Outstanding Customer Service (gasp!) and a Liebster nomination

Not too long ago, my son Mr. Frodo received a copy of GW's Azog mounted & on foot. He was quite pleased, and dove into working on his minis right away. Well, he somehow managed to break off the tip of mounted Azog's mace, and to make matters worse, lose it! Double crap.

I spent close to an hour scouring my desk and the surrounding floor in a fruitless search. My best guess is that it ended up on the floor and got sucked by the soulless automaton that is our vacuum cleaner.

So I fired off an email to GW customer service to see if they could send me or sell me a replacement. I was very pleased to get a reply email within an hour, asking me to call them. I called back and after providing the GW rep with the necessary info, was told a replacement was going to be sent out the next day. Sure enough, a couple of days later a small packet from GW shows up in the mail. But they didn't simply send me a replacement bit in the mail, they sent me a complete kit! I did not see that one coming.

A lot of people love to talk shit about GW. I'm not saying they are the best miniatures company in the world, but this excellent bit of customer service goes a long ways towards proving to me that the folks behind the scenes (namely the CS reps) do what they can to make customers happy.

I'm happy, Mr. Frodo is happy, and soon mounted Azog will be happy to have his mace back.

Well played, Games Workshop!

David over at Dear Tony Blair was kind enough to nominate me for a Liebster award. I'm flattered, but after thinking about it for a bit, I'm going to pass for now. I'm feeling less than motivated at the moment, and honestly, I'd rather spend the time slapping some paint on my pile of neglected lead. Curse you, apathy!!!

Blogroll - Belched From The Depths

I've visited Belched From The Depths before, but lost track of it for reasons unknown. A recent post on the Grenadier Yahoo! group pointed me back there, and boy am I glad I rediscovered it.

In addition to the usual eye candy of nicely-painted miniatures, there are a bunch of other interesting and helpful articles as well: scans of Grenadier's Gold Line boxes and inserts; a how-to on low-profile magnetized basing; and an absolute gem of a tutorial to turn a plain vanilla Ikea bookcase into a mirrored, lighted display heaven. Fantastic!

I'm sure I'll uncover more as I sift through the backlog of posts. Props to Spooktalker on a great blog.

Wil Wheaton: Not A Dick

I forgot how enjoyable Wil Wheaton's writing can be, so I've added him to my blogroll. I don't know why I haven't read his stuff in so long; chalk it up to short attention span syndrome. And I really need to read one of his books - I'm thinking Just A Geek to start with.

It looks like I have reached 10,000 pageviews and 30 followers according to Blogger. I have to imagine at least half of those pageviews must be mine, but to all the followers and lurkers, thanks for stopping by. I try not to get too hung up on those stats, because I like to write about things that interest me, and not necessarily what everyone else wants to read about. Still, it's nice to know I'm not just pissing into the wind.

Session Alert! Ye olde D&D gang is gathering this weekend for the next installment of our 3.5 FR campaign, so I've got lead to finish and a recap to pen after all is said and done. Can't wait to see the fellas and roll some dice :)

100th Post & Praise For My Blogging Brethren

For my 100th post, I thought it would be appropriate to talk about other people's blogs. I started The Lead Dragon because I wanted to write about topics that I am passionate about - miniatures, gaming, models, toys, movies - things of that nature. I find that reading what other like-minded folks are writing about is very inspiring, and if that helps me pick up my paintbrush or bang out a blog post or read a new book, all the much better. So thanks to you, my fellow bloggers!

My newest follower, luca tempesta, runs the Model Storming blog. Luca hails from Italy, so you'll need to click on the "click here to translate" menu bar in the top center unless you can read Italian. I think the thing that draws me to his blog is that his interests are quite broad, and his taste very similar to mine. I mean, what's not to like about a guy who writes about plastic WWII models, WH40K, fantasy miniatures, LOTR, and Star Blazers? Of course, Luca, unlike me, actually FINISHES his projects. Lots of great stuff for a wide variety of interests.

Speaking of variety, Mike over at Swords & Dorkery offers that and more! Musings on games and rules, session recaps, miniatures, historical items of interest, movies, books, and music.

The Angry Lurker is a prolific painter of WWII and sci-fi/modern/zombie minis, and a fan of The Walking Dead. There are some really cool pics of massive zombie battles among other things.

Lots of good miniature goodness over at the Realm of Zhu, especially some old school Citadel stuff. Oh, and beer! One of my favorite series on Zhu is the Female Armour series. We're not talking chainmail bikinis here (although I have NO problem with those!), rather women wearing practical armor, and wearing it well! Miranda Otto, indeed.

For my 40K fix, I can always count on the power trio of From The Warp, Santa Cruz Warhammer, and Dave Taylor Miniatures. I love the fact that they all contribute to various charity endeavors. Ron at FTW offers a lot of tutorials and how-to features that help modelers of all levels. Need to swap models and bitz? Check out the Barter Bucket on SCWH. Dave also goes into Flames of War if that's your sort of thing.

There's plenty of military gaming goodness at Big Lee's Miniature Adventures. Check out the handy scale guide on his page. Big Lee is a prolific photographer, and posts fabulous slideshows from his visits to many museums, castles, airshows, and what have you. Thanks for sharing all the great pics!

There are also some noteworthy blogs worth checking out in my blogroll, so take a peek next time you have a moment.

And finally, my news feeds: to keep up with the latest in blogs, you gotta love Eternal Keep. And for hobby news, Tabletop Gaming News.

Well, that's it for post 100. Thanks for reading, lurking, and/or following, and here's to the next 100!

Tom