"Multi-part Historical Plastic 28mm" Topic

>As for manufacturers going bust, I don't think so, how many plastic 20mm producers are there?

20mm and soft plastic. Selling to a large established market of model makers. But it would be an expensive risk to go for multi part 28mm plastics.

>Our figures are after all just toy soldiers same as "50-100 plastic toys (soldiers, tanks, planes)
>in a bag for a few dollars". No sense in thinking that they are anything more than
>that and they can be priced similarly.

I use these plastic toys for training my painters. The molds are barely aligned. The molds are so old that only the most basic features on the models can be seen. These figures have a limited range of models.

>Chortle mentioned that you can buy 50-100 plastic 'Toys' for a few dollars. Remember they make a
>profit on those. So what does that tell you?

It tells me that they manage to shift millions of units. They also rip their IP off western companies.

For the topics, as said before you want to go for ones which are massively popular, and that a single player is willing to buy multiple packs of.

Napoleonic French infantry could be a such subject (though I am not really sure how many Napoleonic players are into 28mm) – the period is popular, the French are the most popular army, and a typical army is likely to need a lot of infantry. Besides, since everyone is armed with a musket, you do not need to throw in a lot of weapon options, leaving room in the sprue for all sorts of extras (lots of different heads, plus sword/banner/drummer bits for the command).

WWII (mid/late) Germans could be another topic – it is a very popular period, and again Germans are the most common force collected (as they fought pretty much against everyone else). However, most 28mm WWII gaming is platoon level skirmishing, so a typical customer might only acquire 40 models or so. Problematic part would be that there were lots of weapons that would need to be accommodated for – rifles, SMGs, LMGs, pistols, assault rifles, panzerfausts, grenades, mines etc. not to mention other bits that would be expected by the customers (helmets, field caps, officer caps, gas mask holders, water bottles, entrenching tools, different magazine pouches etc.) – which would require a lot of sprue space and make it quite demanding for the designers.

Ancient period has a few topics with great sales potential, especially the Romans. Celts and Greeks could also be succesful.

I would be careful with medievals – the large variety of troop types, armour and armaments, and the lenght of the period, means that there is one clear subject with huge sales potential.

Griefbringer

Intersting how many comments there are along the lines of:

If 1/72 plastics were available in GW hard plastic not the soft palstic I'd do them, well me too. Why don't they switch over to this harder material?

Hi Timmo -- Valiant out of the UK (not old US company) just started up and they make two sets of WW2 1/72 in hard plastic. But they're the only ones I know that do it. I believe the problem is the mold costs.

The problem with hard plastic is that you can't sell them to kids. All the brittle sharp points, you see!

I can't believe that nice quality Romans and Celts wouldn't sell. Amazed Games Workshop never tried it.

I think you need to do 17mm figures for the Schlesswig Holstein Wars. No one does those.

And I don't want plastics.

And you had better do better quality than either Foundry or Perry.

And I don't want to pay more than 10 cents a figures.

When you are done creating a whole line and spending thousands of dollars, maybe I will buy a pack or two.

Oh! And I should point out that I have no interest whatsoever in the Schlesswig Holstein Wars, and I don't know anyone who does.

But since you seem to be bound and determined to throw thousands of dollars down the toilet, I thought I would toss in my completely worthless suggestions. I have never manufactured any figures, don't know squat about what will sell. Which makes me an ideal candidate to tell you what you should manufacture…

[I can't believe that nice quality Romans and Celts wouldn't sell.]

You might be surprised.

Seriously, take a page from Eureka's books. Offer to do the line, maybe even have a few drawings of the figures you would produce. Then offer to take orders. After you get the required number of orders to make it profitable (with the cost of plastic molds, say 100,000 figures) go into production. Make sure you get credit card information; a lot of gamers who promise to buy, won't.

