Thanks, this quote tracks. I've somehow missed this interview. Main issues with metal are weight for shipping and cost of material (although we know the mark-up is quite high on top of just material costs). Otherwise, as a customer, I believe it gives me the best details and mechanical properties to work with. Siocast continues to have issues that make me a hesitant buyer. Whatever was that PVC which was used for the Warcrow kickstarter is... a non-starter. The results were extremely subpar to the usual CB quality. We'll see if the their plastic resin from China holds its quality. I flat out do not like them moving from in-house production to ordering from someone on the other side of the world. Also, from the interview, there were a couple of things that rubbed me the wrong way: Fluff shakeups that tick off people are not always fine. Some of the lore developments were rather poorly explained, motivated and structured. Achilles's defection hardly became any clearer with the N5 book and the colonization of Shinju, which is much more impactful for the setting felt very rushed both in in-setting timeline and in explanation. "We wanted to scrub the N4 rules a bit." Yep, you scrubbed it so well, that several factions completely disappeared and N3 started to show up underneath. N5 still needs beta testing and an update is long due.
All casting materials have their pro and con, there are things "plastic" can do (and lets not open the huge question of what does one mean by plastic) and there are things metal can do.
You are talking about resin and finecast, those were dark times for miniatures. And all the miniatures I have in plastic ar full of details that don't have anything to envy from metal miniatures. But if you guys are stuck when fire was discovered...well, it's easy who's opinion is "worthless". And yes, is my opinion, formed having a high number of Metal miniatures (all from Infinity) and a lot of kilograms of plastic in miniatures (from GW). And I am pretty sure that mi opinion is firmly based by numbers. You can go and search for those minor manufacturers that make miniatures with technologies from 30-40 years ago. Maybe I exagerated when I said "the worst plastic" didn't thought you were thinking about the worst crap ever made by human hand...and digging in history. I assumed I was talking with people with the minimums to understand that compare miniatures with 4 decades, with miniatures from today is...well I won't insult anybody, sorry I won't fall to that level. Ah, and I don't think there is anything you can do with metal that you can't do with plastic, repeat PLASTIC, not resin, everybody knows the diference, maybe is time to update...
I think you are totally right. I didn't want to open any debate but express mi opinion based on my discontent with some miniatures for those cons you mention. But I forgot where I was XD
I have the Unicool Marut, Ayyar, and almost the whole Eldfall Chronicles range of models, and I can tell you without a doubt those are extremely good quality that could pass as plastic, if not for the resin smell when filing or drilling (I had to drill in the official bases for Eldfall because not all had magnet holes). Some straight, long pieces (lances, staves...) were bent, but it was self-correcting with a shot of hot air, or some hot water. Should Corvus remove all the metal from its range, it would become just another wargaming company with plastic models. Using metal is not only because of the production method, or how cheaper is to use propane/butane to heat metal than electric ovens to heat plastics, it is also a very clear, tactile and relevant differenciation value, which means brand, which means "quality" in the intangible form. Specially nowadays CB not only has to contend with recasts and aliexpress resin recasts, but also 3D scanners of their models. Having them in metal is a great way to make it easy to differenciate between original and not.
I like GW plastic, but let me stay with metal for infinity. It would be that thing which archeologists would find in my barrow... Siocast was a mistake. New material is fine. Just fine. But I am worried when people are talking how easily you can deform it with hot air. After all it is still a mix of resin and plastic. Only time would show, if it is reliable. I am moving the same course "non metal - not going to buy it" (to talk about CB products).
No, those aren’t finecast nor resin. Those are pure hard plastic miniatures from GW of 20 years ago. Not 40 Again… You can have a stronger preference for plastic over metal. And I perfectly respect that, each their own taste. But if you’re trying to make a point, make sure you don’t throw random bullshit and try to come up with a reasonable line of thinking. I also paint from time to time a Hard Plastic miniature from GW, and they are perfectly fine. I mean… I just bought the Palatine SoB just because I like the mini, and the level of details completely holds up with Infinity miniatures. And I enjoy painting them as much as I enjoy painting Infinity minis. I’m not here to debate whichever is a better material. But one thing is true reality, actually 2: - with its metal minis, CB differentiate themselves from the competition - I have yet to see a plastic mini as detailed as a CB metal minis for the same size. The day I’ll see one I might change my opinion, but until then, I won’t. Because let’s not forget that WH mini are much bigger than Infinity ones.
