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Even in the most recent Finecast models, I have seen product on the shelf that I would not pay half the price for, it's so miscast.

Luckily to this day, I have never bought or owned a Finecast model. I would rather do the extra legwork to get the original pewter version, if at all possible. Hell, I'd even pay more for the pewter version/s on Ebay, if it came to that. Luckily, all the prices I have bought units (like 2nd edition Eldar Rangers) for gained me twice the figures for half the cost of Finecast, and I only do "Buy it Now"s rather than bother bidding on stuff.

Finecast? Yecch.

I'd agree that it's left a lasting bad impression. A really bad impression.

When you want to convert from metal, you convert to normal plastic. Reaper Miniatures did it with Bones, and that was a runaway success. Converting to an inferior product while raising the price is always a losing ploy, unless your customer base is people who hate money.

 MajorWesJanson wrote:
The first wave of Finecast was quite bad. But later waves they generally worked out the kinks. The few finecast models I have bought have had no more problems than my average FW models or even a majority of my metal models.

My biggest annoyance wih Finecast is how it spawned people using all sorts of "witty" variations to mock things, like Finecrap, Finecash, Failcast, ect. And now it has moved to the point of "Word® Word®" being used as if it is the height of satire, when it is just moronic.

I have bought a few finecast kits since they came out, the most recent just a couple of weeks ago. They all had flaws. More flaws than I've had from the FW kits I've bought (which I gripe about too mind you, paying that much for a single infantry model makes me feel somewhat entitled to actually have some quality control).

Most recently I bought a Lord Commissar and part of the brim of his hat was missing, his nose had a bubble on it, and there was a piece of random resin attached to a point where I can't see how you could possibly remove it without damaging the underlying model.

There's a reason people call it failcast, because GW marketed it as something wonderful and it came out out as a giant steaming pile of failcrap. I'm sorry if people being unhappy annoys you.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Even in the most recent Finecast models, I have seen product on the shelf that I would not pay half the price for, it's so miscast.

Luckily to this day, I have never bought or owned a Finecast model. I would rather do the extra legwork to get the original pewter version, if at all possible. Hell, I'd even pay more for the pewter version/s on Ebay, if it came to that. Luckily, all the prices I have bought units (like 2nd edition Eldar Rangers) for gained me twice the figures for half the cost of Finecast, and I only do "Buy it Now"s rather than bother bidding on stuff.

I did this with swooping hawks. I have 2 Baharroths and 28 swooping hawks for less than $80 or so because of it. Most are 2E hawks, but they still look cool, IMO. And the price was right!

Bonus points: I nabbed a metal Eldrad for $5 because he was mislabeled.

Rangers. 20-something for 10 2nd edition models, or 30-something for 5 Finecast? Not a hard choice.

I have a hard time understanding why anyone would even try to defend any facet of Finecast. Sure some of the detail is better- unless the model was previously in metal! Then it's exactly the same but for a 25% markup.

 MajorWesJanson wrote:
The few finecast models I have bought have had no more problems than my average FW models or even a majority of my metal models.

They have more problems because the material itself is a problem. Even when it is by some miracle a decent cast with no bubbles/missing parts/etc the material is inexcusably awful. It's way too soft, it crumbles if you look at it too hard, and it can't hold up its own weight without bending. You expect that kind of "quality" from a $1 walmart toy, not a $15 character model.

I loved finecast, I was disappointed every time it was free of defects and I didnt get a free model. So many planned conversions that died before its time.

But is finecast really gone or just resin with the consistancy of reinforced whipped cream without the finecast tag?

I think all they did was remove the Finecast label, but keep everything the same.

I hate to ask....but did we need YAFCT?
(yet another....).

After building dozens of finecast models, I can say that for bigger units it was ok (tau farsight, biovores, zonethropes, etc.).

However, I was not every happy with any models that had thin parts - like necron overlord scythes, space marine swords, etc.

Overall, I think they made a mistake with it, but hopefully if it goes away...so will the fine cast threads....
Maybe.

I am coming back to the hobby after a 6 yr hiatus, finecast wasn't around then. I've been looking for a spirit seer or 2 for my Ghost army and none of the stores have the model (including the GW store). I looked at some of the other models (thinking about Wood elf sorceress and Alarielle but then saw the pricetag for these tiny, flimsy models...$20 a piece, are you kidding me? I'm coming from FOW so I'm not new to high priced models but I've found some of the Gw kit pretty reasonable. But these...no way, and I'm reading that they have all these flaws too...no thanks. A disgrace from GWs perspective if you ask me...should be half the price at the most..
I have still to find 2 suitable models for my spiritseers.

I'm also coming in from a long break. When I left, finecast was just about to be released. At the time there was many problems with the metal models that were to be replaced (required pinning, paint chipped, different glue, top-heavy). What was the problem with finecast, and did it not solve any of the metal figure problems?

 Snuggles wrote:
What was the problem with finecast, and did it not solve any of the metal figure problems?

Two problems:

1) The material is terrible. It's way too soft and crumbly. The fine detail is easily damaged, small parts snap off if you look at them too hard, etc. Even a good cast is unlikely to be a good cast for very long unless you never take it out of the box.

2) The quality control is nonexistent. The question isn't whether your model will have casting flaws, because almost all of them do. The real question is how many replacements will you have to ask for before you accumulate enough decent parts that you can manage to create an entire model. Bubbles are extremely common, and often obliterate entire sections of detail. Parts are frequently missing, often because a large bubble allowed a whole section of the model to break off. Flash is everywhere, and when you remove it you'll probably damage the model (see problem #1).

