"Are 28mm plastic figures too expensive?" Topic

OK – here goes the argument. The main production cost of a figure of any scale or medium is the sculpting and mouldmaking cost. As plastic figures tend to be sculpted overscale and pantagraphed down, it does not cost more to design a 28mm figure than a 20mm figure. 20mm manufacturers manage many poses per box, whereas 28mm have less (which should surely keep costs down). The actual physical cost of the plastic used in a figure (as opposed to metal)is buttons. So why can't 28mm manufactures provide 50 figures in a box for a fiver, like Hat? What really got me thinking was the other thread about Nappies in plastic. Why not do a box of 50 (identical) marching line infantry figures, for each of the major protagonists. Wargamers could source command figures in metal, as well as mixing in a few metal figures for variety if they wish. I would still like to see a small amount of assembly (eg gluing an arm an musket on) to avoid undercut problems often associated with plastic figures. I think that the new entrants into the market have missed a trick here – just go for the troop types you need masses of, forgetting the command, and then cheap.. cheap… cheap…

I guess because people will buy them for the higher price. If the customer pays the price, it will stay high. Most manufacturers are in it to make money after all.

The plastic in 1/72 (20mm)figures is the soft, bendy kind. In 28mm, you get the harder, more expensive kind.

But Beowulf – is it more expensive, or is this just modern myth? In any case, if the cost per figure of soft plastic was just 1p, would it matter if hard plastic was double in cost. I dont think the cost of the material is a significant part, but will stand correction from someone who knows injection moulding.

some other factors;

All the poses in the new 28mm are usable.

going very cheap would totally destabilise the 28mm metals market – which the Perry's are still in.

28mm hard plastic is a superior product. No flash, good undercutting with plenty of detail, paint sticks to them.

You can ask what the market will pay. in this case £12.00 GBP for 36 Perry ACW is acceptable. I would not pay £12.00 GBP for three times that many poly figures. It is only now that lead is shooting up in price that the hard plastic is becomming economically vialble and even then, only in major periods and then only is specific lines – interesting to see that in the Perry's case, artillery will not be done in plastic.

remember that thise people has to make a living of it, we arn't talking about GW here, these are for the most part smaller buissnes.

I'm new to the whole wargaming thing, but people have to make money, they arn't doing it just for us, but they have to feed them self and there family ect.

making a figure for £2.00 GBP and selling them for £5.00 GBP dosn't give much room to make money, I have no figures on how many each company sells but I'm guessing alot of figs has be sold to even get enough money to buy you food

Short answer, no plastics are not too expensive.

On hard versus soft plastic, the difference in cost of *plastic* isn't that significant, but the difference in cost of *mould* is – soft plastics typically use an aluminium mould which isn't too cripplingly expensive to commission. Hard plastics run at a higher temperature and pressure, and need a stainless steel mould, which is substantially harder and more expensive to machine. For a hard plastic set, masters aren't likely to be the most expensive element, even if you have a dozen or more poses rather than just one – the mould and initial production run will be the biggie.

Dom.

I believe they cost more to develop in that molds are made of steel and cost more to create. If you search TMP you'll find a few thread on the process.

For me, a 28mm Celt is, provided it´s a well sculpted figure, a 28mm Celt. Whether it´s made of plastic, tin or synthetic whalebone makes no difference to me.

Paying 50 Eurocents for a plastic one instead of 1,50 to 3 Euros for a metal one does make a difference however.

The possibility that this could still be too expensive had not occurred to me yet, to be honest. In relative terms, they are cheap.

Yes, they are too expensive. GW especially has a special level in hell waiting for them (oops, just broke the "no talking about religion" rule).

Dom and PapaSync. I recall that Esci (or fugimi?) used to make hard plastic figure sets which retailed for the same price as one of their 1/72 kits. I dont think that increased tooling costs can be the answer. All Im saying is I think there would be a market for well executed plastic figures, allbeit in limited range of poses, which were cheap to buy. 20 Napoleonic battalions per side at 1/20 figure ratio would be attainable. There would be room to make money based on increased volume. Design costs would be a lot less, as im only postulating one pose per box.

You can only answer the question if you add on, "compared to what?" Compared to metal figs, compared to other 28mm figs within the range/era you want (are there ANY other 28mm figs out there in ACW or Napoleonics?)

At this point, I'll bet that most of us are comparing the cost of 28mm plastic figs to the cost of 28mm metal. In which case they're not too expensive at all.

