Official WarSeer Finecast Poll.

[codeslingerMalthius]

I'm curious to know as to why they have not gone the route PP (and others) have gone with their large resin kits and have certain loadbearing parts and extremities cast in metal. That solution just makes sense to me.

The implication would then be that if some parts were not suitable for fincecast, then finecast is not perfect. And we can't have that.

[Ebon]

Also assumes that GW actually give a [expletive] about their quality these days.

[Torga_DW]

Yeah i'd say they simply don't care. Like i've said, children and newcomers are more likely to accept faulty product, and by the time they become discerning they are no longer part of the business model. And touching on the pricing thread, the bottom line has not been affected.... at all. The bottom line being the ceo and upper management getting paid their yearly salary/wages, and continuing to get timely pay increases. The rest of the business, not so important.

[Ebon]

Yeah i'd say they simply don't care. Like i've said, children and newcomers are more likely to accept faulty product, and by the time they become discerning they are no longer part of the business model. And touching on the pricing thread, the bottom line has not been affected.... at all. The bottom line being the ceo and upper management getting paid their yearly salary/wages, and continuing to get timely pay increases. The rest of the business, not so important.

The way I work it out is this:
1) GW is a corporation. Corporations make decisions for one, and only ever one, reason: To increase profits. That's all they care about and legally, that's all they're allowed to care about. In itself, that's not necessarily a bad thing either. The drive for profits is what brings us ever cheaper and more powerful electronics, for example.
2) Resin is much, much cheaper than metal. So much cheaper that, even allowing for the additional manufacturing costs and whatever passes for Quality Control at GW these days, switching to FC has probably raised their per-model profits by about 500%.
3) FC is also much, much lighter than metal and therefore, much cheaper to distribute to stores.
4) GW being money-grubbing little trolls, they tacked on a large (in some cases, massive) price increase when switching to FC, in addition to the usual yearly price increase.
5) It is possible to do resin models without loads of bubbles, miscasts, etc. We know this because some other companies do so. If we know this, GW corporate also knows this. Ergo, they just don't care about getting it right.
6) For every FC model that gets sold that's malformed, x% will not notice, x% will notice but can't be bothered doing the returns tango, x% will notice but sigh and think "good enough" and repair it themselves (you'd be amazed the number of posters even here who think having to resculpt details or fill bubbles is acceptable). All told, I would guess that for every FC model that the customer bothers returning, there must be ten that don't, for various reasons.
7) And, if the customer is both old enough and discerning enough to not put up with this, they are no longer a part of the business model and GW will almost actively drive them away.
Conclusion) GW know FC isn't fit for purpose but it makes them an enormous additional profit so they simply don't care. This is what happens when the relationship between customer and company becomes abusive.

[Crazy Harborc]

Well......I guess the "Fine cast things are better" post on this thread, of a FEW Days ago was a fluke, not the new norm for FC minies from GW. Oh, I know...."Finecast"...it must be better...I don't think soooo, NOT yet.

[Ebon]

Well......I guess the "Fine cast things are better" post on this thread, of a FEW Days ago was a fluke, not the new norm for FC minies from GW. Oh, I know...."Finecast"...it must be better...I don't think soooo, NOT yet.

FC could be better. If GW were willing to invest the time and money to do it properly, you'd only see flaws once in a blue moon. Very occasionally, you'd get miscast metals (I once had a salamander with only three legs) as well and, since it was so rare, you exchanged the part or repaired it and left it at that. Done properly, resin could be a lightweight, cost-effective alternative to metals and much easier to work with. But that requires investing the time and money to do it vacuum-chambered, with a decent quality resin, accepting that some models are just never going to work in resin (mangler squigs being a prime example) and instituting some bloody quality controls.

In other words, you can't do resin on the cheap, pocket the difference and expect everything to work out OK.

[steeledcascade]

Its very hit and miss for me, Bought Azhag the slaughterer and he was great, However bought a wight king and he looked like he had been put in the mould with a catapult! Returned it no problem but shouldnt quality control pick these issues up? hmmmm

[Skaven13]

GW has a Facebook page. GW usually announces new releases, including models converting to FC, on that page. On one of the last FC conversion releases, I read some of the replies to the FB post. Quite a few people were coming on there saying it was a good thing, a few people showed disdain for the prices (I believe this was the release with the Space Marine Apothecary, which I guess now is on par price-wise with FW). One person expressed his disdain for FC in pretty good detail, but was shot down pretty quickly by people who came on afterwards exclaiming FC was the best thing ever (seriously, it was almost propaganda-ish, and made me wonder if that was a GW employee).

Whenever we have a problem with a company, that's what my wife and I do. Post the issue on their FB page. Usually contacted in a matter of minutes, and if it can be corrected, the company we have issue with does their best to do so.


Point being, people unhappy with FC should certainly start posting on that page, and posting often. Complaining to the company with issues is one thing, but putting those complains on a company FB page where OTHER customers can see, on a consistent basis? That might garner a little more concern from GW. Especially since some people on there are coming on saying they are not aware of any problems with the product. At all. I mean, if GW is not aware of any problems, certainly it should be our duty to let them know the truth, right? It's the least we can do to help out GW understand their own product

[-DE-]

I'd first need an FB account and that ain't happening.

Personally, I have no hope for FC at all. It is clear that GW is satisfied with FC sales and improving casting quality would cost them more than they reckon they'd gain from the possible rise in sales. They do not care about people who find FC casts unacceptable, and a majority of these people (will) still buy plastic models from GW, so they still get money from them, FC or not. That's the sad truth. Me, I'm not buying any more FC miniatures ever, even if, by some miracle, the casting quality reaches acceptable levels. I simply think the material is crap no matter how well it is cast.

