I was wondering if I could get some feedback from players and collectors that have actually bought Finecast figures from the Hobbit releases as to the quality of the product. Have they been usable 'out of the box' or do they require any major repairs to get them to a serviceable state.

I have had a terrible run with Finecast and am reluctant to put money down on minis that are rubbish. I'd really like to get some of the hero minis (Thror in particular) and it would be nice to know what sort of chance I'll have of getting something halfway decent.

Thanks.

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Cheers
Athelas

Patience , some hot water , and a good hobby knife / blade. I have gathered around 12 Finecast Hero models , of which 3-4 have had problem ( Thror sword is VERY brittle , broke twice ) Young Balin sword comes bent. So really best thing to do is if you are buying in store is OPEN in front of the till , that way the manager wont think "another fool to buy a miscast". By doing this you can ask for another blister should you find any serious problems. If there is not a miscast then its down to the three things i listed at the start.

Hope that helps

I have purchased from ebay only when drastically discounted (40% off+) store overstock on the following Hobbit figures:

Narzug
Elrond ft + Mounted
Fimbul the Hunter
Thrain
Thror
Erebor Captain

ALL except Thror have required major time-consuming repairs from holes, missing details from miscasts, or obscured details.

Finecast is without a doubt the lowest quality for the price commercial product ever put out by any miniatures company.
I can say this from the experience of having purchased 10,000 figures from various companies over the past twenty years. And no, that is not an exaggeration.
By comparison, the current plastic figures GW puts out are the highest quality of any company. GW should switch to an all-plastic product line.

I have Fimbul and Azog, a friend has Thror and Thrain and aside from a little bending on Thror's sword, they've all been perfect. Very expensive, but perfect.

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"Leave Sauron to me."
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Every time there have been bubbles that have require green stuffing. The fine cast resin is simply to fragile for tiny details such as Bolg's bear claws that 3 were missing and two ere hollow, so I had to spend ages and money on green stuff to make the miniature good.

My first Azog was a complete mess and the second on they sent me has various minor issues such as missing spikes and white warg teeth. Also his left hand side of his face on both appeared like a burn victim and has required sanding down.

The best example II have encountered is Bilbo and Gollum, but both of them require green stuff to fill in air bubbles!

I just wish they would convert to regular plastic which has been superb recently!

I've gotten pretty lucky with the Hobbit minatures released in finecast, however the figures from the LOTR line I've purchased are covered with holes and voids

Thanks guys, it kind of confirms my fears that you still have to pay your money and take your chances...
Unfortunately, I don't have a store near me that sells GW, so I'm restricted to internet purchases. Also, being in Australia, the replacement merry-go-round becomes expensive and time consuming.
The best thing to hope for is a shift to plastic across the board, but I can't see that being likely, given the lower sales numbers for LotR. It's a shame, because GW plastics are totally amazing, in both engineering and design.

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Cheers
Athelas

I've only had experience with the watcher in the water. I had none of the bubble/obscured detail problems, but based on a dry-fit the body will require some serious bending to fit together properly, or a lot of greenstuff to fill the gap. To me, this particular model is identical to a large metal model in quality of fit, although since I have the option of warm water and bending it is a little better. If the model was metal the amount of greenstuff to get it to fit would be beyond my skills.

I've had mixed results with finecast. Whilst I like that it's easier to work with than metal, I have had problems with bubbles, miscasts, and poorly aligned mold halves. Those are the worst ones, because there's not really any way to fix a model that has one half of it's body offset to the other half. The other trouble i have is with swords, staffs, etc as no amount of sorting these out seems to result in a permanent fix. I really want some Guards of the Galadhrim Court, but am staying well clear because i dread to think what condition their pikes will be in. When finecast works, it could be as good as metal, but with none of the problems. But in probably about 50 finecast minis in total, i've yet to find more than one or two that didn't need substantial hole filling or weapon straightening.

It's very much luck based, and I've taken to scrutinising models in packet, asking employees to open boxed sets and avoiding buying online if possible to minimise the chance I have to get it sorted out. To be fair to GW, they have been routinely excellent at sorting out any flaws, once sending out an entire new blister of troops when one was heavily defected. You seriously can't fault that, but it's unacceptable that I've had to rely on it.

Overall, I really like finecast for large miniatures and monsters, but for smaller minis, accessories and equipment I find it lacking. It feels like the far cheaper material that it is, and unfortunately doesn't justify the price tag (which is often far in excess of the the supposedly more expensive metal minis).

I bought Fimbul ft&mtd and Yazneg ft&mtd.

I haven't been working with Fimbul yet, but it seems to be alright. A few little holes that can be fixed with GreenStuff. Hope there won't be any problems with mounted version (Fimbul and Warg are in a few parts and need to be glued).

