"Rate the Importance of Citadel Finecast" Topic

I won't buy resin troops… but sometimes I buy GW figs, mostly 2nd hand. I think the fragile nature of resin will tamp down the 2nd hand market for these figs… it's hard enough getting metal through the mail in one piece.
So it means I'll be even less of a customer for GW than I already am (assuming some of my 2nd hand dollars are being spent on new product). I'm still fine with their plastics though… I like good hard plastic figs.
So yeah… it effects me a bit… but there's plenty of nice metal to buy from other companies… so yay! Maybe that's a net of zero.
If it encourages other companies I like to go resin that would be MUCH more annoying.

I wouldn't hazard a guess if it hurts GW… from what I can tell they prefer a disposable customer base, just replace it next year with the new crop of 12yr olds. So why not sell them disposable product as well. I'm sure they've crunched the numbers.

I can't rate the importance of the figure line. I wouldn't even be aware of the line, if it weren't for posts here on TMP. I haven't purchased any of them. I don't need any of them. I have yet to see any of them at the local shop. It is like they don't exist. As a matter of fact, I'm not convinced that they do exist. I bet there isn't even a Games Workshop. You guys are making this all up, aren't you? Hah! I knew it!

Even if they did exist, I couldn't answer, cause the line isn't important, not even in a minor way, and the scale only goes down to minor. So I've been excluded, probably part of the conspiracy as well. Sort of like being stifled without being stifled. Though now that I mentioned stifled, I sure to be stifled. Which was probably part of the intent of the conspiracy in the first place.

I'm blaming Games Workshop for it all, even if they and their unimportant product line don't exist.

irishserb, you gave me a much needed chuckle. :)

10 for me in importance.
I now need never buy another GW figure.I don't do plastic and won't do crapcast either.So I can save a lot of money thusly it's very important to me(:

Personally, I would say a 1. I haven't bought any of them, due largely to quality issues I have seen in friends' models and heard about here and other places…

As far as the industry is concerned, a 7 for being a good lesson in what not to do. GW simply did not do a good job of producing these figures. Had they come out with a product as nice as their metal or hard plastics, it would probably have been a big hit. THey didn't.

Curious…Since I'm sure that GW is well aware of all the negative feedback about this product, what has been their response to the criticism?

I've neither bought nor seen (in person) the Finecast products, so I have no real opinion. The pictures I've seen posted in this thread wouldn't endear me to them…

a 10 -- I no longer have to worry about buying bootleg GW figures of new stuff.

Same for the switch to resin for warmahine.

Once they work out kinks or perhaps just go plastic with everything even better -- I have no problems calling them and asking what I need to do to fix any issues with miscast.

I have had more than my fair share of BF flames of war miscast and still buy flames of war product.

The only thing that keeps me from doing a new 40k army are the rules – hope 6th ed fixes some of this.

I bought a resin Commander Dante off the GW website for $20.00 USD back in August 2011. There was an issue with the back-pack. But it doesn't show up when I primed and painted the model.

But $20.00 USD for for one resin model?

I think I'm done with buying GW product for a while. I spent a ridiculous amount of money back in October for Blood Angel and Chaos Space Marine vehicles I still need to assemble, prime, and paint. And it was a ridiculous amount of money (over $360.00 USD for 2 Stormraven gunships, 2 Chaos Land Raisers, 4 Chaos Rhinos, and 2 Furioso Dreadnoughts). And that was discounted at 20% off retail! It would been worse if I'd bought direct from GW. And those are plastic models (not finecast). Some of the later finecast is OK. Or it seems alright when I looked at some the finecast blisters at a local game store. But its still too overpriced for what you're getting. Though some of GW's metal models are monstrousities to put together like the Chaos Hell Cannon I played with last night. And that model was almost $60.00 USD for me to buy from GW directly…

So, I guess you get for what you pay for. I'd prefer metal models. But it looks like Finecast is here to stay. So I'll rate it "3" to me. For GW, it's a "10".

