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That's a big gun

Seems to me that a line GW might take on the issues with Finecast might be along the same one they take with Forgeworld. Made for the higher-level modeller, some extra work to be expected in an expert level kit, etc...

Personally I think that POV is a crock of gak given the costs involved, and an insulting one at that. However, they just might try it.

Can we hear from some more people who have had good casts, maybe more side by side pics of metal and resin minis? Personally I would dearly love to see a metal copy next to a resin copy, both primered, THEN picked for flaws. I think the pics people have been putting up of resin models with flaws circled are great in that it allows a more objective viewing of what's actually on the model.

TBD wrote:Another thing I am curious to know: can these bubbles be prevented in any kind of way? And if yes, how? What are they doing wrong right now? Is it fundamental or because they are rushing things?

Theoretically, yes, they're preventable, although it really depends on just what sort of process GW are using to cast them. If, as has been rumoured, these are being cast in a pressurised spin caster, my guess would be that they're either not using quite enough pressure, or are not spinning the moulds long enough. The way the resin is mixed and injected would also play a part... too much agitation adds more bubbles to the mix, which in turn take longer to remove.

It may also be fundamental to the resin mix, though... Some resins bubble more than others.


I would suspect that, as others have said, the worse flaws will be down to the product being rushed out. Which is in turn a side effect of trying to keep a product a secret up until 3 minutes before release... Who would have thought that might come back to bite them?

The pinhole airbubbles will probably always be there. While you'll get the occasional resin piece that doesn't have any, or that has them but in unobtrusive places so you don't notice, I think it's unrealistic to expect mass-produced resin miniatures to be completely free of them. The larger flaws... well, hopefully that will sort itself out when GW have caught up a little and aren't trying so hard to rush product out, and so can spend a little more time getting them right.

Not hyping them up as the best resin miniatures ever would certainly have helped... People have high expectations for resin, due to the fact that there is some absolutely brilliant stuff out there. So GW set themselves a bar that they were never going to get over. By contrast, the change from lead to white metal back in the '90s, which was billed simply as a necessary change for legal reasons with the handy side-effect of resulting in crisper-detailed miniatures, and which was accompanied by an up-front and honest announcement that the more expensive allow would require a price increase had none of this sort of drama. People complained a little about the price rise, and about the white metal being harder to work with than lead... and then noticed for themselves that the casts largely were better, and you didn't mash the model's face into an unrecognisable pulp when you dropped it, and we all got on with our lives.

insaniak wrote:

Not hyping them up as the best resin miniatures ever would certainly have helped... People have high expectations for resin, due to the fact that there is some absolutely brilliant stuff out there. So GW set themselves a bar that they were never going to get over. By contrast, the change from lead to white metal back in the '90s, which was billed simply as a necessary change for legal reasons with the handy side-effect of resulting in crisper-detailed miniatures, and which was accompanied by an up-front and honest announcement that the more expensive allow would require a price increase had none of this sort of drama. People complained a little about the price rise, and about the white metal being harder to work with than lead... and then noticed for themselves that the casts largely were better, and you didn't mash the model's face into an unrecognisable pulp when you dropped it, and we all got on with our lives.

Never really complained about metals or even plastics they were acceptable and in some cases quite nice and they do clash with these resin problems.
You say "" GW set themselves a bar that they were never going to get over..."
I think they have the money to reach and surpass that bar and I was hoping the new revolutionary material they were speaking was something along the lines of the best outhere... unfortunately all my hopes collapsed and my worst nightmare concerning finecast just materialized in front of my PC in the form of really nasty pictures and reports... FW problems just contaminated GW in the worst way possible.

Theres so much more problems on these that we are not thinking about, for example today we can compare with metals and we have a comparison point to know what parts are mising and what is miscasted etc but when new models will be created just for these we will be a bit clueless of how actually the model is suppose to look like and each model you get it will be like kinder egg surprise but without the chocolate and well casted plastic toy hehe...

CMDante wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:
I find it very difficult to believe what you say.

I have four of the Studio McVey sculpts including the Carnosaur rider, and they are all perfect. As are the metal Studio McVey models I own. And the 100+ metal and resin models from a variety of companies (MERCS, Corvus Belli, Anteoniciti and Soda Pop) I spent this afternoon inventorying, barring some minor flash on a couple of the resin Game Character models from Elodie Mae.

I will not doubt you, though.