I'm getting some of those Germans and Brits. And I'll get the Americans when they come out. They will fit perfectly with all of those 1/72nd scale pre-painted tanks that are on the market now. For that price, if they are the hard plastic, it's win-win. I wish I had known about this about 3 months ago. I have a bunch of 28mm WWII figs, I guess I'll be buying these now.

I for one would not buy them.

I love plastics. I just don't like Multi-part plastics. If I want units of figures who look like they have had their arms taken off and then stuck back on wrong, I will order from a reputable manufacturer of Bad Lead Figures.

And note all of you – you don't have to use Hard Plastic to make a paintable figure. It's just a lot of people assume you do, so won't touch 1/72 plastics with a bargepole. HAT's new Plastic is so soft you can use it to erase pencil marks, but it takes paint without any magic treatments, and does not peel or crack. 'A Call to Arms' use a hard plastic, but I recently binned 150 zulus, as a squad of Trained Ants with hammers and teensy nails could'nt have got paint to stick to them.

So why not just make a box with 12 poses or so in there. No Multi Part please.

Pat

Hi Sane Max – the benefit for multi-part is that one box allows you to do a lot of different "stuff" -- primarily choose pilum vs. gladius (if Roman) etc.

I see that, but the same benefit can be had by writing 'Gladius' or 'Pilum' on the figures head with a fine-tipped magic marker, and it doesn't make the figures look as bad as multi-part arms.

I have a slight dislike of the Multi-part figure, i think I should just mention that.

Pat

Max I am with you all the way on this one Please no multiparts! The odd head maybe but I find little time for painting as it is these days without creating extra work for myself!

Soft plastic does take paint extremely well and if Ceasar can confidently tool up to produce sets Mycenaean Chariots for under £5.00 GBP (I doubt this will sell millions of units) or obscure sets of infantry in 50 figure sets for the same price I don't see why others think they have to pay '$30' for 20 figures who are 5mm taller.

I'd love to see plastics, but how multi-part would they be? One of the biggest complaints against Zvezda's 28mm Ring of Rule hard plastic fantasy figures was that each figure had too many parts. How many of us would be willing to assemble 60 ten-plus part Mahdists, which is the minimum number of figures needed for TSATF, or 250 plus multipart figures for a WAB 2000pt Celt army? For skirmish games of 30 figures or less per side they would be fine, but for plastics you need to sell volume.
Thanks,
Andrew

There is and always has been a divide in the Historical Gaming population between those more devoted to the Gaming and those more devoted to the modeling! The gaming group is very much in the majority over the modelers with a small group dedicated both ways. While the concept of multi piece miniatures would be very welcome to most of the modelers, a majority of the gamers will reject your offering for a variety of reasons that make perfect sense to them due to their viewpoints about Historical Gaming in general. I suggest getting a lot more feedback before investing a lot of time and capital in this idea. I personally like the concept and could support it if the quality is high enough , but I have been around the Hobby a long time (player, retailer, manufacturing, and I doubt the numbers will add up!! If you do it,however, I hope you will prove me dead wrong!!

I don't think they need to be 10+ parts. If you had a torso and legs, a head, a shield arm and a choice of spear, rifle or sword arm that would only be four parts.

It would allow you to cast in plastic, with the undercuts necessary to allow for a quality figure and have the bonus of being able to be assembled in a number of ways.

The figures would be easier and quicker to assemble than having to glue just the spear and shield onto a like metal figure, would be lighter and easier to paint as well as difficult to chip.

I think the idea is great.

People do it all the time for 2000 pts Warhammer games, even creating entire goblin armies for them, although maybe not as often as other stuff.

But the typical empire army these days is mostly plastic and I would guess that most orc armies are entirely plastic, especially since the plastic black orcs and giant have been released.

It really is faster assembling plastic models than metal ones if you have the right glue.
Those SST troopers were a royal pain in the ass but they were badly designed with more parts than necessary.

