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Plastic usually doesnt - except for the arms/legs you used superglue on.

But is resin brittle? I was wondering whether Forgeworld stuff is really worth it when its not only more expensive but possibly more brittle than standard GW plastic? It least with GW kits I dont have to worry about them shattering into unrepairable pieces if I drop a Carnifex for example by mistake.

I've had resin break by looking at it.

But yes, GW resin is rather brittle. FW resin is very nice on the other hand.

I've had varying levels of brittleness in FW models.

DKoK platoon Sgt. sword didn't survive a moderate fall onto carpet. Other than that no real issues with FW.

It really depends on the resin, it isn't a uniform material with uniform properties, and different manufacturers will have different recipes, sometimes this isn't consistent.

Rule of thumb, yes, resin is probably on balance the most fragile material we deal with, but physics is a fickle thing and I've had models survive stuff they've had no right to and others almost literally disintegrate in my hand.

I find with how light the material is allows some survivability of drops.
I like to weigh down my bases because the models feel too light to me, this creates mixed results: Added weight increases likelihood of break BUT they tend to fall base-first .

Yeah, that definitely works with the IG infantry sized models, stuff like a Sicaran or a FW GUO tend to make more of a splash!

I have never had resin break, but I have had the glue break when models are dropped off a TT. FW resin is thick and heavy, it hits with more force going down. It's more like a metal model than a plastic one.

 SilverMK2 wrote:
I've had varying levels of brittleness in FW models.

My experience as well... I kind of hate resin now. Just taking them in and out of foam they break.

The actual pieces of resin are unlikely to break; although the brittleness varies, thin pieces generally have some give.

What's much more likely is the glued pieces come apart.:(

Also, for all my b*tching about failcast, PP resin is no better. The mold pegs on bradigus were stupid huge (like a quarter inch) and in annoying places.

FW resin isn't too bad. I've had some things break but not many, it's usually rather flexible stuff. GW resin I've found to be less so but still not terrible in that department (though usually with far more flash and bubbles).

 Talizvar wrote:
I find with how light the material is allows some survivability of drops.
I like to weigh down my bases because the models feel too light to me, this creates mixed results: Added weight increases likelihood of break BUT they tend to fall base-first .

You could also model a packet parachute for that cause.

 Azreal13 wrote:
It really depends on the resin, it isn't a uniform material with uniform properties, and different manufacturers will have different recipes, sometimes this isn't consistent.

Rule of thumb, yes, resin is probably on balance the most fragile material we deal with, but physics is a fickle thing and I've had models survive stuff they've had no right to and others almost literally disintegrate in my hand.

This pretty much sums up my experiences. On the whole though, resin doesn't tend to be nearly as brittle as you might expect.

Personally, I find pinning a broken sword blade an easier repair than piecing together an exploded metal model.

The only breaks I've had on my resin were on either things I could repair easily or things I don't care about being on the model.

It really depends on what you drop and how you drop it. A heavy vehicle is probably going to break a glue joint or three, but if the hull takes the impact you probably won't have any broken pieces. An infantry model that lands on its back will probably be fine, but if it lands so that the thin gun barrel takes the impact then it will probably break. This has less to do with how brittle resin is and more to do with how the models are designed: lots of heavy blocks of resin in vehicles that put more force into an impact, and lots of very thin parts that look awesome but break more easily than the thicker equivalent on a plastic kit. In general though it isn't much of a problem unless you're careless with your stuff, and if you're breaking lots of resin models you're probably going to break plastic and metal ones almost as frequently.

Dropped my Canoptek Swarm box four feet. Not a scratch on the plastic, but my Acanthrites had broken in nine places.

Thankfully I was able to repair it well enough to only have one slightly wonky looking leg, but it's made me paranoid about them since.

Watch out for their poor quality mixes as well, got a contemptor here that is slowly loosing its detail, which forgeworld won't do anything about.

Frankly for such an expensive model to be made of such poor quality material I won't be touching forge world again.

 aprilmanha wrote:
Frankly for such an expensive model to be made of such poor quality material I won't be touching forge world again.

Add in that it's not that hard to kitbash some of their stuff, personally I have:

Pylon: Drop Pod, Doomsday Ark gun and Night Scythe wings.

Sentry Pylons: Three upside down Annihilation Barges with the pilots removed and big guns from various kits mounted on Dreadnought bases.

