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@ kroothawk

They have done some fair plastic multipart heroes in plastic before

though i only ever used the fantasy orc heroe and empire mages

If GW realy wants to they can make 1-2 multipart heroe / character kits per army where you can mix and match the parts between them to allow you to make just about every option and or character equipment wise in most armybooks /codex

Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
If GW uses this opportunity to actually drop their prices, I'll eat my laptop.

Honestly, if I was on the GW board, I'd request a slight price drop just to watch somebody eat a laptop!

I like resin figures. To bad gw couldn't sort finecast out. More detailed resins should of been a step foreword. Not back like we saw in finecast. Also it saddens me so many people have became even more turned off from resin due to the finecast blunders.

The biggest problem with finecast for me is the material itself. It's way too soft. QA issues can be sorted out over time, and they did get better with that the last year.

The resin itself bends to easily, when corrected with heat it still warps from other sources of heat(like the sun), and thin details couldn't hold up their own weight or would break easily.

If the same models were done with proper resin, they'd be fine overall.

China is somehow able to crank out perfect casts of finecast models in regular resin at lower prices than GW by 67%. So even if you wanted to take into account not paying your employees $.09 per hour, their methods would at least be viable for continuing the line.

At any rate, good riddance to the fiasco that finecast has been.

So how are supposed to get a thunder fire cannon now?

 wowsmash wrote:
So how are supposed to get a thunder fire cannon now?

Ebay my friend, Ebay.

So does anyone know when I'll be able to buy a Farsight model in an acceptable material then? Hopefully by then they knock his price down another $10 while they're at it but I know what won't happen...

 Peregrine wrote:

 silent25 wrote:
-There are internal tests taking place to cast some existing Forgeworld resin kits in a new plastic material.

This is kind of worrying. You can't do the same level of detail in plastic that you can do with resin,

I don't know, the plastic models in Island of Blood were good enough, and while the Urien Rakarth figure I uhave is excellent, the parts are super brittle and thin. I do, however, agree that the complaints about air bubbles and such were blown out of proportion, but there were an issue for many.

I think GW figured the amount of complaints and returns wasn't worth the extra detail.

 Peregrine wrote:
Plastic suffers from technical problems (no undercuts, etc) that limit the level of detail you can get.

So just add multiple pieces. Look at the detail on the Island of Blood Elf Wizard.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 ph34r wrote:
Thumbs up to them for ditching it fast. GW has responded to the people.

Fast?

Hey, we put up with the paint pots for how long?

 RiTides wrote:

 ph34r wrote:
Thumbs up to them for ditching it fast. GW has responded to the people.

Agreed, but they're likely just responding to their bottom line. There's no way finecast models have sold as well as they expected, with all the quality issues, bad press, and resulting unpopularity with gamers.

I just bought my first Finecast blister last month in I don't know how long... after not buying any since just after it's release! If even a small fraction of gamers behaved similarly "voting with their wallets", then GW's hand was forced simply from a profitability perspective.

I agree. I've bought maybe four Finecast characters, when I'd buy many times that many in plastic. Of course, most of my stuff comes off ebay, but whatever.

Daston wrote:
Well there you have it folks, if fw dies go plastic you'll get your plastic TH. It'll just have less detail and probably cost even more.

Nobody in their right mind would pay FW prices for a resin Thunderhawk. It's plastic or nothing, for me. And if you want more detail, make more sprues and more pieces. The stuff you get with Tamiya and Dragon kits is amazing. I can't imagine they sell too many Mantas.

--Chris
www.chrisvalera.com

I don't like failcast so in one way I'm glad too see it go. But I'm a LOTR player so im pretty worried about what's going to happen to the failcast models, surely Games workshop won't re-model them into plastic as it wouldnt be prophetable. So what happens here? They have the licence to 2017.

 chris_valera wrote:
So just add multiple pieces. Look at the detail on the Island of Blood Elf Wizard.

That just isn't possible. Let's look at a simple DKoK grenadier model, since I've got one sitting on my desk:



See that cylinder on the back, at the end of the gas mask hose? There are seven tiny fins on there, and all of them have to be a separate piece. So that's at least eight tiny plastic pieces, many of them less than 1mm thick (IOW, impossible to clip off a sprue without breaking them), just to make one detail element. And that hose? Curved in too many dimensions, so that's several more pieces that will have to be glued in perfect alignment. Now look at the front. See how the helmet has those recesses to either side of the face (where the collar sticks up)? More pieces. And of course all of the rivets on the helmet will have to be separate pieces. And that's just the easy stuff. See how thin the coat is around the legs? Well, you can't do that in one piece with injection molding (compare to similar plastic models where the legs and coat are a solid block of plastic), so have fun gluing several thin sheets together to make that coat.

