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This is a e-mail i sent to Games Workshop Customer service and I encourage like minded individual to let GW know how you feel about "Finecast" good or bad.





When I finally thought you guys had finally figured it out, you go and blow it right out of the water.

Grey Knights 3 new boxes make every infantry troop in the army..Freaking fantastic slap on the back. Sincerely good job.

Now that the kudos's are out of the way. Your so called "Finecast" model line should be renamed "Poorcast rip the buyer off model line" I was looking forward to this launch along with a lot of other players in my club.
I get to the store to buy terminator librarian and pull this nicely packaged clamshell off the shelf turn it over find a pitifully casted resin model with bubbles and broken bits so i think to myself ok there is always some bad cast even in pewter so I pull another off the shelf. This one is even worse. All of the so called Finecast models were defective missing parts, small bubbles, bubble so large that whole tyranid claw was missing. Needless to say I was very disappointed. Then I notice the price. Almost
"""""""15% INCREASE IN PRICE''''''''''''''''''
ARE YOU GUYS FREAKING CRAZY OR ARE YOU PURPOSELY TRYING TO TO KILL YOUR OWN GAME


You make a crapy product out of a material that is at least 40 times less costly making it lighter thus less expensive to ship in a package that is only slightly more expensive and then try to charge 15% more using the excuse that now the price won't fluctuate do to metal costs and expect any reasonably intellegent consumer to smile and hand you their money. Is it the policy of your company to consider their consumers IDIOTS.

Needless to say no one bought any of this "Finecast" crap and suggested that our retailer return it all.

I could look over the flaws if the product was significantly less expensive say 15 to 20% but to raise the price, no way. With the prices for food and gas skyrocketing, I have to stretch my hobby dollar further so I guess I will just use that regular terminator as a proxy. Hmmm may be it is time to give Privateer press a try.

Your Former Customer
Douglas Vandall

i asked the guys at my GW and they recon its much more labour intensive, hense the price increase.
however i think its worth it, the resin is so flexible and finely detailed thet its worth the cost.

Another whiny letter? Geez. These are popping up pretty fast.

Funny, I'm hearing tons of stories about how most Finecast models are good to excellent in quality.

Either you're extremely unlucky, or you're lying.

Yes there seem to be a lot of issues with the current batch of Finecast. Hopefully the situation will improve, but only time will tell.

While I respect your effort, this e-mail will probably only be read by a low level customer service representative, who will sigh to him/herself and maybe sent you a reply e-mail, probably from a standard template.

If you and enough people stop buying GW product they maybe, just maybe might change their business practices. As someone whose worked inside various corporate beasts at various lower levels, I can tell profit is the only thing they really care about.

I'm happy to pay a little extra for no more broken blades or pinning troubles.

Lol wow people responded fast.

Yes I know that the email will most likely not be read by anyone important. Yes the letter is a little (well alot)over the top but it was cathartic.

Coolyo294 cathartic means to make one self feel better.Why do people waste their time insulting others post. Guess it is cathartic to you coolyo294 so go for it if it makes you feel better.

Anyway my retailer is the largest in the state with multiple stores and is considering only ordering them when they are asked for instead of stocking them on the shelves as he has done in the past due to his increased cost so I will be waiting to get my next mini
.
Yes of course I will be buying them I love the games to much not to, but I won't be able to buy as many.

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.

Be that as it may thanks for reading my post.

I do believe that the resin finecast quality is better then metal. I bought an Archon and Succubus the other day and the quality was fantastic. Very crispy and fine detail compared to metal. But i really don't understand the rational for the price increase. Maybe other people have been unlucky.

Just to let you know, the PR guys rarely even let these letters up to the associates. A well written, nuetral letter, while not provided us nearly the same satisfaction, is almost always going to be considered before a rant of any sort.

Yeah I like to bang my head against a wall also lol. I plan to write a more PC e-mail from another account after I see more of the model range.

