KING & COUNTRY Dispatches -- May 2021 (2 Viewers)

[Poppo]

Gentle Friends,

It seems some of you enjoy keeping the moderators busy. This thread is intended to present K&C's list of currently new releases and, while it if fair game to evaluate the new figures, it is not fair game to throw insults back and forth. Doubtless, if insulting personal interaction continues, it will become necessary to lock the thread. I suggest everyone calm down and remember we are engaged in a meaningful hobby that is intended to bring fun, relaxation, and relief into our lives.

Please continue enjoying the thread while demonstrating respect for individual differences, differing opinions, and individual values.

Warmest personal regards,

Pat

Gentle Pat,


this site is yours and therefore you can delete the posts you want, but please, do not say that there have been insults because it is not true: in fact both Walshingam and Barkmann have made technical, historical and detailed criticisms, perhaps sometimes adding a personal opinion , but also this motivated and real.

The truth is that this time the critics have been very credible and the "usual suspects" have not found any valid argument to sink the enemy (which they did easily compact against me 10 years ago, but seems that the times have changed); so you had to step in to stop the critics. You and the other moderators are not at all objective for the simple fact that you are salesmen, therefore partisans.Censify what you want, but you want to avoid having the attitude of the teacher towards the child who made mistakes towards people who are probably more competent than you Merchants.....



Warmest personal regards,


Poppo

 

[jazzeum]

Is it necessary to mock Pat? He’s not an employee of Treefrog; he volunteers his time, as do the other mods, to help keep the Forum running. You may not like his actions but he’s objective when he makes a moderation decision.

 

[King & Country]

Gentle Pat,


this site is yours and therefore you can delete the posts you want, but please, do not say that there have been insults because it is not true: in fact both Walshingam and Barkmann have made technical, historical and detailed criticisms, perhaps sometimes adding a personal opinion , but also this motivated and real.

The truth is that this time the critics have been very credible and the "usual suspects" have not found any valid argument to sink the enemy (which they did easily compact against me 10 years ago, but seems that the times have changed); so you had to step in to stop the critics. You and the other moderators are not at all objective for the simple fact that you are salesmen, therefore partisans.Censify what you want, but you want to avoid having the attitude of the teacher towards the child who made mistakes towards people who are probably more competent than you Merchants.....


Poppo,
Our good friend Pat and other moderators are just that... ‘moderators’...Not ‘salesmen’ as you so confidently claim and certainly not ‘partisan’ but fair and balanced and do a sometimes very difficult job extremely well...I know because when I’ve ‘run over the line’ I too have been ‘censified’ or quite possibly ‘censored’...as I think you meant to say.

’Criticism’ comes in all shapes and guises and I get to read all of it...Some of it is ‘informative and helpful’...Some is ‘spiteful and malicious’...and some is ‘look how clever I am’.

Answering each and every critic, every time on every point would take many hours and occupy a large chunk of my working day and so I do pick and choose who I will reply to in addition to taking a fair amount of time to correspond both publicly (here) and privately through emails with K&C collectors all over the world who genuinely appreciate all the hard work and effort that goes into our work and releases every single month of the year, year after year.

Although some of our more voluble critics might disagree...King & Country continues to be one the most creative and diverse toy soldier brands in this very vibrant but relatively small market.

If you also take a look at this Forum itself the King & Country section is still the most ‘viewed’ and ‘posted on’ than any other with, generally speaking, very positive comments from the vast majority of participants. Very often our section has more viewers than all the others combined...I can’t believe all those people are viewing just to see how many ‘mistakes and errors’ we might have made!

However no matter how popular any one person or any particular company is there are always people out there who don’t like you or for whatever reason want to bring your company down...C’est la vie, c’est la Guerre!

That’s life, that’s war! Even in the wonderful world of Toy Soldiers.
All the best,
Andy.

 

[DMNamiot]

Hi Gents

Take a long look at what Andy just posted. It speaks volumes to what goes on here everyday. I realize that sometimes it appears that we are too aggressive in our editing but there are many factors that go into why some post may get cut and others just edited. We don’t do this in a vacuum and the mods regularly discuss what we are doing and why we are doing it. But again I refer to Andy’s post and must point out the obvious we get a lot of posts daily that we go through to ensure this site remains civil and some decorum is maintained. I hope you all can understand this notion and enjoy having a place to share our hobby.

Dave

 

[Barkmann]

As one of the people 'moderated', I think Pat was fair, as the moderators have always been in my opinion. I was going to just leave it, but as my name was bought up in an after moderation posting I want to answer the post.

The whole sub-element to the thread has been purged, which I was a tiny winny bit disappointed with, as the original post asking the questions and comments was not in any way against the forum's terms and conditions, so should have left in situ. It was some of the follow up posts that were against the rules!

The original post with the questions and comments was not off topic or rude, but neither were the questions answered or the comments substantively disproved and shown to be false. Can I ascertain from this there are errors in the new releases and they are being released knowing they are historically inaccurate? The lack of answers and my knowledge, backs up my feelings that Walsingham is correct.

