GW's Choices - Finecast vs Metal vs Plastic

[DrLove42]

Firstly let me make this clear - THIS IS NOT A THREAD TO COMPLAIN ABOUT FINECAST OR GW PRICES

This is a thread to discuss why some models are made in a particular medium

Some are a given - Vehicles are plastic. SC are metal/finecast as much as they can be.

Stuff in the middle...how do they decide whats made out of what?

For instance....thse 3 here....

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1670022a_99060112064_Khymera2_445x319.jpg

This is a DE Khymera. Wiry, detailed and pretty reasonable in games, if you can afford a whole squad. Its a still a metal model, unless i'm mistaken, and was released just prior to the jump to finecast.

It costs £8.70 and comes with 2 poses in different boxes...one tentacled, one bony

Compare this to...

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m2250148a_99120101092_FenrisWolvesPack01_445x319.j pg

The new Fenrision wolves. Wiry, detailed and again reasonable in games. These are plastic. Much more convertable, much more variation in the poses in one box. And i'll admit, slightly smaller than the Kymera.

And cost £15. So I can get 5 wolves for the same price as 2 Khymera. Is there any difference in detail? Not that I can see. Yes as I said the Wolves are smaller.

So for the same size as Kymera we have...

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m2250092a_99120101091_ThunderWolfCav01_445x319.jpg

Thunderwolves. The same size as Kyhmera, if not slightly bigger AND then have marines to ride them with lots of weapon options. Again, highly detailed.

And cost £33

So for the same price as 3 large plastic wolves with riders I can get 4 Kymera. All equally detailed, but i can have more models, or have less models that are lighter, more convertable, have options and more distinct poses.

So why do GW choose what material a model is made of? (ok so maybe I am whinging about the price a little bit :p)

[eldargal]

Resin is better for models that will sell in smallish quantities, like characters, special characters and some units like khymerae that won't be fielded in large amounts in general. The costs of producing the moulds are much cheaper so you start to make your moeny back faster. There was also the issue of plastic not allowing undercuts that metal/resin could but with the new CAD technology that isn't really an issue anymore.

Plastic is where good (selling) metal/resin kits go when they die. If GW things it will make the investment money back (ten thousand pounds and upwards for a steel mould) then a kit will be converted to plastic. This has been happening now for two decades or so so the process is well advanced in many armies as I'm sure we all know. Witness Empire in WFB with pretty much every unit choice available in plastic bar warrior priests and engineers. The same can be said of Space Marines.

So the short answer, is GW think a kit will make its money back rapidly enough they will make it plastic. Take the new wolves, space wolf players will eb buying them, Vampire Counts players will be buying them, goblin players will be buying them to put gobbo riders on, and plenty of other people will bebuying them because they are damned nice and fairly generic. Heck rumours have FW using them for Chaos Dwarf hobgoblins. Whereas something like Khymerae will only really be bought by Dark Eldar players and perhaps a few others who like the look of them. Not really enough sales to warrant a plastic kit.

[SotonShades]

Some of it comes down to how many they expect to sell. I remember talking to some head office employees a while back (well before finecast) about the cost of making/maintaining the molds for plastic and metal models. Unfortunately I haven't spoken to anyone in tooling about the difference between the metal and finecast moulds yet, but I'm looking forward to that discussion immensely.

We all know that every Space Wolf player and his mum wants to field Thunderwolves (and why not, they are awesome!) so GW will be expecting to sell them by the lorry load, so producing them in plastic means that the molds will get used a huge number of times (at least compared to metal moulds) before the detail in them wears down too much and they have to be scrapped. There is also the issue of compaticility with the rest of the Space Marine range(s). While Finecast models are designed to match the rest of the ranges visually, they are generally stand alone, unique models that don't require weapon swaps as the rules for the characters rarely have options. Thunderwolves are the antithesis of this, with so many options availible that having the riders in plastic is more or less a necessity. GW seems to want to steer clear of hybrid kits at the moment, so avoiding plastic riders and finecast thunderwolves kinda has to mean a complete plastic kit.

As for the fenrisian wolves vs the Khymera, I think that comes down to the age of the model and the state of technology GW had availible to them at the time. Although both released since GW last major systems upgrade, we were hearing about the completed DE line for the last 5 years or so; well before GW started sculpting in SolidWorks or even considered Finecast. At that 5 years is from when the range was complete and the tools initially cut, not back when the models were being designed, potentially adding another 2 or 3 years. While the studio can now crank out highly detailed plastic miniatures of single models or low model-count units, way back then, metal would have been the only really profitable way of producing the Khymera models. Unlike either set of Wolves, while the beast units are ok in DE, very few people want to field them/build lists around them. They are an add-on unit rather than a core componant of a wide variety of forces and builds. As such, they wouldn't expect them to sell in as big numbers, so no point making them in plastic.