I can only say that you are an amazingly forgiving person to accept a special edition model costing £12 with such huge flaws. No wonder you don't have any issues with the GW resin stuff.

Your right - i'm just a big ol' fabricator of truth's me!





I had forgotten actually how much work the gun needed until I dug it out just then for some quick picks (faults highlighted with red circles - some have been filled with putty as you can see).

The whole barrel needed replacing and the shield still isn't 100% after some serious trimming and reworking. Difficult to believe perhaps, but not impossible clearly.

I think the McVey figures are great and have absolute respect for them, but I'm just supporting my point with these pics, not being hyper-critical of them.

How about a scan of your certificate of provenance?

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=&prodId=prod1160115a

Hive Tyrant: But the second picture is the metal tyrant, can't they be bothered painting a resin one?

Kilkrazy wrote:
How about a scan of your certificate of provenance?

Lol, I'd like to assume thats a joke but since I suspect you may be serious...



Incase you can't see, it was 306 of 750.

CMDante wrote:I find it strange that so many people seem to be claiming that small amounts of flash and the odd air bubble on otherwise perfect casts (yes there have been very bad casts too) is totally unacceptable as if GW have lampooned you with shoddy gak for your hard earned money.

This level of discontent is more to do with utterly unrealistic expectations, a general dislike for GW as a company an probably a lack of wider miniature experience.

Your just flat out wrong. Folks arent pointing out odd air bubbles or small amount of flash as bad casts and unacceptable. The level of miscast stuff posted shows your just being bias in your view. There are serious amounts of miscasts seen so far, beyond flash or even airbubbles.

Tyranid Horde wrote:Hive Tyrant: But the second picture is the metal tyrant,...

How do you tell?

insaniak wrote:

Tyranid Horde wrote:Hive Tyrant: But the second picture is the metal tyrant,...

How do you tell?

No missing parts.

carmachu wrote:

CMDante wrote:I find it strange that so many people seem to be claiming that small amounts of flash and the odd air bubble on otherwise perfect casts (yes there have been very bad casts too) is totally unacceptable as if GW have lampooned you with shoddy gak for your hard earned money.

This level of discontent is more to do with utterly unrealistic expectations, a general dislike for GW as a company an probably a lack of wider miniature experience.

Your just flat out wrong. Folks arent pointing out odd air bubbles or small amount of flash as bad casts and unacceptable. The level of miscast stuff posted shows your just being bias in your view. There are serious amounts of miscasts seen so far, beyond flash or even airbubbles.

Actually that's not what I'm contesting though as I've tried to make clear - I'm saying, when they come out as intended, the quality is high for resin figures, on a par with other resin lines. And there are people pointing out the odd air bubbles and flash as "unacceptable", not necessarily here, but elsewhere online.

Has anybody in the UK or rest of Europe contacted GW customer service for replacements? GW is closed in the US today because of a Holiday.

carmachu wrote:

CMDante wrote:I find it strange that so many people seem to be claiming that small amounts of flash and the odd air bubble on otherwise perfect casts (yes there have been very bad casts too) is totally unacceptable as if GW have lampooned you with shoddy gak for your hard earned money.

This level of discontent is more to do with utterly unrealistic expectations, a general dislike for GW as a company an probably a lack of wider miniature experience.

Your just flat out wrong. Folks arent pointing out odd air bubbles or small amount of flash as bad casts and unacceptable. The level of miscast stuff posted shows your just being bias in your view. There are serious amounts of miscasts seen so far, beyond flash or even airbubbles.

It could be said as well that some of the "reviews" are biased as well. When I see a review titled "Failcost review" I find it hard to believe the poster did not go into the review with a bias against GW or the product, as it seems alot of people are focusing their anger at a number of GW policy changes and price increases at the Finecast range. Additionally, I think that the number of models shown are not necessarily indicative of the range as a whole. Most people don't leave feedback or write reviews for models they are happy with.

Having said all that, I will most certainly be purchasing any Finecast models at my FLGS rather than online, so I can inspect them beforehand, but I did this for metal models as well, so it's not a huge change for me personally.

In the end, even if there is a larger quality control issue, it's not like customers are left with no recourse. GW replaces defective models without question. So while some folks may be out some time and have to deal with the slight frustration of a miscast model, they can get a replacement quite easily.

For me, the weight, prep time and susceptibility to chipping inherent in metal models are a bigger issue than a potential miscast with a resin model. Although, having purchased a large number of FW models, resin prep is not a huge issue for me. I can understand how less experienced customers may be a little shocked to see a few places that need touching up if they haven't had previous experience with resin models.

