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Yeah, I can understand that opinions differ, but some of the posts here could only have been made by people on the GW payroll.

Fetterkey wrote: Once people realize that Finecast is, in fact, superior to the old metal models, ...

With a more than 50% failure rate, that may take a while...

Heh, can't believe the amount of GW apologists in this thread.

Even discounting the pubepacks, that's still a 50% fail rate.

I bought a Finecast Crowe. The quality was OK on Crowe himself but the backpack was absolutely terrible. The little half sphere area that attaches to the model's back was actually a hole that went right through! And the little air vent thingys on the top had ragged edges around them. The shape of the backpack was all wrong - it looked like a cartoon version of the proper ones. It was unuseable.

My experience with Finecast so far is that 100% of my purchases are very, very poor quality and there's absolutely no way that I'd buy one online from anywhere as I would have to see it first.

The metals may have needed filing but Finecast need even more filing and have bits missing - like they just melted away from the rest of the model. Finecast is, however, easier to paint.

All in all, I think it's an absolute cheek that GW put the prices up for what in my experience has been utter turd. And if forums weren't moderated, my language would have been far less considered.

Ouze wrote:Congratulations, apologists! You have successfully diverted attention from the 31/60 (52%) models with clear, visible enormous casting flaws in favor of the 2/60 that had long hairs in them but no other visible defects!

If you think the casting flaws depicted are "enormous," I'm not sure what to say to you. The vast majority of the flaws depicted can be trivially fixed with a bit of green stuff. Compare that to the amount of work required to get metal models to work-- often requiring MORE green stuff to fit joints and the like-- and you'll see that the amount of work that these models require is generally less than their metal predecessors. When you combine that with the fact that these models are lighter weight, easier to convert, and more detailed, I think it's clear that Finecast comes out on top.

George Spiggott wrote:So which of the miscast ones would you buy from them, not complain and not return to them?

Of the depicted models, I would buy Logan Grimnar, the Ork Big Mek, the first Space Marine jump pack Chaplain, Theoden, Malagor, both Lelith Hesperax models, the Emperor's Champion, Suludan the Serpent Lord, the Khorne Exalted Hero, the Vampire Lord, the Lord Commissar, both Tau Ethereals (assuming I wanted a Tau Ethereal), both Grimgor Ironhide models, Saruman and Grima, Njal Stormcaller, the Chaos Exalted Hero, both Tyranid Hive Guard, and Gothmog with no complaint.

Draigo, the second jump pack Chaplain, the Dark Angels Company Master, Boromir (Ithilien), and the Uruk-Hai Berzerker are in my view unacceptable and I would complain/return about these models. The Company Master (or Masters-- I'm not sure if they have two pictures depicting one model or two models there) would be easily fieldable with conversion work but I'd have to use a spare backpack I have lying around to attach the banner to, which I consider a pain in the ass and worth complaining about (my standards are, in my eyes, fairly high). I'm moderately confident that Boromir and the Uruk-Hai would be fine too but can see why newer hobbyists might be frustrated, and honestly think requiring bitz box parts is a little excessive anyway. Draigo is clearly severely miscast and requires replacement parts, and the second jump pack Chaplain's weapon is misaligned enough that it seems like it would take a serious amount of work to fix.

I don't know enough about what the Black Orc Big Boss model or the Gothmog model(s?) is supposed to look like to make a call about whether I would run them or not. I honestly can't tell what the faults with the Gothmog model or the two (?) Black Orc models even are, which leads me to suspect that I would, but I don't know for certain. The Aragorn model is clearly miscast on the horse's neck, but the join might act to hide some of this so I'm not sure whether it would work or not-- again, I'm unfamiliar with this model's construction so I can't say for sure whether I would want to return it or not.


In summary, 22 out of the depicted models look acceptable to me, 5 of the depicted models look unacceptable, and I'm not sure about 4 of them, though I lean towards acceptable on 3 and unacceptable on the 4th. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that my uncertainties go the way I suspect, and we end with 6 unacceptable models out of 60-- this is a 10% error rate, which is quite high indeed (though nowhere near the ludicrous 50%+ rate claimed by Wayland) and rather worrisome. However, it also represents the first wave of a new release, and given GW's reputation for customer service, I for one would feel comfortable buying and selling Finecast models, especially as the quality is only likely to improve from here as GW refines their methods.

It looks to me like Wayland is trying to make a mountain out of a molehill here and score easy points off GW hatred, and I think it's worth calling them out on.

Requiring you to sculpt something out of greenstuff rather than just using greenstuff to fill minor cracks where models fit together is not trivial, not by any sense of the word.

Especially when branded as the highest quality miniatures out there...

