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Which is funny to me because I refuse to trade for metal models now that finecast is out.

So much easier to glue, so much easier to work with. Not as many problems with things being top heavy. Good replacement policy.

I have had nothing but positive experiences overall with finecast.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Finecast whining threads went out of vogue several years ago.

Get your whineometers updated to a current topic.

*looks at 2nd fethed up Lord Commissar model he just received after the first one was also fethed up*
*looks at thread*

Umm, nah, it's still in vogue until GW fix it.

Relapse wrote:
It looks like GW is getting away from mentioning the word finecast and just using theterm resin models. Crap by any other name is still crap.

I never really quit the H-H-Hobby per se; as I still buy models now and then. That being said Finecast put a definite and noticeable dent in my enjoyment of it and cracked the then-favorable prism I viewed GWS through.

I bought a few of the Necrons HQs, and got the rest for Christmas the year they came out. Each and every single one had major, major issues. I had to send back about half of them, and the replacements also had major, major issues - you know, there is probably no reason to recount my experiences because from what I have read, the vast majority of people who have bought Finecast models and posted on Dakka about it reported similar experiences.

A common argument was, well, they had a learning curve, but in my experience that was just not true, my friends have bought finecast recently and they still had the same fething problems as day one. The other argument was usually the whiners on dakka were just a really vocal minority of internet jerks. I think the fact they're wholly abandoning the finest miniatures in the world just what, 2 and a half years later? kinda answers that one.

The whole thing really felt like a big middle finger from them. Yeah, metal's expensive so lets go to something cheaper, but we're also going to jack the price up of this stuff, because feth you, that's why. Side note, it's also impossible to strip because its so delicate, so hey, goodbye secondary market! All huge perks for GWS, but really no benefit at all for gamers. I mean, I kind of knew GWS sucked as a company before this debacle but that really, really opened my eyes.

Have to say that I've never bought any finecast. Both pricing and not really being tempted by anything come into it, but the bad press is enough to keep me away.

I am rather tempted by the new Gundabad Orcs, so maybe but I'm only gonna buy it in shop and check the blister first.

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
Have to say that I've never bought any finecast. Both pricing and not really being tempted by anything come into it, but the bad press is enough to keep me away.

I am rather tempted by the new Gundabad Orcs, so maybe but I'm only gonna buy it in shop and check the blister first.

It can be really hard to tell until you actually open the blister. One of the first FC models I bought I flipped through all the blisters on the shelf trying to find one without flaws, almost all of them had bad flaws, I picked one that I couldn't see any flaws. Got it home, opened it up and started assembling it and noticed several bubbles in places that required a decent amount of sculpting ability to fix.

So if you buy it from a store, I recommend opening it there and then and going over it carefully before you drive home and find the flaws.

I hasten to add that part of the reason I feel so strongly about Finecast is that the nearest Games Workshop is 2.5 hours away, so everyting I got came via mail order. If I could open them in the store, and examine them before buying them - well, they'll still suck and it would still be a black eye for the brand, but I bet I personally would not be as irate as I am.

The one (and only) Finecast model I have is my Tau Commander XV-8...and there's several pinholes and at least two other places where the resin wasn't casted very well. Definitely lived up to the reputation

Glad to hear GW is stepping away from it.

The new Wood Elf pre-orders just went up and the recast Shadowdancer is listed as Finecast instead of resin. They go through the effort of changing the description of the old stuff and then this.

My opinion?

The brand slogan should always have been "Finecast: Because feth you."

I've never had a good experience with finecast and I will continue to proxy Venomthropes and Zoanthropes until they are available in plastic, even if I'm proxying them until the end of time.

 Leth wrote:
Which is funny to me because I refuse to trade for metal models now that finecast is out.

So much easier to glue, so much easier to work with. Not as many problems with things being top heavy. Good replacement policy.

I have had nothing but positive experiences overall with finecast.

I rather agree with you. not much experience with metal (got into the hobby after most parts went to plastic) but what metal I have used were universally massive pains in the rear end. The old school Broadsides were impossible... That said, the finecast stuff is so insanely brittle that it's not much more fun to work with either if you ask me. I guess it's just a choice between two evils until we can get everything in plastic.