There is no reason to have more than 4 or 5 parts. Sure you could have some extra bits that would make the odd figure here and there look cooler, some heads for the celts or what have you, but you wuoldn't have to put those on if necessary.

And the real bonus is that you would save any time that you have to spend repairing any figs that break during transport, gaming or accidental dropage because, except under dire circumstances, plastics don't break.

I got a lot of the same responses having a similiar concept that I posted back in Jan./Feb.. Starting with Imperial Romans and some generic barbarian types. I wanted to add a sprue of extra bits ( axes, maces helmet decorations, etc.) of a fantasy nature.
Trying to strike that balance between models that are historically accurate and modeler friendly and that will apeal to say 50% -75% of miniature gamers is the trick. IMHO.

>Chortle mentioned that you can buy 50-100 plastic 'Toys' for a few dollars. Remember they make a
>profit on those. So what does that tell you?

It tells me that they manage to shift millions of units. They also rip their IP off western companies.

They also rip off each other. The only ones I see any more look like copies of copies of copies….

I second everything Pictors said (which is sure easier than typing it).

Thinking about which period takes advantage of your production models is going to be important. I have thought about this for (glances at clock) more than 5 seconds, so here are my current conclusions:

1. Ancients and Medievals seem a a good fit, as they have plenty of variety in equipment for both arms and also a good range of plausible poses. However, you will have to convince players that a) the figure quality is worth the price over metals, and/or b) the flexibility is worth the price. Although people have been talking about Romans, and they are the most popular ancients type, they were also very standardized, so might not take advantage of the flexibility as much as others. For instance, a combo set of Greek hoplites could swap leg armor, torso armor, helmet types, shield types, and even spear/sword types. They fought each other, so you have an instant opponent! However, the Persians would make a good set with so much variety, as would late Macedonians, who could then also fight themselves … Same story for Vikings/Victims, although you don't need as many figures, so Vikings/Saxons/Normans might be a better fit.

2. More regimented periods might not fit the model so well. Yes, everyone that plays Napoleonics needs a lot of figures, but there are very cheap ways to do this in 25mm currently, and you don't need (or even want) a lot of variety. However … the one bane of Napoleonics players are HATS – armies (especially the popular French and Austrians) often change headgear while leaving the rest of the uniform more-or-less the same. For instance, you could design an Early French set that had options for Bicornes and Shakos (and even Tarletons, Forage Caps, and Kleber ordinance helmets for Egypt). A similar Austrian set could have options for Casque and Helmet (although you would have to include the collar with the helmet swap, and include an option for backpack type). The early Napoleonic period is actually not covered that well in any scale, so it could actually be a better choice.

3. Thirty Years War! Small numbers of large units make this a good 25mm scale period, that is not well covered. Clothing and equipment was just starting to become standardized, so the flexibility would be very welcome.

4. Err… why not do hard sci-fi? The only GW I ever bought were two boxes of Cadians and some heavy weapons for them, but options are pretty limited and the "football pads armor" look isn't my favorite. You could go crazy with helmet and equipment options, and I just know players would go crazy for it – look how they love the few optional bits in metal whenever they appear here!

5. Double err … how about multi-part mechs? I admit to a long-standing Battletech weakness, but there you have a genre where the rules actually allow and encourage you to swap parts! The cost of the current mechs is so high that you could easily be the lowest-cost and most flexible solution.

Maybe you could do some irregular troops like

-ECW highlanders

-peninsular guerilla

-sudan ansar and fuzzy wuzzy

and of course dark ages viking, saxon, pict and welsh.

best regards

pat

Just had a thought … Samurai! Perfect multi-part and multi-pose army.

Perhaps Marlburians? Both sides wore substantially the same uniform, but in different colours. A pack of 20 would make a nice-sized Battalion; one pack of cavalry, and a gun and limber would round out the range and would generate a lot of interest in that period. People would buy those at the right price (well I might).

Simon

Thanks for all the interesting discussion and food for thought! I'm taking notes.