In short, that simple infantry model, one of 5-10 in a squad, would probably require hundreds of pieces, many of them far too small to work with for 99.9999% of GW's customers. IOW, if GW made that DKoK grenadier in plastic it would lose most/all of the fine detail that makes it worth owning.

you can make that model with 95-99% of the detail it has now as a 10 part plastic (your average plastic IG, tau, orc, or spacemarine already has 5+ parts) - not that many more then a lot of GW plastics already are - again, look at the quality of military plastic figures from companies like dragon and trumpeter.

Also, as i stated before, up close you will see those details or the lack of them... but how often (not counting painting competitions do you actually see that model at double the real size.... look at a 28 mm model from a few feet away and you don't even notice most of those same details

orc master wrote:
Also, as i stated before, up close you will see those details or the lack of them... but how often (not counting painting competitions do you actually see that model at double the real size.... look at a 28 mm model from a few feet away and you don't even notice most of those same details

It's still a loss of detail. Going plastic-only is a concession by GW that making "good enough" models is the extent of their ambition.

Yes, but those will be the best good enough models in the world! Great news!

I'll freely admit that I have become pretty jaded when it comes to GW, but it still hurts to have to watch the deconstruction of the Citadel brand. The relatively few sculpts they made for Finecast were technically great, and their plastic characters, while great for what they are, simply are not on the same level as their metal and Finecast sculpts.

For most players, this will probably not make much of a difference, but for collectors, this is a blow.

This is further exacerbated by the current trend of mostly putting out dual kits that compromise the looks of both units they offer, which makes me less than hopeful that the plastic replacements for all the Finecast UNITS will at least look decent on their own.

 Peregrine wrote:

 chris_valera wrote:
So just add multiple pieces. Look at the detail on the Island of Blood Elf Wizard.

That just isn't possible. Let's look at a simple DKoK grenadier model, since I've got one sitting on my desk:



See that cylinder on the back, at the end of the gas mask hose? There are seven tiny fins on there, and all of them have to be a separate piece. So that's at least eight tiny plastic pieces, many of them less than 1mm thick (IOW, impossible to clip off a sprue without breaking them), just to make one detail element. And that hose? Curved in too many dimensions, so that's several more pieces that will have to be glued in perfect alignment. Now look at the front. See how the helmet has those recesses to either side of the face (where the collar sticks up)? More pieces. And of course all of the rivets on the helmet will have to be separate pieces. And that's just the easy stuff. See how thin the coat is around the legs? Well, you can't do that in one piece with injection molding (compare to similar plastic models where the legs and coat are a solid block of plastic), so have fun gluing several thin sheets together to make that coat.

In short, that simple infantry model, one of 5-10 in a squad, would probably require hundreds of pieces, many of them far too small to work with for 99.9999% of GW's customers. IOW, if GW made that DKoK grenadier in plastic it would lose most/all of the fine detail that makes it worth owning.

I agree.

Here's a prediction; after around three years of moaning about Finecast, the same people will be slagging off GW for discontinuing it.

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

Here's a prediction; after around three years of moaning about Finecast, the same people will be slagging off GW for discontinuing it.

You say that as if it was contradictory, which it is not.

People had issues with Finecast because it was a sub-par material. Discontinuing it instead of fixing its issues or switching to proper resin (or even metal) is going from the second worst solution to the worst one. I'd say that's a valid reason to complain.

Absolutely Allod.

It wasn't the 'vision' of Finecast that was the issue. GW did (and I would argue, still do) need a method of bringing out the high-detail, complex sculpts that are only possible in either resin or metal.

It was the quality control aspects of FC that people had the issue with; that GW had used the cheaper casting process, a lower grade resin, and with casts that weren't initially designed for resin. This was why, rather than being near the top of resin miniature quality, it was somewhere near the bottom.

But it's sad now that people are saying 'good riddance'. There was nothing wrong whatsoever with the idea of Finecast, just the way it was implemented. Not it seems that, even with those concessions to cost mentioned above, the profit margins weren't enough, and rather than looking at ways of improving the resin miniatures (which don't forget still make up a good chunk of certain areas of the catalogue) it's being done away with all together.

On top of this, I'm guessing if I was one of the production workers and casters in Lenton right now I would start getting my C.V. together...

You know the proverb - the road to hell is paved with good intentions? I couldn't care less what Finecast had the potential to be; what was and still is being sold is below any acceptable standards. And I very much doubt that all the issues with FC took the powers that be by surprise; they had years to experiment with the stuff and yet deemed it good enough to be released onto the world in the state that has effectively become the most loathed material in the history of wargaming. This, I remind you, by the company that insists it's the leading edge in the business.

