January 23, 2012 by elromanozo
Video Sponsors: Dark Age - Battle Foam
Romain takes you through the steps required to fix up a Games Workshop Finecast model, using an Eldar Farseer.
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While I give all respect in the world to Romain, a part of me is pissed off that we need this at all. If GW was actually doing what we are paying them for, then vids like this should never be required.
All I can say is: just imagine how much work this model would be if it was still in metal. Or from Forge World (now there’s a company with shoddy product control).
In fact, I know how much work it was, cuz I have these things in metal.
Finecast is a godsend. I certainly like it much more than metal or other resins, incl. FW’s.
That doesn’t mean you should accept shoddy castings. If you get a model that is bad, take it back to the store. But that has always been my policy and I haven’t had to adhere to it more since Finecast.
Just my 2cts.
This particular example in metal would never have survived long enough to see the packing department, it would have been chucked back in the forge and done again, you can’t do that with resin, so GW send ’em out and most folk either accept it or never notice- even on the necron box art models the GW studio painters have actually highlighted some of the bubbles thinking they’re part of the sculpt, and the staffs are almost exclusively visibly bent…
Before finecast I’ve only had one maybe two crap figures from the countless bought from GW. The quality used to be there. Sure you still have to clean mold lines or a little flash but that is extra metal ,as apposed to a lack of, and expected. However, the idea that you have to re sculpt parts of your mini for it to just look normal is ridiculous to me. And the worst of it is I have friends who have no access to GW stores and have told me that their locals are starting to refuse to accept product returns. They are saying its a manufacturers defect and needs to be returned directly to the manufacturer because they are tired of dealing with so many returns. So the shoddy craftsmanship isn’t just affecting GW anymore it’s straining relations between customers and their locals as well. Driving a wedge into the community. All because GW wont just put a small warning label on their product saying resin dust can be harmful if you decide to snort a ton of it. That’s why it sucks because it’s not real resin. They say resin but it’s actually a resin/plastic mix that is so diluted that they don’t legally have to use a warning label. The result is unstable crap. Just to sell a few extra units. Greed is the culprit here. Usually is I’m afraid.
No.
Seriously, @lordrao, I can’t let you say that.
I KNOW exactly what it would be with metal. i’ve been working with metal for decades.
It doesn’t come close to the work I had to do to even approximately fix this “Finecast” figure… Part of the helmet and a bit of the cape is missing for Pete’s sake !
In this case you can’t choose a good model because this is a boxed set, not a blister. Furthermore, taking it to the store means you’ll just get another box with different problems.
As there are several minis in the box : Chances are you’ll get one with no significant bubble after the fourth of fifth exchange… Perhaps more, perhaps less.
I loathe that stuff. I really do. It’s just my duty to teach people how to fix it.
And yes… fixing it is doable. Everything is “doable”. Even if you have to resculpt teh whole thing, it’s doable. But what’s the point ?
There are SO many wonderful minis out there that are perfect compared to that failure…
I do hope it gets better.
BoW Romain
Hear Hear!
I don’t get your “if GW was actually doing what we are paying them for” comment. You aren’t paying GW to do anything. GW have made a product. If you like it you will buy it. if you don’t like it you shouldn’t.
What I meant is your paying for a product that works and looks right. If GW was dime store cheap and had stickers on their boxes saying “Here it is, good luck s#*t head!” Then I would agree that you get whatever they give. But at the prices they are asking for they are certainly charging for quality so I want it to actually be there. If you buy a Blu-Ray player and it has a bunch of holes in it or a section is warped I don’t know a single person who wouldn’t take it back. And get a apology to boot.
GW are paid, like everyone else, to do it right. Finecast that is defective is not Finecast as a product, it is a defective product and should not be accepted by anyone – it should be taken back. Almost all my Finecast is flawless ergo anything less is defective and should not be considered “real Finecast”. You have to separate Finecast that reaches the consumer in the manner it was intended from GW’s massive failure to engage in quality control. If you buy a bucket of KFC and find some of the chicken is clearly below standard, missing the skin for example, then you take it back – it would absurd for KFC to turn to you and go “you don’t have to buy our products” – same with GW.
It seems to be a British thing, to lay down and be willing to “fix” Finecast instead of kicking up a storm at GW in front of the rest of the customers. Learn to complain more like our European brothers.
I don’t know whats more shameful: that this video needs to exist at all, that GW didn’t make it themselves, or that it needs more than one 30 minute segment.
I did spend hours on a single mini.
BoW Romain
Looks like nobody likes finecast.
