BlastScape Craters are made to a really poor Quality... [Photos]

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**rzsanguine**

Those are lousy return them.

**Necros**

is the underside more detailed? Maybe you can pour resin or even plaster inside it and make casts that look better?

**chris_valera**

I guarantee you the models in White Dwarf are the resin masters, or something. They did this with the original Tau tank models too. Go through your WDs, and you'll see that the rear exhaust ports are solid on the original studio model.

Once again, welcome to the GW Hobby.

--Chris
www.chrisvalera.com

**cuscus**

I was thinking the same thing when I first saw the images. Then I thought about it a lot more. Even if, big if, that were the case I thought I was buying terrain - not a terrain kit.

It's all just, wow. First time I'm not rushing home every day after work to see if the big box from GW came in the mail.

**oni**

BrookM wrote:Maybe BoLS will also post this up.

Will NEVER happen!

**BrookM**

oni wrote:
BrookM wrote:Maybe BoLS will also post this up.

Will NEVER happen!

Right, BoLSCon is right around the corner, no need to point out faulty GW stuff. Plus they've already posted their quota for today.

**CT GAMER**

Redemption wrote:I suppose this bodes trouble for the upcoming battlescape (the crashed rhino with trees)?

Sad but true I fear.

I was looking forward to that piece thinking it would be the quality of the crashed lander, but now I'm fearing it is gonna be awful...

**BrookM**

CT GAMER wrote:
Redemption wrote:I suppose this bodes trouble for the upcoming battlescape (the crashed rhino with trees)?

Sad but true I fear.

I was looking forward to that piece thinking it would be the quality of the crashed lander, but now I'm fearing it is gonna be awful...

It's plastic, not vac-formed.

**Cryonicleech**

It also says on the GW site that the Blastscape is plastic....

**Kilkrazy**

It would be pretty cool if you could pour plaster into the vac-form parts and mould a good quality terrain piece.

Has anyone tried?

**Cryonicleech**

QFT

Gamesworkshop wrote:The Blastscape set contains five detailed plastic craters.

**Drake_Marcus**

sonofruss wrote:Yep and no vacuformed flash ether this has been a bait and switch show us resin casting and give us
the moon craters were crisp at the edges of the rocks this makes me glad my flgs couldn't get any.

Actually, it's nothing so diabolical.

GW gives the 'Eavy Metal team resin masters to paint rather then ask them to wait until the pieces have been tooled and mass-produced then ask them to rush the paint job.

This is clearly a case of the GW team doing some scenery, resin casting it for the team to paint, passing it along to their outside vacuforming operation, the painted masters look great, the vacuformed versions look like garbage, and they continue on to put it to market regardless. Classy? No. Conspiracy? No.

**t-tauri**

They almost released a vacc formed terrain piece a few years back the Imperial Entrenchment. It went as far as being boxed up before (if the story I heard is correct) Dave Andrews saw it and compared it to his original piece and they binned the release with only a few getting sold at Games Day UK. Apparently it was felt to be too low quality to give a proepr release. It's the same very low quality moulding as these pieces pictured here.

I'm amazed they went ahead and released them this time around after they abandoned the release of the Imperial Entrenchment for being below GW standards.

**LunaHound**

Is this taken from GW?
because if it is , it would mean they have to know about the quality already.

Thus making the bad patch theory obsolete.

**Drake_Marcus**

Osbad wrote:And the moral of the story... never pre-order!

Sure you (probably) get it on the day of the release, but there is a distinct chance that it'll disappoint.

I've learned with GW (and anyone else) never to buy anything unless until I'm damned certain of the quality.

That can be a result of seeing it in the flesh, or more likely (as I never go to GW stores these days) seeing an independent review of some discription.

I'm not in any way criticising anyone for making their "buy" decision based on GW's previously published photos as GW on te whole don't tend to pull too many shennanikins, but as they say, once bitten, twice shy!

