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If there's one thing this and other threads on the topic have convinced me of, it is that there is no way I'm buying Finecast anything 'sight unseen'.

Alpharius wrote:If there's one thing this and other threads on the topic have convinced me of, it is that there is no way I'm buying Finecast anything 'sight unseen'.

But GW makes good on replacements :'<

It's still a PITA to not be able to examine models in the shop, because so many are on special order.

Like I mentioned before (it may have been a different thread) I had to order Shadowsun three times to get a copy that didn't have the wrong parts.

That was metal. No problems with the casting, just missing pieces.

GW should'a made good on the product first.

I have 3 chaos charriot , all the same side....

till this day im still missing the left side, so no charriots for me :'< geez GW stop sending me right side everytime why you so mean....

And I once ordered two blisters of Spore Mines and was sent two metal GK Terminators with Psycannons.

Mistakes. Happen.

We get that.

With Finecost though... the mistakes seem to be part of the deal.

All in all the mail-order Trolls (what are they called now anyway?) are a cool bunch. Just give them a ring, explain the problem and they'll sort it out and then some. Had an old Mordheim Possessed warband for not a whole lot from the GW store ages ago, had a miscast torso, gave them a ring and what did I get? A whole new boxed set plus an extra blister of the faulty model, "just in case."

I do feel bad for my FLGS, I wonder how they'll deal with all that faulty stuff.

I told my girlfriend about this last night, and she was quite upset. She buys minis for D&D and just for painting, and much prefers the solid weight of metal, all other issues aside. She is completely uninterested in buying any resin or plastic minis, and was disappointed that a lot of the minis GW made that she liked she would now have to get on eBay, or some such. Sure, she doesn't spend a huge amount, but I know she's not alone in prefering the feel of metal miniatures. I'm willing to bet that there's a noticable chunk of GW's income that's lost right there, in people like her.

Alpharius wrote:If there's one thing this and other threads on the topic have convinced me of, it is that there is no way I'm buying Finecast anything 'sight unseen'.

I will be ordering them from the UK and US for cheap prices, but have a GW store up the road to swap them out.

Also Lunahound, Mods owe nothing to GW.
GW is run by a bunch of clowns.
The IP is brilliant.
The business sense and support of veterens pathetic.

I try to keep my heartfelt hatred balanced by a love of the games, here on dakka.

Howard A Treesong wrote:My old LGS wasn't told anything about the 'Finecast' range from GW. All that happened was that he was finding that more and more items were "out of stock" when he was ordering from them and he started to think that they were blocking his orders for some reason (GW do pull the occasional stunt with their retailers).

Now he accepts that they were likely running down the metal stock for the change over. The GW rep didn't mention a thing about the resin stuff at all, the first he knew of the resin stuff was in the White Dwarf when delivered this week.

The hell? So much for GW keeping their own retailers in the loop.

They weren't the only ones
Miniwargaming said the same thing in their review of the models, they weren't told anything and it put alot of stress on them to get the orders in

What the hell has to be going through their brains, to not tell anybody about what they are doing so they can prepare for this
Instead it forces retailers to put a hole in their wallet for a while just to have stock to sell, because there was no way they could have been prepared for this
Even their own employees couldn't tell me what they were selling two days before, because apparentlly they hadn't been told!
I mean how are you going to assure a customer of anything, if noone knows anything?

Its like all the examples of how to not run a business, GW seem to exemplify

OK, I've been reading these threads with a whole mixture of concern and a, possibly vain, hope that by the time I want to order a Finecast model they'll have sorted these initial issues out.

As an engineer I can appreciate the immense logistics of switching manufacturing technique on a mass produced item range, but there were two actions that GW could have taken to stop this mess:

1) Information - Personally I would have handled the release like this:

Circa 1st March 2011: " Hi Guys, great news! Here at GW we've developed a great new system called Finecast [Insert cool pic]. This plastic resin system will allow us to reproduce all our current metal models in a material that give better reproduction, is easier to work with.. [etc, etc]. As you can imagine this switch is going to be a mammoth task, so as of 1st April 2011 we are finishing production of any new metal minatures. Finecast models should be available from 1st June, but we want to make sure the product meets our and your high expectations before we put it on general release. We thank you for your patience during this exciting transition."

Something like that. Then we would have known the situation. Then we could even have started getting excited about it.

