"Why are the PSC Corvus Belli miniatures so expensive?" Topic

Eg A pack of 2 Celtic chariots for nine quid! You could buy them in metal for that price. I'm sure they're good (and I'm sure I'll end up getting some) but I can't understand the pricing. Or are plastics (eg Perry 28mm) always comparable to metals?

Curious,
John

Looking at the Magister Militum site, a two horse Chinese light chariot is £5.50 GBP. Fighting 15s Hittite two horse chariot is £3.80 GBP. So two chariots for £9.00 GBP seems somewhere inbetween. The material it is made from is, no pun intended, immaterial! OK, I couldn't resist the pun, perhaps I should have put irrelevant.

Because they are made of Crapcast resin?

Many factors go into a manufactured item's price.
Design, tooling, packaging, advertising, taxes, insurance, etc.
The raw material cost is often the lowest factor.
Plastic items require the most intense tooling. You have to actually mill the cavity out of a metal blank. This is as opposed to metal figures where "all you have to do" is pour some latex around it. Simplified, but close.
To make a plastic sprue, you need to inject molten plastic at a high pressure.

Then factor in how many of the figures you are expected to sell. I'm often surprised how low the cost of plastic vs metal is. It should be much higher.

John

These are cast on a siocast machine in silicon moulds so the process of mould making is nowhere near as expensive as conventional plastic.

I suspect that PSC have licensed these figures from Corvus Belli and thus are paying a license fee on top of the usual costs of casting and mould making. Plus the Siocast machines are not cheap to lease.

Mike

As I understand it, Corvus Belli on-sold the licence to Totentanz, who didn't really get under way (at least they never replied to a query from me – I understand there may have been illness involved), so PSC must have bought it from them.

I realise set up is much more involved for plastic injection molding than for centrifugal casting of metal but I also know when I stopped buying Airfix plastics and started collecting metal, the price jump was significant. So going in the opposite direction, I'm surprised to see no such drop. I suppose Airfix had sort of cornered the market and had had time to defray set up costs but they had also released their second generation WWII figures and were adding new ranges. Also, other competitors were coming into the market at similar prices. I can't help but wonder if PSC are charging as much as they do "because they can", rather than because the cost of production is high.

Anyway, I'm not bitter, just curious.

Cheers,
John

No design costs either as these are old designs being recast as resin.

John,

These are not plastic injection figures like Airfix. They are low run plastic injection using silicon moulds that last about 300 shots and are cast in a form of plastic resin from a company called Siocast.

Completely different product and costs.

Mike

Well, that's interesting. Technology marches on.

Sadly, the mould lines and flash are horrible on these figures. Some miscasts. Plenty of videos and photos online of how bad they are. IMO PSC has ruined a beautiful line of miniatures, while over-pricing them. Cleaning up Siocast is a PITA.

It does not have anything to do with Siocast. It has everything to do with quality control and learning a new process. Totally different than spincasting. I have personally seen casts that are beautiful in Siocast. I know companies that use it with no problems. Hopefully they find the right settings or move back to metal.

Sounds like what Warlord Games is doing.

Using figures already sculpted and charging horrendously high prices for them.