http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/22622.html

Cv2 caught up with Games Workshop’s Trade Manager Andre Kieran at the GAMA Trade Show and asked him about GW’s progress in converting its huge line of miniatures with the new Citadel Finecast Resin process, and the direction that the leading tabletop game publisher was going with its extensive line of miniatures.

Could you explain Finecast and how it fits into your program?
Andre Kieran: “It’s centrifically-cast resin—and what we are doing is for new launches going forward, like character models, special figures, those miniatures are now being made with this new resin. You can see the detail, it’s definitely a big step forward and we are very excited about it.”

So going forward this resin will replace white metal won’t it?
Yes that’s right. We do have a backlog of things like Battle Fleet Gothic and Blood Bowl with metal miniatures that we still manufacture, that we still make available, that are made in metal. A lot of times those things don’t come in packaging now. We still make them, because we think they are cool, but they might come in a baggie or a plain white box.

Well then, is it safe to say that you are phasing those metal minis out?
Yeah, I think that Citadel Finecast is definitely the future of what we are doing with those special figures.

How’s the reaction to the Finecast, we heard last summer that there were some issues?
Good question, what we had early on, we had some rumors about the melting temperature of the resin figures. But that’s not the case. It has a similar melting temperature to our plastic models. We have been working very hard on the quality. The Finecast product has been on the market for nine months. When you are casting resin, the process can involve air bubbles and things of that nature, so we launched a product this fall called “Liquid Green Stuff,” which is for filling small detail gaps, and that product along with a brush, a hobby brush that is like a toothbrush almost, can be used to cover any blemishes. You can definitely see what we are trying to achieve, a much more detailed miniature that is lighter in weight and much easier to do conversions with, similar to our plastic models.

Not exactly and in depth interrogation but there you go. More surprised to see GW actually speaking out on the topic.

.. has it really been 9 months already ? For one reason or another it seems longer.

Lol, so in other words at the end the guy is saying "Yeah some bubbles show up but that's not a big deal. Just buy our overpriced liquid putty and fix it yourself"

Howz about no GW

Standard cut/paste marketing speak really. Agree with the above, no real addressing of the reported issues but then again, I'm not sure one could expect any different from a GW corporate suit. I am surprised that someone got an 'official' interview outside of WD, however.

When you are casting resin, the process can involve air bubbles and things of that nature, ...

The process can, yes. And then your quality control kicks in, and you bin those models and just sell the good casts.

Selling them for premium prices and then expecting your customers to buy another product to fix miniatures that shouldn't need fixing in the first place?


Madness. Utter, utter madness.



Here's the thing, GW: Saying 'Resin can have air bubbles' is not an excuse for selling flawed product. Any casting medium has the potential for casting defects. If you can't figure out how to cast in that medium without flawed results you're doing it wrong.

insaniak wrote:Selling them for premium prices and then expecting your customers to buy another product to fix miniatures that shouldn't need fixing in the first place?

Madness. Utter, utter madness.

Here's the thing, GW: Saying 'Resin can have air bubbles' is not an excuse for selling flawed product. Any casting medium has the potential for casting defects. If you can't figure out how to cast in that medium without flawed results you're doing it wrong.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Okay, I concede the point. Liquid Green Stuff didn't just have an atrocious release date.

As mentioned elsewhere, it feels to me that more questions were asked, but most likely answered with a standard "Sorry, can't answer that" reply.

insaniak wrote:The process can, yes. And then your quality control kicks in, and you bin those models and just sell the good casts.

No because that's not what quality assurance is for. The old adage is: "You can't inspect quality into a product".

QA processes are too unreliable and in a large scale, costly to be commercially viable as a quality generating process. The point of QA is to do enough tests to detect persistent defects coming out of the manufacturing processes and then shut down the manufactuiring, fix the problems and restart it with an acceptable defect rate, usually dumping the failed batch entirely.

insaniak wrote:Here's the thing, GW: Saying 'Resin can have air bubbles' is not an excuse for selling flawed product. Any casting medium has the potential for casting defects. If you can't figure out how to cast in that medium without flawed results you're doing it wrong.

More true. AFAIK finecast is something of a special resin/manufacturing process that was specifically intended to work as a "drop in" replacement for the pewter casting with as little rework on the molds as possible. (especially important for the low demand casts). The problem is that they went for a "big bang" introduction, entirely scrapping their metal casting lines and now that the drop-in replacement hasn't turned out to be successful they have nothing to fall back on.

We may need to face the possibility that GW's hope of finding a straight resin replacement for their metal line is actually technically, physically or economically impossible. In which case we can expect this to run for years while they gradually replace their scupts and casts with new resin friendly models.

I cast 66 snake bases for my Termagants using resin and only had one with air bubbles. And that was the first test piece. I had never used resin before.

It's a very simple one piece moulding, but to fair to myself, I'm not a 120 million GBP corporation with 30 years experience in model figure manufacturing.

Oh god - here we go again...

He used "excited" which is GW for "flaming ball of crap".

I undstand this was posted by a mod but doesn't this really belong in one of the ongoing threads about the failure(s) of fine cast? Do we really need another thread about this?

I treat all comments from corporations with the apathy with which they treat us as consumers.
All people who work for these corporations need to toe the party line so to speak. I even need to do it in my own job sometimes. So i dont hate on these comments or the people making them.

In regard to there product and indeed all products the proof is in the pudding. The fact were on here discussing/complaining about there product shows there is a problem with it.

insaniak wrote:Selling them for premium prices and then expecting your customers to buy another product to fix miniatures that shouldn't need fixing in the first place?

Madness. Utter, utter madness.

spot on mate.

OverwatchCNC wrote:I undstand this was posted by a mod but doesn't this really belong in one of the ongoing threads about the failure(s) of fine cast? Do we really need another thread about this?

This is not a hate thread. This is someone posting GW's comments and putting them up to review.

So far, it's been "This is the SOP for companies, nothing new."

We have been working very hard on the quality. The Finecast product has been on the market for nine months. When you are casting resin, the process can involve air bubbles and things of that nature, so we launched a product this fall called “Liquid Green Stuff,” which is for filling small detail gaps, and that product along with a brush, a hobby brush that is like a toothbrush almost, can be used to cover any blemishes.

So take that to mean that the current QC is acceptable, and any problems are just to be solved with the liquid green stuff?

It's almost like they expect their customer base never to have seen a resin miniature from a different manufacturer..

Wait... ?!

i like how they completely ignored the part of the last question that asked about the response of the customers to finecast. i wonder if they know how much we hate it and are afraid to say, or don't do any research into how their products are recieved, and don't want to admit that

This is just mind boggling insane!

The company is admitting that they are selling a flawed product and that they expect their customers to buy more products to fix the flaws in the first one themselves, and the "reporter" just lets it slide?

EA just got voted the worse company of 2012 or some such nonsense, can you even begin to imagine the public outcry if they actually charged money for the patches to fix the bugs on their products?! And yet, GW customers continue to meekly stand in line with a few whimpers and a "here is my money, can I have another one sir, please?"...

Hmmm... Interesting. Mr. Andre Kieran pretty much BS's his way through that last one, but his dodging retort can be summed up as follows:

Corporate Speak Translation = "We're well aware that the majority of customer are dissatisfied with Finecast because of its inherent quality issues, but GW's increased margin of profitability moving to a cheaper casting material more than makes up for this."

Layman's Terms Translation = "The rewards outweigh the pitfalls so this is going to be as good as it gets."

feth FAILCAST!

In my experience, Finecast is only a failure on the Internet-- which is to say that, despite the doomsaying and harsh reactions from the online 40k community, Finecast continues to sell in real life-- and indeed is viewed by many, including myself, as a superior successor to metal. I for one intend to phase out all metal models in my army and replace them with resin and Finecast ones-- not only are they easier to transport, but they are much more suitable for conversion work as well. In my view, Finecast is a win-win.

Fetterkey wrote:In my experience, Finecast is only a failure on the Internet-- which is to say that, despite the doomsaying and harsh reactions from the online 40k community, Finecast continues to sell in real life-- and indeed is viewed by many, including myself, as a superior successor to metal. I for one intend to phase out all metal models in my army and replace them with resin and Finecast ones-- not only are they easier to transport, but they are much more suitable for conversion work as well. In my view, Finecast is a win-win.

I've read the blogs and forum articles that call out the truly egregious finecast quality issues, I'm aware that people have had really negative experiences with the products.

That said, every finecast model I've touched has been acceptable. I went into assembling my first kit expecting the worst (I even picked up a thing of liquid green stuff just in case, figured it'd come in handy for other things besides finecast). I was pleasantly surprised.

I started asking around, and a lot of the hobbyists I know (who aren't really internet forums people) repeated the same sort of idea: some people on the internet are making a big deal out of it. I mean I've had over 10+ miscasts or problems with metal figs over my time in the hobby, and like a full half of the time I spend on my plastic kit assembly is usually spent shaving mold lines. By comparison my experience with finecast has been really benign, and it's a good deal easier to clean than metal.

frest wrote:That said, every finecast model I've touched has been acceptable. I went into assembling my first kit expecting the worst (I even picked up a thing of liquid green stuff just in case, figured it'd come in handy for other things besides finecast). I was pleasantly surprised.

I started asking around, and a lot of the hobbyists I know (who aren't really internet forums people) repeated the same sort of idea: some people on the internet are making a big deal out of it. I mean I've had over 10+ miscasts or problems with metal figs over my time in the hobby, and like a full half of the time I spend on my plastic kit assembly is usually spent shaving mold lines. By comparison my experience with finecast has been really benign, and it's a good deal easier to clean than metal.

Seconded!

And I play sisters, so trust me, I know all about metal miscasts. lol

90% of people who complain about Finecast have never purchased one model. I own several different sculpts old and new and have only had to work with them at the same level I have worked with FW models for years now.

The incredibly vocal Internet minority can say what they will but Finecast is not that bad. Yeah I'd love cheaper prices and for everything to be in plastics, who wouldn't, but I know that it's not gonna happen.

Every single person I know hates finecast, based on the fact that you need to pull 3 boxes off the shelf to get an acceptable mold.

I dont know if you bunch work for GW or not but lay off the Kool-Aid.

Im the owner of a Coven of Flesh, and in order to get 28 acceptable wracks Ive had to trade in more then 18 boxes (thats 90 Wracks) because of issues, if even one model is missing a part of weapon the entire box is unacceptable. I shouldnt have to resculpt any part of the "superior quality miniature", the fact I can in moot. If you bought a car with a broken engine would you just take it lying down because you can fix it yourself? Or would you ask for a new damn car til they got it right?

.

Fetterkey wrote:In my experience, Finecast is only a failure on the Internet-- which is to say that, despite the doomsaying and harsh reactions from the online 40k community, Finecast continues to sell in real life-- and indeed is viewed by many, including myself, as a superior successor to metal. I for one intend to phase out all metal models in my army and replace them with resin and Finecast ones-- not only are they easier to transport, but they are much more suitable for conversion work as well. In my view, Finecast is a win-win.

Unfortunately, from what I've seen this is the IRL majority opinion.

I've held pretty bad castings purchased by others, but the buyers seem to accept it with little to no grumbling. Its been enough to convince me not to buy into it, but apparently I'm a minority. At least one of these buyers also refuses to call up support for a replacement (a fairly painless thing to do), which makes me think that maybe the masses are just too lazy to care.

So long as it keeps selling, finecast isn't going anywhere.

I dunno dude, a car is a car and this is a bunch of little figurines. My willingness to put up with this stuff is much more than it would be for any other product because we're already into the most frivolous of all possible discretionary spending

I'm not sure what the problem is though, the company let you trade through 18 boxes until you were satisfied, and the end result is that you got the miniatures you were after at a quality you found acceptable.

If your argument is that "you shouldn't have to do that" well, lol dude... I've gone through boxes of hydras missing heads, black guard with broken halberds right in the box etc, and GW replaced them no questions asked. I was ready for a horror show based on the internet buzz, and instead of I got a really detailed model that was easy to assemble.

oni wrote:

Layman's Terms Translation = "The rewards outweigh the pitfalls so this is going to be as good as it gets."

This was my takeaway from the interview as well. "This is as good as its getting, and everything is moving to this, so get used to it."

Basically, flipping the bird to its consumer fanbase.

I dunno, the new Witch Hunter I just put together is fine and my game store sold it to me at -20% GW's online price, what about this is supposed to be an insult to me as a customer ??

Mr.Church13 wrote:90% of people who complain about Finecast have never purchased one model. I own several different sculpts old and new and have only had to work with them at the same level I have worked with FW models for years now.

That's the reason I don't complain about it. A friend got a box of DE to convert and was reasonably pleased, so not everyone is unhappy.

frest wrote:I started asking around, and a lot of the hobbyists I know (who aren't really internet forums people) repeated the same sort of idea: some people on the internet are making a big deal out of it. I mean I've had over 10+ miscasts or problems with metal figs over my time in the hobby, and like a full half of the time I spend on my plastic kit assembly is usually spent shaving mold lines. By comparison my experience with finecast has been really benign, and it's a good deal easier to clean than metal.

(emphasis mine)

I can't be the only one who noticed GW jargon coming from this guy right? I'm not saying he's anything related to GW other than a customer, but if he's fluent in GW BS that's a red flag of bias to me.

Fetterkey wrote:In my experience, Finecast is only a failure on the Internet-- which is to say that, despite the doomsaying and harsh reactions from the online 40k community

I'm afraid to say this hasn't been true in my experience. A bunch of guys at my club, none of whom (AFAIK) post on forums, were bemoaning the quality of their WFB purchases and saying they wished they had the option of buying in metal. A 40k opponent of mine had an absolutely appalling Astorath the Grimm, but wasn't sure if he could take it back and swap as he already assembled the thing in a rush. The other week a customer and cashier in my FLGS were going through blisters of something or other trying to find a suitable copy. All of these incidents present a very clear picture to me, completely without any stories I may have picked up on the internet.

Are you trying to imply that all the people commenting negatively on FC, the dozens of blogs and threads throughout the internet (one of which on Dakka is over 70 pages long), the major retailers (Wayland) refusing to sell the stuff, all have some kind of twisted agenda, or are simply carried on by some kind of media hysteria that dispels the ability for rational decision making?

Lotus wrote:I can't be the only one who noticed GW jargon coming from this guy right? I'm not saying he's anything related to GW other than a customer, but if he's fluent in GW BS that's a red flag of bias to me.

So now everyone has to mind whether they write 'Hobby' or 'The Hobby'? Jeez.....

And to be fair to Frest, he didn't specify if the metals and plastics he was talking about were from GW or some other company....... Maybe the fact that you assume it is is a red flag of bias?

Lotus wrote:

frest wrote:I started asking around, and a lot of the hobbyists I know (who aren't really internet forums people) repeated the same sort of idea: some people on the internet are making a big deal out of it. I mean I've had over 10+ miscasts or problems with metal figs over my time in the hobby, and like a full half of the time I spend on my plastic kit assembly is usually spent shaving mold lines. By comparison my experience with finecast has been really benign, and it's a good deal easier to clean than metal.

(emphasis mine)

I can't be the only one who noticed GW jargon coming from this guy right? I'm not saying he's anything related to GW other than a customer, but if he's fluent in GW BS that's a red flag of bias to me.

I don't know what jargon your seeing but most everyone that I play and purchase with here has found the product acceptable. They are also not really an Internet driven bunch either. Soo I'm not sure but Internet exposure might have some effect on opinions. Also I do not work in the hobby industry, just to be fair.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Didn't Wayland game actually end up having a personal agenda against GW?

Lotus wrote:

frest wrote:I started asking around, and a lot of the hobbyists I know (who aren't really internet forums people) repeated the same sort of idea: some people on the internet are making a big deal out of it. I mean I've had over 10+ miscasts or problems with metal figs over my time in the hobby, and like a full half of the time I spend on my plastic kit assembly is usually spent shaving mold lines. By comparison my experience with finecast has been really benign, and it's a good deal easier to clean than metal.

(emphasis mine)

I can't be the only one who noticed GW jargon coming from this guy right? I'm not saying he's anything related to GW other than a customer, but if he's fluent in GW BS that's a red flag of bias to me.

lol So now anyone who is okay with Finecast is a GW plant? Geeze.

Lotus wrote:

frest wrote:I started asking around, and a lot of the hobbyists I know (who aren't really internet forums people) repeated the same sort of idea: some people on the internet are making a big deal out of it. I mean I've had over 10+ miscasts or problems with metal figs over my time in the hobby, and like a full half of the time I spend on my plastic kit assembly is usually spent shaving mold lines. By comparison my experience with finecast has been really benign, and it's a good deal easier to clean than metal.

(emphasis mine)

I can't be the only one who noticed GW jargon coming from this guy right? I'm not saying he's anything related to GW other than a customer, but if he's fluent in GW BS that's a red flag of bias to me.

You know I've always wondered whether or not GW is using stealth/viral marketing on certain forums around the web. Not saying this guy is one, but it seems like a good strategy for GW to employ, seeing as how their web presence involves very little interaction with the customer.

It's become clear now that video game companies have been using this strategy for quite some time now. I don't see why it's outside of the realm of possibility for a smaller concern like GW, seeing as how it seems pretty cheap to pay some keyboard commandos as opposed to running and moderating your own forum.

I'm not trying to put on a tin foil hat or anything, I'm just curious.

Here is the Transcript of GW PLC corperate managment , translated into pub speak.

The White metal cost is shooting up guys, we wont be able to make over 70% gross profit on this range for much longer.
Cant we just use the metal moulds to cast resin.As resin is a fraction of the price of white metal?

The technical guy said its doubtful with resin , but a plastic -resin compound might work.
Ok lets do it...Have we got it done yet?

The technical guys say there are still some issues that need adressing.
Sod that, start selling them , we have spent a fair bit of money promoting these bloody minatures , lets get some cash back.
Despite the reduced material costs (other companies halved the RRP) , lets charge the same as the white metal minatures...(They bought the Gold Swords so why not.)

Oh, there apears to be a lot of negative feed back ,(returns .)
Do we spend a fortune on reviewing new casting methods to improve quality...or sell the muppets some over priced filler to fix our problems for us.

The muppets bought our dodgy minatures AND bought our overprived filler to fix our cock ups!
You see they ARE a gullable bunch of idiots that belive everything we tell them......

GW is a lot of things, but they have seldom been accused of being overly internet savvy. I think you guys are reaching.

While all the white-knighting is to be expected, it would serve their argument a bit better if an outpour of perfectly good sculpts right out of the package could be produced via pictures.

If the internet is rife with pictures casting Finecast in a horrible light, where are the flood of perfectly good sculpts to counter them? To bemoan the internet for giving Finecast a bad name is naive - if it was as great as GW says it is, there would be equally as many defenders producing their pictures of flawless models that didn't need Green Stuff, extra sculpting or a return.

puma713 wrote:While all the white-knighting is to be expected, it would serve their argument a bit better if an outpour of perfectly good sculpts right out of the package could be produced via pictures.

If the internet is rife with pictures casting Finecast in a horrible light, where are the flood of perfectly good sculpts to counter them? To bemoan the internet for giving Finecast a bad name is naive - if it was as great as GW says it is, there would be equally as many defenders producing their pictures of flawless models that didn't need Green Stuff, extra sculpting or a return.

