I was looking at some new releases from GW and noticed that there seem to be plastics in things I would have expected to see in Fincast. A good example is the Chaos champion for 40k or some of the Warhammer releases.
I long ago voted with my wallet on Finecast and it seems like a lot of others here have done the same. Am I living in a Fool's Paradise Thinking that GW is reconsidering putting things out in the medium of reinforced whipped cream or what?
I stayed right away from the stuff when I saw the problems people had with it around here. That's why I'm hoping the GW is beginning to think plastic might be the way to go.
"Fine"cast came in at around the same time as they started playing with single-model plastic sprues.
The suggestion at the time (nothing was officially said) was that "Fine"cast was just intended to be a temporary stop-gap until they could transition everything to plastic.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if we see more and more character models in plastic, with "Fine"cast slowly phasing out.
Like Insaniak said Finecast is sort of GW's transition from metal to plastic.
GW last year reportedly decided that metal prices were too volatile for them and decided to get out of the metal model business. Plus metal has other disadvantages for complex models, too heavy, hard to hold together etc.
BUT they have thousands and thousands of models with molds made for metal. So they developed Finecast as a mid-term subsititute to keep all those models in production while they put out more plastic than ever before.
But not plastic Battle Sisters. Never plastic Battle Sisters.
And it would have been fine if their resin had the quality of say Reaper's Bones line.
But instead they got a substandard method and worse yet raised prices on it.
It's a pretty big black eye for them but unless they decide to go back to metal I don't see it disappearing any time soon.
Well there are Two chracters in the empire Line that used to be fine cast but now are Plastic. Along with in the Fantasy line many single miniatures are plastic, just the Champion is the first 40k mini.
What hope for is something like a sprue for a generic captain, with options for special characters, like you can get a sprue of a terminator captain, but get options for lysander or calgar.
How about plastic Cadians who actually look like the metal ones! Huh? Huh?
Anyway... I do love me some plastic characters but I think GW is now so focused on creating a cool looking figure they're forgetting to include options! Nearly all the ones I got have no head, pose or weapon options. Which is really annoying, it was GWs multipose, multioption kits that got me in the first place and brought me back several times.
Now even my Wargames Factory kits have more options than GW.
In an ideal world every army would have a multi part kit for generic characters, and plastic monopose kits for special characters. That would satisfy damn near all of us.
I'm not a fan of monopose generic characters as they are difficult to customize compared to multipart kits like the Empire General kit.
man, i really hope that they make the move to all plastic...
i have had to pass on so many cool minis thanks to Finecast being such a horrible material...
had they gone with Forgeworld resin i would have been happy...
instead, i bought resin LE's from boutique companies who do resin right, and even charge a few squids less than GW...
i love GW minis, always have and always will, but can't get behind shoddy material...
i have a big enough mountain of metal to keep me going for many years anyway...
hell, i'm just getting around to painting some minis i bought 25 years ago...
fingers crossed for plastic everything...
there is a downside though...
all the new plastic characters are monopose...
is everything going to turn into a starter box style mini, or will we see kits like Marine Commander and Chaos Termie Lord???
it would be sad to see all the extra bits dissapear...
Forgeworld even looks like it's been moving toward more plastics. This could be do to the sheer quantity of certain products that they are whipping out or they have found it to be a better medium, I am unsure.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: How about plastic Cadians who actually look like the metal ones! Huh? Huh?
Anyway... I do love me some plastic characters but I think GW is now so focused on creating a cool looking figure they're forgetting to include options! Nearly all the ones I got have no head, pose or weapon options. Which is really annoying, it was GWs multipose, multioption kits that got me in the first place and brought me back several times.
Now even my Wargames Factory kits have more options than GW.
Going way off topic here but in your Sig about the Catachans, you mention there's a line of plastic guardsmen before the Catachans. What were those? I've never heard of any before the Catachan kit.
Are they like the original Metal Cadians? PLEASE tell me they're like the original Metal Cadians. I want those so bad it's not even funny.
MrMoustaffa wrote: Going way off topic here but in your Sig about the Catachans, you mention there's a line of plastic guardsmen before the Catachans. What were those? I've never heard of any before the Catachan kit.
MrMoustaffa wrote: Going way off topic here but in your Sig about the Catachans, you mention there's a line of plastic guardsmen before the Catachans. What were those? I've never heard of any before the Catachan kit.
That would be the Rogue Trader-era Guard...
Imperial Army to be specific since the fluff back then did not have an Imperial Guard.
MrMoustaffa wrote: Going way off topic here but in your Sig about the Catachans, you mention there's a line of plastic guardsmen before the Catachans. What were those? I've never heard of any before the Catachan kit.
That would be the Rogue Trader-era Guard...
Imperial Army to be specific since the fluff back then did not have an Imperial Guard.
In fluff they were called the Necromundan Spiders, below is some art.
[pedantic]
In Rogue Trader (the book) they were called the Imperial Army but the name was changed pretty quickly to Imperial Guard, certainly by the time they got their first army list in the Compilation.
I'm traveling otherwise I'd check what they were called in Chapter Approved.
[/pedantic]
Returning to the topic at hand, I would love LUV to see them back in plastic. Maybe some 3rd party can be convinced to do a sprue of 'bomber jacket space soldiers'?
Automatically Appended Next Post: I think these were metal models but they give a good idea what they looked like
Squidmanlolz wrote: Forgeworld even looks like it's been moving toward more plastics. This could be do to the sheer quantity of certain products that they are whipping out or they have found it to be a better medium, I am unsure.
They still do only resin, with the exception of cockpits, as far as I know. And plastic components are from GW kits used as a base for the model. FW themselves don't actually do the plastic components.
Regarding the plastic characters - they really are great. Although, as some have pointed out, lack much in the way of posing options, but they really pushed how much detail they can get into them. The Necromancer is superb, and really couldn't have been done as a metal with its cloak without having to be excessively pinned.
MrMoustaffa wrote: Going way off topic here but in your Sig about the Catachans, you mention there's a line of plastic guardsmen before the Catachans. What were those? I've never heard of any before the Catachan kit.
That would be the Rogue Trader-era Guard...
I have a few of those I'm thinking of turning into ratling snipers for my Cadians!
I'd've happily taken plastic Cadians that looked just like the metal ones. The metal Cadians were my first ever Guard minis. They started the madness!!!
insaniak wrote: I wouldn't be at all surprised if we see more and more character models in plastic, with "Fine"cast slowly phasing out.
The sooner the better. The single-frame plastic character models are amazing. I've got a number of them, and I don't even play Fantasy.
We wrote: It seems to me they are doing more finecast. Tons of WHFB units and characters that were in plastic have now been released in finecast.
I can't think of a single plastic kit that they're replaced as a finecast kit - it's actually not economically viable to do so for GW. Pulling an expensive plastic mold to move to more expensive resin production (compared to super cheap plastic injection production) is just stupid. That's why we see super old stuff like Zombies still running their original mold.
There are more finecast characters and units in production, however, though this is due to them adding more units to the finecast range than they're converting to plastic.
MrMoustaffa wrote: Going way off topic here but in your Sig about the Catachans, you mention there's a line of plastic guardsmen before the Catachans. What were those? I've never heard of any before the Catachan kit.
I really wanted to give fine cast the benefit of the doubt. But having assembled 2 plague marine kits and Festus, I'll say this material is awful, and a nightmare to assemble, with extreme amounts of mold lines and process defects. And it's expensive.
Also done two new plastic kits from 2012, plague bearers and nurglings, and they were easy to assemble, with minimal mold lines and process defects, abundant extra bits and just in general, easier to work with.