And of course, its worth remembering that GW aren't the first or the only miniatures manufacturer to pull the somewhat shady trick of advertising forthcoming releases with gorgeously painted studio photos, only to have the actual products that hit the street be somewhat worse quality. I recall Mongoose' Battlefield Evo figures and Rackham's in the early days of CAoR. Both learned terrible lessons with massive financial implications about the perils of misleading advert pictures.

I'm not making any assumptions as to why they advertised one thing and sold something different - for instance they themselves could have been misled as to quality by a third party manufacturer. But right now the ONLY recourse they have that will restore any respect from me over the matter is to take down the misleading images and replace them with ones of the actual product being sold, and to offer refunds to anyone who bought them on pre-order on false pretenses. To do anything less stinks. I hope and trust GW's reputation for quality in customer support will lead them to the same conclusion.

Personally I was considering buying them myself, but after seeing these pics - no way! I do own the moonscape craters, which were perfectly fine after a coat of texture spray, but these.... nah. As someone said above - if I wanted cheap, vacu-formed low-detail terrain, I'd buy it from Amera at a fraction of the price.

Those are great examples of why using master models for your production photos can bite you in the ass once you get the production models back from the producers.

Does anyone here honestly think these companies are deliberately misleading? That they want the product to come back looking unlike the masters? Successful companies like GW and Rackham don't hire a company to reproduce something and say to themselves "Man, who cares what it looks like when it comes back, I'm going to sell this crap to any sucker who will take it. This will never hurt my bottom line in the future! No one cares if the product looks different than I said it would." Someone (likely the outsourced production house) gets nailed for this type of crap. It just takes a bean counter to convince a manager that the X units they paid for are too costly to recall and redo somewhere else this time. They won't deal with the people who screwed them over next time, but the stuff is sitting in boxes outback, so sell it anyway. Again-- bad business practices, yes, evil plan to screw you? No.

**H.B.M.C.**

Drake_Marcus wrote:Does anyone here honestly think these companies are deliberately misleading?

Of course not, but their responce to this issue better not be "I didn't do it!" and be more along the lines of helping their customers find replacements/new casts that aren't gak/giving refunds or swaps.

**kendoka**

BrookM wrote:It's plastic, not vac-formed.

Vac-formed IS plastic.

Not injection moulded plastic (i.e. using liquified plastic to cast a copy in an expensive metal form)
- but vacuum molded (i.e. using vacuum to suck a thin sheet of heated plastic onto a master).

Although it is possible to get OK quality using vac-forms, it is regarded as a cheapish alternative and will seldom provide crisp detail.

I cannot understand why someone would buy this junk - especially as making your own craters are both cheap and extremely simple.
With some high density foam and a good knife anyone would turn out much better looking terrain in less than an hour.

I guess GW thought they could make a quick buck by hiring a cheap supplier in China - but the quality ended up being *way* below what could be expected.
Not even terrain that comes in "little green army-men"-bags are this poor.

The product hurts GW (few of us will pre-order again) and really ought to be withdrawn.

**Drake_Marcus**

chris_valera wrote:I guarantee you the models in White Dwarf are the resin masters, or something. They did this with the original Tau tank models too. Go through your WDs, and you'll see that the rear exhaust ports are solid on the original studio model.

Once again, welcome to the GW Hobby.

--Chris
www.chrisvalera.com

Yes, welcome to modern mass manufacturing and sales.

**George Spiggott**

kendoka wrote:I guess GW thought they could make a quick buck by hiring a cheap supplier in China - but the quality ended up being *way* below what could be expected.
Not even terrain that comes in "little green army-men"-bags are this poor.

The quality is exactly what they were expecting, you're just not adding enough flock or Space Marines.

GWOZ wrote:Good Morning [Commissar Calgar],
Thanks for your query. The fully finished versions you refer to have
been trimmed, modelled and detailed - including flock and the addition
of a Space Marine Casualty piece from our Space Marine Casualties
blister pack. Further it appears in the finished picture the crashed
spaceship piece has been modelled utilising Space Marine Tank
components, to add further detail.