For what it's worth though I'd take finecast over metal. At least I can clean the mold lines off without heavy machinery.

i wonder how they managed to get finecast wrong so much. i've only ever bought one and it was perfect but clearly that isn't the case for everyone.

is it cheap materials and cost-cutting, or the substance itself- could resin miniatures be any good? forgeworld use resin don't they and i've never heard any complaints about their stuff. presume other companies use resin too.

 daddyorchips wrote:
i wonder how they managed to get finecast wrong so much. i've only ever bought one and it was perfect but clearly that isn't the case for everyone.

is it cheap materials and cost-cutting, or the substance itself- could resin miniatures be any good? forgeworld use resin don't they and i've never heard any complaints about their stuff. presume other companies use resin too.

I have several Forgeworld models, and haven't had a single problem. I love my FW Remoras and Broadsides/Crisis Suits so much...

 dementedwombat wrote:

 Leth wrote:
Which is funny to me because I refuse to trade for metal models now that finecast is out.

So much easier to glue, so much easier to work with. Not as many problems with things being top heavy. Good replacement policy.

I have had nothing but positive experiences overall with finecast.

I rather agree with you. not much experience with metal (got into the hobby after most parts went to plastic) but what metal I have used were universally massive pains in the rear end. The old school Broadsides were impossible... That said, the finecast stuff is so insanely brittle that it's not much more fun to work with either if you ask me. I guess it's just a choice between two evils until we can get everything in plastic.

For what it's worth though I'd take finecast over metal. At least I can clean the mold lines off without heavy machinery.

I liked the old-school XV88s, sure your railguns were never perfectly straight and often the bit that was meant to go over the thrusters of the XV8 body didn't fit but that was all easily fixed. Just cut off your thrusters and bend the railguns into shape. Also those kits would net you some more spare Crisis Suit weapons, which was nice.

Don't like the style of the new Broadsides, so I carry on using my old ones (when I actually use them). Have converted some to Missilesides using spare Missile Pods from Crisis kits. The new kit is too big and too clunky for my taste (and There's no way a railgun that size should be less powerful than a lascannon). Same reason I don't like and therefore don't use the Riptide, I guess.

Finally, a metal file is hardly heavy machinery.

 daddyorchips wrote:
i wonder how they managed to get finecast wrong so much. i've only ever bought one and it was perfect but clearly that isn't the case for everyone.

is it cheap materials and cost-cutting, or the substance itself- could resin miniatures be any good? forgeworld use resin don't they and i've never heard any complaints about their stuff. presume other companies use resin too.

It's all in the resin mix and casting process. Finecast is the only material that I (personally) have seen bubbles in. I'm a big fan of resin.

I've had flaws in Forgeworld and Chapterhouse items I've received, but have been able to remedy them with some effort. You can find complaints on some of the larger FW kits. It seems they have a better QC process but it also could be the lower amount of customers. Finecast was affordable and easily available to the masses.

 daddyorchips wrote:
i wonder how they managed to get finecast wrong so much.

Cost cutting, and knowing that the 12 year old buying an AWESOME SPACE MARINE HERO MODEL probably doesn't care about casting problems. Just like all of their other models they're going to carelessly tear it off the sprue, glue it together (in a rough approximation of how it's supposed to be assembled) with a giant puddle of glue, and maybe blob on a nice thick layer of paint so that you can't see any of the missing details anyway. And, like their other models, it's going to be thrown roughly in a spare cardboard box along with the rest of their army, so stuff is going to break off no matter what material the model is made out of. A casting flaw that snaps a sword in half is no worse than rough treatment that snaps a plastic sword in half.

Now, obviously people with higher standards aren't willing to put up with this, and GW probably lost a lot of their cost savings in having to ship out replacement model after replacement model and lost sales from people who refuse to buy finecast again. But you have to remember that people like us are a small minority of GW's customers, and not their primary target market.

could resin miniatures be any good? forgeworld use resin don't they and i've never heard any complaints about their stuff. presume other companies use resin too.

Yeah, resin itself is a great material. You can get amazing detail that you can't do in injection-molded plastic for technical reasons, and it's much easier to work with than metal. If GW had done the metal to resin conversion right then we'd all be praising the decision because it would have been a far superior product. The problem isn't with resin, it's that finecast isn't real resin. It's a low-quality material used with a questionable casting process and nonexistent quality control.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:

 Leth wrote:
Which is funny to me because I refuse to trade for metal models now that finecast is out.

So much easier to glue, so much easier to work with. Not as many problems with things being top heavy. Good replacement policy.

I have had nothing but positive experiences overall with finecast.