Wait. I can see the latest GW press release

"Because of the dismal failure that was fincast, we at GW are going back to metal. Because of the associated costs involved we will regrettably have to raise prices yet again as we strive to meet the global demand for our high quality miniatures. While we at GW were supremely satisfied with the quality of our products, many of our more persnickety customers were upset with a small percentage of miss casts and pubic hairs, we squarely lay the blame on them."

If you think the casting flaws depicted are "enormous," I'm not sure what to say to you. The vast majority of the flaws depicted can be trivially fixed with a bit of green stuff. Compare that to the amount of work required to get metal models to work-- often requiring MORE green stuff to fit joints and the like-- and you'll see that the amount of work that these models require is generally less than their metal predecessors. When you combine that with the fact that these models are lighter weight, easier to convert, and more detailed, I think it's clear that Finecast comes out on top.

That sounds like it came straight from GW's press releases. Of course you would buy those models, It appears you will buy anything that GW sells, including the cool aid.

Until further notice I label fincast Chapter unapproved!

skyth wrote:Requiring you to sculpt something out of greenstuff rather than just using greenstuff to fill minor cracks where models fit together is not trivial, not by any sense of the word.

And yet I can guarantee that fixing most of the "faults" with the models depicted would be easier and take less time than what I've put up with with metal models for some time now. I know people fear change, but this is a little ridiculous.

Fetterkey wrote:

skyth wrote:Requiring you to sculpt something out of greenstuff rather than just using greenstuff to fill minor cracks where models fit together is not trivial, not by any sense of the word.

And yet I can guarantee that fixing most of the "faults" with the models depicted would be easier and take less time than what I've put up with with metal models for some time now. I know people fear change, but this is a little ridiculous.

They.have.bits.missing.

This is nothing like anything I've encountered with metal minis. Nothing at all.

How can minis now being released with bits missing be touted as 'better' and suddenly cost more?

I've never had problems with metal mini's other than Morathi. However, expecting someone to sculpt weapon hafts and chain links out of green stuff is by no means simple or the mark of a quality product.

And nice of you to ignore the marketing that they have the highest quality and that the price increases are justified by this high quality.

Fetterkey wrote:If you think the casting flaws depicted are "enormous," I'm not sure what to say to you.

Fetterkey wrote:If you think the casting flaws depicted are "enormous," I'm not sure what to say to you.

Fetterkey wrote:If you think the casting flaws depicted are "enormous," I'm not sure what to say to you.

Fetterkey wrote:If you think the casting flaws depicted are "enormous," I'm not sure what to say to you.

Fetterkey wrote:If you think the casting flaws depicted are "enormous," I'm not sure what to say to you.

Fetterkey wrote:If you think the casting flaws depicted are "enormous," I'm not sure what to say to you.

Fetterkey wrote:It looks to me like Wayland is trying to make a mountain out of a molehill here and score easy points off GW hatred, and I think it's worth calling them out on.

Continue with the shield and the sword, battle brother! The heathens are afoot, pointing out a GWS shortcoming! Be stalwart! FOOOOORRRR KIRRRRRRBY!!!

And many metal models require you to drill holes in them in order to get their limbs to adhere correctly. What's your point? Sure, it's a different type of problem, but it's a different type of model! The bits that are missing can be trivially repaired and once people start comparing Finecast to metal from a more objective, less emotional perspective I think they'll see that it really is a substantial improvement.

A year from now, I think this whole tempest in a teapot will have blown over and Finecast will be widely accepted.

A year from now, I think this whole tempest in a teapot will have blown over and Finecast will be widely accepted.

Yeah,They will have to increase quality because people and retailers complained about it. The fact that they let these out shows that they don't care and if nobody said anything they would not make addressing the issue a priority.

If they just keep ignoring the issues (which they obviously did unless you think they somehow didn't notice the flaws in the first place) then it will blow over because they won't exist anymore. You can't really be saying that they can continue to produce at this level and everything is fine.

"Nice" post, Ouze. I could do the same sort of thing with a series of 20+ images captioned "Wayland Games thinks this is an unacceptable miniature!" or something to that effect, but it would be annoying, not contribute anything to the discussion, and cause people to have to scroll too much. I'm not saying Finecast is perfect-- as you can see, there are flaws (albeit usually small ones)-- but the time it takes to correct the minor errors that some Finecast models exhibit is less than the time it would take to properly work with many metal models.

Pretty soon, I think we'll start seeing the pictures go up of Finecast-based conversions that couldn't be done without serious trouble or specialized tools in the pre-Finecast days, and that will be the nail in the coffin for the haters.

