Spikey Bits Miniature Market Review

I recently took part in Spikey Bits Miniature Market.  What they do is they take a video of the contents of some display cases of used stuff in various stages of finish and post it.  They have prices listed for some things and if you are interested you email them and see if you can come  to a mutually beneficial arrangement.  I noticed in the last two videos that they had an epic space marine battle company box and a drop pod pack so I emailed with an offer since this stuff is disappearing from GW direct.

It took a couple of days but I heard back with a counter offer which I accepted.  Retail prices on epic stuff has increased like 75-100% since Epic Armageddon was released so we got to a price for the stuff shipped that was essentially buy the marines and get the drop pods free.  I was looking for some more assault marines for my 40K era marine force so it worked out fine.  Everything showed up about a week later so all in all a good process.

One issue I did have about the videos is that they are like 20 minutes with no real organization so you have to watch the whole video to see all the stuff which takes some time.  You could spend the same time searching ebay and maybe get better prices.  They might want to break it up into groups like 40K, WFB, Warmahordes, Specialist and Other so shoppers can focus on their games first and cut the time watching the videos down as watching 15 minutes of stuff you have no interest to see the item you may want is probably limiting there customer base.  It could also allow them to update some on weekly basis for the stuff that moves faster. 

Epic Space Marine Battle Company Sprue

Recently picked up the Epic Space Marine Battle Company box to add some more assault marines to my epic forces.  My previous marine are from over 20 years ago so the contents of the box is different but some how the models that are there are exactly the same.  You get 4 identical sprues and the approprate number of long bases.  Here is the current sprue:

 

You get 24 Bolter Marines, 10 Assault Marines, and 6 Heavy weapon marines.  No sergeants, captains, terminators, or anything really interesting.  With the 4 sprues that makes 96 Bolters, 40 Assault Marines, and 24 Heavy Weapons.  The assault marines for up into 8 stands of 5 marines which forms 2 formations of 4 stands each.  Now the heavy and bolter marines have more flexability.  Now 1 heavy and 4 bolters on a stand would match the tactical stand description  and allow you to form 4 units of 6 stands but Epic is not as much WYSIWYG game as 40K.  Devastators have 2 heavys per stand so you can make 12 devastator stands for 3 formations of 4 stands then 2 formations of tactical squads that have no heavy weapon models but still get to have a heavy weapon in the rules.  This just makes it very clear what a tactical and devastator stand is.  

For my beakies I used 1 heavy per devastator and none on tactical but I was try to stretch the heavies between 2 armies and now I have 24 more so I can add more if I want to.

Here is the close up of the 3 different models on the sprue.

Testing GW Online Customer Service

So I along with many people have not been happy with GW's method of canceling specialist games.  No warning left many things unavailable by the time the rumors hit.  I made one order online and 3 of the 10 items I ordered ended up out of stock.  Now they sent me an email about a delay and I emailed and even called them.  They really showed that they had no idea what was in stock and they could not change the order after I made it to replace stuff with things that were in stock.  They just lowered the final bill.

I later ordered 3 more things that were list as 24 hours shipping but then they moved to 3-4 weeks and now they are not available.  My order is still just sitting there online saying that is being processed.  No emails, no nothing.  I am pretty sure that this order will just get cancelled out but I am waiting to see how long it actually takes for the system to figure out that they have not informed me or done anything about it in more than 1 week since the order.   I payed with paypal and they have not removed the money so I can just wait to see what happened.  Again had I know that these items were not available I might have ordered something else instead so they just miss out on money again.

I also ran into a problem with a Forgeworld order where I got a broken part in my shipment but in the 2 weeks it took to get from UK to US, the item became no longer available.  They replied to my email but it has been a couple of days now with no new updates on their solution for me.

New Eldar Flyer is a Pokemon

So I was looking at the pictures of the new eldar flyer.  From the top side it looked ok but when it showed the head on or below view it looks so familiar.  I could not place it at first but then I started to think about it.  I decided that they looked very much like two Pokemon Latias and Latios.  These two show up in a Movie: Pokemon Heroes that my daughter has in a combo pack.  They are the right colors as shown in the pictures with red or blue on top and white bottoms.  They have little fins on their slightly wider than their neck heads and swept wings.

