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Automatically Appended Next Post:

JohnHwangDD wrote:@OP: I don't know why your panties are in a bunch. There's nothing new here that hasn't been hashed over several times, in detail.

The only new thing is you posting links to recasts. The thing is, everybody already knows how to spot a recaster. We don't need you to help. Or shill for them.

Therefore, the only reasonable conclusion is that you sell recasts and are trying to pull eyeballs in to drum up more business.

I don't mind you coming in here, but don't play games or insult our intelligence. If you're recasting, then just come clean, so you can get perma-banned like all of the other crooks.

Paranoid much?

It's a guy trying to make a post. Big deal?

To say that you have somehow deduced his only reasonable conclusion is to be selling the mini's is pretty weak. I do volunteer work in the Navy and one of the groups I volunteer for is a group that raises public awareness about underage sex tourism.

Since people know about it already then logically the only reasonable conclusion is that I am a sex tourism provider and must be trying to fleece the people to whom we give presentations to, right?

RE: Double mold lines.

As much as people think this is a dead give away about recasting, I have opened up far too many blisters sent to me directly from GW that have double and even treble mold lines.

I havent seen too many lately, but they are definitely not a sure fire sign of an unlicensed recast.

To wit, GW arent the greatest at their own game either.

I think the real problem I have with it is the folks who actively try to con people. As long as it's in small amounts and for personal use, then whatever, I'm not one to judge.

Hellfury wrote:RE: Double mold lines.

As much as people think this is a dead give away about recasting, I have opened up far too many blisters sent to me directly from GW that have double and even treble mold lines.

QFT. I haven't gotten GW casts with treble mold lines, but I've gotten stuff from GW that was aligned worse than what was in the eBay auction. And a royal PITA to file down. Mold lines and misalignment aren't unique to GW.

That said, GW's newer plastics have generally good alignment, far better than the old metal stuff.

Alkaline wrote:So while I may be new here, I'm certainly not new to the hobby. I have noticed what seems like an increased number of fake GW bootleg minis floating around on ebay. Some are just auctions I've come across, others are auctions I've won.

Have a lot of you out there noticed this? Do you think the average gamer just doesn't know they are being duped and buying a fake?

One thing I've noticed over the years, there are re-casters who after they recast always lightly prime their minis white. Mainly due to being a different shade of pewter than standard GW minis. I've noticed this a lot in OOP 2nd edition Imperial guard minis.

Or how about horrible mold lines, or double mold lines on minis. That's another sure fire give away. Also with recasts they are always slightly bigger than the real GW release.

What's most unfortunate is the guys that recast these minis take advantage of people who just don't know any better and make a decent profit off of doing so.

So basically, how many of you out there have gotten knock-offs, or think you may have? Do you see these type of deals often and steer away from them? Do you at least report them as being fake?

Just curious what everyone elses take is on this.

Thanks for reading!

No. I am sticking with your OP, though I can honestly say that we have crossed this bridge a number of times, and most recently was the other day with the craptasticly made DA landraider doors.

First point.

No, I haven't noticed more recasts, but I have noticed people being more blaitent about it. I/E Mr Landraider guy. These are complete fakes, but people are so desperate that they will do anything to try to save a couple of bucks.
I throw it out there as a symptom of the curse, but when you have GW assjacks charging 50 bucks for a model that was once 20 bucks on a good day, you really can't blaim someone from cutting corners here and there.

Average gamers do not really care. the rest of us that want the real deal, and actually pay through the nose for our minis care more then you can know.
the piracy thing is an issue across the board, and it affects bottom line, with the added bonus of infringing on all of the players indirectly. It is costly by taking money out of the original companies mouth, witch in turn takes money out of my wallet, because some numbers cruncher decided that they need to make up for the lost profits and keep the ponce shareholders happy, regardless.

