"Spare plastic parts: what to do?" Topic

As plastic multi-part figures become more common, including in my collection, I find I have masses of arms, heads and weapons from various sets without bodies and legs to put them on. Anyone got any suggestions as to what I can use these for? Is there, perhaps, a source of torsos and legs?

I'll have to keep an eye on this as I have the same question.

x42

I keep everything,as you never know what will come in handy.I had spare goblin heads that I thought I would never use,in fact I thought about sticking them on top of poles as trophys for some encampment. However, I recently got some really cheap plastic Gobbos that had been converted to Ratmen by sticking Rat heads on the Gobbo torsos. Instant use for those extra heads,and I may still do the trophy thing. Tons of Goblin arms,maybe I'll clip the weapons off and use them on a marker base.

Is there, perhaps, a source of torsos and legs?

Keep them for the day when 3d-printers can print them in sufficient quality – and perhaps one day a company will jump to the demand, perhaps using a Kickstarter to assure demand. I would be in for a host of bodies wearing simple tunics and shirts.

A while back I bought a crap load of Syrian sprues from WF/Warlord because they were like 50 cents or something like that. I don't do ancients so I've used the bodies for everything from Vikings, adding spare heads and arms, to pulp figures using WW2 heads and arms. Keep them all you never know when they will come in handy

Some ideas:
Stick them on ebay for others that might be in need.
Look at chopping up the bits and using them for space ship gaming. Maybe not for fantasy, but sci-fi weapons work well for this.
Build a small hill, throw in some arms and heads and you've got a terrain feature.
Base them and use as status markers: 1 head = shaken, 2 heads = broken, 3 heads = routed. 1 arm = advance, 2 arms pointing same direction = charge, 2 crossed arms = halt

Razor78 – doesn't buying more sprues just compound the problem?
Waiting for when 3D printing becomes readily available to me is a good idea.
Using them to make markers is also good.

I do have a job-lot of Wargames Factory skeleton sprues that I sometimes add to spare arms/legs to make semi-skeletal undead of various types but I have some many spares now I despair!

Keep it all!

If space is an issue, have a box for plastics, another for wood bits, another for metal, etc. Keep identifying instructions as you can.

Bits boxes.

Even the sprue trees can be carved up into structural elements for terrain. I save the flat plastic bread bag sealers as a source of small styrene stock.

Be a hoarder.

(You can even melt some plastic scrap with model glue for a bit of filler putty.)

eBay, either to find the parts you want, or dispose of the parts you don't.

But as an inveterate converter, keep them.

My son had some of those from goblin sprues. We glued heads, arms, and legs into weird looking little things with no real bodies. Kinda creepy.

andy

As mentioned…Ebay. There are lots of bits sellers who sell torsos.

Well, you can sell them at a wargaming flea market. I've bought them there. But generally I put my own surplus in a zip-lock bag by period and sometimes army, and keep them handy for my next project. Variety on officers tends to be limited, and going to another kit sometimes helps. Also several of my British Napoleonic RHA and light infantry officers are wearing hussar pelisses surplus to someone else's project.

And yes, I can think of several periods where I'd buy torsos if I could.

Spare helmets, weapons and shields glued to a round base can make for handy counters to indicate eg. disordered units in the game.

Supply wagons can benefit from being well supplied, but many of the commercial ones come empty so you need to load them yourself. Throw in a few barrels, chests, shields, quivers, axes, sacks etc. and you have handy objectives for a game where one side wants to loot a baggage train that is being escorted to a near by castle.

Or maybe you might want to have a baggage camp in your game? Build a few tents and surround them with piles of all sorts of equipment.

Fantasy gamers with interest in necromancy may want to do a few bases representing skeletons or zombies being summoned from their shallow graves. For a skeleton, place a spare skull and two bony arms sticking from the ground. For a zombie, any head and two matching arms should do the trick – just paint them in a suitably deceased looking fashion.

I just like the giggle factor of having multiple boxes labelled "heads," "arms," legs."

However, I have noticed that while I do use the sci-fi and moderns, I don't really use the fantasy. Dungeon props does seem like a good idea, though.

We have a WTT board here at TMP. Maybe there should be an exclusive section for plastic bits.

A while back I bought a crap load of Syrian sprues from WF/Warlord because they were like 50 cents or something like that. I don't do ancients so I've used the bodies for everything from Vikings, adding spare heads and arms, to pull figures using WW2 heads and arms. Keep them all you never know when they will come in handy

I have a very full bitz box of heads, arms, weapons, etc – they do come in handy on very unexpected occasions – like when I used a Chaos Marauder head for a Space Marine Scout squad leader

I found the ex-Wargames Factory WSS spare heads with floppy hats, for example, have been very useful for a wide range of conversions

I rarely get rid of bits. I just have alot of bits boxes that are fairly well-organized beading/craft boxes. I've often found uses for parts I figured would never get used.

Sometimes though I'll have a particular batch that I know I'll never use up. I put some in the bitz box and the rest get dropped in the local FLGS auction.

Had some spare River Troll heads once so stuck them on a couple of Night Goblins to make them look as if they'd been hit by a mis-cast spell.

They looked great. My boy laughed his head off on seeing them.

I gave them +1 attack bonus as well.

One of the bigger traders at Australia's CanCon is a stall just selling individual bits from plastic sprues – they have to get their stock from somewhere.

You never know when you'll need a bit for something (when 3D printing will be cheap and easy), so just keep them.

cloudcaptain – I am not finding sellers on eBay offering torsos (at least not in 28mm ancient/fantasy styles).

Put them in a plastic zip-lock sandwich baggie and save them for later conversions.