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 JamesY wrote:
In a nutshell, whfb performed very poorly, and it was decided that this was because the entry price for the game, I.e. buying a playable army, was too high. The decision was made to change the game so it could be played with far fewer models, therefore removing the barrier. Not long before release, the finance team chipped in that selling fewer miniatures was a bad idea. So the outcome has been a game designed to play well with only 10 models, boxes that only have 3-5 models in them, (all the end time boxes were made with AoS in mind), but priced in a manner that maintains the high introductory cost. So the accountants won. I want to be clear that I really like the game, it just can't do what it was supposed to do, which is bring new players in in the long term by dropping the cost.

Very interesting. One would think the accountants would be able to think long-term, but apparently not? In any case, if these expensive 3-5 model boxes don't sell as expected, they may be forced to lower prices on future releases. What are your thoughts about repacks of old models (Skaven and Sylvaneth) being as cheap or in some cases even cheaper than before?

 Spinner wrote:

 bitethythumb wrote:
The only thing expensive in GW is their tools and glues...

That word...I do not think it means what you think it means.

It's telling of the impression I've gotten from both GW's management and pricing policies that I'm not sure which side JamesY thinks won the debate. What were the opposing viewpoints, can you share those?

??? I have no idea what you are asking of me...GW minis are pretty fairly priced considering the costs and quality, from what I gather they are also made in the UK which is not exactly a cheap place to make minis and chances are their staff are paid a min wage at least(be vary of abroad made products)... Hate them or not GW makes quality minis... Paints are also great, everything else is meh...(pliers? £3.99 maplin, vice drill? £5.99 + £3.99 pin vice and selection of drill bits.. Etc)

Lol. AoS and gw don't force you to just buy stormcast. Newsflash the models that were out before stormcast still exist. Shock horror I know. Based on some of the replies here I'm amazed some of you can get dressed in the morning never mind play toy soldiers

 JamesY wrote:
In a nutshell, whfb performed very poorly, and it was decided that this was because the entry price for the game, I.e. buying a playable army, was too high. The decision was made to change the game so it could be played with far fewer models, therefore removing the barrier. Not long before release, the finance team chipped in that selling fewer miniatures was a bad idea. So the outcome has been a game designed to play well with only 10 models, boxes that only have 3-5 models in them, (all the end time boxes were made with AoS in mind), but priced in a manner that maintains the high introductory cost. So the accountants won. I want to be clear that I really like the game, it just can't do what it was supposed to do, which is bring new players in in the long term by dropping the cost.

I never played WHFB, and I am just getting into AoS, but that said, 40K is seemingly much more expensive than AoS. Granted, I don't undersetand the Stormcast Eternals pricing as they seem very high. But, getting into Vampire Counts, their overall model cost doesn't seem that high. I can get 10 Grave Guards for $41. In 40K, a five man Space Marine Assault Squad is $41. So, looking at AoS from someone who has invested only in 40K so far, the prices seem much lower (relatively)... many more models for much less money (except for Stormcast Eternals).

SG

 Motograter wrote:
Lol. AoS and gw don't force you to just buy stormcast. Newsflash the models that were out before stormcast still exist. Shock horror I know. Based on some of the replies here I'm amazed some of you can get dressed in the morning never mind play toy soldiers

A rather supercilious reply, stormcast, the new khorne miniatures, and the end times miniatures reflect the direction that future releases are going in. So yes, older boxes still exist, but they will be replaced in a manner that follows the current release trend. Some of us are discussing what lays ahead, not what has been left behind.

@Mymearan I hope they keep what's good and make new versions of what needs updating. It's still a fantasy game, so no need to replace a good skeleton or orc model just to say it was made for AoS specifically.