Well – on average a single steel mould for a single sprue frame will cost about £25,000 ($50,000) to produce. So a box with two separate frames will be in the region of £50,000. That is one heck of an outlay when, in comparison, a single sixteen figure production mould for metals would be in the region of £40.00 GBP to £45.00 GBP
Unless you are a large toy manufacturer then this initial startup cost is going to have a huge impact on your prices. The mould production costs are so high that paying your sculptor is ,relatively , the tip of the iceberg. Oh … and then there is the cost of artwork and box printing (still relatively cheap but staggering if you are the sort of outfit where the directors still answer customers emails). Production costs are tiny but only if you commit to some pretty serious numbers upfront.

It's not a charity aimed at giving gamers the cheapest armies possible. Decent minis for a lot less than the metal equivalents- what's the problem?

I regard the assembling, painting and basing of my miniatures as quite an investment of my time, which is usually worth more to me than the price of the mini I'm working on. By this logic I don't mind paying a little more for a better miniature as it means that I'm not wasting my time on something that no matter how good a job I do on it I'll never be 100% happy with the end result.

Neukray. I'll stick my neck out and say that, whilst I accept tooling for plastic figures is not cheap, I do not think that it is as expensive as you say. I am basing this on the fact that there have been people doing relatively low production runs in hard plastic. I'm thinking, maybe JB models. Also I am postulating only one pose of each remember,and only one sprue per box. In fact, you could put the sprues for several different boxes on one tool, and merely supply more sprues per box. so instead of having, say 18 figures of one type on a sprue, you could have 18 figures to a sprue, with 6 Brit, 6 Austrian and 6 prussian line infantry , separate them, and then put say 8 x 6 in a box of forty eight figures, so 8 mould fills would produce a box of line infantry for each of these protaganists. This would bring costs down. All I'm saying is I think there is a different business model to that persued by the 3 main players so far. How much do the Valient WW11 cost? They are hard plastic.

I'm not suggesting anyone should operate as a charity here. Nor am I saying that we should accept second rate sculpts. All I'm saying is that by being a bit more savvy, the manufacturers could bring their unit cost down, to the benefit of both themselves and the consumer

I am basing this on the fact that there have been people doing relatively low production runs in hard plastic. I'm thinking, maybe JB models.

The same JB models that started in 1984, and was wrapped up in 2004 having produced 12 kits, with a primary reason being that the owner was no longer willing to invest his savings in tooling the next model? Not the most dazzling example of a viable business model; he did a fantastic little range and worked bloody hard over 20 years to get any kind of return on it….

Dom.

Because the product the original poster is advocating wouldn't sell very well. People don't want 50 identical figures, so the unit looks like a bunch of automatons. People want a varied group of different poses, so a unit looks like a bunch of human beings.

I don't understand why so many gamers are always posting on here, whining about how they want cheaper figures. Compared to the time involved in preparation, painting, and basing, the cost of the figure is actually only a small fraction of the real "cost" of this hobby. So I always buy exactly the figures I want, regardless of price, and that means I would never buy a cheapo pack of 50 identical figures when I could spend a few more bucks (or even a lot more bucks) and get a variety of poses.

Also, from the figure maker's side, I think the sculpting costs for doing 10 poses instead of just one are relatively low compared to the cost of the pantographer, steel dies etc. Those costs will be the same regardless of whether the mould is making a sprue with one pose on it or 10. So from their perspective, its far better to spend a little bit more money on sculpting, and thus have a much better product that commands a better price. (Why bother selling a cheap box for 5 quid, when you can do it for 12, and the production costs are virtually identical?)

If you are having a genuine budget problem, then I sympathize. But if you are like most of us, you've probably got a pile of lead or plastic waiting to be painted. Instead of asking for a cheaper product, paint up the stuff you've got, and save some money in the meantime to buy more stuff later.

>>Compared to the time involved in preparation, painting, and basing, the cost of the figure is actually only a small fraction of the real "cost" of this hobby.

Dam' right! Anyone who hasn't got skiploads of expensive metal figures more than he has time to paint isn't a real wargamer. Why worry about buying figures cheaper when they are already cheaper to buy than to get ready for use?

I wonder how many people contributing their expertie on plastics mnyfacturing have ever been involved in manufacturing.
Everybody blithely throws aroud the cost of milling a mold, when all we really have is a guess in the $50,000 range. I am not prepared t dispute this, for either Wargames Factory or the Perrys. Maybe it is, but it is also none of my damn business.

