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Post by beardmonk on May 9, 2018 8:11:26 GMT
I was recently watching a youtube video by a gaming commentator/hobby guy (mainly focused on GW products) where he dedicated a whole 20 minute video to discuss the rise in re-cast models in the 40K community. With GW Forgeworld discontinuing many models, there has apparently been a sharp rise in people ordering from internet recaster and 3rd party suppliers who provide almost identical products via 3D printing. The main driver for this is that Forgeworld models are prohibitively expensive, but becoming more and more common in “normal” 40K games. Models for other games like 30K/Horus Heresy are almost exclusively available from Forgeworld, again at extortionate prices.
Out of pure interest, because I don't play 40K, I went to a site that I know sell GW recasts to see if what was available there tallied with the youtube video. To my surprise, the site also had quite a number of Privateer Press models available as well. From the price I assume they are also recast models. The GW community has had several huge discussions about the morality/necessity of recasts and I believe that people were kicked from tournaments for them (I have no sources for that) but many people argued that as GW allows conversions, proxies, etc there should be no difference.
As PP recasts clearly exists and there appears to be a market for them I wanted to open up a discussion with you fine, fine, beautiful people on how we as a community deal with this issue. Because its coming to WM/H, if its not already here.
I for one am conflicted on the matter. I would be very wary of ordering a recast model as I understand the quality can be anything from “perfect” to “garbage”. However I am finding it hard to stay competitive these days given the £££ of models. It’s fair to say that without my prolific ability to pick up an ebay bargain at 4am, or picking up huge discounts at conventions like Salute in the UK, my Trollblood army would be non-existent. But despite getting hugely reduced costs, the product is still made by PP, not a recaster.
So:
1) What people’s views of recast models in gaming. Is there a justification for them given the price of many kits, the availability of PP products in some areas and the BAHI tax. 2) Does the increase in huge based models in the game encourage recasters? 3) Would you play against an army you knew included one or more recasts? 4) Would recast models be tournament/SR legal 5) With the rise of 3D printing, would you view a home 3D print of a WM/H model any different to a recast?
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Miafan
Junior Strategist
Eater of Brains
Posts: 130
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Post by Miafan on May 9, 2018 9:32:05 GMT
I never used or owned pirated models (probably because I managed to get all I wanted in MK2 before the disasterous price risings started), but I can't really judge people who use them. What urges people to go to forgers, some of the issues:
- Spam meta. The first explosive growth of forging I remeber was the Runes of War abomination of a theme force. Then it just went on - Bradigus, Griffin spam, etc.etc.
- A problem related to the previous one, conversions. While not very often, people hate their spam army looking all the same, and PP offerns from little to no options of model customisation. And let's not forget about the metal problem (more of it follows). Enter the forgers - buy one light warjack, get it to the forger, have 7 more back, with spare parts that you are not afraid to cut, bend, rearrange and customise as you want.
- Another problem related to both former ones - METAL. I have nothing against metal minies, but I quickly learned that I am but a part of thin minority. People hate it with passion, and rightfully so, (especially with armies like Trollbloods, but any cavalry and warjacks suffice as well). Because of weight, chipping, fragility, conversion difficulties, PP sometimes wyrd(pun intended) model segmentation... you know, METAL. And enter the forgers again - have all the same, but in resin, sometimes with BETTER detalisation (sharper edges) and cheaper.
- Faction hopping. Now that's an issue that irks me to heck and back, but many people are sure that the only way to play WMH is to be super competitive, know how to play all factions (or at least the factions that are top tier for the moment) to be a pro, and then choose one most broken to PWN everyone. Until the meta changes with a new book|errata and in MK3 with another CID. Then change faction/list ASAP and PWN again. Buy the new army every time? Even with pawning off your old army it's a huge hassle. Especially if your LGS does not have all the models you need (or if you have an LGS at all and not bound to web orders only, even more if they be overseas orders). Borrowing - same problems, adds some of its own. Hello forgers! Take our money. And it feels like PP urges these things, with MK3 contantly shifting meta and spammachine glorified.
- Huge Models. This was kind of a mystery for me before, but I guess mostly related to the former issue. But now, with the dawn of BAHI, I wonder who is gonna buy more BAHI models - honest players who want to "supprt PP" with loadsamoney, or forgers, who want to support everybody else and make some profit on it.
- PP pricing. Hundreds of spears have been broken over this matter already, so everyone knows about it.
- Moral side... guess it's kind of like with the pirated CD's with games and music.