I Like finecast! 😛
Never had a problem bar a few tiny bubbles. Thanks for the vid anyway. will be handy if i ever do get a bad one.
“Let’s check wheither there are any instructions… No.. There’s just a little… Image”
I find finecast to flimsy…I went to pick up one of my Finecast Dark Eldar characters and the sword just snapped off!!!! thank god it was a clean break a spot of super glue and you wouldnt notice….but i hate how flimsy it is!!
Cryptek Staves are the worst. My Necron playing chum has just clipped them all off rather than have them snap when he tries to get them out of the foam.
The only alternative is to replace the staff with a brass rod, but you need to know what you’re up to with that.
Maybe I’ll make a video on it. 🙂
Try ‘painting’ the offending bits with thin superglue before you paint them. it makes the resin go more rigid.
It also ruins any detail.
Well, any remaining detail.
Finecast is brilliant. What I don’t like is that Gamesworkshop made it.
Over pricing, poor quality control. If you find bubbles take it straight back to the shop. You don’t pay that kind of money for a product with obvious defects. Liquid Green Stuff is perhaps one of the only under-priced things GW release, but don’t use it for Finecast – take it back to the shop. Under no circumstances should you let GW get away with selling shoddy quality miniatures. They want to be the premium brand – so treat them like it.
That’s what i tell my friends. I ALWAYS buy in store so i can see the product and check it while i am there. I also find the staff very helpful in the GW stores, any models i have found to be defective i have pointed it out and they have removed them from sale straight away.
@poosh,
Underpriced ? Liquid Green Stuff ?
Vallejo, Tamiya dna Humbrol have bene doing similar (and better) putties for decades. And they’re SO much more affordable !
Well I got it for barely more than a pound! And feel it was worth more of my cash…. Surely this means Vallejo, etc are even more underpriced? I wasn’t aware they did liquid putty of this sort, I looked around the internet before buying! Clearly I’ve not searched effectively.
Well I’d say not “they’re more under priced” but GW is actually overpriced compared to their market competitors. Going on RRP Liquid Greenstuff is £2.30 for 12ml (about 19p per ml) where as Vallejo Plastic Putty is (according to Maelstrom) £2 RRP for 17ml, just under 12p per ml. My rusty maths works that as being GW is 63% more expensive. Where I live I can find Vallejo Model Color (which the putty is a part of) more easily as it’s also stocked in regular mainstream model shops like Model Zone. This is why I love the internet and sites like BOW. If I was stuck with what the GW stores and White Dwarf tried to spoon feed me I wouldn’t know about Vallejo paints, Tamiya clear paints for effects and many other cool things =)
Had no idea Tamiya and Humbrol did one too. Might need to keep an eye out. Saying that, I think I’ve a few years worth of the Vallejo still to go 😉
I have yet to buy finecast models. From what I seen the thinner the part the more likely it will snap. Personally I just don’t like the light feel of the models now. I like heavy models for some reason.
For gaming I can see a lighter model being a good thing, stick a metal terminator, Gazghul or something similarly sized like a warjack etc on a lightly built terrain piece and you can see it sag, but the resin version of the same model will sit fine.
The feel of metal models is something I’ll miss though, I’ve noticed it since the plastic marine captain came out, and that light weight is really the only “advantage” us mugs forking out the cash see from finecast…
The detail of finecast is maybe 5-10% better than metal (ASSUMING you don’t get a bad finecast sculpt). I certainly appreciate the difference. 10% (or whatever it is) is probably not worth the price hike though.
I bought a Finecast shagoth and it was p*ss-easy to put together. Refreshing. However the single piece metal, older, models really don’t need the finecast treatment, it’s just an excuse to hike the price up (look at those new finecasted Metal necromancers… £9.50 each).
The price increase has little to nothing to do with finecast. GW ups their prices with inflation pretty much annually. They just made the stupid mistake of switching to finecast DURING one of these price hike periods.
You’re right the price hike wasn’t directly related to finecast. However one of the reasons GW usually trots out to justify their price increases is the increase in the cost of materials(the price of pewter went up considerably) But when you combine a way over inflation rise coupled with switching to a cheaper material how else are we to view it other than a price hike?
tek7297 you were tricked. I know GW trotted out this claim to try to fix the damage caused by the FC launch but none the less, there are various arguments, but if there was any doubt just look at the cost of the new release Finecast models (such as the Finecast Vamp Necromancers) and compare them with the cost of the original metal. PRICE HIKE BABY. And it’s Dec/Jan. The price hike is arbitrary and they select which products go up in price.
They upped the cost of Finecast items UNDER THE COVER of this general price hike. You’ll note normal metal figures were not upped at the same level at the same cost as Finecast which is evidence enough.
