I'm not sure how many folk bother with GW stuff, but this 'Finecast Revolution' seems to be receiving nothing but negative publicity in the interwebs.  I'm not sure how much of that will affect their sales though, as the dedicated GW-fans will just buy regardless I'm guessing.  It'll be interesting to see whether they can get the quality control up on these resin figures though, cos at the moment it doesn't seem too great.

Ho hum...
Something something something.
No interest to me since, erm...
puberty.

what effect might it have on the rest of the hobby?

Quote from: Sandinista on 06 June 2011, 06:33:24 PM
what effect might it have on the rest of the hobby?

Widespread sniggering & pointing I would have thought 

Quote from: nikharwood on 06 June 2011, 06:49:57 PM
Widespread sniggering & pointing I would have thought 

That's what GW get from me at the moment, so no change there then 

With all their products being shifted over to resin, maybe the reduction in demand for metal will bring the prices down for the rest of us.  We go through 1.5 tons of metal a year, so they must be shifting 1000's of tonnes of the stuff. 

But in reality, who am I kidding, the prices will stay the same.   

1.5 tonnes of metal into 10mm figs 

That sounds immense.

From a quick weigh of a pack it would seem a figure weighs 1g. So I think that is 1.5 million figures a year!!!!

I've no interest in GW stuff, but the two things I have picked up is that there's a questionmark over the robustness of these new resin figures, and from what I've seen of prices they've significantly increased in many cases despite the move away from metal, which is really what is driving people up the wall.

Quote from: fred12df on 06 June 2011, 08:20:54 PM
From a quick weigh of a pack it would seem a figure weighs 1g. So I think that is 1.5 million figures a year!!!!

That's quite a few eh?!  If everything we sold was figures, I'd think we'd be around half that number.  All the tanky tanks will be taking up quite a bit of that 1.5 tonnes though!

Quote from: clibinarium on 06 June 2011, 10:22:50 PM
...from what I've seen of prices they've significantly increased in many cases despite the move away from metal, which is really what is driving people up the wall.

And if they admit their mistake and return to metal, they'll add another price increase on!

i had a look at some of these close up in the GW shop on Sunday. My impressions were;

- Packaging is superb - much better than the old blister packs. It allows a large painted figure front cover on display, with a transparent reverse allowing the figure to be inspected. Like em or loathe 'em GW know how to market stuff

- Unpainted resin figures show up the detail far better than unpainted metal. I suspect if you undercoated both it would be difficult to tell them apart - but on the shelves the resin definitely sells itself. Again top marks for marketing

- The figures i looked at were all fine quality wise but there are lots of reports of poor casting quality out on the net.

- The figures are light - as you would expect. Not a bad thing and with some of the over the top GW sculpting it certainly helps (some of their metal sculpts were totally glue-defying)

- Things like swords, spears are quite tightly 'springy' i can see them snapping easily.

- The figures have a lot of sprue - thats going to be fiddly. And how easy it is to clip out fiddly bits when they are so fragile a worry


I haven't actually tried to assemble one. The reason ? the human figure i was looking at was £14.50. I'm surprised it didnt break when i fell off my chair after glimpsing the price sticker.

 I thought the post was going to be about the GW member of staff that bought Pendraken at the weekend

Quote from: Maenoferren on 07 June 2011, 09:13:16 PM
I thought the post was going to be about the GW member of staff that bought Pendraken at the weekend

*sprays tea all over his monitor*

Ahem.


The finecast stuff was released with a big fanfare, but really i just thought...well...obviously.  Given that Forgeworld have been doing GW figures better than GW for years in resin, of course they were eventually going to hop on the bandwagon.

After all, GW haven't actually done anything original in about 25 years...

I suspect however that this move has more to do with their profit warnings than any creative moves, and frankly if resin, as evidenced by Forgeworld and now GW finecast costs so bloody much (£15 for one figure is beyond taking the piss) why bother?

