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Pacific wrote:

Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Plus just a year or two back they hit it out of the park with the release of the Valkyrie. That's a flier that manages to be clearly 'imperial' in its boxy shape but also look sleek and agressive and downright plausible as an aircraft.
.

Absolutely, the Valkyrie is a beautiful kit, and with the FW options has a great deal of scope for customisation. My first thought of the Storm Raven was that it reminded me of a Fisher Price toy. I can only think that the designers had their hands tied in terms of number of sprues or production method.

I don't think GW proper can take credit for the overall aesthetic of the Valkyrie as it is pretty much a direct plastic translation of the resin Forge World version. They may get a few props for nicely translating the model to plastic but certainly not for the overall design. They get the "credit" (or, more accurately for alot of gamers, the blame) for the Storm Raven design though.

If your friend bought a book from Amazon and it came missing a bunch of pages and had a damaged cover, would you tell them to buy the Amazon Book Repair Kit consisting of glue, paper, and a pen to write by hand the missing words? Would you tell them to stop buying online and instead just buy at Barnes and Noble so they can look over every page to make sure none of the plot is missing? Somehow those "solutions" are given for Finecast's woes yet would be utterly ridiculous to 99.99% of consumers in other industries. Finecast is still a failure as long as you have to worry every time you buy a blister. I've bought over 300 metal models and never had to check for problems; until I get that level of consumer confidence in GW resin, it's an inferior product.

Aerethan wrote:That cost is due to having to make more molds and those molds only making 1 mini sprue at a time each. Metal molds could crank out 8-10 models at a time with relatively fast demolding times. Resin is a very different deal. That being said, it is overall a less expensive medium, and no one asked for metal to be phased out. I'm in no way defending GW with their price increases, but that is likely their "justification" about it.

You are correct that models that required no work to change to resin shouldn't have had price increases.

All fine and dandy if other companies, that shall remain unnamed, that also made the transition from metal to "resin" hadn't managed to do it and still lower their prices...

warboss wrote:
If your friend bought a book from Amazon and it came missing a bunch of pages and had a damaged cover, would you tell them to buy the Amazon Book Repair Kit consisting of glue, paper, and a pen to write by hand the missing words? Would you tell them to stop buying online and instead just buy at Barnes and Noble so they can look over every page to make sure none of the plot is missing? Somehow those "solutions" are given for Finecast's woes yet would be utterly ridiculous to 99.99% of consumers in other industries. Finecast is still a failure as long as you have to worry every time you buy a blister. I've bought over 300 metal models and never had to check for problems; until I get that level of consumer confidence in GW resin, it's an inferior product.

Games Workshop sells a "Finecast Repair Kit"?

This is news to me, and clearly them as nothing like that exists on their webshop.

Ohhhhhhhhhhh. You're trying to be clever and referring to the Clean-Up Kit and Liquid Green Stuff as a "Finecast Repair Kit". In that case, I'd like to point out that the LGS and mold scraper actually works better for plastic models than it does resin.

I should also add that metals had problems, same as resin. People just seemingly never noticed them, aside from the flash.

Kanluwen wrote:

warboss wrote:
If your friend bought a book from Amazon and it came missing a bunch of pages and had a damaged cover, would you tell them to buy the Amazon Book Repair Kit consisting of glue, paper, and a pen to write by hand the missing words? Would you tell them to stop buying online and instead just buy at Barnes and Noble so they can look over every page to make sure none of the plot is missing? Somehow those "solutions" are given for Finecast's woes yet would be utterly ridiculous to 99.99% of consumers in other industries. Finecast is still a failure as long as you have to worry every time you buy a blister. I've bought over 300 metal models and never had to check for problems; until I get that level of consumer confidence in GW resin, it's an inferior product.

Games Workshop sells a "Finecast Repair Kit"?

This is news to me, and clearly them as nothing like that exists on their webshop.

Ohhhhhhhhhhh. You're trying to be clever and referring to the Clean-Up Kit and Liquid Green Stuff as a "Finecast Repair Kit". In that case, I'd like to point out that the LGS and mold scraper actually works better for plastic models than it does resin.

I should also add that metals had problems, same as resin. People just seemingly never noticed them, aside from the flash.

Except that it was advertised as such in White Dwarf 382.

Also it is spelled "Failcost", you're getting it wrong.

