Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I keep seeing people saying that GW is just increasing prices just because they can or that resin is a cheaper product so the prices of the models should be cheaper. There are reasons the price is higher, yes the material is cheaper but it takes about four times as long to make a model compared to either plastic or metal, so one group of workers can not make nearly as many as before. So they must hire and pay more workers so that they are making enough, and maybe even build or buy more factories this all costs a lot of money. And detail on resin is much crisper then on plastic and metal, this also demands a slightly higher price. So i feel the prices are perfectly reasonable for the amount of money it takes to make them. And just my opinion on the 'GW is going to go out of business' argument, i think that since they took the time to make resin and hire more workers and take these steps means they are confident that they will remain strong in future years.

Drayzero wrote:There are reasons the price is higher, yes the material is cheaper but it takes about four times as long to make a model compared to either plastic or metal, so one group of workers can not make nearly as many as before.

Says who? where did you come up with the info for that claim?

Drayzero wrote:So they must hire and pay more workers so that they are making enough, and maybe even build or buy more factories this all costs a lot of money.

Have you seen any company at work? Better yet, have you ever seen Reaper Miniatures? Reading your post leads to believe you havn't. Thus makes me curious to how you came to this conclusion.

Drayzero wrote:And detail on resin is much crisper then on plastic and metal

Says who? its been proven over and over again when undercoated, no one can tell the difference.
The only difference is resin doesn't catch light same way metal does.

Drayzero wrote:I think that since they took the time to make resin and hire more workers and take these steps means they are confident that they will remain strong in future years.

GW wishes all their customers are like you.

Are you seriously using the prices of a Chinese counterfeiter to argue that Games Workshop overprices things?

Ah but the Chinese could get away with this and make it cheap, but that's because they have almost no labor laws and pay their workers next to nothing. Can't do this in democratic countries if GW was based in China every model would be like 25 cents but everything would most likely snap upon contact.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Do some research it is very easily obtainable knowledge that resin takes a lot longer to cast then most other materials.

If it takes longer to make a model they need to hire more workers to compensate and keep up the supply that is being demanded by the customers. And you can only fit so many workers into a factory before you need another factory.

Proven by who? I can easily see the difference in detail between a resin figure and a plastic figure resin is 10 times better looking.

I am basing my opinion off factual evidence and economic trends.

Very basic economics at play here your lack of basic knowledge disturbs me.

I think the argument here is between resin and metal, as that is what has been increased in price (the original models weren't in plastic, so the detail difference between resin and plastic is regardless).

Also, where are your sources? Where are you getting this information from?

Drayzero wrote:If it takes longer to make a model they need to hire more workers to compensate and keep up the supply that is being demanded by the customers.

Or they could, you know, just keep casting in metal...

The idiocy of changing to a medium that is going to wind up more expensive to produce due to labour costs in order to counter the rising cost of metal should be self evident, surely?

Proven by who? I can easily see the difference in detail between a resin figure and a plastic figure resin is 10 times better looking.

The difference between plastic and resin isn't the issue. Finecast was a replacement for metal, not plastic. And the pics shown so far comparing Finecast and metal have ultimately failed to show any real difference when the models have paint on them.


The 'very basic economics' here is that GW changed their casting material for something that produces more or less identical results on good casts, and more bad casts... and consequently also raised their prices. Pointing out that the new medium has higher production costs and therefore has to be more expensive isn't going to sell Finecast to those who see no actual benefit to the change in material.

And it's not resin hate. Resin is fine. Most people here have no problem with resin. I personally prefer resin over metal.

Our issue is Finecast - a product that represents quite completely and succinctly all the things that are wrong with modern GW.

insaniak wrote:

Drayzero wrote:If it takes longer to make a model they need to hire more workers to compensate and keep up the supply that is being demanded by the customers.

Or they could, you know, just keep casting in metal...

The idiocy of changing to a medium that is going to wind up more expensive to produce due to labour costs in order to counter the rising cost of metal should be self evident, surely?

Proven by who? I can easily see the difference in detail between a resin figure and a plastic figure resin is 10 times better looking.

The difference between plastic and resin isn't the issue. Finecast was a replacement for metal, not plastic. And the pics shown so far comparing Finecast and metal have ultimately failed to show any real difference when the models have paint on them.


