Jan 9, 2012
A little over a month ago I came across an epic yarn of what happens when a Golden Demon level painter encounters Finecast. Now we all know the story of Finecast: GW wanted to get out of the metal business so decides to go with resin for certain models. For pure fun let me remind you what GW thought about Finecast when it was released…
Last week we announced something very special – so special in fact that it’s nothing less than a new era in wargaming, as we launch the highest quality miniatures the world has ever seen – Citadel Finecast.
Wow, that’s quite a statement isn’t it? Nonetheless, it is very true. On the 28th of May we launch Citadel Finecast, miniatures of such exquisite detail that they are the closest representation of the sculptors’ original that we have ever been able to make. Until you hold one in your hand and see it for yourself, it’s hard to describe just how detailed they are.
So, what are Citadel Finecast miniatures and why are we making the change? Quite simply, Citadel Finecast is the next step in the evolution in tabletop miniatures wargaming. From the start, Games Workshop has always innovated and sought to increase the quality of our models – Citadel Finecast is the next step in that process. There are no other miniatures that exist of this quality and manufactured on this scale in the world, and we’re proud and very excited for you all to see this for yourselves.
The Citadel Finecast miniatures are all made from a unique resin formula. For us as hobbyists, this is great news. The resin is easy to work with and quick to cut off the sprue, making assembling a miniature easier than it has ever been. Not only that, but it’s incredibly light too, which means pinning wings and other heavy components will be a thing of the past. So, quick and durable, that’s a good start. But of course, one of the main reasons for this change to resin was quality. One thing you’ll notice immediately when you pick them up is the exceptionally sharp detail on the model, which can only be described as staggering. For dedicated painters (which we all are to some extent) this is a dream come true.
You won’t be disappointed.
As for my two cents, I actually really like Finecast…. for the most part. I like the weight and the ease to assemble making it worth the hassle in spite of the other problems. If I were to have an ax to grind though it would be GW portrayal of what was an obvious cost cutting move, not the next step in model making. Going with a name like Finecast is extra ridiculous and shows an extra level of hubris on GW part. This is what makes the following story so compelling for me and anyone that had raised eyebrows about the “greatness” that is Finecast…
So on to the story…
#7 & #8… Fail…
Yes you read correctly. We have two other failures among us. I was hoping for success from a first look but, although they are not as bad as the previous batch, they are not acceptable. I’m at lost now. Through the 8 copies I have examined, I can now say that I have seen each issues I have encountered being perfectly cast at least once on a model with the exception of the belly part. So I know the perfect copy is not impossible, simply elusive. And as said before, I’m not asking for the perfect copy. Simply something that I can work with without spending more than 1 hour prepping the model which in fact shouldn’t take that long.
Yes I have the abilities to take most of these models and fix them. I can repair these issues using miliput, green stuff, files and sand paper (don’t talk to me about liquid green stuff). The question is why should I spend the extra time to repair a finecast model which Games Workshop labels as “incredibly detailed, high-quality resin kits”. You simply have to click on the finecast logo on their website to read the description. As a friend recently said on the topic: ” i shouldn’t HAVE to resculpt parts of it, the fact than i “can” is moot. I can accept mold lines and the ocassional sprue/vent, but resculpts should be a choice i make, not something i have to do just to get a stock mini”. When I pay 20.75$CAN on a model I do not expect to have to take my entire tool set to prep it.
The thing which disturb me even more is that I am not the major demographic buying their products. I have the abilities to see the problems with these minis and call them what they are: shit. But most customers, especially the younger ones, which we have to admit are GW’s main target, probably won’t see it as they are. So how many people actually bought these “high-quality resin kits” without further inspection and are now being played? If that doesn’t sound like ripping off your customers I wonder what does. I have seen perfectly casted Finecast minis. I know that they are not bad all over the board but I’ve been through 8 Overlords now and I am still hoping for a copy I can work with.