Because the people who get good sculpts have no reason to complain and don't feel like dealing with the inherent negativity of the vocal Internet minority. Besides no one listens to good things on the Internet anyway. Also until we see some actual returns VS sales numbers from GW itself then we don't know which side is correct.

All I can comment on is my experience, and that mine is a good experience.

Mr.Church13 wrote:

puma713 wrote:While all the white-knighting is to be expected, it would serve their argument a bit better if an outpour of perfectly good sculpts right out of the package could be produced via pictures.

If the internet is rife with pictures casting Finecast in a horrible light, where are the flood of perfectly good sculpts to counter them? To bemoan the internet for giving Finecast a bad name is naive - if it was as great as GW says it is, there would be equally as many defenders producing their pictures of flawless models that didn't need Green Stuff, extra sculpting or a return.

Because the people who get good sculpts have no reason to complain and don't feel like dealing with the inherent negativity of the vocal Internet minority. Besides no one listens to good things on the Internet anyway. Also until we see some actual returns VS sales numbers from GW itself then we don't know which side is correct.

All I can comment on is my experience, and that mine is a good experience.

And that's the problem. Anecdotal evidence is worthless. The reason that the pictures on the internet carry so much weight is because they're just that - hard evidence. If 100 people show you a picture of a miscast model and say, "We've had terrible experiences!" and then, one person comes up and says, "Not me." Naturally, the evidence is going to point toward the former, not the latter.

puma713 wrote:And that's the problem. Anecdotal evidence is worthless. The reason that the pictures on the internet carry so much weight is because they're just that - hard evidence. If 100 people show you a picture of a miscast model and say, "We've had terrible experiences!" and then, one person comes up and says, "Not me." Naturally, the evidence is going to point toward the former, not the latter.

It is an eternal problem in Customer Service. There's an old adage that says 'A customer with a good experience will tell one other person. A customer with a poor experience will tell 10.' That's since been amended to say 'A customer with a poor experience and the internet will tell millions.'

It is rare that you get home from a business and rush to tell your wife what a perfectly acceptable experience you had at Business X. If you had a poor experience though, it is probably the first thing out of your mouth when you get home.

I wasn't aware I was slinging jargon?? I just meant to express that "I've been playing wargames for like 5 years and in that time my experiences were ____"

I usually just lurk dakka (and other forums), but the recent Empire tactics discussion got me wanting to post so I finally got around to registering.

pretre wrote:GW is a lot of things, but they have seldom been accused of being overly internet savvy. I think you guys are reaching.

Right. It would be completely different to any previous procedure that anyone has commented on.

It is rare that you get home from a business and rush to tell your wife what a perfectly acceptable experience you had at Business X. If you had a poor experience though, it is probably the first thing out of your mouth when you get home.

Which I think is fair enough if you have handed over your pennies and expect a particular level of item or service in return.

I work in a corporate environment and spend most of my downtime browsing wargaming stuff, I'm probably the most web-forum savvy of the friends I have that play wargames.

I usually do most of my posting on something awful and reddit, and there isn't the same level of intense negativity about finecast there (although like I said i've seen some similar horror stories like the guy with the wracks were talking about) If i had to guess, the new models (empire for example) were sculpted with the new technical limitations of finecast in mind.

My witch hunter came with a slightly bent scabbard, but otherwise no damage. A few seconds under the hair dryer and I had it straightened. that was nothing new since I've bought some stuff from forgeworld that needed a little help etc

meh, I bought one and it was no problem. I would be mad if I had to fill in bubbles myself though, so I can see why other people are mad if they get a miscast. Having to call customer service is an inconvenience. I just love the world of 40k so I might buy more in the future, but if it was a cheaper, higher quality product I might buy a lot more.

Pacific wrote:

pretre wrote:It is rare that you get home from a business and rush to tell your wife what a perfectly acceptable experience you had at Business X. If you had a poor experience though, it is probably the first thing out of your mouth when you get home.

Which I think is fair enough if you have handed over your pennies and expect a particular level of item or service in return.

I'm not saying it isn't okay to complain, but you need to realize that your single experience isn't the totality of reality. Add to that the fact that confirmation bias is a real problem in these situations and things turn into a whirlwind of complaints.

In the years I've been on Dakka I cannot remember a single post regarding the quality of GW metal figures being faulty on such a regular basis as finecast has been. The posters raising quality issues are not a minority; check the post from the guy who went to GW's main base in Nottingham and they couldn't find him a figure that was acceptable. Now consider if they were looking for a metal one. How many would they need to check? One at the most!
Seriously guys, no problem with you stating your support for finecast, but when it boils down to it they are selling what they claim is a premium product, it should be perfect and not relying on the customer to carry out intensive repairs.
In short substandard products should not be allowed to leave the factory.

Slipstream wrote:In the years I've been on Dakka I cannot remember a single post regarding the quality of GW metal figures being faulty on such a regular basis as finecast has been.

I don't think anyone has said that. I said that I had a lot of miscasts with metal, but I haven't bought that many finecast, so couldn't compare.

The posters raising quality issues are not a minority; check the post from the guy who went to GW's main base in Nottingham and they couldn't find him a figure that was acceptable. Now consider if they were looking for a metal one. How many would they need to check? One at the most!

But here's the problem, they are the minority in the scope of total consumers buying the product. I'm not saying they are lying or exaggerating; I'm saying that the majority are not the ones on the internet.

Seriously guys, no problem with you stating your support for finecast,

I think this is another problem with a lot of folks perceptions. Most of us aren't 'supporting finecast', we are trying to provide an objective POV and saying 'You know, that didn't happen to me.'

but when it boils down to it they are selling what they claim is a premium product, it should be perfect and not relying on the customer to carry out intensive repairs.
In short substandard products should not be allowed to leave the factory.

I agree with the second sentence. Substandard products, of the kind that have been pictured in this and other threads, should not be allowed to exit the factory. I disagree that it should be perfect and agree that intensive repairs should not be necessary.

Our true disagreement is in the scope of the problem. You see the posts here, add to them your experience and see an epidemic; I see the posts, add to them my experience and see examples of a more limited problem.

Beware Confirmation Bias.

J.Black wrote:

Lotus wrote:I can't be the only one who noticed GW jargon coming from this guy right? I'm not saying he's anything related to GW other than a customer, but if he's fluent in GW BS that's a red flag of bias to me.

So now everyone has to mind whether they write 'Hobby' or 'The Hobby'? Jeez.....

And to be fair to Frest, he didn't specify if the metals and plastics he was talking about were from GW or some other company....... Maybe the fact that you assume it is is a red flag of bias?

It's The HHHobby.

pretre wrote:

Beware Confirmation Bias.

It is difficult to not partake in Confirmation Bias when almost all available information is negative. I would be taking part in Confirmation Bias if I thought that something was bad for you, so I looked until I found a website that confirmed what I thought, and then preached that as gospel. That is not the same thing that is happening here.

There is an absence of the other side of the story. There are people protesting how bad the release is, there are neutral people and there are people protesting how good the release is. However, no matter where you look (except GW's website), you find negative reviews. That is not negative people looking for something to relate to - positive people will find these reviews just as easily. In fact, I would say the opposite now - that if someone found a positive review, then they would be the ones taking part in Confirmation Bias, since so much of the press these days points to the contrary.

And you can call the internet the minority all you like, but it is still a huge advertising platform, both positively and negatively. You may see that 100 people reviewed a hotel, but you'll take their word of experience over the "non-vocal majority" simply because they have experience with what you're interested in.

@puma713: I agree with you for the most part. The majority of the minority (the internet) is complaining about Finecast.
My disagreement is that that is the whole story.
People who have a good experience don't come on the internet to talk about it. That's just the way these things work.

There's too much physical evidence to deny the fact that many Finecast models are rubbish.

They will find user acceptance even so, aided by the fact that a lot of buyers are n00bs.

Also, it should be recognised that a lot of Finecast models don't have any major problems., and there are advantages of weight and ease of construction.

Mr.Church13 wrote: Besides no one listens to good things on the Internet anyway.

I started buying Vallejo paints thanks to positive reviews on the internet. Same for Hasslefree miniatures, Confrontation, Anime Tactics... all miniature ranges I hadn't seen in real life, but took a stab at after seeing positive stuff about them online. There's a bunch of card games, books and various other products (including my car, my kobo, and the place I went for my last weekend away) that I've been similarly influenced on by positive online reviews.

Just dismissing the internet as being focused on the negative is overly simplistic. People are usually more than happy to discuss the positive... when you get something good, it's natural to want to share the fact. When the negative opinions seem to be more prevalent, there's usually a reason for it.

Kilkrazy wrote:There's too much physical evidence to deny the fact that many Finecast models are rubbish.

They will find user acceptance even so, aided by the fact that a lot of buyers are n00bs.

Also, it should be recognised that a lot of Finecast models don't have any major problems., and there are advantages of weight and ease of construction.

This is largely what I'm saying.

I know a lot of people are complaining about finecast, but I have yet to have an issue.

Its just like all the red ringing jokes about the Xbox 360... I don't get it cause I have yet to have the issue, and personally believe that most of this is just another internet complaint wildfire.

Just me though...

Mr.Church13 wrote:
Because the people who get good sculpts have no reason to complain and don't feel like dealing with the inherent negativity of the vocal Internet minority. Besides no one listens to good things on the Internet anyway.

I started collecting Infinity on the basis of comments on Dakka

Pacific wrote:Are you trying to imply that all the people commenting negatively on FC, the dozens of blogs and threads throughout the internet (one of which on Dakka is over 70 pages long), the major retailers (Wayland) refusing to sell the stuff, all have some kind of twisted agenda, or are simply carried on by some kind of media hysteria that dispels the ability for rational decision making?

No, I'm just pointing out that the Internet anger, in my experience, has not been backed up in real life. Indeed, most people I've met and talked with at the local shops have been big fans of Finecast. I think that the Internet community in general and DakkaDakka in particular features an unusual number of haters relative to the general populace-- and, as others have pointed out, most of those who buy Finecast and have it work fine aren't really compelled to post. Many of the people I've talked to didn't even recognize that there was a Finecast "controversy."

Zarren Wevon wrote:

Lotus wrote:

frest wrote:I started asking around, and a lot of the hobbyists I know (who aren't really internet forums people) repeated the same sort of idea: some people on the internet are making a big deal out of it. I mean I've had over 10+ miscasts or problems with metal figs over my time in the hobby, and like a full half of the time I spend on my plastic kit assembly is usually spent shaving mold lines. By comparison my experience with finecast has been really benign, and it's a good deal easier to clean than metal.

(emphasis mine)

I can't be the only one who noticed GW jargon coming from this guy right? I'm not saying he's anything related to GW other than a customer, but if he's fluent in GW BS that's a red flag of bias to me.

You know I've always wondered whether or not GW is using stealth/viral marketing on certain forums around the web. Not saying this guy is one, but it seems like a good strategy for GW to employ, seeing as how their web presence involves very little interaction with the customer.

It's become clear now that video game companies have been using this strategy for quite some time now. I don't see why it's outside of the realm of possibility for a smaller concern like GW, seeing as how it seems pretty cheap to pay some keyboard commandos as opposed to running and moderating your own forum.

I'm not trying to put on a tin foil hat or anything, I'm just curious.

I recently interviewed with GW, and the man interviewing me specifically said that they read DakkaDakka and Warseer and other various forums. He also said that they shot themselves in the foot with the finecast launch. GW views themselves as the GIANT of the miniatures industry and the only company that can hurt them, is themselves. To that end, their customer service, in store and on the phone has been revamped, re envisioned and in the last 3 years I have seen the difference.
I would testify in court to that. FWIW

Finecast mess-ups I have had:
KFF Big Mek - Missing an arm. They sent me a whole new Big Mek

That being said, I doubt there are any / many planted posts.

My company policy is, No outside communication. We can read all we want, but we are not allowed to talk to the public. Seems like a standard policy in all major companies.

Mr.Church13 wrote: Besides no one listens to good things on the Internet anyway.

That really was meant to be more sarcastic than it came off being. My bad, next time I shall get it right.

I read the title and thought Finecast was Final.... And I was getting excited for a boss battle

Johnny-Crass wrote:I read the title and thought Finecast was Final.... And I was getting excited for a boss battle

I got excited just reading those words together, even though I know its not true.

Oh, for crying out loud, NOT THIS THREAD AGAIN.

Deeming an entire box of Wracks to be unacceptable because of a pinhead sized bubble in one weapon is quite frankly absurd. Miniatures aren't going to be perfect. My metal Venomthrope's vents didn't fit exactly flush, but I didn't judge the model to be unacceptable as a result. I just gave it a coat of Liquid Green Stuff and it was fine. Heck, some of the imperfections that people claim makes a whole Finecast model
or box unacceptable are easier to fix than everyday mold lines. And people don't bitch and whine all day long about those.

It doesn't help that many of the moderators here are anti-Finecast or anti-GW.

Necroshea wrote:Lol, so in other words at the end the guy is saying "Yeah some bubbles show up but that's not a big deal. Just buy our overpriced liquid putty and fix it yourself"

This.

So they raise prices on failcost. Then they expect customers to pay even more to fix their own manufacturing deficiencies...

Dear GW,

Die in a fire.

KTHNXBUHBAI

Sincerely,
A former fanboi who wised up years ago.

Chowderhead wrote:

OverwatchCNC wrote:I undstand this was posted by a mod but doesn't this really belong in one of the ongoing threads about the failure(s) of fine cast? Do we really need another thread about this?

This is not a hate thread. This is someone posting GW's comments and putting them up to review.

So far, it's been "This is the SOP for companies, nothing new."

Well I gave it 2 pages and I stand by my previous assertion that this didn't need it's own thread. I respect your opinion Chowderhead but this is just a slightly more mundane version of the other thread, with only a slightly different main topic.

Someone will eventually say it, so it might as well be me this time.

Most people aren't just complaining about flaws in Finecast models. They are complaining about those flaws because of three related facts.

GW chose to go to a new material which is apparently much cheaper for them.

GW released models in that material, not at a lower price, but at the same, or often, significantly higher prices.

GW chose to market those products as "Finecast", calling them the highest quality miniatures on the market.



And then, people bought them and found flaws. I'm sure some people would complain if ANY model had flaws, but I'll wager my entire backlog of unpainted minis that if GW had said:

Hey, the price for our materials has been going up, so rather than increase the cost, we've decided to produce models in a different, less expensive material. This will enable us to keep our prices flat for you. We hope that you will try out these new miniatures, and, as always, if you receive a faulty model, either metal or resin, contact us for assistance. We will always stand by out product.

much less people would have been irate.

If GW had said:

Hey, here's a new material we are using. Honestly, it's a little more fragile and prone to casting defects than our old white metal castings were. However, we can sell it to you for 20% less than those models. We hope you find the savings are worth the little added hassle of the occasional bubble or flash. As always, we stand behind our product, and if you are unsatisfied with a purchase, please contact GW for a return or exchange.

I think you would have seen less complaining.

The key elements here are:

Lower Apparent Quality + Higher Apparent Profit + Corporate Insistence on Higher Actual Quality = Nerd Rage

It takes all three to really kick us up from normal moaning and whining to full-throated indignation.

Squigsquasher wrote:Oh, for crying out loud, NOT THIS THREAD AGAIN.

Deeming an entire box of Wracks to be unacceptable because of a pinhead sized bubble in one weapon is quite frankly absurd. Miniatures aren't going to be perfect. My metal Venomthrope's vents didn't fit exactly flush, but I didn't judge the model to be unacceptable as a result. I just gave it a coat of Liquid Green Stuff and it was fine. Heck, some of the imperfections that people claim makes a whole Finecast model
or box unacceptable are easier to fix than everyday mold lines. And people don't bitch and whine all day long about those.

It doesn't help that many of the moderators here are anti-Finecast or anti-GW.

lol. I don't think they are all anti-gw, especially Yakface and Janthkin but this made me laugh when you consider the thread was started by a mod and a lot of the first posters in the thread were mods. Don't think you're necessarily right but still funny.

Oh dear. You used the phrase Failcost, which is neither funny nor clever.

Finecost is funny. Failcast is less funny. Failcost isn't funny at all. You're overdoing it.

Besides, telling GW to die in fire isn't going to help. And if you're giving up on GW, fine, go play Boremachine with its stupid looking, misproportioned, poorly detailed models.

Squigsquasher wrote:Oh, for crying out loud, NOT THIS THREAD AGAIN.

Deeming an entire box of Wracks to be unacceptable because of a pinhead sized bubble in one weapon is quite frankly absurd. Miniatures aren't going to be perfect. My metal Venomthrope's vents didn't fit exactly flush, but I didn't judge the model to be unacceptable as a result. I just gave it a coat of Liquid Green Stuff and it was fine. Heck, some of the imperfections that people claim makes a whole Finecast model
or box unacceptable are easier to fix than everyday mold lines. And people don't bitch and whine all day long about those.

It doesn't help that many of the moderators here are anti-Finecast or anti-GW.

Translation:


Come up with hard evidence to deny the myriad of pictures thrown around that show how bad their resin production is.

because telling people to shut up over a bubble in a box, is not only ridiculous hyperbole, but disingenuous to boot.

You want the regulars of this site who have put up with GW's shenanigans for YEARS to see it your way? Then provide evidence. "Put up or shut up" as the saying goes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Squigsquasher wrote:Oh dear. You used the phrase Failcost, which is neither funny nor clever.

Finecost is funny. Failcast is less funny. Failcost isn't funny at all. You're overdoing it.

Besides, telling GW to die in fire isn't going to help. And if you're giving up on GW, fine, go play Boremachine with its stupid looking, misproportioned, poorly detailed models.

Gawrsh mr.internet police, I am so sowwy for not pleasing you. Shall I just bend over backwards falling overmyself making sure you are delighted and serviced every second of the day. feth off troll.

Squigsquasher wrote:Oh dear. You used the phrase Failcost, which is neither funny nor clever.

Finecost is funny. Failcast is less funny. Failcost isn't funny at all. You're overdoing it.

I'm confused - I've reread all the posts since your last one (currently showing as first post on page 3), and the only person I can see referring to "Failcost" is yourself.

Squigsquasher wrote:Besides, telling GW to die in fire isn't going to help. And if you're giving up on GW, fine, go play Boremachine with its stupid looking, misproportioned, poorly detailed models.

While I agree that telling GW to die in a fire isn't going to help, I'm not sure that insulting Warmachine (and the miniature designers who work for Privateer Press) is the way to sway another poster's position.

Out of interest, have you ever played Warmachine or Hordes, before you label it as "Boremachine"? I'm also fairly sure that for every "criticism" (or, more accurately, insult) you just levelled against the Privateer Press miniature range, examples can be found amongst models currently available from GW that are as bad, if not worse.

Da Butcha wrote:Someone will eventually say it, so it might as well be me this time.

Most people aren't just complaining about flaws in Finecast models. They are complaining about those flaws because of three related facts.

GW chose to go to a new material which is apparently much cheaper for them.

GW released models in that material, not at a lower price, but at the same, or often, significantly higher prices.

GW chose to market those products as "Finecast", calling them the highest quality miniatures on the market.