What about the cost of the injection molding machine itself? Comparing "short run" imjection molding is apples and oranges. Short run is NOT a mass production method.

To make back your investment, you have to mass market them, which adds added expense. Such as advertising,m color print run boxes (which is not cheap either), and so on and so on. To make your investment back, you have to invest in expensive marketing methods.

because Hat are in competition with revell/airfix/italeri who long ago paid for their tooling costs

John the OFM,

I talked about plastics costs in the thread linked here:

TMP link

Just scroll down for my post about plastics costs. Its not terribly detailed, but the cost of plastics comes up a lot and there are a lot of misconceptions and misleading information posted, mainly due to most people not having experience/knowledge with plastics.

Personally I think that a brand new Ferrari should cost no more than a night at a Best Western and breakfast at McDonalds.

I've not done any research into whether this can be done, but Mr Jackson's bold opinion as stated here leads me to think that Ferrari should be, as he puts it, "a bit more savvy".

OK…

First, Plastics are no longer pantographed for the vast majority of plastics manufacturers.

They are done digitally.

Second,

With those same digital tools come programs for best deciding how to cut the molds, which can cut down on a lot of secondary problems for the production of the figures (static poses, and unnoticed undercuts that have to be machined out).

Third,

The digital production also includes digital milling/machining of the molds, which may now be done in a lot more than just your typical two piece mold (although, I am not aware of any of the current gaming miniatures being able to employ this process – yet…)

The cost of cutting a mold now can be as low as $5000, and this will continue to drop (see all of my threads on technology causing a disruption to the business plan of the miniatures industry) as different technologies for the prototyping and instantiation industries develop further.

Regarding putting 50 figures in a box like Hatt… People could if they wanted to do soft plastics…

But, know what? The molds and process for doing soft plastics is about as inexpensive as many metal casting processes… not to mention the obvious:

Most people will not buy soft plastics. If they would, then companies like Hatt would be seeing events like Historicon with hundreds of people having 20mm soft-plastic armies, and entire events with those hundreds of people in them (currently, they have a couple of events with maybe 10 or 20 people using soft-plastics)…

Now, about the Ferrari v Best Western/McDonalnds…

Let me do a comparison of the cost of making a Ferrari and a Dodge.

Both are made with relatively similar components. The processes used as negligibly different in cost if you were to take into account the scale of production used for the Dodge.

So, pound for pound, the Ferrari is only negligibly more expensive than the Ferrari.

However, the Ferrari is built and designed by people who command high prices for their work, and size they do not have the quantity of scale that Dodge does, their machining of components to a high tolerance where Dodge would be using cast materials with a machined insert tends to drive the price up.

So, you get a few people, who command salaries up to 1000X that of the people who are building the Dodge, and production methods that are 10x to 100x more expensive, not to mention building less than 1% the total number of finished products..

And, you get a car that is outrageously expensive.

It is the difference between commissioning Tom Meier or Real Musgrave to do a small number of bronze cast pieces and having GW do several million pieces that everyone and their dog will have.

Plastics are eventually going to be fully replace white-metal for miniatures due to increased technological capabilities.

Full multi-part molds that do away with having to worry overly much about undercuts, secondary instantiation technologies that build up accessories or parts for the finished mini, and many, may digital technologies that are in use already by larger companies will all soon be available to the little guy; eventually making it into the private home, and the destruction of the miniatures industry that we have today (This does not mean that it will not be around in some form – just not as it exists today).

Wow, and I thought the new plastics were generally too cheaply priced!

Plastics are eventually going to be fully replace white-metal for miniatures due to increased technological capabilities.

Indeed!
I am looking forward to 1881 Bashi Bazouk cavalry, Marines in Nicaragua in 1935, and Sam Adams Sniper at Lexington, all in the new fad range, 32mm.
Coming soon to a gamestor near you.

AND, they will come with nano-photo-cones which will assume the proper coloring via UV tomographic scanning technology. Just don't leave them out in the sun during sunspot activity.

"I am looking forward to 1881 Bashi Bazouk cavalry…"

Already available, Try to keep up. Not self-coloring, though.

Allen

32mm in plastic?

Not yet.

Judas wrote "just your typical two piece mold (although, I am not aware of any of the current gaming miniatures being able to employ this process – yet…)"

I have seen a photo in a white dwarf of a plastic mould, perhaps the big tank they make?, with what they call sliding core technology where barrels are made with the hollows in them.

