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I just thought I'd jump in with the following: a 2% failure rate means 2 out of 100. Ergo, if someone would have a theoretical 1/50 chance of getting a duff kit. Getting 2 duff kits (same cast) in a row would be a 1/2500 chance. Getting 8 duff kits in a row would be a 1 in 3.9^13 chance.

Conversely, getting a duff kit and a single duff replacement even 1/100 times would mean that actual failure rate is 10%, not 2. The problems with the anniversary miniature seem to suggest that it has a very high chance to get a duff miniature and at least one (or more) duff replacement(s) - this would mean that for some sculpts, the failure rate might exceed 50%.

It is difficult to say with certainty what the defect rate is based on anecdotal evidence.

While the statistics are nice, the chance of something happening does not equate to the actual population outside of that single set of occurences.

I've purchased hundreds of metal/plastic GW models over the years and honestly never had one that was so bad I ever thought about returning it or contacting CS. First finecast model i bought, yesterday, and it's just horrible. As in not repairable without resculpting sections and a part missing. I wasn't even aware of the whole "failcast" thing since I just got back into WH so finecast is new to me and I never looked at this forum or searched on it to see how much hatred is out there for it. After hundreds of good to excellent models, getting one in a new casting/material tech. that is garbage says all I need to know about it. Even when I get it replaced with something acceptable, why should I waste my time on finecast? I don't have time to play lottery with finecast.

I'd go so far as to say that for some sculpts there is almost no chance whatsoever of a satisfactory product. It's not so much a question of pass / fail, it's now one purely of customer expectations - either a cast is purchased that is acceptable to the demographic targetted (rather than quantifiably defined as 'good' or 'bad') or it isn't.

Might want to try replacing it before giving up the ghost.

winterdyne wrote:I'd go so far as to say that for some sculpts there is almost no chance whatsoever of a satisfactory product. It's not so much a question of pass / fail, it's now one purely of customer expectations - either a cast is purchased that is acceptable to the demographic targetted (rather than quantifiably defined as 'good' or 'bad') or it isn't.

I don't know. I never thought they would get the Zoanthrope to work with its very long, spindly, curved arms, but the examples I looked at this week were fine.

Maybe GW are gradually upgrading the production process. Perhaps they have introduced a machine to squirt pressurised resin into the moulds.

Particular problem areas are closed over detal - with metal casting, the pressure of the metal causes trapped air to be compressed almost to nothing.

A really good example are the fingers of the powerfist on the 25th Anniversary Marine, and on the GD2012 model. I'd bet good beer that there will be a lot of problems there.

Resin doesn't have the density for that to happen, without assisted pressure (either a pressure chamber or faster spin speed, which would pretty obviously cause deformation in a flexible rubber disc mould). The moulds used for metal casting are usually a stiffer rubber and thus more resistant to pressure from spinning metal. Unfortunately, if you use too stiff a rubber for resin (ie one that would not deform too much with the centrifugal force), you simply won't be able to demould the part.

There's little they can do differently in terms of spin-casting resin (other than use simpler / better flow designs). In terms of the Marines I'm talking about, the fingers of the glove would probably cast better as a separate, small part, but that makes for a fiddlier model to put together.

I'm with Pacific on this one. All but one of the regulars at my local gaming club has given up buying new GW stuff, partly due to the poor quality of Finecast, partly due to the price rise, in the past year. Infinity has become quite popular. A few of the guys are playing a lot of BloodBowl, but not feeling the need to buy anything new for it. Most of us still play at least a bit of 40K, but don't buy new GW stuff -- I think the last thing any of the regulars bought was a bunch of GKs when they came out. I started seriously collecting a GK army at the same time... which is more than 90% eBay finds or non-GW components.

pretre wrote:It is difficult to say with certainty what the defect rate is based on anecdotal evidence.

While the statistics are nice, the chance of something happening does not equate to the actual population outside of that single set of occurences.

I agree 100% that this is based on annecdotal evidence. No debate there.

