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It's not news that Forgeworld switched some of their products from the old sturdy resin to Finecast, but I haven't seen anyone actually share a side-by-side comparison of old vs new. Apologies if this has already been done but I thought it worth sharing, if not just to showcase how bad of a deal you're now getting as a consumer since they're now charging even more for this stuff as opposed to the old material.

Forgeworld are adamant that this new material is in no way related to Finecast and they will tell you so to your face. I'll point out that after a good deal of inspection, this material is exactly the same in every way to Finecast, it is 100% the same stuff we love to hate, therefore I will continue to refer to it as Finecast.

These photos are two of the same kit from Forgeworld; the Vendetta Upgrade Kit. One was purchased a while back and so was made with their original method/materials, and the other is a more recent purchase that uses Finecast.

I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.



You can see above that the quality of the finecast is shocking. Naturally I complained, and below is what I received as a replacement.



Yeah, it's just as bad as the first one. I gave up at this point, I was absolutely disgusted that they could even think about sending this as a replacement, and vowed never to purchase anything from Forge World unless I know it uses their old materials.



Above we can see the warped and misshapen lascannon, the red lines are to accentuate the warping. They just told me to put it in hot water and put it back into shape...yeah right, that works with thinner parts like the shaft of the gun but not with thick pieces like this. They told me over the phone they wouldn't replace the guns, only the previous part.





This is the back of the lascannon, what an absolute mess. How on earth am I supposed to fix that with green stuff? It's a joke.



Well there it is, a side-by-side comparison of old FW material vs new. Hope you guys will join me in my complaints against them using this stuff and charging the same prices.

From your pictures, it seems to be less of an issue of the material and more of an issue of improper mold alignment.

I would not accept that replacement piece you got and ask for a new one.

I'd argue that the mold alignment is part and parcel of the material and method used, it can't really be justified. What about the warping and anomalies? There's loads of them, and that has nothing to do with mold alignment.

I've given up speaking to them to be honest, I'm just going to sell the kit as 2nd grade, maybe someone with a bit of green stuff skill can rectify it.

The only FW stuff I've ordered this year still came in the old Resin and not Finecast, so I haven't noticed this, but yeah, that's...awful.

Man it even has the crappy finecast sprue system and not the pour sprue you can turn into dragon teef.

how lame.

Also what part is this for?

It would appear to be a Vendetta conversion kit I believe.

I had ordered the same vendetta upgrade kit sent it back but was the same quality and gave up. It was the first time I ordered from Forgeworld and have not wanted to order from them again. Are all there kits made the same way?

Yep, it's the Vendetta kit (as pointed out in the original post ). I did order the Ork Warboss on warbike and that was cast in the old stuff, which was fine. It seems they only use Finecast for smaller parts but still, it's an unacceptable level of quality.

Even though I've pretty much quit with GW, there were still a few FW models I wanted to keep on the radar. Hector Rex is still a fantastic model, whether you play 40k or not.

That said, if FW is going down this route, I'll strike them from the list now and call it a day.

@ Uzumati: No, all of their kits are not made the same way. Every kit I bought from them had parts that were attached to sprues that looked similar to Jersey Barriers.

Like this:

wow that's terrible. finecast bends and warps so easily it wouldnt surprise me if a model would melt on a hot summer day.

i did one finecast model, there was alot of clean up and stuff to fill in but overall atleast the overall model itself was PASSABLE. One funny part though was i went to superglue the head into place and the fricken glue started leaking out a tiny hole in his leg.

kb305 wrote:
it wouldnt surprise me if a model would melt on a hot summer day.

Not to be a pain, but this was debunked pretty extensively with video last year.

One funny part though was i went to superglue the head into place and the fricken glue started leaking out a tiny hole in his leg.

Although it is weird that it traveled through the model, I can only imagine how much glue had to be used for it to leak like that. Most of the time, only a drop is needed.

Bleh i has the dumbs, sorry lol.

