From their newsletter:

We recently communicated to customers that for the time being we won’t be carrying the Citadel Finecast line. Some subsequent comment in internet fora has suggested that our action was underhanded and while our remarks and reasoning can be found on the website, here, we would like to take this opportunity to say more about what we did and why.

Following post-launch internet and media concern, we were concerned that Finecast might suffer from inconsistent production quality and as such have the potential for customer disappointment and inconvenience. We were also concerned that either customers might return their delivery to us resulting in operational, financial and reputational challenges, or they might return it direct to Games Workshop in which case we might suffer reputational damage by association.

In light of this post-launch concern, we redirected resources to conduct an assessment of our first delivery. As some customers might be disappointed and inconvenienced but not pursue a return, we set the assessment test as being the potential for return, including for foreign objects (and GW has since confirmed that the inclusion of human hair is unacceptable).

We took a random 30 unopened blisters (9% of the boxes/blisters received) of which 17 (57% of the sample) failed the assessment. This exercise was then repeated with the second delivery and as it produced very similar results we approached GW for advice and were asked to provide details and images of the flaws. While have been asked not to disclose the content of our communications with GW, we will confirm that we did provide essentially the same images that were released on Friday, the only significant difference being our redaction of the specific descriptions of the flaws.

After communicating with GW we quickly moved to withdraw the items from sale, put in place a process to begin refunding our customers, and informed customers of the action that we are now taking and why. Looking forwards, we very much want to retail Citadel Finecast and we will be restocking when we can be confident that our deliveries will be of acceptable quality. We hope that this will be soon.

Interesting... I wonder if this will affect GW in any way.

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"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

Oh, it will affect them. I just wonder if they'll care...

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Gondor: 2339pts
Rohan: 1318pts
Dwarves: 2482pts
Elves: 1091pts
Mordor: 2305pts
Isengard: 1762pts
Moria: 1463pts
Evil Men: 381pts

They won't if they can still make money.

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"I am the Flying Spagetti Monster. Thou shall have no other monsters before me"
-FSM.

As opposed to GW, Wayland Games does care about delivering a quality product.. Big thumbs up, It takes gut to make a decision like this (as in time, every GW metal will be replaced) but I think it's for the best. I hope this stimulates GW to increase product control on Finecast...

I know this is slightly off topic, but I didn't feel like creating an entirely new thread for this one question. I was one of the guys who did not want anything to do with Finecost, but I recently went on a road trip, and stumbled across a Games Workshop in Maryland. Well, even though I have a lot of contempt for this company, I was very pleasantly surprised, because of the complete lack of access to LotR miniatures in my area. I knew before entering that I had to buy something. To my dismay they had replaced ALL of the LotR metal blisters with the new limited range of Finecast resin models. Well, I had always wanted the Elrond and Gil-Galad blister, and despite my hesitation about Finecast, I went ahead and bought it. I was optimistic--the price was a downer, but I'd heard good things about the quality and the application of the paint.

Big mistake. When I opened it, I found that Elrond had a nasty mold line through his left eye. His sword was also bent out of position. When I tried to fix it (remembering the flexibility of Finecast), it snapped off, and was lost. Gil-Galad's spear was also not positioned correctly, but I didn't bother with it. When I tried to put Gil Galad in his base, the slot that his feet are attached to broke off. There is a lot of difficult to remove flash on both of the models. All I could think was, what the heck...I just paid $25 for two miniatures, and this is what I get?

That was a long story, just to ask this: can I call Games Workshop for a replacement? What do I need to say?

Most of the tie you can show them your badly made minis, they will get another for you (check in store the quality before taking it home) and they may even llet you keep the bad ones as well.

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"I am the Flying Spagetti Monster. Thou shall have no other monsters before me"
-FSM.

I'm back in NC now, there's no Games Workshop I can take it to for a replacement (the blister I purchased looked alright before I opened it...and it was a Games Workshop in Maryland). So can I not just call? Should I try to email them with pictures?

When i bought something at a further away store, my nearest store let me anyway, phoning them might work though, my local store person phoned them and described the mistake the last time, but it depends how believable you are, I think.

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"I am the Flying Spagetti Monster. Thou shall have no other monsters before me"
-FSM.

