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 Ghool wrote:
Uuhhh….so literally no or little QC, and uncured and not even an iso bath before they sell them.
So what happened to new player friendly?
This is something else….

Ouch. There is no excuse for that. It isn't that bloody hard to get prints nice and clean and fully cured in a UV booth. Sounds like they're just rushing crap out, which is kinda par for the course.

 Valander wrote:

 Ghool wrote:
Uuhhh….so literally no or little QC, and uncured and not even an iso bath before they sell them.
So what happened to new player friendly?
This is something else….

Ouch. There is no excuse for that. It isn't that bloody hard to get prints nice and clean and fully cured in a UV booth. Sounds like they're just rushing crap out, which is kinda par for the course.

When they’ve stated they were working on MK4 for a year, all one has to do is look at the beta rules.
After reading this I’ll be giving these models a hard pass.
I’m out.

Rushing order fulfillment for GenCon always has the absolute best results.

Though usually it just involves companies rushing a draft pdf through printing, which usually results in a exclusive print run that's full of typos or has crap binding.

 Ghool wrote:

 Valander wrote:

 Ghool wrote:
Uuhhh….so literally no or little QC, and uncured and not even an iso bath before they sell them.
So what happened to new player friendly?
This is something else….

Ouch. There is no excuse for that. It isn't that bloody hard to get prints nice and clean and fully cured in a UV booth. Sounds like they're just rushing crap out, which is kinda par for the course.

When they’ve stated they were working on MK4 for a year, all one has to do is look at the beta rules.
After reading this I’ll be giving these models a hard pass.
I’m out.

They made the same claims about Mk 3 being in testing for a long time. Funny, I was an Infernal and never saw any of it, then I quit and like 3 months later Mk 3 comes out. Yeah...

It's clear that they haven't brought in anyone with any real experience with 3d printing tech, either. My guess is that they don't want to pay (or can't) a reasonable wage for someone that actually has that knowledge (grapevine is that they've always under-paid in this industry for the most part), but not doing that is going to wind up biting them, I think.

I wanted PP to make a comeback, really. But it seems they're still making the same mistakes that got them into this mess.

Funny enough, the report that both of these are in response to is actually fairly positive overall from an experienced printer who mostly reports everything as "things I was doing wrong last year and how to fix it". Richie too, has a ton of experience and that's some great advice in general when working with resin. Definitely hoping since this stuff is clearly being made on demand these quality steps are being addresses as the mail order stuff is being worked on.

 LunarSol wrote:
Funny enough, the report that both of these are in response to is actually fairly positive overall from an experienced printer who mostly reports everything as "things I was doing wrong last year and how to fix it". Richie too, has a ton of experience and that's some great advice in general when working with resin. Definitely hoping since this stuff is clearly being made on demand these quality steps are being addresses as the mail order stuff is being worked on.

Thing is, IMO if they are going to make the big announcement about their new production methods, etc., then these are all things they should have figured out before making the decision to even move to that process, much less announce it. Unlike PDFs of beta rules, you can't exactly "beta" physical products.

Oh for sure. Here's hoping the stuff shipped out sees significant improvement. I'll probably be following Richie's advice on them either way though.

 LunarSol wrote:
Funny enough, the report that both of these are in response to is actually fairly positive overall from an experienced printer who mostly reports everything as "things I was doing wrong last year and how to fix it". Richie too, has a ton of experience and that's some great advice in general when working with resin. Definitely hoping since this stuff is clearly being made on demand these quality steps are being addresses as the mail order stuff is being worked on.

Which essentially states that they a need another year before they work out the kinks.
Or have enough experience knowing how to produce the stuff.

Funny thing is, I have zero experience with 3D printing and I know that selling products in the state they’re selling them in is unacceptable. But hey, I’m just some dude, not and experienced 3D printer….

In contrast to what they say I think PP is washing things for too long - 30mins in an ultrasonic after a wash and scrub is a huge amount of time.

Certainly if they were using resins with IPA (I assume they are using water washable resin as they are using water) the resin would be degrading after 30mins.


I wonder if that is the cause of some of the reported softness instead of things being underexposed.

The frosting is certainly where they've either not cleaned it right, or more likely where they've not let the resin dry fully after washing. Ergo where its been rushed into the curing setup.




I do agree these are things they really should have nailed down and resolved before going into production and certainly should have spotted during quality control. If not just because its 3D print resin with health hazards when not fully cured; but also because its a relaunch and these should be the best of the best bar none. Better to take less stock that hits great than loads that misses the mark.


It's a worry. I want PP to do well.
I want Warmachine and Hordes to do well - I want to see this succeed

I can understand the desire to use a water washable resin (and, given they're washing with water, I hope they are...), but honestly, most of those are inferior with respect to durability from everything I've read. Also, they hinted that they're doing the curing while submerged in water. I've heard some folks advocate that, but again, that is kind of an "up for debate" technique. Some say it helps, some say it doesn't make any difference.

