Positive: My models were well cast/the material is well detailed and nice to work with.
Neutral: I have no strong feelings either way.
Negative: My models were poorly cast/the material isn't nice to work with.
Let me get this straight. You don't want to return your faulty merchandise...Originally Posted by FirestormXL
You then complain about price vs. quality...
And then go on to complain that everyone else is at fault for indescriminately buying GW products..
.
You know what, just donate your money to some charity, cause its just making you miserable
There is that aspect. I didn't mean to be as snarky as I come over reading that back. I wouldn't put my modelling skills anywhere above average. Which is why I am surprised that so many folks seem to have trouble assembling metal models. If *I* can do it, anyone can!
I would accept that given perfect models assembling a finecast example with a few dabs of superglue would be simpler than assembling a metal model with zapagap, greenstuff and pinning, but I really wouldn't be bothered, personally by that perceived extra effort, especially when with finecast, you seem to have to be so careful not to destroy detail when cleaning off the flash and extra blobs of resin. There are other advantages/disadvantages of metal vs finecast. But I would place ease of assembly as being only a minor win for finecast. Of course I haven't assembled many finecast models though, and this is more coming from my mindset that assembling metals is in my view no big deal.
On the other hand, for instance, I would rate the lack of paint chipping being a much greater win for finecast as a material suitable for modelling, much the same as plastic has the same advantage. If I travelled to tournaments (which I don't) I would be much more cognizant of that value, personally.
Last edited by Osbad; 05-01-2012 at 09:59.
Cheers
Paul
Note to self: don't buy anything more until you finish painting what you've got already!
My Undead Army project log
I have to say, I've had somewhat mixed results from finecast. As annoying as they are, I can accept some bubbles in the mix - especially since it's only occured once.
However, my main problem with finecast is how brittle it is. Now, this hasn't been a problem for my tyranid models, since the Broodlord and Hive Guard are both bulky enough to prevent any bending. Being finecast rather than metal also allowed me to cannibalise some f the broodlord parts, in order to make a tyranid prime (something I'd never have been able to do with metal).
However, with the new necrons, I've had nothing but disappointment from failcast. I own both Imotekh and Trazyn, and both have staffs that are bent in at least two places. With Trazyn, I attempted to correct the bends, as I might with plastic, having made the foolish mistake of believing GW, when they said that failcast was meant to flex rather than break. It doesn't. It just snaps. Very easily.
Still, it could be worse. One of my friends has a resin Draigo, who currently wields a Nemesis Force Banana.
Would you recomend for me to wait a little bit before i buy a necron SC so they can work out all the flaws? And Vipoid i like your qute you gots there
Well, I promised Zinge some pictures but haven't got time yet:
For now, I guess I'm lucky but I bought:
-Azagh the slaughterer
-Necrotect
-Cockatrice
-Mangler squigs.
Haven't painted anything yet, but I've opened the boxes & clampack and haven't seen any major imperfection nor big bubbles, just a few flashes & mold lines. Azagh is great, did'nt wanted this one in metal due to the weight of the wings.
So yes there is some work to do, but nothing that bad, I've already get some ugly forgeworld pieces with more work.
It totally depends of the model: As some other already said, got really disappointed with the amount of work on some metal models (recent of course, the old lead alloy was great), especially the chaos lord on demonic steed and the juggernauts. Haven't mounted the lord yet because of that damned horse misalignment and too lazy to do it... But I don't want to buy it again in finecast for now. And I don't consider myself as a beginner. When it's an heavy metal piece and you can solve it with regular file, it's quite boring.
So I'm happy with finecast, for now. Will take pictures whenever I can if you want.
Last edited by Napalm; 05-01-2012 at 11:15.
I don't know what planet you are living on but I would like to go there; I have had the exact OPPOSITE experience, in that almost every single finecast miniature anyone has purchased at my club has been a disaster. I myself recently got two Crypteks from another store and was hugely disappointed as well; I will not be buying another and I will be recommending against it sternly to all of the players I represent.
The things I have seen are far in excess of acceptable and unfortunately our store doesn't do anything about a bad finecast box. For one, the models have far too many gates on their molds (probably 3x-5x as many in some cases), meaning that they are utterly covered in annoying little flash bits that need to be clipped. While I don't mind this my experience is the the gates can be rather large, and finecast is so flimsy that sometimes this can take a chunk off your model (bear in mind I am speaking in terms of beginners here).
To those of us for which experience isn't an issue this is just an annoyance, but personally I find the general quality of the miniatures to be abhorrent. The two Crypteks I got were very...textured? I'm not sure if that's the word. But where it is supposed to be smooth metal, I instead got this bizarre chalky surface. The arms of the Crypteks didn't look nearly as consistent as all the other Necron pieces I had; they looked like some kid with no experience green stuffed it out of desperation with no sculpting tools.
A large volume of the gate flash I mentioned earlier is in hard to clip places, usually where components need to attach, making your attachments tenuous at best unless you are needlessly thorough.
