Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

A friend and I recently got into an arguement. I stated that I shouldnt just sit down and put up with FW resin being flawed out of box, needing reshaping and all that jazz. He says it is just a part of the fun and Im not entirely understanding the hobby. Whats your take on this? Is it really an enjoyable aspect for people to work the kinks out of their models, or am I right to expect an out of box quality? Especially with how much I pay for it.

 vaklor4 wrote:
A friend and I recently got into an arguement. I stated that I shouldnt just sit down and put up with FW resin being flawed out of box, needing reshaping and all that jazz. He says it is just a part of the fun and Im not entirely understanding the hobby. Whats your take on this? Is it really an enjoyable aspect for people to work the kinks out of their models, or am I right to expect an out of box quality? Especially with how much I pay for it.

depends on the nature of the mini you got really. and how much shaping is needed IMHO

I actually enjoy assembling Forge World models, including fixing them.

Just like I buy a GW Model and it needs "work" to finish it (i.e. assembly and painting) then fixing the resin is just more "work" to get to the finished product, and therefore it's that much more satisfying.

no it isn't. It's a necessary task before you can do the fun stuff, but there's nothing positive about it. I mean, if you miraculously got a perfect resin cast would you add some flaws just so you could have the "fun" of fixing them? Of course not.

ATLEAST its not finecast.

I’d rather I didn’t have to, for sure. I prefer GW plastic kits in almost every way.

Thisnis standard reasoning from any human. We need an excuse for doing something so some people make themselves think something is fun and part of the product. But, if this was the case, why doesn't he go out there and buy 2nd hand models that need fixing up (because people do genuinely find fixing models fun. I know Imdo but I buy broken models for cheap not expensive FW models). It's like cars... if you enjoy cars and working on them then you'll go out there and buy an ood model that needs some work. Yet, if you were a normal customer and went to an exclusive more expensive car dealer and bought a brand new freshnoff the line car and then were expected to "fix it yourself" you wouldn't expect the dealership to tell you it's justnpart of the fun... or you would ask for a refund and move somewhere else.

I'd call it a "necessary evil" rather than a "fun part of the hobby". If I like a FW model better than a plastic model I'm willing to put up with the extra work to wash, clean, rebend, etc. it because I like the model better, I don't seek out models that are more work for the sake of more work.

Model assembly is my least favourite part of the hobby. Unfortunately with forgeworld, reshaping is part of the advanced modelling aspect of the hobby. I can't imagine many people genuinely enjoy it, but I bet to some people the thrill of getting it done well is one of the best aspects of the hobby.

 Brutallica wrote:
ATLEAST its not finecast.

I have a Finecast mini and it’s fine being a 2012 sculpt, was a blind purchase on eBay and the only thing wrong with it is a small bubble on the thumb of a power glove

Personally, I quite enjoy it as an in-depth modelling project, but if you’re in a hurry to just get something on the table and start painting, I can see how it would be frustrating. I guess ultimately it’s the price you pay for the variety of kits you get with FW that wouldn’t be feasible in plastic.

It's by far my least favourite part of the hobby and I'd be glad not to have to do it. Personally I see it as a flaw in the stage of production which I am meant to correct without being compensated for it by a lower price.

 vaklor4 wrote:
A friend and I recently got into an arguement. I stated that I shouldnt just sit down and put up with FW resin being flawed out of box, needing reshaping and all that jazz. He says it is just a part of the fun and Im not entirely understanding the hobby. Whats your take on this? Is it really an enjoyable aspect for people to work the kinks out of their models, or am I right to expect an out of box quality? Especially with how much I pay for it.

not sure how it is called in english, but we call it beaten wife syndrom. No matter what is bad or wrong about what GW does, some people will always come up and say it aint that bad, or it is actually good that it is so.

In a way it is funny how recast resin from China or Russia is often better quality as detail and model sturdines goes. The world is crazy though, people are willing to pay 300$ for a crowbar just because it has supreme writen on it, so maybe buing defective models from FW is the simiular in some way.

Karol wrote:

 vaklor4 wrote:
A friend and I recently got into an arguement. I stated that I shouldnt just sit down and put up with FW resin being flawed out of box, needing reshaping and all that jazz. He says it is just a part of the fun and Im not entirely understanding the hobby. Whats your take on this? Is it really an enjoyable aspect for people to work the kinks out of their models, or am I right to expect an out of box quality? Especially with how much I pay for it.

not sure how it is called in english, but we call it beaten wife syndrom. No matter what is bad or wrong about what GW does, some people will always come up and say it aint that bad, or it is actually good that it is so.

