"Plastic 25mm - thoughts?" Topic

I'm considering investing in plastic figures, either Napoleonics or English Civil War. I'm going with plastic lines b/c I plan to ship them to Sri Lanka to get them painted, as I don't have time to paint them myself.

The Warlord ECW line looks excellent, is well priced and nearly complete with all basics. As next year's Historicon theme is Pike and Shot, it's my #1 choice right now.

However, I was considering the Napoleonics also, since Victrix and Perry Bros seem to be making them, but the lines look pretty limited just now. I'd at least like to have plastic infantry and cavalry, I'd be willing to get some metal artillery, characters, skirmishers etc if I had to.

Anyone else working on this and have thoughts?
Thanks!

I forgot to mention that plastic renaissance would also be welcome, but I don't know of any companies that do this.

It depends what you call Renaissance. The Perry Wars of the Roses plastics are comiong at some point this year and should be suitable for many early armies such as the Swiss and Burgundians.

Also, any thoughts on shipping figures for painting, including asian companies like Fernando, would be welcome.

While I'd love to do it all myself, it's just not possible. So a project where I get them done for me is the only way just now.

Thanks!

Would painting companies be put off by the need to assemble the minis?

I received some of the plastic Perry Riflemen free in my grab bag at Historicon. After purchasing the 2 packs of Perry's metal 95th Rifles, I must admit disappointment that they do not match in size. I thought the whole idea of the plastics was to match up with the metals for more variety. The plastic French set that I have are reasonably close to my Front Rank figures, so no problem there. What happened to the British plastics???

when I used a painting company before, I assembled the minis as they didn't want any part of that except small-scale assembling, such as attaching shields and weapons to figures, for which there was a small additional charge.

the perry plastics are bigger or smaller than the metal figs?

If you want to have a cheap ready painted army plastics aren't the way to go. You save on postage but assembly is time consuming and demands attention.

I have a painting service and I'm going to buy 6-12 boxes each of Perry & Victrix naps as an experiment, but this is just for myself. I don't think it is a commercial business. My interest is to try the figures and because I quite like the look of them (also to gain some spare bits for conversions).

With to-be-assembled plastics there is quite a potential for fuss; someone wants the minis assembled in such a way, with such and such gear, they want x figures in one pose and y in another. I'm sure there would be quite a lot of chopping and changing, with the need for extra photos to go back for approval. Would people understand if some paint flaked off due to flexing of the model or would they be demanding a refund? It could be a lot more work than for assembled metals or assembled plastics. Also I think people would generally expect the work to be cheaper even though it would be considerable more expensive for the painting service.

For ready painted armies look to the current crop of ready painted metals. I have 28mm ACW available and will have ready painted Napoleonics in 3 months.

Neil
reinforcementsbypost.com

The plastic Napoleonics are limited to French and British.

Ok if you're interested in the Peninsula or Waterloo, but what about the rest of the war?

My understanding is that the consensus is that it's not likely these companies will do Austrian/Prussian/Russian in plastic, not to mention smaller states (Bavarian, etc.)

HAT claims to be working to release Wurttembergers and Prussians in plastic over the next several months. These figures, requiring only backpacks to be affixed, would also be much more suitable for shipping to overseas painting services.

If you didn't wish to wait, they already have French light infantry available.

The plastic Perry's are great. They paint up fast and the faces are sculpted with a lot of character. It would be fairly easy to put together a Warhammer-sized 28mm army with them, and not too expensive. I've been debating putting one together, but the problem is that I'd end up having to paint two armies because no one plays Warhammer Napoleonics. Also I'd probably end up having to do a British army since that's the only other plastic set, and I've just never found them to be particuarly interesting. They would probably look pretty cool though, and the price is right…
{sigh}

"My understanding is that the consensus is that it's not likely these companies will do Austrian/Prussian/Russian in plastic, not to mention smaller states (Bavarian, etc.)"

True enough, unless things really take off it could be a case that only Brtiain and France get covered in any detail. But that didn't stop us thirty years ago when the same arguements could be levelled at Airfix plastics.

Personally I have already done a Spanish Junta Battalion, and am working on a Westphalian Regiment out of the Victrix French. Now I'm sure the button counters out there will feel my efforts come up short on accuracy, but for me they are close enough, and it means I can get more variety out of the box than just French line…

Hi
I know Dragon Painting Service in HONG KONG are selling painted (and obviously assembled) Perry and VICTRIX Napoleonics. I suspect they would do the same for a customer if they were sent a box and instructed "Please paint and assemble".
The down side in regards to the VICTRIX is you would loose out on the "modelling" aspect. But if that's not an issue,…
The Perry's don't lend themeslves so much to the modellers "creative" side, IMHO.
BTW, I find the Perry's and VICTIX to be very compatable, and hard to split on the call as to "which is best".
I have both types, and think they are both EXCELLENT!
I also agree 100% with DEAN AKI's comments. I'll be grinding out Italians and Balkan,(and now maybe SPANISH)Troops from my Plastic French.
Cheers

vitrix have said that they DO plan to do austrians in the future.

I predict we will see other nations in the next year or so.

I've got two boxes of Vitrix Brits. One of Peninsula and one of Waterloo Centre companies. I've been painting miniatures for over 30 years. These figures are a little "different".
Does anyone have any pearls o wisdom to putting these guys together? It takes 15-20 minutes to clip them out, piece them and glue them together. I've gotta' be doing something wrong. My GW figs just didn't take as long. There's lots of little fiddly bits as well.