Along with the shoddy craftmanship, there is the question of reputation. We have discussed this issue into the ground on several occasions, and it boils down to "WHAT DOES THE COUNTERFIT REALLY COST THE COMMUNITY?"
It makes us all in the long run have to end up paying in time, more prices, and efforts when we have to end up policing our own for trying to shell the collective community.
If you want GW to lose thier product, lose our gamer, and end up with a low quality standard of product under NO regulations, safety concerns, or end state responsibility, then go ahead and let the counterfiets slide, and go buy them all to your hearts content. Don't come in crying that you got shafted, and don't come in trying to sue GW when one of your kids dies because they ate a toxic product that was not up to the regulated standards of production that is set in industrial laws.

Your standard of horrible mold lines or double mold lines are not a dead giveaway. And to be honest, if you feel that you got a shoddy product, you NEED to send it back to GW with a letter stating where you got it, how much you paid, and what is wrong with it. Believe it or not, it is thier responsibility, regardless if it is a fake or not, based on it being a GW product, ripoff or not. Let them know where you got it, send it in, and they are going to get a little info and clamp down on someone.

They HAVE to, or they can quite honestly lose thier company. Go check out some of the numerous other threads to get an honest idea of what we think of the copycats out there.

OUR collective take is that it is a sin and a defilement of our game that ends up costing us in time money, and reputation for our collective hobby.

YOU can't use the fakes in a game, so what are you going to do with them, sit them on your shelf and look at them all day?
YOU are already going to be ridiculed for even putting them on the table, so why bother? Just to try to be different? That is not being different, thats being a douche who is just trying to get attention.

YOU can see the knockoffs out there. You see them you steer clear of them and call them on it.

Why? because the ones making the knock offs are selling them unregulated, and quality control is not to be had, hence- the reputation of the game suffers for using the shoddy assed products that you honestly do not know what they are made of.

Sulpher laced drywall?
lead paint in the toys?
Human feces in the food?
knock off paint with arsnic?
chinese or korean sweatshop shoes?
homemade space troopers with eldar weapons cast on them?
etc.etc.etc.

"What's most unfortunate is the guys that recast these minis take advantage of people who just don't know any better and make a decent profit off of doing so."
No. They know exactly what they are getting into. they just want a cheaper product and want to say they have the real deal, even though it is obvious that they don't want to pay for the real deal.

The profit only comes when someone gets paid. If you don't buy them, and report them as a counterfiter to the authorities, or the company that is being copied, then they will do it again until they end up getting someone sick or hurt.

THEN who is going to get the bad press? GW.

THEN you can watch as the prices raise even more. I have no love of the GW suits, but I would hate it that they have yet another excuse for a price hike for a douche reason like counterfiters.

Grot 6 wrote:OUR collective take is that it is a sin and a defilement of our game that ends up costing us in time money, and reputation for our collective hobby.

Our? I don't see a consensus.

YOU can't use the fakes in a game, so what are you going to do with them, sit them on your shelf and look at them all day?
YOU are already going to be ridiculed for even putting them on the table, so why bother? Just to try to be different?

Many people wouldn't know a recast if they saw it.

Why? because the ones making the knock offs are selling them unregulated, and quality control is not to be had, hence- the reputation of the game suffers for using the shoddy assed products that you honestly do not know what they are made of.

Sulpher laced drywall?
lead paint in the toys?
Human feces in the food?
knock off paint with arsnic?
chinese or korean sweatshop shoes?
homemade space troopers with eldar weapons cast on them?
etc.etc.etc.

What are you on about? Recast figures are now equivalent to sweat shops full of kids and food poisoning? Recasts can't physically hurt anyone, at least make you argument reasonable and not full of hyperbole. Let's not forget that for many years GW figures were cast with lead in them anyway.

Howard A Treesong wrote:

Grot 6 wrote:OUR collective take is that it is a sin and a defilement of our game that ends up costing us in time money, and reputation for our collective hobby.

Our? I don't see a consensus.

YOU can't use the fakes in a game, so what are you going to do with them, sit them on your shelf and look at them all day?
YOU are already going to be ridiculed for even putting them on the table, so why bother? Just to try to be different?

