Plastics

[TrueCentauri]

I guess the economics are much against it.

Molds for plastic, especially resin can also be cheap. Photo-etched parts can also be quite inexpensive. My experience with those two is that you get other problems with building and assembly than with the white metal.

Next to this, figurines are relatively easy molds. Molds of the ships might not be self-releasing, and in that case the molds get more difficult.

But a simple mold will do about 5000-8000 Euro :shock: , except if you go to a truly low wage country. A soft metal (Aluminium) mold might be slightly less, but will wear. Considering the difference. metal should be the choice. Give your ships bigger struts. :wink:

 

[frobisher]

IOnteresting that there is no option in the poll to just keep the metal minis.

Metal is cooler.

Or the other option - Produce plastics for the "popular" miniatures and keep with metal for the everything else.

 

[Traveller-61]

I know that Mongoose were seriously considering it last year; I think there was going to be a starter set with basic rules and plastic ships in it. Of course that was all before the great plastic Light MI fiasco; in the wake of that Matt said that the whole use of plastics was being rethought. And that was the last official word that I heard on the matter.

DW

 

[emperorpenguin]

This is my take on the matter

I have an almost completed Centauri fleet. I'll not be interested in replacing those with plastics but I do want to collect more fleets.
Now if plastics were cheaper then hell yeah I'd buy them and collect as many fleets as possible, but if not then what'd be the point?

and from my experience at GW plastics don't work out cheaper than metal, even in large volumes

 

[Wulf Corbett]

Of course that was all before the great plastic Light MI fiasco

Details, please? I haven't heard of that one.

Wulf

 

[emperorpenguin]

Of course that was all before the great plastic Light MI fiasco

Details, please? I haven't heard of that one.

Wulf

apparently the LAMI for Starship Troopers were supposed to be done in plastic but ended up botched, so I'm told..

 

[Obsidian]

I've seen the Plastic Vs. Metal debate come up a few times and honestly there is something that puzzles me about it. As has been stated time and again, plastics have a high up front cost and should only be used if there is high demand and many people don't think that the CTA minis are popular enough. Now, independent of this I have heard that many of the Mongoose Infantry have yet to receive any of the models they need for demoing the game becasue there is a high demand...

So that just leads me to wonder what is going on. If there is so high a demand that the demo teams can't get models, then doesn't that argue for plastic models? If there isn't a high enough demand for plastics, then why haven't the demo teams gotten their models? It all seems rather strange to me.

 

[Balance]

apparently the LAMI for Starship Troopers were supposed to be done in plastic but ended up botched, so I'm told..

I'm guessing this unfortunately falls under the category of "Plastic production is hard, especially if processes are being done outside the company?"

I have to admit, GW is pretty good at plastic production.. Not only getting good quality sprues out, but also the way they arrange the sprues to prevent getting a deal.

I'd guess that one problem with plastics is that they'd need to be at least partially designed from scratch. Still, I'd love to be able to get, say, an Omega with a base or two of fighters inclufed...

 

[Twin-Linked Aldades]

I for one care nothing about prepaint models, that takes out the feel of the hobby, let alone when they come in 'random' boxes like for example the Star Wars thing I like to know where I spend my hard earned cash on, and 'get creative', aka the painting part. Styles and methods differ us from all being the 'standard' gamer.

As for plastics, no, I'm not a fan of them, and it was one of the reasons I left the GW hobby years ago (that and their insane price policy). I guess I'm rather old school, and just love the feel of really hauling an army around instead of a set of miniatures with whom you must be careful they don't get blown away in a breeze (just figure of speech)

 

[CudaHP]

The last time I saw a cost analysis for a single 1/25 scale car model mold set the cost to make a three sprue mold was on the order of $100,000 or more.
On the other hand it would make sense to produce the various fighter/auxillary type vehicles in plastic. Especially since each player needs large numbers of these except LBH and his T-bolts.
I personally like the metals (if I ever get my current order). I in fact cast my own metal flight bases so there is less chance of the miniature over-balancing and falling over. I have been casting my own bases for more than ten years now, that way I can make them as large as I desire witn whatever cast in detail I prefer. :wink:

 

[Elvis in Combat]

I prefer the "all metal" B5 miniatures line. The "heft" is nice and I'm an old minigamer anyway so metal just feels like a better value for the money. Of course there are some minis that are on the almost too heavy side but better that than blowover plastic. :wink:

 

[Chernobyl]

I'm guessing there's a difference between the "high demand" for minis and the "high volume demand" for plastics...
Still, when GW can put out plastic ogres, it begs the question...