You can have the level of details, poses and quality Infinity has in HIPS (what GW plastics are), but not in the way GW does their molds, you need cuts the same way KDM or malifaux does their HIPS models, many tiny parts for mono pose models, then it becomes a game of expectations and volume, people expect HIPS models to be multipose because GW, something that drops the models quality by a lot and multipose models (along with the cost of making HIPS moulds) sets an expectation on volume of sales. It is not that it is impossible but financial realities makes that type of plastic not worth it, Siocast and UNICOOL are a plastic medium that is more suited for the production volume, expected sales and models design CB has at the moment.
The problem is not the poses or the quality of the models, the problem is simply the cost of making a steel mold for each sprue. I think it was commented more than 5 years ago, and CB's response was that it would be financially impossible but for a few of the 6 model starters. I suppose the new policy is to keep the S5 models in Siocast mostly because of the big army boxes that came with one (Military Orders with the Sepulcher, Bakunin with the Penitent, etc...) so that CB can keep all of the production in-house and have an agile response to production demands, while the S4 and TAGs are being sold in their own boxes, so CB can assume the time delays from Unicool without having a bottleneck in their production process or a storage problem.
As good as someone that doesn't know the difference between resin and hard plastic, that says that 20 yo minis are 40 yo, and that says worst quality of plastic is better than metal ;)
Seeing as you gave a random requirement about size (btw, many GW minis are not much bigger than Infinity, Infinity has scale crept A LOT) to randomly discard from the discussion the best plastic minis in the market (GW's) just try Wyrd. You are welcome
It's certainly a large investment for an existing company to make, but they also have to plan for the future. I've had good enough luck with Siocast, but I don't think it's the way forward. UNICOOL might be okay for some stuff, but if you're making stuff elsewhere that's not a real solution for your company, I'd think. As I've said before, if they want to farm stuff out, I'd rather they do the big stuff in HIPS from Archon in Poland. Quality has been improving constantly with them. My preference would be for CB to just start doing HIPS in house on some scale. Sure, there's the issue of economy of scale, but that does work both ways. If they could lower the cost/ raise the value of some stuff, they might be in more stores. GW is getting crazy in pricing, and it's not like they can't crash. And hell, GW is just figuring out MDF terrain, so it's not like everyone has to discover things at the same pace.
And you completely missed this part? "I just bought the Palatine SoB just because I like the mini, and the level of details completely holds up with Infinity miniatures." Tell me again, where did I discarded the fact GW has the best plastic minis when the point I'm making is pointing out that it's stupid saying worst plastic is better than metal? Can you come up with conclusions without putting words in the mouth of other people?
Please consider that an expensive mold means a much larger lifetime for the model, GW is capable not only of affording steel molds for plastic sprues, they can affort to keep the same mold in use for more than 25 years (look at the Eldar! They started to get some renewed models barely months ago, and the Falcon is still there after more than 25 years of using the same mold). This requires a business model that I think is very far from CB's (a lot of new players going in, rules change for both the system and the troops. massive amount of models per player...). The primary threat for CB's business model are 3D-printers, btw, since it's really easy to produce models in the same quality and even better detail than Infinity provides for a material that range from really cheap to expensive, as you prefer, thus changing the material from metal (that has weight) to any kind of plastic (much closer to 3D printed resin in weight) would mean having to break miniatures to verify their origin, and that's not legal in most countries (since the model belongs to the player, not the TO), or would have little attendance (since I dooubt many people would go to a tournament that would break a model to check the material... people not painting the models may skip that worry, however... xD)
