Community approach the metal miniaturses

I don't think the people who say they'll pay more really understand supply lines and infrastructure. People have complained about the siocast but "if metal expensive I'll just pay more" isn't a straight answer. CB has already invested in the infrastructure to make siocast in house and like it or not they are gonna use it. Idk the exact specifics to the production process but I can imagine that CB isn't gonna see a bunch of whiney internet nerds crying and just say okay turn off the multi million dollar machine we bought and never use it again. Even if they focus on metal minis they probably only have so much infrastructure to cast metal and if those machines are full than the siocast machines could be made of use to the company to increase production. Not to mention there are probably countless more factors CB has to consider for the continued production of metal minis. I honestly think most people who've complained are thinking of the situation way to simply if they really think that them paying a little more for minis will magically offset the increased costs of supply, labor, organization, and time it would take to switch back to only metal minis.

 

My last post doesn't even take into account the major fallacy to the idea of "just increase the price". Where yeah even if it was a perfect world where a price increase offsets the cost of production what about unsold minis? If people don't pay the increased price at scale CB just increased their margin for losses. You individually might be fine with buying up everything even with a price bump but if their sales drop overall because of it they take bigger losses.

 

Like it or not, metal is the material of past. I could grow local community to double its current size in weeks if CB minis were hard plastic. Younger players won't touch metal and I can't blame them. They all started their gaming experience with either board games or some GW game, all of which have plastic easy to handle minis. Metal if inferior in almost every single way, except maybe for details, but casual players that are 99% of the player base won't notice small difference in detail ( or would even care even if they did ).
Edit : OTOH siocast is a shit material that is also hard to work with. And pricing for it is unreasonable. So most players locally just 3d print remotes and have started printing TAGs as well. And I would say that is not just a local trend as people had 3d printed minis on IP last year and on a Satellite I played this year.

 

There is, to me, a "sweet spot" for the weight of gaming pieces: They should be heavy enough that they don't easily slide around or fall over on the table, and light enough that they can perch on terrain and be lifted over the table without fear of falling damage. To me, that is about the weight of S1-S5 in metal, and S6+ in plastic/resin/siocastcoolwhatever. I'll buy S2ish plastic/resin minis too, but (depending on how extravagant their pose) I might glue a bit of metal under the base to get to that weight. I have an Anaconda TAG, and I am not a fan of metals minis that big. My (2gen) Marut, O-Yoroi, and TAG Raid Triphammers are much more suitable as playing pieces.

Of course, if you buy them for painting and displaying, then the weight of the material don't really matter, only the quality of the cast.

 

They could do "print on demand" runs of metal minis, like the happy days promotions they had recently. Or go the crowdfunding route.

 

I thought everyone was tired and hating more KS and crowd funded stuff? The time from announcement to production to in the hands of customers is way longer than I'd think people would like.

 

I play both GW games (mainly small skirmish games like Warcry, KT, BB, and the like) and Infinity. I often follow the rumors and news regarding GW. Lots of toxic players there, but.... unless they talk about Finecast, very few complaints about their material. The HIPS material (GW plastic) is just a no-brainer, the ForgeWorld resin is also very good, clean, and sharp.
Maybe a good option would be to have a starter set in HIP material and have the rest in metal or resin.
I tried Siocast and I did not enjoy the cleaning process, I also found the material too bendy and soft, as well as very fragile.

 

Personally, I'm not against metal, I've been used to it since the 80s and 90s, and it's not the same kind of horrible molding it used to be.

As for plastic, it's understandable that they don't want to take any risks and keep everything at home, as if they were proud of having accomplished something, it gives them a bit of a position of notability. Chinese plastic does have its drawbacks, however, whether in terms of the subcontractor's compliance with the contract (theft of property, wild sales on aliexpress, purchase insurance costs due to possible non-delivery, war, etc.).
The best thing would be for them to enter into a plastic production alliance with other publishers, but for the moment it's a total refusal in publishing, from what I hear. A French company tried the adventure, but ended up closing for lack of customers. In old, dying model-building companies like Heller/Revell/Italeri, there could be factory capacity to be used, but it seems they'd rather die than diversify to get money to invest in a rebound. Then there's always Archon in Poland, which has managed to get GW as a customer and works with Parabellum, and they're in the European Union.

And yes for the starter kits, maybe there would be a solution to have them produced at Archon, at the time of Warzone 2nd edition, the starter box was in plastic and the rest in metal.

 

Early infinity metal kits were frequently awful with slippages, warpages and breakages. Speak to any vet from 2e and mention the words "nomad REMs" or "original dakini feet" and you watch them shudder as they relive that awful memory.
Some metal was really good, some of it was a major pita and needed a lot of work. I'm no fan of siocast (had some failures) but I'm pragmatic enough that I'll put up with it rather than get priced out when tags hit £70 in metal lol

 

I like that CB keeps stuff in house, but then they dabble in Unicool which sort of invalidates it. Archon is doing very well right now, and I've gotten their kickstarters and am impressed with their quality. I've asked on their AMA before about working with CB and he said CB just wants to do it all in house so no deal.

