GW presents Finecast: Because You're Worthless!

Okay well, everyone else has had something to say on the matter, so why don't I just beat the dead horse for a bit? I was trying to avoid it, but with a blog title called "The Wargaming Cynic" if I allowed the biggest mistake in Wargaming history since Confrontation: Age of Ragnarok to pass me by without even a passing mention in this blog, any hope of ever making this blog actually worth something would be completely pointless.

I've seen many pictures on the internet, and I've seen actual ones in the flesh. Judging from what I've seen, any conclusion taken from it is that at best, Finecast has been horrifically rushed and poorly handled. At worst it is the biggest insult to miniature collectors and gamers in the history of the hobby.

The first alarm bells rang when I saw the name. "Finecast". I already knew GW were moving to resin, but it doesn't matter what you know about GW's "special recipe", resin is cheaper than metal. My first gut reaction was to think how typical it is of Games Workshop to spin their measure (along with their collective ego) out of all proportions.

The public understanding is that resin is a cheaper alternative to metal, and indeed it is. GW would have stuck with metal if this "finecast" endeavour was going to cost them more money. Unfortunately, GW clearly doesn't care if it costs the consumer more money. They like it that way, judging from the unnecessary move to hard-backed WHFB army books (which no doubt will be moved to 40k when 6th Ed comes out).

GW does seem to get off on this idea of adding aesthetic "improvements". The sad thing is, I really don't think the consumer ever asked for them. They are essentially tacked on as a "we want more money from you" tax. There has been an argument that GW just happened to increase prices alongside the move to Finecast. Whether you believe that or not just depends on whether you think GW are scheming greedy bastards or incompetent greedy bastards.

I'm not going to compare models. I really don't need to, because there are many already across the internet. I have bought one Finecast model, and it didn't make it out of the shop. Having read a number of separate cases of horrendous moulding errors and an apparent lack of any quality control, I immediately checked my Tomb Kings Liche Priest (which I was planning on converting for use in Necromunda). I found several bubbles and errors.

I immediately sought a replacement, however the staff member told me how I could easily rectify this. I responded with a question: "Why should I need to?". That had him going for a while, until the responses about how the first wave of castings is bound to run with errors that are still easily fixed. I responded by invoking the name of this abomination: "Your company should have thought about that, before it called something Finecast, and priced it accordingly." He got defensive, and I got quite vociferous, during which time my quest for a replacement became a successful quest for a refund. It had a lot to do with the new customers entering the shop at that time.

It is an important point, but the pill is just too hard to swallow. You have a gimmicky name that is so egotistical and blatantly hiding a quick cost-saving cop-out, that is also the herald of, if not part of a price hike at the same time, yet you have a record amount of "poorly cast" miniatures being marketed at a massive mark-up as "Finecast". No wonder the internet is bursting to the seams with unfavourable references to this product with the pet name of "Fail Cast".

Of course, fanboys have been rushing to defend it lately. Lots of inferences about how GW are still miles ahead of the competition in miniature quality. Hardly. Most of the other companies haven't exactly had the 30 years practice and time to establish and fund their brand, yet by comparison, I don't quite think the comparative time reflects poorly on the other companies, who to some are just as good, if not better. GW's models are certainly nice, but there's a good reason for that. They rip their customers off horrendously.

Especially now that a cheaper material is being marketed as a premium product. The trouble with offering a premium service is that people expect one. You charge more money, and they want the service that comes with it. Do companies think people will view High Definition televisions in the same way as they view other old televisions? Do you think people are going to be happy when those things break? Not on your nelly. The more sophisticated you make it, the more people take notice, and because it cost more, they expect more.

It is at this point that you may be thinking: "But what about Forge World? They produce things in resin at a massive mark-up!", but there are a few issues with that. Firstly, Finecast is mass-produced, Forge World miniatures are cast by hand. Secondly, their quality control is pretty exceptional, and needs to be at such a price range. Thirdly, they produce things that are far greater in detail and quality than what GW usually has to offer.

This is another issue. The apparent "better detail". It is utter rubbish. If there is even a slight of bit of truth to it, it seems a minute difference for such a drastic name change and horrendous price increase. From what I've seen it gives the appearance of more detail by being crisper, and that is all. Having been a Confrontation player for many years now, this claim that resin holds detail any better than resin is a load of hogwash. I've seen better detail on a rackham model than the best forgeworld has to offer. I don't think the material makes a lot of difference with regards to detail.

A greater issue is the quality of the material itself. It seems counter-productive to me, that GW would start introducing hard-backed books, boasting additional resilience, yet move something like 25-50% of their miniature range in a more brittle and less hard-wearing material and then increase prices as well. There's already a few claims about GW's "special resin" (or as the rest of the world knows it: "resin") melting, snapping, and numerous casting issues that you just don't get with metal.

Metal models chip easily when they're dropped, this is true, but resin shatters when it is dropped. Metal models are less flexible, but unlike resin, they don't snap. The difference in painting? Questionable. Certainly you're supposed to clean resin before painting on it. despite this apparently not being needed with GW's finecast range, I'm expecting issues to crop up from time to time for people who don't clean them. Not that you even needed to worry about that with metal.

Resin should offer a saving, either to allow GW to make more money at the same rate or to give their customers a saving. GW opted for neither of those, taking double profit anyway (despite the switch to a cheaper material), so quality drops and the price rises. How predictable are GW? Very. There are other companies making the switch to resin who are offering savings, or in a few cases, extra models for the same price.

