This could go into the Game forum since it involves Games Workshop. But since I’m asking about the hobbyist side of the issue, this sounds like the right place.
Anyhow, GW has started issuing all of its’ new miniatures in resin instead of metal and calling it the “Finecast” line. And I hate it.
It seems like GW is trying to cash in on the “high end” reputation that resin minis possess. But in doing so, they’ve missed the idea. In the scale model/ miniature figure business, a lot of small, niche companies make high end products or accessories in resin. These are often really awesome specialist minis that one can’t otherwise get or they’re kits for customizing existing models or minis. I think the reason so many of these little companies use resin is because it doesn’t require the equippment/investment as full metal casting. But GW has the full setup to do good quality minis in metal and now has the ability to issue very well-done plastic kits and minis as well. I don’t see any benefit quality-wise from the new resin minis. In fact, the GW resin minis I’ve bought had serious issues. They suffered from extreme amounts of flash, and bubbles in the cast material or process resulted in pitting in the mini or delicate parts like fingers and toes just plain missing. And resin is a bitch to work with. It doesn’t bend easily without breaking and it doesn’t cut well. So it is difficult to fix mistakes in the initial casting as well as tough to convert the mini in any way. Go back to metal and/or polystyrene please, GW.
I don’t play 40k or Warhammer, I’m a Bloodbowl addict, and we get no support from GW anyway, and in fact they did all they could to kick the BB community in the nuts not too long ago, so I don’t buy GW stuff anymore.
From what I hear the initial runs of finecast also had problems with melting at relatively low temperatures, like left in the car type temp’s. So be careful of that too.
Yeah, it’s harder to work with, more prone to miscasts and its release was accompanied by widespread shortages and price hikes. It’s one of GW’s many fuckups in recent years.
But hey, at least by ruining everything at the same time, I don’t have to worry about what I’m missing.
I know a guy who does (or did) casting for a living, and he prefers to cast metal. You get a bad shot, it just goes back in the melting pot and you try again. With resin, the material can’t be re-used, and it’s fairly expensive material, so that’s an incentive to settle for less than perfect castings.
Plus, it seems to me that casting resin is a bit more of an art than casting metal; his metal process, with his big centrifugal casting machine, seemed pretty foolproof.
Indeed. You get that lead or lead alloy hot enough and it will flow like water. Makes it way better for removing the air bubbles. Resin is just too viscous to flow like that, even under pressure.
It really doesn’t help that part of the reason they shifted to finecast is because it would be cheaper (for them, they never actually promised lower prices!) but then they roll out during the regular scheduled price increase. That’s a good idea, let’s associate finecast with higher prices in the minds of our consumers! Genius!
GW are evil. (Not completely germane to the Finecast issue… but I feel it has to be said)
It’s nice that the bulk of the armies are already in plastic – which is just so easy to convert / work with, and some hero types even – especially where they’re made as multi-option hero / wizard / mounted / foot / etc variants.
But unfortunately I don’t expect we’ll see everything in polystyrene soon, or probably ever, because of the high initial mould cost; plastic is only going to be economic for figures that are expected to sell enough units, and many of the specialist / hero type figures just won’t sell that many.
What annoys me isn’t the hero-type figures, it’s the Sisters of Battle. If GW can afford to waste thousands of pounds on moulds and development of a bunch of stupid skull islands for a limited run game nobody asked for, is it really too much to ask that women (a group that makes up half the population) get a basic troops kit?
Oh, that and the “Fuck Australia” surcharge and related trade embargo. Even the Black Library charges 40% extra for an ebook if you’re in Australia.
I blame Forgeworld. They have some great designs but at tremendous cost. And of course it’s all in resin. So GW thinks that if they use resin too, it will have the same “high-end” aura as Forgeworld and cough up even more for it.
I think there will be occasional plastic figure kits, such as new editions of the 40K and Fantasy Battle box sets that come with two small armies or battle forces.
I was genuinely surprised that with their re-vamp of the Sister’s codex-lite that there was no plastics release. Really, was one box to cover the (only 2) basic troop types too much to ask? Dumb-asses.
Ah yes, and if you think the Oz prices are high may I invite you over to this side of the Tasman?
Again… I previously bought quite a stack of GW via one of their UK online re-sellers, but since the embargo have felt very little inclination to give them another dollar. So instead of me putting money into their company via the UK they’re getting no sale from me. Double dumb-asses.
Oh, and really aside to all this, I found out yesterday that they’re no longer shipping pre-release codexes and minitatures (the so-called “black boxes”) to the stores… guess we’ll see what that does to their sales when the retailers cannot get miniatures painted up ahead of army releases or hype up the new codex, etc. <sigh> Cubic-dumb-assery.
Well fuckbananas. It used to be quite reasonable to get books from BL (directly from), before the site revamp. You’d pay in GBP, but at least get their prices. Bastards.
[Edit]: Motherfucker. I’ve just been playing around with prices on BL’s website, and they can’t even use currency conversion costs as an excuse. The same eBook that costs 6.50 GBP and 13.99 AUD (9.06 GPB) costs 7.99USD, which at today’s exchange rate is 5.01GBP.
