To kick off we will start with Gorgon Studios. Recently I ordered from them and though I only dropped 40 bucks I was extremely happy with my purchases. To start off I think their sculptor Steve Saleh is just tops and I am a HUGE fan of his hands down. Some of you may have seen his work on gripping beast or any other countless places as he does a lot for all of the major companies out there. I decided to order some of Gorgon sexy Early Estruscans. For those of you not too in the knowledge of history the early etruscans where the inhabitants of italy in the early years of the latin confederation which would in turn become ROME!!!
Now their models are equisit, and I have to say their pacakging and shipping policies should be adopted by everyone out there as they were communitative all the way through and even sent me some extras(wink thanks Hank). their main painter is 9 time demon winner Dave Pauwles(sorry if I misspelled your last name) and let me just say he does these models true justice. Now I wouldn't be honest if I didn't point out their short commings so I would say their are two major ones but one of which will be remidied in time.
The first is their lack in playable lines. Yes these models can be matched up with other companies for historical games but let me just say us historical gamers don't like to mix and match. We like everything to be the same and consistant across the battlefield. Now these guys are pumping out models on the fast side so I think being this is their first year they are doing pretty damn well. With several AMAZING one offs and solid core units for a possible 3 different lines I say this company is on the rise.
the second shortfall is the price sad to say. Coming in just over an average $2.00 a fig these guys don't play around. You are getting a quality product and yes I know costs are up for everyone now adays but I think if they drop it by a quater a fig then they will increase sales Exponentially. Now I have created a points system that ranges out of 5. I judge shipping, costs overall, communication, and well how overall I think they are and if I would buy from them again. Comming in at a 4 pt 0 this company is HAWT!! I feel their flaws with lack of fully playable lines will be fixed very soon but the price is what hit me the hardest. As such I just dropped a star for the price and nothing for the playability. All in all I highly recommend these guys for anyone interested in ancients of just quality models.
Chapterhouse Studios: Well I have one good thing to say about these guys, and that is the fact they have some cool new products hiting the shelfs. Their customer service is horrible and their shipping takes over a month(and they are stateside). When I contacted their owner he told me I would get the stuff within two weeks.. that was 5 weeks ago. I then made a second purchase just to see if this was a pre-order fluke and that was 3 weeks ago and no product... For something they even claimed to have in stock. As such I plan to never waste money again with these guys and after a easy write up I give them 1 star. This is overly generous of me as well Nick is distastefully rude, takes him time to email you back, shipping is slower then me walking to china, and in the end the price is not worht all of this hassle. Once more they only make products that fit to GW stuff so sooner or later the famous GW IP fairy will shut them down. So in my opinon this company goeson my DO NOT SHOP AT LIST!!!!!
Well I hoped you all enjoyed the reviews and if you know of a company you want me to check out then shoot me an email at alexanderakers at yahoo dot com.
Review needs pics!!
ReplyDeletedownloaded straight from their own company websites.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the Chapterhouse review, I was considering their Farseer Jetbike but will now reconsider.
ReplyDeleteLike I said they have some really cool product just the rest of Nicks company is rather horrible. I think if he could fix the shipping issue then he would be an average one.
ReplyDeleteFor those who don't know Nick from chapterhouse left a long and lovely comment on this blog as per his review. To sum up he didn't like his review, so as such I am going to say this as well people at time won't like their reviews but I am sorry I am just posting from my experiences with the company and what I think overall of them.
ReplyDeleteSo for starters Nick feels I am slamming him because he didn't sponsor the Boston Brawl... Answer is NOPE really don't care as we got some awsome sponsors and I am greatfull they wanted to do so.
Nick felt it was funny I placed second order, well the first order was for the jump packs and those were understatably oversold before and he couldn't match the pre-orders. I was annoyed yes as those I need to finish out my pre-heresy army so I am stuck, the second order I placed was figuring hey maybe just a fluke or something since a pre-order and so I ordered stuff for prize support for the Boston Brawl. He stated he hadn't sent it out yet hrmm theirs that shipping reason.
Now I am responding to this is this way as I am presenting you all with reviews of what I encountered and what I think. I did wargames factory the other week vs warlord games and WGF didn't post a lengthy response nor do I really think they care. I do this for you my readers and if you don't like it thats fine I am just posting reviews from my angle. Now I deleted his comment as I don't approve of trolling and as this is my blog I can do so. In short Nick you did rate low on my list and gorgon rated high. I sent a link of the post to gorgons owner and I am sure he will check it out and recognize my small critiques. If you want to be a business owner(such as I was and am again) you have to be prepared for people to speak what they feel is the truth about your company.
Alex,
ReplyDeleteI now know what sort of customer I am dealing with, you deleted my reply which was truthful and in good taste.
You state you are a business owner, then you should know that facts play a large part in customer service, and that customers will make a story up to back themselves up.
Seeing as no matter what I post you have control on what your fans see there is little point in dealing with you any further. I guess you are that 1 out of 1000 people that complain loudly and the other 999 are happy (not to mention they let people know they are happy to).
Nick you are entitled to you opinon and I to mine, and since it is my blog I will diplay my opinon. I wrote a review on everything I encountered from your company and I will do the same for others. Some of the reviews will be great some bad, and maybe it's a fluke when I order idk. My reviews are just meant to help people in possibly guiding them in their purchasing orders. Next week is thewarstore and troll forged minis. Your upset you have a bad review but instead of typing to me and complaining when you could have emailed me you could be working to fix these issue and I will reivaluate your company and if found so even issue a retraction. As such my opinon stands and thank you for visiting my blog:).
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/120/283338.page#1545254
ReplyDeleteThanks for making me aware of Gorgon, hadn't heard of them before but their stuff looks good.
ReplyDeletePretty sucky on the delivery from the other crowd, I understand sometimes delivery can take longer to fulfill than normal with some small companies due to cash flow dictating how much stock they can hold in advance etc, but 5 weeks + is ridiculous by any measure, especially without pre-emptive explanation.
For the company to try and write this review off as being a "bad customer" is also a pretty poor way of handling customer service - might want to see how companies like Dell have dealt with bad reviews online for an example of how to handle them.
Great way of putting it Dante, in fact I just had a email from gorgon main man Hank Edley thanking me for the review and explaining what they are doing to fix those small faults. As stated money with almost anycompany is going to be a fault as they need to profit to grow their lines and I can understand that.
ReplyDeleteI also thought about as my own minatures line AWI launches at the end of the summer having a playable line. Do you as a owner wait till you have 30-40 models before releasing or do you put out the 10 you got and use what money you make off those to keep growing the line. More often the latter of the two is the best way as you are developing your customer base, and in turn not bankrupting yourself which would in turn deprive us of that great product.
to conclude great things comming from gorgon and I will keep purchasing from them to help grow that company... as per chapterhouse yep nothing more to say.