What "Finecast" ultimately is, is a cheap piece of optimistic marketing. It is a massive mistake of a horrendous nature, ill-timed amidst other GW issues, such as putting trading restrictions on non-EU countries, and calling internet-based companies "freeloaders". This is from a company that sells cheap, resin miniatures as if they were the greatest advance in gaming history, when they're just cheap models with a gimmicky label, to go with their gimmicky and poorly written games.

As I said, the quality control has been appalling, or else we wouldn't have such a frequency of complaints. The fact that they insist on making ridiculous amounts of cash from countries with their own currency, don't check their new and experimental range for poor quality casts, made from a material that can bubble and melt, and has the nerve to call other companies for offering a competitive service just gives you an indication of the kind of company that GW is.

Games Workshop is a company that doesn't care. All they care about is making loads of money, and they hope their customers are gullible enough to "make do" with an inferior product sold at a premium price. Do yourself a favour. Don't buy it.

And if you absolutely must, don't "make do" with something that isn't justifiably "finely cast" make sure you send it back, for a proper replacement, or a refund. Because GW doesn't deserve your money if they don't even bother trying to earn it.

'Ere We Go! An Introduction

Well, I thought I'd begin by trumping out the Blogger cliché: Hello again, and I'm back after a brief hiatus. I'd like to continue this cliché by issuing yet another one of my already numerous thread sections. This time I'd like to centre it around my favourite gaming subject: Orks.

A recent comment in the It's a Hard Fluff Life section has caught my interest. I suppose it is fair to say that Orks are my main interest when it comes to Warhammer 40,000. I find them the most dynamic and interesting race in the entire of the 40k canon. There is just something about them, something very visceral and interesting.

Firstly, there's the over-trumped Grimdark setting in which 40k inhabits. Orks sit awkwardly to one side. I've heard arguments how Orks are a parody of themselves, but I find this is something 40k does to itself. Taking things too far, going over the top, is something that you find in 40k, and then there's the friggin' space marines. Who evidently can count to 12, which is one more than 11.

40k itself started as a parody of the Grimdark style, and at some point, both its writers and fans started playing this straight. Throughout it, the Orks have never changed their tune, and have always remained resolutely the same beast, with a crude and simplistic, but workable ethic, and a vicious, but quite affable honesty.

In a wargame, this is such a refreshing approach. In a setting of grim and twisted machinations, one can find the greatest contrast in Orks. It is actually quite funny, because for a setting that sets up not only that war is bad, but that it is also a constant, most other factions are depicted carrying out over-elaborate gambits, ploys and machinations which invariably fail.

Yet of these, the most memorable is the one the Orks created, that of the second and third Armageddon Wars. What we have discovered from this is that Ghaz is using this essentially as practice, and trying his luck against the Imperials. One can get the impression from reading the fluff that Ghazghkull hasn't quite gone all out yet. If you contrast this with Abaddon's Eye of Terror campaign, it is Ghaz who comes across as the sophisticated warlord, and Abaddon who is the redundant B-Movie super-villain.

Orks are an army one cannot completely take seriously, which is both a boon and a bust for Ork players. Generally speaking it means that Orks are often dismissed, or deeply disliked, as not fitting into the grand scale of things, and dismissed as stupid, random and crude. Yet at the same time, your average 40k player even now, despite how powerful the current codex is, deeply underestimate and dislike Orks. Which helps a lot when they think their fancy power armour can do all that much against simple brute force and sheer force of numbers.

The true irony of this as far as the background goes, is that Orks actually work in a dysfunctional universe by nature of their simplistic view. All the other factions are deeply divided by in-fighting or internal politics, yet the Orks just get those out of the way and get on with it. This idea that Orks are too silly for the setting is ridiculous, when you realise the situation IS already silly, and that the situation is a unhealthy setting, and what sets Orks apart is that they alone have the healthy attitude to the setting.

Orks are a hard race to champion. There's always some group who hate them, but then that is true of most 40k races, as invariably, a poor balanced game has an insecure fanbase. However Orks get it just for being stupid. I find this hard to swallow, because there is a big difference between crude, and stupid. You'll find the primary difference is that crude can still work. If you haven't been tabled by an Ork player yet, most likely there's no Ork player where you game. Lucky you.

I love the Orks. In a game that doesn't know what it is any more, that is consumed by power-gaming, poor balancing, horrendously overpriced models, and some of the worst reputations for poor sportsmanship, painting and modelling abilities in a vastly wide-ranging hobby, with a system so bad even the FAQs need FAQing, sometimes you just want everything to shut up for 30 minutes so you can roll some dice, and have fun.

I am yet to find a faction in any wargaming system that does that as well as Orks. Skaven used to, but then 8th Edition arrived. GW obviously don't like it when you have fun. They'll have to try very hard to drill that into Ork players. Orks makes 40k better. We give it more rivets, paint it red and say job's a gud un, and generally you'll find a lot of begrudging GW "fans" who can only endure their crap because they love their greenskins.

Over the course of the next month or so, I'm going to try and write some articles about Orks, greenskins and such. I might even put up some pictures of my models! First however, I'd like to discuss a issue close to my heart, Orks in Fluff. At the same time, I'll unveil my most recent Ork Fluff project: Wurrgitz!