MongooseMatt wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I used to play WHFB and 40k, about 3 and a half years ago I couldn't afford both and so switched to just Fantasy. About 2 years ago I stopped buying new models for fantasy and just played with what I had. AoS got me buying things again (once I found a comp I liked), but aside from a grand total of 1 box, all of its has been ebay or non-GW counts as models. Moral of the story? GW would make more money off me if they lowered their prices. One can argue quality of product, supply-demand, and whatnot all day, but their falling sales suggest that holding the course simply isn't a long term solution.

Got a question here...

GW have been experimenting with different price points, and with the Plague Monks, Dryads and Bloodreavers, they put more models in the box. I assume the specific models did not appeal to you, but is the concept of the price point of those particular sets attractive?

At the other end of the pricing scale, but with the same concept, the Sylvaneth Warhost could be considered too...

TBF the dryads are the only rebox thus far that has actually lowered the price; plague monks stayed the same and just switched box art and bases. Things like the bloodreavers and sylvaneth warhost were great moves and very much gave me hope that GW had changed their course (however slightly), and they even put up some nurgle bundles with a nice discount on their website with the rotbringer release. Then they edited the prices of those bundles to offer no discount, released the celestant prime kit, and moved on to their latest release of a single character for $40 and three models for $60. Suffice to say that dim hope has been crushed.

 bitethythumb wrote:

 Spinner wrote:

 bitethythumb wrote:
The only thing expensive in GW is their tools and glues...

That word...I do not think it means what you think it means.

It's telling of the impression I've gotten from both GW's management and pricing policies that I'm not sure which side JamesY thinks won the debate. What were the opposing viewpoints, can you share those?

??? I have no idea what you are asking of me...GW minis are pretty fairly priced considering the costs and quality, from what I gather they are also made in the UK which is not exactly a cheap place to make minis and chances are their staff are paid a min wage at least(be vary of abroad made products)... Hate them or not GW makes quality minis... Paints are also great, everything else is meh...(pliers? £3.99 maplin, vice drill? £5.99 + £3.99 pin vice and selection of drill bits.. Etc)

Not asking anything of you in particular - just pointing out that something being expensive has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of it. GW's stuff costs a fair chunk of change - especially if you live in Australia (the funnel web tax, maybe?). I like some of their models, I dislike others (not nearly as many as I like!), but I'd never say they were anything but expensive.

 Spinner wrote:

 bitethythumb wrote:

 Spinner wrote:

 bitethythumb wrote:
The only thing expensive in GW is their tools and glues...

That word...I do not think it means what you think it means.

It's telling of the impression I've gotten from both GW's management and pricing policies that I'm not sure which side JamesY thinks won the debate. What were the opposing viewpoints, can you share those?

??? I have no idea what you are asking of me...GW minis are pretty fairly priced considering the costs and quality, from what I gather they are also made in the UK which is not exactly a cheap place to make minis and chances are their staff are paid a min wage at least(be vary of abroad made products)... Hate them or not GW makes quality minis... Paints are also great, everything else is meh...(pliers? £3.99 maplin, vice drill? £5.99 + £3.99 pin vice and selection of drill bits.. Etc)

Not asking anything of you in particular - just pointing out that something being expensive has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of it. GW's stuff costs a fair chunk of change - especially if you live in Australia (the funnel web tax, maybe?). I like some of their models, I dislike others (not nearly as many as I like!), but I'd never say they were anything but expensive.

of course being expensive is not a standard of quality, its why I pointed out its made in the UK.. Firstly they are not overly expensive...(comparing them to competitors) a lot of their expense could simply be due to location and size of company and actual material they use... You liking their things is subjective, the quality is not... Other than finecast all the things I bought from them has been top notch... I mean what "bad" mini have they released exactly that their quality is put into question..since AoS came out I bought plenty of varied minis, none have been bad apart from one finecast necrotect.. Which was just bad.. Lots of flaws and I got an instant refund when showed it to a store manager...

 Spinner wrote:

 bitethythumb wrote:

 Spinner wrote:

 bitethythumb wrote:
The only thing expensive in GW is their tools and glues...

That word...I do not think it means what you think it means.