I don’t presume Finecast isn’t worth the cost. The cost of the machinery, worker salaries, and investment into Finecast could cost far more than the actual material itself. But they should be honest about it. I don’t believe for one second GW raise their prices according to inflation. That’s what they may claim but I’d wager they go up above inflation, they never drop the price when inflation is lowered.
It makes sense at first glance what you say, but when you look, in my view, at what GW actually did in that period and continue to do, when you track the prices of their items, it becomes clear that Finecast was released intentionally at a greater cost than Metal. Had they released Finecast in Jan or Dec you would be still paying more. And I think deep down we all know this to be true …. search your feelings.
try a metal base, or metal insert for base, to add back weight
Thinking about adding weight. I’m going to recast my minis in depleted uranium just to make them extra heavy.
You’ll get in trouble with the Geneva boys for using DU models 😛
Don’t accept inferior models from GW if you contact there customer services they will send you another miniature and let you keep the defective one. With my experience of fine cast you may be able to get a unit of models for the price of one due to the constant defects in the casting, finecast I think not!
I’ve had a few finecast miniatures now and some of the quite recently and I have to say they’ve all been pretty awful. Tons of flash and bits of venting, combine that with the bubbles and warping I’m often left wondering if it’s flash I’m about to hack off or misshapen detail. The ironic thing is all that those problems happen at areas of fine, concentrated detail – precisely what the damnable material was supposed to capture better in the first place. From my experience of Rubbercast/Failcast the material couldn’t have failed more spectacularly to deliver it’s supposed objective.
Half an hour video, removing mould lines and flashing. Not on to repairing bubbles and deformations yet… seems par for the course with Finecast!
When the first half(or even third…) of a video showing how to prepare a single model for assembly takes as long as it does to prepare assemble and possibly even base coat a small unit of other manufacturers resin models, somebody ain’t done their job right at the factory…
i think its bloody awful stuff. i too have this model in metal and that didn’t take me half as long to prepare as this first video is.
Hear hear.
Too be honest I am resorting to phoning/emailing indy retailers around the country and asking them if they still have the metal version of the characters I am looking for. I’ll take the metal model of any character over the finecast model. I went through a total of 6 boxes before I got a Casket of Souls that wasn’t miscast.
I don’t understand how anyone wasn’t fired over the Finecast failure. Almost all of my finecast is bloody brilliant, grisp and clear. Took me seconds to glue together. Outside the offensive price hike and the lying over how it was part of the normal “annual price hike”, it’s great. Whoever allowed a clear majority of their products to be released, defective, should get the sack. So many people have negative feelings over finecast because of this – most of it stems from no attempt at quality control in the launch period. Someone should have lost their job. The fact that every time you buy a finecast product you’re closely looking at every single inch and cranny of a single model in FEAR that there’s a bubble just goes to show how GW royally messed up. And such a shame, as the material itself is astounding. If only GW didn’t come up with it …
*on top of this some finecast models snap easily not because of the model in and of itself, but because of the bubbles within the material … another headache. And something you can’t visually pick up.
Thanks Romain for at least trying to tackle this issue head on. I have only bought one figure in finecast. I did try to correct its many flaws using filler and hot water. I remain unsatisfied with the result. It certainly at least to me seems utterly no improvement on the metal versions and has the addition of being more expensive. There is clearly no quality control not was there any real research done into the material as a replacement for metal prior to release and swift replacement in the shops of the metal versions. I also suspect the people who are saying it is great are either GW employees or so far into fanboi territory GW could sell them rats droppings and tell them its the new Tyranid creature and they would buy it in droves.
I solved my finecast problem anyway. GW lost a customer.
I am not a “fanboi” nor a GW employee. I simply like the finecast 🙂
i also like minins from other companies, Infinity and Privateer Press to name but a few.
I’m not a fanboi either. I collect to paint for pleasure. I rarely play the games though Beasts of War has pushed me into trying at some point. I have a host of finecast. The first Finecast I bought had 7 holes in it, the rest barely any any holes at all. I know what Finecast looks like when it’s “as it should be” and I know how it looks when it is released without quality control. Just as there are fanboys there are those who want to lash out at everything GW does without sitting down and looking at the multiple perspectives.
If PP released Finecast everyone would love it, I have no doubt. Because PP wouldn’t pull the sh*t GW pulled. They wouldn’t fudge the prices up unless they had to (and they’d tell us why) and they’d make sure only perfect sculpts were released.
In fact, PP have released resin figures. And they’re indeed way better than Finecast. Because they did exactly what you said they would do.