One thing I will say in the favor of finecast, is that the material is genuinely detailed, and quite sharp looking when fully painted.
That aside, I absolutely want to see GW get rid of this crap and switch to plastic. Their plastic kits are quite nice.
My Warp Smith was pretty much perfect. It certainly wasn't the cancer-curing world-peace-causing hot-women-attracting solver of all mankind's problems that GW advertised it as, but it's a perfectly fine cast (if you'll excuse the pun).
I wouldn't say GW is phasing it out. Consider the fact that some of the brand-new, never been plastic or metal models for the Hobbit are in Finecast. I just wonder how they are picking and choosing who gets the finecast treatment.
Frankly, I'd love to see them whip out some of the old molds and crack out some of the vintage models. There are also some old metal models that disappeared that need to be back in print, like the individual havocs.
hotsauceman1 wrote:Is one of those guys wielding a fish?
Plasma Gun
SoloFalcon1138 wrote:I wouldn't say GW is phasing it out. Consider the fact that some of the brand-new, never been plastic or metal models for the Hobbit are in Finecast. I just wonder how they are picking and choosing who gets the finecast treatment.
Well, yeah, they still have the same budgetary constraints that they always had. Each new release can afford a finite number of plastic sprues before they have to do the rest in finecast.
But as the cost of making moulds for plastics comes down, and ranges are re-visited without replacing every existing mould, each re-release of a range should see more of it in plastic, as has been happening with Space Marines for nearly 2 decades now.
I'm still not convinced that GW suffers some huge cost to produce injection molds. They do it all in house. Sure the up front costs are high for machinery but that has to have paid itself off by now, or would rather quickly just from the amount of money plastic kits save over other mediums.
He does 100% of the work on his injection molds and designs and somehow manages to get by, and that is 1 guy in a garage as a hobby. Surely a staff of X could achieve the same feat within reasonable costs.
Finecast is a sloppy product that should have never happened as it stands. If GW didn't want to buy metal, they could have just said up front that metals will now cost X more or that they are all discontinued until a proper new medium is in place. Instead they rushed out an untested product and suffered a massive hit to their reputation.
Call me crazy, but every company I've worked for would rather make less profit per item sold than having no items sold.
Add to that the fact that a company like Reaper can get away with the Bones program yet GW can't figure that mess out.
I think the way to go is that of the limited edition model in the Dark Vengeance set. A really nice, detailed monopose character on a single small sprue.
If that was the direction that they take models like that, I'd be more than happy. I'd like a plastic Tau Ethereal model at some point. Preferably at the same time they become useful. I hope they do become useful because they're fun to paint.
Bewareofthephil wrote: I think the way to go is that of the limited edition model in the Dark Vengeance set. A really nice, detailed monopose character on a single small sprue.
If that was the direction that they take models like that, I'd be more than happy. I'd like a plastic Tau Ethereal model at some point. Preferably at the same time they become useful. I hope they do become useful because they're fun to paint.
Finecast as an idea is flawed, regardless of the quality of it(which does nothing to further it's value, and often harms it). I just don't understand Finecast at all. It makes no financial sense, it makes no modelling sense. Plastic is cheaper, faster, better and more consistently high quality.
notprop wrote: I disagree, finecast as a release was a balls up. The product itself when Cast properly is fine.
Certainly every example that I have bought since its release have been without fault including the 25th anniversary marine captain.
I have found that it goes together well and the detail od good, though the increase in vents from the metal version is noticeable but no deal breaker.
The recent plastic kits are very good as well. I'm not to bothered by monoplane as plastic makes it so easy to convert them.
The point is that the resin kits are not better than the plastics in any real way. They cost more, and require more work to get them looking proper. Heaven forbid thin flimsy pieces like staves or swords.
Finecast was an okay work around, using existing moulds. It isn't a perfect medium by any stretch, but GW seems to be going the right way with new plastics.
Relapse wrote: I was looking at some new releases from GW and noticed that there seem to be plastics in things I would have expected to see in Fincast. A good example is the Chaos champion for 40k or some of the Warhammer releases.
I long ago voted with my wallet on Finecast and it seems like a lot of others here have done the same. Am I living in a Fool's Paradise Thinking that GW is reconsidering putting things out in the medium of reinforced whipped cream or what?
It appears that GW got the memo what did clients think of Finecast.
New products. the new trench and ornated pillbox thing looks good. but a wall of dead cadians piled up in front of the line doesn't really appeal to me. mew!
looks like the dead cadians are permanently molded into the terrain pieces.
Aerethan wrote: Finecast doesn't use the same molds as metals.
I believe the original runs did, and that was one of the reasons they converted to Finecast. The ability to use the same molds, for a lower conversion costs. There is hope that the metal to finecast to plastic is the true goal. At least one model in the 'nid line, The Hive Tyrant, has gone that path.
They needed to make new moulds because the physical properties of liquid resin and molten metal are different. For example, the resin moulds need a lot more of the channels that let the material flow through all the voids.
They couldn't use the same molds, but they could still use the rest of the equipment that they already had (the molding machines, the spin casters, etc.). The more you can reuse, the more you can save on costs. Of course, we all know that we didn't get those savings.
As someone else pointed out, there's no way that making a plastic mold costs as much as GW tries to claim. Just look at the results from the Dreamforge Kickstarter. With just over $200K in funding (plus whatever WGF was willing to chip in), 60 mold halves have been tooled so far, and that's just for the first stage of the project.
The suggestion at the time (nothing was officially said) was that "Fine"cast was just intended to be a temporary stop-gap until they could transition everything to plastic.
This ^. Their goal has always been to transition completely to plastic. Pretty sure this has been discussed in WD over the years. I've also heard it directly from Jes Goodwin in a negotiations visit to GW.
Appears that the instability in metals prices forced the stopgap measure (Finecast) before they were able to fully implement all plastic products.
notprop wrote: I dont think GW have ever claimed how much their molds cost, any figure have merely been speculation on the part of online experts and pros.
If a kid of 20 something can afford to make spin molds and cast in his basement, I'm pretty sure the cost is not all that high.
And while the MASTER's were kept(which are models, not molds) the spin molds won't work with resin nor do they have room for the sprue we see on finecast.
If GW really wanted to save overhead due to metal costs, they should have done what Reaper did.
notprop wrote: I dont think GW have ever claimed how much their molds cost, any figure have merely been speculation on the part of online experts and pros.
Awhile back, possibly 10+ years ago, they did sometimes say in White Dwarf when talking about a new kit, that making a new set of molds for a plastic kit ran about 100,000 (not sure if USD or GBP).
notprop wrote: I dont think GW have ever claimed how much their molds cost, any figure have merely been speculation on the part of online experts and pros.
Awhile back, possibly 10+ years ago, they did sometimes say in White Dwarf when talking about a new kit, that making a new set of molds for a plastic kit ran about 100,000 (not sure if USD or GBP).
IF it did take that much, that would have to include design fees which are likely inflated. I'd also imagine that that price is for larger plastic kits, not the little monopose characters.
notprop wrote: I dont think GW have ever claimed how much their molds cost, any figure have merely been speculation on the part of online experts and pros.
Awhile back, possibly 10+ years ago, they did sometimes say in White Dwarf when talking about a new kit, that making a new set of molds for a plastic kit ran about 100,000 (not sure if USD or GBP).
IF it did take that much, that would have to include design fees which are likely inflated. I'd also imagine that that price is for larger plastic kits, not the little monopose characters.