2) Quality Control. For gawd's sake they're a major multinational company that supposedly trades upon their superior reputation. It doesn't matter how many miscasts you're getting during the casting process (which is inevitable at the start, before you tweak the process), all you need to do is plonk a couple of competent inspectors on the end of the line and only release prodcut that is up to scratch. Simple as that, don't sell what isn't good. And if they'd done point one then I, for one, wouldn't have minded if they'd then said "Sorry guys, certain models are going to be in short supply for a little longer whilst we tweak the process, but, again, we don't want to release an inferior product to our valued customer base."

I think that second point is the one that anyone should use if you do feel tempted to write to the Company/board/major shareholders, because to my mind that is evidence of commercial negligence. They're sacrificing the good reputation of their brand (as far as model quality goes) for short term gains, by hoping people will just live with the problems.

Seems like the people who didn't want to switch to resin would have bought tonnes of metal minis before the changeove, too. I guess GW didn't want to make all that money. Maybe they thought it was unsporting.

Im not so concerned with bad resin productions. I foresee the possible outcome.

a) The fine cast finally succeeds due to w/e trial and error they end up with. Find a scape goat with the company that contracted the resin production. GW not at fault.

b) The fine cast fails , and we get back to metal. Again, finds scapegoat and while admitting the failure , price raise again. GW not at fault again.

and then , price increase for everyone to cover the cost -_- yay~

htj wrote:I told my girlfriend about this last night, and she was quite upset. She buys minis for D&D and just for painting, and much prefers the solid weight of metal, all other issues aside. She is completely uninterested in buying any resin or plastic minis, and was disappointed that a lot of the minis GW made that she liked she would now have to get on eBay, or some such. Sure, she doesn't spend a huge amount, but I know she's not alone in prefering the feel of metal miniatures. I'm willing to bet that there's a noticable chunk of GW's income that's lost right there, in people like her.

I like the heft of metal myself, except for items larger than a cavalry figure or a cannon.

You should direct your girlfriend to the many companies who are still making fantastic metal miniatures; Reaper, Hasslefree, Infinity (Corvus Belli) and others, plus many historical ranges.

After taking a look at one of the larger sets (techmarine with servitors) I have to admit I was a bit hasty in condemning finecast. The detail (especially the eyes) is so crisp it is difficult to believe it was the same mould used for its metal counterpart. There was inevitably a few airbubles and issues with the cabling, but I have seen the same amount of issues with metal, except they weren't as easy to fix. Flash requires only use the back of a scalpel, and cutting the resin is more like cutting through cardboard than plastic.

Bent weapons are an issue, but the additional detail and not having to prime the model (and therefore losing less detail through the painting process) seemed to me a good tradeoff. The models don't break when dropped, be it Marneus Calgar's honour guard (standard bearer) or the Lord of Macragge himself, the only thing that broke off the model at its worst was it coming off the base, otherwise no damage to the mini at all.

I so far have not seen any major defects like some of the others on the forum, however some of the older casts (and I must admit the Emperor's Champion was a particularly bad offender) looked slightly buttery in detail. Otherwise, no major miscasts such as missing facial features or missing weapons to report so far from the local GW.

However, looking at Abaddon and Huron Blackheart, it was was fantastic to be able to make out facial features and things previously lost in their former metal selves. Nonetheless, metal still has a special place in my heart, I'm not surrendering my pin vice yet. Can't wait to see Inquisitorial assassins in finecast, I need a new vindicator...

Kilkrazy wrote:

htj wrote:I told my girlfriend about this last night, and she was quite upset. She buys minis for D&D and just for painting, and much prefers the solid weight of metal, all other issues aside. She is completely uninterested in buying any resin or plastic minis, and was disappointed that a lot of the minis GW made that she liked she would now have to get on eBay, or some such. Sure, she doesn't spend a huge amount, but I know she's not alone in prefering the feel of metal miniatures. I'm willing to bet that there's a noticable chunk of GW's income that's lost right there, in people like her.

I like the heft of metal myself, except for items larger than a cavalry figure or a cannon.

You should direct your girlfriend to the many companies who are still making fantastic metal miniatures; Reaper, Hasslefree, Infinity (Corvus Belli) and others, plus many historical ranges.

Yep, she's a big fan of Reaper, and they're going to be getting a lot more of her business from now on. She likes PP as well, and Red Box Games. Heck, she's pretty diverse in her taste, come to think of it.