@poosh I wouldn’t say it’s limited to the launch period. I have some Finecast bought very recently and the material is riddled with bubbles, excessive flash and deformations. It was a Christmas gift so unfortunately I couldn’t return it. In contrast I also got some resin from Studio McVey and Kingdom Death. The difference is night and day, the Studio McVey in particular is exquisite. Like @crovax20 if I’m buying GW now I will hunt high and low to source a metal mini and would only buy Finecast as a last resort and I blame the material itself. Compared to any other resin mini I’ve handled it feels (and looks!) cheap and nasty =(
I see so many people complaining about Finecast pretty much everywhere. I have yet to get a poor cast to be completely honest with you. Sure they take a bit more time to clean up but that’s part of the hobby so you should prepared for it. Also, if you don’t like the product, instead of ranting about it, JUST DON’T F*CKING BUY IT! Seriously, SHOW the company that you are displeased with them through their income, not their message boards and forums. As a business, then their Income is their source of motivation, things will get fixed… imagine that -_-
Finecast has been hit and miss. Larger models work very well in Finecast and it was a good thing to help keep some of the older models going. I prefer gluing the light material finecast is made from to pinning metal on a large dragon. I would have thought that not using metal would save on costs, but apparently, it actually raises said cost.
There are various problems with GW finecast: the bubbles, bending, mid-level quality control, etc. Many of the cast lines with metal were rather easy to sort out, but finecast tends to crumble and requires more care.
Finecast also responds more than it should to the elements and as others have said, can be rather brittle. Compare this to resin produced by Privateer Press or Mantic and you’ll see how resin should be. More dense, durable, still light but not nearly as breakable.
I bought a few of the older models I liked in finecast and I don’t hate the product and if you get a good cast, like I was lucky to get with The Green Knight, the detail is quite good. In the end, unless it’s a “must have” GW model, I’ll stay away from finecast. Top end models should not come with so much trouble. Thanks for the scrape of a tutorial Romain!
Good to see this area being properly looked at but the vid was a bit long and tedious. I look forward to the other parts. Finecast is a mixed bag to me, I havesome gorgeous characters in Finecast that were great to paint but I’ve seen some rough casts too. I went looking for a Vlad mini when the Vampire nes broke but the two versions at my local store had badly cast right hands so I gave them a miss.
That’s the way to do it!!!!
I only bought my first piece of finecast the other day for use in the local GW painting comp. I was looking forward to getting my hands and brushes on it.
The first blister I picked out had such poor surface pitting it lookid like it had been sand blasted. After a few blisters i found one I liked and payed for it. The damn thing was miscast to high hell. I had to resculpt a shoulder and half the cloak myself and it took me hours to fill in the bubbles and gaps caused by the warping.
I have worked with a lot of resin from a lot of different companies and finecast is by far the worst I have come across.
Now don’t get me wrong I do like GW thier plastics, paints and fiction are some of the best around but they need to get thier act together with their resin production.
Please GW, rehire Mike McVey as your head of miniature production. At least he knows what he’s doing with resin.
Heres hoping it gets better.
You should have brought it back to the store and demanded they order another… or get a refund.
The problem is for the mail orderers then. Or very far away shops: how many boxes should a shop buy to guarantee not bubbled miniatures? UK, statistics craddle, please give us the number!
I will try to incorporate this idea of buisness. Hope the car industry doesn´t like it “client bubble testing” ;). You like it you buy it, you don´t…and survive, you don´t buy it. Simple.
I wonder if PP or Infinity was producing finecast as it is now there will be so much hate towards it? Don’t get me wrong finecast has its failing…some of them huge. I never see anyone moaning about the mould lines on the metal PP models – some of which are nasty, I know as I have the displeasure of trying to clean some of my warjacks up!
Not so long ago Darrel did a Heavy Gear review of some turrets, the metal parts on the model had awful mould lines on the missile pods – He didnt mention them in the video but makes a big fuss over air bubbles in finecast!
I’m not a GW fanboy by an means, I play many companies games and buy there models and in my opinion they all have there issues, pros and cons.
It doesn’t matter how much the model costs, you expect a good cast whether that be in finecast, metal or plastic. I think Finecast is unfiarly singled out as the worse offender…but I will say its alot easier to ‘fix’ than some of the metal models Iv’e seen.
Rant over 🙂
I think one of the reasons for the reaction is the GW marketing hype. They’re selling this as the next evolution in miniatures, a brave new dawn of high quality, fine detail but the reality is that couldn’t be further from the truth. The work up on the metal versions of fine cast miniatures I’ve had has been much easier to deal with and the resin I’ve had from any other company much better.