In a way it is funny how recast resin from China or Russia is often better quality as detail and model sturdines goes. The world is crazy though, people are willing to pay 300$ for a crowbar just because it has supreme writen on it, so maybe buing defective models from FW is the simiular in some way.

Maybe it’s just me, but I reckon it’s pretty obnoxious and offensive to use a complex issue of emotional and physical abuse as an analogy for somebody enjoying the hobby in a different way to you.

Don’t like FW stuff? Don’t buy it. And that’s fine. But maybe give it a bit of thought in future before reaching for a pretty nasty metaphor, yeah?

It has nothing to do with an action, at least not in polish psychology, it is a descriptive of a mind state where a patient sees no bad sides to another persons actions, or even his or her own action.

It is most often used not to describe male/female relations, but stuff like alcoholics saying they have strong genes and alcohol doesn't harm them. Or people saying that socialism wasn't that bad etc

I have no idea what medical terms the syndrom has in english psychology. That is why I said that in Poland we call such a behaviour that, and explained what type of behavior it is.

There is a huge difference between enjoying FW models, even if you have to repair the defective product, and enjoying the repair process itself and praising it as an important part of the hobby experience.

You guys actually made me check how this is called in english, and it seems, maybe wrong here, that the term you guys use is white knighting. Which imo is worse then wife beating, everyone knows that wife beating is something bad, while it is hard for me to imagine why a knight specially a white one would be something bad. I would get black knight those are always evil in stories and history.

I don't think there's anyone here defending the practice. I think it's just accepted that when you buy a big resin model, you're unlikely to get one that all fits together perfectly. Most people know this ahead of time and take it into consideration before purchase. I'd be an example of someone who isn't willing to sit heat gunning resin to get it how I want it, so I don't buy big forgeworld models.

See it's all a matter of perspective. Mould lines off metal and plastic; bent bits of metal, minor size issues, inperfect fitting parts, resin bubbles, bent/warped resin.

We all know that you aspire to a high quality of finish in your models that its going to come with a longish period of cleaning it up before you even put parts together. That's part of the hobby.

It might not be the fastest, most fun, or even might be down right painful and annoying - but its part of the hobby. You enjoy it or suffer it or bits of both because its not the whole experience just part of the total experience.

And if you really hate it so much you can bypass it. Pay someone else to do it for you or collect a premade franchise; granted the former increases the price and the latter is a more limited market.




In the end its also important to realise when the warping/damage is beyond the expected skill and repair time and when its time to contact FW and say "hey this part, as shown in this photo, is REALLY bad - please send me a better cast part"

And FW will generally help you out. Only time I've heard them not is when its last-chance or the product is otherwise discontinued from production - and even then if the damage is bad they'll give you store credit.



In the end its part of the hobby; you buy resin then its going to come with mould lines; some warping and bubbles. Even Spartan Games who, when running, made some really fantastic resin models still had warping, or bubbles and still had a mould line. You fix up your metal/pastic/resin/hybrid/mixed mini and send it to battle on the tabletop.

No. Its a flawed product that you are paying for.
If it got broken after you bought it, either in transit or from playing then yes, it would be part of the hobby.

If its flawed right out the box that's just bad manufacturing and the company who made it shouldn't be lauded for it.

Each to their own of course, I can't tell someone else what's fun!

But for me it's a defect and it pisses me off. If they can't get the cast consistently right either they shouldn't use the material or shouldn't charge such a premium.

Karol wrote:
You guys actually made me check how this is called in english, and it seems, maybe wrong here, that the term you guys use is white knighting. Which imo is worse then wife beating, everyone knows that wife beating is something bad, while it is hard for me to imagine why a knight specially a white one would be something bad. I would get black knight those are always evil in stories and history.

I think you're a little off the mark here. "White knighting" is one of those buzz-phrases particularly beloved of a certain section of the internet who seem to take the view that showing any level of consideration for others is something to be dismissed and/or derided (see also: "SJWs"; "virtue signalling"). Can't say I'm that surprised to see it getting trotted out by the person who thought smashing someone's figures at a tournament was a great bit of bants and a legitimate way to score a win in a game of toy spacemen, but hey, that's the internet for you.

