Maelstrom Games Dead and Gone

[Primarch]

How about taking this as a blessing to stop buying stuff you don't need and paint what you already have?

Because I like buying new stuff from time to time.

[me_in_japan]

I can kinda see Prim's point - if I'm going to stop buying minis I'll decide to do it as and when it suits me - I don't need to use the closure of my usual webstore as a reason.

But

I can also see that Ash is only trying to be helpful, in essence saying, "look on the bright side, folks, and take what you can from the situation. Silver lining, and all that"

Essentially, you're both in the right

Anyway, there are plenty of cheap online sellers out there, all we have to do is find em, try em out, and choose a new personal favourite. On that note - I appreciate that Ikeda is a great guy (and I do think he's a nice chap) but while he has to contend with Japanese price policy his goods are just going to be too expensive to consider buying. That, and his lack of range of stock unfortunately renders him unviable as an option. Yeah, he can order stuff for me, but I can order stuff for me, too, and I can do it faster and cheaper than he can.

[me_in_japan]

Well Deleted me sideways with a coracle!

I just got an email from Mierce minis (in response to a mail I sent them last night) confirming they would honour my order with maelstrom and supply the missing parts of my order! All polite and proper and apologetic and basically exactly what they needed to say.

So, a tip of the hat in Mierce minis' direction. A small tip, for now, but should the minis actually arrive in my mailbox it will become a terrifically extravagant tip with many a feathery flourish and swirl.

I wait with bated breath...

ps - I notice that i received the mail at 9:10 on Sunday morning. That means it was sent at ten past midnight on Saturday, UK time. Somebody be working overtime, methinks...

[ashmie]

Fair comment. I still wonder about those warlord games Indians. Not cheap though.

[Lovejoy]

Sadly, I had about 100 quid on order with them for KR cases and other bits and bobs. I'm unlikely to see any of that now. I fired off an angry email to eye of the storm on the off-chance, and got an email from maelstrom in response (could the two possibly be connected?! I think so!). The email said that my order had been split..again. But of course I can't actually check those order numbers, can I, what with the site being down.

Very shabby. I've sent follow up mails to Mierce, Maelstrom and Eye of the Storm, making clear that I know the same personnel/premises are involved in their fly-by-night operation, so at least I've covered the angles, and feel mildly relieved - not that anything is likely to result.

Pack of you-know-whats. At least I got some ridiculous bargains over the last couple of years.

[me_in_japan]

@lovejoy - get in touch with your credit card company. If its a british card you'll be covered. Just explain the situation (money already paid, company bankrupt, goods not delivered) and supply emails and ref numbers if requested. The banks do chargebacks like this a hundred times a day. You should have no probs getting refunded. The notice on their site explicitly states that they can no longer fulfill orders, so the bank should be fine. You have 100 days since placing the order to claim back, btw.

If you used PayPal, try em, although they have a tighter window for complaint. Just raise a complaint , escalate immediately to a refund. You should be ok, if you're in time.

Just to be clear - if you ordered Mierce (or FoW) you might just have a hope of getting your stuff. Anything else you will definitively not get - maelstrom say this explicitly on their site. So, get your money back via your credit card company without further delay. The game is most definitely a bogey, here.

[me_in_japan]

Riiiiiiise, ye old and crusty thread! Riiiiiiiise!!!!!

Well stop the press, hold your horses and bugger me backwards with a fishfork. In the mail today I got my maelstrom/Mierce stuff.

I'll pause a moment to let that sink in.






Ok. Pause over.

So, mulling over my thoughts on Mierce...

They claim to be a separate entity from Maelstrom. Legally, I'm pretty sure they are. Practically...well, tbh in terms of service they're actually pretty good, unlike maelstrom. I've had to pester them a bit for info from time to time, but every email they've sent me has been really polite and helpful. Way above usual online store standards. They have always given at least semi-believable reasons why things have taken so long, which largely boil down to "it's been a screaming shitstorm here ever since maelstrom went down and we are running around like blue-arsed flies trying to save our jobs", which tbh I find hard to doubt. At this point the only black mark I can really level at them is that it took them 3 months to send me my stuff. In their favour is the fact that they didn't have to send it at all, and their staff seem pretty polite and helpful. There's also the fact that the minis are really, really lovely. Top notch stuff - we're talking FW, Studio McVey, etc level of detail.

So, would I buy from them again?

Y'know, I actually might. I'm that impressed by their politeness and sculpts. Call me a mook, but there you go. I am not quite as cynical as I thought I was. Go figure...

[Primarch]

Good for you M_i_J. Sadly as I didn't order anything from the company that Maelstrom sank a pile of cash into whilst borrowing heavily from other sources, I am left out of pocket. So I don't think I will be buying anything from them.