GW Australia Cannot Even Move Disappearing Product?

So as we all know GW put the gun to the head of specialist games and pulled the trigger but decided on doing it quietly with a silencer since they did not really want to sell people products that are still profitable and they were able to produce.  So in the wave of panic buying as products stop being available GW USA has run out of many things.  This does not prevent them from selling them to you only shipping them.

GW Australia does not appear to have this problem.  Do I think they were well stock before the fall?  No, I think that the prices are specialist games stuff was already pretty insane and the extra Australia markup just pushed it over the top.  Now GW USA needs to call them and get this stuff shipped here since they would probably sell most of it in a day or two.

Inventory Management and Just In Time Delivery

Back in March I was wondering about the order fulfillment process for the Reaper Kickstarter but I was mainly discussing how to organize the packing and shipping process assuming all the products were on hand.  Reaper has admitted that they started shipping with only some of the product on hand since they expected the shipping process to take some time and the remainder of the products to arrive while they were working on still shipping the last batch to allow a seamless and optimal delivery of product to the customers.

But they ran into the problem that the next batch of product did not arrive on time and their shipping operation was delayed due to it.  Apparently they have many Vampire Sets lying around such that if you are nearby you can pick yours up but essentially none of the miniatures that were only available as optional add ons.  So clearly as a Just In Time type model their choices of model production order and volumes were not optimal to provide the most uniform and expedient shipping to all the customers.

If some of those not currently shippable Vampire Boxes instead covered the whole line of the optional minis, they could still be shipping.  Say the mini production was 2/3rds vampire boxes and 1/3rd optional only minis.  Now we can split that up into 3 orders, 2 Vampire and 1 Optional.  If we get a vampire shipment first we can ship those out, Optional Second we are stuck waiting for the last batch of vampires to ship out the second patch so the disparity between delivery is very high.  If we get the optional first then we start shipping when the 1st group of vampires arrives, and continue until with the last set.  The initial shipping is later but the disparity is lower.

If you could parse the production more into 1/6ths instead of 1/3rds you could essentially get 1/4 of the vampires and half the optionals in the first shipment and start right away with long to pack orders first, and then finish off at the end with fast to ship pure vampire sets.  Starting with the vampires only first is essentially picking the low hanging fruit.  The biggest customers with the largest orders are going to get started packing last as they will require components probably in the very last shipment so the time from the last shipment coming in and going out will be longer than if that last shipment was pure vampires which essential come off the truck, get an Mr. Bones Added(stupid logistical arrangement), labeled and shipped out.

Now splitting up production runs can influence costs and production time as molds need to be changed and such.  Production time seems to have been a problem here so a different ordering may have been worse but from just a stock inventory management viewpoint having thousands of vampire boxes in storage that need other stuff to ship to customers (who know they are just sitting there) is not an optimal condition.  I know that Reaper is doing their best and that I do not have all the information that they used to organize their production.  This is more just me thinking about the business issues as I find them interesting things to understand.  Who knows maybe one day you or I will be in management at a small business and have to worry about such things.

False Alarm

Poster Realized that the shipment was some paints he had orderer not the kickstarter stuff.

May may also be a long Month

So Reaper sent out their Bones kickstarter update.  They started shipping at the end of March with just the vampire boxes and moved onto vampire plus vampire component options.  I expect the order with the optional minis to start shipping right after that about apparently they did not actually have them so they cannot ship them.  They noted that the 2nd wave should be arriving soon that it contains many of the larger models but the way it was phrased made me think that it was not going to have all the optional minis in it.  So now I wondering if my multiple optional minis are all going to be in this wave or will I be sitting and waiting until June.

Some Newer Epic Eldar Stuff Running Out

Three of the Four Epic Eldar items I ordered yesterday are out of stock even though they let me order and pay for them.   I was able to get one ordered on Forgeworld but we will see about getting that. 

Four Blood Bowl Teams Already Gone

In the closure of the metal production 4 Blood Bowl teams are already no longer available along with an assortment of single or blisters.  Amazon, Lizardmen, Vampire, and Khemri are all no longer showing up on the website.