**chris_valera**

Drake_Marcus wrote:
chris_valera wrote:I guarantee you the models in White Dwarf are the resin masters, or something. They did this with the original Tau tank models too. Go through your WDs, and you'll see that the rear exhaust ports are solid on the original studio model.

Once again, welcome to the GW Hobby.

--Chris
www.chrisvalera.com

Yes, welcome to modern mass manufacturing and sales.

I'm sorry, could you please list, in as much detail as possible, why customers should be happy about receiving poor quality products?

--Chris
www.chrisvalera.com

**JohnHwangDD**

kendoka wrote:I guess GW thought they could make a quick buck by hiring a cheap supplier in China - but the quality ended up being *way* below what could be expected.

Don't blame Chinese suppliers here - for the same prices GW charges, any competently-sourced Chinese supplier could produce far better quality.

**Alpharius**

JohnHwangDD wrote:
kendoka wrote:I guess GW thought they could make a quick buck by hiring a cheap supplier in China - but the quality ended up being *way* below what could be expected.

Don't blame Chinese suppliers here - for the same prices GW charges, any competently-sourced Chinese supplier could produce far better quality.

Having spent a lot of time in Chinese factories, I agree 100%.

This is something that GW Quality Control* should have caught.

That something like this got out to market is a sad state of affairs.

*Yes, I know this department probably has an office right next to the Playtesting and Rules Balance Offices, i.e., they are nonexistent!

**oni**

I have a theory of what may have happened because the company I work for had what I'm about to explain happen to them.

GW out sourced the production to China. The original resin casts were sent to the proposed supplier for production demo's. Every company who out sources production requests demos of the product to be produced for quality control purposes. Now here is where it gets shady. The Chinese manufacturer sends GW the vac-u-formed demo, which is of top quality, and GW approves. The good demo is just so that the Chinese manufacturer can win the bid for production. Once the bid has been won and monies paid the Chinese manufacturer can essentially produce whatever the hell they want. The Chinese company will then ship the defunct product to GW's distribution centers. The workers at the distribution centers have no idea what it's supposed to look like so it gets boxed and shipped, quality control was done at HQ with the demo... GW HQ will not know they've been duped until it's to late, leaving GW and their customers victim.

**kendoka**

JohnHwangDD wrote:
kendoka wrote:I guess GW thought they could make a quick buck by hiring a cheap supplier in China - but the quality ended up being *way* below what could be expected.

Don't blame Chinese suppliers here - for the same prices GW charges, any competently-sourced Chinese supplier could produce far better quality.

Key word was "cheap" (as in "you get what you pay for").
Obviously there are thousands of Chinese companies that could have made a better job.

Actually, I know a person responsible for buying goods for the Scandinavian market (in bulk) from China.
He once told me that when he goes to sale events in China, several of the Chinese corporate "big bosses" prefers to hang out with him and other Scandinavian buyers.
The reason being that when the China firms show a product to bigger chains from US/UK/Germany they always get the same question "How can we make this product cheaper?"
- but when they show the same items to Swedes/Norwegians etc. they get: "How can we make this product better?".

If not stopped - these BlastScapes will be a Nagash-smudge in GW history for all time.

**chris_valera**

oni wrote:I have a theory of what may have happened because the company I work for had what I'm about to explain happen to them.

GW out sourced the production to China. The original resin casts were sent to the proposed supplier for production demo's. Every company who out sources production requests demos of the product to be produced for quality control purposes. Now here is where it gets shady. The Chinese manufacturer sends GW the vac-u-formed demo, which is of top quality, and GW approves. The good demo is just so that the Chinese manufacturer can win the bid for production. Once the bid has been won and monies paid the Chinese manufacturer can essentially produce whatever the hell they want. The Chinese company will then ship the defunct product to GW's distribution centers. The workers at the distribution centers have no idea what it's supposed to look like so it gets boxed and shipped, quality control was done at HQ with the demo... GW HQ will not know they've been duped until it's to late, leaving GW and their customers victim.