So far we had no issues getting replacement models at my local store. This time though they asked questions. Pictures were requested so I eagerly sent them the link of the previous article. The answer from our sales rep was to inform us about the existence of liquid green stuff… First of, as previously said, I shouldn’t have to buy a new products to fix extensive defects on a foot soldier model that cost 20.75$CAN. Second, if your company policy is to push you customers to buy an extra overpriced product to fix your inability to produce a “high-quality resin kit”, definitely you have major issues. Lastly, liquid green stuff has been out of stock at GW USA warehouses for the last three weeks. Well to be exact, we have ordered liquid green stuff the last three weeks and every time our order arrived without it and the invoice stating “not shipped”. Furthermore if you think you can fix the issues on the models #5 and #6 with liquid green stuff you are either simply blindly following your company guidelines on what to answer your customers or you are clueless. I don’t want to be mean but at one point someone is getting tired of being laughed at in such an obvious manner.
They did finally sent us two replacement copies… and here are the results:
Necron #7
Nothing majorly bad from this angle. Again we can already see that the part behind the knee is miscast. This part cannot be fixed with liquid greenstuff. It has to be properly re-sculpted to get the sharp angles and flat panels. Liquid greenstuff would either create a bubble on each side or simply run through if too thin. In either case it would be impossible to file or sand to get the proper angles. And look at the number of vents… I’ve never seen so many of them on resin model….
I highly recommend you read the entire story not just the snippet posted here. Now is this the insane ramblings of OCD perfectionist or does GW have a Finecast problem on their hands?
pathtyphon
TastyTaste
Frank Austin
fluger
Brent
Dethtron
newsun
AbusePuppy
nyhil
That Teri Girl
reecerobbins
badtaste
Honestly not impressed when someone makes a claim about being a ” highly skilled” anything but complains when they have to use those skills. Personally I have not seen as many defects as have been stated online, and the issue seems to be a manifestation of an overpriveleged fandom. An important question is: how often are the miscasts happening compared to how often they are reported? That is,are they really that bad, or is this a case where a bad experience is reported ten times, but a good one once?
I think that anyone that takes the advertising hype seriously enough to be upset that there are defects or flash to remove deserves to have their money taken from them, a fool is born every day. It’s hype, Mcdonalds doe not produce burgers so great that they need no seasoning, if they did they would not need to coat them in three substances so saturated in vinagar or sugar that they eliminate any vestige of beef flavor the cooking process did not eliminate. Honda does not produce a “hybrid “car with fuel effiency that will save you money, if they did they would not be facing a potential class action lawsuit. It’s called advertising and should be taken with a grain of salt, especially when whomever created the advertising seems extremely zealous about the product.
the problem is, after observing my local gw store (not flgs) i have seen approximately 50% of the model range has significant problems. whether it’s fantasy or 40k, half or more of the finecast selection is significantly miscast (as this writer is describing) about 2/3 of the time. to be perfectly clear, that means half of the options are messed up 2/3 of the time, so a child randomly picking a model off of the shelf has an approximately 1/3 chance of picking up a model that will be unacceptably messed up. and i’ve also noticed that the more popular a kit, the more likely that it is one of the problem models, so customers are actually much more likely to pick up bad models (more like just over 50% chance of the model being unusable). that is why i completely agree with this guy.
However, if you are advertising a product, then you are stating what the virtues are, to get you to want that product. If it is not doing what they claim, then you can sue them for breach of advertising. Look at all the make-up products. They are now being forced to say they’ve enhanced their pictured through various means, from eyelash extensions, to photoshop. telling the people the high quality of your product is one thing, but to have it be frequently questionable… that’s a suicide pill. People won’t trust your company, or trust your product. So, if you are saying your product is finely cast, you had better jolly well make sure it is. Because if it is not, then company reputation is damaged. And a damaged reputation is hard to repair.
I have either bought or gotten as Xmas gifts a dozen finecast models, and so far only one of them has had any miscasts or air bubbles. Yes, their is a lot of flash to trim off, but it’s so easy to do that I really don’t mind. I’ve even replaced a couple of metal models with their finecast equivalent. I think that some people are just OCD and cannot imagine that the rest of the world isn’t the same. I for one do not miss metal miniatures one bit.
What I think is that this article is somewhat late to the party. Complaining about Finecast was so 2011!
I think the stories are all out there now. The three Finecast pieces I have are great. I have had no problems with them so far. I am certain others have had problems though (in fact I have seen your Necron Lord Tasty and fixed the hole in his shoulder) – but for me these issues – which so far seem to be able to be fixed easily, FAR outweigh the problems I have had with assembling metal models.
Additionally I cannot stand how easily metal models scratch and chip paint. So to be honest, I may need to go through a couple returns in some cases – but I’ll take Finecast over metal thanks.