I will give praise where praise is due, GW have some nice sculpts and their plastics are great but, for me personally, Finecast is the worse quality I’ve had to deal with from any miniature company… well that’s not strictly true. I bought some Rifts miniatures many (many, many!) moons ago and the Glitterboy mini was probably the worst thing I’ve seen and the metal they cast it in was horrible but Finecast is close second.
Do other miniatures have flaws and imperfections? Yes, of course they do. Do other miniatures tout themselves as heralding a new age of excellence in miniature perfection but in reality have a far more imperfections than anything else on the market? Not that I’ve seen so far. I don’t think it’s blind GW bashing, it’s wholly justified GW bashing 😉
people are moaning about the pp plastic over on the pp forums. Normaly mold lines can be cleaned up easily and are a factor with metal, plastic and finecast.
Mis casts and excessive bubbles are a problem in particular when you charge heavily for a mini thats been out for years. GW over hyped and over charge for finecast. Ive seen some excellent minis in finecast so it should be ok but Ive also seen stuff that should never leave the foundry
I’ve spent far longer cleaning and putting together PP models, than Finecast. Which just goes to show how useless GW are at quality control. I don’t moan at the PP models though because I’m not a lazy muppet who isn’t prepared to put the effort in. Cleaning the mold lines of Finecast is easy as pie compared to PP resin-plastic or metal.
Finecast is outstanding for those lucky enough to get it as the product it was meant to be, someone made a series of stupid choices at GW and needs to be fired, but I’ll bet he is still there, ready to make the next terrible decision!
I think mold lines and flash get a pass because that’s a result of the manufacturing process. But bubbles and air pockets are a chemical problem stemming from an incorrect mixture. A problem that can be solved but is instead just ignored.
A moot point…
If anyone but GW was producing it, they would sink. No one would buy that !
GW can afford to push it because they have the money for publicity, because they have the captive fan-base (and they no longer selle metal, so if you want to keep playing you HAVE to buy finecast…), and a lot of their fan-base is either very young or very much unaware that there are other games and better minis out there.
If they didn’t have the shoulders for it, they wouldn’t have done it.
Oh yeah don’t get me wrong, the air bubbles are a pain in the backside – especially when its on some fine detail like hair or intricate armour. GW should indeed step up there quality control, for example I bought the new Izzy von Carstien model over the weekend and her entire left arm was missing from the sprue! Since it was mail order I had no control on what I was buying per say, but it was obvious it was missing as soon as I looked at the pack!
@elromanozo You make a valid point mate. For the most part I totally agree with you! Though to me it doesn’t matter who or how big the company is, you do expect a good product without bubbles or distorted excessive mould lines that ruin the detail of the mini.
It’s a strange situation really, for years GW was at the top of there game in quality control, but now for whatever reason there standard is slipping.
@spaderfish I know mould lines are part of the process, however some of the casts I had in over the years, especially from PP the cast each side of the line had slipped a few mils so left the mini distorted somewhat – Something GW metals I saw very little of!
Again it sounds like im defending GW, and I suppose I am as such, but if they can sort out some of the bubble issues, I think finecast resin is a great medium to work with.
I snorted my tea when he pulled a face and said “people insist on buying it”
looking forward to part 2
so i guess he really like this stuff then 😉
I remember when Finecast first came out down our local store. There were quite a few blisters on display and some models in store to be assembled by customers.
As a promotion it was quite laughable you could see daylight through all of the models.
That night I drew up a list of all the models that I thought I might want in the future in metal and started to buy them online from GW and on ebay. I have characters and elites for armies I havn’t even started yet.
I’ve got to say, I’m sad to hear it was probably a good idea
I must say i like the stuff, or maybe its more i dont like metal, i have bad memories of cutting my self on plenty of spiky mini’s. Resin as a medium is a bit hit and miss though, as it seems many companies have had some troubles from it, i have heard Fenblades can be a headache. I think an open mind is all thats needed, if something is not up to scratch take it back, i see no need to hold a grudge, but thats just me 🙂
People had “trouble” with resin back in 1991 when it was new.
GW was pretty much the only company NOT to do resin, before Failcast.
Now they do it, they would like you to think that it’s brand new and they’re the first ones to do it.
The truth is pretty much every miniature company out there except GW does better resin casting. And that includes a pal of mine who casts parts with silicon moulds in his back yard ! The kinks of this technology have been ironed ages ago, it’s cheaper and lighter than metal.
I don’t know what your experience with resin is, but trust me, Finecast doesn’t do it justice.