The 'very basic economics' here is that GW changed their casting material for something that produces more or less identical results on good casts, and more bad casts... and consequently also raised their prices. Pointing out that the new medium has higher production costs and therefore has to be more expensive isn't going to sell Finecast to those who see no actual benefit to the change in material.

This needs a ork clap emoticon. I like it!

Metal looks terrible in comparison to plastic and resin, metal looks the worse of all 3 not to mention that larger metal figures will completely shatter upon impact while resin will maybe crack or most likely just bounce. I know i had a metal daemon prince that somebody knocked off a table by accident it was in 100 pieces afterward, if it was made of resin it would at worst crack in a few places, which is a lot easier to repair. Not to mention the weight of a large amount of metal models i would rather lug a case of resin figures around then metal ones. But this was not the purpose of this thread, i was responding to the amount of people complaining about how high the price was when the price is 100% fair and makes sense for the amount of money it takes to make it compared to their other prices. Not if it was a good idea to start using resin in the first place.

Drayzero wrote:I keep seeing people saying that GW is just increasing prices just because they can or that resin is a cheaper product so the prices of the models should be cheaper. There are reasons the price is higher, yes the material is cheaper but it takes about four times as long to make a model compared to either plastic or metal, so one group of workers can not make nearly as many as before. So they must hire and pay more workers so that they are making enough, and maybe even build or buy more factories this all costs a lot of money. And detail on resin is much crisper then on plastic and metal, this also demands a slightly higher price. So i feel the prices are perfectly reasonable for the amount of money it takes to make them. And just my opinion on the 'GW is going to go out of business' argument, i think that since they took the time to make resin and hire more workers and take these steps means they are confident that they will remain strong in future years.

The resin casting we are talking about here isn't like the FW resin casting, the moulds already exist and they're for relatively small pieces. Even if it requires additional labor (which I'm doubting) then that should be more thab offset by the decreased materials and shipping costs (or GW is *pants on head* slowed because otherwise there was no good business reason to make the change).

TL;DR if it's costing GW more, then why on earth did they make the switch in the first place?

Why does everybody doubt that resin takes longer to cast? This is not hidden information and its not disputed amongst professional everybody agrees that it takes longer then plastics and metals.

I didn't say anything about time (which, given most Finecast models, is going to be relatively marginal anyway and easily overcome by the addition of a couple extra machines that'd pay themselves off in a couple months, I know how much they cost), only labor. Either way, unless GW is even worse at business than I think they are, any additional time/labor is going to be more than offset by the decrease in materials/shipping/etc costs assocaited with metals and their greater weight, meaning justification for increasing price based on production costs is silly.

The cheaper price does not completely offset time it takes to make. Resin is generally half to about 3/4 as expensive as other materials, while cast process which has to monitored by paid employees takes about anywhere from 3.5-4 times as long to cast then most other materials. While i am not saying that its resin figures are exactly the price they should be, in comparison to the other products it has a good price. Now why they started using resin instead of metal or plastic is not why i am here that's a different discussion entirely.

The fact still remains that Gw took what was a fairly good product and replaced it with one that was not as good. That it takes longer to produce just shows that they are even more idiotic then everyone originally thought. How many bad casts came from the metal line and how many bad casts come from the new "better" finecast line? Personally I see no reason for the change. The new models are no better then the old models and in many cases are worse. And your wonderful deamon prince is now a multi-part Plastic kit instead of metal not finecast. Unless your referring to the nurgle deamon prince or the greater deamons.

Drayzero wrote:Metal looks terrible in comparison to plastic and resin, metal looks the worse of all 3

What are you basing that on? The unpainted miniatures?

Because we've had a whole slew of comparison pictures of painted models that have shown that there is no discernible difference between the metal and Finecast versions. Hell, GW have been using resin casts for their studio models for the last few years, and nobody ever even noticed.

But this was not the purpose of this thread, i was responding to the amount of people complaining about how high the price was when the price is 100% fair and makes sense for the amount of money it takes to make it compared to their other prices. Not if it was a good idea to start using resin in the first place.

The two go together, though. Again, people aren't going to see the price increase as 'fair' when they see no good reason for the change.

People don't care if the production costs are higher for resin. What they care about is what they are paying, and what they are getting for the money. The production costs are for GW to worry about.