I am amazed at how easily resin breaks vs plastic. 80 percent of flash from fine cast cannot be filed or cut off as it would break the thiner Pieces of. The model
the problem is not the model here, but your tools.
I’m always on the look out for better tools, would you care to list the ones you use?
Use really sharp exacto blades. Finecast is, as stated, extremely light and soft, a quality that is both a blessing and a curse.
Bracing delicate pieces against something helps as well, rather than just trying to cut it off while holding onto the main body. you need to add strength on the parts you need, and cut on the parts you don’t.
Hes right though i have been through 6 different overlords and all were in horrible condition. Cabling so eat up with bubbles it was almost non-existent, warscythe always breaks or comes broken, the cape is literally bubbly, the head piece is riddled with cracks, the fingers are not fully formed on the rez orb, the list goes on. The necron overlord is the worst finecast model they have ever made, if you think finecast is ok then pick up an overlord and see if you can find one your happy with. I’m finding that i have to buy 3 or 4 of the same model to be able to cobble together the parts from 3 or 4 separate kits to get one functional finecast model. My overlord has cost me $60 so far, is that ok? Oh and for those of you who think its ok, would you buy a brand new car at full price that you had to make the doors and fenders for yourself.
First of all, why have you spent so much on buying multiple kits. In my experience GW is more than willing to send replacement kits, and even let you keep the original pieces. I currently have 2 ork meks and only paid for one. The first one did have a break in the backpack, and thats why I got #2, but still, you shouldn’t be buying 3-4, unless you are too lazy to call customer service and talk to em for a couple minutes.
Now, should you need to call Customer service…no, but its not a perfect system, if it was, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Tyler, stop being a mighty moosehead.
The first GW product I ever bought was in October 2011. It was a building from Lord of the Rings, for a Creative Writing project.Since then, I’ve bought a number of products, including a Dark Eldar army (They look cool, and I was lucky enough to get hold of a Battleforce AND a Megaforce.)
I had over the month of November looked at the website, and studied the whole catalogue. I get obsessive like that. And one figure that really caught my mind – and my imagination – was Lelith Hesperax. And I was intrigued by the “Citadel Finecast” logo, and seeing words like “finely detailed,” I thought this was a model in a range that was a cut above the rest.
So, when I went to Canterbury, to the GW shop there, and saw they had one, it was an instant buy. But, over the weeks, I was staring at it, thinking “This doesn’t look right at all.” She was leaning forward like she was at the tavern all day before battle, the right arm was mis-moulded, there are bubbles about her, to the point things like the spikes on her legs were deformed and similar stuff. To try to rectify, I have gone and had to carve the arm into a more proper shape, I took her off her base, and will glue her to a specially created Hellion, not to mention replace her weapons, so they look decent. (They have, to my delight, snapped off. I hated them, they didn’t look right on her once I had done a LOT of background reading on her story.) I have taken parts from the Kabalite Warrior set, the optional gun spikes, and glued them onto a cleaned up Grisly Trophy spear (As in I cut it to the right length, and got rid of the irritating skulls. Seriously, what is in the heads of the people in this company? So many products have skulls, its like they have a death obsession or something.) and glued it together, making it into a killer weapon that is unique to her. I plan to add a wand to her right hand, because I like the idea of her being sorceress.
All this is taking hours to do, and I’m a newbie . I feel terrible cheated, and am VERY reluctant, now I know it was not my imagination, it really was a defective product, to by any other Finecast models. I’ve looked at them on the shelves, one, by one just yesterday. They all have imperfections that should NOT be there if you are marketing it with a name that suggests that it is a high quality product.
I can adapt and change and correct the model, because even though I am a newbie to this, I am (depressingly) an adult, and have the experience and confidence to be able to turn a screw-up like this around. If I was none, or twelve, I would be getting upset that it was a bad product, and I didn’t spot it in the shop. I wouldn’t have the self-esteem, or the life experience, to try and make something reasonable of what I ended up with. Also, at that age, spending ten or eleven pounds on something like that would be a massive investment. It would make me not want to buy any more of their products.
As it is, I have a simple approach to it: I can create my OWN army, with units I WANT, with the plastic parts available. I can create the HQ items happily, from putting together plastic parts freedom a variety of model kits, And have done so.A younger person, however, isn’t going to thing like that. They will feel gutted that they spent all that money, and the item they got was poorly made. Worse yet, they didn’t know for ages it was a badly made item. Which will make them feel stupid, for not checking in the first place, regardless of if they knew to check or not.