PhantomViper wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

warboss wrote:
If your friend bought a book from Amazon and it came missing a bunch of pages and had a damaged cover, would you tell them to buy the Amazon Book Repair Kit consisting of glue, paper, and a pen to write by hand the missing words? Would you tell them to stop buying online and instead just buy at Barnes and Noble so they can look over every page to make sure none of the plot is missing? Somehow those "solutions" are given for Finecast's woes yet would be utterly ridiculous to 99.99% of consumers in other industries. Finecast is still a failure as long as you have to worry every time you buy a blister. I've bought over 300 metal models and never had to check for problems; until I get that level of consumer confidence in GW resin, it's an inferior product.

Games Workshop sells a "Finecast Repair Kit"?

This is news to me, and clearly them as nothing like that exists on their webshop.

Ohhhhhhhhhhh. You're trying to be clever and referring to the Clean-Up Kit and Liquid Green Stuff as a "Finecast Repair Kit". In that case, I'd like to point out that the LGS and mold scraper actually works better for plastic models than it does resin.

I should also add that metals had problems, same as resin. People just seemingly never noticed them, aside from the flash.

Except that it was advertised as such in White Dwarf 382.

First off, it was in 381. The Dreadfleet issue.

Secondly they used clippers and superglue in that same piece. Does that mean those are "Finecast Repair tools"?

Also it is spelled "Failcost", you're getting it wrong.

I have no interest in perpetuating a meme which I consider downright childish. It's "Finecast" when I type it.

Kanluwen wrote:
This is news to me, and clearly them as nothing like that exists on their webshop.

Ohhhhhhhhhhh. You're trying to be clever and referring to the Clean-Up Kit and Liquid Green Stuff as a "Finecast Repair Kit". In that case, I'd like to point out that the LGS and mold scraper actually works better for plastic models than it does resin.

I should also add that metals had problems, same as resin. People just seemingly never noticed them, aside from the flash.

GW suggesting that customers repair their miscast resin models with an additional purchase of Liquid Green Stuff is insulting. Models such as the ones in the multitude of finecast threads over the past 6 months should never have made it out of the factory. Kan, did you ever have to frequently post in weekly "GW metal suxx!!" threads prior to May? I don't recall seeing seeing more than a small handful of miscast metal threads on dakka over the years but I'd appreciate it if you could link to some of them because I bet I can find more finecast problem posts in the last 6 months than you can for metal figs in the past 6 years. In my personal experience of over 300 metal models, I haven't had a single miscast of the severity described in the many finecast threads (I've had some noticeable mold lines but I don't consider that to be a worthy problem for either casting material). I've examined around a dozen blisters in my FLGS where I could only see ONE side of ONE sprue (so there are bound to be more issues as I only examined 25% of those blisters) and found two of them to have easily noticeable and unacceptable flaws (extra blob of resin obscuring detail on a close combat weapon and a bubble obliterating most of the nose and eye). I've complained about plenty of things regarding GW but the quality of their metal casts was never one of them. People here aren't complaining of minor mold lines or acceptable thin flash or vents that go to flat areas devoid of detail.. the types of problems expected and normal to casting and what the Clean Up Kit is for.

Please don't obscure the legimate and verifiable significant issues with Finecast by trivializing them to the same category as mold lines.

warboss wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:
This is news to me, and clearly them as nothing like that exists on their webshop.

Ohhhhhhhhhhh. You're trying to be clever and referring to the Clean-Up Kit and Liquid Green Stuff as a "Finecast Repair Kit". In that case, I'd like to point out that the LGS and mold scraper actually works better for plastic models than it does resin.

I should also add that metals had problems, same as resin. People just seemingly never noticed them, aside from the flash.

GW suggesting that customers repair their miscast resin models with an additional purchase of Liquid Green Stuff is insulting. Models such as the ones in the multitude of finecast threads over the past 6 months should never have made it out of the factory.

I'm sorry where have they suggested that? They haven't. People insinuated that they have, one of the insinuations simply being the existence of Liquid Green Stuff.

I should also point out that in some instances, we've seen some Finecast models claiming to be cases of "they never should have made it out of the factory" when there was hardly any real issues, nothing that couldn't have been solved by someone spending more than five minutes on the models. Of course, we've also seen some which are completely and utterly unacceptable...but Games Workshop will replace those provided the owner contacts them.

The fact that the replacement is just as bad in some of these instances is also an issue, but a separate one. It means GW needs to get their act together with how they handle miscasts.

