So I had a chance to look over the new Finecast figures while I was at Great White Games this evening and they are really outstanding. Sadly I wasn’t able to open up any of the packages and they were not on sale until this weekend but I did get to pull all the minis form the box and check them out. I was only able to look at the single figure packs as they have clearl plastic blister which allow you to check the minis out.
Overall the detail is incredible and the resolution of the detail is insane. When I say resolution I mean the size of the individual elements on the figure. The Grey Knight figures and Librarians look even more detailed than the Space Hulk plastics. The shoulders on the Grek Knights are filled with precise sculpted text and the contours of the cases and figures is much softer and subtler than metal figures.
A good example of how well these figures look is the Ork Painboy. The metal figure looks smooth and the face has lost a lot of detail. The Finecast figure is very well detailed and the face has this incredible sneer on it that I can’t really see well on any of the metal versions I have.
Commissar Yarrick is also a figure that has great facial detail and really benefits from being recast in resin. His uniform is covered in braids that really pop from the mini and his facial expression is much better than the metal figure.
I have no idea how they compare to FW minis in terms of detail and resolution since I don’t own any and wasn’t carrying any with me in any case, but these are easily on par with FW resin figures. If not better. It would be interesting to compare them to figures from Enigma or other companies that produce resin to see how they compare.
In terms of comparing them to GW metal, there is no contest. These are hands-down much, much better minis than the GW metal figures. Some of the minis have a lot of flash on them but none of it was very thick and all that I saw could be removed with your fingers. I could not see any mould lines at all but I was, again, unable to check out the figures physically.
The main issue is the price. Most of the figs I saw were $27.99 Cnd per blister/unit and there were some oddities like $27.99 Grey Knights or Librarians and $27.99 units of Tzeentch Flamers. GW i doing their standard pricing model of making character figures more expensive than troop figures. There might have been some economic reason for this in the past but I can’t see this being legitimate with the Finecast range. Clearly the material cost is of no issue because some of the figures have frames/sprues around them that are greater in mass than the mini themselves and if one figure is $27.99 then how are three of them the exact same price?
The minis are certainly drool-worthy figures but the price is a real issue. The Spartan Games Dystopian Wars: Federated States Battle Group is $59.99 US and comes with a Battleship, three Cruisers, nine Frigates, two metal bombers, ten resin aircraft tokens, four sheets of cardstock counters and flight bases for the bombers. In addition it has five metal turrets, three large resin weapon attachments for the Battleship and nine smaller weapon attachments for the Cruisers.
For the same price you can get two GW Finecast resin character models.
I can’t see how this is a pricing model that is going to succeed.
That said, if I had a nickel for each time a person had said, in the last ten years, that GW were going to price themselves out of the market… well I’d be able to afford those two models for sure.
Pile of dice 