Stux wrote:
Each to their own of course, I can't tell someone else what's fun!

But for me it's a defect and it pisses me off. If they can't get the cast consistently right either they shouldn't use the material or shouldn't charge such a premium.

Personally, although we're at risk of getting into semantic hair-spitting, I think of it as a *limitation* of the medium and manufacturing process, rather than a defect per se. Much the same as plastic models having mould lines that need removing, it's something that each individual hobbyist has to decide whether they want to go to the time and effort of dealing with and, as you say, that's going to be different for each person. My personal view is that, given that it's likely unfeasible from a business perspective to put out everything FW do as plastic kits, I'm willing to pay the premium in terms of cost and effort for a wider variety of models, rather than have them simply not exist, but I appreciate that's not going to be the case for everybody.

I don't see how fixing a flaw in a product is "part of the hobby".

Having bought FW models in the past, I wouldn't do so again because of the time and hassle to bend bits back and fix minor damage.

pm713 wrote:
I don't see how fixing a flaw in a product is "part of the hobby".

As I just said, you could say the same of removing mould lines. Or, for that matter, of having to assemble kits in the first place. It's all just about your individual tolerance for the level of hassle involved.

It's like saying that to make a wall, bricks are "flawed" due to the fact they won't stay up unless you put mortar in between them and wait for it to set, because you don't like bricklaying. You've got two solutions: build the wall out of something else, or don't build the wall at all. For FW, the former is not really an option (it wouldn't be feasible to make the entire FW range as Citadel plastic kits), so if you don't want to use FW stuff, don't. Nobody's forcing you to if you don't find the effort required to build them worth the outcome.

You make some good points, but there's two things I'd still take issue with:

1.
I don't think it's really fair to compare warping and the level of flash on a lot of resin kits to mold lines on modern GW plastics. While some people are very anal about mold lines, they are easily ignorable most of the time.

2.
It's not at all obvious when purchasing the product that you will have to put this level of preparation into a lot of FW kits before you can even start assembling. It's not something a lot of hobbyists will have encountered before until purchasing their first Forgeworld kit. The dissatisfaction this is likely to cause is why many of us view it as a defect.

I got some bloody awful DE Incubi from ebay. I have assumed they were ones that the original buyer complained about and had replaced by GW. Full of air bubbles and certain details like tips of thumbs missing. Fixing stuff like that is not fun.

Stux wrote:
You make some good points, but there's two things I'd still take issue with:

1.
I don't think it's really fair to compare warping and the level of flash on a lot of resin kits to mold lines on modern GW plastics. While some people are very anal about mold lines, they are easily ignorable most of the time.

2.
It's not at all obvious when purchasing the product that you will have to put this level of preparation into a lot of FW kits before you can even start assembling. It's not something a lot of hobbyists will have encountered before until purchasing their first Forgeworld kit. The dissatisfaction this is likely to cause is why many of us view it as a defect.

1. Personally, I find mould lines on plastic stuff really upsetting – proper attack of the vapours stuff. But again, a) I'm precious about this ort of thing anf b) I see it as being a question of what level of effort you're comfortable with putting in.

2. Yeah, I think you're onto something here. I think maybe just as a product of being immersed in the hobby for so long I kind of absorbed it, then it didn't really occur to me it wasn't common knowledge. I was just looking on the FW site and you're right, there's nothing really flagging up the level of extra effort etc required, so someone going into it having only dealt with plastic (again, having dealt with metal kits back in the day, resin's a relative walk in the park, but there are definitely hobbyists out there now who haven't even *seen* a metal kit, let alone built one) may well be in for a nasty shock. From my experience, and everything that I've heard, FW's level of customer service is great, but I agree with you that it certainly couldn't hurt to flag up the level of complexity and effort required for FW stuff as opposed to plastic kits.

You guys aren't paying the markup the rest of the world is. Forge World is hardly ever worth it's price. And there are many many many options to get the models without the full mark up.

The aircraft are especially poor quality. About the only thing I have luck with is the Nurgle stuff, as it's supposed to look warped and bubbly.

Forge World is a boutique manufacturer which hand-makes specialist items for hard core fans.

It is inherent in the system of using resin that it produces less accurate kits than polystyrene, especially the larger pieces. It can also be affected by relatively common high temperatures, for example a car on a sunny day.

If you want to the unusual large kits that Forge World make, you have to recognise these limitations and be prepared to do the extra work in completing the kits.