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I had (and still having) probs with finecast. Bought (at great expense!) Mek boy - loads of holes and a bit missing, pain boy - same as above (when being changed in GW, the new opened model showed more bits missing so we had to compile both models!), Huron Blackthingy - very badly formed backpack, Mek boy with shokk attack cannon - holes, holes and more holes (a lot of them in places where the magic of glue will not do).

When I went in to the shop, the manager told me that they had to rush and form loads of models for the release date - not very sound to me!

Also I must be honest and say (in my line of profession) I have a good eye for detail and I haven't really seen much difference in detail what so ever compared to metal (if any). I will need to varify this using our high powered microscopes. Also for the cost and hype of 'fine' cast, it is really crap!! Why should I have to fill in holes? Why should I have to cut numerous sprue attachments? Why should I have to try to straighten out a crozier (if spelt correctly!) which refuses to straighten (when metal if bent, just bend it back!)?

NOT PLEASED like the many other peeps!!!

I find it weird that the Demon Prince didn't come with the right base. Aren't they all on 60mm bases now?

I dig finecast! No issue here.

Considering I hate metal models I think I'll like finecast a lot.

Finecast is the new Matt Ward.

My local gw has been really good about replacing bad models, most of the finecast stuff has been fine, and even minor imperfections that could not be easily remidied were replaced without question. I'm pretty happy with how it's all shaken out, and the new models are superior in every way to their metal counterparts

I just popped into my local GW today to see the resin models and I have to say, I'm really impressed. All the hate on these boards and the pictures of the miscasts really coloured my opinion before walking into the store, but after seeing them in person... they look really good. I got a good look at the Sternguard models and they look fabulous. You really need to see them in person, pictures don't do them justice.

For those that hated metal, the extra detail is icing on the cake.

The chaos range of finecast is appauling i have taken my plague marines back 4 times now to get a box im happy with, and even then there is still imperfections. While they Nurgle prince was appauling i had to carve away at every joint even to get them fix together, and yes it came with the wrong sized base again. While they dont seem to take nicely to me giving them an undercoat the paint just splits up like oil would on water, its not worth the money and yes there are some good models that have casted properly but it does not give them right to rush out half of it that is crap and half of it that is excellent.

I went to my local GW on the Finecast release, and a ton of people were buying them - but I didn't hear or see any complaints about miscasts (and around 20-30 must have been sold and were in various states of construction).

I think it's getting blown out of proportion on the boards.

However, I do feel that such a high price increase is a little detrimental to already highly priced products.

As a friend of mine said "I might do something cheaper than Warhammer - like collecting bars of gold."

It's possible you still have mold release on it signature - give them a quick wash in lukewarm soapy water first.

Which was always my question with Finecast - mold release or not?

Sometimes there is a little mold release, most of the time none but some models do need a quick rinse

Signature wrote:The chaos range of finecast is appauling i have taken my plague marines back 4 times now to get a box im happy with, and even then there is still imperfections. While they Nurgle prince was appauling i had to carve away at every joint even to get them fix together, and yes it came with the wrong sized base again. While they dont seem to take nicely to me giving them an undercoat the paint just splits up like oil would on water, its not worth the money and yes there are some good models that have casted properly but it does not give them right to rush out half of it that is crap and half of it that is excellent.

How do you knwo those "imperfections" arn't supposed to be there, they are plague marines after all


it is possable they are just having certain molds with problems and plague marines could be one of them.


wash the resin first. a little lukewarm soapy water and the mold release will come right off.


don't make it too warm because the resin will soften.




GW is claiming there isn't any mold release, but a little will probably slip through from time to time.

Send it to them in the mail or it will do nothing.

It needs to be said that from a model/unit perspective, the prices are still in line with other competing brands. Privateer Press for example actually charges more for comparably worse models with far fewer options.

The kicker is you can't really play 40k with 10 models.

Now that said, the finecast models are still reasonably competetively priced imo. However, the price hike did seem excessive considering some of the models in question weren't even out 3 months before they were increased in price by 20% and it should be safe to assume the newer models were made with finecast in mind.

It's a safer bet that the price hike was due to GW wanting to recoop lost money on all the metals they took off the shelves and doing who knows what with now.

Now as for the quality of the models, they are quite poor coming from a company that has been in business for for 25+ years. You expect there to be a little flash and the odd bubble and miscast to be the exception, not the rule.

Going from what we've read about the launch it would appear the flash is significantly worse than every other model they've ever produced (we haven't had any miscasts though have we where the 2 parts aren't aligned properly?), and the airbubble issue isn't acceptable at all.

On the plus side, GW probably didn't invest much money in this transition so if they go back to metal in a year maybe we'll avoid the price hike then :/

Flash is actually a good sign that the mold was filled completely and there shouldn't be very many, or large, air bubbles.


and flash is easily delt with.

The problem I have with the flash with finecast is the models are a little too frail. It's not like plastic where you can take a file or sand paper to it after you cut away a lot of the flash. With these you really have to scrape it away with a knife and hope for the best.

But you are right, with so much flash on these models why are the air bubbles such an issue for GW?

