Official WarSeer Finecast Poll.

[EmperorNorton]

They don't allow it. Submissions to GW's flickr pool are checked.

So they are able to see defects on pictures of minis they have sold, but not on the minis themselves?

[Sgt John Keel]

They don't allow it. Submissions to GW's flickr pool are checked.

What if you find a particularly bad piece and paint it do a decent standard?

[Jericho]

"Authentic battle damage" should be the tagline for such cases If it's anything like jeans, they can charge an extra 50% for "distressed" versions of existing miniatures

[eldargal]

If detail is lost due to a bubble you have an objectively faulty product which should be returned for a replacement or refund. Why people keep insisting that resculpting detail is at all relevent to what I'm saying is beyond me and getting a little irritating.

YOU SHOULD NOT RESCULPT DETAIL. EVER

But beyond missing detail, if a resin miniature has so many surface bubbles that you will spend more time filling them than you would cleaning a metal model or filling gaps etc. then it is still unacceptable. As to finish, the finish is the same as you would expect on a metal model, a bit of a going over with an emery board and you won't notice it at all, at least in my experience.

Personally, I couldn’t care less about time needed to clean up a model. It’s not as if I get paid by the hour for doing this...

No, what I care about is the final finish of the model. Finecast might be quicker to clean up than metal, but what’s the final finish? Will I succeed in resculpting the details lost to bubbles? How well will I get all those bubbles filled in? How smooth can I get the final blend of resin and greenstuff?
All those questions worry me far more than having to spend a bit of extra time removing a bit of flash from an otherwise perfect metal model.

That is a problem with Finecast QC, but it isn't relevent to a discussion about why a few easily fixed surface bubbles is a problem if the yare fixed in less time than it would take to fix a perfect metal model.

The problem lies in the extreme likelihood that bubbles show up over areas of detail.

[lethlis]

Ehhh, having worked retail I burned out my bitchiness circuit a long time ago. After having to go through that I just don't get bothered by the minor things, not worth the stress and anger. Also all of that is directed at someone who really cant do anything about it so now you are becoming the bad guy. Technically my nemesor had some bubbles on the bottom of his cape, you know where it connects to the base. Now I could complain and get a replacement, but I am not going to, it doesn't matter. If it is something that gets in the way of my enjoyment that is something else and I will ask for a replacement.

Everyone here makes it sound like GW is twirling their mustaches going out of their way to provide a faulty product. I think it is more likely that they sincerely thought that this would be an improvement for the customer and went to implement it, and for all intents and purposes I believe it is. Now should we be upset? Possibly. The fact that they are really trying to make sure you receive the correct product, even to the point that they are loosing money(shipping isnt cheap) should say something.

Does GW make mistakes? yes, it is run by people. I expect that there is a fundamental flaw in their process that is not so easy to fix, otherwise they would have most likely done it. I am interested in seeing what happens when we get the first true range that was designed for finecast. Sure we have some models that only came out in finecast, however with the way production times work who knows.

As to the time issue, my favorite part of the hobby is building, followed by playing, followed by painting. So if I get to spend more time building, or trying to come up with a cool conversion idea with the parts I can salvage(since it is not metal, easily break off parts) then I am getting more moneys worth out of it. To be honest I was hoping my obyron would be faulty so I could get another one and make a cool conversion out of him. Sadly, he was perfect so I might need to buy another one.

[loveless]

That is a problem with Finecast QC,

I think

but it isn't relevent to a

I covered

disscusion about why a few

that in the

easily fixed surface bubbles is a problem

rest of my

if the yare fixed in less time than it would take to fix a

post.

perfect metal model.

Please never change your picture - it's the only hint I have to read backwards.
___________________________________

Everyone here makes it sound like GW is twirling their mustaches going out of their way to provide a faulty product. I think it is more likely that they sincerely thought that this would be an improvement for the customer and went to implement it, and for all intents and purposes I believe it is. Now should we be upset? Possibly. The fact that they are really trying to make sure you receive the correct product, even to the point that they are loosing money(shipping isnt cheap) should say something.

