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Before the entrenchment completes and the thread is locked, I have $0.02 of my own.

Until now, if you will observe, I have not posted in any Finecast threads. I was reserving judgement based on my own experiences.

When I saw the threads saying how terrible Finecast was, I dismissed them. I wanted to like Finecast. I love converting and was sick of the metal models.

I play with many techmarines, almost all of them converted in some way. The metal was terrible to work with, and I was more than willing to fall deeply in love with a resin techmarine.

I tried. I really did. I've bought two Techmarines with Servitors in Finecast. Each one had flaws.

Now they weren't major flaws and I didn't return them. After all, I'm just going to saw it apart for conversion bits, right?

I am disappointed. The servo-arms are extremely flimsy - the larger servo-arm bent and finally tore off at the bottom when I set a piece of construction paper on top of it. The same servo-arm on the other tech-priest almost snapped under the pressure of painting it and I had to add a dab of glue to keep it in place. The guitar-wire mechadendrites are less flimsy!

It truly is unacceptable. I've tried to love Finecast. I was ready for it, and I was sick of sawing apart metal models with my dremel.

But I can't say I approve. I just can't. I don't want metal to come back! I just want Finecast to be durable; I want it to be easier metal. But it isn't. :(

The only way we will know anything for sure os if someone leaks (because GW will never release) the data for their returns figures.

I've been making models a long time, and anecdotal as it is, I can't ever recall a product with this many reports of poor quality castings attached. Well there have been a few companies but they were known for producing stuff cheap and nasty, not at premium prices. I've examined Finecast stuff on the shelves and seen many with air bubbles, most could be repaired but I am dissatisfied in that I wouldn't generally look at ranks of metal figures and see the same numbers with problems of a similar level of difficulty to rectify.

There isn't much in this interview, but it does rather settle the argument as to whether the liquid greenstuff was released at an unfortunate time, or specifically for customers to correct the quality issues with their current miniatures.

I'm pretty sure that overall the product quality has gone down and there are a lot more castings I would deem unacceptable for GW prices. But I also have to assume that the bulk of their customer base simply don't care or don't have the experience to know what they should be able to expect from the highest standards of miniature casting. They either put up with it to have the miniatures they want, or just think it's okay and not worth complaining about. The number of customers GW lose due to finecast is small and doesn't affect their bottom line;, they are saving a lot of money by switching from metal and mostly concentrate on new customers who have no hobby experience anyway.

Actually, the one awesome thing about Finecast? It led to the releasing Liquid Green Stuff. That stuff is the balls. It's so much better than that crap putty I had been using recently, and I love it nearly as much as I love Devlan Mud.

Ouze wrote:Actually, the one awesome thing about Finecast? It led to the releasing Liquid Green Stuff. That stuff is the balls. It's so much better than that crap putty I had been using recently, and I love it nearly as much as I love Devlan Mud.

Which is just another product that has been out for years, Vallejo plastic putty, dyed green FYI.

I have seen many Finecast models in store. In fact, I regularly look at the packs just for fun. I have seen miscasts, some quite bad, but aside from wave 1 models, which were quite bad sometimes, I have never seen any Finecast models on sale with the levels of broken...ness as have been shown on the internet. Small air bubbles and flash, yes. Whole missing pieces, no.

FabricatorGeneralMike wrote:Well I just did a google search for finecast flaws pics, and got a lot of hits on google, I did finecast good casts/quailty pics and got around three jobber threads. Shrugs guess the internet just hates on gw eh? According to them its not like anyone uses this thing anyways its just a fad that will pass in a few years....

I guess you didn't read the last few pages of the thread?

Once more, then:

Discussion on the Internet typically has a very different tone than discussion in real life, especially when dealing with Games Workshop. This tone is typically much more negative than you would find from other sources-- further, this pattern of negative treatment tends to be self-reinforcing. Thus, looking for information about Finecast quality on the Internet will give you a very biased sample, which is not reflective of the overall quality (or lack thereof) of the product.

Fetterkey wrote:

FabricatorGeneralMike wrote:Well I just did a google search for finecast flaws pics, and got a lot of hits on google, I did finecast good casts/quailty pics and got around three jobber threads. Shrugs guess the internet just hates on gw eh? According to them its not like anyone uses this thing anyways its just a fad that will pass in a few years....

I guess you didn't read the last few pages of the thread?

Once more, then:

Discussion on the Internet typically has a very different tone than discussion in real life, especially when dealing with Games Workshop. This tone is typically much more negative than you would find from other sources-- further, this pattern of negative treatment tends to be self-reinforcing. Thus, looking for information about Finecast quality on the Internet will give you a very biased sample, which is not reflective of the overall quality (or lack thereof) of the product.