Perhaps the biggest problem with these things is warping. I see almost every finecast piece bought at our group end up warped or bent, often due to being put in foam that would normally plush around the extreme ends of the model (the way a model with it's sword arm out might still fit in a standard GW foam, for example, a finecast will just end up bending if you don't stack it near the top and keep weight off it). This is of course consistent if you factor in that every single solitary finecast piece that includes a staff or long weapon of some kind will:
A.) Come horrifically bent and be unlikely to be fixed, or
B.) Will end up horrifically bent in your foam unless you use pluck foam and space it accordingly.
Often, even some of the "easier" finecasts like a Sternguard (i.e. a boxy model with no Gumby weapon) comes out warped!
I've worked with chewing gum with more structural integrity than these things. GW has really cheaped us out on this one. Finecast are utterly horrible and have little benefit in terms of detail when you consider you might have to buy a half dozen of a model before you get one that doesn't require the intervention of a surgical team to make it look correct.
And for anyone wondering, yes, both my Crypteks were warped and their staves were unusably bent. I used arms left over from the Triach Praetorian box instead (and yes I am aware I could perform an elaborate voodoo spell involving boiling water and salt and maybe get my staff straightened out but I paid near $20 for these pieces, but I sure as hell shouldn't have to be doing that, and given GW's advertising of Finecast they ought to be sued for false advertising. These things are garbage).
While I have seen a couple of good ones, bear in mind that I run a club of 60+ people and can count on one hand how many have been "okay." None of which is any better than the metal counterpart.
40k Supplements, Add-Ons & Events:
[Dyer's Eve - 40k Zombie Apocalypse]
More Coming Soon
Sadly, I (along with virtually everyone else at my gaming group) have had similar experiences with failcast.
The only models that have been ok have been the Broodlord and Hive Guard - probably because they're both quite bulky.
On the other hand, my experiences with necron failcast have been disaterous. Trazyn and the Stormlord both have staffs that are practically S-shaped. I then foolishly believed GW when they said that failcast was suppoed to flex, rather than breaking. Trust me - it doesn't. it just breaks. Very easily. My atempts to gently nudge Trazyn's staff into a straighter positon simply resulted in it snapping.
For me, this is the thing I really despise about failcast - it only bends wrong way. It happily bends and warps in its packaging or in your case, but then that flexability immediatly turns to brittleness the moment you try and correct it.
Something of an aside, but the Stormlord's staff didn't bother waiting for me to try and alter it's shape, and settled for breaking after being dropped about 2 feet onto soft carpet.
I can't recall most of the experinces of my friends with failcast offhand (although I'll try to remember to ask them next time we play). However, one thing that does stick in the mind is that one friend happens to own a Draigo model who, thanks to the wonders of finecast, now wields a Nemesis Force Banana.
As there is so much complaints, even if I was lucky enough to get good quality models, I totally agree that there is a real problem.
That's not normal: buying a miniature should not be lottery (especially for the boxed ones that you cannot check before buying).
I think the easy way for GW to correct this is a really better quality check.
Got a techmarine where every part of him either had bubbles or was mismatched, like the cast form for the back and front were almost a millimeter off.
Not buying another finecast that isn't in a see-through pack so I can see what I'm buying.
It's funny, I ordered a lot of troops from Forgeworld, and they were a little better than the GW finecasts, but half the small weapon such as lasguns had broken during transport due to their extreme frailty. I can without hyperbole break them by putting them between my fingers and blowing on them. Didn't matter as I was planning to rearm them with other things all along, but I wouldn't want to have bought this and actually needed the guns. (Death Korps soldiers)
But I still took a chance and ordered some resin parts and bits and bobs for modifications from completely unofficial sources, those being coolminiornot and scibor monstrous miniatures, and they have both had absolutely brilliant quality.
How is it that GW can fail so horribly on these when these much much smaller companies are churning out good stuff with the same material?
Had two really good casts of late so an overall tally of 4/6 have been very positive, 1 mixed, 1 utter crud- can put pictures up if anyone likes?
Always good to see pictures of good Finecasts.
@Brother Captain, Being a small manufacturer myself - my QA is hopefully pretty good as I pull and inspect every cast personally. Small companies generally have a few well trained and enthusiastic casters and larger companies have lots of casters with quoters to fill - but the casting process and equipment should be robust enough to be done by someone on minimum wage. With QA systems to weed out the problems.
....Bugger this for a game of soldiers!
Zinge Industries Selling Flexible ammo belts, power cables and Custom Bits for conversions
Which models are they?
Any chance you can post pictures?
I'm on my 2nd Imotekh model and both have had major problems.
I'll never understand why people find flaws in finecast minis then proclaim loudly failcast this is horrble failcast is such a horrible product which no one should buy and I will tell everyone I can how bad this product is and why they should never ever buy it.
and yet there are worse problems with the metal minis. People bought those when they were clearly riddled with thick chunks of flash, horribly warped, heavy, difficult to build and keep paint on, prone to balance problems etc etc etc.
I wonder if anyone has ever allowed themselves a break from the rampant I am a victim I like to whine I am entitled to more. and thought maybe, just maybe, mass producing detailed specialist minis isnt as perfect and exact as producing multi-part plastic kits?