It would also have been 10+ years ago, costs must have come down or you wouldn't see all the other manufacturers coming out with as many model kits as the do.
notprop wrote: I dont think GW have ever claimed how much their molds cost, any figure have merely been speculation on the part of online experts and pros.
If a kid of 20 something can afford to make spin molds and cast in his basement, I'm pretty sure the cost is not all that high.
And while the MASTER's were kept(which are models, not molds) the spin molds won't work with resin nor do they have room for the sprue we see on finecast.
If GW really wanted to save overhead due to metal costs, they should have done what Reaper did.
Apologies, that was in reference to plastic molds which was in discussion at the time.
We usually see figures (10k to 100k?) bandied about regarding the cost of producing a plastic mold set but as far as ive seen never anything from GW.
Of course they may well include casting machine costs/depreciation and the development of the miniature in there too.
Aerethan wrote: If a kid of 20 something can afford to make spin molds and cast in his basement, I'm pretty sure the cost is not all that high.
How do that kid's moulds stand up to churning out a hundred thousand units?
It's not just GW that have bandied about the high cost of injection moulds over the years. Their claims have been backed up by various other companies who have looked into plastic production and had to discard the idea due to the high start-up cost. But those costs have been falling over the last 10 years due to newer technology coming into use, which is how we've seen more and more plastic from GW. Kits can also be somewhat subsidised by the rest of the associated range. For the DV Chaplain, for example, I would suspect that the cost of his mould was covered not just by the $8 extra the box cost, but was just absorbed into the volume of DV that they expected to sell. Similarly, single-sprue character moulds can be somewhat buffered by the better selling infantry kits sold alongside them in larger quanties.
It's just a juggling act, squeezing the most value out of the sprues your budget can cover.
Bewareofthephil wrote: I think the way to go is that of the limited edition model in the Dark Vengeance set. A really nice, detailed monopose character on a single small sprue.
If that was the direction that they take models like that, I'd be more than happy. I'd like a plastic Tau Ethereal model at some point. Preferably at the same time they become useful. I hope they do become useful because they're fun to paint.
Finecast as an idea is flawed, regardless of the quality of it(which does nothing to further it's value, and often harms it). I just don't understand Finecast at all. It makes no financial sense, it makes no modelling sense. Plastic is cheaper, faster, better and more consistently high quality.
So if you don't understand something, that means it's stupid and/or wrong?
Compel wrote: In second edition, the Imperial Guard plastic kits were actually their stormtroopers, who looked vaguely like WW2 Commandos.
They came in a box of 6 for a fiver.
The second and 4th guy in this picture of my command squad are them.
Cool squad.
Yeah after making some pretty cool multipart multipose troops in RT, in 2nd edition GW decided to do metal troops and 1 pose plastic elites in 2nd edition.
I think they did it because they hate us.
Or because they hate money.
Maybe both.
Kilkrazy wrote: They needed to make new moulds because the physical properties of liquid resin and molten metal are different. For example, the resin moulds need a lot more of the channels that let the material flow through all the voids.
and by Tannhauser 42
They couldn't use the same molds, but they could still use the rest of the equipment that they already had (the molding machines, the spin casters, etc.). The more you can reuse, the more you can save on costs. Of course, we all know that we didn't get those savings.
As someone else pointed out, there's no way that making a plastic mold costs as much as GW tries to claim. Just look at the results from the Dreamforge Kickstarter. With just over $200K in funding (plus whatever WGF was willing to chip in), 60 mold halves have been tooled so far, and that's just for the first stage of the project.
I always thought that Finecast was a resin hybrid material, which is why I still believe that it is being used with their current mold making machines.
Can we please stop comparing Reapers Bomes material to Finecast or any other resin? It really is not the same quality. The Reaper Bines plastic is about what you'd find in a normal board game miniature.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: Like Insaniak said Finecast is sort of GW's transition from metal to plastic.
GW last year reportedly decided that metal prices were too volatile for them and decided to get out of the metal model business. Plus metal has other disadvantages for complex models, too heavy, hard to hold together etc.
BUT they have thousands and thousands of models with molds made for metal. So they developed Finecast as a mid-term subsititute to keep all those models in production while they put out more plastic than ever before.
But not plastic Battle Sisters. Never plastic Battle Sisters.
And it would have been fine if their resin had the quality of say Reaper's Bones line.
But instead they got a substandard method and worse yet raised prices on it.
It's a pretty big black eye for them but unless they decide to go back to metal I don't see it disappearing any time soon.
This is the only good news related to failcast i've ever heard. Bless you.
Aerethan wrote: If a kid of 20 something can afford to make spin molds and cast in his basement, I'm pretty sure the cost is not all that high.
How do that kid's moulds stand up to churning out a hundred thousand units
It won't. No spincast mould will last anything like that long. IIRC the metal ones at least, need to be replaced every couple hundred casts due to damage from bending to remove the casts. Vacuum form resin moulds are the same, but need replaced even more often.
Aerethan wrote: If a kid of 20 something can afford to make spin molds and cast in his basement, I'm pretty sure the cost is not all that high.
How do that kid's moulds stand up to churning out a hundred thousand units?
It's not just GW that have bandied about the high cost of injection moulds over the years. Their claims have been backed up by various other companies who have looked into plastic production and had to discard the idea due to the high start-up cost. But those costs have been falling over the last 10 years due to newer technology coming into use, which is how we've seen more and more plastic from GW. Kits can also be somewhat subsidised by the rest of the associated range. For the DV Chaplain, for example, I would suspect that the cost of his mould was covered not just by the $8 extra the box cost, but was just absorbed into the volume of DV that they expected to sell. Similarly, single-sprue character moulds can be somewhat buffered by the better selling infantry kits sold alongside them in larger quanties.
It's just a juggling act, squeezing the most value out of the sprues your budget can cover.
Startup costs for injection molding generally includes the machine itself on top of the CNC's for making the molds. GW very much already has injection machines that are surely paid off by now. Once you already have the machinery paid off, the only real costs behind a new mold are design costs.
1.) There are models with high production numbers like standard troops, multiple elite troops, maybe one or two HQ Blisters per army, even limited edition starter models (also 10,000+). As plastic is still cheaper than resin or metal, with these making plastic moulds is the most economic. Moulds for plastic are made of steel and AFAIK cost around 10-20k $.
2.) There are models with low production numbers like special characters, most elite troops etc. As moulds for resin or metal miniatures are dirt cheap, it is more economic to produce these low runs in metal or resin. You use one master and regularly make rubber moulds from them, as rubber moulds wear out rather quickly due to tearing etc when making the model (undercuts!). When an exchange of moulds is necessary, it takes only a small effort to transform moulds for metal to moulds for resin, as you use the same master. That's why GW can easily transfer metal models to Finecast models in huge waves, not limited by exchange costs (they actually save money by changing to Finecast) but by the number of new releases the customer accepts per month.
While GW reduces the number of Finecast kits a bit (and doesn't push FLGSs to sell them), they will not be phased out, as there is always a need for low run models.
MrMoustaffa wrote: Going way off topic here but in your Sig about the Catachans, you mention there's a line of plastic guardsmen before the Catachans. What were those? I've never heard of any before the Catachan kit.
That would be the Rogue Trader-era Guard...
Some of the best models came from that era.the Guard are some of my favs.But i just do not care about the LAs-Rifles.
To expand on Kroothawk's post, I have long advocated that special characters and the like could be moulded on multiple sprues.
If you can put six standard infantry models on a single frame, it must be possible to put say four special character models in a single frame, and cut them out for individual packing.