I think the moustache-twiliring concept is almost presented as an extreme example of showing there is a problem. We get a few people that say it can't be that bad because their 3 Finecast purchases have all been perfect. It gets countered by people who may have only made 3 purchases, but went through a half dozen replacements to get their money's worth. In other words "If it's not that bad, does that mean GW is somehow picking me out to send the faulty crap to?"

I think they thought this would be beneficial, but ended up implementing the idea too soon. They should have spent the last year testing the process internally rather than field-testing it, as several people have a sour taste in their mouth regarding the product now.

[Jonahmaul]

I don't think for a second the GW are purposely trying to provide a faulty product. Price issues aside I believe that GW often delivers the best tabletop war-gaming products and employ some extremely talented sculptors to provide consumers with the best miniatures. Although they're still shops the fact that they give consumers a place to go and play with their miniatures and often run tournaments/leagues/campaigns in store at no extra cost to customers means they do go that extra bit. Hell, we are all on this forum because we love playing with toy soldiers! But if you have a product that has issues but there is a possibility that you can sell it then from a business point of view it makes sense to do so. If you are having to change some sculpts numerous times yet other customers are accepting the bad ones then you are still up on where you would be if you discarded them all. The fact is that they clearly didn't test the casting enough and marketed the product as revolutionary when it has turned out to be far from it. I am sure they are trying to address this but the fact still remains that they are not doing it quick enough and many miscasts are still getting through QC/QA.

[ColShaw]

But if you have a product that has issues but there is a possibility that you can sell it then from a business point of view it makes sense to do so. If you are having to change some sculpts numerous times yet other customers are accepting the bad ones then you are still up on where you would be if you discarded them all.

I'm sorry, but no. It only makes sense from a business perspective when looking at the extremely short-term. To alienate customers (as they've succeeded in doing with me, to the point where I, who own several hundred metal GW models, refuse to buy Finecast) hurts them over the long run, and yes, will even cost them money eventually, as demand dries up. Especially given their pricing structure.

[Jonahmaul]

Yet, GW are still letting lots of bad mis-casts get through and as you have also said it is alienating customers. It doesn't appear to have cost them financially a great deal so far but over time it may well do that. Maybe this means GW are only viewing short term but if staff are under pressure to meet targets for miniatures passing through QC and the company is under pressure to ensure a certain turnover and profit then this is plausible.

[shelfunit.]

Sadly Colshaw I have to agree with Johanmaul on this. It is unquestionable that GW have the capacity as the largest manufacturer of models to both check them adequately and produce them to a high enough standard that checking them is almost unneeded, but they have chosen not to do this. There is one and only one reason for this and that is the majority of thier customers either a) do not care/understand the poor quality of casting they receive, and/or b) refuse to see the defects as a problem. The one and only way GW will improve the quality of FC miniatures is if they start to lose money on them. Until the number of purchasers of FC unwilling or unable (due to peer/staff pressure or a misguided sense of loyalty to the company) to return or demand a better standard of product becomes lower than those accepting it as is, nothing will change except the prices. Ultimately it is the customers who have to change before GW will, until then it is not in their interests to.

[Torga_DW]

I'm sorry, but no. It only makes sense from a business perspective when looking at the extremely short-term. To alienate customers (as they've succeeded in doing with me, to the point where I, who own several hundred metal GW models, refuse to buy Finecast) hurts them over the long run, and yes, will even cost them money eventually, as demand dries up. Especially given their pricing structure.

I think thats the point, they are focussing only on the short term. Churn and burn children, who by the time they've been alienated enough are no longer the target demographic. As i said a couple pages ago, inexperienced children will most likely accept clearly defective product.

[eldargal]

Given the lack of any actual date on this another equally valid hypothesis is that the failure rate is acceptably low and that the rate of miscasts is blown out of proportion by the echo chamber that is the internet. I'm not saying I believe this, but everything about this discussion is purely speculative.

Sadly Colshaw I have to agree with Johanmaul on this. It is unquestionable that GW have the capacity as the largest manufacturer of models to both check them adequately and produce them to a high enough standard that checking them is almost unneeded, but they have chosen not to do this. There is one and only one reason for this and that is the majority of thier customers either a) do not care/understand the poor quality of casting they receive, and/or b) refuse to see the defects as a problem. The one and only way GW will improve the quality of FC miniatures is if they start to lose money on them. Until the number of purchasers of FC unwilling or unable (due to peer/staff pressure or a misguided sense of loyalty to the company) to return or demand a better standard of product becomes lower than those accepting it as is, nothing will change except the prices. Ultimately it is the customers who have to change before GW will, until then it is not in their interests to.

