I've had the same problem with a Red Barricade Map. I never considered it a flaw, just the nature of paper maps. That said, you have every right to talk to HoB about the problem and see what they decide to do to fix it.
The History with HoB is one of good products and good service. Anyone can have some issues with the printer. If you feel you've been burned, then you can certianly vote with your wallet.
Actually, the history of HOB is one of products that range from excellent (Onslaught to Orsha) to bad (Firefights), customer service that is often substandard (it is routine for people not even to be able to get in contact with HOB in the first place), and quality control that has grown increasingly problematic.
It is definitely true that "anyone can have some issues with the printer." However, not just anyone will pass on defective products received by their printer to the consumer. However, HOB does that, hoping that there will not be enough of an outcry to force them to reprint. The outcry was too much for the captured vehicle countersheet, but they were able to skate by on the SS reprint. It will be interesting to see how it comes out on this map issue.
The ironic thing is that, even if HOB has to eat the cost itself of reprinting a map, it is better to do that and release a game with a good map and a higher price than it is to release the game with a substandard component and have to reprint it and re-release that component later. In the former situation, the ASL community will be forgiving enough to put up with the higher price; in the latter situation, many people will justly be upset that the product they purchased had a component not up to snuff. You'd have thought HOB would have learned that lesson by now.
IMO, many ASL players are a PITA. We demand an incredible amount from those that print these things. I didn't need the replacement counters - I would have played with them "backwards". (But of course, I accepted the replacement). And while I don't have my copy yet, the map paper is no big deal to me. I'll laminate it as soon as I get it.
The guys at HoB do a good job. The most difficult part of producing ASL is creating interesting, balanced scenarios and situations. HoB, MMP, Schwerepunkt, and others are good at this. Very good.
Cut them some slack. Jeeze.
You may have been fine with the defective countersheet but plenty of other people were not. I don't think you should attempt to impose your own lax standards on those of others.
The map paper may be "no big deal" to you, but it is to me. It is so thin (thinner than the rules pages that came with the product) that I came very close to ripping it at a seam while trying to unfold it for the first time! It will not be able to take wear and tear, and I won't be able to travel with it. And making matters worse, it is a huge map that for some unaccountable reason was not cut into two mapsheets, which makes it all the heavier and more unwieldy. The delicate map paper means you can't fold the map to have just a portion of it in display, but the map unfolded is too large for most gaming tables. However, only one scenario uses the entire map, which creates a real usability/playability problem. Players will have to cut the map into two sections and laminate them, in all likelihood.
(note I am responding below to different person than above)
For what it's worth - I think that the countersheet issue in RBF#4 was handled with class by HOB. I got a replacement sheet at minimal cost and in a very reasonable timeframe. These things happen from time to time, despite the best efforts of folks. The crux is how the company remedies the situation - and HOB did a grand job IMHO.
I don't give a monkeys bum if the map is thin. I play under Plex and store my HASL maps flat.
I do NOT think that the RBF#4 countersheet was "handled with class." A classy way to handle it would be not to send out a defective countersheet in the first place! It is not as if they did not know it was defective when they sent it out and only later did someone discover it. They knowingly sent out a substandard component.
HOB did far from a "grand job." A good job would have been to have delayed the product's release until acceptable countersheets were available.
For a long, long time, Heat of Battle has been the teflon TPP. They have benefited for a very long time from being the "non-CH guys." People have been more than willing to cut them slack time after time, in circumstances in which they were not willing to cut other people slack.
Isn't it time that people tried to take an objective look at HOB's quality control? If HOB doesn't get that sort of feedback, they have no impetus to change.
Just look at this product. Parts of the scenario cards are, seemingly randomly, printed in a different colored ink. Every single scenario card has typos in it--every apostrophe, quotation mark, or other special character has been replaced by a WRONG special character. The word Maleme is misspelled on the packaging material itself! The front cover of the packaging material also contains a typo. When you are not even bothering to proofread the cover of your product, what does that say about quality control? It's not as if this is an aberration, either--the SS reprint was also not proofread at all, with the result that even scenario titles were misspelled (and that was a REPRINT).
I think that HOB deserves full credit for trying to do interesting products on diverse topics. When they do things right, the result is great. They have a lot of good products in their publishing record.
However, in the past few years, HOB has been falling behind on two key issues:
1) Quality control. HOB does not do adequate proofreading and editing of its own products. And when printers screw up, HOB prefers to release products with screwed up components rather than wait and get suitable components instead. This just plain needs to change. It is better to release product at a delayed time and with a higher price than to release it with a defective component in the first place. It is not as if ASLers are not unused to either waiting or high prices.
2) Customer Service. HOB needs to be more responsive on customer service. I am tired of the frustrated people on Consimworld, for example, who can't even get hold of HOB to get them to deal with a customer service issue because HOB doesn't even have a working e-mail address! Steve Dethlefsen needs to step up to the plate and commit himself to improve on the communications issue.
I say this not to bash HOB, but in an effort to be constructive and to see some improvement in the future. HOB's teflon can't last forever; it took a big hit with the RbF countersheet and is likely to take another hit with the Crete map. I know it is not easy to be a TPP like HOB, which is a tiny operation with the ambition to do high quality maps, counters, and other components. There are all sorts of things that can go wrong, but HOB is too small to have tons of leverage with printers. But there are right ways and wrong ways to handle situations like that, and HOB hasn't always chosen the best way (sometimes they have done it right, I need to point out, as with Beyond the Beachhead and its printing issues). And there are some things, such as proofreading and editing, which are entirely within their control--"Samurai" should never be misspelled again.
I am above everything else an ASL consumer, and I want justifiably to be able to salivate over announcements about forthcoming HOB products, rather than to be anxious that there might be something wrong with the release.
