"Today’s Luxe material" Topic

Of the three popular miniature materials:
Metal
Resin
Plastic

Which one is the "high end" material and which is the budget one? I personally avoid metal these days and consider plastic to be the preferred choice.

I guess that depends on the respective MSRP of the individual manufacturers, doesn't it?

Metal – preferred material for detail and quality. Leaders and obscure units.
Plastic – cheap, bulk troops. Rank and file units.
Resin (both printed and cast) – suspect material. Either bendy or brittle. Generally avoided.

As I do mostly smaller scales (2-15mm) I have little choice in anything but metal.

Not sure if you include 3D printing within the 'plastic' & 'resin' options. They may become more useful to me once the ranges in areas of interest start to grow a bit but, at present, I haven't seen much available.

Metal only, the rest is cheap and nasty…

Plastic miniatures
metal
resin

Mostly metal and some plastic.

I only purchase metal miniatures, and I prefer no assembly.

@GildasFacit There are plenty of 2-15mm options in 3d printed minis. Just look at the vendors on Wargaming3D or My MiniFactory.

79th PA is correct. You have to shop deals, sales and used.

Metal only.

Metal is my preferred choice except when I'm modifying figures into certain poses for various reasons, in which case plastic is unbeatable

Metal is expensive, heavy, often toxic, and detail is often poor for 20th Century figures and vehicles. Just look at any box of plastic 1/72nd scale figures from any major company in the last 20 years and you will see detail metal often only dreams about.
Thin rifle barrels, figures that don't look like a caricature of a human. Figures that run as little as five cents to fifty-cents each, often with ranges of hundreds of poses between a couple different companies.
Plastic is my go to, followed by resin, and then metal as a last resort.
Bunkermeister

DeRuyter : all files, I can't paint those. I want figures not files. Even if I had a printer the ranges I'm looking for aren't there either, fantasy & WW2 & a few Ancients are catered for but very little else.

Modern metal figures are not toxic and their weight is one aspect that I prefer over plastic.

I don't do 20th C but I bought some packs of soft plastics for my grandson and they were not well detailed, had lots of weird poses and bent weapons and incorrect details of dress and it also took ages to find a primer that would take on the plastic.