As for why the Khymera are still metal rather than finecast, I can only assume it has something to do with the cost of cutting new molds for them and an accountant somewhere has decided that, even with the rising cost of metal, the number of units sold wouldn't justify the outlay, at least until the current molds are worn out. So buy more of them and eventually they might get finecast'd :P

[westside]

There was also the issue of plastic not allowing undercuts that metal/resin could but with the new CAD technology that isn't really an issue anymore.

No matter if the metal mold is created with a 3 up and a Deckle pantograph mill or CAD/CAM CNC the undercut issue will always be an issue with plastics due to the rigidity of the metal mold. Manufacturers have compensated for this by making the models multi part.

Resin and white metal model molds are flexible rubber/silicone compounds and thus allow for sculpts (whether a true sculpt or CAD design) with undercuts.

[eldargal]

Missing the point, CAD allows the parts to be arranged on the sprue to give the impression of undercuts. See any of the new plastic characters and large monster kits for WFB, or even the Fenrisian wolves.

[LostInTheDark]

Is there not also a limit to the number of plastic kits GW can produce in a given time? I seem to remember an article somewhere or other that indicated that the sculptors had down time between work due to the limit on plastic kits that can be pushed through the production process.

Plus the points above about volume of sales.

[eldargal]

Yes, I forget the details but the way production runs are worked around the machinery means they can only put a certain number of new kits into production each year. So again they have to prioritse on kits which will be the fastest selling.

[Lord Azaghul]

Resin is better for models that will sell in smallish quantities, like characters, special characters and some units like khymerae that won't be fielded in large amounts in general. The costs of producing the moulds are much cheaper so you start to make your moeny back faster.


I was actually excited when I saw one of the new VC characters models was released in plastic not finecast. Gave me hope for future releases.

I still prefer plastic has a medium for models - then metal - and I still can't bring myself to purchase a finecast.

Where has companies like Spartan games do a fine job with their type of resin (which I believe wouldn't work for GW games)

Pardon my ignorance but: Care to expand on this CAD tech?

[eldargal]

Yep, GW have found a way to make plastic character sprues viable. I believe the running theory amongst those familiar with the technology is they are using tooled aluminium moulds rather than steel. Much cheaper but they wear out faster which isn't as big an issue in relatively low volume sellers liek characters. However, still more expensive than metal/resin rubber moulds.

You should try Finecast, worst happens and you get a miscast, email customer service with pictures and they send you a new one.

CAD technology is the stuff they use to create 3d images of kits which they turn turn into sprue designs which in turn are tooled into the steel plate forming the mould under computer guidance. Some designers sculpt directly into the computer, others sculpt traditionally and then scan hte model in. I forget if CAD is an umbrella term or a specific program, I've had it all explained to me bu I forget things.:rolleyes: So they can pull apart a model on the computer and see how best to arrange it on the sprue, allowing them to producer larger plastic kits (stompa, baneblade) and simulate undercuts.

[SotonShades]

CAD stands for computer aided design, and while it is a fairly umbrella like term, it does quite accurately cover what happenns in the GW studio. They also use CAM, computer aided manufacture/manufacturing. This is where they use the files generated in the CAD process to controll the CNC machine to cut the molds.

One of the advantages of CAD is that the virtual model and be cut up to create the componants of the model and placed in a virtual space to design the layout of the sprue. This, inconjunction with the CNC process, massively reduces the design costs of the molds, as well as reducing the chances of making a mistake (and thus needing to re-cut the mold from scratch) as well as allowing GW to put the increased number of componants on a sprue that wwe have seen in recent years.

[Lord Azaghul]

Thanks - that's what I suspected about CAD but I wanted to be sure.

@eldergal: biggest reason I can't pick up finecast - the weight to price ratio. IMO the price to far to high for something that weighs less then 3 paper clips. :p
I'd still rather have a metal character or build my own out of plastic kits.

[gendoikari87]

I miss metal. Finecast has about the same level of detail with a better ability to hold paint. BUT, I miss the heft of metal. Just something to the metal minis I loved.

[Grenadier]

I can't comment on the merits of any of the material in terms of which is better when producing models. My experience only allows me to comment on the material in terms of someone using the models.

I don't like metal at all. I find it harder to keep metal parts glued together. And I hate when you get one which is plastic and metal. Like the old Devastator squads. The heavier metal weapons and backpacks were a pain in my posterior trying to keep them on the plastic bodies. And almost every time I tipped one over even the slightest thump seemed to dislodge the metal pieces. I broke down and began using green stuff to keep pieces together. I also find metal parts much harder to deal with when I want to seriously alter models.

For example I had this female model from another range. Warmachine I think. She was dressed in clothing that would make her into a nice female Commissar. Problem was she was wielding a weapon high over her head with arms raised. I clipped them off and intended to repose her with Imperial Guard appropriate weapons. Only I had to use a Dremel to bore out some area around her shoulders without ruining the high collar of her greatcoat. And then basically sculpt new arms.