GW has repeatedly stated OFFICIALLY that these are the best quality miniatures on the market. We as customers, they say, should pay a premium price for a premium quality model. ANY defects are too many. Wayland should not have to absorb losses for GW's errors. Wayland released their statement so that their customers would understand why they were unable to purchase Finecast models from their retailer.
If I use the money that I work for to purchase a model that is supposed to be premium quality then I expect it to be premium quality and not be missing parts and have malformations.

Fetterkey wrote:And yet I can guarantee that fixing most of the "faults" with the models depicted would be easier and take less time than what I've put up with with metal models for some time now. I know people fear change, but this is a little ridiculous.

Can you honestly not see the difference between filling joints and resculpting missing details?

Filling joints is an unavoidable side-effect of multi-part models. Although even there, a caster who knows what he is doing can usually minimise the resultant gap to the point where the amount of filling needed should be negligible. GW's metal casts have not always been particularly stellar in this regard, so holding them up as a benchmark doesn't really achieve anything. Finecast being as good as poorly-moulded metals isn't really saying much.

But as soon as you reach the point where you are having to replace detail that should have been there and isn't, you're in mis-cast territory. The item you have bought is not complete. If you're buying a garage kit on the understanding that it's an amateur job and may not be perfect, that's not so bad. But when you're buying the brand new hotness, billed as the best gaming miniatures ever from the company that considers itself the 'Porsche' of the miniatures world?

Nope, mis-casts are bad, m'kay?

The fact that it can be easily fixed is completely secondary to the fact that it shouldn't have been sold in less than perfect condition in the first place. This isn't a new problem being blown up out of proportion... it was equally irritating to get miscast metal models, but that at least didn't happen that often. Why we should be expected to accept it just because Finecast is 'easier to work with' is beyond me.

With the current prices GW are now asking for, and their demand that customers pay for premium prices, I expected some decency with QC & Packaging.

Think of it this way, you go to a restaurant and order a $40 steak. Which situation would leave a significant impression of the restaurant to you?

A) You ordered your steak rare-cooked but a corner of it was burnt. (miscast)
or
B) You ordered your steak rare-cooked but found a short, dark, thick, and curly strand of hair in it.

The same could be applied to your date finding pubes in the box of a necklace you got for their prom.

These are the type of things I expect to find at Marshall's for half the cost with the logo's ripped off. Not sold new at crazy prices.

insaniak wrote:The fact that it can be easily fixed is completely secondary to the fact that it shouldn't have been sold in less than perfect condition in the first place. This isn't a new problem being blown up out of proportion... it was equally irritating to get miscast metal models, but that at least didn't happen that often. Why we should be expected to accept it just because Finecast is 'easier to work with' is beyond me.

Because it is less time-consuming to fix than the issues with metal models, and therefore is a better type of problem to have. I don't care if I have to use my green stuff to fix a tiny hole in a cape instead of to get a model's joints to work properly. It's not a big deal-- I'm doing a bit of work to ready the model anyway! All things considered, I'd rather have to do less work than more work. Of course I'd prefer no work, but if these sorts of flaws do crop up occasionally, I'm fine with that-- so long as it doesn't take more time and effort to ready up than the original metal models did. I don't see one problem as intrinsically better or worse than the other, and prefer the one that takes less time to resolve and get my models on the table.

As for your post, Sixtus, your comparison is completely inappropriate. Nobody here plans to eat their Finecast models, unless the Internet is even crazier than I thought.

Fetterkey wrote:And many metal models require you to drill holes in them in order to get their limbs to adhere correctly. What's your point? Sure, it's a different type of problem, but it's a different type of model! The bits that are missing can be trivially repaired and once people start comparing Finecast to metal from a more objective, less emotional perspective I think they'll see that it really is a substantial improvement.

Again, drilling and pinning is not the same as sculpting. Sculpting is NOT TRIVIAL. These models require sculpting to fix.

And again, you ignore the fact that as these are advertised to be the best quality. This amount of problems is not acceptable, especially since they raised the prices because these are better quality than the metal...

Siztus, that's not hair in the blister. It's Citadel®'s new Finescale® Modelling® Filament®, randomly supplied as a bonus®. Of course, randomly inserting modelling supplies into blisters® is expensive... Ooh®, maybe we've stumbled on the real reason for the Finecast® price increase®...

skyth wrote:And again, you ignore the fact that as these are advertised to be the best quality.

The best quality? Hardly. They literally referenced man landing on the moon.

skyth wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:And many metal models require you to drill holes in them in order to get their limbs to adhere correctly. What's your point? Sure, it's a different type of problem, but it's a different type of model! The bits that are missing can be trivially repaired and once people start comparing Finecast to metal from a more objective, less emotional perspective I think they'll see that it really is a substantial improvement.

Again, drilling and pinning is not the same as sculpting. Sculpting is NOT TRIVIAL. These models require sculpting to fix.