Kan, did you ever have to frequently post in weekly "GW metal suxx!!" threads prior to May? I don't recall seeing seeing more than a small handful of miscast metal threads on dakka over the years but I'd appreciate it if you could link to some of them because I bet I can find more finecast problem threads started in the last 6 months than you can for metal in the past 6 years. In my personal experience of over 300 metal models, I haven't had a single miscast of the severity described in the many finecast threads (I've had some noticeable mold lines but I don't consider that to be a worthy problem for either casting material).

Well since you're bringing this up:
Of course there were not many "miscast metal threads". People either returned/exchanged the product which was to this level of problems and got replacements. It was no issue there. For some reason, people seem to believe that just because the medium has changed that GW will not do replacements any more.

I've examined around a dozen blisters in my FLGS where I could only see ONE side of ONE sprue (so there are bound to more issues) and found two of them to have easily noticeable and unacceptable flaws (extra blob of resin obscuring detail on a close combat weapon and a bubble obliterating most of the nose and eye). I've complained about plenty of things regarding GW but the quality of their metal casts was never one of them. People here aren't complaining of minor mold lines or acceptable thin flash or vents that go to flat areas devoid of detail.. the types of problems expected and normal to casting and what the Clean Up Kit is for.

First off, in several cases an "extra blob of resin obscuring detail on a close combat weapon" can be removed without damaging the weapon or detail--provided you're careful with how you do it. Using a pair of clippers will damage it, but aligning it right and using a knife will work just fine.
The bubble obliterating most of the nose or eye is unacceptable.

A lot of their metal casts were absolutely horrendous. Kasrkin were a big offender in my experience, with misalignments all over the molds.

I should also make a note that these are the "first" runs of Kasrkin. I've had them since the army book dropped.

Please don't obscure the legimate and verifiable significant issues with Finecast by trivializing them to the same category as mold lines.

Then please don't obscure the legitimate and verifiable issue of Games Workshop's exchange policy has not changed.

Kanluwen wrote:
Then please don't obscure the legitimate and verifiable issue of Games Workshop's exchange policy has not changed.

No one is saying that it has, that has never been the issue.

The simple fact that most people are recomending that you don't buy failcost models online because you can't verify that the model is acceptable should be proof enough that the amount of casting problems that failcost has (even now), is much higher than those that the metal models ever had. Can you acknowledge that at least?

Sure.

But it still doesn't take into account the amount of metal models discarded or exchanged for the same defects.

Kanlewun wrote:
I'm sorry where have they suggested that? They haven't. People insinuated that they have, one of the insinuations simply being the existence of Liquid Green Stuff.

I should also point out that in some instances, we've seen some Finecast models claiming to be cases of "they never should have made it out of the factory" when there was hardly any real issues, nothing that couldn't have been solved by someone spending more than five minutes on the models. Of course, we've also seen some which are completely and utterly unacceptable...but Games Workshop will replace those provided the owner contacts them.

The fact that the replacement is just as bad in some of these instances is also an issue, but a separate one. It means GW needs to get their act together with how they handle miscasts.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/414690.page

Check out the thread and the linked blog. That's only the most recent and easily quotable source of "maybe you can just fix it with liquid green stuff?" I can think of in under 30 seconds but I've seen the apparent company line of "push liquid green stuff as a fix for finecast" several times in other threads also. Check out the thread and tell me if you think all those errors pictured should have made it out of the factory... on a new sculpt released with the latest codex... so it's not a case of "they're new with this stuff and will fix the process" like the excuse given by fanboys back in June. While I agree that some of the complaints have been a bit much (like the infamous Wayland blister "pubic hair"), there are plenty of legimate and verifiable "WTF??!?!?!" sprue pics out there.

First off, in several cases an "extra blob of resin obscuring detail on a close combat weapon" can be removed without damaging the weapon or detail--provided you're careful with how you do it. Using a pair of clippers will damage it, but aligning it right and using a knife will work just fine.
The bubble obliterating most of the nose or eye is unacceptable.

How exactly do you remove a BB sized resin snot ball off of Abaddon's sword that is covering some of the runes? Does finecast preparation in your mind include clipping off extra resin growths resembling tumors and then resculpting the detail lost underneath?



I like my liquid green stuff and bought some the week it came out but that's a tall order to fix with it. If it had been a blob of resin on a flat, featureless surface like a generic power sword, I wouldn't have classified it as an unacceptable mistake.