Kilkrazy wrote: To expand on Kroothawk's post, I have long advocated that special characters and the like could be moulded on multiple sprues.
If you can put six standard infantry models on a single frame, it must be possible to put say four special character models in a single frame, and cut them out for individual packing.
But...but...that would make sense! And be cost effective!
GW these days never seems to care about that kind of thing.
Kilkrazy wrote: To expand on Kroothawk's post, I have long advocated that special characters and the like could be moulded on multiple sprues.
If you can put six standard infantry models on a single frame, it must be possible to put say four special character models in a single frame, and cut them out for individual packing.
But...but...that would make sense! And be cost effective!
GW these days never seems to care about that kind of thing.
The problem with this idea is that if one or two characters are very popular, they will end up with excess thousands of the less popular figs.
It would require very careful balancing to get figures that sell in similar numbers all on the same sprue.
Kilkrazy wrote: To expand on Kroothawk's post, I have long advocated that special characters and the like could be moulded on multiple sprues.
If you can put six standard infantry models on a single frame, it must be possible to put say four special character models in a single frame, and cut them out for individual packing.
But...but...that would make sense! And be cost effective!
GW these days never seems to care about that kind of thing.
The problem with this idea is that if one or two characters are very popular, they will end up with excess thousands of the less popular figs.
It would require very careful balancing to get figures that sell in similar numbers all on the same sprue.
It's interesting to note that this is a situation we're seeing with "Infinity" in regards to certain model loadouts/poses/genders in the boxed sets.
Kilkrazy wrote: To expand on Kroothawk's post, I have long advocated that special characters and the like could be moulded on multiple sprues.
If you can put six standard infantry models on a single frame, it must be possible to put say four special character models in a single frame, and cut them out for individual packing.
But...but...that would make sense! And be cost effective!
GW these days never seems to care about that kind of thing.
The problem with this idea is that if one or two characters are very popular, they will end up with excess thousands of the less popular figs.
It would require very careful balancing to get figures that sell in similar numbers all on the same sprue.
It is cheaper to throw away spare plastic figures than to buy and recycle metal.
They could put multiple copies of the most popular characters into the same or separate sprues. For example you could make two frames containing 11 Marneus Calgars and one Space Pope between them.
GW would need to analyse their EPOS data to get the balance as close as possible.
And if they had product that sat too long, they could just recycle the plastic.
Now if they were smart, they'd take non selling stock and ebay it to recoup some of the cost, or lower the retail price for the kit in order to move it faster.
One of the things I love about working for a small company is that the owner is always interested in ways to save or earn more money. Sadly, the more people who are employed between you and the top guy the harder it gets for those ideas not to be trampled to death by yes men.
Kilkrazy wrote: To expand on Kroothawk's post, I have long advocated that special characters and the like could be moulded on multiple sprues.
If you can put six standard infantry models on a single frame, it must be possible to put say four special character models in a single frame, and cut them out for individual packing.
But...but...that would make sense! And be cost effective! GW these days never seems to care about that kind of thing.
The problem with this idea is that if one or two characters are very popular, they will end up with excess thousands of the less popular figs. It would require very careful balancing to get figures that sell in similar numbers all on the same sprue.
This is actually how they're doing the plastic Fantasy characters. There's 4 single frames to a sprue, no cutting apart needed. As already mentioned, once the mold is cut, it's very, very cheap to make models, so it's actually cheaper to make the 4 and throw away excess models people aren't buying than it is to recycle metal (or, I assume, resin - can that be recycled?). As long as a couple of the characters on the mold sell well, they'll make a profit on the mold. And apparently it'sworking for Fantasy - they're very popular, and there's more in the works (IIRC Harry said the original lineup was 28 characters, which we haven't gone through yet).
That said, it works in Fantasy because people can buy multiples, or they're characters everyone will get. Everyone wants wizards, so things like the VC Necromancer, DE Sorceress, etc will sell in droves. Some characters can be taken 4-5 times easily in an army, such as the VC Banshee and Wraith. With 40k, you need to remember that most armies are limited to 2 characters, and even there, there's clear choices for what's better (though this is GW's fault too). So not only will they not sell as many for 40k, since people can't take as many characters, some won't sell well anyway. However, there's scope to sell multiples for people that want, say, 3 Librarians with different loadouts.
For special characters, I really just can't see it happening until they're the very last models in a range. Not everyone wants a special character, and people that do will only buy them once. They're just not a cost effective unit to do in plastic unless there's literally nothing left to move to plastic and they just want to get rid of their old spin casting machines.
Aerethan wrote: And if they had product that sat too long, they could just recycle the plastic.
Now if they were smart, they'd take non selling stock and ebay it to recoup some of the cost, or lower the retail price for the kit in order to move it faster.
One of the things I love about working for a small company is that the owner is always interested in ways to save or earn more money. Sadly, the more people who are employed between you and the top guy the harder it gets for those ideas not to be trampled to death by yes men.
Better for a large company to write it down as dead stock.
Lowering retail price doesn't mean less popular minis will sell.
I am certain that GW would like to pull back from finecast. It is more economical to produce plastics, than resin. When they are able to charge as much for plastics as they do for finecast, they will go all plastic.
There is the old argument that there is not enough sales volume of special characters to justify the production of a plastic mold. I do not believe that this is the case for GW. A small company like On the Lamb Games may not have the sales volume to make plastic practical, but GW does, even for its special characters. GW even helps the process along, by requiring the characters to unlock units. Thus they will sell certain units and characters in a particular ratio.
Yeah, he's a metal Cadian Lieutenant... I didn't actually say the whole squad was storm troopers. The 2nd and 4th are plastic stormies. The 1st and 5th are the metal stormtrooper heavy weapons team. I use them for my Company Command Squad, Colonel PH Atee and his guards.
I won't drag the thread off topic more, but the majority of my Imperial Guard army is old models. I'm actually painting up a commissar armed with Power Axe and Hand Flamer right now!
Note that not all Fantasy armies have gotten plastic characters recently - the Tomb Kings are a recent army, with all finecast characters and war machines. Sad kingies!
Charles Rampant wrote: Note that not all Fantasy armies have gotten plastic characters recently - the Tomb Kings are a recent army, with all finecast characters and war machines. Sad kingies!
The rumor is that every army has at least one coming though. Dark Elves got one and they aren't recent, nor are Beastmen.
Charles Rampant wrote: Note that not all Fantasy armies have gotten plastic characters recently - the Tomb Kings are a recent army, with all finecast characters and war machines. Sad kingies!
The rumor is that every army has at least one coming though. Dark Elves got one and they aren't recent, nor are Beastmen.
The Sorceress was part of a multi-pronged release where they had a ton of plastic mages coming out for the armies which didn't have the option readily available.
Charles Rampant wrote: Note that not all Fantasy armies have gotten plastic characters recently - the Tomb Kings are a recent army, with all finecast characters and war machines. Sad kingies!
The rumor is that every army has at least one coming though. Dark Elves got one and they aren't recent, nor are Beastmen.
The Sorceress was part of a multi-pronged release where they had a ton of plastic mages coming out for the armies which didn't have the option readily available.
And not every army had one made for that release. The point is that the plastics are clearly not released according to the army release schedule. Lizardmen got a Scar Veteran, Chaos got a Nurgle Warrior. Those had nothing to do with any supplement book.
And DE very much already had a sorceress model or two, as did beastmen(granted they were insanely old).
