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Hello all,

I decided to splash some cash on a couple of forgeworld models and they arrived yesterday. I had heard about the problems of warping and bubbles, but felt that was a reasonable risk and that I could deal with those problems if they arose.

However when I opened the package I was shocked at how poor the quality was of these expensive models.

The smoke stack on the dreadnought was broken, the ends of the pipes were ripped off and the decimator body was completed skewed, it seems like the molds were not aligned properly at all when the resin was injected.

Has anyone else had such problems and how did you deal with forgeworld/gw afterwards? I will upload pics later today

Forgeworld have usually been excellent with my exchanges/refunds based on quality complaints. That isnt to say I havent had issues (Fire raptor warped beyond repair, cultist arms that were like 90% flash, picture fell off the front of my betrayal book). In each case they were happy to replace the models (they actually sent 2 free sets of the cultist arms to me which was nice) and with the fire raptor they sent out a replacement quickly.

The second fire raptor was however also warped, and after contacting their customer service again I was told that it was BOUND to be warped, because they dont have time to let the kits cool when finished molding. It is apparently the responsibility of the customer to unwarp these products. This didnt go down well with my wife however.

It's pretty bad when someone can make a knock off of your product that is better quality than the original...

I have had mixed results with forgeworld, but for the most part the warped/broken parts have been repairable, be it at great time expense.

I've had both forgeworld stuff and knock offs and it is sad that someone can make a better product then yourself, using a copy of one of your own.

I'm not a fan of resin either, they can do better with plastics now a days, and you don't have the bubbles or warping. Not sure why GW just doesn't have everything made from plastic, to include Forge World

imagine the price they would charge if their product was perfect!!!

The worst I've gotten were some Chimera track guards that had been slightly warped, covered in flash, and also a bit brittle in some areas. The piece did break in the brittle areas as I was trying to clean the model and remove the flash, and while this was annoying I just made do with what I had since I was too eager to use it and didn't want to call them up and ask for a replacement. I covered any problem spots with green stuff sand bags, so that was that.

There have been several other times where I've had missing pieces in kits, or bubbles and flash on infantry models, but these are pretty minor and rare.

However, FW is pretty reliable when it comes to customer service. If you have a missing piece, they'll replace it. If the piece is broken beyond your repair, I'm sure they'll replace it as well, as many people have vouched for in the past.

I would say that their models can sometimes be a bit finer detailed and overall just more aesthetically pleasing than some of the stuff GW puts out, but they certainly have their problems. It's usually a gamble with how much cleanup you're going to have on your models, and it depends on what you're buying as well.

I'd only really suggest buying products from FW if they have something that you REALLY REALLY want and you're willing to put down a lot of money for it. I'm always happy with my purchases, but my wallet isn't.

 DarkKnights44 wrote:
I'm not a fan of resin either, they can do better with plastics now a days, and you don't have the bubbles or warping. Not sure why GW just doesn't have everything made from plastic, to include Forge World

Because plastic casting is expensive and not as detailed so not well suited to a miniature range where you want a lot of variety and/or high end ranges where you want good quality detail.

I've had a bit of a mixed bag with FW. Mostly the stuff has been fine, a bit warped but fixable. I bought a lot of AI stuff from them and some of the details were just too fine. I think most of my Ork Fighta Bombers came with miscast tail sections, but nothing overly major. I've also gotten a couple of models where the 2 halves of the mould clearly weren't lined up.

Thanks for your responses all.

Here are a couple of pictures of my issues but sounds like some of you have had even worse!



...how? It's like someone snapped it on purpose.







It looks like it is carelessness from the operator applying the two mold halfs together not aligning them properly before they do whatever process to inject the venom.

I will give them a call/email on monday.

My decimator looked about like that, maybe a little less off but also had several broken hoses.

I bought some death guard kits, they were unusable (I have been playing with Citadel since about 1982, I can deal with flash) I sent them back, they came back and were as bad....I gave up and will not be buying from them again.