I rather agree with you. not much experience with metal (got into the hobby after most parts went to plastic) but what metal I have used were universally massive pains in the rear end. The old school Broadsides were impossible... That said, the finecast stuff is so insanely brittle that it's not much more fun to work with either if you ask me. I guess it's just a choice between two evils until we can get everything in plastic.

For what it's worth though I'd take finecast over metal. At least I can clean the mold lines off without heavy machinery.

I liked the old-school XV88s, sure your railguns were never perfectly straight and often the bit that was meant to go over the thrusters of the XV8 body didn't fit but that was all easily fixed. Just cut off your thrusters and bend the railguns into shape. Also those kits would net you some more spare Crisis Suit weapons, which was nice.

Don't like the style of the new Broadsides, so I carry on using my old ones (when I actually use them). Have converted some to Missilesides using spare Missile Pods from Crisis kits. The new kit is too big and too clunky for my taste (and There's no way a railgun that size should be less powerful than a lascannon). Same reason I don't like and therefore don't use the Riptide, I guess.

Finally, a metal file is hardly heavy machinery.

I could never make them balance right and they constantly broke off at the ankles (even worse than regular crisis suits in that regard). I have also fallen away from broadsides lately ever since my XV9s came in. Shadowsun jumping around with 3 XV9s is just so much more fun to play even if they're not necessarily more effective.

I guess it has been a very long time since I ever assembled a metal model (it was a vespid.) so my skills as a hobbyest have most likely matured a lot. I just have very unplesant memories of every single thin piece having a little blob of metal on the end of it that I somehow had to remove. I'm guessing a file would be easier that trying to do it with a hobby knife like I did back then, but I don't know if it would have been any more pleasant.

 Peregrine wrote:
A casting flaw that snaps a sword in half is no worse than rough treatment that snaps a plastic sword in half.

Now, obviously people with higher standards aren't willing to put up with this, and GW probably lost a lot of their cost savings in having to ship out replacement model after replacement model and lost sales from people who refuse to buy finecast again. But you have to remember that people like us are a small minority of GW's customers, and not their primary target market.

Good point. Dealing with Finecast can be no different than dealing with plastic flaws (mold lines, flash, clipping damage). I find that dealing with a small amount of Finecast repair to be easier than dealing with plastic cleanup. However, I don't think the Finecast models with a small amount of flaws is why we are having this discussion.

I have a feeling finecast either cures too fast or for some technical reason they can't get the bubbles out. I personally haven't used other resin that came on sprues like finecast, usually there's a clear injection point blob, finecast for some reason comes on sprues. Maybe they tried to do injection casts with resin and failed but pursued it anyway. If you look at how the sprues are laid out, you can see the cast as a whole is far more complicated of a design than you see of FW stuff.

Calling Finecast resin is an absolute insult to the quality of resin. Sure, it's all actually resin when you go by the definition, but when I use that term, I am talking of awesome things. Like for instance the Flesh Golem I got for Confrontation: Age of Ragnorok. I can't even find a good pic that adequately shows off the souls flowing across the detail on it's back.

reps0l wrote:
Good point. Dealing with Finecast can be no different than dealing with plastic flaws (mold lines, flash, clipping damage).

No, that's not at all what I meant. Finecast's flaws are much worse than plastic, my point is that for many of GW's customers finecast's flaws don't matter. They treat their models poorly and don't care if they're damaged, so there's no real difference between a finecast model that's broken because of casting flaws and a plastic model that's broken because of carelessly throwing it in a box. There's no "dealing with it" because that kind of person just uses the broken model until they get tired of the game and throw the whole pile of stuff in the garbage.

I like that sculpt very much, but I'm guessing that if it was labeled Finecast and someone ended up with it you'd see a picture something like the below along with complaints that the model was "full of air bubbles" and "unusable". I think some people are overly critical of Finecast because of the bad reputation it has (not saying there may not be serious errors, but a lot of the pictures I've seen blow things way out of proportion in my opinion.)

My experience with finecast is that it's more annoying to assemble, bubbles and pin holes here and there (it's on orks so it's passable), the thin poles will break easily (it's this wierd mix of brittle yet not rigid). I like the bulky parts of the model as they have nice detail but the sculpt seems designed for a different material (are these the same sculpts they made for the metal models?) and the thin parts just can't maintain the proper shape. Poles are warped and slightly wonky plus any load can break them.