CB could start up HIPS, if they think there's enough interest to justify the cost. It'd be a learning curve for sure, but in the long run they probably should have done it years ago. It's the hard choice of "economy of scale", but maybe they'd sell more if they were plastic anyway and make up for it there.

I dunno, I've had good luck with Siocast and nothing against metal, but the costs of the game are certainly not helping the popularity.

 

I like the metal but I wouldn't say no to seeing how some more organic models are in the plastic. I have the new Yaoxie models and though I haven't assembled them yet, they are 10 pieces each. Troopers in this plastic would probably have many more pieces than they currently do as well.

 

Whatever method give us the best price miniatures but doesn't compromise the current standard we have. the new Wrecker TAG for O-12 is amazing quality miniature and if everything was that nice I couldn't care less what it was made of.

 

Not unexpected.

Siocast continues to find lukewarm welcome at best, despite getting better. It will take warcrow to make people comfortable with it (or decide they don't want it for good)

Also, mind that the poll does not reflect the opinion of potential new players - whether they would be more eager to jump on the train with metal or with various plastics.

Personally... Maggie was already pushing on the limits of metal miniatures with 300g weight. Now that we will have vehicles, some of which will probably be of similar size, it is reasonable to expect big miniatures being in plastic. But I would love to see on-demand campaigns for metal TAGs and leave the general release in plastic, whatever plastic turns out to be more appealing from the general opinion. To me both have significant drawbacks - one is of frankly unreliable quality plus difficult to work with and the other is produced on the other end of the world, with all risks associated with that.

 

Got the old maximus - caskuda box for about 20 euros...they are not worth 2 cent... both. Siocast is so awful, considering that any cheap 3dprinter nowadays produces far better pieces!
No buying any cb plastics anymore...

 

I feel there lacks an option for Unicool big (as in S6 and S7, possible some S3-S4-S5 models) and metal for everything (S1 and S2 at the very least) else. The Avatar and Maghariba would be better in Unicool just because they are BIG lumps of metal hard to maneuver and very limiting with storage (even with the negative spaces withing to lighten the model).

Also, one thing that made me not wanting without a doubt the Torchlight box was the mix of metal and siocast, even if those were just backpacks. I'd prefer less bulky SMs and more in line with what was sold as MODERN Heavy Infantry in the last decade (Brigadas, Shang-Ji, etc...). While I understand S5 HI are visually easy to sell, and I'm willing to overlook how those were the "low tech, old models used by not so cutting edge tech factions" like Haqq, I'm not so keen into seeing bigger and bigger S2 models (specially since CB seems to keep growing those models until they reach the old Inquisitor -that is 52-54mm scale- GW models), I still have some 28mm ones and the new 32mm+ ones are beginning to be absurd, specially since I'm not willing to renovate my terrain as well.

It's not a matter of logistics but of what are you competing with. Namely 3D printers, resin models costing pennies and having BETTER endurance and detail than Siocast models (Unicool is great in both regards, at least with the ITS14 box -Marut+female Ayyar), while on the other hand Corvus Belli is one of the few companies producing metal minis in this day and age, and as far as I know still the best there (despite my criticism in how formulaic and repetitive models have become after transitioning to 3D modelling the miniatures, something unavoidable if you recycle assets and poses time and again... GW has been a great example of that in the last months of speeesh Mehrine releases, and it's not pretty when their best is a ballgagged skull chaplain...).

Also, the logistical part has recover a lot after covid, the problem now is with the Suez Canal, which should not affect as much the metal cargos hailing from Africa (the Huties go mainly for containers and petrol-gas tankers, I think), the problem is, to me, more in line with Spain's tax system and its impact on internal inflation.

 

I'm no expert but to me claiming 3D printing minis is cheaper than mold for a company is like saying magazine editor should use desktop printers instead of offset machines.

Just my personal opinion here. So if someone with real knowledge and experience of the industry could provide some real insight I'd love to learn more on the subject.

Edit: to clarify my thoughts, my main points are production scale and production time that makes the main difference between artisanal items and mass production.
Injection is a matter of second when printing takes (literally) hours.

 

I can't claim to have actual knowledge on the matter, but from what I know - your logic is spot on.

After all, if it was otherwise, why would CB invest in Siocast machines at all instead of a couple 3d printers...

 

Also: I think 3D print isn't suited for a serious miniature company. Mostly because UV Resin is so brittle, "toxic" and not really durable (specially with curent climate change), so unless you don't want to see yourself still in business in 10 years, there's not point in investing into 3D printing at a professionnal level, unless you just make .stl and sell 3D prints as a side job, but not as your main.

(before someone points me to them: PP did. they closed business in the meantime. move on.)

 

Technically, there are other methods - and mediums - than reisin which you could use for 3d printing. A month ago I was shown a couple miniatures made with laser sintering technique. Granted, by guys who had access to the machine in a technical university's workshop. They claimed the powder they used was metallized, so in theory, it would make it a DLMS machine (I don't know a thing about that, so I'm merely recalling what they told me).

I guess it would be totally possible to make 3d printed miniatures from a material other than reisin, thus circumnavigating the disadvantages of reisin. The technology is there, as I say, I had a wargaming miniature made that way in my hands.
Making it commercially viable, when producing models on an industrial scale, well, that's an another kettle of fish...