It's telling of the impression I've gotten from both GW's management and pricing policies that I'm not sure which side JamesY thinks won the debate. What were the opposing viewpoints, can you share those?

??? I have no idea what you are asking of me...GW minis are pretty fairly priced considering the costs and quality, from what I gather they are also made in the UK which is not exactly a cheap place to make minis and chances are their staff are paid a min wage at least(be vary of abroad made products)... Hate them or not GW makes quality minis... Paints are also great, everything else is meh...(pliers? £3.99 maplin, vice drill? £5.99 + £3.99 pin vice and selection of drill bits.. Etc)

Not asking anything of you in particular - just pointing out that something being expensive has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of it. GW's stuff costs a fair chunk of change - especially if you live in Australia (the funnel web tax, maybe?). I like some of their models, I dislike others (not nearly as many as I like!), but I'd never say they were anything but expensive.

Personally... what I'm reading in his statement is this: there's "value" in the models. He finds quality in the product and so is willing to pay the price for them. Thus for him, because he finds value in the models themselves they aren't "expensive" from non-monetary standpoints.

The tools however, are crap. Pretty much always have been. As the tools are of substandard quality, they really are "expensive"... The way I see it, they want me to pay Snap-On prices for side-cutters, but I'm getting the Dollar Tree's "store brand" snips for the money. The quality of the tool is in no way reflective of the price I paid for it (note, I actually have never bought a GW tool, aside from a number of brushes out of convenience).

 bitethythumb wrote:
of course being expensive is not a standard of quality, its why I pointed out its made in the UK

What's made in the UK? Some stuff is made in China. So why are the products made in China expensive just as if it was made in the UK?

Davor wrote:

 bitethythumb wrote:
of course being expensive is not a standard of quality, its why I pointed out its made in the UK

What's made in the UK? Some stuff is made in China. So why are the products made in China expensive just as if it was made in the UK?

Profit.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

The tools however, are crap. Pretty much always have been. As the tools are of substandard quality, they really are "expensive"... The way I see it, they want me to pay Snap-On prices for side-cutters, but I'm getting the Dollar Tree's "store brand" snips for the money. The quality of the tool is in no way reflective of the price I paid for it (note, I actually have never bought a GW tool, aside from a number of brushes out of convenience).

I must disagree. Many of the tools are excellent, if expensive.

- The diagonal cutters are far superior to cheap cutters; as good or better than Xuron cutters (I did comparison with 20MP pixel photos up close a while back).
- The mold line scraper works very well, especially for terrain.
- The files are very fine diamond files, around the equivalent of 700-850 grit sandpaper. These are actually really hard to find.
- The hand drill has a way nicer feel than a basic pin vice. It also comes with a good variety of bits, and drills true (straight). Sure, there are cheaper that will get the job done, though.

- I used to think the hobby knife was junk. But then someone actually let me USE theirs, and holy crap, it's the sharpest knife I've ever used in my life -- it blows my #11 hobby knife out of the water for sharpness. Why? It comes with/uses Swan-Morton scalpel blades (they're actually the name-brand blades that come with it). Yeah.. the same blades your doctor uses to perform surgery

- The brushes are a mixed bag, with some much better than others. Again, I did an extensive review on them, so I won't dive into it here, but some are really outstanding, like the drybrushes, the glaze brush, the medium base brush, and the artificer layer brush. Some of these are brushes I use over top-of-the-line brushes like Winsor & Newton and Raphael.

In my view if GW had designed AoS as a genuinely cheap introductory game, and converted the WHFB rules to the same War Scrolls format but retained all the stuff to do with formations and points, etc, they could have been on to a winner.

AoS would have acted as a bridge to the larger, more complex game.

The whole Age of Sigmar fluff could have been tacked on to the WHFB fluff as a kind of War of the Returning Gods, instead of gak-canning the whole planet and starting again with the airy-fairy Realms. I mean if they truly are magic realms reached through dimension gates, there's no reason they couldn't have gates linking to the Old Worlde planet.

