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If you are the kind of person that takes every single word you read literally you might want to stop here.
YES, we understand the inherent issues with and qualities of finecast models.
YES, we understand that there is no difference in the molds between metals and finecast.
With that out of the way, here is the original post. The point of which was to show a buyer's issue with cost and availability, in general. Read on. The rest of this thread gets ridiculous, so enjoy.

So after a trip to the bunker today my wife decided she will not be buying any Dark Eldar. This in and of itself is not news. However read on. The following is the email she sent to Games Workshop.

"I thought you may be interested in the opinion of a potential customer.

As my husband has already sank the majority of any extra cash he and I have on this hobby, which is obscenely expensive for upper-lower class families such as ours that live paycheck to paycheck, I still don't discourage him from it much because I can appreciate the effort and creativity he puts into his models and the tactical strategies and math required to play a game. All of this make it worlds better in my eyes than mindlessly sitting in front of the xbox playing first person shooters.

After observing from a distance over time, I expressed to him that I may have interest in assembling and painting something with him as a fun activity we can share together, and he was thrilled by the idea. I don't really care to play, but I enjoy the crafty part of it, and I am some kind of girly, so the only models that really caught my eye were the harlequins, but after some careful planning and budgeting, much to my dismay, when I was finally prepared to make the investment, I discovered that the harlequin models are being switched to finecast and are not available anymore. Now I understand that they will be available later as finecast, but in light of this change, I no longer wish to eat ramen for a month and hand over all of my hard earned money for models that I don't get to put together myself. That was part of the fun. Most of your customers may not feel the same, and whether they do or not, I know you'll still sell a ton of them and make a mint, but because of this decision to sell them fully assembled, you have lost my business, so I wanted to inform you of this. I will be updating my wardrobe instead of buying an entire dark eldar army. Do what you want with this knowledge."

Now we have never had to short on groceries or the utility bill to get me a land raider or anything, but you get the general idea. I just figured someone might want to read this. All of the bitching we all do about GW on a regular basis must have some grounding in reality when someone almost completely outside the loop can look at the situation for a few minutes and draw the same conclusions the rest of us do.

So, because GW is switching them to a higher quality material, just like with all of their metal models, you would cancel buying an entire army.

Are you somehow under the impression that the metal harlequins required more assembly to the finecast?
Is your attention span so short that you cannot suffer a few weeks delay on one unit out of an entire army?


I honestly 100% don't get it.


EDIT: And you do know that you can still buy metal harlequins at retail prices on eBay... right?

Uh, what? Finecast models are assembled in the exact same way as metal ones. Unless you have a pinning fetish or something, the experience of putting together Finecast Harlequins should be extremely similar to that of putting together the metal ones, except that it will be easier to cut mold lines and flash.

Fetterkey wrote:Uh, what? Finecast models are assembled in the exact same way as metal ones. Unless you have a pinning fetish or something, the experience of putting together Finecast Harlequins should be extremely similar to that of putting together the metal ones, except that it will be easier to cut mold lines and flash.

I agree with this whole heartedly. I can understand your wife's frustration OP, but the finecasts are assembled the same way as the metal models minus the pinning.

"...decision to sell them fully assembled..."

Huh? Have any of you ever seen a Finecast model?

Though I love metal models (I own an all metal Mordian IG army), the finecast Lord Commissar I bought was enjoyably to put together. Finecast still comes in a regular blister that requires assembly. I do not know what the OP is talking about.

The point isnt really the finecast its the fact that GW pays how much to make a single plastic Ork boy model, anyone actually know? Im thinkin like maybe 10 cents, maybe im totally off but if thats the case why am i buying a box with ten models in it for what $20? so 2000% mark up? Like seriously we love to play the game, assemble and paint maybe they could cut it down a little bit so more people would be interested in playing. I have friends whos sole reason for not playing is that they dont want to spend a couple thousand dollars on an army.