Iv also gotten a bunch of forgeworld stuff as well (mostly tetras and xv9s) and they where the old style casts as well.

if anything all i hope this means is that they will transfer over only the vendetta conversion kit to GW side as it is in a 40k codex and they will leave all the nice stuff alone.

 pretre wrote:

kb305 wrote:
it wouldnt surprise me if a model would melt on a hot summer day.

Not to be a pain, but this was debunked pretty extensively with video last year.

One funny part though was i went to superglue the head into place and the fricken glue started leaking out a tiny hole in his leg.

Although it is weird that it traveled through the model, I can only imagine how much glue had to be used for it to leak like that. Most of the time, only a drop is needed.

ya i used quite alot because the parts werent fitting together very well. the head wouldnt slide down and fit snug in the groove it would stay a bit "proped up" if that makes sense.

and i used the watery superglue not the gel. If anything the glue flowing through the model is a good thing. hopefully it reinforced that brittle garbage a bit.

 pretre wrote:

kb305 wrote:
it wouldnt surprise me if a model would melt on a hot summer day.

Not to be a pain, but this was debunked pretty extensively with video last year.

Also not to be a pain, it depends on the particular model. My models are stored on a shelf in my garage; I live in Dallas, Texas. As usual, our outside temps were above 100 over the summer. I bought a set of finecast Harlequins last year that wouldn't go 2 days without falling completely over due to the heat warping the streamers the models stand on. Most of the finecast parts like swords etc were just fine. However, if there is any weight at all on the piece, then the heat will allow the part to bend over.

There's a difference between bending and melting. I completely agree that the thin parts will bend under heat; that is well known. Heck, they bend at room temp for some of the big heavy models.

The whole idea that you would come into the room and find a puddle of finecast was pretty silly though.

kb305 wrote:


ya i used quite alot because the parts werent fitting together very well. the head wouldnt slide down and fit snug in the groove it would stay a bit "proped up" if that makes sense.

and i used the watery superglue not the gel. If anything the glue flowing through the model is a good thing. hopefully it reinforced that brittle garbage a bit.

Using more glue doesn't mean a better joint. In fact, it could cause a worse joint. The better way would be to put a drop of glue on the bottom of the head and then set the head on the body.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 pretre wrote:
There's a difference between bending and melting. I completely agree that the thin parts will bend under heat; that is well known. Heck, they bend at room temp for some of the big heavy models.

The whole idea that you would come into the room and find a puddle of finecast was pretty silly though.

Agreed; there were no puddles here.. ;

Reminds me of some second-hand models that I have gotten over time: When in doubt... drown it in glue!

i never said that the models would turn into a puddle. the fact that finecast models bend and droop over in texas is terrible enough.

the head and the body didnt connect properly. but think whatever you want, i'm a 12 yearold idiot who drowns all my models in glue.

kb305 wrote:
i never said that the models would turn into a puddle. the fact that finecast models bend and droop over in texas is terrible enough.

Clarity of language might be suggested then. Melt is very different then bend and droop.

the head and the body didnt connect properly. but think whatever you want, i'm a 12 yearold idiot who drowns all my models in glue.

Even if it doesn't connect properly, there are better ways than using enough glue that it falls out the bottom.

The issue is probably is that the Vendetta molds are in desperate need of replacement (thank you GW for making it so overpowered that everyone buys it) but FW have to continue using them and pulling the parts out as fast as possible to keep up with demand. I had the exact same problem: got one, it was horrible. Got a replacement, it was slightly less horrible. Got a replacement for the replacement, still just as bad. I finally gave up and conceded that I'm only going to have one Vendetta (the pre-"finecast" one I have) in my army with proper guns.

The other "finecast" models I bought from FW have had their problems (worse, on average, than the non-"finecast" ones), but the Vendetta is just its own special kind of horrible.

I just don't understand why they wouldn't go back to making the Vendetta kit how it used to be if literally every time they make one now it's completely flawed.