[Jonahmaul]

Thing is you can't post directly to Games Workshop's FB wall. You can only comment on their posts which means only a limited number of people will see it and GW can quickly delete the comments if they choose. Unfortunately there are an awful lot of people who think that FC is the best thing since sliced bread and continually stick up for GW even when they release faulty products. Maybe they're the lucky who are getting good quality FC (we have seen them, they do exist) but are blinkered by not realising this is the minority.

[Hendarion]

One person expressed his disdain for FC in pretty good detail, but was shot down pretty quickly by people who came on afterwards exclaiming FC was the best thing ever (seriously, it was almost propaganda-ish, and made me wonder if that was a GW employee).

The same happens whenever you even say the slightest about "eventual issues" with Finecast inside a GW-store. Even if you are the only customer there, the redshirts talk such huge bull about how damn awesome Finecast is, it is scary. I mean, they can't fool me, I see the errors and I'm not 12. But who do they want to fool? Themselves? Really? I don't get it, they are just weird.

[Wintermute]

The same happens whenever you even say the slightest about "eventual issues" with Finecast inside a GW-store. Even if you are the only customer there, the redshirts talk such huge bull about how damn awesome Finecast is, it is scary. I mean, they can't fool me, I see the errors and I'm not 12. But who do they want to fool? Themselves? Really? I don't get it, they are just weird.

it's their job to promote Failcast and they are not allowed to bad mouth it regardless of how poor the product is.

[Hendarion]

Yea, maybe. But when I'm the only guy in store and know the red-shirts as friends from sitting with them at Burger King and talking about several issues in the world, then that makes me go .

[MiyamatoMusashi]

So the lammasu finally arrived at my door. [...] On the first look the sculpt looks good, but on a closer look several flaws can be seen and they are piling up quickly : holes, hollowness, misalignement (causing warped details), rough texture, broken parts. [...] You can see it all in the following pictures :

I had the same problems with wings so thin they were transparent and had holes in places (your picture 1124). The wingtips were also hollow which I think is what your picture 1123 is showing. Plus bubbles on the claws as your picture 1122 shows, and the mace tail as well. I didn't have problems with the horns like in your photos, but a couple of the teeth had air bubbles.

Judging by how similar your experience was to mine, it seems clear that this was not an isolated incident and the Lammasu (at least) has fundamental, endemic flaws in Finecast. (Though unlike yourself, I didn't perceive the lightness as a problem; at least it meant the wings glued on very easily, I can imagine a nightmare of pinning and superglue, in metal. Though they did later droop, when I left it on a table with the curtains open, and the sunlight got to it).

Not a good experience. I won't be buying Finecast again if I can possibly avoid it.

[loveless]

So with the advent of allies in 6th and Harlequins getting better, I set out to look at expanding my Dark Eldar a bit.

Finecast annoyance that I never noticed with the Dark Eldar range (because I actually have a use for all 5 Wrack models...and still haven't bought any out of fear...):
No single/double troop blisters. So, if I want to expand the Harlies, I end up with a lot of extraneous Troupe Masters. I just want a bucketload of Harlies with Kisses - but there's no easy way to do that. Booooo, says me.

Also, I'm going to have a ram a pin through the Troupe Master to keep him from falling over, won't I? Bleh.

See, this bothers me...several things I'd rather have in resin than metal. Striking Scorpions, Warp Spiders, hell...I think I'd prefer it to metal in almost every case. But I'm not confident of GW's ability to deliver worthwhile resin. I don't even know how to address that "issue" - I'd buy the product if I knew I could have it built and on the painting table over the course of a weekend. Knowing there's a good chance I'm going to have to wait 2-4 weeks until I get a good cast...well...ugh.

It's not even about the price for me, anymore. Yes, it costs too much, but there are some products that I'd still say "yes" to if they could deliver.

Sorry for the mostly no-content post - just another "I was shopping and needed to vent a little about Finecast" post again.

[Born Again]

So I was given a Lhamaean as a gift from a friend. At first glance it looked alright, but on closer inspection... nope. No photos, sorry, as I never even opened the pack up. The bead in the end of her hair was devoured by a bubble, as was one side of the hand guard of her sword. The venom drop off her sword was hollowed out, and every single point on the segmented armour plates around her hips was missing its end. Bubbles had taken detail out of the edge of her corset and collar, and she had another on her chin, as well as an unfortunate one on her left breast that looked suspiciously like an inverted nipple.
Took it back to the store to swap it, they only had one in stock and while some areas looked better, it had its own share of problems in others. As I knew I wasn't going to get around to painting it for some time, I just got a refund in the hope that I'll have better luck just trying to buy a good one when I'm ready to paint it... we shall see I guess.

[EmperorNorton]

An interesting quote from here:

with only 10% of finecast being saleable I can see the issue.

However yesterday in GW I've been told that they now 'only' have a 10% fail rate since the resin is now computer mixed and injected. They are not mixing by hand and not spin casting it from what I gathered but the guy couldnt tell me what exactly they were doing since it was insider/trade knowledge. In addition they are now checking 'ALL' the finecast (implying that they weren't before?) True enough I got an Astoroth the grim and it actually looks like it's feasable. The odd small bubble but way better than the previous 3 I got.

[Jonahmaul]

That would be awesome if it's true.

[Ebon]

The "odd small bubble" is still not acceptable. For the price GW are selling FC at (especially given the big price hikes over and above metal models), they should be perfect.

[spaint2k]

I'll be more comfortable with the product when I don't feel it's going to sag from its own weight, or break from application of a paintbrush.