She checked ebay. She wants stuff that is new, unassembled, and unpainted. And the Finecast Lhaemean is one solid piece, so she assumed par for the course. I have no idea what harlequins look like outside of pics personally, because I don't like Eldar. You have to realize that from a gaming standpoint picking something up from ebay for cheap stripping and repainting it's ready to go.
Yes I have seen finecast models. Even put a few together and painted them.
The point of posting this thing is that first impressions are strong. She's brand new to this stuff and out of the gate it's more bs than she wants to deal with.


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ph34r wrote:Is your attention span so short that you cannot suffer a few weeks delay on one unit out of an entire army?

I'm sure she could wait if she wanted to.

Dont worry about it, let her see the kits on GW website first.
Plastic kits now days shows all the sprue and she can pick them accordingly if she dont like failcast

Sharkvictim wrote:The point of posting this thing is that first impressions are strong. She's brand new to this stuff and out of the gate it's more bs than she wants to deal with.

Then unfortunately, her message probably isn't going to go anywhere, because the first impression of that letter is that she's just completely misunderstood what finecast is all about.

Aside from a few minor detail changes to account for differences in the casting process, (and, obviously, the bubbles, great gaping holes where the mould hasn't filled properly and huge amount of flash) Finecast models are no different to the metal models they replace.

Waaagh Junkie wrote:The point isnt really the finecast its the fact that GW pays how much to make a single plastic Ork boy model, anyone actually know? Im thinkin like maybe 10 cents, maybe im totally off but if thats the case why am i buying a box with ten models in it for what $20? so 2000% mark up? Like seriously we love to play the game, assemble and paint maybe they could cut it down a little bit so more people would be interested in playing. I have friends whos sole reason for not playing is that they dont want to spend a couple thousand dollars on an army.

You need to look at it in that of a business view though. We know that GW obviously isnt making all that money because of numerous things theyve done so far, such as price raising. So theyre obviously not making enough despite the fact that they only pay 10 cents for a boy.
Also, OP, tell your wife she has great taste in models.

So because the Finecast Lhaemean is "one solid piece", she assumed it's par for the course...despite there being other Finecast models for sale(the Blood Knights in the Vampire Counts range, for example) which are multipart kits?

And then she ran with that assumption, sending a letter of indignant outrage?


You're right. First impressions are strong. And my first impression is that she didn't really get good information to base her assumptions upon.

I have a different but similar feeling of disappointment when it comes to finecast. "Better" material I have a little trouble with; too light, bubbly surfaces on occasion, tend to be received warped (fire up that hot water). Many of these are the metal parts cleaned up and re-molded, not typically seeing the "higher detail" as said. Less parts to put together as a bad thing I have some trouble finding this a negative but does require work cutting to re-position limbs to be unique. I am unsure if I am plain wierd about preferring metal models but they survive the left-in-the-car-in-the-sun-too-long moments.

All of the Finecast recasts are EXACTLY the same as the original metals. if a metal Harliquin is made of 3 pieces the Finecast Harliquin will be 3 pieces.

Changing all the models to single piece models would require a completely new sculpt, which GW isn't doing to the models in question.



As for the Hotcar problems, I have several Finecast models that have done just fine in the car. of course I keep them in cases and those aren't in the direct sun. if you really worry, just roll the windows down a little bit to allow air flow. the temperatures should never rise enough to cause the model to actually melt if you do that and keep your guys out of the sunlight.

I do like my old metal GKs, but I do love not having to put them together. metal was a pain, especially since I never got around to getting a pinning kit and have relied on super glue and JB-Weld(which works fantastically, but takes a little longer to set)

Sharkvictim wrote:And the Finecast Lhaemean is one solid piece, so she assumed par for the course.

Well you know what they say about assumptions...

Besides, the Lhaemean would have been sold as a one-piece metal. Not every GW model comes in multiple pieces.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Well you know what they say about assumptions...

You should make them, and then make multi-hundred dollar decisions on them, and then write angry emails based on them?

You know the wife could be reading this thread ...

If she is she'll learn something then won't she?

ph34r wrote:You should make them, and then make multi-hundred dollar decisions on them, and then write angry emails based on them?

How'd you guess!?!?!?!?

Grey Templar wrote:All of the Finecast recasts are EXACTLY the same as the original metals. if a metal Harliquin is made of 3 pieces the Finecast Harliquin will be 3 pieces.

