"Does Hard Plastic or Metal give better detail?" Topic

That is a bigger problem than you know. Your Spanish grenadiers are usually funded by the sales of bread and butter lines like French line; without those, you may find your Spanish grenadiers no longer available, or only at a much higher price than they are now…

Then again, most of the current plastic manufacturers are also cranking out metal models. For example Victrix produces not only plastic French line infantry, but also metal Portuguese grenadiers {£11 for a pack of 8 figures).

As for the original question, both metal and plastic can achieve very good detail in skilled hands. Most manufacturers might not be quite reaching those limits, but I am not entirely sure if most of the gamers would really desire that fine level of detail – for tabletop usage, a simpler model with moderate levels of detail might be perfectly desirable.

You are right Griefbringer --however there could be a day when many of the other companies who only produce metal and must make a profit on the major troop types may not be around for that very reason and the consumer would only have the choice of purchasing the metal figs from the plastic manufactuers??? -- Without the healthy competition that are market has enjoyed for years then who know where the price will go? It may take a while and it may not effect older gamers --but ---I guarantee you this --the plastics have already had an effect on the 28mm market.
Regards
Russ Dunaway

There also may come the day that a company develops a process to make high quality 28mm hard plastic figures that allows them to compete directly with metal – even the most obscure packs…so that you can build out an entire army in hard plastic from the camp followers right up to the individual character figures for the generals. ;-)

All the best,
Tony

Tony Reidy
Defiance Games
defiancegames.com

Tony, are you thinking of Games Workshop there?

You mean that company that made the switch from metal to resin – raising prices in the process? Umm…no. Not at all.

I'm talking about a "hypothetical" company that can release plastic Boers and Napoleonic camp followers at less-than-metal prices – and make a profit doing it.

;-)

Even if the tooling costs came down to rival metal casting there is the expense of sculpting. If one sells a hundred or several hundred packs the costs are recovered at different rates. Therefore getting to profitability for a pack takes varying amounts of time.

If a manufacturer makes a range of Bongolesian troops, then the bread and butter packs are the main troopers, not the specialty packs. Bongolesiian Legion Sappeurs might sell 100 packs over a year or so but the troopers sell hundreds. Take away those hundreds of trooper packs because they are made in plastic and then most manufacturers would eventually have to distribute costs differently as the bread and butter packs are gone or not going to sell like they should.

There might be equipment in the next decade that can get plastic design and molding to a price point that the small mfr can use them without spending many 10's of thousands on molds. It will still require someone to learn digital sculpting or paying a digital sculptor to create the master product.

There will no doubt be advances in this technology as the years go by. However these advances and the incursion of plastics into the industry will continue to drive out the smaller mfr that will not be able to compete. In the end the hobby will be worse off.

And yet for decades there have been multiple manufacturers pumping out dozens of plastic figure sets each and every year covering almost every period and troop type imaginable in 25mm for dirt cheap – 1/72 plastics.

And those guys don't even supplement their stuff with extra metal bits – they just put extra poses straight into the box.

I think there's a lot of zero sum game thinking in the industry that doesn't actually fit what is happening in the marketplace. Even with dozens of 1/72 producers, multiple companies putting out hard plastic 28s, etc. for the last 3+ years – we still have more small manufacturers than ever and we're truly in a Golden Age of miniatures.

I find this discussion interesting. I am interested in knowing how plastics impacted 25mm companies like Old Glory, especially given Old Glory is price competitive. One thing I do notice is that my local hobby store finds it easier economically to stock plastics. I made my hobby contacts there and would like to give them the business. Is this due to price margins?

Price margins for the store remain the same, a 40% mark up.

There are several things that plastic have over metal from the retail level. There are fewer codes to stock. One of the ideas behind plastics is that the consumer or modeler can customize their figures. Some boxes already contain parts so that the modeler can add things like blanket rolls and back backs, which eliminate the need for various other codes in metal.

Second, plastics come as models, boxed. Often those boxes have in them or them painting suggestions and additional box art. They become easier to stock on a shelf, and fewer codes means taking up less space. Most metal packaging is meant for hanging on a wall.

Third, plastics don't have some of the negative issues which white metal figures have had to deal with, such as lead content. This means that it is easier to sell to 8 to 10 year old children with an interest in toy soldiers.

Lastly, they are new hot item. Metal figures are yesterdays news.

I just like the feel of metal figures better. They are more substantial and have some heft to them. Non gamers are always surprised how heavy my 28mm Romans are on a base of 4 and that isn't even the cavalry

Somehow plastic seems more "toylike" even if the detail is better and the price is less. Metal seems more like a hobby, plastic like a kids game.

