Hello there,

I'm looking at getting back in the game with Battle Companies with a couple buddies of mine and was looking at starting up a Moria company. Being a Moria Company, I was looking at picking up a few Gundabad Blackshields for when (if...they are goblins after all) advance, and I was wondering if anyone had any experience with the Finecast models. My experiences with Finecast have generally been very negative (lots of bubbles and very brittle material), but I've heard it has gotten better. Has anyone purchased any of the Finecast Gundabads? And is so were their weapons all droopy and the material all brittle? I was wondering because the four pack on GW seems like the best deal and fit for me, but on the other hand I would rather pay a few bucks more 2nd hand to get some metal ones if the models are terrible in the material.

Thanks for any advice!

I don't have any Blackshields specifically, but I've always been a fan of finecast. Yes, they can be brittle sometimes, but you get a way higher level of detail. Just be careful with them and you should be good to go.

Have yet to get a truly acceptable Finecast model myself (and all mine are from the Hobbit range, so supposedly better than the re-released LotR figures), but although the Goblins will likely have the usual bubbles (and definitely the brittleness), I imagine their weapons won't be too problematic - the spear isn't massive and the swords are very short. Even if bent, they should hold their shape well once straightened.

Thanks for the feedback! I'm a bit on the fence with this one, my experiences have been pretty similar to yours Coenus. The Dwarf Captain in my command box was particularly bad. I had to resculpt almost all of the scales on the right hand side of his mail skirt and had two gigantic bubbles to fill in on his shield (and a bad one on his helmet, which was thankfully not his face....I'd be out of luck resculpting that). I did google finecast Blackshields and the models I saw looked pretty good, so I might give it a shot.

Wishing you the best of luck! Scale armour seems particularly troublesome, thankfully the Blackshields have largely chainmail and fur cloaks, so those two surfaces probably won't be too bad when bubbled.

You could always kitbash your own by using Warhammer range fur cloaks to convert them. See if you like playing them and if you like the play style you could buy the official ones?

Nice suggestion Lothiriel, I may have to give that a go (though I will say the Official Blackshield models, in my opinion, are some of the best in the Moria range).

They're good models - but rules wise the Marauders are absolutely the best value for money in the entire list.

The Blackshields are gorgeous but a bit of a luxury for the points I feel.