[Torga_DW]

Given the lack of any actual date on this another equally valid hypothesis is that the failure rate is acceptably low and that the rate of miscasts is blown out of proportion by the echo chamber that is the internet. I'm not saying I believe this, but everything about this discussion is purely speculative.

Very true. However, we have seen some shockingly bad examples of finecast in this thread, which at the very least makes me wonder how they got past QA in the first place. Even if we marginalize the failure rate (which is entirely possible), theres just no way that some of those models should have ever hit the shelves. QA failing at multiple levels is not a good sign.

[iamfanboy]

Given the lack of any actual date on this another equally valid hypothesis is that the failure rate is acceptably low and that the rate of miscasts is blown out of proportion by the echo chamber that is the internet. I'm not saying I believe this, but everything about this discussion is purely speculative.

Uhm.

No.

Anecdotal evidence is suspect (at best!) but the photographs of minis that people have purchased and found wanting on this thread should never have passed QA. Ever.

The fact that they're TRYING to make changes (and know that there are problems with some minis) show up in minis like Isabella, where every mini that anyone saw for the first few months had a hole in her chin, an irreparable hole in almost all cases. They must've added a vent in the suspect area because now she's got a Jay Leno chin, fixing the problem, but...

The fact is that the first generation of Isabellas should not have made it out the door without the QA people going to the production line, shaking the minis in their faces, and saying, "FIX THIS."

There are acceptable derivations in a production line, but the photographic evidence of derivations (like the werewolf's fingers on the last page) show that the production line people, the QA people, and the packing people are willing to pass minis that should not be passed. They aren't doing their job, and frankly it seems like most of the higher-ups aren't doing their job either.

Why, I ask, should we support a company where the people employed by it don't do their job?

[eldargal]

Photographs of miscasts is still just anecdotal evidence. Obviously there are problems with GWs quality assurance/control, but we still have no idea what the extent is. As for supporting GW, you brought that up, not me. Whatever your agenda is I don't care, I'm just pointing out that we have no idea what the actual extent of the QC failure is.

[iamfanboy]

Photographs of miscasts is still just anecdotal evidence. Obviously there are problems with GWs quality assurance/control, but we still have no idea what the extent is. As for supporting GW, you brought that up, not me. Whatever your agenda is I don't care, I'm just pointing out that we have no idea what the actual extent of the QC failure is.

No, photographs are physical evidence, not anecdotal.

Series of photographs, like the set of seven Crypteks that one blog posted one after the other as being sent to him to replace a faulty one, show SERIOUS problems with how they pass minis, when one after the other had the same huge problems (and weren't the same minis photoshopped together, because they also had NEW and surprisingly different flaws).

The fact that customers, multiple customers showing physical evidence, have received faulty replacement miniatures after being personally assured by customer service that the mini would be hand-checked before being mailed out (and sometimes, four or five times in a row!) show how serious the problem has become.

Fair call on how I interjected supporting the company, but I was making my post on how I'd fix GW's store problem and I realized just how little Mark Wells seems to care about his own company and it made me angry for the first time in a long time; how could anyone WANT to buy from GW when they've seemingly driven away anyone who cares about the company and the games they make. *sigh*

[spaint2k]

Series of photographs, like the set of seven Crypteks that one blog posted one after the other as being sent to him to replace a faulty one, show SERIOUS problems with how they pass minis, when one after the other had the same huge problems (and weren't the same minis photoshopped together, because they also had NEW and surprisingly different flaws).

The fact that customers, multiple customers showing physical evidence, have received faulty replacement miniatures after being personally assured by customer service that the mini would be hand-checked before being mailed out (and sometimes, four or five times in a row!) show how serious the problem has become.