Chern

 

[CmdrKiley]

GW's marketshare and distribution pretty much supports the investment of getting plastic minis and vehicles. I end up tripping over GW, Wizkids, and WotC stuff whenever I'm wandering through a hobby shop. However can't say that about much of any other game manufacturer.

Just because it's plastic isn't going to mean it's cheap. Look at the GW Dreadnaught models for 40k. When they went from pewter to plastic the price was pretty much the same, and ended up going up shortly afterwards.

Any 40k player knows they can't have nearly as many Dreadnaughts as Tactical Marines. Therefore, you have to amortize that high investment of an injection mold over a smaller volume if you want to recoup your investment within the same amount of time. Therefore more of the cost of the mold is in the higher price of the model. After a year or two, when the investment is paid off, the price will remain the same (or get hiked up 3 or 4 times) but now GW is making a HUGE profit for each one sold and may be able to afford dropping the price (yeah right).

Anyways, I don't see a B5 ship any more common to support such a venture. For a plastic Omega Destroyer that was reasonably priced lower than the pewter, you would need something like 50% of all your ACTA players to play EA and field at least 6 Omega Destroyers in their fleet.

Fighters might be another story. As what I've seen of the recent castings look pretty bad from my AOG stuff.

 

[Celisasu]

I'm happy with metal or plastic. I would suggest replacing the molds for those models that are having a serious problem with flash whether they go plastic or stick with metal. It's not pretty having to remove enough metal to produce a few flights of star furies.

 

[sidewinder]

CudaHP, I was just wondering what you used as a master for your metal flight base mold? The Plastic stands that the models come with now or something else?

 

[Chernobyl]

I think the beginning of the end was replacing the metal terminators with the plastic ones from space hulk. and keeping the price the same.
after all, why pay $60 for 2 boxes of terminators when you can buy the game, get the terminators, plus some nids, and a whole nother game?
right after that the assassin minis went from 4.50 to like 8.00 each. whazzup with dat?

Chern

 

[Lorcan Nagle]

nice to see GW haven't changed their ways... I remember Tyrion and Teclis coming out for WHFB and being £8 (Irish) each, which was exorbitent at the time (that's comprable in price to the current price of the bulk of the one-to-a-pack Warmachine figures, more than 10 years later)

 

[Right Hand of God]

Oh please do not get me started on GW prices, having once worked for the evil empire as a grunt.

My Girlie wanted an army for Valentines day! (how cool is that) and couldn't decide between 15mm Vikings or Dwarves. The she "accquired my White Dwarf and had to have the beardy little stunties. Anyway I bought her a 3,000 point army with various bits and peices, including the Slayer Command at £6 for a champion, standard bearer and musician. The following week went in to get something else and noticed that the "new" slayer command had been released. The champion, exactly the same model as before was now £6 on his own, with another £6 for the musician (also exactly the same as the previous model) and a standard bearer. The only difference between the new standard bearer and the old one is the top of the poxy standard, the actual bearer is the bloody same. That's a 100% price rise by stealth!

 

[Balance]

I'm guessing there's a difference between the "high demand" for minis and the "high volume demand" for plastics...
Still, when GW can put out plastic ogres, it begs the question...

From what I can tell from the GW message boards, there's a lot of gamers who fear the metal. They don't understand that, yes, you can do a lot of conversion work on metals, too.

GW seems to be slowly moving towards all 'bulk' models being plastics, with metals only for characters and such.

 

[mthomason]

A good way to make it economical is to start with a single sprue with one or two common ships from each race, and include two or three in every boxed set as well as a seperate "reinforcements" box, that way when someone buys the game theres enough ships for a few simple starter battles, and they can be shared out or swapped with other players. You've also then got a boxed game that can go into more mainstream stores to get people interested in the game, maybe even produce a "dumbed down" version with the same minis in the same way GW used to do stuff with MB games. Include a little flyer in each box and get the players hooked and migrate 'em to the full version of the game, they get to practice painting their first ships with plastics plus it makes the plastics available to everyone else who wants them without replacing the existing metal range.