To be honest, no material is perfectly safe and pewter also comes with its issues. But we know them quite well. How dangerous resin particles are also vastly depends on the resin. Which is another reason why I believe @Koni would do us a favour, if he tells us a bit more of the new resin pvc alloy thing that their partner will use.
Coming from the new starter pack, I think it should fit with this thermoplastic : Bakunin Observance Action Pack - REF: 281522-0995 - €89.95 Lien: https://store.corvusbelli.com/en/wargames/infinity/miniatures/bakunin-observance-action-pack Spoiler: + The Observance of Saint Mary of the Knife is a religious organization with a proactive and belligerent attitude against ALEPH, and a key element in the Bakunin Jurisdictional Command where it forms part of the quantronic and tactical intervention teams. This box includes 9 miniatures for the Bakunin Sectorial Army of Nomads, 5 revamped y 4 totally new. Revamped miniatures: 1x Reverend Moira with HMG. 1x Reverend Moira with MULTI Sniper. 1x Reverend Healer Doctor with Boarding Shotgun. 1x Reverend Custodier Hacker with Combi Rifle and Pitcher. 1x Sin-Eater with MULTI Sniper. New miniatures: 1x Orphans of the Observance Engineer. 1x Reverend Cenobite with Chain Rifle. 1x Reverend Cenobite with Heavy Rocket Launcher. 1x Penitent Observant with Red Fury (thermoplastic). The perfect box to start playing and collecting your Bakunin army.
Current metalworker and metalwork price estimator here, and former games industry person. @UpirLihi summarizes it well. Prices are back down -right now-, but metal commodity costs, shipping, and energy costs are as vulnerable to volatility as ever. As a business, volatility is as big a threat as constant increase. The safe bet in the face of serious fluctuation is pricing high: but that loses customers. Pricing too low leaves you vulnerable (to shipping hikes in particular, which were 10x during the pandemic… I watched several friends’ KS-based companies tank thanks to that). Changing materials away from metal now is wise (if decent-enough material can be found). However changing to a product from China, vulnerable to shipping fluctuation… seems to defeat the purpose a bit. (It’s probably safe to assume China is going to back the Russians in Ukraine with lethal aid, and global trade is going for a wild ride again.) But maybe the production price is low enough to absorb that risk a bit. Anyways, like others here I trust CB to make good choices, both those that satisfy us as consumers, and those that keep the doors open. Hounding them to stay on the metal train at all costs is a good way to end up with a necrogame, folks. Stop freaking out and let them experiment with a few things, THEN make your feedback heard.
As if insisting on switching metal to resin/PVC/thermoplastic wasn't a well-known recipe for disaster? Citadel Finecast resin, Rackham plastic, Privateer Press plastic - all great success. But sure, let's "let them experiment" and see if changing away from metal, without the GW level of HIPS quality, will not result in a crash-and-burn of yet another game line, right?
And all the examples you cite are old. No possibility of advancement since, né? And as others have noted across multiple threads, greater economic factors necessitate exploring other options.
CB are experimenting with 3 freebie minis and a single S5 unit. They have also already shown that they can experiment with a subpar product and walk it back. Siocast is clearly not cutting it, and what new minis are in it have also been clearly experiments. So no, neither scale of change nor speed of change nor heedless commitment to bad ideas are the same between CB testing nonmetals and the companies you named. Frankly CB are smart businesspeople capable of learning from their mistakes and those of others, including speed of exposure to new risks. You don’t give them enough credit. Having watched them for 12 years and been fairly aware of the manufacturing decisions of GW, Rackham, and PP (Seattle boys!), I can tell you that CB are different. Their rules, treatment of fans/customers, and corporate solidity despite being in Spain through three major economic crises should tell you that too.
I'm not so sure about Siocast not cutting it. I think it can do fine, but they still have to learn how to make models in this new material. Sure, they can use same masters / sprues set-ups and same figure breaksown as they used with metal, but the results are not as good (from my experience with Vostok, Gator and Marut so far). Especially the Gator could have benefitted from different design directions. We'll see, I say. From a modeller's perspective, I am not enamored with the material, but some of it comes from my lack of experinece and skill in working with it. Having worked with metal (and, at times, HIPS) models for many years, I am generally confident with that material. With resin, it was a bit meh for me, but still - my skillset doesn't cover it that well. Siocast nylon - just a handful models so far. Obviously, we tend to like what we already know ;)
The most recent Siocast models I have worked with are far better than the first ones so there is improvement in that sector, I do not think the penitent will be from the new material probably standard Siocast.
Most recently the Chernobog had some nasty issues with surfaces and mangled details, including some that popped up in an online review. But the warcrow promo miniatures have been good. Valthek did a livestream on how it cleans and it cleaned fine. So the question is more like - does the siocast nylon has some specific issues with reliability or an issue with what it can and what it cannot produce in terms of shapes (for example surface deformations of thin flat details)? We'll see what will happen with the new material - personally, I will not jump on the new TAG even if I was an Aleph player (much like I did not rush to buy the pack with the vostok), but I'll eagerly await reports and more information about the material. This pvc-resin thing sounds intriguing to know more of.
“Thermoplastic” is CB’s code for Siocast, so that should be the same material as previous Infinity thermoplastic models. The PVC/resin/whatever is only the tourney models so far. I still read this as being an option for large volume and/or one-off production, like tournament packs, convention releases, starters, etc.
Yes and no - they were experimenting with newest "hard" Siocast. My McMurrough arrived cast from two colours of Siocast, with visible difference in detail sharpness and cleaning ease.
I've given Siocast enough tries. The Shakush was better, but still not to standard. Luckily I was just planning to cut it up anyway. I won't buy Siocast for anything more than conversion bits, if that. Same goes for this new PVC-resin material. I would happily pay extra for metals or HIPS of GW quality (I would love multipose multipart HIPS kits for Infinity, god I would buy so many). That said, I hope things work out for CB. I think their biggest challenge is development and balance passes on the already existing stuff.
HIPS costs a lot more than people think, of course if people make Infinity to sell in volumes that would justify such expensive production method, I am sure CB would be happy to explore it as as an option.
to be honest, as long as CB keeps their high quality I could care less what material is used for the models so far the new nomad rems & tags are just fine (I might have been luckier than the rest with the models I got) plastic models are way easier to convert anyways and as long as CB doesn't use the brittle excuse for resin knight models use we'll be fine
Yea, I know HIPS costs a fortune compared to spincasting metal or SioCast. TBH, if CB offered more kits that allowed people to easily build their minis with different poses and loadouts they would probably sell more. Just include the extra arms for basic weapons in the SWC boxes. A lot of people would just buy two boxes to fill out their WYSIWYG options.
Or even a set of extra arms with another options. Provide more variety with increase the ammount of refferences.
Exactly, if I had multiple build options I know I would buy more kits. I like to have unique poses with WYSIWYG. I know a lot of other people do too.
I’ve been pretty impressed with Atomic Mass Games’s ability to produce small boxes with one or two character models at broadly reasonable prices in HIPS. They probably have a built in advantage that their games are using very popular licenses; Star Wars and Marvel heroes are going to sell a certain number of figures no matter what, just based on how many people love the franchises.