In short, finecast is only adequate if you're the kind of person who just glues everything together as soon as you buy it and never bothers to paint anything. If you care about the quality of your models then don't even bother attempting to buy anything in finecast.

I have had fine cast I liked - Crusaders and Crow. I had Necros I hated. The Staves came bent and even when I ran them under hot water they broke off. They kept breaking even after painting and gluing --- every time I transported them. 1 has a 3rd party staff now and I have had no problems and 1 is in a box while I decide what to do with him.

I just received the replacement Lord Commissar model and it is miscast on the brim of his hat as well

e:ignore me

I'd like to parrot that fine cast is garbage.

Brittle parts where pieces break off if you try to clip them off as designed, or parts where the finest details are bubbly messes, requiring professional level sculpting skills to fix.

I'd also like to curse out the CEO and other assorted staff involved with the decisions behind it, its garbage, and the fact that you raised prices while selling garbage is atrocious, you should make a blanket apology.

I will won't curse here, I like this place but lets just say I've had fun on twitter.

How did GW allow itself to sell the stuff if it was so bad. Surely they would of had to paint and glue the models themselves and experienced first hand what it was like. Poor quality control?

 Smirrors wrote:
How did GW allow itself to sell the stuff if it was so bad. Surely they would of had to paint and glue the models themselves and experienced first hand what it was like. Poor quality control?

Because they have complete and utter contempt for their customer base?

In all seriousness what I heard was it was a rush job. Allegedly there was a meeting amongst the higher-ups and some of the people running the casting facilities were there. They were asked "Can we roll out Finecast in 2-3 months time?" and some idiot piped up "Sure thing boss!". Now, with GW, being far too much of an entity like the Imperium than it likes to admit; no-one piped up to say it simply could not be done in that time as more testing was needed.

That's what myself and a couple of other have heard talking with some FLGS owners.

On a side note, AFAIK the masters that the studio will paint (and as has always been the case, even with metals) are proper resin, not whatever hybrid mix FC was.

 gnoise wrote:
All Finecast taught me was that I should kit-bash my own Special Characters from the extra plastic bits.

QFT, I've never found a cast of a character I liked. Always made them myself.

 Smirrors wrote:
How did GW allow itself to sell the stuff if it was so bad. Surely they would of had to paint and glue the models themselves and experienced first hand what it was like. Poor quality control?

Someone in the studio had to notice because at least a few painted models made it to the webstore pics with viable holes.

13 pence a gallon that's all gw cared about, cast for next to nothing and sell with a massive profit margin, and if it's a miscast it only costs them another 13p.

Another sign gw don't give two craps about the customer.

 Icculus wrote:
Im glad Finecast is gone.

Is it though? Or did they just scrap the name?

Scipio Africanus wrote:

 gnoise wrote:
All Finecast taught me was that I should kit-bash my own Special Characters from the extra plastic bits.

QFT, I've never found a cast of a character I liked. Always made them myself.

Eh, 99% of plastic converted characters look like... plastic converted characters. There are some awesome converters out there, but most metal/resin characters have a lot more fine detail that I have no where near the capacity to recreate myself.

There's a reason I bought the Lord Commissar, it looks many times better than I could recreate. Same with the Njal in Terminator armour model, no way I could recreate something half as good as that (luckily I got a metal one). Same with a dozen others I've bought. I only bother making my own when the GW alternative genuinely has a terrible aesthetic.

hobojebus wrote:13 pence a gallon that's all gw cared about, cast for next to nothing and sell with a massive profit margin, and if it's a miscast it only costs them another 13p.

Another sign gw don't give two craps about the customer.

Except it does cost them more than that, perhaps they don't realise, but it does, both in manpower and lost sales.

Of course you have to pay staff to do returns and customer service, postage costs etc, but given the cost of failcast resin compared to lead and pewter they have a huge profit margin on each mini sold.

If it had lowered prices people might of forgiven the odd imperfection, but raising prices plus the poor quality ensured it's demise.

Relapse wrote:
It looks like GW is getting away from mentioning the word finecast and just using theterm resin models. Crap by any other name is still crap.

One of my funniest memories of it is a guy accidentally using the term "Failcast" by reflex when talking to a GW store manager (then apologizing because he's a nice guy and didn't want hurt feelings).

Given that I've only got two FC models, and both ended up with small bits breaking in the process of trying to assemble and clean them (one of them I have yet to see an unbroken copy of the model), I'm pretty shy on buying any more of the stuff, even though a lot of models aren't available any other way (i.e. Eldar Harlequins, a lot of Dark Eldar stuff, any Ork characters currently, etc.).

Finecast whining threads went out of vogue several years ago.

Get your whineometers updated to a current topic.

Guess I'm lucky with only having 2 problems with Finecast.

 dementedwombat wrote:

I know resin isn't as strong as plastic, but with this stuff I spend all my prep and glue time in terror that if I breathed on it wrong my model would shatter into a million pieces.

It's not resin itself, it's GW's crappy resin. The resin DZC models I've been painting from Hawk Wargames are incredibly strong and the detail is insane.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtZvZaljlxE

 Smirrors wrote:
How did GW allow itself to sell the stuff if it was so bad. Surely they would of had to paint and glue the models themselves and experienced first hand what it was like. Poor quality control?

To be cynical, GW want to concentrate on selling cheap gak at high prices to n00bs who have no idea what they deserve from a wargame or a model, so GW are busy getting rid of all veteran gamers who recognised Finecast for the crap it is.