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I know FW is a sub company of GW, but can some one explain for e.g why 40k rhinos look different to gw rhinos?, and why is it fw lets you buy really nice looking upgrades but not gw, and the upgrades usualy only fit on fw stuff any way....
Automatically Appended Next Post: like why does this happen. is one more "technical" or "higher quality" then the other or what i dont get it. What is going on,
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/07/07 11:25:24
FW is traditionally the "Boutique" end of the the GW company. In addition FW works primarily with resin which allows a great degree of detail to be held by casting than for typical plastic casting (although this bridge has lessened slowly over the years).
So yes FW is a "higher quality, higher price" market option under the GW umbrella.
GW usually plastic kits with good repeatability.
FW Cast Resin miniature which can inconsistent and require additional touch up work and additional techniques.
Stormatious wrote: I know FW is a sub company of GW, but can some one explain for e.g why 40k rhinos look different to gw rhinos?, and why is it fw lets you buy really nice looking upgrades but not gw, and the upgrades usualy only fit on fw stuff any way....
Automatically Appended Next Post: like why does this happen. is one more "technical" or "higher quality" then the other or what i dont get it. What is going on,
I think I know what you mean.
Back the day we had the old race car rhino, then the new kit came out and completely changed the kit, fw then released Horus heresy and bridged the gap between the two, so more of a old school rhino, that’s why it looks different.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/07/07 11:49:39
So yes FW is a "higher quality, higher price" market option under the GW umbrella.
Sorry, i cant agree with you. The FW kits i have had were not good. Warped parts, no smooth surfaces, gaps, did not fit well. And all of this for a lot of money, more than GW wants for its plastic. Look at this video from Duncan where he shows how to work with resin. You need a saw to remove the massive feed ! There is so much stuff to remove, file away, clean up, its ridiculous. Look at the individual tracks, they are warped as well, no way to straighten them. Then we come to painting and assembling, you need to wash all the parts to remove any greasy stuff. Paint will not stick to it as good as it does to GW plastic.
GW plastic is so much better quality, muss less clean up work, sharp and crisp details, fits perfectly together, no need to wash anything. for less money.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2018/07/07 12:54:43
p5freak having to wash resin is standard practice for pretty much any resin products on the market from any manufacturer of models. Foregeworld, Warmachine, Spartan Games (RIP), etc... If its resin then washing to remove the release agents is simply part of working with resin.
As for glue I personally find that superglues work better on resin than they do on metals. Sure its not as good as plastic to plastic because plastic glues melt the plastic and it reforms; whilst superglues form a layer of glue that binds to both agents. It's why for metal and resin scoring the join surface improves the grip of a join because you increase the surface area of the join. Pinning is often used as well to further provide more strength.
And yes you still need to wash it before applying glue so that you've not got a layer of release agent getting in the way of the glue bond.
Large chunks being removed is often present on larger models, heck the resin wings that came with my Warmachine Archangel were massive with a thin resin layer between the curves on the wings (easy to remove though).
I do agree that warped parts are a problem; often you can use heat to correct the warping and if not FW will replace damaged parts without issue.
Much of what you point out is simply the realities of working with resin instead of working with plastics. In addition note that when i said higher quality I was referring to the potential detail that resin can hold compared to plastics. Of course its "less" of a difference between the two than it was 20 years ago, but resin is still capable of very high levels of detail.
The main GW model line (i.e. Citadel miniatures) is mass-produced in plastic. The Citadel plastic is a great material for model kits and they're improving their process all the time - but it still has high setup costs because every sprue needs to have a costly metal mould machined. This means that in order to make a profit on the model they need to sell a lot of kits, which means that it isn't any good for low-volume niche products. Before the Citadel studio produces a model kit they need to know that there's a high demand to make it worth their while.
The resin process that Forge World uses has a much lower setup cost but also is not good for high production volumes. This combination means that it is used for niche and specialist kits where they don't expect to sell that many. It's much easier for the FW studio to take a punt on a kit or upgrade set because of the low setup costs and see if it sells.
So for the likes of Rhino doors, FW wouldn't need to sell many to break even, while you'd need to sell a lot more Citadel ones to make any money on them.
The Forge World Rhino is different because it's the Deimos pattern, which is an older model of Rhino used around the time of the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy. It's actually based on the design of the original Citadel Rhino as a nice throwback for longtime fans. The idea is that the current Citadel one is a newer design in-universe. Given that FW support the Horus Heresy game this means that the FW Rhino is great for HH games - but you can also easily include it in a 40k army as a 10k year old relic - or even claim that a local manufactorum still has the STC to churn out Deimos pattern vehicles. It's a big galaxy.
Overread wrote: p5freak having to wash resin is standard practice for pretty much any resin products on the market from any manufacturer of models. Foregeworld, Warmachine, Spartan Games (RIP), etc... If its resin then washing to remove the release agents is simply part of working with resin.
