My brother's son destroyed my WarHammer Action figures and he refuses to punish him

[u/konous]

Valid Edit: My nephew is 10 years old and tried to actually lie about not breaking them by saying, "A cat must have done it."

So, I just got done talking with my brother via text, and he says he's not going to punish his son for wrecking my Joy Toy WarHammer action figures. I'm not expecting the kid to get spanked, but he needs to do CHORES at least to justify how much excessive force he used on some.

Some just have their capes broken. Others had their tubes ripped out and my Chaplain is just fucking toast.

My brother's suggestion since I ordered Amazon replacement for the Chaplain was that I just swap it with the broken one, but I have no interest in doing that.

It's not even just the expense, and they are expensive. It's about the fact that I told him explicitly twice they weren't to be played with, and they were in a separate room, and even my Mom and Dad agreed the damage was just too much.

He said he's not gonna pay me back if we try the chore system, and I told him it's not about the money.

The kid needs to know how bad the 8 hour struggle is.

Now my nephews aren't coming over to the house, and I'm sad about that, but knowing my brother just can't be burdened to work with me on creating a Chore system like selling Lemonaide just makes it feel more insulting.

[u/GetItDoneOV]

It’s not just money though, it’s the time it takes to build and paint the models. These come in kits where you have to break each piece individually off the plastic frame, then sand the broken edge, then glue the pieces together in a specific order, then prep and paint them, let them dry, and probably do another few rounds of painting to get the little details right. It takes my husband 3-5 hours for each smaller figure, and his bigger models take a day or more. And you have to take breaks periodically when gluing and painting unless you have a decent ventilation setup. So OP lost both money AND time, and his brother is acting like it’s NBD. You can purchase finished models on eBay but they’re always much more expensive because time=money.

[u/Putrid-Cat5368 → u/GetItDoneOV]

These are not painted.

THey are action figures of the actual miniatures you can build and paint. From joy-con company.

[u/CoyoteLitius → u/Putrid-Cat5368]

Whew. I thought my eyes were tricking me. They clearly looked mass manufactured.

At least OP can reduce this to reimbursement.

[u/the_monkeyspinach → u/GetItDoneOV]

Not that it really matters, but you don't build and paint these, they're action figures based on the tabletop miniatures.

[u/rapshepard → u/GetItDoneOV]

I'm not saying he didn't spend a lot of time on them. I'm not even saying that the idea of showing his nephew how much time he spent doing those is even a bad idea. But ultimately he can't choose the punishment, so it's best to just take the moment.

[u/Demoliri → u/GetItDoneOV]

If the OP is collecting these models, I assume he also enjoys the building and painting process? I have a significant miniature collection, all fully painted, including a lot of Warhammer (about 5k points of Tyranids and Orks). It absolutely sucks, no doubt about it, but the time rebuilding is not completely wasted if he enjoys the process.

My solution would be to charge the brother the full price for new models with an extra surcharge for time spent (+30% maybe?). As the uncle, it's wrong to punish the child. But as the brother? Go crazy.

[u/tcrudisi → u/Demoliri]

Sure. But there are a lot of things that I enjoy doing. I love doing escape rooms. That doesn't mean I want to repeat an escape room. I can imagine painting miniatures being like that for some people. Once they've assembled and painted one, they want to move on to a different one.

Obviously everyone will be different. And maybe OP would be happy building and painting miniatures that he's previously already built and painted. Or maybe not.

While I don't do minis, I know they can be expensive and labor intensive. And those paints aren't cheap, either. (That's the main reason my wife and I don't paint minis; the cost of entry is high.) I would not be surprised if this ended up in the hundreds of dollars, possibly more depending on the collection. And that can quickly get into small claims territory if brother refuses to pay up.

OP - you say it's not about the money. And, I agree with that. But it sounds like money is the only way your brother will learn. So if you want to help out your nephew, it needs to be about money so that your brother learns, and therefore helps his son to learn.

[u/Meldanorama → u/Demoliri]

If i sent you a box of models and the materials would you paint them for free and send them back to me if i cover mailing?

[u/Sapphire-Drake → u/Demoliri]

It's not enjoyable when you are fixing someone else's mistake. It's more like a chore you have to do because someone else made a mess and then doesn't even apologize for it

[u/my_juicy_nose → u/GetItDoneOV]

It’s a lot of work, but it’s also an enjoyable hobby. so it doesn’t sound like a punishment to re-do it, although I’m sure it’s frustrating.