Early Italian Wars figures would be nice, since you can never have enough of them, say from 1490 – 1530, or so.

Lots of different factions vying for supremacy in Italy, and the colorful uniforms look fantastic on the tabletop.

Definitely a winner their for the sheer pagentry and spectacle.

For the Italian Wars, ECW and TYW there is one problem – the pikes. If you want to make them of proper lenght and in hard plastic, I am afraid that they might end up needing to be quite thick to make them durable for gaming uses.

Griefbringer

Damn – good point about the pikes – and that applies to the Samurai too. I suppose it would defeat the purpose to have the users supply their own with wire.

That does for the Macedonian too – but not the Greek hoplites! I still like my Napoleonic Hat Trick too. ;)

As for the Samurai, the pike issue could be circumvented by going for a bit earlier period, when the really long pointy sticks were not in general use – however, the late period seems to be the most popular one.

Griefbringer

I think an ideal range for plastic 28mm figures would be American Civil War. Uniforms almost the same, a cvariety of head gear and voila – a box set. However, given that you can buy metal figures for US$1.00 or even less (Sash and Saber, Old Glory), the plastic figures would have to be cheap – not matter what the period -before I would buy them.

I would agree with several others here that ACW would be the best bet for reasons stated and also because available plastics are old and poor when compared to the later platics by the likes of Zvesda.

Another period that has generic uniform appearance is that of c1700.

Paul, I thought that civil war troops did have specific uniform cuts rather than a general mishmash of clothing styles. I would also echo Sane Maxs earlier posting on this thread, posable plastics means to me that aweful GW open legged semi squating, producing a monstrous turd type of stance as if riding a rhino. Perhaps my ideas on such matters are a little out of date. Just my opinion.

Well of course you can go into detail on ACW dress but I'm looking at simplicity and adadaptability re commercial viability, besides the shell jacket and kepi style is universal to all arms on both sides. Plastic components might include slouch hats, checias, forage caps, optional frock coat and sack coat bodies; open hands could hold various weapons or artillery implements…

Maybe someone already has suggested this, but what about Wild West Cowboys? A multipart set would let you put together 20 individual looking cowboys for use with rules like Gutshot. Add a horse sprue [which I'm sure could double with an American civl War set] and a set of 'riders' legs, and you can have your cowboy on foot and moutned.

And please, lots of different, interchangable heads.

Also, I only really play skirmish games so, I dont need a ton of figs, but the ones I get I want to be different tham my others, so thats why I really like multi-pose figs.

Thanks and Good Luck
Amalric

Gladiators!! I buy pretty much every line of decent looking gladiators there are. The posability factor works well for these guys. Napoleonics not so much.

Historic gamers have to be cheap. I play Warmachine. An "army" of 10-20 figures is fine. Those who play 40k do well with 20-40 figures. Historic guys can't pay those prices. My small Roman army has a little over 100 figures (not counting auxilia which hasn't been painted yet). It's a very small force. Mostly Foundry from the 8 figures for $12 USD days. My Saxons, Authurians, and Hittites are far larger forces. Could never afford to pay GW or PP prices for them.

The plastics would have to be really very special for me to pay the same price or more that I already pay.

Has there been any more word on these? They sound very interesting and I'd certainly pick up a box or two just to support the idea of multi part hard plastic.

- So would I, although I agree with all who noted that multipose wouldn't really pay off for the classical "drill" armies – essentially horse and musket period, but possibly including Romans and Macedonians.

I've also heard gamers complain about having to painstakingly assemble lots of figures for larger armies

For both reasons skirmish sets would probably be a better bet – how about a medieval set, Hundred Years' War or Wars of the Roses, to start with? One can never have enough variants of pose and equipment there, so quite a few people might buy them to add variety to existing armies.

OrangePeel --- research being conducted here:
link

Thanks for the link. I went ahead and did the survey, and paid attention to all the questions, but I would wager that most people, to be honest, would lose interest halfway through or so. At times it really did feel I was answering the same ones over and over, and the layout wasn't the best I thought.