It's a shame because I'd like a couple of titans but just can't be bothered paying that for rubbish casting.

I've lucked out then because nothing I've ordered from Forge World has been bad at all. The same goes for Finecast really, as my experience with that material has been relatively good as well.

Wow those are incredibly... crappy. I was gonna suggest using green stuff to fix them but wow. Just wow.

Looks like you got very unlucky with some older models. Give them a call (have your order number and batch numbers off the bags to hand) and they should just send you out replacements - they have the few times I've had similar issues (my Ironclad had the same exhaust issue).

My issue with this more than anything is why did they send it in the first place? You can glance at that and tell it is FUBAR.

And it's not like it's reasonably priced, or that it doesn't take a long time to get in the first place. Why not have some kind of quality control?

bladeiai wrote:
My issue with this more than anything is why did they send it in the first place?

The impression I get from them is that some stuff is checked when cast, some when bagged/boxes and some when packed for dispatch so you get some things checked three times but others that go unchecked. Three times I got a Despoiler squad bag but with a Breacher squad in it - In the end the Customer Service Manager got that order shipped to him first for him to double-check before sending it onto me.

Thanks for your feedback everyone.

Just thought I'd update you all on the situation...

I emailed them explaining my problem with the parts and attached the same screenshots that I have shown you guys here.

They have responded today and are sending replacement parts! So I am very happy now... just praying that the new bits wont be broken.

Cheers,
Op

 Opera wrote:
Hello all,

I decided to splash some cash on a couple of forgeworld models and they arrived yesterday. I had heard about the problems of warping and bubbles, but felt that was a reasonable risk and that I could deal with those problems if they arose.

However when I opened the package I was shocked at how poor the quality was of these expensive models.

The smoke stack on the dreadnought was broken, the ends of the pipes were ripped off and the decimator body was completed skewed, it seems like the molds were not aligned properly at all when the resin was injected.

Has anyone else had such problems and how did you deal with forgeworld/gw afterwards? I will upload pics later today

Glad to know you were sorted our forgeword Big Mek Stompa and other parts were all pretty perfect - instructions were missing and they sent a PDF the same day, with a follow-up email. I found them great people to deal with so I hope you're happy with your replacement bits.

 Melcavuk wrote:


The second fire raptor was however also warped, and after contacting their customer service again I was told that it was BOUND to be warped, because they dont have time to let the kits cool when finished molding. It is apparently the responsibility of the customer to unwarp these products. This didnt go down well with my wife however.

Wow! That really is 100% unacceptable, I wouldve demanded a refund right there upon hearing that. The models at forgeworld are priced extortionately, for them to not have time to do the casting job right is utter BS! We pay over the odds for them to do things like MAKE time for the production method to actually work as intended. Comments such as the one you quoted only push people to that arms of the recasters.

I did recieve a refund upon returning the warped kit back to forgeworld, so ended up not out of pocket on he whole thing really. It was just a bit of a knock to be told that the kit was bound to come warped, then have the phone attendant say they'd had several of the guys from the office look at it and they were all confident they would be able to unwarp it, therefore it was on me that it couldnt be fixed. The wife has now put a ban on my buying anything bigger than a predator for forgeworld.

I've had warped parts before (Chimera track guards), but nothing a bit of boiling water can't fix. As for mold bubbles, etc., I think it sometimes has to do with the scale size of the figure, i.e. the bits are so small its bound to happen and some touch up work will be needed. Having your parts out of alignment as seen above however, is completely unacceptable to me.

At the end of the day when you buy top cost models you expect top cost quality.The previous pics are exactly what happens when there are not robust quality controls.As for the "it's easily fixed"brigade that quality is unforgivable and why should the buyer have to fix problems.

I agree, but none of our discussion will alter the nasty beast that is GW/FW. I guess we work with what we can and what we find unacceptable, we deal with accordingly. I've had resin kits from Verlinden that were absolutely perfect and only needed cleaning up around the parts where you had to clip them off from the big casting chunk.