BoW Romain
Romain
Fixing Finecast ? and this is only part One, This could be to bigger task. I hope you will find some time to do some more painting articles.
That’s one big hornets nest and one big stick on this thread and how long has Finecast been out and still the same problems ?
Most of the impartial advice on here today has been to take the models back. At first maybe but now? months after the release and when youre paying top dollar for a figure. It shouldn’t happen.
Let’s face it any other product on the market would have been recalled
Well here we go again ……..another BoW video thats gets everybodies tails up about the great evil that is GW. Finecast has its failings and it is not cheap and you shoud definiitly not accept miscasts or bubbles……sent it back, get a new model or a refund, simples. I’m just wondering why Bow don’t make videos about how crap other models from other companies are (they could do a whole series of vid’s on mantic,crap is crap even if it is cheap, its still cheap crap). It just seems that these days to be one of the cool kids you need to slag off GW, well hi my name is Rex and I love GW without them there would be no hobby and I have been playin 40k, WFB, bloodbowl and others(not just GW games) for the last 12 years and have enjoyed every bit of it, yes I realised what I have just said so let the slagging begin………….
Mantic’s stuff is really much more a matter of opinion, yeah the dwarves nearly all have a seam on their back unless you clip the plugs off to get the join more flush or use putty, a lot of the models have areas that aren’t quite right because they “should” have an undercut which is impossible to do in a one piece plastic mini, so you might expect it to be cast in two pieces. Best example I can pull out here is the elf shields- in a perfect world all the shields would be a separate piece, but they’re cast onto the body since they cover up a large portion of what would be there anyway.
The reason Mantic get a pass on that is they’ve always been up front about it, the plan is you have 4-5 models in each kit made of multiple parts with better detail, and the back ranks are just easy to assemble best-they-can-do filler.
Finecast gets bashed much more readily because GW is “the evil corporation”, this is true, but there are many legitimate grievances, especially when everyone else effectively lowers the price on a switch from metal to resin, and then GW compound those grievances with a special kit you can buy to build finecast minis and liquid green stuff to fill the holes(which many people interpreted as them admitting the problems and washing their hands of them at the same time- even though they are still working at getting better quality), all the while extolling the virtues of the new products, with staff even going so far in some cases as to suggest finecast is the only non carcinogenic resin.
I understand completely, @rexuranus…
We mention GW products because they’re unavoidable… They’re the biggest, and they’re played by a lot of people… That, and we like them.
Not many companies do low quality like GW does, or as regularly, but we do mention it from time to time… those dreaded clix come to mind. I’ve certainly never abstained from saying I didn’t like a sculpt, whatever the brand, in comments or otherwise.
However, we’d rather simply ignore the company and leave them be, because these are most likely mistakes : For smaller companies, a bad review could mean one less company out there. They wouldn’t get a chance to improve, and the hobby would be poorer.
GW have a captive fan-base, and they are most certainly NOT amateurs. Finecast is NOT a mistake. They voluntarily sell us that thing, leaving us no choice to revert to metal, and even trying to peddle us their liquid green stuff to fix it.
I think that’s wrong. From them, at their prices, with policies such as theirs, low quality is almost inadmissible, and they are big enough that they can take criticism.
Perhaps if, like you, more people tried other games and were honest with what they like… GW would keep customers because their products would be cool and well made, like everyone else, not because of visibility and captive customers. But I digress.
Everyone at the studio (even me !) play or have played the GW games. I don’t think I’m mistaken in saying that it was GW games (such as Warhammer Quest and Warhammer 40k) that first inspired the Beasts of War venture.
Do not interpret the “flak” as a love-hate relationship with GW… Most people here love the games and pay the money when buying GW stuff. Indeed, I love some of their minis, and I’ve never hesitated to say so… I’ve bought quite a few. But we won’t be hypocritical when something is wrong and everyone plainly sees it.
It’s called criticism and… dare I say it ? Journalism. Why shouldn’t GW be held accountable for what they do ?
BoW Romain
@elromanozo
While I agree with mostly what you said there, what I don’t really agree with is overlooking the failings of smaller companies just because they are well…small and not the market leader. No matter what you buy, whether it be a penny sweet or a new car…in our case toy soildiers you should expect quality for your money!
GW have gotten sloppy in recient years, theres no denying that, I have had my fair share of pants finecast models, hell I have one right here coverd in greenstuff (a Ogre Gorger)…Does it annoy me that I paid £15.50 for this? Damn right it does!