If I had my way, every single character option would be in plastic, at least for WFB. SC's aren't taken as often in WFB so I'm not all that concerned with them. If GW managed to figure out resin for those models of the same quality that other companies manage then that would be fine since they'd be lower sellers.
Generic characters and troops shouldn't be in resin if the quality and price is staying where it is now. I don't mind fixing up 1 SC that had some bubbles, but when your entire unit of 25 models need it done, AND they cost more than before, it gets to the point where I'll just look for an alternative model, either from GW or elsewhere.
Aerethan wrote: If I had my way, every single character option would be in plastic, at least for WFB. SC's aren't taken as often in WFB so I'm not all that concerned with them. If GW managed to figure out resin for those models of the same quality that other companies manage then that would be fine since they'd be lower sellers.
Generic characters and troops shouldn't be in resin if the quality and price is staying where it is now. I don't mind fixing up 1 SC that had some bubbles, but when your entire unit of 25 models need it done, AND they cost more than before, it gets to the point where I'll just look for an alternative model, either from GW or elsewhere.
Well, to be fair, Fantasy does feel like its headed that direction. Sure, there's still sometimes Finecast generic characters, like the Ogre Firebelly and Tomb Kings characters, but other ranges are getting more plastics. Vampire Counts lords and heroes section is nearly all plastic (the only exception being, ironically, Vampires). Even the mounts are either plastic or not yet available. Some armies are lagging behind a bit, but they aren't going to do the whole Fantasy range at once. However, the single frame plastic characters have been very successful for GW, so I don't doubt they'll continue.
However, Ogres seem like an outlier where it's hard to do a clampack single hero, since, well, they're al mountrous infantry, and huge. IIRC, even the new Firebelly is in a box, not a clampack. OK characters would take 2 frames, which is probably why they haven't done one yet - they wanted to test the waters with more profitable 4 character molds.
Kilkrazy wrote: To expand on Kroothawk's post, I have long advocated that special characters and the like could be moulded on multiple sprues.
If you can put six standard infantry models on a single frame, it must be possible to put say four special character models in a single frame, and cut them out for individual packing.
But...but...that would make sense! And be cost effective!
GW these days never seems to care about that kind of thing.
The problem with this idea is that if one or two characters are very popular, they will end up with excess thousands of the less popular figs.
It would require very careful balancing to get figures that sell in similar numbers all on the same sprue.
It's interesting to note that this is a situation we're seeing with "Infinity" in regards to certain model loadouts/poses/genders in the boxed sets.
If its the customer ending up with the extras, not the manufacturer, then the situation is quite different. I'm assuming the GW would be selling these characters individually, not as a complete sprue, in which case its GW that ends up with thousands of unsalable minis.
Customers ending up with less usable figures out of a set has always been an issue in tabletop wargaming, so it would be nothing new.
If its the customer ending up with the extras, not the manufacturer, then the situation is quite different. I'm assuming the GW would be selling these characters individually, not as a complete sprue, in which case its GW that ends up with thousands of unsalable minis.
GW could always write their rules in a way in which units arent' TOTALLY useless.. thus preventing unsellable minis.
People are forgetting that plastic stock that doesn't sell 1. can be recycled and 2. is dirt cheap.
1lb of HIPS runs like $.70. Anyone care to weigh a bare monopose plastic character sprue?
Even if 1 in 4 from a sprue didn't sell, the profit on the other 3 more than makes up for the pennies "lost".
You can't recycle resin. A miscast is unrecoverable loss.
The point is that plastic is an all around better medium from every aspect, especially with the amount of detail we're seeing in them. It is cheaper to make in the long run, it is recyclable, it is higher quality with almost zero man power to produce beyond design.
The reason for the increased cost of finecast is that molds need to be replaced more often per model made, and the number of models a single caster can produce in 1 day is far more limited. A video from ReaperCon showed that with the 3 stations they have for metal casting they see about 70,000 models per day per station. Those numbers will never be possible with resin molds that house a single model at a time and demold much longer than metal.
Plastic requires no one. It is completely automated and can run 24 hours a day. The savings in manpower alone should be reason enough to switch as much as possible to plastic.
Something else to factor in ,if the numbers are big enough, are those people like myself who won't buy anything Finecast and prefer to take their chances doing conversions with old miniatures they have laying about.
Sadly I don't think there is any way to measure the actual number of people who are actively NOT buying finecast. I'd be quite interested in such data.
Material cost per mini is almost irrelevant whether it is plastic or resin. It only factors in over the whole range production ergo finecast over metal.
Finecast will be more labour intensive than other methods and here more expensive over larger runs.
Plastic is more expensive to set up and create molds for and there more expensive for smaller runs.
As for relapses conversion point, people have always done their own conversions I dont imagine that the perceived flaws in finecast will make too much of a dent in this aspect. This is a hobby where most armies you see we unpainted, I don't see those sorts of players being too bothered about what their "game peice" is made of.
Aerethan wrote: Sadly I don't think there is any way to measure the actual number of people who are actively NOT buying finecast. I'd be quite interested in such data.
You could do a poll, however you would only gather data on the behaviour of keen players.
The problem all we veterans face is that the majority of sales are made to 12 year old newbies, who buy Finecast because they are perfectly happy with it/don't know any better.
Kilkrazy wrote: The problem all we veterans face is that the majority of sales are made to 12 year old newbies
Ridiculous statement. Back it up please?
The majority of gamers game at home. A poll, even if it covered all major GW based message boards, taking into consideration duplicate accounts, would cover a small portion of GW's customer base. The majority simply don't care enough to go onto a message board to discuss the finer points of the hobby. If GW, or any other manufacturer, had a worldwide customer base in the numbers of even the major forums combines, they wouldn't be making much money - especially with how budget concious online communities tend to be for any game system. Even veterans who don't discuss online, but game at stores, wouldn't make up the majority of sales. Game stores struggle to make enough sales to stay open a lot of the time, while the manufacturers don't. The sales are coming from somewhere.
Not all home gamers are '12 year old newbies'. They're just gamers who don't bother with discussing online, and there's a lot more of them than there is of us. Even grown adults who buy a miscast Finecast model might not know to return it, and would buy into GW's statement of the detail being better. These people, including grown adults, are still buying Finecast. They will keep buying Finecast as long as they are buying GW and don't know the issues with it. They won't know the issues until they go online, which they obviously don't do.
It's not a ridiculous statement, if anything, it's a well established truth. Have a look at a GW at a weekend, or during the summer holidays, it's positively hoaching with Little Timmy's who've just bought their copies of black reach, paints, battleforces and any other big shinies.
GW aims for 2 christmases and 2 birthdays from their customers and that's about it.
Compel wrote: It's not a ridiculous statement, if anything, it's a well established truth. Have a look at a GW at a weekend, or during the summer holidays, it's positively hoaching with Little Timmy's who've just bought their copies of black reach, paints, battleforces and any other big shinies.
GW aims for 2 christmases and 2 birthdays from their customers and that's about it.
Please don't confuse anecdotal evidence with real evidence.
As I said in another thread. I never see anyone buying or playing Flames of War in my FLGS. Anecdotal evidence for me says no one plays it.
As for my local GW, I see people of all ages in there whenever I happen to be there. The ones I actually see buying things are the people in their 20's. The kids (I see the same kids each time, mind) always have the same stuff, and are playing group games with a few miniatures. The older players buy stuff and leave.
