GWs 25th Anniversary Marine

As I posted on Saturday, I trekked into town to pick up the limited edition Space Marine to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Warhammer 40,000. I've mentioned my concerns about finecast before, and have had some issues with it in the past, so thought i'd post about my experiences this time and give you a little review of the kit.

First off is the presentation box it comes in - nice packaging with the old school Rogue Trader front cover artwork by John Sibbick. I look at it and I am immediately 11 again - back in the days with no grown-up concerns, no exams and just a passion for painting toy soldiers and playing games with my Dad... Good times!

And as if my nauseating nostalgia wasn't enough, the front of the box pops open to reveal some more photos of the painted model. Quite a nice touch for a commemorative piece. (This is magnetised to prevent unwanted flopping)

The guys in Exeter are very good when it comes to their customer service so I felt no compunction about buying  model and opening it immediately in store to have a good look at the quality. I'll just add that Toosh and I both purchased this miniature, and they were both of a similar quality.

I opened the box and was pleasantly surprised. The box comes with a sprue of the actual marine (in 5 parts), a lovely Crimson Fist banner, a scenic base and both a 25mm round gaming base and a 60mm round display base. As a whole, I think the quality is on par with the old metal models Games Workshop were putting out before Finecast took over. There are some mould lines, but nothing major, and a small number of tiny bubbles.

It appears, however, that we may have been really lucky! I have read in a few places of people having unacceptable flaws in their models and similar issues with any replacements they have been sent. There have also been issues with how complaints have been handled which is quite out of character for GW... I really hope they get the quality control sorted soon as when Finecast "is good it is very, very good. But when it is bad it is horrid"

I sometimes wonder if we have very quickly forgotten the mould slipped and difficult to fix metal models that we were buying from GW a year ago, and have been spoilt rotten by some of the other resin models on the market. That, combined with the unfortunate name of 'Finecast', has given people massively high expectations, but only time will tell how this turns around! 

And now for something completely different... I found something rather exciting in the alternative games shop in Exeter (Clifton Road Games)...! I thought I was going to have to buy this at Adepticon and lug it all the way home

Yummmm!