Changing all the models to single piece models would require a completely new sculpt, which GW isn't doing to the models in question.



As for the Hotcar problems, I have several Finecast models that have done just fine in the car. of course I keep them in cases and those aren't in the direct sun. if you really worry, just roll the windows down a little bit to allow air flow. the temperatures should never rise enough to cause the model to actually melt if you do that and keep your guys out of the sunlight.

I do like my old metal GKs, but I do love not having to put them together. metal was a pain, especially since I never got around to getting a pinning kit and have relied on super glue and JB-Weld(which works fantastically, but takes a little longer to set)

Now, I hate to derail this, but how hot does it get where you live? I actually worry about buying anything finecast for the exact reason of the care being too hot in the summer, and have been going out of my way to avoid them because of it. I would love to know that fear is completely bogus.

However, to get somewhat back on topic, my fiance is also getting into the hobby, and started doing so right after finecast was released. She plays Chaos Marines, and thoroughly enjoys her plague marines (as most chaos players do). We bought her first box of 7 marines from our LGS for around I believe it was 37.50 USD. The second box we got, came in as finecast, and cost us a over 45 USD. We got lucky, and there were no miscasts in the box, but that is quite a jump in price for the exact same product (essentially). The increased price compared to metal, and the fear of a hot car has what has put us on edge, not even bringing into account the problems people had with the earlier releases.

Someone did a semi-scientific study here, and came to the conclusion that it's not heat alone that causes problems. It's heat and pressure together. For something like a plague marines, that don't have thin parts supporting lots of weight, you're only going to have a problem if you store them in the hot car with pressure applied.

Am I really the only one who thinks that someone has their priorities out the whack if they're eating instant ramen for weeks on end just to buy some toys..?

No disrespect or anything, but she seems like she needs to be somewhere... namely sitting out on wallstreet clogging up the walkway.

Kouzuki wrote:Am I really the only one who thinks that someone has their priorities out the whack if they're eating instant ramen for weeks on end just to buy some toys..?

Thats something i do too -_-
though it might not be ramen ( apple, cheaper and healthier )
and not necessarily warhammer.

Anyways it goes to show her determination ... which is admirable.

- Removed by insaniak. Please see Dakka's rule #1. You can make a point without being rude about it. -

BTW, search on ebay and local stores for unopened metal boxes of harlequins. Many non-GW stores still have them.
While Finecast models are in as many parts as their metal counterparts, some details might be to fragile for Finecast (swords break easily). And buying Finecast boxes on the internet is always a gamble with the high rate of miscasts, esp. for beginners.

Generally it's a good idea to do a bit of extra research before sending an angry email.

My first impression of your wives email is "its a bunch of unbased fething whine and I hope it ends up in GWs trash bin".

Geez, if you are going to spend time writing an angry email then at least make sure that what you are writing is true

Vampirate of Sartosa wrote:Generally it's a good idea to do a bit of extra research before sending an angry email.

Doesn't really matter it's just going to get the same copy paste reply they usually hand out.
They still put in more effort than they will replying to it.

Kouzuki wrote:Am I really the only one who thinks that someone has their priorities out the whack if they're eating instant ramen for weeks on end just to buy some toys..?

No disrespect or anything, but she seems like she needs to be somewhere... namely sitting out on wallstreet clogging up the walkway.

Seriously? The ramen thing wasn't supposed to be taken literally. Why am I even defending this?


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Jollydevil wrote:tell your wife she has great taste in models.

I hope you're joking. The DE are okay, but I think the harlequins are a bit on the lame side.

@everyone: Let's please post with courtesy. Just becuase you don't agree with a person doesn't mean you need to insult them -- plus, it's against our rules! Thanks!

I'm not sure what this thread is about.
Your wife isn't mad at a price raise per se, but she is mad that she won't be able to put together models whose level of required assembly hasn't changed at all with the switch to finecast?

Are _you_ aware that there's no more or less assembly with the new material? Is she mixing up Dark Eldar plastics with the finecast Harlequins?
What are you trying to tell us other than "my wife is confused"?