You mean you and squigs raging when anyone talks bad about fincast? Yes I read that didn't impress me. Sorry guys, I am not active in the GW PLC,tm,c "Hobby",tm,c anymore but I still do frequent the local game stores. The word on the street is stay away from Finecast and if you can get old metal models. If you can't try your best to kitbash/convert something up. I guess anyone who talks bad about finecast is a 'other company plant' who is trying to discredit GW no matter what they do.

Sorry man your argument is old and warn, first it was "Finecast is equal to the moon lands", then the white knights where like oh its only been a few months give it some time to iron out the kinks, now after almost a year of selling a sub-standard product (IMHO, YMMV, all the cliche's) nothing has changed and GW still has their head in the sand about it from a outsiders point of view looking in. Plus customers got a price hike on a cheaper (material wise) model.

If that is what the GW hobby is now thank god I got away in time. The thing is I am a sucker for the things of my youth and the RT-era was my youth (started in 89) so I still love the old models and books.

Squigsquasher wrote:I have seen many Finecast models in store. In fact, I regularly look at the packs just for fun. I have seen miscasts, some quite bad, but aside from wave 1 models, which were quite bad sometimes, I have never seen any Finecast models on sale with the levels of broken...ness as have been shown on the internet. Small air bubbles and flash, yes. Whole missing pieces, no.

Perhaps people who post pics of duff Finecast on the internet have "interfered" with the models in order to smear the construction material.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Squigsquasher wrote:I have seen many Finecast models in store. In fact, I regularly look at the packs just for fun. I have seen miscasts, some quite bad, but aside from wave 1 models, which were quite bad sometimes, I have never seen any Finecast models on sale with the levels of broken...ness as have been shown on the internet. Small air bubbles and flash, yes. Whole missing pieces, no.

Perhaps people who post pics of duff Finecast on the internet have "interfered" with the models in order to smear the construction material.

Seems entirely possible, but also kinda like a waste of a bunch of money just to slander GW on a web forum. Not saying that people wouldn't go to these extraordinary lengths, but occam's razor dictates that it's unlikely.

FabricatorGeneralMike wrote:I guess anyone who talks bad about finecast is a 'other company plant' who is trying to discredit GW no matter what they do.

Uh, I doubt it. The Internet just has a lot of negative and opinionated people on it, that's the way such things work sometimes. I don't think there are any "plants" or "jobbers" or whatever you call them at work here.

FabricatorGeneralMike wrote:Sorry man your argument is old and warn, first it was "Finecast is equal to the moon lands", then the white knights where like oh its only been a few months give it some time to iron out the kinks, now after almost a year of selling a sub-standard product (IMHO, YMMV, all the cliche's) nothing has changed and GW still has their head in the sand about it from a outsiders point of view looking in. Plus customers got a price hike on a cheaper (material wise) model.

The "moon landing" stuff was obvious marketing tripe. I never expected anything out of Finecast other than lighter weight and easier to convert metals, and I would say the product has proved more than sufficient to meet my needs there. I don't consider myself to be a GW "white knight" by any means, and accusing someone of weird allegiances and hidden motivations seems rather rude to me.

Fetterkey wrote:

FabricatorGeneralMike wrote:I guess anyone who talks bad about finecast is a 'other company plant' who is trying to discredit GW no matter what they do.

Uh, I doubt it. The Internet just has a lot of negative and opinionated people on it, that's the way such things work sometimes. I don't think there are any "plants" or "jobbers" or whatever you call them at work here.

FabricatorGeneralMike wrote:Sorry man your argument is old and warn, first it was "Finecast is equal to the moon lands", then the white knights where like oh its only been a few months give it some time to iron out the kinks, now after almost a year of selling a sub-standard product (IMHO, YMMV, all the cliche's) nothing has changed and GW still has their head in the sand about it from a outsiders point of view looking in. Plus customers got a price hike on a cheaper (material wise) model.

The "moon landing" stuff was obvious marketing tripe. I never expected anything out of Finecast other than lighter weight and easier to convert metals, and I would say the product has proved more than sufficient to meet my needs there. I don't consider myself to be a GW "white knight" by any means, and accusing someone of weird allegiances and hidden motivations seems rather rude to me.