Yazneg mtd as above. Yazneg foot version was quite annoying - it was hard to fit arms to chest to make it look good. I had to use some more GreenStuff to fix it and add one missing of that something he has on his back What is more, he hasn't his nose ( ) and throat needed a little help before painting (there was too much of cast).

Anyway, I'm very pleased of my new Hunter Orcs and their commanders. Despite casting, these sculptures are great!

Out of all the FineCast releases I've bought from the Hobbit range (White Council, Elrond ft & mtd, Lindir, Grimhammer Captain, Dale Captain, Thrain & Thror) only Thror presented an issue, with a sword that broke far too easily... but as for miscasts, bubbles and all the usual issues I've no complaints! No miscasts to be found, sometimes a bit of delicate bending required with swords and staves, but nothing too serious.

From my experience I feel that GW got their act together for the Hobbit, however, unfortunately there is still a risk when picking up something from the first waves, like the Commanders boxes, up from the shelves.

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Soon the Dark Lord Knighty shall have all he needs to cover the lands in an eevee-related darkness...

I have all the Hobbit FC that have been released,most painted, I find they make good display pieces, nice lot of detail, but terrible for the game table top, far to brittle as they break far to easily. But as there is not a choice then FC must do.

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Harfoots-The first of the Hobbit people to cross over the Misty Mountains and enter Eriador.

As with most people here I have had a mixed bag with finecast. None have been as error free as metal, but I do know that resin can be more bubble prone. I don't mind some fixing, all resin or metal does require some fixing pre painting. However, there are more than should be present in GW finecast resin and for the cost it should be better.
Comparing GW resin to spartan games resin one can see the huge difference in quality. My spartan games inventory is very detailed ( stupid detailed really) with few bubbles. I am talking single cast monster size resin product here, not small token size stuff. A large resin model from them is 1/2 the cost of an equivalent GW size model with fewer casting issues.
I want to like finecast but can really not find any real redeming quality to it. If it was cheaper I would not mind so much and would purchase more, but there are too many errors in the product for the cost and time knvolved to repair IMHO.

So, I would say if you want it, buy it, and be prepared to pay the premium price for an inferior product that will take a much longer time to prep than before.

I think GW is only raising prices because they are selling fewer units each year. Competition is increasing each year and more people who are table top players are expanding into different systems than expanding their GW armies. GW has to make a profit for their shareholders.

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richmondwarmancers we play Lord of The Rings, Battlefleet Gothic, Infinity, some board games, and really whatever tickles our fancy..

My FC Hobbit experience has been pretty positive:

Fimbul Foot and Mounted - excellent, no problems with either of the models

Yazneg Foot and Mounted - largely excellent, there were two small bubbles on the paws of the warg that were easily filled (and largely out of sight anyway)

Bilbo and Gandalf - Bilbo was the best one yet, absolutely perfect cast (the one jumping over the log) and it's exactly the sort of model (like Groblog) that wouldn't have been possible with metal. Gandalf had 2 holes in his cloak but they actually look like tears so nothing to worry about.

Young Thorin and Erebor Captain - haven't spent too much time on these guys yet but I've just pulled them out of their packets and they both look flawless, no bubbles/holes etc.

So yeah, 8 Hobbit FC models so far and all either perfect or with minor, easily fixable problems.

I had a bit of a grumble about my FC Minas Tirith Gandalf when I first assembled him as the gap left when you glued Shadowfax's front right leg to the horse was horrific and required extensive green-stuff filling. However, after that I bought Saruman mounted (in metal) and found that that cast was equally difficult and actually left a larger gap so I think this is an issue with the way mounted models are cut up rather than the material.

I do find that FC models require a lot of cleaning up, there seems to be more flash than on the old metal miniatures and in some cases (like the jumping Bilbo) it can be quite hard to figure out what should be removed and what should not. However, whilst there's more flash it's also easier to remove and mould lines come off far faster than on metal models so I think overall I probably spend the same length of time cleaning each model up.

Overall, aside from the cost, I'm pretty happy with the material, I certainly don't fear buying FC and I think the extra dynamism afforded by the material is a welcome boon. I also think the detail on Yazneg and Fimbul is absolutely incredible, far more than metal (Yazneg in particular is stunning) and they're the first FC models I've seen where I've honestly thought "yes, these casts are better than metal"

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I agree with most of what you've said. But GW have always put their prices upeach year. Each price hike drives current customers away, but they are relying on their ability to continue attracting younger gamers, who are spending mummy and daddy's money.

Having said that, when I first started, back in 1990, metal models cost about a quid each, or slightly less. Considering inflation, I'm not convinced that the real cost of rank and file miniatures has increased all that much.

You can buy a really beautiful resin or metal "character" figure from high end companies like Covus Belli or Studio McVey for less than the average finecast miniature. At the same time, the quality (or certainly the quality control) is significantly better. I wish they made LotR figures.