Andy in his last post on this thread, after it was moderated, said he did not enough time to answer all critics, but has spent more time on this thread deflecting and counterpunching than he would have in simply addressing the questions and comments. Putting the false comments to bed and answering the questions.

I agree with Andy in his last post,
’Criticism’ comes in all shapes and guises and I get to read all of it...Some of it is ‘informative and helpful’...Some is ‘spiteful and malicious’...and some is ‘look how clever I am’.

I am wondering what guise he sees the criticism in? But whatever guise criticism it comes in, it can still be right. Reaction to any criticism is more important than the actual criticism and it appears in many different shapes and sizes, including,

Head on and produce the evidence to counter and show the critics to be wrong...

Take on board, respond and act to change things or own up, if the critics are correct...

Deflect and counter criticise, attacking the critics, not the issues, and just hope to muddy the waters by claiming they just want to just look clever or are spiteful and malicious……..

Just ignore it, because

A/. You are so so clever, you know way more than everyone else and go ahead regardless knowing what you are doing is wrong...
or
B/. You just don’t care what anyone thinks, right or wrong, people will buy it or believe it anyway….

 

[King & Country]

Hi Gents

Take a long look at what Andy just posted. It speaks volumes to what goes on here everyday. I realize that sometimes it appears that we are too aggressive in our editing but there are many factors that go into why some post may get cut and others just edited. We don’t do this in a vacuum and the mods regularly discuss what we are doing and why we are doing it. But again I refer to Andy’s post and must point out the obvious we get a lot of posts daily that we go through to ensure this site remains civil and some decorum is maintained. I hope you all can understand this notion and enjoy having a place to share our hobby.

Dave

Thankyou Dave, I don't envy your job but I truly appreciate your fair-mindedness.
Keep up the good work and best wishes,
Andy.

 

[Rusty]

As one of the people 'moderated', I think Pat was fair, as the moderators have always been in my opinion. I was going to just leave it, but as my name was bought up in an after moderation posting I want to answer the post.

The whole sub-element to the thread has been purged, which I was a tiny winny bit disappointed with, as the original post asking the questions and comments was not in any way against the forum's terms and conditions, so should have left in situ. It was some of the follow up posts that were against the rules!

The original post with the questions and comments was not off topic or rude, but neither were the questions answered or the comments substantively disproved and shown to be false. Can I ascertain from this there are errors in the new releases and they are being released knowing they are historically inaccurate? The lack of answers and my knowledge, backs up my feelings that Walsingham is correct.

Andy in his last post on this thread, after it was moderated, said he did not enough time to answer all critics, but has spent more time on this thread deflecting and counterpunching than he would have in simply addressing the questions and comments. Putting the false comments to bed and answering the questions.

I agree with Andy in his last post,
’Criticism’ comes in all shapes and guises and I get to read all of it...Some of it is ‘informative and helpful’...Some is ‘spiteful and malicious’...and some is ‘look how clever I am’.

I am wondering what guise he sees the criticism in? But whatever guise criticism it comes in, it can still be right. Reaction to any criticism is more important than the actual criticism and it appears in many different shapes and sizes, including,

Head on and produce the evidence to counter and show the critics to be wrong...

Take on board, respond and act to change things or own up, if the critics are correct...

Deflect and counter criticise, attacking the critics, not the issues, and just hope to muddy the waters by claiming they just want to just look clever or are spiteful and malicious……..

Just ignore it, because

A/. You are so so clever, you know way more than everyone else and go ahead regardless knowing what you are doing is wrong...
or
B/. You just don’t care what anyone thinks, right or wrong, people will buy it or believe it anyway….

Mate! Enough already. Can you just give it up and show some respect.

 

[King & Country]

Mate! Enough already. Can you just give it up and show some respect.

Many thanks Russ.
All the best,
Andy.

 

[The Military Workshop]

backs up my feelings that Walsingham is correct.

We’ve already had deflection and counter criticism, which worked as the thread and the original post has been taken down, it has gone away, which is only a win for one person, Andy. This is the short term, be interesting to see what the reaction is when they are released?

Seems you don't want to give up. It is hard to respond to you without referring to the nature of some of the deletions.

You probably saw my post that was deleted. Walsingham may be correct in some of his criticisms. However no producer could satisfy his high standards. K&C has produced more Normandy / D Day vehicles, landing craft and figures than all the other brands combined. Experts like Walsingham go on about this item or that can't be placed next to such and such but on the other hand he has no problem suggesting very specific tank crews be done. It is not hard to imagine that if such a tank was produced and Andy photographed it opposing the wrong German armour then that would be subject to criticism in regard to factual errors. The possibilities are endless for such criticsm.

