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Hey all, I bought a ForgeWorld Thousand Sons Dreadnought on the cheap from eBay. It totaled ~$45 USD with the Dreadnought, Chainfist arm, Autocannon arm, and International Shipping. Retail would have been ~$67 USD without shipping...So I got a very good deal.

However after working with the model for a few hours to clean up the resin sprue bits, it seems like this is much different than my other Forge World Dreadnought (the Chaplain Dread)...so I'm wondering if it might be a knockoff and if I could get in trouble for possessing it, lol...I know how GW likes to play fast and loose with their Copyright division. There was no ForgeWorld documentation with the model, only the sprues of the weapons, body and head.

Help??!?!

BTW, not sure if this would be the best place to put it, so Mods, YMDC.

Does it look different aside from the resin?

Paint it up. No-one will know any different...

Did it come from Hong Kong or Russia ?
Most models that come from those places are recasts.

The resin appears to be a vastly different cast...I know FW uses different resins but the overall quality of the mold points seems quite crude and it took a LOT of hacking and sawing to cut the back torso's mold point off. I nearly sliced off my thumb (cut to the bone twice...thank you super glue lol) cutting it off and shaving it down. It also seems a lot more...low-quality than my Chaplain Dread...rougher cast lines and inconsistencies in the resin color.

Also it smelled highly toxic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Rayvon wrote:Did it come from Hong Kong or Russia ?
Most models that come from those places are recasts.

I believe China, possibly HK.

That doesn't really sound any different than the last Forge World dread I painted for a customer on commission. It stank like mad and did have one heck of a gate on the back I had to cut off.

China FW=fake re-cast

Although all the stuff I've got from them are good casts. At about %40 the price!

I have had a couple of recast space wolf dreads from Russia and i would buy more, due to them being cheaper and the quaility was just as good.

I just wish that I knew how to setup eBay so I could view results from international sellers only..

Thanks for the help guys...Pretty sure its a recast but I suppose I can live with it.

Last question though is would I be at a liability for actually owning it? I'm fairly certain I'm safe but GW does have a happy lawsuit-finger. I plan on taking part in tournaments with this army sometime in the future, so if it is discovered that its a recast somehow, I want to cover all my bases.

I've not heard that it's a problem myself... I just wonder if it counts a stolen goods?

0.o If the model is visually the same as the original I wouldn't think that anyone would notice once its painted. If somehow a tournement organisor found out that it was a fake (which I could only see as a result of you telling them), then I'd assume they'd eject you from the competition. But seriously, I wouldn't see this happening if the model is of decent quality (hell even if it was subpar you could just say it was a bad cast), so don't worry about it.

Hologram wrote:Thanks for the help guys...Pretty sure its a recast but I suppose I can live with it.

Last question though is would I be at a liability for actually owning it? I'm fairly certain I'm safe but GW does have a happy lawsuit-finger. I plan on taking part in tournaments with this army sometime in the future, so if it is discovered that its a recast somehow, I want to cover all my bases.

GW won't really blame you for it, but if it comes out at a tourney or something at their store--there are people who've had their stuff confiscated.

However, there is this to take into consideration(pulled from their Legal section page 3)

What to do if you are the victim of counterfeiters

Sadly, the people that suffer most from counterfeiters are you guys - after all who wants to pay for a badly-cast fake?

What we suggest is that if you encounter a counterfeiter, get as much information as you can before you contact us: where you saw them, who was selling them, where they are being made, etc. If you can, buy a representative sample and GET A RECEIPT. If the products are indeed counterfeit, we will reimburse you for any postage costs and will try to replace any counterfeit with the genuine article (please be aware that this may not always be possible). E-mail or write to us with any information at:

Legal Department,
Games Workshop Limited,
Willow Road,
Lenton,
Nottingham,
NG7 2WS
UK
Tel: 0115 916 8000
Fax: 0115 916 8008
E-mail: Legal@games-workshop.co.uk

Hologram wrote:Thanks for the help guys...Pretty sure its a recast but I suppose I can live with it.