I like resin models, my Krieg from FW are beautiful but really challenging to assemble and paint and not required to play a game of 40k.

With that said I see a problem with main characters like Dante being resin and ending up in a new players hands and them ruining a model from being inexperience with resin. I had years of experience with metal and styrene models before I decided to go to resin (started playing in the early 80's). Now right out of the gate new players are forced to buy expensive delicate resin models.

Don't know about other places but the average age of players in my area seems to be in the upper 20s to low 30s and the few young players we have are mostly the children of the older players so losing any new player over frustrating resin mishap is disheartening.

I am fairly certain GW will address the quality control issues (I really was not exaggerating the quality of the models at my store, the worst FW model I have ever bought was better than any of the Finecast ones that we received). Time will tell

We need to realise that any argument about price is irrelivent, this is GW they'll increase thier already insane prices whenever they want.

Haonn wrote:We need to realise that any argument about price is irrelivent, this is GW they'll increase thier already insane prices whenever they want.

I am getting mixed messages
First you say you will be happy to pay more for the resin, then you say this.

The reason GW will raise their insane price whenever they want is because some chaps will pay more regardless.

Where are the resin pieces being manufactured please? Just wondering about the increased labour costs.
GW decided to opt out of metals due to the volatile metal prices which I believe are still high.
Don't recall any statement about the material savings being offset by greater labour costs. In which case why switch to resin if it will cost more to produce?

I got a termi libby and his staff was bent!!!

And lots an lots bubbles everywhere.

Details are great but I would prefer the metal over this because of all the imperfections

expecially his bent staff, if it were metal I can ben it back but it isn't so now I will have to ask a friend to semi melt and rebuild the staff. Damn I hate bent stuff LOL

You don't have to melt it, with ressin you can just heat it up realy easily and bend it into shape, cool it while its in the desired position and then it should be fine. you can use hot water or a blow drier. just remember its much eaier to soften than forge world ressin.

I was at my local GW yesterday, for the finecast release. At leased five different kits were brought, no defects what so ever. I keep hearing stories like this but I am yet to see a defective kit.

I had the same experience, I did'nt see nay bubbles or blemishes, on one modle the hole sprue was filled with a thin resin layer but i just cut around it with a hobby knife and it was fine.

I'd be a bit cautious about the whole "it's a cheaper material" thing, off the top of my head:

1) They have had to do some conversion work to the moulds / casting equipment, which will have to be recouped.

2) Most of the Finecast stuff comes on sprue by the sound of it, so they've had to completely repackage everything in new blisters. Ok in the long term, shouldn't be more expensive, but again you've got to recoup the initial outlay to do all that.

3) The most important point IMHO is that they've had to develop this new material. I imagine they've been through a fair few different recipes to find a material that is suitably strong, flexible, cheap, mass producable, non-toxic and casts well*. They've then had to go through all the statutory legal testing to prove that the material is non-toxic, fire retardant, etc, etc and suitable for consumer use, on top of which they must have done additional safety testing if they've gone out of their way to state that you don't need to wear protective masks, etc (unlike FW). That whole lot must have cost a tonne of money.

4) The logisitcs of doing the above to all metal miniatures simultaneously. I presume they had a reason why they didn't phase it in gradually, range by range, but it must have been a damn good one IMHO, because the approach they've taken is a hell of a lot of work.

* - I'm not going to get into the casting issues; partly because it's too flame worthy, but mainly because any process will have occasional problems. Which can all be sorted by proper quality control before you ship the things out the door.


EDIT - MOD HELP: Why is my flag suddenly showing as USA???

Bought the Empire General and Huron Blackheart. As far as I can see they are free of imperfections and they definately look better, with greater detail even after undercoating.

My issue with the change comes from the lack of available miniatures. I went to the store to purchase the Emperors Champion... they received two for the finecast opening. TWO, and by 11 o'clock they were both gone so I was s&*t out of luck. Had a bit of a rant and bought Huron. Its the ineptotude of the marketing that does my head in.

