Straight to the throat...

You know, normally I put a little more thought into my blog posts but today, as it's Monday (In  New Zealand anyway), I'm gonna be a little more direct.

If Games Workshop thinks I'm going to spend $145 NZD for four "Finecast" non-mounted Miniatures they are frakking insane. The prices attached to the new Hobbit line are beyond ridiculous, they are an insult to every table-top gamer and fan.

If you are planning on buying this stuff then you're supporting a company who are directly engaged in price-gouging in its worst possible form. Here's a price comparison for around the world...

The Hobbit Ultimate Bundle Set is:

$1,460 in New Zealand Dollars.
$745 in United States Dollars.
£447 in Great British Pounds.

Using XE.COM:

$1460 NZD = £750.216 GBP
$745 USD = £484.85 GBP
£447 GBP = $870.01 NZD

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

Finecast Status Check: Part Two

A few weeks ago (Scratch weeks, insert months) I posted about GW releasing a new batch of Finecast Miniatures; I haven't purchased a Finecast Miniature for a very long time now due to my dislike of the abysmal quality, but figured since my favourite metal miniature is being released as a Finecast I would give it a go, and here we are; Has Finecast improved? Let's find out...

The Miniature that started all this was the 'Blood Angels Vanguard Veteran'. I love this miniature. I think it was the best metal miniature ever released by GW. It has a dynamic pose, and all the little Blood Angel Iconography is great.

Awesome as metal...

OK, I need to get the kicker out at the very front. The first Finecast Miniature of the Veteran I received was shocking. I'm not talking a little shocking, I'm talking outrageous. The sword was broken, the leg was warped and the jump pack was so misaligned that it wouldn't have fitted the miniature. I have no photos, as I honestly feel that the miniature was a Quality control problem rather than an accurate representation of GW Finecast. I took him back to the local GW straight away and was then subjected to a month long wait for a replacement. That by itself almost killed the review, but here I am... And here are the side by side shots.

Performance anxiety?

The first thing you'll notice is the lack of heads. The metal head was given away a long time ago, as all my marines go into combat with helmets on (Helmets are important people!), so to make this as "fair as possible" I'm not including the FC head as part of the review. Secondly, the photos are huge when clicked on, detail is important here so I have not yet shrunk them down. You have been advised. Both miniatures were assembled today. Aside from clipping excess flash or joins no work has been done on either to remove moulding lines.

The Front:
Performance anxiety aside, the sword is the feature of this miniature and it being bent is not a good thing. To correct it it'll need a little bit of heat and resetting. There is also small bubbles in the fingers and the wing / guard of the sword. I'm very concerned with the thinness of the sword. It will break very easily. Totally not viable for actually playing games with the miniature.

There is also a very large connector of flash in the central part of the jump pack between the two vents at the front. This is obscuring the detail there, and cannot be cleaned, It is physically attached. it would need to be completely removed & the detail put back in there with green stuff. No small job. Especially for those people whose GS'ing skills are limited (Which mine are). Some of the details on the legs are obscured on the FC mini. The Band / Ring on the minis upper right thigh is meant to have a BA Icon in it. The FC's one is misshaped.

So far I'm not impressed...

Base post...

Bases are relatively easy to paint, fast too... But they're something that I'm often guilty of rushing through at the very end of a project, in order to combat this and give some love to the bases I decided to paint them first, and all at once to hopefully capture a uniform type feel for my next Infinity Unit. I did use an Airbrush though... I'm still getting used to my new one...

Start Positions!

I started with a white undercoat. Another thing I don't do too often... I missed a few cracks here and there, but it would be passable.

Step one: Asphalt

A little bit of tape...

Used a dark grey and then a lighter grey for the asphalt. Remember Asphalt isn't a uniform color. The more used it is, the more patchy it is, so I just went a little crazy and drew some aimless shapes... I think I wrote my name a couple of times... How narcissistic is that? Then I added some masking tape and started the blue

The Blue

The Blue... but lighter...

 With the white primer I used a dark blue kind of sparingly; again I wanted to look to be slightly used. Then I went around the cracks with a much lighter blue, giving it a worn non-uniform look.

More tape!

After the asphalt and blue tiles were done I taped again and started on the curb. I wanted it to be a lighter color but not white, so I went with the lightest and second lightest grey I could find. The lightest grey was for around the cracks. The second lightest was for the base color.

And done for the day...

I stopped here for the day. Time elapsed so far: 78 minutes. Not bad for 25 bases... Details tomorrow...