"Worst Figures You Ever Bought?" Topic

Let's hear some real war stories! What were the worst figures you ever bought, and why?

Well, the Alternative Armies 15mm High Elves didn't really do it for me. They were really flat and lacking in character.

Although the snap tight Eldar Guardians are a close second, they did not fit together at all.

Axis and Allies minis the the US 76mm AT gun and the Russian AT rifle same size.

Of the close to 5 thousands I have I have a horse without a leg and one infantry figure without a arm. Sorry for the disappoint.

I had some horrible crocodile men with crossbows I bought maybe 25 years ago, but I have no idea who made them. They were shrinkwrapped to a cardboard backing. Minifigs aztecs from the same timeframe run a close second (but I still have them and play with them!)

I made so amazon figure with German heads and weapon for a game I never ran.

Not naming names but I bought some plastic figs that came with metal attachments, like a flamethower. They fit so badly that in frustation I just chunked the metal stuff and just assembled the soldiers normally.

I once bought a mixed bag of pre-owned figures, some of which were partially painted. Included among them were some bootleg ACW figures that were based on old Heritage 15mm Napoleonic Prussian musketeers. Their shakos had been replaced by kepis, but other than that they were clearly Napoleonic Prussians. So bad they made me laugh.

I have two ideas of worst, those that look awful and those that are awful to work with.

The old Starship Trooper range was very difficult to assemble. The bugs refused to stay together no matter what you used and the troopers had about 30 pieces each.

As far as ugly I would say work done by beginners is often bad to horrible because thats how you learn, however people shouldnt be charging for it. I have bought figs from industry professionals that should know better.
This I dont mind if the figs are sold very cheap and the seller admits they are beginner level. I've had some that weren't priced fairly though.

AS far as the really big names Privateer press makes beautiful big chunky figs but they are a horror to put together.

Jack scruby 20mm Napoleonics and colonials. I loved them at the time but, oh the horror!

Old Heritage Star Trek figures. Didn't know any better at the time :)

My biggest disappointments tend to be when I buy figs and then find that they don't fit sizewise with my existing figures. Usually they are great figures they just are a little small or a little big.

I remember getting the eureka seal team and then realizing that there was no way for them to work with my huge collection of Devil Dog figures.

Tin Soldier 25mm Samnites and Etruscans. So poorly sculpted they ended up being used as weights in the base of a 120mm figure. Some like them, but I found them very crude.

Damon.

Some 6mm terrain. Mold lines so bad I didn't give them away, I put them in the trash…

Sometime in the early '80s I picked up a few little packages of what I thought were star fighters. The brand escapes me at the moment. After getting them home I realized that each one was a little sci-fi penis. Great. A phallic horde of fighters.
If I find them in storage, they'll go on eBay

Mike

Airfix British Paratroopers.
Need I say more?

When I first got into historicals I had no idea where to get them. I managed to get a foundry catalog and asked for a sample of some of their hoplites and persians, which they did at the time.

Then placed an order for about $50 USD worth of figures. While waiting for that I discovered a guy on bartertown selling a ton of hoplites and persians for only $100. USD Turns out they were all really crappy old figures. So I learned a lesson and it only cost me $100. USD

Lamming Napoleonics
Navwar Anglo-Dutch 1.1200

20mm SCW figures from HPC, after Hotspur ceased operations but before Rolf Hedges put the Dave Allsop figures back into production in the UK. The casting quality was so atrocious I ended up junking about a third of them. When I wrote to the late Mr Condray to complain he called me 'insane'. How's that for customer service? I rationalised my loss on the basis that the real cost of the usable figures ended up being about the same as for the Hotspur modern ranges, which were then also back in production with another company.

Redoubt American Revolution. Their faces looked like cantaloupes hacked out with a machete.

Rospak plastic Greek hoplites and cavalry. They are one of the main contributors to my prejudice against plastic figures.

Irregular 25mm Italian Askari. Horrible!

Some 15mm Mike's Models medievals. I melted them down for a home casting project.

Oh, this is fun!

"15mm" Donnington ACW. First, they were easily the largest 15mm I'd ever seen (it was the 1980s, scale creep hadn't had time to set in yet). Second, they were clearly re-purposed ECW figures, with long, flowing locks and one figure had part of a musket rest as a feature. Third, they were flat, non-descript and basically boring.

I wrote a negative review of them and was immediately excortiated for not "supporting the hobby," which at the time was much smaller than today. On the other hand, I got a couple of letters from guys who totally agreed with me, and a couple thanking me for warning them before they'd ordered any.

Back in the 70s I got way too many Heritage French Carabiniers. They are ugly, crests bigger than the helmets, blobs of metal for hands, etc. We were gearing up for an 1814 campaign and they didn't have any cuirassiers in stock. I have some hussars from the same company and they're not bad. But oh, those carabiniers…

I just upgraded to some Old Glory cuirassiers, also OG infantry and Blue Moon infantry. What an improvement.

I won't mention the manufacturer, because some folks here love 'em, and this was over a decade ago, anyway.