-Loki-, when I worked at GW some years ago during the annual pilgrimedges to Nottingham for the sales-staff updates, 'Little Timmy' was used by the upper management when they were talking to the staff. The entire structure of their sales and in-store approach to customers is aimed at kids and their parents, from about 10-14 years old. This isn't a misconception that has come from thin air, it's actually built around the sales techniques told to staff- anyone who was worked as a staffer (at least in the UK) will attest to this. Now this may have changed since then ("ok kids are out! uni students and their loans are the new target now!") but I very much doubt it.
Compel wrote: It's not a ridiculous statement, if anything, it's a well established truth. Have a look at a GW at a weekend, or during the summer holidays, it's positively hoaching with Little Timmy's who've just bought their copies of black reach, paints, battleforces and any other big shinies.
GW aims for 2 christmases and 2 birthdays from their customers and that's about it.
Yeah I agree with Loki, sure the actual GW stores are full of kids, hence the reason adults don't go!
But think about it, there's no shortage of over 16's here for example, and kids use PCs all the bloody time, probably more than us old farts!
I seriously doubt that the vast majority of gamers are kids. At a guess I reckon its probably about 50/50, because kids are online all the time, and yet the huge gaming communities online such as here and warseer and such seem to be filled far more with over 21s than spotty youths.
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Pacific wrote: -Loki-, when I worked at GW some years ago during the annual pilgrimedges to Nottingham for the sales-staff updates, 'Little Timmy' was used by the upper management when they were talking to the staff. The entire structure of their sales and in-store approach to customers is aimed at kids and their parents, from about 10-14 years old. This isn't a misconception that has come from thin air, it's actually built around the sales techniques told to staff- anyone who was worked as a staffer (at least in the UK) will attest to this. Now this may have changed since then ("ok kids are out! uni students and their loans are the new target now!") but I very much doubt it.
Yeah I don't doubt it at all, but as I said above, that's the sales pitch, makes sense, but its not the be all and end all. Loads of grown ups play wargames... much of what we are saying here is conjecture, but what we do know for a fact, is that absolutely gak loads of grown men play Warhammer!
I've been to the bar in Warhammer world.. plenty of grown ups there.
I think the perception of "loads of kids at GW stores" is one primarily in the UK and used as some kind of justification by people who prefer to play at home for why they prefer to do so.
There's nothing wrong with that, but there is a difference between the UK and the US which continually comes up in the way that "people play at stores" here in the US while in the UK there are large amounts who seemingly play at home. I've gone over it before, but with the US there's a decentralized populace which generally uses the stores as a "central location" and GW shops are the minority rather than the majority.
Kanluwen wrote: I think the perception of "loads of kids at GW stores" is one primarily in the UK and used as some kind of justification by people who prefer to play at home for why they prefer to do so.
There's nothing wrong with that, but there is a difference between the UK and the US which continually comes up in the way that "people play at stores" here in the US while in the UK there are large amounts who seemingly play at home. I've gone over it before, but with the US there's a decentralized populace which generally uses the stores as a "central location" and GW shops are the minority rather than the majority.
Oh yeah I don't doubt it, as you are aware, I've lived in California, the store scene was much bigger and better, and it absolutely has to do with geography... basically, our colonial cousins country is far too fething big! When I was in Pasadena I used to head over the the FLGS and it was always rammed with people, and I reckon 80% of them were the wrong side of 21, far more so than gaming stores in the UK.
Its as you say, just a small cultural difference that would make those centralized spots hubs of activity.
I always remember when I first met my missus and she used to say that a restaurant was "just down the road" and then we would drive for an hour! I used to say "My uncle lives 'just down the road' its a 4 minute drive, and even that's too much of a pain because there are two sets off traffic lights on the way and that's why I never go see him"
Also, I kick off (she has lived here for 3 years) when we get stuck in traffic (car is moving less than 40mph) for more than 5 minutes, and she being from LA doesn't even class anything as traffic unless you are completely static for more than the time it takes her to get dressed for a night out. The whole thing is fething insane going from LA to North Yorkshire, and you have to live it to really understand it! Ive been all over the states actually, and I just think LA is a ridiculous nightmare for car owners.. even NYC wasn't as bad.
The GW stores really are a nightmare here though, I mean, I live right next to the one in York now, maybe 5 minutes walk away, so I go in once every few months, but its literally just to get eyes on the new stuff, mentally decide what I want, and then bugger off home and buy it online! Its rammed with really loud young lads, and even one of the staff members is really weird and childlike, I remember him because I went in a few months before dark vengeance and mentioned it was Dark Angels in the new box according to the internet, then then turned around to address the tables sorta like "OK LISTEN UP DUDES! TOTALLY AWESOME DARK ANGELZ WOO HOO!" and punched the air, while I stood there feeling embarrassed on his behalf, I was with my missus as well and she looked at me as if to say "Are all your friends this weird you big hairy weirdo, take me home immediately" he also throws his hands about when he talks like Chandler off friends (doing speed), whoops and cheers incessantly, and generally acts in such an overly exuberant manner that is almost grossly offensive to such a professional and well practised miserable bastard as I am.
Youngsters are less patient to, so I suppose that's another reason there are so many in stores, as a grown man, it just seems a bit nuts to spend 20% more than I need to, when I'm never really desperate for anything that same day.
I've never bought Finecast, I always thought the cost was prohibitive for something that you can't convert easily (in my mind).
Wouldn't a set of generic part, like the SM Commander box set or the Chaos Lord box set have made more sense? Before people say "but they didn't sell that many kits of both," if they had made them really generic and multi-function, they could have. A kit that has bitz for a SM Commander, Libby, Chappy and Tech-Marine? I might have bought one of each, when I built my SM army.
A sprue that made junior officers, senior officers, commissars, psykers, advisors? By the box-load, please!
I think that it has been said before that the Empire Wizards set is probably the finest plastic box in the whole game, just due to the customisation and utility of it. Two dudes, loads of bits to do (most, though perhaps not all) of the possible options.
I do like the idea of bundling plastic characters into the same sprue.
So you'd have a captain/Chaplain box, a Libby/Apothecary box and so on. By adding the lesser selling models to the lot, you increase the sales of those items.
If given the proper effort, that would be a quite good idea.
Charles Rampant wrote: I think that it has been said before that the Empire Wizards set is probably the finest plastic box in the whole game, just due to the customisation and utility of it. Two dudes, loads of bits to do (most, though perhaps not all) of the possible options.
I really wish the current plastic characters were more like that.
Yeah with a deep bitz box you can do a lot with them but I'd love to see some new options on the sprues.
Charles Rampant wrote: I think that it has been said before that the Empire Wizards set is probably the finest plastic box in the whole game, just due to the customisation and utility of it. Two dudes, loads of bits to do (most, though perhaps not all) of the possible options.
I really wish the current plastic characters were more like that.
Yeah with a deep bitz box you can do a lot with them but I'd love to see some new options on the sprues.
It's a bit of a juggling act. More kits with less options or less kits with more options. That Battle Wizard kit might be fantastic, but its two full sprues, while a single frame character is half of a sprue. So what's better overall for the range - a box with two Empire wizards with some options or four different characters for different armies? Some characters are worth doing in a box, some aren't.
At least going the way they're going now, armies are getting some updated characters. Vampire Counts really needed it, and definitely got nice support with a new Wraith, Banshee, Necromancer and Wight King. If they went the Battle Wizard route, they would have gotten maybe a mounted and non-mounted Wight King in a box.
I guess that their thinking was that people would use that kit for conversions. I know that I'm planning on buying it to build an Arkhan the Black model. But if they got around to doing a plastic clampack Tomb Prince, Necrotect, Liche Priest and Herald, I'd probably try to buy all four ASAP.