I realize none of the above means anything though

I have recently purchased both Perry & Victrix Napoleonic boxes. While I like the cost compared to metals I am not sold on the details of the figures. Seems metal does have much better definition.Also I am not a big fan of having to put the figures together. I may buy a few more boxes but do like metal much better.

while I have only recently come back into wargaming/collecting (1 year) I find metal figures more animated than plastics. sash&sabre offer me more than shoulder arms a firing & loading pose. They are crouching against enemy fire, officers are shouting at their men. One figure I had in a pack lying down loading looking up at the enemy, all so natural.Granted I can`t use him but the moulding & the idea of soldiers in action is first rate weather the idea is 15y.o or not.
The only plastics which try is 1/72 figures experiment with
poses but seem to fall short on detail, thats why I went with 25/28mm scale. The only range I don`t like is First Corps some very odd heads & hands.

Joel – I doubt that 3+ years on from the fist release with dozens of sets available that plastics are the "hot new thing" anymore.

Come on, we're wargamers here. Whatever came out last week is the hot, new thing! Ooh…shiny! Ooh…Fiji Cold Weather Troops! Ooh…something in 7 1/2 mm!

Re: store sales – the standard discount directly to retailers is 50% and to distributors it's 60% (so they can make their 10% margin selling onto retailers)

Best,
Tony

Tony Reidy
Defiance Games
defiancegames.com

Re: your comment about there being fewer codes to stock. Having been in Hobby Bunker in Malden, MA yesterday, I noticed 100s of codes of HaT and 100s of codes of Flames of War – along with dozens upon dozens of codes of Warmachine.

I don't think stores are unwilling to stock a lot of SKUs of a single manufacturer. I think they are unwilling to stock ones that don't sell.

Best,
T

the standard discount directly to retailers is 50% and to distributors it's 60% (so they can make their 10% margin selling onto retailers)

That might be your standard in the US. In the UK it's more like 33%/40%… There just isn't the profit margins there to support 50%/60%… unless all the prices go up ;-)

I noticed 100s of codes of HaT and 100s of codes of Flames of War

Seeing the opposite here in the UK. The initial 'bulk batches' which sold once are not being restocked. My local Hobbycraft, which had a large FoW display, has gone back to craft items and model trains.

Hi Geoff – just going off what we offer to retailers and distributors worldwide.

Hobby Bunker is a true wargames/toy soldier shop – not a big box generalist hobby shop.

Then you are unusual. It is quite rare to see such high discounts (and probably indicates the higher profit margins you have available). I could give a 60% discount if I double the retail prices… now there's a thought…

There are very few true wargames shops [left] in the UK, GW excepted, who back in the 1980s had a policy to establish a shop in every major town… but were somewhat mystified when opening shops in 3 neighbouring towns didn't see a 3 fold increase in sales. The sales managers had a hell of a job explaining why they couldn't match ever increasing sales targets when the market had been shared…

I don't think I have ever seen HaT figures on a wargames table, certainly not one being used by a true wargamer. HaT figures are usually in a corner of toy shops here. ;-)

Mind you, I have only been in this industry for 15 years so what do I know…

Oh Geoff, are you trying to be mean?

I use HaT, and Italeri, and Esci, and Airfix etc. In a "proper" wargame – ie with rules, painted, with friends, at a wargames club. So please don't belittle us 1/72 fans – that type of thing can lead to nasty flame wars (which us plastic types don't like as our modfels melt).

HaT have made great progress in making their soldiers wargames friendly, with their 3 box MAC approach.

And being available in "toy stores" is a gpod thing – that is where FoW and the boxes of Victrix are also appearing. But I also buy my stuff at "proper wargame" shows – ie SELWG, when I picked up some Marines and Japanese.

And before the latest (1/72) plastic explosion, a lot of "proper wargames" used Airfix WW2 kit.

So I appreciaqte you are a small scale manufacturer of "proper wargaming" models, but please also recognise that there are lots of us who use 1/72. And maybe more children would play if they could be encouraged by the local availability of toy soldiers. Metal and resin are great, but can kids access them. afford them and build them?

Lol. No, not at all. But there are very few wargames shops still in the UK, and I still see very little plastic on the tables at wargames shows. Perhaps that will change over the next few years, but I fear it will be at the expense of several metal and resin manufacturers, who will just decide it's not worth it to pick up the 'top up' bits and pieces.

Metal and resin are great, but can kids access them. afford them and build them?

Having just walked around Modelzone and looked at the prices of most plastic kits (not to mention the complexity) I'd say yes to two of those. The biggest problem is accessibility.