Someone would have disliked something about this scenario but I believe it would have retained a lot more loyalty than AoS is managing at the moment. Customer loyalty is one of GW's two big problems, the other being high prices.

The starter sets really do make some of these prices absurd. Yes, the standalone kits come with more options. But $60 for three Prosecutors vs, as has been mentioned, ~$81 for three Prosecutors plus over 40 more miniatures? GW really has their pricing structure out of whack.

Sure, that's online retailer prices. But it is still a price that is available and as a consumer makes it really hard to consider any of the standalone AOS releases. I'm strongly considering making a Stormcast Kings of War army and I would definitely comprise it mostly of starter set miniatures.

Davor wrote:

 bitethythumb wrote:
of course being expensive is not a standard of quality, its why I pointed out its made in the UK

What's made in the UK? Some stuff is made in China. So why are the products made in China expensive just as if it was made in the UK?

from what I have been told its all made in the UK... But I am not sure as I do not investigate the companies I buy from.. Which stuff is made in china exactly?

For me, AoS makes sense financially if you avoid the starter set and the official kits and books, and download the free rulebook and war scrolls, and if you already have a Fantasy army.

Otherwise it starts to look like another very expensive game.

Boxed set, £75
Say three more boxes of Somethingators, £90
Special character, £15
Total £180.

There may be a third way, which is to use non-GW models for infantry and cavalry, and convert or scratch build items for the more off-the-wall units like the various monsters.

Presumably you'll want to sell the half of the starter you don't need, which'll probably net you ~£40. And if you don't have a fantasy army, those models are still cheaper than the new Stormcast ones. How much does a tournament-sized WMH army typically cost?

 bitethythumb wrote:

 Spinner wrote:

 bitethythumb wrote:

 Spinner wrote:

 bitethythumb wrote:
The only thing expensive in GW is their tools and glues...

That word...I do not think it means what you think it means.

It's telling of the impression I've gotten from both GW's management and pricing policies that I'm not sure which side JamesY thinks won the debate. What were the opposing viewpoints, can you share those?

??? I have no idea what you are asking of me...GW minis are pretty fairly priced considering the costs and quality, from what I gather they are also made in the UK which is not exactly a cheap place to make minis and chances are their staff are paid a min wage at least(be vary of abroad made products)... Hate them or not GW makes quality minis... Paints are also great, everything else is meh...(pliers? £3.99 maplin, vice drill? £5.99 + £3.99 pin vice and selection of drill bits.. Etc)

Not asking anything of you in particular - just pointing out that something being expensive has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of it. GW's stuff costs a fair chunk of change - especially if you live in Australia (the funnel web tax, maybe?). I like some of their models, I dislike others (not nearly as many as I like!), but I'd never say they were anything but expensive.

of course being expensive is not a standard of quality, its why I pointed out its made in the UK.. Firstly they are not overly expensive...(comparing them to competitors) a lot of their expense could simply be due to location and size of company and actual material they use... You liking their things is subjective, the quality is not... Other than finecast all the things I bought from them has been top notch... I mean what "bad" mini have they released exactly that their quality is put into question..since AoS came out I bought plenty of varied minis, none have been bad apart from one finecast necrotect.. Which was just bad.. Lots of flaws and I got an instant refund when showed it to a store manager...

Right, see, what you said earlier was that the only expensive things they had were tools and glue. Which is...not the case. If you had said not overly expensive or expensive for what you get, that could be up for debate (sounds like it, anyway!), but objectively, they're pretty costly models.

 Mindstrike1 wrote:

Dreadnok89 wrote:
Its funny, im new at making models, but warmachine was about the same price or sometimes more. Malifax seems kinda cheap tho.

Yeah warmachine is super expensive. My friends tried to get me into it and I just asked them why would I get into a game that has lower quality models and they cost me an arm and a leg.

Super expensive? Compared to what, Warhammer?