However, based on GW's stated failure rate, the chances of someone buying a bad sculpt and receiving 7 additional replacement bad sculpts is one in 39 trillion. It is ENTIRELY possible that this individual was very unlucky. However, we have annecdotal evidence that this has occured more than once. Even if we treat the sample size of these occurences as an arbitrarily small (and conservative value) - say 1:10 000 000 customers - this means that GW's stated rate is incorrect, as this unrealistically small assumed sample returns a failure rate of 13%.

Based on the above assumption, I think I can safely say that a 2% failure rate as stated by GW is definitely wrong. The magnitude by which they are underestimating defects however, is variable, due to differing thresholds for returns, levels of acceptance and reporting of flaws.

Okay, but there's your problem. Your assuming that the individual occurences have meaning for the larger sample. Sometimes, that person really does just hit the lottery. Or, and I'm not saying this is the case, they are lying.

Without the actual data and a definition of what they consider a failure, we can't be sure if it is right or wrong.

You can definitely see what we are trying to achieve, a much more detailed miniature that is lighter in weight and much easier to do conversions with, similar to our plastic models.

Yeah, I can see what you're trying to achieve, but the application by which you've attempted to achieve it clearly a failure.

Go back to metal GW. Nothing's wrong with it.

@ pretre: Right, but I think the occurances of so many "Lottery Wins" is highly unlikely at the stated expected "rate of wins".

It's all just idle speculation. I attempted to debunk after the Necron Overlord issue in the other thread and I've not found a single Necron Overlord in my travels that doesn't suffer from at least one of the issues indicated by the original poster in that thread. In particular, the area behind the knee is almost always screwed up. I could be equally unlucky, however in this case, my personal experience has led me to suspect that the stated rate of failiure is probably incorrect, though by what amount, spread across the entire range, is impossible to discern without a larger sample size.

Samus_aran115 wrote:

You can definitely see what we are trying to achieve, a much more detailed miniature that is lighter in weight and much easier to do conversions with, similar to our plastic models.

Yeah, I can see what you're trying to achieve, but the application by which you've attempted to achieve it clearly a failure.

Go back to metal GW. Nothing's wrong with it.

There is plenty wrong with metal. IMO there metal models had just as many issues as fine cast but not in the same category. While fincast may, or may not, have more miscasts than metal fincast is infinitely easier to assemble. That is the reason I am actually rather neutral about finecast miscasts, I will take ease of assembly over fixing a few bubbles any day.

There are more issues with metal than just that but that is my main issue.

@OverwatchCNC: Well, there is that. I would love to see a Finecast Exorcist or TFC. Those suckers are notoriously annoying to assemble.

I have a thought, what if the 2% fail rate their talking about is the stuff they pull off the line at the factory. The defective product we are dealing with is listed under some other catagory. I know some company's will get away with shady stuff like that. They tell you something and they haven't actually lied about it. It's just not what you thought you were hearing.

@wowsmash: Now that is a pretty good possibility.

Squigsquasher wrote:This.

Also, note that on the second thread, one of the responses is "metal models will never be perfect".

Finecast is made using the same centrifugal casting method as metal models. Therefore Finecast is not going to be perfect either. Now you could argue that they should use a different casting method, but let's face it, that would cost a fortune. Therefore prices would rise, and people would still complain.

The problem is, they switched materials and prices did rise, by 10% (in Canada).

Had they made the switch to resin, and dropped the price by 5%, I'd happily fill in the bubbles. But when the price of a single model could pay for a steak and lobster dinner, I get a bit annoyed that the quality has dropped.

The price rise was going to happen whether they changed materials or not. Yes, a price drop would have been nice, but when has GW ever dropped prices.

pretre wrote:The price rise was going to happen whether they changed materials or not. Yes, a price drop would have been nice, but when has GW ever dropped prices.

My comment was a response to Squigsquasher's claim that getting better quality casts would have raised the prices of the models, which would have caused people to complain. My point was that quality did not improve, and in some cases dropped, yet GW thought that still justified a price increase.

A sneaky company would have frozen prices on all transitioned old metal saying yes it is cheaper so we held the prices this year. This gets you a bit of customer goodwill, then with kits that never existed in metal before you build a price rise into the release price as the customer has no direct comparison. Therefore you get you price rise (albeit more slowly) but you also don't pee your customer off with blatant profiteering.

pretre wrote:The price rise was going to happen whether they changed materials or not. Yes, a price drop would have been nice, but when has GW ever dropped prices.