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Long story short, you pay more, for less quality and you have more work. I will think twice before buying anything FW again.
p5freak wrote: Long story short, you pay more, for less quality and you have more work. I will think twice before buying anything FW again.
More work, more detail. GW's plastic kits don't have the level of detail that resin is capable of, and TBH I've spent just as much time cleaning up mold lines and poorly fitting parts on GW plastic stuff.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
p5freak wrote: Long story short, you pay more, for less quality and you have more work. I will think twice before buying anything FW again.
More work, more detail. GW's plastic kits don't have the level of detail that resin is capable of, and TBH I've spent just as much time cleaning up mold lines and poorly fitting parts on GW plastic stuff.
And more choice. Creating a plastic mould for GW plastic costs more than a silicone mould (or whatever they use) for FW resin. But the actual plastic is cheaper.
As a result, FW costs more, but the number of items they have to sell to be cost effective is much lower. which is why you can get 'obscure' stuff in forgeworld resin that wouldn't be economical in plastic.
p5freak wrote: Long story short, you pay more, for less quality and you have more work. I will think twice before buying anything FW again.
More work, more detail. GW's plastic kits don't have the level of detail that resin is capable of, and TBH I've spent just as much time cleaning up mold lines and poorly fitting parts on GW plastic stuff.
I seriously can’t believe anyone is defending FW’s resin. They have zero quality control in their casting process. I’ve bought several kits with obvious voids, parts that were so warped it took an incredible amount of time and patience just to get them close to being the right way. Parts that due to size and weight on the joints should never have been resin to begin with and parts with such giant attachments to the spruce that they may as well have just shipped a solid block of resin and let me carve the whole thing out myself.
FW is high price, low quality. Also the plastics that have been produced in the last two years exceed the detail level of FW’s resin.
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"Why me?" Gideon begged, falling to his knees.
"Why not?" - Asdrubael Vect
clively wrote: I seriously can’t believe anyone is defending FW’s resin. They have zero quality control in their casting process. I’ve bought several kits with obvious voids, parts that were so warped it took an incredible amount of time and patience just to get them close to being the right way. Parts that due to size and weight on the joints should never have been resin to begin with and parts with such giant attachments to the spruce that they may as well have just shipped a solid block of resin and let me carve the whole thing out myself.
On the other hand, I've spent way too much money over the years on a full FW army and the cleanup hasn't been much worse than plastic kits. I've had warped plastic parts (harder to fix than resin), plastic parts full of mold lines/mold slip (also harder to fix), plastic parts with poorly placed sprue connections that require similar levels of sawing and careful cleanup to remove, etc. I'm not saying FW is perfect, of course, and I'd love to have even better quality control, but it's nowhere near as bad as people claim. And plastic is nowhere near as easy as people claim, unless you settle for very low assembly quality and leave all of the flaws untouched because you're throwing together a kit in 5 minutes before a game.
Also the plastics that have been produced in the last two years exceed the detail level of FW’s resin.
Uh, no. Not even close. Plastic can't do undercuts or fine detail like resin. Don't confuse skulls and purity seals per square inch with level of detail.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
Forgeworld does have a quality control issue, ie it's poor to non-existent.
However their customer service is quite good, if a part is realy bad send them a picture and you'll get a new one.
Yes some gate placement has been laughable poorly thought out. But I've seen them improving this with newer versions of the same kits. While the old one used to has a single massive gate connection to what became the outside of the mini, the new cast of the same part has more smaller gates connected to non visable parts of the part.
Basically someone with a bit more knowledge/skill has joined thr team and is improving their casting department.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/07/08 07:37:56
I think some people are mixing up the concept of quality of product.
When people are saying resin is higher quality than plastic they really do mean that the amount of detail and the nature of the detail that the resin can hold is far greater than plastic. Yes GW plastic has come a long way, but resin still beats it overall. The Malanthrope on my table has detail in ways that my plastic models simply don't have at all in any way shape or form.
Quality control is a totally separate affair and relates to the product in your hand. As said there issues with quality control (and I also wonder if some of the warping could be due to packaging and transport issues esp overseas) of the product people get. As said some of it is simply the nature of working with resin as a material; others are issues where you want to photograph and request a replacement part from FW - something FW and GW are always very good with.
Note sometimes GW/FW doesn't request photos for proof, but I'd always send them. First up its good practice and polite to show the error tht you are reporting. Secondly it gives them a chance to pool data on errors. If they get reports on a repeat error its something their pickers can be made aware of in the packing process and its also something they might review with regard to the mould itself (eg if there's repeat slippage on certain parts).