Price wise, Warmachine per box is roughly the same. The key difference is that you need FFAARR few models both to get started and to have a standard army size. Heck, you could grab the 'All-in-One' Army Boxes for £80 which gave you an instant 35pt army, which is roughly about 1500pts equivalent to 40k. Compare that to the Battleforces for around £60 that barely give you 300pts, and still aren't a legal army.

 Talys wrote:
I must disagree. Many of the tools are excellent, if expensive.

- The diagonal cutters are far superior to cheap cutters; as good or better than Xuron cutters (I did comparison with 20MP pixel photos up close a while back).
- The mold line scraper works very well, especially for terrain.
- The files are very fine diamond files, around the equivalent of 700-850 grit sandpaper. These are actually really hard to find.
- The hand drill has a way nicer feel than a basic pin vice. It also comes with a good variety of bits, and drills true (straight). Sure, there are cheaper that will get the job done, though.

- I used to think the hobby knife was junk. But then someone actually let me USE theirs, and holy crap, it's the sharpest knife I've ever used in my life -- it blows my #11 hobby knife out of the water for sharpness. Why? It comes with/uses Swan-Morton scalpel blades (they're actually the name-brand blades that come with it). Yeah.. the same blades your doctor uses to perform surgery

- The brushes are a mixed bag, with some much better than others. Again, I did an extensive review on them, so I won't dive into it here, but some are really outstanding, like the drybrushes, the glaze brush, the medium base brush, and the artificer layer brush. Some of these are brushes I use over top-of-the-line brushes like Winsor & Newton and Raphael.

- The clippers/cutters are nice. They have a nice feel to them, but even using my local GW shop's pair to cut out a Space Marine and paint it for fun (manager offered, so I couldn't turn it down), I didn't notice any better cuts than the clippers/cutters I can get at Hobby Lobby for $10 retail (and they always have a 40% coupon thing going, so $6 at the register).
- I have used the mold line remover once and absolutely fell in love with it. Right now, I just use the back of a #11 X-Acto blade, and that works just fine. But, the mold line remover may acually be the one tool I eventually buy one day.
- I haven't used any files on any miniatures as of yet though I'm sure I should have. There are places that could have been filed on my models, but I'm not that exacting when it comes to the hobby aspect. I may become one day, but I'm not right now.
- I haven't actually used the hand drill, but I did buy like a pin vice from Hobby Lobby. I was able to get the 40% discount, too... so I paid like $8 for it. I personally am not interested in drilling out gun barrels and the such. I'm more using it for magnetization. And, the GW drill doesn't have a large enough bit for magnets. That said, neither did the pin vice. So, I went to Lowes and found a 1/8" bit and ended up having to very forceably push it into the pin vice. Now that it's there, though, it works great. I doubt I would have treated something as expensive as the GW hand drill that rough for the price I had paid for it.

- I have used the store's hobby knife, and I was very unimpressed with it after using just a regular X-Acto with a #11 blade. It just didn't feel right, and its size makes it a little tougher to get into some of the really small areas with the level of precision needed when using a knife on models... at least in my opinion.

- The brushes... at first that's all I bought. I was emptying my wallet on those things until I found a set of Crazart brushes at Walmart for $2.50 per set of like 8. No, they aren't the best ever made, but they have served my purposes far better than any other GW brush I've bought with the exception of the base and dry brushes (which are GW for me just because you have to treat them pretty roughly at times, and he GW brushes hold up well). As far as finer tipped brushes, I found exactly what I needed at approximately half the cost at Hobby Lobby and love them. With the exception of Base and Dry brushes, I don't even use my GW brushes anymore. I even thought about just throwing them all away until I realized I could use them as mask brushes (for paint on masks) or dry brushes for different purposes later on.

Just my $0.02

SG

 Talys wrote:

I must disagree. Many of the tools are excellent, if expensive.

