"Point of Contact Miniatures: 15mm Pre-Painted Tanks" Topic

Please update us when you have a retailer. Would personally like to review these ASAP, but this gives us no end-customer source. I can special order them through my FLGS and wait fifteen years for retailer/distributor chain to deliver them, or you can tell us where normally stocks them. Prefer the latter.

Thanks,
Don.

Yeah – what he said!

I would be interested as well. Bring on the every day vehicles, the Pz III's and IV's that we need. Don't worry about the exotics for now just offer a complete line of the vehicles that are common to WWII and offer them close to the same price we currently pay and you will have a winner on your hands.

Oh well, guess my family can go without xmas gifts.

Tell me where to spend my money!

Mike is right!

None of us needs more Tigers and Panthers.

Trust me, in the long run you will sell more Panzer IV's and Panzer III's than Tigers.

I wish you nothing but success!

mjc

sorry I have to say this.
This will be the end of 15mm world war II as we know it. once the pre-paints get in only die hards will keep putting together minis and painting them!!

I saw these several months ago at Historicon. I don't remember the name of the shop that had them but they were in the annex of the vendor hall – I think it was The Hobby Bunker or something like that. The models were pretty nice and considering the price hard to beat!

I just hope they do more than the "uber-tanks" and cover more meat and potatoes vehicles like the PzIII, PzIV, T-34…

We've seen some close-ups of these not that long ago. Some had reservations about some of the sculpting, especially on the Sherman. Only thing I find right now is:

link

I would have thought that using these two distribution outlets would actually make it *easy* for a FLGS to obtain them.

Allen

I thought tthe Warstore carried them, right?

They are not listed on the Warstore website but I thought I saw them at the Warstore's stand at Fall In.

Anyone know how much they cost?

The warstore has them. They had them at fall in and they had them at historicon. I'm not sure why this is news now.

They are $30 USD for 5 tanks or were at the warstore at fall in.

the best thing is that they have half tracks.

This is what I have been talking about all this time when people were saying "there will never be 15mm plastics" and I was saying "Yes, there will be, there already are."

I can't wait to get some prepainted t-34's and british desert stuff.

"This will be the end of 15mm world war II as we know it. once the pre-paints get in only die hards will keep putting together minis and painting them!!"

and this is absurd. Now more people will get into WWII gaming because the tanks are already done for them and they will still need to buy the infantry, the support vehicles and all the tanks that aren't popular enough to make into prepaints. If other manufacturers respond to this correctly it could be the biggest boost in the world for them.

Looking at the 1/35 scale market, what will actually happen is we'll get every single German tank, up to and incluing "paper panzers" and we'll want for a decent <insert common piece of allied equipment here>.

Damon.

I would have thought that using these two distribution outlets would actually make it *easy* for a FLGS to obtain them.

Ever special order from my FLGS? Heh. I've waited three months for a special order of BattleFront… Normal BF stuff, just not what he normally stocks. And finally canceled the order and got the gear from an online retailer.

Don.

I got the Sd 251's last week that my FLGS had special ordered through Alliance. The suggested retail price was $40 USD for five half tracks.

The paint jobs were so so, but they did come with seperate unit and number decals to differentiate the vehicles.

I am waiting for pre-war Russian tanks, before I buy any.
Why does no one make pre-painted T-35s?

I saw all of then at my FLGS, price is 39.95. I bought the German halftracks and have more on back order. Shrug.

My word, that seems a good price for a decent paint job and model (is it?) (the $30 USD quote).

I can see why panthers and tigers – for a non wargaming crowd?

But equally I see they have shermans and half tracks – all they need is bren carriers and panzer IV's and they'd be the core of most armies. Hell some trucks would proably be a sound move.

Normally I am a lead snob. But that's about to change.

My wish list, lots of Stuarts.

I'll buy them if they add in more of the every day vehicles from some of the other countries as well.

Looking at the 1/35 scale market, what will actually happen is we'll get every single German tank, up to and incluing "paper panzers" and we'll want for a decent <insert common piece of allied equipment here>.

Same thing in the 1/144 scale market. Though they seem to be coming round a little bit.

"This will be the end of 15mm world war II as we know it. once the pre-paints get in only die hards will keep putting together minis and painting them!!"

"and this is absurd"

Or perhaps not.

I doubt it will be the end of metal casting (after all 20mm has survived quite well), but it is likely to have an impact on current 15mm manufacturers in an already tight marketplace. I'd predict you are more likely to see prices have to rise (again) in other tanks to cover this thinning of the market in the 'bread and butter' areas, and I suspect you could see one or two decide to call it a day.

Incidently, the MRRP according to the website was $39.95-$49.95 for 5 tanks, so at about $8-10 a tank they are currently similar or slightly more expensive than metal.

"Some had reservations about some of the sculpting, especially on the Sherman."

Also discussed here: TMP link

The news release doesn't appear to be there any more – it had a larger photo of the Sherman. However if you go to the first link given here and click on the individual items you can get quite a large close up. For example, here's a good overhead of the 251s: picture

Geoff

Agreed that the Tiger box was a poor choice for the serious gamers, but an obvious one for selling to the kiddies and the toy-buying crowd.