Drilling and pinning requires specialist tools and takes more time and effort than gap-filling (which is what this is-- let's be honest). It's not really "sculpting" when you're just filling a gap in a cape with GS and then smoothing it to match the existing lines-- you can do that with the edge of your knife!

The Finecast thing is getting pathetic. Get a grip GW.

Ah, yes, Mr. Kirby. Well, it's quite simple. When you said you were launching the highest quality miniatures the world has ever
seen, I was rather thinking that instead of just dumping the resin in a pile, you might find the time to actually cast it.

Honestly I don't see what all the fuss is about. If people feel this level of product is acceptable, more power to them.....it's their money, let them spend it on what they like.

That they come into this thread trying to defend what we can all see clearly with our own eyes is a joke at best. Spending four pages trying to describe the sun to a man who is blind because he refuses to open his eyes is quite pointless.

Fetterkey wrote:Because it is less time-consuming to fix than the issues with metal models, and therefore is a better type of problem to have.

A 'better problem' is still a problem.

A cracked hubcap on my new Porsche is easier to fix than a cracked engine block... but I'm still going to ask Porsche to replace it.

Fetterkey wrote:Of the depicted models, I would buy Logan Grimnar, the Ork Big Mek, the first Space Marine jump pack Chaplain, Theoden, Malagor, both Lelith Hesperax models, the Emperor's Champion, Suludan the Serpent Lord, the Khorne Exalted Hero, the Vampire Lord, the Lord Commissar, both Tau Ethereals (assuming I wanted a Tau Ethereal), both Grimgor Ironhide models, Saruman and Grima, Njal Stormcaller, the Chaos Exalted Hero, both Tyranid Hive Guard, and Gothmog with no complaint.

I got as far as the chaplain with the jump pack before I go to a model I would return. If he was in a B&M store I wouldn't even buy him or any of the others (Actually I probably would buy him but I'd barter with the storekeeper for a discount). That particular model also suffers from a overly flexible Crozius (or at least the two my mate bought did, one of which also had miscast feet).

The 'hair' models are the only ones that seem excessive to me. There's really no good reason not to seek out the metal versions of these models at the moment, at full retail if need be, rather than fork out extra for 'improved' Finecast casts. Incidentally, all of the Finecast models I looked at at my FLGS were fine (I admit that I only looked at three models, but 100% of what I inspected was ok), with no obvious defects. So it seems to me that there's some sort of bad batch problem rather than the concept being at fault.

Fetterkey wrote:It's not really "sculpting" when you're just filling a gap in a cape with GS and then smoothing it to match the existing lines-- you can do that with the edge of your knife!

Because it is less time-consuming to fix than the issues with metal models, and therefore is a better type of problem to have.

You are still going to have to green stuff joints you know even with mega super finecast

I don't care if I have to use my green stuff to fix a tiny hole in a cape instead of to get a model's joints to work properly. It's not a big deal-- I'm doing a bit of work to ready the model anyway! All things considered, I'd rather have to do less work than more work. Of course I'd prefer no work,

I'm sure you don't care if you have to resculpt a missing head or face here or there.

but if these sorts of flaws do crop up occasionally, (53% of the time) I'm fine with that-- so long as it doesn't take more time and effort to ready up than the original metal models did. I don't see one problem as intrinsically better or worse than the other, and prefer the one that takes less time to resolve and get my models on the table.

As for your post, Sixtus, your comparison is completely inappropriate. Nobody here plans to eat their Finecast models, unless the Internet is even crazier than I thought.

Isn't that what GW is kind of telling people to go EAT IT! They knowingly released faulty product.

You know this is all just a ploy to make us buy GW brand greenstuff that is 10 times more than any other company's. The new pitch at all GW stores "You are gonna need some $10 greenstuff with that!"

Fetterkey: There's a big difference between pinning a joint in a place where no one will see it, and trying to fix a major miscast in a clearly visible portion of the miniature. The difference is that one of these things is something that a hobbyist expects to do as part of assembling a miniature. The other is something that the sculptor and the caster should have done properly for us and simply. dropped. the. ball. on.

As an example: let's say I buy a piece of IKEA furniture (let's say a cabinet to display my minis). When I buy it, I expect there is work that will need to be done: I will need to unpack and assemble the furniture. I may need to drill a hole in the wall and attack a Quake Strap to make sure it stays up during an earthquake, given that I live in California. I do not, however, expect that I will find a piece broken off one of the wooden panels, because that is work that IKEA should have done properly for me already. And trying to claim that the piece is still better than the harder to assemble glass cabinet that I could have gotten instead, when the glass cabinet's pieces are all intact and properly packed, would be insanity.

Don't try to pee on my leg and tell me it's raining, boyo.