CMDante wrote:I'm saying, when they come out as intended, the quality is high for resin figures

Can't argue with that. The question now is how long will it take for the majority of models to come out "as intended" as opposed to "as they actually are."

Stella Cadente wrote:

spaceelf wrote:

Vandil wrote:

puma713 wrote:

TBD wrote:
(I still wouldn't buy anything unseen though)

This makes me wonder about how the online market will be affected.

Some Chinese recasters wet dream just came true! I've gotten a few off ebay that are honestly hard to tell aren't legit.

Well actually it will be easy to spot the knockoffs, they will be the ones without the bubbles.

and the ones you can afford.

Sad but true: Chinese resin recasts of metal miniatures would have no quality issues like that AND be cheaper.

Cadaver wrote:

carmachu wrote:

CMDante wrote:I find it strange that so many people seem to be claiming that small amounts of flash and the odd air bubble on otherwise perfect casts (yes there have been very bad casts too) is totally unacceptable as if GW have lampooned you with shoddy gak for your hard earned money.

This level of discontent is more to do with utterly unrealistic expectations, a general dislike for GW as a company an probably a lack of wider miniature experience.

Your just flat out wrong. Folks arent pointing out odd air bubbles or small amount of flash as bad casts and unacceptable. The level of miscast stuff posted shows your just being bias in your view. There are serious amounts of miscasts seen so far, beyond flash or even airbubbles.

It could be said as well that some of the "reviews" are biased as well. When I see a review titled "Failcost review" I find it hard to believe the poster did not go into the review with a bias against GW or the product, as it seems alot of people are focusing their anger at a number of GW policy changes and price increases at the Finecast range. Additionally, I think that the number of models shown are not necessarily indicative of the range as a whole. Most people don't leave feedback or write reviews for models they are happy with.

Having said all that, I will most certainly be purchasing any Finecast models at my FLGS rather than online, so I can inspect them beforehand, but I did this for metal models as well, so it's not a huge change for me personally.

In the end, even if there is a larger quality control issue, it's not like customers are left with no recourse. GW replaces defective models without question. So while some folks may be out some time and have to deal with the slight frustration of a miscast model, they can get a replacement quite easily.

For me, the weight, prep time and susceptibility to chipping inherent in metal models are a bigger issue than a potential miscast with a resin model. Although, having purchased a large number of FW models, resin prep is not a huge issue for me. I can understand how less experienced customers may be a little shocked to see a few places that need touching up if they haven't had previous experience with resin models.

I don't see it that way cadaver... I don't give much credits on the written reviews when they have crystal clear pictures next to them but yes bias goes both ways... but when I see everywhere pictures from people that got tons of finecasts ( I don't assume they are nothing but fans of GW models)... when I see pictures on the official GW site showing some of problems I surely don't see them has independent reviewers and expect they cherry picked the miniature... if those were the cherry's ouch.

Call me naive but I bet with you if these casts were par with the best in the market people would buy these and understand the prices increases... I have a hard time to believe all folks outhere got a hidden agenda and are reporting these finecasts just to blemish GW.

As for replacing faulty product it may be easier for folks who have GW in their countries, many don't and I surely don't and rely on online shopping... the fact its a faulty product gives me much more problems and its not that easy to replace the thing.

And finally I have some experience with resins it goes back some decades and the old fart in me that seen a bit of what's outhere can tell you if you consider FW cast a good comparative example to justify your experience with resins and that Finecast its expectable I can tell you that you probably picked one of the worst casters in the market... Im not new to these things and yes finecasts did really surprised me.

CMDante wrote:
Actually that's not what I'm contesting though as I've tried to make clear - I'm saying, when they come out as intended, the quality is high for resin figures, on a par with other resin lines. And there are people pointing out the odd air bubbles and flash as "unacceptable", not necessarily here, but elsewhere online.

Your assuming they will come out as intended, something other what we're seeing. Thats to be proven, not assumed.

Forgeworld resin for example, has bad problems too. Most other resin lines are much better then either finecast or forgeworld.

Raptor wrote:

insaniak wrote:

Tyranid Horde wrote:Hive Tyrant: But the second picture is the metal tyrant,...

How do you tell?

No missing parts.