Phew – you had me worried :-)

I agree on plastic kits (and I know your market) but the latest quick builds may be an interesting development – Italeri, Armourfast and the PSC are all making these – and Italeri must be considered "mainstream". I know I have had a lot of fun with my kids building some of these – like the US half track and jeeps.

I agree that 1/72 is not seen at shows, but that is probably two fold:

(1) Snobbery (and I do not want to start that up all over again), and/or

(2) History. The "traditional" manufacturers of plastic injection moulding were big name "toy" companies, who went to trade fairs. Whereas wargames shows were run by amateurs whereby cottage industry players sold their wares.

Option 2 is getting more interesting now, as some cottage industries are getting interestingly big in capital terms (ie cost of tooling). But interesting to note that GW still does not often lower itself to visit a wargames show. And I think the big players are starting to realise that their products are used by gamers, hence quick builds and wargame friendly packs – HaT make DBA packs for ancients, so I know they focus efforts to us gamers.

…run by amateurs whereby cottage industry players sold their wares…

Precisely. And with only a few exceptions the vast majority of wargames manufacturers around the world are still just that. The rise of cheap quick builds may see many of those decide it's not worth the effort if they are only selling the odd figures to top out a range that the costs involved with a full scale tooling do not warrant producing in cheaper materials.

Some of our more esoteric ranges are produced off the profits of our common items, such as Shermans and Pz IIIs. Losing the bread and butter sales that fund those sorts of project may mean they are no longer viable. If we don't sell Shermans or Pz IIIs, we are not going to be able to afford to make the 'funnies'… or need to charge you a lot more for them. ;-)

The cost of one (or two) tooling runs may be worth it, but you need to sell a large volume to sustain that sort of capital outlay, and wargamers are notably fickle. Time will tell. As they say, be careful what you wish for…

Marc the plastics fan;

I believe where you live is one of the key factors as to who is using 1/72 scale figures to game with. I don't think it has to do with snobbery at all about the plastics. I know a lot of gamers that did start with the soft plastics, long before the growth in metal providers. But many stopped using them for simple reasons like getting paint to stick, the need to not have to create variants because they were now being supplied, and lastly, metal began to offer the unique stuff that plastics couldn't offer and being a different scale, the metal wouldn't fit the soft plastics.

I will agree that soft plastics, in terms of choices are growing. Plus, companies like Zeveta (sp) are making some great kits, plus some are marketing their figures in boxed wargame sets. Thus, with the growth someone must be buying them. I know when I was child, I purchased them to use as toys. When older, I did purchase a box to paint, but the paint flake off in areas that bent. Thus, they were never a war game choice for me, which I have heard others also say.

AS a boy I bought a box or a model from Airfix from a local stockest spent a while deciding what I would like to buy that week.I battled with a mate in garden many a ww2 firefight. now kids barely know of kits an soldiers,there is a stockest in my town but a series one kit a say a Hawk will cost you £8
I still see kits I used to build for a few shillings now $8 USD,9,1 & more.1/72 figures, to have a chance of clawing back market should made of hard plastic why this persistance with soft?
compering a perry plastic to a sash & sabre or old Glory, the detail on the metal stands out more, easier to paint for older & younger gamers/collectors & like the cost is similar. Buy of e-bay & get some great deals. Would not buy perry plastics as first choise lack animation new zouaves however great models

Interesting talk here. I like plastic because it glues better and chips less. I love multi-part models for variety. Plastic might replace resin and metal as the cottage industry for the hobby, if it keeps getting cheaper and cheaper to make molds.

Miniships – noted, although as KofY says, plastics chip less, so there is a balance. I started with plastics, moved to metal for the better ranges etc, and have now come back to 1/72 soft plastic as the range and diversity is so much better (check out PSR for a mind blowing selection).

As to soft v hard, Perry's made the decision based (I guess) on their experience from GW, who sell to an "adult" market (ie 12 and up) whereas the soft figures are sold by "toy" companies who have to meet toy standards (again, I guess). But I must admit, with the new plastics used, and the benefits of acrylic paints and varnishes, I prefer soft to rigid plastic – my LotR Uruk Hai rigid plastics sport a lot of broken pikes, whereas my soft plastics have no such issues. My figures are based, and so peeling is a thing of the past (although my son's soft WW2 which are individually based are thrown in a shoe box at the end of a battle and they are doing just fine as well – so technology has moved on).

But I guess the old "paint peeling" still puts more people off than broken bits (another example – most of our Rohan horses have had to be pinned as the ankles kept breaking, compared to modern soft plastics which do not break).

