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GW is not intentionally ripping people off. If you think so you're delusional.

I am glad I didn't buy those.

Marshal2Crusaders wrote:GW is not intentionally ripping people off. If you think so you're delusional.

If it was $5.00US for the set, I'd believe you. The fact is either someone who knew what the product was supposed to look like approved these, or they didn't even bother to check. Either way, they chose this course of action, knowingly delivering a product that cannot possibly be what they advertised it to be (the hollowed out thrusters alone, which I presume are impossible in vaccum-formed plastic, should never have been on the display product).

I'm all for cheap, vaccuum-formed terrain. I don't buy terrain anymore because I live in a Japanese rabbit hutch and have no where to store it. But if it was $5 (priced at what this stuff is worth), I'd find a way to store it. I'd wear it as a hat if needed. But the terrain has to be priced what it's worth and it has to be honestly represented in GW's displays. Anything else is fraud, pure and simple.

If you dont think GW will increase the price as per company SOP you are also delusional . Its the people who think there are GW employees looking at this thread and going: 'those pesky dakkaites!!'

Thought I'd check in before heading off to the store and my word, people are overreacting again.

Could we please keep the quality of future qualities out of this thread KTHXBY and instead just use this for the blastscape? Now if you will excuse me, I have a store to visit.

Marshal2Crusaders wrote:If you dont think GW will increase the price as per company SOP you are also delusional

The set at $5.00 is already at least 100% markup. They would make a profit even at that low of a price.

The point is that the price of something must match the quality. This is a fairly ordinary principle and certainly doesn't deserve a personal attack as a response.

These pieces remind me of the schwaggy wax elephants and giraffes you used to get at zoos back in the day.

Vac forming as a moulding technique has some limitations but it can still produce a good sharp detail if the moulds are properly designed.

As it is a new technique to GW they may have ballsed up the design process.

Alternatively, it would be easy for the factory to mistakenly print off the positive instead of the negative, as it were, and get a really bad result. I think this is what happened.

The key problem is the advertising pictures showing really sharp, nice-looking pieces.

Cudos to the GW store I've just been to. We went through all their stock comparing it to my advance order set and they were all just as bad. Given a full refund AND asked if I wanted to keep them! Kept the laser burn one as it has the most detail and said to give the others to any kids who wanted them.
Mick

Just back from the store where I talked to the manager about it. He was familiar with the problem and tore open one of the two bags he had for sale, checking the contents in store for all to see, giving them to me and saying that I could keep the broken and damaged ones. He also said that I should keep in contact with GW through mail and hear what they've got to say about the matter. Though he did roll his eyes when I mentioned that I was contacted by Yan. All in all I am happy with the way this has been resolved.

Oh and for the twit who was crying fecking murder over the Planetary Empires Hive City tile: It is included with the set and is moulded plastic, not vacu-whatchamecallit-formed. The tile has the Hive City moulded on, it's not a bit you can tack onto the tile.

Marshal2Crusaders wrote:GW is not intentionally ripping people off. If you think so you're delusional.

However let these ship to the distributors and stores should be fired. Surely he is soley to blame.

Problem solved.

It looks like someone FAXED a picture of the BlastScape to China for them to use... got a cargo container of them back the next week, then repackaged them for sale. I thought they were going to be as nice as the MoonScapes. :-(

Kind of like DVD versus VHS (at 6-hour speed).

Panic wrote:yeah,


another Photo...Where is my cool sticky up Rocks being thrust out of the earth? mine looks like a mud pile...
Check the difference in detail...



Shocking.
I'm going to call them.

Panic...

Compared one to the classic craters: They are sturdier actually, same plastic, but sturdier and they definitely do have mor details.

Duncan_Idaho wrote:Compared one to the classic craters: They are sturdier actually, same plastic, but sturdier and they definitely do have mor details.

What?

Alpharius wrote:

Duncan_Idaho wrote:Compared one to the classic craters: They are sturdier actually, same plastic, but sturdier and they definitely do have mor details.

What?

Are we comparing the moonscape to the blastscape or am I missing something here?

I got my set yesterday. Mine seems to have been slightly better made. The few "crushed" points/bubbles seem to be because of how they packaged them. My crashed ships seemed to have most of their rivets defined well, with only a few of them actually looking like smooth studs. All five do seem to be much sturdier than what I have seen described except for each for the bubbles that were all crushed. I will post some pictures after I figure out which box my camera is hiding in.

I was very close to pre-ordering a set of these, but decided to wait and actually see the product.

I'm glad I waited.

I just left A GW store and looked at the moonscape and its thin plastic,looks very cheap they had 2 packages of them both looked thin....

The Moonscapes are gorgeous and of a very high quality. These blasted terrain pieces look terrible and I'm sad to see they don't live up to the quality of the Moonscape terrain.

Thanks for all the info these, I definitely won't be making a purchase. But I am keeping my hopes up that GW will come around and fix these so that we will have a product equal to, if not superior in quality to the Moonscape.

Picked up a pack at a show in Devizes today as the seller had them 20% off.

Side by side with the Moonscape they are not as sharp detail wise and the higher areas are (naturally) thinner as the plastic for this area has been stretched further (these areas will require some underside filling to strengthen them). The crashed spaceship item one is the worst, though overall the quality is similar to Amera and with a bit of work they will make reasonable tabletop terrain (most gamers I spoke to today appreciated they were not the same product in the advert but thought them ok).

To lay one suggestion to bed, they have not been moulded incorrectly as the underside detail is less sharp than the top (so unfortunately no use as a mould which was my plan).

What I am not happy with though is (after accepting the model in WD was "representational"):

1. they use the master models photos on the bag and as you can only see the top item so it is not easy to judge the quality of the product.