When do the other metal minis become available in finecast? I want a Lysander in Finecast, my mate wants Dark Angels, not the static commander with the cool cape dapped over his shoulder, but the others... when do these become finecast. What about Harker or Stracken for the Guard, everybody now has to source these direct from the mail order through GW.

Surely this has been very badly planned. The finecast is okay but the way GW have handled the transition has been appalling.

I see your point Chainman1965 but I think it is bad terminator librarians. I got Castellan Crowe and the only problem with him was a small hole in his cape and i just had to use a little super glue to seal it up and then i painted over it so it looks fine now. However, 2 people at my local GWS bought terminator librarians and they both had minor defects. One of them was missing a part of its cable and the other also had a similar problem. i think it is just a matter of the librarian's cast must be complicated and prone to faults. Every other finecast model I have seen has been of good quality and will be much easier to build and paint. E.G. when Zoanthropes were metal they were a B**** to build but with finecast the price has gone up £2 or so and i no longer have to pin it. Plus there is a very noticable difference in detail as all of its features are now much more distinct. Another thing you will have to remember is that finecast is still in its first stages and will be amended for the better in the near future. Most of what you pay GWS is to go to research of new techniques to do better modling and get more detail with less faults. I believe in a few months to a year finecast will be of much better quality...

I went along to the finecast unveiling at my local gw.I got a look at a good few mini's being cleaned up and painted.My friend had bought Astorath but it was faulty with a big bubble on the left shoulderpad,the store manager gave him another and it was fine.I did see a couple of bendy staffs but that was about it.The models looked clean and crisp to me but i didn't buy any as im on the gw not buying wagon for now.It was hard not to dig into my wallet but i did manage it(for now).

My friend bought the nurgle daemon prince, and after half an hour, hated it.
1. It had the wrong sized base.
2. the sword was bent.
3. The joints would not glue and didn't fit together properly.
4. It still had bits of the mold in it.
Overall, not a happy bunny.

Did he use super glue or plastic glue?

I just took back 2 packs of plague marines to trade them for being poorly cast and we went through about 5 boxes of them befor we actually found a box with no defects this is insane gw have screwed up big time, and its not just nurgles the same applied for, the nurgle daemon prince.

Marthike wrote:I got a termi libby and his staff was bent!!!

And lots an lots bubbles everywhere.

Details are great but I would prefer the metal over this because of all the imperfections

Metal has just as bad, if not worse, imperfections in many cases. But sure, some people prefer metal over resin.

For example, I freaking loathe metal with every fiber of my being and would have killed for GW to have done resin figures years ago.

expecially his bent staff, if it were metal I can ben it back but it isn't so now I will have to ask a friend to semi melt and rebuild the staff. Damn I hate bent stuff LOL

...what? You don't have to "semimelt and rebuild the staff". Get a bowl of hot water(not boiling hot) and set the piece in there. After about 5 minutes, you can bend it into shape with no ill effects.

At first I thought I might need to send GW a letter of my own saying "hey, good job" to counter all these insipid whiny ones, but then I thought "nah, just buy something".

Mission Accomplished.

You will get bubb;es in the molds as it is a resin-plastic mix, but it generally doesn't happen and if it does just get a replacement

It's ok, but there was no bubbles the size of Tyranid claws with metal so . . .

I can justify Finecast in one point.

"A light weight Abaddon,with light arms"

I HATE METAL! It chips, it's hard to glue, and they never survive any kind of fall. I like plastic personally.

GW has excellent product support.


simply ask for a replacement model and they will send you one.



all the finecast models i have seen have been excellent quality with little to no disfigurment.


miscasts are the exception rather then the norm and any problems will be replaced by GW very quickly.



I reccomend you return the problem model for a replacement.

they often won't ask for the damaged product back, and if you have a little greenstuff then you might actually get a free model out of it.