Tuesday 28 June 2011

Shocking Finecast News

Oh well here we go again...

Cue blurry photo...



After a detour into the Russian Civil War, it is back to the grind of painting another 36 man French battalion. Though this should be less of a grind, as I have decided to paint this unit up as light infantry, which means they are pretty much one colour for the uniforms - dark blue. I realise the figures have the wrong jackets, but seeing as I have already painted the previous two battalions with the wrong turncoats, you will probably have noticed that I am less interested in historical accuracy than the general look of the army.... they look French to me, and that is all that matters.

From two boxes of Perry miniatures, and a box of Victrix, I have got 3 36 man battalions and still have more than 20 figures left over. The actual figure is @23, because I have decided not to use all of the kneeling Victrix models, as they do not rank up very well.

In other news, I notice that the denizens of Dakka Dakka have taken an interesting diversion from their usual habit of unsubstantiated argument and applied scientific principles to their deliberations.

The reason for this outbreak of rationality is a claim made at the time that Finecast was launched that the resin melted. The source was a blog post, by someone whom I suspected at the time was traffic whoring, which claimed that a Finecast model of Gandalf the wizard had melted after being left on a window sill. There was also mention of the models melting in the window of the GW shop in Leamington Spa.

It was pointed out at the time that from the description given - the figure had an imperfection on one of the standing legs, which had been pinned with a metal pin - the most likely cause of the warping was the pin, which effectively acted as a heat conductor and caused the model to melt from the inside (microwave it if you will).

But this didn't stop the GW baiters form leaping on this scrap of information, which had been tarted across every major blog and forum by the bloggerist, as proof.... well I'm not sure what they were hoping to prove, since the gist of the subsequent argument was that if the resin melted in the artic British summer, then what would happen in the apocalytic conditions of real places like Smiley City Iowa, or Woola Woola in the Northern territories (I have no idea if these places exist, but you get the point).

And over the intervening weeks this information has provoked a lively discusion concerning the temperature of greenhouses in Aberllwelli and relative humity in Los Makeys New Mexico: and offered GW baiters ammunition to further their conspiracy theory that GW hates people in the colonies. After all only an evil genius like Jervis Johnson could come up a plan to sell plastic - or resin plastic mix (or whatever Finecast is made out of) - soldiers to unwitting colonials that not only melts but wreck your expensive foam trays as well.... MuuuuUUUUUUuuuuhahahahahahaha *cough*.

And so people have set about sticking Finecast figs in ovens and microwaves, under magnifying glasses, leaving them in front of wood burning stoves, and various fires of mathmatically calculated size (ok I made some of that up) to discover if in fact Finecast minis are indeed liable to melt - as was claimed by one blog, who admitted at the time that they were touting for trade.

And apparently - like the story that Finecast gives you cancer - it is not the case that Finecast miniatures melt (unless you stick a heat conducting metal pin into the model, at exactly the point where the model fails, and leave them on a window sill), and you can safely cook them for 18 minutes at 230 degrees celcius, and indeed leave them on a car dashboard at the beach for four hours whilst the outside temperature is 90 degrees.

Oh and if you do happen to do these things, and then prod them, bend them and generally make mischief with the model, providing you don't dunk them in ice cold water (or take them outside in the British summer - has it been hot enough for you these past few days?) the material will resume it's former shape within five minutes or so - which is perhaps a problem if the figure had a bent sword when you bought it.

Perhaps the GW baiters will take this as proof that the models are imbued with a kind of witchcraft - or possessed. They are bound to find ssomething wrong.

Which leaves the question of what happened to the models in the window of the GW shop in Leamington Spa?

And indeed why the news has not reported on the thermo dynamic event - possibly akin to the Midwitch Cuckoos - that struck the antique hunters, on the day that supposedly all the models melted.... which is not a bad title of a B-movie horror film.... The Day The Models Melted, staring Vincent Price and Timmy the Fanboi Wonderdog.

Oh and btw, working through the back episodes of the D6 Generation, I was intrigued to listen to episode 2B, from 2008, in which like all good Warmehordes players they couldn't just say they like the game, they had to turn it into a Beatles vs Stones 'debate' about the short comings of GW. What is interesting is that all the arguments they came out with are exactly the tropes and memes doing the rounds on the internet today.

Given the Press Ganger program and America being the home of negative advertising - which in part explains why they get useless Presidents (due to negative advertising, not PP) - if I were a conspiracy theorist I would begin to detect a plan/pattern.

And let's not get into the irony of people drumming up support for PP being called Press Gangers. Still I guess it is slightly better than Child Snatchers or Friztlers.

peace:)

ps the ashtray and fags, in the blurry photo, were there purely to feed my nicoteine habit, I was not conducting heat experiments on Perry and Victrix miniatures.

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