I actually don't have a local store, which caused the impulse buy at the Games Workshop I stumbled upon. The nearest stores are a Hobbytown USA in Greensboro (about an hour away) and a comic shop in Lewisville (about thirty minutes). The Hobbytown does not stock LotR blisters and is dwindling on what GW products they do carry. The comic shop has literally no miniatures in the store, they just offer to order you something.

I have to call about a missing White Dwarf issue anyway. Guess I will mention this too.

Edit: Lol, just called--they are closed for Independence Day, of course! And I want to apologize for kinda hijacking this thread.

I hope your problems are sorted. By the ay, no GW store stocks blisters, you have to order them. We don't celebrate your independance day

Back to thread: Hobbycraft doesn't either.

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"I am the Flying Spagetti Monster. Thou shall have no other monsters before me"
-FSM.

Jamros I do not feel like you highjacked the thread. This is just a further illustration of why Wayland Games was forced into their decision.

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But none were more dangerous than the Great Willow: his heart was rotten, but his strength was green; and he was cunning,

Games Workshop does have superb customer service however, outstanding. I wasn't even finished describing the problems with the models, when the customer service representative said that he had taken care of it and that I would receive a replacement blister within five to ten business days.

Agreed. I bought a Daemon Prince a long time ago which was missing a shoulder pad and so they gave me another free of charge. So I was left with a full daemon prince and an extra one with a missing shoulder pad, which was hardly difficult to make myself

As to the thread discussion, I completely understand why Wayland have decided to do this. I myself have not had any experience with the Citadel Finecast range as I've yet to buy anything. However from what I've heard, they break incredibly easily.

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Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast.
Jake

That's the response I got to. I ordered a blister of Abrakhan guard once, and when it came back it was a Galadrim Banner Bearer, they reorded let me keep the banner bearer. Another time, I ordered metal Harad Raiders and one of them had half a Haradrim horse and half of a Warhammer Green Knight Horse, again, I got a replacement and the bad one.

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"I am the Flying Spagetti Monster. Thou shall have no other monsters before me"
-FSM.

That's the response I got to. I ordered a blister of Abrakhan guard once, and when it came back it was a Galadrim Banner Bearer, they reorded let me keep the banner bearer. Another time, I ordered metal Harad Raiders and one of them had half a Haradrim horse and half of a Warhammer Green Knight Horse, again, I got a replacement and the bad one.

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"I am the Flying Spagetti Monster. Thou shall have no other monsters before me"
-FSM.

I would not have been able to order the Finecost products from Wayland either way, I just realized, since I live in the US...

I just got my replacement blister in the mail not five minutes ago. I opened it, and found the detail supremely crisper, the material less warped, all the weapons and details aligned correctly, and essentially just vastly superior quality miniatures to what I had purchased in the store, delivered in a very short amount of time. Except...for one thing. Elrond is completely missing the blade to his sword! I actually laughed out loud!

My thoughts are that Wayland Games is making the right decision. If even my replacement has problems, I think it would be extremely wise in my opinion for independent stockists to stay away from Finecast for now. Since this price rise and resin switch I've been going after some of the miniatures I've always wanted, then stopping my GW collection until The Hobbit. But GW made some of the aforementioned miniatures into Finecast models. Well, this experience has made me extremely hesitant to purchase any more Finecast, and I will be sure to do a lot of shopping around for some of the old metal models before I make another purchase in this new range, for fear of another situation like this one.

LOL Jamros, have you got any pictures? Are you planning to send it back again?
The worst I have encountered is when I got the wrong Minas Tirith commanders (got the 2 pack instead of hte 3 pack) 3 times in a row, but this was before finecast.

They didn't make me send it back the first time, so I got to keep the not-so-good miniatures. I'm not planning on calling in again...I may make a sword out of the massive amount of flash on the sprue, or give the sword that broke off of the cruddy Elrond to the newer Elrond. So I got four Finecast miniatures...and only one is really as good as the claims--the newer Gil Galad. I can post pictures of all of the miniatures tomorrow, but I'm not sure if my camera can capture some of the detail problems I've described in the first blister (you can certainly see the missing sword in the second!).