Resin has its advantages, sure. And good quality resin could very well have been well received by the punters. For good enough quality, people might even have not grumbled too much about a small price rise.

What we got instead was 'Finecast'.

Yeah i was just saying i would rather it would have seen resin then metal. And the material is not worse then metal or plastic i find its better. Its more durable and to me anyways the detail looks much nicer on a resin figure then a metal one. I would gladly pay the extra money for a more durable figure that wont shatter the first time to drop it. Its not really that expensive its a hobby, sure finecast is over priced but no worse then anything else GW has. And again i have no idea what you are talking about i can still easily tell the different between a painted metal model and a painted resin model, unless i have super vision(which i doubt) there is a difference. All i am saying the price is nothing to get angry over unless you are incredibly poor the price is not going to break you.

..or require tons of pinning and such to get it assembled. i dont know how many times ive spent the better part of a day trying to get something like a wing onto a greater daemon. finecast makes that process MUCH quicker, and the chance of the model fracturing or breaking apart on a small accidental drop or even in transport is worth it alone.

Drayzero wrote:The cheaper price does not completely offset time it takes to make.

If it isn't then GW had no financial reason to make the change. If they had no financial reason to make the change (allegedly done because of the price of metals, which, if resin production isn't cheaper...) then what reason did they have to make the change? If it isn't more expensive (and thus, creates a reason to make the change) then there shouldn't be any basis for a cost increase.

Resin is generally half to about 3/4 as expensive as other materials, while cast process which has to monitored by paid employees takes about anywhere from 3.5-4 times as long to cast then most other materials.

Having worked for a plastics company, decent machines like GW should be able to afford would not take anywhere near 350-400% as long to cast resin casts, even rather old machines wouldn't take anywhere near that long, unless you're basically doing jank handcasts at home.

Now why they started using resin instead of metal or plastic is not why i am here that's a different discussion entirely.

By all accounts it was because of metal costs.

There really isn't any reason other than costs associate with metal production to go to resin, at least for GW. Yes there are benefits for the hobbyist, but they are also subjective, many prefer metals due to the weight and feel. For GW as a business however, if it's costing them more, there's no reason they would have done it.

By worse I meant the whole thing with so many miscasts. The fact that they even package and try to sell them is beyond me too. Never once did I get a bad metal model. The resin models may be easier to work with to an extent but they always seem to spindly and fragile to me. I like the metal models and I never had a problem with them breaking at all. Once properly pinned they were fine. And to me the resin models really don't look any better, even when you do get a good cast of one.

Well since this argument is basically going in circles, i am just going to throw down my final statement and be done with this. Yes some people would prefer metal over resin but realistically resin is far more functional for many reasons already described by others in this thread. And giving the cost it takes to cast resin i think the price compared to other products is completely reasonable, and i am not basing this information on one wikipedia article or anything. I have asked many different people on this subject many of them do some sort of casting for work, they have all agreed that resin is harder to work with casting wise and it costs more money to manufacture products with it. Why GW chose resin i can only speculate and i would probably get it all wrong so i will not try. I am very happy with the change to finecast i have lost far fewer models to human error(people at my store are real klutzes) it has been saving me a lot of time in repairs. I am also happy with the prices and i am not exactly the richest person either, GW still has the best looking models around and i am happy to pay for the best looking. Until another company starts making models that are in greater quality then GW models i am going to stick with them.

Again, the point is that the only reason to go to resin for GW itself is to save money. If it's saving money, then there's no justification for a cost increase. If it's not saving them money, they wouldn't have gone there in the first place, ergo arguing that the resin production is more expensive and thus requires a price hike to cover increased costs is rather silly, as they wouldn't have moved to the material if it increased their costs.

It's not circular, you're just trying to argue the point based on the benefits to the hobbyist which GW doesn't take into account and the fact that resin product is more intensive than plastic (but in all honesty not really any more than metal for the most part) and not the business aspect, being that GW wouldn't ever have made the switch if it *were* more expensive, which is exactly what GW looks at.

I don't see how resin would be harder too cast than Pewter. With my limited, and I mean limited, experience with hand casting, resin is relatively simple. I rarely had to make repairs on any model, so the change hasn't really given any benefit, apart from the change in weight I suppose. I can understand that it makes larger models easier to work with, but as a primarily Marine player, I don't benefit.