Plastic is my favorite medium to work with. It glues easily. But it is very nice when you want to make custom models. You can carve it and sand it and green stuff works good with it. My best custom models all are based on plastic ones. They take better to swapping bits and pieces around too.

As for the Finecast resin I've yet to have a Finecast model and never have worked with it. I have worked with FW resin with my DKOK models. And I don't like it. In fact I was a little afraid of it. I found gluing it was more difficult and the pieces are easily broken. Many of the pieces came to me with some damage. Including being warped, full of holes, and even broken. Consequently I've made no attempts to alter any resin models to make custom ones.

[Bean]

I'm really not a big fan of metal. I've never messed with a fine-cast model, but I'll admit that I'm skeptical--the material seems very soft.

GW's plastic kits, on the other hand, have come leaps and bounds in the last few years. The material is fantastic, the sculpts are routinely good, and the number and variety of bits and bobs and options that come on the sprues continue to impress. I use plastic kits almost exclusive, at this point, as a matter of course, and I hope to see GW continue to release a majority of their product in plastic.

[TSINI]

One of the little touches that made the product designer in me giggle with joy was the double drilled out barrels in the baneblade heavy bolter sponsons (that requires side cores in two extra planes)

It really told me of the improvements in plastic moulding techniques that GW are using.

[AnEnemy]

I like to convert my models.

Therefore metal has always been a material that I hated working with. Not to mention the heartbreak of seeing a paint job chip.

Plastic is my preferred material, but I don't mind Finecast. I own several and most are pristine sculpts.(I know I must be lucky) I've only had two minis(two of my five Wracks) miscast and GW was nice enough to send me a new box of them...so I got ten models for the price of five.

Finecast is very lightweight, but this lends itself well to conversion. It's even gotten me thinking about buying minis that repulse me just for the conversion potential. I would NEVER have bought a Ragnar or an Ulrik model. Now I probably will because I can cut the parts I like off and marry them to plastic kits.

That said, it seems to have a real problem with thin bitz like swords and staves. They tend to be warped from what I've seen personally. This can be fixed, but it is a hassle. Metal had the same issue, but it was much easier to fix...usually.

PS: I shudder to think of how much a single Beastmaster unit will cost when they get around to converting them to Finecast. It's already about a dollar per point for the damn unit. Sorry, I know you said not to bring up price! I play DE so I am quite evil.

[Wildeybeast]

I miss metal. Finecast has about the same level of detail with a better ability to hold paint. BUT, I miss the heft of metal. Just something to the metal minis I loved.

I really loved the feel of metal too, but as others have mentioned it was a pain in the rear end to work with. And the amount of times I had to re-glue and re-paint my metal zoanthropes means I can only celebrate the arrival of finecast.


You should try Finecast, worst happens and you get a miscast, email customer service with pictures and they send you a new one.

And as far as I know, they don't ask for the duff one back either. I've bought quite a few FC models now and never had a significant problem. I'd recommend people at least try them, particularly as like it or not, they are the future. One day all the metal will be gone (though whether that includes the SG range, I'm not sure, GW hasn't mentioned them or converted any of them yet).

[thecactusman17]

I'm never buying Finecast again. NVM that the guys at my local GW were cool about greenstuffing any really bad stuff themselves, the models just have not held up in the time since. they break easily in critical places that do not allow them to be glued back together, I've even had models break in three places along a solid section just by tipping over at the wrong moment from atop a Cities of Death building (only about a foot!).

Never again. If GW wants to make their models with a cheaper material, they can switch to all plastic. But I'm never buying their resin materials again.

[Deadlift]

I have a few Fine cast models which were much nicer to work with than metal, it made some conversions a joy. However I just really love the plastic. GW plastic kits are just my absolute favourite to work with hobby wise and the improvements in detail we have seen in the last few years in plastic kit details is fantastic.

[wittdooley]

I'm never buying Finecast again. NVM that the guys at my local GW were cool about greenstuffing any really bad stuff themselves, the models just have not held up in the time since. they break easily in critical places that do not allow them to be glued back together, I've even had models break in three places along a solid section just by tipping over at the wrong moment from atop a Cities of Death building (only about a foot!).

Never again. If GW wants to make their models with a cheaper material, they can switch to all plastic. But I'm never buying their resin materials again.

Not calling you a liar, but I find that REALLY hard to believe. I've dropped a ton of my FC models and they haven't even remotely come close to breaking. Typically, they bounce....

[Jetforce]

I haven't seen how detailed the finecast models are and whether it's decent or not but i still love my metal models! Despite being so heavy to carry and move around, i still think it easier to work with when painting and if you wanna do conversions.