"Curious…Since I'm sure that GW is well aware of all the negative feedback about this product, what has been their response to the criticism?"

Their answer was these new items:
link
link
link

In other words, they're listening, but their people forgot the meaning of "Customer satisfaction."

"I've neither bought nor seen (in person) the Finecast products, so I have no real opinion. The pictures I've seen posted in this thread wouldn't endear me to them…"

I share this opinion as well, but I do have to say, for all the bad press over the first run, which was the most awful pieces of trash I've ever seen produced in all the years I've been into wargaming(Which is now around 11, maybe 12 years. I've lost exact track.)….HOWEVER! Looking at it from a purely unbiased view…. the later productions are getting less problematic.

If I honestly had to make a guess, I'd say half the problem is coming from their production rate and people running the machines. They think they need to fill a huge demand, so they produce at a high rate that causes quality issues. Generally, the faster you produce a product, the lower it's quality will become. Of course, there's the human factor too. If a person doesn't know how the machine works, then you're going to have a worse problem.

Right now, I imagine them being run by someone like my relative who's driving my great grandfather's printing company into the ground. Someone who has a two year business degree and thinks he knows everything, the sort of person who thinks that a pile of books and manuals is just as good as 20 years of experience in the respective industry. Someone who was promoted well beyond their capabilities or mental capacities and doesn't understand that machinery and materials, like people, have limitations and worse for them, customers have limited patience.

Hopefully, Games Workshop will learn to better listen to their real customer base. On that day, Matt Ward will be fired and all models you need in squads will be multi-part plastics, Space Marines and CSMs won't be SHORTER than Imperial Guardsmen and Terminators will be dropped to a saner $35 USD-$40 instead of $50. USD That extra $10 USD makes it feel like I paid for their 2+ save and 5+ invulnerable save instead of any resemblance of extra parts usable on other models.

Ideally, "hero" models should be plastics as well in that perfect world so that they're even easier to covert.

Remember folks, Day Dreaming can be fun…..

"I have had more than my fair share of BF flames of war miscast and still buy flames of war product."

Oh. This. I like this point. I too have had a pretty fair share of product issues with Battlefront. And honestly, I've actually had, in a per-figure ratio for 15mm stuff, more problems with some of the smaller manufacturers that we've come to know with the masses of new sci-fi stuff than with Battlefront. Not to say that I don't think Battlefront couldn't do with better quality control, especially at their Malaysian workshop…..but no company is perfectly infallible.

Zero. Robert

1.5

That would be a big goose egg for me 0

No importance whatsoever. That is a lot of pretentious BS.

I stopped playing Games Workshop games a long time ago. So, to me this is a Zero. To them, I'm sure its much more important.

As far as I'm concerned, I was chased out of Games Workshop by the following
1) constant re-writing of the history-continuity, and the "everything super epic" stuff.
2) I remember when White Dwarf had dungeons and dragons scenarios, call of cthulhu scenarios, and 'how to' articles. Now they're just one big catalogue of the newest games workshop stuff
3) the players. the 'caliber' of players I enjoyed playing with don't play anymore. they've moved on to other things, or have left wargaming completely.
4) the rise of the tournament player. Sure, at the games day stuff, all we see are expertly painted armies. But at the local store, all I see are half painted, primed, and just bare figures that aren't even assembled, being played by 12 year old rejects whos parents have pawned their spawn off on the game store so that they don't have to hire a babysitter while mommy goes shopping.

Have never seen finecast.

Will never buy finecast. So I guess a 1 for me.

GW lost me when they started charging enough for 1 figure for me to buy a pack of figures from almost any other company. That was after I stopped buying all the army/codex books over and over again.

I have a Wood Elf army for Warhammer, and a Catachan and Space Wolf army for 40k. Don't plan on getting any more unless I can find them for a decent price on ebay.

More power to those who like them. I don't see how they can be the future though, especially if they cost more!

"can some of you people put aside your ridiculous amounts of hate for a second and give an unbiased answer like Pictors Studio or Redroom did?"