Once again a perfectly good product brought down by cutting corners. Sadly, it's come to be quite a norm in wargaming as of late (cf. Mantic Games), to the dismay of miniature collectors everywhere.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 ph34r wrote:
Thumbs up to them for ditching it fast. GW has responded to the people.

Fast?

You read correctly!

 ph34r wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 ph34r wrote:
Thumbs up to them for ditching it fast. GW has responded to the people.

Fast?

You read correctly!

Considering that when Finecast came out, people were claiming GW had already been working on it for a couple years, moving to a different method likely would take the same amount of time. If this rumor is true, GW management decided to begin looking into another method after the first year. So yea, ph34r is right, it is fairly fast.

They are completely redoing a major part of their product line, again. Wouldn't surprise me if they are already producing the new casts already for distribution and warehouse storage.

I'm glad to see it go, it didn't happen fast enough.

Aside from the company continually trying to polish a turd, the medium was subpar, the implimentation was laughable, and the plastics as of now are 110% better then what was put out even alongside the finegrab that it was a smack in the face to players.

P{eople looking at this stuff with rose colored glasses on are fooling themselves. "Finecast" was supposed to be the highest quality material for the best figures, at a cheaper price. Not only was it gak, they rose the prices along with the propaganda machine.

Honestly saw someone go through 4 boxes to get a unit. HOW was that supposed to be groundbreaking?

Then we won't even get into the QAQC, which was nonexistant.

The move to complete plastic streamlines the company for the eventual sale to whatever buys it out and rips it up.


Resin is the way to continue if they want to keep consistant standards up. Aside from the move from metal, it is the plastics that will keep selling and keep food on the table for them, but Resin is the way to go if they want to get cute again.

Aside from sending specialized figures to FW, for the love, they need to just stick to mass practice Micky D's style cranking out of the plastics, so they can try to quickly try to gain thier market back that they abdicated for the quick profit.

 silent25 wrote:
They are completely redoing a major part of their product line, again.

If they drop 37 products from Space Marine HQs alone and maybe, just maybe, release 1-2 new plastic boosters, it's not called "redoing a major part of their product line", but "dropping a major part of their production line".

Whatever you think of metal and finecast, the product diversity will be reduced by more than 50%, burying the following armies:
Eldar, Adepta Sororitas, Inquisition (AS and =I=, we hardly knew you). Plus burying most HQs in any Codex and armybook.

As I said, GW is power shrinking.

Well, I'm ordering my Thunderfire cannon before it's gone forever.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This way I'll own a piece of history...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ordered!!

Do they still claim to make the best miniatures in the world? The Emperor has no clothes.

Well, I hope people liked Finecast prices, because there's no way a replacement material will get away without a price hike.

I anticipate Restic but at Finecast (or higher) prices. Or plastic models like the $30 Space marine HQ pack.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Well, I hope people liked Finecast prices, because there's no way a replacement material will get away without a price hike.

Finecast Librarian £9.50, Plastic Librarian £18.00.
Finecast Space Marine Captain £11.00, Plastic Space Marine Captain £18.00
Metal Chaplain £8.20, Finecast Chaplain £9.50, Plastic Chaplain only available in £55.00 box.
You are right: No way will a switch to plastic happen without a 50-100% price hike
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/armySubUnitCats.jsp?catId=cat440271a&rootCatGameStyle=wh40k

I will be the first to own up to it if I am proven wrong, though. And be happy to do so.

 Kelly502 wrote:
Well, I'm ordering my Thunderfire cannon before it's gone forever.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This way I'll own a piece of history...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ordered!!

Good call!
When they go back to metal you will need a drill press to build it!

Yeah, you would never need special tools to build a resin model. *cough*

Be glad all you needed was a pin vise.

If they drop Finecrap items too fast, i'll bet other suppliers wouldn't mind to fill the void, and it will cause an increase of FW sales.

One thing I always find odd in these threads is, what appears, to be a lack of understanding in the rest of the plastic model market.

I have seen some amazing molded detail from manufacturers like dragon and tamiya. 1/48 scale soldiers (about a head taller than a marine) with very detailed overcoats. Granted, a single soldier will be around 10 parts, and there will be seam lines that can't be hidden, but it is very possible.

In the above mentioned gas mask canister, it could easily be reproduced in plastic. The canister would be in 2 parts, one part would be the left side and all the fins, the other be the right cap. The left side would be oriented facing up, so that the mold could easily get the shape of the fins. The same way hollow barrels are formed for military kits.

Undercuts are also possible with the use of slide molds, although they are pricy so only a large kit or a general kit (marine commander) would benefit from them.

Resin is still the king of small details (look up any five star story garage kit) but plastic has come a long way.