As an avid Chaos Dwarf collector I
am of course a member of the Chaos Dwarf Online forum (CDO). http://www.chaos-dwarfs.com/
Back in 2011 a new member from Russia joined CDO called Zonk and he stunned us with his big hat Chaos Dwarf sculpts. And besides sculpting he was also castings his sculpts in resin and offering them for sale for a good price! Our big hat fan members were overjoyed, the original GW big hats were selling for ridiculous prices on Ebay, so here they had an affordable alternative! And even better he was sculpting others models as per CDO member demand.
In no time he had a collection
available of many axe wielding Chaos Dwarfs, Blunderbusses, Characters,
Bullcentaurs and even an (not so good) Asscannon with crew! He was sculpting at
an amazing speed and he really showed some talent.
This thread on CDO shows off his
sculpts:
I was one of the first members to
place an order even though I don’t collect Big Hats, I always try to support
new ventures related to Chaos Dwarfs especially since I myself once ran a small
sculpting and casting operation (anyone remember Twisted Tales?). I ordered a command group and some ten other
field troops or so. I received my order rather quickly, so I was as happy as
could be.
I then received a Personal Message
from Zonk asking me to leave some positive feedback on the CDO forum with
regard to the sale, which I happily did. But it didn’t take long before some
disconcerting posts started showing up on the forum. Other members who had also
placed orders, hadn’t received anything even though they paid. Zonk was still
replying to these members and presented several excuses for why he was behind
in delivering: his cat caught a cold, the post office was hit by a meteorite,
the resin mines in Russia dried up, his house was invaded by mould eating
gnomes, you name it and he had had it happen to him. This went on for a bit
longer before he expectedly completely disappeared of the map. This all happened
in the period between his first post in November till around the start of April
the next year.
Then another Russian member joined
CDO and he explained to us what had just happened. Apparently Zonk had pulled
off a similar scam on many other forums and under many different names. He
joins a forum entices the members with his sculpts and affordable casts, does a
sale with a few key members to build up his reputation and then scams the rest
of the buyers out of their money.
Here is the original post from CDO:-----
“Congratulations, my dear foreign friends!
You were fooled by a legend.
Zonk or AsMus, or Konstantin Shirokov, or Frau Marta, or Zwerg Zecne, or ZZ, or Kostya Shi, or... He has so many names already.
He owned you.
The plan is simple enough:
he appears in a forum, makes an advertisment of his minis, proposing a good price and some bonus. Also he use to promise a whole lot of a new stuff coming soon, new heroes, new engines, scenery, etc.
At first, he sends the stuff properly, without any problems, especially paying attention to those, who is an olderman on the forum. Administrators, master-flooders, famous collectors.
They will make a good reputation for him and will protect him for a while.
At first, everything is just fine.
But after a couple of weeks, or even in a month, he stops sending the ware.
But continue to take money from the others, just ordinary and casual fans.
And when the question rises about the delay, he begins to blame post offices, transports, email, YOU!, everything but him. And he always promises to solve all the problems, to find out why the problem did happen. But not now, in a few days as usual. Because he is very busy at the moment, and delivery problems are none of his concern.
When a decieved client starts to shout in a thread about the deception, he is usually banned by the "first wave".
As the time pass, more people start to complain, and our dear sculptor goes out.
No minis, no money.
Wait... Sometimes, he can return in a month or so, and tell a fascinating story about a force-major he got lately. He pays some of his debts, for the ones, who shouted the most loud, and tries to repeat the story.
In Russia, he decieved a whole lot of people, using this scheme.
Though, now he is well known by the russian community and is banned on the most popular forums dedicated to wargames and minis.
Now I see he is trying to make some easy money abroad.
Look at that, friends, 40 pages!
All about Him! But in Russian. The most popular forum.
http://forums.warforge.ru/index.php?show...1%EC%F3%F1
Don't try to deal with him, do not listen to him.
He decieved so many people, I'm really sorry about those, who is still waiting for his dwarfs.”
You were fooled by a legend.
Zonk or AsMus, or Konstantin Shirokov, or Frau Marta, or Zwerg Zecne, or ZZ, or Kostya Shi, or... He has so many names already.
He owned you.
The plan is simple enough:
he appears in a forum, makes an advertisment of his minis, proposing a good price and some bonus. Also he use to promise a whole lot of a new stuff coming soon, new heroes, new engines, scenery, etc.
At first, he sends the stuff properly, without any problems, especially paying attention to those, who is an olderman on the forum. Administrators, master-flooders, famous collectors.
They will make a good reputation for him and will protect him for a while.
At first, everything is just fine.
But after a couple of weeks, or even in a month, he stops sending the ware.
But continue to take money from the others, just ordinary and casual fans.
And when the question rises about the delay, he begins to blame post offices, transports, email, YOU!, everything but him. And he always promises to solve all the problems, to find out why the problem did happen. But not now, in a few days as usual. Because he is very busy at the moment, and delivery problems are none of his concern.
When a decieved client starts to shout in a thread about the deception, he is usually banned by the "first wave".
As the time pass, more people start to complain, and our dear sculptor goes out.
No minis, no money.
Wait... Sometimes, he can return in a month or so, and tell a fascinating story about a force-major he got lately. He pays some of his debts, for the ones, who shouted the most loud, and tries to repeat the story.
In Russia, he decieved a whole lot of people, using this scheme.
Though, now he is well known by the russian community and is banned on the most popular forums dedicated to wargames and minis.
Now I see he is trying to make some easy money abroad.
Look at that, friends, 40 pages!
All about Him! But in Russian. The most popular forum.
http://forums.warforge.ru/index.php?show...1%EC%F3%F1
Don't try to deal with him, do not listen to him.
He decieved so many people, I'm really sorry about those, who is still waiting for his dwarfs.”
----
Now fast forward to 2017, the
members of CDO, being closely related to dwarfs, know how to hold a grudge.
Zonk’s name is up there with our non evil brethern and elfs, he has been noted
down in Hashut’s big book of grudges. Talk of revenge started ensuing and
it was opted to collect some of the miniatures Zonk had actually delivered on
and to recast them. I followed this discussion with interest but suddenly it
went offline, so I gave it no further thought. I guessed it was just a storm in
a glass of water, as we say in the Netherlands. This was until I recently saw a
post on the oldhammer forum, this post was of a member asking where he could
buy some of these metal big hat miniatures and he had a picture. Lo and behold
recasts of the Zonk miniatures had been made.
I’m quite sure some members of COD
are behind this but I don’t know who, they keep it very low profile and only
sell word to mouth. The models are labelled: karma is a b!tch J I personally fully
support this type of action, I know many people have strong feelings against
recasting but in this case I can fully understand.
Via via I managed to get some of
these miniatures and they are fun, a real nice tribute to the original Perry
Big Hats. I still don’t understand why Zonk pulled of the type of stunt he did.
He could have made a lot more money by just selling his miniatures, he had a
great selection available and plenty of interest was shown. I guess he just
liked to scam people :?
If anyone is interested in the Zonk
casts I suggest they just put a post in the CDO forum and you will be contacted
by a cloaked Chaos Dwarf and a meeting in a shady ally will be set up (that’s
how I got mine).
Update, started painting one of them:
Update, started painting one of them:
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