However also on my desk I have I some plastic Deathripper Bonejacks. The plastic looks as cheap as a happy meal toy, massive flash and indents at the mould vents and very poor detailing thoughout – As I say the quality is of a cheap happy meal toy or a pound shop model kit. Not good.PP is probably the 2nd largest company out there in the tabletop gaming world…where is there flack? They can afford to take it just as much at GW!!
You say BoW criticize GW to hold them accountable to what they do. You call it Journalism too. What happened to fair journalism? If youre going to put one company on the pedistal they it should only be fair you point out the others. After all you guys aint the tabloids of the gaming world!
Finecast is abit of a bum at the moment, and it does seriously need looking at, especially the price we pay GW, but from experiances I have had, other companies should be called out to fix there issues too…no matter what the size!
Now watch me get down rated again 🙂
I haven’t had the PP deathjack in my hands, so I can’t tell if your comment is justified or not… I certainly can understand that the smoothness of the resin and the design of the ‘jack is not to everyone’s taste ! I know I don’t really like the chicken ‘jacks from Cryx.
However, I haven’t noticed any bubbles or any severe miscasts in the PP resin/plastic so far. Mould lines and flashing happen, but they’re usually all right… I do have a problem with the pegs on the larger models. Quite a pain to manage…
I’ll say this : their early sculpts are “meh”, and they do get sloppy with their latest models… and some of their early metal models have cracks, such as I have never seen anywhere else. It is however quite uncommon (contrary to Finecast’s failings, which are generalized) and, as with GW, they replace any defective model.
Once again, it’s all a question of visibility and scope… GW get flak because they’re more visible, and because they’re screwing up on a very large scale.
BoW Romain
I think you’re bringing a good point of view to discussion here by putting other companies “failures” on the spot light. But I have to say Romain is right here. Privateer Press and other companies might c*ck up a release here and there, but the problems are nowhere near at the same scale what GW is facing with finecast production.
My personal experience is that I’ve recently bought several miniatures from Freebooter Miniatures, Malifaux, Privateer Press, Dark Sword, Studio McVey, Kingdom Death, Anima Tactics and Micro Art Studio. There has been the odd mould line here and there but nothing significant I would find to moan about. This isn’t “let’s all take a pop at GW because we hate them and everyone else gets a free pass”, much smaller competitors are putting out far better quality resin and products. GW, however, has the market share and a lot of people feel locked in due to the investment of years of 40k/WHFB purchases and, my personal opinion is, they rely on that lock in to peddle poor products at an over inflated price.
Mantic I don’t have much experience on. On the whole I don’t like their sculpts but that’s not a criticism of them, just the style isn’t to my liking. I have bought some undead because I really like them, much better than GW’s equivalents to my taste and on the end quality of the actual product itself I’ve no problem whatsoever. Ok on some there’s some ‘shortcuts’ perhaps but I’ve seen the same on GW plastic, areas with no detail, or where it melts away in a hard to reach part.
That’s not a criticism of GW either by the way, I just take that as a limitation of the medium of plastics and I think GW is the probably the best I’ve seen. Their resin, Finecast, is a different matter entirely. I honestly think it’s the worst product on the market right now.
@rexuranus Totally agree! Iv’e said this in the past, I love BoW, but the GW bashing is starting to get boring to the point I can’t be botherd half the time visiting anymore. GW bought alot of people into this hobby, alot of people that wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them.
Come on BoW, if your going to bash GW, at least bash the failings of the other mini producers too.
I think the reason GW get more flak is they have a much bigger profile to catch it. They are the largest and most experienced manufacturer of tabletop gaming miniatures in the world, and they will waste no time in letting you know that, so they don’t get to use teething trouble as an excuse, they should by their own claims be able to get five nines accuracy on any new release AND offer the best value for money, but recently we’ve seen a sharp drop in both, to the point were several things GW have done actually seem quite petty (I could rant for hours about the basilisk kit) or as if they want to see exactly how much they can get away with.
The main reason GW gets more bashing from BoW though, is GW gets a lot more coverage from BoW, because at the heart of it more of us here play GW systems, and GW has built itself up over the past three decades. The folks that are most vocal expect more from GW, because they love the products and the fluff, so when they see poor writing, or models that don’t cut it It hurts more than when heroclix rolls out a purple blob with a covenant carbine and tries to pass it off as a grunt, when dream pod9 give you a bent grizzly arm or a bit more flash on a rocket pod than usual.
Crap is crap as @rexuranus says, other companies don’t get a pass on crap because their crap is cheaper than when GW get it right, but that also means GW don’t get a free pass when it makes crap because other companies make cheaper crap.
Well, first off, I have to say well done to Romain for attempting this, the easy answer is obviously ‘don’t buy finecast’ ,but with every new army that becomes less and less practical, given how much of the new releases is only available in the stuff.
