Citadel Finecast and a Neruda poem.

Hey everyone,

Today I went into the Cambridge GW and chatted with the staff there since I'm going to be living here for a month and need to get some game time in with the Deathwing before I head to Bratislava and possibly have a dearth of players. The guys working there were very cool and nice to talk to. They didn't try to sell me anything, were interested in my models and happy to chat about a bunch of different stuff.

However, when it came to Citadel Finecast, they clammed up hard. They've been told firmly from higher up that if they say too much they will be fired for it. The big reveal will be next Monday and despite me asking questions in a dozen different ways and them really wanting to tell me things, they didn't. What I gleamed was (take this with as much salt as you wish):

- They've been reading the blogs etc and 80% of it is wrong. They think people will be surprised at how wrong they are.
- Finecasting is a fundamentally new technique (they would neither confirm nor deny if it was resin)
- The detail of the models is a serious step up and makes Forge World look merely OK.
- No other game company will be able to afford to invest and make this technique happen. GW has been working on it for a while.
- While they didn't say exactly, it seems like the models will be receiving new sculpts and so on. They hinted that those expecting an exact recast in resin were wrong.


What they didn't comment on:

- Are old metal blisters going to be phased out and replaced by finecast? Will there be a sale? Are they just going to be melted down?
- Are all metal kits going to be moved to finecast, including big ones like Greater Daemons and metal warmachines?


All in all the two blueshirts were really nice guys. They invited me to their gaming night, didn't push sales, listened to my expressing the current upset with GW and responded fairly. Summed up:
- Finecast misunderstood
- Price rise is annual and expected. GW profits aren't that high because of reinvestment into model kits etc. It's not the big cash cow some people think
- FAQ writing was slow but seems to be better now. Also game designers work 2 years or more out on things so it's hard for them to predict rules conflicts and devote their time to FAQing new issues since they have moved on to later products
- The ban on online retailers shipping to Oz is not their speciality, but they speculated that GW may open a moulding plant over there, as the did in the states and prices can be brought in line.


All in all, good guys and I'm looking forward to seeing the Finecast models. I hope to be truly surprised and impressed at GW's work. But, it has to be said I have some scepticism. I can't see how much more detailing they can add to models so we will have to see.

I couldn't decide between the following animal pics so you get both ;-)








Now for something completely different. Thanks to someone I used to be in good contact with who showed me their favourite poem (Tonight I can Write), I found and fell in love with the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. Here is a poem called unity that I read this morning and liked. Enjoy :-)


There is something dense, united, settled in the depths,
repeating its number, its identical sign.
How it is noted that stones have touched time,
in their refined matter there is an odor of age,
of water brought by the sea, from salt and sleep.

I'm encircled by a single thing, a single movement:
a mineral weight, a honeyed light
cling to the sound of the word "noche":
the tint of wheat, of ivory, of tears,
things of leather, of wood, of wool,
archaic, faded, uniform,
collect around me like walls.

I work quietly, wheeling over myself,
a crow over death, a crow in mourning.
I mediate, isolated in the spread of seasons,
centric, encircled by a silent geometry:
a partial temperature drifts down from the sky,
a distant empire of confused unities
reunites encircling me.