And in breaking news...the pot just called the kettle black

Zarren Wevon wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

Squigsquasher wrote:I have seen many Finecast models in store. In fact, I regularly look at the packs just for fun. I have seen miscasts, some quite bad, but aside from wave 1 models, which were quite bad sometimes, I have never seen any Finecast models on sale with the levels of broken...ness as have been shown on the internet. Small air bubbles and flash, yes. Whole missing pieces, no.

Perhaps people who post pics of duff Finecast on the internet have "interfered" with the models in order to smear the construction material.

Seems entirely possible, but also kinda like a waste of a bunch of money just to slander GW on a web forum. Not saying that people wouldn't go to these extraordinary lengths, but occam's razor dictates that it's unlikely.

Not that I'm supporting one argument or the other, but...
There's another possibility. People likely are not purposely buying horrible miscasts just to post them, but they might be posting the horrible miscasts and not the much more acceptable replacements they get.

Of course, they might also just be getting a shoddy replacement.

I'm not interested in the ratio of good models to bad, or how many models are need to get an accurate reading of the percentage of quality models.

What interests me is the quality of replacement models that are sent out. If duds were rare, then it should be simple for GW QC to send a good replacement. The first time. After eight or nine flawed replacements have been sent out, it tells me one of two things:

1) Good models are in the minority
2) QC doesn't have access to the good models

Neither answer gives me any reason to give GW the benefit of the doubt on the ratio of good models to bad.

I'm glad to hear people are getting good models. That's great news. But when QC repeatedly sends out substandard models, coupled with management's statement that liquid green stuff is now required to bring their models to an acceptable state, it's clear to me that good models are in the minority. GW's stance appears to be that their customers just need to drop their standards, accept that flaws are now the standard, and pony up for liquid green stuff if they want to end up with a quality model.

or 3, QC is sending back the duds as replacements.

Never attribute to malice what can adequately be attributed to stupidity.

pretre wrote:
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be attributed to stupidity.

Or policy.

puma713 wrote:

pretre wrote:
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be attributed to stupidity.

Or policy.

lol, I was assuming those were the same thing.

Knowing corporations, there's probably some stupid policy that says that 'All models must be opened if used for replacements.' Someone probably put it in place meaning that you should check the model before sending it out and all the returns guys go 'Oh, we have to use the already opened models as replacements. Weird, but okay.'

Ah, now I got told by today's CS dude that he had a fresh batch of casts to use for replacement, so 'the quality should be spot on'. I am allegedly going to have a hand-checked piece sent out. I am not, as they say, holding my breath. This is like the moon landing, after all, and even if you hold your breath your face will still explode.

winterdyne wrote:Ah, now I got told by today's CS dude that he had a fresh batch of casts to use for replacement, so 'the quality should be spot on'. I am allegedly going to have a hand-checked piece sent out. I am not, as they say, holding my breath. This is like the moon landing, after all, and even if you hold your breath your face will still explode.

So in other words they received all the duds that people have gotten and are now sending them back out as 'replacements'.

As Mr Kirby said after his North American trip " Mission Accomplished"

Kanluwen wrote:

Zarren Wevon wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

Squigsquasher wrote:I have seen many Finecast models in store. In fact, I regularly look at the packs just for fun. I have seen miscasts, some quite bad, but aside from wave 1 models, which were quite bad sometimes, I have never seen any Finecast models on sale with the levels of broken...ness as have been shown on the internet. Small air bubbles and flash, yes. Whole missing pieces, no.

Perhaps people who post pics of duff Finecast on the internet have "interfered" with the models in order to smear the construction material.

Seems entirely possible, but also kinda like a waste of a bunch of money just to slander GW on a web forum. Not saying that people wouldn't go to these extraordinary lengths, but occam's razor dictates that it's unlikely.

Not that I'm supporting one argument or the other, but...
There's another possibility. People likely are not purposely buying horrible miscasts just to post them, but they might be posting the horrible miscasts and not the much more acceptable replacements they get.

Of course, they might also just be getting a shoddy replacement.

Indeed.

Though the argument of the anti-Finecast people is that the first copy bought should be of merchantable quality, and there should be no need for replacement.

FabricatorGeneralMike wrote:

winterdyne wrote:Ah, now I got told by today's CS dude that he had a fresh batch of casts to use for replacement, so 'the quality should be spot on'. I am allegedly going to have a hand-checked piece sent out. I am not, as they say, holding my breath. This is like the moon landing, after all, and even if you hold your breath your face will still explode.

So in other words they received all the duds that people have gotten and are now sending them back out as 'replacements'.

As Mr Kirby said after his North American trip " Mission Accomplished"

Heh, possibly. I'm not stopping till I get a good cast. I have buckets of other things to paint for GD (my carmine dragon is progressing, my warhound is still waiting on a couple of parts but will be underway this week, lizardmen are hissing at me, as is a metal Leoncour)...