Anyone bringing these into the UK yet (or planning to)?

I think that prepainted plastic has a market, but won't knock out metal. My reasoning is simple, if you can get them for about the same price, and the paint jobs are "good enough" for your needs, cool. But many many times you have to repaint prepaints to get them to match an existing army or a planned army in a different theater than the prepaint – particularly true with Germans – and then you're no better off than buying metal, at which point quality becomes a HUGE issue.

So it's "Just another competitor", IMO, not to be overestimated or underestimated by the existing vendors – both metal and resin.

My $0.02 USD ($0.0175 right now if you're in the UK)
Don.

I saw these at Historicon and was not very impressed. The detail doesn't match the other makers in 15mm.

There's some clickable pictures at this link for more detail on the quality.

I love to see more competition – this has to be a good thing for wargamers.

I think we wargamers need an economic stimulus to support the hobby's manufacturers. Then we can buy their wares and thay can make more and varied stuff. $600 USD Billion here, $125 USD Billion there and the odd $52 USD Billion just for fun. It is all just money, they can print more when we run out!

Incidentally who reckons these are solidly aimed at the flames of war crowd – especially the more competition orientated players?

Not sure about the quality. I'll have to see them in the flesh before I buy any.

Halftracks -both German an US- is not a bad choice and you can't go wrong with a Sherman apparently.

Let's hope they also bring out the smaller stuff as that is my main gripe with some companies; ie a small SdKfz250 costing as much as a King Tiger.

"I saw these at Historicon and was not very impressed. The detail doesn't match the other makers in 15mm."

I looked at them closely at Fall In and they are indeed crap sculpts with even worse paint jobs. Those that buy them deserve what they get!

The only non-blurry close-up shots I saw were long ago and were not impressive. The blurry close-up shots I see on their site really don't help.

My friends who play FOW were not impressed with the sculpts and felt they'd have to repaint them anyways, so any value in painting was lost. Overall, didn't see much value out of them.

I hope they fail.

I don't wish ill for the folks behind the company, but I hate anything pre-painted on general principle. Those unwilling or unable to paint to a basic gamer standard (I'm not talking about miniature artistry, base coat and a dry brush will do) should carry any stigma associated with it. Yes, this makes me an elitist. I'm ok with that.

I really don't need pre-painted Tanks or Vehicles for that matter. They are the easiest thing to paint for me.

Their price point is way to high for such a shoddy product. So I'm supposed to pay $40.00 USD for 5 sdkfzs and $40.00 USD for 5 Tigers. I don't see them selling anything other than their tanks in volume.

Maybe we will get lucky and match box will put out a competing product. :P

Generally I've seen that with pre-painted models for gaming the models you get out of the box are not as nice as the ones you see in the pictures on their website.

Seems like toys are painted to a higher level. However most of them are either not the right scale, or something so common nobody needs it.

Websites too difficult to browse … not interested!

Saw the Shermans, Tigers andM3 Halftracks at the Game Parlor in Chantilly yesterday. Didn't actually look too bad and the price came out to around $8 USD per vehicle for the halftracks. I'd be interested if they had some PzIV with the long 75, but I've got al I need of the usual stuff (including halftracks).

Rob

I can't see they would have any impact on the metals market – $30.00 USD for 5 tanks (or $40.00 USD according to coryfromMissoula) doesn't make them much cheaper, if at all. And pre-paints are for communists anyway – no gamer I know would dream of using them.

I think GeoffQRF's business is safe.

It can be frustrating to see comments like, "I can buy 10 Shermans cheap from here". Things like Shermans, Pz IIIs, IVs, Hanomags, etc are the 'bread and butter' funders that make it financially viable for (most manufacturers) to be able to produce other non-commercially viable oddities that simply don't sell in deep enough quantities to warrant their master design costs.

While it may sound great for the consumer to be able to buy cheap bulk items, without the sales of such 'standard items' it becomes financially impossible to keep producing the one-off funnies, like 21st Panzer…

PS – We are generally doing ok. FoW grew (and continues to grow) our market considerably. One of these days I may actually see a profit… ;-)

One of my oldest gaming buddies has never painted a figure. Fernando was a godsend to him. This guy taught me (the hard way) how to use cavalry.

He'd probably buy pre-painted tanks – except he has to be dragged kicking and screaming into WWII games.

Sorry Geoff, and everyone else in the business, but I'm not buying 15mm tanks, either metal or plastic, painted or not for at least a year, until I clear some room on the painting table.

I said that last year as well and it didn't work :-)

I suppose one way to look at it is that while whoever may sell me 10 bread and butter PzIVs, once I have them, I dont need more, but I will always be a sucker for the strange bits that go with the PzIVs. My last unit was of 105mm SPs on Char B chassis from GMUS (and Geoff provided a beautiful PzIII OP), the next is Flampanzer Char Bs, again GMUS, simply because they are the only manufacturer that make them.

Ken

Here are my thoughts along with some photos of the PoC tanks next to a Battlefront tank. Enjoy!

link