And then, people bought them and found flaws. I'm sure some people would complain if ANY model had flaws, but I'll wager my entire backlog of unpainted minis that if GW had said:

Hey, the price for our materials has been going up, so rather than increase the cost, we've decided to produce models in a different, less expensive material. This will enable us to keep our prices flat for you. We hope that you will try out these new miniatures, and, as always, if you receive a faulty model, either metal or resin, contact us for assistance. We will always stand by out product.

much less people would have been irate.

If GW had said:

Hey, here's a new material we are using. Honestly, it's a little more fragile and prone to casting defects than our old white metal castings were. However, we can sell it to you for 20% less than those models. We hope you find the savings are worth the little added hassle of the occasional bubble or flash. As always, we stand behind our product, and if you are unsatisfied with a purchase, please contact GW for a return or exchange.

I think you would have seen less complaining.

The key elements here are:

Lower Apparent Quality + Higher Apparent Profit + Corporate Insistence on Higher Actual Quality = Nerd Rage

It takes all three to really kick us up from normal moaning and whining to full-throated indignation.

Quoted for immense amounts of truth.

I came to this thread thinking that GW owned up to their mistakes and was addressing them in a non patronizing fashion. Instead it is just more of the same.

Even now, if they owned up to it and were earnest about their failings, I could at least give them the benefit of the doubt. But... the hubris they display is awe inspiring.

Almost as awe inspiring as those who defend GW patronizing remarks and poor product quality having the huevos to become appalled that people take umbrage against such patronizing remarks that GW make.

To expect reactions of anything less than "You have GOT to be kidding me" to GW's official response from the masses is ridiculous.

So...because I happen not to agree with your ludicrous viewpoint that EVERY MODEL MUST BE ABSOLUTELY PERFECT!!!11!1!1ONE!!1! I'm a troll? Pathetic.

Every Finecast model I've ever come across has been fine, and most of the examples peoppe put across are really not that bad. They are certainly nothing that can't be fixed with minimal effort. Granted, there have been some atrocious miscasts, and I think they should try to improve the quality a bit, but even the worst miscast I've personally come across was so minor as to be not worth making a fuss about. Besides, I have a theory that a lot of the "solid evidence for Finecast being rubbish" is actually people working for other companies deliberately buying rejected models or even damaging perfectly good models, and then posting the "evidence" and crying "OMG FINECAST IS RUBBISH LOOK AT THE MISCAST BUY THIS STUFF INSTEAD ITS THE EPICNESS!!!11!!!!!!!11ONE!!!!!!!1ONE". So, I have yet to see solid evidence for the "unacceptabilty" of Finecast, only that people have stupid standards.

And would YOU like to try assembling a Mangler Squig if it had been made of metal? There is no denying that Finecast does have advantages over metal, like ease of assembly and conversion.

And how am I an Internet Policeman? I was simply making you aware that the phrase "Failcost" was rather unfunny. That's all.

Silly boy (or girl).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And Dystartes, the comment was on page 2.

The funny thing is that every statement made by the GW employee in the original post is unambiguously correct, but that still doesn't stop the haters. Whether or not you think Finecast is an improvement in quality or not, it is incontrovertibly true that, relative to metal, detail is more visible on an unpainted Finecast model, Finecast models weigh less, and Finecast models are substantially easier to convert.

Personally, I prefer the amount of work entailed with finishing a Finecast model to the amount of work entailed with finishing a metal model. A lot of people don't seem to see it that way, which is fine-- to each their own-- but to frame it as some kind of big swindle or as a marked drop in quality is really deceptive.

Someone earlier also mentioned the confirmation bias. As someone with a fair amount of knowledge on that phenomenon, I can say it's not really at work here. What might be more appropriate is the availability heuristic-- the mental rule by which one judges events or situations based on what sort of examples come most readily to mind. With Finecast, lots of Internet people have complaints and issues and have posted about them, so your average forumite will be quick to think of complaints when they think of Finecast.

By comparison, the real life scuttlebutt in the shops and clubs that I've been to is much more positive. Thus, people who primarily interact with other gamers in that setting are much more likely to have positive impressions of Finecast, as the examples that come most readily to mind are going to be cool conversions by buddies rather than Internet hate threads. This is what I refer to when I say that Finecast hate is primarily an Internet phenomenon.

reds8n wrote: .. has it really been 9 months already ? For one reason or another it seems longer.

It came out May 28th.

Its April 10th now.

Either Im stupid or GW cant count. 10.5 months

That is unless, he wrote what he was going to say 1.5 months ago and finally get to read the speech today.

Mr.Church13 wrote:90% of people who complain about Finecast have never purchased one model.

And where did you pull that figure from? Go on - I want to see the working behind it.

Zarren Wevon wrote:
You know I've always wondered whether or not GW is using stealth/viral marketing on certain forums around the web. Not saying this guy is one, but it seems like a good strategy for GW to employ, seeing as how their web presence involves very little interaction with the customer.

They for sure do, after all the new paint info pics came up there was dozens on here claiming they were all fake, photoshopped and stupid. Well turns out it was all real. It just makes me happy there are GW employees that arent sale bots and try and mess with the company from the inside.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Mr.Church13 wrote:90% of people who complain about Finecast have never purchased one model.

And where did you pull that figure from? Go on - I want to see the working behind it.

Same, the only other person I heard say that was wearing a black shirt, trying to sell me liquid greenstuff....

Squigsquasher wrote:Oh, for crying out loud, NOT THIS THREAD AGAIN.

Deeming an entire box of Wracks to be unacceptable because of a pinhead sized bubble in one weapon is quite frankly absurd.

Did I say that? No.

I said missing parts and weapons, or my spefically in my case giant airbubbles taking out elbows and facemasks or whole halves of bodies, If a single model is like that it deems a return of the entire box, or are you okay with buying this that arent complete?

@All:

"It's okay to not like things but don't be a dick about it" also applies to criticism of Finecast. Please try to be respectful of other people's opinions. Phrases like "failcrast" and "boremachine" really ought to be avoided by anyone who wants to have a discussion as opposed to just trolling.

Squigsquasher wrote:It doesn't help that many of the moderators here are anti-Finecast or anti-GW.

I was quite prepared to be all over Finecast when it was first announced. The idea of swapping metal for resin was an exciting one.

The actual reality... that GW released models in an inferior material and inferior quality to most other resin producers out there, while jacking up the prices and then claiming that the issues with the models are unavoidable (despite other resin manufacturers not having the same issues) and perfectly acceptable (because you can buy another GW product to fix them) make it rather difficult to take them seriously at this point.

Squigsquasher wrote:So...because I happen not to agree with your ludicrous viewpoint that EVERY MODEL MUST BE ABSOLUTELY PERFECT!!!11!1!1ONE!!1! I'm a troll? Pathetic.

Every Finecast model I've ever come across has been fine, and most of the examples peoppe put across are really not that bad. They are certainly nothing that can't be fixed with minimal effort. Granted, there have been some atrocious miscasts, and I think they should try to improve the quality a bit, but even the worst miscast I've personally come across was so minor as to be not worth making a fuss about. Besides, I have a theory that a lot of the "solid evidence for Finecast being rubbish" is actually people working for other companies deliberately buying rejected models or even damaging perfectly good models, and then posting the "evidence" and crying "OMG FINECAST IS RUBBISH LOOK AT THE MISCAST BUY THIS STUFF INSTEAD ITS THE EPICNESS!!!11!!!!!!!11ONE!!!!!!!1ONE". So, I have yet to see solid evidence for the "unacceptabilty" of Finecast, only that people have stupid standards.
.

I have to say Squigsquasher, even in light of your previous posts concerning Finecast, this is by far your best sequence of comments.

I was tempted to split it into smaller blocks of quotation, but it would provide a disservice, and perhaps deny people the pleasure of reading it once more in it's pure, unadulterated glory.

insaniak wrote:

Squigsquasher wrote:It doesn't help that many of the moderators here are anti-Finecast or anti-GW.

I was quite prepared to be all over Finecast when it was first announced. The idea of swapping metal for resin was an exciting one.

The actual reality... that GW released models in an inferior material and inferior quality to most other resin producers out there, while jacking up the prices and then claiming that the issues with the models are unavoidable (despite other resin manufacturers not having the same issues) and perfectly acceptable (because you can buy another GW product to fix them) make it rather difficult to take them seriously at this point.

Exactly. I am absolutely not anti-finecast. I am however, pro reality.

And the reality is, that in my personal experience, I have had really lackluster finecast models. Not as advertised, not as good as metals IMHO.

As for the mods being anti-GW. We collectively own a pretty significant dollar value of their stuff, know the fluff back and forth and contribute to a website dominated by their products on a daily basis. There is a big difference between criticism aimed at improving something we love and just pooping on something no matter what it does.

I hope you will bear that in mind next time you make sweeping generalizations Squigsquasher.

insaniak wrote:

When you are casting resin, the process can involve air bubbles and things of that nature, ...

The process can, yes. And then your quality control kicks in, and you bin those models and just sell the good casts.

Selling them for premium prices and then expecting your customers to buy another product to fix miniatures that shouldn't need fixing in the first place?


Madness. Utter, utter madness.



Here's the thing, GW: Saying 'Resin can have air bubbles' is not an excuse for selling flawed product. Any casting medium has the potential for casting defects. If you can't figure out how to cast in that medium without flawed results you're doing it wrong.

Ian, have you ever bought a computer processor?

When they make them on a mold, they are not all equal - each processor can potentially be completely different to everyone else, yet they sell them under one name.

Its not that uncommon to sell flawed product and then put the onus on the user to fix it.

Scipio Africanus wrote:Ian, have you ever bought a computer processor?

When they make them on a mold, they are not all equal - each processor can potentially be completely different to everyone else, yet they sell them under one name.

They still have to fit into certain standards, though.

There is no industry standard for gauging acceptability of miniature casts. Just the one imposed by the company producing them and the people buying them. In this case, GW are promoting Finecast as the best quality miniatures on the market. That's a bold claim to make, and one that is guaranteed to get peoples' backs up if they can see for themselves that it simply isn't true.

Having the best quality miniatures isn't just down to having good sculptors. Your casting has to be good as well.

Its not that uncommon to sell flawed product and then put the onus on the user to fix it.

Can you name a few examples?

Because the only one that really springs to mind is computer software... and even then, it's not really up to the user to fix it. You don't have to write the code yourself, just install a patch provided (generally for free) by the developer.

GW are the only company I can think of that works on the premise that customers should pay them more money to fix something that wouldn't be broken in the first place if they took a little more care in their manufacturing process.

The last CPU I got had all sorts of problems. Luckily Intel put out their Liquid Silicone so I could fix the problems.

Oh wait that's stupid...

puma713 wrote:The reason that the pictures on the internet carry so much weight is because they're just that - hard evidence.

This response was over the top and rude. Reign it in, you could have made the exact same point without name-calling or generalizations. You have an opinion, express it as such and only as such. MT11

Kaldor wrote:

puma713 wrote:The reason that the pictures on the internet carry so much weight is because they're just that - hard evidence.

removed quote of rude post -.

Yep. To quote a famous poster in this very thread, pictures are not "solid evidence for the 'unacceptabilty' of Finecast". People who think otherwise "have stupid standards".

As it is written... So shall it be.

H.B.M.C. wrote:The last CPU I got had all sorts of problems. Luckily Intel put out their Liquid Silicone so I could fix the problems.

Oh wait that's stupid...

If GW stop giving new models to replace defects, this would work. As it is, defective CPUs getting replaced is the exact same policy as defective models getting replaced.

Also, defective CPUs happen all the time. It's just not as noticeable because you buy one for your PC, not dozens. CPUs also break and need replacing after installation and working initially. CPUs are also intentionally sold broken. Those triple core CPUs? They're usually quad core CPUs with a defective core. True, they're advertised as triple core, not quad core, CPUs. But there's nothing on the box telling you you're buying a broken quad core.

I find it interesting that nobody attacks metal models for requiring pinning and drilling, but many attack Finecast models for requiring gap filling-- which many metal models also require. In my experience as a hobbyist, gap filling is far less time consuming than pinning and drilling. It's a different type of prep work, and the Internet fears change, but I don't really see it as fundamentally different or in some way offensive to me as a consumer. After all, new materials merit the use of new tools and techniques.

Kaldor wrote:

puma713 wrote:The reason that the pictures on the internet carry so much weight is because they're just that - hard evidence.

Pictures on the internet only carry weight with morons.

You better let all those internet resellers that rely on pictures (and their corresponding review, since that is what we're talking about) know this. You're suggesting that a review without a picture carries as much weight as a review with pictures? You're probably right - that's why eBay auctions sell so much better without pictures.

Kaldor wrote:And they only carry weight with morons because only an idiot would see any number of pictures and assume anything about over-all quality.

Interesting point. Too bad it completely missed the actual discussion - you do realize most of these pictures come with a review attached explaining the pictures, right? It's not like the Golden Daemon winner simply posted pictures and I drew my conclusions about the quality of Finecast from them. I had a handy-dandy review to go along with them. It is the people defending Finecast that are simply talking heads without any sort of evidence to show anyone.

Unless what you're suggesting is that people are going out of their way to manipulate pictures of Finecast models to smear Games Workshop for some reason. On a massive scale.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Fetterkey wrote:I find it interesting that nobody attacks metal models for requiring pinning and drilling

I've been playing since 2nd Ed. and have never had to pin or drill a metal model. I've owned Bloodthirsters, Lords of Change, Hive Tyrants, you name it. I've never had any of them fall apart and I've been smart enough not to punt them across the game store. Not only that, but there is a vast difference between pinning/drilling and repairing a model. They are not the same thing and should not be equated.

puma713 wrote:Interesting point. Too bad it completely missed the actual discussion - you do realize most of these pictures come with a review attached explaining the pictures, right?

That wasn't his point. His point was about overall quality. The same dozen pictures popping up in the same repeated threads doesn't give an overall picture of the hundreds of thousands of models sold.

Alright guys, this is rapidly going the way of all Finecast threads, pro and anti camps entrenching their positions.

If you are happy with Finecast, good on you, no one should begrudge you being satisfied, there is no need to make a problem where there isn't one. For you.

Likewise if someone has concerns about Finecast I think it is pretty fair to say it isn't pure hypochondria either. There are some issues.

The only question is where your tolerance lies.

Either way, there is no need to start attacking each other over it. Agreement on this subject in pretty unlikely, but that is no reason not to have some tolerance. Come on guys we can do better -

Fetterkey wrote:I find it interesting that nobody attacks metal models for requiring pinning and drilling, but many attack Finecast models for requiring gap filling-- which many metal models also require.

Don’t be so brazenly disingenuous. You know damn well it’s not just ‘gap filling’. It’s miscasts, mould slippage and actual missing detail (fingers missing, actual miscasts). Not just bubbles.

It’s quite far removed from having to fill a gap with greenstuff or pinning a metal model (which I’ve done all of once since the start of 2nd Ed).

-Loki- wrote:

puma713 wrote:Interesting point. Too bad it completely missed the actual discussion - you do realize most of these pictures come with a review attached explaining the pictures, right?

That wasn't his point. His point was about overall quality. The same dozen pictures popping up in the same repeated threads doesn't give an overall picture of the hundreds of thousands of models sold.

They do a better job than the lack of evidence supporting the opposing viewpoint. That was my point. What you're saying is, "Assume that most are good, despite the fact that almost all reviews are negative."

Then you might continue with, "But all reviews aren't negative, see these threads. . "

To which we come back to the original point - anecdotal evidence is worthless and pictures are worth a thousand words.

You seem to be ignoring the fact that there are plenty of people who are having negative experiences that aren't posting as well, as if the only people posting negative reviews must by the only ones getting poor-quality products. What I'm saying is I am sure there are people that get decent casts - but where are they? There have been numerous threads on this topic, why hasn't one gleaming, flawless example reared its head?

Someone tried once, in one thread, but the piece he pictured was incredibly flawed and, when pointed out, the poster got defensive and said that we were being too nitpickey. I apologize if I want my $33 figure to have its fingers.

Well, the last one didn't work, let me try again in red -

Alright guys, this is rapidly going the way of all Finecast threads, pro and anti camps entrenching their positions.

If you are happy with Finecast, good on you, no one should begrudge you being satisfied, there is no need to make a problem where there isn't one. For you.

Likewise if someone has concerns about Finecast I think it is pretty fair to say it isn't pure hypochondria either. There are some issues.

The only question is where your tolerance lies.

Either way, there is no need to start attacking each other over it. Agreement on this subject in pretty unlikely, but that is no reason not to have some tolerance. Come on guys we can do better

Keep the tone respectful or the thread will have to be shut down, which would be a shame as it is a topic worthy of polite discussion.

-Loki- wrote:

Also, defective CPUs happen all the time. It's just not as noticeable because you buy one for your PC, not dozens. CPUs also break and need replacing after installation and working initially. CPUs are also intentionally sold broken. Those triple core CPUs? They're usually quad core CPUs with a defective core. True, they're advertised as triple core, not quad core, CPUs. But there's nothing on the box telling you you're buying a broken quad core.

An excellent point, but the analogy breaks down in direct comparison with Finecast. If GW had called it Pretty Good Cast and sold it at a significant discount, I'd likely stop complaining. They didn't. They called it Finecast and sell it for more than the metal went for. That's why some of us are annoyed about the whole thing.

To continue the CPU analogy, if Brand A is selling broken quad cores as quintuple cores, do you accept it or do you switch to Brand B until they get this sorted out? I made my choice based not on what I've read, but what I've received. My quintuple core was not even a quad core, and when they sent a replacement it turned out to be a dual core. Brand B for me then.

Mr.Church13 wrote:90% of people who complain about Finecast have never purchased one model. I own several different sculpts old and new and have only had to work with them at the same level I have worked with FW models for years now.

So where exactly did you come up with your brilliant scientific data? Pull a number out of the air?

My personal experience is that I have got two good models out of seven finecast purchases. I can't speak for the rest of the people who complain or who have had no complaints.

Fetterkey wrote:I find it interesting that nobody attacks metal models for requiring pinning and drilling, but many attack Finecast models for requiring gap filling-- which many metal models also require.

There are a couple of issues with this statement.

For one, GW did cop a fair amount of scorn for their multi-part metals, which often didn't fit together very well without a fair amount of filing or filling.

However, there is also a world of difference between gap-filling joints, and filling holes or replacing miscast pieces.


So far as drilling and pinning goes... that's an optional extra, not a requirement. Metal models don't need pinning if you're using a decent glue.

helium42 wrote:

Mr.Church13 wrote:90% of people who complain about Finecast have never purchased one model. I own several different sculpts old and new and have only had to work with them at the same level I have worked with FW models for years now.

So where exactly did you come up with your brilliant scientific data? Pull a number out of the air?

My personal experience is that I have got two good models out of seven finecast purchases. I can't speak for the rest of the people who complain or who have had no complaints.

Ok I get it, hyperbole is bad. But that doesn't change the fact that no one in my immediate area is having the issues that are touted all over the Internet. Maybe it's a fluke, maybe its just the Internet doing what the Internet does. All I know is that out of all the Finecast models we have purchased one or two have been returned but overall we get good molds don't care about flashing and don't actually have that many air bubbles. Yet all we hear from the non regulars and outside the venue is claims of not buying or even looking at it just because of what the net says about it. In the future I will watch my exaggeration. Sometimes the negativity gets the best of me.

Hyperbole? No. What you wrote wasn't "hyperbole". What you wrote "wasn't true".