Many people wouldn't know a recast if they saw it.

Why? because the ones making the knock offs are selling them unregulated, and quality control is not to be had, hence- the reputation of the game suffers for using the shoddy assed products that you honestly do not know what they are made of.

Sulpher laced drywall?
lead paint in the toys?
Human feces in the food?
knock off paint with arsnic?
chinese or korean sweatshop shoes?
homemade space troopers with eldar weapons cast on them?
etc.etc.etc.

What are you on about? Recast figures are now equivalent to sweat shops full of kids and food poisoning? Recasts can't physically hurt anyone, at least make you argument reasonable and not full of hyperbole. Let's not forget that for many years GW figures were cast with lead in them anyway.

You have a problem with my post? I made my points perfectly clear, whats yours instead of a half hearted attempt at trying to be semiclever?

What are YOU on about?

Grot 6 wrote:You have a problem with my post? I made my points perfectly clear, whats yours instead of a half hearted attempt at trying to be semiclever?

What are YOU on about?

Put simply, you can't reasonably compare recasting to poisoning people's food, making kids work in sweat shops and putting lead paint in children's toys. Most of your post read the same, a hyperbolic guffstorm.

I've bought Squats and other ancient figures, in good faith, from Ebay over a period of several months. Some of them are certainly fakes by statistics alone (more Squats are likely bought and sold yearly on Ebay than were ever produced by GW). Does that mean I'm going to stop buying cheap old miniatures? Of course not.

Ascertaining the legality of each purchase would make collecting OOP models completely impossible, as it'd require the extensive collaboration of the sellers, which is a completely unrealistic goal (since there'll always be buyers who don't make the same kind of fuss and of course since some of them are crooks and liars).

Recasting cannot be fought against unless all of us stop buying used and/or metal miniatures, a goal which I'm sure Games Workshop would approve of.

I got a bunch of RT era Marines that a guy had had for close to 20 years. After stripping them, I found some were in blue or green plastic instead of the typical cream plastic. I'm guessing he bought some knock-offs of them a long time ago, as I don't think GW ever casted in those colors. I don't really mind since they look the same when painted, and I got them for dirt cheap.

GW certainly did cast in those colours. Considering that RT stuff was much cheaper and GW was less popular back then I'd say they were the genuine article. Plastic casting is pretty tricky anyway, even with the costs of casting coming down and technology improving you're unlikely to see many plastic recasts.

Yep, I also remember buying the plastic regiments box that had 10 dark elves, goblins, orcs, skaven, wood elves, dwarves in it and all the plastics were white other than, for no good reason, the dark elves, which were sky blue.

Howard A Treesong wrote:

Grot 6 wrote:You have a problem with my post? I made my points perfectly clear, whats yours instead of a half hearted attempt at trying to be semiclever?

What are YOU on about?

Put simply, you can't reasonably compare recasting to poisoning people's food, making kids work in sweat shops and putting lead paint in children's toys. Most of your post read the same, a hyperbolic guffstorm.

You are entitled to your opinion, but I explained my point clearly.

Did you miss this-

"Why? because the ones making the knock offs are selling them unregulated, and quality control is not to be had, hence- the reputation of the game suffers for using the shoddy assed products that you honestly do not know what they are made of." Then as examples then I post examples of why there is need quality control, just as in any other product.


The post was written, thats my opinion and you want to make funnies over it, and now it seems to me that you just want to be a freakin troll now.


Hell, you are not even addressing the freakin OP, all your doing now is trying to derail the tread for your opinion of why you don't like my post.

As a matter of fact, DO you even have anything to add to the conversation or is this tit for tat crap from you just what I get to look forward to?

If so, Thanks for nothing, have yourself a nice day.

I'm done with you, troll.

Grot 6 wrote:"Why? because the ones making the knock offs are selling them unregulated, and quality control is not to be had, hence- the reputation of the game suffers for using the shoddy assed products that you honestly do not know what they are made of." Then as examples then I post examples of why there is need quality control, just as in any other product.