15mm Napoleonics, bagged in bulk (100 to a bag, maybe). It was a display bag, the kind where the bag was stapled to the cardboard to be hung on the case.

Anyway, the reason why this is important is that, once I got them, it looked like they'd been on that display rack for a hundred years, as every 10-year-old walked past and used the thing for a pell. Pretty much everything that could have been broken off of those minis was broken off.

Those are the worst that the company involved never made good on.

The zombies from Wargames Factory.

Peter Laing 15mm Camel Corps back in the late 70s – dire

Many years ago, Jack Scruby ACW figures, lumps of lead.

The pre-green stuff Heritage fantasy lines were, ah, Impressionist, to be polite.

The similarly old Garrison fantasy line was quite the opposite. So smooth that clothes were often just suggestions lined onto the figure whose musculature bore little resemblance to reality.

By comparison the old Chernak Grenadier stuff was attractive, and even that was pretty awful.

Beowulf you are lucky those are the worst zombies you have. Theres some real junk out there ;)

I had some horrible crocodile men with crossbows I bought maybe 25 years ago, but I have no idea who made them. They were shrinkwrapped to a cardboard backing.

Sounds like Archive. The company that sold its casting slag as 'Dungeon Slime".

Mike's Models 15mm Colonials. Horses looked like German shepherds

I bought about 3000 Peter Laing Marlbrough 15mm figures at a swap meet for $35.00 USD. I won't say I overpayed, but they only look passible from across the room.

I bought some 25mm Mycenaeans about 25-30 years ago that were really awful. Heads very large in proportion to the body. That was before pictures on the internet, so all I had was a list of what they made, and I wasn't prepared for what I got when they came. Sold them a few years back suggesting the buyer use them for orcs or something.

Grelber

Mikes Models

A mass of Frontier Colonials I cannot summon the interest to paint

Battlefront Gebirgsjaeger anti-tank rifles. I was so looking forward to these…but they are a head shorter than most of the rest of the range!

R

The old pre-internet (or even early internet) days were the best. Typed lists with the odd line drawing or grainy black and white photo in a magazine or catalogue meant figures where frequently bought sight unseen. Quite often what you got wasn't what you had imagined when you made the order.

I bought some 15mm fantasy from Irregular Miniatures, back in the day, that were truly horrible blobs of metal.

A lot of my old figures looked like they where hand made, i.e using fingers ! I threw a bunch as they had fingerprints on them, in the actual metal…made me feel yucky :/

Easily, Peter Laing 15mm Mongol light cavalry. Bought pre internet from a line drawing. Catalogue should have said "Sack of potatoes mounted on sheepdog". Gave them to a friend you made his own fishing sinkers. Alan

I bought all the Freikorps AWI (Americans only, thank heaven) back when their lead mix created inflexible and extremely brittle figures.

Also Gallia used to have a few stinker models. In a collection of otherwise lovely buildings came a one story 15mm brick house of the plainest design and scale that it has no use whatever in my collections.

I didn't occur to me at the time, but I wonder today if it was a free 10mm sample for modern gaming.

Peter Laing 15mm Polish Renaissance light cavalry – I still have them.

As Prince Rupert says – much more exciting back in the day when you had no idea what might turn up…
A chap launched a very short lived range of Cossacks based around Taras Bulba – the year Scotland made it to the Rugby World Cup semis.. just losing to England on a missed Hastings kick from straight in front – so that must be 1991…
I have never seen anything so bad….

I bought a bundle of irregular 6mm minis many many years ago. I still have a few of them in a bits drawer that I opened up recently. … I can't tell what period they are and it's so long ago I can't remember! Probably ACW or Napoleonic's. Not only is the quality/detail bad but the casting is awful.

@ Chokidar- was that the kick or the Cossacks?

Interesting about Mike's Models. Some people seem to love them and others dislike them.

Worst, or most disappointing, figures I bought were with my birthday money when I was about 12. Fantasia Myth from Starcast Miniatures. They were so cheap I guess I should have known better. Designed by somebody called Alan Newson. You never know, perhaps he went on to do better stuff.

link

I was hoping for Minifigs quality. There was a cloned D&D dwarf in there. But some of the figures were dreck.

Airfix British Paratroopers and Napoleonic French Infantry.

Some of the Dixon samurai were rubbish.

I recall folks called Peter Laing models Peter Lump.

Discussions like this do not show much respect for people who produce such figures.

If you don't like something, fine. Naming and shaming someone, not so cool.

Phil, that's the whole point of this thread. To name and shame.

The old Starship Trooper range was very difficult to assemble. The bugs refused to stay together no matter what you used and the troopers had about 30 pieces each.

They were made from ABS plastic. Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene. A quite common industrial plastic. Unfortunately you needed a cement specifically formulated for ABS. Super glue would work but be brittle.
An unfortunate choice, since normal model cement had absolutely no effect on ABS. I wondered at the time why they used that polymer. Normal polystyrene would have been fine. And that plastic choice could explain why the line failed.