An easy solution for Andy to prevent this kind of expert analysis is for him not to include unit markings on vehicles or figures. However in my humble experience as a dealer of 20 years most prefer to have unit markings. The level of accuracy between combined item markings that a collector like Walsigham thinks is necessary is simply a non issue for most. They are happy to have infantry coming off a landing craft but are not going into the detail of whether that unit actually came off that type of landing craft or even that specific numbered craft. I referenced this aspect in the On The Beach thread which is very noticeable for the fact Walsingham has never responded.

A good example of how this type of analysis can work. Look at the K&C Roman Emperor releases. K&C produced several Emperors / Generals and gave them names. The time span is such that only a few could have been together at the same time. The archway is a famous arch named after Vespasian, built after most had died. Lucky for K&C nobody went all historical accuracy on him when he did the promo shots with them in same scene. Rusty has put up a few good dios with various combinations. If he lived by Walsinghams rules then could not call them accurate displays. So should he not display them together ? It all gets a bit silly and that's where I think some of Walsinghams comments take accuracy requirements too far.

I think Walsingham should be happy the posts were deleted. My deleted post clearly showed his inconsistency in basically praising the Scots Greys (2 posts not deleted) and then in a deleted post complaining about repaints and suggesting Andy was claiming they were new releases. This was basically unwarranted criticism as Andy clearly states they are reissues. I am not sure what the motivation was for the comments but they were not backed up by his own posts.

Hopefully the mods won't delete this post as gives a different perspective to the nature of the accuracy debate that has been going on.

 

[Horus]

I think some of what's been said on this thread stems from this pandemic that we are all going through, with people being cooped up at home without normal interaction, fears about their and their loved ones health, stress of work whether that's being overloaded as many health workers are, or stress of not knowing if their still going to have a job at the end of it. It's been a tough time for a myriad of other reasons too.

But posters should try to think if they would say such things to the person(s) face to face. If not then they should phrase their words more carefully.

Yobbish behaviour in throwing out personal attacks and insults are not helpful and results in threads being censored and shut down and could eventually lead to the forum being closed by the owner of Treefrog Treasures and who could blame her with such continued bad manners and that would be a very great shame for the vast majority.

Steve

 

[King & Country]

I think some of what's been said on this thread stems from this pandemic that we are all going through, with people being cooped up at home without normal interaction, fears about their and their loved ones health, stress of work whether that's being overloaded as many health workers are, or stress of not knowing if their still going to have a job at the end of it. It's been a tough time for a myriad of other reasons too.

But posters should try to think if they would say such things to the person(s) face to face. If not then they should phrase their words more carefully.

Yobbish behaviour in throwing out personal attacks and insults are not helpful and results in threads being censored and shut down and could eventually lead to the forum being closed by the owner of Treefrog Treasures and who could blame her with such continued bad manners and that would be a very great shame for the vast majority.

Steve

WELL SAID STEVE.
All the best,
Andy.

 

[Guest]

British Sherman Firefly - slightly removed from the family decussion going on, but i thought it was interesting what i found on the Firefly. I said there were no brackets on the turret to hang spare track from, which is true, but found out that crews welded them onto the turret, but this was later in the war when the fight entered Belgium and Holland, then Germany. As they were entering more built up areas and panzerfausts in many places were often fired down on them from buildings. British Shermans tended not to use Shermans tracks, but any tracks that were available and i have found some pictures of Shermans with Churchill tank tracks, Panzer IV tracks and even some with Tiger and Panther tracks welded to the tank. Speculation from researchers think this is because there was probably more disgarded enemy tank tracks around to use, welding them on if you used Sherman track meant they were useless as spares anymore and if they were on brackets some bugger would nick them to use on there own tank to repair or as their own armour.

 

[Guest]

Hello Chaps

Read quickly won’t be up for long.

I went to bed last night and thought so had this thread.

We seem to be developing 2 camps here and it has gone beyond what the original post was about. I do not think it is about my post anymore.

My reasoning behind the original unanswered post.
I opened the ‘On the beach’ thread and my first reaction, a surprised happy shock, we were getting some more British WW2, a rare thing in our hobby. After looking at them I began to notice errors and inconsistencies, but they are nice figures, the Firefly is a welcome edition and the LCs, I have 4 so will be unlikely I need more, but it will give people an opportunity to get a newer version, fair play.

One final dig, the figures and Firefly and LCs are simply wrong, but a few contributors don’t let facts get in their way. Someone had a go at Barkman about respect, which is earned, well if these are released with errors, then it shows the respect there is for collectors.

Positive note - Andy, Kirsty is really good, helpful and great communicator, placed many orders and always efficient delivery.

Signing off from this thread and the whole forum. The forum is a credit to Treefrog and the moderators, will watch from afar as it is a great news outlet for future releases, but not a discussion place anymore, I want to discuss, but all I get in return is silence or the equivalent of someone standing in front of me and shouting, he is my friend.

 

[arnhem44mad]

Nail = Hit on head.

Scott

 

[thebritfarmer]

I have closed the thread and I am embarrassed that grownups have behaved like this on the forum.