But in terms of detail, I think metal scores in terms of undercuts, whereas plastic scores in detail (remember, they are sculpted big and pantographed down, so detail such as lace can be made very fine before being reduced, compared to metal figures which are sclupted 1:1 scale (and maybe have exaggerated features as a result.

G_QRF – I think you have a valid point, one that Old Glory also mention – people want you as specialists to make metal add ons to existing plastic ranges, and so you may well not sell the bread and butter. In which case, making money is going to be tougher. So I guess the small scale manufacturers will need to diversify (Gringo's Mexican War in 40mm perhaps). But I am not sure many of the current plastic fans fully appreciate what the impact is, beyond the immediate cash savings.

But I know that I am not keen on the plastic 28mm Naps due to the shortage of cavalry and artillery. So I will continue with my 1/72 for now.

soon there will be 3 – D – printers and one will be able to produce ones own figures.

soon there will be 3 – D – printers and one will be able to produce ones own figures

It is unlikely to be at the quality that hand sculpting and either metal or plastic casting can achieve for many years.

The quality is already there – it's just the cost per piece that isn't.

Don't go by Shapeways – their stuff is very crude compared to many of the other systems.

For example – most painted miniatures on the fronts of GW boxes are 3D printed and painted.

Marc is right about the peeling paint myth. I use both metal & plastic figures and have happily mixed them for Napoleonics and WW2. It is only with very rough handling that paint can peel on my figures, but then again it can rub off metal figures too. Unfortunately there is some stigma attached by some wargamers to plastic figures- this is a real pity I think. "Real" wargamers can and do use plastics, check out blogs like

willwarweb.blogspot.com

OK again chuckle..some good points for & against I came back into model soldiers about a year ago considered soft plastic on PSR…..who tell it as it is review, put me off the ranges out there.perrys at the time seem expensive only wanted a few models to paint up….didn` see that slippery slope now look,metal/ plastic arty cavalry infantry everywhere. Take point about metal chipping handle them harshly & you have paint repair job to do but no big deal.

Again If there were a stockest who sold say Hat figures in my town like when I was 12 I would have gladly taken a closer look my idea then was for a collection.But now all you find in shops is orks, elves, fairies an trolls thing haven`t changed that much after all!!!

"The quality is already there – it's just the cost per piece that isn't.

Don't go by Shapeways – their stuff is very crude compared to many of the other systems.

For example – most painted miniatures on the fronts of GW boxes are 3D printed and painted."

The prototyping with today's systems still have 'steps' in them. GW can afford to enlist personnel to reduce the appearance of these so they can be painted for cover art. Generally this printing needs to be done several months before the figures are in true production.

The technology will eventually arrive to be within reach of more mfrs however not to generate production quantities. That will take a while.

Has anyone gamed with plastic figures lately?
Just a personal bias but I still don't really like them as the weight of metal miniatures when playing is a different experience IMO.

The prototyping with today's systems still have 'steps' in them.

The samples I have seen, from a variety of sources and qualities, still suffer from this. Yes, they can be cleaned up/painted over, but generally the time/work involved outweighs the time/work with making a traditional master. The only advantage is when it comes to rescaling.

The technology will eventually arrive to be within reach of more mfrs however not to generate production quantities. That will take a while.

I agree. Eventually technology will develop to produce a much finer, production standard quality at a production standard rate, but I think it is still some way off yet, probably 20 years or so.

Has anyone gamed with plastic figures lately? Just a personal bias but I still don't really like them as the weight of metal miniatures when playing is a different experience IMO

I still prefer the heft of metal somehow. I don't think it is a rational decision necessarily, but certainly preferred. I always preferred my older metal Space Marines over the plastic beakies, and although 4 of my 12 squads were plastic, I would always use the all-metal squds in preference. And I still love my all-metal T-35s… :-)

Lon – that's actually not the case – it depends on the printer – we've used 3D prints straight from the printer and painted them for samples and box art.

You can use this service in the US: finelineprototyping.com

For example – this test figure is a 3D print that was directly painted on with no clean up:

link

Thanks!

Tony

Tony Reidy
Defiance Games
defiancegames.com

PS I don't care whether a figure is plastic or metal – just if it looks good. If you don't like the heft of plastic, put them on metal bases. Howard Whitehouse "tricks" people all the time with those!

Sorry – can't get the image to show – I think because it's a png.

finelineprototyping

These are high res and mini quality.

Although fine, to quote from fineline themselves "They are rough and marked from support structures until they get finished"

HI Geoff – we use this one:

ProtoGen 18420 High-Resolution Stereolithography build in 0.002" layers

It's delivered perfectly clean.

But don't take my word for it, I'm just the guy that actually uses the 3D prints and has them painted. ;-)

Back to that mold-slippage myth….

