So I decided to take my initial entry into the Corvus Belli universe and thought I would pick up a copy of Aristeia! The quality of the plastic miniatures I received in the box are absolutely horrific, especially compared to other tabletop gaming companies like Games Workshop, Wyrd and Privateer Press. Having looked over the forums it seems the reason for this is because they're made of soft plastic in China (to keep costs down I guess?) My issue is that 3 of the miniatures have horrible bends in their weapons. Wild Bills pistol barrel (image 1), 8-Ball's staff (image 2), and Miyamoto Mushashi's katana (image 3). Can these even be fixed, I know how to make repairs like this on metal and resin miniatures but I don't know what steps I can take with this soft Chinese plastic to repair these miniatures without damaging them. None of the 8 miniatures are glued well to their bases, they are either leaning unnaturally to the side like Parvati (image 4) or have a huge gap underneath their feet like Maximus (image 5). So I'm going to have to rebase all 8 miniatures to make them acceptable. If this is supposed to be an entry level game for new players who have no experience putting miniatures together then perhaps they should have been cast as one piece miniatures, otherwise, it would have been more helpful if they had still been on their spruce to be assembled better than the way they were received. Just wondering if anyone else had issues with deformed miniatures and how they fixed them? Or if there is a way that Corvus Belli will replace the 3 miniatures with the severe bends in their sculpts.
Not on that level. My miniatures are mostly fine with 8-ball’s staff being a bit warped. Looks like you’ve gotten a horrible batch and CB have a full return policy so if you contact them, they will happily send you suitable replacements.
Just dip them in hot water and then adjust with your fingers, let them dry and they'll be fine. I'm sure if you complain directly they'll just replace them for you.
I've only had a few issues. They are easily fixed. Heat some water to near boiling, and put some in a bowl. Get another bowl with ice water. Soak the problem part in the hot water for a few moments, take it out and hold the bent piece straight for a few more moments, then place in the cold water. Fixes it up just fine.
These are PVC boardgame pieces, better comparisons would be products like Descent, Heroclix, and a lot of the CMON output, rather the the GW/PP injection moulded styrene. To fix bending you can use the hot/cold method, immerse the miniature in hot water to make them pliable, then transfer to an ice bath to set it in place, similar to working with resins like Forgeword.
As to the bases, you can easily re-base them, but I found once I painted the base black, it hid any irregularity in the base connection just fine.
So its been 24 hours and thought I would give everyone an update, plus show people who find themselves in a similar situation how the advice everyone gave for this post worked out. I did email Corvus Belli at their Mispack email address and Miguel responded very quickly to pretty much give the same advice everyone else here did with hot water. He also gave a link to a YouTube video which may help others I attached each miniature in turn to my miniature holder that I use for painting them submerged in a mug of boiling water for 10 seconds. 1) Wild Bill's pistol fixed itself 2) 8-Ball's staff almost fixed itself the first time and only required me to hold it after submerging it a second time to fix the last of the curve 3) Miyamoto Mushashi's katana was straightened a lot from submerging in the water the first time but required me to repeat the process a couple of times and using my finger to hold it in place while it cooled down to get that perfect straight edge 4) For Parvati holding her upside down after removing her from the boiling water allowed her to dry standing perfectly straight I think I will go ahead and rebase these miniatures after painting them to fix the miniatures that were glued into their bases at an angle and boiling water will not fix. Overall very happy with the results and wanted to thank everyone for their responses, much appreciated.
Glad it worked out for you! I'm also in the process of rebasing my A! minis onto 25mm rounds but thats more so that I can use them in Infinity too. I do also like, and was very tempted by, the various hexagonal bases available. They look really awesome on the board.
