed other brands... If you go on other forums it's the same thing over and over again.

 For many years this hobby was catered by numerous (small) brands/producers the so called "cottage industries", back then you could have lots of different brands on the same games table.
 Believe me this was so positive and created fantastic dynamics for the hobby and "everyone was invited!!!"

 Today things have changed,  small productions don't stand a chance, big brands are present everywhere around the world, some magazines and other "players" sometimes present on forums (haven't felt their presence here) do exercise certain pressures in order to make it impossible for others to exist.

 In my country we only have one or two (big) brands available on the only 3 shops we have left...is this because the public only buy these brands ? is the market reduced to this? Wish the hobby could  go back to the Nineties!
 

[axabrax]

When Warlord bought Bolt Action they "promised" that Paul Hicks would continue to be the primary sculptor, and they lied, or at least they were unable to live up to that promise. That's why the quality has gone down as Paul did all their early stuff.