Editing Casting (section)

== Games Workshop and You ==
[[Games Workshop]] is a [[wargame]] company known for making egregiously overpriced models. If you didn't know that, you are obviously new to this wiki.  They often excuse their prices by saying that their models are of exceptional quality and thus their molds are more expensive/break more often/need maintenance, despite that by industry standards (and as every single fucking 40K fan knows), Citadel miniatures have chunky details and low part counts, and price basic plastic models in the same range as top-of-the-line multimedia kits made for accuracy fiends who masturbate with digital calipers. And that's not even considering the [[Finecast|fucking bubbles]].

[[Fa/tg/uy|Fa/tg/uys]] who are enraged by [[Games Workshop]]'s shitty marketing ploys can turn to home casting to get their model fix, at next to zero cost.

Casting can be expensive or cheap, depending on how you do it. A comprehensive fa/tg/uy-written [http://www.mediafire.com/?1111199861vfddc guide] is available to help you through the process.

As a side note GW likes to flail around its net-site, claiming that it's illegal to take any and all copies of minis and make conversions. That is legally bullshit, since that argument is only solvent in accordance to the country one is living in; in some European countries, for example, you are allowed to make as many copies of anything you have bought as long as you aren't selling or otherwise distributing them.  Also, both Codecies and White Dwarf articles loved to show off kitbashes and conversions back in the day, so it's not like they can even claim no precedent. This gibbering madness has died down under the New Management<sup>TM</sup>, but who knows for how long.

=== 3rd Party Modellers ===
While Games Workshop may waffle back and forth regarding what is and isn't "tournament legal" and "''legal'' legal", one thing that hasn't wavered since the early 2000's are the 3rd party model sellers. In fact, they've grown in quality and quantity over recent years! These guys operate in the dubious legal grey area surrounding knock-off models, and will sell "Warhammer-inspired", "27/28/29/30mm-scale", or "totally-not-Warhammer" models designed from the ground up to fit in with the rest of GW's product lines.

These 3rd-party kits often come in the form of body parts or bits blister packs, an area where GW has been found wanting for literal decades, which are not-too-shockingly compatible with extant Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 models. These can take the form of whole packs of off-brand future-soldiers, or just sprues of disembodied limbs or weapons. Some 3rd party model shops specialize in filling gaps in GW's product line, making models that strongly resemble units or armies that get no official love. Almost every one of these retailers have their own game system for their models, which ''everyone who buys their models plays.'' Some of these sellers specialize in one-model showpiece kits, to "count as" various Independent Characters on the tabletop. These full models can be as good as GW one-model kits, but not all of them are, so buyers beware ('''not that 1d4chan endorses buying these models for use outside of their original games'''). The 3rd party model makers generally operate above-board, until they overstep their legal bounds and GW kills them good and hard.

The casting techniques used by these guys varies widely, since none of them are as high-volume as Games Workshop or as high-quality (varying mileage) as Forge World. Some make metal models, some do resin, others use plastics. They will use any technique under the sun, or whatever is easiest.

=== Professional Recasters (aka bootlegging) ===

'' 'In Far off Cathay you shall find what you seek' '' -A Wise Man

Some businesses in [[China]] will mass-produce recasted sprues and sell them on eBay, undercutting the original manufacturer by virtue of not having to pay sculptors for model designs. This is called bootlegging, and it is ''fucking illegal.'' (in the west!). On the other hand, fa/tg/uys who are enraged by GW's marketing bullshit and hideously overpriced models (but don't have the time, money, space, or skill to home-cast models) will turn to these sellers to get their model fix without feeding the beast, much as [[Video games|/v/irgins]] will pirate good video games that are held hostage by [[Hasbro|greedy or otherwise odious publishers.]] As a result you can expect to see some of the same [[skub]] regarding buying from "based Chinaman" as you would see regarding the ethics of pirating video games. 

Of course, given that GW has been price gouging their customers (and underpaying their artists) for decades, the whole morality argument is very, very weak (and generally advanced by professional busybodies). Most people who actually buy recasts do so because they would otherwise be priced out of the hobby entirely, and either generally operate under a "don't ask, don't tell" policy...or don't care because, you know, it's a game marketed to children.

Most people who engage in kitbashing, scratch-building, and 3rd-party part-mixing will generally regard using re-casts with disdain. It would be like going to [[/o/|an auto show]] and announcing the replica Corvette you bought was a real Corvette, as opposed to driving up in a mock-Corvette you made yourself and announcing it as such. In any case, '''1d4chan cannot provide any information regarding the purchase of recasted miniatures. Don't even think about it.'''