Games Workshops Finecast Review

Posted by Raffa, Picster, Capuchin,....



Hey everyone,

as almost every hobbiest has heard by now Games Workshop replaced their whole white-metal miniatures with resin cast ones.

Our Citadel Finecast models are the latest step in hobby evolution, providing you with incredibly detailed, high-quality resin kits to bolster your army. Painting and modelling Citadel miniatures has never been as rewarding as this.

This is what Games Workshop says about their new Miniature line.

To find out if this is true and we can paint next level miniatures from GW from now on i bought a Emperors Champion in metal and in finecast.

This is what you get... i think the new packaging looks much nicer, it has a picture on the front so the color decision will be much easier for uncreative people ;)

This is the content of the packages. On the right side you can see the new finecast casting.

After some minutes of cutting you can already play with the miniatures if you really like to.
There is no noticable time difference in the assembly of the figures.

This is the leftover trash... environmentally the old metal miniatures clearly win ;)
Now i started to compare the two casts.

On the finecast miniature there are clearly less mold lines as on the metal miniature.

Those bubbles really are annoying... i found them all over the miniature...

Here's a big flaw... the space between the helmet and the shoulder pad is filled with resin on the finecast version while the metal version is correctly casted.

More bubbles....

Another bubble.

Ok so after my first inspection i'm not too glad... the metal version has some more mold lines but the resin version has many bubbles i need to fill. The positive thing is that the resin is much much better to work with and so the mold lines can be easily removed while on the metal version it's a stupid and exhausting long work.

After i removed the mold lines i assembled and base coated the two guys... as Roman and i wanted to paint those two on last night Roman already started with the conversion, sorry for this :(

hmmm ok, let's look closely and be honest.. there is no visible difference...the quality of the details is 99% the same.

Let's summarize it:

Finecast PRO:

- Easier to do conversions, remove mold lines
- Lighter -> better to hold while painting
- Detail is better visible inside the packaging
- Nicer looking Packaging

Finecast CONTRA:

- Price increase
- No promised detail improvement
- Lot of casting errors and bubbles
- Lighter - > loss of quality feeling
- No cool blister sponges inside the packaging
- Bent swords etc

After all i can say i like the new finecast because i love resin.
But i'm very confused about Games Workshops marketing strategy, let's be honest, small companys like Studio McVey, Smog, SmartMax, JMD, Figone etc are producing lightyears above GWs quality while GW announces the next level in minature quality with super extra special resin.. oh, and a price increase while the production costs are lowered. I think this is the thing that most people find disturbing about this whole Finecast story.

And while i was in the GW store i saw many many blisters with miniatures inside that no reputable Miniature Company that i know would dare to sell....

So, what's your opinion about Finecast?

Cheers,
Raffa