The Warforge Miniature Modelling and Conversion

Selling Out

I'm going to sound like an absolute shill for a minute here, but I swear up and down that I'm getting nothing out of doing this.

I want to talk about ApocaBitzNow.com. As of the time of this writing, I have placed and received two orders from them, and this morning I placed a much, much larger one if about to help flesh out my projects. I can tell you that, having dealt with them at length now, they are fantastic. While their range is currently limited to Warhammer 40k bitz, they bitz out a number of metal blisters and kits, which is a service hardly anyone else does. They even stock forgeworld parts, and I mean stock - they have them on-hand and ready to ship, unlike other services who will basically order it from Forgeworld for you. Their selection is good, but not great; some armies are lacking in variety, but their site says they continually aim to increase their catalogue. Compared to the old GW Bitz service, they are 1000% better, with the only caveat being that sometimes they may not have the part you're looking for.

My first order from their service involved a couple simple ork parts - some extra trukk bitz, engines, wheels, and the likes. I also ordered a Kommando Nob head. Within an hour of placing my order, I got an e-mail from their service saying that they had currently run out of Kommando Nob heads, and that their supply would be replenished in a week. They also informed me that I was overcharged for shipping; they ship bitz orders for 2.99 to the US, and orders with boxed sets for 4.99. They went through the trouble of refunding the two dollar difference for me via paypal - I had no idea I'd even been overcharged, so I appreciated their honesty. They told me I would not be billed for the later shipment of the Kommando Nob head.

A few days later, I received my first order from them. Every single part (and I am talking, like, the two halves of an ork trukk wheel) was individually bagged in tiny plastic wrappers, with prices on each, which I thought was tremendously thorough if a bit wasteful. That evening, I decided I wanted to purchase a set of Forgeworld Terminator Shoulder Pads and some other bitz. I sent an e-mail to their orders department, asking if I could also purchase a few more bitz to have shipped along with the Kommando Nob head, and they said that it would not be a problem. They invoiced me for the new parts via paypal promptly. They also did not charge me for shipping on this second batch of parts that I ordered, since it was coming with the Kommando Nob head from my original order, and the shipping on that had been waived.

I got the second order in the mail today, and again, everything is individually bagged. In both orders, even though I have asked for a ton of parts, nothing has been forgotten or wrong. Their communication is great - I've gone back and forth with their orders department a little bit over the past few days with questions about bitz and ordering, which always get promptly answered. They tend to keep most GW kits in stock and offer the standard 20% discount that many of us who purchase online are spoiled with. They did overprice the forgeworld parts a little bit (Forgeworld Terminator Salamanders shoulder pads cost three dollars more than the price listed on Forgeworld's site) but I assume part of that cost is from having the parts shipped from the UK to begin with; it's certainly no more expensive than buying direct from Forgeworld with the costs of international shipping considered.

This morning, I placed a bit order with them for a ton of Space Marine stuff, and they were great about it. You can do some wonderful stuff with their site. For example, I ordered a Land Raider Crusader/Redeemer set as part of my large invoice. The Crusader and Redeemer use the same side sponson pieces, so there is not enough in the stock kit to make your Land Raider interchangeable between the two. However, for a mere few dollars, I was able to purchase the extra sponson bitz needed to make it so that I could swap my Land Raider between Crusader and Redeemer at will. It's some serious value when you can get all of that at one place.

My use of ApocaBitzNow coincides with a bit of dissapointment with thewarstore.com; in the past two weeks that I have been looking into marine items, pretty much everything that I wanted to order from the warstore was out of stock. Obviously, with the new Marine codex out, Neal's being hit hard with orders, but I was still consistently let down by their lack of inventory for the items that I wanted. In light of this, and considering the great service I've been getting from ApocaBitzNow, I think I'll probably be placing more orders with ABN. I can only hope they continue to improve their selection of individual bitz; I would personally like to see some fantasy stuff on there, if only because I dip into Fantasy model ranges from time to time in the hunt for the perfect part for whatever project I'm working on at the time.

I think I'll leave it at that, and I will see how ApocaBitzNow handles my much larger order. So far, though, I have nothing but glowing praise, and I would seriously recommend them.