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So am very dissappointed by the quality of the forgeworld models. I've just bought a pylon with deathray. The deathray itself was malformed, almost to the point that it's unusable. Three other pieces that should have matched were either bent (beyond what hot water can do), malformed, or too short / thin so that it looks dreadful. Guidance notes state some extra modelling may be required. Why is this? The night before I build a doomscythe. The pieces clicked together perfectly and it was a thoroughly pleasent experience. My monolith's pieces were perfect. I understand resin has different manufacturing but I believe the quality, especially for the price, is extremely poor.

Furthermore the book is awful. Here is an example.

"[...] Models with no Strength values automatically pass, but if a vehicle with no Strength or a building, they suffer an automatic penetrating hit instead with no saves possible."

That to me is very poor English and strikes me as on par with one of those sentences translated badly from Chinese. For £50 for a rule book supplement I think it's very poor and could do with a very thorough proof-read.

Overall for almost £100 for the book and model I am extremely disappointed. Does anyone have similar experiences before I go back and ask for money back? Suggestions also welcome. (Annoying I had glued half the thing together before I realised the pieces were malformed.)

/rant

Email them to see about replacement pieces?

For the model-resin at times screws up. there is no wa to predict when, nor a real way to fix it without starting from scratch with new materials.

You know what they do about it?
You email them about the flaw, and you get another one for free.


As for the book being awful, I don't think singling out a sentence where the proofreading screwed up is fair.
Most books have at least some instances of mistakes, some outright idiotic. you think its bad when its a £50 book? wait until you get unreadable sentences in university exams. that stuff happens.

I assume you are talking about IA12 here (necrons after all), and my friend has that book, its fabulous. he never had a single complaint on it, on the contrary-he keeps showing it off and takes great pride at how awesome it is.

Take a couple of photographs of the malformed pieces and send them to FW with a complaint, you should get replacements. Acctually, they might be bound by law to replace unusable parts?

Edit: After some googling there seems to be something called "sales of goods act" in the UK, which states that a product should look like the one shown in shop/brochure (Spelling?), and it should be fit for purpose, otherwise it can be returned for a repair/replacement/money back.

Yeah, Forge World Resin is a huge improvement over Finecast, but it's still a terrible replacement for Plastic. I bought Acanthrites, and their small, thin pieces of resin are an absolute nightmare to transport without having to repair on a regular basis.

It works better on big models with no tiny fiddly bits to snap at the slightest jolt that plastic would completely ignore, but even then you'll randomly get the occasional miscast.

Which is why I didn't buy a Pylon and Sentry Pylons from Forge World. Instead, I converted three Annihilation Barge kits into three Sentry Pylons, three Tomb Blades and three Royal Court members with enough bits left over for a few other things.

For the main Superheavy Pylon: A Doomsday Ark gun attached to Night Scythe Wings for the upper half, and the bottom of a Drop Pod with the doors on upside down for the base section. Upper parts sourced from ebay, leftover Drop Pod parts formed a scenic base for my Tomb Stalker.

Best part? Cost me a third what the official models would have.

I am guessing I have gotten lucky with my Forgeworld models. I really have not had any major problem a little hot water wouldn't fix in a few seconds. The only time I have had to ask for a replacement was when I was simply missing a piece and they sent it out quick and free.

 Vash108 wrote:
I am guessing I have gotten lucky with my Forgeworld models. I really have not had any major problem a little hot water wouldn't fix in a few seconds. The only time I have had to ask for a replacement was when I was simply missing a piece and they sent it out quick and free.

Only bought two things, but:

Acanthrites: Break more or less every time the carry case is lightly jarred. Not whammed into something with force you'd expect to break stuff, just largely unavoidable little bumps that have never so much as scratched my plastic models.

Tomb Stalker: Main body is large blocks of resin and far more robust, but mouthparts are flimsy and came broken (fixable with glue, but not a good sign really...) Antennae persistently fell off until magnetised and stored seperately.

It's not finecast, but this is not the quality I expect from something more expensive than their standard product line.

Just dont buy from Forge World mate.

Those lazy buggers will chuck anything in a bag and hope you fix it yourself. Highly unprofessional.

Unless you enjoy paying someone to finish their job before you can do your part of the modeling I wouldn't waste my time.

Dont get me started on their overpriced books with mostly terrible rules either and perhaps most annoyingly their inability to properly index which books contain what along with which books have the most up to date rules etc.

I simply dont buy from them, especially after how superior I saw re casters products are compared to Forge World.

In saying that though, they will replace broken bits etc. Just hope they bothered to check the replacement before sending it to you.

changemod wrote:

 Vash108 wrote:
I am guessing I have gotten lucky with my Forgeworld models. I really have not had any major problem a little hot water wouldn't fix in a few seconds. The only time I have had to ask for a replacement was when I was simply missing a piece and they sent it out quick and free.

Only bought two things, but:

Acanthrites: Break more or less every time the carry case is lightly jarred. Not whammed into something with force you'd expect to break stuff, just largely unavoidable little bumps that have never so much as scratched my plastic models.