I believe that I did just that and I even added some pictures to prove my point.

I am still going with my -1,000,000.

The only good thing about this is that I got most of my GW figures back in the 1990's long before GW raised the prices to where you needed to take out a small loan in order to buy miniatures.

TMP membership is not alone in the seemingly universal hatered of Finecast. I belong to a number of LOTR forum and most of the posts there are very similar to what is written here.

I will not by a resin model because, let's be real here, they break. A metal sword or lance will bend and you can bend it back. Try that wil a resin sword. Crack.

So, I guess for me, it's a non issue. I don't buy GW models from GW anyway. If it's not Bartertown or Ebay, I can live without it until it finally shows up on one of those sites at about 50% off list price. I just refuse to pay GW prices.

By the way, I have over 2,000 LOTR models and didn't buy a single one from GW. In fact, I just purchased about 70 Warriors of Arnor from a fellow TMP'er for two bucks each.
That's what they are worth to me.

10, obviously. Like it or not and our personal feelings aside, resin is here to stay. It's not just GW switching to resin, but other companies like Privateer Press and Spartan Games. As GW indicated in its June 2011 issue of White Dwarf, this is one of those momentous developments that doesn't happen often in a lifetime.

So what do I think? I'm slowly but surely becoming a resin convert. Sure, I still have a large metal collection, but I've grown to accept resin over time. The advantages of resin over metal are manifold: they're much lighter and more durable; If I accidentally drop them they just lightly bounce off the floor and I don't have to reglue/re-pin parts or touch up chipped paint; large models like the Throne of Judgement don't need pinning; high center-of-gravity models like Chaos Raptors and Vanguard Veterans no longer tip over and get damaged. Contrary to the claim in the post above, the resin GW used isn't any easier to break than the (polystyrene) plastic that they use. So if you want to complain about how easily their thin resin swords and lances break, you should also complain about how easily their thin plastic swords and lances break from their plastic releases.

Sorry, I'm not a GW apologist but all this negativity towards Citadel Finecast just seems a bit unfair to me.

0. Not knocking GW – just don't rate it important that a fantasy company replaces an expensive raw material with a cheap one.

Nor do I find it surprising that having decided to go for cheap raw materials they advertise every conceivable advantage.

Phil

Could be a 0 or a 10 – either way, its stopping me from spending money at GW, only thing I've bought there in the last few years was 1 can of primer, as my local hardware store re-located & wasn't open at the time.

An attempt at increasing profit … like any other business … but personally I have no interest …

I could not afford metal GW minis, so finecast is clearly off my radar. I give it a 1 for effort.

I can't honestly say, I avoid the prices not the material.

$20 USD for a single foot model is outrageous. I could buy a case of beer for that.

For myself I'd rate it at 0 or 1. For bootleggers, I'd say its probably more along the lines of an 8 or 9 since GW was so kind to show these folks exactly where and how to vent their molds to copy them lol. For GW, I'd say it was a 10. It was a way to move to a cheaper material and thus justify an increase in price to increase their bottom line. For the industry, I'd say its going to be a huge detriment. Just as with the move to digital books, streaming, etc, its opening up a whole new can or worms in the form of illegal copying. Sad to see so many companies slit their own wrists in the name of progress.

I don't rate it.

It's not the medium – I've got one of the mantic hailstorm quadguns from Warpath and it's not bad.
It was the paying 25% more for the EXACT same model in a different medium. If I wanted a resin version of Eldrad, I'm more than capable of doing that myself with probably better results (and all without spin or pressure-casting).

GW had 20 years of my money. Time to share the love with the others, now.

My initial vote would have been "0". But now I'm solidly of the belief that it will be a couple years before we can really judge the impact of finecast on the industry.

Seeing the increase of resin and plasti-resins (whatever the heck that is) and it's adoption by mass-production outfits like Privateer Press and Mantic games, it looks like finecast may be the start of something big and resin may well be the future for figures not produced in plastic.