I got a bent librarian staff which is annoying. It looks stupid

Is there ways to contact GW to get it replaced?

You can just straighten it using hot water.

Kilkrazy wrote:You can just straighten it using hot water.

Thanks

In my opinion the new finecast models have more detail than their metal counterparts. The people that bought them had little trouble taking off the flash or gluing them together. (Nobody bought a larger kit, so my comments do not extend to gluing large pieces together.) Also, as has been reported, the resin is not particularly fragile. However, at least two of the models sold in the store were missing parts, and about one out of every ten blisters had bubbles that you could see from outside the package. Many of the weapons were bent, but that is a problem that should be an easy fix.

My biggest problem is the price. The new prices would be ok for a Mordheim gang, but not for a 40k or Fantasy army that requires lots of miniatures. It really makes you think when a half dozen finecast miniatures cost the same amount of money as a 20+ point Warmachine army. The change to resin would have been a perfect opportunity for GW to lower prices, but instead they raised them. Maybe they are incurring lots of costs replacing finecast moulds?

One last note, whomever chose the models to get the finecast treatment is a total fail. The Pyrovore and Tau Ethereal are available in finecast but the Crisis Suit commander and Fire Dragons are not. So few people play the former models that some guys in the shop thought that the Ethereal was a new sculpt. .

Ehsteve wrote:Can't wait to see Inquisitorial assassins in finecast, I need a new vindicator...

Wouldn't a vindicator make a rather conspicuous and unsubtle assassin?

Temujin wrote:

Ehsteve wrote:Can't wait to see Inquisitorial assassins in finecast, I need a new vindicator...

Wouldn't a vindicator make a rather conspicuous and unsubtle assassin?

Reckon it'd get the job done, though.

i call conspiracy. mat ward himself sends out faulty things so they can send us replacements and look good.

i don't really...

the finecast looks nice, but i agree, they should have ensured they could deliver a quality model before starting them out

Conspiracy? Here is a conspiracy.

GW PRODUCE FAILCAST ON PURPOSE TO DIVERT ATTENTION AWAY FROM THEIR EMBARGO ON SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE

see we forgot all about it , right? riiiiiiiiiiight? :3

Nah, if it were a conspiracy you'd have to involve the Squats and Dogs of War.

Okay. in that case...

Mat Ward produced finecast to take our minds off of screwing up our fellow wargamers worldwide, whilst grinding up all the squats and dogs of war, using our hopes and dreams as a solvent to mix it all together to make finecast- all whilst laughing maniacally.

*Ding-ding!*

Give that man a tinfoil hat and welcome him to the club!

I managed to get ym hands on a archon yesterday and ive had minor problems the sword arm had a air bubble which was easily fixed with super glue but my archon did come with one heel missing which i have had to GS and re sculpt but the materials work together well so no issues really, however while going round the store i had a look at other products i saw:

A bald avatar the hair was a misscast with barely a strand of hair not bubbled

urien (DE haemonculus) had a solid membrane of flash all over the model like he has wings and had a very bad mould line down the middle that made him look like he had a iguana crest

some guy purchased calgor and honor guard which one was warped and opened a 2ndbox which had been bubbled in multiple places the 3rd box was a compound of both problems strangely all on the same guy

lastly a legless hive tyrant which had a bubble which had served the legs during casting

it seems bigger moulds suffer due to finecast

Anyway I got my metal Logan and Njal years ago... Though I would be looking forward to see a Bjorn the Fell-handed getting a resin kit.

Pity that the original metal kit is too heavy...

I got a Finecast DE Archon, and my brother got the Eldar Avatar. Both kits had no problems at all (barring some very minor warpage on the Avatar's Wailing Doom), and were some of the easiest models to assemble I've ever done. No pinning at all needed for the Avatar, and parts bonded in seconds. I don't use GW Super Glue (I use Loctite), but I've never found assembling models so easy. Personally I love Finecast, provided I can see what's in the box beforehand. For online-only orders it's a bit of a gamble, but GW are usually decent enough about returns.

I'm still freaked out that my Archon's Huskblade is bendable Haven't tried painting the Archon yet, but assembly is a much nicer experience than metal from what I've done so far.

Finecast certainly isn't worth a price increase (obvious that Finecast isn't the reason anyway when plastic kits have raised too), but even with imperfections I much prefer it to metal. Putting together a 3000+ point Tyranid army can be a horrible experience