Kaldor wrote:Which is still completely irrelevant. Any number of reviews only account for a tiny, tiny fraction of over-all FC sales. Ten thousand bad reviews mean nothing if it only accounts for 1% of the total production.

Most companies would find a 1% manufacturing fault rate unacceptable.

A 1% fault rate based solely on negative reviews would be even more unacceptable. There's an old adage in retail that for every dissatisfied customer who complains, there are 10 other dissatisfied customers who didn't. Those other people don't bother complaining... they just take their money elsewhere.

insaniak wrote:

Kaldor wrote:Which is still completely irrelevant. Any number of reviews only account for a tiny, tiny fraction of over-all FC sales. Ten thousand bad reviews mean nothing if it only accounts for 1% of the total production.

Most companies would find a 1% manufacturing fault rate unacceptable.

Without going into detail I can directly and unequivocally confirm this. A 1% failure rate, though it seems small is beyond unacceptable and usually indicates systemic failures of some sort.

That's almost Sigma level 4.

pretre wrote:or 3, QC is sending back the duds as replacements.

Never attribute to malice what can adequately be attributed to stupidity.

I consider that to be the same as #2; QC doesn't have enough good models in stock. If flawed models were rare, they could afford to take returned models out of circulation in favour of quality models. If they don't have enough good quality models, but are putting flawed models back into the market, there is a serious problem that goes beyond stupidity.

When four or six or eight flawed models are sent out to the same disgruntled customer, that says either they lack good replacements, or they are betting their customers will eventually accept that flawed is the new standard. Again, neither option says that flawed models are in the minority, or taken seriously by GW.

Mastiff wrote:

pretre wrote:or 3, QC is sending back the duds as replacements.

Never attribute to malice what can adequately be attributed to stupidity.

I consider that to be the same as #2; QC doesn't have enough good models in stock. If flawed models were rare, they could afford to take returned models out of circulation in favour of quality models. If they don't have enough good quality models, but are putting flawed models back into the market, there is a serious problem that goes beyond stupidity.

When four or six or eight flawed models are sent out to the same disgruntled customer, that says either they lack good replacements, or they are betting their customers will eventually accept that flawed is the new standard. Again, neither option says that flawed models are in the minority, or taken seriously by GW.

You didn't read my later post, obviously.

Keep going, I explain how something like that probably went down.

Mastiff wrote:
I consider that to be the same as #2; QC doesn't have enough good models in stock. If flawed models were rare, they could afford to take returned models out of circulation in favour of quality models. If they don't have enough good quality models, but are putting flawed models back into the market, there is a serious problem that goes beyond stupidity.

When four or six or eight flawed models are sent out to the same disgruntled customer, that says either they lack good replacements, or they are betting their customers will eventually accept that flawed is the new standard. Again, neither option says that flawed models are in the minority, or taken seriously by GW.

That would be me, 8 Grotesques, not a single one without a messed face mask or massive hole free torso, not to mention missing fingers and brittle parts, all this from a $30 model. I guess thats my fault and I should get back in the kitchen and get some ice for my black eye right?

OverwatchCNC wrote:No one in the finecast argument, either side, has yet to produce actual numbers to prove their point either way.

Nobody against fine cast can do anything more than present pictures from multiple sources that make up an unknown quantity of miscasts. (vocal minority syndrome etc.)

Nobody defending GW can produce a single iota of evidence providing us with any clear indication as to how much of the FC shenanigans are internet rage vs. actual rage.

Neither party can produce the proper evidence, nor will either side ever be able to without access to GW inventory, customer service, and quality control files. If neither side can prove their point without anecdotal evidence, guess work, conjecture, or any of the other myriad means being utilized in this thread and the numerous other FC hate threads then why are we still talking about this?

I still don't understand why this is a separate thread or why these are allowed to go on for as long as they do when neither side gets anywhere or produces anything remotely resembling factual evidence to prove their point.

So I would like to know what you call the people that has proof of getting 8-10+ replacement and counting,
on failcast they bought.

Rare special cases and/or TFGs.

Fetterkey wrote:Rare special cases and/or TFGs.

Just... wow.

Fetterkey wrote:Rare special cases and/or TFGs.

You'll obviously ignore any argument, no matter how much evidence someone will give you, you'll ignore it.

There's no point in making false claims, while Internet hype can overblow things this isn't.

When someone receives 10 faulty models advertised as being the greatest in the world, and costing 20% more than metal models,