Mass producing good quality resin models is hard and when I get lots of orders it does not mean I can drop my QA just to meet demand.
If my QA was the same as Finecast I would be drummed out of business in no short order.
....Bugger this for a game of soldiers!
Zinge Industries Selling Flexible ammo belts, power cables and Custom Bits for conversions
You're experience with metal models is vastly different from my own. Admitidly every problem every problem you've listed I've experienced at one time or another, 99% of those only happening with gwPLC metal kits strangely enough. Lets say 15 - 20 models out of somewhere between 1000 & 1500 metal kits (not counting models I've cast myself) over a period of 19 years in the wargaming hobby.
I've never had a metal model with chunks of detail or apendages destroyed by air bubbles and I've never had to get a model replaiced more than once.
Attacking metal in defence of finecast is a non-arguement.
There was not a previous thread with 1300 plus posts of people voicing concerns & showing pictures of poor quality metal models.
Most of the complaints that I hear about working with metal boil down to not knowing some simple techniques that makes assembling them (at least when well designed - Khador Berserker Warjack from PP is an example of how not to design a metal model) a breeze. I was able to knock out 10 multipart metal models last night in 45 minutes and that included 3 pins per model & I would not consider myself skilled.
If you want to do something constructive post pictures of good quality finecast minis you have. So far we've seen only two perfect finecast models on this whole thread and one of those was posted by Shelf Unit, a so called finecast/gwPLC/cute kitten "hater".
Last edited by paddyalexander; 05-01-2012 at 17:08.
The 5 Rules of Page 5 - MKII
1) Thou Shalt Not Whine
2) Come Heavy Or Don't Come At All
3) Give As Good As You Get
4) Win Graciously And Lose Valiantly
5) Page 5 Is Not An Excuse
Considering it took the opening of 6 boxes of casket of souls to find a proper one when I bought one in june....
Hmm well I went into the GWstore this december and asked how the finecast was doing, since i had to go through so many boxes. The guy said they hardly had any returns anymore, while I walked to the finecast rack of dwarfs plucked out the thane with bsb and hit gold with a miscast. The lower half was missing and then I pulled a runesmith with half a beard out as well.
So overall, I am scared as hell when it comes to buying finecast products anywhere but in a physical store where I can check the model thrice over. Succes for GW as I don't buy from online retailers anymore when I need something that is in finecrap. Too bad it also has resulted in me just trying to avoid it like the plague and scouring for metal versions.
Not sure if i was misunderstood but, i'm not saying every, or most metal models suffer ALL of the problems I listed. I'm saying that most metal models suffer SOME of the problems I listed, just as most finecast models suffer SOME of the aforementioned problems.
The reason you dont get threads of hate on metal models is: Metal models are not new. Metal models have been around before the internet was popular. Metal models seem to be "grandfathered in" and accepted as they are.
All my finecast are already painted, be they pristine or flawed, so any pictures I posted would easily be dismissed as metal or kitbashed plastic. It is fairly obvious this is the case for most people who have good finecast. If you have a model that comes as you expect it, why would you take pictures of the bare resin?
So far, I've had a better experience with the DE range (Wracks), but the Necron range is awful. I've got an Over lord, and not only had blob spots, warps, holes, and mold lines, but I also had unmixed pink resin chunks stuck in it. I returned it, and had to sift through 3 others to find an acceptable replacement.
Overall, they suck... just make it all plastic and drop the cost.
There's only one thing I hate more than a cute kitten, and that is a Finecast Cute kitten made by GW
EDIT: I shall (for the sake of anyone not wanting to go back through this thread) state again - I voted for the middle option of the poll, and whilst the cockatrice I have is a perfect (aka what it is suppose to be, what should be standard) cast, I cannot dismiss the evidence of all the terrible casts posted here. Metal had few problems, the main being weight which adversely affects the larger multipart models, miscasts were microscopically low, but conversions are harder in metal and I do prefer to paint on plastic to metal.
Last edited by shelfunit.; 05-01-2012 at 17:46.
Member of J.A.D.E.DTrying to convince Warseer that GW are anything less than perfect is like trying to teach a horde of zombies that lettuce is a perfectly acceptable alternative to brains.
Lest we forget
This is part of the finecast problem. It's not that simple.
Take for example the marneus calgar and honor guard finecast kit.
SOME marine players might buy this kit if they are running marneus, a counts as, or want the cool looking honor guard.
MOST marine players have, or will, buy a standard terminator kit and a space marine assault squad kit a tactical squad kit and have some CC weapons laying around etc. You can make a model with 2 power fists storm bolter and terminator armor out of the terminator kit. You can make ornate space marines with close combat weapons out of MANY kits.
Finecast products don't move enough kits to justify them in plastic. Who buys 3 sternguard squads or 3 pedro kantors? Probly not many. Who buys 3 tactical marine squads, a lot of people do. If finecast were to flop you can be sure that the next step would be GW teling us how we can create previous finecast kits out of existing kits, or simply saying sorry no official kit available. You can't just make everything plastic, it doesn't work like that.
Last edited by Konovalev; 05-01-2012 at 17:43.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