As shown by finecast, the kinks aren't all worked out yet. However, things are improving and resin is cheaper, holds detail as well as metal (if produced correctly) is extremely easy to convert, assemble and repair and some of the newer resins seem to have slightly springy charachteristics that are similar to metal and counteract some of the brittle nature of plstics and older resins.

I still prefer the feel of metal and the price of plastic, but as metal becomes more expensive and the price of resin comes down (a'la the new mantic corporation troopers) resin looks more and more like it's here to stay in a big way.

In summary, I'd give it a "6" now with the knowledge that in 5 years, hindsight may well boost that rating considerably.

It is fantasy stuff, so I have no interest in it.
I do, however have a lot of Resin models--vehicles mainly.
I have worked with it and find that, for my tastes, resin is not really a great medium for troops. I prefer either the soft plastic or metal.

I should point out one other thing about the resin. Not sure about finecast resin, but isnt things like forgeworld resin very bad if sanded and inhaled? Didnt we go down this whole road once already with lead miniatures? I'm not sure how well resin will be recieved once the same people who pushed for lead to be banned get wind of it.

daburton63, everything is bad if sanded and inhaled.

So, that's not so much the issue as quality and price are in this very situation. It's really just that these figures should be better and shouldn't cost this much. As they are, they're lacking quality.(But getting better ever so slowly.) but more importantly, they're so obscenely overpriced it would make an oil company cry foul. If they dial back all the prices about $4 USD or $5 USD, discontinue the silly foot soldiers as resin idea and make them plastic, sticking with resin commanders/heroes and then finally fix all of the issues with the molding process I bet they'd see a lot less hate for the new product and new medium.

Zero…..

7… primarily for the ease of modelling (when they get it right).

I know most guys here don't dabble with GW (and so do I currently), but finecast resin is nothing like any other resin i've ever encountered.

Well I wish they made the Forge World 6mm Epic Scale models with the "magic" resin … All the 6mm FW resin I got in the past was very brittle and fragile … Not gamer friendly … And the dust is toxic ?!?! Doh !!!!

8 I quit buying GW stuff. I quit picking up WD.

I'd give actually give it a 8 purely because it was interesting to see what the result would be. Obviously it was a reasonably dismal failure when it launched and GW are going to weather their way through it and continue telling us that Finecast is amazing. People will believe it eventually if they keep the mantra going.

I prefer metal models, I don't have a problem with resin models, or GW, but you really need the sculpt to have some empathy for being cast in resin and the majority of GW's initial Finecast range that replaced metal models had none.

Would I actually buy a Finecast model? Nope. If I'm paying a premium price I want a premium product, regardless of manufacturer, and Finecast is not that product.

Hey, buddy… Where do you want this truckload of salt delivered? I'll just dump it next to this guy's opinion.

I haven't purchased, assembled or gamed with any finecast figures belonging to me, or to anyone else.

As a guy who spent plenty of time picking up GW bargains when they were using their webstore to declutter their warehouse of older edition figures, I have a lot of backlogged miniatures to paint.

Seemingly, this would make the importance of finecast a very low number… but in fact it is not.

New figures, now available only in this resin form will be replacing/displacing old figures from collections. I've been picking up older metal models for what I'd consider to be reasonable prices. The early eldar craftworld figures aren't the most stunning by a long measure these days, but when assembled and painted up, they still look pretty good. Maybe my Striking Scorpions don't have the latest fashions, and my Terminators stand on really small bases… but while others are filling out their ranks with the latest and greatest, I'm able to field viable forces of "old stuff".

If GW had stuck with the same old methods of production, metal and the occasional plastic box, I'd be hard pressed to have as much as I do. I'll grant you, I would probably get the stink-eye at any tournament, but when we're talking about friendly games and value for money, old figures work just fine.

On the flipside, if I want the newest Leilith Hesperax (sp?), I'm going to have to pay a pretty penny to have it.

So, the importance to an aftermarket bargain hunter? at least a 7.

Once ye olde metal dries up? well, that'll be a sad day.