Before there was Finecast there was Urban!

Nick speaking,

A short while before metal models made the switch to Citadel Finecast, I purchased my second box of the Citadel Urban Basing kit. The first box I bought was way back when it first came out five years ago, but in this new box, I could see the start of some changes for GW resin models...

If you don't know, the basing kit comes with five mini pots containing brass etchings, some large and small slate pots and two pots of resin base bits in various sizes...

One problem that I had with the original kit I purchased, was that all the resin base bits were so thick, that you had to somehow file them down to get them to sit flat on the base. I found sand paper did the job, but it was a bit of a pain. However, this new kit I had was not like that at all, in actual fact the resin bits seemed to be made of a different material altogether! Yes they were flatter, but now the detail was rubbish? Some parts were so bad you hardly had any detail at all!  You can see the differences from the pictures below. Take a look at the the detail of the coils and sand on some of them. Old bases are on the left, new ones on the right...

Overall, I was very disappointed with my purchase and although I didn't have to sand down the bases anymore, the general quality definitely seemed to be going down hill. A few weeks later, Finecast was announced, and I have to say that my new basing kit didn't give me much confidence in it!