I thought it was an excellent video, I only have a single finecast mini, it wasnt great, but i dealt with it, my real concern with finecast isnt that it cant be fixed, its that for the target market it is simply an entirely inappropriate medium, the repairs required to this stuff really make it unsuitable for children on the whole.
To fix mine I used a pin vice, brass rod, a hair dryer, squadron putty dissolved in cellulose thinners (thats liquid greenstuff if you want to buy it pre made), sanding sticks, polishing sticks and a couple of files.
And a respirator mask. resin dust is bad for you, whether they claim its harmless as far as toxicity is concerned or not, the dust is an irritant.
Thats quite a collection of stuff for the average 10 year old.
I am very glad that i bought most of my last needed models in metal and plastic.
I understand that some minis are not economical to do in plastic or metal but then GW should put some more effort into quality of resin casts.
I have seen failcasts with bubbles on faces or other crucial areas. The idea that some failcast minis need “resculpting” is crazy. If i had the skill i would sculpt the whole mini.
Buying failcast online is risky and I can’t buy minis “in store” as the closest one is over 300 km from me.
Thank you GW for curing me from buying your stuff. At least for now.
I’m with Romain on this one.
A friend of mine asked the local GW store employees to open *four* different boxes of sternguard veterans to finally find the good one. Sigh …
I don’t think this thread has been a GW bashing it’s been more of a “I don’t like finecast”
If GW has gone in for some flak it’s probably because (and take these words from an old Git) When something or someone you hold dear, kicks you in the the n*ts, it hurts a whole lot more.
Anyway that said I have been visiting this site for 2 months now. I’ve enjoyed this thread, it’s obviously been quite emotive, there have been a lot of good posts and no one has got stupid or personel.
I think the whole site has a good feel to it which is why I visit everyday
I too like this site, you don’t get ( for the most part ) people flaming at a poster for there opinions.
what gets me is the sheer amount of people i know in my local area and online just raging ( not on this site so far, but others ). When i ask if they have used the product for the most part it’s a no, with most of there info coming form second hand sources.
Finecast has it’s problems, but it’s getting better all the time, and for what problems there are they are many way to sort them. the main one is returning it to the store.
So don’t moan that you got a defective product, DO something about it, return it! That’s the best way to get them to change, Every product returned is a sale lost and less cash in there pocket. They will get the message.
What this video highlights to me is that even with a good quality cast, Finecast as a material is inferior to the alternatives.
The one issue of failed quality control is one thing – badly cast parts are one problem. A problem that could be sorted by better Quality Control procedures if GW actually cared enough about their reputation and fanbase to bother.
The second issue though is that even if (eventually) you get a perfect model, it is way more fiddly to bet right than the old metal ones were. And they are less robust (do metal models warp in warm weather?) to boot. GW seem to be to blame for the bait and switch of inflicting an inferior product in the name of improving quality.
Now, don’t get me wrong, metal models weren’t perfect, but it seems to me that this type of resin just isn’t up to the job. Why anyone is prepared to pay the asking price for this rubbish is totally beyond me!
Thanks for the effort on the videos Romain. I have been having a to-and-fro email/phone contact with GW customer service since February. I bought the 25th Anniversary miniature. It was my first Finecast purchase, and it was a disaster. They replaced the complete miniature 4 times, and finally offered me a refund when they couldn’t supply one. Every model that arrived had major flaws, and usually on the same pieces. Bubbling to the point that one side of the miniature looks like the top of a latté usually, and large areas of detail obscured by excess resin (not flash, big globs of the stuff), or missing altogether.
Now let me say, I have been a HUGE GW fan for years. I’m old school, I love the games and I’ve loved collecting and painting the miniatures. I will NOT however let them get away with charging me for a product that requires more than normal prep and cleanup to build. I am an experienced modeller, but I don’t see why I should pay Finecast prices for shoddy production values that mean remaking large parts of a model.
So, this is the only thing I feel I can do. If I get a bad piece, I call GW and let them know. I always keep a civil tongue, but I restate that the product is not ‘fit for the purpose’ if that is the case. The only way to make GW change the way they are currently releasing FC is to make sure they feel it in their profits when they make a bad one, and have to send a replacement to me (they are paying postage too).
Of the three different FC models I have bought, I am yet to see a complete, usable kit. I always email photos of the problems to them as well so there is no argument regarding the condition of the model.
My advice for everyone is to do the same thing. Don’t accept bad product. Keep requesting replacements until you are satisfied.
Send a message, politely but loud and clear.
’nuff said…