- The diagonal cutters are far superior to cheap cutters; as good or better than Xuron cutters (I did comparison with 20MP pixel photos up close a while back).
- The mold line scraper works very well, especially for terrain.
- The files are very fine diamond files, around the equivalent of 700-850 grit sandpaper. These are actually really hard to find.
- The hand drill has a way nicer feel than a basic pin vice. It also comes with a good variety of bits, and drills true (straight). Sure, there are cheaper that will get the job done, though.

- I used to think the hobby knife was junk. But then someone actually let me USE theirs, and holy crap, it's the sharpest knife I've ever used in my life -- it blows my #11 hobby knife out of the water for sharpness. Why? It comes with/uses Swan-Morton scalpel blades (they're actually the name-brand blades that come with it). Yeah.. the same blades your doctor uses to perform surgery

- The brushes are a mixed bag, with some much better than others. Again, I did an extensive review on them, so I won't dive into it here, but some are really outstanding, like the drybrushes, the glaze brush, the medium base brush, and the artificer layer brush. Some of these are brushes I use over top-of-the-line brushes like Winsor & Newton and Raphael.

The cutters I use, I bought from a local hobby shop that specializes in historic models, Tamiya and other "fine scale" stuff. I have honestly never heard of these Xuron cutters, but for what I paid for my clippers, they are ridiculously good (seriously, I cut a .01 euro coin in half to glue on base with absolutely no damage or deterioration in quality)

-Ive heard good things about the mold line scraper, but I simply prefer my #11 blade X-acto.

-The files I bought, I forget the brand (they were on Amazon), were bought in a set of 12, and they range from about the same level of coarseness as the GW ones, to extremely fine

I'm sure the GW pin vice is good, I prefer the "feel" in my hand of the Gale Force 9 one. The big wooden ball is easier for my arthritic hands to work with on bad days.



In the end, what we do is ultimately an art, and we'll never universally agree on much of anything

@SG - The knife IS a weird feeling. It has a block, rectangular shape instead of the round that we're all used to. I ended up getting one, and I use it exclusively for fine cuts -- what makes it unique is that the blade is more like a razor than a hobby knife (it's also very thin). this allows you to literally peel off a very fine layer of plastic with great control, or slice through a model like a hot knife through butter.

But, if you want to keep it performing, you'll probably have to change the blade very frequently (no different than a No11 hobby). It is a TERRIBLE knife for mold line scraping, because it's only stable in one axis; also, the blade is quite thin, and flexes.

@Ensis Ferraae - I've used some Tamiya cutters that were super duper. They were supremely expensive here (something like $50 CAD), so I passed at the time, I haven't seen them floating around. I just cut close and use a knife all the time anyways, but I still like the cutters to cut *close* without damaging (scarring) the model.

I'll have to try the GF9 pin vice. A big wooden ball at the end sounds wonderful, LOL.

And yeah, I definitely don't think the GW tools are "the best ever" or necessarily that even some people will like them -- but they are generally a pretty decent quality, if a little on the pricey side.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
For me, AoS makes sense financially if you avoid the starter set and the official kits and books, and download the free rulebook and war scrolls, and if you already have a Fantasy army.

Otherwise it starts to look like another very expensive game.

Boxed set, £75
Say three more boxes of Somethingators, £90
Special character, £15
Total £180.

There may be a third way, which is to use non-GW models for infantry and cavalry, and convert or scratch build items for the more off-the-wall units like the various monsters.

Well, I don't think you need to have all that if you just want to play the game (and certainly not all at once). But yeah, I think $300-$400 **undiscounted** within a year is a reasonable expectation for Age of Sigmar, with the initial purchase probably being in the $200 mark and the rest in bits and pieces. I think in most areas (not Australia!!), that means most people will be able to have a really nice AoS army, brand new, for around $250-$350.

The other alternative is to keep an eye out for sales of WHFB battle boxes (the discontinued ones). At a sale a couple of weeks ago, a store here had the Chaos box for $70 CAD (that's $52 USD), which was a steal. I wish I liked Chaos, lol...

