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Hey guys,
I hope this is the right forum section for my question.
Anyway, I picked up a CSM squad box, Raptors and Possessed from GW, all plastic and brand new. After checking out the sprues from the kits I was kind of surprised by the shoddy quality I received. Parts of the leg and weapon decorations were missing, 1-2mm misalignments on several sprues and so on. I don’t mind cleaning up a few mould lines, but missing parts on the miniature...meh.
Of course I returned the boxes and got replacements without a problem but it was pretty much the same story. Better but not ‘perfect’. I’m fully aware that there are no perfect miniatures with plastic injection, but I expected more. I don’t mind fixing minor imperfections, but remodelling parts of a miniature, I’m not good enough for that.
Now to my actual question, am I just unlucky with my sprues or are these things I should expect with GW plastics in general? I only have Perry plastics and the Dreamforge Games Stormtroopers for comparison here and both are miles ahead of what I got from GW. Both have minor mould lines but all the parts are there.
Thanks in advance for all replies!

That's actually very unusual. We hear of problems with finecast all the time (though less so of late, so SOME improvement must have been made) but the plastics are by and large utterly brilliant. There are always going to be the odd faulty jobs but to get a couple in a row...
I don't suppose you have pictures of the offending items?

give GW a ring, for all you know some weird happened in transport or the factory, etc. If you bought straight from them or a regular retailer and it came in a shrink wrapped box, give their customer service a call, they are super helpful and most of the time they send the bits in question that are aggrieved or even a whole new model! Their plastics i have found are usually great with few problems, and their customer service is actually top notch.

Thanks for the replies, good to know about the quality and their customer service, must be my bad luck again then.
I forgot about taking pictures, i was so outraged about the faulty items and put everything in the shipping box again. The missing parts looked liked 'melted' away or maybe the mould wasn't filled out completely with the plastic stuff?
I'm gonna give it another try and hope for the best.
I assume all plastic kits from are from GW are of the same high standard?

I've never had any problem with GW plastic models.......hmmmmmmm......wait a minute........me thinks that a GW hate troll thread has occurred.

Plastic issues happen. They're just much rarer (due to the process being a lot better developed, mostly). Just call GW, they'll sort you out.

GW's plastics are generally pretty good, but flaws do creep in sometimes.

There was a run of Marine sprues that had a similar problem with being misaligned back when I was regularly selling bits. This was around about the time that they switched to the current slightly softer, darker grey plastic.

I also had quite a few missile launchers on the Eldar vehicle weapons sprue when it was released that were bent in the middle... Looked like the mould had been made with one of the vents just a fraction too long, and so the part warped out of shape as it cooled.

Having parts not quite finished (they generally look a little blobby or melted) on the sprue or missing completely where the mould has not quite filled is probably the most common fault. I've lost count of the number of marine backpacks I've seen that had the hole that connects to the marine's back running right through the pack.

Having said that, replacing faulty parts is one of the things that rightly earns GW a reputation for good customer service.

GW don't have a good rep for customer service, they have a good rep for phone support and parts replacement (what else do phone support actually give? Painting advice?)

That said, plastics are pretty damn good normally, its failcast (the name it has earned is a clue) you need to watch for. Also, forgeworld items are a joke, considering the ripoffs who reportedly use the same moulds (theft, alleged, plausible) have a MUCH better quality standard...

Oh my gosh! A mass produced item is defective and the first thing I shall do is post about it!

/sarcasm

Seriously, it was bad luck. Call GW customer service and recieve new models.

Think of it as a way to get free bits with a slight hassle

Replacements are on the way! I also had a look at a few sprues at a local shop and they were perfect, i guess i was simply unlucky.

It's quite possible that your first replacement came from the same production batch as your first set, and so suffered from whatever caused the issue with the first one.

Nobody_Holme wrote:
GW don't have a good rep for customer service, they have a good rep for phone support and parts replacement (what else do phone support actually give? Painting advice?)