On the quality control front I'd suspect it's not the FW team that are bad in isolation, but GW as a whole - see the whole Finecast debacle. It's just that the plastic kits are going to be a whole lot harder to feth up due to the nature of the injection moulding process and equipment. It doesn't matter if your quality control team isn't up to scratch if 99.99% of the kits come out of the mould just fine. Then you have the guys over in the corner pouring resin where the percentage of casts that aren't fine is much more significant, but since the core product doesn't need much quality control attention they don't seem to bother with the stuff that does.
p5freak wrote: Long story short, you pay more, for less quality and you have more work. I will think twice before buying anything FW again.
More work, more detail. GW's plastic kits don't have the level of detail that resin is capable of, and TBH I've spent just as much time cleaning up mold lines and poorly fitting parts on GW plastic stuff.
I seriously can’t believe anyone is defending FW’s resin. They have zero quality control in their casting process. I’ve bought several kits with obvious voids, parts that were so warped it took an incredible amount of time and patience just to get them close to being the right way. Parts that due to size and weight on the joints should never have been resin to begin with and parts with such giant attachments to the spruce that they may as well have just shipped a solid block of resin and let me carve the whole thing out myself.
FW is high price, low quality. Also the plastics that have been produced in the last two years exceed the detail level of FW’s resin.
As some one on this forum said:
FW, great design, bad price, horrible quality control, good customer service.
Dakka does have White Knights and is also rather infamous for it's Black Knights. A new edition brings out the passionate and not all of them are good at expressing themselves in written form. There have been plenty of hysterical responses from both sides so far. So we descend into pointless bickering with neither side listening to each other. So posting here becomes more masturbation than conversation.
ERJAK wrote: Forcing a 40k player to keep playing 7th is basically a hate crime.
A couple real life experiences with FW resin as I am currently working through a backlog of models. Overall, satisfied and aware of the fact this is for advanced modellers.
1) Spartan Assault Tank - I purchased a Spartan Assault Tank in 2014 and am just finishing it. FW eventually changed the model to compensate for the issues I'm about to describe, but - the treads did not line up with the tracks, there were too many plates and I needed to carve some out + use Magic Sculpt to fill in gaps. The flash on the side of the chassis went down into the tracks and required a fair amount of carving to fit. After years of sitting on the shelf, some of the pieces warped and I was able to correct the issues using hot water and a blow dryer.
Overall, the model is very heavy and feels more like a Land Raider than a plastic kit. One of the things I like about this specific model is how the sides of the chassis are one solid piece. This is better than plastic, IMHO, because I spent a lot less time fretting over panel lines - they are already lined up. Also, the parts 'overlap,' meaning they stack together in very predictable ways that are easy to visualize and assemble. This made it easier to paint.
I tried coming back to this model in 2015 and found that I was supplied with 2 right quad lascannons and no left quad lascannons. FW sent me replacements immediately. Here at the end, I've discovered no Land Raider doors were included with the model. Waiting for a FW response.
2) Fire Raptor - I bought a pair of Fire Raptors in 2014 and am just getting around to building the second one. Building it alongside a Stormraven, and some of the parts are common to both.
The Fire Raptor has 3 large pieces of resin that make up the hull which were all warped after sitting on the shelf for almost 5 years. I was able to straighten them out using a hair dryer to the point where I could assemble the model. Other parts that warped included the back hatch, wings and other resin pieces that were all easily fixed using some heat. There was no warping on any of the plastic pieces, by contrast. The Stormraven hull assembly was similar but without defects.
An additional hurdle with the Fire Raptor was the 'fit' of the hull pieces, there were noticeable cracks that needed to be filled in with Magic Sculpt to present a complete model. I stuffed and smoothed them, this was basic modelling. By contrast, the panel lines on the Stormraven did not line up correctly, there are some noticeable areas where the lines just don't match. I haven't been able to correct these and have not started to paint it.
The Fire Raptor engines and wing assemblies depend on large struts coming off the body of the vehicle. These didn't line up perfectly at first. I was able to dry fit the wings fairly well, but it took a little heat to more them into position. One of the struts bent in an unpredictable way, which I am just going to incorporate into the model as battle damage.
One of the things I like about the plastic parts is the easy of magnetizing. I was able to cut pieces of metal to mount into the missile pods on the Fire Raptor with relative ease, since there was no warping or distortion. But there was a lot of flash / mold lines on the plastic parts which required a lot of time with a Tamaya hobby knife to correct. By contrast, most of the resin pieces were clean and had no mold lines at all. Addressing the warping was the worst problem and required a lot less time to deal with.
The weight of the Fire Raptor compared to the Storm Raven is noticeable. I have each model fully assembled and prefer the Fire Raptor because it looks cooler and has more mass. Something that did occur to me is whether a plastic chassis would have been easier to work with over the resin, and my thoughts are it would not because a) the resin pieces are thicker than any plastic pieces and b) they would not have fit on any GW plastic sprue I've seen - meaning it would have been many parts that require assembly. Overall, I'm happier with one piece, the model was hard enough to assemble as-is.
