"Battlefront Quality" Topic

Having purchased a LOT of BF products over the last few years, is it just me or are there parts of their range that have the utmost dire quality ?

Have purchased a lot of French WW2 figs and virtually all are appalling – excess flash, poor moulding etc … to such an extent that it severely damages the figures trying to recover them

I have had a similar experience with their Polish and Russian box sets

In frustration I have written to them on this subject, not so much that I expect a response, rather than to vent my disappointment that so much money, in my eyes, has been wasted on inferior products

Maybe if more people voted with their feet, as I now intend to do, then they will either respond with better quality or find their market shrinking

atb – Paul

I'm surprised anyone buys their infantry anymore.

Not just them,some books you just look at them and they come apart.Guess untill they are sending out more replacements,than they are selling they won't be to worried ?
LES

Maybe people will wake up to BF's rip off with more books on the same subjects, more models to support thier books and the very poor oversite of their products. Every time I tried to buy a products to subport what I have it's out stock or no longer made. Don't even talk about the price.

Yea, I don't really understand their existing models going out of production so frequently.

It seems to me they could do with a bit better inventory control, but perhaps they are trying to keep prices up by having them be "limited editions".

That's another turnoff for me.

Aside from some missing parts for my Saharianas I never had many problems with BF models. That said it's been a few years since I last bought something from them.

My North Africa book fell on the floor, and half the pages came loose and fell out.

Battlefront used to be famous for gallantly replacing defective parts. I don't know if that's still their policy, but in MY day in manufacturing, having good replacement policy only meant that you were compensating for bad quality control.
EVERY industry thinks they are "different" regarding quality control, with the usual BS about "You just don't understand how we do things!" They are wrong.

I've never had much of a problem, and when I have they have quickly replaced anything that was missing with an entire new model.

I don't buy the books so I can't say anything about them.

I haven't bought much from BF recently, perhaps 1/2 dozen packs in the past 6 months but haven't seen any drop off in moulding quality. What you describe suggests that they need to replace the production moulds for those particular figures.

I'm with you Condorito. I use Peter Pig.

I've found them to a mixed bag.

Had a lot of issues with following:

150mm sFH 18 cm artillery – badly cast, lots of flash

Tiger 1e (Tunisia) – missing parts in both blisters. This includes the replacement blister!

Turrets didn't fit into hulls without extensive filing.

Il-2 Shturmovik – big chunks of resin on noses – they needed sawing off.

Russian Infantry – lots of badly miscast figs

StuGs – warped and miscast hulls

Panzer III/IV – no detail on cupolas.
T-34/76s (old box) – broken fenders

Su-85 – broken fenders

Su-76M – missing components

BA-64 – turrets didn't fit into hulls without extensive filing.

Poor quality books – Eastern Front, Festung Europa, mini rule books. I refuse to buy any soft covers from them.

T-34/85 – decals would not come off regardless of soaking in water or even diluted dishwashing liquiid.

Other stuff has been great:
Sd Kfz 250/9s & Sd Kfz 250/1
Pak 40s
Su-152
Panther A
Russian scouts
German infantry (both mid war and late war Lehr)
120mm Obr 1938
45mm Obr 1942
T-34/85 (new box – though the decals were useless)

I bought some first run infantry years ago from BF BEFORE there was a FoW game. The .30 cal in my platoon pack was missing the base and figure. They did not replace it.

So yeah. BF has had bad QC and poor service to replace bad parts right from the start. If memory serves, they DID start being more magnanimous about parts, long after I gave up on them.

I've also noticed this with their French…I was most disappointed. Went with all Peter Pig gear in the end and I like BF normally. My Saharianas had missing parts as well…..I wonder if they were the same bits as yours Patrick ?…..they sent me replacements straight away which was good.

I found the pak 50's had to be carved quite judiciously to get the barrel to fit properly.