That said, plastics are pretty damn good normally, its failcast (the name it has earned is a clue) you need to watch for. Also, forgeworld items are a joke, considering the ripoffs who reportedly use the same moulds (theft, alleged, plausible) have a MUCH better quality standard...

Really?

GW one awesome thing is their customer service and replacement policy.

And aside from Finecast, all GW products, FW included, are of excellent quality.


I think you are confusing customer service with hobby support.

 Super Ready wrote:
That's actually very unusual. We hear of problems with finecast all the time (though less so of late, so SOME improvement must have been made) but the plastics are by and large utterly brilliant. There are always going to be the odd faulty jobs but to get a couple in a row...
I don't suppose you have pictures of the offending items?

this. I have seen that with forgeworld, finecast and spincast, but the plastic is injection molded under high temp and very high pressure. If the molds are even slightly misaligned it should cause major gaps in detail and possibly damage to the molds themselves.

tgf wrote:

 Super Ready wrote:
That's actually very unusual. We hear of problems with finecast all the time (though less so of late, so SOME improvement must have been made) but the plastics are by and large utterly brilliant. There are always going to be the odd faulty jobs but to get a couple in a row...
I don't suppose you have pictures of the offending items?

this. I have seen that with forgeworld, finecast and spincast, but the plastic is injection molded under high temp and very high pressure. If the molds are even slightly misaligned it should cause major gaps in detail and possibly damage to the molds themselves.

As i said, i must have gotten a bad batch. The other sprues i saw today were perfect. GW customer support pretty much told me the same what you just wrote about the misalignment of the molds. I even picked up a SM Command Squad today..

That strange. You must have gotten a rare bad batch.

 Villie wrote:
Replacements are on the way! I also had a look at a few sprues at a local shop and they were perfect, i guess i was simply unlucky.

They are usually very good about it. I'm very happy when I get bad models because usually it's something minor (i.e., still usable) and GW sends me a whole new kit rather than replacing a bit.

It's a pretty good deal.

You were VERY unlucky! I've been playing 40k for over 6 years and only once gotten a plastic kit that was anything less than immaculate. GW's customer service is very good, as I think you know now, so enjoy your new, non-shoddy plastics!

Two kits in a row? I am guessing they are from same (rare) bad batch, or you are super duper unlucky!

 Grey Templar wrote:

Nobody_Holme wrote:
GW don't have a good rep for customer service, they have a good rep for phone support and parts replacement (what else do phone support actually give? Painting advice?)

That said, plastics are pretty damn good normally, its failcast (the name it has earned is a clue) you need to watch for. Also, forgeworld items are a joke, considering the ripoffs who reportedly use the same moulds (theft, alleged, plausible) have a MUCH better quality standard...

Really?

GW one awesome thing is their customer service and replacement policy.

And aside from Finecast, all GW products, FW included, are of excellent quality.


I think you are confusing customer service with hobby support.

I even go so far and call "Finecast" pretty damn good now. I waited2-3 months before I ordered the first FC stuff and every single miniature/monster was pretty damn good. So far I assembled ~27 FC miniatures and besides the usual stuff that comes with resin/Finecast I had no problem at all. For the price it´s more than ok. FC just got a bad reputation - imho - because GW rushed it a bit and most people don´t know what to expect. Coming from the modelling part I know what it means to pay 70-90bucks on a resin model and receiving "a lot of work".
Forgeworld on the other hand has the best minis I ever got my hands on and I would say I pretty much went through every known company that is producing resin stuff.

The quality of the miniatures in finecast is now acceptable.

My issue with Finecast is that the material itself is horrible for miniatures with this detail. It warps in even normal warm temperatures, and lets not even discuss the temps a vehicle can get to.

The only way it can't warp is if the miniature lives its life in a display cabinet and never leaves the house. Assuming it arrived to my painting station with no warping.