There's a difference.

Mr.Church13 wrote:...and don't actually have that many air bubbles.

Which suggests that the people you're talking to about it are just a little more forgiving than some.

For those who expect premium models for the premium prices, 'too many airbubbles' may well be a lower amount than what you find acceptable.

+1 with Insaniak.

If I pay $30 + for a single figure I sure as eggs don't expect to have to fork out for stuff to fix it.

For that price they should be perfect.

Magpie wrote:+1 with Insaniak.

If I pay $30 + for a single figure I sure as eggs don't expect to have to fork out for stuff to fix it.

For that price they should be perfect.

And hence my beef with the interview. Basically, he quietly acknowledges the issues, sweeps them under the rug and says, "Get used to it."

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:I find it interesting that nobody attacks metal models for requiring pinning and drilling, but many attack Finecast models for requiring gap filling-- which many metal models also require.

Don’t be so brazenly disingenuous. You know damn well it’s not just ‘gap filling’. It’s miscasts, mould slippage and actual missing detail (fingers missing, actual miscasts). Not just bubbles.

Those problems aren't unique to Finecast. For instance, I bought a metal Thunderfire Cannon a while back. It was seriously miscast, so I called GW, and they sent me another one that had the exact same problem. I figured at that point it wasn't worth the hassle, so I fixed both cannons myself and they are now in service in my army, albeit without their recoil compensators. Had those models been Finecast instead of metal, I have no doubt that my job would have been much easier, and likely ended up with a better result. Indeed, if the Thunderfire Cannon ever comes out in Finecast, I'll probably buy two to replace my existing ones. So when people tell me that Finecast models require undue repair work, while metal is true and perfect and pure-- well, that just plain hasn't been my experience as a hobbyist.

puma713 wrote:
And hence my beef with the interview. Basically, he quietly acknowledges the issues, sweeps them under the rug and says, "Get used to it."

Right, but perhaps what I find most saddening out of all of this, is how people are prepared to just shrug their shoulders and accept it. And so, standards drop:

Those problems aren't unique to Finecast. For instance, I bought a metal Thunderfire Cannon a while back. It was seriously miscast, so I called GW, and they sent me another one that had the exact same problem. I figured at that point it wasn't worth the hassle, so I fixed both cannons myself and they are now in service in my army, albeit without their recoil compensators. Had those models been Finecast instead of metal, I have no doubt that my job would have been much easier, and likely ended up with a better result. Indeed, if the Thunderfire Cannon ever comes out in Finecast, I'll probably buy two to replace my existing ones. So when people tell me that Finecast models require undue repair work, while metal is true and perfect and pure-- well, that just plain hasn't been my experience as a hobbyist.

I've seen more FC miscasts over the past few months, models that should not have been sold, than I did in over 20 years of metal miniatures. That has been the common consensus of practically everyone I have spoken to about it.

Pacific wrote:I've seen more FC miscasts over the past few months, models that should not have been sold, than I did in over 20 years of metal miniatures. That has been the common consensus of practically everyone I have spoken to about it.

That's been the consensus of practically everyone I have spoken to about it as well-- but only online. In person, that reaction just hasn't been there. I think my earlier remarks about the availability heuristic remain appropriate here.

puma713 wrote: you do realize most of these pictures come with a review attached explaining the pictures, right?

Which is still completely irrelevant. Any number of reviews only account for a tiny, tiny fraction of over-all FC sales. Ten thousand bad reviews mean nothing if it only accounts for 1% of the total production.

Can you tell me what percentage of total FC sales have been reviewed and photographed, with a negative result? That would be interesting

Kaldor wrote:

puma713 wrote: you do realize most of these pictures come with a review attached explaining the pictures, right?

Which is still completely irrelevant. Any number of reviews only account for a tiny, tiny fraction of over-all FC sales. Ten thousand bad reviews mean nothing if it only accounts for 1% of the total production.

Can you tell me what percentage of total FC sales have been reviewed and photographed, with a negative result? That would be interesting

This guy gets it.

Fetterkey wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

puma713 wrote: you do realize most of these pictures come with a review attached explaining the pictures, right?

Which is still completely irrelevant. Any number of reviews only account for a tiny, tiny fraction of over-all FC sales. Ten thousand bad reviews mean nothing if it only accounts for 1% of the total production.

Can you tell me what percentage of total FC sales have been reviewed and photographed, with a negative result? That would be interesting

This guy gets it.

No amount of picture can ever hope to sway the faith of GW fans.
They are like Space Marines -_-

Ignoring the FC quality arguments (it's obvious where I stand), it's interesting to see what amounts to a public confirmation from GW that the released quality is what they expect it to be.

This is disheartening, but not entirely unexpected. GW aims squarely at inexperienced modellers / painters, and has done for years - everyone is aware and pretty much agrees that the sales strategy is geared around 2 large sales - a starter box and one extra, at one birthday and and one Christmas.

What is interesting is that the new paint system, from the accounts I've read by people whose opinions I trust, can and does make it a lot easier to get higher level results quickly. This will rapidly give more of an 'eye for detail' to newer 'Hobbyists'. Now, couple this with poor quality underlying miniatures (which liquid GS has NO chance of fixing*) then we can expect to see either an increase of QA to keep the newbies happy (in order to hit that second sale) or a sharp increase over the next few months of complaints about Finecast.


*: The majority of what I'd consider the serious flaws on Finecast models result in the need to resculpt detail, not gap fill. Sculpting skill and practice are required a lot of the time. Material unsuitability for certain designs aside.

No one in the finecast argument, either side, has yet to produce actual numbers to prove their point either way.

Nobody against fine cast can do anything more than present pictures from multiple sources that make up an unknown quantity of miscasts. (vocal minority syndrome etc.)

Nobody defending GW can produce a single iota of evidence providing us with any clear indication as to how much of the FC shenanigans are internet rage vs. actual rage.

Neither party can produce the proper evidence, nor will either side ever be able to without access to GW inventory, customer service, and quality control files. If neither side can prove their point without anecdotal evidence, guess work, conjecture, or any of the other myriad means being utilized in this thread and the numerous other FC hate threads then why are we still talking about this?

I still don't understand why this is a separate thread or why these are allowed to go on for as long as they do when neither side gets anywhere or produces anything remotely resembling factual evidence to prove their point.

Fetterkey wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

puma713 wrote: you do realize most of these pictures come with a review attached explaining the pictures, right?

Which is still completely irrelevant. Any number of reviews only account for a tiny, tiny fraction of over-all FC sales. Ten thousand bad reviews mean nothing if it only accounts for 1% of the total production.

Can you tell me what percentage of total FC sales have been reviewed and photographed, with a negative result? That would be interesting

This guy gets it.

I am sorry to make this rude remark, but all he gets is that the entire concept of statistics is unknown to him. Please go to someone with a decent understanding of statistics in your near. Please ask him the following question:

"What is the probability of getting 60% flawed products during an inquiry of 10000 products out of a million (which should have a 2% fault rate instead of 60%)"

Learn from the answer you get and then think your point over again. I am not insulting you, just pointing your view in another direction which hopefully shows you that your view is utterly and completely blurred.

Max Jet wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

puma713 wrote: you do realize most of these pictures come with a review attached explaining the pictures, right?

Which is still completely irrelevant. Any number of reviews only account for a tiny, tiny fraction of over-all FC sales. Ten thousand bad reviews mean nothing if it only accounts for 1% of the total production.

Can you tell me what percentage of total FC sales have been reviewed and photographed, with a negative result? That would be interesting

This guy gets it.

I am sorry to make this rude remark, but all he gets is that the entire concept of statistics is unknown to him. Please go to someone with a decent understanding of statistics in your near. Please ask him the following question:

"What is the probability of getting 60% flawed products during an inquiry of 10000 products out of a million (which should have a 2% fault rate instead of 60%)"

Learn from the answer you get and then think your point over again. I am not insulting you, just pointing your view in another direction which hopefully shows you that your view is utterly and completely blurred.

Where are those numbers coming from? Again, no one has any actual numbers to use. Until someone can produce actual numbers on any of this perhaps we should all leave statistics out of the discussion.

Max Jet wrote:I am sorry to make this rude remark, but all he gets is that the entire concept of statistics is unknown to him. Please go to someone with a decent understanding of statistics in your near. Please ask him the following question:

"What is the probability of getting 60% flawed products during an inquiry of 10000 products out of a million (which should have a 2% fault rate instead of 60%)"

Learn from the answer you get and then think your point over again. I am not insulting you, just pointing your view in another direction which hopefully shows you that your view is utterly and completely blurred.

The probability may in fact be quite good, if you consider the selection effects that are undoubtedly at work with the sample here. Even if 60% of reviews posted on Dakka are negative, Dakka reviews are almost certainly a biased sample and thus not representative of the actual distribution.

Max Jet wrote:I am sorry to make this rude remark, but all he gets is that the entire concept of statistics is unknown to him.

Oh please, correct me!

Fetterkey wrote:

Max Jet wrote:I am sorry to make this rude remark, but all he gets is that the entire concept of statistics is unknown to him. Please go to someone with a decent understanding of statistics in your near. Please ask him the following question:

"What is the probability of getting 60% flawed products during an inquiry of 10000 products out of a million (which should have a 2% fault rate instead of 60%)"

Learn from the answer you get and then think your point over again. I am not insulting you, just pointing your view in another direction which hopefully shows you that your view is utterly and completely blurred.

The probability may in fact be quite good, if you consider the selection effects that are undoubtedly at work with the sample here. Even if 60% of reviews posted on Dakka are negative, Dakka reviews are almost certainly a biased sample and thus not representative of the actual distribution.

Well I just did a google search for finecast flaws pics, and got a lot of hits on google, I did finecast good casts/quailty pics and got around three jobber threads. Shrugs guess the internet just hates on gw eh? According to them its not like anyone uses this thing anyways its just a fad that will pass in a few years....

OverwatchCNC wrote:No one in the finecast argument, either side, has yet to produce actual numbers to prove their point either way.

Nobody against fine cast can do anything more than present pictures from multiple sources that make up an unknown quantity of miscasts. (vocal minority syndrome etc.)

Nobody defending GW can produce a single iota of evidence providing us with any clear indication as to how much of the FC shenanigans are internet rage vs. actual rage.

Neither party can produce the proper evidence, nor will either side ever be able to without access to GW inventory, customer service, and quality control files. If neither side can prove their point without anecdotal evidence, guess work, conjecture, or any of the other myriad means being utilized in this thread and the numerous other FC hate threads then why are we still talking about this?

I still don't understand why this is a separate thread or why these are allowed to go on for as long as they do when neither side gets anywhere or produces anything remotely resembling factual evidence to prove their point.

This.

We simply don't have any verifiable data. GW certainly lie (outright) about the quality produced, both to the customer base, and (more worryingly) to themselves. I actually doubt that there *is* sensible data on the failure rate, as I don't think the culture (from what I've heard) within GW allows for admission of failure. Rather than admit the quality is low, they expect to alter the marketplace expectation for the product.

It's not a case of defending / attacking GW. Forgeworld use the same resin and technique as for Finecast (amongst other techniques / resin mixes). They do so in a much more controlled, small-scale manner, targetted at designs for which the material is suitable, and still have occasional quality issues. At that scale, it's manageable. At the mass scale Finecast works at, according to the various threads and reviews on the internet, it's not.

Shouting and screaming will have no effect. Not accepting substandard models, regardless of material or manufacturer, is an exercise in patience. It's taken me about 6 calls to Forgeworld to finally get all the parts on the way I need to build a Warhound to competition standard, without resculpting large amounts of it (Typically worn out mould / mould slip issues). This is accepting minor bubbles on non-critical areas, and a little sanding / filling work. That's something like a 150 part kit (I've not counted), of which there were around 25 defective (I'm not including mispacking etc). One of which I've had a persistent issue (bad mould from the looks of it) with, needing several replacements. An expensive kit, produced in limited quantities. I understand *why* it's expensive. I understand *why* the issues occur. I have a baseline that I'll accept and Forgeworld usually hit it, GW plastics almost always do (only had a couple of issues with plastics), GW metals almost always did. Other manufacturers almost always do. Finecast, without prejudice, for me has almost always failed.

It's taken me more than 6 calls to GW and I've yet to get a single acceptable 25th anniversary marine. I bought it on the 24th of February. Still waiting.

Not all Miscasts are reported online, not all miscast are reported to GW some are on shelves, some are accepted if not acceptable (by my standards) some are binned as the owner "rage quits" plus a plethora of other outcomes.

One thing that is apparent is that there are lots of blogs and long threads on various forums reporting issues with finecast. Now there are probably 2 reasons for these: actual fault reporting or people being vindictive.

My own experience I am 27 for 27 poor casts - spoke to GW CS yesterday and they are still awaiting good casts which are all being in personally inspected !

Never had this problem with metals - yes there were a few issues and some bad models but at least they were consistent and on a par with most other manufacturers. (I am not a metal fan I prefer resin) Finecast is considerably below the industry standard and this is my main cause for concern.

Cheers

Kit

OverwatchCNC wrote:

Max Jet wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

puma713 wrote: you do realize most of these pictures come with a review attached explaining the pictures, right?

Which is still completely irrelevant. Any number of reviews only account for a tiny, tiny fraction of over-all FC sales. Ten thousand bad reviews mean nothing if it only accounts for 1% of the total production.

Can you tell me what percentage of total FC sales have been reviewed and photographed, with a negative result? That would be interesting

This guy gets it.

I am sorry to make this rude remark, but all he gets is that the entire concept of statistics is unknown to him. Please go to someone with a decent understanding of statistics in your near. Please ask him the following question:

"What is the probability of getting 60% flawed products during an inquiry of 10000 products out of a million (which should have a 2% fault rate instead of 60%)"

Learn from the answer you get and then think your point over again. I am not insulting you, just pointing your view in another direction which hopefully shows you that your view is utterly and completely blurred.

Where are those numbers coming from? Again, no one has any actual numbers to use. Until someone can produce actual numbers on any of this perhaps we should all leave statistics out of the discussion.

the 60% comes from a frequently and highly visited poll on Warseer. Only about 40% of costumers are actually happy with their product. The 2% number comes from GW itself. The 1% number and 10 000 has been used as arbitrary number from another poster to use his point.

Fetterkey wrote:

Max Jet wrote:I am sorry to make this rude remark, but all he gets is that the entire concept of statistics is unknown to him. Please go to someone with a decent understanding of statistics in your near. Please ask him the following question:

"What is the probability of getting 60% flawed products during an inquiry of 10000 products out of a million (which should have a 2% fault rate instead of 60%)"

Learn from the answer you get and then think your point over again. I am not insulting you, just pointing your view in another direction which hopefully shows you that your view is utterly and completely blurred.

The probability may in fact be quite good, if you consider the selection effects that are undoubtedly at work with the sample here. Even if 60% of reviews posted on Dakka are negative, Dakka reviews are almost certainly a biased sample and thus not representative of the actual distribution.

Would be the only valuable counter argument made in this entire thread if not for one fact.

It works on both sides. I am sure there is a significant number of white knights in desperate search of perfect model to present them as "normal batch"

The actual stats will never be found and they don't really matter.

It's clear that Finecast did introduce a lot of problems in terms of a high rate of miscasts. They were obvious to anyone who bothered to go to the shops and look at the stuff. They were widely reported by what I should probably hesitate to call senior and respected hobbyists who have been in the TTWG hobby for years. There's no reason why those kind of guys would just decide to h8 Finecast for lulz.

Sure there has been exaggeration by h8rs. There has also been exaggeration of whitewash by fanbois.

The fact remains that Finecast was introduced with a lot of quality problems and GW have confirmed it by this interview.

If people are happy to accept they need to do some work to get the models up to standard that is fine. It's still a DIY hobby to a great extent, and Finecast has some advantages to offset the defects.

In my personal view GW should have moved to polystyrene manufacturing for everything. It never made sense to cast large models in metal. Perhaps they will in the future.

-Loki- wrote: CPUs are also intentionally sold broken. Those triple core CPUs? They're usually quad core CPUs with a defective core. True, they're advertised as triple core, not quad core, CPUs. But there's nothing on the box telling you you're buying a broken quad core.

The problem with extrapolating upon this analogy is it was a really flawed analogy to begin with; a better example would have been Intel shipping you CPU's that will not post and suggesting you update the microcode yourself to make it bootable. To reply to you specifically, while your description of the process is accurate your summation is flawed. They don't sell a tri-core CPU as a broken quad core because it isn't, it's a fully functional thoroughly tested tri-core CPU. It's not any more broken than in previous years where all the CPU's were literally the exact same chip and they laser cut the traces to some of the cache or what have you to make their lower end processor. This is a normal and expected process in fabrication that some parts of the yield will be able to work as one product, and some not, but the latter are not "defective", since that implies unsalable; any more then a tomato plant that grows 4 ounce tomatoes is defective because the one next to it grows mostly 6oz ones.

So far as the original topic goes, I have some finecast models, they were all pretty screwed up, but I like the finecast material in general and look forward to the day (hopefully soon) when they aren't shipping mishapen lumps of resin and calling it good. Until then I must avoid it.

Squigsquasher wrote:Besides, I have a theory that a lot of the "solid evidence for Finecast being rubbish" is actually people working for other companies deliberately buying rejected models or even damaging perfectly good models, and then posting the "evidence"

But how does that explain all the gakky models sitting in unopened blister packs at the store?

I still haven't bought anything in finecast... But hopefully now a comment has been made the quality will improve and I can finally buy the terminator librarian I'm waiting on.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Mr.Church13 wrote:90% of people who complain about Finecast have never purchased one model.

And where did you pull that figure from? Go on - I want to see the working behind it.

In addition, why must I fund GW's shoddy Finecast operation to have an opinion on it? Go on, I want to see the working behind that too.

Before the entrenchment completes and the thread is locked, I have $0.02 of my own.

Until now, if you will observe, I have not posted in any Finecast threads. I was reserving judgement based on my own experiences.

When I saw the threads saying how terrible Finecast was, I dismissed them. I wanted to like Finecast. I love converting and was sick of the metal models.

I play with many techmarines, almost all of them converted in some way. The metal was terrible to work with, and I was more than willing to fall deeply in love with a resin techmarine.

I tried. I really did. I've bought two Techmarines with Servitors in Finecast. Each one had flaws.

Now they weren't major flaws and I didn't return them. After all, I'm just going to saw it apart for conversion bits, right?

I am disappointed. The servo-arms are extremely flimsy - the larger servo-arm bent and finally tore off at the bottom when I set a piece of construction paper on top of it. The same servo-arm on the other tech-priest almost snapped under the pressure of painting it and I had to add a dab of glue to keep it in place. The guitar-wire mechadendrites are less flimsy!

It truly is unacceptable. I've tried to love Finecast. I was ready for it, and I was sick of sawing apart metal models with my dremel.

But I can't say I approve. I just can't. I don't want metal to come back! I just want Finecast to be durable; I want it to be easier metal. But it isn't. :(

The only way we will know anything for sure os if someone leaks (because GW will never release) the data for their returns figures.

I've been making models a long time, and anecdotal as it is, I can't ever recall a product with this many reports of poor quality castings attached. Well there have been a few companies but they were known for producing stuff cheap and nasty, not at premium prices. I've examined Finecast stuff on the shelves and seen many with air bubbles, most could be repaired but I am dissatisfied in that I wouldn't generally look at ranks of metal figures and see the same numbers with problems of a similar level of difficulty to rectify.

