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So I love converting, I also like all of my models to be WYSIWYG, but there's plenty of times when this doesn't go to plan, and I was just curious and thought this would be fun, what is your favourite/most memorable worst experience with building your army?

Was it finding out that your citadel finecast models mold was slightly off, and so part of it was actually stuck to the rectangle it's not supposed to be attached to?

Maybe it was learning that most blister staves are bent, and trying to make the finecast ones go back to normal by bending them will cause them to snap?
(at the time I didn't know how brittle the stuff was).

Was it finding out the monster you bought doesn't come with the guns you want to equip it with?

Was it finding out (in some unfortunate accident) just how sharp Games Workshop makes their spears?

Or was is finding out that the metal Regimental Advisers copyright inscription makes the model too wide to fit in their bases?

What's your most memorable moment?

Well, I have a recurring theme when it comes to worst experiences: Metal Monstrous Creatures. When pressed to name 3 most god-awfull models I've been working on it'll be definitely the Hive Tyrant, Bloodthirster and the Big Mek with SAG (not an MC but still metal junk).

There is absolutely 0 chance to change the pose without excessive madskills with Greenstuff and even the "as designed" pose is hard to achive because the parts don't fit or have to be glued 5 pieces together in one go because glueing them step by step will lead to the last piece not being able to squeeze into the assembly.
They are heavy, meaning either the glue has to be of the "cements everything instantly, leaving no time for precise positioning" variety or you have fun fixing everything precisely in place and leave the table for a day otherwise something is bound to drop off.
Either way, by the end of the day some part will have fallen off or ends up glued on crooked enough so that the other arm-wing-foot-gun doesn't fit anymore.

Seriously, there's only two things good about metal miniatures:
1. they don't need weighting down on the game table but god help you if their center of gravity is off
2. Once you messed up the paintjob, you can strip the paint by any solvent you like without loss of the usually crude and sparse details.

I built my stormboyz wrong so now they WON'T STAND UP!

Bronzefists42 wrote:
I built my stormboyz wrong so now they WON'T STAND UP!

Have you tried glueing a coin to the underside of the bases to give it bottom weight?

Not much springs to mind for my favourite worst experience... worst experience was definitely Finecast; the stuff is just so aggrovating every possible way but I can't say its my favourite hehe.

Bronzefists42 wrote:
I built my stormboyz wrong so now they WON'T STAND UP!

Lead is quite soft and melts quickly. maybe cast your own weights. Definitely planing to do so for my plastic minis.

 Kosake wrote:

There is absolutely 0 chance to change the pose without excessive madskills with Greenstuff and even the "as designed" pose is hard to achive because the parts don't fit or have to be glued 5 pieces together in one go because glueing them step by step will lead to the last piece not being able to squeeze into the assembly.
They are heavy, meaning either the glue has to be of the "cements everything instantly, leaving no time for precise positioning" variety or you have fun fixing everything precisely in place and leave the table for a day otherwise something is bound to drop off.
Either way, by the end of the day some part will have fallen off or ends up glued on crooked enough so that the other arm-wing-foot-gun doesn't fit anymore.

I hear you on this one, I swear that the majority of metal models will always have gaps where they fit in too, so you'll need greenstuff regardless (even the easy 2-3 piece ones have gaps).

The heaviness is what initially killed it for me though, but thanks to this I'm now great at positioning, just because I had to stack models and paint in a way that the model won't fall apart while it glues.

Overall I still prefer Metal though, mostly because of how durable it is, the finecast stuff I've had break just trying to remove the blister strands from it (because they attach the strands to really small parts of the model).

Or was is finding out that the metal Regimental Advisers copyright inscription makes the model too wide to fit in their bases?

This. The amount of times I bought a squad of metal minis and one of them just won't fit into their base.

 gianlucafiorentini123 wrote:

Or was is finding out that the metal Regimental Advisers copyright inscription makes the model too wide to fit in their bases?

This. The amount of times I bought a squad of metal minis and one of them just won't fit into their base.

You can still sort of make them fit, you just need to bend the bases down, then up, then you can sort of jam them in there. God help you though if the top of the model is pointy, because then you have no place to push on them,

 gianlucafiorentini123 wrote:

Or was is finding out that the metal Regimental Advisers copyright inscription makes the model too wide to fit in their bases?