They aren't valid comparisons, you're trying to make recasting sound much much worse than it is.

The post was written, thats my opinion and you want to make funnies over it, and now it seems to me that you just want to be a freakin troll now.

There's nothing funny about my challenge to your post my points are valid. I'm not a troll as any glace over my posting history will confirm.

Hell, you are not even addressing the freakin OP, all your doing now is trying to derail the tread for your opinion of why you don't like my post.

I *have* addressed the OP, try reading the thread - third reply, made at some length with some thought put into it I may add.

As a matter of fact, DO you even have anything to add to the conversation or is this tit for tat crap from you just what I get to look forward to?

If so, Thanks for nothing, have yourself a nice day.

I'm done with you, troll.

You obviously don't like being challenged over any of your comments. It's not my fault you are throwing your toys out the pram. The first response I made to your posts got a semi-aggressive "You have a problem with my post? I made my points perfectly clear, whats yours instead of a half hearted attempt at trying to be semiclever?". I don't have "a problem" with your posts other than I think your position is flawed, I don't even know you so I can assure you it's not personal. Then you start swearing and calling me names. If you have a serious problem with my posts or genuinely think I am a troll you can make a complaint to the moderators. Or you can choose to hide behind a smokescreen of accusations and bluster so as to not engage with criticism.

Grot 6: I was with you on the recasts affecting the community until you made the logical
leap of RECASTS = POISON. I don't think the discussion needs that hyperbole. It's enough
to know that piracy does affect consumers.

To be honest I cant say I really care If I'm buying second hand of E-bay I'm probably doing it because I'm either after something GW don't make any more or I want it for a extensive conversion in the first case provided its a decent cast I'll probably not notice that its a recast and in the second case there's every chance that by the time I'm done its not going to resemble the original min any ways.

Mastiff wrote:Recasts for sale piss me off. I've had artwork that was stolen and passed off as their own. If you don't have the talent or creativity to design something original, than f**k off. Theft of a concept is still theft, even if there are cheap douchebags willing to buy knock-offs to save a few bucks.

IMHO.

While there is no legal difference I do feel there is a moral difference. Stealing your artwork and passing it off is plagiarism. Knock off GW miniatures do not steal GW's name. Also GW overcharge for their stuff and some people find the counterfeit niche, I don't have a lot of problems with that. if the entire army was knock off then it would be very wrong, but GW are making money out of you if you buy an Eldar army, not paying GW prices for wraithguard sounds more understandable if still wrong.

Where I consider it acceptible to cross the line regards OOP stuff. A pdf of Rogue Trader should not offend anyone. Armourcast resin stuff too etc. Also fresh casts are morally acceptible such as the stuff Chapterhouse does and the female Cadians cast a couple of years back.

Calm down Grot 6.

Just cause someone's opinion varies from yours doesn't mean their trolling you.

Douse the flames dude.

Brother SRM wrote:I got a bunch of RT era Marines that a guy had had for close to 20 years. After stripping them, I found some were in blue or green plastic instead of the typical cream plastic. I'm guessing he bought some knock-offs of them a long time ago, as I don't think GW ever casted in those colors. I don't really mind since they look the same when painted, and I got them for dirt cheap.

I bought the RT Marines and they were bloody awful to paint because they were made from a dark green "plastic" that I'm pretty sure was actually compressed Teflon. I'd brush the paint on, and the model would shake itself like a dog. The paint ended up all over my face, and the model retained its pristine dark green finish.

I might be exagerating just a wee bit, but I can definitely vouch for the green plastic as reall GW product. As you can tell, it's been seared into my psyche, even after 25 years.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Orlanth wrote:

Mastiff wrote:Recasts for sale piss me off. I've had artwork that was stolen and passed off as their own. If you don't have the talent or creativity to design something original, than f**k off. Theft of a concept is still theft, even if there are cheap douchebags willing to buy knock-offs to save a few bucks.

IMHO.