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Post by slaughtersun on May 9, 2018 9:34:08 GMT
What exactly is a recast? Someone creating a mold of a miniature and then doing their own casting and selling it cheaper? Or someone creating a 3d model and printing their version of the model?
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Post by Soul Samurai on May 9, 2018 9:40:22 GMT
I view selling a recast to be illegal and immoral since you don't own the work you are profiting off. However, I believe we have the moral (and I think legal?) right to cast bits for our own non-profit use. 3D printing is the same: if you 3D print a pattern that someone else created and did not make available for commercial use, then it's wrong to sell it.
Now things are a little different if it's a recast of a discontinued sculpt; I see it as more of a moral grey area since the company isn't selling the product so they're not losing sales (directly at least) and you have much alternative if you want that particular sculpt. However it's still their intellectual property.
I fully understand tournaments not wanting to support illegal recasting, so I would understand them banning all recasts even though that would be a problem for people who would be negatively affected despite not purchasing illegal recasts (for example due to custom 3D printed figures falling foul of the rules).
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Post by beardmonk on May 9, 2018 9:44:46 GMT
What exactly is a recast? Someone creating a mold of a miniature and then doing their own casting and selling it cheaper? Or someone creating a 3d model and printing their version of the model? Essentially it taking an original model and making a cast of it. Its easier to do for large models where they are made up of individual parts rather than coming off a sprue. But the quality of the recast varies from seller to seller. If your prepared to wait 30 odd days for the import the models can be 25% of the cost of the original These recasts are often cast with a different form of resin, sometime of lower quality compared to the original, but not always.
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Post by Soul Samurai on May 9, 2018 9:45:48 GMT
What exactly is a recast? Someone creating a mold of a miniature and then doing their own casting and selling it cheaper? I would say yes, semantically that is recasting, though a model that's 3D printed to be an exact copy of an existing product is in the same boat for the purpose of this conversation: basically an unlicensed knock-off. Of course if the 3D print is built from scratch and is not an exact replica but rather a different physical model that is a recognizable proxy, things get a little more hazy. How close is it? Does it use specific iconography? This is the kind of thing that companies go to court over because it's sometimes a matter of degrees, so I don't think we can simply give a binary "yes or no".
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Miafan
Junior Strategist
Eater of Brains
Posts: 130
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Post by Miafan on May 9, 2018 9:47:36 GMT
Kinda impossible. Obviously, if you see an Exemplar Senechal on the table, pick it up and realise that it's no metal but resin, it's a fake. But if it was a naturally non-metal model? Or forger used metal himself (they sometimes do, I remember ordering two old Dark Eldar sculpts for collection, they were indistiguishable from originals)?
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Post by Soul Samurai on May 9, 2018 10:41:40 GMT
Kinda impossible. Obviously, if you see an Exemplar Senechal on the table, pick it up and realise that it's no metal but resin, it's a fake. But if it was a naturally non-metal model? Or forger used metal himself (they sometimes do, I remember ordering two old Dark Eldar sculpts for collection, they were indistiguishable from originals)? I realise that it would be extremely hard to enforce, but that would not necessarily stop them from instituting the rule and relying on the participants to comply out of honesty and good will. Kinda like shops with signs that say "no concealed weapons allowed": what are you gonna do, pat down all your customers? If nothing else that sort of thing protects you from legal liability I guess.
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crimsyn
Junior Strategist
Posts: 389
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Post by crimsyn on May 9, 2018 11:59:05 GMT
Recasts are already not tournament legal according to the Steamroller packet.
Anyways, it seems to me that one of the reasons why GW has seen a lot of issues with recasts is that over the years, they have burned a lot of goodwill with their player base for a variety of reasons. As such, while it is still wrong and everyone knows it (even the people who try to righteously justify it), players don’t have the same motivation to do the right thing and support their game company and FLGS. I don’t think WMH players have the same sort of attitude towards PP.