The 40mm Bofors, base had to be carved a lot as well to fit properly. I have a bunch yet to put together, we will see.

I am happy enough with the 8th Army and DAK infantry, which have been around for some time. So far my 15mm WW2 gaming is confined to North Africa only so I cannot comment on other ranges. However the NVA figures for the Vietnam range are simply appalling. Unnatural poses, elongated arms, lack of definition and to top it all (literally), a miner's helmet and lamp on their heads. What is more annoying is the relaunch earlier this year gave BF an opportunity to put it right.

They have their good lines, and the have their bad lines. Used to be more good than bad.

Well, since we are all criticizing here…. ehem….

I don't appreciate stuff being made in Malaysia and still carrying the same price tags.

The sculpting quality of Americans is way down compared to the standard of say 8 years ago or so. Had a friend warn me about this. Luckily I have plenty of old stock U.S. I think this is true of other nations too?

The whole thing about using only Battlefront figures that they backed off of and modified to "mostly Battlefront" in their sponsored tournaments fiasco. I actually have only Battlefront already due to ease of buying and convenience of getting whole units in one package. But when I saw the announcement it got me upset. The reason is that they are not a complete line of figures and that other manufacturers helped fill in gaps. I also wanted the guy on a budget to be able to get into the game quickly and at less expense. I understand their reasoning but didn't agree with it.

I am happy that the Pacific theater is finally being taken care of. Prior to this, I was really incredulous that they weren't doing it. Another reason that buying non-Battlefront was and is important.

Lastly, errors in weapons availability. I think this is done out of convenience and "predominance" of what is available at a given time. Because I am interested in the Italian theater and the particular time period overlaps Middle and Late, I have noticed that some weapons that should be available (such as the Long Tom 155mm Howitzer) are not available late Middle period when I have orders of battle showing their availability. In particular, the Salerno landings which occurred prior to the Late period but did have some late period weaponry.

I like the game. It is a game. Many have harped on it not modeling things accurately and goofy things such as armor units going shoulder to shoulder, etc. But it is a game and a fun one. It is one of the few games out there that allow you to go almost anywhere and find an opponent. GW games do the same.

Rant off…

From personal experience the earlier figure sculpts require the master molds refreshing, unfortunately these are the sculpts that I use for my current armies. I probably find two to three figures per pack which are so heavily flashed they are almost unusable and about four to five more which require a lot of work to make usable.

This wouldn't be so much of a problem if the newer American (NW Europe), German (Sturm Kompanie) and Russian (Udarny) sculpts were similar to the earlier sculpts.

I also found the two platoons of Soviet/Polish Partisans I bought when they first came out were very badly cast. Several of the LMG carrying partisans seemed to have been miscast in such a way that the two halves of the figure had a significant difference in height.

On the Pak 50s, you may have gotten the early mispacks. The PaK 50 is supposed to be the gun on the PaK 38 carriage, not the PaK 40 carriage a lot of the early blisters came with.

"Several of the LMG carrying partisans seemed to have been miscast in such a way that the two halves of the figure had a significant difference in height."

Ouch. It must be frustrating to pay a premium price for a product that is not delivering.

BF does offer the convenience of one stop packaging for units. You buy a platoon, you get everything in the blister including bases.

I have some BF, but I have mixed OG/CD and PP minis as well. They turned out fine.

I liked the fact that I could buy the whole platoon in a single grab. That reminds me, I need to send them an email to get a barrel for my PzIVD (not in the package at all!).

But yeah, I've seen some really atrocious miscasts. Never had a problem with them replacing stuff, either.

On the other hand have pretty much all their publications since V2 Rulebook and never had any problems with pages falling out etc, other than the atrocious much mentioned proof reading in the most recent compilations.

Although saying that, I'm sure the next book I open will now fall apart just to prove me wrong…

I love BF, they put out a good gaming system with good products. I haven't had any more or any less problems with them then any other system.
Every time I have a problem it's sorted within 2 weeks.