There isn't much in this interview, but it does rather settle the argument as to whether the liquid greenstuff was released at an unfortunate time, or specifically for customers to correct the quality issues with their current miniatures.

I'm pretty sure that overall the product quality has gone down and there are a lot more castings I would deem unacceptable for GW prices. But I also have to assume that the bulk of their customer base simply don't care or don't have the experience to know what they should be able to expect from the highest standards of miniature casting. They either put up with it to have the miniatures they want, or just think it's okay and not worth complaining about. The number of customers GW lose due to finecast is small and doesn't affect their bottom line;, they are saving a lot of money by switching from metal and mostly concentrate on new customers who have no hobby experience anyway.

Actually, the one awesome thing about Finecast? It led to the releasing Liquid Green Stuff. That stuff is the balls. It's so much better than that crap putty I had been using recently, and I love it nearly as much as I love Devlan Mud.

Ouze wrote:Actually, the one awesome thing about Finecast? It led to the releasing Liquid Green Stuff. That stuff is the balls. It's so much better than that crap putty I had been using recently, and I love it nearly as much as I love Devlan Mud.

Which is just another product that has been out for years, Vallejo plastic putty, dyed green FYI.

I have seen many Finecast models in store. In fact, I regularly look at the packs just for fun. I have seen miscasts, some quite bad, but aside from wave 1 models, which were quite bad sometimes, I have never seen any Finecast models on sale with the levels of broken...ness as have been shown on the internet. Small air bubbles and flash, yes. Whole missing pieces, no.

FabricatorGeneralMike wrote:Well I just did a google search for finecast flaws pics, and got a lot of hits on google, I did finecast good casts/quailty pics and got around three jobber threads. Shrugs guess the internet just hates on gw eh? According to them its not like anyone uses this thing anyways its just a fad that will pass in a few years....

I guess you didn't read the last few pages of the thread?

Once more, then:

Discussion on the Internet typically has a very different tone than discussion in real life, especially when dealing with Games Workshop. This tone is typically much more negative than you would find from other sources-- further, this pattern of negative treatment tends to be self-reinforcing. Thus, looking for information about Finecast quality on the Internet will give you a very biased sample, which is not reflective of the overall quality (or lack thereof) of the product.

Fetterkey wrote:

FabricatorGeneralMike wrote:Well I just did a google search for finecast flaws pics, and got a lot of hits on google, I did finecast good casts/quailty pics and got around three jobber threads. Shrugs guess the internet just hates on gw eh? According to them its not like anyone uses this thing anyways its just a fad that will pass in a few years....

I guess you didn't read the last few pages of the thread?

Once more, then:

Discussion on the Internet typically has a very different tone than discussion in real life, especially when dealing with Games Workshop. This tone is typically much more negative than you would find from other sources-- further, this pattern of negative treatment tends to be self-reinforcing. Thus, looking for information about Finecast quality on the Internet will give you a very biased sample, which is not reflective of the overall quality (or lack thereof) of the product.

You mean you and squigs raging when anyone talks bad about fincast? Yes I read that didn't impress me. Sorry guys, I am not active in the GW PLC,tm,c "Hobby",tm,c anymore but I still do frequent the local game stores. The word on the street is stay away from Finecast and if you can get old metal models. If you can't try your best to kitbash/convert something up. I guess anyone who talks bad about finecast is a 'other company plant' who is trying to discredit GW no matter what they do.

Sorry man your argument is old and warn, first it was "Finecast is equal to the moon lands", then the white knights where like oh its only been a few months give it some time to iron out the kinks, now after almost a year of selling a sub-standard product (IMHO, YMMV, all the cliche's) nothing has changed and GW still has their head in the sand about it from a outsiders point of view looking in. Plus customers got a price hike on a cheaper (material wise) model.

If that is what the GW hobby is now thank god I got away in time. The thing is I am a sucker for the things of my youth and the RT-era was my youth (started in 89) so I still love the old models and books.

Squigsquasher wrote:I have seen many Finecast models in store. In fact, I regularly look at the packs just for fun. I have seen miscasts, some quite bad, but aside from wave 1 models, which were quite bad sometimes, I have never seen any Finecast models on sale with the levels of broken...ness as have been shown on the internet. Small air bubbles and flash, yes. Whole missing pieces, no.

Perhaps people who post pics of duff Finecast on the internet have "interfered" with the models in order to smear the construction material.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Squigsquasher wrote:I have seen many Finecast models in store. In fact, I regularly look at the packs just for fun. I have seen miscasts, some quite bad, but aside from wave 1 models, which were quite bad sometimes, I have never seen any Finecast models on sale with the levels of broken...ness as have been shown on the internet. Small air bubbles and flash, yes. Whole missing pieces, no.

Perhaps people who post pics of duff Finecast on the internet have "interfered" with the models in order to smear the construction material.

Seems entirely possible, but also kinda like a waste of a bunch of money just to slander GW on a web forum. Not saying that people wouldn't go to these extraordinary lengths, but occam's razor dictates that it's unlikely.

FabricatorGeneralMike wrote:I guess anyone who talks bad about finecast is a 'other company plant' who is trying to discredit GW no matter what they do.

Uh, I doubt it. The Internet just has a lot of negative and opinionated people on it, that's the way such things work sometimes. I don't think there are any "plants" or "jobbers" or whatever you call them at work here.

FabricatorGeneralMike wrote:Sorry man your argument is old and warn, first it was "Finecast is equal to the moon lands", then the white knights where like oh its only been a few months give it some time to iron out the kinks, now after almost a year of selling a sub-standard product (IMHO, YMMV, all the cliche's) nothing has changed and GW still has their head in the sand about it from a outsiders point of view looking in. Plus customers got a price hike on a cheaper (material wise) model.

The "moon landing" stuff was obvious marketing tripe. I never expected anything out of Finecast other than lighter weight and easier to convert metals, and I would say the product has proved more than sufficient to meet my needs there. I don't consider myself to be a GW "white knight" by any means, and accusing someone of weird allegiances and hidden motivations seems rather rude to me.

Fetterkey wrote:

FabricatorGeneralMike wrote:I guess anyone who talks bad about finecast is a 'other company plant' who is trying to discredit GW no matter what they do.

Uh, I doubt it. The Internet just has a lot of negative and opinionated people on it, that's the way such things work sometimes. I don't think there are any "plants" or "jobbers" or whatever you call them at work here.

FabricatorGeneralMike wrote:Sorry man your argument is old and warn, first it was "Finecast is equal to the moon lands", then the white knights where like oh its only been a few months give it some time to iron out the kinks, now after almost a year of selling a sub-standard product (IMHO, YMMV, all the cliche's) nothing has changed and GW still has their head in the sand about it from a outsiders point of view looking in. Plus customers got a price hike on a cheaper (material wise) model.

The "moon landing" stuff was obvious marketing tripe. I never expected anything out of Finecast other than lighter weight and easier to convert metals, and I would say the product has proved more than sufficient to meet my needs there. I don't consider myself to be a GW "white knight" by any means, and accusing someone of weird allegiances and hidden motivations seems rather rude to me.

And in breaking news...the pot just called the kettle black

Zarren Wevon wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

Squigsquasher wrote:I have seen many Finecast models in store. In fact, I regularly look at the packs just for fun. I have seen miscasts, some quite bad, but aside from wave 1 models, which were quite bad sometimes, I have never seen any Finecast models on sale with the levels of broken...ness as have been shown on the internet. Small air bubbles and flash, yes. Whole missing pieces, no.

Perhaps people who post pics of duff Finecast on the internet have "interfered" with the models in order to smear the construction material.

Seems entirely possible, but also kinda like a waste of a bunch of money just to slander GW on a web forum. Not saying that people wouldn't go to these extraordinary lengths, but occam's razor dictates that it's unlikely.

Not that I'm supporting one argument or the other, but...
There's another possibility. People likely are not purposely buying horrible miscasts just to post them, but they might be posting the horrible miscasts and not the much more acceptable replacements they get.

Of course, they might also just be getting a shoddy replacement.

I'm not interested in the ratio of good models to bad, or how many models are need to get an accurate reading of the percentage of quality models.

What interests me is the quality of replacement models that are sent out. If duds were rare, then it should be simple for GW QC to send a good replacement. The first time. After eight or nine flawed replacements have been sent out, it tells me one of two things:

1) Good models are in the minority
2) QC doesn't have access to the good models

Neither answer gives me any reason to give GW the benefit of the doubt on the ratio of good models to bad.

I'm glad to hear people are getting good models. That's great news. But when QC repeatedly sends out substandard models, coupled with management's statement that liquid green stuff is now required to bring their models to an acceptable state, it's clear to me that good models are in the minority. GW's stance appears to be that their customers just need to drop their standards, accept that flaws are now the standard, and pony up for liquid green stuff if they want to end up with a quality model.

or 3, QC is sending back the duds as replacements.

Never attribute to malice what can adequately be attributed to stupidity.

pretre wrote:
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be attributed to stupidity.

Or policy.

puma713 wrote:

pretre wrote:
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be attributed to stupidity.

Or policy.

lol, I was assuming those were the same thing.

Knowing corporations, there's probably some stupid policy that says that 'All models must be opened if used for replacements.' Someone probably put it in place meaning that you should check the model before sending it out and all the returns guys go 'Oh, we have to use the already opened models as replacements. Weird, but okay.'

Ah, now I got told by today's CS dude that he had a fresh batch of casts to use for replacement, so 'the quality should be spot on'. I am allegedly going to have a hand-checked piece sent out. I am not, as they say, holding my breath. This is like the moon landing, after all, and even if you hold your breath your face will still explode.

winterdyne wrote:Ah, now I got told by today's CS dude that he had a fresh batch of casts to use for replacement, so 'the quality should be spot on'. I am allegedly going to have a hand-checked piece sent out. I am not, as they say, holding my breath. This is like the moon landing, after all, and even if you hold your breath your face will still explode.

So in other words they received all the duds that people have gotten and are now sending them back out as 'replacements'.

As Mr Kirby said after his North American trip " Mission Accomplished"

Kanluwen wrote:

Zarren Wevon wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

Squigsquasher wrote:I have seen many Finecast models in store. In fact, I regularly look at the packs just for fun. I have seen miscasts, some quite bad, but aside from wave 1 models, which were quite bad sometimes, I have never seen any Finecast models on sale with the levels of broken...ness as have been shown on the internet. Small air bubbles and flash, yes. Whole missing pieces, no.

Perhaps people who post pics of duff Finecast on the internet have "interfered" with the models in order to smear the construction material.

Seems entirely possible, but also kinda like a waste of a bunch of money just to slander GW on a web forum. Not saying that people wouldn't go to these extraordinary lengths, but occam's razor dictates that it's unlikely.

Not that I'm supporting one argument or the other, but...
There's another possibility. People likely are not purposely buying horrible miscasts just to post them, but they might be posting the horrible miscasts and not the much more acceptable replacements they get.

Of course, they might also just be getting a shoddy replacement.

Indeed.

Though the argument of the anti-Finecast people is that the first copy bought should be of merchantable quality, and there should be no need for replacement.

FabricatorGeneralMike wrote:

winterdyne wrote:Ah, now I got told by today's CS dude that he had a fresh batch of casts to use for replacement, so 'the quality should be spot on'. I am allegedly going to have a hand-checked piece sent out. I am not, as they say, holding my breath. This is like the moon landing, after all, and even if you hold your breath your face will still explode.

So in other words they received all the duds that people have gotten and are now sending them back out as 'replacements'.

As Mr Kirby said after his North American trip " Mission Accomplished"

Heh, possibly. I'm not stopping till I get a good cast. I have buckets of other things to paint for GD (my carmine dragon is progressing, my warhound is still waiting on a couple of parts but will be underway this week, lizardmen are hissing at me, as is a metal Leoncour)...

Kaldor wrote:Which is still completely irrelevant. Any number of reviews only account for a tiny, tiny fraction of over-all FC sales. Ten thousand bad reviews mean nothing if it only accounts for 1% of the total production.

Most companies would find a 1% manufacturing fault rate unacceptable.

A 1% fault rate based solely on negative reviews would be even more unacceptable. There's an old adage in retail that for every dissatisfied customer who complains, there are 10 other dissatisfied customers who didn't. Those other people don't bother complaining... they just take their money elsewhere.

insaniak wrote:

Kaldor wrote:Which is still completely irrelevant. Any number of reviews only account for a tiny, tiny fraction of over-all FC sales. Ten thousand bad reviews mean nothing if it only accounts for 1% of the total production.

Most companies would find a 1% manufacturing fault rate unacceptable.

Without going into detail I can directly and unequivocally confirm this. A 1% failure rate, though it seems small is beyond unacceptable and usually indicates systemic failures of some sort.

That's almost Sigma level 4.

pretre wrote:or 3, QC is sending back the duds as replacements.

Never attribute to malice what can adequately be attributed to stupidity.

I consider that to be the same as #2; QC doesn't have enough good models in stock. If flawed models were rare, they could afford to take returned models out of circulation in favour of quality models. If they don't have enough good quality models, but are putting flawed models back into the market, there is a serious problem that goes beyond stupidity.

When four or six or eight flawed models are sent out to the same disgruntled customer, that says either they lack good replacements, or they are betting their customers will eventually accept that flawed is the new standard. Again, neither option says that flawed models are in the minority, or taken seriously by GW.

Mastiff wrote:

pretre wrote:or 3, QC is sending back the duds as replacements.

Never attribute to malice what can adequately be attributed to stupidity.

I consider that to be the same as #2; QC doesn't have enough good models in stock. If flawed models were rare, they could afford to take returned models out of circulation in favour of quality models. If they don't have enough good quality models, but are putting flawed models back into the market, there is a serious problem that goes beyond stupidity.

When four or six or eight flawed models are sent out to the same disgruntled customer, that says either they lack good replacements, or they are betting their customers will eventually accept that flawed is the new standard. Again, neither option says that flawed models are in the minority, or taken seriously by GW.

You didn't read my later post, obviously.

Keep going, I explain how something like that probably went down.

Mastiff wrote:
I consider that to be the same as #2; QC doesn't have enough good models in stock. If flawed models were rare, they could afford to take returned models out of circulation in favour of quality models. If they don't have enough good quality models, but are putting flawed models back into the market, there is a serious problem that goes beyond stupidity.

When four or six or eight flawed models are sent out to the same disgruntled customer, that says either they lack good replacements, or they are betting their customers will eventually accept that flawed is the new standard. Again, neither option says that flawed models are in the minority, or taken seriously by GW.

That would be me, 8 Grotesques, not a single one without a messed face mask or massive hole free torso, not to mention missing fingers and brittle parts, all this from a $30 model. I guess thats my fault and I should get back in the kitchen and get some ice for my black eye right?

OverwatchCNC wrote:No one in the finecast argument, either side, has yet to produce actual numbers to prove their point either way.

Nobody against fine cast can do anything more than present pictures from multiple sources that make up an unknown quantity of miscasts. (vocal minority syndrome etc.)

Nobody defending GW can produce a single iota of evidence providing us with any clear indication as to how much of the FC shenanigans are internet rage vs. actual rage.

Neither party can produce the proper evidence, nor will either side ever be able to without access to GW inventory, customer service, and quality control files. If neither side can prove their point without anecdotal evidence, guess work, conjecture, or any of the other myriad means being utilized in this thread and the numerous other FC hate threads then why are we still talking about this?

I still don't understand why this is a separate thread or why these are allowed to go on for as long as they do when neither side gets anywhere or produces anything remotely resembling factual evidence to prove their point.

So I would like to know what you call the people that has proof of getting 8-10+ replacement and counting,
on failcast they bought.

Rare special cases and/or TFGs.

Fetterkey wrote:Rare special cases and/or TFGs.

Just... wow.

Fetterkey wrote:Rare special cases and/or TFGs.

You'll obviously ignore any argument, no matter how much evidence someone will give you, you'll ignore it.

There's no point in making false claims, while Internet hype can overblow things this isn't.

When someone receives 10 faulty models advertised as being the greatest in the world, and costing 20% more than metal models,

Fetterkey wrote:Rare special cases and/or TFGs.

What makes them TFG in your book may I ask?

Hellfury wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:Rare special cases and/or TFGs.

Just... wow.

this

i have bought a few finecast models, i run a coven DE list. in my boxes of wracks, not one of the models were perfect, some of the arms were downright unusable, and the only reason that i didn't get them replaced was that my GW store had run out of stock. my heamunculi were similarly flawed, missing finger, bubbles in annoying places, that kind of thing. but i decided that it wasn't worth the hassle and they were in inconspicuous places and i didn't have the time.

for a seperate project i bought an emperor's champion in finecast, he is missing a finger, has the corner of an elbow plate missing, and had several bubbles in the boots.

not one model i have bought has been perfect, not even close. just because we can fix these problems, doesn't mean we should have to. and talking to a staff member doesn't help, because they just get pissed off and threaten to kick you out if you start to complain about finecast. or they just say "that's what your liquid greenstuff is for" and "well it's a new product, there are bound to be teething problems"

it is a load of crap and there is no reason in the world that can make it acceptable

So people who complain about Finecast are TFG's?

Welcome to the ignore list.

WAAAAGGHH-god wrote:i have bought a few finecast models, i run a coven DE list. in my boxes of wracks, not one of the models were perfect, some of the arms were downright unusable, and the only reason that i didn't get them replaced was that my GW store had run out of stock.

So call them. The benefit of calling them is they send you a new one, while stores usually actually replace it taking the old models back. Calling them leaves you with the original, and usually fixable with a bit of work, model.

-Loki- wrote:

WAAAAGGHH-god wrote:i have bought a few finecast models, i run a coven DE list. in my boxes of wracks, not one of the models were perfect, some of the arms were downright unusable, and the only reason that i didn't get them replaced was that my GW store had run out of stock.

So call them. The benefit of calling them is they send you a new one, while stores usually actually replace it taking the old models back. Calling them leaves you with the original, and usually fixable with a bit of work, model.

Actually GW ask you to mail it back, even LGSs that have finecast have to send back the bad ones to get the new ones, the only way around it is GW stores where its full price, and certain managers will keep the old ones.

true, but unfortunately i'm one of the lazy ones that prefers to have a playable army on the table rather than spend oodles of time i don't have getting replacements that may or may not be as bad or worse as the models i already have.

Trust me I have a coven too, Im had to get 18 boxes of wracks to get 28 I liked. The grotesques though I havent got a single one yet that I liked and Im at 8 and counting from the first one bought.

WAAAAGGHH-god wrote:

not one model i have bought has been perfect, not even close. just because we can fix these problems, doesn't mean we should have to. and talking to a staff member doesn't help, because they just get pissed off and threaten to kick you out if you start to complain about finecast. or they just say "that's what your liquid greenstuff is for" and "well it's a new product, there are bound to be teething problems"

it is a load of crap and there is no reason in the world that can make it acceptable

Honestly dude, dont let them push you around, just say you're not happy with the mold and ask for an exchange, if they try and sell Liquid greenstuff tell them respectfully No, if they get uppity again just ask for to be exchanged, they continue call head office, ask for Andy and they get fired, problem solved.