2. the website still shows the master model photos not the product (which is now available so no excuses there now).

3. this article - http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?categoryId=600005&pIndex=2&aId=15800003&start=3 - states the modellers have used "a second set" which is a blatant lie as you can see the models are resin casts as they have more detail and air bubbles...

Overall some shoddy practice here by GW which most people have seen through. The product itself is useful if not anywhere near the quality of the moonscape craters or resin models.

ironcow2103 wrote:
1. they use the master models photos on the bag and as you can only see the top item so it is not easy to judge the quality of the product.

2. the website still shows the master model photos not the product (which is now available so no excuses there now).

3. this article - http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?categoryId=600005&pIndex=2&aId=15800003&start=3 - states the modellers have used "a second set" which is a blatant lie as you can see the models are resin casts as they have more detail and air bubbles...

Overall some shoddy practice here by GW which most people have seen through. The product itself is useful if not anywhere near the quality of the moonscape craters or resin models.

Spot on observations here.

Which is why many continue to be annoyed by this whole thing...

Wow when i got the craters they kicked @ss these suck sorry to hear your misfortune

I can vouch for the Moonscape.

I've played some games with 'em, nice and sturdy.

I'm heading over to the GW today, we'll see how the terrain looks.

ironcow2103 wrote:Picked up a pack at a show in Devizes today as the seller had them 20% off.

Side by side with the Moonscape they are not as sharp detail wise and the higher areas are (naturally) thinner as the plastic for this area has been stretched further (these areas will require some underside filling to strengthen them). The crashed spaceship item one is the worst, though overall the quality is similar to Amera and with a bit of work they will make reasonable tabletop terrain (most gamers I spoke to today appreciated they were not the same product in the advert but thought them ok).

To lay one suggestion to bed, they have not been moulded incorrectly as the underside detail is less sharp than the top (so unfortunately no use as a mould which was my plan).

What I am not happy with though is (after accepting the model in WD was "representational"):

1. they use the master models photos on the bag and as you can only see the top item so it is not easy to judge the quality of the product.

2. the website still shows the master model photos not the product (which is now available so no excuses there now).

3. this article - http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?categoryId=600005&pIndex=2&aId=15800003&start=3 - states the modellers have used "a second set" which is a blatant lie as you can see the models are resin casts as they have more detail and air bubbles...

Overall some shoddy practice here by GW which most people have seen through. The product itself is useful if not anywhere near the quality of the moonscape craters or resin models.

Good, well-argued post. I hope you will stick around Dakka.

Agreed!

Dakka needs more ironcow2103!

Well, I can agree with many here on dakka. I am glad of this warning, since I was planning to buy some BlastScape Craters. And I am glad I didnt

@ BrookM

Oh and for the twit who was crying fecking murder over the Planetary Empires Hive City tile: It is included with the set and is moulded plastic, not vacu-whatchamecallit-formed. The tile has the Hive City moulded on, it's not a bit you can tack onto the tile.

In the future, please take time to read posts carefully before you respond to it in such an insulting manner. I never cried "fecking murder", nor did I ever say that it was vacu formed or of poor quality. I saw it, as it was included in the most recent black box alongside the Battlewagon sprue and it was clearly high quality plastic on a sprue, just like the other tiles and pieces in the kit will likely be, and as are most GW products. The base of the hive is moulded onto the tile, and the spires come in two pieces that need to be assembled.

What I did say was that I thought that this was another case - as we are saying is the major problem with the blastscape - of GW's misrepresentation of their products. I have heard from multiple sources that this tile would not be included in the box, and would only be sold separately via direct services. If this is indeed the case, then forefronting the hive tile on the box is poor form. It is also possible that I heard wrong, and that this tile will be included in the box, in which case I apologize for misrepresenting information. If you want to call a person on misrepresenting a rumour or product, that's fine, but you can still be civil about it and do make sure that you are actually responding to their post, and not just to what you think they are saying.

Cheers

Looks like the sort of thing you'd find in a toy shop rather than a professional miniature business.

The crashed spaceship is the best example. The press photo looks clear and crisp with detail matching plastic kits. The actual article has blobs for rivets (instead of the nice, two layer ones) and no detail along the thrusters.

That said, while you can be annoyed at how the press photos are misleading, I'm not convinced they're charging too much. It's still 5 scenery pieces and as a splash release, fewer sales have to return a bigger profit to make it worthwhile.
Anyway, the spaceship piece is generally agreed to be a bust but perhaps the rock faces won't suffer too much since they don't need to hold that much detail anyway.

Well, off to GW.

Wish me luck.

I stopped by my local store today to pick up my Imperial Strongpoint and Blastscapes. I had ordered four Blastscapes based on the pictures in the GW online store a month ago, figuring this set was highly detailed and collectible being a limited release. After seeing this discussion here for the past few days and then seeing the set up close today I think the Blastscape set overall is of passable quality, with large pieces at a fairly modest price. Nevertheless, I did decide to stick to my decision to exchange it for some other items, a decision I came to yesterday after looking carefully at the pictures here in this topic thread. It just isn't something I really need having so much other, better looking scenery at this point in my hobby history, and the set certainly doesn't feel "collectible" given it's somewhat fragile construction.

In conclusion, I'd like to say that while I don't harbor any ill feelings here regarding this product, I am still disappointed that the pictures on the GW website were somewhat misleading regarding the appearance of the actual consumer product. I don't think there's anything malicious going on here, but I do feel that GW can and should do better at letting people see up front what they are getting, especially for a limited "splash" release that may be hard to get if people wait till it actually hits store to make a buying decision.