I will add my opinion to this as my dad was a prefessional well known sculpter for many years he now doest it just to make a few hundred quid here and there. The reason resin costs more than metal is because althugh resin is cheaper than plastic and metal it is the moulds that are the problem. With resin the moulds only last about a quater of the time compared to plastic/metal ones.

And for every new mould created from the master they slowly become less and less detailed. But they do not take any longer to make than metal as there is two ways to mould metal and resin and the most common is using centrofrugal force. You pour the resin/metal into the mould and spin it whilst heating it this causes the liquid material to flow into craks and small areas hence the better detail. Resin is just runnier than metel therefore produces more detail.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also they brought out Finecast at the same time as their annual price increase. This caused many people to belive that they were paying more for a cheaper product. It was bad timing get over it i am sick of finecast hate threads. And yes I know this isnt a hate thread but people have immideatly caused this thread to become heated.

This thread entertains and saddens me at the same time.

Well done

My Red Box metal figures look well detailed.
Also the Freebooters Fate models
The Relics Britanans look good too.

Also the FB metal is soft and light compared to the GW metal so is easier to work with.

Won't bother repeating the Mantic Mounted Reaver counter argument again.

Drayzero wrote:Well since this argument is basically going in circles

The only reason it went in circles is due to your unwillingness to accept the facts.

Since you have so much doubts, look in youtube. Some companies such as Reaper Miniatures and Tamiya ( both large enough to be used as an example )
have tours on how they make their products.

In the age of convenient technology, videos and websites are available to everyone, ignorance isn't an excuse in a debate.
That and you are 21 years old.

- Removed by insaniak. This was un-called for. Kep it civil if you wish to continue posting.-

Commisar Wolfie wrote:By worse I meant the whole thing with so many miscasts. The fact that they even package and try to sell them is beyond me too. Never once did I get a bad metal model. The resin models may be easier to work with to an extent but they always seem to spindly and fragile to me. I like the metal models and I never had a problem with them breaking at all. Once properly pinned they were fine. And to me the resin models really don't look any better, even when you do get a good cast of one.

In September, I received a metal Death-Cult Assassin where the mold didn't fill completely - I think. The result was that the model's sword was about 1/3 to 1/2 as long as it should have been, and the tip was well-rounded - it felt very smooth to my finger.

I think it's the first time in 10 years of getting GW models, that I've gotten a malformed piece. That doesn't count missing parts or bent metal swords, staves, poles, etc. etc. of course, as that's not really a malformed piece and the latter is exceedingly common with metal models.

Which reminds me, I still need to send GW an e-mail about getting a replacement for that Death-Cult Assassin... Is a month and a half from delivery, and a month from opening the package - I went on vacation just after receiving it - too late to request a replacement?

Pouncey wrote:In September, I received a metal Death-Cult Assassin where the mold didn't fill completely - I think. The result was that the model's sword was about 1/3 to 1/2 as long as it should have been, and the tip was well-rounded - it felt very smooth to my finger.

I think it's the first time in 10 years of getting GW models, that I've gotten a malformed piece. That doesn't count missing parts or bent metal swords, staves, poles, etc. etc. of course, as that's not really a malformed piece and the latter is exceedingly common with metal models.

Actually, miscast metals like that happened more often than you'd think. But hey, everyone conveniently forgets this stuff when there's a new product to complain about.

-Loki- wrote:

Pouncey wrote:In September, I received a metal Death-Cult Assassin where the mold didn't fill completely - I think. The result was that the model's sword was about 1/3 to 1/2 as long as it should have been, and the tip was well-rounded - it felt very smooth to my finger.

I think it's the first time in 10 years of getting GW models, that I've gotten a malformed piece. That doesn't count missing parts or bent metal swords, staves, poles, etc. etc. of course, as that's not really a malformed piece and the latter is exceedingly common with metal models.

Actually, miscast metals like that happened more often than you'd think. But hey, everyone conveniently forgets this stuff when there's a new product to complain about.

Probably. I haven't noticed any, but I don't always check intently. Hell, I thought the Assassin was fine and had a single dagger, despite my internal, quietly nagging doubts, until I realized there were only two different poses for the Assassins, one with twin daggers and one with a sword. This one's body was in the sword pose, and didn't have two weapons.

Think I should see about getting a replacement, even though it's been a month?