GW fires pretty much everyone that gets a customer complaint, red/black shirts are so expendable its not funny, they rarely last more then 6 months anyway.

Howard A Treesong wrote:The only way we will know anything for sure os if someone leaks (because GW will never release) the data for their returns figures.

I've been making models a long time, and anecdotal as it is, I can't ever recall a product with this many reports of poor quality castings attached. Well there have been a few companies but they were known for producing stuff cheap and nasty, not at premium prices. I've examined Finecast stuff on the shelves and seen many with air bubbles, most could be repaired but I am dissatisfied in that I wouldn't generally look at ranks of metal figures and see the same numbers with problems of a similar level of difficulty to rectify.

There isn't much in this interview, but it does rather settle the argument as to whether the liquid greenstuff was released at an unfortunate time, or specifically for customers to correct the quality issues with their current miniatures.

I'm pretty sure that overall the product quality has gone down and there are a lot more castings I would deem unacceptable for GW prices. But I also have to assume that the bulk of their customer base simply don't care or don't have the experience to know what they should be able to expect from the highest standards of miniature casting. They either put up with it to have the miniatures they want, or just think it's okay and not worth complaining about. The number of customers GW lose due to finecast is small and doesn't affect their bottom line;, they are saving a lot of money by switching from metal and mostly concentrate on new customers who have no hobby experience anyway.

/thread

Ravenous D wrote:

-Loki- wrote:

WAAAAGGHH-god wrote:i have bought a few finecast models, i run a coven DE list. in my boxes of wracks, not one of the models were perfect, some of the arms were downright unusable, and the only reason that i didn't get them replaced was that my GW store had run out of stock.

So call them. The benefit of calling them is they send you a new one, while stores usually actually replace it taking the old models back. Calling them leaves you with the original, and usually fixable with a bit of work, model.

Actually GW ask you to mail it back, even LGSs that have finecast have to send back the bad ones to get the new ones, the only way around it is GW stores where its full price, and certain managers will keep the old ones.

QFT because then the store can write it off.

@Luna: QFT? Because you own a LGS and can provide documentary evidence? Or QFT because you want to stay on your bandwagon?

J.Black wrote:@Luna: QFT? Because you own a LGS and can provide documentary evidence? Or QFT because you want to stay on your bandwagon?

QFT because my GW manager also does that.

Please don't assume sir.

Ravenous D wrote:

-Loki- wrote:

WAAAAGGHH-god wrote:i have bought a few finecast models, i run a coven DE list. in my boxes of wracks, not one of the models were perfect, some of the arms were downright unusable, and the only reason that i didn't get them replaced was that my GW store had run out of stock.

So call them. The benefit of calling them is they send you a new one, while stores usually actually replace it taking the old models back. Calling them leaves you with the original, and usually fixable with a bit of work, model.

Actually GW ask you to mail it back, even LGSs that have finecast have to send back the bad ones to get the new ones, the only way around it is GW stores where its full price, and certain managers will keep the old ones.

Not all the time. I've only read occasional reports here about being asked to send it back. I've never been asked personally, neither has anyone I know.

Really?! Your local GW manager keeps other peoples returns for his own benefit and no-one has thought to tell HO what he's doing?

I can only assume from what you post..... You really expect me (or anyone else at that matter) to take what you say as gospel?

J.Black wrote:Really?! Your local GW manager keeps other peoples returns for his own benefit and no-one has thought to tell HO what he's doing?

I can only assume from what you post..... You really expect me (or anyone else at that matter) to take what you say as gospel?

I dont expect you to get bent out of shape since

1) that is what they do
2) whats the big deal?

Customer gets bad cast, brings it do store.

Manager replace it with new one, throws bad cast into a box. Customer walks out with a new box.

If you are implying I need to make anything up , that is very offending on a personal level.

LunaHound wrote:I dont expect you to get bent out of shape since

Well, good... because I won't

1) that is what they do

Evidence please? You are accusing someone of fraud.

2) whats the big deal?

You are accusing someone of fraud, albeit via the internet, and you don't have and evidence to back it up.

Customer gets bad cast, brings it do store.

Manager replace it with new one, throws bad cast into a box. Customer walks out with a new box.

The customer just walks away from that? It only took one new box to replace the flaws in finecast?!

If you are implying I need to make anything up , that is very offending on a personal level.

You get offended when someone asks you to provide evidence for your claims? Thank feth you aren't involved in anything other than painting toy soldiers.....

J.Black wrote:You get offended when someone asks you to provide evidence for your claims? Thank feth ( that is a F word if the filter didnt help ) you aren't involved in anything other than painting toy soldiers.....

No, I get offended because:

1) You make personal attacks like above
2) And because you accuse me of doing so for bandwagoning

J.Black wrote:@Luna: QFT? Because you own a LGS and can provide documentary evidence? Or QFT because you want to stay on your bandwagon?

And then

J.Black wrote:You really expect me (or anyone else at that matter) to take what you say as gospel?

Your tone so far has been extremely rude while Im just posting what I know. So if you want to explain your aggression I will hear you out.

Okay, y'all need to settle down in here, before I have to reach for a bigger hammer. Accusations of lying are generally rude, and as such usually a violation of Dakka's posting rules.

Yeah..... There's too much crap out there to dismiss it as a minority problem

Has anyone tried to put all the bad reviews on the web into some kind of order? Most of the things I read about finecast have been restricted to a limited amount of models. i.e. there are issues with some sculpts but not others

I am 27/1 in terms of good finecast to bad (and by good I mean I have only needed to do flash-removal/slight bubble-fixing. Not any sculpting work). FWIW, that seems to be a pretty good success rate.

J.Black wrote:

Evidence please? You are accusing someone of fraud.

Hate to tell you this, this had been GW SOP since about day one. If a customer get a miscast or unacceptable model GW used to replace it no questions asked. The miscast stuff went into the 'store bits box/writeoff box' and was used for stuff such as store armies, if it was a vehicle kit that was buggered it might be made into terrain, often stuff found it's way into staff members 'store armies' and personal armies. I should know as when I worked there I was in charge of salvaging the miscast metal models ( I love working with metal models) if possible for store/personal use. We wont even get into the time I had to give up 45 SM beakie heads to the regional manager for his army on tour =o\

Really Black, please please know what you are talking about before you go accusing people of theft.

LunaHound wrote:

OverwatchCNC wrote:No one in the finecast argument, either side, has yet to produce actual numbers to prove their point either way.

Nobody against fine cast can do anything more than present pictures from multiple sources that make up an unknown quantity of miscasts. (vocal minority syndrome etc.)

Nobody defending GW can produce a single iota of evidence providing us with any clear indication as to how much of the FC shenanigans are internet rage vs. actual rage.

Neither party can produce the proper evidence, nor will either side ever be able to without access to GW inventory, customer service, and quality control files. If neither side can prove their point without anecdotal evidence, guess work, conjecture, or any of the other myriad means being utilized in this thread and the numerous other FC hate threads then why are we still talking about this?

I still don't understand why this is a separate thread or why these are allowed to go on for as long as they do when neither side gets anywhere or produces anything remotely resembling factual evidence to prove their point.

So I would like to know what you call the people that has proof of getting 8-10+ replacement and counting,
on failcast they bought.

Anecdotal evidence not hard statistical evidence of a large company wide production problem. Polls on Dakka and Warseer would hardly count as good statistical data either, any pollster worth their weight in campaign or lobbying money could tell you that.

Statistical evidence for either side of the argument would entail much more than "people that has proof of getting 8-10+ replacement and counting".

Please bear in mind I have no real opinion on the issue of FC, I take issue with the way the two side are arguing without really attempting to prove their point in any factual way. I only like it because it isn't metal, when I get one that is miscast I send it back. I find it neither amazingly great nor abhorrently evil. Those wishing to argue either side, and it appears those are the only sides almost, should at least try to compile real numbers to support their point besides "people that has proof of getting 8-10+ replacement and counting".

OverwatchCNC wrote:
Statistical evidence for either side of the argument would entail much more than "people that has proof of getting 8-10+ replacement and counting".

Please bear in mind I have no real opinion on the issue of FC, I take issue with the way the two side are arguing without really attempting to prove their point in any factual way. I only like it because it isn't metal, when I get one that is miscast I send it back. I find it neither amazingly great nor abhorrently evil. Those wishing to argue either side, and it appears those are the only sides almost, should at least try to compile real numbers to support their point besides "people that has proof of getting 8-10+ replacement and counting".

And yet, that information is not something that anyone is privy to, outside of GW. I doubt we'll ever get that information, for one side or the other. So, in the absence of those hard-and-fast statistical numbers, we must look to the next best thing - empirical experience. When someone bought a Necron Lord, decided to return it and then receives 9 other replacements in similar condition or worse, that is proof that something is wrong. When the same flaws show up in separate models (indicating a problem with the material, the casting process, or QC), then again, something is wrong. And when you're not provided with the factual numbers either way, it is irresponsible to not at least listen to the people trying to give you reviews with pictures to back them up.

In the absence of data from GW, data from the fanbase is the best we have to go on. Yes, you have to realize that there are decent casts as well as horrible casts. If we could just see some of the decent casts being reviewed (or pictures of them right out of the clamshell from posters on Dakka that defend the material), then that would certainly even the keel a bit.

Edit: You also have to realize that the people against Finecast, like myself, aren't just miffed about the material itself. It is the entire release. It is not one thing or the other, it is everything combined. That is why there is so much ire. Drastic price increase, flimsier material, replaced models that didn't need replacing, and the Finecast propoganda that came along with it. Then, as if that wasn't enough, they released products to fix their mistakes, that you must, in turn, pay more money for. These issues expand well beyond a few pinholes and pock marks.

puma713 wrote:

OverwatchCNC wrote:
Statistical evidence for either side of the argument would entail much more than "people that has proof of getting 8-10+ replacement and counting".

Please bear in mind I have no real opinion on the issue of FC, I take issue with the way the two side are arguing without really attempting to prove their point in any factual way. I only like it because it isn't metal, when I get one that is miscast I send it back. I find it neither amazingly great nor abhorrently evil. Those wishing to argue either side, and it appears those are the only sides almost, should at least try to compile real numbers to support their point besides "people that has proof of getting 8-10+ replacement and counting".

And yet, that information is not something that anyone is privy to, outside of GW. I doubt we'll ever get that information, for one side or the other. So, in the absence of those hard-and-fast statistical numbers, we must look to the next best thing - empirical experience. When someone bought a Necron Lord, decided to return it and then receives 9 other replacements in similar condition or worse, that is proof that something is wrong. When the same flaws show up in separate models (indicating a problem with the material, the casting process, or QC), then again, something is wrong. And when you're not provided with the factual numbers either way, it is irresponsible to not at least listen to the people trying to give you reviews with pictures to back them up.

In the absence of data from GW, data from the fanbase is the best we have to go on. Yes, you have to realize that there are decent casts as well as horrible casts. If we could just see some of the decent casts being reviewed (or pictures of them right out of the clamshell from posters on Dakka that defend the material), then that would certainly even the keel a bit.

Edit: You also have to realize that the people against Finecast, like myself, aren't just miffed about the material itself. It is the entire release. It is not one thing or the other, it is everything combined. That is why there is so much ire. Drastic price increase, flimsier material, replaced models that didn't need replacing, and the Finecast propoganda that came along with it. Then, as if that wasn't enough, they released products to fix their mistakes, that you must, in turn, pay more money for. These issues expand well beyond a few pinholes and pock marks.

The problem with the empirical evidence bent is just that. I bought 6 Hive Guard, only one had an issue. I bought Coteaz, no issues. Librarian in terminator armor 1 bubble, slightly bent staff. Logan Grimnar no problems. Chaplain with Jump Pack no problems. Why didn't I take a bunch of pictures and post them here or on my blog? For the same reason no one else does, people who get what they paid for aren't upset. Those who don't get what they believed they paid for get really mad and rage all over the internet, hence the vocal minority. I am in no way saying people who have to get 9 or more replacement models prior to getting a good one have no reason to be upset. What I am saying is be careful you don't listen too much or too often to the squeaky wheel in the absence of real data.

Also, I am saying we clearly didn't need another thread on this and that both sides are being silly.

So, getting back to the OP.

I just wanted to say what an informative interview.
Thanks Andre...

puma713 wrote:And yet, that information is not something that anyone is privy to, outside of GW. I doubt we'll ever get that information, for one side or the other.

We do have the statement from the last Financials, which said that they had a 2% return rate.

That's still somewhat flawed as accurate data (for starters, we have no way of knowing whether that 2% includes repeat replacements as a single return)... but does paint a pretty horrific picture. As mentioned earlier, most manufacturers would find a 1% error rate to be completely unacceptable. A 2% return rate means an error rate quite a bit higher, as for various reasons a lot of people aren't going to bother returning models with minor flaws... Some won't even return models with major flaws, either because they don't realising they can (which is surprisingly common still) or because they just couldn't be bothered, or don't mind repairing it themselves.

It's quite clear that not all Finecast is bad... but for most companies a manufacturing error rate that, based on a 2% return is could quite possibly be up around the 10-20% mark would be cause for a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth at the head office level.

@ insaniak, does the return rate means refund? ( i dont know )

If not, could that means aslong as they exchange it, it wont show up as part of the % ( aka writing off ) ?

I have avoided finecast so I don't have much experience with it but the models I have built were perfectly fine.

I am in the same situation as rockerbikie.

I do not own any Finecost minis (nor do I intend to own any), and my experience comes with friends who have bought some. Most of them have been fine. One of those was a 25th Ann Marine... although he did buy it off eBay and specifically looked for a 'good quality' auction.

Of course I'm not about to ignore reality and pretend the rampant problems don't exist.

OverwatchCNC wrote:
The problem with the empirical evidence bent is just that. I bought 6 Hive Guard, only one had an issue. I bought Coteaz, no issues. Librarian in terminator armor 1 bubble, slightly bent staff. Logan Grimnar no problems. Chaplain with Jump Pack no problems. Why didn't I take a bunch of pictures and post them here or on my blog? For the same reason no one else does, people who get what they paid for aren't upset. Those who don't get what they believed they paid for get really mad and rage all over the internet, hence the vocal minority. I am in no way saying people who have to get 9 or more replacement models prior to getting a good one have no reason to be upset. What I am saying is be careful you don't listen too much or too often to the squeaky wheel in the absence of real data.

Also, I am saying we clearly didn't need another thread on this and that both sides are being silly.

And yet, with all those great and flawless models, you can't be bothered to post a single picture of them online to show them... Yeah, like the guy who claimed that he also had a bubbled GW metal model, I call BS on those claims.

PhantomViper wrote:

OverwatchCNC wrote:
The problem with the empirical evidence bent is just that. I bought 6 Hive Guard, only one had an issue. I bought Coteaz, no issues. Librarian in terminator armor 1 bubble, slightly bent staff. Logan Grimnar no problems. Chaplain with Jump Pack no problems. Why didn't I take a bunch of pictures and post them here or on my blog? For the same reason no one else does, people who get what they paid for aren't upset. Those who don't get what they believed they paid for get really mad and rage all over the internet, hence the vocal minority. I am in no way saying people who have to get 9 or more replacement models prior to getting a good one have no reason to be upset. What I am saying is be careful you don't listen too much or too often to the squeaky wheel in the absence of real data.

Also, I am saying we clearly didn't need another thread on this and that both sides are being silly.

And yet, with all those great and flawless models, you can't be bothered to post a single picture of them online to show them... Yeah, like the guy who claimed that he also had a bubbled GW metal model, I call BS on those claims.

He explained, perfectly reasonably, why he did not though.

If I buy a family car that functions perfectly and looks nice, I'm not going to post it up on the internet much.

If I buy a family car that is missing one cylinder and only has two gears in its transmission, I'm going to post all over everywhere saying to watch out for that manufacturer.

Seems reasonable to me.

EDIT:

It's like that "Finger-in-the-Wendy's-chili" thing. Should we assume all Wendy's chilis have fingers in them because no one posted up repeated proof of regular, tasty chili?
OR
Should we simply assume that regular, tasty chili was expected, and therefore not special enough to post about?

Unit1126PLL wrote:
He explained, perfectly reasonably, why he did not though.

If I buy a family car that functions perfectly and looks nice, I'm not going to post it up on the internet much.

If I buy a family car that is missing one cylinder and only has two gears in its transmission, I'm going to post all over everywhere saying to watch out for that manufacturer.

Seems reasonable to me.

EDIT:

It's like that "Finger-in-the-Wendy's-chili" thing. Should we assume all Wendy's chilis have fingers in them because no one posted up repeated proof of regular, tasty chili?
OR
Should we simply assume that regular, tasty chili was expected, and therefore not special enough to post about?

Except that when you are trying to prove something, actual, you know, proof, might help your case!

What he is saying is: "all those bad reviews and pictures of flawed failcrap miniatures are just anecdotal evidence and should be disregarded! But you should totally take my word for it that all the failcrap models I got where absolutely flawless..."

Yeah... that doesn't really work like that. You white knights wan't to disprove all the photographic evidence laying around on "the internets"? Start posting some of your own!

And where is this "all reviews on the internet about anything are bad" is coming from? I started playing Infinity and Malifaux specifically due to good reviews that those games got! I bought my new motorbike because of good reviews that I read on the internet! I regularly watch movies and TV shows because of good reviews on the internet! Where are all the good Failcrap reviews?

EDIT:

It's like that "Finger-in-the-Wendy's-chili" thing. Should we assume all Wendy's chilis have fingers in them because no one posted up repeated proof of regular, tasty chili?
OR
Should we simply assume that regular, tasty chili was expected, and therefore not special enough to post about?

But when 100 - 200 fingers are found, one starts wondering what kind of idiot is serving the chilli. And also who is losing the fingers.

Howard A Treesong wrote:The only way we will know anything for sure os if someone leaks (because GW will never release) the data for their returns figures.

I've been making models a long time, and anecdotal as it is, I can't ever recall a product with this many reports of poor quality castings attached. Well there have been a few companies but they were known for producing stuff cheap and nasty, not at premium prices. I've examined Finecast stuff on the shelves and seen many with air bubbles, most could be repaired but I am dissatisfied in that I wouldn't generally look at ranks of metal figures and see the same numbers with problems of a similar level of difficulty to rectify.

There isn't much in this interview, but it does rather settle the argument as to whether the liquid greenstuff was released at an unfortunate time, or specifically for customers to correct the quality issues with their current miniatures.

I'm pretty sure that overall the product quality has gone down and there are a lot more castings I would deem unacceptable for GW prices. But I also have to assume that the bulk of their customer base simply don't care or don't have the experience to know what they should be able to expect from the highest standards of miniature casting. They either put up with it to have the miniatures they want, or just think it's okay and not worth complaining about. The number of customers GW lose due to finecast is small and doesn't affect their bottom line;, they are saving a lot of money by switching from metal and mostly concentrate on new customers who have no hobby experience anyway.

I think this post bears repeating again.

A few months (perhaps 6 months) of production flaw might have been acceptable. But most certainly not a year, that there are still threads coming like this I think is a dreadful shame.

However, I think now the issue is not whether or not the FC rate of failure is acceptable or not (perhaps 2 guys in this thread are arguing that it is, and obviously aren't going to be convinced otherwise), but what if anything can the fan community do to change the situation?