I for one, salute my kiwi brothers !!

I started a long ramble then decided to bin it.

BF used to be good value and quality product.
There has been a period where this ceased to be the case and some of their product was in effect expensive tat.
Things are gradually improving, some of the new BF product is once again high quality but their prices are now right at the top of the market so I would expect the best for the money they want.

The mess over using their models at their comps really turned me off BF. At present I only buy from them if there is no alternative.

The last stuff I bought from them was two company boxes of FSSF. I opened one to find multiple badly cast figures, mostly the new sculpts, like the Johnson gunner. I worked so hard trying to fix the poor casts that I haven't had the heart to open the other box.

Where do I begin…

The master of the Waffen SS here, having paint over twenty box sets (full company) over the past 5 years.

Over that 5 years I have noticed the quality steadily dropping to where I have to use 2 maybe 3 box sets to make a whole one of decent figures!

Their armor has something to be desired, my Alkett Panzer IV 70's were supplied with some really kickass sexy hulls but the track sets were from an earlier panzer IV model…and didn't fit!

They should go with the Resin hulls, plastic parts for tracks/guns/cupolas…works out well for the panthers and Ausf J Panzer IV's!

But only 1 in 11,000 blisters have faults?…..

When you sell 11 million blister packs a year, it's pretty easy to find all one thousand mispacked blisters mentioned on the interwebz. Honestly, I would really be surprised with a 99.991% QA ratio. That's absolutely outstanding.

Now, I still have issues with some of BF's models (metal tracks on T34s and Panthers… severe fit issues caused by the thick metal warping), especially when there's a kneeling dude just as tall as the standing one (US Para)!

Well I guess the Panzer IV/III cupolas must be a rare thing to them…because every one I've gotten has been total crap.

I use Battlefront for Bolt Action in 15mm but mainly where Peter Pig is lacking (Commandoes as PP only does 3 models in soft cap). I do usually however replace their heads with PP ones as the Battlefront one are sometimes iffy and it allows you to generate more variety.

I bought US Paratroopers but re-sold them as the casting, poses and sometimes just the sculpt were not good – although I kept the Easy Company ones as the sculpts are better.

I recently bought some LVT-4's and the resin side wall was flimsy and broken. One quick email and picture and battlefront replaced the parts in less than a week so I won't criticise their customer services.

I will explain JP's view on quality control.
After the manufacturing shift to KL, the master resins (the ones copied off of the actual sculpts and used to create the production masters, which are then used to create the molds for the final resin pieces) were still being made in NZ, it just so happens that JP's brother-in-law obtained a NZ visa as he was an expert in resin models (what luck!), and that's when resin quality dropped noticably for me. A while later when it was discovered that the resin production was happening in a building with no ventilation, fire control or safety equipment (even the metal casting machine was in a room open to the public and not even bolted down) it was forced to shut down and master resin production was shifted to KL, and it got worse. And instead of using the last bit of time to catch up on model production we desperatly needed to get photos of models into the appropriate books, management decided the last couple of weeks with the casting machine was best used to pirate themselves off some armies from other manu's.
Some of the common issues I saw were twisted resin (you twist the mold to pop the resin out and if the resin isn't completely set it will twist as well, you can test this by the model 'rocking' from corner to corner when the tracks are glued on, air bubbles and pitted surface/loss of detail from too much mold release agent sprayed into the molds.
QC, is basically non-existant and we proved this by having a German infantry man with clown feet make it all the way through to production before I couldn't let it go into packs and had to say something. If we pointed out an issue with a model that had been miscast at an early stage we would be dog-boxed as being a naysayer and overly picky of quality.
I remember once when we all got to build an army for the Bagration campaign, when the packs arrived we had an average of about 60% mis-pack/fault rate, one person had 100% mispack rate. I ended up opening every king tiger box in the factory to try and get some resin that wasn't twisted and ended up being given a set of blue master resins by a manager.