Several months ago, I purchased a some boxes of Crusader WWII figures from Old Glory. This past weekend when I finally got around to looking at them, I was very frustrated to find that most of the figures seemed like the molds were misaligned because the two halves of the figures just did not match up properly. (I wish I had photos.)

Flash and minor mold lines are no big problem IMO, but when I must do surgery to scrape and file down these raised halves/ridges where the two halves of the figure do not align, I become frustrated. The helmets and trousers and so on are deformed from the scraping and filing. Makes me want to go to plastic 1/72, where their mold lines seem minor in comparison, or hard plastic 28mm, which seem not to have this problem misaligned halves at all. (After an hour of working on the OG figures, I tossed them back in the box in disgust, not wanting to return to them.)

Note that I am not slamming Old Glory. I own very few figures, with nearly all of them coming from Old Glory (aka Crusader) or Black Tree Design, which BTW do not suffer from this misaligned halves problem.

Given all this discussion about molding plastics and metal, why would this misaligned halves problem occur? I never see it in the manufacturer photos!

hummm why did you not just complain & return them? I bought some artillery & the fit & clean-up seemed easy I glued them togeather the worst it became to sort out. I guess the moulds have been in use for many years. from an exended conversation sash & sabre & OG moulds are in constant use therefore your feedback would help situation.

(I wish I had photos)

I wish you had photos too, then we might be able to work out the problem :-)

why would this misaligned halves problem occur

Having established the the mould halves themselves cannot misalign once the mould has been made, it sounds a bit like a moulding defect, where there has been some slippage in the original vulcanising process.

I bought the figures at Cold Wars, but I only discovered this on Saturday. I assumed it was heavily used molds and that's just the way it is.

it is not only the material – but also how plastic figures are sold, take for example a Perry box, it will give you a "unit" – and you even can costumize it – if you want.
The concept is excellent in my view.
Also this appeals for the odd beginner – he buys a box and don't have to worry about how many officers, drummers, NCOs, colour bearers, and even painting instructions are included.

but also how plastic figures are sold, take for example a Perry box, it will give you a "unit" – and you even can costumize it – if you want.

Customise, perhaps?

'Giving you a unit' carries its own problems. Maunfacturers have been providing 'unit packs' for years, in all sorts of materials. The problem is then that the unit only fits the set of rules it was designed for, and if you include extras customers complain that they don't want that many [insert figure type/pose]…

Geoff – I don't think there are many people complaining about what they get in a Perry plastic box!

Obviously not the same diverse wargaming customer base we deal with then ;-)

I think that wargamers/collectors whatever preiod can`t really complain about choise & qulitity of figures nowadays, back in the day we had perhaps 3 or 4 ranges some of which have survived to the present day.
I sent to the states for some acw & generated great interest in my club. Figures loading, right shoulder shift wow. maybe they were OG or something but were better detailed than the overweight minifigs i had at the time.

I agree. Eventually technology will develop to produce a much finer, production standard quality at a production standard rate, but I think it is still some way off yet, probably 20 years or so.

Just a quick comment on that one…

In 20 years – I think you will likely see desktop 3D printers that are capable of producing "paint" quality 3D prints. In less than 5 years, you should be able to order prints from a consumer level print service (like Shapeways) that are ready to paint. Remember, with computers – 20 years is a very, very, very long time.

20 years ago, I think I paid nearly a thousand dollars for a 24 pin, tractor feed dot matrix printer. Last month I bought a new professional photo printer for the wife (large format, high resolution, drinks ink like a drunken sailor) – for just under $200.

Anywho – just figured I would comment on that bit.

Well -- its time I let the cat out of the bag --Old Glory has been working on a top secret method that only the smartest people in the world know about -- In just a short while we will be releasing 1000s upon 1000s of different miniatures in a top secret medium developed to be used only in nuculeur submarines and can be talked about only by using big technical words -- so no use trying to explain it??? The figures will come fully painted to the highest standard and retail for around 10 cents per figure -- As an added feature-- for an extra 25c cents per figure we will fly our staff out to the gamers home and move the figures for you and your friends during your games.
Also --I will just keep talking and talking about this for many years to keep the gamers excited -- but they will be coming --- Sooner or later ????? (insert sound of crickets in the night)
WAIT !!!!!
LETS SEE --- just thinking about it? In the last year We have released 1000s of figures using the "OLD TIME" method --- actually out and being gamed with -- I have over 100 ACW cav and generals being molded this week -- ???
Never mind -- disregard. I think I will stick with the Old method -- for now anyway ?????????
Regards
Russ Dunaway

I would expect nothing less from you Russ?