Actually... FW could take a lesson or two from Verlinden when it comes to creating and casting models in resin...

Mostly I find it a shame... forgeworld sculpts are just lovely, kind of worth the hefty price tags. And then they let themselves down like this :( and sadly do get shown up by recasters more often than the ought to. With the prices they charge, they can either afford to take their time a bit more and ensure quality. Or hire more hands to lighten the work. No excuses really.

 shingouki wrote:
As for the "it's easily fixed"brigade that quality is unforgivable and why should the buyer have to fix problems.

You shouldn't, in an ideal world. But in the real world you should have some perspective about it. We're talking about fixing stuff that takes a few minutes of work, probably less time than it takes to cut the pieces off the sprue for the average plastic kit. If a part is cast badly enough that you can't build the model without major repair work then yes, call and demand a refund/replacement or decide not to buy anything again. But it's kind of silly to whine about something that takes less time and effort to fix than you spent on writing a post complaining about it.

Sorry to hear about all the problems, I am another that hasn't had one problem with FW and Finecast as well.

Recently I have moved to other companies/idividuals that make other models and it has surprised me how well they can make miniatures with incredible detail without flash and absolutely no casting problems (not necessarily more expensive either). This has just shown me how unacceptable the GW/FW casting problems are.

I am not hating on them (I love a lot of their products) I just think for such a big company they should be able to have a much higher standard.

I've only ordered from Forge World twice, and I'm pretty happy with my experience so far. The first order was a Tau XV9 and a couple of XV89s, and all three of them came in perfect condition, no work required. I then ordered a R'Varna a bit more recently, and it had a couple of issues. Both guns were badly warped, and there were minor misalignment issues on one of them as well. Easy fixes though, just needed a bit of hot water and some filing, then everything was good!

But some of you guys seem to have gotten rather terrible experiences that are downright unacceptable... It seems to be a big gamble with Forge World, you always have the risk of getting something terrible. At least their customer service is great though, which kind of makes up for it.

I think part of the problem is that they are such a large company, and the larger a company becomes the exponentially more expensive it becomes to maintain high standards.
That being said, to me the bottom line is they are charging an arm and a leg for their products and many times my issues have been because they just throw it in a box practically loose and it gets all smashed up during shipping.
It also seems rather silly from a business perspective... How much are they losing sending all these replacement parts all over the world because they didn't even look at it the first time?

Anyways, my reaver titan laser blaster arm arrived the other day and was in good shape except two of the fins on the heatsink were broken off because of the poor packing. Overall that was pretty good though.

I haven't ordered a ton of stuff from them, but I have had a few bad pieces.

I have purchased Nob Bikers (no problems), Warboss on Bike (no problems), Mega Dread (one arm 'bar' was warped on one end, and so thinly cast that it snapped when I heated it and tried to reshape it), Battlefortress (one deathrolla disk was obliterated with resin, the other was perfect), Grot Bomb Launcha (no problems), Grot Tanks (no problems), and both Trukk Variants (no problems on either). Oh, and a huge Bloodthirster, back when Fantasy didn't stink, which was also perfectly cast.

I've been able to contact them and everything miscast was replaced quickly and with no hesitation. My only complaint is that it seems like I have to phone them to get a replacement (initial emails go unanswered) and the long distance calls surely cost more than the cost to replace the one bad bit. If they had a toll-free number I would have no complaints.

I just orderd a Battlewagon with Supa Kannon, so I hope my luck holds out!

 Opera wrote:
Thanks for your feedback everyone.

Just thought I'd update you all on the situation...

I emailed them explaining my problem with the parts and attached the same screenshots that I have shown you guys here.

They have responded today and are sending replacement parts! So I am very happy now... just praying that the new bits wont be broken.

Cheers,
Op

FW customer service is top notch and they always make things right....no matter how many times they have to send replacement parts

Most of my FW has been great besides bends that needed fixing. But the exhaust on my Predator was the same way, I just fixed them with GS.