While there is no legal difference I do feel there is a moral difference. Stealing your artwork and passing it off is plagiarism. Knock off GW miniatures do not steal GW's name. Also GW overcharge for their stuff and some people find the counterfeit niche, I don't have a lot of problems with that. if the entire army was knock off then it would be very wrong, but GW are making money out of you if you buy an Eldar army, not paying GW prices for wraithguard sounds more understandable if still wrong.

Where I consider it acceptible to cross the line regards OOP stuff. A pdf of Rogue Trader should not offend anyone. Armourcast resin stuff too etc. Also fresh casts are morally acceptible such as the stuff Chapterhouse does and the female Cadians cast a couple of years back.

Here's a couple of questions I'd like to get some feedback on (from anyone, not just Orlanth). I'm not under any illusion that I'll change any minds, but I like a good debate.

1) How do you define "overcharge"? GW has to pay the designers for the minis. They have to pay to promote the hobby. The reason knock-offs are cheaper is because they steal the design of more talented sculptors and piggyback the marketing that GW has dumped a tonne of cash into.

2) If I buy some product from Chapterhouse and recast it, will you buy them from me instead, if I sell them at 90% of what he's charging?

1-UP wrote:I guess I'm not too worried about it. Assuming the quality is at least similar to the original (Extra mold lines can be filed off) it's almost certainly something I'd never even notice.

We used to have this debate with Magic cards all the time - if you bought a fake, but it was so good that nobody realized/knows it was a fake, does it matter? It's just ink on paper, just like the GW stuff is just plastic/metal/whatever.

I suppose it's not like it's a gray area or anything legally as they are essentially counterfeiting, but man the price they want to get for some of this stuff irks me so much I almost do wish for more fake-casters to supress the costs a little bit.

I understand your feeling. Always try to remember though that fake-casters and people who knowingly buy from them increase the cost of genuine products to legit players.

Kilkrazy wrote:

I understand your feeling. Always try to remember though that fake-casters and people who knowingly buy from them increase the cost of genuine products to legit players.

]

Great, so we can expect GW to announce another price increase in response to this guys auction...

CT GAMER wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

I understand your feeling. Always try to remember though that fake-casters and people who knowingly buy from them increase the cost of genuine products to legit players.

]

Great, so we can expect GW to announce another price increase in response to this guys auction...

and so shall the growth of new casters!



haha we seriously need a stickied thread on dakka dakka - this topic comes up once every.... too many times. hah

I try to avoid recasts mainly due to the fact that they're usually low quality versions of the real thing. Then again, I buy only plastics where possible so this usually isn't an issue. I've yet to see someone recast plastic in plastic.

Sure, noted.

This was the sentence, the rest are examples of unregulated production standards of goods.

"Why? because the ones making the knock offs are selling them unregulated, and quality control is not to be had, hence- the reputation of the game suffers for using the shoddy assed products that you honestly do not know what they are made of."


You know, the kind as in copies of miniatures made without regulation, or by Industry standards. AS IN OTHER GOODS.

You think it hyperbole, fine, thats your opinion, just as mine is when some prat starts selling crap on E bay not up to industry regulation.

You must not be aware of the effects of these low quality products and are probibly unaware of story after story of supposed regulated goods that were later to have been found to have been made in UNREGULATED STANDARDS.


Materials made in some third world dirt farm, then sold have been known to be toxic. ( AS IN SOME OF THE EXAMPLES I'VE MENTIONED)

Low standards, sell more, cheap.


Can you give me an example of quality copied miniatures?

What are a reproducers standards, when it comes to cheaply made reproductions? How do you trust cheaply made copies?

Do you know where they are cast, and the products used in the reproductions?

The point of my examples that someone wants to call hyperbole was as examples of unregulated goods.

Ok then. Hyperbole aside, are telling me that my examples don't happen? That there is no possible way that little johnny is going to get sick off of a reproduction?

How do you know?

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/10/0081742

My mistake then. By all means, go ahead and bring those great fake products on then.

http://stores.ebay.com/MicroNation/Genuine-Furuta-or-Fake.html


MY point from my post that you like so well is that there are no regulations made with recast parts.