Last question though is would I be at a liability for actually owning it? I'm fairly certain I'm safe but GW does have a happy lawsuit-finger. I plan on taking part in tournaments with this army sometime in the future, so if it is discovered that its a recast somehow, I want to cover all my bases.

In the United States, you have absolutely no liability for owning a recast model. You can cast your own copies to your heart's content as long as you do not sell them or give them away. I'm not sure how it would work for buying a recast model. If a case were being made against the recaster who sold you the model and it comes back to you, I'm sure that authorities could take the model as evidence.

Whether you cast them or not GW obviously has a right to ask that you do not bring the model into their stores, but they can not confiscate it, they can only ask you to leave.

If you paint it up, I'm sure it would be almost impossible to tell that it is a clone, as long as it is cast well.

Awesome thanks a bunch all...really cleared that up.

However I don't think I'm going to report it, as I don't know for sure if its a re-cast.

Peace!

- H

It's from Hong Kong? It's 99.99% positively a recast, especially if the seller has a number of other Forgeworld items including multiples of the item you bought. I wouldn't buy from them again, but if I were you I wouldn't throw the model in the trash or mark it out as a recast at a tournament or what have you. Just use it like you'd use anything else and don't draw attention to it, and keep your eye out for recasters in the future.

helium42 wrote:In the United States, you have absolutely no liability for owning a recast model.

Importing counterfeit materials is illegal, whether liability is criminal or civil depends on the scope and intent.

helium42 wrote:You can cast your own copies to your heart's content as long as you do not sell them or give them away.

No, you can't.

helium42 wrote:Whether you cast them or not GW obviously has a right to ask that you do not bring the model into their stores, but they can not confiscate it, they can only ask you to leave.

GW absolutely cannot confiscate your models, even if they suspect you're a recaster. This is called theft, and should be reported to the authorities. There is no self-help available for copyright infringement.

helium42 wrote:If you paint it up, I'm sure it would be almost impossible to tell that it is a clone, as long as it is cast well.

Pretty much this. Paint it up and no one will be able to tell.

If you want to do the right thing, report the seller to E-Bay and GW legal and let them handle it.

Whew, page one and the armchair lawyers are already at it! Good show, Dakka!

Calling biccat an armchair lawyer is like calling Patton an armchair general.

Kanluwen wrote:
GW won't really blame you for it, but if it comes out at a tourney or something at their store--there are people who've had their stuff confiscated.

Really? Sorry I find this impossible to believe.
If it was an official GW tournament they would at best be within their rights to ask you to remove it.
GW employees have no enforcement capacity to confiscate it.
If they did confiscate it I think they would find that a smack in the mouth is really not worth it.

GBDarkAngel wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:
GW won't really blame you for it, but if it comes out at a tourney or something at their store--there are people who've had their stuff confiscated.

Really? Sorry I find this impossible to believe.
If it was an official GW tournament they would at best be within their rights to ask you to remove it.
GW employees have no enforcement capacity to confiscate it.
If they did confiscate it I think they would find that a smack in the mouth is really not worth it.

I should clarify.

There have been people who claim they have had their stuff confiscated for it being recasts.

Its possible that it is real. I bought some FW stuff on Ebay and they were in a terrible condition; full of miscasts, random spikey bits of flash and even some mould stuck to the most miscast parts. It seems that they were genuine though (I had someone take a look at them) I wonder how many times they were re-sold on Ebay before I bought them

Apparently FW simply uses their moulds to near destruction so what ever you bought may simply have been the result of a mould near the end of its working life.

If it is a re-cast though its not a big deal, it would be exceptionally hard to prove and GW would be hard pressed to do anything about it.

Kanluwen wrote:
I should clarify.

There have been people who claim they have had their stuff confiscated for it being recasts.

