Your thoughts on recasting?

I know there are some people hell bent on recasting bring evil due to IP law. I personally think it is ok on out of production miniatures that the original producer is refusing to make available despite demand.

Your thoughts?

 

I think it is fine as long as it is for personal use and not just to sell bootlegs. Seems to me no different from converting one model to proxy as another.

 

Personally I have done it quite a bit with my Bretonnians... but considering I have never played a full battle with these new guys, much less sell them, my conscious has been pretty clear.



I just can't justify spending the money on tons of miniatures when I can cast them for cheaper and still make a decent sized force for myself. About half of the knights I have currently constructed are self-cast, cost me over $150 for the plastic knights and about $40 for my own creations (but that includes not only the knights but also the men-at-arms, archers, peasants, and future projects). Granted the quality isn't as good as the bought plastic models, but my painting skills aren't more than table top either so I don't really mind!

 

I also think it´s fine as long as it´s for personal use only

 

For example, buying from the Chinese recasters for personal use

 

Oh well then I think that´s not morally right, as you are paying for copied products. It´s still less expensive, but that doesn´t change the fact that it´s copied.

 

Are those still available? I haven't heard much about them since the demise of Yoymart.

 

Yup. Email and spreadsheet catalogues though.

 

Even if the model is out of production?

 

Sounds sketchy. I wonder how they stay afloat. I guess not everyone is as paranoid as I am.

Buying recasted models is wrong.
GW killing WFB is wrong.

Maybe two wrongs do sometimes make a right!

 

Yoyhammer subreddit has reviews. Bad guys get outed.

 

I think personal casting is fine, If you've paid for the original model. It's similar to backing up a dvd or music from a cd and just reusing it for personal use. If GW weren't so £$ grabby it would defiantly weigh heavier on my conscience. Also for out of production models it is useful to preserve the original sculptors work and honour the models of alternate game systems that go bust or just go home.

 

I would rank them like this from the affecting my conscience the least to the most:

Casting bits for use in terrain projects provided bases < casting bits for conversion projects < casting full models or big parts of models < casting and selling OOP models and bits < casting and selling bits < casting and selling full models < recasters

And here by casting I obviously mean making molds of GW products and bits and essentially copying them, not creating your own products. I'm totally ok for casting bits for your own purposes, but facing an army of mostly self casted models would make me raise an eyebrow. I'd still most likely play them and not blame them or anything.

 

I agree with that order.

 

I bought 1 stegadon, casted it and made 2 copies. I also bought the carnosaur, casted it and made a troglodon.

I have also casted alot if space marines.
I wouldnt sell anything, but I think casting is just fine.

 

If a collector wants a second copy...it should be purchased from the original source. Cheaply casting a second or third one deprives the originating company of those sales.

Not good.

I recommend deletion.

It isn't. Every cast is a sale the original enterprise will never make.

 

@pendrake while I do fundamentally agree with you there is always a grey line - there was certainly a great culture of game sharing and buying in second hand games from stores and trading in your old ones while I was growing up. Which although did mean the original seller wouldn't make that extra money on the second sales It did mean more people get to play that game possibly cheaper and which might have lead to merchandise sales etc down the line. It's why most games have activation codes on them nowdays, in any event models are much different for sure, there are model systems that I'm currently buying models from that are no longer in business so even If I wanted to buy them from the original seller Its just not possible. A running company is different in that respects. I guess the subject really brings forth the moral questions for people to answer.

 

Yeah, I agree with this. I read somewhere that GW used to take special orders for producing discontinued models at higher than retail prices. Unfortunately, this no longer seems to be the case. I emailed them asking them whether they could produce the 2007 Mighty Empires kit or any of the recently discontinued elf kits, and they told me they could not and to keep an eye out for "Made for Order."

 

GW is and are messed up in my personal opinion. They get customers telling them what they want all the time and don't listen.