GW has some great sculptors working for them. Finecast however, is a joke.
I'd really like Bolg. I'd really like Thror. However, generally speaking, if I want a LotR mini I will check on eBay to see if I can get it in metal or plastic, and if I can't, I won't buy it.

I'm struggling with my conscience over buying Thror or Bolg. I hate to reward a company for providing a poor quality product at a super-premium price.

In fairness, all my finecast purchases were early in its release, and my track record was awful- a lot more than half the figures I bought had major problems, and I also didn't especially enjoy painting the "raged" surface I found on finecast miniatures, even the ones which were in "good" condition. But I have to confess I haven't bought a finecast figure for almost 2 years.

Maybe GW have tidied up their record on finecast, and maybe the miniatures which have been initially mastered as finecast miniatures (as opposed to metal mini's which have been "remastered") are better. But I got stung, and last time I checked nobody at GW even acknowledged any issues with finecast, let alone an apology for a crappy product.

They certainly haven't said "we had some teething problems, so sorry if you got charged £15 for a piece of mangled plastic, but we've really got our game on now".

I'm not here to "bash" GW unnecessarily, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect people to stay silent about a real issue. I'm not in to negativity, and I also uphold the right of a business to make money- that's what they're there for. If you don't like the price don't buy the product. It's as simple as that. But I don't expect people would remain silent if Mercedes Benz started to make cars which fell apart.

Wargaming is different anyway. Rather than making one big purchase which will see you through a number of years you hop on to a road and invest piece by piece, over the course of a few years.
By the time you decided finecast was a pile of asswangle you had already invested to the tune of many hundreds of pounds, only to find out that not only were you expected to pay to keep up with a hobby (a reasonable expectation, to be honest) but that you'd have to pay a super-premium price for a grossly inferior product.

The problem of course, is that people really do judge quickly, and a bad reputation is hard to shake. I think there's a degree of hubris here, and I don't like to see them get away with abusing their customers the way they did. I want them to be successful so that they keep producing the game we love, but I don't want them to be rewarded for what can only be considered as an adversarial attitude towards their own customers.

I wish they just made 100% plastics. They're far better at that. However, I imagine it doesn't pay to tool for Hobbit plastic character figures. So we're stuck with finecast, or eBay, or sculpting/converting our own.

The latter has its own appeal, as far as I'm concerned .

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My Finecast history has been quite good, aside from a few things.

Mounted Elrond has been excellent (slight bending on the sword, but that's common I believe) easy to assemble with only a small gap that needed filling on the horse and cloak.

Young Thorin Oakenshield is the best I've ever had! No problems whatsoever.

The Fellowship box set was good. Only Aragorn and Pippin had a slight problem.

Grim Hammers Captain and Thror were both okay. Both had bent weapons, and Thror's snapped easily, while the detail on the captain doesn't meet that on the plastic Grim Hammers. Thror's detail was ABSALOUTLY OUTSTANDING though.

My Ringwraith's were a little shocking. Missing details, air holes and just plain poorly cast.

Narzug was a good miniature with Greta detail and a joy to paint. The only problem was his sword snapping.

My opinion on Finecast is halfway. Detail is great, but quality of casts is pretty bad for some. Sometimes it's just down to luck in recieving great Fc minis. But anyway, I shan't ramble on no more. If you have the skill in preparing and fixing miniatures, you shouldn't have a problem with Finecast really

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I started to walk around without shoes...

It sort of then became a Hobbit

It does lack durability and is easily broken!

My experiences:
Asharak: almost perfect,no holes and little mould lines,out standing detail.
Black shields: Couple of spears bent but nice detail.
Gotgc: Air bubbles where the pike meets the models had pike warped,2 snapped and only one repairable.
Dragon:awesome detail easily goes together and haven't had any problems with snapping.
Overall good enough but never get any lotr finecast with long weapons!

From the Hobbit I have

Yazneg (just hte usual green stuff for cavalry models needed)
Fimbul (No green stuff needed)
Elrond (warped sword same as metal, hot water fixed, no green needed on the horse)
White Council (perfect)
Goblin captain (perfect)
Thror (fine)

LOTR
Amdur (Fine)
Beserkers (Fine)
Crossbows (Fine)
Sauron (Fine)
Suladan (2 bubbles on a horses ankle, but fine elsewise)
Harad command (fine, bar warpage)

Awaiting delivery of Radagast on sleigh, azog and a few other bits. So I'll pass on details when I get them... if I remember

The old "warp snap" problem is big with finecast, but it was big with metal. Oh well.

I have only purchased the Great Beast of Gorgoroth and it did take a few heating up for the mould to fit together and apart from a few broken bows, the orcs were perfectly fine. I find that finecast is superior to metal when it comes to large miniatures (assembling metal trolls and ballistas was far more annoying than finecast) however metals are superior to finecast when it comes to small miniatures as they are more durable.