Support your distributors

1) Jon's (St. cubed John of Needham) a good 
guy and very much sets the open tone for this 
community. He's also fast on delivery and finds 
ways to convince me that a 2.50 Canadian to 
British Pound conversion makes sense 
(wonders never cease). He has some moulds 
no one else does. 

2) Nic at Eureka is also a great guy. Fast 
service, good exchange right now for Yanks and 
not bad for Canucks. And he has some moulds 
like the Cockroach Grav Tank (on the website) 
and the Cockroach APC (mysteriously absent 
from the website) which are very cool (although 
a little construction intensive sometimes 
depending on how careful the pour was). 
Always a pleasure to deal with. 

3) KR is (and I can attest to this) a very nice 
fellow too. And he even likes passable beer, 
which I consider a minor miracle in an 
American. <Why does Canada export Blue Light 
to the USA? For them, it's a strong beer with 
some taste. For us, its a water-substitute. 
*grin*>. His turn around times are good, and 
MOST IMPORTANTLY he goes out of his way to 
provide excellent support for GZG ECC (and I 
suspect WCC). I can't understate the _VALUE_ 
of this contribution to the hobby. Jon does this 
in England, but having KR do it for us here in 
North America is very important. ECC continues 
to grow (thanks to the tireless efforts of Jon 
Davis, Mark Kochte, Jerry Han and a few others -
 including the infamous Weyland-Yutani 
Negotiatior Mr. Calivari) and KR's support of 
this event is a pretty key cornerstone. 
Additionally, Geohex is pretty great stuff.... I've 
finally broke down and bought a 100 pc set, 
and other than the "how the heck do I 
transport 3 chests full of styrofoam in a 
Mustang?" question, I'm very pleased with it. I 
can make my own terrain, but the interlocking 
build-your-own system is very handy (just don't 
take it out of your home too often!). I enjoy 
saying Hi to KR at ECC and going out for beer 
with him and he helped me out prior to the big 
Grey Day scenario a few years back by giving a 
"quicker than fast" AFV painting lesson 
(between my arrival on Friday and the Saturday 
start time!) which meant all the models on the 
table were painted! All in all, if the Canadian 
Dollar wasn't working on being a 2:1 trade for 
a US UberDollar, I'd be sending him a pile more 
business! When things calm down and the 
exchange rate (I hope) resumes something like 
sanity (say 0.75 US), I'll be ordering some 
more Geo-hex! Ordering from Jon and Nic is 
handy for getting some stuff KR doesn't have 
moulds for or tailoring your order a bit more 
(KR has blisters that aren't always as 
convenient), but it is a good idea to spread the 
money around as KR is a key part of the North 
American GZG movement!

4) I'd also like to add a brief plug for David D 
at DLD Productions. He and Lisa have 
combined to deliver some very very cool resin 
kits which demonstrate the complexity you can 
develop in a resin and the quality of casting and 
pre-delivery finish work that can be provided to 
a customer. I rank his casting as above the 
quality of anyone but Armorcast (whom I think 
of as the big kahuna of resin casting, but the 
DLD kits seem as well cast to be frank!). His kits 
require some more construction, but the detail 
level is quite amazing. They should appeal to 
the superdetailers (those who like to add 
touches to something to have it look just right - 
like extra weapons, kits, cam nets, etc) and 
therefore want an excellent basic kit. Also, the 
DLD kits do (with the exception of the recce 
track which I think should have armoured crew 
compartments) have a fairly plausible look to 
them and seem very well thought out from a 
design perspective (perhaps drawing more 
carefully from real world sources). And David's 
FT stuff is pretty cool too, though I have to find 
some money to order the space station and 
satellite stuff yet!

5) Lastly, I'd like to put in another brief plug for 
Ainsty and Brigade. They've also both been very 
good to mail order from and Tony at Brigade is 
just a damn nice guy too. (Hint: What separates 
us from the Games Orcshop crew? Partly the 
game mechanics, but largely the community 
and the core of the community is the kind of 
folks who produce and sell the models we use!). 

End of semi-commercial plugging. Just 
remember, any and all of these distributors of 
GZG or closely relatable products are worth 
doing business with, but it is usually a good 
idea to support the guys in your back yard as 
they end up being the ones supporting 
conventions and other such things! 

Thomas B. 
PS - Speaking of conventions, Ottawa hosts 
Cangames on the Victoria Day weekend and I'm 
thinking of running a GZG game there and it 
also hosts Autumn Assault on the second or 
third weekend in November, and I'll likely put on 
a GZG game there. Anyone in the area would be 
welcome at either and if you need some info, I 
can try to get it for you if you drop me a line. 

---------------------------------------------
Thomas Barclay
Co-Creator of http://www.stargrunt.ca 
Stargrunt II and Dirtside II game site
"In God We Trust... on Cold Steel We Depend."