For an expensive model (20 for a wierdboy and 20 for a warboss) I expect a more durable model that doesn't have warped poles and none of this bubble crap. The plastic fireblade I have looks great and is incredibly durable (I don't have to worry about it breaking if it tips over on the table or it gets picked up)

All the warped and bent poles is a giant "that's what she said" joke waiting to be made.

Vankraken wrote:
My experience with finecast is that it's more annoying to assemble, bubbles and pin holes here and there (it's on orks so it's passable), the thin poles will break easily (it's this wierd mix of brittle yet not rigid). I like the bulky parts of the model as they have nice detail but the sculpt seems designed for a different material (are these the same sculpts they made for the metal models?) and the thin parts just can't maintain the proper shape. Poles are warped and slightly wonky plus any load can break them.

For an expensive model (20 for a wierdboy and 20 for a warboss) I expect a more durable model that doesn't have warped poles and none of this bubble crap. The plastic fireblade I have looks great and is incredibly durable (I don't have to worry about it breaking if it tips over on the table or it gets picked up)

All the warped and bent poles is a giant "that's what she said" joke waiting to be made.

A lot of the models in finecast were originally metal, yes. They just switched materials without making new moulds. A lot of people at the time said the problems were due to this but then new models came out in finecast which had the same issues.

 dementedwombat wrote:
I like that sculpt very much, but I'm guessing that if it was labeled Finecast and someone ended up with it you'd see a picture something like the below along with complaints that the model was "full of air bubbles" and "unusable". I think some people are overly critical of Finecast because of the bad reputation it has (not saying there may not be serious errors, but a lot of the pictures I've seen blow things way out of proportion in my opinion.)

Spoiler:

Funny enough, checking on my model, the casting is such on that model that mine has the exact same pattern of "pits". from the pattern of pairs along the horns, to the single tiny one on the hammer face, once I correlated wich face of the hammer on my model was the same as the one in the pic. It's actually part of the detail and as such, speaks to the casting I think.

On the other hand........

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Funny enough, checking on my model, the casting is such on that model that mine has the exact same pattern of "pits". from the pattern of pairs along the horns, to the single tiny one on the hammer face, once I correlated wich face of the hammer on my model was the same as the one in the pic. It's actually part of the detail and as such, speaks to the casting I think.

Wow. I'm suitably impressed. To be honest I had a hard time figuring out which pock-marks were actually built into the model and which ones I should put circles around. I tired to go for the ones that most obviously looked like potential casting problems to me. I'm really surprised at the ones on the horns. I guess all I can say is crongradulations to you, you acquired one amazing model with awesome casting.

You're telling me. I honestly had thought you circled casting bubbles I missed when I posted the image, and had to check my model because it's been painted for about three years. I was kinda shocked when I matched them up.

 Peregrine wrote:
my point is that for many of GW's customers finecast's flaws don't matter.

Well looks like I'm part of that group as long as it is not a catastrophic flaw.

 dementedwombat wrote:
I like that sculpt very much, but I'm guessing that if it was labeled Finecast and someone ended up with it you'd see a picture something like the below along with complaints that the model was "full of air bubbles" and "unusable". I think some people are overly critical of Finecast because of the bad reputation it has (not saying there may not be serious errors, but a lot of the pictures I've seen blow things way out of proportion in my opinion.)

I don't think this is really true. Even under the assumption that those were in fact casting flaws and not just part of the sculpt they're all tiny pinhole bubbles that don't damage any of the detail or weaken the structure of the model. It might be a bit annoying to clean up, but you can fix that kind of flaw easily and without re-sculpting the model. Finecast, on the other hand, tends to have larger bubbles that obliterate detail and cause thinner parts to break off. If it's practical to fix it at all you're going to have to do non-trivial amounts of sculpting work to rebuild the damaged sections.

 daddyorchips wrote:
i wonder how they managed to get finecast wrong so much. i've only ever bought one and it was perfect but clearly that isn't the case for everyone.

is it cheap materials and cost-cutting, or the substance itself- could resin miniatures be any good? forgeworld use resin don't they and i've never heard any complaints about their stuff. presume other companies use resin too.

Done right, resin models can be absolutely stunning. While I've never personally had any problems with any FC model I've ever bought, I think I've bought maybe a dozen total... and notice that I seem to be in the serious minority of people who've just been that damn lucky. Though, I've also only ever bought them online from GW directly, so maybe they have some QA people at order fulfillment that check over the models before packaging them? No idea, just know that I have never had any problems with FC, but I also don't believe my experience to be common.