I don't know quite where to post this so I'll drop it here? The minatures quality is not really very high with regards the assembly, has any one else found this? On two of mine I have large globs of a clear glue, sure it's transparent but, I asume, when basecoated and painted will appear almost mold line or flashing like? If the glue will even take paint correctly? Some minatures are glued into the slot bases at and angle making them not level but in one case both to the horizontal and the vertical? So he's glued into the slot base leaning forwards at about 5 degrees which I thought I may fix with a spot of superglue to his feet but he's also glued in with one foot down and the other foot about 1mm off the base with the slot showing? Then there's general things like the weapons being bent and such, usually this is fixed with warm water and resetting but it's not a great start? Usually it's not a problem with other games but this is corvus belli and I love the infinity minatures and the game is £50 so I expect more? Is it just me?
I had the same issues with glue over my minis, especially on Maximus' shield, where there even where glue finger prints from the guy who assembled them. I just sanded them a bit to smooth again the surface. Should be enough to hide them. Also the glue is not too strong, you can tear the miniature down without applying too much force, but be careful anyway.
Keep in mind these are board game pieces, not wargame minis. It is an annoying difference, but most board gamers don't care about the pieces they are pushing around and CB has to take that into account. Assembly for board games is a game killer. The assembly line for A! plastics isn't going to be worried about pristine assembly, just volume to make the budget.
The board game argument only holds when you are comparing comparable things. Sure we would bot be that picky if there had been 20 minis in the box, but there are only 8 of them. I really like corvus belli, but pretending that defaults are not defaults won't help the game. I would like this game to work and to be bought by not only infinity players but by new players. The quality of the plastic minis is disappointing. The game might be good but there are a few points on which the quality could be improved and i hope corvus belli will try to improve on these points (i am sure they will do their best).
Ok but then what is a fair comparison for the Aristeia miniatures in the board game market? My own fairly recent experience with the Labyrinth board game and the very low quality of miniatures in that means CB have set the bar very high.
In my local shops, the miniature games are games from cmon (dogs of war, world of smog: at her majesty's service), monolith, happy games factory (eden), games workshop, ankama (krosmaster arena) or privateer press. Each of those except monolith has 50ish euros game that has at the very least 8 minis, usually more (for cmon, you can look at dogs of war or world of smog:at her majesty's service). I do not know your labyrynth. But the aim of my post was not to beat a wounded horse.
Comparing the collectors metal versions to the regular box game versions, yeah the plastics are a lot less awsome, compared to something like wrath of ashardalon, you get less but better looking minis. The assembly on a couple of mine is a bit lacking (gata in particular isn't set well into the base) but for a high volume product, its pretty good imo. The real test will come with the expansion sets in future, with no metal versions to make up for the dodgy bits, I'm liable to be a lot less forgiving...