I played with Stalingrad resin figures and it just doesn't not work, resin is great for large pieces and show models but not for small play-pieces, no finecast for me.
Kilkrazy wrote: Finecast is a different kind of resin to the normal rigid type. It has a bendiness which makes it much more forgiving to the rough hand.
Then you never owned a Finecast model with a spike or thin blade: Those often break off even before reaching the store.
I refuse to buy finecast anymore. Every freggin time I buy finecast I am disappointed by the quality of it. Bubbles, bent weapons/spears and ruined details. I don't know why G.W decided to do this, but it was a poor decision.
Well today we mentioned to my friends store GW rep that my finecast thunderfire cannon got melty/messed up in a sub-80 degree stay inside my truck. Replacement was offered without question. So yeah, I think GW is aware that failcast is indeed fail.
Kilkrazy wrote: I've never bought a Finecast model because I saw the quality when they first came out.
That said, it isn't the same resin as normal resin and it is more forgiving, though obviously it won't stand up to any kind of serious pressure.
Metal and polystyrene also break.
The best way to avoid tears is to treat any wargame models with a bit of care.
One of the good things with finecast is it takes really well to superglue. Like, plastic to plastic glue well. A superglue bond is stronger than the actual resin. And, like most resin, when it breaks, it doesn't bend and stress or shatter, it just snaps cleanly. So a snapped blade, with a little effort, can be glued back in place with no visible sign of the break, with a bond stronger than that part of the model was in the first place. Whereas with a metal, a snapped pole or blade meant running a pin through th part to make sure not only that it stayed there, but any weakened part from stress on the component didn't break as well.
I went to a local gamestore to see if there was a metal Lucius still kicking around but had no luck. The guy managing the store called his distibutor who is going hunting in the warehouse for one tomorrow.
Here's hoping I'm lucky.
1. Most of their miscasts are due to speed. They don't give things enough time to cure, giving us bent Hydra barrels and crap like that.
2. The newer models are usually free from this sort of thing. Ancient resin Baneblade? Full of miscasty horribleness. Newer models? Hardly a thing wrong with them.
Probably because, as a new kit, they were inundated with orders and rushed as many out the door as possible. FW's problems have always been QA related, not mould or model design related.
Finecost doesn't have that luxury. It's a broken system from top to bottom.
Never bought Finecast, so I wouldn't know. But from all the trouble ive read about on these very pages, id say good riddance to it. If thats what GW are doing with a gradual phase out of Finecast.....
But you never really know what the feth is going through GW's addled corporate mind's at any time of day.
1. Most of their miscasts are due to speed. They don't give things enough time to cure, giving us bent Hydra barrels and crap like that.
2. The newer models are usually free from this sort of thing. Ancient resin Baneblade? Full of miscasty horribleness. Newer models? Hardly a thing wrong with them.
Besides, the resin FW uses is actually decent stuff. their production process has at times left some things to be desired but they always send out replacements where necessary and honestly, bent barrels? you're going to have to heat-straighten resin bits like that pretty much no matter how long you leave them to cure in my experience. Not that it's much of a job; even when there's a lot of stuff bent I tend to take longer clearing off mold lines, flash and casting blocks etc.
The nature of these products entails they will take *some* amount of work, period. What folks hate about finecast is that it takes way, way more effort and still leaves an inferior result compared to more conventional resins. But FW stuff? well, I've assembled some old, old kits for folks and no they're not perfect - but they're cast in old, worn-out molds and still they're better than a lot of the finecast stuff I've seen. Boggles the mind, really. I was quite happy to hear GW making a switch to resin (I vastly prefer it to metal!) but that soon took a turn...
I guess they ironed the kinks out with plastic, or are getting some sort of deal for their molds. Despite the online rabble, most casual (ie, not online whiners) GW players think of finecast is the best thing since sliced bread, and have no objections to it.
I brought up my distaste for finecast with an old friend who picked up Chaos Marines about a month ago, and he didn't really know what I was talking about when I brought up how much better metal was. Soon, metal will just be a funny little footnote, and those of us that prefer it will be locked up and have our tongues cut out.
Captain Fantastic wrote: I guess they ironed the kinks out with plastic, or are getting some sort of deal for their molds. Despite the online rabble, most casual (ie, not online whiners) GW players think of finecast is the best thing since sliced bread, and have no objections to it.
Methinks someone is mistaking apathy for empathy.
To the average 'casual' gamer finecast is the only way to get that marine character that you want since there's no metal alternative anymore. They don't buy finecast because they want to buy finecast, they buy finecast because GW took away any option and at the end of the day they want that character in their army. I don't disagree that those on here saying they will never purchase finecast are a small minority but that doesn't mean people who buy it love it.
The average casual gamer will buy a finecast model, will possibly glue it together, will buy the liquid green stuff, the sculpting tools and all that. They will then never use them and probably never paint the model either.
Compel wrote: The average casual gamer will buy a finecast model, will possibly glue it together, will buy the liquid green stuff, the sculpting tools and all that. They will then never use them and probably never paint the model either.
Compel wrote: The average casual gamer will buy a finecast model, will possibly glue it together, will buy the liquid green stuff, the sculpting tools and all that. They will then never use them and probably never paint the model either.
Evidence?
Geedub themselves. Their target demographic, which doesn't include veterans or anyone with a longevity of more than 18 months.
I think a lot of casual gamers WANT to paint their models but they don't know how. My group tries to teach and help newer people paint if they want to learn, but it can take years to really get models that look halfway decent. That can be a bit of a discouragement for some is all.
Nothing like a fully Painted BadAss looking FailCast model, That when you finally reach that tournament you've been waiting for to show him off, ends up not so badass and partially melted, because its a beautiful summer day and your car wasn't an icebox the whole ride there!
It's funny you talk about finecast melting - in Dubai, I left a Finecast model (Imotekh) out in an airconditioned room in the summer (45 degrees celsius! woo!) and nothing happened to it.
I fail to see any benefit to having soft bendable resin models. Vinyl models are soft like that and most of them look like crap if they have any weapon that needs a straight line.
Forgeworld resin is stiff enough and holds detail just fine, not sure why they wouldn't just use that.
With all of the miscasts, I'm almost certain that finecast isn't made using degassing or pressure casting methods. I could teach my 6 year old to achieve better results with relatively inexpensive materials.
Kilkrazy wrote: I've never bought a Finecast model because I saw the quality when they first came out.
That said, it isn't the same resin as normal resin and it is more forgiving, though obviously it won't stand up to any kind of serious pressure.
Metal and polystyrene also break.
The best way to avoid tears is to treat any wargame models with a bit of care.
One of the good things with finecast is it takes really well to superglue. Like, plastic to plastic glue well. A superglue bond is stronger than the actual resin. And, like most resin, when it breaks, it doesn't bend and stress or shatter, it just snaps cleanly. So a snapped blade, with a little effort, can be glued back in place with no visible sign of the break, with a bond stronger than that part of the model was in the first place. Whereas with a metal, a snapped pole or blade meant running a pin through th part to make sure not only that it stayed there, but any weakened part from stress on the component didn't break as well.
Wait, how is superglue being stronger then the resin a good thing. Other resin is stronger then glue and breaks the same way.
Aerethan wrote: I fail to see any benefit to having soft bendable resin models. Vinyl models are soft like that and most of them look like crap if they have any weapon that needs a straight line.
Forgeworld resin is stiff enough and holds detail just fine, not sure why they wouldn't just use that.