Part of me thinks that I am fortunate not to live in a miniature-wargaming monopoly - their are plenty of other attractive propositions in the market. But on the other hand, I think it is such a shame that GW's standards have fallen so low that this problem continues. I want GW to continue to make miniatures and games for them, and as much as I dislike some of their current strategies and contempt for the fan base, of course I remember when this was not the case and they thought about things other than the bottom line; like about having some pride in both the miniatures they released and the rules they made for them. Perhaps the heart and soul of the company can be found once again?

I think everyone who has had a poor FC experience should put it in writing to GW. Not email, but printed letter. Away from the sales department and evil Montgomery Burns-types sat cackling in head office, I genuinely believe there is a core of people at the heart of the company that like the same things we do, and must surely feel the same way. Perhaps it is possible to enact change.

It's true. As I said earlier, I've had my bad Finecast experiences.

Ravenous D wrote:

WAAAAGGHH-god wrote:

not one model i have bought has been perfect, not even close. just because we can fix these problems, doesn't mean we should have to. and talking to a staff member doesn't help, because they just get pissed off and threaten to kick you out if you start to complain about finecast. or they just say "that's what your liquid greenstuff is for" and "well it's a new product, there are bound to be teething problems"

it is a load of crap and there is no reason in the world that can make it acceptable

Honestly dude, dont let them push you around, just say you're not happy with the mold and ask for an exchange, if they try and sell Liquid greenstuff tell them respectfully No, if they get uppity again just ask for to be exchanged, they continue call head office, ask for Andy and they get fired, problem solved.

GW fires pretty much everyone that gets a customer complaint, red/black shirts are so expendable its not funny, they rarely last more then 6 months anyway.

This really needs addressing. WAAAAGGHH-god appears to be from the UK, where the amount of independent stores can be counted on one hand. So, GW has caught a lot of people between a rock and a hard place. I would not be surprised if this is his only outlet for gaming and is having to "put up or shut up" simply because there is nowhere else to play wargames locally.

Whilst I personally would go the HO route also (like a friend of mine did with a problem staffer) as GW's high street dominance in the UK has bred a certain cult of personality in their stores where if you're seen as a "problem" regular customer (you know the kind, the one who dares post on forums like Dakka. ) you cannot say anything for fear of getting kicked out or banned, so most people keep their gob shut as they have no other place to play. Obviously not all stores are like this, but I've seen this in effect in a few I've been a regular at and the tone is not unlike that of North Korea.

Here in the UK there is a much stronger club culture of wargaming.

People aren't really dependant on GW high street shops, or they needn't be if they don't want to.

For instance in Reading, where I live now, there are two local clubs big enough to run their own wargame shows, and a club at the university, and an independent shop which runs games nights, as well as a GW.

Better is to just up and not buy the faulty product, or we need to start talking class action lawsuit.

Because they are either intnetionally producing craptasticly faulted minis, or are trying to spin themselves out of an unaccetable position.


Either or, the material that they are using to produce this crap is unacceptable, and this guy pretty much is giving you the corperation spin of how to "Fix it yourself".

liquid greenstuff? really? When I already had an acceptable alternative with plastic or resin minis in the first place?


The point of the matter is that people have been casting with resin for over 20 years or so already. Alot of the mix has been for generally large scale models- Titans, tanks, scenery, etc. When they cast figures in the resin, you can see the visconsity diferental with the issue of "Bubbles"

The point of mixs of the resin is the issue at hand. They are trying to use the cheaper alternative to stay in the same amount of production, while lowering production costs.

Tell GW that the mix is crap. fix that issue and reconstitute the models to an acceptable level.

I pay 45.00 for a model, I am already getting hosed. That crap is produced for 10-20 bucks on end. NOT worth it in any amount of kol aid.

Those nicks, "Bubbles," gaps, miscasts, etc. are in point of fact unacceptable.

Continue to send them back, so that GW can spend 5X the overhead to maybe cast an acceptable sculpt.



The answer to the issue of Finecast is that they are using that B.S. mixture of the rubbery goo. If they use the same type as some of the later ones I've seen, that issue of the air pockets, the reduction in quality, and the early jokes they came out with will disappear.

I have been tooling around with a couple of types odf that plastic, and based on what I see, they need to add in a little more of that resin base, and reduce the amount of the stablizer.

That crap they are using is either latex based, or it is synthetic based. TOO darned soft for the task. I might as well be casting those figures in the same sort of plastic as Green Army men. At least Marx could get the casting damn near perfect.

Tell GW to stop using that crap.

We haven't even discussed how long these substandard figures are going to last for. How long before the details start rubbing down and eroding? Soft stuff like that? give it a year, tops.

GW aren't deliberately making bad models -- why would they?

More likely there are simply inherent pitfalls in the Finecast production process that cause a higher rate of defects than found in normal metal or polystyrene casting.

The Finecast process is a cunning method to spin cast resin with the machinery for spin casting metal. It was intended to allow GW to switch to the cheaper material without spending the money for new equipment. It isn't unlikely that a bastard process like that results in a higher rate of defects.

That said, I went to my local GW at lunchtime and had a look at the Finecast blisters. Only a few seemed to have defects and they were small defects. So probably the Liquid Green Stuff would have been fine for fixing them. Certainly the defect rate seemed lower than when I looked last autumn.

Obviously I couldn't open the larger boxed kits to look at them.

Kilkrazy wrote:
More likely there are simply inherent pitfalls in the Finecast production process that cause a higher rate of defects than found in normal metal or polystyrene casting.

or normal resin casting?

PhantomViper wrote:

OverwatchCNC wrote:
The problem with the empirical evidence bent is just that. I bought 6 Hive Guard, only one had an issue. I bought Coteaz, no issues. Librarian in terminator armor 1 bubble, slightly bent staff. Logan Grimnar no problems. Chaplain with Jump Pack no problems. Why didn't I take a bunch of pictures and post them here or on my blog? For the same reason no one else does, people who get what they paid for aren't upset. Those who don't get what they believed they paid for get really mad and rage all over the internet, hence the vocal minority. I am in no way saying people who have to get 9 or more replacement models prior to getting a good one have no reason to be upset. What I am saying is be careful you don't listen too much or too often to the squeaky wheel in the absence of real data.

Also, I am saying we clearly didn't need another thread on this and that both sides are being silly.

And yet, with all those great and flawless models, you can't be bothered to post a single picture of them online to show them... Yeah, like the guy who claimed that he also had a bubbled GW metal model, I call BS on those claims.

If I have time today I will take pictures of Logan and the Jump Pack Chaplin. They are not painted.

Overwatch, why even reply to the guy?

Certainly don't waste your own precious time digging your models out taking pictures, nobody else thinks your talking gak anyway!

As the people with common sense have stated, clearly there are good and bad models. If a guy is demanding "proof" of a good model, when no doubt a couple hundred thousand exist, I wouldn't waste my time with him.

Oh good you're here...

OverwatchCNC wrote:*snip*

The models look great. Unfortunately, painted models don't help. The negative reviews are coming from models right out of the blister. That's what we need to see.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

H.B.M.C. wrote:Oh good you're here...

Once again, all these pictures make me glad that most of the stores here still have some metals left in stock.

In fact, since it's payday, I think I'll go grab a couple I've been wanting.

GBL wrote:

EDIT:

It's like that "Finger-in-the-Wendy's-chili" thing. Should we assume all Wendy's chilis have fingers in them because no one posted up repeated proof of regular, tasty chili?
OR
Should we simply assume that regular, tasty chili was expected, and therefore not special enough to post about?

But when 100 - 200 fingers are found, one starts wondering what kind of idiot is serving the chilli. And also who is losing the fingers.

Or it's time to rethink the "bring a leper to work" policy.

mattyrm wrote: Overwatch, why even reply to the guy?

Certainly don't waste your own precious time digging your models out taking pictures, nobody else thinks your talking gak anyway!

As the people with common sense have stated, clearly there are good and bad models. If a guy is demanding "proof" of a good model, when no doubt a couple hundred thousand exist, I wouldn't waste my time with him.

Hi Welcome. =o]

zinge wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:
More likely there are simply inherent pitfalls in the Finecast production process that cause a higher rate of defects than found in normal metal or polystyrene casting.

or normal resin casting?

Maybe, though normal resin isn't a good material to cast wargame figures, because it's too fragile for normal tabletop handling. Resin casters use a vacuum process to help get bubbles out of the moulds.

On topic, Liquid Green Stuff is meant as a general-purpose filler, and has applications beyond fixing Finecast air bubbles. For example, it would be incredibly handy for anyone with a metal Hive Tyrant, as the torso doesn't fit together too well.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And anyway, the miscasts are what gives Finecast it's delicious, light, bubbly texture!

And OverwatchONC, you are a great painter.

Just bought my first finecast model, tyranid hiveguard. Missing a part and lots of bubbles on pointy areas where you cant just fill it in. Will NEVER buy finecast again.

off with their heads!

Necroshea wrote:Lol, so in other words at the end the guy is saying "Yeah some bubbles show up but that's not a big deal. Just buy our overpriced liquid putty and fix it yourself"

Howz about no GW

I believe the first response to this thread is really the only one necessary.

To everyone supporting Finecast, think about it, we didn't have threads called " Metal Miniature Miscast Collection" or " I've been having a lot of issues with these plastic miniatures, any suggestions?"

LordTyphus wrote:To everyone supporting Finecast, think about it, we didn't have threads called " Metal Miniature Miscast Collection" or " I've been having a lot of issues with these plastic miniatures, any suggestions?"

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/298664.page (Plastic Miscasts)
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/245169.page (Metal Miscasts, I love this quote:
"I refuse to buy anything metal nowadays because of my bad luck in the past. I always managed to get replacements but it's just the hassle of it I would rather avoid. "
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/222436.page?userfilterid=5421 (50% miscasting on some metal kits)
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/218722.page?userfilterid=6826 (TFC Miscast woes)
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/255115.page (Plastic miscasts)
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/241725.page (Greatswords and miscast plastic)

And that's just Dakka. So yeah, it might not be as concentrated as Finecast threads, but there have always been miscast whine threads.

I've had miscasts in all materials. Replacements have usually been fine though. I don't have a problem with *occasional* screwups, and GW CS is excellent. Borked Termie head on a SpaceHulk 'stealer - new sprue, some free 'stealers, no problem. Dodgy marine backpack - swapped in shop, no problem. Forgeworld dodgy bits - replacements sent out. Heck, the two left claws I got for my Carmine dragon were sorted out by swapping in shop at WHW. No issues at all (other than waiting on some bits from FW).

However when they don't *have* good replacements to send out there's very little they can do to keep customers who want a decent product happy.

This.

Also, note that on the second thread, one of the responses is "metal models will never be perfect".

Finecast is made using the same centrifugal casting method as metal models. Therefore Finecast is not going to be perfect either. Now you could argue that they should use a different casting method, but let's face it, that would cost a fortune. Therefore prices would rise, and people would still complain.

Prices rose anyway despite cheaper materials. That's a big part of why people are still complaining.

Wearing my business man hat I fully understand why GW wanted to get metal out of their supply chain without having to transition everything to expensive injection moulds.

pretre wrote:

LordTyphus wrote:To everyone supporting Finecast, think about it, we didn't have threads called " Metal Miniature Miscast Collection" or " I've been having a lot of issues with these plastic miniatures, any suggestions?"

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/298664.page (Plastic Miscasts)
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/245169.page (Metal Miscasts, I love this quote:
"I refuse to buy anything metal nowadays because of my bad luck in the past. I always managed to get replacements but it's just the hassle of it I would rather avoid. "
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/222436.page?userfilterid=5421 (50% miscasting on some metal kits)
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/218722.page?userfilterid=6826 (TFC Miscast woes)
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/255115.page (Plastic miscasts)
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/241725.page (Greatswords and miscast plastic)

And that's just Dakka. So yeah, it might not be as concentrated as Finecast threads, but there have always been miscast whine threads.

It's completely disproportionate however. It's like someone replying to a 'travel by road in India is dangerous' thread by saying, "well look at Denmark, they have x number of traffic accidents a year as well".

Of course there have been miscasts with metal and plastic, but not one of those threads is more than a few pages in length. We've now had at least one 'Finecast miscast' thread (70 pages +) which has been sat at the top of Dakka Discussions for more than a year now. Certainly, in the 20 years + I have been playing wargames, even away from the internet community it's the first time I've heard casual talk of this kind of thing at my club, and generally widespread condemnation. Guys who are perhaps not sufficiently into wargaming to be a member of a forum, but nevertheless to whom it is obvious that the quality is not what it should be.
It's moved beyond the joke stage I think.

There is a very real problem with the production methods GW are using for FC - several people who work within the industry, as well as in garage businesses, have commented on it and the evidence for it. Until steps are made to address these then the complaints will continue, and it's right that they should.

I didn't contend that the threads are as long or that there aren't problems with Finecast; I was merely combatting his untrue assertion that people didn't complain about Metal and Plastic miscasts with 'I'm having a lot of problems with X' threads.

The issue is one of scale, primarily.

Forgeworld use a similar resin, and similar technique for some items, at a much smaller production scale. They have fewer issues.

The process simply does not scale up to the level that GW needs for it's distribution model (centralised production, but global, simultaneous releases to market). They've outgrown it.

To improve quality, production levels must be lowered. This means either significantly more warehousing is needed to build up stock to the point where releases are scheduled (expensive!) or allowing very limited retail release and dealing only with mail order, pretty much cast-to-order. Hugely expensive. The final alternative is a dual production - one at high quality, reserved for replacements / complaints and one at 'standard' quality, which the less picky consumers may accept. That however, probably breaches several trading standards laws, and is certainly morally dubious.

Other than that, more localised production (UK, US, Possibly Asia/AUS) to cut down on distribution costs (but at a cost for production facilities/staff).

I don't see any changes coming. For the company, I think it's working as intended. Any increase in quality whilst using the process as it stands can only be accompanied by a significant increase in production cost, which you can bet would be passed on to the customer, rather than swallowed in the savings from the cheaper material.

They are rushing production, I think that is evident from the twisted casts or those where the sprue is deformed. They are being pulled out of the mould before the resin has set.

They could slow down the production process without impacting the volume manufactured if they bought more casting machines and hired some more staff. One wonders why after nearly a year with Finecast problems they don't want to invest long-term in this manner.

I dunno if they're already at capacity for the staff they have. The car park is usually rammed. I don't work there or anything, but am often at WHW / Lenton as it's my preferred store.

I just thought I'd jump in with the following: a 2% failure rate means 2 out of 100. Ergo, if someone would have a theoretical 1/50 chance of getting a duff kit. Getting 2 duff kits (same cast) in a row would be a 1/2500 chance. Getting 8 duff kits in a row would be a 1 in 3.9^13 chance.

Conversely, getting a duff kit and a single duff replacement even 1/100 times would mean that actual failure rate is 10%, not 2. The problems with the anniversary miniature seem to suggest that it has a very high chance to get a duff miniature and at least one (or more) duff replacement(s) - this would mean that for some sculpts, the failure rate might exceed 50%.

It is difficult to say with certainty what the defect rate is based on anecdotal evidence.

While the statistics are nice, the chance of something happening does not equate to the actual population outside of that single set of occurences.

I've purchased hundreds of metal/plastic GW models over the years and honestly never had one that was so bad I ever thought about returning it or contacting CS. First finecast model i bought, yesterday, and it's just horrible. As in not repairable without resculpting sections and a part missing. I wasn't even aware of the whole "failcast" thing since I just got back into WH so finecast is new to me and I never looked at this forum or searched on it to see how much hatred is out there for it. After hundreds of good to excellent models, getting one in a new casting/material tech. that is garbage says all I need to know about it. Even when I get it replaced with something acceptable, why should I waste my time on finecast? I don't have time to play lottery with finecast.

I'd go so far as to say that for some sculpts there is almost no chance whatsoever of a satisfactory product. It's not so much a question of pass / fail, it's now one purely of customer expectations - either a cast is purchased that is acceptable to the demographic targetted (rather than quantifiably defined as 'good' or 'bad') or it isn't.

Might want to try replacing it before giving up the ghost.

winterdyne wrote:I'd go so far as to say that for some sculpts there is almost no chance whatsoever of a satisfactory product. It's not so much a question of pass / fail, it's now one purely of customer expectations - either a cast is purchased that is acceptable to the demographic targetted (rather than quantifiably defined as 'good' or 'bad') or it isn't.

I don't know. I never thought they would get the Zoanthrope to work with its very long, spindly, curved arms, but the examples I looked at this week were fine.

Maybe GW are gradually upgrading the production process. Perhaps they have introduced a machine to squirt pressurised resin into the moulds.

Particular problem areas are closed over detal - with metal casting, the pressure of the metal causes trapped air to be compressed almost to nothing.

A really good example are the fingers of the powerfist on the 25th Anniversary Marine, and on the GD2012 model. I'd bet good beer that there will be a lot of problems there.

Resin doesn't have the density for that to happen, without assisted pressure (either a pressure chamber or faster spin speed, which would pretty obviously cause deformation in a flexible rubber disc mould). The moulds used for metal casting are usually a stiffer rubber and thus more resistant to pressure from spinning metal. Unfortunately, if you use too stiff a rubber for resin (ie one that would not deform too much with the centrifugal force), you simply won't be able to demould the part.

There's little they can do differently in terms of spin-casting resin (other than use simpler / better flow designs). In terms of the Marines I'm talking about, the fingers of the glove would probably cast better as a separate, small part, but that makes for a fiddlier model to put together.

I'm with Pacific on this one. All but one of the regulars at my local gaming club has given up buying new GW stuff, partly due to the poor quality of Finecast, partly due to the price rise, in the past year. Infinity has become quite popular. A few of the guys are playing a lot of BloodBowl, but not feeling the need to buy anything new for it. Most of us still play at least a bit of 40K, but don't buy new GW stuff -- I think the last thing any of the regulars bought was a bunch of GKs when they came out. I started seriously collecting a GK army at the same time... which is more than 90% eBay finds or non-GW components.

pretre wrote:It is difficult to say with certainty what the defect rate is based on anecdotal evidence.

While the statistics are nice, the chance of something happening does not equate to the actual population outside of that single set of occurences.

I agree 100% that this is based on annecdotal evidence. No debate there.

However, based on GW's stated failure rate, the chances of someone buying a bad sculpt and receiving 7 additional replacement bad sculpts is one in 39 trillion. It is ENTIRELY possible that this individual was very unlucky. However, we have annecdotal evidence that this has occured more than once. Even if we treat the sample size of these occurences as an arbitrarily small (and conservative value) - say 1:10 000 000 customers - this means that GW's stated rate is incorrect, as this unrealistically small assumed sample returns a failure rate of 13%.

Based on the above assumption, I think I can safely say that a 2% failure rate as stated by GW is definitely wrong. The magnitude by which they are underestimating defects however, is variable, due to differing thresholds for returns, levels of acceptance and reporting of flaws.

Okay, but there's your problem. Your assuming that the individual occurences have meaning for the larger sample. Sometimes, that person really does just hit the lottery. Or, and I'm not saying this is the case, they are lying.

Without the actual data and a definition of what they consider a failure, we can't be sure if it is right or wrong.

You can definitely see what we are trying to achieve, a much more detailed miniature that is lighter in weight and much easier to do conversions with, similar to our plastic models.

Yeah, I can see what you're trying to achieve, but the application by which you've attempted to achieve it clearly a failure.