I don't just think it's a QC failure. I really think the process is at fault. There's no other explanation for receiving multiple faulty casts of the same mini from different batches. Regardless of the statistically small sample size we're looking at, if even a single person receives seven miscasts from different batches it indicates a fault with the production method. And this guy's not the only one! How many boxes of Sternguard did the earlier poster finally get through?

The skinwolf posted earlier (by Wintermute?) shows an example of exactly what's wrong with the process: protrusions out of the plane of the miniature are not being filled with resin - even when vents are present! - because the liquid material is insufficiently heavy to flow through the entire mould under centrifugal forces (unlike metal).

Perhaps having people check the finished models would weed these out, but regardless of how much checking is done there is still a fundamental flaw with the process when models are coming out like this. There's likely an assumption by GW's casters that the resin will flow like molten metal when spincasting and this assumption is being shown false. The chosen way of fixing it (MOAR VENTS) isn't necessarily sufficient and really - to me - says that the process needs to go back to the drawing board.

The best finecast minis I've seen were a Dark Eldar Lhamaean and Sammael on Jetbike. The Lhamaean looked as near to perfect as it's possible to get, while Sammael had very minor bubbles in an area of contact with other pieces. The geometry of the models really must have a great deal to do with how well they cast and GW would do well to improve their understanding of this to try and improve the models they keep stubbornly transferring over to this material.

Unfortunately, I have absolutely no confidence in them doing anything of the sort. I'm convinced that a majority of purchasers will accept what I'd call substandard models and in the case of the children referenced in this thread, these flaws will be treated as features if they're even noticed at all, part of the "challenge" of being a "hardcore" modeller.

[eldargal]

Photos are physical evidence of miscasts, but they are still anecdotal evidence of claims of a widespread and universal failure of quality control/assurance. Remember I'm not saying there isn't a problem, it is quite obvious there is for the reasons you state. All I'm objecting to is people making grand, sweeping statements about the failure (or success) of Finecast based on a very small amount of evidence. Basically, we know there is a problem, but we can not say with any accuracy the extent of that problem. We can only guess. Guessing is fine, so long as people remember that that is all it is.

[spaint2k]

Photos are physical evidence of miscasts, but they are still anecdotal evidence of claims of a widespread and universal failure of quality control/assurance. Remember I'm not saying there isn't a problem, it is quite obvious there is for the reasons you state. All I'm objecting to is people making grand, sweeping statements about the failure (or success) of Finecast based on a very small amount of evidence. Basically, we know there is a problem, but we can not say with any accuracy the extent of that problem. We can only guess. Guessing is fine, so long as people remember that that is all it is.

I realize we posted at the same time, but see my post above yours for why I disagree: one person receiving seven faulty models from seven different batch codes is sufficient proof from an engineering point of view of there being a flaw in the process. It might not be statistically relevant on a global scale, but one person should NOT be able to get seven miscasts like that. If the process were good, such an statistically improbable event should not occur.

Find me someone who had the same issue with metal. The closest I can tell you is that I went through FOUR miscast versions of the Clawed Fiend before giving up and buying another one at a shop. The four miscasts all came from the same batch code though. The good replacement was from a different batch code and I'd say that with metal models there was a reasonable certainty that a replacement from a different batch code would not be flawed. This does not appear to be the case with Finecast.

[eldargal]

Right, but it still doesn't give us any idea of the scale of the problem, just that there is one. That is the only point I'm trying to make. For example, you have the chap getting 7 terrible kits, you have people like me who have had dozens of kits without a problem, which is atypical? We don't know.


The problem with a comparison to metal is that there was no point recording miscasts the way peopel record Finecast miscasts. Metal was metal, miscasts were something that happened, you just talked to customer service and got a replacement. With the switch to a new material, price rise and all the hype we were suddenly given a reason to keep track of such things. It makes a comparison to metal extremely difficult. You weren't the only one to have issues with some of the beast kits though, I saw some pretty nasty clawed fiends and khymerae accross a few forums warseer included.

Having said that, I do agree with you. I think GW are trying to produce resin miniatures on a hitherto unheard of scale and the process they decided on simply can't cope. We also know their QC/QA is failing to detect miscasts and so people are getting kits which should never leave the factory. But we still have no idea of hte numbers involved, it could still only be 3% like GW say (I doubt it).