With all of the miscasts, I'm almost certain that finecast isn't made using degassing or pressure casting methods. I could teach my 6 year old to achieve better results with relatively inexpensive materials.
They are using a softer compound (still being tweaked) so that the can spincast them (because it's faster?). Hence all the extra flow lines, because it just doesn't work. Supposedly Trollcast have mastered it though.
In my experience, of years working in Independents stores (and GW), in terms of the % of stuff you sell, I would say (unfortunately) he is probably right. Vast majority of it would have ended up in a jumbled box at a car-boot sale a few years after it was bought, these days it just goes onto ebay.
The problem with aiming at a younger and younger demographic (comments on the 'Playstation generation' aside, kids have a lot of other distractions aimed at them and vying for their attention) I would say very few explore the painting/modelling hobby in its entirety.
ExNoctemNacimur wrote: It's funny you talk about finecast melting - in Dubai, I left a Finecast model (Imotekh) out in an airconditioned room in the summer (45 degrees celsius! woo!) and nothing happened to it.
Yes. I don't think you'll easily find "natural" conditions to melt a Finecast model
Herzlos wrote: Supposedly Trollcast have mastered it though.
Trollcast is some kind of freaking space material from the future. I have been amazed at the results. I had heard about it before the RBG kickstarter and seen some trollforged models, but the RBG plastic miniatures in trollcast are just amazing. The models are very detailed and the ones that I have seen came out unbelievably good.
Herzlos wrote: Supposedly Trollcast have mastered it though.
Trollcast is some kind of freaking space material from the future. I have been amazed at the results. I had heard about it before the RBG kickstarter and seen some trollforged models, but the RBG plastic miniatures in trollcast are just amazing. The models are very detailed and the ones that I have seen came out unbelievably good.
Think the last new plastic developed in a garage was back before WWII. Trollcast will likely be a combination of somewhat common plastics (or perhaps just a single plastic). One of these days I will order up one in order hand it off to a friend who has a mass spec in his lab at work to figure out what the secret recipe is.
One of the biggest indicators is that if it were truly revolutionary and new - it would have a patent (or patent pending). Right now, it is just treated as a trade secret by Trollforged and voodoo/majik by the people who look at it.
Aerethan wrote: I fail to see any benefit to having soft bendable resin models. Vinyl models are soft like that and most of them look like crap if they have any weapon that needs a straight line.
Forgeworld resin is stiff enough and holds detail just fine, not sure why they wouldn't just use that.
With all of the miscasts, I'm almost certain that finecast isn't made using degassing or pressure casting methods. I could teach my 6 year old to achieve better results with relatively inexpensive materials.
They are using a softer compound (still being tweaked) so that the can spincast them (because it's faster?). Hence all the extra flow lines, because it just doesn't work. Supposedly Trollcast have mastered it though.
Yes, the Finecast is done using spin cast resin. Assuming that you use the proper RPM settings and the correct resin formula - you can actually spin cast resin which is rock hard (if that is what you are after). The biggest advantage of spincast resin versus vacuum degassing is that it is faster and less hands on. You have an A/B hopper above the spin casting machine and the operator simply presses a button that squirts it out on demand based on the volume of the molds cavity (each mold is normally premeasured). The A/B components are shot out through a mixing nozzle that does all of that before it is even exposed to air - so you have minimal air entrainment compared to the manner in which home and garage casters mix their resins.
The only air to really worry about is the air in the mold itself. To deal with this - you need the correct clamping pressure (to prevent leakage) the correct RPM speed (to get the resin down into the cavities and the air out) and the correct pot time (to prevent the resin from setting up before the mold is full and the air completely out) - and of course the proper mold design in order to allow for venting of the air. GW is still working on their process though. There are several companies who are very good at doing it though and are able to reliably produce spin cast resin parts without significant failure rates.
Most the chotchkies you find at big box stores and discount craft stores like Hobby Lobby are spin cast (or roto cast) resins as opposed to hand cast. It is also the preferred method for most the rapid prototype companies and a bunch of the resin casters from Eastern Europe (real ones like CMK as opposed to small time ones like Scribor).
Now granted KD does limited runs, there is no reason they need to. And that is the point. If a few guys in a garage can crank out X models per guy at that quality and those prices, you'd think a mutil million dollar corporation could figure out how to do it.
Finecast prices would on average be justified if the models were the same quality as KD or other boutique resin companies, most of which charge the same or less.
Think the last new plastic developed in a garage was back before WWII. Trollcast will likely be a combination of somewhat common plastics (or perhaps just a single plastic). One of these days I will order up one in order hand it off to a friend who has a mass spec in his lab at work to figure out what the secret recipe is.
One of the biggest indicators is that if it were truly revolutionary and new - it would have a patent (or patent pending). Right now, it is just treated as a trade secret by Trollforged and voodoo/majik by the people who look at it.
Invention or not, the results are excellent. Given the quality, one wonders why it has not been used previously for the manufacture of miniatures. Instant Mold is similar in that it is simply a well known material that turned out to be absurdly useful for wargaming hobby projects. Had it not been marketed to me, I would never have known about it and I am grateful that someone packaged it up, told me what it is, and sold it to me for a reasonable price.
weeble1000 wrote: Given the quality, one wonders why it has not been used previously for the manufacture of miniatures.
One thing you will notice over time is the complete lack of technical knowledge amongst miniature manufacturers is a general rule across the board. Most do things simply because that is the way they were taught by some old guy who was taught that by some other old guy. Things like cutting molds is a simple practice of metallurgical knowledge - but if you actually sit down with some of the mold makers for the different companies...they often don't know specifically why they are doing certain things and speak almost with the reverence that you find used in the Conan for "steel".
Now granted KD does limited runs, there is no reason they need to. And that is the point. If a few guys in a garage can crank out X models per guy at that quality and those prices, you'd think a mutil million dollar corporation could figure out how to do it.
Finecast prices would on average be justified if the models were the same quality as KD or other boutique resin companies, most of which charge the same or less.
I just had a look at GW's site for the US. Lelith Hesperax, which doesn't really look that great is 20 USD - the Kingdom Death model is a lot nicer and is only 5 USD more. Most Character models at GW do cost "only" 16 USD, though.
Thank you! I knew it was done by a spin casting process! I used to work with a spin caster in making fine jewelry 35 years ago.
As soon as I saw what Finecast was and how cheap GW I knew that they would use their current metal mold making machines.
Now granted KD does limited runs, there is no reason they need to. And that is the point. If a few guys in a garage can crank out X models per guy at that quality and those prices, you'd think a mutil million dollar corporation could figure out how to do it.
Finecast prices would on average be justified if the models were the same quality as KD or other boutique resin companies, most of which charge the same or less.
I just had a look at GW's site for the US. Lelith Hesperax, which doesn't really look that great is 20 USD - the Kingdom Death model is a lot nicer and is only 5 USD more. Most Character models at GW do cost "only" 16 USD, though.
The newer ones are getting better, but for sake of fairness I'll link these:
$30 each for an undersized plastic horse and a single piece rider that was sculpted nearly 20 years ago.
Those are proof that GW has no clue how to go about pricing their own stuff. The reasoning? The models were $12 originally in metal, raised in 2002~ to $15, then in 2006 to $20. Since finecast somehow means higher prices and lower quality, they got yet another bump in price based solely on the fact that they were resin, not that they actually cost any more to make that wasn't already covered in the lower previous prices.
Fun fact, ebay has them in metal rather often for about $10. I got every OOP elector count model from Chaosorc for $5ea.
So for $30 I can get the one model in resin or I can get 6 in metal.