[Compared to the time involved in preparation, painting, and basing, the cost of the figure is actually only a small fraction of the real "cost" of this hobby.]

I agree 100%. Given I am going to spend either a couple of hours per foot fig or, more likely, $US3.50 plus postage sending them to Sri Lanka, the cost of the figs is way, way less important than whether I like it.

Different firms' pricing policies are none of my business except where it comes to the point I decide; am I going to buy these or not?

Most people will not buy soft plastics. If they would, then companies like Hatt would be seeing events like Historicon with hundreds of people having 20mm soft-plastic armies

They are selling lots and lots, so someone is buying them.

You don't see them at Historicon, etc, because there is a patronizing attitude towards plastics by "gamers" who feel metal figures, a lot of which is pumpkin headed crap, somehow make them superior.
--
Tim

I don't think anyone has yet mentioned time.

A 20mm figure is a lot smaller than a 28mm figure and is usually cast in one piece. Here, we are talking about multipart figures, each part of which takes as much space (and time ) to produce as a single 20mm figure. On that basis, a 28mm figure should cost about 5 times as much as the 20mm figure anyway!

I've spent the last few years majoring on GW's Lord of the Rings range. Expensive, but they had the sole rights to the movie images, so I was prepared to pay (or get the family to pay at birthdays and Christmas). Now that I've nearly stopped buying LotR stuff, I started looking for the Next Thing, and at the right time the Perry plastics came along.

Six Riders of Rohan on two horse positions? £12.00 GBP Twelve ACW cavalry, multipose, on eight different mix 'n' match horse halves? £12.00 GBP I'm hooked.

No, no way, nyet, nein, nuh

Cost is almost immaterial to me as long as a battalion of British Napoleonics figures come in at under £35.00 GBP I am willing to pay. I prefer metal figures simply because I like the weighty feel in the hand, and as mentioned before, what's the point of buying 100's of cheap miniatures if you don't like the poses and you haven't got time to paint them (metal or plastic)?

That said, the Perry plastic miniatures are very nicely sculpted and are seem to be very reasonably priced for what you are getting.

At the end of the day it is , as always, horses for courses!

Pete

the investment for a steel mould is definatley higher than for a silicone one, so in that case the Perrys have to cough up a lot of cash and then have to hope that the range sells well to make a win, so the risk for them to invest in hard plastic figures is higher than to do the usual process for metal figures.

I don't know how the Perrys reduce their Greens for that range, but that they have to do, they are three times bigger than the actual cast, another cost factor.

I am simply shocked by the discussion about how cheap figures should be, producers like the Perrys who do high quality output must be mad to serve the cheap trick historical market, they could do much better doing fantasy, where people are prepared to cough up a lot of money – may the figures be overprized or not, the LothR range by the Perrys are the best 28 mm figures avaialable and one has to be prepared to pay for quality.

I like the concept of the Perrys, to produce a full "Battalion" in one box, this is visionary. It could technically be done for all ranges, like French infantry 1792, French infantry 1806, French infantry 1809 – 1813, and also for any other nations.

Additional to that then other manufacturers and or the Perrys as well could issue production runs for figures which are not needed in high numbers, like staff.

I would love to see such "Battalion" boxes for a lot of other historical periods as well and the price the Perrys are asking for their high quality product (much much better than HäT) is more than reasonable.

They want to sell through "regular" channels – Toys R Us, etc. Therefore they have to supply complete box sets, as "regular" folk know nothing about the wargaming ranges out there.

The main problem with "battalion in a box" is of course the question of whether their "battalion" matches YOUR "battalion" in the rules you are using. In figure to man ratio, mainly.
If you are going to use the rules that will probably be included in the box, fine.
Otherwise, you will have to buy separate command packs.

If you are buying to get cheaper Perry figures, that is no problem.

"Too expensive" is a totally relative term anyway. If I am building an army with an Old Glory Army card, they are probably too expensive.

If the plan is to sell at Toys R Us, that will be great, since after 6 months, you can pick up whole divisions at half price when they do not sell.
I can say that because I haunt the local TRU stores for 21st Century 1/144 WW2 fighters, and can tell you for a fact that TRU knows beans about stocking. TRU will stock what their buyer puts on the comoputerized list. I can see one store stocking 24 boxes of French infantry, another 10 miles up the road having 36 boxes of British artillery, the one an hour away has British Hussars… Why do I say this? The Wilkes Barre and Pittston WalMart each have 18 boxes of the famous Spitfire (with American markings) versus Me-262 "Dogfight" pair. The Scranton TRU has 18 boxes of the Dauntless/Zero matchup. Nothing else.
Toys R Us only accidentally caters to wargamers. We are by far NOT their customer base, and only then when we are parents.

