Saturday, November 14, 2009

Stay on target!


This week I received a bunch of WWII Americans I had ordered from Black tree Designs so long ago I totally forgot they were coming. It's always nice to get figures in the post especially ones you had forgotten about.

I have done a look of looking around on the net and decided that Black tree make the best WWII Americans around. You may have to wait a while before you see any finished on this site though. Which reminds me, I haven't painted in a good few months now and I've gone a bit cold turkey. I have ordered some walls from Warlord Games though and a copy of 'Black powder' so I still have plenty of irons in the fire.

12 comments:

Consul said...

I have to say, I prefer Artizans WWII ranges for all countries. I have British Paras and a few Americans in Greatcoats and will eventually expand my collection with some of their Germs and US Paras.

BTD do make possibly my favourite WWII figures of all time though.

http://www.blacktreedesign.com/uk/product.php?productid=24968&cat=2546&page=1

This pack of dismounted US tank crew, they've got so much character and look so cool!

Secundus said...

I do love the Artizan Americans in greatcoats and can see why you went for them. I just have a soft spot for BTD and there range of poses is impressive.

Almost Anonymous said...

If only BTD were more reliable as a seller...

Christopher(aka Axebreaker) said...

I'm a fan of Artizan WWII miniatures and I'd count them as my favorite.I like their burly appearance and I now own a platoon of Fallschirmjäger(fantastic mini's) that I need to paint up for Disposable Heroes.I also have an eye on the British para and American Airborne.Notice a theme here.:-)Bolt action also are some nice WWII mini's as well.

Cheers
Christopher

Secundus said...

Yes I agree I must admit most of my German Plaoon are from Artizan. I do love their American Air borne aswell.

moif said...

How long did it take for those BTD figures to arrive? I'm asking because I placed an order at the end of sept and I'm still waiting. E-mail inquiries have proven utterly fruitless.

Secundus said...

Sooo long ago I completely forgot about them, infact, when they arrived I thought there had been some mistake at BTD. Many months I would say.

Consul said...

I made an order at the start of September and still no word of it at the start of November so I asked to cancel the order which they did very promptly and on the same day I made another order for only two packs of figures. They made a mistake with my refund and arranged to send my second order immediately.

I have no idea why it takes them so long, especially if you only order a couple of packs. From what i've been told it's because they don't have a lot of the miniatures in the stock and there are often casting problems which can delay orders.

Secundus, I can't wait to see some more photos. Any era will do!

BigRedBat said...

I do really like some of the BTD (ancients) minis, myself.

On my return from summer hols, I discovered that I'd been staying for a week in the same tiny Cornish village where BTD are based! A missed opportunity; might have been able to find out why it all goes so wrong, there.

moif said...

Isn't there currently some sort of postal strike going on in the UK?

Consul said...

There is, but I shouldn't think it would affect BTD in this way. EVERYBODY's ordered can't be tied up in the post!

Although, as BRB says, it may be a cottage industry so if the volume of orders are high, it may be difficult to deal with them all.

I also received an email from them saying "Unfortunately we are changing our Credit Card Merchant Supplier and we are unable to accept switch at the present time. We had hoped to have this all sorted by now but it is taking much longer than anticipated" and they wanted me to change my payment method so perhaps that's the reason?

BigRedBat said...

BTD have been very poor at customer service for several years (particularly their US end, from what I hear, although the UK is dreadful). I would imagine orders are a lot less frequent than back when they had a good reputation!

A lot of their advertised minis are in fact unavailable, which is one reason why a lot of their despatches arrive incomplete. Perhaps old moulds have worn out and not been replaced. The structure of the company keep changing, too; not a good sign.