Nonetheless, it's a good step on the way to finding out what box might actually be worth making and selling. While I for one would be all over multi-part hard plastic 28s like a Texan over a 16 ounce steak, wargamers (and those assorted weirdos like dioramists and modellers) are a strange bunch, so a more general survery will probably do you better.

That said, Samurai might do it – exotic enough to appeal to the Fantasy crowd, historical enough to appeal to the historical crowd, and you might be able to get away with doing them like GW's LOTR line. A fair number of poses, but mostly single part, with a few well defined wrist joints with a proper contact surface, and maybe you could go a step further and have separate heads.

yeah i'd like to add my two Denarrii ,

not too many fiddly parts please , the exciting thought of multi- pose figures is soon diminished by the thought of having to glue too many pieces together .
Ilike the head variants , especially being able to turn them slightly and angle shields .
Lets face it once you get beyond the first two ranks it all becomes a blur of raised weapon arms and sheilds and heads poking over the top , the body stance is usually hidden from view behind a sheild .
cheers tom

I'm with OrangePeel on the survey. I did it all but lost track of the logic about halfway through.

As far as the concept of the figures is concerned, the thought of hard pastic historical 28mm figures of the quality of those for GW's LOTR range is quite exciting. As my period is late 18th/early 19th century it is dominated by close orderdrill and massed ranks. Apart from specialists like skirmishers and artillery, the basic soldier could be a standard torso and legs with seperate arms and heads. The heads could have various headgear and faces to give variety and even different troop types. The very act of attaching heads and arms would give the variety you might get even though everyone would be trying to keep the same posture. Add in officers, NCOs casualties etc and a sprue of extra accoutrements like packs etc and you will have an attractive concept.

Actually that sounds like GW multi-part figures, but historical. There's nothing new under the sun.

My personal opinion is, if you're only offering 20 figures per box, there had better be lots of extra bits for making various troop types. For instance, if you do WW2 Germans, you will need 2 boxes for a 3 squad platoon with command. That means you need to have options such as snipers, radiomen, SMG's, 5cm mortars, PzB39 AT rifles, panzerfausts, panzerschrecks, LMG teams, flamethrowers, ect…, so you can buy maybe 3 boxes of troops and end up with various assundry weapons choices for variant squad set ups. Plastic is nice, but to make it competetive with the vast array of metal manufacturers, you have to offer better percieved value to the customer, not necessarily price. Then you also have to produce all of the support options available to the various nations you are producing, so people will be more inclined to buy, and keep buying your product line, so you can produce more unit options….

For the Italian Wars, ECW and TYW there is one problem – the pikes.

Maybe one could use brass rod or florists wire like with metal minis???

Thirty Years War, Italian Wars, and WW2. Plastic pikes aren't a problem, look at GW's plastics for spears & lances. Pikes are doable, just make 'em 3-4 inches long.

OR, God forbid, we just use wire pikes from another source…

most "Cretin-fried" answers to this will be:

1) Do my favorite period, and I will think about buying them if they are really good, but they must be cheaper, since they are plastic, unless I save on postage because they are lighter. However if they are prepainted by prison slave laborers that is good too as long as they look museum quality and it doesn't cost extra.

2) Do something really obscure- so you go broke and I get to fill out my favorite army when the figures go on sale at half price. Maybe Sumerians?

3) Don't try to make money. People will call you names if you attempt to profiteer at the expense of their hobby. (These are the same folks who feel that that there is something wrong with Communism). To each according to his multiple insatiable wants.