I actually believe this - the book Poorly Made in China has sevral tragicomic stories just like this.

But it remains to be seen whether GW will fix the problem, or saddle its customers with an inferior product, like the screw-top paint pots.

--Chris
www.chrisvalera.com

**cegorach**

Drake_Marcus wrote:
Does anyone here honestly think these companies are deliberately misleading? That they want the product to come back looking unlike the masters? Successful companies like GW and Rackham don't hire a company to reproduce something and say to themselves "Man, who cares what it looks like when it comes back, I'm going to sell this crap to any sucker who will take it. This will never hurt my bottom line in the future! No one cares if the product looks different than I said it would." Someone (likely the outsourced production house) gets nailed for this type of crap. It just takes a bean counter to convince a manager that the X units they paid for are too costly to recall and redo somewhere else this time. They won't deal with the people who screwed them over next time, but the stuff is sitting in boxes outback, so sell it anyway. Again-- bad business practices, yes, evil plan to screw you? No.

Actually, you are missing a fundamental part of the equation there.

The real problem is when they DO shift a large number of these awful units and therefore go back to the same supplier.

As long as the balancesheet looks good, why on earth would any good capitalist give a monkey's about the audience response?

The drones are still buying, don't pay for more expensive processing costs.

While it is crazy to put forward notions that GW's sales ideology is EVIL, it is equally crazy to assume it is GOOD.

This is late stage mass consumer capitalism, profit is apparently all there is and should be. We aren't living in the 80s any more kids. Consumer goodwill is only valuable as a tool for driving dollars in the door.

Yes, welcome to modern mass manufacturing and sales.

**chris_valera**

Drake_Marcus wrote:
The drones are still buying, don't pay for more expensive processing costs.

The drones are still buying, but for how much longer? Given how much they've spent on a smiple piece of vac-formed plastic, they have a right to be irate. GW gets things wrong, but in general, the quality is there. Now they don't even have that. Will the disgruntled customers in this thread be as eager to pre-order the next product?

--Chris
www.chrisvalera.com

**clansittingducks**

Ouch that sucks, Ive told our local firebase guy here in town and he just shrugged and shook his head. To be honest this drone has only bought three things from GW this year, Planetstrike, paints and soon some of the bastion kits. I was eying these bitz to go along with my moonscape peices, but after seeing this I will spend my money on somthing else.

Each month it gets harder and harder to justify purchasing anything from them outside of their paint line. I wrote up a review for Planetstrike and it didnt get top marks, hell it felt unfinished to me. So, do we boycott GW if this sort of thing happens again? Or do we let it slide and keep giving them our money?

**JohnHwangDD**

kendoka wrote:If not stopped - these BlastScapes will be a Nagash-smudge in GW history for all time.

Given that the Blastscape Craters are just blobby smudges without any detail, I'm wondering if John Blanche was brought in to update them for final release...

**CT GAMER**

chris_valera wrote:

The drones are still buying, but for how much longer? Given how much they've spent on a smiple piece of vac-formed plastic, they have a right to be irate. GW gets things wrong, but in general, the quality is there. Now they don't even have that. Will the disgruntled customers in this thread be as eager to pre-order the next product?

--Chris
www.chrisvalera.com

How many sets of these do you think they sold? Probably not more then the sales tothe people who spent many hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours converting and painting armies like LATD, Genestealer cults, etc.,etc.

I don't think GW is losing sleep over potentially losing the small percentage of their customer base that both bought these and have the willpower to actually stop buying. For every irate customer that thinks these are gak and quits (a very small number that will actually do so) you will add 10-15 new Timmies buying first armies to take their place...

Most people, even those that feel they got burned on these will be right back in line for the next shiny toy they release and GW bnks on that fact...