I believe that Nightmare Armor has pleased a lot of customers. Their product looks great. However, my personal experience with Nightmare was negative, so I'm not able to recommend them. (I'm not going to say it was a "nightmare," because it really wasn't that dramatic. It was just one of those "Oh, well. I guess I got screwed" kind of things.)
It happened a long time ago, before I was member of the RPF, before I knew who Nightmare Armor was. I no longer have the e-mail from the transaction. The fact that I no longer have "proof" or "evidence" in the form of correspondence is why I did not go into concrete detail in my initial post. However, as TMP has pointed out, it could be unfair to refer vaguely to a "bad experience" and say "I can't recommend them" without giving any explanation, so I'll provide more detail here.
First, though, I'd like to say that I don't intend this to be a NAS-bashing post, and I'm a little hesitant to post the information that TMP has requested because I'm afraid it may pull the thread off-topic. As I wrote at the outset, I'm sure that Nightmare Armor has pleased many customers, even though I'm not one of them.
My experience was limited to a mask and helmet; I have no experience with their body armor.
Here is my experience in a nutshell:
(1) Saw a Jin-Roh mask/helmet on eBay. The helmet looked very nice, eyes lighted with LEDs, helmet made of heavy resin. Text indicated the mask/helmet was 1:1 and would fit an adult head.
(2) I inquired whether the seller would ship to Japan. He replied that he would ship to Japan if I purchased using Buy It Now. To the best of my recollection the opening bid amount was somewhere in the mid-$200 range and the BiN price was in the $300 range. I'm afraid I don't recall the specific numbers and no longer have copies of the digital paperwork; that was two or three computers ago. In any case, my problem wasn't with the price, but rather with the way I was treated after making the purchase. The fact that I paid what seemed to me at the time a lot of money simply reinforced my feeling later that I hadn't been treated very squarely.
(3) I bought the mask/helmet using BiN and paid for shipping to Japan.
(4) Mask/helmet arrived. Nice sculpt and thick, heavy cast. Mask and helmet were much too small to fit me (I'm not a big guy, but I guess I have a fat head. My hat size is US 7.5. They did fit my wife, who is about 5'2"). This isn't really relevant to my complaint, as the mask was for display only. However, the photos in the auction had shown a helmet dressed with insignia, whereas the helmet I had been shipped was bare. Nowhere in the auction text did it state that the purchased helmet would differ from the photos. Also, when I switched on the LEDs, they worked for about five seconds (literally) before fading to black, never to illuminate again.
(5) I wrote to the seller to let him know that the helmet I received didn't match the one in the auction photos, and to ask whether there were decals missing. I also let him know the LEDs had burned out right after i switched them on for the first time, and asked his advice about what the problem might be and how I could fix it. (I remember asking whether the batteries might have died and how to go about replacing them.)
(6) Nightmare's response stands out in my mind as very defensive. His chief concern seemed to be to establish that there was no warranty on the lights and that he was not responsible for their failure. I was surprised by his defensive posture, since nowhere in my message had I suggested that he was responsible or that I was looking for any kind of compensation. I had simply asked for his advice.
(7) He did tell me that there were some decals that would send me so that I could make my helmet match the one in the photos. I thanked him and let him know that I wanted those decals very much. I then followed up with him several times (I'm guessing I wrote five or six times over the course of four months or so) in order to remind him about the decals. He responded to the first couple of messages to say that he was busy but would send them; eventually, though, he stopped responding to my messages, and I never did get the decals.
So that's it. Nothing too dramatic. I do like the mask and helmet sculpt. But for me, honesty, clear communication, and following through on promises are basic to a good business relationship. Although I may be the exception, I felt that he misrepresented his product (with photos that did not match the actual item) and that, once he had my money, he was eager to give me the brush.
That's why I personally wouldn't transact with him again and can't recommend him.
If others have had positive transactions with Nightmare Armor, perhaps they should post here to balance the picture. And if anyone can recommend any other sources for Jin-Roh armor, please share them here. The main point of this thread is to help howlingwind13 get suited up. :thumbsup