I have bought my first finecast, a prophet + seer box.
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440239a&prodId=prod1160110a

pro:

- The quality of the details is impressive, it will definitely be easier to paint.

- No more "must press to bit of metal together for two hours or the damn glue won't hold". A few seconds is enough, it's even easier than with plastic.


Cons:

- Bubbles !

One of the seer had two small bubbles at it's feets, their tip is missing. Another has one very small bubble in the middle if each of his fingers.

The prophet has a bubble at the hem of his robe, another behind his head, the point of his crest right above the neck is missing.



- The seer with a two-handed sword is broken just above the hilt of his sword. A bit of glue solved that, but it's a sign that the packaging has a fault.




Overall, I'd say the new material has much more potential than pewter, but that GW don't master this new process enough to sell it right now. It should have been improved and made more reliable before putting the models on sale.


Edit: Got an Avatar as well. No bubbles anywhere, but the left hand thumb is missing.

Finecast is a rippoff simply because they raised the price, and at a much higher percentage than would be needed to simply cover inflation. If the price had been kept the same as before. I don't think there would be such an outcry. And if they had actually lowered the price even slightly to reflect their cost savings by switching. They would have been hailed as heroes! How they don't see that is unexplainable to me.

its better the metal but too soft

What about their cost increases from new molds?

They arent free you know...

Mitigated by the far cheaper material they are using to make the models. Does anyone really think that there's more than $2-5 worth of resin in each clamshell?

Funny really, Mantic managed to change both their Revenant cavalry and undead wraiths to a resin/plastic composition without feeling the urge to boost prices to recoup the tooling costs.

In point of fact, they doubled the amount of miniatures in each pack yet still sell for the same price as the metal versions were.

Also known as "we're a new-ish company, we cant increase prices too much as this is one of our biggest selling points"

same with person above me. At my GW the manager is giving a replacement or a new finecast if you have and mismoulding that cant be fixed.

I have got 2 chaplains now

H.B.M.C. wrote:Mitigated by the far cheaper material they are using to make the models. Does anyone really think that there's more than $2-5 worth of resin in each clamshell?

not really,

the cheapness of the material won't offset the cost of new molds.


those things are probably running upwards of $10,000 each. and they need a different one for each sprue they cast. then there is the design fee for making a space marine/eldar/tau.... shaped hole.

GW also has to pay for the storage of their old metal molds. they can't sell them as that could allow people to copy their IP, so they either have to destroy them or store them. storage is better as they could need them for a rainy day.

nosferatu1001 wrote:Also known as "we're a new-ish company, we cant increase prices too much as this is one of our biggest selling points"

That didn't stop them from putting up the cost of metal minis to reflect increasing tin prices....

http://www.manticgames.com/News/Article/010511-Metal-Price-Rises-again.html

Hence the switch to resin, hence the lower production costs, hence Mantic being able to offer better value.

they are still a new company and will only do things if they can afford to offend the fanbase.

GW, as an established company, can get away with things that mantic can't. they will also have problems mantic doesn't.


Mantic will have a smaller employee population who are likely extremely attached to their jobs.

GW, as a largish company, needs to take the demands of their workers into consideration. perhaps they needed to increse benifits and/or pay with the transition to casting Resin(safety hazard from working around it) and that could be part of the cost increase.

I dont care about an extra two quid if it means noone else will have to endure the modelling horror that is Astorath the grim. his wings re anightmre and mine had a bent axe that when I beant bak kept snapping.

Finecast looks good. I have an all FW Krieg army, and the GW FC is better in detail from there old models, but not as good as FW detail.

On another note, as I posted in other posts regarding GW FC...

There are over a dozen FW kits that are LESS $ now then GW FC kits....

5 honor guard from FW are cheaper then GW FC honor guard by $10, 5 preheresy marines are less then 5 sternguard by $5, FW dread is less then GW by $5, and so on.....

With lack of any consistent quality & combined with huge price increase (5 bloodnights $99.99! a box that was $23 is now 29.75!, etc...), GW is hurting itself and slapping loyal hobbyists in the face......

I planned another 40k army (2k) and before price increase the GW army was going to be $545...Now the same kits, in finecast, is over $670! (if I were to go through GW for the models, not considering ebay for price comparison...). So I am not doing it now....

I'll still play at GW battle bunkers, but I'll NEVER buy anything more from GW.

Can someone post up a picture of their finecast models with or without imperfections or bubbles?
There seems to be a lot of accusations about quality begin hurled around, but every finecast model I have brought so far has definitley been superior to it's metal original.

Put your money where your mouth is, in a manner of speaking.

Chainman1965 wrote:As for the labor cost, my dad work with lead castings and a friend of mine is a phd. in engineering with multiple patents and runs a large plastic and resin supply factory and I ask him and he can not think of any reason labor or otherwise that they should cost more unless they are just extremely inefficient.

Dude, you should totally ask your friend to cast some models for you. Buy one unit of whatever army you want, have him recast a bunch of copies. Someone I know did that with Death Korps of Krieg... bought one unit, had it recast a bunch of times, now he has like 200 DKoK.