Curing whilst in water, from what I know, works well because the water scatters the light so it can help cure everywhere. The main problem is contamination.


All that water they are using is contaminated with resin - proper disposal should be evaporating the water off and curing any residue. Including the water used for curing.



That said the fact they are getting lots of frosting suggests there are problems in their workflow. In general most of the people I know don't bother with using water for curing; they dry the model off and cure it.

Just re-read their description of their cleaning process. I think a big part of it is they're WAY over doing it, and it's quite possibly damaging the resin. Even assuming water washable, which ok, fine, 30 minutes in an ultrasonic is far, far too much. They tout their cleaning standards "exceed the manufacturer's recommendation," but that's not necessarily a good thing, since leaving stuff in a not-quite-cured state that long in liquid (not to mention the initial scrub then hanging out in water until the ultrasonic) could easily be deteriorating the resin.

They really should've reached out to more of the 3d printer community. I feel like if they had, there'd be a lot less issues with their stuff, since most of what is happening seems to be "rookie mistakes."

 Ghool wrote:
Uuhhh….so literally no or little QC, and uncured and not even an iso bath before they sell them.
So what happened to new player friendly?
This is something else….

...say I wanted to buy these. If, after I buy their minis, I have to go through my regular 3d print cleaning/curing process... why did I buy the actual physical models, again, instead of actually printing them myself? It seems nuts.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Valander wrote:
Just re-read their description of their cleaning process. I think a big part of it is they're WAY over doing it, and it's quite possibly damaging the resin. Even assuming water washable, which ok, fine, 30 minutes in an ultrasonic is far, far too much. They tout their cleaning standards "exceed the manufacturer's recommendation," but that's not necessarily a good thing, since leaving stuff in a not-quite-cured state that long in liquid (not to mention the initial scrub then hanging out in water until the ultrasonic) could easily be deteriorating the resin.

They really should've reached out to more of the 3d printer community. I feel like if they had, there'd be a lot less issues with their stuff, since most of what is happening seems to be "rookie mistakes."

Furthermore, if they have properly cured the resin after the cleaning... how can there still be uncured resin in solid parts?

 Albertorius wrote:

Furthermore, if they have properly cured the resin after the cleaning... how can there still be uncured resin in solid parts?

UV light can only penetrate so far into the model.
This is why if you have a hollow region inside the model which trapped wet resin during printing, that resin will stay wet and will slowly react with the cured resin and, at some point weeks/months later will burst out cracking the model.

In practice with a thick solid bit of resin the resin is fine once fully cured. Yes the internal resin isn't "fully" cured, but its cured enough that it won't react and cause splitting issues. The only time it becomes a risk is when you cut the model open (eg for converting).

As the EU has very strict rules regarding imports, I wonder if this could throw a massive spanner in the works to their distribution in the EU?

 stonehorse wrote:
As the EU has very strict rules regarding imports, I wonder if this could throw a massive spanner in the works to their distribution in the EU?

The idea of the 3D printing is that they'd not have to import them; they'd produce locally within the EU. Though I don't know if PP has a setup in the EU. I know they set one up in the UK.

Regardless of the model production issues (while important), I haven't seen a whole lot of chatter about the beta rules they put out. A few posts here and there, but there is not a lot of buzz about it in my "usual" hobby circles online. I think that will be more telling too, probably after Gen Con, when more folks start messing with the beta rules and considering those along with the model quality as to whether it's "worth it" to get into/back-into Warmachine. It feels like this is kind of a make or break moment with Mk 4 launch, and if it doesn't succeed, I'm not sure how much longer PP can survive on their other product lines.

Probably not, because they'd be making the minis in the EU so not importing anything

although if they were selling minis contaminated with still liquid resin they'd have potential health and safety issues, but no more so than any other small resin casting house where things occasionally go wrong (which can be down to mistakes on the casting side or dodgy resin batches from the supplier)

Edit: I suspect the lack of comment on the rules is that very few of us here (with some notable exceptions who have commented) probably haven't got a good enough handle on what the game played like in MK3 to really say much useful

unlike a brand new small skirmish game where you basically supply whatever minis you want (so the rules and background themselves start off as the draw), this is going to depend on the minis to draw people back in

As GW shows - rules are secondary to models.

 Overread wrote:

 stonehorse wrote:
As the EU has very strict rules regarding imports, I wonder if this could throw a massive spanner in the works to their distribution in the EU?

The idea of the 3D printing is that they'd not have to import them; they'd produce locally within the EU. Though I don't know if PP has a setup in the EU. I know they set one up in the UK.