I wouldn't mind but it's essentially a £66 flier kind of ridiculous when you think it's only 130 points.

 lordofthegophers wrote:
literally every time they make one now it's completely flawed.

We have a couple anecdotes here. I don't think we can say that every single one is horribly flawed.

 pretre wrote:

kb305 wrote:
i never said that the models would turn into a puddle. the fact that finecast models bend and droop over in texas is terrible enough.

Clarity of language might be suggested then. Melt is very different then bend and droop.

the head and the body didnt connect properly. but think whatever you want, i'm a 12 yearold idiot who drowns all my models in glue.

Even if it doesn't connect properly, there are better ways than using enough glue that it falls out the bottom.

models getting malformed and screwed up in the heat - oh so wrong of me to say it "melted". my bad, i appologize for my oh so poorly thought out choice of language.

my model turned out fine after clean up and paint but anyway, i'll stop talking to you, i wouldnt want to offend the language and modeling police again.

kb305 wrote:
my model turned out fine after clean up and paint but anyway, i'll stop talking to you,

I think you may be taking the internet a bit too seriously. Take a step back and a deep breath.

 lordofthegophers wrote:
I just don't understand why they wouldn't go back to making the Vendetta kit how it used to be if literally every time they make one now it's completely flawed.

Probably because the sales they lose to people who care about their models are less than the profits they're making from selling piles of Vendetta kits as cheaply as possible to tournament players who just want the easiest way to make their bare plastic models WYSIWYG and get back to winning.

 pretre wrote:
We have a couple anecdotes here. I don't think we can say that every single one is horribly flawed.

Sorry, but "just an anecdote" isn't a very good objection here. So far of the two people who have a "finecast" version of the kit, both of us getting replacements for defective parts (and you'd think that a replacement part would get extra attention to make sure they aren't shipping out another bad one), every single kit has been horribly flawed. It's not enough to say for sure that there isn't even a single acceptable kit out of the entire production run of "finecast" Vendetta upgrades, but it's pretty convincing evidence that you should assume as a default that any Vendetta upgrade you buy will be horribly flawed.

 Peregrine wrote:
tournament players who just want the easiest way to make their bare plastic models WYSIWYG and get back to winning.

Yikes. You know that this is not at all representative of actual tournament players right.

 pretre wrote:
We have a couple anecdotes here. I don't think we can say that every single one is horribly flawed.

Peregrine wrote:Sorry, but "just an anecdote" isn't a very good objection here.

You snipped the underline of his quote where he said 'literally every one was that bad'. That is an absolute and it is rather difficult to support absolutes.

 pretre wrote:
Yikes. You know that this is not at all representative of actual tournament players right.

Not all, but let's be honest here: there are a lot of gray plastic Vendettas that were bought just because they're incredibly overpowered by people who don't care if the resin guns are a bit flawed as long as they still have the same rules.

You snipped the underline of his quote where he said 'literally every one was that bad'. That is an absolute and it is rather difficult to support absolutes.

That's just nitpicking. The difference between a literal 100% absolute and "if there's one out there that isn't garbage we haven't seen it" is so small that it isn't relevant. The failure rate might only be 99%, but if you're considering buying a Vendetta conversion kit it's as good as 100%.

I haven't seen the gray plastic hordes since 'ard boyz shut down.

That's what you get for taking Vendettas! Ahahaha!

Real Guard players use Vultures to escort their Valkyries.

Vultures with Punisher Gatling Cannons.



Edit note:
The jump from the jersey barrier styled mold gates(which I love, and actually have a box full of the blasted things for terrain projects) to the frames actually has a bit of an interesting story to it. From what I've been told, Forge World made the jump to the frames so that they can be a bit more effective when preparing inventory for Games Days and other events where they will be attending by being able to bring those products in blister pack formats rather than big huge baggies which are effectively wasted costs.

That bit made me a bit sad, as I love those bags. They're great for organizing bits.