Tomb Stalker: Main body is large blocks of resin and far more robust, but mouthparts are flimsy and came broken (fixable with glue, but not a good sign really...) Antennae persistently fell off until magnetised and stored seperately.

It's not finecast, but this is not the quality I expect from something more expensive than their standard product line.

I have had issues with the standards that are glued to the top of their back packs breaking off but that is my fault for poor packing.

I've not been impressed with any of the FW models I have bought. They do not compare well with either garage casts or larger scale casting companies.

Not to mention absolutely pants communication and customer service.

i've never had properly cast FW stuff.

everything has needed my skill with a scalpel to make it look like it should.

as others have said, take photo's, and nag them on a fairly regular basis about how it's for a commission or something and new parts will appear.

a mate got a knight magera with a mis-casted carapace and head; he got new bits, i got the original ones and my paladin became a magera!

FW quality is hit and miss. Sometimes it is awesome, sometimes it is horrible. I've had both, even with pieces in the same kit.
Luckily FW is really generous about sending replacement parts or even an entirely new kit.

Most of my FW models have come just fine without any issues. When I have had issues, FW has replaced them at no cost, including an entire Scorpion kit.

As for the books, getting upset over a couple typos is silly, the books generally are wonderful and a far greater value than most GW core studio books are.

The books are usually better than GW quality and the armies have a lot more character rather than GW's bland lists without cool special rules. IA:12 is perhaps the best book I've ever bought from this company.

I've had some problems with the miniatures, but nothing a little modelling or a call for a replacement part couldn't fix. Much prefer them to ordinary plastic even with all the hassles as the models themselves are far better looking.

You;d think at $600 for a Thunderhawk they could be bothered to do some Quality Assurance on the product before bagging it up.

It's all well and good that Forgeworld has good follow up customer service, but if they actually had decent front-end QC they wouldn't need it.

You should be able to spend a few hundred dollars on a product with the reasonable expectation that it arrives in good condition. The fact that certain kits have a "reputation" is pretty unacceptable.

I have never personally had a problem with the quality of forgeworld resin. but have had other issues like being sent the wrong models, to the point were me and the person from there customer services were both .
what I will say is give them a ring explain the problem with the models they may ask for pictures so they know what parts you need, but they will sort you out quickly, its not unheard of to be sent new models (so long as not really expensive) which is nice when it happens 2 for 1

as for the book I don't have IA12 but do have IA13 cant say ive found any issues with the writing of rules, but that may just be me being dumb

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
You;d think at $600 for a Thunderhawk they could be bothered to do some Quality Assurance on the product before bagging it up.

It's all well and good that Forgeworld has good follow up customer service, but if they actually had decent front-end QC they wouldn't need it.

You should be able to spend a few hundred dollars on a product with the reasonable expectation that it arrives in good condition. The fact that certain kits have a "reputation" is pretty unacceptable.

It is, but most of them are also older kits like the Thunderhawk that are older than most mainstream GW kits, when FW was still getting their act together.

EDIT: The only models I really had major problems with were my Vampire Hunter (a *really* old kit) that required extensive pinning and has rather large gaps between some pieces, and the old Hydra kit (which likewise, is *really* old), as it didn't really fit the Chimera hull and required extensive modification to the Chimera to make fit.

Aside from that, the only problems I've had were with individual pieces getting mixed up or the like, not major miscasts or anything.

It depends on the kit, really. I've got a Vulture, a Nightwing, and some BFG Eldar that I'm very pleased with, no bubbles in visible places.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
It depends on the kit, really. I've got a Vulture, a Nightwing, and some BFG Eldar that I'm very pleased with, no bubbles in visible places.

Bubbles, at least, they seem to have a handle on. Main reason I say at least it's not Finecast.

changemod wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
It depends on the kit, really. I've got a Vulture, a Nightwing, and some BFG Eldar that I'm very pleased with, no bubbles in visible places.

Bubbles, at least, they seem to have a handle on. Main reason I say at least it's not Finecast.

Can you imagine if it was? They'd be charging twice as much for flimsier models.

Thank you to everyone for replies - it looks like there's variable quality issues. Probably depends on batches / particular castor's skill or something like that.

Regarding the book, I would agree IA12 is impressive. But for £50 is needs to be perfect. I understand the fluff is written in triple-negative action theatrical; and that's only o be expected. But the rules need to be clear and simple to understand and given the basic reasons I bought the model and book - i.e. as a model and rule supplement, not as a SciFi mag or novel - I think unfortunately for me both have failed on this occassion.

its a sign of cutting corners to increase production - that's why there's bent pieces; they weren't allowed to cool properly before they got pulled out of the mould and then left on a flat surface, gravity did the rest.

to use a mould you have to heat it up, to remove the part properly without damaging it, the mould must be cooled past the material's liquid to solid phase transition which requires a lot of energy to be drained.

to artificially cool the mould would raise costs (my guess is close to double), so they pay a 'customer service' team to confirm f#*kups and re-post replacements.
because, y'know, it's cheaper to do that than throw away money with production scrappage.

just ask the ford motor company about factors of cost concerning post sale expenditure - its easier and cheaper to just settle out of court than recall your products.