If someone is looking for a game much cheaper than that, I think they're better off looking at another game, or at eBay for models.

 Talys wrote:


And yeah, I definitely don't think the GW tools are "the best ever" or necessarily that even some people will like them -- but they are generally a pretty decent quality, if a little on the pricey side.

Perhaps my hyperbolic analogy wasn't the best either I still maintain you're paying "Snap-On prices" for the tools, just that you may not be getting quite that same level of quality overall.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

-The files I bought, I forget the brand (they were on Amazon), were bought in a set of 12, and they range from about the same level of coarseness as the GW ones, to extremely fine.

I have to say, everything I owned kinda blunted at the same time so popped into the local GW as nowhere else was close.
Firstly, the knife. Only gripe is the blade fitting allows a little wobble - but not an issue after a couple of minutes getting used to how it handles.
But I have never used a knife that sharp, and I've used a lot of brands in my time. It just glides through plastic.

Didn't have the funds to replace the mold line tool, but was a fan of the last one and a friend has the newer one and it handles just as well.

On a whim, asked the manager if I could have a look at the store set of files just out of curiosity, and wound up buying them.
They are ridiculously fine, but a word of warning here - you'll want to use a knife or mold tool to get most of the work done, then use the files.
They are color-coded, but I still have to check every time I use them which is the coarsest using a finger nail because I can't tell by eye.
I kid ye not, these things virtually polish plastic.
If you're as anal about model prep as I am, that is a geekgasm.
I'm not suggesting the GW stuff is cheap, but I'm extremely happy with the quality of the stuff I'm using.

RoperPG wrote:

They are ridiculously fine, but a word of warning here - you'll want to use a knife or mold tool to get most of the work done, then use the files.
They are color-coded, but I still have to check every time I use them which is the coarsest using a finger nail because I can't tell by eye.
I kid ye not, these things virtually polish plastic.

When I first started in the hobby, someone bought me a GW "tool kit". It had the cheap saw, the three files that came at the time. The reason I love the set I have, is that in 12 files, I have round files, flat files, flat files with pointed tips, I have some that are rounded on one side, flat on the other, triangular shaped, square shaped, etc.

There is literally a file for every application I could imagine in model prep. The finest ones feel about as smooth as my 2000 grit automotive finishing sand paper (I know it's not the same equivalent, but that's how they feel)


If the quality has improved that much from the first 3 GW files I had, I may need to check them out, though tbh, I'll probably never buy the mold line tool as I'm rather set in my ways of using my knife for that and have the technique down

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

If the quality has improved that much from the first 3 GW files I had, I may need to check them out, though tbh, I'll probably never buy the mold line tool as I'm rather set in my ways of using my knife for that and have the technique down

I tend to use both. The mold line tool comes into it's own on large smooth areas or areas with underlying texture you want to keep - a good example is the wrapping on Stormcast weapon hafts. Because the tool isn't a blade it doesn't tend to suddenly remove detail if you increase pressure.

Knife is still king when it comes to interior angles or acute crevices though.

 Talys wrote:
@SG - The knife IS a weird feeling. It has a block, rectangular shape instead of the round that we're all used to. I ended up getting one, and I use it exclusively for fine cuts -- what makes it unique is that the blade is more like a razor than a hobby knife (it's also very thin). this allows you to literally peel off a very fine layer of plastic with great control, or slice through a model like a hot knife through butter.

As I was putting together some Grave Guard last night, I noticed something else I did when it comes to very small/tight spaces with sprue marks left by clippers/cutters. As I cut those pieces of the sprue off, I tend to roll my fingers to move along the piece's shape. Now, I'm not saying that's not possible with the GW knife. It could very well be. But, with the X-Acto brand, the round handle makes it very easy to do. And to be honest, I haven't given a brand new or well kept GW knife a try yet. The one that belongs to the store has been used over and over to put things together in the past. So, it may be a rather dull blade... I'm really not sure.

SG