The Finecast Theory

As the title suggests, this post will be delving into that of Finecast, specifically in terms of product/casting quality and what I have personally found in my experience with finecast.

A range of Finecast products both new and old.

This post isn't going into anything on why Games Workshop switched or any 'Theorys' on the company and the product in terms of marketing or what have you, I mention this because there are quite a few posts and articles out there that delve into that that may be titled similarly. This simply goes into my experiences using the products, and a 'theory' on the product in terms of good and bad quality casts.

When GW switched to finecast back in early 2011, I was both greatly annoyed and intrigued  I personally prefer metal as a medium, but it was interesting to see the advantages that a product such as finecast has such as being easier to assemble and convert, the detail is far more crisp and defined, and is very light in weight. However, the material can be quite flimsy and sometimes brittle, and for me, I do prefer a bit of weight to models, so I do find their weight a bit of a downfall for me. I am yet to paint onto finecast, so I can't say anything in terms of that, but I presume it would be similar to working with Forge World resin or plastic.

So the key points for Finecast are:

PROS

• Light weight
• Easy to convert and assembly
• Crisp detail

CONS

• Tends to be flimsy
• Can be brittle

You will probably notice however I have left out one key problem that is generally associated with finecast products. Miscasts.

A miscast being any Finecast sculpt that hasn't been properly formed during the casting process, and results in warpage, areas not being casted at all resulting in parts of the model missing, air bubbles, and poor surface quality. I have chosen to leave it out for the moment because I am going to touch on my findings when it comes to miscasts.

I have picked up several Finecast products, both when they were first released, and at later stages up to a few weeks ago, and from different game systems. In total I believe I have gotten 10 FC products (10 individuals, 1 a box of 4 models) over the period since early 2011 to present. Out of 14 casts, 5 were of an average standard that needed some minor work to either re-sculpt/fill parts of it, or had minor warpage, but overall were decent casts, 2 have been that bad GW had to send me another or will require a lot of work and re sculpting to fix, and surprisingly 7 of them have been perfect, if not flawless casts.

Now when you think about all the bad rep that FC has received, It is quite odd that 50% of the casts were perfect, compared too 5 being average and 2 being terrible. The two terrible casts, were recent purchases, and out of the 5 average casts, 2 were early, and 3 where recent. Now its when we get to the perfect casts it gets interesting. 5 of the casts are completely new models that were released after FC was brought in, so are not old metal sculpts being re-casted, and thus are being designed with Finecast in mind. The 5 in question are the Cockatrice, Necron Overlord, Bolg, Yazneg, and Elrond, in order of release and purchase. They are also the only post-finecast new releases I have, so currently making it a 99.5% perfect cast rate on new releases, the other 2 were metal recasts, an Eldar Autarch and a LOTR Uruk Hai Shaman.

Heres a list of all the models and where they ranked:

Miscasted:

• High Elves Tyrion
• Eldrad Ulthuan

Average

• Korhil
• Harlequin Death Jester
• Uruk Hai Banner Bearer
• Uruk Hai Captain
• Uruk Hai Drummer

Perfect

• Eldar Autarch
• Uruk Hai Shaman
• Cockatrice
• Necron Overlord
• Bolg
• Yazneg
• Elrond

So my conclusion based on my findings is that it seems post-finecast new releases seem to have a much higher successful cast rate, most likely due to being designed with finecast in mind. Not to say they wont have any issues or miscasts, but seeing that all the new releases I have purchased are close to flawless it does seem more likely that they will be decent. The 9 Metal recasts had mixed results, 2 being terrible, 5 being average, and 2 being perfect, which evens out relatively nicely, but there was a mix of earlier and later purchases/releases, so I cant say for certain whether its improving over time.



I would highly recommend making FC purchases in a local GW store and inspect the casts before leaving. It's what I normally do, mostly when it comes to old metal recasts, since you can usually swap a bad cast out for another on the shelf, or they will order one to be sent to me from the main warehouse after being inspected on site, which I thought was very good of them to do, plus I got to keep the miscast, which allowed me to draft my conversion I had planned for him.

Of courses this is just a theory, I dont know whether this is definitely the case in terms of metal recasts and post FC releases, this is just based on what I have found from the small quantity I have purchased, so I thought I would share my findings. If you have your purchases to be similar, or completely the opposite, feel free to comment! I would really like to hear whether this seems to be the case or whether I just ended up being lucky with some purchases :P I will also keep updating on my findings with FC as I make purchases, to see whether it continues following suit, or whether It ends up changing completely.


I was going to add photos of most of the casts as examples, but its currently quite late, and I found that some of the photos ended up being too bright so you cant really see what going on with the FC, so I will have to take new photos and upload them at a later date, either added to this post or in a 'Part 2'.