Fair point

Cadaver wrote:

It could be said as well that some of the "reviews" are biased as well. When I see a review titled "Failcost review" I find it hard to believe the poster did not go into the review with a bias against GW or the product, as it seems alot of people are focusing their anger at a number of GW policy changes and price increases at the Finecast range. Additionally, I think that the number of models shown are not necessarily indicative of the range as a whole. Most people don't leave feedback or write reviews for models they are happy with.

Ah, the old "discredit the other side trick" your doing There. Pointing out flaws of models isnt bias. Making excuses that your doing, is. You make assumptions that have no basis in reality, but in your expectations and world view.

Finecast was sold as revolutionary, as a step up from metal. So far, its not. There is not a bit of doubt of that, currently. If, and thats a big if, GW can get their act together and produce without the miscasts, maybe it will be. Your assuming that its not indicative, but various reports are of folks at FLGS and GW stores having send back multiple blisters of the model blisters.

But that all runs with YOUR point of views, not the current facts presented. More then a few have reported happy, including the orginial one was a good review, despite flaws.

From the reviews that I've read I'm extremely dissapointed in what culd have beena step up in model quality. Many people have went through the blisters for "the best of the bunch" and still came out with very bad flaws many minor, but many of them major such as missing detail. Even if in the future I was tempted by a GW model this in itself would put me off.

mechanicalhorizon over at Warseer found this nice pic:

Bubblecast would certainly be a more suitable name at the moment

I did not have any big problems on my two IG models I bought.
The biggest problem was the aiming sight on Yarrick.



And still that is something that is easily fixed with some greenstuff and a sculpting tool.
Anyhow, although there are some start up problems for GW, I still think they handled it quite nice.
Somebody else opened a box which was a miscast. And got a new one immediately.
Got nothing to complain so far, except that the models are so nice they hurt my eyes. (You can count the teeth of Yarrick! What the hell!)

And I really really liked how it glues together. Dry fit, super glue, push.. and done.. 1 second later, just.. done.. What a relieve from metals that is..
I love resin so far.

I still can't understand:

Why would Yarrick lose his original Ork powerfist, and then replace it WITH ANOTHER ORK POWERFIST?

Raptor wrote:I still can't understand:

Why would Yarrick lose his original Ork powerfist, and then replace it WITH ANOTHER ORK POWERFIST?

Power klaws krump em better than powerfists.

Seeing that Yarrick really makes me hope GW gets their act together and makes these things of a consistently good quality at some point. Certain aspects of the resin models make me really want them (even at the prison black market prices). The weight, I think, would still annoy me, however. But if they get the quality of these things up so that you could buy a box set without fear, I'd be all over those future Finecast miniatures like, well, like bubbles on a current Finecast miniature.

Anyone done any heat testing or paint testing on the sprues etc? Maybe a realistic 120° to simulate being in a car? Bending a painted piece or even trying to strip paint. Using sprues obviously as the cost of the model is too great to risk.

Quick question: for the new Finecast blisters, how do you open it such that you can return it? I basically had to destroy mine to get it open, and didn't think I could return it after...

I probably wouldn't have anyway, but the one part that I couldn't see well from the back (the shield for the Black Orc Big Boss) was cast somewhat subpar, imho, and if I hadn't mauled the blister pack I might have considered it...

Definitely not a fan :-/. I think Finecast is a nice idea for the largest of metal models, but as for the smaller ones, I'll probably only get what I need down the line and no more...

You shouldn't have to have the packaging to return it, RiTides. You could likely just show up and hand them the mangled blister pack and hand it to them with no issues.

Maybe some weird glances.

insaniak wrote:

Not hyping them up as the best resin miniatures ever would certainly have helped... People have high expectations for resin, due to the fact that there is some absolutely brilliant stuff out there. So GW set themselves a bar that they were never going to get over. By contrast, the change from lead to white metal back in the '90s, which was billed simply as a necessary change for legal reasons with the handy side-effect of resulting in crisper-detailed miniatures, and which was accompanied by an up-front and honest announcement that the more expensive allow would require a price increase had none of this sort of drama. People complained a little about the price rise, and about the white metal being harder to work with than lead... and then noticed for themselves that the casts largely were better, and you didn't mash the model's face into an unrecognisable pulp when you dropped it, and we all got on with our lives.

Also they sold off their remaining stock of lead figures at a 20% discount too, instead of mysteriously removing them from shelves a month or 2 before. I was just starting up at the time, amd managed to sweet-talk my dad into getting me a unit of chaos terminators AND a chaos Dread because of the sale. Happy times....

I miss the good old days :(