Sunday, 29 May 2011

Smurf Like Musings: Citadel Crapcast?

What exactly is the deal with the citadel finecast range? Not having a GW in aber (or any money of my own to buy a model) means that I have not yet seen the quality of the new resin sculpts for myself yet.

Lets just remind ourselves what GW stated on their website when the range was launched:

Andy Hall: Last week we announced something very special - so special in fact that it's nothing less than a new era in wargaming, as we launch the highest quality miniatures the world has ever seen - Citadel Finecast.

I think the key words to lookout for in that paragraph are 'new era' and 'highest quality miniatures', and they obviously suggest that GW have a really high opinion on the quality of their new range. Now is this well founded?

As I have already mentioned, I have not seen a finecast model with my own eyes yet and so I am making no opinion either way in this post. Instead, I thought I would just put the question out there; 'Are the finecast models any good?'

Looking around on various blogs I have noticed that many people have been really disappointed by the lack of quality. Now this would seem very at odds with the bold statement GW made regarding the quality quoted above. Many of the complaints made have also been accompanied with pictures of the main offenders and I must say, the ones I have seen have been truly awful!

Sons of the Grail posted up some images of the techmarine and servitor box and judging by the pictures, the quality is staggeringly bad! The casts are not clean and crisp at all! There are bubbles and blemishes all over, giant mold lines, uneven surfaces and more flash than you can shake a stick at!

I would also like to direct your attention to this thread. I mean wow, those are some very bad casts!

Finally, the giants themselves have go it wrong. This post on the regular GW blog describes the process of cleaning up your finecast model. If you view the skull taker model they are using, you can clearly see multiple defects, including a hole in the cloak under the right arm. So they make a huge fuss about the superior quality of the models and then feel they need to write an article showing you have to fix all the defects. It's all just a little bit weird.

So what are your experiences with the new range? Does it deserve the coined phrase crapcast? Or are these simply some rare bad examples of an otherwise outstanding range? Please let me know.

1 comment:

  1. i have bought two models; lilith and njal

    lillith is a smooth, clean and crisp cast expect two things; one tip of the dagger and one tip of the spear did not cast

    njal is fantastic. no complaints

    luckily, the blisters are mostly transparent so you can check for major defects.

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