Finecast a Mixed Bag

Insufficient resin in pauldron

So I want to talk a little about Finecast on here. I'm not going to get into bashing it though, because it does have some very good things about it. The material is flexible, easy to glue, and easy to work with. It's certainly a lot easier to modify - the metals were difficult to cut and file.

But there are still a few glaring problems with the product, things that aren't always fixable or easy to repair. I know that Games Workshop will take back product that is defective, but what do you do when its all defective? To the right are some pictures of components from a Finecast Kaldor Draigo model that I purchased. As pretty much every Finecast model I've bought so far has had defects, I spent quite a bit of time going through all the blisters on the shelf to select what looks like the best of the bunch. Every single blister had some pretty obvious issues such as:

• insufficient resin so the parts are too thin
• air bubbles
• mould misalignment
• grossly distorted detail where resin has run amuck

Air bubbles in flask and book

Some of these problems are so obvious that you wonder why they bother to ship the figures. Do they have any quality control? Why don't the staff at the shop check them when the put them on the shelf and just return them outright? 

The thing that particularly bothers me about all this, and certainly in the last week with the latest Vampire Counts release, is that they expect us to pay a premium for the Finecast models (the new Blood Knights are more expensive than a Baneblade kit now!), and yet they are producing a substandard product. Yes the metal models had some issues, and there are some great advantages to the resin models, but some of these quality defects are inexcusable when your asking a greater price point. It should be a better product, not of less quality than the metals. It kind of adds insult to injury when the models should have gotten cheaper as resin is less expensive than metals, and they have climbed to astronomical prices now!

Resin mess in folds of robe

Now I know they have released some new tools and liquid green stuff helps with some of these issues, but its still frustrating that I have to spend so much time and resource repairing what should not be difficult manufacturing issues for GW to address. Yes the issues like too much resin on some pieces can be fixed by filing down, but what happens when you have so much resin that the underlying detail is obliterated? My Inquisitior Karamazov model was so bad on one of the legs that the rows of purity seals just became a big lump of resin. My only real option is to file it all down, spend some time fixing up some of the leg detail by carving the resin with a blade, and then attaching some plastic purity seals in their place. Its unacceptable! I know you can reheat the sword and straighten it out, and liquid green stuff will fill in the air bubbles, but its going to be much more involved to fix the parts that are too thin or missing entirely because not enough resin went into the mold.

I'm guessing that GW is banking that most people will just buy the bad product and probably won't go to the trouble of returning it. The local guys at our GW store have suggested opening the blister in-store to check for problems, but as I found yesterday, what are you going to do if the store is not stocking any product that is defect free? Even if i wait for it to be replaced by GW, am I going to get a high quality replacement or more of the same?

Malformed detail
on the purity seals

It's not good enough GW to tell us to fix it ourselves, or return it! I really hope that your addressing these ongoing quality issues and making improvements. I really do like the idea of the product, I think it has potential, and I probably would be happier with the price point if the quality was really good, but it still has a long way to go. As it stands at the moment, its making me think really carefully before I go putting down any money on a really expensive Finecast model. The Draigo figure was $40, which is pretty expensive for a single figure, but the new Blood Knights are $165 which is astronomical for a unit, and I could imagine being absolutely furious if they were not of the highest quality.

Really bent sword

So far I haven't seen significant improvements in it, despite assertions from GW staff that it was only the early batches that had issues (#0000000000 was suggested), since i've also seen problem in the #8000000000+ and up batches. I also initially wondered if the problem was limited to older models with old molds, but it doesn't seem to be so as I'm seeing problems with new models like Draigo. Perhaps the quality will improve if GW moves its manufacturing from China to France as has been recently reported online. I'm hoping that it will improve, as I think we could have some fantastic miniatures if they just sort out these problems once and for all.