Tesseract Ark: Kitbashed Ghost Ark.

And I know It's not rocket science to turn a Wraithknight into a Revenant. It's only a third taller.

Typically you don't want to drop it these things in the first place.

(My only FW model is a Vulture, and that's a big solid chunk of resin with Valkyrie parts stuck on, so it's pretty sturdy)

 aprilmanha wrote:
Watch out for their poor quality mixes as well, got a contemptor here that is slowly loosing its detail, which forgeworld won't do anything about.

Frankly for such an expensive model to be made of such poor quality material I won't be touching forge world again.

Pic?

I've had a pretty positive experience with Forge World resin to be honest. Finecast not so much- made the mistake of buying a Cryptek and his staff snapped so easily- knocked it off the table a few times and he's been fine. Knocked him over ON the table and it fething snapped like a twig lol. My DE finecast wracks have had a few spine bits come off simply from being too thin.

So here are my 2 Dreads, I first noticed this when painting them that one had just softened so much the paint just fell off.
The detail is clearly soft and frankly I'm not sure if I can even be bothered to replace those parts now, particularly since Forgeworld say its not their fault if the material degrades.

I was painting a DKoK infantry model the other day and dropped it. I have tile floors, but I was surprised to see that it broke just below the knee. It was the guy thats running and only has one foot on the base, but still.

Cant speak for GW resin, but i got a recast eldar flyer recently, one of my opponents accidently smashed it to the ground, not a piece out of place. Was pleasantly surprised.

 aprilmanha wrote:
So here are my 2 Dreads, I first noticed this when painting them that one had just softened so much the paint just fell off.
The detail is clearly soft and frankly I'm not sure if I can even be bothered to replace those parts now, particularly since Forgeworld say its not their fault if the material degrades.

I have never heard of resin losing detail in such a way. When you received these models did you by any chance notice a really bad odor, or notice a slight bit of greasiness that would have indicated a badly mixed batch of resin? Have you noticed whether or not the resin is sagging or losing shape or feels excessively soft, are there streaks in it that have not cured yet?

What it actually looks like to me, especially in the bottom photo is that the paint is flaking off due to the model not being primed, also not having washed the model in warm soapy water before priming will contribute to paint flaking off like that, especially with resin if they use a chemical mold release.

I've had mixed reactions with resin. FW has been pretty awesome overall. It's a much stiffer material than the GW plastic (and it files and cuts sooo much faster than I was used to, but it did leave resin powder everywhere after I did some filing). It doesn't really bend too much but it survived me taking a jewelers saw to some fairly delicate parts without snapping so I'm satisfied.

Not so much with finecast. It's the same way about being brittle but it just feels incredibly not as strong. I was terrified even just clipping the parts out of the sprue that I would snap something off. When I was painting Shadowsun I dropped the model onto my painting table from a height of what I would say was 4-6 inches and it snapped off her shoulder antenna thing (although to be fair I knew that part's days were numbered from the time I first clipped it out of the sprue).

PP Warmachine resin is pretty much like forgeworld from what I've seen except it had much huger mold lines and casting issues (plus it looked a lot like they just ripped the parts off the sprue and tossed them in the box judging by how much extra material was on there and how ragged the ends were). I was basing this experiences on one of the first CoC battleboxes though, which are pretty renowned for their bad casting quality. I'm pretty sure they got better.

xraytango wrote:

What it actually looks like to me, especially in the bottom photo is that the paint is flaking off due to the model not being primed, also not having washed the model in warm soapy water before priming will contribute to paint flaking off like that, especially with resin if they use a chemical mold release.

Thats what I would have thought to, but it was cleaned and primed as normal, and the paint only seems to have peeled from the softened areas, the rest seems to have the detail just fine and is holding the paint well to.

I can only assume that its either chemical infiltration (No idea how and why its only affected part of one of my forgeworld models) or it is a bad resin mix that will just degrade more and more over time.
Either way not worth the risk it happening again for this price.

(Edit: and just incase anyone suspects ebay or fakes, this was bought from the 2013 UK Gamesday, so I'd better hope its official! This is another reason I suspect bad resin, as I can imagine they rushed a bit to get stock together for the day)

My Stormlord's staff broke because I dropped it - not the whole model, just the staff - about two feet onto a carpeted floor.

Other incidents include a sword snapping because I tried to drybrush it, and Trazyn's staff snapping because I coughed in his general direction.