This. The amount of times I bought a squad of metal minis and one of them just won't fit into their base.

Or the old 'base too thin' debacle, where you needed to bend a kink into the base so it wouldn't fall out? Admittedly not half as annoying, but a pest nonetheless.

I've heard a lot of horror stories from that old metal Hive Tyrant from friends, though.

I'd have to go with:
Any vehicle model I ever build.
If it's a tank, no matter what I do with it, the hull will always be out of alignment with something, leaving small gaps. And the guns always fall off, causing me to stop trying to glue them on, and instead just using some blu-tac to hold them in place.

If it's a flier, there's always one thing that won't ever stay on. My most annoying one being on me Heldrake. The Heldrake's starboard wing just will not stay in place, and no matter what I do with it, it always falls off. Eventually, after several days worth of failure, I got some polycement, and had the damn thing bonded at a molecular level.
And after all of that, I now can't take it out of the house without risking snapping the wings into multiple pieces, due to the design of the damn thing.

Oh, and I've never had a fine/failcast model without any of the following:

1) Excessive tags
2) Parts that cannot fit eachother
3) Bent staves
4) Bent swords
5) Holes in the model
6) Ultra-smooth surfaces (I cannot get any paint to stick to them. And every single one of my finecast models has this problem).

 Selym wrote:

Oh, and I've never had a fine/failcast model without any of the following:

5) Holes in the model
6) Ultra-smooth surfaces (I cannot get any paint to stick to them. And every single one of my finecast models has this problem).

I forgot about these two! The holes one is the worst for me, since one of the reasons they switched to finecast was to add more detail, (which is bull), and the model either has holes in it, or it has bursted bubbles on top of/in the model.

The paint one isn't so bad I think, liberally apply a base coat of Abbadon black, and you're good to go, since paint will always stick to the black, and not the model.

 Kosake wrote:

Bronzefists42 wrote:
I built my stormboyz wrong so now they WON'T STAND UP!

Lead is quite soft and melts quickly. maybe cast your own weights. Definitely planing to do so for my plastic minis.

Its easier to just clip up some metal chunks and glue them in with sand and pva mix. Although metling metal is always fun. The old spray can flamer on a lead figure you hate is most satisfying.


As for metal base tabs not fitting, shame on you! Just clip them into shape!

 Kosake wrote:
Well, I have a recurring theme when it comes to worst experiences: Metal Monstrous Creatures. When pressed to name 3 most god-awfull models I've been working on it'll be definitely the Hive Tyrant, Bloodthirster and the Big Mek with SAG (not an MC but still metal junk).

I still remember when I got my metal Hive Tyrant for christmas years ago, as well as it being already a difficult task to glue awkward rather heavy metal chunks together, and with a decent pose, I was also only a kid, so it was even harder having not had a metal model before or much experience with super glue xD That was one frustrating day getting him to be properly assembled!

The metal thunderfire cannon is a horrible thing to assemble, the parts wont fit, there are tons of pointy places on the tracks and a ton of excess metal that has to be cleaned up.

My worst experience was a resin tank bought from some garage-operation company. Best looking tank I have, but man that was a horrible thing to build. Had to saw through something like 8" of thick resin just to get the tracks off the "sprue". Also some warping leading to misaligned parts and some weird decisions of splitting up some parts of the tank into a million pieces.

I want more of them, but I just can`t stand the thought of building more

New Hobby Knife. New Model. Excitement. Recklessness. Blood. Blood on knife. Blood on model. Blood everywhere.

Drilled through my thumb while trying to pin the legs of an old tomb spyder. Funny thing is I didnt notice it at all first, until all blood started to come out. It didint feel anything at all, lucky it only was a 1mm drillbit.

I was just: "Where all the blood coming from, I havn't.....Wait a minute there is a hole trough my thumb!"

I worked SO HARD to assemble my land raider as precisely as humanly possible. It WOULD be perfect, and the front door WOULD drop open to reveal a beautifully painted interior.Then of course, after working to get the mechanisms correct, I glued them all together when I assembled the outer shell....

drop pods... theres a special place in hell where you just endlessly have to try to assemble drop pods that have fully working doors