Necron Immortals

pretre wrote:@OverwatchCNC: Well, there is that. I would love to see a Finecast Exorcist or TFC. Those suckers are notoriously annoying to assemble.

Don't even get me started on the TFC. I built 2 and sold the third unassembled because i couldn't face the horror of having to build one more. Why in the world would I want to buy a model I have to spend time drilling and pinning? This is why my Warmachine army remains at the size it is. I bought it fully built and don't want to build anymore jacks or metal troops. Metal Logan grimnar was terrible to assemble, metal coteaz was a pain too, the metal librarian in Terminator armor, Astorath, the Sanguinor, Ghaz. Ugh, those memories alone allow me to overlook some minor bubbling. Anything beyond minor bubbling though and I send it back for a replacement.

I will agree with the sentiment that the price hike and name were ill advised

Why can't I say anything without causing WW3?

I accidentally the thread.

You see!

Proof that <Janthkin hates memes?>

Kilkrazy wrote:

That said, I went to my local GW at lunchtime and had a look at the Finecast blisters. Only a few seemed to have defects and they were small defects. So probably the Liquid Green Stuff would have been fine for fixing them. Certainly the defect rate seemed lower than when I looked last autumn

Thing is I can't remember ever needing gs for metal or plastic except rarely to fill gaps.

So Finecast remains solidly off my buy list.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

That said, I went to my local GW at lunchtime and had a look at the Finecast blisters. Only a few seemed to have defects and they were small defects. So probably the Liquid Green Stuff would have been fine for fixing them. Certainly the defect rate seemed lower than when I looked last autumn

Thing is I can't remember ever needing gs for metal or plastic except rarely to fill gaps.

So Finecast remains solidly off my buy list.

Funny, I rarely built a metal model without needing Green Stuff.

TFC, Librarian, Chaplain in TDA, Exorcist etc. All needed Green Stuff either as gap filler or to hold joints together.

Honestly, NONE of my metal figures that I have assembled so far need any material added except ONE. A 3rd Edition Damned Legionnaire with Heavy Bolter.
(metals)
Chaplain Termi- was nearly perfect.
Vangaurd veterans - nearly perfect.
PA Libby - nearly perfect.
Vulkan - nearly perfect. (nearly perfect because there is a bit of filing needed for minor mold lines and casting nipples)

Finecast Sternguard - holes and bubbles and some pretty bad mold lines.
Finecast Termi Librarian - quite a bit of detail loss on one of his shoulders and holes and bubbles in certain areas.

Filing down a few casting nipples on metal models is no problem. Trying to ADD material on fine detail parts or on edges of shouldpads is a problem for me.

I just ordered all the other LotD models I don't have specifically so I could have them in metal. I also meant to get another Termi Chaplain but I forgot. I'll get my FLGS to order that one for me.

SickSix wrote:Honestly, NONE of my metal figures that I have assembled so far need any material added

I feel like this is the case for most people, but it seems the commenters in these threads have an abnormally high rate of receiving metal models that need green stuff.

OverwatchCNC wrote:

Kid_Kyoto wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

That said, I went to my local GW at lunchtime and had a look at the Finecast blisters. Only a few seemed to have defects and they were small defects. So probably the Liquid Green Stuff would have been fine for fixing them. Certainly the defect rate seemed lower than when I looked last autumn

Thing is I can't remember ever needing gs for metal or plastic except rarely to fill gaps.

So Finecast remains solidly off my buy list.

Funny, I rarely built a metal model without needing Green Stuff.

TFC, Librarian, Chaplain in TDA, Exorcist etc. All needed Green Stuff either as gap filler or to hold joints together.

He was talking about filling gaps though, rather than re-sculpting details.

It's not unusual to have to make good gaps in large metal models. I've done a number of Zoanthropes and Venomthropes which all needed a bit of putty.

The reason why a lot of people prefer Finecast is that they don't have to make good gaps, etc, unlike metal.