If Toys R Us or WalMart are the goal for the Perrys, then they are doomed. "Regular" hobby shops are a much more realistic goal. My local model RR shop actually has a nice turnover of 1/72 kits, so maybe that will work.

I think a better question is why Perry Miniatures, a small outfit, can produce high quality hard-plastic multi-part sets for $.66 USD each (or so) and GW sells gads of them for $2 USD or more each (and I've seen many posters say that is cheap).

For me, they seem a bit too expensive. But then, I like 1/72 soft plastic figures, so I must be wired wrong to be a "real" wargamer.

I would have liked them to be priced at pocket money level so that children could access them (rather than parents (me!) have to pay for them). They are not directly comparable to the LoTR range because the Evil Empire has to price to support a large infrastructure, compared to the Perry's mortgages. So I personally think they missed a trick. As a 40 something, i know it was the availability of cheap toy soldiers that got me into the hobby, and so it is sad that such an entry level is not being promoted by the new wave of plastics. After all, the profit would be in the fact that most boxes bought by kids would not be fully utilised, and metal add-ons would be premium priced.

But then again, all you "real" wargamers seem happy to pay top dollar for hard plastic – that holy grail of plastic gaming – so they must be priced right surely?

As to poses – I quite like my new Minden Miniatures – and they are all the same, and cost £1.00 GBP each.

Personally, I dont mind having units where all the figures are in one pose. Actually I prefer this situation to the effect one sometimes sees where units are made up of one guy firing, three charging and two picking their bum because those are the figures available. In fact for horse and musket I like units of matching figures. Variety in units only works when there are a number of poses which are all very similar. As I've said before on this thread I still want top notch sculpting. Having reflected on some of the other posts, I still think that the way to reduce up front costs is to have several different figures on the same tool, and then separate them out into different boxes. Just forget the command figures, and other types wargamers dont want may of. One mould could then be used to immediately get several different boxes of figures into the shops. I suppose at the end of the day I dont see the point in forking out 35p for a plastic figure when I can have a metal one for a quid, but if the price differential were higher it might alter my opinion.

>I suppose at the end of the day I dont see the point in forking out 35p for a plastic figure when I can have a metal one for a quid

Because you can have three plastics for the price of one metal. Or you can have a three-times bigger army for the same money.

How cheap do plastics have to get before it makes a difference for you?!?!

w.

You go to a GW shop and you will see many kids spending money, and they get top quality for the money they are spending.

Now the Perrys are producing historical figures for a very actractive price which may induce kids also to buy some historical figures instead of fantasy – the same for the battalion box, ask a kid about the formation of a French battalion – and you will see the question mark on his face, so the idea of the Perrys is visional, inspirational and a great opportunity for historical wargaming – the only obstacle seemed to be the historical wargamer themselves.

I think Mr Jackson has already told us that if plastic figures were a hundred for the price of an uce cream cone, he might think about buying a box or two. I imagine that manufacturers will be revising their business plans to deal with this unexpected sales opportunity.

>>How cheap do plastics have to get before it makes a difference for you?!?!

I wouldn't care if they were free, because I don't want to play 28mm I want to play 15mm.

Price is simply not the important factor for most wargamers in their buying decisions. Otherwise we would all play 2mm.

This is one of those TMP threads were lots of people who know zilch about the subject under discussion all have very strong opinions about it!

My ignorant input: I suspect market expectation has something to do with the price. Valiant's 1/72 WW2 plastics are priced in the same ball park as soft plastic 1/72 figures. Up till now 28mm plastics has meant Games Workshop so I assume people like Perry, Warlord etc. are pricing their products according to what the 28mm plastic market has been doing, i.e. about 50% of the price of metal figures.

Even if the plastic 28s were free, I stil wouldn't make time to paint them, if I didn't like the sculpt quality/style.

On the other hand, if they were really well sculpted, they might make it to the head of the paint queue, and be worth up to a quid to me.

Simon

I must agree with Big Red Bat!!! I do not care what the figs are cast in ???? I want a good fig!! I purchased some of the plastics and was simply not impressed. For example -the musket was not much more then a stick with a bayonet on it. So far from what I have seen this is a big hulabalo about nothing.