Go back to metal GW. Nothing's wrong with it.

@ pretre: Right, but I think the occurances of so many "Lottery Wins" is highly unlikely at the stated expected "rate of wins".

It's all just idle speculation. I attempted to debunk after the Necron Overlord issue in the other thread and I've not found a single Necron Overlord in my travels that doesn't suffer from at least one of the issues indicated by the original poster in that thread. In particular, the area behind the knee is almost always screwed up. I could be equally unlucky, however in this case, my personal experience has led me to suspect that the stated rate of failiure is probably incorrect, though by what amount, spread across the entire range, is impossible to discern without a larger sample size.

Samus_aran115 wrote:

You can definitely see what we are trying to achieve, a much more detailed miniature that is lighter in weight and much easier to do conversions with, similar to our plastic models.

Yeah, I can see what you're trying to achieve, but the application by which you've attempted to achieve it clearly a failure.

Go back to metal GW. Nothing's wrong with it.

There is plenty wrong with metal. IMO there metal models had just as many issues as fine cast but not in the same category. While fincast may, or may not, have more miscasts than metal fincast is infinitely easier to assemble. That is the reason I am actually rather neutral about finecast miscasts, I will take ease of assembly over fixing a few bubbles any day.

There are more issues with metal than just that but that is my main issue.

@OverwatchCNC: Well, there is that. I would love to see a Finecast Exorcist or TFC. Those suckers are notoriously annoying to assemble.

I have a thought, what if the 2% fail rate their talking about is the stuff they pull off the line at the factory. The defective product we are dealing with is listed under some other catagory. I know some company's will get away with shady stuff like that. They tell you something and they haven't actually lied about it. It's just not what you thought you were hearing.

@wowsmash: Now that is a pretty good possibility.

Squigsquasher wrote:This.

Also, note that on the second thread, one of the responses is "metal models will never be perfect".

Finecast is made using the same centrifugal casting method as metal models. Therefore Finecast is not going to be perfect either. Now you could argue that they should use a different casting method, but let's face it, that would cost a fortune. Therefore prices would rise, and people would still complain.

The problem is, they switched materials and prices did rise, by 10% (in Canada).

Had they made the switch to resin, and dropped the price by 5%, I'd happily fill in the bubbles. But when the price of a single model could pay for a steak and lobster dinner, I get a bit annoyed that the quality has dropped.

The price rise was going to happen whether they changed materials or not. Yes, a price drop would have been nice, but when has GW ever dropped prices.

pretre wrote:The price rise was going to happen whether they changed materials or not. Yes, a price drop would have been nice, but when has GW ever dropped prices.

My comment was a response to Squigsquasher's claim that getting better quality casts would have raised the prices of the models, which would have caused people to complain. My point was that quality did not improve, and in some cases dropped, yet GW thought that still justified a price increase.

A sneaky company would have frozen prices on all transitioned old metal saying yes it is cheaper so we held the prices this year. This gets you a bit of customer goodwill, then with kits that never existed in metal before you build a price rise into the release price as the customer has no direct comparison. Therefore you get you price rise (albeit more slowly) but you also don't pee your customer off with blatant profiteering.

pretre wrote:The price rise was going to happen whether they changed materials or not. Yes, a price drop would have been nice, but when has GW ever dropped prices.

Necron Immortals

pretre wrote:@OverwatchCNC: Well, there is that. I would love to see a Finecast Exorcist or TFC. Those suckers are notoriously annoying to assemble.

Don't even get me started on the TFC. I built 2 and sold the third unassembled because i couldn't face the horror of having to build one more. Why in the world would I want to buy a model I have to spend time drilling and pinning? This is why my Warmachine army remains at the size it is. I bought it fully built and don't want to build anymore jacks or metal troops. Metal Logan grimnar was terrible to assemble, metal coteaz was a pain too, the metal librarian in Terminator armor, Astorath, the Sanguinor, Ghaz. Ugh, those memories alone allow me to overlook some minor bubbling. Anything beyond minor bubbling though and I send it back for a replacement.

I will agree with the sentiment that the price hike and name were ill advised

Why can't I say anything without causing WW3?

I accidentally the thread.

You see!

Proof that <Janthkin hates memes?>

Kilkrazy wrote:

That said, I went to my local GW at lunchtime and had a look at the Finecast blisters. Only a few seemed to have defects and they were small defects. So probably the Liquid Green Stuff would have been fine for fixing them. Certainly the defect rate seemed lower than when I looked last autumn

Thing is I can't remember ever needing gs for metal or plastic except rarely to fill gaps.

So Finecast remains solidly off my buy list.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

That said, I went to my local GW at lunchtime and had a look at the Finecast blisters. Only a few seemed to have defects and they were small defects. So probably the Liquid Green Stuff would have been fine for fixing them. Certainly the defect rate seemed lower than when I looked last autumn

Thing is I can't remember ever needing gs for metal or plastic except rarely to fill gaps.

So Finecast remains solidly off my buy list.

Funny, I rarely built a metal model without needing Green Stuff.

TFC, Librarian, Chaplain in TDA, Exorcist etc. All needed Green Stuff either as gap filler or to hold joints together.

Honestly, NONE of my metal figures that I have assembled so far need any material added except ONE. A 3rd Edition Damned Legionnaire with Heavy Bolter.
(metals)
Chaplain Termi- was nearly perfect.
Vangaurd veterans - nearly perfect.
PA Libby - nearly perfect.
Vulkan - nearly perfect. (nearly perfect because there is a bit of filing needed for minor mold lines and casting nipples)

Finecast Sternguard - holes and bubbles and some pretty bad mold lines.
Finecast Termi Librarian - quite a bit of detail loss on one of his shoulders and holes and bubbles in certain areas.

Filing down a few casting nipples on metal models is no problem. Trying to ADD material on fine detail parts or on edges of shouldpads is a problem for me.

I just ordered all the other LotD models I don't have specifically so I could have them in metal. I also meant to get another Termi Chaplain but I forgot. I'll get my FLGS to order that one for me.

SickSix wrote:Honestly, NONE of my metal figures that I have assembled so far need any material added

I feel like this is the case for most people, but it seems the commenters in these threads have an abnormally high rate of receiving metal models that need green stuff.

OverwatchCNC wrote:

Kid_Kyoto wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

That said, I went to my local GW at lunchtime and had a look at the Finecast blisters. Only a few seemed to have defects and they were small defects. So probably the Liquid Green Stuff would have been fine for fixing them. Certainly the defect rate seemed lower than when I looked last autumn

Thing is I can't remember ever needing gs for metal or plastic except rarely to fill gaps.

So Finecast remains solidly off my buy list.

Funny, I rarely built a metal model without needing Green Stuff.

TFC, Librarian, Chaplain in TDA, Exorcist etc. All needed Green Stuff either as gap filler or to hold joints together.

He was talking about filling gaps though, rather than re-sculpting details.

It's not unusual to have to make good gaps in large metal models. I've done a number of Zoanthropes and Venomthropes which all needed a bit of putty.

The reason why a lot of people prefer Finecast is that they don't have to make good gaps, etc, unlike metal.

I've said elsewhere and I'll say it here also, if there is a problem with the metal "master" then that problem will also be present in Finecast - King Liquor being a primary example. However, if such a problem does exist, it is far easier to correct it when the model is bendy resin and not a thick chunk of metal.

As for production problems, metals casts were never perfect. Far fewer problems (and les agregious) than with GW's spincast resin but problems did still happen they weren't rare.

As a comment on probabilities or getting miscasts and what it means, re: hitting the lotto or suggesting people may not being truthful.

The problem with trying to guess the failure rate is that some figures are obviously more affected than others. It sounds like the 25th Anniversary Marine is especially bad. They may well have a 2% failure rate across their entire range, you can't say that isn't correct based on a few examples that come up time and again. The fact they someone gets several duff replacements doesn't mean that they have 'hit the lottery', it just means that particular model accounts for a disproportionate number of the overall miscasts. In total, their failure rate may still be 2% even when you have 10 replacements, as some have.

keezus wrote:

pretre wrote:It is difficult to say with certainty what the defect rate is based on anecdotal evidence.

While the statistics are nice, the chance of something happening does not equate to the actual population outside of that single set of occurences.

I agree 100% that this is based on annecdotal evidence. No debate there.

However, based on GW's stated failure rate, the chances of someone buying a bad sculpt and receiving 7 additional replacement bad sculpts is one in 39 trillion. It is ENTIRELY possible that this individual was very unlucky. However, we have annecdotal evidence that this has occured more than once. Even if we treat the sample size of these occurences as an arbitrarily small (and conservative value) - say 1:10 000 000 customers - this means that GW's stated rate is incorrect, as this unrealistically small assumed sample returns a failure rate of 13%.

Based on the above assumption, I think I can safely say that a 2% failure rate as stated by GW is definitely wrong. The magnitude by which they are underestimating defects however, is variable, due to differing thresholds for returns, levels of acceptance and reporting of flaws.

From my experience I have to pull 3 kits/blisters off the shelf to get 1 good one, so I know for a fact that 2% is wrong. Maybe I'll start a thread and see how many grotesques I get before one of them is actually acceptable.

Howard A Treesong wrote:As a comment on probabilities or getting miscasts and what it means, re: hitting the lotto or suggesting people may not being truthful.

The problem with trying to guess the failure rate is that some figures are obviously more affected than others. It sounds like the 25th Anniversary Marine is especially bad. They may well have a 2% failure rate across their entire range, you can't say that isn't correct based on a few examples that come up time and again. The fact they someone gets several duff replacements doesn't mean that they have 'hit the lottery', it just means that particular model accounts for a disproportionate number of the overall miscasts. In total, their failure rate may still be 2% even when you have 10 replacements, as some have.

I can totally dig this argument.

OverwatchCNC wrote:




If I have time today I will take pictures of Logan and the Jump Pack Chaplin. They are not painted.

Are those yours? Excellent paintjob, those look really stunning!

Unfortunately, they don't prove very much because you could have spent 100+ hours meticulously re sculpting every bubble filled detail and we wouldn't be any wiser... We need pictures of miniatures straight from the blister since that is what all the flawed reviews are showing...

Also, for the record, I don't doubt that there are perfect casts out there, there even is one such examples in the "megathread", what I'm saying is that perfect miniatures are far rarer than flawed miniatures.

PhantomViper wrote:
Unfortunately, they don't prove very much because you could have spent 100+ hours meticulously re sculpting every bubble filled detail and we wouldn't be any wiser... We need pictures of miniatures straight from the blister since that is what all the flawed reviews are showing...

So it's perfectly acceptable to take someone's word that they're not posting photos of crummy models which were replaced by a far superior version, but you're accusing him of "spending 100+ hours meticulously resculpting every bubble filled detail"?

Please. Let's have some common sense, shall we?

Kanluwen wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:
Unfortunately, they don't prove very much because you could have spent 100+ hours meticulously re sculpting every bubble filled detail and we wouldn't be any wiser... We need pictures of miniatures straight from the blister since that is what all the flawed reviews are showing...

So it's perfectly acceptable to take someone's word that they're not posting photos of crummy models which were replaced by a far superior version, but you're accusing him of "spending 100+ hours meticulously resculpting every bubble filled detail"?

Please. Let's have some common sense, shall we?

So we need a hyperbole tag now as much as a sarcasm tag? You really couldn't tell that I was using exaggeration?

Also, even if people are posting photos of crummy models which were replaced by a far superior version, you are missing the point AGAIN that those crummy models shouldn't have left the factory floor in the first place and that USUALLY those reviews post pictures of the models + the replacements side by side to show that hey are different models (not to mention that usually the reported defects are in different spots so you can also tell the miniatures apart that way)...

And finally, if I'm questioning their word that they've received nothing but flawless models, then I'm certainly going to question the proof itself when their "proof" is a painted model! Those could be metal models for all I know!

pretre wrote:

Howard A Treesong wrote:As a comment on probabilities or getting miscasts and what it means, re: hitting the lotto or suggesting people may not being truthful.

The problem with trying to guess the failure rate is that some figures are obviously more affected than others. It sounds like the 25th Anniversary Marine is especially bad. They may well have a 2% failure rate across their entire range, you can't say that isn't correct based on a few examples that come up time and again. The fact they someone gets several duff replacements doesn't mean that they have 'hit the lottery', it just means that particular model accounts for a disproportionate number of the overall miscasts. In total, their failure rate may still be 2% even when you have 10 replacements, as some have.

I can totally dig this argument.

It's not really an argument for anything, for either side of the Finecast debate. It's a general observation/caution on interpreting the anecdotal nature of people's experiences. Undoubtedly some people are having several perfect finecast purchases because they are buying the figures that do cast well in the medium. Others have been pulled into a string of bad replacements because that particular figure suffers from the casting process. You can't extrapolate a trend from the experiences of either, and that's why you would need a full set of returns data from GW. Which they won't be releasing. That said though, the absolute numbers of reported miscast figures appearing online is much higher than anything else I can recall.

It does seem to me than the same figures are mentioned time and again. Some of the Necrons, and the 25th anniversary Marine in particular. This unfortunately means that some figures you are probably okay to buy in Finecast, but others, if you get a miscast, you may never see a good replacement. Best thing is to hold off impulse purchases IMO. Don't be the first person to try the latest Finecast releases. Either examine models in the shop to take home a perfect one first time or, if it is not possible to open the packaging and examine the goods, wait to see if there appears to be a general problem with the miniature reported online so that you know to avoid.

Kanluwen wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:
Unfortunately, they don't prove very much because you could have spent 100+ hours meticulously re sculpting every bubble filled detail and we wouldn't be any wiser... We need pictures of miniatures straight from the blister since that is what all the flawed reviews are showing...

So it's perfectly acceptable to take someone's word that they're not posting photos of crummy models which were replaced by a far superior version, but you're accusing him of "spending 100+ hours meticulously resculpting every bubble filled detail"?

Please. Let's have some common sense, shall we?

Yes, lets.

Oh no hang on, its all gone wrong again.

puma713 wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:Oh good you're here...

Oh look, you got a lol HB, well done. Shame its off another of your big boys club, why don't you get Phantom Viper to rub your shoulders as well and you can all daisy chain around the thread.

Im still stunned that you lot get away with your shameless unending rudeness by directing the "troll" insult towards other people. I am merely watching out for a bullied minority and you incessantly bait people. Overwatch said he had a few good models, and PV essentially responded with "Post some photos you lying bastard" I merely pointed out he doesn't NEED to take the time to photograph his models because his word is good enough for most people, what motive has he to lie? And who is the guy on the internet to call him a liar and then demand he goes and takes pictures of his models?

And then you and Puma are in with your hearty back slaps and your lols and your bro-fists.

Its primary school gak. Puma I can forgive because Im guessing he is the right side of 25, but for you I suggest you move out of your mothers basement and forget your fruitless and bizarre quest to destroy a faceless PLC.

Bezerker Saberhagen wrote:

insaniak wrote:The process can, yes. And then your quality control kicks in, and you bin those models and just sell the good casts.

No because that's not what quality assurance is for. The old adage is: "You can't inspect quality into a product".

QA processes are too unreliable and in a large scale, costly to be commercially viable as a quality generating process. The point of QA is to do enough tests to detect persistent defects coming out of the manufacturing processes and then shut down the manufactuiring, fix the problems and restart it with an acceptable defect rate, usually dumping the failed batch entirely.

insaniak wrote:Here's the thing, GW: Saying 'Resin can have air bubbles' is not an excuse for selling flawed product. Any casting medium has the potential for casting defects. If you can't figure out how to cast in that medium without flawed results you're doing it wrong.

More true. AFAIK finecast is something of a special resin/manufacturing process that was specifically intended to work as a "drop in" replacement for the pewter casting with as little rework on the molds as possible. (especially important for the low demand casts). The problem is that they went for a "big bang" introduction, entirely scrapping their metal casting lines and now that the drop-in replacement hasn't turned out to be successful they have nothing to fall back on.

We may need to face the possibility that GW's hope of finding a straight resin replacement for their metal line is actually technically, physically or economically impossible. In which case we can expect this to run for years while they gradually replace their scupts and casts with new resin friendly models.

Very true, we should complain and we have but we still need to support GW, they have gone for a massive change and it hasn't worked out that well. We might have to put up with this for a while. I have problems myself but fix them and put up with them. I dislike the Finecast because it breaks far too easily

phantommaster wrote:
Very true, we should complain and we have but we still need to support GW, they have gone for a massive change and it hasn't worked out that well. We might have to put up with this for a while. I have problems myself but fix them and put up with them. I dislike the Finecast because it breaks far too easily

It's a corporation - the shareholders and the employees support them, not the consumer.

You may be a big fan of the IP and supporting the IP is great, but the corporation deserves no love. It is a legal entity whose only mandate is to increase profits for the shareholders.

Yes, the corporation controls the IP and you can argue all day whether or not that's great, but the IP will always be there as long as fans continue to support and enjoy it.

Zarren Wevon wrote:
You may be a big fan of the IP and supporting the IP is great, but the corporation deserves no love. It is a legal entity whose only mandate is to increase profits for the shareholders.

Just like every other corporation... hmm. Pattern?

Oh boy, here we go again...

(Puts on safety helmet).

mattyrm wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:
Unfortunately, they don't prove very much because you could have spent 100+ hours meticulously re sculpting every bubble filled detail and we wouldn't be any wiser... We need pictures of miniatures straight from the blister since that is what all the flawed reviews are showing...

So it's perfectly acceptable to take someone's word that they're not posting photos of crummy models which were replaced by a far superior version, but you're accusing him of "spending 100+ hours meticulously resculpting every bubble filled detail"?

Please. Let's have some common sense, shall we?

Yes, lets.

Oh no hang on, its all gone wrong again.

puma713 wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:Oh good you're here...

Oh look, you got a lol HB, well done. Shame its off another of your big boys club, why don't you get Phantom Viper to rub your shoulders as well and you can all daisy chain around the thread.

Im still stunned that you lot get away with your shameless unending rudeness by directing the "troll" insult towards other people. I am merely watching out for a bullied minority and you incessantly bait people. Overwatch said he had a few good models, and PV essentially responded with "Post some photos you lying bastard" I merely pointed out he doesn't NEED to take the time to photograph his models because his word is good enough for most people, what motive has he to lie? And who is the guy on the internet to call him a liar and then demand he goes and takes pictures of his models?

And then you and Puma are in with your hearty back slaps and your lols and your bro-fists.

Its primary school gak. Puma I can forgive because Im guessing he is the right side of 25, but for you I suggest you move out of your mothers basement and forget your fruitless and bizarre quest to destroy a faceless PLC.

Actually Matty, it's you who is doing it wrong, Everyone knows Trolls don't like fire, so you need to become a wizard that can cast Firewall all your problems solved then =o]

And again Hi Welcome =o]

Unit1126PLL wrote:Just like every other corporation... hmm. Pattern?

I fail to see a problem...

The Corporation does well when it's customers buy its products. Customers buy the products when they value the product provided more than they value the money they're giving up for it.

Where's the problem?

biccat wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:Just like every other corporation... hmm. Pattern?

I fail to see a problem...

The Corporation does well when it's customers buy its products. Customers buy the products when they value the product provided more than they value the money they're giving up for it.

Where's the problem?

There isn't one, that's my point, lol.