Added to that, one thing GW can't be faulted on is casting quality.  If Finecast has introduced that particular bugbear, that's really going to hit there homeground.

As an ex-'Sergeant' (i.e. store manager) for GW i don't have the hate-rage against them so many seem to have, and as they are bringing in the kids to the hobby i think they serve a valuable purpose for the continuity of wargaming.  But i do think they've lost their way lately; especially when they brought in Mark Wells at the top.  He's a beancounter who really doesn't understand the hobby, nor apparently the value of the GW IP asset.  I mean the muppet is a solicitor who worked for Next and Boots.  what the hell does he know about 'the hobby'?

First thing he did was to axe Black Industries - the division of GW who were really exploring and developing depth in their IP, and as far as i'm aware he also decimated the store staff, instituting the 'one man one store' policy. - again, fundamentally misunderstanding the strength of those stores as 'hobby centres', requiring propoer staffing.  When i was running store i needed 3 staff minimum on a saturday; one till-man, one store walker, one game master, plus me managing the floor.  How one man does all that is beyond me.  Still, their staffing budget probably dropped so the investors were happy.

Woah...ok.  Rambling rant over.



anyway Leon, have you never been tempted to 'go plastic' even for the tanks?

I Kid you not

Interesting example of the serious miscasting on the Finecast minis.



(the bottom of the scabbard and the round shoulder guard).

I've been in the GW in Boro a couple of times, but you can barely get a foot in the door before the guy's on top of you, giving it the "What can I help you with?".  Puts me off going in, as it's almost intimidating in a way.  I don't even get chance to look at the product before I'm being pushed for a sale.

Quote from: Luddite on 07 June 2011, 10:10:18 PM
anyway Leon, have you never been tempted to 'go plastic' even for the tanks?

Nah, far too pricey.  It's circa £50k to get the tooling done for one of these boxsets that have swamped the market, and then you've got sculpting costs on top of that.  We'd never make that kind of money back unless 10mm really took off.  I've got a lot of admiration for guy's like Will at Plastic Soldier though, essentially taking on FoW.

I have looked at getting the World Tank Museum stuff in, but my Japanese ain't great!

Quote from: Maenoferren on 07 June 2011, 10:17:37 PM
I Kid you not

I wondered where they came from, there were a couple of them in GW T-shirts.  Is there a store near the show?

I'm a big fan of the Finecast stuff.  It means all my son and his friends will be able to assemble their own models while I get on with other stuff. 

Many of the GW  multipart metals arejust too difficult for inexperienced modellers to get to stay together so I have been spending quite a lot of time recently gluing and pinning GW stuff for fourteen year old Warhammer players. 

The resin stuff may be full of air bubbles but it sticks together very easily with superglue.

Quote from: Derek H on 08 June 2011, 07:53:19 AM
Many of the GW  multipart metals arejust too difficult for inexperienced modellers to get to stay together so I have been spending quite a lot of time recently gluing and pinning GW stuff for fourteen year old Warhammer players. 

Steep learning curve for them then

It's one of the problems 'young uns' have nowadays, if its too hard the first time they try it - they give up Putting together a model takes skill, but it also takes patience and time. Something else sadly lacking in learning life-skills. Immediate gratification.

to be fair some of the GW sculpts really do present quite a challenge. Sculpting needs to be a combination of art and engineering and sometimes they forget the latter. My son bought some Eldar Swooping Hawks - very attractive figures but with huge metal wings attached by the smallest tab - so small that it really can't be drilled or pinned effectively.

Plus i dread to think of the results if i left my 10 year old son entirely alone iin a room with a lead figure, a drill and a tube of super glue!

Quote from: goat major on 08 June 2011, 08:48:14 AM

Plus i dread to think of the results if i left my 10 year old son entirely alone iin a room with a lead figure, a drill and a tube of super glue!

Trip to casualty ?

Worst figures I ever tried to assemble were minifigs wyverns, close run second Lancashire Games 15mm Chariots, third Orc Gagannts?

Resin is a pain.

IanS