4)All seriousness aside, you have to gauge where the most profitable areas are. In miniature war gaming you will find that things can go in waves and are style driven. Currently the best place to make money would be to offer items that are better and cheaper than Flames of War stuff. Gnerally plastic figures in the past have been most successful when paired armies (antagonists) are released together, and there are not too many types of troops in each army. So North vs South, Romans vs. Celts, or Vikings vs. other nameless bag wallowers, are good bets because you can stick to many variations of the same thing. Going for an Alexandrian era Macedonian army would be bad because of all the diverity needed. On the otehr hand some folks merely do such good work that collectors keep them clothed and housed because their figures are such hig quality, that they aren't beholden to the gaming community at all… ie Perry's.
I'd say the best research would to buy a box of AIRFIX HO/00 figures and examine what comes in each lot- they started the formula.
JeffJ

Well, that's 20 minutes of my life I'll never get back. Just as the manufacturer will never get any of my money having revealed that the AWI range was a "Trojan Horse" thus removing most of whatever interest I might have had.

I see that "the project is closed" – when may we expect to hear about results?

Hi Musketier -- yes, survey wrapped up today. I should have full results in about a week (after analysis and breaking them down into the various sub-groups) -- I'll post some interesting "tidbits" then. I'll also be informing winners by early next week.

Supercilius -- yes, I did include AWI as a separate element in the survey to test it -- and test the validity of other results as I intuitively knew that AWI wasn't going to pull very well. Initial results confirm that suspicion. That said, never say never. ;-)

Faust23: "Plastic pikes aren't a problem, look at GW's plastics for spears & lances. Pikes are doable, just make 'em 3-4 inches long."

I have seen a number of GW plastic spears and lances and come to one conclusion: to be durable they need to be decently thick, and this would especially apply to a pike made out of the same material. Whether the thick shafts is a problem or not can be debated – with the heroic style of GW figures it probably is not, but if you are aiming for more realistic proportions then having the models carrying thick poles might be an issue.

While experienced modellers would not have troubles with gluing in (or even purchasing them separately from a third party) metal pikes, I am not that convinced it would endear the kit to beginners or those looking for ease of assembly – plus if the metal pikes would be included in the kit, then there would be a slight increase in production and packacing costs.

Now, if it would be possible to manufacture the hands closed but with a hole through them, then the assembly might be a bit easier (compared to the classic open hand approach) plus good looking, but that might not be practical with the regular moulding techniques. Requiring the modeller to drill the holes through the hands would again be a bit on the demanding side for those looking for ease of assembly.

I am aware that a good number of TMP regulars are totally used to such assembly tricks – but as plastic kits, these would need to look for as large audience as possible, and for that they should be buildable straight out of the box with minimal equipment (tube of polystyrene glue and a modelling knife).

Griefbringer

Regarding GW plastics and Pikes:

GW LotR Uruk-Hai with pikes are all plastic. I have about 50 and maybe 5 have broken off using them for gaming* and demos. They glue back together just fine at the break point (always the same spot on the pike, with a little round tube on one end and bulb on the other so it fits back together just fine) quickly with a bit of plastic glue or super glue. These shafts are NOT thick.

*yes, someone on TMP has actually played GW's LotR game. More than a couple of times I might add. Plus I created a mass battles version and playtested with them quite a bit. Those Uruk-Hai have been used and abused quite a bit.

Never had any problem with GW plastic polearms either, whether thicker or thinner. Polystyrene pikes should do very well for "those looking for ease of assembly". And more experienced modellers would find it quicker to drill through plastic hands than through metal if they wish to replace the weapons with wire or brass versions.

Accidents will happen under gaming, but I've always found hard plastic figures much easier to repair than metal ones. By the same token, they're a converter's dream.

In today's world, I don't think the price is too high. But I would think the wargamming period you select would be critical. Napoleonics, Civil War, WW2, or possibly Medievals would have a much more universal appeal than ancients. With the right packaging, this is the type of product that could make it in the general toy store market. Hard plastics are much easier to assemble than is metal, because the plastic is "fused" together with the glue. I also think the pieces could be limited to separate heads and one or both arms, depending on the pose. I would really like to see this happen, good luck!