I understand that is the theory behind switching to 3D prints, but they don't have a setup in the EU. So until/if they do it will have to be imported. I imagine that any production they do within the EU will be sold fully cured (due to strict regulations within the EU). Which would I imagine increase the time and cost involved in the process, meaning a more expensive end product for those within the EU.

It shouldn't increase any costs, the resin they ship should be fully cured before shipping. There's no good reason at all to deliver part-cured resin into the hands of customers.

Part-cured is toxic and your average model buyer is not going to own a pair of nitrile gloves to open their box of new models and then leave them in the sun to cure.
Heck even those who do 3D printing will not expect to have to do that. They'd expect fully cured models in the box, ready to clean up for
building, priming and painting. Just like any metal, resin or plastic model.

 Overread wrote:
As GW shows - rules are secondary to models.

To a degree, true. But PP's always been using their rules as a strong point, so if they fail there as well as the model quality (which, they already had some bad rep for some there), well what's left?

 Overread wrote:
It shouldn't increase any costs, the resin they ship should be fully cured before shipping. There's no good reason at all to deliver part-cured resin into the hands of customers.

Part-cured is toxic and your average model buyer is not going to own a pair of nitrile gloves to open their box of new models and then leave them in the sun to cure.
Heck even those who do 3D printing will not expect to have to do that. They'd expect fully cured models in the box, ready to clean up for
building, priming and painting. Just like any metal, resin or plastic model.

I agree, but from reading the previous posts in this thread it seems that there have been reports of the models people receiving at GenCon recently where not fully cured and had issues.

 Overread wrote:
It shouldn't increase any costs, the resin they ship should be fully cured before shipping. There's no good reason at all to deliver part-cured resin into the hands of customers.

Unless they're rushing to get shipments done and out. Which is basically what just happened getting stuff to GenCon.

'No good reason' isn't the issue. That it happened at all is.

 Valander wrote:

 Ghool wrote:
Uuhhh….so literally no or little QC, and uncured and not even an iso bath before they sell them.
So what happened to new player friendly?
This is something else….

Ouch. There is no excuse for that. It isn't that bloody hard to get prints nice and clean and fully cured in a UV booth. Sounds like they're just rushing crap out, which is kinda par for the course.

I get that it is bad, but in the same aspect, GW sells codex's and rule books which seem to have never been proof read before going to print, FW quality is crap, and finecast was a joke.

I think PP are going in the right direction, 3D printing models, having them come with all options and magnets, giving out rules for free. Sounds heads and tails above GW that charge for everything.

Comparing GW to PP is not really a valid comparison anymore (if it ever was). GW certainly does a lot of gak that really feels bad, but they're an industry juggernaut so they can get away with it; any bad feelings from some of that is overcome by their sheer volume of customers. PP, on the other hand, is clearly struggling from their heyday (they're less than 1/2 the staff they were when Warmachine was still popular), so mistakes like that will hurt them a lot more.

angel of death 007 wrote:

 Valander wrote:

 Ghool wrote:
Uuhhh….so literally no or little QC, and uncured and not even an iso bath before they sell them.
So what happened to new player friendly?
This is something else….

Ouch. There is no excuse for that. It isn't that bloody hard to get prints nice and clean and fully cured in a UV booth. Sounds like they're just rushing crap out, which is kinda par for the course.

I get that it is bad, but in the same aspect, GW sells codex's and rule books which seem to have never been proof read before going to print, FW quality is crap, and finecast was a joke.

I think PP are going in the right direction, 3D printing models, having them come with all options and magnets, giving out rules for free. Sounds heads and tails above GW that charge for everything.

On paper it certainly sounds to be the right direction. However, how it is implemented will be crucial. As the new edition is gutting the current collection, they will have to do a lot of hard work to regain the trust.

PP, don't have a great track record.

That all being said, if they can pull it off, and do a great job of it, I imagine they will do well.

I do think it is an interesting, and viable, direction as well. However, as they say, "the devil's in the details." It all comes down to execution. They seem to be off to a bit of a rocky start, though.

They blew it with 3rd edition but had built up enough of a cushion to keep going. I don't think PP will survive a screw like that again.

 Valander wrote:
Comparing GW to PP is not really a valid comparison anymore (if it ever was). GW certainly does a lot of gak that really feels bad, but they're an industry juggernaut so they can get away with it; any bad feelings from some of that is overcome by their sheer volume of customers. PP, on the other hand, is clearly struggling from their heyday (they're less than 1/2 the staff they were when Warmachine was still popular), so mistakes like that will hurt them a lot more.

I still remember reading the financials threads here for GW during the bad old days of 6e-7e. Certainly they were not in the same Hail Mary, do-or-die position PP seemingly is in right now, but at their lowest point GW was clearly not in good shape as so many players jumped shipped to WMH or other games.