No quality control.
No industry standards.
Unknown or possible toxic materials.

Period.

Grot 6 wrote:You must not be aware of the effects of these low quality products and are probibly unaware of story after story of supposed regulated goods that were later to have been found to have been made in UNREGULATED STANDARDS.
...
Materials made in some third world dirt farm, then sold have been known to be toxic. ( AS IN SOME OF THE EXAMPLES I'VE MENTIONED)

This would all make sense if you could actually describe the specific risks that recast figures could pose rather than a generalised attack upon the unregulated counterfeit market because there are some extreme examples there and you've plumped for them all to support your argument, that's the hyperbole. Metal miniatures aren't children's toys. RT era figures were cast using lead anyway, the only difference is that recasts might have *more* lead in them.

Poisoned baby milk products, hell yes that's a problem because it's a foodstuff. Poisonous lead paint on toys for young children, again a problem because young kids put stuff in their mouths. These are products that could contain any number of things and they're given to young children.

Recasts of metal figures? What's the worst that could happen here? They're metal miniatures, what are all the nasty suprises you think they are likely to contain? Really it's not at all in the same league. They aren't made in some third world sweat shop, they're some guy doing it in their kitchen. The worst that could reasonably happen for the customer is that the recast turns out to be a piece of crap and gets slung in the bin. That's why it's small potatoes even if you disagree with it.

Mold lines alone arnt enough to determine whether something is recast?

What about the direction of the mold line ?

" The worst that could reasonably happen for the customer is that the recast turns out to be a piece of crap and gets slung in the bin. That's why it's small potatoes even if you disagree with it. "


But but but!

He could throw that trash away and a rat or some other junk yard dwelling rodent could chew on it and get lead poisoining.

Then!

Then that rodent could be hunted and poached by another industry ignoring a-hole and thrown into our foodstuffs to save money by using cheap meat!

Then!

Then you could buy that rat-spam or raccoon-sausage and eat it and DIE.

Tru Fax.

RogueMarket wrote:

CT GAMER wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

I understand your feeling. Always try to remember though that fake-casters and people who knowingly buy from them increase the cost of genuine products to legit players.

]

Great, so we can expect GW to announce another price increase in response to this guys auction...

and so shall the growth of new casters!



haha we seriously need a stickied thread on dakka dakka - this topic comes up once every.... too many times. hah

There is a stickied thread but people don't read stickies.

Since entering this "hobby" in 1988, Ive gotten GW plastic kits in GW boxes:

White, cream white, red, Ultramarine blue, Crimson Fist blue, purple and different shades of grey.

Just FYI

gretar wrote:If you can see the obvious moldline , they are clearly recasted models , so why don't you just ignore them ?

I think that if they are not currently stocked up on GW's shelves , re-casting is fine .

Not really, since the recaster doesn't own the rights to the models. Even if they're no longer being sold.

However , if its new/on their shelves, it doesn't really matter as GW doesn't lose money, and you can easily just report the user on Ebay and get him kicked off .

Erm, how is people buying recasts in lieu of the actual GW product not GW losing money?
One recaster buying the original and then cranking out his recasts to sell on EBay doesn't add up to the same as GW selling dozens of that model.

Alkaline wrote:That's not what I meant by what I said. I never said that it's OK to rip someone off it they can afford it. I was pointing out how the price point is where it's less of a who cares attitude and more of getting duped and cheated. The part about GW not losing out on money was if the mini was long out of production. GW would care more if someone was making re-casts of whatever the current army that is out as opposed to say some long ago oop mini that doesn't even have rules.

No. GW cares if any models that they've produced are being recast. It can potentially give them a bad name if someone buys an "official" GW model that's some poorly done recast. Add in the fact that even if the model is no longer produced, that doesn't make it fair game for public domain. GW went through the motions to get their stuff protected when they first produce it, which ensures that their items are in fact theirs and not the public domain.