Yeah I think thats total horse gak me like..

Even if they think its a recast, they hardly have proof. Nobody takes their receipts with their models and codex when they go for a game in GW, and GW staff are hardly big tough guys who are happy to throw their weight about.

Find me a bloke who claims he was in a GW store and a staff member stole a model off him and said "this is a recast so I'm keeping it" send him into this thread and I will happily call him a lying bastard.

If they have no evidence do they really have a right to confiscate it, or ask you not to use it? I find this so hard to believe, it'll all look the same painted anyway, who's gonna know the difference unless it has major flaws? And even then, just blame GW QC.

How would they know if it was a recast under all that paint? Secondly, you bought it in good faith. They really wouldn't have the evidence or the authority to confiscate your personal property.

Just use it, it could be a poor quality but genuine casting, there are enough about. Seems to me they often miss things from other manufacturers let alone recasts of their own stuff.

Kanluwen wrote:Sadly, the people that suffer most from counterfeiters are you guys - after all who wants to pay for a badly-cast fake?

What we suggest is that if you encounter a counterfeiter, get as much information as you can before you contact us: where you saw them, who was selling them, where they are being made, etc. If you can, buy a representative sample and GET A RECEIPT. If the products are indeed counterfeit, we will reimburse you for any postage costs and will try to replace any counterfeit with the genuine article (please be aware that this may not always be possible). E-mail or write to us with any information at:

Legal Department,
Games Workshop Limited,
Willow Road,
Lenton,
Nottingham,
NG7 2WS
UK
Tel: 0115 916 8000
Fax: 0115 916 8008
E-mail: Legal@games-workshop.co.uk

I doubt you could repeatedly.

They don't even send free replacements of their own genuine models if they are defective after a certain amount of complaints from the same source.

If it's a well done recast (complete with FWs well known flaws) then you probably wouldn't be able to tell. Huge resin chunk gates is not a giveaway unto itself. FW are known for them.

FW have used several different kinds of resin over the years, with several models available in a variety of resins depending on when they were cast.

You can suspect it is a recast (based upon price and location of seller) but FW were casting in Shanghai long enough for enough "legitimate" moulds to have been created and used for "foreign" orders after hours - and suspicion does not equal proof.

As a law enforcement officer I can assure of two things-
1- Almost no agency has the time, or the man power, to prosecute one person over the purchase of one, possibly fake, toy robot. Seriously, thats just silly. Especially when one consideres the difficulty of proving that you knowingly purchased a fake in court.
Seriously It's damn near impossible, due to that whole reasonable doubt thing (unless the person selling to you, told you he was selling he was selling recasts, and that could some how be proven..... but in this case I think its fairly obvious they represented themselves as selling as the real thing).
Giant waste of resources, your safe I assure you. Heck even the boring as all get out little Mayberry outfit I work for has more productive uses for it's time and manpower.

2- If some one at a GW store tell you they're confiscating it, inform that they're about to commit fracking larceny. If they snatch it when you aren't looking, or something equally dumb, call your local police non-emergency number, they'll be happy to get you your model back, and possibly give the GW employee a nice new set of bracelets.
You don't just get to take other people's property, its kind of illegal.

@Slavetodorkness- Biccat could only be constued to be an armchair lawyer in so much as he's an actual lawyer, who is likely sitting in an armchair (and an honest to gods IP lawyer at that LOL).

Henners91 wrote:Woah so wait - if I deliberately buy ripoffs I might get the genuine article from GW? Boo yeah...

SlaveToDorkness wrote:I doubt you could repeatedly.

"Hi, Forge World? Yeah, it's me again. I bought another counterfeit model. I know I said the last one was the last one... but I think I have a problem. Can... can I have the real one again? Just this last time! I promise!"

I think they'd catch on eventually.

Corvid, Kan, you realize its possible I wasn't referring to Biccat don't you?

I'm sure he appreciates you charging in to save him though...