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Post by gobber on May 9, 2018 12:11:42 GMT
There's a legal distinction between making something for personal noncommercial uses and distribution. My hooch hauler and other scratchbuilt battle engines and printed railless interceptor proxies are the same thing legally since I designed the 3d models myself in tinkercad. What I'm more unsure about is the legality of distributing the .stl files at all as that edges near infringing on PP's distribution rights (especially if I were to put time into making it look more like the final model). 3d prints automatically fail the 50%+ PP parts rule, but they'll often fly outside of tourneys if they look good enough. Except for huge bases, buying the actual model still tends to be cheaper than printing so it's more often used for custom/unique figures, conversion bits, and the like*. There's a robust 3d printing community built up around star wars legion and x wing, making terrain and all sorts of aliens and spaceships that aren't/won't ever be released in the game. Warmachine 3d models are much rarer anyway; the only one I've ever seen for sale was this dude: *Filament printers are still too low resolution to do miniatures very well (though huge bases are feasible; I know someone's posted a file for the trencher blockhouse); to get the detail needed to like right you need an SLA/resin printer which are still pricy and require chemical treatment. Most miniatures-quality prints are currently done through the shapeways printing service which can reach far and away higher quality than anything you can do at home, for around $12 for a small based miniature.
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Fang
Junior Strategist
Posts: 117
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Post by Fang on May 9, 2018 15:14:59 GMT
I wouldn't buy from recaster or recommend it, but where (and how) I live it can be hard to get mini's so I recast myself. I know it'll offend some people and its legality is questionable but frankly if I need an extra unit or guy, I'll consider recasting it myself. The choices are paying 4-8 euros for a trooper that is cast in single piece metal, lacks conversion potential and the box comes with 10 guys but only 4 different sculpts or make a oyumaru mold of some of the guys I already bought, cast a copy and then chop them up to make new sculpts for maybe a euro or two total on material, I am going to do the latter.
For non single cast pieces, I even can make them 'tourney legal' by mix and matching with the originals. This type of recasting actually enables a lot of my conversions, and as I prefer the heft of metal I often will get metal pieces (I have an emorv conversion that was a brand new war wolf, head and arm of pmorv, recast of pmorvs cloak, chest armor and other arm, a recast of a darksword mini sitting in a nice side saddle position with a dress I liked). I could have recasted everything, but it was far more convenient to just buy the metal I like (in this case, an extra pmorv and war wolf), which had the added bonus of increasing the heft of the model.
Similarly, if I do a conversion I really like, I'll oyumaru/blue stuff the whole work to copy it. The legality question becomes even greyer then as I also contributed to the new model design and sculpting, and often it includes bits from various sources on top of my custom work. One thing I do *not* do is sell what I copy. That is definitely illegal and really is not why I do recast. I just want a cool army, and units like pressgangers do not look cool if you have 2-3 exact same copies of one guy to me. On the other hand, steelheads are so heavily armored I actually don't notice and I therefore own two official units (1 metal, 1 plastic).
Also I weigh down bases of plastic originals and recast minis to give them heft, so you'd need to know the weight of the original and be able to make a good estimate of my basing to tell which are which.
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Post by supercancel on May 9, 2018 17:20:57 GMT
Not that I have much of a presence here, but recasting for sale is illegal. It violates creative license and business licenses in every country that cares about that. It would not be tourney legal but, as has been mentioned, can be hard to spot. What Fang and some others are doing doesn't fall into the same category for a variety of reasons, most importantly is because they don't do it for resale, purely for personal hobby use. To be realistic, PP actively encourages it with the "50% PP" rule they have. They flat out stated they don't give a Firetruck what you do with the other 50%, but for tournament legal, they want 50% of the model to be made with stuff you buy from them. It doesn't even say it has to be the model yo make it into! Technically, if you 3D print a colossal (and it is recognizable for what it is intended) but base it with an equivalent amount of PP models that it has crushed/killed/etc. then you are good to go.
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Post by AdeptusB on May 9, 2018 17:57:40 GMT
I consider literal re-casting to be unacceptable- illegal and immoral. How is it any different from, say, scanning a newly-published book and selling it?
Thinly-veiled variants, however, don't really bother me.
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Post by W0lfBane on May 9, 2018 19:54:02 GMT
Filthy filthy recasters. God. Where are they. Give me their webpages so I can give them a piece of my mind.
No but seriously. I do like companies like raging heroes that legitimately male their own models that fit into the universe and are supposed to proxy something else in the game. I wish there were more of those geared for pp stuff.
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Post by Rork on May 9, 2018 20:15:13 GMT
I know people who have bought recasts of colossals and similar sized models. When it comes to BAHI, I may not agree with it, but I can understand it. Outside of the US you'll get hit by shipping, taxes and admin fees. That adds a lot to the cost. The fakers offer the same model, often in a better material, with generally fair quality (PP isn't a saint there) for a low price.
Similarly, character warjacks are stupidly priced right now. While they don't have economies of scale, their price is completely out of proportion to their points or what they do in game. Making players feel like they're getting value for money is fairly important to retaining them and their custom.
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