Wow.

management decided the last couple of weeks with the casting machine was best used to pirate themselves off some armies from other manu's.

Strong accusation, if true.
HOWEVER, I seem to remember something from the past about such practices BEFORE Flames of War took off. I could be remembering something else.

I ended up opening every king tiger box in the factory to try and get some resin that wasn't twisted and ended up being given a set of blue master resins by a manager.

Eating the seed corn…

Nothing I said happened was done in secret, the whole design studio was privy to it all (and anybody else associated that had access to the building like playtesters etc.).

I seem to remember something from the past about such practices BEFORE Flames of War took off. I could be remembering something else.

You may be remembering back in the early 1980s, when Military Miniatures NZ (the company that later became BF) got into some trouble for making figures that looked like Minifigs. I believe it was resolved that they looked like MF because the sculpter was the same, not that MMNZ was making direct knock-offs of MF.

Of course, I'm old and could be remembering it all wrong, but that's what I recall.

Yep, the event I was referring to was done in recent times I am afraid. Studio staff were horrified considering the business we were in…

I still have photo's of the moulds on an old phone actually, just in case something dastardly was to happen to me…AND, I snagged a few of the pirated figures as well.

I still have my Bergepanther with the PZIII tracks from the Bagration project sitting on a shelf in my studio DrDee, just for laughs…:)

I'm a fan of Flames of War Rules but not of BF figures/vehicles.

Plastic Soldier Company (if you can devote the time to assemble them), are much cheaper and (in the case of the vehicles) as good, if not better than BF. You can put together sizeable forces at a fraction of BF prices. I've become a big fan!

Peter Pig and QRF are aslo worth a shout.

PSC must be making big inroads into BF's turnover – in the UK at least.

I will admit that my Soviet Engineer-Sapper platoon will have PSC armor (PT34s made with the BF mine rollers, OT34s converted) and artillery support, just because of cost issues. But all the infantry is BF.

QC all 'fixed' now they have discovered PR

PSC was the main reason for the 'all-BF models in tournaments' fopar.

LOL! Just read the front page, the best PR they could ever do is not let JP speak publicly. There just negated the need for a team of staff…

I was looking forward to getting the T-54/55 platoon box but looking at the picks of the models I think we are going to have the same old issues of quality:
link

Look at the shot from the rear, the track on the right side is significantly narrower than the left, and the top down shot exacerbates the issue by showing the mud guards pulling in on the insides. I can almost guarantee that miniature will 'rock' from corner to corner because of resin twist.

Any other manu make T-54/55's?

I know of and purchased:

Old Glory T-55s
link

Peter Pig T-55s
link scroll down to "Universal Vehicles"

I like them both but the OG cost to me in the USA couldn't be beaten and was well worth the price. For my use.

@DrDeeNZ,this range could be worth keeping an eye on ?
link

LES

Those Khurasan ones look very nice!

Agreed!

want some cake?

"LOL! Just read the front page, the best PR they could ever do is not let JP speak publicly. "

Yeah, I was watching those interview series that the guy WWPD made when he went to interview BF staff.
JP proceeded to all over historical miniature games.
He proceeded to say that historical miniatures games are slow and horrible and boring and cant be done in a day and that FoW made it all right and fun.
That really ed me off.

"want some cake?"

LOL! 7 years, still didn't get a cake!

"Yeah, I was watching those interview series that the guy WWPD made when he went to interview BF staff.
JP proceeded to Bleeped text all over historical miniature games.
He proceeded to say that historical miniatures games are slow and horrible and boring and cant be done in a day and that FoW made it all right and fun.
That really Bleeped texted me off."

You have obviously missed the interviews where he has claimed to have invented the historical hobby all by himself.

Is John-Paul just a partner with money and good business acumen?
The stuff came out of his mouth is quite insulting towards the wargaming community.
Is he a gamer or just a partner with money and good marketing?