Then please don't obscure the legitimate and verifiable issue of Games Workshop's exchange policy has not changed.

Show me where I have stated that it changed; you're deflecting the discussion to something it isn't because it's easier to defend. The point isn't whether GW will exchange the minis but rather that you shouldn't have to go through the trouble of calling them to complain, possibly sending proof (as the gent in the thread had to do once), and then waiting to get a *hopefully* error free mini in the mail days later. (Of course, getting a replacement doesn't guarantee a miscast-free mini either.)

@Kan: I think you are distorting the issue. Metal returns have mostly been mispacks rather than miscasts. i.e. a model packed with two left legs, or missing a foot etc.

I've been a GW customer since 94. In those few years that I've worked with GW metals, the issues are largely: Flash and Mould Slip / Misalignment. While flash is merely an annoyance, mould slips can be fairly serious, I have not had any model with sufficient mould slip to necessitate a return. Missing and or mispacked parts? A handfull of returns during my time in the hobby. The major detail obliterating miscasts that we see with Finecast - I have only seen twice in my 17 years in the GW hobby - both of which were a result of metal not filling the mould - and the resulting model was missing part of an extremity.

My beef with Finecast is that while the detail level is very high as advertised, the finecast process tends to randomly miscast this detail - and due to its fine nature, is usually beyond the ability of novice-intermediate modellers to repair. On top of that, the soft material also makes this detail easy to obliterate, where as the detail is fairly sturdy on a metal model.

warboss wrote:
Check out the thread and the linked blog. That's only the most recent and easily quotable source of "maybe you can just fix it with liquid green stuff?" I can think of in under 30 seconds but I've seen the apparent company line of "push liquid green stuff as a fix for finecast" several times in other threads also.

So it's not a case of the company has actually come out and said it--it's that people have called the CSRs and been asked if they can fix it.
I don't see a problem with that. People were whining about air bubbles on flat spaces of cloaks--that's stupidly easy to fix with multiple ways to do it, even if one doesn't want to use Liquid Green Stuff. To call GW about that is simply ridiculous.

Check out the thread and tell me if you think all those errors pictured should have made it out of the factory... on a new sculpt released with the latest codex... so it's not a case of "they're new with this stuff and will fix the process" like the excuse given by fanboys back in June.

To be entirely fair:
In some cases, I'm really having to search for an error on the resin even with it circled in red. I don't generally like to look at things without running a black wash over them first so that I can see detail better and it lets you spot problems a bit easier as well, especially on resin.

While I agree that some of the complaints have been a bit much (like the infamous Wayland blister "pubic hair"), there are plenty of legimate and verifiable "WTF??!?!?!" sprue pics out there.

Agreed. Some of the casts are definitely unacceptable, but there's also plenty where people are just bitching about small problems that if they were on metal they would have said nothing about for the sake of bitching about GW. Warped swords come to mind right off the bat.

First off, in several cases an "extra blob of resin obscuring detail on a close combat weapon" can be removed without damaging the weapon or detail--provided you're careful with how you do it. Using a pair of clippers will damage it, but aligning it right and using a knife will work just fine.
The bubble obliterating most of the nose or eye is unacceptable.

How exactly do you remove a BB sized resin snot ball off of Abaddon's sword that is covering some of the runes? Does finecast preparation in your mind include clipping off extra resin growths resembling tumors and then resculpting the detail lost underneath?



I like my liquid green stuff and bought some the week it came out but that's a tall order to fix with it. If it had been a blob of resin on a flat, featureless surface like a generic power sword, I wouldn't have classified it as an unacceptable mistake.

You read my post right?
"In several cases" does not mean "in every single circumstance". If that was on a plain, unadorned blade--it wouldn't be a big deal now would it? Simple as slice it off and call it a day.

Then please don't obscure the legitimate and verifiable issue of Games Workshop's exchange policy has not changed.

Show me where I have stated that it changed; you're deflecting the discussion to something it isn't because it's easier to defend.

Actually no. I'm not deflecting at all. I'm simply reminding people that their exchange policy has not changed and that if you want to complain about things here, then why aren't you complaining about it to them too?

The point isn't whether GW will exchange the minis but rather that you shouldn't have to go through the trouble of calling them to complain, possibly sending proof (as the gent in the thread had to do once), and then waiting to get a *hopefully* error free mini in the mail days later. (Of course, getting a replacement doesn't guarantee a miscast-free mini either.)