Any comments other than "hey…you're a Dummy and you should be able to whip these guys together in no time"?

I'm putting them back into the box. Too much effort for the finished result right now… I'll go back and paint up a couple of regiments of Russian Hussars in the meantime. :)

Thanks for all comments…

Steve Miller
DFWIrregulars

I bought a box each of the Perry French Plastics and Victrix Brit Plastics…built and painted the French Perry's…gave the Victrix box away…I thought the Vics were too fiddly and too delicate, especially the bayonets….when you consider the investment in painting time and using the figs over a period of many years, i think plastics are highly overrated…I quickly went back to metal figs (mostly Front Rank) after fooling with them…

I'd have to say the Perry Plastics are great. They are not a modellers dream as they do come in the poses they are given, but head swaps and paint jobs make them worthwhile. i am a professional painter and have been for 10 years. I have experience painting everything as you can imagine but the Perry figures paint up very well. they area little smaller than their metal counter parts but it is hardly noticeable. The Perry's models are better sculpts than Victrix which in my opinion are a modellers nightmare and dream rolled into one!! Too many parts to these figures. The fact is wargamers are never happy. I have an entire army of the Perry's own miniatures from both their own range and foundry for the AWI. There are over 2000 painted figures which has hurt my far from considerable bank balance over the years. plastic figures are only there for cost reasons. they are not better than metal figures as they take time to prepare, more so than a good metal casting IMHO. However, GW with their cartoonier appearance seem to work well in plastic so it is horses for courses. I will have to say…not so much in this post but through a lot TMP threads… there have been a few comments about Perry figures not being that good. I find this hard to believe. i scupt as well as paint and I can honestly say there are no better figures available in 28mm…period. I saw a post on here a few weeks ago with some chap claiming her preferred Dixon and Essex 28mm to the Perry's efforts. I know everyone can have an opinion but he was either blind, stupid or both…we are very lucky to have these plastic figures and we nned to weigh up whether we want the easy to assemble, high priced metal figures or the ludicrously cheap but more difficult to assemble and time absorbing plastics. Make your choice as both are valid.

I agree on the choice but I'm not concerned about the cost any more and I'm quite happy with my collections thank you very much! I'm way too old to worry about it. A hobby IS expensive. Don't believe me? Hop on my sailboat. Now there's a monetary black hole! :) But I digress.

I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one bee-atch-ing about the Victrix figs. I've decided to put them up for sale and just not deal with the put together garbage. I'll sell each box for $20.00 USD USD. Take a look on the marketplace pages if interested. Thanks all for not kicking me in the shins on this one! :)

Steve Miller
DFWIrregulars

Ive done a lot of the plastics, and Perry are nice but lack a little of the character of the Victrixs. Im a modeller painter and enjoy working on them. I agree they can be a little fragile in the post but thats just packing… they bounce well in other circumstances. I would be happy to take on commission work for the plastics. £5.00 GBP A FIGURE, I work on at least a box in 2 weeks from sprue to based. Send me the figures. If interested let me know. gary@peachfs.co.uk. I can email you pics of works. I have listed lately on ebay as GaryPeach.

Its a modelling thing not a game…

I've just started building a french 28mm army and have been using both the Perry and Victrix plastics – here is my somewhat informed summary:

Perry:
+Very good sculpting, with the detail features both easy to see and paint
+Very quick and clear assembly time, I especially like how the arms and musket for firing poses are one piece
+36 of the 42 figures have roughly the same marching pose (minor variations) which I find aids "assembly line painting" (speed)
+Pointy parts are relatively strong (bayonets, swords, flag poles) which means a more durable table-top piece
+Cost per figure is $0.67 USD (source the WarStore) vs $2.58 USD from Foundry

-I'm not a fan of the mixing of infantry with and without great coats – 15 of the infantry sport a great coat and 15 don't. This isn't a problem if your just starting out and buying multiple boxes but if you only buy one box you'll have an odd mix of with and without winter gear.

Victrix:
+Lots of variability in poses (all figures need to be assembled and consists of a body, two arms, a head and backpack).
+Very good detail (a little more "realistic" than Perry)
+Cost per figure is $0.58 USD (source the WarStore) vs $2.58 USD from Foundry

-Very long assembly time
-Pointy parts (bayonets, etc) are very thin and delicate – they will need some minor repairs from table top mishaps.
-Can be a bit awkward to mount on six figure company stands (this may be more due to how I chose to assemble the figures)

Bottom Line:
I plan on using both. I will use Perry for may basic line infantry battalions and I'll use the Victrix for my "elite" light battalions that fight in open order based on the rules my club uses. If I had to pick only one, I'd go with Perry, but that's more because I'm just starting out and want to field a force fairly quickly so painting speed is important.

here's a link to my blog:

link

Thanks to all that responded. I'm sticking with metal guys and not dealing with the BS of putting them together. I can paint a cavalry REGIMENT in the same time it takes to "richard around" putting these guys together. Anyone in the US interested in picking up two boxes cheap, please drop me a line off TMP
Thanks!
Steve Miller
DFWIrregulars
pilum40@sbcglobal.net

Blog Link: stevesfieldworks.blogspot.com