Look, I'm a lurker on here really, so maybe I'm a bit less than qualified to comment, but I feel I need to on this. In response to the thread title, I won't buy this as it's utterly useless for my gaming needs, it's a lot of money and it's too big for me to store.
BUT....Wow!!! On the basis of that one picture, it looks like it's a superb model! Also, this is just a brilliant thing that GW have done - they have produced the one model most thought they never would or could! I can only imagine the difficulties and challenges associated with doing this, from the movie makers' demands to the challenge of sculpting, moulding and casting, to painting it...but here it is anyway.
Anyway, for all the brilliant painters and collectors out there who want such a thing, it's finally available and they can buy it! I think that's great!!! The range would be incomplete without it.
I know some people have this thing against Finecast and I do get that, because it has its flaws, but even so...this is Smaug!!! This is THE iconic Tolkien model and here it is!! From what I understand from conversations with folk in the historical wargame figure manufacturing world, realistically, making the moulds for this size and type of kit in plastic would be a bit of a financial risk, as the costs of plastic moulding are high - higher than metal and resin and the model is so huge and costly, they'd be worried about making enough profit... I could be wrong, but that's my hypothesis.
Anyway, it seems to me that GW takes a lot of c**p a lot of the time, (some admittedly justified, some certainly not) but fact remains that they have done a rather good job with this. Well done GW...
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