And what was that proof the "gent in the thread had to do once"?
Send a picture. I know there are also some people who have had to take their models back to a shop to have them mailed back or other situations of that nature--but that's a big so what in my book.

Oh dear lords, how dare they! It's not like people are talking on forums about sending in reports about models with practically no errors so they can get double, no sirree.

Adam LongWalker wrote:Thank you Flash man. My take on this

The key element of this year is lots and lots of product with price increases to be sold to the shrinking customer base. Some of it was good such as the Tomb Kings and Tomb Kings in Spheees product line, but that was essentially it.

It's actually a terrible shame that the rather likable Tomb Kings release was barely noticed. GW made negligible fanfare towards the release and they 'kept it safe' so far in the advertising department that by the time the new Tomb Kings products were released, barely anyone noticed.

There were no LGS posters. There was a week of stuff on GW's site. There was no indication before the release. There was nothing. Nobody was excited about this release.

keezus wrote:@Kan: I think you are distorting the issue.

Not intentionally, I assure you. If I am, then I'll apologize to you for it--but I'm making a point that I feel needs to be made. Metal and resin are two very different mediums and what's more, it's generally easier to spot flaws on resin. There's also a few minor flaws that one might find on resin that one would not find on metal.

Metal returns have mostly been mispacks rather than miscasts. i.e. a model packed with two left legs, or missing a foot etc.

I've been a GW customer since 94. In those few years that I've worked with GW metals, the issues are largely: Flash and Mould Slip / Misalignment. While flash is merely an annoyance, mould slips can be fairly serious, I have not had any model with sufficient mould slip to necessitate a return. Missing and or mispacked parts? A handfull of returns during my time in the hobby. The major detail obliterating miscasts that we see with Finecast - I have only seen twice in my 17 years in the GW hobby - both of which were a result of metal not filling the mould - and the resulting model was missing part of an extremity.

You had far better luck with metal than I did, in terms of detail obliteration. I've had to scrape some hefty amount of extra flash attached to mouldlines off of several Kasrkin kneepads and visors lately.

My beef with Finecast is that while the detail level is very high as advertised, the finecast process tends to randomly miscast this detail - and due to its fine nature, is usually beyond the ability of novice-intermediate modellers to repair. On top of that, the soft material also makes this detail easy to obliterate, where as the detail is fairly sturdy on a metal model.

Would you agree, however, that air bubbles/pockets do not necessarily comprise something "beyond the ability of novice-intermediate modelers"?
When they completely and utterly destroy detail--there's a problem. But a small pit in the surface of a cloak or robe is not necessarily grounds for a replacement, IMO.

No matter the advertising.

Kanluwen wrote:
1) You read my post right?
"In several cases" does not mean "in every single circumstance". If that was on a plain, unadorned blade--it wouldn't be a big deal now would it? Simple as slice it off and call it a day.

2) And what was that proof the "gent in the thread had to do once"?
Send a picture. I know there are also some people who have had to take their models back to a shop to have them mailed back or other situations of that nature--but that's a big so what in my book.

Post above edited for ease of quoting...

1) I said there was an unacceptable blob of resin on a weapon and you just assumed I was whining about it being on a flat surface and that I was being unreasonable. It wasn't and I wasn't. So... in the specific example of what I saw (a blob of resin on abby's sword), do you find that an acceptable error for the finecast range?

2) LOL, only you could read a thread about a guy getting 8 replacement minis of the same miscast special character and finding problems of varying severity with all of them and get an overall take home message of "he's whining about sending a picture! hrumpf!".

@Kan: Just because customers can easily exchange defective product for new product shouldn't excuse a company from having poor QC.

Microsoft received enormous flak over their red ring issue on the FIRST THREE GENERATIONS of XBOX360, and rightfully so. The fact that they responded by extending warranty for red ring errors and each generation had successively less chance of this infamous problem (Xenon: Red ring practically guaranteed, Zephyr: Chance of red ring very high, Falcon: Problem now intermittent) doesn't somehow absolve them from not implementing enough QC from the get go.

Absolutionis wrote:It's actually a terrible shame that the rather likable Tomb Kings release was barely noticed. GW made negligible fanfare towards the release and they 'kept it safe' so far in the advertising department that by the time the new Tomb Kings products were released, barely anyone noticed.

