Some more information about Citadel Finecast - From the horse's mouth so to speak

I've got an e-mail conversation here between a reader and someone from the GW web-team. It is a member of the web-team rather than the design studio but it sheds some light onto the finecast decisions. Over the past week I've seen more reviews and the product doesn't look as bad as what VT2 got (I'd give him dodgy product too :P) but it will be interesting to see if the prices are lowered as time wears on to account for the much cheaper production costs once the cost of the moulds has been covered. The e-mails are in chronological order and I have permission to re-publish.

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Andy,

I read your article today and one thing I was wondering was the decision made to move to resin in response to the increased cost in metal or was it because the models are more detailed?  I don't mind paying slightly more for my models since the quality is better.


However, what concerns me is how "marketing speak" this article came across as.  I work in the web marketing industry and I deal with announcements and such and I have to say this whole article feels like "fluff."  Your customers are very smart people (they have to be to understand the game rules afterall!) and articles like this one make me angry because I feel I am being talked down to.  I understand the resin models are higher quality but there is no mention of the 200% increase in the raw cost of tin or anything of that nature.  I think not including that does a great disservice to your customers because we care about your company and how your business is run.  Reading this article makes me feel that Citadel and Games Workshop is only about profit and not reacting to the changing world economy.  I hope this changes in the future.

Sincerely,
Ben Hoffman

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Hey Ben,

Yes, I would agree, most of yesterday’s article was very ‘marketing speak’. This was for a couple of reasons. I do a lot of the blog posts for the site, but I haven’t had much experience with Citadel Finecast as yet. As a result, we decided to let the Studio team write the post, seeing as they know all about it. We wanted the post to be the official message out to people, about the quality of the models and how it will benefit you, the customer. When it comes down to it, there are a lot of reasons behind the change. Yes, metal is becoming more expensive (especially tin) but we didn’t feel that it was relevant to the article. Our goal is to make the best quality miniatures, not the most cost effective (resin may be cheaper than tin alloy, but boy does it take more effort to work with, not to mention re-casting every mould for every model now in resin). We wanted to try and stay away from that sort of stuff though. I know, as a hobbyist myself that I would be interested in that kind of thing, but many others wouldn’t be. The idea was a nice, simple message about the positives of the new kits. What I would say though, is that I really appreciate your email. It helps explain a few of the concerns that people out there might have that we may not be addressing. I will pass this message on.

If you have any further thoughts, feel free to email us and I will pass them on.

Dan

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Dan,

I really appreciate the response and that does shed a lot of light on the process.  If I could suggest one thing, maybe you could post a technical/history of the Finecast Project.  There is a big part of the community that would like to know how you guys decided on Finecast, how you had to recast the moulds, and the extra difficulties casting in resin creates (hence the increased costs). I have read a number of blog and forum posts online discussing whether you re-cast the moulds or not and the consensus seems to be that a retool was done and not a re-cast.  Also, I reviewed the models that have been re-cast and they seem to be newer castings.  Is there any high level plan for re-cast or new resin casts for extremely old metal models (like Tycho or Logan Grimnar)?

Finally, would it be alright if I forwarded this email on to one or two of the major Warhammer blog sites out there?  I think the items you addressed added clarity to the Finecast process and will probably calm some of the head scratching over the price increases.

Ben

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Hey Ben,

I don’t see any problem with posting it, though remember that my comments are in answer to your email, so probably best to post them together or they will be out of context. With regards to the whole process of the Finecast, I have no idea if we’ll show the process. I, like others out there, have an interest in that sort of thing (I like technical stuffs) but I’m sure there are plenty more who wouldn’t find it interesting at all. I’ll pass the message on and see if there’s any support for it. Oh, and yes, all of the new miniatures had a new cast made, it’s not a re-tooling of the old one (for one thing, the old one used molten metal, the new one uses resin). As for re-casts of older models, yes, Logan will be on the shelves on Saturday morning (his beard looks awesome), though Tycho will not be yet.

Hope that answers your question.

Dan

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Discuss and thanks Ben for bringing this to our attention.