Tyler, the blog post is NOT about lack of skills, or about metal to resin models. It is about quality, and the lack of it with Citadel Miscast. The need to contact them for a replacement should be the EXCEPTION. Not at all the RULE.
As for customer service, I remember the ghastly experiences I endured with Forbidden Planet mail order, until I decided that a train fare was worth the peace of mind to go to the next town to get the comics I wanted to read. Which is how I found GW and all its products in the first place.
To me, the products can be deeply irritating (I didn’t know until I brought it that the Garden of Morr kit would be of little use to my building projects, but such as life…) to utterly wonderful (Dark Eldar troops are fun to put together, and the Ruins of Osgiliath and Dreadstone Blight have helped with little Creative Writing I have on the back burner…). However, I have seen that the PLASTIC models are far better than the Citadel Miscast versions. I have yet to find a problem with a plastic kit, but avoid -from experience – the Citadel Miscast range, because of fears of wasting needless time in trying to make cool a model that WAS cool until it was moulded. In the hours it has taken me to try and correct a crap model, I could have painted lots of other models, or made more. That’s what annoys me about all this.
So I just went through and looked at the full post, and it seems to me like the guy is kinda a dick. Generally I find that pictures reveal all sorts of flaws and problems with sculpts and paint, much more than you can sometimes see. All I could think about while reading the article was, “these pictures suck” more than a few of them I would not have been able to tell what was wrong with them if it wasn’t circled in red.
Surely there are some errors, but ultimately complainers will complain…Mathieu Fontaine has painted exactly zero, yes zero , necron finecasts, he has done nothing but complain, the energy of which could have been better spend doing something productive.
Um, Matt Fontaine has what, 4 Golds now? Numerous features in White Dwarf. The point is all those little bubbles circled in red should not have to be fixed on a model that’s supposed to be high quality. And those belly cables… What you got, Tyler? Show us some skills, cause at the moment I read your posts and think ‘I bet he paints like my 7 year old’.
And no, people aren’t buying multiple kits and complaining, they’re getting miscasts as replacements. I personally went through 9 Captain Sterns before giving up. The one I kept from the chain (number 6) was actually the best of the bunch. And that had 28 (count ‘em) green stuff fixes. On a 32mm model. Twenty fucking Eight.
Hang on… you’ve made comments, and you’ve NOT looked at the whole information? And you’re calling people now dicks? What idiot looks at incomplete information before making a comment on the situation?
Okay, what Dime Bar factory did you emerge from? The guy said, and I quote verbatim:
“And as said before, I’m not asking for the perfect copy. Simply something that I can work with without spending more than one hour prepping the model which in fact shouldn’t take that long.”
I agree with that. I would like to spend my time dealing with lots of models, not one that keeps on coming out poorly. If I want to spend hours on a particular model, I would want it to be because I have something special in mind, and not because the factory is churning out diminished quality products that I need to overhaul to an average standard.
In economics, there is a term: Opportunity Cost. In doing something, you have sacrificed other options. For example, by replying you your deeply diffused, dunderhead disseminations, I have not done any model painting. Or written any more of my novel. That is an Opportunity Cost I assessed, and chose to make. The blog poster chose to spend an amount of time on trying to get an Overlord together that was at the least reasonable. To you, it might seem insane. BUT, he has made a rational decision, based on the dataset he had available.
I, for one, applaud his tenacity on this project.After the aforementioned Lelith Hesperax situation, I have to say that I am trying to shy away from Citadel Miscast, unless I really have to get it. the Isabella Von Carlson, or whatever her name is, seems a tempting buy to me. But if I can find one in a quality I feel is acceptable to be called “Citadel Finecast” I will likely but it, or, in a quality that can be quickly dealt with to the level of standard I exact. Which is what ANY product should be at in the first place.
I am the same. I would dearly lover the Isabella model too but I can’t be bothered ordering it (our FLGS) does not stock blisters when someone orders he gets two copies and shelves the other as space of course is King)
I evaluated and decided unless I can see one one in the flesh I won’t buy it as I don’t want to go through the rigmarole and I don’t want my store owner to have the hassle either.