I dunno, I think they got about the same coverage in WD as Ogre Kingdoms and Orcs & Arachnaroks.. I agree TK was a pretty good army release, but I was disappointed they didn't scale the skeletons to match the VC ones, simply because they couldn't be bothered to release a new TK themed Skeleton Warrior set. Now that Tomb Guard are set at the old scale with amazing models that will age very well, it looks like VC and TK will have different sized skeletons for quite some time. This kind of thing is irritating and actually put me off collecting TK in the end.

Shame because everything else really appealed to me.

@Kan: I agree 100% that small bubbles are not an issue. There is a growing trend however, to clutter models with as much fine detail as possible. As bubble placement is pretty much random due to the process, any area that's not flat armor or cloak is usually going to cause moderate to unfixable damage. Blobs of resin resulting from damaged moulds compounds the problem as it usually affects surrounding areas, especially as its areas in crevaces that tend to tear most on the moulds. Just looking in the Necron Overlord thread, while a lot of the damage is fixable, the persistent miscasts around the chest and knee areas are very bad and symptomatic of a problem in their process.

In my experience, with flash on metals, while it is detail obscuring, you can always scrape around them carefully. Unless its on an extremity, extraneous resin would seem to be a more serious problem. I actually find partial mould slippage on metals the most frustrating as it usually requires sanding and then a thin layer of GS to totally fix. I've had serious problems with some of PP's metals as they are VERY brittle. For the longest time I just let the detail break and then I fixed it by pinning. However, my new solution is to let the stress cracks form and then superglue the cracked areas ensuring that the cracks are totally filled. This seems to fix it quite nicely without pinning.

-edit- On topic: While GW has put out a lot of cool stuff this year, the high prices coupled with my distaste for the current core rulesets has stopped me from investing heavily in new armies, with all the kits that might have interested me as one-off projects being priced at $60cdn+ At that price, I just can't justify the impulse buy. If they would reduce the SKULLIFICATION of all their fantasy terrain, I would have bought a few more pieces.

keezus wrote:@Kan: Just because customers can easily exchange defective product for new product shouldn't excuse a company from having poor QC.

Microsoft received enormous flak over their red ring issue on the FIRST THREE GENERATIONS of XBOX360, and rightfully so. The fact that they responded by extending warranty for red ring errors and each generation had successively less chance of this infamous problem (Xenon: Red ring practically guaranteed, Zephyr: Chance of red ring very high, Falcon: Problem now intermittent) doesn't somehow absolve them from not implementing enough QC from the get go.

If we're going to get into this, they also identified the problems and advised people how to handle them. In many cases, the overheating problem was caused by people leaving inadequate space for the 360's vents to blow out. That caused the hot air to be pushed back in and melt a key component.
Was it poor design? Oh yeah. It's not necessarily QC though. It was bad R&D.

On that note though: I had one of the first generation 360s and it finally died right when Modern Warfare 2 was releasing. They exchanged my 360 for the "MW2 Console", which has to be at least 3 years old now. It's going quite strong still.

Warboss wrote:Post above edited for ease of quoting...

1) I said there was an unacceptable blob of resin on a weapon and you just assumed I was whining about it being on a flat surface and that I was being unreasonable. It wasn't and I wasn't. So... in the specific example of what I saw (a blob of resin on abby's sword), do you find that an acceptable error for the finecast range?

No, I assumed that you didn't read my post. You see how I said "some cases"? That's not a code or foreign language. It's English for "does not mean all cases". In the case of Abbadon, a blob of resin on the sword obscuring the rune(assuming it can't be sliced off without damaging the rune) is unacceptable.

If it's just a loose bit of resin that when it comes off leaves the rune intact, it's acceptable. I've had a few cases of FW stuff like this, where I've had a loose chunk of resin on a fine detail piece and when looking at it from an angle realized it was only attached to a central location within the detail itself meaning it would come off without damaging the model. Lietpoldt the Black immediately springs to mind. One of the skeletal fish on his steed's barding had a piece of resin attached to it, but slicing it off left no mark.
Then again I might be magical since it seems I'm the only person who can think of doing this without calling for a replacement...

2) LOL, only you could read a thread about a guy getting 8 replacement minis of the same miscast special character and finding problems of varying severity with all of them and get an overall take home message of "he's whining about sending a picture! hrumpf!".

"Problems of varying severity" is about as meaningful as "some cases". We also only saw the most recent models, and I can't be arsed to dig through someone's blog to find earlier references to the problem.

