"Do plastics pull people away from certain periods?" Topic

Does the availability of plastic figures in certain scales and periods increase the relative popularity of those periods compared to the periods and scales which don't?

I'm sure Beasts of War and their crowd would be less likely to cover Black Powder/Napoleonics if they weren't available as plastic kits.

Plastics have absolutely no effect on me.
I don't like them.

Nope. Not a factor. The interest comes in the period/conflict itself for me, not in the cost of the figures available for said period.

Quality of the figures is of more interest to me. Some plastics are good and make filling in the rank and file cheaper, whilst others are poor quality so I would go for metal instead. If the period I am interested in is covered by both then I would pick the best I can afford.

I use primarily plastics, but if something is worthwhile I will spend the money on metals. I like early WWII US Pacific, Bataan, I have a lot of metal figures for that. I also am willing to do conversions. My WWII German Indian Legion figures are mostly head swaps due to the lack of figures, still they are plastic.

There are other periods I would do if there were more plastics. BUM makes Spanish American War but the figures are very fragile. So I don't do that.

I am also very scale specific, I won't change from 1/72 – 1/87 size to game a new period.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

After figure quality my interest is usually the number of poses or figure variation I can achieve which is often a plus with plastics

For me it is the Period first, then the figures. I don't really care if the figures are plastic, metal, resin, or gummy candy as long as they suit my needs.

For me it worked that way. When Warlord Games came out with hard plastic ECW, I jumped right in. I always had the interest in ECW but the hard plastic figures pushed me over the top. Since then, I have added metal units (mostly Perry) and now have several ECW armies. The lower price and Warlord's good army deals really did the trick.

Definitely increases my likelihood of playing a period, and the great thing is that we're getting ever more obscure stuff (at last!) as well as the anticipated piles of WWII.

Who'd have thought we'd ever see :

Let alone

There *is* a challenge to doing a period in 1/72 that may not be well served by figure ranges.

Conversions, tracking down suitable metals etc all are part of the fun.

I've assembled quite decent French & Prussian SYW armies using some ingenuity.

I think the key here is distribution – I can walk/get a bus into the city centre and pick up Warlord/Victrix/Perry etc boxes for a number of periods that I probably would never have contemplated if I had to order by mail.

Yes, shiny things I know…

I used to be one of those guys that "hated" plastic, I liked the heft of lead !
But then I started to think about building a British army for the Peninsular, and so far it is all plastic !
I have three highland units, and three British line, three guns with crews, all victrix.
My cavalry are light dragoons and hussars by Perry.
I am going to get Warlord Potuguese and I believe they are plastic with metal officers.
So in this instance, plastics pulled me in.
They are nice figures and the cost was great too.

I always had a yearn for the Wars of the Roses, never did it, Theeeeen, those stunning 25mm Perry plastics came along, and, BOOM! 400+ Lancastrian army painted, now I'm in the USA, and no-one near me has a clue about it, I have to paint up a Yorkist force to oppose them! oh , love those figures, so full of life, and really nice proportions, no 'heroic' nonsense!

John