Flashman wrote:

Absolutionis wrote:It's actually a terrible shame that the rather likable Tomb Kings release was barely noticed. GW made negligible fanfare towards the release and they 'kept it safe' so far in the advertising department that by the time the new Tomb Kings products were released, barely anyone noticed.

I dunno, I think they got about the same coverage in WD as Ogre Kingdoms and Orcs & Arachnaroks.. I agree TK was a pretty good army release, but I was disappointed they didn't scale the skeletons to match the VC ones, simply because they couldn't be bothered to release a new TK themed Skeleton Warrior set. Now that Tomb Guard are set at the old scale with amazing models that will age very well, it looks like VC and TK will have different sized skeletons for quite some time. This kind of thing is irritating and actually put me off collecting TK in the end.

Perhaps so, but I'm not even being a hater when I say that White Dwarf is not worth it. Nobody in my area has the subscription to the magazine. GW should realize that White Dwarf is a valid method of advertisement, but it costs money and should not be their primary method of advertisement.

Kanluwen wrote:If we're going to get into this, they also identified the problems and advised people how to handle them. In many cases, the overheating problem was caused by people leaving inadequate space for the 360's vents to blow out. That caused the hot air to be pushed back in and melt a key component.
Was it poor design? Oh yeah. It's not necessarily QC though. It was bad R&D.

Where I work, R&D is subject to QA/QC as well. I'm sure if Microsoft's QA/QC departement had their way, they would never have alowed the suits to rush the product to market. However the bean counters figured that the cost of repairs was a reasonable cost to achieve greater market share. Judging by the ongoing (intermittent) issues with finecast, I think that their fabrication process has a way to go before it reaches the same level of reliability that their traditional metal, resin and plastic counterparts share. I remeber a period when there was a lot of variability with GW's plastic mix, and you'd get some kits with really light coloured sprues, and some with darker grey sprues. Usually, the light coloured almost white sprues would have really soft and sometimes indistinct details. However, they seem to have ironed this out and now all their sprues are the darker grey. I'm sure that the finecast issues should also eventually get ironed out.

I agree that you can't idiot proof everything. The scratch disc issue that the 360 has is usually caused by idiots moving the damn thing while it is running. While it is an issue, it's more of a user caused one akin to accidentlly destroying detail on a model while scraping off flash.

Kanluwen wrote:
On that note though: I had one of the first generation 360s and it finally died right when Modern Warfare 2 was releasing. They exchanged my 360 for the "MW2 Console", which has to be at least 3 years old now. It's going quite strong still.

I'm actually on my 7th xbox 360 in 5 years. The first didn't power up OUT OF THE BOX on the day after Christmas (the most disappointing Xmas present I ever got myself!). The next 3 were replaced in store with Best Buy's extra $$ warranty program (the only time I've ever bought it), the 5th through Microsofts 3 year warranty extension, and the final one 2 months ago out of the warranty for which I paid $100. If it breaks again, I won't be paying again for a replacement and will just wait it out for the next generation of consoles (or maybe get one of those onlive thingies for free with a game).

Did anyone buy the FC Daemon Banners? No? Thought not.

Huge fail in my opinion, as was the FC Herald on Disc. £12 for a pack of 3 banners and £22.50 for a greenstuffed Pog with a horror on it. Awesome.

GW this year for me:
Single frame plastic fantasy models, Ogre release, Sneaky Stabbas.

Fluff for the new 40K codices, hardback fantasy books, Fantasy Release Schedule

Secrecy campaign, Storm of Magic (rules and monsters).

Southern Hemisphere Embargo, Finecast, WD

Kanluwen wrote:Sure.

But it still doesn't take into account the amount of metal models discarded or exchanged for the same defects.

It's true that GW metal models were certainly lower quality than most other companies', in terms of QA (due to hurried casting), however they were still (A) very good and (B) better than Finecast.

That's only my personal experience of course. I've never bought any Finecast models, only gone to look at them in the shop. However, it does not surprise me to find people complaining about the poor quality of Finecast.

Kilkrazy wrote:It's true that GW metal models were certainly lower quality than most other companies', in terms of QA (due to hurried casting), however they were still (A) very good and (B) better than Finecast.

That's only my personal experience of course. I've never bought any Finecast models, only gone to look at them in the shop. However, it does not surprise me to find people complaining about the poor quality of Finecast.

Mo offense intended here, but if you haven't ever worked with a finecast model, how can you say in your experience they are worse than metals? You have no experience with them.

Personally, I've bought 5. The only one that had problems was a Venomthrope. It had a large gap left in the carapace after I stuck the chimneys on and has some bad casting on the tentacles under the head. By rights I should have returned it. I didn't because I wanted to practice reparing resin models (I'm starting to order more Forgeworld stuff, so practicing on a cheaper Venomthrope seemed a good idea). My pairs of Zoanthropes and Hive Guard are fine, and vastly easier to work with than than metal models even just from a construction point of view. A little super glue and they're done, and they aren't breaking any time soon.

My only real problem was the Zoanthropes bending where the tail meets the capillary tower. I ended up cutting them off it and pinning them to resin bases. Even after that, I can't imagine ever wanting them as metal.

I have the experience of going to the GW shop and playing around with the models with the shop manager as he built some of them.

I also looked at a bunch of models in the window and in their bubble packets.

That was enough to convince me I did not need to pay the extra for lots of moulding defects.

The point isn't that Finecast is as bad as metal but cheaper. The point is that it is worse and more expensive.

warboss wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:
On that note though: I had one of the first generation 360s and it finally died right when Modern Warfare 2 was releasing. They exchanged my 360 for the "MW2 Console", which has to be at least 3 years old now. It's going quite strong still.

I'm actually on my 7th xbox 360 in 5 years. The first didn't power up OUT OF THE BOX on the day after Christmas (the most disappointing Xmas present I ever got myself!). The next 3 were replaced in store with Best Buy's extra $$ warranty program (the only time I've ever bought it), the 5th through Microsofts 3 year warranty extension, and the final one 2 months ago out of the warranty for which I paid $100. If it breaks again, I won't be paying again for a replacement and will just wait it out for the next generation of consoles (or maybe get one of those onlive thingies for free with a game).

Well fair play for your tenacity, I replaced mine with a PS3 after the first failure (I presume an acid-filled vial opening, on a timer, inside the machine after it was a short distance out of warranty).

I also admire Kanluwen's tenacity for taking his usual position of managing to call a spade everything else except actually a spade

Put simply, in the 20 years + I have been collecting miniatures, and this goes over hundreds of cases, I have not once had to return a miniature to the store because it contained a defect.
This is simply not the case with GW's resin, even though QC has apparently improved somewhat.

Kilkrazy wrote:The point is that it is worse and more expensive.

To you.

I've found it better. For chunky, heavy metal models like Hive Guard, I don't need to pin and/or use green stuff on the joints to prevent it falling apart. For top heavy models like I don't need to go find something heavy to weigh the base with. Converting? Please. I'm aching for the Lahmian vampires to be redone in finecast so I can very easily carve the backs of the headdress off so I can sculpt hair onto them.

I'll put up with opening a model at the store to look for a defect or two so I can return it on the spot and occasional weird but solvable problems like my Zoanthropes any day to not have to work with metal ever again. Not to mention not having a figure case that weighs a solid tonne.

Pacific wrote:

warboss wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:
On that note though: I had one of the first generation 360s and it finally died right when Modern Warfare 2 was releasing. They exchanged my 360 for the "MW2 Console", which has to be at least 3 years old now. It's going quite strong still.

I'm actually on my 7th xbox 360 in 5 years. The first didn't power up OUT OF THE BOX on the day after Christmas (the most disappointing Xmas present I ever got myself!). The next 3 were replaced in store with Best Buy's extra $$ warranty program (the only time I've ever bought it), the 5th through Microsofts 3 year warranty extension, and the final one 2 months ago out of the warranty for which I paid $100. If it breaks again, I won't be paying again for a replacement and will just wait it out for the next generation of consoles (or maybe get one of those onlive thingies for free with a game).

Well fair play for your tenacity, I replaced mine with a PS3 after the first failure (I presume an acid-filled vial opening, on a timer, inside the machine after it was a short distance out of warranty).

While certainly inconvienent, the first 4 repairs were "instant" since I had a store warranty and just walked in to exchange it for a new one. The 5th repair took a month but was free... It's only the last one where I had to actually pay that started to really get me angry. On another completely unrelated side note to this thread, the constant failures have prevented me from finishing KOTOR as I've had to replay the Taris and Dantooine so many times that I'm sick of them (as my game save didn't work with other xboxes for some reason and had to start over each time... grumble). :( I guess I do know how those people who constantly get bad casts over and over feel.